Chapter 16 — Deterrence #2
Cal was at the far card table, holding a small stack of chips, listening earnestly while someone explained the difference between a straight and a flush.
"He's moving closer," Eden murmured.
"He's learning poker."
"Men can multitask."
"Can we?"
"Some of you."
Her hand slipped down my chest, flattened over my stomach, and stayed there.
Across the room, Dana Archer looked directly at it.
Eden didn't move her hand.
That was when I understood we had passed from strategy into something warmer and much more dangerous.
Kiki was near the bar with Reese, both of them talking to one of Dana's friends with the bright, unbothered competence of women redirecting traffic.
Kiki's smile went soft when she caught my eye.
Reese gave the smallest nod, warm and proud, and shifted half a step to block a sightline from the hallway.
Shay had Logan Archer laughing near the roulette wheel.
Logan was twenty-five, sharp-eyed, and wearing the expression of an older brother who knew his sister was doing something unwise and had decided to enjoy the show.
Shay said something with her hands that made him bark out a laugh and look away from Eden just as Eden's fingers hooked inside my jacket.
Tatum had cornered Wren Archer by the dice table.
Wren was nineteen, dry-eyed, and clearly not fooled by anything. She kept glancing at Eden and me with the curiosity of a sister collecting evidence for later.
"Wren," Tatum said loudly, "you have to teach me this game, because if I roll these wrong, Shay is going to accuse me of disrespecting math."
Wren's gaze flicked once more to Eden's hand on my chest.
Then she let Tatum drag her attention away.
Penny moved like a professional. She never looked hurried, never looked like she was covering anything, but every time someone angled toward Eden and me with too much curiosity, Penny appeared in their path, all white dress and cool smile and perfectly calibrated question.
The five of them had turned interference into an art form.
Eden had turned needing interference into a personal hobby.
We ended up at a blackjack table because Eden wanted cards between us and the room.
That was what she said. What she did was sit close enough that her thigh pressed fully against mine, smooth and warm under the edge of her dress, her knee angled between mine like she had decided space was a theory and she didn't believe in it.
I took two cards.
Eden leaned close enough to see them.
Her mouth brushed my jaw.
The dealer looked at the table.
I looked at the ceiling for help that didn't come.
"You have seventeen," Eden whispered.
"I know."
"You should stay."
"I know."
"You should also put your hand on my leg."
I turned my head slightly.
Her hazel eyes were bright and wicked.
"For realism," she said.
"Realism."
"Cal might look over."
Cal, six tables away, was now laughing at something an older man had said. He was facing the wrong direction.
I put my hand on Eden's thigh.
The sound she made was tiny. Barely there. But I felt it more than heard it, a little hitched breath that moved through her body and into mine.
Her skin was warm under my palm. The dress had ridden up just enough that my fingertips found bare thigh. I kept the touch respectable by the standards of a very corrupt courtroom.
Eden put her hand over mine and slid it one inch higher.
"Careful," I murmured.
"I warned you I wasn't going to behave."
"This is your family's house."
"That's why I warned you."
The dealer cleared his throat.
I stayed on seventeen and lost anyway.
Eden looked delighted.
"Bad luck," she said.
"Your fault."
"Probably."
Then she kissed my jaw again, slower this time, soft enough to pass as public affection and hot enough to empty my head.
From across the room, Wren's voice cut through the noise.
"Eden."
Eden went very still.
Wren had slipped free of Tatum and stood at the edge of the card area with her phone in one hand, her face arranged into the kind of innocence only younger siblings use when they are about to commit a crime.
"Are we calling this deterrence?" Wren asked.
Eden didn't look away from me. "Yes."
"Because from here it looks like a hostage situation, but emotionally mutual."
Logan appeared behind Wren, handed her a drink, and gave me a grin that said he had seen far too much and intended to be useful only because it was funny.
"Wren," Logan said, "Mom needs you by roulette."
"She doesn't."
"She will in fifteen seconds, when Tatum tries to bet a bracelet."
Wren considered that.
Tatum shouted from somewhere near the roulette wheel, "Hypothetically, how sentimental are we about bracelets?"
Wren sighed. "Fine."
Before she left, she pointed two fingers at Eden, then at her own eyes.
Eden smiled sweetly. "Love you."
"You're a menace."
"Also true."
Wren let Logan steer her away.
Eden's shoulders relaxed.
"Your siblings know," I said.
"They know I have excellent taste."
"Eden."
She shifted closer until her mouth was near my ear. "They know I'm into you. They don't know I plan to drag you out of here and let you do whatever you want to me behind a locked door."
My hand tightened on her thigh.
"You keep saying things like that in public."
"I know." Her smile turned soft at the edges. "It's getting hard not to."
For a second, the room thinned around us. Cards, chips, laughter, Logan's voice, Shay's cackle, Kiki at the bar, Penny moving through white light, Reese smiling at me from near the stairs. All of it stayed there. All of it mattered.
But Eden was against me, her body angled fully into mine, her black dress warm under my hand, her family ten feet away, and the cover story had become a threadbare curtain over the only truth either of us cared about.
She wanted everyone to think she was mine.
And she wanted it because she was.
I leaned down and spoke against her ear. "You okay?"
Her fingers found mine on her thigh.
"I'm perfect," she said. "I'm also about one more baseball-card interruption away from committing a felony."
As if summoned by the threat, Miles appeared at the far end of the room, scanning for me with purpose.
Eden saw him.
Her eyes narrowed.
"No."
"He hasn't said anything yet."
"He has card posture."
Miles raised one hand. "Luke, quick question."
Eden stood so fast the chair nearly tipped. She stepped directly in front of me and pressed both hands to my chest.
"Dad."
Miles stopped.
"Still deterring?" he asked.
"Aggressively."
His eyes moved from her hands to my face.
He smiled.
"Carry on," he said, and walked away.
Dana, near the bar, lifted her glass in silent toast.
Eden watched her parents for one second, then turned back to me with a flush high on her cheeks.
"They are being extremely unhelpful."
"I think they like me."
"That's the problem."
"You'd prefer they hated me?"
"No. I'd prefer they were slightly less comfortable with how much I want to climb you."
My lungs forgot how to work.
Eden noticed.
Of course she noticed.
"There you are," she whispered.
Then she took my hand and led me deeper into the party.
***
By the time the second round of drinks made it through the room, Eden's boyfriend cover had stopped being a cover and started being a house-wide entertainment feature.
Not because anyone was cruel about it.
That was the strange part.
The Archers didn't panic. The summer circle didn't sharpen into gossip. The other five girls moved like they had rehearsed the entire night, catching questions before they became dangerous, rerouting people before they got too close, keeping the room noisy and warm and slightly off balance.
And Eden, who had planned the cover story like a tactical operation, kept forgetting she was supposed to be pretending.
She found my lap at the blackjack table.
That was where things became untenable.
There were chairs available. Several. I saw them. Eden saw them too. She ignored all of them, slid onto my thigh as if the furniture had personally offended her, and looped one arm around my neck.
"This seems excessive," I said.
"Cal is over there."
Cal was by the snack table, eating something off a small plate and speaking to one of Logan's friends.
"He's holding a mini quiche."
"Men with quiche can still be dangerous."
"To themselves, maybe."
Eden shifted, her ass settling more firmly against my thigh, the heat of her through my formal pants making every nerve below my waist stand up and demand representation.
"Play your hand," she said.
"I don't remember the game."
"Good."
Her mouth touched my jaw.
The table went briefly silent.
Then Shay, from three seats away, slapped her cards down and declared, "I have gambling feelings."
The dealer blinked.
Tatum leaned over his shoulder. "That's not a hand, babe."
"It's my truth."
"Her truth loses to nineteen," Penny said from behind me, smooth as water.
The table laughed. Attention moved.
Eden's mouth stayed near my jaw.
"Your friends are very helpful," I said.
"Our friends," she corrected.
Then her hand slid under my jacket and flattened over my chest.
I could smell her perfume. Warm, dark, a little sweet, not the lake-day Eden I knew from sunscreen and wet hair and sun. This was black-dress Eden. Casino Night Eden. The version who had warned me on the dock and then apparently decided the warning had been conservative.
Her thumb moved once over my shirt.
My cock was hard enough that sitting at a public card table became a moral test.
Eden knew it.
She pressed closer, just enough that her hip brushed me.
"You're trouble," I said.
"I'm your trouble."
"Your mother is ten feet away."
"She's talking to Kiki."
Dana was, in fact, talking to Kiki. Kiki had both hands around a champagne flute and the serene expression of a woman single-handedly holding back social consequences with manners and soft laughter.
"Your father is twelve feet away."
"Dad is cornering a man about a Clemente."
"Your siblings are watching."
Eden glanced over.