“My hair.” She touched the tight bun at the back of her head.
“Yeah, I’ve never seen it down.”
Feeling entirely too self-conscious, Julia unpinned her hair. The honey-coloured waves fell to her shoulders. Her hair was hard to style. It was never neat enough for Julia, and there was too
much of it. She’d inherited her mother’s thick locks.
“Beautiful.” Joe reached out and played with one of the waves. “You should wear it down all the time.”
“It gets in the way.”
“Of what?”
She frowned at him. “Life.”
With a grin, Joe played another card. “Come on, time for you to win a boon. If you can.”
Julia kept her eyes glued to the growing pile of cards they threw down. Her hand shot out when two aces appeared.
“Snap!” She grinned at Joe.
“Julia Collins, you’ve got a maniacal competitive streak. I didn’t know that about you.”
“You should see me when I play Monopoly.” She gathered the cards.
“I’d like that. Now what are you going to claim as your boon?”
Two thoughts slammed into her mind at the same time. One of them made her blush furiously.
“Oh, I need to hear this.” Joe leaned his forearms on the table. “What just went through your head?”
Nothing—except the thought of making him play shirtless. The only thing stopping her, was that he would likely make her do the same if he won a round. The sensible thing was to go for the safe option. There were days when Julia hated her need for safety.
“I’ll ask a question,” she said, making him arch his eyebrow at her. “Do you like living in England?”
Joe shook his head with clear disgust. “Baby, that isn’t a boon, that’s polite dinner conversation. Try again. Ask something you really want the answer to.”
A plethora of questions ran through her mind. To her shame, most of them involved words she couldn’t say out loud. Joe Barone had a very bad effect on her it seemed.
“Time’s ticking. You don’t choose fast, you lose your boon.”
“That wasn’t in the rules.”
He shrugged, clearly amused. Julia, meanwhile, tried desperately to think of something he would consider a worthy boon, but didn’t involve anybody stripping. There was honestly nothing else in her brain. It was pathetic. Normally she couldn’t shut her overactive mind down, but around Joe, it went blank.
“I’m counting to three, and if you don’t choose, you lose. One. Two…”
“Take off your shirt.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Julia was on her feet and running for her bedroom, humiliation fast on her heels.
A huge arm wrapped around her waist and then she was being carried back to the table.
“I need to go to bed.” She struggled in his arms.
“Yeah, I saw how urgent the need was.” He put her in her seat and leaned over her. “There is nothing wrong with your request. This is just us. Nobody else. And nothing you say or do here is wrong. And”—his smile was wicked—“this time, I won’t make you strip as payback.”
Julia groaned, hung her head and pressed her hot face into her palms. When she looked back up, Joe was shirtless, and then her brain really stopped working.
Danger! Danger! Run!