Love, Diamonds, and Spades (Cactus Creek #2)(20)

“Nope. No trying to change the wager,” she parroted him. “Take it or leave it.”

Ah, the thrill of the game. Seeing her dancing eyes, he raised a brow. “See. You’re feeling it too, aren’t you? The appeal of gambling. The fun.”

Her grin faltered, and then she started chuckling. “I guess you’re right. Now quit stalling. You taking the bet or what?”

He slid the colorful princess deck of cards—so wrong to be gambling with these—forward. “Want to cut the deck?”

She tapped a finger on it.

“Okay, sugar, you pull first.” She picked up half the deck and they both looked at the card.

“Nine of hearts.”

She shuffled the deck and slid it forward. “Your turn.”

He loved that excited little smile on her face. She was having fun. Eyes locked on hers, he picked up about a third of the deck and lifted it up.

Nice.

“Ace of Spades.”

“I win!” she declared quickly.

What in the?

“Babe, the Ace of Spades is literally the highest card in the deck.”

“Says who?”

“Says everyone.”

She shook her head stubbornly. “Not in my book. The ace is the same as a one, so it’s the lowest card in the deck.” She jutted her chin out and dared him to argue that logic.

The little sneak.

“You didn’t establish that the Ace wasn’t a one,” she continued all business-like, sighing forlornly. “I guess the only fair thing here is to pull again.” Laughing blue eyes blinked innocently at him.

“You’re lucky you’re cute. Fine, we’ll pull again. But this time, we’re establishing that the Ace is the highest card.”

“I agree a hundred percent,” she said straight-faced. “Too bad you didn’t mention that earlier.”

God, he couldn’t get enough of her. “You pull first my pretty little cheat.”

She picked a card.

“Queen of Diamonds!” she announced smugly.

“Uh huh, sure, I can see you really hate gambling,” he teased as he went to pull a card. Glancing at it, he burst out laughing. “King of Hearts.”

“What?!” She crossed her arms in front of her with a huff, but she couldn’t stop the laugh trickling out of her. “Darn. And I was already planning to make you wash all our comforters and sheets, too.”

He shuddered. “That’s karma for you, sweet thing. Because of your heinous wager, the universe saw fit for me to win.” Grinning, he tilted his head and studied her now slightly nervous expression. “So...anything I want, no questions asked...” Damn, that inspired all sorts of wicked ideas.

“Wh-what are you going to pick for us to do?”

He leaned over to plant one long, hungry kiss on her lips and then whispered, “You’ll have to wait and see.”

“That’s mean. You’re just drawing this out to make me crazy.”

He thought about it and gave her a nod. “Yeah, that does sound like something I would do. So let’s go with that.”





CHAPTER NINE


QUINN STUDIED Rylan warily, listening to his seemingly innocent question with supreme skepticism. After that epic first kiss that she’d been hoping for an encore performance of for the past week, Quinn had absolutely no idea what was going on in their relationship. She’d yet to even see second base with the man, and lately, he’d been keeping them both firmly planted in the dugout. But today, however, the man was a walking suggestive comment.

She suspected he was keeping her guessing on purpose.

Or he was secretly hiding multiple personalities.

Honestly, she just couldn’t believe this steamy-eyed man sitting before her now was the same knight in shining armor who’d shown up at her home last night armed with dinner for five.

Yesterday afternoon, her sister Penny had called to explain she needed to stay late at work exactly five minutes before Penny’s usual sitter had dropped Quinn’s twin nieces off on her doorstep. While she loved her nieces to pieces, they were two more crazy preschoolers to watch and make dinner for, and she was out of groceries she couldn’t go out and get because she only had one booster seat in her car. So, Quinn had immediately called Luke for back-up.

When he hadn’t answered, shortly after the kids had decided to let the dog in and ride him like a horse, Quinn called Rylan.

A half hour later, Rylan swooped in and placed groceries on the counter along with a kiss on her lips in a honey-I’m-home way before she even got out a hello.

Then, unjustly, it took him only a second to round up the kids and get them to sit still for a Candy Land battle while she cooked dinner. They ate together at the table, talking all the while about playground politics and current preschool events. And afterward, he played Wii with the girls while she gave Cooper a bath, and then he read them all a story until her sister came to pick the girls up.

The whole thing could’ve been scripted for a family vehicle commercial.

And now here they were on their ‘High Card’ date.

…An early morning at Desert Confections.

Helping her work.

The man was so odd.

And now he was asking her odd questions.

“So you’re saying a spa package isn’t something you’d enjoy?” pressed Rylan as he filled another bag of chocolate bonbons and passed it to Quinn for ribbon tying.