“Thank you,” she said, gently tracing his other cheek with her finger. “For doing that.”

“Julia,” he said, pulling her in close. “I can’t believe that’s what you’ve been dealing with.”

She sighed. “Yeah. That’s my life.”

“This needs to stop. You’re not safe,” he said, concern thick in his voice.

“He’s not even usually the one assigned to me. My regular has the flu or something,” she said, flashing back to Skunk’s pale face and peaked look earlier that day.

“You can’t keep doing this,” he said firmly as the shadows from the moonlight streamed across the bed, casting the room in a blue midnight light. “So this is what I didn’t get to say in the car. I play every week. With actors, clients, colleagues and some of my friends. It’s not a rigged game. It’s a real game with real stakes and real money. Come to New York this weekend, and join us. Play for real. Play in a game that’s not a set-up where you’re not hustling. And take us down. Win on your own terms,” he said, and the idea took hold instantly, planting roots inside her. She craved that feeling—win on your own terms.

His offer was so alluring, like a faint scent of something delicious trailing through the air. But then, did she still know how to win on her own terms?

She scoffed out of self-preservation. “What if I lose?”

He scooped her hair off her neck, nuzzling her. “Where is my badass woman?”

“Huh?”

“What if you lose? I thought you were a poker shark? Don’t lose. Come to New York. Play your ass off. You’re a card player. You don’t come to lose. You play to win. So play, and win fair and square,” he said, and there was something immensely appealing about his offer.

She quirked her lips in consideration. “It does sound like fun,” she admitted.

“And if you lose—which you won’t—let me pay him off,” he said, his eyes locked on her the whole time. The look in them was intense, and true—he wanted this. He wanted to help her. She had always known he had this side, but now she was seeing it in action, and the gesture was slinking its way around her heart, loosening yet another layer of her stubborn woman-against-the-world attitude.

“Clay,” she chided softly, lightly running her fingers along his strong chest. “I don’t want you paying my debt.”

“All the more reason for you to play hard.”

She stared sharply at him, determination in her eyes. “I always play hard.”

“I know you do.”

“If I do this, you can’t make it a rigged game. Don’t make it fake.”

“I would never do that.”

“I want to win for real. Because I’m good.”

“You’re going to kick unholy ass. And if for any reason the game ends, and you’re not in the black, I will take care of the debt. Deal?”

“I really don’t want you paying it off,” she said, grabbing his wrists for emphasis. “Promise me it’s a real game, and we go to the end of the night. We play until everyone else folds.”

“I promise you.”

“I don’t want to have to take your money. I want to prove that I can do this.”

“And you will. I offer it as insurance. That’s all. And that’s why you’ll win. Because you want to do this on your terms. Because the thought of anyone paying your way makes you dig your heels in like a batter at the plate swinging for the fences. Come to the plate. And hit it out of the park,” he said, as if he were making a motivational speech.

A damn powerful one.

She wanted to say no, to insist on doing it her way. But he’d taken a hit for her. And he was offering her a way to fall in love with poker again and to win on her terms. He was offering to be there with her, for her, not to own her, but to help her. With every move he made, she was falling harder and harder, and she was sure there’d be no turning back from this man. She’d been so closed-off from the start about letting someone into her world. Now, he was all the way in, and the only thing she was afraid of was him not being part of her world.

So she did the thing she’d never have imagined doing a mere month ago. Hell, a week ago. “Then we have a deal.”

“Good,” he said with a happy, woozy smile as he lay flat on his back, pulling her on top of him, angling up his hips. He was growing hard against her. “Now I’m tired and I’m wounded and I could use a little — ”

She cut him off. “There’s only one true cure for a wounded man,” she said, and went under the sheets. She stroked him to a full erection, then dropped her mouth onto him.

He groaned as she wrapped her lips tightly around his cock. He pushed back the sheets so he could watch her. She looked up at him, wanting him to see the desire in her eyes. His went dark and hazy as he stared at her mouth moving lovingly along his shaft. She tucked her knees up under her, getting into the perfect position for giving him the blow job he deserved.

She let him fall from her lips for a moment, but kept her hand wrapped around him. “Enjoy this. Enjoy everything I’m going to do to you, my gorgeous, sexy, wounded man who rescued me,” she whispered, pushing her other palm on his flat abs, feeling his washboard belly as she returned her mouth to him. She took him in deep, the way he liked, and used her hands too, touching his stomach, squeezing a small, dark nipple, causing him to jerk his hips up hard into her mouth.

She moved her hands lower, down his body, stroking his muscular thighs, settling deeper into the space between his legs. He parted them, giving her room to get cozy, and she thrilled inside at how he gave his body to her, trusting her with his pleasure just as she had with him. She drew him into her warm mouth as far as he could go. She sucked hard and passionately, wanting him to feel flooded with sensations that blotted out any of the lingering pain from the fight. Cupping his balls in one hand, she slipped another hand under his ass, squeezing a cheek hard in her palm.

He groaned loudly in response, and the sound sent heat flowing through her body.

“I’ll take another hit to my head for this,” he murmured, his voice both weary and thoroughly needy. He reached for her head, threading his hands tightly in her hair.

She let go momentarily. “Pull my hair if you need to,” she said.

He gripped hard as she returned to him, tugging her hair over to the side, yanking her head so he could stare hungrily at her face as she licked and sucked the full length of his fantastic cock.

“So fucking gorgeous,” he said, outlining her lips with a finger, tracing the edge of her mouth as she held him tight and deep, swirling her tongue along his shaft the way he loved.

She was sure he groaned louder than he ever had as she worked him over with her hands and her mouth, touching him in all the ways that drove him crazy. His body was a playground for her fingers, and she ran them along his thighs, over his ass, and in that spot just under his balls that drove a man wild. He gave himself over to her, rocking his hips into her mouth as she traveled to his favorite places. A pinch there, a touch here, a squeeze of those sexy cheeks: she was showing him that she knew how to control all his pleasure too. Then, as she gripped his firm ass in her hands, she fucked his cock with her mouth until she felt the shudders roll through his body.

He grappled at her hair, his breathing turning wildly erratic as he gripped her head, thrusting and calling out her name as the taste of his release slid down her throat.

Minutes later, she nestled herself in next to him. With his arm wrapped around her, she kissed his neck, his stubbled jaw, his tender cheek. “You like it when I let you control me, and I like it when you lose control for me,” she whispered.

“Mmmm,” he murmured. “We are a good combo.”

“The best,” she said as she closed her eyes, feeling like they were partners in everything at last.

* * *

Another pair of Advil did wonders to mute the throbbing in his skull, but the dull ache was a useful reminder of what he was up against as he pushed open the door to Mr. Pong’s shortly after noon the next day. The smell of fried pork and noodles filled his nostrils. Waiters bustled around delivering plates of pepper steak and lo mein to the lunch crowd.

It was your standard order Chinese restaurant with thick menus and illustrated pictures of the twelve signs of the Chinese New Year— such as horses, snakes and rats, along with an illustrated dragon image presiding over them all.

Fitting, he reasoned, as a hurried waiter rushed over to him.

“One for lunch?”

“No. I’m joining someone. You can tell Mr. Stravinski that I’m here.”

The waiter looked confused. “Sorry. Who should I tell him is here?”

“Tell him the guy he’s expecting to see.”

“Okay,” the waiter said, narrowing his eyebrows briefly at the request before turning on his heels to find the man in charge.

Moments later, a tall man in a sharp suit strode over to him. He had thick, dark hair and muddy-brown eyes and some of the worst teeth Clay had ever seen. He wasn’t thin, he wasn’t fat; he was simply the sturdy type.

He extended a hand to shake.

“Clay Nichols,” he said.

“Charlie Stravinksi. I had a feeling I’d be seeing you. Come,” he said, gesturing grandly to the restaurant as if he were quite proud of the joint he’d taken over on a debt that went belly-up. “There is a table for us near the kitchen.”

“Fantastic,” Clay said coolly, as if this were just another lunchtime business meeting.

After they sat, a waiter handed Clay a menu. “Thank you.”

Charlie tapped the menu. “Everything here is delicious. But may I personally recommend the kung pao chicken,” he said, bringing his fingertips to his mouth and kissing them as a chef does.