Nerd Gone Wild (Nerds, #3)(30)
Author: Vicki Lewis Thompson

“No, I’m not embarrassed now. But I reserve the right to stop the game at any time.”

“Okay.” He was a gambling man.

She took a long swallow of her beer. Then she scooped up the cards. “My deal.”

* * *

Chapter Twenty-one

Ally won the next hand and Mitchell gave up a sock, as she’d predicted he would. She won the hand after that, too, which took care of his other sock. Now this was more like it. And he’d bragged about his card-playing ability. She could take him.

Next hand he lost his belt. “I thought you said you weren’t very good at this,” he said as he slid his belt from the loops and handed it over.

“I thought you said you were.” Smiling in triumph, she laid the belt on top of the socks lying beside her.

“I usually am pretty good. I don’t seem to be getting cards, for some reason. You are, though.” He dealt the next hand. And lost his flannel shirt.

Ally made a big production of shuffling the cards while he unbuttoned his shirt, but she was watching. Oh, yes, she was watching. Underneath he wore a white cotton T-shirt and she was extremely interested in the fit of that T-shirt. She’d begun to suspect that Mitchell J. Carruthers, Jr., might be hiding a babe-magnet body underneath his nerd clothes.

When he took off the flannel shirt and muscles galore bunched under the T-shirt, her shuffling misfired, sending cards everywhere. “Whoops.” She began gathering them up, meanwhile sneaking peeks at those pecs. She had way underestimated the possibilities.

Mitchell passed her the flannel shirt. “Well played.”

“Thanks. My shuffling leaves a little to be desired. I never was great at that.” She didn’t want him to know how much he’d rattled her with that manly display of muscle. She’d rather have him think she was clumsy.

But, oh, sweet heaven. She was sitting across from a Fruit of the Loom poster boy. If the T-shirt looked this good, she could imagine how he filled out a pair of briefs. She could imagine it way too well. She almost misdealt the cards.

Her luck was still running, though. A pair of aces. Then she got another ace, and bet like crazy. She wanted that T-shirt gone. Yes, the temptation would be intense, but she’d worry about that after she’d forced him to strip away the white cotton that fit him like shrink-wrap.

At the end of the hand, she stared in disbelief as he turned over a flush. She’d never seen it coming.

“Guess my luck changed a little,” he said.

She gulped. “Guess so.” Well, she could end the game, but then she wouldn’t have a chance to get rid of his T-shirt. She’d come this far. Scooting back from the playing area, she wiggled out of her sweatpants. After all, her panties weren’t much different from bikini bottoms.

When she gave him her sweatpants, he took them with great nonchalance. “Thanks.” Then he glanced over at her bare legs. “Are you cold? I can turn up the heat.”

She thought he already had. His casual attitude toward her increasing nak*dness was affecting her more than if he’d openly leered. Then she had the unwelcome thought that he wasn’t as impressed with her body as she was with his.

Yet she had reason to believe her body could turn a guy on. She wasn’t some inexperienced virgin, after all. She’d had boyfriends. She’d incited lust on more than one occasion by stripping down to her panties.

Then again, maybe he was used to seeing her bare legs. Shorts had been a mainstay of her wardrobe back in Bel Air, and his office looked out on the swimming pool where she’d spent lots of hours in a bathing suit. So seeing her legs was nothing new for him.

Well, that sucked. If she was going to be in a sweat over his body, he should at least have some reaction to hers. She stroked her thigh absently, as if rubbing a spot that itched a little bit. From under her lashes she watched for a reaction.

His expression stayed the same as he dealt the cards. But his breathing didn’t. Then he coughed, as if to cover up his reaction.

Feeling a whole lot better, she drained the last of her beer and looked at her new hand to see if this would be the time she’d make the T-shirt disappear. She had to be careful, because she had only two items to get rid of and he had three.

She won. This time she didn’t make the mistake of shuffling while he pulled the T-shirt over his head. Good thing. The hem of the shirt was like a curtain going up on the feature show. What fabulous abs. What a nice soft mat of dark hair. What pecs. What shoulders.

She glanced away at the last moment, right before he pulled the shirt over his head and was able to see again. Then she started shuffling the cards.

“Guess your luck’s back.”

“Guess so.” She took the shirt, which still felt warm. She wanted to hold it up to her cheek, like Linus with his blankie, while she gawked at Mitchell in all his glory. But then she wouldn’t look cool. “Need the heat turned up?” she asked.

“Nope. I’m good.”

She thought he probably was. And she, silly girl, had told him that hav**g s*x was a bad idea. Right now it seemed like the best idea in the world. An outstanding idea, come to think of it.

She dealt the cards.

“Now the game gets interesting.” Mitchell looked at his cards, smiled, and made a bet.

She had squat. She should fold, and move on to the next game. She should, but she wasn’t going to. Picking up five matches, she called his bet.

The blood rushed in her ears as the game progressed. She was going to lose. On purpose. She wanted to find out what he’d do when she took off her sweatshirt. She wanted to know if he’d maintain his control in the face of her going topless.

At the end of the game, she turned over her puny cards. Her fingers trembled a little, but her voice stayed calm. “So much for luck.”

“Uh, yeah.” He sounded hoarse and he paused to clear his throat again. “I win that one.”

She looked into his eyes. Her heart was beating so fast she could barely breathe, but he didn’t seem all that cool and collected, either. He hadn’t even bothered to pick up the cards and start shuffling for the next hand. She wondered if he’d be able to play cards at all, once she took off her sweatshirt.

Time to find out. Grabbing the hem, she whipped the shirt off. Then she checked his eyes for signs of booby shock.

He looked as if someone had flashed a strobe light in his face. His throat moved in a quick swallow, but otherwise he was perfectly motionless.

Immensely gratified, she decided to rub it in. She waved her hand in front of his eyes. “Earth to Mitchell. Come in, Mitchell.”

He blinked and shook his head as if awakening from a trance. “Uh, right.”

“Too distracting for you?” She propped her hands behind her and leaned back. “Ready to concede the game?”

“No.” His expression evolved from awestruck to intense. He gathered the cards without looking down. “I’m ready to win another hand.”

* * *

She is so beautiful. Mitch didn’t know how he’d be able to tell clubs from spades when all he could do was stare at her. She wanted him to ogle her, too. She flaunted those high, raspberry-tipped br**sts, making sure that she didn’t block his view as she concentrated on her hand.

Meanwhile, his concentration was shot to hell. Much as he wanted to win the hand and see if she’d peel off those panties, he couldn’t seem to get it together. She won easily.

“So?” She gazed at him with interest.

If he took off his pants, she’d find out that he was like a totem pole underneath the restriction of the heavy material. He wasn’t ready to announce his condition yet. So he took off his glasses and handed them to her.

“Hey, what’s that all about? You can’t play without your glasses.”

“Sure I can, if I get close enough to the cards.”

“Glasses don’t count. They aren’t clothes.”

“I was wearing them. I say they count.”

“So I’m fuzzy to you now, right?”

“Uh-huh.” Fuzzy might help him out with his control, but he could see her perfectly with his contacts.

“I get it. If I’m fuzzy, you’ll be able to pay more attention to the game.”

“I’m paying attention.”

“No you’re not.” She smiled. “I can tell. Haven’t you ever played poker with an almost nak*d woman before, Mitchell?”

“Sure.” He’d told her so many fibs, what was one more?

“I don’t believe you. I think this is your first-ever strip-poker game. And you are so going to lose.” She shuffled the cards.

Oh, Lord. He hadn’t considered what her shuffling technique could mean under these circumstances. Instead of dividing the deck in half and shuffling the ends of the cards together, she held the entire deck loosely in one hand while she pulled out sections and fed them back in with a chopping motion. Consequently her br**sts shimmied in the most tantalizing display he’d ever seen, even counting the strip joint he’d gone to for his twenty-first birthday bash. His mouth watered. His hands clenched. He was over the edge.

“Ally.”

“What?” She kept shuffling as she glanced up. Her lips parted as she gazed at him.

What little blood had been left in his brain drained south. He needed to tell her to stop shuffling the damned cards, but his tongue wouldn’t cooperate.

“Mitchell, are you all right?”

He shook his head. He was in the grip of a need so fierce it was flooding him with hormones, marinating him in testosterone. He’d never wanted a woman this much in his life.

She stopped shuffling and put down the cards. “You look feverish.”

Which he probably was. He was afraid to speak, afraid all that would come out would be earthy, four-letter words describing what he wanted to do to her.

“Mitchell, say something. You look like you’re having a heart attack.” She rose to her knees and reached across the playing area to put a hand on his knee.

That did it. The minute she touched him, he went up in flames. Adrenaline mixed with desire was a potent cocktail, and he was drunk with it. Grabbing her waist in both hands, he stood in one smooth movement, amazing even himself as he managed to get them both upright without staggering.

She shrieked as he plopped her onto the bed, shoved pillows out of the way, and followed her down.

“Mitchell!” She grasped his head in both hands. “What are you doing?”

Holding her gaze, he ripped off her panties, which were sufficiently wet to make him even wilder. Then he plunged his fingers deep into her hot, wet vag**a. Right before he kissed her, the gift of speech returned. “If you don’t know, then you’re not as smart as I thought you were.” Then he kissed her hard while he made her come.

* * *

Ally had never cli**xed so fast, ever. From the moment Mitchell had grabbed her and flung her to the bed, she’d been halfway there, and when he’d ripped off her panties, tearing the cotton right in two, that had nearly done the trick. A few rapid thrusts from his fingers and she was airborne, flying high on a powerful orgasm.

Wrenching her mouth away from the force of his kiss, she gasped for breath and mentally thanked whoever had invented poker. “Mitch…” It was all she had the energy to say. And it did sound right. One syllable fit this unbelievable rush of lust much better than two.

From the time she’d decided to lose a game and take off her sweatshirt, she’d known this would be the probable outcome. She hadn’t known when or how, but she’d surrendered to the inevitability. Given Mitchell’s personality, she’d expected something less… explosive. But she wasn’t complaining.

His breath feathered her ear. “That’s one.”

“What… what do you mean?” She quickly found out. While she was still quivering from that first wild ride, he slid down between her thighs and began paving the way for another one.

He didn’t waste any time about it, either. No coy little nibbles and licks for this man. He moved right in and proceeded to show how much he knew about this particular activity. And he knew a lot. If anyone awarded a Ph.D. in or*l s*x, Mitch deserved one.

The moon, sun, stars, and planets flashed behind her eyelids at the intense pleasure. He used exactly the right pressure, exactly the right suction, exactly the right stroke of his tongue to make her writhe in his arms and, finally, arch off the bed. As the waves of another cli**x crashed over her shuddering body, she clutched handfuls of the blanket and cried out her joy.

His warm breath tickled her damp thigh. “That’s two,” he murmured.

While she continued to float on a sea of utter satisfaction, the bedsprings creaked as he left her. From the rustling noises she had a good idea what he might be doing. Opening her eyes, she turned her head to look, and was oh, so glad she did. A girl didn’t want to miss seeing her gift package being unwrapped.

He shoved down his briefs. Oh, my. To think she’d almost denied herself something that amazing. Anyone groping Mitch under the table would get a handful and then some. Ally hated to see the latex being rolled over all that natural beauty, but maybe she’d get a chance to explore the territory later on.

Climbing back onto the bed, he moved over her. Brazen hussy that she was, she spread her legs and bent her knees, making things easy for him. She’d hate for him to lose his way.

Not much chance of that with a man as focused as Mitch seemed to be. With the smile of a man who knows his business and is damned proud of it, he sent that heat-seeking missile straight to its target.

“Mm.” Her little expression of delight didn’t even begin to tell the story. If she’d thought she was in paradise before, she’d only been cruising down the street in that direction. This was the place.

Mitch looked into her eyes. “Not bad.”

She gripped his h*ps and wiggled in tighter. “Not bad at all. Am I fuzzy?”

“You’re hot and wet.” He withdrew and pushed in again. “Not fuzzy. Unless you mean here.” He reached down and stroked her curls, rubbing his knuckle against her clit. “That part’s sorta fuzzy.”