Page 5 of Ace of Swords

The abrupt way she avoided my question while also snatching my wrist, tugging me across the reflective floor, should have bothered me. But there was something in the air. Some strange part of me that found her chaos... attractive.

Letting her take me through the crowd, I watched how her long hair flowed over her naked back. The dress she had on hugged every inch of her body. It kept me quiet so that I didn’t speak again until we were stepping out into the beautifully lit garden under a sea of stars. “Tell me your name. I told you mine.”

She glanced back at me. “No one forced you.”

“I have to call you something.”

“Fine. Call me ‘That Fun Girl.’” She spun, releasing me. We’d wandered deeper into the back garden—a quiet spot, the murmur of the party far away. “That’s all I want to be right now. It’s enough.”

I nodded thoughtfully. If she didn’t want me to push this, fine. Maybe being the Fun Girl was enough for both of us.

Her attention strayed to my face. Then she ran her eyes down to my feet and back again, lingering on my shoulders where they pushed into my suit-jacket. “You said you work with Sergio and his money, but you look like a body guard.”

“How do you mean?”

Fun Girl—or FG, as I began to think of her—laid her palm flat on my chest. As she stroked my tie, I inhaled sharply. “The muscles, mostly.”

Jesus. My heart was thudding, she could definitely feel it. “I work out in my condo every morning.”

Her cute nose crinkled from laughter. “Every single morning?”

“Of course.”

“And do you use an almond face scrub, too?”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Nothing, sorry, it was a dumb American Psycho reference.” Her nails raced over my tie, leaving my skin beneath tingling. “I admire your dedication to exercise. I wish I had a drive like that.”

“If you’re saying you don’t have to work out to stay so gorgeous, I’ll admit that makes me jealous.”

She bit her bottom lip. “You think I’m gorgeous?”

“You must hear that all the time.”

“Hardly.” She backed away, glancing out at the garden around us. “People don’t have the balls to tell me what they really think.”

I adored the crass way she spoke. It was nothing like the saccharine women I was surrounded by day in and day out at the office. But if you’d asked me if I liked that sort of rude language, I’d have denied it.

Maybe it was different because it was coming from a pair of shiny plump lips.

“Well,” I said, reaching out to take her hands. Her fingers twitched like a caught bird. “I’ll be brutally honest. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever spoken to, and it’s killing me that you won’t tell me your real name.”

Twisting towards me, she glanced at our hands, then squeezed them. “If the mystery went away, you’d stop being so open with me.”

She smelled like plums and cloves. Like a midnight moment when you’re straddling the past and the future, and you aren’t sure if you should have regrets or hope.

Her lips grazed mine, forcing me to stay in the present. To feel nothing but bliss. All of my coiled up tension from entering Sergio’s home and seeing his wasteful spending evaporated in the touch of this strange woman.

He told me to have fun,I reminded myself as I buried my hands in her hair. That was enough to justify forgetting that this was so unlike me. I was a planner, a plotter, a fan of precision. This garden affair was the opposite of my whole world.

“You kiss so good,” she whispered against my mouth. Curling my arms around her body, I kissed her harder, pressing my tongue on her soft warmth. She gripped my wrist and guided my palm to her left breast, forcing me to fondle her.

Whatever resistance I had crumbled away. My thumb brushed her firm nipple through the silky surface of her black dress. She hissed, hot air going down my throat, fueling me like I was a steam engine.

“Please,” she moaned. “I want... I want...”

“What do you want?” I demanded.

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