Seduction on the Cards (11 page)

She twisted her hands together.

“Well,
normally
I don’t like it as much as that. I mean...it’s never... Oh God, Alex—for some reason you turned me on, okay? It was nice.”

“And you’d like to do it again?”

“No.”

“No? So we’ll just have a game of strip poker then?  Get each other undressed and sit in the sun with another cup of coffee, perhaps?” 

Kerri knew she’d painted herself into a corner and had no idea how to escape. She abhorred being trapped, and this was even worse because she’d set the trap herself.

“It was a stupid suggestion.”  

Truly horrendously stupid. Why was she such a klutz at real life when she was a perfectly competent journalist? Was it because she could always edit and delete and shine her work up until it was as good as she could make it? Her real life had to be lived as it happened. It wasn’t in her nature to plan and forecast and weigh up consequences. 

She dropped her voice with embarrassment and made things worse again. “I don’t have any condoms, anyway,” she muttered.

“I do.” 

Slow delicious heat flooded her belly. He made her feel sexy and beautiful when she normally felt awkward and defensive around any man she found attractive. She was now confused and flustered and bothered, and filled with a gnawing savage yearning for things she’d never had before
.  

Her mind ran hot and wild. Was his chest as hairy as his arms? Did he have great legs to go with that fantastic butt? Was he hard yet?  

Now she really,
really
wanted to make love, and he’d think she was cheap and immoral. Or ridiculous, which was almost worse.

She didn’t dare look at him after hearing him say he had condoms. He didn’t seem to think sex was a slutty offer or a stupid idea. But... 

Somehow, after a few breathless seconds, she found the courage to bring her eyes back to his. And right when she was on the point of opening her mouth to possibly put her foot in it yet again, he filled the silence instead.

“We’re both adults, Kerri. We turn each other on to an extreme degree. It seems a shame to waste such good fortune, don’t you think? Just for one day, while we can?”

His eyes shone dark with desire, and held hers with an intensity she’d not expected.  

He really wants me!

Just for one day—that’s the kicker though. 

Or maybe it was the escape clause? One day of uninhibited, unobserved sex, and then goodbye. 

She could handle that. She was sure she could handle that.

Alex continued to gaze at her with incredible turned-on attention.

“So how do we do this, Kerri?

“You said you knew how.”

“
Oui,
but what about cards?”

“I have cards. I brought some in case I wanted to play Solitaire to pass the time.”

He drew a sharp affronted breath. “You thought I would be so boring? That I would not entertain you?”

“I had no idea what you had in mind,” she said primly.

And feeling an even worse fool after that, she looked away, reached over for her bag, foraged about, and pulled out the deck of cards.

Alex watched and waited, wondering if she really was serious about playing poker. He sipped more of Gaston’s thousand-volt coffee and hoped it would bring him luck. Kerri half-naked? Kerri completely naked? Kerri wild and willing?

“Are we safe here?” he asked, gazing about before the last vestiges of common sense deserted him. A yachting regatta progressed on the far side of the harbor—a flock of white triangles leaned against the freshening breeze. The inter-island ferry had bustled out a little earlier. They didn’t seem to be in a shipping lane. Indeed they were opposite a stretch of tree-covered hillside with no sign of close habitation, and that seemed about perfect.

Kerri shrugged and grinned, apparently switching on a sunnier mood. 

“I am,” she said. “Don’t know about you. I’m going to have the shirt off your back in no time. Does that make you feel safe?”

Alex imagined his shirt off, and Kerri’s shirt off too. His fingers curled without his volition, as though touching the soft pale skin of her incredible breasts.

She cut the pack and shuffled with a practiced hand.

He watched the cards flashing black and red on brilliant white, and felt anything but safe. Exhilarated...turned-on...disbelieving—all of those.  

But way far from safe.

“Play a lot, do you?” Her fingers moved fast and competently.

“Not for stakes like this. Just for a bit of money. Now and again. Not often. Hardly ever, really.”

I’ll bet it’s more often than that,
cherie.

A sudden splash on the side of the boat sent them rocking harder than usual.

“Anchor!” he exclaimed, smacking a hand to his forehead. “We could drift ashore if this goes on for a while.”

“Nope, I’ll have the pants off you in minutes, Alex.”

He moved away and made sure Sylvie was safe. When he rejoined her he asked, “So—are we playing here, or inside out of the wind?”

“What, you don’t want an all-over suntan?” she teased, gathering up the cards and tapping them back together with a couple of competent thumps against the top of the croissant box.

“You’d be the one getting the suntan,
cherie.
But maybe inside would be easier so the cards don’t blow away?”

He reached for her hand, pulled her up, and swung her into his arms. Kerri let loose a gasp of surprise as he carried her into the timber-paneled cabin.  

“Second thoughts, Ms Kerri?” He glanced down at her face and saw her pupils were wide and black, dilated with reciprocal desire. “Too late now. You’ve suggested a sexy game and I’ve accepted your challenge.”

Anticipation prickled along every nerve. If she stopped him now he’d be swamped with the worst frustration of his life. She’d made him hard in seconds, burning to bury himself inside her. But this time he wouldn’t be bringing her off quickly. He’d really wind her up, take things slowly, see how far he could turn her on. Because a woman who orgasmed as easily as she had would be incredible to play with, heaven to have clasping around him, pulling on his cock with her hot smooth insistent muscles.

He lowered her onto the long low blue velour seating that ran down one wall, and seated himself far enough away they could spread the cards between them.

Kerri fizzed and buzzed with lust and questions. What happened if one of them ended up naked and the other didn’t? Would she dare to sit there almost undressed if Alex stayed decently covered? Could she keep her hands off him if he wasn’t?

She gave the cards one last shuffle for luck and dealt them five each.

“
Bon chance
, pretty girl,” he murmured. 

The tiny hairs on the back of her neck rose up in the most disconcerting way. She reached a hand up and rubbed the skin there, trying to dispel the sensation. It had to be his soft French accent—she found it totally sexy and suggestive, even when he said something perfectly ordinary.  Heaven help her if he decided to seriously turn on his potent Gallic charm.

She drew a deep breath for courage and peeked at her cards. Six, nine, queen, jack, queen.  

One pair anyway. What a relief.

Alex fanned his cards out and whistled softly.

Damn. Or is he bluffing?
 

She tossed the six and nine face-down on the seat and took two more cards.

Alex put just one card down. She flipped him a replacement.

Kerri kept her face impassive as she checked her new selection. She now had three queens.

“So we just lay them down and see who has the best hand?” he asked. “No fun, Kerri. No tension at all.”

She pouted at that. Getting him undressed was plenty of fun for her. As for tension, she already quivered like a plucked guitar string. Tight, vibrating, almost ready to snap apart.

“I don’t have the money to outbid you, even if I wanted to,” she said. “Techno-man versus journalist—no contest.” She slapped her cards down so he could see them. And was hugely relieved that the best he had was a pair of tens.

She grinned and leaned back on the seat, waiting for him to remove something boring like a shoe. He crossed his arms, grabbed the hem of his white T-shirt and yanked it up and off.

Most of the air left Kerri’s lungs. He had to know he was utterly gorgeous. He’d done that on purpose to un-nerve her, she was sure. It was certainly working—her heart-rate had speeded up and her skin was warming all over with anticipation. 

Her damned clitoris had got the flickers! That hadn’t happened since...well, since Friday lunchtime after she’d left his office, wanting more.  

She tried hard to keep her cheeky grin in place. He absolutely mustn’t know how he was affecting her.

“Nice bod,” she acknowledged. “I said at Gaston’s you must go to a gym.” 

“Must I? You think I need to?”

“Are you winding me up, Alex? No—I don’t think you need to. I think you’ve been going there already. Right?”

He made no comment. Simply sat a little straighter and allowed her to inspect him with a faint teasing smile on his lips. Kerri cleared her throat and tried to find something else to say. She was faced with a terrible choice; continue to admire his beautiful arms (smooth and not at all hairy above the elbows) and his strong shoulders and deep chest and long taut torso, or deal another hand and try to expose more of him.

A light mat of dark springy hair covered his chest, and a fine stripe ran down his flat spicy-brown belly to the waistband of his jeans. She longed to lick his half-hidden rosy-tan nipples.  

Reluctantly she dragged her eyes away. All his delicious details stayed imprinted on her brain as she pushed the cards back together and shuffled the pack a second time—now with hands that were less than steady.

She dealt—praying she’d have more good luck with this hand. Another five cards each floated down.

“Your turn to undress,” he said as Kerri picked hers up to inspect them.

“No, your turn
again
,” she insisted. Her eyes ran rapidly over two fives, the jack of spades, and the eight and ten of diamonds.  

Right—keep the fives, keep the diamonds, ditch the jack and hope like mad for the missing nine of diamonds. Or another five of course.

She watched as Alex’s dark blue eyes checked his cards, as one corner of his mouth twitched, and as he squashed the giveaway expression of pleasure. What the hell had she dealt him?

She got the two of clubs in return for her jack—useless—so that left her with just the pair of fives.  

Oh God, nothing at all, I’m dead.

She laid her cards down with a flourish.

Alex smiled as he exposed a pair of sixes.

“So—your turn Kerri. What do you choose?”

She fingered her earrings. No, an earring wouldn’t have the same effect on him as his lack of T-shirt was having on her.  

Her top in return for his? Her low-cut bra would undoubtedly distract the hell out of him. But did she have the nerve to do it? He was a total stranger really. Just a business contact. Someone she’d been sent to interview.   

Not strictly true, Kerri. Things have happened since then. And you’re hoping even more is going to happen today.

Her shorts, maybe? But that would leave her sitting there in a skin-colored lace and satin thong, specially chosen to disappear under white shorts.  

Why hadn’t she planned ahead? Dressed for this eventuality? In lots of layers, with heaps of pieces of jewelry, and
much bigger underwear?
 

But she really hadn’t expected to be doing this. If she was honest with herself, she’d dressed for quick removal.

“What do you choose, Kerri?” his softly accented voice asked again, breaking into her frantic review.

She glared at him and removed her watch.

CHAPTER NINE

“Not so brave after all?” he taunted.  

“Why show it off when I don’t need to?”

“Show it off? You think I want to look?”

“You’re a man. Men always want to look.”

“You’re forgetting the world I grew up in. It was full of near-naked Parisian showgirls. I have perhaps looked my fill?”

Not from the way you kept checking out my ‘crème caramels’ on Monday night, Alex.

“You deal this time,” she invited, passing him the deck and sitting back to wait for her cards.  

She was a little alarmed at how deftly he shuffled, and her face surely must have shown it.  

“You’re pretty darn sharp with those, for a non-gambler, aren’t you?” she asked.

He continued to cut and combine with lightning speed, to shuffle and shift, to fan them into amazing shapes.  

“Old stage-tricks,” he said, separating the ace of spades from the deck and tossing it from hand to hand, flicking it between two fingers, back between two others, twisting the card so it danced and turned and suddenly disappeared.  

He held up two empty hands. Given that his long muscular arms were entirely bare, Kerri knew it hadn’t gone up his shirt-cuff.

“How did you—?” she demanded, just as he made it appear out of thin air again.

“How did I do that, or how did I get into stage-tricks?” He raised a dark eyebrow. “I had to live somehow, Kerri. I’d been around performers my whole life. It was the world I knew. So I worked at whatever I could…whatever came along.”

“To get enough to eat?” she asked in a small voice.

“That and to cover school expenses...” He dealt the cards again. “I was tall. Very young, but tall. It was a help.”

“And this was when your mother was gambling?”

“Sometimes then, but mostly later, after she died.”

She nodded slowly and tried to imagine the kind of life he must have endured in his teens.

After a few seconds of quiet reflection, Alex picked up his cards. Kerri did the same. Hers were useless—nine of spades, king of spades and three assorted diamonds. Should she throw in the whole hand or keep the two spades and hope for the miracle of the ten, jack and queen? She went for three, drew rubbish, and silently thanked Sarah for the loan of her jokey nautical earrings.