Page 81 of A Game So Reckless

“And you fucking look like heaven.”

I’m not prepared for how the compliment rattles me. Darragh is the only man capable of doing this to me. Of stealing my words from my throat. I’ve always got a smartass remark on the tip of my tongue.

With everyone else, that is.

Off-balance and needing to recover, I cast about the room for a distraction.

“Do you play?” I croak as my eyes fall upon the chess set.

His eyes never leave me as I sit in one of the chairs and put down my clutch.

“Depends what I’m playing for.”

My breath hitches.

“What do you usually play for?”

The ghost of a smirk touches his mouth.

“Keeps.”

I lick my lips, my eyes darting from the chess pieces to Darragh.

“How about we play for something else?” I ask him.

He pushes off the desk and sits across from me. He’s so fucking big. All shoulders and biceps and long, long legs. He undoes the button on his suit jacket and shrugs out of it, tossing it across the chair’s back behind him.

“Like what, pet?”

Oh, God. If I don’t do this now I never will.

“Like my virginity.”

Now it’s Darragh’s turn to be rattled. Or at least, to narrow his eyes and watch me without replying for a moment. I wait, every nerve on edge. I can’t feel my fingers. My chest heaves, something I only become aware of when Darragh’s dark gaze flicks down to my cleavage.

Shit. I’m trying to play the cool negotiator, someone confident enough to offer her virginity in a game of chess to a monster, and here I am about to hyperventilate my boobs right out of my dress.

“So if I win, we-” Darragh begins.

“No,” I interrupt him, “ifIwin, we have sex.”

Sex. The word floats like an untethered balloon. Not quite heard or believed.

Until it explodes like a bomb.

“You’re fucking with me,” Darragh snaps. “How many times have you run from me, pet? How many times have you tried to escape? Told me this had to end?”

“That will be part of the terms,” I say, and I’m shocked to feel a tight ache in my throat. My eyes feel oddly hot. “If I win, we have sex. Once. No strings attached. And no repeats. After that, you will make every effort not to be where I am. If you have to continue doing business with Papà, you’ll do it in places where I can’t see you. No more showing up in my kitchen. Or at my cottage. You will effectively be out of my life. For good.”

His eyes go blacker and blacker with every word I speak. Even though he looks absolutely exhausted, I sense a rising, restless energy in him. Like a spring winding tight inside his body, ready to release.

He’s fucking furious.

“And ifIwin,” he snarls, rolling up his sleeves as if expects to be elbow-deep in blood any moment, “then I will fuck you anyway. Only you can forget all that other shit you just said.”

“Other shit?”

“The shit about me being gone from your life,” comes the miserable stab of his reply. “The shit about this happening only once.”

---