"Oh, I'd seen you before, Charlotte." His lips pulled into that slow grin that did funny things to her.

"You knew who I was at the Hunsdens' shop? Then, you knew when you were gambling with my father who I was?"

She hadn't had enough time to process the events. She had only discovered less than half an hour past that the man in front of her, the man who had won her, was the man from the shop. But he had shown no surprise to see her.

He tilted his head. "Had you been hard to forget the first time, beauty or not, you were impossible to forget the second and third. And this last time, alas, sealed your fate."

She had no idea what he meant by that.

"I'd never seen you before the shop," she said. A man like Roman Merrick would be hard to forget as well.

"Like vampires, we are." His lips slashed charmingly. "Waiting to suck the wealthy and d.a.m.ned dry, only dealing in twilight."

That brought to mind a feral image of pale skin, yet the man in front of her looked as if he spent time outdoors. "Your brother looks as if he's never seen the light of day, but you have more color than he."

"The curse of some long-dead Romany ancestors. Blessed with their fabled luck though, so can't complain about my lack of pedigree in the mixture of odd lines." He shrugged and swirled his gla.s.s, his decidedly non-Rom blond hair and blue eyes exhibiting the truth of the odd mixture he claimed. It was as if each bloodline had given him its best trait, mixing together for a stunning whole. "But my brother and I venture out only for auspicious occasions. Of course, the sun would never dare pierce Andreas's skin."

He seemed amused at some private joke.

"Now, as to what you have . . ." He tilted his head. "You have exactly this at your disposal, do you not?"

Something strange tightened within her. "More nights of the same? Surely you are not a man who requires a woman to scathingly or insipidly talk him dumb?"

He twisted the gla.s.s, coating the sides in amber. His gaze saying far more than words as to what those nights would entail.

She took a moment to answer, trying to keep herself together, for she'd never felt farther from control. "I doubt even marriage to Mr. Trant could cover such goings-on should I lose."

"But think of what might happen should you win ?" Lips curved charmingly, pulling and promising. The pleasures of a game, of a simple bet. Dangerous.

"And what would happen should I win?"

"That is where we come to terms." He drew a finger along a furrow in the table. "What do you desire, Charlotte Chatsworth?"

The husky, almost scratchy syllables shivered along her skin.

Freedom. That is what she desired. In all guises.

She smiled, strained. "Nothing that can be given, Mr. . . . Roman."

"But there are many things that can be given, Charlotte. You are thinking far too hard." His eyes were amused, but piercing all the same. "For example, it could be something as simple as returning home posthaste, virtue intact. Or something more pedestrian, such as money to cover your father's debts. Or something as complicated as . . . relief."

"Relief?"

He looked entirely too satisfied that she had asked. He reached across the table and lifted her gloved hand from her gla.s.s. Pulling it between his, he slipped each fabric channel over each knuckle, medium-grade silk brushing her skin in a roughened caress. She removed her gloves multiple times a day. She knew the feeling as they popped free. But never had she felt like this. Warmth penetrated the material, bare fingers brushed each half-freed digit. Promises in each removal.

He smiled, predatory and dangerous, his eyes linked to hers before dropping to the freed silk in his hand. He examined it for a moment, then idly tossed the glove to the empty chair between them. He leaned back in his chair, lifting his gla.s.s again.

She stared at him for a long moment, unnerved and unaccountably warm, but gathered her wits back together. "I can remove my other glove, should I win?"

"You can remove whatever you like. Or ask me to do it for you, a slave to your whims." For a moment, she wondered how she had ever thought his eyes like ice. More like molten silver. She blinked, and his light eyes were idle and amused once again.

"It sounds far more like you would win."

"Oh, in that instance I would . Perhaps you could play with that in mind. I'll take the choice off your hands. Free you. Give you that relief." Glittering eyes, full, decadent lips. Her eyelids felt heavy as her gaze moved between the targets. "For each game you lose, I could remove a piece of your clothing."

He leaned over and lifted her bare hand, his bare fingers, rougher than what she was used to, inspecting her forefinger. He looked up, his lips pulling dangerously. "Or suck a piece of you dry."

Her finger disappeared into his, and she felt them pull from root to tip. Dear G.o.d, there was something in her that reached up, coiling around the feeling in her finger, almost feeling his mouth there, tongue curling around the tip, and she almost said yes.

She pulled her finger back, cradling it against her chest, breathing hard. "I . . . I think not."

He seemed amused as he leaned back, lifting his drink again. "No, that would bring an abrupt end to the game, would it not? And now that we are playing, I hardly want it to end so soon."

"I-I haven't yet agreed."

"No?" His lips curved, as if denying the claim.

"I couldn't possibly win a portion of the money my father is in debt for. And even if I could, he would simply gamble it away instead of settling the debts."

"I could settle those debts." There was something very silky about the way he said it. She wondered if this was how Lucifer bargained. "Easily. And without your father."

She didn't bother to ask how. It wasn't the most pressing question. "Why would you?"

He merely smiled. "Will you play?"

"For a relief of my father's debts?" she asked in disbelief.

"For more nights together?"

"Those are your terms? One of my father's markers for each game you lose. A . . . a night for each game I lose?" She could be indebted to him for eternity by the morning. "I could not fulfill those terms."

"No? But you would simply need to pick the game wisely. Unless you want to be deeply indebted to me?" He smiled temptingly, and she clutched the finger he had abused in her lap. "You might be able to keep the game going until dawn, and forestall all losses . . . or wins. Even the implicit one in the original bet for this night. For at daylight, I cease to exist." His fingers pushed quickly outward like an evaporating shot. Those lips slashed, pulling further in pleasure.

She heard her voice ask, as if from afar, "What kind of games do you play?"

"I will let you choose." As if it had already been decided and agreed upon.

It was enough presumption to raise her hackles. She narrowed her gaze. From the glittering of his eyes, he appeared a little too pleased at that stubborn response. She also wasn't so naive as to see that should she refuse to play a game, he would be free to do . . . whatever . . . he wanted with the rest of the night anyway.

"Like chess?" Not a game she would a.s.sociate with the man in front of her. And one that she might stand a chance at winning-or at least playing through to the night's end.

His lips curved. "I'll start to think Andreas has Rom blood after all," he murmured.

An odd comment. For hadn't he said that he carried the strain, which would indicate his brother would as well?

But understanding took her, as she remembered the other man from the shop. They weren't brothers. At least not by blood. She wondered how they had come to share a last name. Adoption?

Roman lifted an ornate box from the shelves behind him. He slid the top off to reveal striking figures and offered it to her to choose. A box that was far too close at hand.

She let a breath escape, a tinge of hysteria escaping with it. She needed to quell such a response before it cascaded with other feelings and opened up the metaphorical box to the rest.

Instead, she concentrated on the very real box before her and the figures therein.

It was a beautiful set. Charlotte touched the head of the white queen. They had sold their heirloom pieces a year ago. She still mourned their loss. But ivory and gold provided spare comfort when worse fates loomed.

"I can't tell you how pleased I am with your choice." His lips stretched, and the flutters in her stomach beat harder. Of course, a man with a chess set so near at hand was likely to be skilled.

In her beloved sister's foul words, b.l.o.o.d.y great.

Chapter 6.

R oman watched her lips pinch and turn down before quickly smoothing out. He tried to maintain a bland facade but found his own lips quirking.

"I haven't played in years," he said as idly as he could. "I keep the set handy only if someone deigns to indulge a poor beginner."

"I'm hardly stupid, Mr.-Roman."

He hummed, not looking up to see her reaction as he put pieces in place. "No, I've not yet taken you for lacking intelligence." He brushed his fingers across hers as he retrieved the black king.

Her fingers clutched into the velvet lining as the king lightly slipped across her knuckles.

She wet her lips, pulling them together and inside. It made his muscles clench from his stomach to his knees. "And it is just my luck that you are probably a master of the game."

There it was again, that hitch in her voice after he touched her.

The sound made him want to do things to her. Dirty, animalistic things. To bruise her lips with his, muss her perfectly coiffed hair while sc.r.a.ping her on the sheets, blotch her skin with feral color as she lost track of her own name-head tilted back, eyes glazed, unintelligible sounds emerging.

Something in his thoughts must have come through his eyes, because the pulse in her throat leapt again, and her breathing increased. Whether from unknown desire or from fear, it was hard to tell.

He hummed and resumed his naturally charming facade. The one meant to put others at ease. But it seemed to elicit the opposite reaction in her, smart woman, and her eyes grew wary-warier-and watched everything about him, studying him in the same way he studied her.

Well, not quite the same way. After all, they held very different perspectives and had very different reasons for sitting across the table from one another.

He felt a small twinge of conscience. Very small and easily repressed.

He almost felt guilty for playing with her in this way. Almost felt guilty for putting her in this situation where she had a distinct chance at being ruined. Almost felt guilty for holding all of the power-sitting across from her where he could drink in her reactions and discover the secrets she hid beneath her cool exterior.

But the more ruthless part of him demanded that he chain her there until he figured out what it was about her that pushed at fate. What it was that had prompted him to jeopardize their empire.

It was what had kept him from releasing her in the hallway. Releasing her back to her father and Trant.

He had felt malicious glee over thwarting the other men, true. But each glance at Charlotte, picturing her eyes, had purged any thoughts of the others, consuming him with the need to protect, to possess. And not even Downing's threats had been enough to sway him.

He had told Downing that they would let the lady decide. That perhaps it was in Charlotte's best interest to accept and show her father what his actions had wrought.

Downing had been coldly furious but had agreed, undoubtedly thinking she wouldn't accept.

But Roman had been relatively certain that she would accept, which is why he had made the slick offer to Downing. She exuded too much pride to refuse. Of course, with or without Downing's threats, if she had said that she was not going to hold to her father's part of the bet, Roman would have let her go. Would have found her again, in a garden or at some ball, and possessed her then.

But she had cut the conversation short, said adieu, turned from all of them. Strode directly to her fate without another word.

Not just from pride or anger though.

He looked at her, at the delicate skin of her flawless neck, and smiled. No, her pulse didn't jump like that as a result of pride or anger or fear. Her voice didn't hitch from chagrin at an unfortunate turn of events. That jump, that hitch . . . what the telltale signs meant . . . that was why she was doomed.

"It is far more enjoyable to play games with an opponent of near-equal skill," he said, idly, leaving it to her to pick up on any hints to other things. "It is my hope that in the end, we are evenly matched."

He didn't have to look at her to gauge the effect of his words. She wouldn't be willing to believe them yet.

Being the one in power was desirable in order to put one's pieces in place. To test an opponent. But uneven power grew unendingly boring. And it was why most of his liaisons were short-lived. He wanted someone who waited and plotted, then struck back and made him move and think.

"In that case, I will endeavor to knock your king to the floor," she said. "And then wipe his crown into the boards."

Someone who was far more than she showed.

She moved her first piece forward. A white p.a.w.n for the slaughter.

He obliged, and they traded a few turns and pieces. "I do love the idea of a woman who could make me grovel." He said it in a way that implied that he didn't think it would happen. Ever.

Her eyes narrowed, then she smiled sweetly, with a tilt of her head, a drop of her chin. In that way that women were somehow taught from birth to do. "I ache to fulfill your desires."

He watched the way her lips met and parted just the smallest bit at the finale of the last word. Curling her fingers around the tip of her bishop, contemplating some sort of crazed move. She looked up at him through her lashes and plowed it into one of his p.a.w.ns. Not the safe move one would expect from a woman of her station. But he didn't want her to make safe moves.

She set the captured p.a.w.n at the side of the board, squaring it up carefully, before looking at him with an expression that made him hard. Inviting him to reciprocate the reckless play.

Fulfilling his desires. He suppressed the manic smile that threatened to break across his face. And nonchalantly moved one of his p.a.w.ns-rote and secure.

She ma.s.sacred his king-side bishop with hers.

It took everything in him not to pull her across the table right then. This woman who was absolutely cool and collected on the outside and a bubbling mess on the inside. Need pushing out from behind eyes forced to maintain a steady calm. Not trying to lose the game, no, only a less-attentive man would think that. But that she would push back against whatever fate pushed on her . . . yes. She could delude herself into thinking otherwise. But he simply needed to nudge her the way he wanted.

While giving them both what they wanted.

G.o.d, he could already feel her legs wrapped around him, see the sweat on her face, and picture the fierce expression riding her features. He gripped his piece and moved it forward.

The wrong piece.

He lifted his hand, keeping his brow c.o.c.ked, as if that were the move he had meant to make. d.a.m.n.

His wishes for the future were getting ahead of him. It wouldn't do to lose sight of what was in front of him. He replotted the next twelve moves, clearing his mind.

He hadn't slept a full night-or day-in a week, catching only a few winks here and there. Which probably accounted for part of his overall recklessness in the last fifty hours. Though sometimes he tended to grip logic more clearly the more tired he became. Having to keep his head in dangerous and extreme circ.u.mstances had been a way of life for far too many years.