Her lips were curved in a smile, her warm, soft body pressed against his, and he didn’t regret any of the choices that had brought him to this point.
Would Kellie care that he didn’t have big money and respectable social status in his future? If she were living here, that is. It didn’t matter. She was here right now, and right now, she seemed to like him just fine.
Leaning down, slowly, watching her eyes, he moved in. Her pupils flared and her lips parted, meeting his halfway in a kiss that was both soft and significant.
God. Her lips were smooth and moist, and he licked over the bottom one, inside, over her teeth, as one of her arms slid up his to his neck, holding him steady.
Her breasts pressed against his chest, and she sighed, leaning into him. He pulled her closer, wanting to feel her slide over his skin, grateful for his nearly nonexistent shirt, because it allowed him to feel her nipples through her silky dress.
One hand on each of her hips, he rocked her into him, to show her how badly he needed—
Flash!
Quinn jumped back, startled, nearly pulling Kellie down in the process.
The photographer grinned, took another shot, and said, “Check the website tomorrow!”
“Great,” he grumbled. “I hope they got a clear shot of how fucking uncomfortable these pants are.”
“Oh.” Kellie was looking at him. At his crotch.
He looked down, too. The lights had come up in the room, and it was clear as day that he was rock hard.
“Oh my,” she said. “Do you want to sit down?”
“That would probably be more uncomfortable,” he admitted. His embarrassment did nothing to diminish Mr. Happy’s joy.
“Well, should we dance some more, so I can be camouflage?”
“That’s what got me in this situation in the first place,” he pointed out. Although, yes, he did want her body against his again.
“Hmmm. Well, we could make you a kilt out of tablecloth, that might—”
“Maybe we could just stop talking about it?”
Pressing her lips together, eyes sparkling, she nodded.
“Glad you’re amused. I feel like a seventh grader.”
She looked down again. “Really? Those eighth-grade girls must have been willing to date down a grade then, weren’t they?”
He didn’t mind being turned on as fuck by Kellie. He didn’t mind that she knew how hard he was for her. He wasn’t too thrilled with the surreptitious, and not so surreptitious, glances coming his way from the rest of the women in the room. Jesus, he was going to need medical attention soon.
Dick-wilting rescue finally came in the form of one very drunk author stumbling through the crowd toward them.
“Hey, guys, have you seen Toby? He never came back from the bathroom.” Brae swayed on her feet, makeup smudged, wineglass sloshing slightly.
Okay, he hadn’t jumped in during dinner, so was this when he was supposed to do something heroic, like save the heroine’s frenemy from a broken heart with duct tape and baling twine? He wasn’t fucking MacGyver, but he’d do whatever he could, he supposed.
“Maybe he’s in the casino.”
“The casino!” Kellie looked at him as though he’d saved the universe from a giant asteroid, and he really hoped he was Ben Affleck and not Bruce Willis in her mental movie. “I bet you’re right! We should go there.”
“But you don’t gamble,” Brae said, slugging back more wine.
“I do now.”
…
“I don’t know how any of this stuff works,” Kellie said, mesmerized by the lights and noise of the slot machines, the press of humanity, the air of equal parts hope and desperation that wafted through the endless rooms.
Of course she’d seen slot machines since she’d gotten here. There were machines in the grocery store where she’d stopped for apple juice, for heaven’s sake. But this—this was insane with a capital Cray-cray.
Brae had wandered off in search of either Toby or a fresh glass of wine, Kellie wasn’t sure which, but her friend seemed to be okay for the moment.
Quinn’s hand on her lower back didn’t help Kellie’s focus any. Her skin felt too tight, still aroused from the simple little slow dance at the end of the party. Seeing him—feeling him so hard against her—made her corresponding regions soften. She was amazed her thighs weren’t making noise as she walked, she was so wet.
“What do you want to try first?” Quinn’s voice rumbled through her ear, straight to her clit.
First I want to try kissing you some more, then I want to try taking off those ridiculous leather pants, then—
“Kellie? You still with me here, babe?”
More than you could know. “Um, what do you recommend?”
“Depends on how much risk you’re comfortable with. I don’t ever bring any more money than I can afford to lose—so I’m not here often. But…” He dug into the bag of stuff Amber Night had handed them for winning the dating game and pulled out a bag full of coins. “We seem to have been gifted with some play money.”
“We can play with that?” Can we throw it on the bed and roll around on it, so it sticks to our sweaty bodies, and then—
“It’s real money. Or it can be exchanged for real money. I think they’d like us to lose it here, though.”
Kellie stared at the handful of tokens, forcing her attention back into the casino. Her sensible self said to tell Quinn to cash it and put it toward the repair of his bike.
But it probably wasn’t enough to put a new grip on one handlebar.
“So…what’s our best bet?”
He smiled patiently. “Nothing. But there are some that aren’t as horrible as others. Let’s start with roulette.”
They found a table with a couple of people playing and watched for a few minutes. Quinn put his arm around her, surrounding her with his scent, and explained all the different ways to bet—black or red, even or odd, the groups of numbers.
A young guy wearing a torn Black Sabbath T-shirt and a gray fedora chewed on an unlit cigarette while he won and lost nearly five hundred dollars.
Before Kellie hyperventilated with sympathy for the guy, Quinn took a chip and asked her to choose between red and black.
She happened to be staring at his ass in the black leather pants at the time, so she said, “Black.”
They lost that one, but then won three more. Then he convinced her to bet on one of the sets of twelve, and she won a little more than she had on just betting on black. She lost a couple times betting on individual numbers, and they moved on.
“That’s how it works. The steeper the odds, the higher the payout.”
Before she thought, she asked, “Is that what you’re doing with your bike business? Betting on a long shot?”
She could have bitten off her own tongue, but he laughed. That sound also sent shivers through her body. Could she come from his sound vibrations alone?
“Maybe. The odds are mixed, I guess… I’m pretty sure I can stay afloat repairing bikes, but the chances of being the next reality show bike builder might take a little miracle.”
The horror must have shown on her face, because he laughed and said, “Babe. I don’t want to have a reality show. I just want to be good enough to be wanted.”
Oh, he was wanted, all right. She wrapped her arm around his and slid her fingers between his. “I believe you can do it. Those bikes you showed me were pretty neat.”
“You’re pretty neat, too.” He kissed her, a casual, sweet, comfortable kiss that warmed her as much as the sexier one earlier in her room. “But what about you? What about the odds of this writing thing?”
She shook her head. “Too long.”
“But how much risk? You don’t really have to put up much money to get started, right?”
She thought about it. “No. Not much money. Time. Too much time.” And too much heartbreak. “I can’t really afford the assistant I have in the shop. But if I work more, I’d lose writing time… I just can’t win.
”
He shrugged. “Depends on what you consider a win.”
She thought about that for a moment, but was distracted when Quinn touched her arm and said, “Hey, we’re here to have fun, not stress about the future. How are your math skills?”
“I can balance my checkbook. Most of the time.”
“Good enough. Come on.”
He held out a chair for her at a blackjack table and explained the rules, then divvied up their remaining tokens.
After a few minutes, she’d amassed a healthy pile of money and was feeling an energy she’d never experienced before. Between the high from winning money and her persistent state of sexual arousal, she thought she might be able to scale the pyramid place down the street. “Can I bet more than five dollars?” She was feeling confident, now that she knew how it worked. She might lose a few hands, but then she’d hit big and win back more than she lost.
“Absolutely.”
“Okay.” She put twenty on the table and was dealt a ten and a seven. The dealer had a ten showing.
“Hit me,” she said. She felt Quinn tense next to her, but knew it was too late. Oops.
The dealer tossed her a four, and everyone at the table groaned.
“Twenty-one! I win!”
Quinn was smiling at her, an amused, indulgent look.
“Are you humoring me?” she asked.
“Maybe a little. Mostly I’m having a good time watching you break all the rules and kick everyone’s ass.”
“Oh.” She looked around at the other players, most of whom seemed to appreciate her beginner’s luck. “I don’t usually break rules.”
“I know.” His dark eyes held hers and then stroked over her body. Her breasts felt heavy, and she knew she was close to breaking some other rules. Rules about gambling with her feelings and getting naked with someone she would never see again.
“Would you take a look at that,” someone said, breaking the spell.
Everyone stared across the room at a table where several scantily clad women gyrated in G-strings and not much else. They had been joined by a woman wearing clothes, a conference badge, and an engagement ring from Toby Wagner.
“Well, it certainly looks like your friend’s having a good time,” Quinn observed drily.
Chapter Nine
Kellie watched Quinn expertly wrangle the drunken Brae off the bar and into the elevator without once allowing her to stop and wallow in self-pity. His ability to avoid readers and other authors was impressive. Somehow he convinced Brae that Toby was probably in their hotel room waiting for her.
Kellie was afraid Toby was in Joyce Rodgers’s room. Joyce was infamous for dragging cover models into her room and not letting them come up for air for weeks—but they always wound up semi-naked on the front of the biggest historical best-sellers, so Toby was probably going to come out richer and more famous.
But poor Brae. Even though he’d seemed pretty self-absorbed, she was clearly in love with the guy. She was going to be devastated. But right now, her friend was annoying and wasted.
As Kellie dug through Brae’s clutch for her key card, Brae pawed Quinn. “You’re a good, good, gooooood boyfren. Kelleeez so lucky. Toby’s really cute and stuff, but you’re fuckin’ hot as fuck.”
“Oh my God,” Kellie muttered, giving Brae a none-too-gentle hip check to get her away from the door so she could scan the card. And to dislodge Brae from Quinn, who was very gently trying to uncurl one hand from his shirt as Brae tangled the other one in his waistband.
Kellie held the door while Quinn supported Brae through and pointed her toward the bed.
Brae flopped onto the mattress, her short skirt hiked up in back far enough to see that she was wearing a thong. A black one.
“Oh, look,” Quinn said, whirling away from the bed. “There’s a message.” He snatched the notepad from the desk and tore a piece of paper from the top and examined it.
“Lemme see it.” Brae lurched upward and tried to reach Quinn, who conveniently dropped the note—right into a cold cup of coffee that had been left on the desk.
“Oh, damn,” he said, snatching the cup before Brae could drag the paper out. “I’m such a clod. It’s a good thing I read it before I ruined it, huh?”
“Whadit say?” She sat back down on the bed and began removing her shoes—by leaning back and sticking one leg in the air and reaching up for the straps of her sandals.
Again, a lovely view.
“Here, let me help you with that,” Kellie said, tipping Brae’s leg back down and working at the buckle.
“Toby said he went to get something at the store and that you should go ahead and get some sleep, and he’ll see you in a bit.”
“Oh.” Brae considered this.
Quinn was a lousy liar, but Brae didn’t know which end was up, so it didn’t matter.
“What did he go get?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Quinn said. “What do you think he went to get?”
Brae smiled, curling over on one side and tucking her hands under her cheek. “Maybe isssa present for me.”
Kellie unzipped Brae’s dress and made a “turn around” gesture to Quinn.
He raised an eyebrow, but complied, reaching into the pink suitcase on the floor by the bed and throwing a big green T-shirt over his shoulder at Kellie. “Maybe it is a present. What do you hope it is?”
“Shocklate. Or honey. To rub all over my body.”
He coughed with an exaggerated grimace. “Whoa, okay there, sister. I think you’re ready to go nite-nite.” Hearing it through the walls was one thing, but hearing it in detail was another. Kellie pulled the covers over Brae and put a bottle of water and some ibuprofen on the nightstand next to her.
“I think we should keep this one,” Brae said.
“What should we keep?” Kellie asked, turning off the light next to the bed.
“Keep Quinn. He’s real. Realer than that Mark guy.”
“Yeah, he’s real.” She chose not to consider that concept too closely, at least not right now. “Good night, Brae.”
“G’nite Kell-Bell.”
Quinn held the door for Kellie and they walked into the hallway.
“Where do you think he is?” he asked.
“I think he’s with Joyce, that publisher,” she told him.
Her disappointment in Toby went deep.
“Hey,” Quinn said, putting an arm around Kellie’s shoulder and pulling her against him. “She’ll be okay.”
“Maybe. I guess it’s better that she find out now, than after—”
“After they get married?”
“Yeah, sorry to bring it up—” She wasn’t sorry that he was no longer married, but she did regret bringing up the topic again.
He rubbed her arm. “It’s cool. We were too young, too selfish. I’m over it, Rachel’s way over it and has the proper young professional she always wanted.”
“Okay.”
“What about you? Why are you still single?”
Now she really regretted bringing up relationship statuses. “Ugh. There aren’t that many single guys in my little town, and the online long-distance guys…don’t ever seem to work out. My last date told me he was a pharmaceutical sales rep.”
“Oh, no. I see where this is going.”
“Yeah, he got huffy with me when I wouldn’t give him my urine to take in to his probation officer, so we decided to go our separate ways.”
“Yuck.”
“I know, right? The guy I saw before that—Mark—had a real job—he told me he was a history teacher and dealt in antiquities. Which I found out later meant he had a booth at a flea market selling other people’s garage sale rejects—his specialty was history textbooks.”
The disappointment on Quinn’s face brought Kellie’s little self-pity party to an end.
…
He was an idiot for thinking that he could have met—even briefly—a woman who wasn’t interested in his earning potential. Why did it even matter? This was a on
e-night hookup without sex that had gone on for two nights already—it was time to cut and run.
But before Quinn could extract his arm from around Kellie’s shoulder, she turned and took his face in her smooth hands.
“I wouldn’t have cared if he was the guy who gathers up stray shopping carts if he’d told me who he was to begin with. I’m done with guys who tell me they’re something that they aren’t. That’s all.”
Staring into her seafoam eyes, he believed her. At least, he believed that she believed it. And it didn’t matter, did it? After this weekend, he wouldn’t see her again anyway.
His mission was to show her a good time and see if he could encourage her to follow her own dreams—not to worry if anyone would hang around to see if his turned into nightmares.
“So,” she said. “I’ve got some beer and chips in my room. Want to come in and see if Jeopardy’s on or something?” Her eyes gave the phrase “come hither” a new meaning.
Quinn’s body sent him “go” signals. He cleared his throat. “Or something? Is that a metaphor?”
“Well.” She raised an eyebrow. “I’m also kind of interested to see what’s in your goody bag there, besides casino tokens.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Darlin,’ my goodies defy description.” And at the moment, his goodies were in rare form, even for a man who’d been hard and aching most of the night.
Her laugh filled the silent hallway, and they both cracked up when someone stuck their head around the corner near the elevator nook.
“But if you need me to describe them for you…” He poked around in the tote bag he’d been given. “Nice bottle of Blue Mountain Bourbon,” he said. “Some other stuff down here, but it’s wrapped up. Oh—here’s a fancy set of playing cards.”
“Then maybe we can play strip poker.”
Oh, yes, please. His hands longed to unwrap her from that dress, to see what was underneath.
She pointed at the bag he carried. “Any chocolate or honey in there?”
He pictured her, naked, while he licked sticky sweet stuff from her—to the sweeter stuff beneath.
He wasn’t sure why he hesitated. Maybe he needed things to be spelled out. “Brae’s passed out. Even if Toby comes back with his virtue intact, there’s no reason to have loud fake sex,” he said.
Accidentally in Love With the Biker (What Happens in Vegas) Page 7
