Page 54 of Take Me, Sir

Dean

“I told you I was good at this.”

I glared at her across the table as I hooked my thumbs underneath the waistband of my boxer-briefs. Okay, so maybe challenging her to a game of strip poker hadn't been as good of an idea as I'd originally thought, but it was the first thing I'd thought of when she'd said that she made money playing cards.

“Are you going to welch on a bet, Stokes?” She raised an eyebrow. “You owe me a pair of underwear.”

I muttered a few choice curses under my breath, then pushed off my last stitch of clothing. Kyndall, on the other hand, hadn't even lost her shoes. She'd taken those off on her own when she said her feet were hurting.

“Tell me again why you chose LA over Vegas?” I put my hands on my hips and tried not to think about the fact that I was standing here stark naked.

“Because counting cards is illegal.” She grinned at me.

“But you count cards anyway, right?” I tried not to let her hear how concerned I was. “Isn't that dangerous?”

“Not if I'm smart.” She reached behind her and unzipped her dress. “And I may have mentioned that I'm very smart.”

I swallowed hard as she slipped the straps of her dress from her shoulders and let them fall. “You won.”

“So I did.” She stood, showing off that glorious body of hers. Her bra could barely hold her breasts, and her panties covered very little. The tease was somehow more alluring than flat-out nudity, and the sight sent blood straight to my cock.

“I'd like to collect my winnings.”

“I'm fairly certain you've taken all I have, love.”

She turned and walked into the living room, swinging her hips as she went. I watched, my hand wrapping around my cock almost unconsciously. She sat on one of the overstuffed chairs, licking her lips as her gaze dropped to where I was now stroking myself to a full erection.

“I think there should be some sort of penalty for losing every single hand.”

“Is that so?”

She draped one leg over one of the chair's arms, then the other. “Come here.” She crooked a finger at me.

I went to my knees in front of her, the irony of the position not lost on me. She was supposed to be the submissive here, but I was in the position of the subservient. I didn't mind though. I would give up my control for now, then take it back later in a way that was equally pleasing.

Her skin was like silk as I ran my hands up her legs, brushed my thumbs over the crease of her thighs. When I leaned forward, I ran my tongue over the dark lace covering her pussy, and she moaned. Smiling, I pulled the crotch of her panties to the side and licked her slow and deep.

Damn, she tasted good.

I took my time with her, circling her clit, teasing her entrance. I coaxed one orgasm after the other from her, reveling in the sounds she made, the way her fingers dug into my hair. All that existed for me was her.

I didn't know when it happened, but at some point, she'd become my world.

My center.

When I finally slid inside her, I knew my home was no longer London where my parents were or LA where my new business pursuits had taken me. It was wherever she was.

This sucked.

All I'd been able to do all night was think about all the ways I'd royally fucked up. All the way things could've gone better because they couldn't have gotten worse. I supposed that wasn't possible since things had gone so sideways. But thinking of what I should have said, or shouldn't have said, just made things worse. Knowing – or guessing, I supposed – how things could have been was something akin to taunting someone with something they wanted, while at the same time, telling them they could never have it.

Kyndall was what I wanted the most, and I was all too certain that I had lost her for good.

I'd witnessed firsthand what a similar accusation had done to her relationship with her brother, and I knew she valued him a whole hell of a lot more than she valued me.

Fuck it.

I threw off the covers and finally climbed out of bed. It was still morning, but later than I usually got up. I shouldn't have been laying around, daydreaming about what-might-have-been or what I wished I'd done. I needed to make things right, even if she didn't forgive me, even if she decided that the two of us had too much shit between us to ever be anything but cordial. I couldn't let her go with her thinking of me this way.

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