Three hours later, they all had had second helpings of stir-fry, Josh had made cookies, and crumbs were scattered as liberally on the floor as hotels on the board. And most of them were Lauren's. The hotels, that is.

This, despite Marcus's blatant cheating. Josh was not a tremendous threat, having a penchant for landing on the Go To Jail corner mark, and possessing pathetically poor judgment when it came to selling and developing his properties. Lauren had not had so much fun in...well; she couldn't remember when life had stopped being fun. Her mind wanted her to start the clock with the break up with Jonathan, but she wasn't sure that was true.

"Well, I guess we don't have to ask what you do for a living," Marcus said darkly, as he landed on Boardwalk, parking his pewter iron next to her three glossy red hotels. "You're a corporate raider."

She chuckled. "Worse. A pediatrician." She extended her palm. "Fifteen hundred dollars."

"That was going to be my next guess, right after loan shark," Marcus said. "I'm done. You've cleaned me out."

She had knocked Josh out of the game ten rounds ago and now he lay on his back on the floor by the table, his bare feet curved against the arm of the loveseat. His denim-covered thigh rocked back and forth with restless energy as he laced his fingers behind his head and watched them.

She picked up her wine glass, her gaze following the appealing way the jeans pulled along the inseam from his movement, and felt his eyes watching her.

It was late, and she had drunk a bit too much wine, but it was the relaxed camaraderie that was so intoxicating. The playfulness of the past three hours had lowered her guard. Like a slumber party after midnight, things became far more easy and familiar, affection for one's companions increasing exponentially. Similar to the old adage - everyone looked good at closing time, because otherwise a cold, lonely bed waited.

She had settled for loneliness, after Jonathan. In order to get the intimacy she craved, she had to deal with the demands and shortcomings of the guest invited to join her. She wanted the fantasy of a stranger spooning around her in her sleep, cradling her protectively against his body. Somehow they would know nothing and yet everything about each other, having connected far beyond the level of conversational inanities, those pathetic, required attempts to get to know one another in less than two hours over drinks.

It was the "required" that had turned her away from the opportunities that had presented themselves.

"Had to" was what you did as an obligation, the price of admission, and putting a price on the rare gift of intimacy... well, it was no longer a gift then, was it? Gifts were offered from love, affection, inspired by your lover, an offering at the altar of their presence in your life. She didn't inspire that in anyone anymore.

Right now, she corrected herself fiercely, unwilling to fall into that dark abyss.

The worry was there, though, that she was too tired to play hide and seek for love anymore. Maybe that was why the natural order of things was to marry and have children in your early to mid-twenties. It was something about the approach of thirty. You just ran out of whatever juice it was to play the games to get into a meaningful relationship. Once you reached thirty, all you wanted was to wake up and find love and a lifetime commitment beside you. The hunter instinct had dulled, and you were ready to reap and sow.

Only the field was fallow, nothing planted and growing.

But she didn't have to worry about that here, did she? She held the card. Anything she wanted. She knew firsthand that some things couldn't be had, the most precious things, just by ordering them. But something in Josh's gaze pulled the hunter instincts reluctantly out of her heart, and she thought maybe she could...just for tonight...

She had stolen glances at Josh while he was playing the board game, brief snapshots that kindled her inner heat. His mane of sun-streaked hair tied back on his shoulders. The oddly out-of-character tattoos layered over sleek muscle. A silver earring, a simple loop in his left lobe, also not quite him. Still shirtless, just in jeans. At one point, he had rubbed his eyes a bit, and then pulled a pair of wire-rimmed glasses from his pocket to help him focus on the board. The unconscious lack of vanity, the boyish charm when he gave her a quick smile, the serious cast the glasses lent his expression as he studied his next move, had been at once sexy and endearing. It had been all she could do not to draw him into her embrace, hold his head to her breast as tenderly as a mother and then ravish him with the ferocity of a she-lion.

"You said," she cleared her throat. "That we should play this game like children. The fate of the Universe in the balance, and absolute trust in our companions."

Marcus was putting away the board, but he lifted his attention at her quiet words. He nodded.

Lauren looked back at Josh. His knee had stilled and he could have been a stag in the forest, watching her through foliage so thickly interlaced she could not see the shape of him, only the force of his presence by his liquid eyes, gleaming through the flickering shadows of the candlelight.

"I want you both to stay here tonight," she said, and she made herself look at Josh as she said it, for she sensed it was important for him, more than Marcus, to see her face. He was more afraid of the intentions of this game. "I want you to sleep with me, in my bed." Now she did shift her gaze to Marcus, to ensure he understood her. "And I mean sleep. I don't want to be alone. Will you do that?"

Translation: Do you understand me? Can I trust you? Will you play the game we all hope isn't a game?

Can I believe, at least for tonight, that somewhere out there are people willing to comfort and nurture, love us and build us up instead of drain us, who won't rip our hearts from our chests and laugh at us?

It was as clear in those four words as if she had shouted it, if they had the proper sensitivity to hear it.

"A pleasure," Marcus agreed lightly. "Lisette has a king-sized mattress just down the hall. Josh has a bed of nails over two miles away, provided we don't fall off these excuses for trails into a ravine to die a slow, lingering death. A slumber party is the perfect end to a perfect night."

She chuckled, and eased her grip on the stem of her glass. Josh's quiet, steady gaze was an unsettling but satisfying answer on its own.

"Er, since you probably don't have any pajamas in our size," Marcus cocked a brow, "Does the lady have preference on sleepwear for her life-sized teddy bears? Or will just fur do, for those of us who have it?"

"Oh," Lauren considered the problem and lifted a shoulder. "Whatever you're most comfortable in is fine with me."

The double entendre was intended, if a bit juvenile, and the flash of humor in Marcus's eyes was as instant as the flame in Josh's.

Lauren felt shy suddenly, and tried to shake off the feeling. She levered herself up, removing her foot from its pedestal of pillows to test it on the floor. It was already feeling better and she suspected she would be able to walk competently, albeit cautiously, by the following morning. "Well, then, I'm going to hobble back to the bathroom, take a bath and get ready for bed. Just leave the kitchen, I'll take care of it tomorrow."

"No, don't worry about it, I'll do it, since I didn't have to cook," Marcus waved a hand at her. "Josh'll make sure you get to the bedroom safely."

"Oh, you don't need to  - "

"I'm sure, but you'll agree it would be good for you to have an arm to grab if you lose your balance," he advised, taking her glass from her hand and giving her a wink. "Darling, if you have two men at your beck and call, do I really have to tell you to take advantage of them?"

"Well, I'm sure the two of you had more important things to do with your day than to rescue a crazy naked woman from a tree."

The two of them exchanged a look. "I can't think of a thing more important than that," Josh grinned. He rose and came to her side, scooping her up in his capable arms. "I like carrying you," he confessed before she could protest. "I haven't..." he stopped, and regret passed across his face, but he finished the thought. "I haven't had the chance to take care of a woman in awhile."

"And you like that?" she asked.

"I need that," he said simply.