The Bluffing Game Read Online Free PDF

have forgotten them?—and took a breath, hoping the talking we’d done all evening had warmed up my voice without wearing it out. How long had it been since childhood music lessons? Twenty years? More? I sang to myself in the shower, in my car, in my empty office on late nights, but never in front of people. Here went nothing.
    “‘Someday, when I’m awfully low, when the world is cold,’” I began. And that was all I needed to get into the mood. I let the song come out of me not as a performance, but as a game. I took a more genuine pose, sitting up leaning on one hand with my feet hanging off the edge, legs crossed at the ankles, while throwing Victor flirty looks. Halfway through the second verse, he joined in, and we mixed our voices together in lyrics about laughs that wrinkled noses, breathless charm, and, of course, the way you look tonight. I had to admit, if this was preferred foreplay as he claimed, it was a pretty damn good prelude to sex. The man had taste.
    When we reached the end of the verse, I lay down on the piano and faced Victor, stomach down, propping my chin up with my hands. “So tell me. Mr. Sterling,” I teased, “how do I look tonight?”
    “Incredible,” he said, not a hint of a joke in his voice, his smile wide, his eyes tired but still somehow full of—what else to call it—joy. “I’ve never had this much fun with a lawyer before.”
    I twirled a strand of hair that had fallen in front of my face. “Want to have some more?” I said.
    He hesitated. Our eyes were locked, and he knew exactly what I meant. The extra alcohol had been all I needed to sow reason to the wind and let it flutter quietly up and away. It was gone.
    “I have no idea what you mean,” he said, clearly not meaning a word of it.
    I turned over and swung my feet down off the piano again, and hopped down. “I mean this,” I said, and took hold of his gorgeous cheekbones, pulled his head to mine, and kissed him. He tasted like gin, but the touch of his lips softening into mine was downright delectable. He hesitated, and then held my hips with his long, warm pianist’s hands. He kissed me back, and for a moment that was all we were, two people kissing, together without words, simply enjoying each other’s touches and immersing ourselves in the moment, and if I could have slowed that moment down into forever, I wouldn’t have thought twice. The feeling wasn’t like the hookups I’d sometimes had in college, where everyone was young and desperate for each other, but more like what I imagined it was like when my parents sometimes fell asleep on the couch, holding hands and resting their gray heads against one another. Humble human love. I disappeared in it.
    He pulled away at last, and I felt both suddenly empty and at the same time still warm and filled to the brim with him.
    “I’m sorry,” he said, taking his hands from my sides and letting them hang beside him. “But I should stop.”
    He looked desperate to take a step back. But he wasn’t blaming me; he was blaming himself.
    He closed his eyes, breathing deeply. “Trust me, I wish I could keep going.”
    I ran a finger along the edge of the beautiful piano. I had pushed him too far.
    “Listen,” he said. “Tomorrow night. After we make the settlement. We can… we can do this again. If you’re still interested.”
    “No, I get it,” I said. I couldn’t look at him anymore, could only look at those beautiful hands I wanted all over me. “You’re right. It’s a bad idea.”
    “I’m sorry,” he said, his hands shaking. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” And he turned and hurried away. The room was so big I couldn’t bear to watch his back shrink away for so long, so I turned from him. I held myself and tried not to let the memory of his lips and hands slip away, to keep myself full of him for as long as I possibly could.

 
     
     
     
    Three
     
     
     
    Last night’s message had been clear: today was all business. I didn’t enjoy the