Page 31 of The Gambler

“I’m going to kiss you now, Tess Gibson.”

She swallowed. “Okay.”

Her lips were as soft as he remembered. He would never admit it to her, but he had wanted her the first time he saw her in jail. There was this innocence combined with a fierce passion, and determination surrounding her. He found it utterly sexy. Tess Gibson might be a small package in ripped jeans and rock tees indeed, but that was just her outer shell. Her inside was burning, and he was going to prove it to her.

He slowly took the kiss over, using his tongue to open her lips and then dove in. After that, things quickly got out of hand. The next minute, he had removed her top and bra. She had small but perfect breasts. He dove right in between them, taking a pink nipple into his mouth. He sucked them hard until they turned into peaks.

Fucking. Delicious.

It was as if his fingers led their own lives because they took root between her legs. He pushed one inside her panties and closed his eyes when he found her wet. Damn. He was rock-hard, ready to break out of his pants. Fucking her would complicate things.

He slowly pulled out his fingers. “You’re burning, baby. Like I said, sex is a team sport. If Trevor couldn’t get you hot, that’s on him. Not you.” He planted a kiss on her cheek. “Never on you.”

When he pulled away from her, Tess had her eyes closed and she was panting. With every breath, her breasts went up and down.

Slowly, she opened her eyes. He tensed up. A part of him expected her to bolt. To get angry for stopping. Maybe throw something at his head, now that the moment was cooling down.

Instead, she cupped his cheek. “Thank you, Luca.”

Her smile lit up the whole room and made the gray areas of his world colorful. And he couldn’t use that. Not now. Not before he’d taken his revenge. He couldn’t allow himself another vulnerability.

He grabbed her shirt and put it back over her head. Those perky breasts were a damn distraction.

“You’re very welcome. So, now what, unicorn?”

Her tongue trailed her lower lip before her glazed over eyes regained their focus again. He expected her to get off his lap, but she seemed to be sitting just fine.

“I’ll start my research with the info you’ll give me on Cruz. It probably won’t lead to more than you already know, but it’s a start. And then we wait a week until I can buy the stuff I need from Alfie.”

Seven days. Inside, a week had seemed to last forever. Every damn minute, every day was the same, and had dragged along. He’d been like a ghost, a shell of his old self, just waiting for twenty years to pass. Waiting until the day he would wake up and find himself an old man when he looked into the mirror.

Freedom; something he never thought much about before. He’d always taken it for granted. Who didn’t? Only a person locked up in a cage could ever understand the true meaning of the word. And the pain when it was taken away from you. He was going to make Cruz pay for it if it was the last thing he did.

CHAPTER 13

TESS

Being tipsy rocked. Tess wondered if anyone had ever discovered that before. It cleared your mind. It didn’t fog your brain at all. How else could she come to one of her most brilliant conclusions ever? One that solved one of the great mysteries in her life. Apparently, she wasn’t terrible at sex. She just hadn’t chosen the right man to have it with. She was so calling this a ‘eureka’ moment.

How could she have been so wrong about sex and intimacy all her life? The other night, making out with Luca Detta, had been the single, hottest experience in her life. Which was nice in a “he made my panties melt” kind of way, but it had also proved her lifelong theory about sex wrong. And she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Granted, he hadn’t rubbed it in her face that she’d humped all over his lap. Or that she’d greedily stuck her tongue in his mouth, his ear, had licked all over his jaw, but still. It made her question other life choices. Things she’d done that had seemed crystal clear at the time, but the memory was dipped in murky water.

As Tess took another cocktail from Tommie, she contemplated how her life had spun out of control like this. The guilt over her part in Luca’s incarceration weighed heavy on her. Every day, it seemed to drag her down more and more. It had been three days that she spent at his condo. Every morning, he greeted her right before he went to work. She wasn’t sure what he did for a living since becoming a free man again, but she was sure it was something more legal than she did.

Yes, he was still hell-bent on revenge, but he wasn’t a bad person. He was honest about what he wanted—info on everyone involved in his sentence—and what he was going to use that information for. Every day, he managed to squeeze in time to take care of her needs. A vegetarian breakfast, organic green tea, and every other whim he took care of. Not that she needed much, but he asked. Yes, this man, who was already paying her in dollars for her help, actually took the time every morning to ask if she needed anything else. So far, she hadn’t met the spoiled prince she accused him of being. He was actually very down to earth. Did he like the finer things in life? Yes. But who didn’t? And wasn’t she the same when it came to her computer gear? In fact, so far, of the two of them, he was being the most honest. And that, more than anything else, shamed her. He’d even given her pleasure as no man before him had. And how was she repaying him? With keeping things from him and not even reciprocating the hot, sizzling experience.

So, here she sat. At a table in a bar, enjoying her monthly girls’ night, feeling a tad bit depressed. In a silver, sequin dress, no less. Being used to jeans and anything in black, she felt like a Christmas tree on Ritalin. Unlike her bestie, Jazzy, Tess had bypassed the ‘girly-girl’ stage altogether. Makeup wasn’t her thing and she didn't give a crap about designer clothes. Not that she could afford them anyway. This didn’t mean she didn’t have a closet with a few ridiculous expensive pieces of apparels in it, courtesy of Jazzy Detta. Outside of their girls’ night out, Tess just hardly ever used them.

She was pulled out of her musings when Tommie waved a hand in her face.

“That’s my move, dude,” she scolded him.

He winked and pushed another cocktail in her hands. Her head already spun, and she put down the drink. A million things went through her mind.

Luca.

Worries.

Alcohol.

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