Chapter 7

The first thing I registered was the weight of him. It was a heavy, grounding presence, a solid anchor in the drift of sleep that still clung to my limbs. Then came the scent—expensive sandalwood, crisp linen, and the faint, musky trace of last night’s expensive scotch, all mingled together in the unique, intoxicating aroma of his skin. I didn’t open my eyes immediately. I let the sensation of his arm draped over my waist, his hand resting possessively just above the curve of my hip, settle into my bones. The memory of the previous evening flooded back in fragmented, electric bursts: the clinking of chips, the low rumble of his voice commanding the table, the way his eyes had locked onto mine across the felt, dark with a hunger he hadn’t bothered to hide from me alone. We had crashed here, in the master suite of the penthouse where the private game was being held, or perhaps we had simply dragged ourselves back to his place after the last hand was folded. It didn’t matter. The location was irrelevant; the only thing that mattered was the heat radiating between us. I shifted slightly, the silk of the duvet sliding