The Royal Wager

by Kristi Gold

“You certainly are making some fairly big assumptions.”

  “Assumptions or truths?”

  “Assumptions.”

  Mitch pushed away from the desk and moved closer to her. “You’re not even a little bit hot and bothered right now, knowing we’re alone? Knowing we could do anything we please and not a soul would know about it?”

  “No.” She turned away from him and walked to the window, but not before he saw the uncertainty in her expression, the desire in her eyes.

  He came up behind her and this time, he didn’t bother to keep his hands off of her. He couldn’t.

  Circling his arms around her waist, he pulled her against him. She didn’t resist, but she also didn’t relax. “I don’t believe you, Tori. I think right now, you’re about to go up in flames. So am I.”

  “I’m about to go up to Stella’s and get my camera.”

  He worked her sweatshirt up and rested his palm on her bare abdomen. “I wouldn’t mind taking a few pictures as long as we do it without our clothes.”

  Her breath hissed out when he began to trace the waistband on the loose-fitting jeans with a fingertip. “Not a good idea. They could fall into the wrong hands.”

  Mitch slid his palm right beneath the jeans until he contacted the band on her panties. “I’d make sure they stayed in my hands.”

  “Mitch, we can’t.” Tori tipped her head back against his shoulder, belying her protest.

  He inched his palm lower, beneath the lace. “You don’t have to do anything, Tori, except enjoy it.”

  The gasp that slipped out of her mouth was soft, needy, and so was her flesh as he searched for the place that would ensure her pleasure.

  “You’re hot, Tori,” he told her as he caressed her with his fingertips, his strokes deliberate in their intent. He wanted her weak and wanting. He wanted to hear her moan, feel her come apart.

  When the rap sounded at the door, Tori yanked his hand from beneath her jeans and wrenched away.

  “Hey, Mitch, are you in there?”

  Mitch walked to the desk, braced both palms on the edge and lowered his head. “Yeah, Bob. I’m here.” He sounded winded, something that wouldn’t be lost on his foreman.

  “Is Tori with you?”

  “Yes,” she answered in a raspy voice. “We were just talking.”

  Bobby chuckled. “Okay. Stella wanted me to tell you she’s made some lunch, so when you and Mitch are done talking, come on up.”

  “She’ll be there in a minute, Bob,” Mitch answered for her.

  “If it’s only going to take you a minute, Mitch, then maybe you should grab something to eat so you’ll have more stamina.”

  One more word and Mitch was going to rearrange his foreman’s face. “Get out of here, Bob.”

  “I’m leaving, boss. Take your time, Tori.” Bobby’s retreating footsteps could barely be heard over his laughter.

  “Mitch, I’m—”

  “Don’t say it, Tori. Don’t you dare say you’re sorry.”

  “I was going to say I’m totally losing my mind.”

  He shoved back from the desk and faced her. “Join the club.”

  She linked her hands behind her neck, causing the sweatshirt to ride up where Mitch caught a glimpse of her navel. He did not need to see anything that even resembled bare flesh.

  Dropping her arms to her side, she blew out a slow breath. “Okay. Maybe this thing is stronger than both of us.”

  “What clued you in? Was it before or after I almost made you—”

  “Before.”

  “What are we going to do about it?” he asked even though he knew exactly what he wanted to do—carry her up to the house and into his bed.

  “Well, right now, I’m going to get some lunch, then I’m going to write down a few notes.”

  He allowed a disparaging smile to surface. “Until we finish what we started a minute ago, your notes are going to be incomplete.”

  She came as close to a scowl as Mitch had witnessed so far. “Notes as in your business skills.”

  He took two steps toward her. “That’s not going to be as interesting.”

  She smiled and took two steps back. “I’ve got a great idea. Mitch Warner’s ten favorite ways to please a woman.”

  He advanced one more step. “Only ten?”

  This time, she didn’t move. “You know, I don’t think you really want to go there in the article. You’d never have a moment’s peace for all the women lining up the drive to find out if you live up to the hype.”

  One more step and he’d be in her face, and back into trouble. “Do I live up to the hype?”

  She hesitated and pretended to think a moment. “I’m not sure yet. As you’ve said, my notes are still incomplete.”

  Five more minutes of this kind of talk and he was going to back her up against the wall, to hell with the bed. “Maybe we should do some more research tonight.”

  “Your granddad invited me to the festival.”

  Mitch had totally forgotten about the event that he’d attended for the past ten years without fail. “I’ll go with you.”

  “You will?”

  “Yeah. You probably need some protection from all the cowboys. Once they get a good look at you, you’ll be fighting them off in record numbers.”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “I’m serious, Tori. It’s not too often that a woman as good-looking as you comes into town.” And he’d be damned if he’d let any of them touch her.

  “And who is going to protect me from you?”

  Man, he’d really done it now if she was that wary of him. “You don’t have to worry about that. I’ll be on my best behavior.”

  She walked up to him, adjusted his collar and then patted him on his chest. “We could consider this a friendly date.”

  “A date?”

  “Does Mitch Warner not date?”

  The last real date he’d been on had been a wreck—dinner with Mary Alice and her daddy. Clyde Marshall had spent the entire evening blowing cigar smoke in Mitch’s face while he’d tried to sell Mitch on the benefits of becoming a member of the family. “I might shock a few people in town if I stroll in with you on my arm.”

  Her expression sobered. “No one has to know it’s actually a date, Mitch, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

  “I didn’t say I cared what anyone thought.”

  “You might, considering you’ll be with me.”

  He didn’t understand this one damn bit. “You’re not making any sense, Tori.”

  She sighed. “When I was younger, people assumed that since my mother had me out of wedlock, I would automatically follow in her footsteps. I heard the speculation many times before I got out of this godforsaken town. For that reason, I didn’t date. I didn’t give anyone any reason to believe that I was anything but a good girl who didn’t dare step out of line.”

  Now it was beginning to make sense. On one level, she was the self-assured career woman. On a deeper plane, she was still that vulnerable teenager trying to prove her worthiness to walk among society. “Then you’re saying I might not want to be seen with you because people might assume that you, a grown woman, might be sleeping with me?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Tori, you don’t have anything to prove to me or anyone else. Whatever happens between us is our business, and no one else’s. It doesn’t make you a bad person.” When she lowered her head, he lifted her chin. “I would be honored to escort you through the streets of town. To hell with what anyone thinks.”

  Her smile illuminated the room, and something in Mitch lit up, too. It felt good to bring out that smile with such a simple gesture. Unlike Mary Alice, it took so little to please Tori, only one more reason why he enjoyed her company. One more reason to show her more pleasure than she’d ever known.

  “Great,” she said. “I’ll get to work, you get to work then we’ll go to the fair. What time?”

  “Seven. I’ll pick you up.”

  Her smile withered. “
Are you sure you want to do this? I could always go with Stella and Bobby or Buck.”

  He brushed a kiss across her cheek. “I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t want to. I don’t do anything I don’t want to do.” Except he didn’t want to feel what he was feeling for Tori, but it seemed he had little choice in the matter.

  “Okay. I’ll see you at seven,” she said, followed by a quick kiss on his cheek.

  When she turned and headed for the door, he said, “One more thing, Tori.”

  She faced him with her hand curled around the knob. “What?”

  “You and I both know that what’s going on between us isn’t going to change anytime soon.”

  “And your point?”

  “Would it be so wrong to just enjoy each other while you’re here?”

  “Why don’t we wait and see how it goes tonight?”

  He knew exactly how it was going to go. He’d be pretending that everything between them was casual, but deep down he would be wanting her with every breath he drew. “All right. I can live with that.” If it didn’t kill him.

  “Fine. I’ll see you later.”

  When Tori closed the door, Mitch dropped down into the chair behind his desk and rested his face in his hands. He couldn’t help but wonder if his behavior, his uncontrolled desire for her, had her believing that he saw her as an easy target because of her history. Very far from the truth.

  Tori Barnett was smart and sexy. A class act. A woman that any man with half a brain would like to know better. He had revealed more about himself to her than he’d ever revealed to any woman. She’d begun to melt his emotional walls and although he found that troublesome, he couldn’t ignore the anticipation every time she walked into a room—and that had little to do with sex, as reluctant as he was to admit it.

  Yet he had offered her no more than a date to the local shindig and a few sessions of lovemaking while she was in town. But then she hadn’t asked anything else of him. Still, he intended to put on the brakes. Tonight, he would treat her like the one-in-a-million woman she was. He wouldn’t expect more than her company and, in turn, prove that he did respect her enough to ignore his own needs. Anything that happened between them from this point forward would be up to her.

  He would be the gentleman his mother had taught him to be. In the meantime, he would remind himself that in a matter of days, she would leave him to return to her own life. He would also try to ignore that bite of regret struggling to the surface every time he thought about her departure.

  He still had six days in her presence and even if they never made love again, Mitch would always be glad for this time with Tori Barnett—an honest-to-goodness good girl.

  “Bobby tells me you were doing Mitch in his office.”

  Tori stopped mid-bite and swallowed quickly in order to deliver a retort to her former best friend. “I was not doing Mitch anywhere.”

  Stella pushed her plate back and smiled. “And why weren’t you, Tori?”

  “Oh, good grief.” Snatching her own plate from the table, Tori walked to the kitchen counter, shoved the uneaten half of her turkey sandwich into the trash, then set the dish in the sink. “Give me one good reason why I should be sleeping with Mitch Warner.”

  “Because you want to.”

  Exactly, Tori thought, staring into the suds as if they could foretell the future. “What I might want to do and what I should do are two different things.”

  “Tori, don’t you think it’s time to stop being the good girl?”

  How weird that Stella should bring that up considering Tori’s recent conversation with Mitch. For a second, she wondered if they’d been plotting the demise of her resistance together. “If you recall, I was not a good girl four nights ago.”

  Stella came up beside Tori and rested an elbow on her shoulder. “Knowing you, you’ve been beating yourself up inside ever since.”

  Tori shrugged off Stella’s arm and began washing the dishes with a vengeance. “I haven’t exactly been beating myself up, although I probably should.”

  “Why? What happened between you and Mitch was nature having a field day. You should be glad you’ve had the opportunity, and you should be trying to grab a few more.”

  She ran the dishrag round and round in a glass until it squeaked. “To what end, Stella? I’ll be leaving here in a few days and then it’s over.”

  “So?”

  A stretch of silence passed before Stella said, “Oh, gosh. You’re falling in love with him!”

  “I’m not. I can’t.”

  “Sometimes you don’t have a choice. I certainly didn’t want to fall in love with Bobby, but I’m glad I did.” She patted her belly. “Now I have a baby on the way and a man who loves me more than his horse.”

  Tori chuckled. “That’s nice to know, but that’s exactly the reason why I can’t fall for Mitch. He doesn’t love me more than his horse, and he never will.”

  “He could. Stranger things have happened.”

  After rinsing off one plate, Tori leaned a hip against the counter and faced Stella. “Not with Mitch. He gives the term ‘confirmed bachelor’a whole new meaning. His determination to avoid commitment is etched in cement.”

  “Then my advice is to make a few memories to take back to Dallas with you. If you’re going to fall in love with him, you’ll do that without going to bed with him again. You can’t make it any worse by having a little fun while you’re falling.”

  Stella was probably right. If she was going to lose her heart to Mitch, she would do that without ever kissing him again.

  Until this point in her life, she’d been a model citizen. She didn’t even have a citation on her driving record. She’d been a devoted daughter. She’d waited until she’d been in a long-term relationship before she’d made love for the first time. She’d walked the straight and narrow for so long she was surprised she didn’t step heel to toe. Enough was enough.

  Saint Victoria vowed to say goodbye to the good girl, at least for tonight.

  Seven

  The fair had packed the streets to capacity, both with vendors and townsfolk from across three counties. As it had been from the time Tori was young, all the citizens looked forward to the event as a nice diversion from the everyday grind. Back in her youth, she’d always attended the festivities with her friends. Not once had she ever been on the arm of a boy, taking in the games on the midway provided by the same Oklahoma City carnival company for fifty years. Not once had she sat in Horner’s pasture on a blanket with a date to watch the fireworks light up the sky after sundown. Not once had she kissed on a Ferris wheel.

  Those were nothing more than unrealized teenage dreams. Tonight she enjoyed the company of a dream man dressed in a starched pale blue shirt that enhanced his eyes, just-right jeans that highlighted his attributes and a tan felt hat that crowned him the consummate cowboy. And his cologne—well, that should just be labeled lethal.

  Yes, tonight Tori walked the sidewalk amidst the chaos of the crowd, the gorgeous Mitch Warner by her side—when he wasn’t shaking hands with all the passersby. His political roots were showing, whether he cared to admit it or not. She wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he started kissing babies. That was okay, as long as he saved a few for her later on.

  Right then she stood on the sidewalk in front of the hardware store, waiting while Mitch visited with Lanham Farley, the town’s mayor who happened to be older than Red River dirt. However, he was still upright and able to take nourishment, evident by the fact he was gnawing on a smoked turkey leg with his dentures.

  Tori engaged in people watching to pass the time. She had to admit the excitement in the air was palpable. Strident screams came from the vicinity of the belly-flopping rides scattered around on the vacant lot at the end of the street. That lot used to house the livestock auction barns before people took their business to bigger cities and better markets. She was amazed that Quail Run hadn’t completely died out as so many small towns had. In many ways, she was glad it hadn’t, even if she never
planned to live here again. As she’d told Buck earlier that day, not every memory was a bad one. And she hoped tonight that with Mitch, she might make a few more good ones. If he ever escaped the esteemed mayor.

  “Well, my, my, you did stick around.”

  Tori glanced to her right to see Mary Alice Marshall, her jeans painted on her narrow hips and her lips painted fire-engine red. Her perfectly curled long blond hair trailed from beneath a white cowboy hat as she clutched an armful of stuffed animals that Tori would like to tell her to stuff in a place where the sun don’t shine. “Hello, Mary Alice. Looks like you made a haul.”

  Mary Alice squeezed the animals to her ample chest. “Actually, Brady won these for me. Aren’t they cute? I plan to give them to the children’s home in Bennett.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “And it’s nice of you to support the festival, considering your limited means. But you shouldn’t just stand here.” She pulled a strip of red tickets from the pocket of her jeans. “Take these and go have some fun.”

  Tori intended to, starting now. “Actually, I’m waiting for Mitch, so I won’t be needing any freebies.”

  “Mitch?” Mary Alice’s voice cracked like an adolescent boy’s.

  “Yes.” She nodded toward the cowboy-in-question. “He’s talking to Mayor Farley. I’m sure he’ll be finished in a moment.”

  Mary Alice inclined her head and gave Tori a hard stare. “Are you and Mitch an item, or is he just being charitable?”

  Tori gritted her teeth to halt the litany of insults threatening to spew forth. “Actually, he’s—”

  “Ready to go.”

  Mitch’s surprise appearance couldn’t have been better timed. The arm he draped over Tori’s shoulder couldn’t have been more welcome. “Let’s go, Tori.” He touched the brim of his hat and said, “’Night, Mary Alice,” but didn’t wait for a response.

  Tori sent Mary Alice a smug smile over one shoulder as they walked away. “Have a good time with Brady.”

  After they’d traveled a block, Mitch asked, “What did she say to you?” concern in his voice and his eyes.

  “Nothing much. She just wanted to make sure I remembered my place and wished me a good time, until she found out I’m having it with you.”