by Aleah Barley
Ryan naked.
Ryan sleeping.
Ryan in the shower.
She shook her head to dispel the image of firm abs dripping water. What she wouldn’t give to lick them…no. She took a deep breath. She had to be firm. He may be an ooey-gooey treat wrapped in secret voodoo mystery sauce, but she was on a diet. No more fantasizing. No more lusting.
Definitely no more kissing.
“I’m not an idiot,” she said.
“Yeah, I read your CV.”
“And?”
Sex-On-Legs rolled his eyes. “You’re not an idiot.”
“So, you’ll tell me?”
“Not a chance.”
“Then you can go to hell.” Daisy stood up and downed the last of her coffee, crushing the Styrofoam under her fingers. She started to march across the floor. Away from Ryan.
Then she saw Bullet.
Hell. The old man was wearing a tailored suit and a granite smile that said: “Don’t fuck with me.” There was a group of players surrounding him—all wanting to get in good with the casino’s manager—but that didn’t stop him from raising an eyebrow in Daisy’s direction.
He’d obviously seen her arguing with Ryan and wanted to know what it was all about. If she kept walking, then he’d find her and ask questions. He’d want to know if Ryan had upset her. He’d want to get out his bat.
The idiot was going to get himself arrested.
She couldn’t let that happen.
Daisy spun around and collided with a wall of hard muscle. Ryan. He smelled so good, so masculine. Her mouth watered.
“I really don’t want to do this,” she told him as her fingers curled into his shirt. Then she pushed herself up onto her tip-toes and kissed him harder than she’d ever kissed any other man in her life.
The warmth. The heat. The taste which was like donuts, sugar, and the best mornings of Daisy’s life.
Fireworks exploded across her skin and she melted a little inside. This was what she’d been missing all those years with all those other guys.
Secret voodoo mystery sauce.
“Just a chemical reaction,” she murmured against his mouth. “Nothing to get excited about. Just outside stimuli.”
Strong fingers skimmed across the small of her back, drawing her in tight against Ryan’s body. His erection ground into her hip and she gasped in recognition. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one affected by outside stimuli.
His other hand cupped her chin and the rough callus of his thumb rubbed against her cheek. His eyes were so damn warm, so full of affection and excitement—
“Morning, doll,” Bullet interrupted.
Hell. Daisy wrenched away from Ryan. “Bullet.” She stared down at the floor, desperate to disappear into the patterned carpet.
“You get something to eat this morning?” Bullet asked.
“I don’t do breakfast.”
The old man’s laughter was warm and familiar. “You talk to a waitress. Someone will bring you something to eat.”
“You shouldn’t be talking to me,” she mumbled. “I’m supposed to be incognito.”
“Sure thing, doll.” He patted her arm. “Don’t worry, I’m talking to all the players this morning. Figured it was a good idea to remind them who’s in charge. Besides…” His gaze flicked to Ryan—standing behind her—and back again. “I wanted to ask you a question. How’d you two meet?”
“Us?” Daisy fumbled. “Ryan and me?”
“Yeah, I know you don’t date a lot—”
“I date plenty. I just don’t tell you.”
Bullet shrugged. “Maybe. I was just wondering how you became all connected at the mouth with Mr. Wilson here.”
“Sch—school,” she stammered. “We met at school.”
“Harvard or UCLA?”
Daisy’s heart was slamming against her chest. Her lungs felt tight. Why hadn’t she worked out a story ahead of time? She licked her lips. “Harvard.”
“UCLA,” Ryan said at the exact same time. He took a step closer so they were standing side to side. “Harvard first and then UCLA off and on. I travel for work.”
“And what do you do?” Bullet asked.
Ryan didn’t miss a beat. He started talking about his job as an account executive, complaining about the hours and making jokes about his clients. It was fake, all of it. He wasn’t a salesman. He didn’t spend his days pitching contracts at well-dressed men. He’d never accidentally mistaken a CEO for a secretary.
Still, he made her believe every word he was saying. No wonder the FBI wanted him undercover. The man could lie with a smile on his face and a song in his heart.
Daisy’s stomach churned. Was he lying to her? Telling her exactly what she wanted to hear and nothing else? She wanted to talk to him, needed him to tell her the truth, but at the same time…she couldn’t trust him.
Not really.
The man was a gambler and a professional liar. He could tell her that water was dry and the sky was green, and if he smiled at her and stroked her hair at the same time, she’d probably believe him.
Her stomach clenched until it hurt. Not knowing when Ryan was telling the truth was like standing in front of the ocean waiting for a tsunami to hit, knowing any minute she’d have the sand knocked out from under her.
Then his hand curled around hers and she forgot to listen to what he was saying. All she could think about was the way he’d looked at her when they were kissing. Like he’d been looking for something and finally found it.
Bullet said a few more pleasant words, then wandered off to look for more victims to chat up.
“I’m so sorry about that,” Daisy said.
“He’s protective,” Ryan murmured in her ear. “I understand. There’s a lot of bad stuff in this world—a lot that’s not right—and when you finally find something good, it’s worth putting yourself out there.” He squeezed her hand tight. “You’re lucky to have someone like that watching your back. Someone you can depend on.”
His shoulders slumped forward slightly, and when Daisy glanced up, he was staring off into space. Thinking about something a million miles away.
“The first round’s about to start,” Daisy finally said, breaking through Ryan’s reverie. “You should go find your table.”
“Of course.” He took his hand back, jamming his long fingers into his pockets as if he was afraid of where they might go if he left them free too long. There was a long pause. “That kiss was just a show, right? For Bullet.”
Daisy’s tongue darted out to moisten her lips, giving her time to get her expression under control.
The kiss had started out as a show, but somewhere along the line, she’d forgotten all about their audience. The only thing she’d been thinking about was Ryan’s body, so close she could feel his heart beating.
He didn’t need to know that.
She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Of course.”
“Hell’s bells,” Ryan scoffed. “I can’t believe you play poker.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve got the worst poker face on the planet,” he said. “You can’t lie.”
He said that like it was a bad thing.
“I’m a college professor, not a badass secret agent.”
“Today you’re a poker player.” He was looking at her like he wanted to tell her something—maybe give her a few pointers on lying—but then he shook his head. “Just… just don’t bet anything you’re not afraid to lose. Okay?”
Whatever. Daisy shook her head and walked off to find her table.
The dealer was still going through his usual patter when a waitress showed up with a coffee and a pastry for Daisy. “From the gentleman in the corner.”
Bullet. Daisy was going to tear the guy a new one. She was supposed to be incognito. She was supposed to be sneaky. She wasn’t supposed to be flaunting her relationship with the Hendrix’s manager.
But then she glanced over in the direction the waitress indicated and there was no s
harp suit or steel-gray hair…just a golden god dominating his game with a smile and a laugh. Ryan.
He’d sent her breakfast.
Daisy’s heart thumped against her ribs, pounding nervously. She didn’t do breakfast, and she didn’t kiss the same man two days in a row, but here she was…kissing Ryan.
That wasn’t good. Her teeth dug into her bottom lip. Ryan was not a one-night stand—not with four days left in the competition—and he definitely wasn’t tidy. She needed to get a hold of herself.
But if he smiled at her, she’d do it again…and again…and again.
Maybe avoidance was the answer. If she couldn’t control her own impulses, then she could, at least, control the situation. No more talks alone in her room. No more unnecessary displays of affection. She’d do her job and hand the perpetrator over to Ryan. He’d do whatever the hell he was doing and leave.
Perfect.
So, why did the pastry suddenly taste like cardboard in her mouth?
Daisy played carefully all day, depending on the statistical strategies she’d developed as a teenager: No-nonsense slow playing, and when she saw an opportunity, she took it. The game was just math—no matter what Ryan said—and she was damn good at math.
Between rounds, she circulated the tables to watch the other players and dealers to see how they worked. Everyone seemed to have a different strategy. Most of them took unnecessary risks.
If this was an ordinary day on the casino floor, she’d be able to look at the facts and figures for every table—the average take, the cut for the house—but a tournament was different.
She needed to see what was going on. She needed to rely on rusty instincts.
Her nose wrinkled up at the thought. Instinct was for fools and FBI agents. The only thing she could depend on was her brain.
So, she went back to her room and called Bullet. She was checking her email a few minutes later when a tech support guy showed up in a polo shirt with the Hendrix logo embroidered on the breast. He fiddled with her computer for a couple of minutes and the casino’s security feed popped up on the screen.
“I’ve got you hooked in to the cameras for the poker room. You should be able to see back forty-eight hours,” he said. “Any longer than that—any other parts of the casino—and you’ll need to go downstairs to the security office. That okay?”
“Forty-eight hours is fine,” Daisy reassured the man, tipping him a twenty on his way out the door.
She sat cross-legged on the bed and began to scroll through the footage. Some of it was interesting. Most of it was boring as hell. She checked her email and then watched some more video.
She’d been watching for a little over an hour when someone knocked. Bullet? The tech guy? She walked over and opened the door.
Ryan. Looking delicious in a cornflower Henley and a pair of worn jeans that conformed to his muscular thighs like a second skin. His feet were bare. His hair was wet from the shower, and Daisy had the strangest urge to lick the side of his face, tasting every inch of juicy goodness.
Instead, she put her hands on her hips and frowned. “What do you want?”
“To talk.” Ryan’s voice was a throaty purr. He waltzed into her hotel room without an invitation. “You eat dinner?”
“I’m not hungry.” Daisy shut the door and turned to watch him.
“Well, I’m going to call down for room service.” He settled onto the couch before grabbing the room phone and ordering room service. The person on the other end must have said something funny because he laughed before hanging up.
“I was going to get you a salad,” he said, “but you missed lunch, so I made it a burger and fries.”
Daisy’s traitorous stomach grumbled hungrily at the thought.
“Want to tell me about it?” Ryan asked.
“Nothing to tell.”
“Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “You missed lunch. You took off as soon as your last game was over. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were avoiding me.”
“I wasn’t avoiding you at lunch,” Daisy denied, fumbling for an explanation. She crossed her arms. “I needed to answer some emails from the university. Nothing special.”
“You know you don’t have to do that, right?”
“Do what?”
“Lie to me.” His bare feet stretched out wide in front of him. His legs were splayed like an open invitation. “You’re really not good at it.”
“I did answer some emails,” she said. “The dean keeps trying to convince me to be on some grad student’s thesis committee. It’s not really my field, but she’s young and female. The dean thinks she might be more comfortable with a woman on the committee.”
Ryan considered her words for a long moment. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s not really my field. That’s why I’ve said no. Twice. Besides, I have enough grad students as it is.” Daisy shrugged. There was no good reason for the dean to still be corresponding with her. She’d made herself clear. Still… “Brenda’s a good kid and she’s damn close to finishing. I’d hate to screw it all up for her.”
He nodded like he actually cared about university politics. “And the rest of it? The other reason I didn’t see you at lunch. You were avoiding me.”
It wasn’t a question and Daisy didn’t feel like defending herself. She shrugged. “You make me nervous.”
“You don’t like me?”
“That’s not the problem…” She liked him a little too much. She frowned. “I’m just not interested. Maybe you should leave.”
“Can’t. Food’s not here yet.” He nodded toward her computer. “More emails?”
“Surveillance footage of the tournament.”
“Impressive.” Green eyes blinked in surprise. “I couldn’t get that without a court order. Want to share?”
Daisy wanted him to leave, but that wasn’t happening anytime soon.
So, she grabbed her computer and lowered herself carefully onto the couch beside Ryan. There was a small valley between them, but—fuck—she could still feel the heat from his body. She placed the laptop carefully on the chair across from them and pressed play.
Daisy grabbed the notepad she’d been using earlier and started checking off bets. Hands. Cards. Wagers. She noted anything of possible interest and found…nothing.
After a while the food showed up and Daisy continued taking notes between bites. “It’s weird,” she said after the fries were gone and the last trace of burger had been licked from her fingers. “I’m not seeing anything.”
“What are you looking for?” Ryan asked, shifting closer on the couch.
“You really want to know?”
“Sure.” He shrugged, and she could feel muscles tensing and relaxing in his shoulders. “If you know what you’re doing.”
“I had a good teacher,” Daisy said. But Ryan sounded genuinely interested, so she told him about all the things she’d learned to look for during her summers at the Rollio: wild bets, progressive strategies, and electronic counters.
He listened better than a lecture hall full of math majors, paying attention and asking relevant questions.
After a while, his expression became thoughtful. His brows furrowed, as if he was mulling something over in his head. “I might know your problem.”
“And?”
“And you’re not going to like it.” Now, he was looking at her. When her gaze turned in his direction, his expression was firm. His lips pressed together in a straight line. “You’re a bad player. You spend too much time looking at the chips and the cards.”
“I can win.”
“Because most people are bad poker players, but the people at the tournament? They’re the cream of the crop—professionals or truly gifted amateurs—and they’ve got a different strategy.”
Could he be right?
Her gaze flicked back toward the shot of Ryan on the screen. The tiny image seemed so relaxed, so confident, whether he won or lost. He had a perfect poker face.
Maybe he’d been right earlier.
Maybe she was a bad player, but that didn’t mean she was going to give up on Bullet. It just meant she needed to learn the techniques that professional players used during tournaments. Daisy could learn anything if she tried hard enough.
She just needed the right teacher.
Damn it.
“Sorry,” Ryan said, and his body was so close she could feel the heat from his skin and the weight of his knee against hers.
For a moment, the lights around Daisy danced, and then she remembered what she was supposed to be doing. Asking Ryan for help. Her teeth dug into her bottom lip. She squared her shoulders. “I’m a good poker player. I know the math backward and forward.”
“You’re a fucking machine, babe. I bet you clean up at video poker. But that’s not what I said—”
“It’s okay.” She hurried on before he could interrupt again, “Can you teach me?”
Ryan’s head cocked to the side. His eyes gleamed. It looked like he was about to laugh and then he sighed. He shook his head. “You want a lesson in playing poker?”
She wanted him to leave before she attached herself to his lips like a sex-starved moray eel.
But a poker lesson was a close second.
“Please,” Daisy said.
“Yeah.” Ryan nodded. His green eyes were dark. His gaze never left her lips. “We can do that.”
Chapter Seven
Ryan was going to hell and Daisy was taking him there. Brains, beauty, and a way of talking that had him wanting to listen to her all night—even when she’d thrown enough math into her lesson on poker cheats to make his head spin. The woman was original sin incarnate.
Pure temptation.
He shouldn’t be in her hotel room and he definitely shouldn’t be teaching her how to be a better poker player. He was supposed to be in his room looking at files, brushing up on Edgar Blethins.
Stephanie had stopped by after the game. The forensic accountants in New Jersey weren’t getting very far. She wanted to know what he’d found.
It wasn’t much. When Ryan had realized that Daisy wasn’t showing up for lunch, he’d made initial contact with Blethins. The man was an anti-social louse. They’d talked for ten minutes and Blethins hadn’t even remembered Ryan’s name at the end of it.
