Winner Takes All

By Saskia Walker

It started as a game, but they are both playing to win... 

Tina meets Shaun at a monthly meeting of eccentric game players in a British manor house. Shaun is a loner, highly competitive, and devastatingly sexy. When he challenges Tina to a sexual relationship, she can't resist. 

In a dangerous game of seduction Tina might have met her match in Shaun. He is a forthright, dominant lover, and the atmosphere of competition extends to their more intimate moments as they pursue a passionate affair. Each encounter ups the stakes, but what has started as a game rapidly grows more intense. Both players realize they have to play their way carefully, to win the prize. But what is real, and what is gamesmanship? In a relationship brimming with conflict, the ultimate challenge will be getting their opponent to reveal their true hand. 

Please note: This story has been previously published with a different cover. Word count: approx 15,000.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Saskia Walker
• Release date: Mar 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507032190

Saskia Walker

Award-winning British author Saskia Walker first dreamed of writing her own stories when she discovered a handful of romance novels stashed away in her school library. An avid reader, she lapped up the adventures and the life-affirming emotion she found there. As well as fantasy and romance, Saskia writes paranormal, historical and contemporary fiction, with a special interest in witchcraft. Saskia's short stories have now been published in over one hundred international anthologies and magazines. Her novels have been published by two New York publishing houses as well as several smaller publishing houses. To her absolute delight two of her novels won Passionate Plume awards, and her work has twice been nominated for a Romantic Times Magazine Reviewers' Choice Award. Her Witches of Scotland series was widely translated and became a Scandinavian bestseller. In 2015 she became a USA TODAY bestselling author. It's been an amazing journey. Saskia is now a full time author and she has many more stories to tell. Saskia is happily settled in Yorkshire in the north of England, with her real-life hero, Mark, and a houseful of felines. 

Book preview

Chapter One

He told her he wanted to buy her a pair of thigh-high, stiletto-heeled boots—just to wear in bed. Tina was close to coming at that point anyway, but the idea of wearing such a delectable sex accessory pushed her right to the edge of orgasm.

Thigh-high? Tina replied, as nonchalantly as she could, under the circumstances.

Shaun nodded

To wear in bed?

He nodded again, his smile turning wickedly suggestive.

Tina was on her back with Shaun between her thighs when he'd chosen to mention the boots. Locking eyes with her, he pivoted against her with her legs draped over his shoulders. Her feet—with strappy high-heeled sandals still on—were locked behind him. The position fixed his agile body against her, so that the head of his cock rubbed right up against the front wall of her sex, to bring her off. He was fully dressed. Her stockings and dress also remained on. In their desperation to take each other all that had been stripped off was her French lace G-string.

Well, he said, pausing on his thrusts inside her, do you like the idea? He was holding back on her, as if his next thrust depended on her answer.

She bit into her lower lip and tried not to moan out loud, even though her body was hungry and desperate for the crest of pleasure that more contact would bring. She had come to the conclusion that it was important not to seem too eager with Shaun.

Go for it, she said, feigning self-control, which was hard. 

She'd already figured he was the type of man who liked a challenge, and she was right. Shaun always did go for it, if it was a worthy challenge.

He held her gaze a moment longer, as if daring her to make a demand, and then laughed huskily and began to move again, riding her fast, going for the prize. The intense expression he wore urged her on, the look in his eyes knowing, as if he was in sole control of the how and when of her orgasm, as if he was her master. It was not so far from the truth.

Don't fall for him. The often repeated thought whispered around her mind even as her chest tightened in the passion of the moment. She dug possessive fingernails into his shoulders when her core went into spasm. Heat welled in the pit of her belly, like a hot rock was lodged there. When that rock rolled free and her sex flooded with release she had to shift one hand and bite the back of her wrist to stop herself from crying aloud. She couldn't afford to let him know how good it was—or how much she wanted him.

Shaun groaned loudly in response to the rhythmic clutch of her sex in orgasm. His body arched and seized, then he let rip with a succession of grinding thrusts, his cock jerking. His climax ended with a deep and appreciative roar.

Suffused with heat and suddenly languid in the afterglow, Tina stared up at him as she tried to ground herself. Her emotions were hopelessly tangled. Something about Shaun made her angry and lustful all at once. It was because this was all a game to him, a challenge. That's all she represented. They were both independent sorts, but at times like this she wanted to slap him for his bravado and his damned cheek, and yet she also wanted to draw him close and hold him tight, for the very same reason.

As he gasped to regain his breath, she pushed his body away from her—because she was afraid she might say the wrong thing. Her unsteady emotions unnerved her, and that wasn't good.

But Shaun grabbed one of her ankles as she lowered her leg to the bed and took her foot to his mouth, stroked its outline and the enclosure of straps and then kissed the tip of her big toe, smiling at her in the most suggestive way.

While her body simmered on in the aftermath of their passions she asked herself why? Why was she drawn to this man, this strange loner who taunted and challenged her so? She would walk away if she could, but the desire she felt ran deep and torrid, and it was undeniable.

* * * *

Right from the moment Tina had met Shaun she'd been fascinated, curious but wary, too. He was a difficult man to read, and she certainly wouldn't have guessed that they would answer so many of each other's fantasies.

Tina had met Shaun through her friend Kate's monthly gaming weekends. She'd known Kate since University. Back then Kate had taught Tina to play chess on a rusty magnetic travel kit in the common room of their hall of residence. They'd spent entertaining evenings playing games that were punctuated with chatter about life. That had set the pattern for their friendship. Ten years on and they still played chess, although it was now on a jet and ivory inlaid board at Kate's beautiful home on every second Wednesday evening.

When Kate asked Tina to come along and join in their new monthly