24. The Johnson Says, “Hello” #2
“Oh.” I lean away from my chair. “That was months ago, Blaze.” I chuckle and take the cards he hands me.
“It really isn’t worth betting over,” I assure him.
“It was right around the time I opened the modiste. People weren’t sure if they were to give me the cut or not.
So you can imagine my shock when he asked to dance.
I laughed at the poor gentleman and explained to him he might wish to be careful, for dancing with me would surely ruin his reputation.
” I blush to remember my words. “I assured him waltzing with a lightskirt may–”
“Lightskirt?”
“A prostitute. I told him engaging with a prostitute would be worse, but at least it would be a wiser investment of his time, for I had no intention of abandoning my pursuit of the dreaded spinsterhood.”
Blaze erupts in laughter and arranges his cards in his hand. “In other words, dancing with you wouldn’t result in a boink, but a hooker would do the horizontal tango.”
“I have no idea what that means,” I laugh. “But probably.”
It turns out, a few more hands in and I am not half bad as poker, for twenty minutes and two more glasses of port later, Blaze sits before me, arms stretched along the back of the chaise, wearing nothing but his undergarments, a striped pair of form fitting briefs as he calls them, and one single sock.
He has an ankle propped on a knee, and he’s lazily staring at the cards in his grasp.
I can not, for the life of me, read his expression.
Nevertheless, my senses are vibrating with the effects of the port, and his almost nakedness. It’s a recipe for disaster.
His hand on my thigh.
The kisses.
His body behind mine in our bed.
That thing his boxers, poorly conceal…
Moments we’ve shared in the last few months bounce around my brain like a trapped and frightened bird seeking escape.
Or relief.
“You lose,” Blaze interrupts my ungodly string of thoughts and moves to re-deal when I stand abruptly, meeting his intense gaze.
Something riotous—or maybe devilish—makes me want to play his version of the game.
We are married after all.
He can’t possibly sit there half-naked while I am clothed to the throat. So I seize the ribbon at my neck and untie it, carefully undoing a row of buttons until I wiggle the gown over my head, leaving me exposed in my shift and stays.
All the while, Blaze stares, intoxicated by the sight.
His eyes, partially obstructed by brows furrowing in approval, never once divert their attention. He is nearly expressionless save for the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, which gives his pleasure away.
As I sit back down, more scandalously clad before a man than I ever have been, Blaze leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “I have never been more motivated to conquer with my next hand than I am right now.”
He shuffles the deck, deals five cards each, then looks at me, his gaze spreading goosebumps across my skin. “You only have to win two more times before you get a proper introduction to Mini Me.”
My cheeks heat. “I believe he attempted a greeting the other morning.”
Blaze turns a card over from the top of the pile. “That was all you, wife. You and your spectacular thigh.”
I examine my hand and realize I am, as Blaze would call it, fucked. My cards are off suit, and I hold only twos and sevens, and a nine. “What exactly makes my thigh so spectacular?” I force a pretense of calm, but wonder if he can see the pulse quickening at my throat.
Blaze grins. “They’re thick.” He looks up at me now, reveals his winning hand, and whispers, “A man could get lost in them.” A hot tingling spans across my entire body as he says, “Royal Flush, darling, put down your cards or show me…” At this, his eyes trail from mine, past my lips, further than my collarbone, and eventually rest on my breasts.
Suddenly, my knees are trembling.
The room feels quieter.
His gaze burrows deeper. He watches, waiting, wondering what I will do. I can tell him I have lost the hand, but choose to remain dressed. He would respect that.
But I don’t want to.
I stand slowly, smooth the front of my chemise, and sidestep around the table until I am directly before him. Then I deliberately lift my leg to rest my foot on his bare knee. “Help me,” I whisper as I raise my skirt and motion towards the ribbon securing my stocking well above my knee.
Blaze gazes up at me, his hands gripping the chaise’s cushion beneath him. His menacingly stoic act loses its balance, and he swallows—visibly. “H-help…untying your ribbon?”
I nod, too afraid to speak lest he hear a tremble in my voice and doubt my sincerity.
“As you wish,” he says, and I almost think it is one of his futuristic references in the way he fakes some horrific accent before relinquishing his grip on the seat.
Slowly, his fingers glide up my leg, past my knee to where a delicate blue ribbon is tied neatly.
With furrowed brows, he loosens the ribbon’s knot and watches it fall to the floor before reluctantly pulling away and meeting my gaze. Deep yearning reflects in his eyes.
He dips his chin.
Seeking permission.
“Does a ribbon count as a piece of clothing?” I ask coyly, finding a shocking sort of confidence in my own voice.
Blaze leans back, licks his lips, and clears his throat. “I suppose a gentleman is supposed to say ‘yes’?”
“Certainly.”
“What does it make me, then, if I say ‘no’?”
“Can husbands be rakes?” I jest, motioning towards my stocking. “Off with it then. Fair is fair.”
With a satisfied grin, he sits upright once more, his fingers deftly slipping beneath the stocking and rolling it down my leg slowly. Purposefully. His fingertips graze a trail down my skin until my bare limb rests against him.
Before he can say anything, I drop my leg off of his lap and promptly find my seat once more. “Next hand.”
In the following ten minutes, Blaze loses his final sock, and I torture him by forcing him to slip off my remaining stocking. The next loss, I have him unclasp my necklace.
Yet again, we play our hands, and he has won. “Do you have clips in your hair you will now make me remove?” His voice is thick with tension.
I shake my head slowly and lift my hands to extract my own pins. A waterfall of platinum curls tumbles over my shoulders, and I stand again, turning my back to him.
“I’m afraid I will still require your help, though.
” While I can not see his face, the quick intake of breath is unmistakable.
For a moment, I hear and feel nothing, my senses numbed with anticipation.
I fix my attention on the hearth until, at last, warm fingertips brush against my shoulder, gently clearing a path through my hair to my tight laces. I recall his words.
This isn’t real.
But what I consider more is the way he calls me his wife with a conviction that can not be fabricated and called a ruse.
I think about the last several nights, how his body curls protectively around mine.
A conscious decision. And waking each morning thereafter to find him still behind me.
And lying in bed, each reluctant to leave each other’s sides.
I consider our habits, how we coexist so effortlessly, how our lives unify without any pain in accommodating one another, and how is that even remotely possible when one realizes logic and reason and science itself tells us we should not be together.
For in my world, he is not yet born, and in his world, I am long since dead.
Yet here we are. Our words say this isn’t real, so why does it feel like our hearts and our minds…and our bodies believe it to be very real indeed?
It is real even now when his arms coil around my middle, pulling me against him.
It is real as he buries his face in my neck, pressing slow, warm kisses to my skin.
And by god, it is real when his big hands move to my back, working the laces as carefully as an inexperienced man possibly can, until I fill my lungs with a full breath and the corset tumbles to the ground, leaving nothing but my thin chemise between my bare skin and his.
My heart pounds, and perhaps I should say something.
Instead, I lean back against him and savor the trickle of his hands as they trace the edges of my body.
First, both of my shoulders, trailing down my arms, and tangling momentarily with my fingertips.
Then, my hips, meandering directionless across my belly and ever so slowly, making their way up, until at last, he warmly cups my breasts.
I incline my head with an ecstatic gasp, longing suddenly for his kiss, and he obliges, pressing his lips to the corner of mine, then my cheek, and finally, the sensitive skin beneath my ear, where he whispers, “Do you want me to stop?”