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“You’ve hardly touched your food.”
I cocked my head to the side, studying him, a teasing smile playing at my lips. He seemed to watch me warily. “Eric, despite you’re big broodish size, you’re more like a mother hen.”
Red streaked his cheeks, and I found it adorable. “No,” he quickly snapped. “I just don’t like wasted food.”
“Then you can have my plate too,” I challenged, noticing he was already done with his. I handed it over to him, and with no complaints, he ate it. I found myself rather smug as I watched him eat. There was something rewarding about watching him enjoy the meal I’d made. It was so out of my comfort zone, and yet I felt content.
I stood up, grabbing the bottle of red and topping both of our glasses. I grabbed his empty plate and the casserole dish. “Do you feel like playing a game?” I asked, looking over my shoulder as I stacked the dish in the fridge, then washed the plate. The moment I mentioned “game,” his expression changed, and I felt a heat flood through my core. Oh fuck.
“What kind of game?” His gravelly voice broke through the cracking wood and straight to my pulsing heat. Wow that red wine really had gone straight to my head and three months of celibacy was really starting to bite me in the ass.
“Lori added a pack of cards to the hamper. I thought maybe we could play a few rounds?” I said holding up the deck of cards.
He cleared his throat, as if relieving himself from whatever thoughts he’d been having. Despite the age difference, we were still a man and woman, stuck in a stunning cabin with a crackling fireplace, the mood couldn’t be any more inviting to be tangled in his bed. Another wave of heat. Okay, I really needed to slow down on the red wine.
“Okay, what game?” he asked, bringing my now empty plate to the counter. His large frame spread a heat across my back like an inferno pinpricking goose bumps. My breath hitched. Damn it, why’d I have to see him chopping that wood. Everything in my body sparked at the thought ever since.
I let him gently push me out of the way as he washed his own dish. There was something comical and endearing watching this brute of a man hunched over and doing the dishes, a most domesticated display.
“Poker?”
He looked up at me, a twinkle in his eyes. “You play poker?”
“Well no, but I’m sure I can learn. Why, is it a bad idea? We can play something else.”
He shook his head, that twitch playing at his mouth again. I wanted to make him laugh. Almost yearned for it, like another reward.
He leant across from me, his arms folded over his chest. “Don’t take this the wrong way, sweetheart, I just didn’t think you’d have the best poker face.”
Sweetheart. There was something about that endearment that put my heart into overdrive. Damn, the way I was going I’d have to pull out my friendly intimate toy ASAP just to relieve myself.
“I have a poker face,” I blurted out, not even convincing myself. “In fact, let’s make it interesting.”
“Oh?” He arched an eyebrow, a smug expression slipping through his neutral and controlled mask.
Like a teenage girl, the only thing cheering in my mind was strip poker, strip poker, strip poker. I swatted away the images that came alongside that devilish dance.
We’d unconsciously leaned into one another. He smelt of fire and wood, everything earthy and grounded. “Whoever wins each hand gets to ask the other a question. And the loser has to answer honestly.”
He considered it, rubbing at his beard thoughtfully. “Okay,” he agreed. “Poker it is.”
I gulped as he inched closer. “Yes,” I breathed, my heart hammering. Only then did he realize he’d pushed off the bench and was looming over me. And it might’ve been because he enjoyed the prospect of the challenge but there was something else in his gaze that in my experience always only led to one thing.
He grunted and pulled away, that cold breeze sweeping through us once again. I almost fell back into the bench not realizing how much I’d also leant forward, my traitorous body acting of its own accord. I was sexually hungry and deprived. After going cold turkey for three months, I realized now how badly I wanted to be touched again.
I followed Eric to the coffee table, sitting across from him cross-legged again as he shuffled the cards. The bottle of red wine was mostly gone already. I decided to stay on this glass for the rest of the night. If I got carried away, I was certain my carefree self would try to seduce to him, thinking with my pounding pussy instead of logic. And wouldn’t that just make things awkward. He wasn’t like a fling in Manhattan. I’d be taking advantage of the man who offered me a place to stay.
Celibacy. Celibacy. Celibacy, I reminded myself. Wasn’t that the promise I’d made to myself? No sex until I met the right guy? And how quickly my body was to forget that.
Eric explained the rules to me, and we trialed a few rounds. By then, Shadow had laid his head in my lap and I absently patted him as I looked at my hand of cards. Okay, so turned out poker had a lot of rules. And I’d only ever played it in the past when it involved strip poker and most of the time I didn’t mind losing.
But this time I wanted to win. Firstly, to prove I did have a poker face. But mostly, to learn more about this big brute. It was so hard to get any personal information from him and the more time I spent with him, the more curious I became.
We revealed our hands. Nonchalant, Eric said, with a smile. An actual smile. “You lose, sweetheart.”
I harrumphed in irritation; I’d actually thought I’d had a good hand on that one.
Eric swirled his red wine around in the glass thoughtfully. “What’s your most embarrassing moment?”
