Téa had to bite her lip to contain a gasp. Bakura lounged against the doorframe, holding a the sports jersey in one hand. He wore nothing but a pair of jeans slung low on his slim hips.

"What are you doing here?" she blurted. Belatedly, her eyes made their way back up to his face.

He smirked, clearly aware of the way her gaze had traveled over his body and clung to the taut muscles of his pale abdomen. Shamelessly, he didn't bother to pretend he wasn't doing the same. His eyes wandered over her, lingering on the deep cleavage her bra revealed and the creamy stretch of hip and belly beneath. Téa squirmed, just a little, under the intensity of his gaze, although she tried to stand calm and aloof, like it was nothing to her that Bakura saw her in her underwear. She was pretty sure the heat in her cheeks betrayed her.

He shrugged. "I couldn't find any shoes. And you did leave the door open."

Had she? Surely not. But she hadn't heard it open… of course, that didn't mean much when it came to Bakura. She gave him a narrow look. "Did you really think you'd find shoes in here?"

He crossed the room. "Maybe I missed you." The caressing words held a sardonic edge. He took her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. "We are linked together, after all."

The reminder was timely. Téa pulled her hand away. "You cannot just barge into my bedroom whenever you feel like it."

"I think you need a refresher on what the word cannot means." He glanced at the contents of the white box on the desk. One pale eyebrow quirked as he picked up the deck and began rifling through the cards.

"Those are mine," Tea protested.

"I know," Bakura assured her. "It wouldn't be nearly so interesting if they weren't."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He threw her an amused look. "A duelist's cards reflect her soul. Your present, your past, your future...I could read them all here if I chose."

A tiny shiver ran through her, like she couldn't decide whether that was something she wanted or something that terrified her. All she said, however, was, "That's ridiculous. They're pieces of paper that came from a store. How could they tell my future?"

His smirk widened. "These so-called pieces of magic are imbued with shadow magic, every one of them. Pegasus knew what he was doing when he made the game—or resurrected it, should I say? You chose to include these cards in your deck because they resonate with your soul."

Tea looked at him doubtfully, but she couldn't exactly flat-out deny what he was saying. It would be fairly ridiculous for her to insist that the ancient spirit she had conjured up from the dead couldn't read her fortune with playing cards.

"Do you want a demonstration?"

Tea couldn't deny the stirring of curiosity. "Fine."

Bakura shuffled the cards, slowly, deliberately. Tea watched his long pale fingers slide over the cards, moving them back and forth between his hands. Finally, he held out the stack to her. Tea's hand hovered over it, uncertain of what he wanted her to do.

"Cut the deck," he instructed. His eyes locked into hers. She did so without looking down at the cards, unable to tear her eyes away. "Now, draw three cards and lay them out on the desk."

She obeyed. "Now what?" Her voice was too loud and too breathy all at once.

His teeth gleamed as he smiled.

"Your past." He tapped the back of the first card and then flipped it over. "Shining Friendship." He gave a short laugh. "Well this one is just too simple. You dedicated yourself to friendship. You made it the central facet of your life, the of your very existence. And for a while, it was enough. But then, that precious light began to fade. The friends for which you had given over the entirety of your life...moved on. They no longer needed you, you see. And slowly, it dawned on you, that perhaps you were the one with the need, that inside you lived this driving, clawing need to be needed."

Tea glared at him, but he seemed utterly impervious. She said nothing, however, feeling certain that whatever she said he would only twist to reinforce his own point.

Bakura moved on to the second card. "The present," he informed her, before turning it over. "Angel's Tear." He arched an eyebrow. "Ah."

"What?" Téa complained, unable to stop herself from rising to his bait. "What's wrong with Angel's Tear?" She looked down at the trap card, which pictured a single tear falling from the eye of a numinous beauty onto the body of a fallen soldier. If he had claimed this card was the past, she might have thought it was about the way she had brought back Joey in that dream-that-was-not-a-dream, that very first time she had become aware of the Spirit of the Millennium Ring. But, no, he had said this card represented the present, so he was just trying to mess with her head.

"Do you really need me to spell out the significance?" Bakura shook his head a little. "The beauty, turned from the happiness of friendship to loneliness and grief, sacrifices a piece of her light to revive a creature of the graveyard… sound familiar?"

Téa bit her lip. Okay, so if he put it that way…. "So we both remember what happened earlier tonight." She rolled her eyes. "I'm terribly impressed with your clairvoyance."

"Oh, you will be," Bakura assured her. He tapped the facedown card with one bony finger. "I still have one more card to read, after all."

Téa frowned. Letting Bakura read her future now seemed like a colossally bad idea. It wasn't like she believed him, of course, it was just that she… didn't really not believe him either. She squirmed uncomfortably. "Shouldn't we be more worried about gathering everything we need for the counter spell?" she pointed out. "The shopkeeper said if the aether-thingamajig got too thin, it could let dark souls into our world."

"Your world," Bakura pointed out. Téa recoiled, ever so slightly, and he gave her a fang-tinged smile. "Of course, if you'd rather not continue the reading… small souls often dart away from uncomfortable truths."

"I'm not afraid," Téa gritted out. "Go ahead and flip the damn card." How bad could it be, anyway? She tried to run through all the cards in her deck. It was hard to think of them all—it'd been so long since she had played—but there wasn't anything too terrible or macabre, she was pretty positive. At worst, he'd probably turn over The Unhappy Girl and tell her she was destined to die alone and miserable.

He turned the card, revealing a pale-haired young woman in black against a scorching red and orange background. "Fire Sorcerer."

Téa's forehead scrunched. It wasn't that she didn't recall the card—it was actually one of her favorites—it was that she had no idea how Bakura planned to spin this one into something that made her feel bad about herself. "So what's this one supposed to mean?"

Bakura studied the card, tracing the brim of her black hat with the tip of his finger. "Why don't you take a stab at it?"

"You want to know what I think? I think it's a random card that happened to get picked, and the only reason you asked my opinion is because you have no idea what kind of bullshit to come up with." She smiled at the scowl that crossed his face. Seeing Bakura be the one off-balance (finally, finally) gave her back some of the confidence she'd been sorely lacking. "If you wanted to get real creative, you could say it means my witch skills are going to get better." She laughed. "I think the words would stick in your throat, though."

She reached over and picked up the card. There was something about the look in the girl's eyes, something about her sly not-smile that she liked. "I think I'll take this as a good omen for the counter-spell efforts. Which we definitely need to get to." She re-stacked the three cards on top of her deck.

Bakura's hand slid overtop hers. "Does that mean you believe in my reading, then?" His voice was silky, dangerous.

Téa tried to pull her hand away, but his fingers locked around her wrist. He was close now, too close. His bare chest, which she had almost managed to push to the back of her mind, was suddenly all she could think about. Just another six inches and she would be pressed against that chest…

Heat shot straight to her belly, and with it the blazing recollection that she was even more undressed than Bakura. If their bodies collided, there wouldn't even be the thin barrier that devil suit and witch dress had provided last time. There would be practically nothing between her skin and the fire.

"Do you?" Bakura pressed. He leaned in even closer and his breath stirred her cheek.

He'd asked a question. What was it? Téa muddled to remember, or at least to come up with some answer that didn't reveal how utterly she had lost her senses. "I don't see why not," she murmured at last.

His teeth flashed. "Good enough." And then his mouth descended on hers.