LOVE BUG

CHAPTER 40: WHATEVER

She stares for a second at the cards displayed in perfect rows face down, and she summons her concentration and memory. Today, it's like her brain hasn't been able to remember the matching pairs. It has never happened to her before; she always wins at Memory. But it has happened twice in a few minutes, and she won't let it reiterate once more.

"Ready to lose?" She lifts up her gaze to her dangerous opponent.

"You are?" Nate replies with his usual victorious smirk. Though inside, something is unusual: the urge to let her win and let her do whatever she wants with him.

Fifteen minutes later, Anastasia is sitting on her heels, left in only her white bra and flimsy matching panties, and Nate is having more and more trouble focusing on the plain cards before him. 

She is slightly leaning forward, observing him intensely under her concentrated frown, and he knows she's waiting for him to lose. Under her hypnotizing gaze, he's tempted to do so, yet the electricity crepitating in the air is reminding him of the prize.

With each card flipped over, the stakes have echoed in the silence, and with each pair matched, the tension has become louder. Quickly – because they're both really good at this game – the cards on the cover have turned into two stacks of approximatively the same height by their side, while their clothes have disappeared, and their breaths have deepened.

Now, his heart is pulsing louder in every inch of his body, especially below his waist, as he slowly turns a second card, praying it's a six of spades that will reveal another part of velvety skin.

Queen of clubs.

"Shit," he mumbles under his breath, while the hint of a smile forms on Anastasia's lips.

Though she keeps her focused frown, and rapidly, turns two perfectly similar cards, her sparkling gaze flickering to his for a second, just enough to send a shudder on his skin with the victorious glint he glimpses in the mystical shades, before it comes back to the cards.

He holds his breath when she flips over a card, and her frown tightens. His eyes follow her right hand flying above the remaining cards as if she is holding his whole destiny, or at least his body, on the tip of her fingers. After all, she is in some way, if she wins, and it's him who has suggested it. 

From one second to another, Anastasia can drive him wild and over-confident, and then make him like an inexperienced teenager in front of his hottest fantasy. That's what he is feeling like now that the other card she picks is exactly identical to the first one. 

He looks down at his boxers, the only piece of clothing he has left, and swallows the lump of nervousness and excitation growing in his throat.

She doesn't say anything, patiently waiting, yet he can sense her conquering gaze on him, which he is avoiding carefully, glancing around until his eyes land on his wrist, and his confidence comes back, along with a devious sparkle as he meets her gaze. He slowly brings his fingers to his left wrist and takes off his watch, making her eyebrows drop as he smugly lifts one of his. 

Her gaze roams down his body, stopping with an upset pout on his hard-on still hidden behind his black boxers, and she lets him see her disappointment unequivocally through her darkened eyes. 

When he thinks that just a few weeks ago, she has been blushing and embarrassed, unable to hold his gaze, in front of the same sight but fully covered, he realizes how much things have changed since he's first met this angel fallen from heaven, and this newly discovered mischievousness might be even more dangerous.