Game of Hearts (Stacked Deck Book 3)

by Emilia Finn

  I love you too. I’m sorry I didn’t say it.

  My finger hovers over the send button. Shaking. Hesitant. So fucking scared, because I don’t want to undo the work I’ve already put into convincing her to go.

  But for her to think she’s unloved…

  Unforgivable.

  I hit send and blow out a heavy breath of… relief? Relief that I said it out loud. Well, typed it, but still.

  I don’t know if I’m terrified or exhilarated. Horrified or relieved. But then my phone lights up with a reply.

  Lucy: It’s okay. I know you do. But thanks for telling me.

  My heart throbs and swells. Go to her, and give her everything we both want. Or stay here, continue this farce, and pretend that someone else could take better care of her if I was out of the way.

  I know which option I want. And I know which is the truth, and yet, I can’t find the courage to go to her.

  Before I can decide, my phone beeps a second time. Her name flashes on my screen. In the dark, her name and the picture I have of us on the screensaver are all I see, so even if I’m all alone in a cold apartment, I don’t feel lonely. Not when she’s mine.

  Lucy: Whatcha doing?

  Lucy: I miss you.

  I leave my things on the counter, but take my phone and head into the hall and type as I walk: I just got home. Gonna go to bed and pray that when I see you tomorrow, you don’t hate me. I’m sorry I was a dick.

  Lucy: Love and hate are so closely related.

  Lucy: When you go to bed… will you dream of me?

  “Yes.” I say it out loud, the sound escaping my throat without my permission as I move along the hall and push my bedroom door open.

  It’s dark in here too, the moonlight from outside illuminating only a small patch of space at the end of my bed. Everything is as it should be, but then a dog growls so low, so fucking menacing, that my bowels liquify.

  “The fu–”

  “Deck. Sit.”

  Her voice in the darkness is like my every dream. Her sultry tenor, the sweet perfume of fruit that fills my room.

  I flip the lights on with a fast slap of my hand against the wall, and though my eyes should be on the massive dog readying to rip my cock off, my eyes stop on the girl in my bed.

  In my fucking bed!

  “Lucy?”

  “Turn the light out.” Her voice shakes. “Turn it off, please. Deck, sit.”

  Deck sits, but his lips remain peeled back until I offer my hand and let him sniff. I do that with only a single molecule of brainpower, because my eyes and attention remain on Lucy.

  In my fucking bed. “What are you doing?”

  Huffing when I don’t do the only thing she asks of me, she pushes the covers back, reveals panties and a matching bra, and crawls across the mattress. She’s not purposely trying to be seductive, but it’s the effect she gets anyway when she’s on all fours and moving in my direction.

  My room is so small that when she perches on the corner, she literally only has to reach out to flip off the lights, then we’re shrouded in darkness again. Her heart pounds just as violently as mine. I feel it as she moves to her feet, steps close enough that her body becomes flush with mine, and somehow, without my permission, I swear, my hands end up on the small of her back.

  Her skin is like butter, but fiery hot. She’s like a furnace in my freezing room.

  “It’s time for you to stop thinking with your brain.” She steps onto her tiptoes, presses her lips to mine in an experimental nip, and when I don’t push her away, she dives in right where we left off at the studio. “I need you to stop making decisions for me.” She leaves me gasping, only to slide her tongue along my jaw, and her leg higher along mine.

  It’s human nature, it’s the fuckin’ law or something, that when she lifts a leg, I must slide my hand down and catch her. Because what if she falls and I could have stopped it?

  Exactly.

  “Good.”

  When I have her left leg securely in my hand, she goes the rest of the way and lifts the other. She makes it impossible for me to walk away. She makes it impossible for me to say no. So when she wraps her arms around my neck, and her fiery core heats my belly through the fabric of my clothes, I step toward the bed.

  “Good choice,” she coaches. “Finally.”

  “You’re dangerous for me.”

  And yet, I lay her on her back and free my hands to unzip my coat. I toss it away without a single care for where it lands. Deck makes sounds of contentment, no doubt making a bed of my clothes as I toss them, but in the moonlight, Lucy’s eyes remain on mine.

  She’s a vision as shadows play over her features. Her hair, like a depthless, black pool, frames her head, and her lips, always plump and inviting, now swell as she nervously nibbles on the bottom one and watches me.

  I’m done saying no. I’m done denying us, so I toss my shirt away, lean forward while I fumble with the drawstring on my shorts, and press my lips to her ribs.

  She arches up instantly, feeds me the skin that is soft like rose petals, fragrant like a garden.

  “Forgive me.” I finally free my shorts and slowly push them down. “I’m about to take something that was never for me.”

  “It was always for you,” she whispers. “I was born to be yours.” She reaches out and winds her arms around my neck to keep me captive. As soon as my shorts are around my ankles, she pulls me down and whimpers with pleasure when our bare stomachs touch. “You’ll break my heart if you say no now. I couldn’t take it.”

  “I can’t say no.”

  I blindly kick my shoes away with zero care that they might hit the dog – or become the dog’s chew toys by morning. And when my feet are free, I wrap an arm under her back, only to lift her along the length of my bed so her head is on the pillows.

  “I wanted to come back and get you,” I admit on a whisper. “I can’t say no anymore. So I need you to do it. I need you to make our decisions.”

  “I want us to be together.”

  Strong, because she always has been, she hooks a leg around mine, scissors up, and flips us over so I land on my bed with a soft thud, and she reveals herself over me. Her hair is like a halo, the flyaway strands lit up from the moonlight. Her bra and panties aren’t fancy in the traditional sense, but they’re beautiful anyway. Bikini bottoms, a little frill up top. She creates a vision that will live inside me for the rest of my life.

  “First time has to be gentle,” she murmurs. “But don’t you dare freak out or feel guilty if it hurts me.”

  “You waited?” My throat swells with emotion. “You really did?”

  “Of course. Who else was I going to give it to?”

  She lifts off me, but only so she can lower my boxer shorts. Then she sits back down and almost sends me straight over the edge of insanity. Her panties are on, but the heat, the nearness, the promise almost brings me to completion.

  She hesitates when I say nothing… when my hands tense on her hips… and waits for my eyes. “It’s okay if you didn’t wait for me.” Her voice cracks. “It’ll near kill me, I swear. And I’ll probably murder you in your sleep. But if you didn’t…” She nods. “It’s okay. I forgive you. I can’t live without you, so that means I forgive you.”

  I reach up and slide my hands into her silken hair. Pulling her down until we lay skin to skin, I keep one hand in her hair, and let the other glide over her skin. Over her back. Along the deep valley of her spine. And down to find her panties only cover half of her ass.

  Pleasure rumbles in the back of my throat, vibrates from my mouth to hers, and ends with a groan for us both when my cock swells and she presses down over me to steal her own pleasure.

  “Jesus, Lucy.”

  I bring my hand up again, but only to flick her bra open. I don’t push her off my chest. Showing me will have to be her decision, and not something I take before she’s ready.

  But she’s running ahead of me. She always has been. She lifts away from me, hides in the shadow
s of the room, and lets the straps fall away from her arms. She frees herself, audibly gulps, and when she leans forward again, into the muted light, shows me insecure eyes.

  “Tell me I’m beautiful,” she begs. “Please, tell me that I’m doing it right.”

  She’s terrified, and I’m over here thinking about my own shit.

  Swallowing, I reverse our positions, push her to her back, then slide over her and sample her neck with teasing nips and long, torturous lashes of my tongue. “You’re so fucking beautiful, you make it hard for me to think.” Another slide of my tongue over her delicate throat. “I forget how to talk. How to breathe.” I grind my cock down against her core. “But somehow, I know how to do this. I’ve never done it before, but my body knows.”

  “Thank god,” she cries. Her arms tighten around my neck as her chest bounces with a choked sob. “Make love to me, Mac?”

  I nod. “I can’t walk away anymore.” I move away from her neck, only to slide my tongue over her chest and to the crest of her peaked nipples.

  From soft and passive, to a pleasure-filled groan I know tempts the dog to tear me apart, she tenses and almost levitates off the bed. Her hand tightens in my hair, tearing it from the roots, and her legs squeeze around my hips, but I still play with her nipple. I tug it between my lips, elongate it with a gentle suckle, and when I’m sure she’s going to snap, I bite and grin at her whimper.

  She’s powerless, when she’s always holding the power. She’s a slave to me, when she’s a slave to no one.

  I release one nipple with a pop, only to move to the other and repeat the process. Her stomach tightens beneath me. The muscle she’s spent a lifetime earning tenses, grows, and prepares her for war.

  Lovemaking and war are the same thing, no?

  Fuck knows, but I can’t wait to find out.

  I make my way down her torso, pepper kisses to her abdominal muscles, her belly button, and laugh when I kiss her hipbone and she shoots up in chase for more.

  “Your body knows how to do it too.” With gentle hands, I slide the tips of my fingers into her panties and slowly lower them. A centimeter at a time, torturous for us both, until my cock weeps from want, and my heart threatens to explode.

  But this time, I’m not scared.

  “Tell me what hurts, okay?” I lower her panties and reveal a glistening slit. A neat thatch of hair. Sparkling fluid on her thighs. And suddenly, I salivate at the thought of tasting.

  I get her panties all the way down, toss them aside, then I come back to find her quivering. Her hands, her legs, her lips.

  I rest on my elbows between her legs, glance along the length of her body, and meet her eyes. “Are you scared?”

  She nods.

  “That I’m going to hurt you?”

  She shakes her head. “That you’re going to ask me to leave when we’re done. That you’re going to regret doing it. That you’re going to pretend we aren’t together tomorrow.”

  “Impossible.” Forgoing the sample I so desperately want, I crawl along her body and pause when the tip of my dick touches her blazing core. I didn’t do it on purpose, but human nature knows how to make this happen. “I’m not going to send you home,” I promise. “When you walk away, it’ll be because you decided to.” I take her hand, and place it on my thundering chest. “And it’ll kill me when you do. You’re on loan right now, someone else’s prize, but I’m gonna take you anyway. Because I can’t say no anymore. It’s too late for me.”

  “Please hurry,” she whimpers. “The longer you take, the more nervous you’re making me.”

  “Okay.” I swallow and lean to my right to reach into my bedside drawers. I’ve never needed condoms until now, but everyone in my life made it a point to make sure I had a lifetime supply. “Just give me a sec.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” She grabs my jaw, brings me back to face her. “I know it probably sounds naïve and crazy, I know your mom and my mom were both teen parents. I get it. But I’m on the pill, I swear I am. I have been for a while, and I haven’t forgotten a single one.”

  “I trust you.” A million talks given, a million warnings laid down, they all fly away on the wind because of her word. “I do, I trust you. You’re too smart to mess it up. And even if it goes that way…” I shrug. “We’ll deal.”

  I push up to my knees, rest an elbow beside her head, and using my other hand, I encircle my dick and groan at that single contact. It’s not even her hand, and yet, I want to blow.

  I maneuver myself, come closer, work out my spacing much the same as in a fight, and when the tip of my cock touches her opening, I lean in and take her lips with mine so our twin groans mingle and join. “Are you ready?”

  She nods. Nervously lifts her chin, and swallows. “I’m ready.”

  “I’ll go slow, I swear. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “It’s gonna be okay.” She lifts her legs around my hips and slowly draws me in.

  It’s like dipping into a hot tub on a cold night. Like submerging your whole body in hot water, and though only my cock is shrouded by her warmth, the heat trickles below my skin and warms me from head to toe.

  “Jesus.” I groan at the constriction. “So fucking tight.”

  “Keep going,” she whimpers. “All in or all out. The halfway doesn’t feel nice.”

  “Okay.” I grit my teeth and hold her ass in my hand as I push forward.

  It’s like knocking down walls. They’re not impossible fortresses, but they’re impossible not to notice.

  “Ridged,” I choke and laugh in one. “Just like you said.”

  She throws her head back and groans when I push past another wall. “Mac.”

  “Yes.” I grab her chin and draw her face down. “Say my name when we’re doing this. Look into my eyes so I know you see me.”

  “I do.” She pulls my face closer when I pull back, slams her lips over mine and tightens her legs. “I see you, Mac. I’ve seen you, wished for you since I was old enough to want.”

  “Last bit,” I pant, breathless despite barely moving. “You ready?”

  She scrunches her eyes closed and nods. “Ready.”

  “Open your eyes.” I rock against her, dig in deep and try to hold myself together when all I want is to let go. Her eyes flutter open, scared but trusting, as I push past that final barrier, and seat myself deep inside.

  A squeak escapes on her breath, and tears rush to her eyes, but when I smile, her lips shakily quirk up.

  “I love you.” I press a kiss to the corner of her lips. “It’s important you hear that your first time.”

  Lucy

  Pillow Talk

  I lay on his left side, my head nestled on the soft spot between shoulder and chest, my leg resting on top of his, and my finger slowly, gently, tracing the long-ago-healed scar.

  This puckered line of scar tissue doesn’t scare me like it might other women. I understand what’s happening beneath it, why it’s there. I think it scares me less than it scares the man who wears it.

  His heart beats rhythmically beneath my ear. Not rushed, not slow. It’s merely… constant, and reassuring as he strokes his fingers over my hip in time with Deck’s snores.

  “You okay?”

  My fingers pause for a moment. Then restart as a grin spreads along my lips. “Uh huh. I’m great.” I pull back a little so I can see his face. “You?”

  “Mm. I’m riding my high,” he murmurs on a low chuckle. “I finally bagged Lucy Kincaid, and for right now, I don’t even feel bad about it.”

  “Live up to your expectations?”

  He barks out a laugh that startles Deck awake. “I was expecting sex swings and pliability of your dancer legs. I’m kinda disappointed you didn’t do the splits at least once. Frankly, I want my money back.”

  “You’re an asshole.” I pinch his nipple, but it doesn’t even make him flinch. “I have these straps at home, actually. They attach to my doorframe.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Yo
u’re such a pervert.” And yet, his laughter makes me happy. “They’re to help me stretch. Get my leg up nice and high for that lift I do.”

  “The one with your leg up higher than your head?”

  I snuggle in to borrow his warmth. “Mmhmm. Soph wants me super stretchy. The higher I go, the more I’ll impress those who are watching.”

  “How much higher can you go? Soon you’ll have to snap the damn thing off and toss it into the audience.”

  I snort and scoot a little closer to him, impossibly so, when Deck steps onto the bed and lies down.

  He doesn’t jump onto the bed, because that would imply effort or short legs. All he has to do is step up, and then he stretches out and takes up a whole half of the mattress space.

  “A well-trained dog won’t sleep on the bed.” Mac’s fingers tickle my hip. “You need to make that phone call.”

  “Tomorrow.” I yawn. “Plus, he’s not even my dog. He just… followed me here.”

  “Mmhmm. You’re a dog mom now. Get used to it.”

  Turning his face after a moment of stretched silence, he presses a long, heady kiss to my forehead that I suspect means more than he’s willing to vocalize. It’s breathy and warm, lingering and possessive enough to make my eyes burn. “You’re okay, right? You swear?”

  I nod and press a kiss to his chest. “Swear. Thank you for not sending me away.”

  “I can’t.” He wraps both arms around my shoulders and pulls me in so tight that I sigh. “It’s too late now. I can’t give you back.”

  “Could you give me back this morning, after we kissed?”

  He grunts out a “Nuh uh.”

  “What about a week ago? If I’d wanted to walk, could you have let me go?”

  “No.”

  “A year?”

  “Shut up.”

  I scoff. “You’ve been playing this game of yours for so long, torturing us both, and for what? To still end up here. Finally.”