“I only brought a couple, but there are a bunch in the den, if you don’t want to play one of these.” He was really serious, huh? I watched him silently as he lifted the lid off of one of the boxes and check to see that all of the pieces were there. After a little while, he noticed me looking.
“What?” he asked. Might as well get it out. Now was as good a time as any to start a fight.
“Nothing, I just don’t know why you’re here.” He blinked a couple of times and seemed to process that.
“I know you heard me on the phone earlier.”
“What?” I asked.
“When I was in the kitchen? I know you heard me. I know the way I sounded. Listen, that conversation was not about you at all. It’s me. I get cabin fever really easily and I was having a hard time imagining this, being stuck, for much longer.”
I cleared my throat and straightened my back because I wanted to pretend like he hadn’t hurt my feelings when he said what he said on the phone while he was in the kitchen. I felt a little stupid. I had fully taken his words to heart and devised a plan to make him as comfortable as possible by avoiding him since he hated me so much.
Jumping to conclusions like that was going to be the way I ended up in trouble.
“Cabin fever, huh?” I asked.
“We’re in the middle of nowhere and currently, nobody can get to us.” Yeah, I knew that already, I didn’t need his help forming the mental image. I wasn’t really having a walk in the park either, just so he knew.
“To be honest, I don’t want to be out here either, but since we both are, we have to at least remain civil.”
“Definitely. I don’t want you to think that you're the issue here, he said.”
“Of course not. Trust me, out of all the possible partners I could’ve chosen to be snowed in with, you wouldn’t make a list, no offense.” He looked briefly offended but then he smiled and laughed a little bit.
“Okay, fair enough. Both of us would choose to be elsewhere if that was a possibility. Makes sense. Do you want to play?”
Yet another truce. How many times were we going to have to go through this? Cross a boundary somewhere and then scramble to pretend like it didn’t happen and still treat each other like the acquaintances we still technically were.
It was getting a little bit exhausting not to mention kind of boring even. I looked around the room. It was really cold and the little study was smaller than the living room. Being in the larger living room would make me feel better about the close proximity to him. Not to mention the fireplace because my ass was freezing.
“How about we move to the living room? It’s kind of cold in here.” He got up and gathered the game boxes.
“Are you only this feeling that now?” he asked.
“Look, I overheard you on the phone talking about how much you hated it here and decided I needed to give you space,” I said, only half-joking. He got it though and laughed.
“You’re cold but it’s my fault?”
“Precisely.”
We stopped by the den and grabbed a couple of other game choices and then we went to the living room. My skin tingled as we got settled around the coffee table, I felt like I was thawing out. Staying away from him was definitely not worth risking hypothermia. Since we were tenuously friends again, I wouldn’t be making those kinds of concessions for him.
“Okay, what game am I going to be beating you at?” I said cheerfully.
“You’re confident for somebody who was so grumpy just a few minutes ago.”
He was right about that, I wasn't going to argue with him, but I also wasn't going to tell him that he was right. We started with a game of cards, poker which he was good at, but so was I.
The room was warm, the usual tension between us had dissipated, and we were actually having fun for what might have been the first time on this trip. I couldn't believe it. The only thing that could have possibly made it better was some delicious hot cocoa just to top it all off since an immediate change in the weather and our snowed-in status was off the table.
“That's it, I win.” I put my cards down letting him see. The look of shock on his face was absolutely perfect. I knew he was not used to not getting what he wanted. I could imagine the people in his life kissing his ass and letting him win at poker games just so he wouldn't get mad at them. Good thing I wasn't a person in his life. A little humility for a man who had everything felt like it was deserved.
“Let's go again.”
“You're such a sore loser, oh my God.”
“No, I'm not, I let you win.”
“Well, then that's your problem. You lost it when you could have won. If you threw the game then why are you mad at me?”
He started frowning. “You didn't play fair.”
“Oh my God, you're still not done complaining?” I got up, wondering if I could whip up some of that hot chocolate that I was thinking about. He got up too.
“You don't want to play again? That's okay. I'll let you have it.” I looked him up and down in disbelief. Sure, we had had sex a couple of times. I had had his dick and other body parts around very intimate parts of my own body, but we still didn't know each other that well. I thought he was the kind of New York playboy that I detested; predictable in his lifestyle and tastes.
Made a lot of money, slept with a lot of models, generally annoying to be around, and not much substance for all the showiness. Did good things like tipped waiters one hundred percent on checks but also threw his weight and money around to get what he wanted and essentially intimidated people into liking him. Upon closer inspection, it seemed like he actually had a personality under there. Weird.
“Well, you want me to beat your ass again so bad, so maybe I will.”
“I'd like to see you try,” he said. Somewhere in the moments since we had stood up, we had gotten quite close to each other. Very close to each other. I was close enough to notice that he had a little brown mole on his neck and that his eyelashes were particularly thick. Granted, I had been much closer than I was now but then thinking about it, just made me want to go ahead and close the distance.
If he did something, I knew I wasn't going to stop him.
I coughed and broke eye contact first. I knew that it wasn't, but the room felt oppressively hot all of a sudden. I needed some sort of distance from him so I scrambled to make an excuse.
“It looks like we're going to lose light eventually so I think I'm going to get started on dinner.” He said something as I fled to the kitchen, breathing hard like I had been running. I spun around in a moment of horror because I thought that he had followed me, but he hadn’t.
That seems like a perfect tactic, just run away whenever things got a little bit heated. The way things were looking, that was probably the only way that I would be able to keep my cool around him.
It was embarrassing how much I wanted him. I was actually a little bit ashamed because that feeling went against everything that I had promised myself.
I knew that it wasn't just the sex, but it couldn't be. I couldn't allow it to ever be more than just the sex because I knew what happened whenever I did that. I swore that I would never do it again. How did I manage to get stuck with the one guy in years who seemed like he would make me go back on my word?
He made me weak. It was so easy to break when he was around and it was only after when I faced the consequences that I felt bad about it. Nothing worked. The only thing that would work, which was distance just wasn’t feasible. The other thing which was totally breaking and allowing my attraction for him to consume me was not an option we were entertaining.
I was stuck in this hellish limbo where I had to face down Toby, the man who was making me question everything I had felt about relationships for several years at every turn. The introspection was painful. It was made worse by the fact that I was falling for him at the same time.
13
Toby
Couldn’t get away from me quick enough.
It was so strange
being in this position. Women usually couldn’t get enough of me, including that woman, but there she was, doing everything she could to get away from me.
I wasn’t sure whether it hurt my feelings or annoyed me. Maybe it was both. I knew her rejection wasn’t real, I mean, it was real, it just wasn’t based on her not being attracted to me. She was definitely attracted to me; she was just holding herself back because we promised that we weren’t going to do that anymore. More and more, it felt like a stupid reason.
It did piss me off. The two of us could be having the time of our lives out here, basically, a vacation where all we did was eat and have sex in a location which under slightly different circumstances would have been very romantic.
When you denied yourself something for long enough, you stopped wanting it. That was how I quit my brief stint of smoking way back in high school. If I just stayed away from Maggie enough and we stopped having sex completely, I wouldn’t want her anymore.
Yeah, sounded legit.
I wandered over to the kitchen to see whether she needed any help. With that excuse, I felt like she wouldn’t have a reason to kick me out. She was standing still working on something in a pot that I couldn’t see.
“You need help with anything?”
“No,” she said even before I finished my question. Okay, we were doing this again. Fine. I started looking through the cabinets for something to have with our dinner since it looked like we were eating pasta again. That wasn’t a complaint, but who would say no to a little bit of variety?
I searched the cabinets, high and low. There wasn’t much, but right under the sink, just as I was about to end my search, I found the wine stash.
“Hey, look at this,” I said, holding a bottle up. It was a red wine that looked okay quality, but nothing top of the range. Maggie looked up from the stove.
“Do you mean there has been alcohol in this house all this time?” she asked.
“How about we have with dinner?”
She agreed, and I couldn’t help but think it was because she wanted to numb out from this whole experience together. As much as I knew that she was attracted to me and just fighting against her will, I wondered whether there was a part of her that just hated me. Just straight up did not like me. Thought I was stupid, unattractive, didn’t respect my job.
I cared what she thought about me, a lot.
We ate at the island. The sun was setting outside so we were going to have to light up all the candles and lanterns again. I pointed that out. She just grunted and nodded, not looking up from her food.
“I wonder when we are going to get power back,” I said out loud. She did the same thing, grunting and nodding again. I might as well have been talking to a dog, or a pile of bricks if that was all I was getting from her.
What if I swept all the dishes and food onto the ground and pulled her up onto this island? I bet she would have something to say then. She wouldn't be able to though since I’d have my dick in her mouth. I stared down at my food playing out the scenario in my head. It was literally too good to be true so that was the only way I would be able to indulge.
I had been hoping that the wine would do some of the work of loosening the both of us up, but it seemed like neither of us were drunk enough yet. After dinner, I volunteered to clean up so it was a silent and awkward fifteen minutes of the two of us cleaning up the kitchen and lighting up the candles and lanterns we would need throughout the night.
The sun had mostly gone down by the time we were done. While there was still a little bit of light outside, the sun was invisible. We went back to the living room because the other option was heading upstairs to go directly to sleep and it was still really early.
“Do you want to play another game of poker?” I asked her. She looked at me.
I thought that it was too early to go to bed, but there was a chance that she would rather go to bed at sunset rather than hang out with me. The hot and cold that we cycled through every hour or so was exhausting.
“Yeah, I could beat you again.” She was competitive, why did I like that so much? I told her to get set up in the living room and I went to the kitchen. There were still a couple of wine bottles left and I felt like another one would be a nice treat. It would help break the ice, hopefully. Let’s face it, in the absence of everything else we could possibly be doing, getting drunk was pretty appealing.
I sat down across the table from her and we started playing. She was good at the game, as her previous victory had proven, not that I was going to let her know that I thought she won fair and square. I wasn't concerned with winning; it was just something to do. The urge to get close to her had not disappeared, but getting physically close to her didn't seem to be an option she was allowing me to have. This seemed like a safer method. On top of that, it was fun. I couldn't remember the last time I sat down and played cards with anyone as an adult.
The game started slow, but it began to pick up. Predictably, the shit-talking began. I looked down at my hand, feeling optimistic. Besides the wine, I just got an idea of how to make this night a little bit more interesting.
“What do you say to a bet?” I asked her.
“Oh what? We can't do that, this isn't Vegas. We are in the middle of nowhere. We don't have any chips.”
“We can make do,” I said, looking around the room. There didn't seem to be anything we could use to play with, but then another idea struck, an idea so good, I should have stopped myself before saying it.
“Okay then. Strip poker.” She burst out laughing. I was a little bit relieved because I knew the other option was her smacking me across the face.
“You’re joking.”
“Do I look like I'm joking?”
“Look, if you are horny right now, go ahead and take care of that. I can wait.”
I laughed a little bit because the idea of relieving myself with my hand when a woman like Maggie was in the same house as me was truly pathetic.
“Just say you aren't as confident in your poker skills as you want me to think.”
I saw her face change in the dim light from our lantern.
“This sounds like a cheap ploy to get me out of my clothes.”
“It is, but if you're so good, you'll get me out of my clothes first.”
She grinned at me and I knew that I had her. I didn't care nearly so much about the outcome of our game as I did now that there was an incentive to beat her.
We started playing. Having the fireplace, we didn't even need as many layers of clothing, so neither of us was wrapped up that much. She got me to take off something first, but then I caught up. We were pretty evenly matched down to the underwear. She had an advantage over me having a bra and panties versus just my boxer briefs. I was determined to get her topless, or bottomless first, I didn't mind which one she picked to strip first. As long as it wasn't me.
I looked at her over my cards.
“How's it looking?”
“Honestly?”
“Sure, doesn't mean I'll believe you, but yeah.”
“Not great,” she said. Bullshit. I knew she was bluffing. I knew it. I knew it. I looked down at my hand then played.
“Oh no,” she said.
“That's right. Take it off.”
“Oh no, you take it off.” She flashed her cards. I knew she was bluffing but she still got me.
“No way.”
“Yes way, take it off.”
“I don't have to take anything off. You already know you won.”
“I said strip,” she said laughing. “This was your idea. You were being a pervert wanting to see me naked and it backfired. Strip.” Her accusations were only a little bit off, so I stood up and pulled my underwear off. She watched me with a small smug smile on her face. I tossed my underwear on the pile where the rest of my clothes were.
“You’re enjoying this a little bit too much.”
“You should have thought about that before you suggested strip poker.” She bent down to the ground and gathered my cl
othes in her arms.
“What are you doing?” I asked her. She walked over to the sliding door that opened onto the verandah. “Hey, stop!”
She paused and turned around with one of her hands poised to unlock and open the door.
“Problem?”
“What the hell are you doing with my clothes?”
“I think you mean my clothes seeing as I won them.”
“Hey, this started as a joke but it's not funny anymore. Hand them over.”
“This is what you get for talking all that crap while we were playing.”
“What do you want? An apology?”
“No, get on your knees and beg.” There was a glint of humor in her eyes. She was just messing with me, but I didn't want to play. I grabbed the clothes but she pulled back.
“Oh my god I was just kidding, let go,” she said.
I wasn’t. I pulled her in and kissed her. The bulk of my clothing in between our bodies made it a little bit awkward, so I let go, and she did too. The clothes tumbled down onto the floor. Both of us almost naked, I held her in my arms. Between the wine, the heat and the game, I had maxed out my self-control. She had too because she kissed me back.
I didn't care anymore. I never gave up. I had always been a stubborn fighter all my life but I had met my match with her. I broke the kiss and led her by the hand back over to the fireplace. For now, I wasn't going to think about the consequences, only her.
14
Maggie
He pulled me down to the ground and got on top of me, parting my legs and bringing our bodies close together. He moved me under him, and I bumped my head on the ground.
“Ow!” I said, holding the back of my head.
Admit You Need Me: A Secret Pregnancy Romance (Irresistible Billionaires Book 4) Page 9
