Heart of the Devil

by Meghan March

  “I haven’t bought in yet.”

  “Don’t worry, I fronted you the stake.” I smile, because the tables are once again turning, and if everything goes according to plan, I will win him tonight.

  38

  Forge

  She’s a siren, and I’m the sailor she’s trying to lure in. I’ve never wrecked a ship, but she could tempt me to do anything.

  I may not be good enough for her or deserve her, but I will spend a lifetime learning to be the man she needs me to be.

  “It seems we’re short a dealer,” I say, pointing to the deck of cards in the middle of the table.

  “I thought we’d take turns. That is . . . if you trust me.”

  Just like earlier, every word that comes out of her mouth carries a double meaning.

  “That depends. Do you trust me?” I ask.

  “With my life.”

  Indy’s declaration hits me hard, and the knot in my chest loosens another degree, allowing hope to rekindle.

  “You’re not worried I’ll deal from the bottom? Cheat to win?” I can’t stop myself from asking the question, because we both know I technically cheated to win her before.

  Indy smiles, and it’s like watching the sunrise after a year of darkness. “You want to play dirty? Bring it on. I’m not scared of you, Forge.”

  She’s my equal in every way. More than I ever thought I could have. If this is my only chance at happiness, I won’t waste it.

  A wolfish grin tugs at my lips. “Get ready, Ace. I’m playing for keeps.”

  39

  India

  “Oh, we’re playing for keeps, all right. I’m going to own you when we’re done.” My cocky attitude barely covers the hammering of my heart.

  I’m trying not to read into everything he says, but I can’t help it. My pulse is racing and my palms are sweaty. I can’t lose my composure before we even start.

  I take a deep breath and reach across the table for the cards, careful to allow him a long look down the neckline of my dress. I’m brazen enough to even hope I flash a little nipple. I’m not above playing dirty either.

  In my head, I’ve worked out exactly how I want tonight to end. With us, naked on the table, Jericho buried inside me where he belongs—until he finally admits that he loves me and can’t live without me.

  When I told him that I thought this island felt like home, I meant it—as long as he’s here. Without him, it’s just another place filled with memories that aren’t enough to satisfy me. I’m greedy, and I make no apologies for it. I want him, and I want him forever.

  “You seem to have forgotten some lingerie, India.”

  I wink as I lower back into my seat, not caring that my dress is riding up. “Indy. My friends call me Indy.”

  Jericho’s dark brows rise toward his wet hair. “Are we friends?”

  “I think we will be by the end of the night.” I tap the tip of my tongue to the back of my front teeth, and Jericho shifts in his seat. Please, God, let him be as desperate for me as I am for him.

  “Are you trying to distract me, Indy?” He leans back in his chair, unzipping his rain jacket.

  “I don’t have to try, Jericho. I succeed.” My confidence is growing by leaps and bounds, because he’s giving me every reason to hope that everything I want is everything he wants.

  He shrugs out of the jacket and hangs it on the chair behind him. Beneath it, a damp white T-shirt sticks to his skin.

  “How are you wet under your rain jacket?”

  “I got caught in the rain getting out of the chopper. Wasn’t prepared until I got to the boat.”

  I swallow a lump in my throat as I stare at the outline of his shoulders, pecs, and abs. He’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.

  “Do you want to change into a dry shirt?” I say, sounding like a frog took up residence in my throat.

  “Not unless you’ve changed your mind about being okay with taking me as I am.”

  I press my lips together, hauling back the urge to vault over the table, climb onto his lap and tell him I will take him any way I can get him, and forget this entire freaking game. But I have willpower, I remind myself. And a point to prove and a promise to extract.

  “You don’t have to change a single thing for me. I just don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

  His gaze drops to his lap. “I’m uncomfortable, all right, but it’s not because of my wet shirt.”

  This motherfucker. God, he’s sexy.

  Never before has the prelude to a poker game been the best foreplay of my entire life. My thighs press together, but my lack of panties means that my skin is slick with my own arousal.

  I’m going to ride him all night long—after I win.

  “Then by all means, get comfortable.”

  His stormy gaze bores into me. “Oh, I plan to. Deal the cards, Indy. I’m ready to play.”

  40

  Forge

  How could I have ever walked away from this woman? Temporary insanity.

  If being honorable means living without her, honor can go to hell. I can’t walk away from her again. I’ll take whatever she’s prepared to offer me tonight and never let go.

  “Blinds,” Indy says as she pushes in a stack of $100,000 chips.

  “Playing deep tonight.”

  Her blue eyes spark with challenge. “That’s the only way I like it.”

  Fucking siren. Lure me in. I push double the amount of chips in for the big blind.

  Her delicate hands deftly shuffle the cards, and she deals the hole cards from the top, at least as far as I can tell because she’s quick as fuck.

  I didn’t check the decks for markings, because if she wants to cheat to win, I’m not going to complain. She’s here to make some kind of point, hopefully to save what I fucked up so badly.

  Eagerly, I reach for the two cards in front of me and slide them toward me facedown. My brain is running a thousand miles an hour, and I barely remember how to play poker at this point.

  I’m tempted to throw the game, but I suspect that’s not what she wants. We’ll go head-to-head, toe-to-toe, and then I’m going to beg for forgiveness and promise her a future that’s beyond anything she can imagine.

  For weeks, I’ve been drifting without purpose, and nothing could hold my attention. I didn’t give a fuck about work, about life, about anything. Because without her . . . I’m a shell of a man. But in her presence, I can slay dragons.

  Indy lifts the edges of the two cards in front of her enough to see what they are, and I do the same. Nine of hearts and eight of hearts.

  With a glance across the table at her, I can’t help but wonder what she’s holding. Although that thought is a far distant second to all of the things I want to do to her right now. Peel that dress from her body, find out what she’s wearing beneath it, if anything.

  The thought sends the remaining blood in my body to my dick. I can’t concentrate, and it’s even worse when she smiles at me from across the table.

  Whatever she’s holding is good.

  Or she’s got me so mixed up, I don’t know how to do anything but stare at her.

  Indy pushes chips into the center of the table, and without a second thought, I shove two stacks forward. I don’t count or care. One hand. That’s all this game is going to last, because everything I need is sitting on the other side of the green baize. She’s the one thing money can’t buy, and she’s my fucking world.

  Indy looks up at me, and I hope like hell we’re on the same wavelength here.

  “Bold,” she murmurs, rolling a chip across her knuckles. She burns the top card before dealing the flop.

  Jack of hearts. Ace of diamonds. Nine of spades.

  Indy bets first, and I watch for her tell, but I spot nothing. I call, barely paying attention as she tosses another card aside.

  The turn comes next. Queen of hearts. We both check.

  Last burned card.

  Finally, she lays the river on the table between us. Ten of hearts.
<
br />   I have a straight flush.

  Indy watches while I lay my hands on the rest of my chips and shove them toward the center.

  “I’m all in, Ace.”

  She looks up at me, her indigo gaze searching my face. For what, though, I’m not sure.

  “But are you really?”

  I stare at the woman across from me, the only woman I’ve loved enough to try to be a better man. Whatever she wants from me, she’ll get.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, because I need to make sure I understand her question.

  “You held back before, and then you wrecked me, Jericho. I’ve never felt loss like I did when you threw me out of your life as if I meant nothing to you.” All playfulness is gone, and her eyes shimmer with tears. “You decided my future without even asking what I wanted or how I felt.”

  My head dips under the weight of my shame.

  “You pushed me away. Made me think I was nothing to you.”

  My hands clench into fists, and my own vision blurs with unshed tears. “I don’t deserve you, India. I’ve never deserved you. I will never deserve you. Even when I tried to do the right thing . . . all I did was hurt you.”

  I look up at her as she drops the chip.

  “But I will never let you go again, as long as there’s breath in my body. Honor can go to hell. All I want out of this life is you. I love you, India, and if I could, I’d rip my heart from my chest and put it on this table, because it’s yours. But all I have is this.”

  I fish her diamond ring out of my pocket, where I’ve kept it for weeks after she threw it at me in my study the day I told her to go. My heart in my throat, I lay the ring on the table between us.

  Indy’s lips press together, and a single tear spills over her lashes.

  “Then it’s a really good fucking thing that I’m winning this game.” She flips her cards over to reveal the ace and king of hearts before snatching the ring off the green baize. “Because I’m never taking it off again.”

  41

  India

  As soon as the ring is on my finger, Jericho surges from his chair and charges around the table to lift me out of mine. Our lips meet in a chaotically beautiful collision. His hands roam over my arms, around my back, under my ass, like he can’t stop touching me. Can’t believe I’m real and here.

  I tear my lips away from his for a second to tell him something I’ve never said to a man. “I love you, Jericho. So damn much. Don’t you ever try to push me away again.”

  “Never again. I swear it. I love you, Indy.”

  He lays me out on the table and pulls the straps of the gold dress down my shoulders. My breasts spill free and his mouth skims along their curves, raising chill bumps in its wake. “I need you. All of you.”

  “That’s what you get. Every heartbeat. Every fucking breath. Everything I am and everything I have is yours.”

  One hand slides beneath my dress and finds the slickness coating my thighs. Jericho groans against my mouth before he pauses.

  “I’ll buy you a new dress.”

  “What—”

  Before I can get the question out, he tears the fabric down the center, baring me completely. The dress I once considered unlucky has turned into the luckiest of my life. But I don’t need luck now, because I’ve got everything I could ever want.

  My greedy fingers snatch at the buttons of his pants, and I wrench them open. As soon as he’s free, he pushes between my thighs, and the head of his cock nudges against my entrance.

  Jericho pauses before he presses inside. “I want a family. At least two kids. More, if you want.” His voice is rough and ragged with emotion.

  A family.

  “Yes,” I whisper. “I want that too.”

  With a buck of his hips, Jericho powers inside me, and my muscles tense as he stretches me wide. He owns me. My body. My heart. My soul.

  Thrust after thrust, I cling to him as he takes me higher and closer to the edge. My nails dig into his shoulders as I lift my hips to meet every stroke.

  It wasn’t the island that was home. It’s the man.

  “I love you,” I scream as my control snaps and my orgasm sweeps me away. Jericho wraps his arms around me and holds me close as his body pulses his climax.

  “I love you, India. So fucking much.”

  42

  India

  When I wake up, I’m scared I’ll find an empty bed, and last night will be nothing but a dream. But the twinges of my body and the massive source of heat pressed beside me tell me that I’m wrong on both counts. Thankfully.

  I roll over to see dark hair spread across the pillow and his tanned hand only inches from my face.

  I never gave him a ring. This time, that’s going to change.

  In the rush of last night, I never actually asked if the divorce proceedings were final. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last month, a piece of paper doesn’t mean jack shit when it comes to love. You’re either all in or you’re not, and even if we’re not married anymore, it changes nothing about how I feel and the direction of our future.

  When Jericho’s lids pop open, his gray eyes are less stormy this morning. Now they’re more the dark silver of a clouded moon reflecting off the ocean, and they’re absolutely beautiful.

  “You’re here.” His voice comes out sleep-roughened.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t be?” I ask, sliding my fingers down his heavily muscled arm.

  The hand nearest my face rises, and he trails two fingers across my cheek. “I thought I’d wake up and this would all be a dream.”

  A smile tugs at my lips. “I thought the same thing.”

  “Best damn dream of my life, though. I never want to wake up from this, Indy.” His palm curls around my cheek and his fingers tuck into my hair. “Kiss me so I know you’re real.”

  “Morning breath—”

  “Don’t fucking care.”

  Jericho’s lips sweep over mine, and his tongue slides inside. He wraps his arm around me and pulls me closer to his chest. Skin against skin, he kisses me like I’m the most essential thing in the world. More important than time or money or goddamned oxygen.

  When he finally pulls back, those gray eyes turn solemn. “No more games. No more deals. We’re going to talk. Communicate. When things go wrong or something’s bothering you, you tell me. I tell you. No more surprises. We’re still going to fight, because we’re both hardheaded as hell, but then we’re going to make up, and it’s going to be fucking worth it.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  “Good, because I’m not here to tell you how to live your life. I just want to be the lucky son of a bitch who gets to be part of it every day.”

  A burst of warmth gusts through me and I squeeze him tighter. “I love you.”

  “Good, because you’re stuck with me.”

  I lift up to meet his gaze. “You’re supposed to say you love me too.”

  “I love you more than life itself. If you needed an arm, I’d offer mine up, no matter how strange it would look attached to your body. You’re it for me, Indy.”

  His starkly handsome face, with his dark five o’clock shadow, is completely serious, and my heart feels like it might burst open from joy.

  “I love you,” I whisper again, this time with tears leaking from the corners of my eyes.

  “Ace, you can’t cry now. It kills me.”

  “They’re happy tears,” I say as he carefully wipes them away.

  “I should’ve made a no-crying rule when I had the chance,” he says in a grumble, but it’s halfhearted at best. “Come on. I’m going to make you breakfast.”

  I roll over onto my back and stare up at the ceiling. “And he cooks,” I whisper. “Luckiest. Woman. Ever.”

  Jericho’s laugh echoes through the bedroom as he reaches for my hand to pull me out of bed.

  43

  Forge

  If losing Isaac taught me anything, it was that life is short. Tomorrow isn’t a guarantee. Somehow,
in the midst of all of this, I forgot how important it is not to waste a single day, because you don’t know when your number will be up.

  As Indy and I dress and walk out into the kitchen hand in hand, I make a promise to myself. Treat her like I’m going to lose her tomorrow. There’s nothing like the imminent possibility of losing the person you love most to make you appreciate her even more.

  I have more money than I could spend in three lifetimes, and revenge . . . well, I already learned that isn’t satisfying when it costs you everything that matters.

  The kitchen is empty when we arrive, and I silently thank Dorsey for giving us space. She and the others are hopefully holed up on the back side of the island in the staff houses.

  “You, stool.” I point Indy to the bar on the opposite side of the massive granite-topped island in the kitchen that houses the stove top and a sink.

  “You don’t have to tell me twice. Everything tastes doubly good when I don’t have to cook it for myself. Or burn it for myself . . . as the case may be.”

  She twists her messy hair up into a knot on her head, and the memory of her telling me she was high maintenance and didn’t wake up looking gorgeous comes back. She lied. She looks even more beautiful this morning than she did last night.

  I reach into the fridge for the ingredients to make scrambled eggs and pancakes from scratch. The chef on board the Fortuna didn’t mind me hanging out in the kitchen as a kid, especially since my ribs practically poked through my skin during those early weeks after I stowed away.

  “I’ll teach you,” I tell her.

  Indy’s grin turns wry. “That may be an impossible task.”

  “Never. Now, watch and learn.”

  I open the drawers in the island for the dry goods and measure them in a bowl before mixing them up and adding in all the wet ingredients, including a healthy dash of vanilla. Before I whisk, I grab an orange, wash it, and scrape some zest into the mixture.