Brody was so distracted by listening to sounds and peering into the dark that he didn’t get to relish the sight of her full ass inches from his face as she trotted up the stairs in front of him. When they reached the second floor apartments, Missy turned down the dim hall and walked up to one of the only apartments that had a light working outside of the door. Watching behind them as she opened the door, Brody rushed her in as soon as the door was unlocked.
“Be it ever so humble,” Missy said, turning on the light by the door. Taking off her jacket, she dropped it on a dowdy plaid loveseat near the door. Walking in, she turned on more lights, brightening the dark apartment.
Brody looked around the room and was surprised by what he saw. The apartment wasn’t very large, but what she lacked in space she made up with in style. It was very simple yet very inviting, much like the owner. The living room opened up into a small kitchen and there was a small hallway off to the side. Her walls were white, but had pictures adorning them. It was neat, warm and a complete contrast to the exterior.
Although the furniture was obviously secondhand, Missy had made the dismal apartment as cozy as any home he had ever been in. An oak side table with a black lamp separated the red plaid couches. She had a small coffee table in front, facing an armoire, which housed the entertainment unit.
“Would you like something to drink?” she asked, standing in the kitchen.
“A beer if you have it,” Brody said, walking over to her. Sitting at the small round dining table, he watched her bend over and peer in the refrigerator.
Standing up, Missy smiled widely as she held a beer over her head triumphantly. “You’re in luck. Scott must have left it here.”
Brody accepted the beer grudgingly. He didn’t like the idea of Scott being in her apartment, let alone having something that was his here, even something as silly as a beer. “Does he come over here often?”
“Fairly often, I guess,” she said, riffling through a kitchen drawer. “We study a lot together.”
Snorting, Brody opened the bottle and took a long swig. He hoped the bastard died of thirst the next time he was here. “Is he a nursing major as well?”
Turning around, Missy looked at him curiously. “How did you know I was majoring in nursing?”
“I have connections.”
“I think that’s illegal.”
“Legal, illegal it’s all separated by a fine line,” Brody said, holding his fingers a mere inch apart.
“What else did you find out about me?” she asked, placing her hand on her hips.
“That you’re twenty-six, a straight-A student.” Smirking he added, “And your middle name is Mildred.”
“Oh my God.” Missy closed her eyes and cringed. Shaking her head, she opened her eyes and said, “You know I have to kill you now, right?”
Laughing, he stood up and crossed his arms. “Do you think you could take me?” he asked cockily.
Tilting her head to the side, Missy studied him. “Maybe, I’ve been working out.”
“Now I’m scared.”
“You should be,” she teased. Turning her back to him, she opened up another drawer, and cheered. “Woo hoo! I found them.”
Holding a deck of cards, she turned around and smiled. Her smile lit her entire face. Small laugh lines crinkled next to her eyes, almost hidden behind her wire-framed glasses. Brody had to resist the urge to pull her close to him and kiss her. He wanted to hold her close, to feel the weight of her body against his.
Dropping the cards on the table, Missy walked to the side of the couch and opened her book bag. Pulling out a notebook and a pen, she sat down across from him at the table.
“Okay let’s start with the basics,” she said, opening the notebook to a blank page and looking up at him seriously. Picking up her pen, she waited expectedly.
Brody smiled at her and picked up the deck. He should have known that Missy would take this as seriously as she did everything. Brody didn’t doubt for a minute that she would be a quick study, because she seemed to excel at everything she did.
“Let’s start with Five Card Draw,” he said as he shuffled the cards. He grinned discreetly as Missy quickly jotted down what he said. Brody cleared his throat, trying to erase all elements of amusement from it. “It’s probably the easiest to learn. I deal five cards and you try to come up with the best hand possible. Depending on the house rules, you may have to start off with an ante before you even see your hand, or after you see your hand, you have to make the first wager.”
“Wait,” Missy demanded hoping up from her seat, she ran out of the room, bringing back with her a small water jug filled with change. Dumping it onto the table, she separated all the change, and divided it equally between them. Smiling proudly, she said, “Okay, now we can start.”
Shaking his head amusedly, he dealt out five cards, face down. “Write this down, this is the order of highest rank. Royal Flush is a hand with a series of cards, all of the same suit ranking Ace, King, Queen, Jack and Ten. A Straight Flush is a five card sequence where all the cards are of the same suit.
“Full House is a hand comprised of both a three-of-a-kind and a pair. A Flush consists of five cards of the same suit. A Straight is five cards in sequence, of mixed suits. Three-of-a-Kind is three cards of the same rank. Two Pair is obvious, two sets of matches. One Pair is one match. High Card means that it was a really crappy deal and the hand with the highest card wins.”
Waiting for her to finishing writing down the order, Brody studied her intently. Her brown hair was pulled back and her glasses were perched on her nose, sliding down as she bent over. Still dressed in the clothes she’d worn to work, her body was once again practically covered from head to toe. Not even a hint of cleavage teased him from behind her baggy cream shirt, although for once though he was okay with that. The idea of her wearing something seductive at her job didn’t sit too well with him. He didn’t want any of those perverts looking at her, wanting her the way that he did.
Looking up, she picked up her cards and smiled. “Do we ante now?”
“Yes, let’s make it a nickel to start,” he replied, digging through his change.
They both tossed the money in the center and Brody picked up his cards and looked them over.
“How many cards can we ask for?” Missy asked, studying her hand. She was biting her bottom lip as she concentrated, and Brody had to force himself from reaching over like he had at her work and caressing her lip. It was cute and sexy all at the same time. Kind of like her.
“You can only ask for four cards if you have an ace, if you don’t have an ace the maximum is three.”
“Okay, I’ll take three.” Placing her discarded cards to the side, Missy swooped up the new cards Brody sat in front of her.
“Dealer takes three as well,” he said dealing to himself. “Now we bet again.”
“Okay, I bet another nickel.”
“I see your nickel and raise you a dime.” Flipping the coin in he continued, “Now if you want to continue you have to see my dime. You can see it or you can raise it, it’s up to you.”
“How many times can I raise?”
“There’s generally a limit of three raises a game.”
“Well what do I do if I don’t want to raise you, just see your dime?”
“That’s ‘calling’, and you match my raise and then we show each other our hand. If you’re in a normal game with five people or more, then it goes around the table, and some people won’t raise, they’ll fold.”
“Let me backtrack,” he placed his cards on the table. “You might want to write this down as well.”
Missy grabbed her pen and nodded her head for him to continue. “There are five main actions that a player can make when playing poker: bet, call, raise, fold, or check. Bet is to make a wager, call is to see that wager, raise is to up the wager, fold means you give up, and check is the act of not betting anything. If all players check on the same betting round, you still have a chance to win. If someone be
ts after you check you must call, raise, or fold,” Brody ticked off the actions on his fingers. “Are you clear?”
“Yes,” she put down her pen and picked up her cards. Looking down at her change, Missy picked up a dime and threw it into the pot. “So I want to call your dime.”
“Alright show me what you have.”
Laying her cards face up, Missy displayed her hand that had three of a kind. Brody nodded, smiling as he showed her his two pair. Looking up excitedly Missy said, “I won.”
“Yes you did,” he replied proudly. “The pot is yours.”
Throwing her arms up in the air, she squealed happily. “I’m the poker queen!”
Laughing, Brody picked up the cards and shuffled again. “The queen, huh? I don’t think so Princess.”
“Hey, I won, and this is my house, so the house rule is when I win a hand, I am known as the poker queen.”
“What happens when I win?”
“Then you’re known as the lucky court jester.”
“Lucky, huh?”
“Yes,” she replied jokingly.
Dealing out the next hand Brody paused, “Poker is a lot like sex. It’s ten percent luck, and eighty percent skill.”
“What’s the other ten percent?”
“Prayer,” Brody replied, his face void of all humor.
“You prayed for sex, somehow I seriously doubt that.”
“You should have seen me as a teenager. I prayed so hard for Patty Daniels to let me get to third base. I think it was the second time I had ever prayed so hard in my life.”
“What was the first?”
“That I wouldn’t come in my pants.” Missy burst out laughing as Brody had hoped she would. Smiling, he watched her face as she tried to get herself back together. “You have the prettiest smile I have ever seen.”
Missy stopped laughing and started blushing instead, which caused Brody to laugh. Still red, Missy anted up and picked up her new hand. Giving a quick glance to her notes, she placed two cards on the table and said. “So since you know so much about me, I think it’s only fair to know something in return about you.”
“Ask away.”
“Why don’t you just volunteer some information?”
“Because I don’t know what you want to hear.” Brody dealt their new cards and waited for her to respond. Missy was frowning slightly and he had a feeling that it had nothing to do with her hand and everything to do with him.
“Well, I don’t want to pry.”
“Missy,” he said gently. “You can ask me anything.”
“Fine, well, how old are you?”
Laughing Brody replied, “I give you free rein to ask me anything and you ask me that.”
“Well, I don’t know?” she replied, frustrated. “What’s your middle name, your favorite color, your IQ, your favorite band, the thing you look for most in a woman, favorite side of the bed, and the last thing you do before you go to bed?”
“Thirty-two, Cameron, Blue, I don’t know, Metallica, breasts, right, masturbate.” He said in one breath, smiling. “And you?”
“Umm, you already know the first two,” Missy said. “So let’s see, I don’t have one, Dave Matthews Band, I don’t look for anything in a woman, right, and brush my teeth.”
“You don’t masturbate?”
“Not before I go to sleep,” she replied, her cheeks slightly reddening.
“Why?”
“Can we finish this hand? I’ll raise you a nickel.”
“Call,” he said throwing in his nickel and laying down his hand at the same time. “I have nothing, you win. So the hand is done, answer the question.”
“Why did you call if you didn’t have anything?” she asked inquisitively.
“It was the easiest way to finish up. So are you going to answer the question?”
“Don’t you think that it’s a little personal?”
“I told you.”
“But I didn’t ask you that.”
“Fine, it’s my turn, so it’s my question to you.”
“Brody,” she groaned, bringing her hands up to cover her face.
Reaching over, he gripped her wrist in his hands and squeezed them slightly before pulling them down to the table. “I love the way you groan my name, but answer the question.”
“Let go,” she tugged on her wrist.
“Not on your life.”
“You’re a big bully.”
“And you’re avoiding the question. I have nowhere to be tomorrow.”
“Fine,” she huffed. “It’s because masturbating is frustrating.”
“Why?” Brody replied thickly.
“Because it just leaves me keyed up. It doesn’t relax me.”
“That would explain your behavior in the office,” he said, slowly releasing her wrists. “Was that so hard?”
“Maybe,” she pouted, scooping up her change. “Was it so hard to let my wrist go?”
“I got hard the second I touched you, so yeah it was.”
She stilled and looked up at him. “I thought we were going to go slow.”
“This is my slow mode.”
Blanching, she said softly, “That’s a scary thought.”
“I’m trying here, Princess, but you’re going to have to meet me halfway.”
“My half or your half?”
“Mine,” he replied firmly. “I’m more than willing to court you, you deserve it, but taking it slow doesn’t mean ignoring my desire for you. You have me on simmer, but the heat is still there. Only it’s a constant burning. So, as long as I can’t forget that I want you, I’m not going to let you forget it.”
“That’s not slow, Brody.”
“It’s slow enough.” Standing, he reached over the table and brought her to her feet. Brushing his lips against hers, he ached to deepen the kiss, but restrained himself. As hard as he was, Brody knew that if she encouraged him, even in the slightest way, nothing short of a miracle would keep him from plunging into her. Pulling back, he said softly, “I think I’ll call it night.”
“’Kay,” she replied, dazed. Her brown eyes were glazed and her breath shallow.
“Are you free Friday?” Brody asked, releasing her arms and stepping back.
“I think so,”
“Do you want to get together and play again? Say Friday around seven at my place?”
“Sure.”
“Great.” He smiled, walking to the door; he paused as he opened it. “I had fun.”
“So did I,” Missy replied, smiling back. Walking to him, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him quickly on the cheek. “Thanks for coming over.”
“My pleasure.”
“Do you want me to bring the change on Friday?”
“No,” he said, looking down into her eyes. “What we’re going to play doesn’t require any.” Brody walked out of the door and closed it behind him before she could utter a sound. Tonight was poker her way … Friday they would play his.
Chapter 5
Missy looked up from the directions that Brody had left the day before. Feeling like a schoolgirl, she had kept the message he’d left on her answering machine and had replayed it so many times that it wasn’t funny anymore. Just the sound of his voice was enough to send shivers down her spine. She still didn’t understand why he was interested in her, but at this point, she no longer cared.
The porch light shined like a beacon in the night on his ranch-style home. The tan-colored house was similar to other homes in the tract-home community, clean and crisp with a well-maintained yard. Parking her car at the curb in front of his house, Missy got out slowly and looked around. This neighborhood was nothing like hers. Nor like the one she grew up in, either.
Her mom had worked two dead-end jobs just to support the two of them her entire life. She died like she had lived, poor and unnoticed, and Missy had wanted a different life for herself. This kind of life, she thought as she strolled up his walkway. She doubted that Brody knew how lucky he was. Most people in his situation
didn’t.
Ringing the doorbell, she waited nervously for him to open the door. Heart pounding, she smoothed her hair down and ran her tongue quickly over her front teeth to ensure that she didn’t have anything stuck in them. Her pulsed quickened as Brody opened the door and smiled down at her. As usual, he looked wonderful. And also as usual, Missy felt completely underdressed. In jean overalls and tight knit white T-shirt, she had dressed for a casual evening, opting for the comfortable outfit.
Brody, on the other hand, probably thought he looked casual in his khaki Dockers and black form-fitting shirt, but to Missy he looked as if he had stepped off the cover of GQ. Groaning to herself, she wished she could turn back the hands of time and go home to change her clothes. Not that she had anything that nice to wear, but still she wouldn’t have gone for the farmer john look.
“Wow,” she said.
Smiling, Brody stepped back to let her enter. “The same goes for you Ms. Haddan.”
“How do you know I wasn’t talking about your home?” she teased, stepping into his dimly lit foyer. Looking around, she resisted the impulse to shove her hands deep in her pockets, to prevent herself from breaking anything.
Laughing softly, he replied, “You might be talking about the house, but I’m definitely talking about you.”
Rolling her eyes, Missy wrinkled her nose. “Whatever, I look like a reject from ‘Hee Haw’. I thought we were just playing cards. I feel so underdressed.”
“You look great,” he said, closing the door. “And I always had a thing for ‘Hee Haw’.” Brody walked closer to her and took her hand, leading her down the hall.
“Besides,” he said leering at her. “Overalls are my favorite date clothes.”
“Why?”
“Two little snaps and you’re nearly undressed. You can’t go wrong with that,” he teased, leading her into the den. Brody had pulled his navy blue couches to the side, and he had set up his casino poker table in the middle of the room. There were potato chips and pretzels on the coffee table with a couple of beers chilling in a Corona tin bucket.
Missy turned to him, smiling. She could tell he had gone out of his way to make it feel like a real game for her. “This is amazing,” she grinned.
Jokers Wild: Stripped Bare Page 4
