They were good, he admitted, all three of them. This wasn't any sucker's game. They may have been the classy high rollers who normally gambled in palaces, but he had learned his skills aboard ship, where boredom could tempt a man to toss a month's pay into the pot just to break the monotony.
At a card table, any card table, Michael knew a wise man studied his quarries, and his foes.
Josh flicked a thumb over his jaw when he had a solid hand, and his eyes went blank and cool when he was bluffing. De Witt tended to reach for his beer when he had a winner. And Templeton, well, Templeton was a cagey dog, but as the second hour got under way, Michael noted that the man puffed harder on his cigar when he prepared to rake in the chips.
Calculating, Michael discarded, drew into a pitiful pair of treys. He had a choice, considered the practicalities, and decided it was time to shake things up.
"There's your ten," he told Josh, flipping in his chips. "Raise it ten."
"Twenty to me." Absently Byron reached down to scratch one of his dogs. A sign, Michael thought smugly, that he had nothing. "I'm in."
"Twenty." Tommy knocked into the pot. "And ten more."
"Out." Josh tossed his cards down and rose to help himself to one of the fat sandwiches on the counter.
"I'll see your raise and bump it twenty."
"And you two can fight this hand out." Byron pushed back, gulped his beer.
The boy had been bumping the pot since the deal, Thomas mused, and studied the pretty trio of ladies in his hand. Well, they would have to see what he was made of. "Your twenty, and fifty more."
Michael's eyes met Thomas's over the cards, held steady as he pushed chips into the pot. "Fifty. And fifty back. Call or fold."
Thomas studied his opponent, then wheezed out a breath between his teeth. "I'll give you this one," he decided and tossed his cards down. Well?" he demanded when Michael scooped back the chips. "What did you have?"
When Michael merely smiled and began to stack his chips, Thomas hissed out another breath. "You bluffed me. I can see it. You didn't have shit."
"A man has to pay to see, Mr. Templeton."
Eyes narrowed, Thomas leaned back. "Tommy," he said. "When a man bluffs me cold, he ought to call me by name."
"My deal." Michael gathered the cards, shuffled. "Stud. Seven-card." He grinned. "You in, Tommy?"
"I'm in, and I'll still be in when you're writhing on the floor and begging for mercy."
Michael flipped in his ante. "A boy needs his dreams."
Thomas let loose a laugh, then reached into his pocket.
"Damned if I don't like you, Fury. Have a cigar. A real one, not one of those girl smokes Byron puffs on."
"Thanks, but I quit." Still, he sniffed longingly at the clouds of smoke. "Anyway, those Cubans look too much like a dick."
Josh choked on smoke, pulled his cigar out of his mouth. "Thanks, Mick. I'm really going to enjoy this now."
Howling with laughter, Thomas slapped his hand on the table. "Deal the cards—and prepare to lose your shirt."
During hour three, Michael took a pass and walked outside. He peed companionably with the dogs and watched the night-drenched sea.
"Hell of a spot, isn't it?"
Michael looked back over his shoulder as Byron approached. "You sure picked one."
"I was thinking I could put up a small stable there, at the edge of the cypress grove. Simple. Two stalls."
"Two?"
"I figure solo's lonely, even for a horse. I liked the look of that pinto mare."
"She's a sweetheart." He tucked his tongue in his cheek. "You clear it with your wife?"
Byron's eyes were mild and amused. "I know all kinds of ways around my wife. More, I assume than you do even after picking her up on Fisherman's Wharf."
"I was just rattling her cage. And yours." He lifted his hands, palms out. "Never laid my hands on her. Hardly."
Byron chuckled, shook his head. "I think we'll just leave that particular door closed, but if you want to ride Josh about Margo, I'd find it entertaining."
"I don't want to have to fight him. He's tougher than he looks. Loosened three of my teeth when we were twelve." Michael checked them with his tongue. "And his old man's liable to take bets on the outcome."
"That's the Templetons. They'll bet on anything. Look at the way Kate, Margo, and Laura bet on the shop."
"I keep meaning to go by there again. I'm not much on fancy-lady shops, but I'm wondering how Laura handles clerking."
"I think you'll be surprised, and impressed. I have been. It's given them something solid and special."
"Gives them a living."
"It gives them more than that. It gives them unity, and a goal and love." Either the beer or the women were making him sentimental, but Byron went with it. "I wasn't around when they conceived it, put it together, took the chance. Margo selling off almost everything she owned, my conservative accountant pooling her investments to make her share. And Laura selling her wedding ring."
"She sold her wedding ring to build that shop?"
"Yeah. It was right after they found out Ridgeway had pretty much cleaned out their joint accounts. She wouldn't take Templeton money for the shop, so she hocked her wedding and engagement rings to make the down payment on the building. What women they are!"
"Yeah." Michael frowned out to sea. "The socialite, the model, and the accountant."
"They sweated over it. They cleaned and sanded and painted. And figured out how to make it work. It knocks me out to walk in there and see how they are together, how they are together anywhere. You see them out on the cliffs, rooting around in the rocks and dirt for Seraphina's dowry. All these years they're still together, still looking. Kate was wild tonight when she told me Laura had found another coin."
He was trying to see it all, to settle all these facets into an image in his head. He blinked. "Laura? She found a coin? When?"
"Last night. Took a walk down on the cliffs. Kate says she does that from time to time when she needs to clear her head or just be alone. She found one, a gold doubloon just like Margo did, and Kate did. Oddest fucking thing. Each one of them finding a coin, months apart, by accident rather than design. Their treasure hunts turn up nothing, then boom, one of them just picks up a gold piece off the ground as if it had been there all along. Makes you wonder."
The back door slammed open and Thomas's voice boomed out. "Is this a poker game or a damn church social? Cards are getting cold."
"Then deal 'em," Byron called back. "Coming?" he asked Michael.
"Yeah. Laura walks on the cliffs at night?"
"Now and again." Byron waded through the dogs, who ran circles around him.
"And last night she just reached down and picked up a gold coin?"
"Spanish, 1844."
"Son of a bitch. That's weird."
"I'll tell you what's weirder. I'm beginning to believe they're going to find the whole thing. That they're the only ones who will."
"Never believed it existed."
"Ask Laura to show you her coin," Byron suggested. "You might change your mind."
"I might do that," Michael murmured, then walked back into the comforting arena of cigar smoke and beer.
When he dragged himself up the stairs at three A.M., he still had his shirt, his horses, and his ego. He would have counted himself lucky for that. The fact that he was also eight hundred dollars richer was just icing.
He thought he might put it toward buying a pretty yearling Quarter Horse he'd had his eye on.
He stepped through his front door and stumbled over the warm bundle stretched out there.
"Jesus Christ!" As he hit the floor, the dog yelped, shuddered, then licked humbly at Michael's face. "Bongo, what the hell are you—Jesus, get your tongue out of my mouth!" Michael swiped a hand over his face, shifted and ended up with wriggling puppy on his lap. "Yeah, yeah, you're sorry. How the hell'd you get in here? Learn how to pick locks now?"
"He came with me." Laura stepped out of
the bedroom.
"He loves me. He didn't want to sleep in my bed all alone. Me either."
Maybe it was the beer, or his abrupt meeting with the floor, but his voice seemed to have been lost somewhere along the way.
She was standing in the lamplight, smiling. And wearing nothing but one of his shirts. Her hair was tousled, her skin flushed. And when he managed to clear his vision, he noted that her eyes were bright, if a bit unfocused.
She was in simple words, beautiful, sexy, and drunk.
"Did you come for the rent?"
Her laugh was low and frothy. "It's after business hours. I came for you. Thought you'd never get here. How was the poker game?''
"Profitable. How was the movie marathon?"
"Illuminating. Did you ever watch, really watch, the way people kiss in black and white? It's…" She sighed, ran a hand down her breasts until he had to roll his tongue back into his mouth. "Wonderful," she decided. "Just wonderful. Come and kiss me, Michael. In black and white."
"Sugar…" He had very few rules and was struggling to remember this one as he set the dog aside and rose. "You're plowed."
"I am, indeed." She shook back her hair, leaned against the doorway for balance. "D'you know, Michael, I have never been drunk in my life. A little tipsy, I will admit to having been, on occasion a little tipsy. But drunk, never. Not done, not acceptable for a woman of my standing in the community."
"Your secret's safe with me. Bongo and I will walk you home."
"I'm not going home." She straightened, steadied herself, enjoying the liberating way the room tilted as she stepped toward him. "Until I've had you. Then you can tell me if I kiss as good as Kate and Margo."
"Shit," he muttered under his breath. "Word travels fast around here."
"You can even rip my clothes off again." She linked her arms around his neck. "It's your shirt anyway. I like wearing your clothes. It's almost like having your hands on me. Are you going to put your hands on me, Michael?"
"I'm debating."
"I'll tell you a secret." She pressed against him, put her mouth on his ear. "Wanna know my secret?"
She was going to be sorry come sunrise, but—he skimmed his hands under the shirt—what the hell. "Yeah, tell me a secret."
"I have dreams about you. I used to have them before, too. Long time ago, when you would come around with Josh, I had dreams about you. But I never told anybody, because—"
"It wouldn't be appropriate for a woman of your standing."
She chuckled, nipped his earlobe and sent his blood pressure through the roof. " 'Xactly. You know what I'd dream about you? I'll tell you. You'd find me. I'd be on the cliffs or in my room or in the forest, and you'd find me. And my heart would start to pound, so hard, so fast."
She took his hand, pressed it against her heart. To show him. "I couldn't move or breathe, or even think," she continued, and her hand laid over his on her breast. "You'd come toward me, not saying anything, just looking at me, looking until my knees were weak, until the blood was rushing in my head. You'd kiss me, so rough, so hot. The way no one else ever would. No one else would dare to touch me the way you touched me."
"No." It was like drowning, he thought. Staring into those deep gray eyes was like drowning. "No one would."
"You'd rip my clothes, rip them off, and take me right there, wherever we were. Just the way you did that night, just like in my dreams. I must have always known you would one day."
She circled away, arms lifted like a dancer on point while he stood where he was, aching. Viciously aching.
"That's my secret. I dreamed of you. Oh, my head's spinning." She laughed, pressed a hand to it. "Being drunk feels just like it feels having you on top of me, inside me, pounding in me. God, God, I love it."
She combed her hair back from her face, grinned at him. "Look at you, standing there, watching me. Never expected to hear such talk from Laura Templeton, did you?"
He knew, standing there, watching her, that if he'd been dying of thirst he would have begged for her rather than a single sip of water. "No. And if you don't remember this in the morning, I'm going to be damn sorry."
"I'm just full of surprises tonight." She lifted her arms, hooked them behind her head and stretched. "I watched all those movies, drank all that wine. Ate chocolate and laughed. And cried, and sighed. All those things women do."
Laura lowered her hands again and turned a slow, fluid pirouette that made his shirt flow up, out.
"I watched Margo talk Annie into having her nails painted, and Kate dozing off with her head on my mother's lap. Margo nursing the baby when he woke. I loved it all so much, loved being with them. My life is them and my babies, but through it all, you were in the back of my mind. Where is Michael? Does he still want me? And I thought, we'll see. I'll be there when he comes home, and we'll see if he does. If I can make him want me. Do you?"
He didn't speak, couldn't have. Simply crossed to her, dragged her against him and plundered. Joy and need and pleasure burst through her in one sizzling ball of heat. Her laugh was smoke, like her eyes as he pulled her to the floor.
"No, no." Giddy now, and brave enough, she rolled on top of him. "Let me. This time. I want to see if I can."
He was ripe to explode and pulled her down again. "Laura, for Christ's sake—"
"Me." She jerked back, shook her reeling head. "I want to do things to you, things that might be considered inappropriate for a woman of my station."
He struggled to clamp down on hurry when she straddled him. "Want to use me, do you?"
Her lips quirked at the gleam in his eyes. "That's right. Look, we scared Bongo. He's curled up in the corner."
"He'll get over it. What do you want to do to me?"
"I have to figure it out." She blew out a breath, toyed with the buttons of his shirt. "I've got another secret."
"If it's anything like the last one, it'll probably kill me."
"It's not a good one." Now her lips pouted. "Well, maybe since it turned out this way it is. Peter never ripped my clothes off."
"Christ. Forget it, and him."
But when he reached up, she evaded him. "I want to tell you so you'll know. It's kind of funny, really. We always had very appropriate sex. Not like with you." She traced the vee above the button with a fingertip. "Always proper sex, except when we didn't have sex at all which was most of the time and all through the last year we were married. And you know what?" She placed her hands on either side of his head and leaned down, a heavy-eyed, more-than-tipsy woman.
"What?"
She hummed in her throat as he stroked her breasts. "You can do that," she murmured. "I don't mind at all. But I was saying. We had a system. No, he had a system, I was just there. He would put on classical music. Chopin, always the same sonata. I sometimes still get a tick in my eye when I hear it. He would close the door, lock it, lest a wandering servant be shocked by the goings-on, though the staff would hardly have business in there at ten forty-five in the evening. It was mostly always at ten forty-five."
"So he was a creature of habit." Michael flipped open buttons and found her flesh.
"Umm. No, you don't." She sat up again. "You're trying to distract me. He would turn off the lights, get into bed. He would kiss me three times. Not two, not four, but three times. Then he would—''
"I don't think I want a play-by-play here of Ridgeway's style in the sack."
"In the marital bed, please. Well, we'll just skip right along, then, since it isn't very interesting anyway. At eleven-oh-five, he would wish me a pleasant night and go to sleep."
"The twenty-minute special, huh?"
"You could set your clock by it. Oh, Michael." She stretched her arms up, giving him tempting glimpses of soft white swells. "I thought it was me. I thought that was just the way it was, had to be. But it isn't, it wasn't, it doesn't."
She cupped her breasts in her hands, let her eyes close. "It's never predictable with you. I never know what you'll do, where you'll touch me next, or how. And it'
s never proper. It's so wonderfully improper. The things you do with your hands, with your mouth on me." She dropped her hands to his chest. "Do you have any idea what it's like to discover, at thirty, that you have a sex drive?"
"No." He couldn't help but smile at her. She was so beautifully drunk. "I found mine at sixteen and never lost sight of it."
She laughed, flinging her head back and making his teeth ache with the need to bite into that slim white throat. "Oh, but this is better. Has to be. It's like finding Seraphina's dowry. Somehow you know it's there, somewhere, or hope it is. And then when you find it, after all that time, all that wondering, it's so sweet."
"Since you found that elusive sex drive"—his hands slid up her torso—"why don't we put it to use?"
"I'm going to make you sweat." She eased down again, scraped her teeth over his jaw. "You might even beg."
"Now you're getting cocky."
"I take that as a challenge." To demonstrate, she shoved up her sleeves, which fell right back down again. "Are you man enough to agree not to touch me until I say you can?"
He lifted a brow, wondering just what the lady had in mind. "Your loss, sugar."
"I don't think so, ultimately. No hands," she murmured and pressed his to his sides. "Except mine."
She lowered her lips to his, brushed, teased, nibbled. "Margo said you had a very tasty mouth." She smiled when he winced. "She was right. I think I'll stay right here a while."
She lingered on his mouth, changing the angle, the depth, the tone of the kiss. Light one moment, intense and urgent the next, then sultry, smoky.
His fingers, aching, curled into the carpet. "Not bad for a beginner," he managed in a voice rusty with need.
"And I learn fast. Your heart's pounding, Michael." She nipped at the pulse in his throat, cruised over dampening flesh. Then she gripped his shirt at the shoulder, pulled. When the seam stayed fast, he chuckled from both humor and frustration.
"Want me to do that for you?"
"I can handle it." She eased back, kept her eyes on his as she yanked hard. The seam ripped, exposing muscle and skin. She pounced on it like a starving cat. "Oh, your body," she whispered, then crossed her hands, taking hold of his shirt and sending cloth and buttons flying. "You have such a body. Tough and scarred and tight. I want it."
Her mouth streaked down his shoulder, over his chest. Quick, greedy bites and sucks, feathering openmouthed kisses and flicks of tongue. But when his hands came up to grip her hips, she shoved them away with a single word.
"Mine."
Rising up, she shrugged off the shirt, then once more bent to her task.
She was destroying him in a way he hadn't known he could be destroyed. Slowly, inevitably. She was taking him in a way he hadn't known he could be taken. Greedily, intently. His breath thickened, caught, released on a groan when she laved her tongue low on his belly. Every muscle quivered, taut wires close to snapping.
Thoughts filled and emptied from his mind so rapidly that he couldn't gain hold. Sensation rammed violently into sensation like two clenched fists. The scent of her, elegant as royalty, the sheen of her skin, glossy as a damp rose, and the stroke of her hands, restless as lust.
Giddy on her own power, she tugged open the button of his jeans, felt his body tense like a runner on the mark. She lowered her mouth, tasting there, just there where denim and flesh met. And heard him choke out her name.
She could do this to him, she thought as she dipped her tongue under the denim to tease. She could create this desperation, and weakness, this violent need in a strong, vital man. She could make him want her to the point of madness, and she could take whatever she wanted from him.
She nudged the material down, closed her teeth over his hip. And heard the breath explode out of his lungs. He was helpless, she knew, lost in her. And she could make him ache.