Page 115 of Playing Her Game

She rolls her eyes but moves toward me. "You're ridiculous."

"You love it."

She doesn't deny it. Her arms loop around my neck, and I grip her securely beneath her thighs, adjusting her weight until she's settled. The door swings open, and the cold slams into us.

"Don't you dare drop me," she warns, her breath warm against my ear.

I take a deliberately big stride through the snow, and she shrieks, tightening her hold.

"Rez!"

Her laughter spills out, bright and unrestrained, and I push through the drifts toward the hot tub. The snow makes every step harder, my legs burning, but her laughter makes it worth freezing my ass off.

I reach the edge and set her down carefully. She shoves my shoulder.

"You made me scream."

I catch her wrist and pull her back toward me, my other hand settling at her waist. "You liked it."

Her eyes hold mine, and the laughter fades into something heavier. I kiss her, slow and deliberate, and she leans into me.

We climb into the hot tub, and the heat hits like a shock after the cold. Anna splashes me, and I retaliate, catching her wrist again and pulling her close. The playfulness shifts. I kiss her, deeper this time, and she wraps her arms around my neck.

The steam rises around us, but all I feel is her. Her mouth on mine, her body pressed against me, the way she responds when I tighten my grip at her waist. We stay like that, kissing, touching, the world narrowing to just us.

“Too soon?” Anna asks, muffled against my neck, her voice half-laughing, half-wondering. The tips of her hair are wet from the steam, and they stick to my throat as she buries her face there, pressing in with a shyness I haven’t seen from her before. Her hands clench at my shoulders, fingers white-knuckled, betraying nerves.

Something about this moment—her in my shirt, nothing but skin underneath, her laughter and stubbornness and all the spaces where she can’t quite say what she wants—makes it impossible not to pull her tighter, to bury my nose in her hair and breathe in. Her warmth and the shock of her thigh against mine, the glassy ripple of water lapping at her waist, all of it lands as a rush in my chest and an ache below.

“It’s been a month, fancy,” I say, my lips brushing her ear, the words rough. I can’t help the groan. Every muscle in my body is straining not to just lift her onto me and let the rest of the world freeze to death.

She laughs, but it wobbles. “A month for me, but you probably have, you know, options.” Her fingers slide from my shoulder to my jaw, tugging my face toward hers. “Not that I own your dick, or anything.” She’s flushing hard now, and she keeps talking so she doesn’t have to look at me: “I know you have admirers, and —”

“Say cock,” I tease, but when I cup her breast through the damp cotton, her breath stutters and her nipples tighten against my palm. I could take her right here, but I want her to ask. I want her to know I’m not going anywhere.

She pushes at my chest, but there’s no force behind it. “Shut up,” she says, voice breaking as she arches into my hand. The way she moves—this perfect blend of challenge and surrender—pushes me straight to the edge. “You’re being an ass.”

I want to say something clever, but what comes out is straight fucking honesty. “It’s yours, Anna. No one else’s.” My hand moves under her shirt, skimming her ribs, feeling her heart pounding in double time. “First night I met you, you ruined me for anybody else,” I say it low. “You haven’t? I mean…” I don’t want to push, but I need to know.

She shakes her head, hard. “No. Not since Chicago.”

I lift her chin with my thumb, forcing her to meet my eyes. “I can’t think about anything but you. You may not be mine, Anna, not in any official way, but you’re all I can think about, all I want.” I press her down on my lap and slide my hand along the backs of her thighs, pulling her flush. “You own my thoughts, my fucking cock, my—” The rest of the word is cut off because she’s kissing me, desperate and fierce. Her mouth swallows the confession whole.

She rocks against me, the water sloshing over the stone edge with every motion. When she pulls back, her voice is shaky, almost apologetic. “Sorry, I just—” But she doesn’t finish it, just lets her hand slip between us all the way down to my waistband.

Her hand finds me, cold at first, then burning hot. She was bolder in Chicago, but time and space, even a month muted that. But right now, her grip is sure, stroking slow and deliberate as she kisses me again, this time messier, more teeth. Her other hand clutches the back of my neck, drawing me in.

I have to pause, steady her. “If you want to stop⁠—”

She shakes her head, hard. “Don’t you dare stop.”

Her palm trails from my cock up to my chest, nails dragging, and then she leans back, straddling me on the bench seat, knees braced against the slick edge. She looks down, eyes wide, breathing wild. I swear I’d kneel to her if she asked.

She yanks the shirt over her head and tosses it somewhere behind her, hair a mess, cheeks flushed pink from the heat and the cold mixing on her skin.

“You’re fucking beautiful.” I groan as she strokes me.

She bows her head, and I can see the shiver in her as she lines herself up, my hands guiding her without words. She sinks down slowly, the water slipping in to meet her, and the air leaves my lungs like I’ve been hit square in the ribs. Her nails dig into my shoulders, and I bite her lower lip, just enough to hear that little gasp she makes.