Flirting With Intent by Kelly Hunter

experience.’
    ‘Imagine how cynical you’ll be by the time you’re sixty.’
    ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Frightening. I have a feeling you’re going to like mah-jong. It’s a game of great subtlety. The wind blows and the probabilities turn. Dragons roar and the path ahead changes. Flexibility is the key. I’llshow you the play, which you’ll pick up fast, and I’ll let you figure out the mathematical probabilities for yourself. Wouldn’t want that fancy maths degree of yours to go to waste.’ ‘You’re too kind.’
    ‘I know.’ She opened the case and watched Damon’s gaze sharpen upon the tiles as most everyone’s did when they first viewed the set. Pewter-backed jade, each piece exquisitely carved and painted and then polished to high gloss—each tile so perfectly matched to the next that there could be no telling them apart once they were face down.
    ‘It’s said this set once belonged to the emperor’s favourite concubine and that she won many a concession from her lover when the tiles were played. I hope you don’t mind if we play on a velvet cloth,’ she murmured dulcetly. ‘It’s a very sensual experience. And of course it protects the pieces.’
    Damon made no reply, just started in on his shirt buttons and then peeled it off and handed it to her. ‘This being the shirt off my back,’ he said. ‘Take it. It’ll save time.’
    ‘It’s also rumoured that a lot of games between the emperor and his concubine remained unfinished.’ Ruby took the shirt fromhim and steeled herself not to ogle his very fine form. ‘Now I know why.’
    ‘Happy to do as much illuminating as you want on that score, Ruby. He was probably trying to distract her.’
    ‘Well, I’m sure she appreciated his efforts,’ she murmured. ‘What a giver.’
    Damon smiled, slow and lazy, and Ruby shivered, and not with apprehension. Something about this man called to her and it wasn’t just his beautiful body and it certainly wasn’t his zealously guarded mind. Maybe it was the yearning she sensed in his soul.
    ‘C’mere,’ he said, and Ruby went and gave herself over to him willingly, to the taste of him and the responsiveness of her skin beneath his touch. A fleeting kiss and then another as he teased her lips with his and made the ache inside her grow.
    ‘Distracted yet?’ he murmured.
    ‘Very.’
    She found places for her hands on his chest. A puckered nipple beneath one palm and the ridges of his stomach beneath another. ‘Last night,’ she whispered, ‘was so … so …’
    ‘Don’t say disappointing.’
    ‘Unexpected.’ As he slid her hair combfrom her hair and set his lips to the skin behind her ear. ‘And unbelievably hot. I’ve been trying to figure out the why of it all morning.’
    ‘I’m blaming it on the limo,’ he whispered, threading his fingers through her hair and drawing her into an open-mouthed kiss that as far as Ruby was concerned destroyed his limo argument outright. ‘All that forced intimacy.’
    ‘I’m thinking of blaming it on Santa,’ she offered, and closed her eyes the better to concentrate on the fire in his touch.
    ‘Not exactly a reasoned argument.’
    Ruby countered by sliding her hand down until she found the iron-hard length of him, deeply satisfied when he groaned and surged against her hand and then in one swift movement picked her up and planted her on the table, her legs wide as he stepped in between them and showed her exactly where he wanted that shaft to be. ‘Better than yours, though. Where’s the limo now?’
    ‘What limo?’ he muttered and his eyes were dark with desire. ‘Where’s your bed?’
    ‘Down the hall, first door on the right.’
    By the time they got there Ruby’s clothes were gone and so were his, two of the hallwaypictures were askew and the walls had received a battering.
    He gave himself so freely to pleasure, and Ruby did too, until they were both bathed in touch and taste and the heady scent of arousal, and then he rolled