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I stifled the visceral tug of anticipation, and the swift tug of arousal, at the prospect of having her all to myself. Mixing sex with poker was never a good strategy. But as I watched her I had to admit it wasn’t just her beauty that had been driving me nuts for hours.
I’d seen a spark of fire downstairs, when I’d questioned her about her age, and it had excited me. For the first time in a long time, I’d found myself relishing the challenge of playing a stimulating game with a stimulating woman. But ever since that moment downstairs, I hadn’t been able to tempt that spark out of hiding again.
Her skin had remained pale and unflushed, her hands folded demurely in her lap when she wasn’t betting or checking her cards, her breathing even. Her bright green gaze, which had captivated me downstairs, hadn’t connected with mine since.
And while that lack of eye contact was frustrating enough when it came to reading her play, what was a great deal more frustrating was that I was becoming even more turned on. Not less so. And even more desperate to see that flash of green fire again.
I didn’t like it. I never let physical desire distract me at the table, but what I liked even less was the fact I didn’t understand what it was about her I found so hot.
For starters, she was only twenty-one years old. And she looked even younger. When I had first seen her, I would have placed her as nineteen, twenty at the most, the revealing dress and heavy eye make-up making her wide emerald eyes and slim coltish figure look for a moment like a child playing dress up.
Young women were not to my taste. I preferred women older than me as a rule, women with lots of experience, who could match my appetites in bed, provide stimulating conversation out of it—and didn’t get over-invested in the relationship, or over-emotional when I gave them an expensive bauble to send them on their way.
I had also never had the desire before to pursue a woman who was not sending me clear signals she was interested in a little bed sport too. The truth was, when younger women bought into the high stakes game they were usually looking for a little of both—the chance to test their skill at the table and test their skills in my bed. A temptation I had found it very easy to resist up till now.
But not this time.
Of course it was more than possible Miss Spencer’s demure behaviour was all an act, intended to intrigue and entice me. If that were the case, I had to give her credit for trying a new tactic. But that still didn’t answer the question of why it was working so effectively.
Was it simply the enigma of her? Or that momentary spark of defiance? Or maybe it was the challenge she represented? How long had it been since I had found a woman this hard to read?
As I studied her debating her play, unable to detach my gaze from her, I forced myself to focus.
This girl was no different from the many other heiresses I had met over the years while I was setting up my business. The spoilt, entitled daughters of millionaire businessmen and aristocrats, European royalty and Arab sheikhs, who had never had to work a day in their lives and didn’t know the meaning of want. They played the tables to imbue their lives with the excitement their pointless existences lacked—without realising that if money had no value, the risk and the pay-off of gambling with it would have no value too.
But despite my determination to dismiss and rationalise her unprecedented effect on me, my gaze continued to roam over her, the embers of my fascination burning in my abdomen.
Her skin glowed with youth in the subtle lighting, the plunging V of her gown beneath the lace highlighting full firm breasts flushed with an alabaster softness. The ruched peaks of her nipples, outlined through the satin, were the only response she seemed unable to control.
I would have taken some satisfaction from that... But the increasingly relentless desire to ease the edge of her gown down, expose those peaks and feel them swell and elongate against my tongue wasn’t making me feel particularly impressed with my own control.
‘Fold,’ she said, passing her hole cards to Alexi, who was dealing—and eluding my attempts to force her to break cover, again.
I bit down on my tongue to stop the curse coming out of my mouth, like a damn rookie. But, as if she had sensed my frustration, her gaze flicked to mine.
It flicked away again almost immediately. But in that moment, as our gazes locked, I saw that flash of fire. A jolt of heat eddied through my system.
Her chest rose and fell and then stilled as she regained her composure. But the pebbled outline of her nipples became more prominent against the satin.
Desire flared in my abdomen like a meteor shower, as I finally solved at least some of the puzzle. The veneer of composure was just that—a veneer.
Whatever system Edie had devised, she had just exposed one major weakness.
Maybe she was still an enigma in some ways. But one thing I knew now with complete certainty—she was as hungry for me as I was for her. And for some reason she wanted to hide it. Which gave me the upper hand, because it was a weakness I could exploit.
Hot blood surged in my groin.
In fact, it was a weakness I was going to take great pleasure in exploiting.
Game on, bella.
CHAPTER THREE
HE KNOWS.
I had made a terrible mistake. I knew it as soon as my gaze met Allegri’s and held for a nanosecond too long.
I’d been avoiding eye contact all night, that penetrating blue gaze turning my stomach to molten lava and making my nipples tighten every time it caught mine.
