PLAYER

by Pamela DuMond

  “You got it,” he says.

  We exit the suite and hang with the small crowd of players and their support crew loosely clustered in the hallway waiting for the elevator. “How are you?” I ask, rubbing Dylan’s arm.

  “Crap,” he says under his breath. “But I have to look like sunshine just spanked my ass and I liked it so much I invited it back for more.”

  “That good,” I say.

  But Dylan suddenly hangs back when the elevator arrives. “Go ahead,” he says to the others. “I need a private moment with my girl.” He turns to me, his eyelids heavy. He manages a quirk of a smile and nuzzles my neck. He brushes his lips against me as if he’s talking dirty. “Buy me time,” he whispers and nips at my ear.

  The scruff of his beard scrapes against my sensitive skin and the pulsing between my legs returns. Adrenaline. Hormones. This man. God knows what perks me up. Who needs caffeine? Who needs sleep? I suspect I’d wake up happy every morning if I took a daily dose of Dylan McAlister.

  I pull it together, sigh, and giggle as if on cue. “Dylan. You’re naughty. Stop,” I say loud enough for the people crowding on the elevator to overhear.

  “Perfect,” he whispers, and kisses the length of my neck. My skin pebbles, my nipples grow hard.

  “Get a room, McAlister,” a guy says.

  “Happy to loan you the spare key to my place,” the heiress says. I clench my fist around my purse and I’m half tempted to punch her.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Dylan waves them off. The moment after the elevator door closes, he slumps against the wall and runs a hand through his thick hair. “Maybe we should take the stairs. I’m not sure I’m able to keep a straight face with these people.”

  “The game’s over. You don’t need to worry about them anymore tonight. Besides the lobby’s twenty-five floors down and I’m the walking dead.” I punch the button for the elevator. “Do you want to talk about it? Tell me what’s going on?”

  “What’s not going on,” he says, and checks his phone. “I’m off grid for twenty-four and all hell breaks loose.”

  “Like?”

  But Dylan’s eyes rip from his phone and train on the Fast Food King who won tonight’s pot. “You were on fire, Glenn.”

  “I know,” Glenn says, his chin thrusting proudly forward, his tongue snaking between his lips. He devours me with the look of someone who is flush with victory and desires his spoils.

  Ew. I edge closer to Dylan.

  The elevator arrives and we step inside. “You coming?” Dylan asks, holding the door.

  “Nah,” Glenn says and waves dismissively. “Grabbed a room down the hall. See you soon, McAlister. Be sure and bring the new girl with you.” His eyes linger pointedly on my breasts, and slide like oil down my waist to my ass. He adjusts himself with one hand and my skin crawls as the gate slides shut.

  In the elevator, Dylan leans back against a wall and berates himself. “I should have folded that hand earlier. I know this shit.”

  “I think you did great.” I lean in to him, brushing a thick lock of hair off his forehead.

  “I’m used to doing better,” he says. “I’m used to doing a lot better. Truth is, Evie, I’m losing my game.”

  “You’re being too hard on yourself.”

  “If I’m not hard on myself, I won’t be around this business for much longer,” he says, weariness rolling off him in waves that could drown a girl.

  He’s wiped. Beaten. It makes my heart hurt. I take his hand in mine and squeeze it but I’m not sure he even feels me. He stares off into space inside that pristine cage, replaying the game in his head, worry slicing lines across his handsome face.

  “There was a moment when Glenn hesitated,” he says. “I should have known he was bluffing. But he’d been playing fast and I didn’t follow my instincts.”

  “We all make mistakes.”

  “Not these kinds. These were stupid.” The elevator opens and we exit. I link my arm around Dylan’s as we walk through the lobby. My feet hurt. I’m hungry. I’m craving a hard mattress and cool sheets. I haven’t stayed up for twenty-four hours since I crammed for a final my junior year of college.

  But then I remind myself that I prayed to God to help me do a good job tonight. I’m not about to let that go because all the adrenaline’s worn off and I didn’t get the outcome I prayed for. Sometimes unanswered prayers can be blessings in disguise.

  We make our way through the lobby. There’s a fresh crew of guests and workers and the attention directed at me isn’t so appreciative this time. Curious looks circle thick around us like garbage running down the disposal. Judgment slops over me like a pail of dirty mop water. A well-dressed older woman hits me with one of those glares that lasts only a few seconds but carries a thousand words, none of them good. I avert my gaze just in time to catch the eye fuck from her husband. Ugh.

  Sadly, no, I didn’t spend the last twenty-four hours in bed with Dylan. I just look as though I did. But even if I had, who died and made these people Law & Order: Special Morals Unit? Their attitude irritates me, lights a fire under my ass, and I up my game. I raise my eyes, meet theirs defiantly, and throw some sass in my step.

  Outwardly, Dylan’s calm. Inwardly, he’s a walking disaster, still lost in thought. We exit through the hotel’s revolving doors. I can practically hear the clock tick-tocking down on our date but I desperately don’t want our time to end. “Buy you a drink?” I ask. We pause curbside, a dozen or so yards away from the front door waiting on a ride.

  Circles under his eyes, he’s still so handsome, a few strands of silver in his temples, his white shirt rumpled with sweat and nearly twenty-four hours of playing a game of mental ‘Chicken.’

  “You’re a sweetheart, Evelyn.”

  “Evie. Remember?”

  He looks me in the eyes – really looks at me – and the fog evaporates like vaped weed in a college dorm. And boom, Dylan transforms back into the ballsy player who spotted me the moment I walked in the bar. The guy who gifted me a diamond horseshoe necklace. The man who made me go weak in the knees when he fastened that necklace around my neck and marked me his ‘Lucky Charm.’

  He wraps one strong arm around my waist, and draws me flush against him. “Where are my manners? I didn’t thank you yet for tonight.”

  My throat turns tight, scratchy, and I smile up at him. “Hey stranger. I didn’t do that much. But, it’s nice to see you again.” My body’s flush against his, the heat building fast between us in the sultry Chicago summer night air.

  Dylan’s muscular, all hard planes and angles, the day-old scruff on his jaw making him even hotter if that’s possible. He’s the poster child for the boy next door who grew up to be the sexy as fuck man. I want to strip off his shirt, rip off my dress, and get naked with him. I don’t have to make a decision, it’s already been made. Dylan McAlister’s the first man I’ve wanted to be with in years. He’s the client I’m going to sleep with.

  “I checked out, didn’t I?” His cock stirs against me, growing harder by the second.

  “Yes.”

  Kiss me, Dylan. Take me somewhere private. Unzip this dress. Pull it off me.

  “I’m back,” he says. His erection presses insistently against my pelvis.

  “I can tell.” The V between my legs is throb throb throbbing, my skin’s on fire, my panties pooling between my thighs. He’s going to kiss me for real this time but is he ever going to ask to sleep with me? Oh, Jesus, why am I even wondering? The sizeable hard-on digging into my pelvis is a giant clue.

  Kiss me, Dylan. Strip for me – first that shirt, please. Let me draw my fingers down your chest with one hand while I unzip your pants with the other.

  My V card was punched a few years ago, claimed by one guy who I genuinely liked before I discovered his ‘roommate’ was actually his live-in girlfriend. But my real dirty secret is that I haven’t had sex since then. I haven’t been with anyone in two years. It used to embarrass me and I didn’t talk about it because I thought I was some k
ind of freak who attracted unavailable men.

  But right now? Right now, I am thanking God I waited. I am thanking God I said no to the extra money, no to the perks, the decent apartment that I could have afforded if I had slept with the last twenty clients I went on dates with. Instead, I paid for mom’s psych treatment. I helped out Ruby with college. I lived in the same crappy apartment because part of me still wanted to believe that a happily ever after could happen for me too. I held out for a hero. I held out for Dylan McAlister. Finally, the waiting is over because the hero is here.

  Kiss me, Dylan. I want to watch your hard cock release from those dress pants. I want to take it in my hand and stroke it from base to head.

  He pulls me closer as if he heard my thoughts, his erection growing more impressive, more insistent by the second. “Evie.”

  He might be tired, but honey, under those rumpled clothes, he’s tight and lean, all corded muscles. The scruff of his unshaven beard alternately tickles and scrapes against my neck as he leans in and whispers, “I might have lost tonight at poker tonight, but darling, you’re my winning hand.”

  A small moan escapes my lips. “Good.”

  Will Dylan take me back to his hotel suite? Will he kiss me before or after we enter? Will he run his hands through my hair? Unzip my dress slowly, just as slowly as I unwrapped his present? Will he press kisses down my neck, his lips grazing mine, the scruff of his beard scraping against my skin? Will he pull down the thin sleeve of my dress, push it further with impatient hands? Will he cup my breast, his thumb tracing circles on top of my lace bra as my nipple grows taut under his touch? Will he unhook my bra, lower his mouth to my breast, draw my taut nipple into his mouth, suck on it, scrape his teeth against it? Will I try not cry out as he unzips my dress with one hand, the other traveling down my stomach, landing on the edge of my panties where he plays with the edges of my lace thong?

  ‘Delicious, Evie,’ he’ll say, cupping the V between my legs, as I grow wetter and wetter, arching into his fingers with need. Want. By the time he slips his fingers inside the lace, tracing my skin with skilled fingers, insistent fingers, making his way to my center, my pelvis throbbing, the ache building inside me, pulse, pulsing, his fingers reaching for me, brushing against my clit, detouring to caress the inside of my thighs, will I bite my lip in an effort to not cry out? Will I …

  But my fantasy pop-pop-explodes like a kid on a sugar high tearing through a birthday party, poking a pin in balloons, because Dylan does not kiss me. Instead, he pulls away, sighs, and gives his head a shake. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”

  “What?”

  “I almost forgot.” He lifts a fat envelope from his coat pocket and slips it into my purse. He sighs, reaches for me, but stops himself. He rumples my hair like I’m his kid sister and busses me on the cheek.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, my stomach dropping hard.

  “Sure,” he says, and walks a few feet away from me.

  “Right.” I sway, a little unsteady on my aching feet. The need and urging and wetness of my desire is deflated by his return to professionalism. I’m completely thrown by the 180-degree spin and try not to stare at him in disbelief. “Is something wrong?”

  Did I do something stupid? Did I ruin this thing we had going on between us? Because I’ll guarantee you I was not making up the chemistry. It was sizzling between us, alive, and ready to do the cha-cha.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he says. “Unfortunately, I’ve got to catch some Zzzs, catch a plane, and blow out of Chicago. Big game tomorrow night in Tulsa.”

  “Got it,” I say, the pit in my stomach growing more vicious, like it’s birthed baby teeth in the last fifteen seconds and is chewing on my insides. But now’s not the time or place to push it with Dylan.

  He’s the client.

  I’m the escort.

  He’s the boss.

  I’m the employee.

  But, boy oh boy did I read this one wrong. I feel like an idiot, a naïve, foolish girl. I might be wearing a two thousand dollar dress but honey it’s not all that easy taking the insecure out of the girl who’s been insecure most of her life. Dylan lifts an arm and signals a driver. Regret drills thin, mean holes in my bones.

  I replay the last twenty-four hours in my head, desperately searching for the stupid thing I said, the stupid thing I did or didn’t do that would explain his 180, when a truckload of fear and panic broadside me as if being hit by a runaway car.

  Blood drains down my arms, a chill descends my spine like I’ve been shot up with Novocain. My fingers turn numb and I wriggle them just to make sure I still can. Crap. What did I screw up? What did I do to cockblock this man?

  And suddenly I get it: the gut-chewing feelings bookend the heady ones I experienced twenty-four hours earlier when Dylan secured the lucky charm necklace and his fingers brushed the little hairs on the back of my neck, his touch making my nipples hard. His pride, generosity, and determination soared within me like a shot of courage mixed with premium single malt scotch. Now the funhouse mirror version stomps about like mean minions eating me alive.

  But again –

  These aren’t my feelings.

  They’re Dylan McAlister’s…

  6

  A Clusterf**k

  CLUSTERF**K

  My childhood was a clusterfuck. I grew up with a bipolar mom who suffered psychotic splits. When you’re around bipolar people, when you’re around manic-depressive, hypo-manic, whatever the derivative is that is not treated, not controlled with a combination of therapy, treatment, and/or meds, you get schooled in moods that flip on a dime.

  I grew up with highs so high my ears popped and lows so low I couldn’t keep track of the times I was buried lower than six feet. Do you know how many days Mom couldn’t get out of bed and it fell on me to get things done? Yeah. Me neither. I lost count. It fell on me to feed my sister. It fell on me to walk Max the dog for the month we had him until Mom made us return him to the shelter. I made coffee at noon and waved it around next to Mom’s face. “Come on. I know you want this. I made it super strong, just the way you like it. Sit up and it’s all yours.”

  “No,” she’d say, not even lifting her head off the pillow. “Go away. Just let me sleep, ’K?” A week later she’d be buying us burgers, shakes, and cotton candy, all of us squealing in delight, stumbling around a Halloween-themed maze in a cornfield.

  Emotional rollercoaster.

  Emotional funhouse.

  Emotional whiplash.

  Karma delivered me into this family, bought my ticket, and signed me up for this ride. I prayed I’d get through it, and I did. But survival didn’t come free. I paid with anxiety, over-sensitivity, and empathic reactions. I’ll never forget the feeling of being ripped apart, tossed to the winds, spun here and there like a twig in a tornado. I survived but I was never the same.

  Trust me. You’re never the same.

  After years of sublimating, kicking away, flat out denying that I could sense others’ feelings within my own body, my empathic ability has returned unbidden and unwanted with a special fury in the form of gorgeous Dylan McAlister. I shiver and I remind myself –

  I am not a rickety shed.

  I survive when the storm blows through.

  But I know, the same way I knew in the car that day when we ran into the Wolfe brothers, that something is crashing, but this time it’s not something – it’s someone.

  Dylan McAlister.

  His heart is breaking. Whatever horrible, crappy thing is playing out inside him, he’s dealing with it by shutting down. He’s not sharing it with me. Why would he? We only met twenty-four hours ago.

  My ride pulls up to the curb of the five-star hotel and Dylan opens the door. “Thank you, Evie. See you again? Soon, I hope.”

  “Absolutely,” I say, getting in, knowing in my bones that I’m missing the puzzle piece that desperately needs to be snapped into place. “Sounds good.” I so dearly want to be the person who figures it out but I’m
not, and my failure makes me so mad I could stab myself. What is wrong with me?

  I pray on this kind of shit. I meditate on it. I get this shit done. After all, I was in the car that ran over the boy I loved. I could blame my mom. I could blame her disease. But at the end of the day part of me believes I broke Wyatt Wolfe.

  I made myself stumble past his old brother Easton – so mean, so cold – when he lay bloody, broken, and twisted like a liar’s lies on the white, hard ground. I broke Easton Wolfe.

  Oh sure, I sought redemption, sought healing. I shook like jelly but still managed to unzip Wyatt’s coat, place a hand on his bare patch of chest, and did my best to save him. Paramedics hauled him away in that ambulance.

  I might have been a kid but I knew that half of his bones and organs were shattered, and that he’d be messed up forever and ever amen. Yet I got down on my knees and prayed every day and night: ‘Please, God, please save Wyatt Wolfe.’ I would have given anything, done anything. I would have sacrificed myself on God’s jagged, bloody, tear-stained altar if He would have just saved Wyatt Wolfe.

  Eleven years later I am still seeking redemption. I long to help another person I care about, but I’m still tragically clueless. And I’m so angry about it that I swallow fat, five-thousand-dollar-poker-chip-sized tears whole before they rip a hole in my chest and bust out like a geyser.

  “You were wonderful, Evie,” Dylan says, standing next to me at the curb. “Thank you. I hope to see you again. Soon.” He shuts the door with a harsh thud.

  My driver pulls into traffic. I roll the window down, and wave. “Yes,” I say, and immediately feel like an asshole, a disheveled homecoming queen visiting last night’s float before the janitor tosses the dime store decorations into the trash. The driver turns a corner and I can’t hold the tears in any longer. I wipe them away as fast as they trickle out.

  I bite my lip to center myself. It’s done. Dylan’s gone. The arranged date’s over. He hired me through Ma Maison Escort Agency. It’s not like he swiped right, or his grandmother introduced him to me, or he really cares. Get a grip, Evie. Get on with it. This thing happened so fast you’ll never really know what you missed. Build the wall. Survive. At least you can do that.