Matched. Kelli Ireland

lifted one shoulder, her head tilting to the side as she considered him. “By my measure? Yes. But there are still mountains to climb and glass ceilings to shatter.”

      He nodded in agreement. “You’ll get there. You clearly have a mind that complements your appearance.”

      “I look smart?” Surprise played through her wide gaze.

      He fought the urge to smile. Letting go of his iron control now wouldn’t do. But she deserved clarification. “You look absolutely stunning, to be frank. What I meant was that your mind seems as attractive as your—”

      “My body,” she said, surprising him.

      He had wanted to say “body,” but that wasn’t acceptable. Not by his or society’s standards.

      “Admit it,” she teased. “That’s what you were going to say, but you backed yourself into a conversational corner.”

      “Certainly...not.” One corner of his mouth turned up against his will when Rachel laughed again. The sound shot through him, landing at the base of his spine, making his balls draw up tight.

      She leaned forward and, in a stage whisper, said, “That was a pathetic cover.”

      “It was,” he admitted. Curiosity rarely provoked him to action, but tonight it won over his typically analytical approach. “May I ask you something, Rachel?”

      “That’s what we’re here for.”

      “Is it?”

      “Isn’t it?” she countered. When he paused, she pressed. “I’m looking for honesty, Isaac. Not wordplay.”

      He sat back in his seat. A woman who openly asked for honesty...and, he believed, meant it. Isaac’s curiosity was more piqued than ever.

      “Fine. Long story short, I wasn’t supposed to be a candidate, but I came tonight to appease the app developer.”

      “Who is he to you?”

      “A...client.” Isaac rolled his shoulders. She didn’t need to know who Jonathan was. It wasn’t relevant.

      “A client.” She tilted her head to one side, considering him. “And what is it you do, Isaac?”

      “I work with a capital-investment firm.”

      “So your company bankrolls ideas and software or software applications other people come up with and then you...what? How do you get back your initial investment?”

      “We essentially buy into whatever the idea or product is and, in exchange for start-up funding, we become part owners in the new venture. If that venture is successful, my firm is paid something equivalent to dividends on that success.”

      “So you help people get started and then ride their coattails indefinitely.” She gave him an innocent look that forewarned him that whatever came next would be sharp. Or clever. Perhaps both. “Sounds a bit like a high-end pyramid scheme.”

       Both.

      And it fascinated him. Here sat a woman who didn’t stroke his ego. A woman comfortable in her skin. A woman who knew her worth. He hadn’t experienced anyone like her before. Similar, but no one had ever possessed the entire package—the one that made up his perfect woman. But here she sat, wearing confidence like a cloak, sexuality like stilettos, and wielded her curiosity like a sword.

      He would have to mind himself. Because by doing nothing more than being true to herself, Rachel Stephens threatened Isaac’s vow to get in and out of tonight’s social experiment without making a connection.

      The alarm sounded, signaling they had just fifteen minutes before their time together reached its scheduled end.

      Realization that this meeting was nearly over moved Isaac to act, something he never did without weighing the consequences, measuring pros and cons. Not now, though. Now? He had to admit he wasn’t ready to walk away from this woman, and he’d do whatever he had to do to ensure their time together wasn’t finished.

      Not yet.

      Whatever he did, he had to figure out what the hell was happening between them.

      * * *

      Anticipation hummed along every nerve in Rachel’s body, but the feeling was, without a doubt, most concentrated in the most inconvenient places. The back of her neck. Her breasts. The lowest part of her pelvis. Her entire sex. There was no denying that Isaac Miller scored one hundred percent when graded against the Mr. Right Now trifecta scorecard.

      She could’ve added a few extra attributes—maybe humility or even... Oh, who cared. Nothing so mundane would really matter when it came down to brass tacks. Or silk sheets.

      So, with fifteen minutes left in the evening, she had to admit that she had found a man who qualified as Mr. Right Now. And she owed herself a win.

      That meant figuring out if Isaac was interested in her before the final bell rang and, if he was, how to get things to go down the path that ended with rumpled sheets and a little pillow talk prior to saying their farewells.

      But before she could test the waters, he parked his elbows on the table and pressed his hands together, almost as if he was praying. Dark blue eyes that had been casually guarded all night were suddenly serious. “How confident are you in your poker face?”

      “Very,” she replied without even a moment’s hesitation. “I’d be a pretty shitty lawyer if my face gave away everything I was thinking.”

      “Do you consider yourself a good lawyer?”

      “I do.” She offered no apology for her surety. Why should she? Then an idea struck. Scooting forward until she sat on the edge of her seat, she crossed her arms and placed them on the table. “What about you, Isaac? Are you any good at your job?”

      “The best.”

      She’d anticipated as much.

      Putting her weight on her elbows, she decided to test the waters. “And how’s your poker face?” She spoke softly so that he’d have to either lean forward to hear her or ask her to speak up. Her gut said that if he was into her, he’d lean in. If he wasn’t, he’d ask her to repeat what she’d said.

      He leaned in on the first word.

      Score one for intuition.

      “Also the best.”

      “Are you willing to make a little wager, maybe see which one of us possesses the superior poker face?”

      “Perhaps.” He blinked slowly, the heat in his gaze making her clench her thighs. And when he next spoke, she found herself leaning forward to hear him. “And how do you propose we do that?”

      “A game.” God, was that breathy voice actually hers? “Seven-card stud. One round. Winner takes all.”

      “What’s the prize?”

      The urge to put herself out there overruled her common sense and any reservations she’d held on to up until that point. “One night.” She looked down, gauged her timing, then slowly looked up. Met his blazing gaze, licked her lips and lowered her voice even further. “Together. No strings. No regrets.”

      His gaze locked on the bare skin of her thigh and lingered longer than could be deemed polite. She tapped the table and his attention snapped back to her.

      “Deal.”

      A sharp thrill coursed through her and she rose from her seat. Isaac reclined and hooked an arm over the chair back, looking up at her. “I don’t suppose you have a deck of cards handy, do you?”

      “What, you don’t keep a set on hand for situations just like this?”

      “My spare is in my other suit jacket.”

      “Of course.” She swept low and retrieved her clutch and