Billionaires Dollar Series

I exchange one of my cards, doing my damnedest to focus. Things are going to get very obvious if I have to take off my now too-tight pants.

“You are allowed to look at me, you know,” she murmurs. “It’s difficult to play otherwise.”

“I know that,” I say testily, but my eyes immediately linger at her invitation. She’s gloriously beautiful in the dim lighting. Everything about her is golden, even her smile, though it’s rare to see it so in my company.

“Why isn’t André here?” I ask. “I doubt he’d approve.”

“And do I need a man’s approval to sit here with you?” She exchanges one of her own cards before dealing out the river. I scarcely notice the cards being revealed.Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“Of course you don’t.”

“I could ask you the same, you know. Why isn’t one of your money-grabbing sidekicks here?”

“Sidekicks?”

“I don’t want to call them anything degrading,” she says, though the frown at the edge of her lips says quite the opposite. So she’s noticed the women I’ve spent time with over the years then, not that she’s often had the opportunity to.

Good. I know exactly who she’s dated-a string of millionaires’ sons and heirs. Boys with names like Trip and Archer. Polished sons of bitches with pedigree dripping from their pores. The kind of men Cole Porter should be friends with.

“Why do you care who I’d bring?”

“Why do you care about André?”

I reveal my cards across the table. Somehow, I’d managed to pull a flush out of my ass despite the temptation on display, addling my concentration.

She reveals her own lesser hand. “Whoops.”

And damn if I don’t feel victorious when she stands up and reaches for the zipper in her skirt. She gives a light shake of her hips to wiggle out of it and her breasts bounce and holy hell I’m screwed.

The fabric falls gently to the floor around her ankles. Firelight dances across her body, covered in nothing but a pair of thin, lacy panties the color of her skin. This time, I don’t pretend to avert my eyes. I drink her in instead.

There’s victory in her eyes, too, when she sees my gaze. “I think we’ve changed the motives for this game,” I say thickly.

“Have we?”

“Clearly, this was never about forgiveness for that poker game years ago.” I reach for the cards and try not to focus on the length of her bare legs stretched out on the couch in front of me.

“Perhaps not,” she admits. “Perhaps it was about something else entirely.”

I deal us five cards each. She wants me to admit it, admit to the want she’d seen in me yesterday-that she’s no doubt seeing on my face now. But if she thinks she can break me, she’s just proven how little she knows me.

My hand comes down flat on the table. “I’m not a man who plays games, Blair.”

“Except poker,” she says calmly, as if she’s not practically naked before me. I refuse to believe she’s that unaffected. Let her see it, then-let her see what fire she’s playing with.

Looking at my cards, I have two queens. It’s too good a hand for what I need to happen. Watching her make similar calculations, I exchange one of my queens for a four. When the river has been laid and we reveal our hands, she wins by quite a margin.

“I thought you were good at poker,” she demures.

I rise to my feet and look down at her as I undo the belt and zipper of my pants. How easy it would be to imagine a different scenario. Her dressed just like that, but on her knees in front of me.

Focus, man.

“Perhaps I’m used to less distracting opponents.” I push down my trousers roughly, kicking them off. The relief of more space is nothing compared to the widening of her eyes as she sees the bulge in my boxers.

And fuck if it doesn’t twitch at her gaze.

“Well,” she says, and then says nothing more. I allow myself a crooked smile. She might talk a big game, but in the end, she is nowhere near in control of this.

I take a seat on the couch as if my raging hard-on is nothing more than a nuisance. “Your turn to deal,” I say.

She nods and reaches for the cards. Shuffling in silence, there’s a flush rising on her cheeks that I’d bet good money isn’t from the wine or the heat of the fire.

“We’re matched now,” she says finally.

“Indeed we are.” I turn up two of the cards she’s dealt me. With a one-pair, winning isn’t impossible. The idea of her skimming out of her panties… fuck. Forcing my mind to think through the fog, I ask, “do you ever think things through?”

Her eyes snap to mine. “Of course I do.”

“Really,” I say, pitching my tone to hurt. It’s the only emotion I know I can reliably call forward. “And where is this little game supposed to lead, huh?”

Her exhale is shaky, but the fire burning in her eyes is fierce. My angry kitten, indeed. “To victory, of course.”

“Ah.” I exchange one of my cards for the river and secure another nine. A triple, now. There’s no way I’m not winning. “And after this, you’ll stop holding the poker game from eight years ago over my head?”

“Yes.” She deals the river, eyes studying the cards. Her hair falls forward. Would it feel like golden silk through my fingers?

She reveals her three-pair of sevens. There’s a smile on her lips.

I reveal my nines. “Damn,” I say softly. “I guess you’re not playing for victory at all.”

Blair stands, her breasts rising and falling with the depth of her sigh. “Perhaps I’m not aiming for that kind of victory,” she says darkly, reaching for her panties.

And that’s when her words sink in. She’d consider this a victory-me, watching her. Me, aroused by her. Her dislike is still there, coloring her words and her perception of me. This has never been about starting something-only confirming it. And letting her know I want her would be losing.

“No.” My order is whip-like. “Those stay on.”

“But I lost.” Her fingers curl around the lacy fabric on her hips, ready to tug them down. “Are you saying it would be too much? Too difficult to… I don’t know… control ourselves?”

I turn from her, from the softness of her skin and the curves of her body. My blood is pounding in my ears. The line between what I can have and what I want has never been this clearly marked before.

There is no path to victory here. In her direction lies only failure. What I can offer her won’t be enough. Not to mention ruining this will ruin my friendship with Cole as well. It’s too high a price.

So I say the one thing that I know she’ll hate hearing, pitching my voice to nastiness. “Perhaps I don’t want to see any more.”

The silence in her direction tells me I’ve hit home, at least enough to stop the stripping. Thank God for the small mercies, I think, as I turn back and see those panties still in place.

But the expression on her face isn’t the hurt I’d expected. It’s something far worse. Speculation.