Nerd Gone Wild (30 page)

“It wasn’t a joke.” His smile widened. “I’m a good poker player.”

Lust fizzed through her veins, making her lightheaded. “Sorry. Not doing that.” But she thought about it as she walked over to the dresser and pulled a yellow sweatshirt and sweatpants out of the bottom drawer. Strip poker. No guy had ever proposed that to her before. What fuel for the imagination!

In the bathroom, she closed the door and took off her socks, sweater, and slacks, leaving them in a pile in the comer. She’d wash them out tomorrow. Then she glanced down at the simple cotton underwear she had on, the practical stuff she’d bought for Alaska. Anybody playing strip poker would want to have something fancier than that to lose.

Well, she wasn’t playing it anyway, so it didn’t matter. She pulled on her sweatpants and tagged the cozy sweatshirt over her head. She’d forgotten socks, but she could get them later. Then she glanced in the mirror to see if her hair was sticking out in all directions.

It wasn’t, but the woman looking back at her sure did have flushed cheeks. That woman was thinking about strip poker, and where such a game would inevitably lead. But she wouldn’t play. No, definitely not.

She opened the bathroom door and walked back into the bedroom.

Mitchell glanced up and his gaze traveled over her. “Better?”

“Better.” But that very male once-over of his had gotten to her, making her nipples tighten and her panties grow slightly damp. The flush spreading through her made those socks she’d forgotten totally unnecessary, so she sat down. “What kind of poker are we playing?”

“Stud.”

She should have known. She resisted the urge to fan herself. “Five-card or seven-card?”

“Seven. I gave us each a pile of a hundred matches. We can say they’re worth a dollar apiece. The ante’s a dollar.” He tossed a match into the space between them.

She tossed one in, too.

“Remember how to play?” His fingers flexed as he picked up the cards and dealt them each two cards down and one card up.

“Pretty much. I might need some coaching.” She’d never paid much attention to his hands before, except for the time she’d caught him tapping in rhythm with Clyde’s performance on the bar. Now she noticed the sprinkle of dark hair and his obvious dexterity. Very sexy. He had capable hands. Capable of doing all sorts of things. To her.
Ally, stop it.

“Your bet.”

She looked at her cards. Not bad. She looked at his card that was face up. In the process she found herself glancing at his crotch again. Then she dropped three matches in the center.

“Stop doing that.”

“Doing what?” She consulted her cards, as if she had no idea what he was talking about.

“Checking out the merchandise.”

“In your dreams.” She still didn’t dare look at him.

“Yeah, that, too. I’ll call.” He dropped three matches in the pile and dealt the next two cards. “Your bet.”

She raised again. With an ace-ten in the hole and an ace-ten on the board, she was sitting pretty. All Mitchell had showing was a two and a six, unsuited.

“I’ll call.” He matched her bet.

The next cards didn’t do much for her, and she couldn’t see how they’d do much for him, either, although he had a pair of sixes. She checked. He raised. She couldn’t let him get away with bluffing her, so she called his bet. But each time she glanced at his cards on the floor in front of him, her gaze just naturally traveled slightly higher.

“No fair, Ally.”

“What?” She managed an innocent expression as she looked up.

He met her gaze. “I think you’re deliberately trying to distract me.”

“Hey, we’re playing on the floor. Your cards are there, and your… your other stuff is right in my line of sight.”

“Not good enough. You’re not just passing through. You’re lingering there.”

“Am not.”

His lips twitched. “Are so.” He held the remaining cards in his hand. “Think you’re going to win this one?”

“I might.”

He dealt the last card down, glanced at it and dropped ten matches into the pile,

“I think you’re bluffing.” She added ten of her matches. Her last card had given her a full house.

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“Ah, you’re bluffing, all right.”

“Care to make it interesting?” His gaze challenged hers.

A zing of sensation shot straight down between her legs. “Like how?”

“Loser takes something off.”

“I said I wouldn’t play strip poker.”

“Don’t you think matches are kind of boring?” he asked softly.

She had to admit it was way too easy to bet matches. Win or lose, it didn’t make much difference. “I suppose.”

“Besides, you’re so sure you’re going to win. I’d be the one who had to take something off, not you.”

She debated. It would be sort of fun to make him do that. He’d probably go with a sock. No big deal. “Okay.”

“Let’s see what you’ve got.”

This was more exciting than matches, she’d have to grant him that. Adrenaline rushed through her as she flipped over her full house.

He whistled. “Impressive.”

“Go ahead. Take something off.” She liked being the winner. This was power.

“Not so fast.” And he turned over four twos.

That was the moment she remembered that she’d never put on those socks. She had four items of clothing on her body. Taking off any one of them would change the whole game.

* * *

Mitch knew he’d lured her into this trap, but dammit, she kept checking him out even though she’d declared they wouldn’t do anything. A guy could take only so much of that before he was spurred into action. His last two had been pure luck, but he’d always had luck with cards. He’d been banking on that.

“Time to settle up,” he said.

“I had you until that last card!”

“Yep.” He could see the wheels going around as she tried to decide how to handle this. He would have felt sorry for her except that he knew what she really wanted to do. She thought he couldn’t take the fallout if she followed her impulses. The only way to convince her was to trick her into giving in and then she’d eventually see he was tough enough.

It wasn’t like he’d never had sex with a woman and then walked away, or had her walk away. A guy didn’t get to be thirty-two without that happening a few times. But Ally saw him as a delicate nerd who would get his little heart broken. She needed to be disabused of that notion.

“I’m waiting,” he said.

“I should have put on clean socks,” she mumbled.

He’d noticed she hadn’t bothered with another pair of socks. That had clinched his decision to talk her into this, especially after she’d looked so confident about her cards. He’d pretty much known what she had from the expression on her face. She was no card shark.

“All right, here goes.” She pulled her arms out of the sleeves of her sweatshirt.

He’d seen this maneuver once in an old movie—
Flashdance
. He’d thought it was sexy then, and it drove him wild now, when the woman in question was Ally and she was sitting three feet away.

“I suppose you think this is funny.”

“No, I wouldn’t say that.”
How about arousing beyond belief?
“But it does look like a couple of midgets are wrestling under there.”

“Almost got it. There!” She stock her arms back through the sweatshirt sleeves, pulled her bra out from under the bottom hem and threw it at him. “Debt paid!”

He caught the soft cotton bra, which came over to him on a wave of delicate flowery scent that made his blood pound. “Thanks. Ready to play again?”

She gazed at him, obviously thinking it over. Her color was high, and she looked as if the game had really stirred her up.

“Or do you want to quit while I’m ahead?” He was banking on the fact that she wasn’t a quitter and wouldn’t like losing.

“We need some extra rules,” she said.

He kept himself from smiling in triumph. She was in. “Like what?” He loved knowing she was naked under that sweatshirt.

“Like if either of us folds, that hand doesn’t count. Otherwise there’s no judgment involved, no reason to keep the cards facedown.”

“Okay, if one of us folds, that’s just a matchstick hand.” And he would never fold. Because losing meant winning. For what he had in mind, they both had to be naked.

“And either one of us can stop the game if we get uncomfortable.”

“You mean like too cold? Because we can turn up those baseboard heaters.” He didn’t need any more heat so long as he had her to look at. One glance and he was hot, hot, hot.

“I mean like too embarrassed.”

“Are you embarrassed now?” She sure didn’t look embarrassed. She looked turned on. Her nipples were making nice little outsies in her yellow sweatshirt.

“No, I’m not embarrassed now. But I reserve the right to stop the game at any time.”

“Okay.” He was a gambling man.

She took a long swallow of her beer. Then she scooped up the cards. “My deal.”

A
lly won the next hand and Mitchell gave up a sock, as she’d predicted he would. She won the hand after that, too, which took care of his other sock. Now this was more like it. And he’d bragged about his card-playing ability. She could take him.

Next hand he lost his belt. “I thought you said you weren’t very good at this,” he said as he slid his belt from the loops and handed it over.

“I thought you said you were.” Smiling in triumph, she laid the belt on top of the socks lying beside her.

“I usually am pretty good. I don’t seem to be getting cards, for some reason. You are, though.” He dealt the next hand. And lost his flannel shirt.

Ally made a big production of shuffling the cards while he unbuttoned his shirt, but she was watching. Oh, yes, she was watching. Underneath he wore a white cotton T-shirt and she was extremely interested in the fit of that T-shirt. She’d begun to suspect that Mitchell J. Carruthers, Jr., might be hiding a babe-magnet body underneath his nerd clothes.

When he took off the flannel shirt and muscles galore bunched under the T-shirt, her shuffling misfired, sending cards everywhere. “Whoops.” She began gathering them up, meanwhile sneaking peeks at those pecs. She had way underestimated the possibilities.

Mitchell passed her the flannel shirt. “Well played.”

“Thanks. My shuffling leaves a little to be desired. I never was great at that.” She didn’t want him to know how much he’d rattled her with that manly display of muscle. She’d rather have him think she was clumsy.

But, oh, sweet heaven. She was sitting across from a Fruit of the Loom poster boy. If the T-shirt looked this good, she could imagine how he filled out a pair of briefs. She could imagine it way too well. She almost misdealt the cards.

Her luck was still running, though. A pair of aces. Then she got another ace, and bet like crazy. She wanted that T-shirt gone. Yes, the temptation would be intense, but she’d worry about that after she’d forced him to strip away the white cotton that fit him like shrink-wrap.

At the end of the hand, she stared in disbelief as he turned over a flush. She’d never seen it coming.

“Guess my luck changed a little,” he said.

She gulped. “Guess so.” Well, she could end the game, but then she wouldn’t have a chance to get rid of his T-shirt. She’d come this far. Scooting back from the playing area, she wiggled out of her sweatpants. After all, her panties weren’t much different from bikini bottoms.

When she gave him her sweatpants, he took them with great nonchalance. “Thanks.” Then he glanced over at her bare legs. “Are you cold? I can turn up the heat.”

She thought he already had. His casual attitude toward her increasing nakedness was affecting her more than if he’d openly leered. Then she had the unwelcome thought that he wasn’t as impressed with her body as she was with his.

Yet she had reason to believe her body could turn a guy on. She wasn’t some inexperienced virgin, after all. She’d had boyfriends. She’d incited lust on more than one occasion by stripping down to her panties.

Then again, maybe he was used to seeing her bare legs. Shorts had been a mainstay of her wardrobe back in Bel Air, and his office looked out on the swimming pool where she’d spent lots of hours in a bathing suit. So seeing her legs was nothing new for him.