Play My Game (2 page)

Damien’s house—
our
house—has an equally stunning view, but is set much farther back from the beach. One thing that I love about the bakery is that it is built practically on top of the dunes, so that all you have to do is descend the stairs at the back of the deck to be on the sand.

I mention that to Damien when he returns with big mugs of coffee and two flaky chocolate croissants.

“Then we’ll build a bungalow right at the edge of the property. I’ll talk to Nathan about drawing up plans,” he adds, referring to Nathan Dean, the architect who designed the main house.

I gape at him. “I was just making conversation.”

He looks almost confused. “So you wouldn’t like that? I would.” He reaches out to wipe a stray bit of chocolate from the corner of my mouth, then licks his fingertip. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to strip you naked on that beach, and yet I had to wait until we were all the way up the hill. But if there was a conveniently located bungalow …”

I shake my head in mock exasperation. “Clearly I’m going to have to watch what I say around you, Mr. Stark. I mean, what if I’d said that I wanted a pied-à-terre on the moon?”

“I’m certain that can be arranged.” He twines his fingers with mine, then kisses my knuckles. “I think this is my favorite part of being married.”

“Croissants?”

“Spoiling my wife.”

I only smile. As ridiculous as Damien building a bungalow because of an offhand comment might be, I can’t deny that it makes me feel all warm and gooey inside. Then again, simply being with the man makes me feel that way.

“Do you want another?” I ask, nodding at his chocolate-stained plate.

“Offering to wait on me?”

“Anything you want,” I say. “Anything you need.”

He squeezes my hand. “I have everything I need.”

My smile is so wide that it almost hurts. Around us, I see other customers watching us and grinning, too, as if our passion is infectious. I recognize a few as neighbors, who undoubtedly know that we are newlyweds. Then again, considering how much the tabloids and social media report on our every move, I imagine that the whole world knows we’re newlyweds.

I swipe my finger through the chocolate that is left on Damien’s plate, then lift it to his lips. His brows rise ever so slightly, and then he draws my finger in, lightly sucking and sending such sparks of ecstasy through me that it’s a wonder I don’t moan with pleasure.

When I pull my finger gently away, I can’t help my smile of victory. I’m quite certain that at least someone on this deck has a smartphone and a Twitter account, and that picture will be all over social media within the hour. Normally, that would bother me.

Right now, I not only don’t care, I want it.

I want the world to see us in love. To see the way we look at each other. The way we complete each other.

I’m happier than I’ve ever been, and if I can’t shout it from the rooftops, then I’ll just let the world shout it for me on social media.

“You’re smiling,” Damien says.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Good point.” He stands. “Ready?”

I nod, then start to head for the door into the bakery. He tugs me to a stop and nods to the stairs. “I’ll come back for the car when I go for a run later. Right now, let’s walk home.”

I love Southern California. Although it is technically winter, the temperature is already in the mid-sixties, with the forecast predicting highs in the seventies. I take off my shoes, and Damien does the same, and we walk in the surf, where the water is frigid no matter what the season.

We hold hands and talk about everything and nothing as we walk home. “Hard to believe we’re already into the second week of February,” I say, thinking that we’ve just come back from our honeymoon and now it’s almost Valentine’s Day. I feel a bit like a kid whose birthday is the week before Christmas. “I wasn’t even thinking about the timing when we picked our wedding day.”

“You mean the weather? It’s usually a bit colder this time of year, but it’s always comfortable.”

I glance sideways at him, wondering if he’s really that clueless. His expression, however, is entirely unreadable.

“I just meant—” I cut myself off, frustrated.

His brow furrows. “What?”

Communication
, I think.
Marriage is all about communication.

“I was just thinking that our first Valentine’s Day is almost here.”

“Not even close,” he says.

“Um, less than a week. That’s right around the corner.”

I don’t realize that he’s stopped until I’ve gone a few more steps. I turn back. Damien actually looks a little worried, and I confess I’m surprised. This will be our first Valentine’s Day together, and knowing Damien and romance, I’d anticipated him doing it up big. I tell myself it’s stupid to get my feelings hurt, especially since there’s a week to go, and Damien could pull off amazing with only five minutes’ notice.

Still, I can’t help feeling disappointed. Which is completely and totally unfair, but there you go.

I draw in a breath and plaster on one of my best pageant smiles. “Actually, you’re right,” I say. “As far as you and I are concerned, a week is practically a lifetime.”

“Nikki. Come here.” His voice is low and apologetic, and I keep my face bland because now I am certain that he forgot. He just … forgot.

People forget things, though, right? Even newlyweds.

Even Damien Stark.

I move into his arms, in part because he asked me to, but also because I want to be close enough to him that if I tilt my head down he won’t see the stupid, foolish, idiotic tears that are starting to well in my eyes.

He slides his hands over my arms, moving them until I’m cupping his ass—along with the small, square box tucked into his back pocket.

“Take it out.” His voice is firm, but I think I hear a faint hint of amusement.

I blink, then do as he asks. It’s a small, white cardboard box, the kind that department stores use to package jewelry. Confused, I look up at Damien, and I no longer wonder if he’s amused. It’s very clear that he is.

“Open it.”

I’m starting to feel very foolish, but I do as he asks and gently tug off the lid to reveal a necklace on which hangs a tiny glass bottle. Inside the bottle is a rolled up piece of paper.

I look up at Damien, confused. “It’s lovely.”

“Take out the scroll.”

“Really?” I don’t wait for his reply, but use my fingernails to pull out the tiny cork. The paper is harder to get out, but Damien fishes a little army knife out of his front pocket, then passes the tiny pair of tweezers to me. I realize as he does that he’d brought the knife in anticipation of this moment.

Even with the tweezers, it takes some skill to fish out the paper. I finally manage, though, and I unscroll it, then squint at the tiny writing.

For my wife for Valentine’s Day,

A proposition, if I may—

Three clues for you,

You know what to do—

And if you want your present to claim,

You’re going to have to play my game

Now here’s the clue that I speak of:

Tell me, darling Nikki, what is sweeter than Love?

“Damien.” My voice is soft, muted by the happy, astounded tears that have clogged my throat.

“I can’t claim to be a poet,” Damien says, though I think the poem is charming, and all the more wonderful because Damien wrote it.

He hooks his finger under my chin and tilts my head up so that there is no way I can hide my tear-filled eyes. “Three clues. Six days. I think you’ll make it.”

My heart has swollen so much it seems to fill my chest, cutting off my ability to breathe. “You didn’t forget.”

The softness I see in his eyes just about slays me. “Oh, baby. I could sooner forget my own name than our first Valentine’s Day.”

“I love you.” The words seem thin compared to the emotion that pours through me.

“And I you. But, Nikki,” he adds, and now his voice takes on a harder edge, belied only by the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. “You doubted me. I think that deserves a punishment.”

I cock my head, wary, then squeal when he smacks my bottom. I laugh and take off toward the house at a run.

But not too fast. After all, I’m hoping that Damien will catch me.

Since Damien is in exceptional shape—and since I’m not exactly trying hard to get away—he catches me easily enough. He tugs me to a stop, then scoops me into his arms. I kick and squirm a little just for form, but there’s no denying that I am a very willing captive.

I keep my arms hooked around his neck as he carries me up the path and then surprises me by veering off onto the newly constructed tennis court.

There is a plush lounge chair on the sidelines, which I have recently realized he put there so that I would have a place to sit and watch him practice. That’s not all it’s good for, though, especially as it is as wide as a twin bed and at least as comfortable.

“Damien,” I protest as he pulls my sweater over my head. “It’s broad daylight.” I don’t add that there is still a chill in the air. The temperature may be in the sixties, but right at this moment my skin is so heated that I could be naked in Antarctica and not even notice.

“So it is.” He doesn’t even slow down, however. Instead he reaches for the button on my pants. He unfastens it, then eases the zipper down. He tugs the capris down over my hips, then moves lower until he reaches my feet, still bare from our walk on the beach.

He brushes a finger over the arch of my foot, making me squirm. Then he pulls the pants fully off, leaving me in only a bra and my very tiny panties.

Damien’s eyes skim over me, the heat in his gaze affecting me as potently as if his hands were skimming over me. I feel my body go soft and wet, and when his focus turns to my crotch, I moan softly in anticipation of his touch.

Slowly, he peels me out of my underthings until I am naked on the lounge chair and burning under Damien’s gaze.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, and I feel the warm current of a blush as it creeps up my skin.

Slowly, he traces his fingers over my body. Up my shin, over my thigh, then along the soft skin of my inner thigh. He moves with casual ease over the scars that once embarrassed me, but that I rarely think about now with Damien. And then his hands are traveling up, over my belly, up my rib cage. He slows at my breasts, using the tip of his finger to stroke and tease before lightly pinching my nipple and sending a shock of pleasure through me that is so sweetly profound it makes me arch up, but whether that is because the sensation is too intense to endure or because I am trying to make it last even longer, I do not know.

“Stand up,” he finally says. “I want to see you.”

I do, standing naked on the court at the foot of the chaise, my body soft and ready. My breasts are tight, my nipples like pinpoints of need. And my clit is so sensitive that even the slight breeze is driving me a little mad. I am wet—so wet—and my sex throbs with demand, my arousal growing with each beat of my heart.

“This isn’t fair,” I say, though I’m not entirely sure how I have managed to form words. “I’m naked, and you’re not.”

“I’d hate for you to think I’m inequitable, Mrs. Stark.”

I watch, mesmerized, as he eases out of his clothes. He is exceptional when he is fully clothed. Naked and erect, he is like a god, wild and virile and powerful.

He lies on the chaise, then crooks a finger to call me. I don’t hesitate, and I ease over him, my knees on either side of his hips so that his erection strokes me, making me tremble. Making me even more wet.

Since I am pretty much certain that I will die if I don’t have him inside me right this instant, I take his cock in my hand—intending to stroke and position him against my sex—but I am foiled by the shake of his head and the crisp way that he says a single word. “No.”

“I—what?”

He makes a spinning motion. “Turn around and come here. I want to taste you.”

I hesitate, not sure why I feel suddenly awkward. It’s not like Damien’s never gone down on me. As far as I’m concerned, his tongue is magical.

But to straddle his mouth, and backward …

The thought is both arousing and a bit disconcerting.

“Nikki.” He says my name in the kind of voice that brooks no argument, and I comply, both because he has ordered me to, and because I want it, this new intimacy. With Damien, there is nowhere he can take me that I won’t go, and so help me I want to go everywhere with him.

His hands cup my rear, and I understand the benefit of this position the moment his tongue strokes me, soft and teasing. Because although Damien is holding me, I have more control. I can shift and move, and make the pleasure build fast or slow.

More than that, I can see him. His long, muscular thighs. That gorgeous chest with just the slightest hint of hair. Those rock-hard abs that my fingers know so well.

And the beautiful cock, so hard now that I think it must be painful. And what kind of a wife would I be if I didn’t give my husband just a little relief?

Feeling both aroused and mischievous, I lean forward at the waist, which has the added benefit of moving my hips slightly even as Damien’s tongue thrusts inside me. I swallow a moan as my body tightens around him.
Christ, yes, I want his cock
. If not inside me, then in my mouth. I want to feel him get harder. I want to taste his arousal. I want to make Damien feel as wild and crazed as he is making me feel.

And so slowly, I lick the crown, then smile in satisfaction as he grows even harder. As he groans against my cunt before teasing me more, his tongue working magic on my clit.

I take him in, almost coming merely from the taste of him, all heat and male, arousal and spice.

Above us, the sun shines down. I feel the warmth on my back, and the knowledge that we are outside, so deliciously intimate, makes me even more aroused. A tremor runs through my body, and I know that I am close. That the storm is building and soon Damien will take me over the edge, and I so desperately want him to go with me. I use my tongue, laving and stroking, and I feel him getting harder, tighter. Closer.