Page 19 of Holiday Home 4

After selecting one such truffle, Tess went a bit further than just pinching it between her thumb and forefinger. Holding the chocolate sphere with her left hand, she delicately deposited it on the ends of two extended fingers of her right. Balancing it carefully, a smiling Tess lifted it toward his mouth.

“Say ‘ah?’”

He stared at her flatly, then pointedly avoided making that sound as he dipped his mouth toward her fingers and the chocolate. Opening his jaw farther than was generally comfortable, he fit both into his mouth. Tess held his stare as he brought his lips together around the midway point of her slender fingers. Chocolate rubbed against the roof of his mouth, but his tongue briefly tasted only the knuckles of Tess’s fingers. The erotic moment kept his heart pounding, his blood sprinting, and his face warm.

“Will you, or will I?” Tess asked, ending her trifecta of questions.

It took Liam a moment to comprehend, but once he did, he slid his mouth back from Tess’s fingers. With a sheen of saliva left behind on her fingers, he finally tasted the chocolate he'd gotten her after he finished pulling back. It was quite good. Utterly incomparable to the salacious sight of Tess Williams as she licked off the chocolate on her fingertips, but still good enough for him to enjoy savoring it.

After adequately wiping off her fingertips, the game continued. So did Tess’s dominance over him.

He traded poorly throughout the game, losing his first knight only a couple of moves later. He winced when it happened, then finally realized that she was probably toying with him—that she was more than just capable when it came to chess. Much as he had at Anna and Avril’s apartment during winter break, she got away with controlling how events unfolded. Instead of striking aggressively at his more valuable pieces, she seemed just fine decimating his frontline forces.

It also allowed her to make small talk in between her merciless offensive.

“Have your classes been going well?” she asked after removing another of his pawns. He’d been so focused on the other side of her board, where she’d just opened space for one of her rooks. And so, her knight sallied forth and took his pawn—and he realized dismally that he had no real way of trading back. His pawn structure, a common chess term hedidn’tknow about, was in shambles.

“All my grades are good, yeah,” he replied. Compared to most card games, where he could juggle things with his eyes closed, he wasn’t much of a conversationalist right now, focused intently on finding a way to trade a few pieces. She couldn’t blame him. It was her suggestion of these extra stakes that had caused him to invest his brainpower toward the game, not the woman sitting next to him.

“I heard you took Anna ice-skating when she visited?”

“Erm, yeah,” Liam said.Thatwas enough to bring his attention back to her. Slightly pensively, he awaited her response. Would she be bothered by that?

“Do you think she had a good time?”

“I do.”

Freeing him of his burdens with a smile, Tess leaned over and kissed him gently. At the same time, she placed her knightinto a position near the middle of the board to start harrying the pieces he had in the area.

“Keep it up,” Tess said knowingly, their lips hovering only centimeters apart. The heat there was nearly molten. “She deserves it.”

Blood roaring past his eardrums, Liam nodded dumbly, then received another thrilling kiss. This one grew more passionate, involving clashing tongues and hands on the other person’s body. Tess’s eyes smoldered lustfully throughout it all. Afterward, her dominance on the chessboard resumed.

Liam felt the same emotion but also plenty of relief. While the situation with Avril and Tess wasn’t entirely wrapped up in a neat little bow, it felt stable enough. Of the two, he was most worried that Avril might try to upend the unique status quo there. It felt slightly more a matter of when than if. Because of that, he knew better than to get too comfortable with the relationship he shared with both women.

And so, he was relieved that Tess seemed just as equitable about him and Anna. She knew the younger woman’s background, the pressure placed upon her by her father, and, very likely, her feelings toward Liam. This permission removed an enormous weight from Liam’s shoulders.

Unfortunately, a new one replaced it only about a minute later.

“That’s your first rook,” Tess noted, smiling as she collected and placed it in her P.O.W. camp. The one on her side of the chess board was far more inhabited than his.

“Yeah, butyourfirst knight,” he fired back. At least it’d been a trade. At least.

“In a normal game of chess, a rook is almost always valued higher—that’s why I set up our rules as I did.”

Liam grunted sourly, then searched for a way to even things up. Naturally, given how Tess had maneuvered him around bythe nose throughout the game, he found it difficult to see any way toward victory.

But is victory what I should be going for?he finally realized. This gamedidn’tend when the king was taken. Tess had clearly thought this through a bit better than he had. So far, she’d toyed with him. Rather than creating a scenario where he was screwed no matter which decision he made, she’d pummeled his pawns for a while.

I’m not going to win. Not if we played ten of these games in a row. Not if we played a hundred.

But winning andwinningweren’t necessarily the same for this specific game.

When he deliberately set up his bishop to be taken by Tess’s bishop, a pawn in position to make a trade if she did so, Tess smiled. An approving smile. He’d figured it out. The way to win wasn’t to try and win.

Without hesitation, she made the trade—and so did he. Two bishops fled the board. The time when their clothes would begin coming off drew nearer.

Chapter Eight

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