I looked back to him. “Truthfully, it has been a very long time since someone called me handsome. Even when I was in a relationship, I’m sorry to admit. Also the past couple of years wore me down,” I confessed. “Throw in an ex that you weren’t even sure was your ex, that up and dies on you, well, I guess looks sort of don’t seem to matter anymore.”
“I’m sorry, Blake,” he whispered, reaching across the table for my hand. Once again I wanted to resist accepting the warm gesture, but Dirk was disarmingly kind and I knew he cared. The sense that he did flooded over me and, I had to admit, the feeling was long wanted. Dirk was a stranger and yet I felt good around him. Maybe that was why I held his hand and absorbed a strength from him that was ever-apparent.
I didn’t acknowledge his sympathetic condolence because I feared a breakdown. My eyes had a habit of betraying me at a moment’s notice the past year, and I didn’t want to go there anymore. I don’t want to go there anymore. I heard my thoughts as if I’d spoken them out loud. I truly don’t want to go there anymore. The thought was a first for me because lately I’d been the king of not only going there but living there in sorrow full time.
“Do you have a deck of cards?” I asked.
Dirk licked his lips. “Sure do, but I’ll warn you, I’m pretty good at strip poker,” he joked.
“I bet you are,” I said. “But I was thinking more along the lines of gin rummy.”
“Your loss.”
“Maybe not,” I argued. “If we play strip poker we might get cold?” I added, motioning toward the bed. “The bed is a twin and we’re a double so it’d be a tight fit, dontcha think?”
“Not if you stacked us two high,” he quipped.
“Stop it.”
Dirk winked and licked his lower lip. “Cards it is.”
He jumped out of the chair and strode to a kitchen drawer as I admired his backside barely contained in his boxers. His manly ass stretched the thin fabric to its maximum, revealing the shape of two muscular globes. I swallowed hard. Perhaps we would fit in a twin.
I focused on something besides his perfect ass and glanced outside. It wouldn’t be dark out for another two hours and the rain continued at downpour levels. Dirk had mentioned the temperatures had moved toward fifty degrees in the past few hours and the snow was melting rapidly. There’d be no reason to stay once the snow was gone. Suddenly I wasn’t prepared for that eventuality. I wasn’t ready to go home.
CHAPTER TWENTY: Dirk
Ididn’t blame the wine for how I was feeling about Blake. He looked absurdly cute in a too-large T-shirt of mine and an old pair of gray gym shorts. He’d been laughing nonstop at my silly jokes and making me feel good inside. After we uncorked the second bottle of cheap wine, we flirted and made any excuse to touch each other when near.
When I stood and poured him more wine I’d rest my hand on his shoulder. He’d laugh out loud at one of my jokes and reach across the table for my hand with a look that said enough already with the jokes. We both needed the contact badly. Maybe we recognized we desired something from the other. Me, isolated for months at a time, and him self-isolating out of grief. I wanted him and knew that I would make a move on him.
“More?” I asked, tipping the bottle of red toward his glass. “I promise I’ll behave.”
“That sounds boring,” he quipped, giving me a look that confirmed we were actually connecting. “I don’t care for behaved men all that much.”
“Prove your point then,” I teased, filling his glass to the absolute top.
“Are you daring to dare me, Cadet Dirk?” he snarked. “As the son of the beloved commissioner, I am your superior officer.”
He watched as I topped my glass off and then took the final swig from the bottle. We weren’t using wine glasses since I didn’t have any, but instead we’d used good-sized drinking glasses. “Is that so?” I asked. “The son of the boss, huh? Sounds kinda exciting to have you locked up in my tower.”
He lifted his nose and sneered. “I am the heir to the throne and those are the facts, so tell me, good man, what do you want me to prove to you?” he insisted. “Not that I should entertain the ideas of a subordinate,” he added, taking a long drink of wine and dismissively waving a hand toward me.
“I dare you to play strip poker, sir.”
He looked at his clothing, noting he only had four items on if you included socks as two separate pieces. I had two. Three if my watch counted. “Do my socks count?” he asked, grinning. I nodded and grinned back at him, noticing a stirring in my boxers. I wanted to fuck him so hard it hurt. “Your watch?” he added, doing mental math on whether he had an edge. I nodded again. “Deal!” he yipped, holding his hand out for me to shake.
“Five card poker, one draw only?” I asked.
“Perfect choice,” he stated, rubbing his palms together like a witch with a clever potion. He didn’t know that I didn’t care how fast the game went. I sure as fuck didn’t care who got undressed first.
He dealt first. “Give me two cards please,” I said. He dealt me two and he took three. “Pair of aces,” I revealed. He threw his cards down hard and frowned. I watched as he peeled a sock off and threw it toward me.
I dealt the next hand. Same exact draw. I took two and he drew three. “Three sixes,” he crowed. “Read ‘em and weep, sucker.” He was sexy as fuck when he acted like a total dude and taunted me. His competitiveness and the mouth on him was turning me on but I had bad news for him.
“Three nines, sucker!” I yelled, slamming my cards on the table and dancing around like I’d hit the lotto.
“What the fuck?” he hissed, taking another drink of red. “Screw it,” he stated, yanking his tank top off, rolling it up and throwing it over his shoulder.
