I smile at how concerned she looks, like this little confession could actually change the way I see her.
“Baby, I’m proud of you.”
And then I kiss her. Slowly, taking my time, because no poker game or correctly solved formula has ever felt like this. Like her body soft against mine, like lilac and hot chocolate turning into something I crave all the time.
“So you’re not upset with me, right? And about that man, maybe you should speak with—” she tries to reason with me, but what she doesn’t understand is that her worrying about me, trusting me with her little secret, the fact that she’s not throwing a dramatic tantrum about my other activities, is turning me on.
My hands go instinctively to the back of her thighs, and I lift her, carrying her over to the poker table in the corner of the living room.
On instinct, I sweep everything off it, including a few poker chips that scatter across the floor. Her eyes follow them down as they hit.
“I’ve never learned how to play poker,” she tells me, biting that lower lip as if daring me to take its place.
“Hmm,” I say, as my mouth moves along her jaw and down her throat. “Let me walk you through the important hands.”
She draws a slow breath, and I know that if I looked at her cheeks right now, they’d be red.
“Full house,” I tell her, as my hand slides into the waistband of her pants and finds its way to the center of her without missing a beat. “Three of a kind and a pair.”
Her breathing goes unsteady when I begin applying pressure with my fingers. On instinct, my body presses forward against hers, every line of me crowding closer, and I force myself to swallow once, keeping the last thread of reason from leaving me entirely.
Her hands move to my throat and pull me closer to her mouth.
“What’s a Straight Flush?” she asks, a small smirk on her face, at which point I increase the pressure of my fingers.
“A sequence of consecutive cards, all the same suit.”
Something close to a purr leaves her throat, and then her fingers are moving, trailing lightly over my chest, down my stomach, lower still. There is nothing uncertain about the way she touches me. No hesitation, no second-guessing, just her hands moving like she’s already decided exactly what she wants, and that boldness alone is enough to make my breath go shallow.
“Amalia...”
“Silas…,” she mimics, and I can’t hide my smile.
Where is the Amalia who constantly doubts herself? Where is the sweet Amalia who hides behind her famous mathematicians when she gets nervous? Where is the woman who doesn’t have the courage to defend herself?
Her fingers find the button of my jeans and work it open, the zipper sliding down a moment later. When she pushes past the fabric and wraps her hand around my length, the softness of her skin is enough to make me lose my footing entirely. She sets a rhythm in sync with my fingers, and when her thumb grazes the moisture at the tip, a groan tears out of me. Every explanation I was forming is long gone.
“And four of a kind?” she asks, perfectly innocent, and I have to swallow hard because my control is sitting entirely in her hands and she knows it.
“Four cards of the same rank,” I tell her, nearly breathless, because the image of her like this, cheeks flushed, lips parted, that hair that should only ever be spread across my pillows, is a fantasy I didn’t know I’d been building until right now.
I feel her beginning to tremble, but I know that if she doesn’t stop, I’m going to come before she does. So I catch her wrist, and with my free hand I pull her pants down.
Her underwear hits the floor in seconds, and all I manage to say is, “Lie back on the table, Amalia. Hold on to the edges.”
She just nods, and the way she does exactly what I ask without hesitation, without question, makes my cock spill more precum.
The image of her in only a sweater and those lavender socks, completely open for me on my poker table, is something I try to commit to memory for every moment she won’t be with me. And that’s when it hits me: I want her with me always. In my bed, on my couch, in my life.
Dropping to my knees in front of her, I take each of her legs and place them over my shoulders. I let my hands slide slowly upthe inside of her thighs first, spreading her open for me, taking my time just to watch the way her breath catches. Then I lean in and kiss her, gently at first, a soft press of my lips, letting her adjust to the sensation because I know from the sounds she makes that I’m the first man who has ever had her like this.
And the last.
I drag my tongue slowly through her center, and the helpless whimper that breaks open in her throat goes straight through me. One hand moves toward my cock, already hard and pulsing, knowing I want nothing more than to be inside her, to feel her close around me, but this moment is for her.
For the woman in front of me, brave enough to touch me without waiting to be asked, yet who constantly doubts the very mind that leaves me in awe of her.
For the woman I’m still discovering and never grow tired of, so I set every other thought aside and just feel her. Learn her. The way her thighs tighten when I find the right spot, the way her fingers curl around the edges of the table like she’s holding on for her life.
