Page 123 of This Could Be Us

We’ve both done things that are out of character over the last two weeks. Playing hooky. Calling in sick. Sneaking around to see each other. It’s been glorious.

“Oh, so now I’ve also corrupted you,” I laugh. “Go on.”

“You knew you wanted to play this perverted version of the game.”

“Perverted?” I press my hand to my chest. “I didn’t think you were so easily offended. I would never have guessed by the way you bent me over that table and had your way with me fully clothed as soon as you arrived.”

His lips twitch. “That’s neither here nor there.”

“Actually it was hereandthere because you did it twice.”

His eyes smolder and he goes on. “Like I said, you planned this, so you knew to wear all of that.” He waves a hand to my winter coat, scarf, hat, and gloves over jeans, a T-shirt, two pairs of socks, and my faux-mink slippers. “And I came unprepared and am almost naked after an hour.”

“Not naked enough for what I have in mind,” I laugh, stretching my leg under the table to run my foot up his calf.

“Stop that.” He aims a stern look at me. “I’m accusing you of something very serious.”

“Wanting to see you naked?” I frown and tilt my head. “Or wanting to see you lose?”

“Both.” He glares at the one card left in my hand. “And I bet that’s a Wild card. That’s the other way you’ve cheated. I can’t figure out how, but you’ve had Wild cards every hand.”

“What can I say? That card is drawn to me. I always get it at least once every time. I used to love it growing up because you could change the color to whatever you wanted.”

“Well I have four cards,” he says. “And you only have that one left, so we both know you’re about to win. Just play it.”

Instead of throwing down my final card, I stand and walk over to his side of the table. I toss one leg over his and straddle him in the chair, running the edge of my card down his chest and abs. His muscles flex beneath the card’s trajectory. I turn it over and slap it against his naked chest. He glances down and roars a disbelieving laugh.

“You have to be cheating!” He takes the Wild card and tosses it across the room.

“Sore loser. Now let’s see. You have a sock and this underwear. Which do I want to claim?”

“I don’t like this game anymore,” he says, tugging my hat off and tossing it to the floor.

My hair tumbles down and around my shoulders. “Nowthat’scheating. You can’t just start taking my clothes off. You haven’t won one hand.”

“I can,” he says, tugging at my scarf and throwing it over his shoulder. “And I will.”

“Cheat!” I try half-heartedly to get off his lap, but he holds me in place, plucking at the buttons of my winter coat. “This has to go.”

“This is a miscarriage of justice,” I tell him, giggling and squirming as he takes the opportunity to tickle my ribs beneath the coat.

He grabs my hand and rips off one glove. The laughter dies from his eyes as he studies my palm, bringing it to his lips and leaving a kiss across the scar marring it. “You never told me what happened here.”

“Did I not?” I breathe out the last of my amusement and stand, walking across the room to grab the Wild card and bring it back to the table.

“No, but I remember you had it bandaged the day you came to my office with the drive.”

It’s been so long since we discussed that day. It feels like another life, one where he was still an enigma, not the man whose body I know almost as well as my own now. A life where the only outlet I found for my rage was within the walls of this room. That was another woman, and I don’t much want to revisit her.

“I cut myself,” I finally say, taking off the winter coat and hanging it on the hook by the door.

“How?” he asks, leaning back in his chair, as confident in briefs and one sock as most men would be in an Armani suit.

“I found out some news about Edward that made me lose my mind a little,” I say, forcing a laugh. “I took my machete to his clothes, his shoes.”

My eyes stray to the holes and dents still in one wall.

“His man cave.” I shrug. “I knew the Bird jersey was his most prized possession, so I shattered the glass, which is, of course, how I found the drive.”

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