Winning Hand (Poker Loser Book 3)

by Golden Angel

  "Looked for what?" Allison asked as she stirred the zucchini around, trying to make sure that each slice cooked at least fairly evenly. Not exactly easy since the pieces kept flipping on top of each other; the pan was just slightly too small for them all to be laid out in a single layer of zucchini slices. They were almost ready for the parmesan cheese.

  The kitchen smelled delicious. Diana was stirring the 'homemade' spaghetti sauce that she'd created by taking a bottle of Prego and adding red wine and extra spices. Now she was slowly stirring it, occasionally testing the flavor. She'd insisted on wearing an apron over her casual blue shirt and dress slacks, not so much because she was worried about getting it dirty but because she liked wearing an apron when she cooked. The oven had breaded chicken stuffed with mozzarella baking in it, adding to the wonderful aromas. Home cooking at its best as far as Allison was concerned. Tasty, but most of all, easy.

  "An engagement ring."

  "What?"

  Diana rolled her eyes as she tasted the spaghetti sauce, dipping her finger into some of the sauce on the spoon she'd been using to stir. "Have you looked around to see if he's bought an engagement ring? Then you'd know."

  "I mean... it's just a feeling. He hasn't said anything or hinted at anything... it's just... this idea that I get in my head sometimes lately. Not really enough to go snooping around for a ring."

  "You don't need more than that to just look," Diana said persuasively. Allison bumped her hip playfully against Diana's as she lowered the heat on the zucchini and began sprinkling parmesan cheese onto the slices. The cheese didn’t need much heat to melt and it would burn pretty quickly if the pan was too hot.

  "Let's say I'm right... then he obviously wants it to be a surprise and I shouldn't look," Allison said. "Or if I'm wrong, then there's nothing to find anyway." She turned off the heat on the zucchini now that the parm had melted just a bit onto it. Yum. "Is that sauce ready?"

  "Yeah," Diana replied, glancing at the timer sitting on the counter to her left. "We've got ten minutes left before the chicken's ready."

  "That's okay, it just means the cheese on the zucchini will melt a little more."

  "Good," said Diana cheerfully as she turned the heat on the sauce down to simmer. She flashed Allison a wicked little look. "That gives us time to go searching!"

  "Wait!" squealed Allison, laughing and following as Diana took off, not even bothering to remove her apron. "You don't even know where to look!"

  "Always start with the bedroom."

  Amused, Allison followed Diana up to the bedroom, watching as her friend quickly went through Todd's drawers. She didn't do anything more than feel around for a jewelry box, so it wasn't quite as invasive as it could be. Then Diana moved on to the closet, but unless Todd was hiding it in his shoes there wasn't anything there to find. Somehow Allison wouldn’t have thought it’d be in the bedroom anyway, she went through Todd’s drawers too often herself. She had a penchant for wearing his t-shirts around the house. And his sweatpants. Somehow they were just more comfortable than her own. And she liked the possessively pleased look that he got in his eye when he saw her wearing his clothes.

  "Have you done this before?" Allison asked as she watched Diana peek into the drawers around Todd's computer in the study. "You seem to have a bit of a system.”

  "Oh, my parents used to hide Christmas and birthday gifts from me in all sorts of places," Diana said as she closed the last of the drawers and tapped her fingers thoughtfully on the computer desk. "I definitely haven't searched Roger's place like this if that's what you're asking. We're not at that point yet."

  "Do you think things might go there?" Allison was now genuinely curious. So far she and Diana hadn't talked too much about Diana and Roger's relationship. Sometimes she wondered if Diana felt that it would be too awkward, but she seemed completely casual about dropping that nugget of information.

  "Maybe. He's the first guy I've ever dated that I could see myself considering taking that step with." Standing in the middle of the study with her hands on her hips, Diana examined the room as if a hidden compartment with a ring box might suddenly jump out at her. Allison put her hand over her mouth to cover her smile, it seemed rather funny that Diana was more interested in this search than she was, but truthfully she was happy with what she had at the moment. Maybe eventually she'd want to get married... but it wasn't at the top of her list of priorities right now. Not when she was concentrating on graduating in a couple of months. "Is there anywhere else in this house that's just 'Todd's'?"

  "Ummm..." The toy room that he was creating sprang to mind. Allison had honored her promise not to enter it, so if Todd was going to hide something somewhere in the house that would probably be the best place to do it. She had no idea what was in there, he sometimes received large packages in the mail or brought things home that were wrapped up so that she didn't know what was going in there. Curiosity had almost gotten the better of her a few times, but she liked surprises.

  Plus, he'd probably blister her bottom for ruining this particular surprise.

  "Where?" asked Diana immediately.

  "Well... he's setting up a room for us to ah... play in," Allison said a little hesitantly. She knew that Diana wouldn't judge her for whatever Todd had in there, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that she was tempted to send Diana in there, even though that would definitely be pushing the boundaries of following Todd's orders. Still, it would technically be obeying him, since she'd only said that she would stay out of there. Nothing had been said about other people or friends. "I'm not supposed to go in there until he's completed it."

  Diana's face lit up. "Ooo, that sounds promising! Where is it?"

  "The room across the hall from this one."

  Immediately Diana scooted out of the office with Allison following close behind. As Diana turned the doorknob, Allison positioned herself next to the door frame, facing the opposite side of the hall so that she wouldn't even be able to see inside.

  "What are you doing?" asked Diana, giving her a strange look. "Don't you want to see what's in here?"

  She rolled her eyes. "Of course I do, but Todd told me not to look. I'm pushing it by letting you go in there."

  "You're such a goody-goody sometimes," Diana teased as she practically pranced into the room. "Oh holy crap!"

  The unfeigned awe in her voice nearly broke Allison's resolve not to look. "What?"

  "I'm not going to tell you." Diana giggled. "After all, this is supposed to be a surprise. Damn. Now this is a sex room. Hmm... here's some drawers... Maybe there's a ring in here...." The sound of wood sliding. "Oh my..."

  Now Allison was pretty sure that Diana was saying things just to get a reaction from her. Although there was also honest delight and surprise in her voice, so maybe there were some really good goodies in there. Shifting back and forth from foot to foot, Allison reminded herself that she would eventually get to see everything in there. More than see, she'd be using everything in there.

  Insistent beeping downstairs sounded faintly down the hall, just as she heard the front door open.

  "Diana! Todd's home! Get out of there!" she hissed before rushing down the stairs, heading for the kitchen. Todd home and the chicken ready. Well at least her timing when it came to cooking was getting better, she thought ruefully. Behind her she could hear Diana following her down the stairs.

  Todd stood in the entryway, looking up at them with amusement on his face.

  "Hello," she said with forced cheerfulness. "Dinner's ready! Perfect timing!"

  She gave him a quick, hard kiss before rushing away to the kitchen, hoping that he didn't see her guilt. Diana immediately engaged him in conversation, hopefully distracting him. The damned man was usually way too good at reading Allison's emotions for her comfort, especially in situations like this where she was feeling too flustered to cover up anything she didn't want him to see. Diana managed to keep him from coming into the kitchen long enough for Allison to get herself under control and start fil
ling up the plates with dinner.

  It was a fun meal, once she managed to get her heart rate under control. Despite the fact that Diana still had the urge to constantly prod at Todd, trying to get reactions from him, the two of them had worked out a pretty amiable friendship. In fact, they acted more like siblings than anything else, with Diana in the part of the annoying younger sister who wanted to get her brother's attention. No set down ever kept her down for long.

  Todd told them about a new project that he was assigned at work; he wasn’t in charge of it but he was the second in command and the guy that was in charge was acting more as a mentor than a lead. Her heart swelled with pride as she listened to him, knowing exactly how hard he’d worked to get into this kind of position. Even if some of the details were incredibly boring, she thought it was really cute how excited he got about all of it and she knew that this was a really great opportunity for him. Kind of showing upper management that he was ready to move on to bigger and better things within the company.

  Since she was only working part-time, Allison had kind of hit the ceiling for how far she could go in her own position. But that was okay because she wasn’t sure that she wanted to stay in Human Resources anyway. It was great experience for right now, but she’d really prefer to do something in communications. Not like Todd did, with his flair for marketing, but something like writing out the explanation of someone else’s ideas or doing copy-editing or something.

  Fortunately that was something she didn’t really need to decide on until closer to graduation, although she would be putting applications out before she was done with school. Todd had suggested it and she thought it was a pretty darn good idea, although she’d like at least a week between the end of school and starting a new job, it definitely didn’t hurt to try and get a jump on things.

  After dinner he offered to do the dishes but Allison and Diana sent him upstairs since he’d already had a long day of work and hadn’t had a chance to change out of his clothes yet. Plus it gave them more of a chance to continue their own whispered conversation under the cover of running water and clinking dishes. Tonight, more than once, Allison had seen that little look in his eye and she wanted to know if Diana had seen it too.

  “Allison.”

  Todd’s deep voice, laced with more than a hint of steel punctured the air, even though he hadn’t spoken loudly there was a great deal of menace in his tone. Immediately Allison shut off the water and turned to face him. He only used that particular tone when she’d done something wrong and when she turned and saw the expression on his face, she knew he knew. She just didn’t know how.

  “Yes?” she asked her voice wavering in the air.

  For once the irrepressible Diana seemed to be unsure of what to do. She shifted her weight from foot to foot next to Allison, shooting little glances at Todd. The way a gazelle might look at a lion on a faraway hill, wondering if the lion was hungry and whether or not running would make one safer or just attract attention.

  “Would you like to explain to me why the door to our… ah… special room was left open?”

  She couldn't help it. Even though she wasn't trying to pass the blame, she glared at Diana. Seriously?!

  Diana winced. "Sorry." She looked at Todd. "Allison didn't go into the sex room, just me."

  Rolling his eyes upwards, as if asking for patience from the heavens, Todd let out a sigh but Allison also saw his mouth twitch when Diana called it a ‘sex room.’ "Following the letter of the law, if not the spirit. Why am I not surprised?" It was amazing how Todd could make her feel like a naughty little girl with just a look. Allison bit her lip and shifted from side to side. "Stay here."

  Turning on his heel, Todd walked from the kitchen, his stride worryingly purposeful.

  Allison and Diana shared a look.

  "What do you think he's doing?" Diana asked in a whisper, actually sounding worried. Considering how curious she had been about the room, Allison had a feeling that the best punishment Todd could have devised was not letting Diana know what was going through his head.

  Unfortunately, she didn't have any better idea that Diana did. She'd never seen Todd react quite that way. "I have no idea. Come on let's finish the dishes." Maybe being industrious would give her a bit of a reprieve.

  The little Asian suddenly scowled as she helped Allison with the dishes. "He'd better not think that he can do anything me just because he spanks you. Roger would throw a fit."

  Despite herself, Allison did feel a little stab of jealousy at the idea of Todd punishing Diana at all. "Does Roger spank you?"

  To her surprise, Diana's cheeks got a little red. With her slightly darker skin that meant she was really blushing. "Once or twice."

  "Did you like it?"

  "Yes," Diana replied, looking over her shoulder to make sure that Todd wasn't there to overhear. "Although he's nowhere near as rough with me as you've told me Todd is with you. But I think he might be headed that way eventually… he really liked it."

  "At least he'd doing it at all." Allison was having trouble picturing gentle, loving Roger as a disciplinarian. Sure he'd shown flashes of wanting something rougher, of being a dominant alpha male, when they were together, but he'd been fighting against the part of himself. While she’d realized that he must have changed at least a little in his new relationship, because that’s what Diana wanted and she wouldn’t have stayed in it otherwise, she was still having trouble actually picturing him doing it. On the other hand, that was probably for the best. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to picture what Roger and Diana got up to in the bedroom.

  Silence fell over the kitchen as they finished the dishes, each lost in their own thoughts. Diana kept nervously glancing towards the doorway where Todd had disappeared from, as if she was doubting whether or not he might punish her. For herself, Allison was pretty sure that Diana wasn't in trouble with Todd although she was. And she had no doubt that whatever discipline he chose, it would be creative.

  When Todd finally strode back into the kitchen both girls were more than a little on edge. If he had meant to make them suffer by waiting for the blow to fall, he’d definitely achieved that. Diana looked even more anxious than Allison felt – it was pretty obvious that she wasn’t very used to waiting for anything.

  A smug little smile curved his lips as he looked at Diana. "I hope you don't mind Diana, but I'd like some quality time with just Allison this evening. Also, Roger is expecting you at his place within the next half hour."

  Diana's jaw dropped and she gaped at him. "What?"

  "Roger is expecting you at his place." Leaning casually against the kitchen island, Todd resembled a cat toying with a mouse that it wasn't particularly interested in eating, only tormenting. "I believe he wants to have a... chat with you about respecting other people's privacy." His dark eyes seemed to pin Diana and Allison watched with fascination as her friend's cheeks turned even darker red. Todd glanced at his watch and then gave her a wicked grin. "I would hurry if I were you, I don't think you'd want to add tardiness to the things he wants to talk with you about."

  Looking both excited and uneasy, Diana allowed herself to be ushered from the house, giving Allison a quick hug as she went out the door.

  "Sorry," she whispered in Allison's ear as she hugged her.

  "It's okay," Allison whispered back. "I could have stopped you and I didn't."

  Rather than apologizing to Todd, Diana just tilted her head back and gave him a particularly unrepentant look. Of course, her haughtiness was ruined by the way she then swiftly hurried to her car.

  Watching her feel with an amused smile on her face, Todd slowly closed the door as the taillights of her car receded before turning to Allison. His dark gaze was filled with a kind of wicked glee that made her want to back away slowly. As much as she might enjoy rough sex and being spanked, that didn't meant that it didn't hurt sometimes, especially when Todd was disciplining her.

  "Let's go upstairs," he said in a low voice, anticipation thrumming through it.
"There's something I think I'm ready to show you."

  Chapter 4

  "Show" ended up being more subjective than literal.

  The asshole blindfolded her before taking her into the room. Talk about a punishment! She was in the room, she could feel the cool smoothness of the hardwood floor, but she couldn't see a damned thing. Other than the blindfold she was completely naked. Todd had stripped her down outside the door before putting the blindfold on her and told her that she wasn't ever allowed to wear any clothes in this room unless he told her to.

  She didn't need her eyes to know that it was a sex room. Filled with who knows what. Well, Diana knew.

  That bitch.

  Not that Allison was truly angry, just envious. If she'd known she was going to be punished anyway, she might have gone ahead and taken a peek. Then again, perhaps that would have just netted her a worse punishment. Although being in the room and still not being able to see it was pretty bad. As much as she tried to cast her eyes downwards, she couldn't see anything past the edge of the blindfold other than a dim sliver of light. Not exactly informative.

  Todd led her to where he wanted her and then put her hands on something smoothly padded and inclined downward.

  "There's a place for you to kneel - don't worry, I'm going to help you."

  He guided her into a kneeling position and then made a few adjustments of machinery before pressing her upper body down. The incline was fairly gradual, but it left her ass high up in the air. Her stomach was support and there was a section that seemed as if it had been cut out purely to accommodate her breasts so that they hung straight down. There was something supporting her forehead too, almost like a massage table would, so that her neck didn't strain. Despite the basic comfort of the apparatus he'd put her on, there was something extremely intimidating about the position. All of her most vulnerable parts were more than exposed, they were presented, like an offering.