Christian was excited, and who wouldn’t be? Kessen had forgotten to take the game with her, the same game they were going to be playing that night. He had memorized all the answers, meaning she would lose; now all he had to do was come up with a good bet.
“Kessen?” he asked, still smiling; he couldn’t help it if he tried.
“Yes, slave,” she said, not looking up from her ereader. “What is your desire?”
He clenched his teeth together in annoyance before answering. “Well, America, I’ve decided we should place a wager on this game.”
“Are you sure you want to do that, my lord? Didn’t that end badly for you last time? We wouldn’t want a repeat of last night, now would we?”
Christian plopped down next to her and sent her a melting smile. Her mouth immediately dropped open. Putty in his hands. “Yes dear, but that was yesterday. Today is a new day and a new game. You’re not chicken, are you?” He knew he had her. Her eyes flashed with anger as she pushed his hand away from hers.
“No, I was just trying to be nice, but fine! Have it your way; what’s the wager?” Her face was inches from his. If he was being honest with himself, all he wanted to do was make out with her, forget the game—burn it, for all he cared. What he needed was her lips on his, her hands on his body, her—
His mind was going downhill fast. It was time for a distraction, and being the competitive soul he was, he knew just the wager to bait her.
“If you win, I will dedicate the first week of our marriage to reading you every single book in the Vandenbrook series out loud, using accents, voices, and costumes.” Her face lit up like a Christmas tree. “But if I win you have to stay up all night with me. Tonight. Alone.”
He leaned in so his lips barely grazed hers. “So, are you scared, or are you game, America?”
She took a few ragged breaths than closed her eyes. “Game, of course. I have nothing to be afraid of since I’m winning.”
“We’ll see,” he declared. Christian laid out the game in front of them and motioned for Kessen to sit on the floor with him. “We will do five questions each. I’ve made it easier this time. I’ll give you five questions, and you can write down your answers on a piece of paper. I will do the same. At the end we will reveal the questions and the answers. Deal?”
“Deal.” She grabbed a pencil and paper and waited.
“Okay, Kessen. Here are your questions. Question one: what was my favorite animal as a boy and why? Question two: how long can I hold my breath under water? Question three: do I sleep with anything, alive or dead? Question four: what was my worst date? Question five: what is my biggest fear?”
He waited for her to write down all the questions. When she was finished, he handed her the other set of questions.
She began to read. “Christian, here are your five questions. Question one: do I snore? Question two: why is the Wall Street Journal my favorite newspaper? Question three: do I have any weird habits? Question four: what is my biggest fear? Question five: am I afraid of the dark?”
Christian spent a few minutes writing down the questions then stared at Kessen. She was concentrating on her writing. Her tongue poked out of her mouth and then she bit her lip. Christian felt his body respond immediately to the particular way her lip looked when the proper pressure was applied.
Aroused beyond belief by the look on her face, he cursed and looked away as he waited for her to finish writing. His answers obviously didn’t take long since he had already memorized them, but he pretended to take a long time and to be confused so she wouldn’t get suspicious.
He waited until after she was finished before putting down his own pencil. “Do you want to start or shall I?”
She shrugged. “Either way you’re losing—doesn’t matter to me.”
“Not that I like rewarding a bad attitude,” he said, putting the cap back on his pen. “But I’ll allow you to go first, my lady.”
She did a mock curtsy—how she managed to do it while sitting down was beyond him—and cleared her throat. “Your favorite animal was a bobcat because you thought they were all named Bob.”
She knew more than she led on, the little minx. He bit back a smile and motioned for her to continue.
“Number two is a trick question. You’ve never tried holding your breath under water for longer than ten seconds, because you believe it’s pointless. After all, who wouldn’t save a drowning marquess?” She didn’t hide the judgment in her voice or on her face. “You sleep in your room, alone, with nothing but your thoughts and sins to keep you company.”
Christian grimaced. That hurt.
“Your worst date was when Duncan set you up with a family friend and forgot to mention she was a fan of your family history. She ended up quoting you to you for an entire hour before sobbing her eyes out about how she was going to die alone. When the date was finally over, she slapped you for being too forward, when you pitied her and wanted to give her a nice peck on the cheek. She proceeded to press charges against you and won on account of psychological damage and now drives a luxury car.”
He shook his head in astonishment and pure anger. That girl had totally played him and used him for his money; he was still seething over that lawsuit. What he wouldn’t give for one more date to show her his true feelings. Too bad she had fled the country soon after and now lived quite comfortably in France.
“Okay, last question, America,” he said, irritated. She nodded her head. He repeated the question just in case and urged her to continue.
She bit her lip, which was something he noticed was a nervous habit when she didn’t know what to say or was uncomfortable. It always ruined his concentration, because it made him think of how soft her lips were and how warm they felt against his own.
He cleared his throat to distract his wandering mind.
“Your biggest fear,” she stated, “is you’ll end up alone.”
Christian cleared his throat to fill in the awkward silence. She had guessed on that last one, but rather than feel excited about winning, he felt nothing but pain. Of course, he had written down his biggest fear as being something silly, like bankruptcy or spiders.
In all honesty though, how could he deny the fact that her guess was spot-on, regardless of what he had written down for his answer? And to make matters worse, he wanted nothing more than to deny it to his grave. What type of aristocrat was he, if he couldn’t even fight off loneliness? He had everything anyone could ever want in this lifetime, yet without someone to share it with, he had felt positively empty. Until now.