Sinful Protector (Roughshod Rollers MC 2)

“Easy,” Jacqui says, eyes gleaming. “The one with the worst hand in a round loses a piece of clothing. You can fold, but you can’t fold twice in a row, to make it more exciting, so choose wisely!”

I laugh. “With those rules, even if you win the game, you could still end up naked!”

“Exactly,” Jacqui says, winking at me. “You all in?”

“I’m in!” Susie laughs.

A chorus of agreements sounds, and Jacqui shuffles the deck, grinning. The moment she passes the cards out, however, a serious air descends as we suddenly realize something.

We can’t lose.

Kyle, surprisingly, is the first one to fumble. Though, perhaps not so strange; despite the fact that he’s relaxing, he’s still among strangers. He coughs, embarrassed when he’s the only one not to have anything at all.

“Should have used your fold!” Jonathan laughs.

“Yeah,” Kyle says with a chuckle.

He unzips his jacket and shrugs it off, throwing it carelessly in the corner. I see the way Jacqui, Paige and Susie all stare at the way his black t-shirt molds itself to his chest, leaving nothing to the imagination.

Suddenly oddly irritated, I collect the cards.

“My turn to deal,” I announce.

The game is brutal. Suddenly, everyone is throwing everything they have into it, the reality of our situation dawning on us now that someone has removed an item of clothing. I find myself calculating exactly what I’m wearing and just how many times I can lose before I end up naked in front of all my friends.

As such, too focused on that, I end up with the dud hand on the next round. I stare blankly at the cards in my hand and flush at my own idiocy.

“Your turn!” Jacqui sings.

I stick my tongue out at her and remove my own jacket. Thankfully, I switched the heater on before we began playing, so the apartment isn’t as cold as it could be at this time of the night.

“Aw, no fair, you’re wearing two shirts!” Paige protests.

“It’s an undershirt,” I say primly, then grin at her. “All’s fair in love and war.”

Susie cackles and Paige pouts. I hear Kyle laugh beside me and grin, pleased.

Slowly, the minutes tick by. Chips are passed back and forth. Eventually, both Jonathan and Jake end up shirtless, and I’ve managed to get away with it by first removing both my shoes and then one of my socks. Poor Paige is left only in a thin shirt and a skirt, and Susie is huddling next to Jonathan in a bra and jeans. Jacqui, on the other hand, is doing fairly well for herself; she removed her socks and shoes first, and then her jeans, leaving her to continue huddling into her jacket.

Kyle, on the other hand, is doing the best of all of us. He’s still only lost his jacket, and I catch Paige’s eye; we need to do something about this.

Though it turns out we don’t need to cheat. Kyle, caught because he folded on the last hand, is left with nothing, and we turn gleaming eyes on him as he laughs, draining the last of the beer beside him.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says.

He shrugs his shirt off. My mouth goes dry, and I suddenly wonder why I thought it was such a good idea for him to lose, after all.

“Shit, girl,” Jacqui mutters to me. “I suddenly know why you jumped him.”

I don’t even have the presence of mind to hush her, though no one is paying attention to us. Seeing Kyle half-naked brings vivid memories to my mind, of running my hands down his chest and pressing myself against his firm body. My gut feels tight and I shiver in the night air, though, this time, not because I’m cold.

Paige is staring too and there’s an expression of want on her face that I recognize. Did I look like that the other night right before I threw myself at Kyle? I want to tell her to back off, but it suddenly occurs to me that I have no right to do that.

Kyle isn’t mine. We slept together once, and that was it. He’s here only because he seems to have a protective streak a mile long, a streak that he’s decided to wind around me for the time being. What does it matter if Paige wants to sleep with Kyle? It isn’t any of my business.

Except maybe it is a little because I saw him first. I’m the one that tasted his skin and felt his body all around me and within me. I feel myself ache at the memories, and I swallow with difficulty.

“Keep going?” I ask.