I read the note again.
Jason, It didn’t have to end like this.
There are only so many ways to take those words, considering where they were found, and blackmail seems pretty darn obvious. I mean, no one could cash in a stolen chip without being put in jail, so it has to be blackmail. Right? But did the poker player in question steal the chip or is he being set up? I am not lost to the irony of this being about gambling, considering my past, but that isn’t the cause of the sick feeling coming over me. I didn’t grow up protected or a fool. This is dangerous territory I’m treading, and people kill for far less than what I’ve stumbled onto. I stand up. I need to go to the police. But it’s after ten, and the idea of going out, in the dark, on Freddy Kruger Street is not good. I’ll wait until morning. Today is Thursday and I took a long weekend, a rarity for me, which was supposed to be about making money, not fighting crime. Or ending up in the middle of it.
Sitting back down, I spend the next two hours digging through the paperwork in the box and pull out documents that tell me the unit’s owner was Stephanie Smith. I need this information for the police. Actually, they can have the box. They can decide what gets returned to the storage unit. I’m about to cave to the need for sleep but decide to try one more thing. I type in Jason and poker together in my search engine and discover there’s a professional poker player named Jason Wise. I click on the image files and just about fall over. It’s Trouble, my sexy blue-jean-clad stranger at the storage auction. I pull up his Wikipedia page and discover he’s thirty-two years old and one of the top-earning poker players on the planet, to the sum of $43,000,000 in winnings. The man doesn’t need a $50,000 poker chip. Unless … he’s cheated his way to winning? It’s a horrible thought, but then, so is blackmail. I press my hand to my face. What the heck have I gotten myself into?
• • •
MORNING COMES WAY TOO EARLY, considering I read everything I could find on poker and Jason before scouring the box for clues about ten times. From there, I’d tossed and turned to the tune of only a few hours’ sleep, but I still wake ready for my visit to the police department. Two cups of coffee and a shower later, I’ve dressed in black slacks and pumps paired with a long-sleeved green-blue silk blouse that matches my eyes. My brown hair is long and sleek, my makeup light and simple by reason and choice. Working in a law office, and looking younger than my age, has taught me that looking professional helps me earn at least a tad more credibility than I might otherwise achieve.
I’ve just tossed my purse in the box that I’m preparing to pick up when my doorbell rings. More of the unease I’d felt at the bus station last night rushes through me, which is silly. It’s nine in the morning and there’s plenty of sunshine beaming through my window that most certainly ensures my neighborhood is lively. Still, as I abandon the box and purse and head down the stairs, there is no denying the trepidation in my steps, though the second ring of the bell has me moving a bit faster.
“Who is it?” I call out. The lack of windows and peephole at my entryway is a real flaw.
“It’s Molly.”
Relief washes over me, and with my hesitation gone, I unlock the door and open it. That’s when my mouth drops open. Molly isn’t alone. Trouble, otherwise known as Jason Wise the poker player, is standing with her.
Not only is Trouble standing at my door, looking like sex in denim and a black T-shirt, his long light brown hair tied at the nape, he isn’t gazing at me with the warm interest he had back at the storage unit. No. His eyes glint with the kind of hostility I’d expect he’d offer someone who’d just wrecked one of the many sports cars his millions can buy. Or who’d stolen his poker chip.
Molly grins and nudges Trouble. “Look who’s here!”
“Trouble,” I say, and I consider telling her I mean it, but I don’t want to risk putting her in danger. And what if there is no real danger? I’ll look foolish.
Trouble arches a brow at me, as if the name isn’t obviously fitting considering he’s either blackmailed the storage attendant for my information or had me followed.
Molly frowns before I can decide if I should say as much and gives him a curious look. “I thought your nickname was ‘Red Bull’?”
“Red Bull?” I ask, unable to help myself. I’d read a reference to this last night and couldn’t find out where the name came from. What else am I going to ask with my sweet, elderly neighbor standing here? Hi, Mr. Rich and Sexy in Denim. Are you here to kill me and take the poker chip?
His too firm and too sensual mouth quirks. A mouth I’m willing to bet can be brutally hot. Or maybe I shouldn’t bet. He’s good at winning. I’m not.
“It’s a nickname,” he informs me.
“Because?” I inquire, daring to ask the obvious and reveling in anything that keeps small talk rolling, as if that’s going to actually make my stunned brain figure out how to get out of this.
“Because,” he supplies, “I have a thing for drinking Red Bull when I play, and”—he pauses for obvious and dramatic effect—“when I see something I want, I’m a bull charging for my prize.”
I swallow hard. This is the kind of man a woman wants to have say something like that to her, but in the context of stripping her naked, not stripping her of a $50,000 poker chip.
Molly glances at me. “I can’t believe I’m finding out that you knew Jason when he showed up on your doorstep. What if I hadn’t been on my porch? I’m a huge, huge poker fan.”
“I had no idea,” I find myself saying, as if I really know this man and should have told her.
“You know how much I love bingo night.”
Jason actually laughs, and it’s a deep, sexy, lighthearted sound that seems to have taken him as off guard as it does me. Do monsters laugh like that? Apparently sexy ones do. He glances at Molly. “Bingo night? What does bingo have to do with poker?”
“We aren’t some old-lady bingo group. We bet for real money. You can come, too. You’d be a good distraction to help me win. But if you want to play, I have to warn you”—she wiggles a gray eyebrow—“I like Red Bull, too.”
I cringe. Tell me she didn’t just say that. I bury my face in my hand.
Trouble chuckles. “I bet you do, and thank you for the escort to the door. Right now”—he glances at me—“I need some up-close-and-personal time with your neighbor.”
Heat rushes over my body. “With me?”
“Yeah, sweetheart. With you.” He advances on me and doesn’t look at Molly again. Before I can blink, he’s crowded his way into my entryway and shoved the door closed, locking it. I won’t risk putting Molly in danger by yelling, but I need to get some distance from this man. I rush up the stairs toward the living room, on the hunt for my cell phone so I can be ready to call 911. I make it up to the living area and hesitate for a flash of a moment. My phone is one level up in the bedroom, and that room would send a bad message to Mr. Red Bull. It’s also the location of the chip I fully intend to give to the police, not him.
The hesitation is a mistake. He grabs my arm and turns me to face him, and his hand on my arm is a gentle vise, my awareness of the small space and his big body too intense. My heart is beating so fast I can’t breathe.
“How are you here?” I demand. “I gave you no personal information.”
“Well, Skye, I have friends in high places.”
“At a storage facility? Are there even high places at a storage facility?” I have no idea what made me make a smart-ass comment. I don’t do that. This is not the time to do that.
“Aren’t you funny?” he mocks.
“No. No, really, I’m not funny. I’m planning to go to law school. I’m quite serious, actually.”
He grimaces. “An ambulance chaser. Wonderful. Just what I need right now.”
Offended, I snap back, “That’s the most discriminatory thing you could possibly say. That’s like saying all women are stupid.”
“Attorneys aren’t protected by discrimination laws, and I do not think all women are stupid.
Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“You called all attorneys ambulance chasers.”
“I did not call all attorneys ambulance chasers.”
“Maybe you don’t like attorneys because you’re afraid you might need one.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Before I know what is happening, he’s walked me against the arm of the couch and pinned me between his big body and the hard surface. His legs are pressed to mine, hips molded against me. His hands plant on either side of me on the couch, and I’m trapped.
“I’d hoped you weren’t involved, but that statement you just made tells me you are. Blackmail will get you nowhere with me, sweetheart, and neither will avoidance or playing it coy. So don’t even try.”
CHAPTER THREE
I MUST BE DREAMING. How else do I explain having a famous poker player who looks like a cover model in my house, pressed up against me, and accusing me of blackmail? That’s just the kind of messed-up, far-from-perfect dream I would have.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” I assure him, in disbelief at both the accusation and the circumstances in which it was delivered.
“Don’t play coy,” he warns again, shifting his hips so that I’m snug against him, and a whole lot more intimate.
“I’ll leave coy to professional poker-playing jerks,” I retort, and dang it if my hands don’t settle on his chest. Which is broad. And hard. And much too nice to belong to a man I don’t like.
“Where’s Stephanie?”
“You mean the owner of the storage unit I bought at auction? If I knew her, I wouldn’t have bid to buy her unit along with other strangers.”
“Then how do you know her name?”
“I spent hours going through her unit.”
“I said don’t play coy.”
“Oh, good grief. I don’t even know the word coy.”
“Yet you’re going to be an attorney?”
“You really hate attorneys, don’t you?”
“I hate liars.”
“Did you just call me a liar?” I shove against his unmoving chest. “Let me up before I start screaming.”
“No one will hear.”
“Molly knows you’re here,” I snap, and the anger I feel is more welcome than the fear I’ve let consume me this past year. “If I end up dead—”
“Melodramatic much?”
“You’re a stranger, in my house, manhandling me. Asshole much?”
“For someone who thinks I’m about to kill her, you sure have your knives sharpened.”
“Would you rather I cower and cry? If so, you picked the wrong house.”
“You’re here. This is the right house.”
“You know, your approach is flawed, arrogant jerkiness.”
“Jerkiness? Is that even a word?”
“Yes. It’s in the dictionary next to Red Bull. And probably a new addition to your Wikipedia page.”
“That you read?”
“Yes.”
“How would you even know who I am? Unless you know Stephanie.”
From the poker chip, but I can’t say that. “I don’t know a Stephanie.”
“Where the fuck is she?”
“What part of ‘I don’t know her’ do you not get? Haven’t you ever watched Storage Wars? Buyers don’t meet the owners of the units they purchase.” He’s making me claustrophobic. And warm. Way too warm. I shove ineffectually at his chest again. “Get off me.”
He’s unmoving, a stone wall, and he stares me down with enough turbulence in his eyes to be a stormy disaster waiting to happen. I find the look oddly sexy, though I’m pretty sure I should see it as a sign that he’s a psychopath. Surprisingly, he lets go of me, giving me his back and scrubbing his jaw before he faces me again. “You don’t know Stephanie?”
“No,” I assure him. “I do not know Stephanie.”
“Prove it.”
“You have to be kidding me. Why do I have to prove anything to you at all? You’re the one who somehow stole my personal information and showed up at my house.”
He runs his hand over his light brown hair and manages to tear several long strands free. For the first time since I’ve met him, he looks frazzled, not the cool, calm dude he has to be to win tens of millions playing poker. “I hoped that finding you meant finding Stephanie.”
“If you used your friends in high places to find me, why can’t they help you find Stephanie?”
“Her apartment is in your storage unit. She vanished.”
“Did you hire a private detective?”
“It’s not that simple. In fact, it’s pretty damn complicated.” His brow furrows and his look is back to being accusing. “How do I know you didn’t buy it for her, so she didn’t have to risk me finding her when she paid her bill?”
“Okay, you’re starting to make me think stalker.”
“You’re damn straight I’m stalking her—”
“I was thinking me, but go on.”
He grimaces. “She’s blackmailing me. I need inside her unit. I need to look around.”
I remember the note in the locker. Jason, It didn’t have to end like this. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t cheating, though I really don’t want him to be a cheater. “Did you go to the police?”
“No police.”
“If she’s blackmailing you—”
“She’s smart. She took precautions to make sure I didn’t go to the police.”
I don’t know what that means, and I’m not a dummy. I shouldn’t trust this man based on his actions, but I saw the note from the locker and he’s a celebrity, and Molly really does know he’s here. If he meant to kill me, he’d have to be dumb to not be more discreet. And I don’t think a guy who wins at poker is dumb, any more than he makes a habit of being frazzled.
“Why would she blackmail you?” I ask. “What does she want?”
He walks around the couch to sit down, forcing me to turn and stare at the back of his head or follow his lead. “I guess we’re sitting,” I conclude as I join him. This really is crazy. He’s taken over my house. And me, kind of.
With a heavy sigh, he says, “She says she wants money, but in reality it’s about payback. I fucked her and she now wants to fuck me. That sizes up our relationship.”
That’s direct. And graphic. My normal suit guys save the F-word for someone else. “Oh. Ah. Well.”
“ ‘Oh ah well’ is right. I was straight up with her that I’m not a relationship guy. It’s sex and nothing more. But she’s obsessed with me. She’s the damn stalker. I told her I was done with her craziness and she kept following me around everywhere. Next thing I knew, I was naked with another woman and she was in my house, screaming at us. Lesson learned. Lock the damn doors.”
“Yes,” I agree. “I think I should learn the same lesson.”
“You did lock your door. You invited me in.”
“That’s not how I remember it.”
He changes the subject. “I need to search the storage unit.”
Unease rumbles through me. “If the police—”
“I told you, no police.”
“Did she threaten someone you love?”
“She threatened me. That’s why they call it blackmail.”
“I need a reason to believe she really blackmailed you,” I say, though I have that. What I really need is a reason to believe he’s not a cheater besides my desire that he not be one.
He gives me another one of those long, intense stares, then runs his hand down his jean-clad leg and pushes to his feet. The next thing I know, he’s pulling me up with him and tugging me toward the stairwell and the exit.
I try to dig in my heels but he keeps charging forward, proving he truly owns his nickname “Red Bull.”
“Where are we going?”
“To get you the proof you need. I don’t trust you not to run away or warn Stephanie how close I am to her.”
Panic overcomes me. “I need my purse. It has my ID and money, and I need it.”
“Where’s your purse?”
“Upstairs.”
“Fine. Go get it.” He releases me and I rush toward the stairs, contemplating a call for help, when his boots sound behind me. I start to turn only to have his hands settle on my waist, firm, branding, and way too intimate. I don’t turn. He won’t let me turn.
“I can get it on my own,” I argue, planting my feet, to have him all but lift me to the next step.
“Forget it. No calling for help. No grabbing a gun to shoot me.”
“Shoot you? Are you crazy?”
“Usually.”
“That does not make me feel better.”
“Walk,” he orders.
Walk. I have to move forward. Upstairs. Which makes me brilliant beyond belief, as I’ve now invited this man to my bedroom where the poker chip and a box of Stephanie’s things are stored. And where I sleep. In a bed. Under different circumstances, with this particular man, that might be a good thing. Under these circumstances, it’s not. My mind racing, and once again without a solution, my feet move. His hands on my waist do not and I don’t know where to put mine, twisting my fingers in front of me when they want to go to his. There’s a weird, or maybe not so weird, crackle of energy between us, an intimacy that belongs in the bedroom, which we are about to enter.
I need ammunition to make him explain what’s going on. I need my phone. I have a plan! I reach the top level and dart forward, out of his reach, making a mad dash for the nightstand where my phone rests. Red Bull, or Trouble, or Jason, or whoever he is, gets to it at the same moment, as if he’s anticipated my action. Suddenly he’s turned me to face him, and Lord help me, once again that big, long, leanly muscled body is pressed to mine. Heat rushes over me and settles heavily, low between my thighs, and I silently curse the reaction. What kind of idiot gets turned on by her potential murderer? It must be some kind of brain barrier against fear, I reason. My mind intends me to go to my end with a sigh, not a scream. I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Inside Out: Behind Closed Doors Page 3
