“You are bored.”
His deep voice startled me, since he hadn’t spoken in some time. Looking over, I gave him an unamused look. I wasn’t used to sitting around with nothing to do. The Army kept you busy, and even if you weren’t, there was entertainment available, movies, games, people that weren’t your captors, things like that.
“Want to play?” he asked.
Giving him a suspicious look, I sat up straight. “What do you mean by that exactly?”
He went to the door of the hut, then paused and gave me a warning look. “If you run, I will catch you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered.
He took that as it was meant. I wasn’t going anywhere…for now. He quickly came back out and placed a small wooden table between us.
I grinned when he pulled a deck of cards out of his cargo pocket.
“Know how to play poker?”
Chuckling, I nodded. “Let’s do it.” Anything to kill the boredom I was feeling.
After annihilating him in the first few rounds he sat back and smiled at me. “You definitely know how to play. Want to play for stakes?”
My brows drew together. “I have nothing to offer up.”
“How about clothes,” he asked with a mischievous wiggle of his brows.
“Seriously? You want to play strip poker?”
His grin was only what I could describe as lewd. I considered him, then the cards. I had just won three rounds straight.
“How about this? If you win, I’ll strip…”
“And if you win?” he asked.
“You give me something to eat,withoutfeeding it to me.”
He cocked his head to the side. There was a twinkle there in his eye that made me wonder if I should be dealing with this particular devil. Before I could rescind my offer, he accepted. “You shuffle.”
I took the cards and watched him intently. He was relaxed, legs stretched to one side of the table, face turned up to the sun. He didn’t look worried about the fact that if he lost he was going against his buddy’s orders. A sinking feeling rose in my stomach. It felt like a trap.
A couple hours later, I was cursing myself for a fool. The asshole had lulled me into a false sense of security. Here I was, sitting out on a log in nothing but my panties and one sock. He’d graciously allowed me to count my socks and boots as separate articles of clothing, but had insisted on picking the clothing I lost. He hadn’t wanted to wait for that second sock to come off before asking for my bra.
Now here I was with one arm crossed over my breasts as we played. I was also no closer to getting any food and he was in all of his clothes. Not that we’d been playing for him to take his clothes off. That probably wouldn’t help my concentration anyway.
“You’re cheating,” I accused him.
“Am not,” he denied, sounding more than a little offended. His face hardened, then a sly look passed over his expression. He patted his thigh. “Come here and I’ll show you how I’m winning.”
I eyed his lap with a dubious glance. His pants were not doing a great job of hiding his alarming erection. I’d seen it in all its glory this morning, there was no hiding that thing. He should have to have a permit or something to carry that weapon around. It was a danger to women everywhere. Either they’d be harmed while he tried to put it in them or they’d lose their sanity trying to make it theirs forever. Either way, definitely not something I needed to be near.
My body was playing tricks on me. I was sitting here, in close to nothing, clit tingling, nipples hard, as I flirted with Arsen. It started off as flirting for food, now it was flirting because it was fun and he was hot. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me. I wasn’t supposed to be enjoying myself. And desiring him was out of the question. Right?
He patted his thigh again. “Come here.”
“No way,” I said, crossing both arms over my breasts. Somewhere along the line, I’d lost most of my modesty to my competitive drive. It hadn’t crossed my mind until my bra had been unsnapped that I’d lose. That I’d been played.
“Colby.”
My name rumbling out from between his lips made a shiver skate down my spine and I felt my nipples tighten even more against the skin of my forearms.