He ended the kiss, then rested his forehead against hers. “Whew.”
Anna closed her eyes, awash suddenly in a swell of fierce love. Where his brow touched hers, it seemed there was a burning link, carrying her thoughts to him, and his to her. She smelled his skin, and pine and wood smoke, and felt his hands on her neck and jaw, and his thighs against hers, and for one long, floating moment, she felt as if this were no accident, as if time and fate had overcome great obstacles to bring them together. As if they had not only just met a few months before, but had known each other always, in the heavens, through all the centuries.
Moving in that airy place, Anna unclenched her hands, and was about to lift them to put them on his body when he shifted away. “So,” he said, letting her go. “Do you want to play cards or something?”
Blinking, Anna said, “Uh, sure. Poker?”
He grinned. “You play poker?”
“Yes. Very well, as a matter of fact.”
An impish expression crossed his face. “Well, there may be some interesting possibilities in that.”
With surprise, Anna realized that prickly Tyler, silent mountain man, could be every bit as charming as his brothers when he chose to be. It made her wonder how much of himself he had hiddenâand what had led him to hide it. Responding to his teasing, she grinned. “Yes, there just might be.”
“Good, then. I'll find some cards.”
“And I'm going to change.”
“Into something more comfortable?”
Anna glanced at the wispy silk gown. “Not that comfortable.”
“It was worth a try.”
He actually had a dimple. He'd never smiled wide enough for her to see it before, and a wave of happiness went through her. By some miracle, Tyler was actually happy in this moment. It made her feel humbled and grateful. “I'll be right back.”
The bellman had taken their bags into the bedroom, and Anna opened hers to find something more comfortable to put on. The velvet was amazingly heavy, and she felt weary from dragging it around all day. The tunic hooked in the front, and she shucked it with a sigh.
“Hey!” Tyler called. “There's a stereo in this cabinet! Do you want to listen to some music?”
“Sure. Whatever you want.”
It came on, something classical Anna didn't recognize. Hanging her tunic up carefully, she bent over the suitcase, looking for the flannel gown and robe she'd brought with her. They weren't there.
Twice, she carefully took everything out of the suitcase, and frowned. She distinctly remembered putting it in the bag, along with her toothbrush, the very last.
Louise.
Anna sighed. The woman just could not help herself. It was pointless to be annoyed. She took out the jeans and her favorite red sweater, and changed into those instead. The button wouldn't close on the jeans, so she left it undone and pulled the sweater down over it. Soon, she supposed, she would have to break down and buy some new things.
Putting her hands over her tummy, she turned sideways to look in the long mirror over the dresser. “How you doing, kid? Feeling okay in there?” She could see no visible difference in her tummy yet, but standing there, she wondered how it would be in a few months, when she got rounder with baby. It gave her a curious sense of excitement to think of it, to think of her child growing in there.
Humming happily, she padded barefoot back into the other room.
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Tyler spent the whole evening moderately to extremely aroused, depending on the moment. They settled on the floor to play poker, Anna drinking bottled water while Tyler sipped champagne. In the background played quiet classical music, and snow fell with cocooning quiet beyond the windows, beautiful against the night. They filled a plate with olives and a variety of cheeses and cherry tomatoes, and nibbled as they played for pennies, which they'd called down to the front desk to get. The maid had giggled when she brought the neat, heavy rolls in exchange for a five-dollar bill, and when they closed the door behind her, both Tyler and Anna had laughed. “We can never tell a soul how we passed this evening,” Anna said.
“Not a soul.”
Now, several hours later, the piles of pennies were almost evenly divided, as they had been all night. She played well, and although he'd expected everything to show on her mobile face, she was remarkably able to school her features in poker. When he commented, she said simply that her brothers had taught her well.
Tyler had sipped his way through several glasses of champagne, and felt agreeably warm and a little expansive from it. He didn't feel like himself tonightâhis usual sense of awkwardness was missing. It was easy to talk about little things, and to laugh, and to smile at Anna's jokes. Maybe it was the unaccustomed comfort of the hotel room, or the champagne, or the relief of getting through the day without major incident.
But he suspected it was Anna making him feel this way. It was just easy somehow to be with her.
At least in some ways.
It was not easy to sit across from her and respect her wish to avoid sex. Her red sweater, the same one she'd worn the day she told him she was pregnant, was damned near as sexy as the silk nightgown would have been. The simple lines clung to her curves with a soft texture that begged petting, and the round neckline exposed far more of her breasts than he thought she realized. Her body had changed with pregnancy, and one thing that was different was those white swells of breast over the sweater. Voluptuous curves. Curves he wanted to trace with his tongue.
He wondered if her breasts had grown more sensitive, too. It happened. She'd been very sensitive before, and vocal, as he recalled. The memory, coupled with fresh temptation, sent blood rushing in alert readiness to his loins.
“Dealer takes two,” he said, tossing down a three and a six.
They showed their cards. Tyler won with three kings, but Anna was close with three tens. He scraped the pennies toward his pile, then stood up to stretch and pour a little more champagne. “Let's change the stakes to make it more interesting,” he said, sitting down again.
“Yeah, we're pretty evenly matched, I'm afraid. What do you suggest?”
He shrugged. “I don't know. Truth or dare?”
“Okay.”
She won the first round. “Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
She scowled. “How boring.”
Tyler chuckled.
“Let's see.” She narrowed her eyes and bit on her lip. “Tell me something you did as a kid that your mother never found out about, and she would have killed you if she knew.”
“Well, living with Jake and Lance, you might imagine there were a lot of things like that.” He thought for a moment. “One of my favorites was when Lance and I jumped a freight train and rode into Denver, then back.”
Her mouth fell open. “She never found out? Weren't you gone a long time?”
“Not really. Most of a day, probably, but that wasn't all that unusual. We were country kids.”
Tyler lost the second time, too. He took truth again, but when she asked for his middle name, he shook his head. “Make it a dare.”
With a gleam in her eye, Anna said, “Sing me a song.”
He laughed. “I'll get you for this,” he said, but dutifully sang “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
She lost the next round. Tyler immediately thought of asking for some article of clothing, but she asked for truth. “Now who's wimping out?”
Serenely, she smiled.
How could she be so unrattled? He knew she wanted him, though maybe not the same way he wanted her, which was quickly becoming a mindless, heated, animal thing unlike anything he'd ever experienced, even as a randy teenager waiting for his wedding night with Kara. “Tell me,” he said, “about the first time a boy touched your breasts.”
Color flooded her cheeks. “Tyler, that's not fair!”
He grinned. “You picked truth.”
She took a breath. “Okay, it was Johnny Dinero and we were making out after a school dance and he slipped his hand under my blouse.”
“Did you slap him?” He could just see thatâmoral indignation bristling around her like a halo.
“No,” she said, and smiled. The expression was fertile and sensual and devastatingly female. Awareness made of her eyes liquid pools. “I liked it.”
Tyler inclined his head. “Touché,” he said, and let go of a sigh. “I'm way outclassed.”
“You asked for it.”
“Is it true?”
She only smiled and held out her hands for the cards. She lost again, a pair of aces to his full house. “The heavens are obviously on my side,” he said. “Truth or dare?”
“Truth. I don't trust you with a dare.”
Tyler considered carefully. What question would a woman absolutely refuse to answer? “How much do you weigh?”
With a sigh, she rolled her eyes. “Dare.”
Tyler laughed. It surprised even him, that delighted sound rolling out of his chest, deep and...jeez, happy. “Give me some article of clothing that you're wearing.”
“Oh, all right. I'll tell you how much I weigh.”
“Too late. You know the rules. You have to take the dare.”
She pursed her lips, considering, then reached behind her, did something, and then reached under her sleeves to pull her bra straps, first one side, then the other, tugging the bra out of the right sleeve. She put it in his hand.
It was not a sexy item of clothing, just a simple white bit of cloth, but it still held the warmth of her body, and Tyler felt a sizzle move from his hand to his groin with electric pain. He looked from the fabric to her, frankly admiring the looseness of unbound breasts below the soft red fabric. “Much better,” he said.
Anna thrust the deck at him. “I'm not going to lose anymore, so you may as well prepare yourself.”
He grinned. “Yeah? Famous last words.” He tossed the bra aside and shuffled the cards thoroughly. “I'm telling you, Lady Luck is with me.”
“We'll see.”
With a flourish, he dealt the cards, set the deck aside and picked up his hand. It took everything he had not to chuckle, and in fact he forced himself to frown.
With a royal flush.
He glanced at Anna, but could read nothing in her face until she raised her eyes. There he saw the shine of triumph. “I'll hold,” she said, her voice low and sexy. “But let's raise the stakes.”
“I'm game. How?”
“It's a dare. And no matter how ridiculous or embarrassing, the other person has to do it.”
“You sound pretty sure of yourself, missy. You planning to humiliate me in public?”
“You deserve it.”
“But what if I win?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I'll take my chances.”
Tyler smiled then. “It's a bet, then.”
“Are you going to draw?”
“Nope.” He spread his cards.
Anna stared blankly at the hand for a moment, and he recognized the stunned expression. She'd lost. “You are unbelievably lucky,” she whispered, and turned over her cards. A straight flush.
“I win,” he said, and could not keep the huskiness from his voice.
“Yes.”
Anticipation, thick and rich, spilled through him, and he allowed himself the luxury of drawing out the moment, sorting through his choices, allowing her the same giddy anticipation.
And he knew she anticipated. Her breath came more quickly, and her eyes had grown heavy-lidded, and the aura in the room was suddenly tense, hushed, waiting. Tyler let his eyes wander over her mouth and thought of asking for another kiss, then moved his gaze lower, to her neck, then lower still, to the aroused tips of her breasts below the sweater.
And he knew what he would ask. “Come here, Anna,” he said. “Let me claim my prize.”
Without speaking, she rose up on her knees and moved closer to him. “Even on a double dare, you don't have carte blanche,” she said.
“Two things only.”
He reached for her, sliding his fingers under the neckline of her sweater at either side. “You don't have to do anything at all. Just sit right there.” He moved closer and, slowly, slowly, enjoying every inch of the journey, he slid the soft red fabric down her shoulders, first exposing creamy white shoulders, delicate as the wings of a dove, then the swell of her upper breasts. “This is the first thing,” he said.
At last her breasts, white and round and uptilted, were free. Anna made a soft sound, but she did not move, and he worried that he'd upset her. Tyler glanced at her face.