amused by my futile attempt to misdirect him?
And how the heck did he know I had been planning to give Galanti the brush-off?
‘How could you possibly know that?’ I blurted out.
His blue gaze darkened and, to my horror, an answering heat hit my chest and spread across my collarbone like a rash.
‘Because he’s not your type, bella,’ he said. The gruff tone, and his easy use of the endearment, made the rash spread up my neck and hit my cheeks. ‘I am.’
THE DESIRE I had been trying and failing to control for hours shot through my system like a fine wine, but I was through caring about it as Edie Spencer’s gaze finally flashed the green fire I had witnessed downstairs.
Welcome back, bella.
Satisfaction joined with the intoxicating jolt of power and passion as I saw indignation flush her pale skin. The challenging light heated her eyes to a sparkling emerald. She really was exquisite. Provocative, fearless and, from the system I had yet to fully fathom, also wildly intelligent. Whatever game she was playing, she was proving to be a worthy opponent. Not something I was used to when it came to the spoilt children of the rich.
I was going to have a great deal of fun winning this game—and then mining the sexual chemistry we so clearly shared. If she was anywhere near as hot in bed as she was at the table, this was liable to be a very entertaining night.
‘You’re extremely arrogant, Mr Allegri,’ she said, but I caught the catch of breath in her throat as she said it. ‘Perhaps you should concentrate on the game, instead of my fictitious attraction to your charms.’
‘I happen to be very good at multi-tasking,’ I replied as I placed the pack on the table, suddenly less interested in dealing the cards than I was in dealing with her. ‘I can play and read your responses at the same time—which is how I know it’s me you want, not Alexi.’
‘What responses?’ she said, her chest rising and falling again in an erratic rhythm. ‘I don’t have any response to you, whatever your ego might be telling you.’
I decided not to argue the point. I simply let my gaze drift down to her nipples and watched them swell against the satin. I could only imagine how desperate she must be now for relief. The peaks begging for the sharp strong tug of my lips. Some women were extremely sensitive there; I would hazard a guess she was one of them from the way the flush she’d kept at bay for three hours spread across her collarbone under my examination.
‘How about we test that theory,’ I said, ‘and take a recreational break?’
She stiffened, but the blush was out of control now. And all the more arresting for it.
She didn’t respond so I added, ‘We’ve been playing for three hours—and I’m starving.’ I let the implication hang in the air that it wasn’t just food I was hungry for—while enjoying her attempts to stifle the now livid blush rioting across those pale cheeks.
I saw her debate my request, unsure whether to take the bait or not. If she knew anything about me at all—and I would hazard a guess she had done more than her fair share of research on my habits from her play so far—she would know I frequently played for twenty-four hours straight without the need for sustenance. I didn’t get hungry during a match, all my focus on the turn of the cards. But right now I was distracted, so why not run with it? After all, that delectable flash of temper and heat in her eyes was even more challenging than her play.
I wondered exactly how bold she really was.
Would she play it safe and decline my offer? Keep her cards close to her chest and continue to deny the chemistry making both our bloods boil? Or would she take the risk of exposing her own hunger, to get the upper hand in the game of cat and mouse we were now playing?
I was hoping it would be the latter, but had I overestimated her daring?
I thought I probably had when she looked away and I saw her throat move as she swallowed.
But then, to my surprise, she turned back to me and those mesmerising emerald eyes sparked with defiance—and a steely determination.
‘I’d love a supper break,’ she said, the tiny quiver in her voice contradicted by the thrust of her nipples and the flagrant colour still flaring on her cheeks. ‘But only because I’m hungry and I need all my energy to concentrate on beating you.’
‘Touché, bella.’ I chuckled, enjoying her audacious threat, and the sparkle of green fire. I picked up my cell-phone and texted Joe to get a meal up here pronto. She hadn’t just taken the bait; she’d swallowed it whole then spat it back out again.
Why that should make me relish bedding her even more than beating her was probably a little perverse—as a rule I never slept with an opponent, however tempted—mixing poker with sexual pleasure could get complicated fast... But, right now, my goal was a simple one. Stoke the hunger between us until she gave up all her secrets.
Then I could make quick work of defeating her at the table—and we could both reap the rewards.
HAD I COMPLETELY lost my ever-loving mind?
Why had I agreed to stop play and share a meal with Dante Allegri? It was stupid and reckless to the point of being extremely dangerous—especially if you factored in the pheromones rioting through my body every time he so much as glanced at me.
But I didn’t realise how dangerous my situation was until I was sitting opposite him at a table in the adjoining salon, set with sparkling crystal, fine china and antique silverware. His devilishly handsome face—illuminated by the flicker of candlelight—looked more savage than suave as the prickles of sensation all over my skin refused to subside.
It was as if my body had a death wish.
He lifted my plate to serve me from the banquet displayed on a sideboard which had been brought up from the casino kitchens by a troop of waiters who, to my dismay, had disappeared again almost immediately.
‘What’s your pleasure, Miss Spencer?’ The formal address sounded ridiculous, given the way I could feel his voice caressing my skin as he spoke my name in that husky, amused tone.
Wake up, Edie. This isn’t real...he’s not interested in you... He’s a practised seducer trying to use his industrial-strength sex appeal to weaken all your defences.
I shouted the mantra in my head as I fought the strange sensation—a mesmerising mix of lethargy and fizzing urgency—which had taken over my body and drawn me into this perilous position.
I should have resisted the urge to challenge him, to provoke him and to accept the gauntlet he’d thrown down, but I was here now and I couldn’t back down so I’d just have to play out this hand to the best of my abilities. Maybe I’d had some vague notion of playing him at his own game but, as the intimacy drew in around me and my ribs contracted
