After Midnight by Katherine Garbera

own secrets safe.
    “Don’t forget there is a little thing called beginners luck,” he warned as he dealt her two cards.
    “I’ve never relied on luck. Just skill and grit. Something that I guess a drifter like you wouldn’t understand.”
    “Touché.”
    Her cards weren’t so good this time. A five and a nine. Fourteen. It almost felt as if she should stay, but she wanted to win again.
    Carter had a three showing.
    “Hit me.”
    He flipped a card up in front of her. A three. Not what she’d been hoping for, but she smiled as if it was the only thing standing between her and twenty-one and gestured that she’d stay.
    “That good, eh?”
    She shrugged. “Like I said...no luck needed here.”
    It was funny, but she’d forgotten how often she’d had to use her press face with people in the real world to mask what she was really feeling. And now she was doing it playing cards. She’d never tell him, but Carter was giving her back little pieces of herself she hadn’t even realized she’d lost when she’d stopped skiing.
    Things such as bluffing, which didn’t seem to have much in common with her skiing life but actually did.
    He took a card and got a nine. “I’ll stay. What have you got, gorgeous?”
    She flipped up her cards. “Seventeen.”
    “Aw, that might be enough to beat me if I didn’t have...”
    He flipped his card over. An eight.
    An eight!
    “Looks like I win.”
    “Looks like you do,” she agreed. “What are you going to ask me?”
    He leaned forward, that blue-gray gaze of his intense—so intense she couldn’t look away—as he took her hand in his. “Will you give me a shot, or is this just a one-night stand?”
    * * *
    H E HADN ’ T MEANT to ask her that, but now that he had, he knew that was exactly the only thing he wanted an answer for. Today had been one of the best of his life. But there was a part of him that realized she had pegged him into the casual category and he knew he wanted more.
    He had to know what he was up against. Just like each time he stood at the lip of the half-pipe and took a breath before taking his run. Each half-pipe was different. Each run unique. And he prepared for the different mountains and the different events as if he’d never taken a run at it before.
    Lindsey was like an unfamiliar run. This was his first time with a woman who mattered.
She
mattered. The words echoed around in his brain as he sat at the table trying to be cool. Or as cool as a guy could be wearing just his underwear while playing cards.
    It had felt right until this moment when he’d laid everything out in front of her. He saw in her eyes the moment she thought she’d come up with an answer. She tipped her head to the side and gave him that smile he’d seen on her face in photographs a million times.
    “What kind of shot?” she asked coyly.
    “One where you don’t wear a fake smile,” he said.
    Sure, he loved games, but not with her. Or at least not with her at this moment.
    “I honestly don’t know what to say.” She released a breath. “I think it’s a bad idea to take this any further. Because like I already told you when I left your hotel room this morning, I’m dealing with some stuff. It’s not fair to get involved with anyone at this moment.”
    He nodded and leaned back in his chair. “Fair enough.” He wanted to argue but he knew that he wasn’t going to change her mind. Not right now anyway.
    “That’s it? I was expecting an argument or some passionate plea to give you a shot,” she said.
    “Do I look like I have to beg a woman to be with me?” he asked. But that was pride making him stupid. He shouldn’t have said it and knew it the moment the words had left his mouth.
    “No, you look like a guy who has too many women saying yes... I think I’ve had enough of games for today. Why don’t we call it a night?”
    Damn. He should say something—apologize—but she’d slammed him hard in the ego and he wasn’t ready to let her know that.