The Negotiator (Professionals 7)

Fascinating.

That was what that was.

To see a man who was so composed become unmistakably bashful.

It was charming, actually.

Who’d have thought?

“I asked adults to get me many things when I was underaged. But when it came to women, I liked to learn things… firsthand.”

That should not have been sexy.

It was just a statement, not even an innuendo really.

But what can I say, anything that involved him and his hands and what he may have learned to do with them over the years? Yeah, that was hot.

I knew exactly what those lips of his were capable. One could only imagine his hands were equally skilled. Along with a couple other very specific parts of his anatomy.

God.

No.

I needed to stop thinking about that. Especially with him standing there looking all proud of himself in a suit that might have looked better on my bedroom floor.

Thankfully, Christopher interrupted the silence, knocking those sexy thoughts out of my head.

“Tequila, right?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Your drink of choice,” he clarified, making me realize he tucked away that information on Fenway’s yacht. You had to respect a man who had a fine attention to detail. There was something very appealing about a man who paid attention, wasn’t there? Not that I needed any more reasons to find this particular man attractive.

“Yes, tequila.”

“I will get some while you get changed. Then we have a game to play,” he told me, making his way to the door, leaving me alone.

To remember what game we were playing.

And just how high the stakes were.

I should have been freaking out.

I should’ve had a nervous sweat breaking out across my back.

At the idea of giving him some of the ugly parts of my past, the parts of myself and my story that I chose not to share with others.

All I could feel right then, though, was an unexpected anticipation.

Because maybe—just possibly—I had found someone that I wanted to give all those parts of me to.

It was terrifying.

But, somehow, I knew I could trust him with that information. I knew he wouldn’t look at me differently because of it.

What that said about me, about him, about this dynamic between us, well, I had no idea.

But for the first time in my entire life, I found myself wanting to lose, to know my poker face failed me.

Because I wanted Christopher to get to know everything about me.

TEN

Christopher

We both played well.

Which meant we each got the chance to win. And therefore ask the questions.

It started out innocently enough.

I won and asked what her favorite country to visit was.

She mulled that as she shuffled the cards, admitting it was hard to pick when she had been to many different places. Eventually, she chose a mix of Italy and New Zealand. The former for the food, the latter for the beauty. Having been both places myself, I had to agree they were great choices.

She shot the question back at me, I decided the States for the very varied landscape and people as well as Russia simply because it was so different from my homeland in climate and architecture.

She won the next round, raising the stakes by asking me the story of how I lost my virginity.

To the housekeeper when I was sixteen.

“What?” I asked when she snorted and shook her head.

“You wouldn’t believe how many guys who grew up well-off who have told me it was a staff member. And that she seduced him.”

“My father had a large and rotating group of young women around. Most of them from poor upbringings. I would imagine the choice to sleep with me was in the hopes of trying to get something out of me.”

“I hate to say it’s probably true, but it’s probably true. Did that bother you?”

“I was sixteen and stupid. She was twenty and beautiful. I didn’t care about the why. I just wanted to join the ranks of my friends who had already been screwing around for a while.”

“Whatever happened to her?”

To that, I let out a humorless laugh, wincing a bit at the memory. “I walked into my father’s room a few weeks later to see her in bed with him. When I told him, he had her replaced. I never touched the staff again.”

“Realizing you were sharing someone with your father is pretty gross. Do you know that Fenway lost his v-card to an actual queen? Can you imagine?” she asked, shaking her head as she started to deal.

This was unexpectedly nice.

I’d spent time with women before. In cafes. In bars. We’d had very casual conversations.

But it was nothing like this. Because there had always been the underlying understanding that the conversation was simply a prelude to sex. No strings attached sex.

There was none of that with Melody.

Sure, I wanted that with her. It was becoming harder each hour to keep control over myself about that situation. But this interaction was just fun and easy. Just two friends getting to know each other.