I tilted my head back and grinned at him. “Those are all the reasons I talked myself out of feeling like a total moron and into only feeling kinda like one.”
He stared at me for long moments. Then, without comment, he went to two money rolls he’d obviously at some point pulled out of the safe. One was a fifty roll. The other was a twenty.
My attention went back to my shoes. I was done around the time I heard the door open on the closet. I watched him drop the now less fat rolls back in the safe; he closed the door to it and the closet and turned to me.
“Ready?”
I stood and put my hands to my hips.
“I don’t know, am I?”
I meant I didn’t know what we were doing, where we were going and why I needed an outfit that would get attention and, not knowing any of that, I couldn’t know if I was ready.
But at my question his eyes travelled down the length of me to my toes and back again. They did this slow, taking their time, missing nothing and I felt their path like a touch on my skin. As they moved, I saw my dress in my head. Navy, clingy, silk jersey, pleated down the side seem creating diagonal gathers across the dress, one shoulder was bare, the other arm sleeveless. It hit me four inches above my knee, showed no cleavage but still tons of skin and it was so form-fitting it left very little to the imagination.
When his eyes locked on mine, he spoke and his voice was a very deep, low rumble, “Yeah. You are definitely ready.”
And as he spoke, I noticed his eyes were different. Not void, not shuttered. The first emotion he’d shown me in two and half days.
And that emotion was carnal.
I felt my body go electric.
I fought against the surge and whispered, “Thank you, Ty. But I meant I don’t know what I’m all gussied up to do tonight so I can’t know if I’m ready.”
He answered immediately. “High stakes poker.”
I stared at him not getting a good feeling about this. I’d never gambled before, not in my life. I didn’t do this because I didn’t work hard for my money to throw it away. Ronnie gambled. He bet on basketball games all the time. Convinced, since he had played them, he had the inside track. He didn’t lose all the time but he also didn’t win all the time. It seemed ridiculous to me and scary because Lady Luck didn’t swing Ronnie a break very often and I was always waiting for her to pull the rug out from under him and stop with the balancing act as pertained to his gambling. Luckily (heartbreaking pun intended), he died before she could do that.
“High stakes poker,” I repeated.
“One hundred K buy in.”
I blinked. Then I asked hesitantly, “Um… are you good at poker?”
“Very.”
“Really?”
“Woman, you’re wearin’ over thirty thousand dollars proves that true.”
I blinked again. Then I breathed, “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“No, I mean, really, I’m wearing over thirty thousand dollars?”
“And the answer is still yeah. Your engagement ring alone is nearly half that.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered, suddenly feeling my engagement ring burning a circle around my finger. I mean, it wasn’t like I didn’t know all he gave me was expensive, including the wad of cash he dropped on the bed to buy my outfits which were not couture but I didn’t buy them at Target either. I just didn’t know it was that expensive.
“What?” he asked when I didn’t move.
“What?” I asked back.
“Yeah, Lexie, what?”
“What as in… what, you give all your women this kind of bling?”
This gave new definition to “very” good at poker.
“No. None of my other women signed a marriage certificate, took my name and gave up their whole life for me and by the time they earned bling, I’d known ‘em more than a day and they still hadn’t done anything that important to me.”
I stopped breathing and apparently I did this visibly because I got my second reaction from Ty Walker (if you didn’t count the lip curve last night). His eyes narrowed.
“Jesus, woman, you gonna pass out?”
That’s when my breath came back at the same time my eyes narrowed. “Excuse me, Ty, I’ve never worn thirty thousand dollars.”
“Yeah you have. Yesterday. But, sayin’ that, I’m guessin’ at the cost of your shoes.”
“They were on sale.”
“Well thank Christ for that.”
I stared at him. Then I burst out laughing.
Ty didn’t find anything funny.
“Babe, we got a game to get to. I spent a day makin’ the connections to get a chair. But, the doors close, the deck’s cut, they don’t let anyone in.”
My hand went behind me to the table again to hold myself up when he called me “babe”. Again, I had no idea why, it was just that it was casual, it was an endearment and for many men, it was throwaway. They said it to women they didn’t even know.
Ty Walker was not that kind of man. He was not casual. He didn’t do anything throwaway. Every move he made, every word he said had meaning. I knew this down to my bones.
“Lexie…” He was now growling.
“Um… one thing,” I said quietly.
He sighed audibly.