“Wouldn’t dream of anything else,” he murmured, shifting in closer to her. He was already in love again with feeling her skin against his. Tuck slipped his thigh between hers and lightly stroked his fingertips against her back. If nothing else, maybe they would have a whirlwind affair for a few weeks before Brianna came to her senses and ended things. Tuck couldn’t even care about the pain at the end of that scenario, it seemed entirely worth it from where he was standing now. “Do you want me to be honest about anything right now?” he asked, a little smile toying with his lips. His tone was light, but he was sincere about the invitation. If they were going to do this, Tuck didn’t want to play games with it. They were both too old for that.
Gods, his body felt so good against hers. It still blew her mind that an hour with Tuck led her straight into his bed, but she had no regrets. Even if she had been faithful to James for the entirety of their marriage, she had a feeling she would have still ended up right here. His fingers against her skin were both soothing and erotic and she let her own fingers dance along his hip. The desire to touch and refamiliarize herself with every inch of his body was strong. "I want you to be honest about anything and everything, whenever it strikes you," Brianna said. She paused and then lifted a brow curiously. "Is there something on your mind already?"
He hadn’t been completely honest with her about how he earned a living, so of course that jumped to the front of his mind. Tuck had only just been discovering what he could do as a teenager, it had taken him several years of honing his skill to make any use of it, so he’d never told her about it. It was tempting now, in this lovely warm bubble they’d created together. Both of them growing up in Point Pleasant meant they’d been exposed to some wild stuff, but Tuck wasn’t sure where Brianna’s line of belief ended. Would she think he was crazy if he started talking about reading strands of probability? He was quiet for a few heartbeats, gazing at her as he licked his lips slowly. “I can do something I shouldn’t be able to do,” Tuck murmured finally. “I don’t really talk about it. But my success isn’t just luck.”
Well, wasn't that intriguing? Brianna arched a brow, her fingers pausing briefly on his skin. She had wondered how he made all that money just by being good at cards and the like. Of course there had to be more than luck, but she supposed she had assumed it was skill. What else could there be? Unless he was psychic somehow. Oh, lord, she hoped he wasn't. At least not telepathic, or whatever it's called these days. Even so, hearing he could do something was interesting, because she supposed she could do something too... or many somethings, though she rarely did, or even knew how. "All right," she said, curious now as she studied his face. "What is it you can do?"
He was good at the games themselves, but in a game with a couple million possible combinations of cards, mundane skill could only take a man so far. Tuck owed everything to his ability to know what was coming, to read the air in ways he couldn’t quite explain, and tug on invisible strings. “I can read and influence probability,” he told her, watching her back just as closely. Tuck didn’t think Brianna would write him off as insane, but he wasn’t sure how she would take it, either. “It doesn’t really work on people, but ... systems. Games, the stock market, sometimes world events ... it’s like I suddenly know what’s coming. And I can kind of ... nudge things in the direction I want. If the stakes are low enough -- I can’t stop wars or anything. I’ve tried. Too many factors. But that’s how I’ve made my living for years now.”