Tucker draped his other hand around her chair, closing himself in around her, making her shiver. His big body so near always did that to her. “I always wanted a rematch you know?” He’d been one of the bigger losers despite having played the game before. He’d fussed about losing to a novice to anyone who would listen that night. She’d always wondered if he had been trying for a pity lay with some bimbo there.
“I don’t think everyone is even still in the state. And Devyn was going to be with Carl tonight. I don’t think he’d be up for strip poker with us.” There was no way to reassemble things once they’d passed. She’d learned that the hard way. With Tucker.
“
We’re
here.” He moved his grip to the back of her neck and started rubbing. His strong hands kneaded her knotted flesh. “We’re still around. And it was you I lost to…”
She turned her head, dislodging his hands. “What are you suggesting?” She arched a brow. “That you and I play strip poker?”
He reached over to one of the other chairs. He pulled out a deck of cards and placed them on the table. “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”
She found it hard to swallow. Her entire senses were singing and buzzing. She could barely hear. They’d seen each other naked many a time. It wouldn’t be like that distant memory when it had been a novelty. Yet she couldn’t help feeling like it would be as exciting as that first time. She could see his pants and shirt being eased off and falling to the floor, leaving all that body visible to her eyes. “You are?”
“Yeah.” He snapped open the box. “Unless you’re too chicken for a rematch.
Buck buck buck
.”
She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “What are you, twelve?” He was trying to goad her into playing. Maybe he didn’t know her as well as he thought, because she’d already decided to play.
“And a half.” He grinned at her and started shuffling the cards. She watched those hands that could do such magic move the cards around as if they controlled them. “Five card draw. Jokers are wild.” He handed out the cards.
Oh yeah. “I haven’t played poker since that night. You’re going to have to remind me of the rules.”
And he—with his every other week poker game with some buddies—started laughing. “You seriously haven’t played since that night?”
She shook her head. “Girls don’t have poker nights you know. We have…” She sat up a little straighter. What did girls have? She didn’t have girlfriends. She had Tucker and Devyn. “Shopping.” Devyn might not be a woman, but his alter ego, Rose, liked to shop. Unlike Ally, who had to be dragged kicking and screaming.
“Hmmm. This is going to be easy pickings.” He waggled his brows at her. “I see nakedness in your future.”
“Yeah, that’s what you said the first time.” She stuck her tongue out at him and picked up her cards. She tried to remember information from that night, but all she’d ever memorized was Tucker being naked. His bronzed skin and body on display right in front of her. He’d had no qualms about his nakedness. Hadn’t tried to cover up at all. The only other thing that stood out was the kiss. His lips had been soft on hers. Demanding. Pressing. His body slid against hers like he was made for her. He’d tasted of beer and toasted corn. Smelled of some cologne that commercials said got girls. Amazing how vividly she remembered the kiss and the nakedness but not the game itself, even though she’d won it. “What are the rules?”
“I told you. Five card draw.” He looked at her confused face. “You truly remember nothing from that night.” He stated the fact but sounded as though he didn’t believe it.
Nothing she wanted to share. “Nope.” She didn’t want to let on what a night it had been for her. How important it had been in the development of their relationship. Because that was serious, and she and Tucker were anything but.
He quickly went over poker and the way it was played. Nothing too fancy or elaborate in the directions. He knew too much information would overwhelm her. “Got it?”
“I think so.” She looked at her cards. Not a bad hand if she understood the explanations right. “And what are the rules for stripping? This time?” Her breath quickened. Darn it, why was this so exciting to her? She’d seen him naked many times. In her bed. He’d even let her tie him up once. Yet somehow this was like that first time in anticipation. The quickening in her body told her how just like molten quicksilver he was to her. God, why did he have to make her feel him in her bones?
He looked thoughtful for a minute. “I think the rules last time were that the loser of the hand strips one item of clothing per hand. And loser gets to pick that item. Hair bands don’t count, but everything else on you is game. You’re not wearing jewelry, but that wouldn’t count either.” He looked over his cards at her. She could see the blue of his eyes. Merriment lit the irises. Was he as excited about this as she was? “That work for you?” His low voice sounded even rougher. Maybe he was enjoying this as much as she was.
She nodded after a moment. “Okay.” Not that she understood completely about how to play poker, but she thought she knew enough she could play on those terms and not lose her shirt. Literally. “Hit me.”
“Honey, that’s blackjack.” He looked amused at her mixing metaphors or whatever mixing up game language would be called.
“I knew that.” Things had been entirely too tense between them lately. Odd but they’d talked more tonight than they had in ages. They’d played with each other. Something they’d not done in a while. Maybe some good-natured goofing around would help as it was already loosening them up. Tucker had always been good at playing around. She was sometimes too serious. Devyn and Tucker had used “stick in the mud” to refer to her more than once. What was it the girls in high school had said?
Oh yeah, Goody Two-shoes.
Would a Goody Two-shoes be best friends with a drag queen and shacking up with a man who saw commitment as the devil?
Look how far she’d come.
Even if she was sad doing it. How long had she been miserable? She wasn’t even sure. She wasn’t sure how to get happy again either.
“Well, are you going to deal me or not?” She arched a brow at him. Pushed down more serious thoughts. She was here to play. Not to think.
He curled his mouth up in a smile. “You have to bet. Or fold. Decide how many cards you want to keep and how many you want to draw.” His smile turned lecherous. “Course if you fold, you have to strip.”
Oh. That was playing the game. “That wasn’t…” But she stopped before she mentioned how she thought they’d played it before.
“That’s how we’re playing it now.” He leaned back in his chair, settling down and getting comfortable.
She scanned her hand. “I’m not folding.” She didn’t think she would have anyway, regardless of what he’d said the rules were. She shed one card. “I want one card.”
He dealt off the top. “There you go.” Then he placed the deck on the table and looked at his hand. “I’ll hold.”
He hadn’t taken any cards. Did that mean he had a good hand? Or a bad hand? Or maybe even just neutral? She tried to scan his face but couldn’t tell anything. He was good at masking his feelings and emotions. Always had been. However, he let his guard down around her quite often. He’d be stoic, but he’d hold on to her when they got home like she was his life raft. But now he wasn’t showing her anything. “Now what?”
“We show hands.” He motioned for her to turn over her cards, but he didn’t do what he was telling her to do, which hardly seemed fair.
“You first.”
“No. You first. I dealt. Show your hand.” He looked like he was at ease and just as casual as could be. Darn irritating.
She eyed him dubiously, not remembering that from the night of poker either. “That’s how it’s played?” She had a feeling he was putting one over on her about the nondealer going first.
“Yep.”
After a moment she flipped her hand, showing the two pair she’d had upon first dealing. “Ha.” That had to be a good hand. Out of fifty-two cards, the odds of getting some of the better hands had to be astronomical. She’d have to look it up.
He laid out his hand with dramatic flair and lots of flourish. “Flush.” He watched her face almost carefully as he moved his fingers across the table over his cards emphasizing even more the grandness of his gestures.
“And that beats two pair?” She frowned as she surveyed the cards. This had been much easier last time. She’d had to ask a lot of questions but had won just about every hand. The only thing she’d lost had been a pair of socks. No one else had lost as much as Tucker. How many people had been left by the end? She didn’t remember.
“Uh-huh.” He folded his arms across his chest. “And that means you lost that hand. So remove something.” He settled back in his chair and whistled. “Something good.”
Now just as he’d been naked in front of her, she’d been naked in front of him tons. She’d found herself almost hyperventilating that night they’d first played at the thought of stripping before him. Her breath caught in her throat, much like it had that night as she’d shown each hand, knowing she’d have to take something off. Why should this be so nerve-racking now? They knew each other. They’d seen each other. But the idea of taking her clothes off in front of him was just as intimidating as it had been that night so long ago.
Enjoy it. Enjoy him for what he is. No more. No less. Stop analyzing everything and go with the flow. Stop being a Goody Two-shoes.
That’s what she kept telling herself.
She reached down and made a grand show of stretching out her leg and dangling her calf in front of him. She pulled off her no-nonsense sneaker with as much flourish as he’d used with the cards and handed it to him. “Here you go.”
He shot her a look.
“What? You said no hair bands, no jewelry. That left this fair game.” She hadn’t been about to start with anything important. Maybe by the time she got to that, she’d be less anxious.
He tapped his chin. “Guess I should have said no shoes too?” He sighed as though disturbed. He glanced down at the shoe, and his lips thinned as though he was disgusted.
She looked down his legs. Those powerful legs that wrapped around her so deliciously. “You’ve got them on still too.” Usually they were the first to come off for both of them when they got home. “Think of it this way, it just means the game takes longer. Anticipation.” How long had they played that fateful night so many years ago? It had been at least an hour. And come to think of it, it had been down to only her and Tucker by the end. Everyone else had begged off. Tucker had wanted to “win back ma dignity” but never had.
He shook his head and started shuffling again. “Somehow I knew you’d say that. You’re always about the anticipation. I’m ready for some skin, though.” He let out a deep sigh but shot her a wink as was his habit when he wanted bedroom stuff.
She dangled her foot in front of him again. “Skin, baby. Skin. Or it will be if you get off my socks.” She let out a cackling laugh. It wasn’t what he wanted, and his look made that obvious. It would be a few hands before he got down to skin, and she was sure to win something in that time. The idea of him sitting naked and sliding off his briefs was one that made her throat constrict. He’d looked so good that night, sitting across from her.
“Yeah, funny girl.” He dealt again, shoveling out cards so fast she would have lost track of them. He did know his way around a card game. “Let’s see what you do this time.”
Another shoe. Then a sock. Along with jokes about his finally “seeing skin” much to his irritation. The second sock.
She’d lost four hands in a row. “Oh my God. I’m losing my”—she started to say
shirt
but thought the better of it—“a lot.” This wasn’t how she’d envisioned this going.
He winked at her but continued dealing, her shoes and socks sitting on the table by him like the spoils of war. Last time, she’d set his clothes by her on the table. And she’d wound up holding on to his shirt. She’d sniffed it at random intervals. It had smelled like him. As she’d inhaled his scent, she’d remembered how warm the shirt was from his body when he’d handed it to her. How that made her fingers tingle, knowing it had been against his skin. Knowing that it was his heat that had raised the temperature of the cotton. She’d kept it several weeks. It hadn’t been warm like that again, but she’d stuck her nose in it as often as she could without him noticing. He’d been so oblivious that when she’d returned it to him, he hadn’t said a word.
She looked at her hand that was clenched on the table. Nothing special contained there. Darn it, she needed a royal flush. “Last time, I won from the beginning. From the very first hand.” She narrowed her eyes at him trying to sort out his mood. “Are you rigging this game?” She wouldn’t put anything past him. Although he’d seen her naked before, so this wouldn’t be as much of a win as it would have been. But she didn’t understand why she wasn’t doing better with these cards.
He shook his head. Finished dealing with a flourish and picked up his cards with exaggerated actions. He was making a show of the whole thing just like he did every time he won. Spoilsport.
She humphed. Something was going on. He looked way too innocent. Way too confident. Cockiness was written on every feature, and he was too…happy. There were definitely games afoot and not just the ones with cards.
“I rigged it last time.” He didn’t pause in anything he was doing. Just said the words and put them out in the universe. “I made sure I would lose last time. To you. It was all set up.”
“Huh?” She stared at him, her mouth slightly open. “Why would you do such a thing?” After all, last time she’d won, not him. She would have understood if he’d won due to wanting to see her strip. It made no sense that he would have caused her to win and get him naked. Unless…
“I wanted you to see
me
. Naked. Or nekkid as the case may be.” He waggled his brows at her. “Because I am up to something.” It had been a joke among the three of them with the pronunciation of naked. Naked was something that was done for a shower. Nekkid was something done when naughtiness was afoot.
“You rigged the game so that you would lose? That you would have to strip?” All this time she’d thought she’d been lucky or a natural at poker. It still didn’t compute for her.