Texas Tiger

chapter 24





The remains of their meal of cold chicken and potato salad lay stacked on a corner of the table. It had taken them several hours to actually eat it, and they had ignored the rap on their door of the servant who came to carry it away.

Their second bottle of wine was only half empty, but they were making inroads on it. Sunlight still seeped through the window, but from an entirely different angle than at the start of the game. Shadows began to form around the room as they studied their cards.

Daniel's coat lay across the back of his chair and his vest was unbuttoned down to the last button. Georgina's gown gaped all the way down the back, the millions of tiny buttons completely unfastened, but the train of the gown was still clinging by a tape, so she refused to remove it.

She couldn't, however, keep the front of her gown from falling forward without holding it, and it was increasingly difficult to hold her cards, her glass, and her gown. But she noticed this worked in her favor as often as not. Lifting her glass to sip, she let the gown fall forward, and Daniel's gaze instantly focused on the rise of her breasts above the corset.

Georgina smiled and helped herself to another card. "I raise you two buttons."

Daniel marked down the bet and spread out his cards, his eyes still focused on the display before him. "Two jacks, my dear. Off with the gown."

Georgina glared at the two tens in her hand. He might be distracted, but that didn't help her luck any. With a shrug that came as much from the wine as composure, she let the gown fall off her shoulders as she untied the bustle tape.

"You're down six buttons, my dear. The tape is only one." Daniel watched in fascination as Georgina stood, letting the gown fall to her feet.

She was still fully covered in corset and petticoat, drawers and chemise, and if the truth were told, she'd be delighted to lose the corset. She just didn't want to lose it too quickly. The numbers of buttons and tapes remaining were becoming rapidly few, and the bed loomed ever larger in her mind.

Georgina unhooked the first five fastenings of the corset, and wished instantly that she had started at the bottom. Her main concern had been breathing, but now it became the spill of her breasts from the loosened garment.

Daniel was grinning blissfully as he looked his fill, and Georgina sent him a hostile glare. "Look while you can, mister. When you're down to your last buttons, I'll be buttoning up."

"I can't wait." Still beaming, he shuffled and dealt.

Daniel's stare was making her feel funny inside again. Georgina squirmed in her chair and picked up her cards, but she had difficulty concentrating. She took a sip of wine and tried to make herself think, but all she could think about was the way the warm air felt on her uncovered skin.

It was hot in here. She could feel a trickle of perspiration roll between her breasts. She reached for the napkin that had come with their dinner and patted herself dry as she stared at her cards. She heard Daniel make a noise suspiciously like a groan, and she looked up, but he was staring grimly at his cards. He must have a bad hand.

Georgina gazed thoughtfully at the hand dealt. A nine, ten, and jack of hearts stared back at her. It had possibilities. She made another mark on the pad, discarded, and took two more cards.

The buttons were piling up, but now she had the eight of hearts. Georgina eyed Daniel's fastened shirt thoughtfully. She had seen him once without it. She wasn't at all certain she could concentrate for long if she had to sit across the table from him while he was half naked. But she thought she'd like to try. It was better than the alternative.

Daniel had recovered his equilibrium to some degree and now doubled his bet, daring her to match it. She needed a seven or queen of hearts. They hadn't been discarded. They could be in there. She met his bet and took another card. The queen.

Keeping her smile to herself, Georgina let him raise her again. She was really going to enjoy this hand. He was hanging on to his cards as if they were the crown jewels, but he couldn't beat what she held. She took another drink of wine. She would need fortification when Daniel began shedding his clothes.

When he finally called and she spread her hand out for his edification, he looked at it in amazement. Then a slow grin spread across his face as he unfastened his last vest button.

"It was getting a mite warm in here, anyway," he said as he threw the vest over his coat.

Georgina watched with avid interest as Daniel discarded his collar. He wasn't wearing a cravat or tie, but he had links in his cuffs. He held them up for her perusal.

"Do these count?"

She nodded. Mentally, she tried to tally her points and the number of buttons he had remaining. She was starting to wish men still wore those old-fashioned trousers that buttoned up both sides. Her gaze inadvertently went to the band of that article of clothing. The cloth flap prevented her from seeing how many buttons were behind there.

Daniel was counting the buttons of his shirt out loud as he unfastened them. Georgina watched as the shirt gaped open. She had hoped he might be wearing some form of combinations underneath, but she should have known he wouldn't. There was nothing beneath that gaping cloth but pure male flesh.

He kept pulling the shirt from his trousers, sliding out one button at a time, until she wondered if the material reached to the floor. He finally reached the designated number, two buttons shy of the end, but that was scarcely a saving grace. The shirt gaped wide to reveal tantalizing glimpses of tanned smooth skin that moved with muscular grace as he returned to his seat. Georgina gulped and reached for the cards.

"More wine?" Daniel picked up the bottle and refilled their glasses without waiting for her response.

Georgina gulped it hastily. Things were growing a little fuzzy around the edges, and she was learning to appreciate the sight of Daniel sitting there so casually with his shirt open. She was even beginning to like the feel of his admiring gaze as she reached across the table, exposing more of herself than she had ever exposed to anyone before. She thought maybe that getting drunk was a very good idea.

"Are you hungry? Shall I order something else brought up?" Daniel asked, eyeing the level of her wineglass.

"No, I don't think so," Georgina answered hazily, letting the cards fall from her hands as she dealt them. It wasn't professional, but her head was too light to do more.

Ascertaining that she was still upright and functioning, Daniel sifted through the hand dealt while Georgina stared at hers in confusion. She was losing track of her purpose here. Was she supposed to be winning or losing? Every time she looked up and saw Daniel across the table, she got more confused. If he took off all his clothes first, did she win?

She had this rather odd feeling that she wouldn't. It didn't matter much. The hand she held was a loser, and no amount of discarding would improve it. She spent this round calculating the number of hooks on her corset that she could afford to lose.

Oddly enough, she didn't feel in the least embarrassed as she folded her hand and began unfastening the hooks. Daniel had helped her put the thing on this morning. It didn't seem strange to have him see her take it off. She ought to be horrified at sitting in a hotel room with a man while wearing nothing but her underwear, but it somehow felt perfectly natural. She even gave a seductive little wiggle as she undid the last hook and shook the corset off. Daniel sat there with his arms crossed over his chest, watching her, but Georgina noticed his eyes glazed and he seemed to stop breathing when she sucked in her stomach and pushed out her breasts before sitting down. This was getting interesting.

Daniel dropped one of his cards and had to pick it up off the floor. Georgina crossed her stockinged legs beneath the table and wiggled her ankle at him while he was down there. He was a long time in coming up.

They both had lousy hands for the next round, but Daniel lost his last two shirt buttons and had to add the shirt to the growing mound of discarded clothing over his chair back. Georgina's fingers ached to touch the bulge of his shoulders, and she had difficulty keeping her eyes away from the ridge of muscles across his chest. Her mild-mannered journalist was built like a stevedore.

Daniel looked up questioningly when she hesitated too long over a discard. "You can fold now, if you like. It will only cost you those two pretty ribbons." His gaze indicated the ones he meant, the ones tying her chemise closed across her breasts.

That was dangerously close to shameless, but Georgina did as he suggested. It was easier to unfasten two ribbons than gamble more and lose the whole piece. She didn't think she was brave enough to sit there as bare-chested as he.

Daniel sighed in ecstasy as the chemise gaped, revealing almost the entirety of the valley between her breasts. "Why don't we retire this game until later and explore the possibilities of that bed now? It's perfectly legal, you know."

"I could win," Georgina reminded him, but she pushed her arms against her sides until her breasts rose against the thin fabric of her chemise, threatening to spill over. Victory was already flooding through her veins as Daniel rose from his chair.

"This way, we both win," he murmured, pulling her up out of her chair.

He tasted of wine and masculine heat and his tongue took such rapid possession of her mouth that Georgina couldn't control her spinning senses. Her hands circled his neck, and the broad chest she had just been admiring from afar was now rubbing disconcertingly across her own, sending screaming warnings through her nerve ends.

Daniel's hands caught her waist, circling it, lifting Georgina closer until she could feel his hips pressed near hers in a proximity that even in her innocence she knew was dangerous. And seductive. She pressed closer, wanting more, but Daniel's hands were exploring elsewhere now, rising higher until they rested just beneath her breasts. They teased at the covered curves, creating desires over which she had no control. In a minute she would be jelly in his hands, and there would be no turning back.

Gasping, Georgina pulled away. Placing her hands on Daniel's chest to hold him off, she stared at him in astonishment. This wasn't Daniel, the mild-mannered newspaperman with spectacles and an endearing grin that she knew so well. This was a man with only one thing on his mind. She read the truth in the flare of his nostrils, the darkening of previously clear gray eyes, the twitch of a muscle over a broad jaw. She didn't need to know more. She backed away.

"We're not finished with the game," she said lamely.

His eyes darkened further, but he nodded and took his place again. This time, his face was ruthless as he dealt the cards.

She was going to lose. She could see that in his eyes. What had been a game had become something else. He was playing to win, and she was the prize.

Georgina bent her concentration on the cards, discarding wine and desire and all other encumbrances to clear thought. She felt as if she were suddenly fighting for her life. She didn't know how or why the game had changed that way, but she knew it had become a winner-take-all dispute.

She had two deuces in the hand he dealt her. She played them for all she was worth, but in the end, his pair of fours won. Rather than remove any more ribbons on her chemise, Georgina untied her garters and her drawers, throwing them both on the stack of clothing she had accumulated.

Daniel grimly shuffled and dealt the next hand. She was sitting on the chair with nothing but one thin piece of cotton between the wood and her skin. She had never felt so naked in her life. Daniel's knowing glance didn't help. The place between her legs tingled, and Georgina began to have some idea of what she was about to lose. She glanced helplessly at the massive bed. Her mother had never told her what happened in a marriage bed, but her body was telling her things she would rather not know.

Daniel dealt again. This time he folded after drawing two cards. He stood and began unfastening his trouser buttons.

It was then that Georgina noticed the bulge pushing at the tight fabric of his pants, and she went red clear to her hair roots. The wine finally took control of her brain, and she tilted in the chair as if she were spinning giddily.

Daniel was beside her before she could fall. He caught her up and carried her to the bed, and suddenly the spinning was something else, something much more serious, and Georgina grabbed for his shoulders.

That was undoubtedly her undoing. His skin was hot and smooth and slightly moist with the heat of the nearly airless room. Georgina couldn't resist touching even as Daniel laid her back against the cool sheets. She wanted to touch all of him, and her hands spread around his sides and went forward, touching his chest as she had longed to do all afternoon.

Daniel was on top of her before she could say a word. His kisses were neither gentle nor reassuring; they were demanding, decisive, and inflammatory. Georgina's fingers dug into his back as he pushed her deeper into the pillows, but she couldn't fight him. Her mouth opened beneath his command, and his invasion left her gasping for more. The wine and the heat and her own desire had her spinning out of control.

When Daniel's hands cupped her breasts, Georgina moaned into his mouth and felt her bones melt beneath his touch. She was liquid wax and he was the mold shaping her.

When his kiss strayed elsewhere, her eyes flew open. She hadn't even realized she'd closed them. She trembled as the rough stubble of his chin grazed against her cheek but then his fingers found the peaks of her breasts, and she was lost again.

"Daniel," she whispered desperately, having no idea of what she wanted to say.

"Don't, Georgie," he whispered against her skin. "Don't say anything. This is the way it's meant to be."

His lips found her earlobe as his hands played skillfully at her breasts, and Georgina couldn't speak had she wanted to. It was all beginning to make sense now. She was coming alive, and he was showing her how. Passion and desire and hunger flooded through her, and nothing he did was enough. There had to be more.

Her hands skimmed over him, learning him. The unbuttoned trousers were an inconvenience easily disposed of. He helped her push them off. Her chemise followed, and they were naked between the sheets.

Daniel didn't let her hesitate. He bent to suckle at her breast, and Georgina rose straight off the bed with a small scream of delight. His arm circled her waist and held her there, pressed against him, and she felt a hardness she had never guessed at probing between her legs. Her hips angled in that direction, and he helped her, cupping her bottom with his hand, letting her feel the heated length of him.

"Daniel, please," she whispered, not knowing what she asked.

He stopped what he was doing and braced himself over her, catching her gaze with his own. She looked up into the steely gray of his eyes. She saw the hard possessiveness in that stare, the look a male animal must give his mate when he takes her, and she trembled.

"Man and wife, Georgina, till death do us part." It wasn't a question, but a promise.

She was utterly terrified by the immensity of the moment. This was their wedding then. This was what it meant to be married. She nodded, and he kissed her, then his hand came down between them to caress the place where they would join.