He wins the hand anyway. Bastard.
But I don’t let up. I keep playing while carrying on a conversation with the woman sitting to my left. All the while, my hand massages Neil’s thigh so slowly that nobody will notice.
When I win a round, I use both hands to collect my winnings.
Then? My hand goes back under the table where I wedge it between his legs.
Right in the middle of telling a joke to the table, he squeezes his powerful thighs together, trapping my hand in place.
I wiggle my fingers closer to his crotch. With my free hand, I tap the table for another card. Honestly, I didn’t know gambling could be this fun.
Even more surprising—I never knew I could be so sexually attracted to anyone. So free with it.
In college, friends would sometimes ask me about my sexuality. My running joke was that I was a celebritysexual. I dreamed of having a threesome with the stars of the Hunger Games movies—Liam Hemsworth and Jennifer Lawrence. Josh Hutcherson would have been welcome, too.
Sex with real people never seemed as interesting to me. Real people were unpredictable, if not downright scary. Sex was often less fulfilling than I expected it to be.
But with Neil, I’m a natural. Or at least he makes me feel that way. He has some serious skills, and I’m the lucky beneficiary.
That must be why it’s so good between us. He’s flipped a switch inside me, and now all I think about is the weight of his body on top of mine and the heat of his kisses.
Newgate wins a hand, and the dealer shuffles. I stop torturing Neil for a minute to sip my wine and keep up the pretense of being someone who isn’t horribly distracted and hoping it’s almost time to go home.
“Kitten,” Neil says into my ear. “You’re evil.”
I want to point out that he started it, but his teammate is watching with curious eyes from across the table. “Of course, I remembered to send in your dry cleaning,” I say loudly. “That’s what good wives do.”
“Yeah? I can think of some other things,” he says grumpily, and his teammate snickers.
I smile sweetly at Newgate and place my bet.
Then I put my hand right on the fly of Neil’s trousers. I can’t stroke him, because the angle is odd, and people would notice. So I just press gently.
And wow. Hello there, sir.
Neil grunts.
I glance at the cards on the table. The dealer has a six. I have a jack and an eight, and Neil has the same hand. Interesting.
The play circles the table, heading for us. At the exact moment the dealer looks to Neil, I close my hand around his cock.
He jerks, tapping the table. “Oops…um…”
Too late. The dealer hits him with a card—a five. He’s bust.
“Dude,” Newgate says. “Why?”
Neil sighs as I win the hand with my eighteen. “Check, please,” he says. “Gather up your winnings, wifey. Come and get a drink with me.”
Biting my lip, I scoop up my chips.
Neil stands slowly, buttoning his suit jacket very carefully, a grumpy frown on his handsome face.
“Sorry.” I cackle as we walk away. “What do you want to drink?”
“Come here,” he grunts, grabbing my hand. “There’s something I want to show you.” He heads for an exit in the corner. We step out into a narrow corridor, and Neil frog-marches me to a door marked Billiards.
He pushes it open. The room inside is dimly lit and—
Actually, I have no idea what it looks like because Neil pushes me up against the door and seals his mouth to mine.
And it happens. Again. I lose track of everything except the knowing press of his kiss. Forgetting myself, I moan against his tongue.
A pair of big hands grabs my butt and lifts. My skirt hikes up, and I wrap my legs around him.
He bucks his hips, his hard cock rudely grinding against my panties. “That’s what you do to me,” he says against my mouth. “All the fucking time.”
I nip his lip instead of answering, but I’m in the same boat. My attraction to him is both a revelation and a curse. Of all the people in the world, I had to discover a sexual affinity for Neil Drake?
Why, lord? Why?
In all my twenty-four years I’ve never been obsessed with anyone, and I’d liked it that way. Then came Neil with his chiseled good looks and his skillful kisses. And now we’re so familiar with each other’s bodies. He knows exactly how to push my buttons. The familiarity is a drug in and of itself.
“Baby.” He breaks our kiss so he can suck on my neck. “I missed you so much.”
My inner kitty-cat rolls over on her back and purrs, the little traitor.
Neil cups my breast and tweaks my nipple, and I wrap my legs even more tightly around his body,
“I have a condom,” he whispers. “And you’re wearing this short little skirt.”
Just the idea makes me wet. “This is a bad idea,” I reply. And I don’t just mean having sex in a strange room where we might get caught. I mean all of it—the fake marriage, the sneaking around.
The constant, addictive sex.
“I’ll be quick,” he pants, setting me on the pool table. “And so will you.”
He isn’t wrong.
And here I am tugging his zipper down. I don’t even know myself anymore.
He tugs my panties down and then suits up, the condom wrapper shoved into his pocket, his trousers hanging down around his thighs. I brace my hands on the cool felt behind me.
Then it happens—Neil fills me with a heady thrust. We both gasp at the same time. And when I lift my chin, I see my own wonder reflected back at me in his bright, astonished eyes.
TWENTY-SEVEN
DATE NIGHT
Neil
We get away with our pool-table moment, crazy as it is. Nobody walks in on the frantic quickie that leaves us panting and staring into each other’s souls.
Afterwards, I fantasize about it for days.
Nobody has ever wrecked me quite like Charli does. She doesn’t like to talk about herself. She’s cagy—except during sex or when we’re lazing together in bed. Those are the only times I feel like we’re speaking the same language.
In all my years of dating Iris on and off, I never once had the urge to move her in. But having Charli close by is an unexpected pleasure. Slipping into bed beside her makes me happy. Even when it’s late and we’re both tired, we’ll usually turn on a game and burrow under the covers together.
I could fall for her. Maybe I already have. I think I started falling on day one, right in the middle of that lecture she gave me for calling her doll.
I don’t know how Charli feels, though, or what to do about it. She’s been asking me how our divorce is going. That makes the conversation trickier, especially since there hasn’t been a lot of forward progress.
To make matters worse, I’ve screwed things up with the family foundation. I’d warned Charli that the upcoming meeting would be important, but I’d never opened that packet my uncle had sent me.
Which I now regret, seeing as my damn uncle changed the meeting’s date.
My mother is pissed off at me, too. “He won’t budge, Neil,” she huffs. “This is a disaster.”
We’re on the phone, so she can’t see me scowl. “That asshole.” I kick an exercise ball in anger, and it ricochets off the wall of the gym and then hits me in the crotch. “Ouch.”