Page 59 of Playing to Win

I move my fingertips along the rays of light bursting from a sun beneath the phoenix, then glide up his torso, through clouds, into trees. The tattoos are all so different but together, they paint a magnificent picture. In the trees are small birds with musical notes coming from their beaks. Against one trunk sits a man with a guitar. “What is this?”

“Me, I guess.”

“You play the guitar?”

He nods.

“Me too! We do have something in common. I had you down as more of a wicky-wicky dance track kind of man.”

“What was that? That thing you just did with your hand on your ear?”

I chuckle as I do it again. “It’s a turntable. I was being a DJ.”

“You’re so fucking cute,” he says, pulling me to straddle his hips.

“Shut up. Not cute. Cool.”

“Whatever you say.” He runs his hands down my thighs, and my skin is sensitive under his gentle touch. “And I do like dance music when I’m working out. I like country and rock too. I try out most stuff.”

“Can I hear you play sometime?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“We’ll see.”

Shaking my head, I get back to continuing my exploration of his tattoos, following another tree down his right arm. Next to it is a rabbit and a clock. An image I recognize. “This is the ticktock clock, right?”

He nods again. I notice the tensing of his muscles.

“From Alice in Wonderland?”

“Yeah.”

“Why would a tough guy like Brooks Adams have Alice in Wonderland tattooed on his arm?”

He stares at me for long seconds. In them, I see a story he doesn’t want to tell. He shifts beneath me. Though he kisses the tip of my nose as he moves me off him, I can sense his mood has changed dramatically. He moves to sit on the edge of the mattress, picking his boxers up from the floor and pulling them on. “I’ll start breakfast. I have to get to the gym,” he says without looking back at me.

“Have to, or want to?”

Now, he faces me. “With you naked and that little sheet the only thing between me and your pussy, I think it’s safe to say I need to go.”

I watch his mighty fine buttocks flex as he strides out of the room. I guess I can’t ask him to tell me everything overnight. Last night we were fighting. Does sex really change everything? Was I already falling before last night? Was I smitten from the first time I met him?

Rolling onto my back, I cover my face to hide my delighted giggle. Never before have I felt the way he made me feel last night. All four times.

His eyes are piercing me through the white T-shirt he wore to the bar last night and which I am now wearing as I make his breakfast shake. He still hasn’t spoken since the Alice in Wonderland question but he doesn’t seem to be brooding, either. Maybe there was nothing to it after all.

Switching off the juicer, I pour its contents into a glass and place it on the counter in front of the man who is staring at me with hungry eyes—hunger that could be related to food, or the fact I intentionally forgot to wear any knickers.

Finally moving his eyes from my thighs to his glass, he says, “My breakfast is purple.”

“I know, I made it. It’s beetroot and there’s a shot of protein in there, so drink up and stop complaining.”

“Grand,” he says sarcastically, wincing through his first mouthful.

“There I was thinking, if I slept with you and relieved some of that pent-up frustration, you might cheer up.”

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