Play Me (Barnes Brothers Book 2)

by Alison Kent

  The door opened and there he stood, the wolf, the wild animal, the man. Tall and broad-shouldered, long-legged and strong. He’d come for what he wanted, to finish what they’d started, to stake his final claim. Panic rolled through Sophie on a shiver, trailing tails of expectation, sensation, and desire. It was time.

  Tyler kicked the door closed, pulled the black beaver Stetson from his head and tossed it onto the kitchen table. When he started to shrug off his jacket, she interrupted.

  “You might want to leave that on.”

  He shook his head. “We don’t have time to take our time.”

  She twisted her hands at her waist, shoved them deep into her pockets. “Not even time for foreplay?”

  His eyes heated. “What do you call what we just did in my bathroom?”

  “That was over an hour ago.”

  “I know. I’ve counted every second since,” he said but kept the jacket on.

  She gave a small, hesitant shrug, glanced toward the mattress then back to the impatience in his face. “Since the board is all that’s left of the Scrabble game, I thought we could play cards. Maybe a game of… poker?”

  He arched one brow then the other and propped his hands at his waist. The tails of his coat flared behind him and he advanced, slowly shaking his head.

  Oh, God, he was right, she thought and stared at the row of candles, the flickering gold lights and reflective silver bases. She and Tyler had reached this point too often already. It was time to toss her plan, go with his, and just do it

  But then she remembered the way he’d looked while playing Scrabble, the way he’d looked at her tonight when she’d walked into the room.

  She wanted to take him to that edge again. To see on his face what she felt in his body and know that the feelings burning between them reached all the way to his soul.

  Taking a deep breath, she looked at him then, caught a teasing hint of the big bad wolf in the smile that claimed both his eyes and his mouth. When he walked toward her, her breathing stopped, started again at the touch of his hand on her elbow.

  He guided her to one side of the mattress, stepped over to the other, and made himself comfortable. Sprawled out on one side, one elbow braced on the love seat, he picked up her deck of cards and shuffled them from hand to hand. “We need to establish the rules here.”

  Sophie crossed her ankles, folded her legs, and sat. So far, so good. “The first one would be that you’re the dealer?”

  “If you insist,” he said and winked.

  “And the second?” she asked, the butterflies floating through her stomach making it hard for her to catch a normal breath.

  “The winner of each hand gets his or her pick of the loser’s clothing.”

  She had on enough layers that she could live with that since she didn’t intend to lose more than one or two hands anyway. “All right? Any more rules?”

  “Just one.”

  “Yes?”

  “From here on out, neither of us is allowed to say the word stop.”

  At this point, it was heaven to have that decision taken out of her hands. It gave her the freedom of… freedom, exploration. Especially since she knew if she told him to stop, he’d stop.

  “Five card stud?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” he said and dealt the first hand.

  She let him deal because he was obviously going to anyway and because her hands were shaking too badly to handle a deck of cards. Or even a measly hand of five, she realized ruefully as the cards Tyler dealt her ended up in her lap.

  “Nervous?” he asked, his eyes alight with male pleasure.

  “Just being my usual clumsy self.”

  “I don’t think so, Sophie. I’ve seen you splice wires the size of filaments. There’s not a clumsy bone in your body.”

  Well, he would know about that. “Ah, but wiring doesn’t count. I can do that with my eyes closed.”

  “You can do this with your eyes closed, too.”

  How did he do it every time? How did he word his replies for the most affect? “That’s not the kind of eyes closed that I meant.”

  “What did you mean?” he asked, carefully arranging the cards in his hand.

  “Just that I can splice wire without thinking about it. It’s second nature. This…”

  “This you’ve already thought about or we wouldn’t be here now. Am I right?”

  He was right, she realized and glanced at the fire. She’d thought about it and thought about it and thought about it. She was tired of thinking and beginning to wonder if they should just finish what they’d started in the bathroom.

  Foreplay wasn’t supposed to be this much work.

  “Well?” Tyler asked and she looked away from the fire and back to his face.

  “You’re right,” she said, and held her breath, waiting for him to tug the cards from her hand and toss them into the fire.

  But he said, “Great. Then let’s play.”

  Okay. He wanted to play cards, she’d play cards. What she wouldn’t do was remind herself that she’d gotten herself into this mess. She covertly studied the back of his hand and glanced at the faces of the ones she held.

  And that’s when she realized the first of her mistakes. Five card stud was a game of chance. She had to accept the hand she was dealt and live with the consequences—consequences that she knew in advance because she had marked the cards.

  Her second mistake was letting Tyler deal but that one didn’t matter since she’d made a third mistake of failing to learn to cheat as a dealer.

  Her biggest mistake of all, though, was thinking the cards mattered. Because they didn’t. She was going to make love with Tyler no matter what and her stomach knotted in anticipation.

  She slowly lifted her gaze, took the pair of twos he’d placed on the mattress, and added her pair of aces. “I’d like your jacket, please.”

  He shrugged out of his jacket, one corner of his mouth curved upward as he said, “My pleasure.”

  She was sure this was going to be her pleasure but she’d let him play the gentleman.

  Tyler shuffled again, dealt again, and this time Sophie’s hands didn’t shake as much as they had the first round. She told herself this burst of confidence had nothing to do with the fact that she’d won game two.

  Tyler frowned and laid down five cards with nothing in common before she laid down three of a kind.

  “Belt, please.”

  He released his buckle and pulled the strip of leather through the loops. His eyes darkened as he rolled the belt in his palm. “I think I’ll keep this handy just in case.”

  “Just in case what?” she asked.

  “Just in case you keep winning.”

  “Very funny,” she said, even as an illicit thrill tickled low and deep.

  In the next two rounds she divested him of his boots. And while he dealt hand number five, grumbling under his breath, Sophie’s imagination went wild.

  If her luck continued, he was going to be naked and she was going to be fully clothed—a scenario she hadn’t considered. One that would put him at her mercy. Ah, she thought, arranging her cards. Justice after all.

  “What’s the smile for?”

  She looked up then. “Just thinking.”

  “About?”

  “I think I like this game. You know, ‘Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Which piece of clothing is next to go.’”

  Tyler looked at his hand then back at her face. His expression settled into one of satisfaction and Sophie felt the first rush of expectant fear.

  “Well, darlin’. Unless you can beat this, I have a feeling the choice will be mine,” he said and laid down four of a kind.

  Sophie looked down at her puny pair of sevens. Rats. It was bound to happen. She placed her cards on the mattress, freeing her hands to work the laces of her boots. Or to remove her T-shirt at Tyler’s command, she thought, feeling the flush rise.

  She waited for him to choose, waited, meeting his bold gaze with a calm she didn’t fee
l. He rubbed his chin as if pondering a decision of greater importance than her sanity.

  And then he finally said, “I want your panties.”

  Her heart jumped. “My panties?”

  “Yeah, darlin’. Your panties.”

  “But that means…”

  “It means I’ve made good use of the rules.”

  Rules to which she’d agreed. He was asking for the item of clothing he wanted. And she had to do the honorable, if not downright erotic, thing of stripping while he watched.

  Removing clothing wasn’t a big deal, she told herself, reaching for the laces on her right boot. She took them off every day. Often more than once. But she did it in private.

  Though the intimate space humming with life between the four walls of this room wasn’t exactly a stadium, she wasn’t used to an audience. Not an audience whose green eyes flickered with the lights from the fire and brighter lights from deep within. Whose chest rose and fell with ragged breaths she could hear above the pop and sputter of dry fire.

  She tossed the first boot behind her, reached for the laces of the second, licked her lips, dabbed at the moisture beaded above, and decided that the breathing she heard was her own. It filled her ears until all she could hear was the air moving in and out of her lungs, her heart pumping a rush of blood through her veins.

  The second boot joined the first. And she reached for her socks, glad they were clean and glad that Harley had talked her into a quick pedicure. The pale pink polish glittered but Tyler couldn’t see it because he was watching her face.

  She didn’t have to look at him to know the direction of his gaze, she could feel it as surely as she’d felt his fingertips in his bathroom tonight. As surely as she’d be feeling them again.

  Oh, God, she thought, moving her hands to her zipper. She got to her knees, tugged down the denim, then sat and slowly pulled each leg free.

  Her fingers were cold and shaking and Tyler was just sitting there, patiently waiting, quietly waiting, his elbows propped behind him on the love seat, his legs stretched out long.

  She turned her back to him, stared into the fire, watched the tongues of flame lick at the wood and remembered his touch. Her body warmed from the inside out, the temperature of her flesh increased by degrees as she closed her eyes and imagined. Hooked her thumbs in the elastic waist of her panties and pretended. Tugged the material down her thighs and made believe.

  Then she turned to the side, leaned on one hip, and kicked the material free. With Tyler looking on, she folded the panties once, twice, and handed them over.

  He took them, held them, curled his hand around them but his eyes never left hers, never traveled down her naked body, never looked at the scrap of material he held in his hand.

  The moment stretched as did the silence and the endless beating of her heart. She sat with her legs folded to one side, her hands on the mattress at her hips and waited for Tyler to make his move, the heat of the fire toasting her back.

  Her fingers cramped and the sheet beneath her palms grew damp. Her legs ached from holding them tight and gathered to her body. The pulse throbbing through her settled as an ache that only he could fill.

  Finally, he looked at his hand, at her panties. Reaching out, he laid them on the footlocker beneath the Christmas tree then got to his knees, tugged his shirt from his pants, and popped the row of snaps.

  “This is your full house to my three of a kind,” he said and tossed his shirt behind him, baring his chest, the long expanse of skin dusted with hair, the ridge of muscles low on his abdomen.

  “This is your flush to my straight,” he said and reached for his button fly. He released each copper button, slipped the jeans over his lean hips and down his cowboy-strong legs.

  Kneeling in front of her in Christmas-red boxers, he lifted the hem of her shirt and tugged up. She raised her arms and feeling no shame, no embarrassment, no uncertainty of any kind, she let him strip her naked.

  “This is my royal flush to your two pairs,” he said and lowered them both to the mattress. His elbows bracketed her shoulders, his hands cupped her head.

  The first slow press of his chest to her breasts was bliss. She wrapped her arms around his waist and held him tight, skimmed her hands over his boxers to the backs of his hair-dusted legs. She wiggled, fitting her body to his, allowing his silk-covered erection to settle and lay heavy between her thighs.

  She looked up into his eyes and when she saw what she knew to be love, she smiled. He smiled back and began. He lowered his mouth to hers, tasted her, taught her his ways, let her take her fill.

  Her hands roamed over smooth skin, muscles, counted the vertebrae down his spine to the small of his back, skimmed along the waistband of his boxers.

  She pulled her mouth away, looked into his eyes and said, “There’s still one hand left to play.”

  “This one’s your call,” he said.

  Her body couldn’t wait any longer. Neither could her soul. “Then this is the end of the game,” she said and slid his boxers over his hips.

  He rolled to the side, kicked them free. When he returned, she welcomed the beautiful feel of his aroused body between her legs.

  He sprinkled light kisses along her jaw, her cheek, the tip of her nose. While one hand cradled her head, the other ran the length of her body, over a breast, her belly, then traveled lower to test her readiness.

  She was ready and he smiled.

  He eased up to his knees and she watched, fascinated, as he took care of protection. His body was beautiful, rigid and ready with a dense weight shadowed beneath. She wanted him. Oh, how she wanted him. She reached up and let him know, pulling him down until he covered her, wrapping her legs around his hips.

  He slid home and she arched upward, too ready for him to take the time this first coming together deserved. She urged him to move with her palms, digging her fingers deep, begging him to fill her again and again. But he stopped, suspending the moment, and making her cry out

  “Please, Tyler. Please.”

  “In a minute, darlin’,” he said, his breathing as harsh as hers, the sweat from his chest coating her body, the hardness of his stomach pressing deep. “I want you to feel something.”

  He leaned to the side, took her hand, and cupped her fingers beneath the base of his sex. Placing his fingers above, he entwined their hands around the intimacy of their bodies. Then he began to move.

  Braced up on one elbow, he slid his body in and out of hers, between the circle of their hands, making them one in ways she’d never dreamed of. Through it all, his eyes never left her face.

  And when every breath she took caught, when she could no longer remain still, when her fingers slipped from their hot wet skin, he finally released her hand.

  “Wrap your legs around me, darlin’ and hold on tight.”

  She did, crying out as the motion of his body pulled her toward her release. She came back swiftly, opened her eyes to find his gaze on her face, his mouth taut, the veins in his neck lit in sharp relief by the light from the fire.

  He was waiting for her to finish, holding his body in check, giving to her while denying himself. She couldn’t have loved him more. “I love you, Tyler.”

  “Ah, Sophie,” he groaned as his body shuddered and came to rest in her arms.

  She held him there, wrapped close to her heart. And slowly, with the sweet farewell of a clearing mist, the feeling of homesickness faded to be replaced with a sense of coming home.

  ELEVEN

  SOPHIE WOKE ALONE THE NEXT morning. Except she was sure morning had come and gone hours ago. She wasn’t surprised to find that Tyler had already left. He’d told her that he had to make early rounds. She just hoped he functioned better than she did on only an hour of sleep.

  She really needed to get up. And she would. She really would. In another minute or two.

  She hadn’t slept much during the night—an hour here, thirty minutes there—because every time Tyler reached for her, she’d willingly turned and gone
to him. The night before hadn’t provided much rest, either, what with lying on that vinyl couch in the clinic and listening for sounds from the treatment room.

  So much had happened the last two days that she’d barely found time to draw a breath. Her body had obviously picked the wee hours of this morning to shut down and to stay shut down until way past sunrise.

  Pulling the quilt to her chin, she scooted toward Tyler’s half of her side of the mattress, searching for the heat from his body. The sheets were toasty but she knew instinctively the temperature was due to the fire. It wasn’t the same warmth she’d lain beneath so many times during the night.

  Still, she stayed, enjoying the way his scent lingered, almost as if he’d left it for her as a gift, a reminder of what they’d created, and a promise that he’d be there for her always. She had no doubt he’d live up to his word, even a word he hadn’t spoken because that was the type of man he was.

  One who loved his family, took care of his own. One who would let nothing keep him from a daughter who needed him. Especially not for twenty-one years.

  Sophie blew out a huff of breath and ran both hands through her hair, shoving away the segue to that thought. She’d think of her father later. For now, she only had time for Tyler.

  She scrunched around on the mattress and sat up, pulling her knees to her chest. The cold hit her bare back and bare bottom. Shivering, she wrapped herself in the quilt literally from head to toe. The chill gradually waned, a wake-up yawn followed. It was time to get going and figure out where she went from here.

  No, that wasn’t quite true, she thought, stacking both pillows between her back and the love seat and staring into the flames of the fire Tyler had banked before leaving. She knew exactly where she wanted to go, what she wanted to do.

  She wanted to travel her life with Tyler, to celebrate each moment with his generous gifts, to thank him for loving her. To love him in return.

  The stability, the security, the friendship, and respect. The feeling of family and belonging. Everything she’d been searching for throughout her life had been handed to her in a heartbreakingly sweet package.

  And she wanted to make him a home, even if the concept was as alien to her as it was intrinsic to Tyler. He’d never had to put much effort into keeping a family together—at least until now, she thought and smiled to herself.