10. Chapter 10
Chapter 10
Sylvie
Drakos sent me another gift. When I returned from Roman’s house later that week after checking on Luna again, my phone beeped with a text. I checked it and saw our part-time driver, Hank, parked outside with a body delivery. He pulled into the garage, parked, and got out to help me unload.
“Hey, Sylvie. This one shouldn’t be too bad. He died of a heart attack in bed, and his wife found him less than an hour later. He was a spry eighty-seven.”
“Not a bad way to go.”
We loaded the body bag onto my gurney together, then Hank took off, and I wheeled him into the prep room. After turning on my current favorite playlist and putting on protective gear, I unzipped the body bag to see what I was working with. The Black Keys’ “Lonely Boy” wafted out of the speakers as my eyes snagged on something perched on the dead man’s chest. It looked like a package wrapped in brown paper with twine and… a sucker on top?
Annoyed admiration swirled through me, and I knew right away the package was from Drakos. But how had he gotten it inside the body bag? I hesitated before picking it up, worried about what I’d find after sending Drakos a human hand.
My curiosity won out, and before losing my nerve, I plucked the package from its macabre resting place. It appeared harmless—except it’d been delivered with a corpse. I set the package on the counter, threw the sucker away, and tore the paper to reveal a polished, oblong wooden box. The hinges creaked when I opened it, and a musty cedar scent greeted me. I drew in a breath and stared down at the slightly tarnished, antique embalming pump nestled in brittle black satin.
The old mortician instrument looked like an oversized metal syringe, and the cylinder had been engraved with Gothic embellishments. Damn it, who knew the man could be so thoughtful?
I traced the metal etchings with my fingertip and settled the instrument back in its case. To anyone else, it might seem weird or strange, but for me it was the perfect gift. A reluctant half-smile played on my lips, and I shook my head.
“Beware the Greeks bearing gifts,” I muttered. Anger still burned in my gut, but I couldn’t help it—I loved it. Setting the box aside, I turned back to the body.
The beautiful embalming pump was the only reason I didn’t throw Drakos and Roman out on their asses when they casually showed up at poker brunch that Sunday afternoon. Morning light filtered through the modern stained glass windows as Alexa and I prepped the parlor that morning, breathing life into a place that usually only saw death and sorrow. The monthly Sunday poker brunch at the mortuary had started as a marketing tool, but over the years, it had evolved into a neighborhood tradition.
A few minutes later, Luna walked in with her new bodyguard who didn’t like me much, my last name being Spade and all. Ezra met her at the door and gave her a big hug. I knew he worried about her. My gaze fell to the eternity collar around her neck with a GPS tracker attached, courtesy of Roman's paranoia and possessiveness. I shook my head.
“That sneaky little bastard,” I muttered.
Alexa stared at the collar. “I wonder if Luna knows what it means.”
Not long after Luna arrived, I looked up to see Roman and Drakos stride in. Drakos wore tailored dress pants that hugged his tight ass perfectly and a custom-made dress shirt that showed off his lean, muscular build. Roman stopped to talk with Luna’s bodyguard, and Drakos zeroed in on me.
When he first walked over, I ignored him, but he grinned and took my hands, turning my body toward his. “Hello, Lollipop. You look delicious this morning.” He eyed my legs.
I pulled my hands back and glanced around to see if anyone was watching us. Thank God my cousins hadn’t shown up yet. “Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.”
His lips twitched and he folded his arms. “And there it is.”
“What do you mean?”
His eyebrow lifted. “You usually call me some variation of Satan. It’s an interesting endearment to use on a lover.”
I choked. “You’re not my lover.”
“Not yet,” he leaned in and murmured.
When he got this close, I could see the flecks in his beautiful, ruinous blue eyes. He was temptation and sin rolled into one beautiful package.
“Back off, Lucifer.” His lip twitched and he raised an eyebrow.
I glanced around again, wondering what Ezra thought of Drakos standing so close to me. “Thank you for the gift. I loved it,” I rushed out. “Despite the alarming way you sent it.”
He smiled. “You’re welcome. Luna mentioned you play chess, and I’m indifferent to poker. Care for a game?”
Drakos played chess? My interest peaked even as I wondered if he was any good. “As you can see, I’m busy hosting. Would you like something to eat or drink? Maybe black coffee, like your soul?”
He smirked. “Interesting analogy about the state of my soul, but I do, in fact, like cream with my coffee.” The way he said cream made me think he wasn’t talking about a dairy product, and my pussy spasmed. “Do you have a chess set handy?”
Ezra kept a set in his office, and over the years, we’d spent hours hunched over it, laughing and playing.
I stared up at him and crossed my arms. “As much as I’d love to play with you…. Okay, let me rephrase that, as much as I’d love to beat you, I can’t. My cousins will be here any minute, and they can’t see us together.” I glanced at Ezra again, who stood talking with an older couple, but his eyes were on me.
“Your cousins don’t worry me, Killer. I’ll take a rain check then—unless you’re too scared you’ll lose.”
My eyes narrowed. “Fine. One game.”
We grabbed coffee and headed to Ezra’s office. As we set up the game, he studied the pieces. “Is this a Noj Dubrovnik chess set?” He turned the black queen upside-down and gazed at the marking on the bottom.
“It is. Ezra ordered the set from Slovenia years ago.”
He weighed the piece carefully in his hand. “My grandfather would have loved it.”
“Did he teach you to play? Ezra taught me.”
His lips twitched, and he set the piece down. “He did.”
“I used to play in local tournaments as a kid. Chess was one of the few things that kept me out of trouble and held my attention for more than a few minutes.”
Drakos cocked his head. “Did you enjoy the tournaments?”
I shrugged, mildly uncomfortable at having such a normal conversation without insulting or baiting each other. “Mostly. It felt like I had a little control over something in my life when… other things were chaotic.”
He studied me. “Do you want to play the black or white?”
Cracking my knuckles, I nodded to the board. “Guest’s choice. Tournament rules?”
“No, I want to talk while we play, and in keeping with your devil theme for me, I’ll choose black.”
As we finished setting up the pieces, a familiar thrill, mixed with the novelty of sharing this part of myself with Drakos, sent happy chemicals through my body. Grinning, I reached over to shake his hand, then made my opening move, a typical king's pawn to e4. “You’ve played before if you recognized a Dubrovnik chess set.”
Drakos watched the board intently. “Mostly with my grandfather, but he passed away a while ago. He liked to take me to his favorite pub in Betterton and brag about beating me.”
“Where is Betterton located?” I asked, studying the board.
“In Maryland.”
I looked up. “Did you grow up on the East Coast?”
He shrugged. “For the most part. I was a moody little bastard as a teenager and ended up in Arizona. Then the partners and I moved to Las Vegas.”
When Luna became Roman’s intern, we’d researched Roman and his partners, and Alexa found the link that forged their bond and brought them together. It was a horrible, violent reform school on a ranch in rural Arizona. The FBI had finally shut the place down.
“I know about Bitter Creek Ranch,” I murmured carefully.
Drakos’ hand froze over a chess piece. “I’m aware.”
“I’ve also heard some of the people who owned or ran that facility have had extremely bad luck. Or died.” I looked up.
His eyes went cool. “I’m aware of that as well.”
Holding his gaze, I nodded carefully. “It seems fitting, Karma catching up with them when the law didn’t.”
He gazed at me while moving his rook out. The man played aggressively. I wasn’t surprised. “Is that what they call revenge nowadays?”
I shrugged and studied the board. “Karma, revenge, justice. Whatever it is, I approve. And here I thought you were just a well-dressed, cynical, sexually promiscuous lawyer.”
“Who’s been gossiping?” He leaned over and took one of my pawns in retaliation.
“Is it gossip if it’s true?” As soon as the words were out, I wanted to reach out and grab them back. He would think I cared about the rumors that swirled around about his sexual proclivities. Staring down at the board, I made a move. “It doesn’t matter. Your turn.”
He leaned across the board and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear before I could pull back. “Look at me.” His deep, quiet voice sent a shiver through me.
I stubbornly kept my eyes on the board. “Why?” I mumbled.
“Because I want to see your face when I tell you that it does matter, and after we start fucking, neither of us will be touching another person.” My head snapped up and my eyes blazed, but he kept going. “And Sylvie? Consider this fair warning. If you do, that person will die an agonizing, creative slow death. Your move.”
I straightened. “If we ever do ‘start fucking’ as you so romantically put it, if you sink your dick anywhere else for those one or two days it’ll take to ‘get out of each other’s systems,’ I won’t touch your partner, I’ll hurt you instead.”
The flirty fucker winked at me. “Deal, and we should start today. Have you ever played strip chess?”
I blinked. “Strip chess? Is that your way of trying to get me naked without buying me dinner first? There’s no such game.”
Drakos grinned, his blue eyes glinting. “Just because you’ve never played it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Chess is a game of strategy and conquest. But it would be better if we had more skin in the game, so to speak.”
“That was a horrible pun. What are the rules of this made-up game?”
“Simple. Every time one of us captures a piece, the other person takes off an article of clothing. If you lose the match, you’ll live with me for a month, and we’ll fuck like rabbits. It’s alright if you choose that prize too,” he grinned.
Images of Drakos and me having sex for a month made my heart pound and heat race through my system. I’d die a slow and painful death before I admitted it, but there was another reason I called him Satan or Lucifer. The man tempted me like the devil, and I’d orgasmed to fantasies of him countless times since the night we met.
I cleared my throat and leaned forward. “This sounds like a distraction technique for people who think they can’t win. And there’s no way I’m playing strip chess in my grandfather’s office.”
“Then let’s take this to my loft. Again, unless you’re worried you’ll lose.”
Ezra had once compared my competitive streak to the Grand Canyon. It was deep, wide, and miles long. I glared over at Drakos, even as heat roiled in my belly. “Fine, we can add some spice to the game. Just don't whine when you lose. We can play in my apartment.” His devious smile made my thighs clench.
A few minutes later, he put the chess set down on the kitchen table and looked around my apartment. It had been built onto the mortuary in the 1970s, and the style fit the mid-century modern design of the main building.
We’d made the apartment our own with whimsical, comfortable furniture and a few old pictures of early Las Vegas on the walls. Even with Luna temporarily gone, books and reading materials sat strewn across the coffee table. I loved our space, but I wondered what Drakos thought.
“This is charming.” Carl, our three-legged black and white cat, came down the hall. He meowed loudly at Drakos, who studied the cat skeptically. “He sounds like a dying blender. Let me guess, his name is Tripod.”
“Nope.”
“Tri-paw?”
“Hell, no.”
Drakos squatted next to the cat. “How about Trident?”
“He’s a cat, not a fish or a fork. His name is Carl.”
His eyebrow went up. “Who names their cat Carl?” He reached a finger out and absently scratched behind the feline’s ear. The contrary cat purred like a lawn mower and rubbed against Drakos’s hand.
“Don’t start feeling special. He likes everyone,” I lied.
Drakos scratched the cat for a few seconds, then stood. He glanced around, then rubbed his hands together as his eyes swept over me. “Your boots make your legs and ass look even more fuckable—which I frankly didn’t think was possible. But I assume you’re also wearing socks, and you have jewelry and a belt on.”
“Why the hell are you cataloging my… Ah, you’re trying to determine how many chess pieces you’ll have to capture to get me naked.” I shook my head in fake wonder. “You’re always not surprising me.”
He smirked and started setting up the board again. “Let's lay out some ground rules. Do you want time controls?”
“How about a limit of two minutes per move for the first hour, then one minute after that?”
“Works for me.”
I started setting up the white pieces again. “If I win, I get to boss you around for a week, and the same goes for you.”
“It’s one month, and so we’re clear, I will be fucking you frequently and often. Don’t worry, you’ll be begging for my cock after the first day.”
“Don’t be an ass,” I hissed. He seemed so sure of himself that a sliver of doubt wormed its way through me. “Your modesty underwhelms me. One week, because we’d probably kill each other after a month. Don’t worry, I’ll let you go to work.”
He grinned. “One week, and you don’t get to argue. You can still go to work too, but you move in with me for seven full days, you sleep in my bed, and we fuck on as many surfaces and as many times as I can physically manage.”
My breathing sped up, and my nipples pebbled. The thought of spending a week living in his loft without guilt or worry sounded… intriguing.
Suddenly, I wondered if it was foolish to take his bet. We lived in Las Vegas, and I knew how stupid it was to gamble unless you could afford to lose. Could I afford to lose this bet? He gazed at me, the tension sparking between us sizzled like a charged current.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you think you can win?”
The smug, arrogant fucker. “Fine.” Fucking attorneys, always negotiating.
I studied the board for exactly one minute and forty-two seconds, and this time I started with the Ruy López strategy, a classic opening move named after the Spanish priest from the 1400s. The strategy was designed to ruin the black player’s pawn structure.
Four plays later, I took one of his pawns, and he removed his belt without saying a word. We traded pawns and casual quips for a while, each capture bringing us closer to taking off actual pieces of clothing. I slipped off an earring and set it on the table. A few minutes later, he took a shoe off. We played for almost an hour, each analyzing the other’s style and skill level.
“Knight to E5,” he announced, finally capturing one of my rooks. The challenge in his eyes burned hot.
“Fine.” I slipped off my other boot, tossing it aside with feigned nonchalance.
He watched intently as I made my next move—queen to D7, a defensive stance to protect my king.
“Queen's Gambit,” I murmured, studying his slight frown. “You didn't see that coming, did you, darling ?”
“Maybe, maybe not.” His watch hit the table after I took his bishop with my knight. The metal clinked softly, and I couldn't help but glance at the sinewy forearms he’d exposed when he’d rolled up his sleeves several moves ago.
“Got anything else to lose besides your pants and shirt, Creed?” I asked, smirking despite the flutter in my chest.
“Plenty, Spade.” His gaze ran down to my chest and his eyes became more focused.
When I took my jumper off several moves later, his jaw clenched, and when he peeled off his shirt, my insides tightened. We’d stopped trading quips.
I captured a bishop with a calculated sacrifice, earning his pants in the process. Each move drew us deeper into our own little world, the only sounds were the soft slide of pieces on wood and our heavy breathing.
“Check,” Drakos finally murmured, leaning forward, the muscles in his shoulders flexing as he moved his knight into position.
“Shit.” I peeled off my lace camisole, feeling the heat rise in my face—not only from embarrassment but from the lust swirling through me. He greedily eyed me as I sat in just my underwear.
A few plays later, he leaned back with my last pawn between his fingers. “Your panties or bra?” he asked rhetorically, his voice thick with anticipation. I straightened and stared at him. He’d been sitting across from me without a shirt for the past ten minutes, and it’d been distracting as hell. That defined V leading down to his crotch made my mouth water.
I thanked God and Jesus I’d worn my favorite matching bra and panty set this morning. The peach-colored bra had strips of satin running across the tops of my globes, giving the bra a soft bondage look. I leaned back in my chair, stretching out my torso and jutting my breasts a little. Then I slowly reached around and unhooked my bra, sliding it off and giving Drakos an unfettered view.
“Fuuck me,” he murmured softly as his eyes ate me up.
I met his gaze. My own eyelids felt heavy and half-mast with heat and need, and then I gazed down at the board. My heart pounded, not just from the threat to my king, but from this sizzling connection that arced between us. This wasn't just a game of chess anymore. It had turned into a lustful, provocative duel. My wet pussy pulsed with need and I shifted restlessly.
His lip slowly curved up. “Your minute is almost up. You have ten seconds.”
My eyes widened, and I drew back, looking down at the board. My little striptease had cost me. I quickly flicked my remaining rook across the board. Drakos' eyebrow arched in response, and his striking blue eyes locked onto mine with an intensity that sent shivers through me.
He grinned slowly and leaned forward. For a second I thought he'd kiss me—instead, he moved his queen with lethal precision.
“Checkmate,” he whispered.
It took a moment to peel my eyes from his, and I gazed down at the board. “Well, fuck,” I muttered a few seconds later, the words tinged with frustration and reluctant admiration.
I tried to shake off the lust and need still coursing through me, and stood, holding out my hand. “Well played. Congratulations.”
He smiled, took my hand, and slowly dragged my upper body forward so we were both leaning across the table. Then he bent and murmured low in my ear as his thumb gently grazed my nipple. “Pack your things. The week starts right now.”