Page 54 of Trouble Me
Emma gave him a side-eyed look, but she wasn’t fooling him. His words had the intended effect. Those amber-colored eyes darkened to a caramel color. He bit back a smile. He’d never be able to look at the sugary confection the same way again.
She wagged her finger at him. “Nice try, Kavanaugh. Your smooth words aren’t going to work on me.” She lay down three and then dealt each of them their respective number of cards.
“I seem to recall them working on you pretty well before,” he said, bobbing his eyebrows.
Emma rolled her eyes but chuckled. “Shut up and place your bets.”
He picked up his new cards and studied them. The two aces he kept from his first hand were joined by a queen, a nine, and a four. He glanced up at Emma, whose face was impassive, but her eyes weren’t. She met his glance, but quickly looked away and rolled her lips inward, tapping her finger on the top of the end card.
“Your pants. I win, your pants come off.”
Emma raised a brow and a small frown played on her lips. “You don’t start small, do you?” she muttered.
Now, Shane did smile. “Go big or go home, babe.”
Emma glanced up, then away before sighing. “Damn,” she whispered. “I fold,” she said aloud. “Let’s see what you got.”
Shane laid out his hand and Emma’s jaw dropped. “No way!” She flipped her hand over. She’d had a pair of aces, and if she’d played her hand out, she would have beat him with a king to his queen. “Are you freaking kidding me?”
Shane laughed so hard at her incredulous expression, his eyes began to water. She slanted her gaze at him, but it held no real heat. She pointed at him. “Okay, Kavanaugh, this means war.”
“This means your pants are mine.”
She sighed heavily. “Fine.”
With her jaw set but a gleam in her eye, she stood and moved away from the table. With her eyes on his, she lifted her tank top until it brushed the underside of her breasts. Splaying her hands across her flat, toned stomach, she moved them slowly down into the top of the waistband of her pants.
Shane’s laughter died and his cock hardened to the point of aching as he watched her. Emma tossed her dark hair off her shoulders without breaking his stare. Her hands moved under the dark fabric, continuing their descent toward what Shane considered his own private heaven.
Just before her hands made it down that low, they moved to her hips, and she turned around, giving him her back.
Shane’s body was taut as a bowstring with the need to launch himself over the table and grab her. Push her up against the wall and...
Shit, he needed to think about something else.
But the little minx was making it hard as hell to think about anything but her. She glanced over her shoulder and then pushed the pants down her legs to her ankles.
Fuck me.
She bent over at the waist and picked up the pants. All he could see was the black lace covering her ass and sex. She stood back up with another flip of her hair and turned back to face him. Tossing the pants at him, he caught them against his chest. They were warm from her body heat, and he held them to his nose, breathing deeply, inhaling the scent that was uniquely Emma.
Two could play at this game.
“Hmm...smells like heaven,” he murmured, his eyes on hers.
She sat back down across from him, pulling her top down over her belly and panties. Gathering the cards from the table, she began dealing another hand. “I know,” she said with a smirk.
“Well played, Peaches. Well played.” He smiled at her from behind the pants before putting them over one shoulder. Emma was a firecracker and could give as good as she got. It was one of the things he loved about her.
He froze. Loved? He liked Emma a lot. Adored her actually. He wanted to be with her, in spite of some issues, but was it to the point of love?
“Shane? Are you okay?” Emma’s voice brought him out of his internal babbling and he focused on her.
He cleared his throat. “Yep. I’m great. Just strategizing of how I can get you out of those panties now.”
Yep, bring it back to sex for now. It was ground he understood and knew how to handle.
“Yeah, keep strategizing, Ace. It’s game on, now,” she said, her jaw set and a determined gleam in her eye.
