“All right, wife.” Warren lifts a dark eyebrow in challenge. “Let’s begin.”
The rounds are much quicker than checkers, and it doesn’t take me very long to fall into the rhythm of the game. The hand motions are beyond me, so we just speak our intent. I also win more than I lose, which makes me smile in a way that doesn’t go unnoticed by the man sitting across from me.
“Feeling proud of yourself, aren’t you?” Amused, he rolls his cuffs up and skillfully shuffles the cards again. Or maybe he doesn’t. I wouldn’t know…because the tanned expanse of exposed forearm suddenly holds every bit of my attention. “As you should, you clever little woman.”
Something knits together in my chest when he calls me clever. He sees me for more than what happened to me in my past, and I think he always has. It just took time for me to realize it.
“But to shake things up a bit, what do you say we play for a little prize? Nothing big. Best of seven hands to make it fair.” He falters for a second. “Unless it’s too much like…”
A small beam of quiet happiness blooms in my chest at his concern. I prop an elbow and rest my chin as I think on it, but the fact that he cares enough to ask surpasses any doubts I may have had. “I know it won’t be anything like that. Not with you. And it’s not poker.”
“Nope, not poker.”
I frown a little. “But I don’t have any money for a prize.”
“Doesn’t have to be money. In fact, money’s off the table,” he says smoothly, leaning in and copying my movement. “If you win, I’ll shuck off my clothes and go run around the house outside buck naked.”
How is that a prize for me?
“In this weather? You’ll freeze without any clothes!” Even as a shrill laugh nervously escapes me, I can’t stop my gaze from wandering over his shoulders and down his chest. He’s already overwhelming enough when he’s only shirtless—or rolls his sleeves up—but if he takes his trousers off, too...
I swallow hard. “What if you win? Just know that I won’t be losing any clothes in return.” I refuse to do the same. I don’t know if I’m ready for him to see me naked in the light of day yet, and even if I were, there’s no chance in hell I’d run in the cold snow. A shiver wracks my frame at the very thought. But there are other things he could ask of me as his wife. Things?—
“You don’t want to take off your clothes in front of your husband?” The sudden raspiness of his voice pulls my gaze to his mouth. A week’s worth of dark stubble frames his lips as they curve in a slight smile. They look so soft. How would they feel pressed to mine? Then those perfectly formed lips speak again. “All right, your clothes stay on. So tell me what I should get if I win.”
I can’t take my eyes from his mouth. If we’d met under normal circumstances, he would have kissed me on our wedding night. But besides the one kiss to my cheek and hand, forehead and temple kisses are all he’s done. And I wonder…
“A kiss,” I blurt out before promptly slapping my hand over my mouth and slamming my eyes shut. But it’s too late. Christ, I’m so embarrassed.
“Is that so?” Warren tugs at my fingers, but I double down and press even harder. “Don’t get shy on me now, wife. No take backs. Are you gonna give me those sweet lips if I win?”
Blood rushes to my head in a buzz as my stomach tangles in knots. Let the devil and his angels take me away. Forcing my fingers down, I guiltily open my eyes, and my lungs momentarily cease at the heated darkness staring back. My husband’s lips are already full of charming words, but if the raw intensity in his gaze is matched in his kiss as well, how will I resist him? Once this boundary is crossed, things will never be the same between us. At the end of seven rounds, I’ll either see my husband naked or he’ll kiss me.
Not very bored now, am I? I should be more careful of what I wish for.
“Only…only one kiss?”
He watches each word leave my mouth before capturing my gaze. “Only one. To begin with.”
Christ. It’s abundantly clear that he’s more than ready to tear down that boundary. I silently plead with the butterflies in my stomach to have mercy on me as I croak out my agreement. “Yes.”
The faint smile directed back at me doesn’t do much to ease my sudden onset of nerves. “All right, then,” he says, voice low and deep. “Let’s play.”
The minute his long fingers deal my cards and set the deck aside, my ability to concentrate dwindles before outright disintegrating into nothingness. I know what those hands feel like. Warm and always so gentle when they hold my own. But what if he used those slightly roughened fingertips to trace over my lips? Or…or elsewhere. A heated chill of desire zings from my stomach and down into my toes.
“Your play, wife.” Warren nods, that slight smile never leaving.
I can do this. Just keep my eyes on my cards and not hishands or any other part of him. And pretend I don’t feel his long leg pressing against mine beneath the table no matter how I rearrange myself.
The first two rounds are mine with nineteen for the first and an actual twenty-one for the second.
But my luck runs out with the third.
And fourth.
And fifth.
By the sixth round, I’m a bit lightheaded and my hands have a small tremor. I narrowly win it, but now we’re even. Or at least we were. Until he catches my eye and moves his knee between mine so my legs can’t close.
