Gal was supremely grateful for the frigid breeze that instantly blew across the card table—until he noticed the flurry of goose bumps blooming on Venus’s exposed décolleté and almost combusted with need. Especially when she was now leaning forward again as if gazing into his undoubtedly filthy mind, looking all devious and sinful. And kissable.
Oh so kissable.
While everyone else was distracted by the arrival of Minerva, Venus touched his arm and dropped her voice to a breathy whisper. Both movements sent a fresh wave of unwelcome desire ricocheting around his system. “How about we play for buildings instead?”
“No.”
She pouted, drawing his gaze to her lips again and reminding himof how good they had tasted. “How can you reject me when you haven’t even heard me out, Galahad?”
“Go ahead. Say your piece. But it’ll still be a no.” With Diana still huffing and puffing as Giles fanned her, Gal made a show of checking his cards and trying to look blandly confident while he gave his needy body a stern talking-to.
What the hell is the matter with me?He wasn’t usually so… rampant? Yes, she looked particularly beautiful tonight, and yes, the memory of their spectacular kiss in Brighton was still fresh in his mind, but still… Gal could usually control his emotions. Was a master at masking them.What the hell is going on here that makes everything she does suddenly seem so… carnal?
Perhaps somebody had spiked the tea? Or he’d drunk so much of it he was now hallucinating.
“I propose…” Her blues eyes smoldered as if she was proposing something sinful, her prim spectacles only serving to magnify the intense heat in them. “… that if I win, you sell the building next door to the orphanage to me.” The fingers on his sleeve traced a sultry path to his wrist, which made his breeches tighten. “If you win, I sell the orphanage to you.”
“A big fat no.”Heaven help me, she is scrambling my wits.
“One cold compress.” In clonked Dalton. “And more tea all around. I also brought some ice.” He waved it all at nobody in particular until he saw that it was Diana who was in dire need of it and handed the compress to her alongside a dainty cup filled with peppermint tea. He left Olivia in charge of pouring all the regular tea and, for reasons best known to himself, decided the most appropriate place to deposit the bowl full of ice was in the center of the card table. Then he clonked away and Minerva finally retook her seat.
“Is the professional card sharp really that scared of adrawing room amateur?” Venus’s earthy laughter trickled down his spine, causing havoc all the way, before it settled in his groin. “If that is the case, perhaps you should concede the game now, Galahad?”
“I only need one trick to win, whereas you need two, Venus, so there’ll be no conceding.” To the game or to his imprudent urges concerning her.
“But you’ll at least concede that you are scared.” As he went to remove the ice, she reached out and grabbed a shard then wrapped it in her handkerchief. “Scared that you might actually lose to me.” She pressed the tiny cloth parcel to the back of her neck again as Olivia slipped a fresh cup of steaming tea under his nose. “I suppose I shall have to console myself with The Powder Puff—when I inevitably win.”
“All right! I’ll take your bet.” His bark echoed in the silence of the room before everyone made a sharp intake of breath. He wasn’t sure whether it was that awful name that made him agree, the unbeatable jack in his hand, or the melted droplet of water that slowly drizzled from the handkerchief down her warm skin to disappear in the bewitching valley in the center of her bodice. Whichever it was, he already regretted it. “May the best man win.”
As if she had known he had dealt her a killer hand, Venus picked it up then used it quickly and ruthlessly to annihilate him. She laid the ten of hearts on his nine, smiling like the cat who had all the cream. “I make that two all.” He had been sorely tempted to lay his jack then.
Sorely tempted.
Until common sense had prevailed, and he had remembered it would be tantamount to suicide to lay down the highest card now and leave himself without any insurance for the last trick. So she had won two? But so had he.
“Bravo, Venus. Well played.” The game wasn’t over till the last card was laid, and laying the jack would be his crowning glory. His triumph over the most torturous adversity. Hard-earned and harder-won—God help him.
“Thedecider,” announced Hugh as all the spectators shuffled their seats closer. “Is it me, or can you feel the tension?” Gal sincerely hoped it was the tension of the game they could all feel rather than all his mounting sexual tension, which he was working his ass off to disguise.
Minerva threw him by laying the ten of hearts first, as Gal could have sworn blind that was already gone. But as he quietly panicked, Venus’s fingers went unconsciously to her locket when Diana laid her card. His talentless partner tossed trash because she had nothing to beat it. But he did, and Venus knew it because she gripped the locket for all she was worth and clutched her remaining two cards closer.
“Scared, Venus?” He gestured with a nod to her fingers where they now toyed with the pendant above her erratically quivering, beautifully generous breasts, grateful that he had a valid excuse to be looking that way in the first place.
Two blue eyes locked with his, the rogue sparkle in them worrisome.
“Not in the slightest, Galahad.”
There was something about the way she said it, a certainty that had him scrabbling back through every memory he had of the game so far. He had laid the jack of diamonds in that second trick he had bungled, and she had topped it with a queen.
A red queen.
He might have lost track of the cards for a moment or two, but his addled mind was sure that the queen had been a heart and not a diamond. Surely he wouldn’t have missed such a high trump being played?
Of course he hadn’t!The queen of hearts was long gone.
Long gone.
But was it sure enough to risk his building on?
