Calmly, Sean raked in the pot.
Cherry leaned back, admiration breaking through. ‘Well played, Butler.’
‘Thanks.’ It was poker, not real life, but maybe she’d see that he listened, he learned and there was more to him than she originally thought.
‘We could play strip poker,’ Billy suggested as the night was drawing to a natural close.
Sean leaned back in his seat. ‘Oh, could we now, Billy, aye?’
‘Aye, how no? Cherry, you’d be up for it, right?’
‘Ha!’ Sean answered before Cherry had a chance to. ‘Remind me how many hands you’ve won tonight, Billy.’
Billy shrugged. ‘A few.’
‘Right. Maybe sit and think about that for a minute. Instead of playing strip poker here, why don’t you go home, sit in a chair in your bedroom and take all your clothes off? Because that is the same result you would get playing here with my wife. And, in case you’ve forgotten, Billy, Cherry is my wife. Do you understand? She’s also a professional poker player, so the chances of your wee dream coming to fruition are slim to fucking none. I’d have thought you’d have realised that by now.’
‘Aw, awright, I get the message.’ Billy squirmed in his seat. ‘Just wisnae sure if it was a real marriage or one o’ thae random Vegas ones where folk are aff their chops and get married by mistake.’
Sean’s jaw flexed. ‘It’s a real marriage, Bill.’ He could say this knowing it was the absolute truth. Their marriage had never been about anything other than pure obsession with one another. ‘And we got married in New York, not Vegas, stone-cold sober and very much on purpose.’ Sean glanced at Cherry, who winked at him and softened him back into his usual good humour.
‘Billy, let me give you some advice, man to man and all that.’ Sean leaned forward in his seat. ‘If you want to play strip poker with someone, my suggestion is to go to the pub and find some lassies who are single.’
‘Aye, alright.’
‘But make sure you’ve space for their guide dogs around the table.’
Everyone laughed except Billy.
‘Alright, alright, keep yer wig on.’ Billy put his palms up. ‘It was only a suggestion.’
‘The idea is very sweet, Billy,’ Cherry said, drily, ‘but there is only one man I will play strip poker with and he’s sitting right next to me.’ Then, in case there should be any confusion to whom she was referring to, Cherry scored her fingernails down the back of Sean’s neck.
Fuck, that felt incredible. Was she doing it to prove a point to Billy or for him? Either way, she’d need to stop, or he’d be in trouble. He couldn’t get a hard-on in front of his workmates. That would be a real comedown from the power dynamic he’d established with Billy.
‘Let’s play a few more hands, then call it a night,’ Cherry added. ‘I might even let you win, Billy.’
The hypnotised look on Billy’s face mirrored how Sean felt every time he talked to his wife. She had a way of making you feel you were winning by simply noticing that you existed.
Chapter 16
Sean
‘You were sensational tonight,’ Sean said. The others had gone home, and it was the two of them, alone in the still of the cask warehouse.
‘You weren’t so bad yourself, Butler.’
‘Ach, I was my usual average self. You, though. I’ve never been prouder to call you my wife. You were like sunshine, a hurricane and a snowstorm all in one.’
‘Just doing my job. I’m proud to be your wife. Thank you for dealing with the strip poker thing so…entertainingly.’
‘Thanks for your input.’
‘No brainer, although they wouldn’t have seen much, and I’m not especially interested in any of them with their clothes off.’
Sean chuckled lightly. ‘Me neither.’
‘You, on the other hand.’ Cherry hoisted herself up onto a whisky barrel, the muscles in her biceps rippling as she did so. ‘I could be persuaded.’
