by Aleah Barley
She didn’t say a word, but her breath caught in her throat and color stained the skin under his hand.
Now Ryan’s smile was genuine. “Everything’s going to be okay,” he lied.
“You cheated,” she hissed.
“I folded a hand. I didn’t cheat.”
“I still want to know why.”
“Maybe I just like to play with my food.” He kept touching her—enjoying it a little more than he should have—feeling for the pulse at her throat and the pounding heartbeat that would tell him whether or not she was lying.
“If you hurt Bullet, I’ll kill you,” she warned.
Ryan bit back a laugh. It was like being threatened by a bunny…a really angry bunny. He turned her words over in his mind. She’d mentioned someone named Bullet earlier, hadn’t she? But he’d been too sleep deprived and horny to catch it. “Bullet said…” and then she’d trailed off, as if she didn’t want to say exactly what Bullet had said. Like it was too important to be shared.
Like her friend really was in danger.
“I’m not going to hurt anyone,” Ryan said. He bent low to inhale the warm scent of Daisy’s skin. She still smelled like the best mornings of his life. Like all the pain of the last year had drifted away and he was back in his grandfather’s kitchen while the old man made fresh juice. “Now, who’s Bullet and what kind of trouble has he gotten you into?”
Bang! Something hit the door behind him. It was probably some drunken tourist looking for a toilet.
Bang! More pounding. If Ryan ignored it, then hopefully they’d look somewhere else.
“Tell me, Daisy,” he ordered, too rushed to be delicate.
Heat flickered in her eyes at his tone.
Poor lost bunny.
He bit back a wolfish smile.
She was going to be so much fun.
“Tell me,” he repeated, harsher this time.
The heat flared and Daisy pushed up onto her tiptoes to press her lips against his. The woman tasted like coffee and spice and oranges—again—and all Ryan could do was lick into her as his hands curled over the back of her jeans.
The tournament could wait.
His hands ground into her hips.
The case could wait.
All he wanted to do was shuck off those pants and press Daisy up against the nearest flat surface. He wanted to watch her cheeks color and her lips shake as he brought her to orgasm over and over again.
He wanted to make her moan.
Bang! The door to the restroom burst open and a contingent of security guards marched in, led by a man in a gray suit. The guy in the suit was in his sixties—maybe older—with silver hair and lines around his eyes. His shoulders were hunched over slightly with age, but he still had at least six inches and fifty pounds on Ryan. He put all that extra weight into his motion as he slammed a fist straight into Ryan’s jaw.
Suddenly, Ryan was seeing stars.
Ryan rolled to the right, fast, but the guy was already shuffling into position like an aging boxer ready for one last go in the ring. The security guards at his back made it clear that even if Ryan fought back—or got away—it wouldn’t be for long.
“Think you can grab some girl in my casino?” the old guy demanded. “Behave however you want? Disrespectful.” He threw an uppercut and followed it up with a roundhouse punch. He may be old, but his hands were still quick.
Ryan would have hated to see the guy in his prime. As it was, he could barely keep the full weight of the man’s punches from landing on him.
So much for all those years of FBI training.
He should have brought his gun.
“Disrespectful,” the guy repeated, raising his voice a little for the security guards to hear. “Someone get my baseball bat.”
“No!” Daisy’s voice crackled with fear.
“Don’t you worry your pretty head, doll.” The man never stopped moving as he penned Ryan into the corner. “You get out of here. Go back to the tables. We’ve got this.”
And then Daisy—shy little bunny Daisy—lunged in front of the stranger’s fists.
Whap! The sound of knuckles on flesh sent red-hot rage prickling through Ryan’s skin.
The guy in the suit had landed a punch on Daisy’s shoulder.
That was unacceptable.
Forget about the security guards and the long odds. Ryan was going to take the other man down. He shifted forward onto the balls of his feet and threw a one-two combination in the other man’s direction. The first punch didn’t land, but the second was solid. He connected with the old guy’s jaw hard enough to make his head spin.
The old man moved like a boxer—fine—but they weren’t in the ring. In this room, there were no rules. He turned slightly, stomping his heel down on a fine Italian loafer and catching the man’s arm with his hands to twist it back behind his shoulder.
He was going to put the guy in the ground.
“Let him go.” Daisy slammed a fist into Ryan’s shoulder. “Oh, God—”
“This guy hit you.”
“It was an accident.” She pushed herself between them again, forcing Ryan to release his grip as she helped the old man up off the ground. “Damn it, Bullet, what did the doctor say about your temper? I swear to God, if you give yourself another heart attack, I’m not going to the hospital with you this time. I’ll dance on your grave.”
“Daisy.” The man’s face crumpled. “Baby. You don’t mean it.”
“The hell I don’t,” Daisy snarled, rolling her shoulder. “He was right. You hit me. Hard.”
“Daisy.” And now the old man was dropping to his knees, begging forgiveness. It was like something he’d seen in an old-fashioned movie. “I never… You gotta believe me. I never meant to hurt you, doll.”
So, this was Bullet.
And Daisy had been worried about Ryan hurting him?
Chapter Four
Convincing Bullet not to break Ryan’s kneecaps and leave him in the desert was hard—sometimes Daisy didn’t know how much of the old man’s gangster act was a persona put on for tourists and how much was real—but convincing him to let the man go free had been next to impossible.
“I promise,” she said. “He didn’t hurt me. Didn’t touch me.”
“He was kissing on you, doll.”
“And since when is my love life your business?” she demanded.
“I don’t like it,” Bullet sputtered, but he looked sheepish afterward.
When he finally let them go, they had less than ten minutes to get back to the tournament. “Ready for that talk now?” Ryan asked as she hurried him back up to their rooms. “Because I’ve thought of a whole bunch more questions.”
“No time.” Daisy pulled her keycard from her back pocket and swiped it to open the door. “You need ice on your face—”
“And my gut.”
“Your gut’s fine,” she said.
“You could kiss it just to be sure,” Ryan drawled.
Un-freaking-believable. Daisy turned to give him a piece of her mind, but then she saw the dizzy look in his eyes and the way he stumbled against the door. “You got a concussion?”
“No.” Ryan rubbed the back of his head. “Maybe. He knocked me pretty hard against the wall.”
Damn. She went to her luggage and pulled out her emergency travel kit. Bandages, antiseptic, and condoms—not that she’d ever had cause to use the condoms on a trip before. The aspirin was exactly where she’d left it. She rolled out two and shoved them at Ryan. “Take these and sit down. I’ve got to go back to the tournament, but I’ll have Bullet send someone to watch you.”
“Like hell.” Ryan grabbed the aspirin and swallowed them down dry. “I’m playing.”
“You can’t. You’ve got a concussion.”
“I’ve had worse, and it doesn’t change the job.”
“What job?” she demanded.
“Undercover with the FBI.” And it must have been the concussion talking because for the first time since they’d met
, Ryan sounded like he was telling her the truth. “Fuck, I wasn’t supposed to say that.”
He straightened up.
And swayed.
“You tell anyone and I’ll have you on the first plane ride out of here,” he threatened, and there was cold iron in his voice to back it up. “I’ll throw you in the clink so fast—”
“Don’t worry,” Daisy interrupted. “I’m not telling anyone. I—”
She wished she didn’t know. Hunting down cheaters at the poker table was one thing—she’d done it for years—but an undercover FBI agent was something else entirely. Was he looking for the cheater? Was cheating at cards a federal offense? Or, was he looking for something else?
“Are you investigating someone at the casino?” Was he investigating Bullet? Her gut churned. This was completely out of her experience, but either way it didn’t matter. She couldn’t leave the old man out to dry. Not when he’d asked for her help.
And she definitely couldn’t let him find out there was an FBI agent at the Hendrix. The man’s ticker was in bad enough shape without that kind of shock. Her teeth dug into her bottom lip. She definitely wouldn’t be telling anyone.
“Your secret’s safe with me,” she said.
“Good.” Ryan nodded, but he didn’t look like he believed her. He groaned. “I need to get back to the tournament before the round starts.”
“Fine.” Daisy opened the mini bar and snagged a cold drink—Bullet was paying for it anyway—and handed the bottle to Ryan. “Put that on your head. When you get down there, drink water.”
“I can handle my booze—”
“You’ve got a concussion, and I don’t want anyone arresting Bullet for giving a law enforcement agent an aneurysm.” Crud, Bullet had hit an FBI agent. He was screwed. Her eyes squeezed tight. They were both screwed.
“Easy,” Ryan said, and then he was standing in front of her with his hand on her cheek. “Easy, honey,” he murmured. “Tonight we’re going to talk. You’re going to tell me everything. I’ll help if I can.” There was a short pause. “Believe me.”
“Yeah, right.”
“That’s my angry bunny,” Ryan laughed as his hand dropped away.
Forget the tournament. He needed to go to the hospital.
But, by the time Daisy’s eyes flickered open, Ryan was already halfway to the elevator and all she could do was follow him. He was still the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, but now there was heaviness to his step she hadn’t seen before. As if he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Not that she cared.
But she did.
She slowly played her way through the two afternoon rounds, letting her brain calculate the odds automatically while she kept an eye on Ryan’s table. He played with the same boisterous smiles and easy laughter she’d seen during the morning session, but now it looked forced. His smooth-as-glass poker face was strained and when he finally won his last hand for the night, he looked relieved.
“Come on.” She collected him from his table with a smile. “Time to get you upstairs.”
“I’ve got to work.”
Work she wanted to know more about.
“You’ve got a concussion,” she corrected as she pulled him over to the elevator and hit the up button. The elevator doors dinged open almost immediately and they got in.
“How’d that guy hit me so hard anyway?” Ryan hit the button for their floor. “He has to be a million.”
“He’s sixty-eight.”
“Jesus,” Ryan swore. “Don’t tell the guys back at the office, okay? I’d never live it down.”
“He used to be a heavyweight champion back in the day, and he still practices every morning. You should just be glad he didn’t have his baseball bat.”
“What about you?” Ryan asked. “You secretly a spy sent to torture all my secrets out of me?”
The doors to the elevator opened to let them out. “I’m a college professor.” Daisy didn’t bother stopping to let Ryan open his own door. She slid the keycard through the lock and popped open the door to her room. “You going to come in?”
Ryan’s glazed-over expression tightened. He looked suddenly hopeful. “I guess I’d better.”
The room had a single king-size bed, a couch, and a chair. Daisy took the chair so Ryan wouldn’t be tempted to sit down next to her. This was just like holding a meeting back at the university. She needed to be in control of the agenda.
Ryan sat down directly across from her. There was a small bruise on his cheek and his body would probably be black and blue in the morning but…damn, he looked good enough to eat.
And he tasted like sunshine. Daisy swallowed hard at the memory. In the bathroom, she should have been scared. Getting yelled at wasn’t exactly her idea of a good time, but there’d been something about the way Ryan looked at her. When he’d touched her skin, she’d practically melted into his arms, and when he’d growled at her she’d…
She’d kissed him.
Which shocked Daisy more than she’d like to admit. Daisy never kissed someone unless the parameters were arranged in advance. One-night stand. No strings. No risks. No broken hearts. She liked things neat and orderly, even her sex life.
Getting involved with Ryan was a bad idea. He didn’t fit into her predetermined order. He just sat there. Like a lump. Drawing her in with his eyes.
“A professor,” Ryan finally said. “What’s your specialty? English lit?”
“Nothing wrong with English, but it’s not my style. I’m in the math department.”
“Math,” Ryan said. “Statistics?”
“Applied mathematics.” Daisy nodded. “Although some of my work is theoretical as well.”
“And you have a PhD?”
“Two of them.” It would soon be three, if Daisy ever got around to taking the foreign language requirement for cryptography.
Ryan frowned. “You don’t look old enough to have a PhD.”
Daisy rolled her eyes. “I’m twenty-four, not twelve.”
“Twenty-four? And you have two PhDs.” He sniffed. “You go to some diploma mill?”
“Harvard for undergrad and the first PhD—statistics and probability—and UCLA for the second. That’s where I work now.”
“Hell.” Ryan leaned forward slightly. “You’re one of those Rainman types. That’s how you knew my game was off earlier.”
Daisy’s teeth dug into her bottom lip hard enough to make her wince. She should be used to the Rainman jokes, but it still hit her somewhere deep inside. She licked her lips, concentrating on keeping the tone of the conversation light. “Something like that.”
“And Bullet?”
“Clive Jackson. He’s the general manager here at the casino.”
“I know the name.” Ryan waved a hand. “Didn’t say anything in his file about being called Bullet.”
“Yeah, well I’m probably the only one who’s called him that in forty years. It was one of his nicknames back when he was boxing.” There was a big old poster back at Bullet’s house, his only souvenir from when he’d thought he’d be the next world champion. Daisy smiled at the memory.
“And you two are close.” It wasn’t a question. Ryan looked pissed. Again. She was beginning to think that was how he looked most of the time.
Too damn bad. They weren’t dating. They weren’t friends. They’d only met this morning and—even if he was sexy as hell—he had no right to dictate whom Daisy could associate with.
Her lips pressed together in a thin line. Her head ached.
Ryan’s eyes had narrowed. His brow furrowed, like he was trying to work something out in his head. “Tell me about it, honey.”
There it was again…the commanding tone that had fried her common sense in the bathroom. Daisy licked her lips. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. She’d had it all planned out in her mind. After the game, they’d come back to her room, talk, and Ryan would tell her what the hell the FBI was doing at the Hendrix.
In
stead, she was the one who wanted to spill her deepest, darkest secrets.
“That something they teach in FBI school?” she asked. “Interrogation techniques?”
“Is this an interrogation?” Ryan’s head straightened slightly. “Want me to get out the whips and chains?”
“Twisted.”
“Like a corkscrew, babe.” He winked at her. “Just like you.”
“I’m not twisted. I’m a professor.”
“You can’t be both?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
He nodded. “Too bad. You’d look kick-ass in leather.”
“Want to tell me why the FBI has an undercover agent at a poker tournament?”
“Nope. Want to tell me why the general manager has a college professor posing as a poker player?”
“I am a poker player,” Daisy snapped. “I may not be a gambler, but I’m one hell of a poker player.”
“Counting cards—doing math—isn’t the same thing as playing poker.”
Daisy rolled her eyes. What did he know?
She’d only written her first PhD thesis on game theory and poker. The same thesis she’d turned into—an admittedly poorly received—player’s guide.
She’d only walked into the Rollio and taken the house for two million dollars. She’d been fourteen years old, playing with her older sister’s ID, and only Bullet’s kind nature had kept her from getting turned over to the cops. He’d been manager of the Rollio at the time. When they’d figured out she wasn’t legal to play, he’d dragged her into his back room and put the fear of God into her.
But the next morning, he’d been waiting outside her mother’s trailer in his long gray sedan. He’d given her a ride to school. “Just want to make sure you get there, doll.”
And the morning after that, he’d been back with a pair of coffees and a donut from the Rollio’s breakfast buffet.
Bullet had given her a ride to school every morning without fail, and during the summer, he’d given her a job at the Rollio, sitting pretty in the security booth scoping out card counters and cheaters. He’d taken an interest when no one else had. He’d convinced her to apply to Harvard and flown out to cheer at each of her graduations.
