And as he spoke, I noticed his eyes were different. Not void, not shuttered. The first emotion he’d shown me in two and half days.

And that emotion was carnal.

I felt my body go electric.

I fought against the surge and whispered, “Thank you, Ty. But I meant I don’t know what I’m all gussied up to do tonight so I can’t know if I’m ready.”

He answered immediately. “High stakes poker.”

I stared at him not getting a good feeling about this. I’d never gambled before, not in my life. I didn’t do this because I didn’t work hard for my money to throw it away. Ronnie gambled. He bet on basketball games all the time. Convinced, since he had played them, he had the inside track. He didn’t lose all the time but he also didn’t win all the time. It seemed ridiculous to me and scary because Lady Luck didn’t swing Ronnie a break very often and I was always waiting for her to pull the rug out from under him and stop with the balancing act as pertained to his gambling. Luckily (heartbreaking pun intended), he died before she could do that.

“High stakes poker,” I repeated.

“One hundred K buy in.”

I blinked. Then I asked hesitantly, “Um… are you good at poker?”

“Very.”

“Really?”

“Woman, you’re wearin’ over thirty thousand dollars proves that true.”

I blinked again. Then I breathed, “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“No, I mean, really, I’m wearing over thirty thousand dollars?”

“And the answer is still yeah. Your engagement ring alone is nearly half that.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered, suddenly feeling my engagement ring burning a circle around my finger. I mean, it wasn’t like I didn’t know all he gave me was expensive, including the wad of cash he dropped on the bed to buy my outfits which were not couture but I didn’t buy them at Target either. I just didn’t know it was that expensive.

“What?” he asked when I didn’t move.

“What?” I asked back.

“Yeah, Lexie, what?”

“What as in… what, you give all your women this kind of bling?”

This gave new definition to “very” good at poker.

“No. None of my other women signed a marriage certificate, took my name and gave up their whole life for me and by the time they earned bling, I’d known ‘em more than a day and they still hadn’t done anything that important to me.”

I stopped breathing and apparently I did this visibly because I got my second reaction from Ty Walker (if you didn’t count the lip curve last night). His eyes narrowed.

“Jesus, woman, you gonna pass out?”

That’s when my breath came back at the same time my eyes narrowed. “Excuse me, Ty, I’ve never worn thirty thousand dollars.”

“Yeah you have. Yesterday. But, sayin’ that, I’m guessin’ at the cost of your shoes.”

“They were on sale.”

“Well thank Christ for that.”

I stared at him. Then I burst out laughing.

Ty didn’t find anything funny.

“Babe, we got a game to get to. I spent a day makin’ the connections to get a chair. But, the doors close, the deck’s cut, they don’t let anyone in.”

My hand went behind me to the table again to hold myself up when he called me “babe”. Again, I had no idea why, it was just that it was casual, it was an endearment and for many men, it was throwaway. They said it to women they didn’t even know.

Ty Walker was not that kind of man. He was not casual. He didn’t do anything throwaway. Every move he made, every word he said had meaning. I knew this down to my bones.

“Lexie…” He was now growling.

“Um… one thing,” I said quietly.

He sighed audibly.

I kept going. “I don’t know how to play poker.”

“That’s good because women don’t sit this table.”

I was back to staring at him. Then I asked, “So what am I supposed to do?”

“Get attention.”

“What?”

“Poker isn’t all about the cards. Poker’s mostly about attention. You got a woman whose legs are like yours, tits are like yours, hair is like yours and ass is like yours, all she’s gotta do for me is sit there and half the men at the table won’t be concentrating on their cards. They’ll be thinking about your legs, tits, hair and ass, how much they want ‘em and just what they’d do to get ‘em.”

“I appreciate the compliment, Ty, but I don’t think I’m all that.”

“You got a dick?”

I felt my mouth twitch.

Then I answered, “No.”

“Trust me.”

I really had no choice; it wasn’t my money anyway so I decided to do that. Trust him.

But I asked, “So is this always your tactic, bring in some woman that gets attention?”

“I’ve never had class with a rack and an ass like yours so, no. We need the money so tonight I’m tryin’ somethin’ new.”

There it was again. Another supremely effective Ty Walker compliment.

My fingers pressed deeper into the table.

Then I asked, “Do you lose concentration when a woman you want is in the room?”

“I hope not or tonight we’re f**ked.”

And there it was again. My fingertips slid out and my palm pressed into the table.

That was when he asked, “We gonna go or you wanna stare at me some more?”

I sucked in breath. Then I walked to him. He stood where he was and watched. When I made it to him, I got close, tipped my head way back and put my hand flat on wall of his chest.

“All right, hubby, let’s go kick some poker ass.”

He stared down at me. Then he shook his head.

Then he muttered, “Christ, you’re a goof.”

Then he moved to my side, put his hand to my back and propelled me to the door and since his hand was on me, I was concentrating on it so I didn’t have a smartass retort to the goof comment.

I just moved with my husband out the door.

* * * * *

I learned a few things quickly after the poker game began. First, if you weren’t playing it (which I never had so maybe even if you were, I wouldn’t know), poker was mind-numbingly boring. Second, Ty was not as good as he thought he was.

This game was like one of those games you saw in movies. I knew this when we didn’t go down to the gambling floors, we went up to the top floor. I also knew this because two men in dark suits were standing outside the double doors at the end of the hall we walked through to get into the game. Further, I knew this because when we entered, every character from a movie was there. The oldish Texan with a Stetson and a big-haired blond in strapless, clingy, cut up to there gold lamé dripping off his arm. Two men in ill-fitting but nevertheless expensive suits (in other words, it was time to lay off the carbs and that time was about six months ago) that looked like they could easily be made men in the Mafia. A slender, handsome man in an expensive suit that did fit him well, very well, and I thought there was a good chance he was a secret agent. And a swarthy man chomping a cigar, sporting a beer gut fit for two and probably being on vacation from his oppressive rule of some small, South American country. Lastly, I knew this was like those poker games from the movies because there was a bar, with bartender, and the casino had provided a black vested, white shirt, black bowtie wearing dealer and a swish poker table with all its accoutrement.