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“Oh, I absolutely do.”
The bartender hands her a coffee with a, “Here you go. Black and strong.”
She flashes him a grin. “Thank you. The only way to drink it.”
I beg to differ. The best way to drink coffee is to…not drink it. Ever. It’s a wretched beverage, but now is not the time to say so.
She lifts the mug and takes a swallow, leaving behind an imprint of her gorgeous lips on the white stoneware. When she sets it on the edge of the bar, my eyes stray to the marks. “Lucky mug.”
“I could say the same about your glass of scotch, Mister Magic Hands.”
“I’ll gladly accept that nickname.”
She takes another sip as she looks me over, drinking me in as seductively as she drinks her coffee. I feel like I’m being sized up for possible devouring and, holy hell, I like it.
With a satisfied sigh, she sets down the mug again. “I think our game of choice requires a certain amount of magic, don’t you?”
“Absolutely. Assuming we’re here, then, for the same game? What with your earrings, I assumed…” I gesture in the direction of the little Rubik’s Cubes hanging from her ears.
She reaches for one, running a finger over the miniature cube in her right lobe, as if she just remembered it’s there. “You assume correctly,” she says, then lowers her hand.
I eye her up and down, appreciating her attention to detail. Something about the way she’s put together—the thick curls of hair, the flouncy dress with all those buttons, the heels, and the charm necklace—suggests she likes looking good for herself, not for a man.
Aside from the cleavage, it’s not an outfit designed to attract a man’s attention—it’s a little too fluffy, too girly, too quirky in a way that reminds me of my sister playing dress up in our mother’s closet when we were kids—and that’s precisely why it draws my eye.
It says more than look at me.
It says she’s a woman who knows what she likes, what she wants. Seeing as I’m a man who also knows what he wants—a woman who’s as smart and independent as she is sexy—I don’t plan on letting this one out of my sight tonight.
“But if you don’t want to go cube to cube, we could always play Scrabble, instead,” I suggest. “Keep things friendly.”
She leans a little closer and brings her finger to her lips. “Shh. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m absolutely down for a game of dirty Scrabble, but only if you show me what you can do with these first,” she says, casting a pointed glance down to my hands.
Hell, yes. The game is on, and it’s exactly the kind of game I live to play.
I knock back the rest of my Scotch. “I’d love to show you. Any chance you’d like to be my partner in the Rubik’s Cube tournament?”
With narrow eyes, she shoots back, “Maybe. But how do I know you won’t be the weak link?”
I step closer, hooking a finger gently in one of her curls. “There’s nothing weak about me, love.”
She shudders. Her breath catches. “All right. Let’s go add your name to my team. I signed up for the second heat.”
“Perfect.” I extend a hand and add, “I’m West, by the way.”
When she takes my hand, something shivers up my arm. I don’t want to say a spark zaps between us. A spark is just static electricity, and static electricity is unpleasant. But touching this gorgeous woman, even for something as pedestrian as a handshake, is…electric.
“I’m Gigi,” she purrs.
I eye her up and down once more. Her purple dress. Her shoes decorated with comic-book drawings of Wonder Woman, Cat Girl and a mélange of female superheroes. The apple pie charm necklace that rests between the tops of her breasts. “You couldn’t be anything but a Gigi.”
She flashes an absolutely fantastic grin that makes my skin sizzle. “You get me, I think.”
Even this woman’s smile turns me on.
Whatever game we’re playing right now, she’s winning and that’s fine by me.
Her fingers fly as she leads off the first round for our team of two, starting by lining up the white center then twisting with rocket speed to make a white cross.
Naturally. That’s the only way to start.
She shifts another threesome clockwise, then the next one counterclockwise. I glance at the timer, where the second hand ticks mercilessly.
“Go on—you’ve got this,” I say.
But she needs no encouragement. She’s a natural, and I’m enthralled with her play.
Her moves are mesmerizing, her fingers a blur, her eyes intensely focused. In forty-five seconds, the puzzle is gorgeously solid on all six sides. Gigi thrusts it victoriously above her head, then sets it down on the gaming table, smugly triumphant.
“Done. In less than a minute,” she says with a flutter of her long lashes.
I high-five her, since that’s what you do here in the States. “Nothing sexier than that.”
