“Babushka, we wanted to give you time to calm down, but it’s time to come home.”
“No.” Babushka had set to work in the kitchen, making up a plate of the golubzi Heather assumed was for Jase. “I am happy here.”
“Come home and be passive-aggressive with us like a true Dvornakov.”
“She’s happy here,” Heather confirmed. She crossed her arms across her chest for good measure.
“She can’t like sleeping on a sofa more than her bed at home.”
“It’s memory foam. She’s perfectly comfortable.” And it folded away during the day as a bonus. Everyone was happy.
Happy. Happy. Happy.
Except Jase, who was clearly unhappy with the continued setup.
“Heather, come on. Give me my grandmother back.”
“She can go back whenever she wants.” Which, Heather hoped, wouldn’t be soon.
Jase squeezed his eyes shut. “Heather…”
She kept hers wide open. “Jase…”
“C’mon, help me out?” he asked.
“Your father, he is ready to apologize?” Babushka scooted a cabbage roll onto Jase’s plate and shuffled to the table.
Jase followed her to the table. “Of course he’s not. He’s Papa. He doesn’t apologize.”
“And I don’t move home,” Babushka confirmed. “Now, come eat.”
Jase glowered at Heather. “I’m only eating it because I haven’t had lunch.”
He didn’t have to justify himself to Heather. Babushka was an amazing cook.
“Now, I vill go for a valk so you two can be alone.” Babushka made a hasty, and rather loud, exit, the door snapping in place behind her.
Heather pulled a chair out beside Jase. A reasonable distance, given what had happened the last time they were alone in her dining nook. “Be glad she hasn’t moved in with her boyfriend.”
He stilled mid-chew. Swallowed. “Is that even under discussion?”
“She’s mentioned it. I’ve convinced her that she should stay here.” Heather fiddled with the edge of the plastic tablecloth Babushka had added to the table. “She’s actually a really great roommate.”
“She rearrange your cabinets yet?” Jase asked with a glance to Heather’s small kitchen.
“Cabinets, furniture, closets. They’ve all been Babushka’d.”
“You’ll have a plastic cover on your sofa pretty soon.” He ran a tongue over his teeth.
“Then we’ll be able to wipe it off easily, won’t we?”
“Fuck, she’s really burrowed in good.” He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, tossing it on top of his now empty plate. “You coming to Brek’s Bar tonight? Being around normal people might do you good. The cover band he’s got coming in is supposed to be amazing.”
“I was planning on it. Your grandmother has plans this weekend, so it’ll be lonely around here.”
“What kind of plans?” Jase asked, ominous.
Heather shifted in her seat. “She’s going up to Blackhawk with Morty.”
Jase stared at her. His mouth dropped open. “For fuck’s sakes.”
“She’s a grown woman.” Heather smoothed her palms over the tablecloth.
“And she’s going gambling with the boyfriend who has already squeezed half a mil from her?” Jase confirmed.
Well, when he put it like that…
“You wanna go to Blackhawk and chaperone?” Heather asked. “We can go together.”
He ran a hand over his face. “Fuck.”
Yeah. That.
“What time are we leaving?” he asked.
12
Chapter Twelve
The thing about Blackhawk was it wasn’t too far outside of Denver. Only an hour from town. Yet, it seemed like a million miles away with all the casinos built up against the side of the mountain, catering to the cottontops. It was a far cry from their urban neighborhood in Cherry Creek.
Babushka and Morty had insisted on driving alone in Morty’s Cadillac. Jase had reluctantly agreed, following behind them with Heather in Babushka’s Buick. Heather’s large overnight bag wouldn’t exactly fit on his Ducati, and her new van was still weeks away from being ready.
Now they were in the casino, and Heather trailed an incredibly grouchy Jase as he weaved through the blackjack tables. The lights on the machines flashed and the buzz of the blackjack tournament lingered.
Still, the vein in Jase’s neck pulsed. And he was doing the deep-breathing thing she’d learned didn’t take him to his happy place.
He glanced around the casino floor once more, the little lines between his eyebrows more prominent than usual.
They’d misplaced Babushka and Morty by the slot machines when Heather had insisted on grabbing a burger from the little café by the craps tables. Misplacing his grandmother was her fault, but darn it all, she’d been starving.
“They just wanted some space, that’s all.” Heather ran her hand over his arm. Her phone dinged. She glanced to it.
At theater. Long movie. Enjoy your time with Jason.
Heather held the message up to Jase. “Your grandmother went to the movies.”
“Thank fuck.” He let out a long breath.
“Jase.” Heather gripped the sides of his shoulders. “You need to relax, or this weekend will cause you to pop an aneurism.” She had an idea. “C’mon. We’re hitting the penny slots. My treat.”
“You’re taking me gambling?” He didn’t look convinced that it was a good idea, but he didn’t fight her on it.
She headed toward the cashier to fill out a gambling card. “Uh-huh. But we’re doing the minimum bid. Let’s make my five dollars last the whole night.”
“It’s like five thirty,” he replied, following her.
She tugged a rugged-looking five-dollar-bill from her pocket. “Right, so let’s make this Abraham Lincoln last until at least seven.”
“Then what?” he asked, a sly smile starting to spread across his lips.
“Then I guess we’ll see where the evening takes us next.” She winked at him.
Dammit. She shouldn’t do that.
He followed her to the cashier window, made the transaction, and headed for the penny slots.
“Okay. I have a system.” She rubbed her hands together.
“Do tell.”
“We walk around until I find a machine I’m feeling, then we take turns pulling the lever.”
He jerked his chin toward one of the side rooms. “We should’ve headed to the poker room.”
“Maybe.” She trailed her fingertips along the top of a slot machine. “But we’re here now. Next round is on you in the poker room.”
He grinned then. Full smile. “Deal.”
Heather moved through the rows of slots, finally settling on one with a watercolor drawing of a buffalo on the top. “This is the one.”
“Let’s do it.” Jase stood behind her while she settled into the chair. “Ladies first.”
“Why thank you.” Heather plopped onto the velvet chair while Jase flashed their five-dollar gambling card on the sensor.
She clicked minimum bid and pulled the handle.
Some people preferred to push the button, but she liked losing her money the old-school way.
Three cherries and a gold bar lined up. “Ha. I won.”
“Four cents. Nice job.” Jase dropped his hand to her shoulder, right near the curve of her neck.
The warmth of his fingers sparked the tiny nerve endings where his palm rested. She liked it. A lot.
His thumb started to rub a small line, back and forth, back and forth, over the sensitized skin.
She pulled the handle.
“I won again.” Ten whole cents this time. She made a “whoop” sound and threw her hands in the air.
Jase dropped his hand from her shoulder at her movement.
Darn, she should’ve rethought that one—she’d liked the warmth of his hand there. If he could make her nerve endings fire with just a neck rub, imagine what he could do w
ith her whole body.
She pulled the handle again.
A gold bar, a buffalo, a cherry, and a black bonus bar.
Blah. Nothing.
She went again.
More of the same nothing.
“You want a turn?” She angled so she could see Jase where he stood behind her.
“I’m good. You’re doing great.”
“I was, until you dropped your hand,” she said under her breath.
“What?”
“Put it back, it’s my good luck charm.” She gave a pointed glance to where his hand rested at his side.
He raised his eyebrows and placed his hand back on her shoulder in as pointed a gesture as her glance.
There, much better.
Heather pulled the lever.
Nothing.
“Maybe I’m not doing it right,” Jase suggested, this time putting both hands on her shoulders and kneading the muscles in a brilliant effort to win her some pennies.
That should work for sure. She pulled the handle. One buffalo. Two buffalos. Three buffalos.
She sat taller. Jase’s hands stilled their massage.
Four buffalos.
She let out a huge “whoop,” and the light on top of the row started flashing. The machine made the sound of a billion pennies crashing through the chute, and the number counter of her winnings whirred along. And along. And along.
It kept going.
And going.
“Oh my God, I hit the jackpot.” She jumped from her seat and tossed herself at Jase.
He stepped back on one foot, catching her in his embrace.
The machine rolled to a stop. “How much did I win?” she asked, breathless.
He checked the meter. “Forty dollars.”
She did an internal fist pump. “Hot damn.”
Forty dollars and a neck rub.
“I’m not even going to tell you what you could’ve won if you’d done the max bet.” He bit at his bottom lip. “Ready to go again?”
“Hell. No.” She clicked the cash-out button and removed her card. “We are done at this casino. That’s the problem with gambling, you get sucked in when you should stop. I mean, I’ve multiplied my five dollars eight times over. Time to call it a night.”
“It’s still only five thirty,” he said, deadpan.
She gave him a not-gonna-gamble-my-winnings look. “Well…what do you want to do?”
He stepped close to her, right up in her space, reaching for her ponytail, pulling it over her shoulder and toying with the end of it. “I have an idea.”
Oh. The ponytail-pulling kind of idea could be really fun. “That would make us the worst chaperones in the history of chaperoning.”
“And?” He raised an eyebrow in her direction.
Well, his grandmother was occupied for a while and they had nothing to do.
“And I think it’s a fantastic idea.” She grabbed his hand and beelined for the elevators to their suite.
He’d insisted they get one of the three-bedroom variety with a sitting room. That way they could keep an eye on Babushka and Morty. Heather and Babushka bunked up in one room, Jase in another, and Morty in the third.
She paused at the jewelry store just outside the bank of elevators. “Oh. Look.” She took an inventory at the glass, glancing over all of the glittering diamonds. “We should go in.”
Just because she was going to have fun with Jase didn’t mean she wasn’t going to buy herself that promise ring. And she’d neglected shopping for it for way too many days.
Still scanning the rings in the window, Jase laid a hand at her waist. “Do you want to come with me, or stay here and stare at the pretty things?” he whispered against her ear.
His breath against her earlobe caused her blood to heat and her nerves to go haywire. “Come with you. Definitely come with you.”
She could always look at the pretty things later.
The elevator doors slid open to let out an elderly couple. Jase moved to catch the doors before they closed. Heather hurried inside. They were like two kids being naughty with no parents around to supervise.
Thank God the car was empty, because when the doors slid closed, Jase laid a kiss on Heather that made her rethink her ability to have sex on a kitchen chair.
Her neck tingled where his fingers grazed the overly sensitive skin under her ear while the elevator moved to the top floor. His lips kissed the top of her ear and she leaned into him.
This was a bad idea.
A horrible plan.
The fact that this was a stupid idea wasn’t going to stop her.
No, Jase wasn’t what she wanted. He couldn’t offer the promise of forever she’d once craved. But right then, it was just about the two of them. About letting loose.
Jase’s mouth met hers again, and she practically climbed his leg like Humphrey the Humping Chihuahua. Without breaking the seal of their kiss, Jase pressed a button on the panel that made the whole elevator clunk to an abrupt stop.
They practically steamed up the entire elevator cab—mouth on mouth, hands in hair, her skirt shoved up around her thighs. Jase made some kind of grunting noise that sounded like both an encouragement and a promise. Wait. That could’ve been her making the noise. She couldn’t really tell anymore.
He skimmed his hand over the edge of her panties on her backside. Gripped the flesh there. Rubbed deep circles on her skin. All the while he moaned along with her as she wrapped her leg around his denim-covered thigh.
This was good. They did better when they didn’t actually speak. Perhaps they could base a whole relationship on not talking to each other. They could just mount each other occasionally. But, no, that wouldn’t work. That’s precisely what she was avoiding.
Tomorrow. She’d go back to avoiding this type of thing. Tomorrow.
“Jase?”
“Hmmm?” He was doing something to her neck with his mouth that felt absolutely amazing.
“We’re in an elevator,” she pointed out.
“Mm-hmm.”
“I think a bed would be more comfortable.”
He used his tongue and teeth, finding a particularly sensitive spot that made her entire body tingle. “You keep saying that. I promise I don’t need one.”
His hand slipped between her legs, and he did some kind of maneuver with his fingers that—
Yeah. Thoughts weren’t coming coherently. A bed would be nice, but alternatively, the floor of the elevator looked better and better.
He pulled his hand from under her skirt, skimming his fingers over the wet fabric between her legs on the way. She moaned. It wasn’t like she could help it.
He tugged her skirt back in place, wrapped an arm around her waist, and pushed the button.
The elevator began to slide up again. She glanced at him. He ran the pad of his thumb over his swollen lips and stood as though nothing had happened between them. How the hell did he pull that off?
The elevator pinged at their floor. She stepped over the threshold into the foyer and paused—what was the photo of Jase’s grandfather doing on the table outside the door of their suite?
Jase stopped. “Is that?”
“Your grandmother really makes herself at home, doesn’t she?” Heather waved her magnetic key card over the lock. Jase’s hands came to just under her breasts as the door slid open. His mouth pressed heavy kisses along her shoulder.
A flick of the lights and—
Holy sweet mother of Jesus.
Naked skin. So much wrinkled skin and an image of the elderly having sex she’d never be able to scrub from her brain. Or that couch. Dear God, there wasn’t enough Lysol and Clorox in the world to sanitize—
She slammed the light switch off and shoved Jase back into the hallway.
No. He couldn’t have seen… Except, the way his face managed to be both pale and furious red meant he had…
The pulse over his temples thumped in time with the one in his neck. He was going to blow. “Jase—”
“My grandmother.” He pointed a finger toward the now closed door.
“Yes.”
“Not my grandfather.” His voice cracked like a teenager in the midst of puberty.
Well, no, but she was pretty sure it wouldn’t have mattered who had his grandmother naked on that sofa—that was an image neither of them would ever be able to forget.
“I’m going to rearrange his ass and his head,” Jase declared and grabbed the key card from Heather’s fingers.
Heather’s heart stopped. The way Jase’s hands shook, she was pretty sure he would throttle poor Morty.
“You’ll have to open the door.” She held his wrist so he wouldn’t make the attempt without fully thinking it through.
“What?” He looked at her like she’d grown two heads.
“To rearrange his ass and…stuff. You’ll have to open the door. If you do that, you’ll see…” He’d see more of what they’d just seen together.
The red drained to nothing, leaving him colorless. “Fuck me.”
Nope, that was not happening tonight. She’d need an entire bottle of vodka and perhaps a few shots of tequila to ever get in the mood again. Ever.
“Okay, we need a new plan. Let’s go back to Denver. Watch that cover band and pretend this whole thing never happened.” Never, ever, ever.
He glanced uncertainly to the door. “We can’t just leave them here.”
She got it, she really did. The desire to barge in there and break up the party battled against the intense need to never see the gray hair and all that wrinkled skin ever again. “Do you really think they’re gonna miss us if we take off? We’ll just leave a note.”
There, all solved.
Jase ran a hand over his face. “Let’s go to Brek’s Bar.”
13
Chapter Thirteen
Brek’s Bar was nothing like the cowboy joint. Oh sure, there were still neon beer signs on the wall, but Brek’s was actually clean and the food smelled amazing. Burgers, buffalo chicken, and spicy cumin. The band blared a cover of Dimefront’s latest hit, and a smattering of couples took advantage of the dance floor.
What had her life disintegrated to that her days had come to barhopping, elevator make-out sessions, and…nope, she was not thinking about what was probably still going on up at the casino.
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