Gambling on Her Dragon (Charmed in Vegas Book 2)

by Anna Lowe

  “Kaya,” he sang.

  She clamped down on him with her inner muscles, wishing she could capture the sound he made. No one said her name that way, making it into its own melody. No one.

  “Kaya,” he whispered.

  His voice was hoarse that time, and it still sounded good. But they weren’t lying in that bed to sing or to whisper or to cry, so she licked her lips and forced out two words.

  “Again,” she ordered him. “Again.”

  He angled his hips to the right and thrust back in, riding one wall of her core hard. Pulled back out and angled left, then pushed in again, doing the same to the other side. Out and back, out and back, always with that delicious, diagonal slide that made her hungrier. Wider. Wilder.

  She dug her heels into his ass and danced with him, leaning left and right to accentuate each move in a sensual waltz like none she’d ever felt. The last rays of sunlight flickered in through the window and over the walls. The suite became a time machine, throwing her way, way back in time to caveman days, when primitive instincts could take over and conscious thought could retreat, at least for a little while. Just her and her wolf, possessing her. Thoroughly. Unrelentingly, but with just enough restraint to keep the focus on her.

  She closed her eyes to the delicious, searing heat of his movements. Focused everything on giving as good as she got by squeezing inside, matching his moves.

  Was she doing it right? She peeked. If Trey clenching his teeth, closing his eyes, and murmuring her name was any indication — then, yeah, she was doing pretty well.

  So she did it again, rippling over him like a vise as he thrust forward, dragging moan after audible moan out of the man doing the same to her.

  “Trey,” she cried, teetering on the edge of an incredible high.

  His body was bent so low over hers that the sweat starting to gleam on his chest didn’t drop so much as slide over to her. And dang, even that felt good. Impossibly good. Unbearably good.

  “Trey…” Her voice wavered until she couldn’t hold it any more. Couldn’t hold anything back as wave after wave of sensation steamrolled over her. Emotions, too, damn it, like a mushy, yearning need to call him her own. A desperate, sentimental longing for something she couldn’t quite name.

  Mate, her dragon puffed inside. My mate.

  He grunted and went stiff all over, filling her, and she squeezed every available appendage around him, keeping him close.

  Her heart thumped. His breath came in shallow pants. The throb she felt in her chest could have been his pulse or hers. His fingers tightened around hers, just as they’d done the night before, and a languid kind of peace washed over her as he collapsed, then turned and wrapped her in his arms.

  Mine, her dragon purred. Mine.

  She really ought to have stamped such crazy thoughts away, but she just couldn’t muster the willpower to. Resisting the pull to him was useless. And Christ, temptation had never felt this good, this right.

  “Mine,” he murmured, and she snuggled closer, crossing her arms over his.

  A lifetime passed in a minute, and she didn’t regret a thing. She just wrapped herself tighter in the blanket of his warmth and hung on to a high that lifted every layer of her body and soul.

  “Wow,” she murmured, which was short for, Hot damn, that was good. Maybe she should have hooked up with a wolf sooner.

  She laughed in spite of herself. As if she had a huge stable of gorgeous, steel-muscled he-wolves to choose from back in Wyoming. As if she’d ever met a man like this before.

  After one kiss to his arm, she squeezed her eyes shut. She never needed to go looking anywhere else, ever again.

  “What?” He tapped her shoulder, and she rolled around. Popped over to kiss him, smack on the lips. One tiny kiss to follow the hurricane-force winds that had just swept past, but it stood out all the same. Love amidst lust. Poetry amidst passion.

  She squeezed her lips together, holding on to his taste. “You…I mean, us. I mean, this…”

  The corners of his eyes crinkled into a smile. “I think I know what you mean.”

  Did he? She searched his face for any hint of a lie or a rote line, but there was none of that. Just joy and wonder and…wow, fearlessness.

  She took a deep breath, settling her nerves. Well, the couple of restless nerves that still had the energy to flutter inside her body. The rest were already snoring in bone-deep contentment. Maybe those were the ones she ought to trust instead of the nail-biting, doubting ones over there. Was it really possible for love to move this fast?

  “Hey,” he whispered, pulling her onto his chest.

  She laid an ear against his skin and listened to the sure, steady beat of his heart.

  “I don’t get this, either.” His voice was deep and rumbly from that close up. “But there’s something my mom used to say…”

  She tilted her chin up and found his eyes.

  He took his time, smoothing her hair back, tucking it behind her ears. “Sometimes, you just got to trust.”

  She gulped a little, then rested her head against him once more. She liked the sound of that. A lot.

  “You want to hear my dad’s version of that?” she asked a long second later, punching through the heavy feeling of possibility that had settled over both of them.

  “Sure. What?”

  She dropped her voice to match her father’s gravelly bass. “Never, ever trust anyone. Especially a man.”

  Trey laughed, and the movement bounced her around. “What about a wolf, sweetheart?”

  “Ha.” She rolled around to lie flush over his body, head to toe, making the mattress dip even more. “He never said anything about wolves.”

  “There you go.” Trey pointed right at her, like he’d known it all along. His eyes shone as he echoed his own words. “There we go.”

  We. A word to frame and clutch to her chest forever, if she hadn’t been clutching him.

  He rocked her a little, and she sighed. “So tell me something, wolf.”

  “Anything,” he answered without the slightest delay.

  “Tell me…” She searched for whatever it was she was dying to find out. But what did she need to know about the man that he hadn’t already shown her in word and deed? “Um…”

  He chuckled and started humming a game show theme. “Waiting, darlin’.”

  The drawl was a mimic, so she started with that. “Where are you from?”

  “Massachusetts.”

  Her head popped up. “Massachu…”

  He laughed. “Disappointed?”

  She shook the notion away. Vehemently.

  “Been working in Arizona lately,” he explained. “On my cousin’s ranch.”

  So that’s where the cowboy part came from.

  “Is that where you learned to play poker?”

  His eyes sparkled with mischief. “Among other things.”

  Huh. She’d lived most of her life in Wyoming. Never really wanted to leave. So what made him move?

  “Why did you leave home?”

  “Dunno. I just wanted…something else.” His gaze flitted vaguely over the room, bouncing from curtains to ceiling to bedside lamp until it landed on her and his eyes abruptly dialed into sharp focus. His breath caught on something, and his Adam’s apple bobbed.

  Her heart thumped, seeing him look at her that way.

  He dragged his eyes away, and damn, she’d put good money on the fact he’d just figured out what something might be.

  Dragon lore was full of mysterious forces, like fate, destiny, and serendipity, but none of them was ever used to explain love. Fate was the collective head-shaking that came after a dragon plowed into a cliff at night and crashed to his doom. Destiny was the shrug that came with a business enterprise falling apart. Serendipity was the punchline of a joke told by two dragons at exactly the same time.

  Love, on the other hand, was a couple of dragons getting it on late on a Saturday night.

  None of those words, not even destiny, seemed stro
ng enough to explain this.

  But wolves, from what she’d heard, believed in those terms the way zealots believed in gods or prophets. Wolves were legendary for spending lifetimes sniffing after scents they swore stemmed from destiny. For bachelors deciding from one day to the next that it was time to settle down. For spending lifetimes gazing into each other’s eyes and howling nighttime duets.

  Wolves, as her grandfather used to say, were a mystery.

  Love, as her mother said, was a mystery.

  She stared into Trey’s eyes, shining like the moon over the sea.

  Then he cleared his throat abruptly, murmured something about cleaning up, and disappeared into the bathroom.

  Trey. Wolf. Man.

  Mystery.

  Chapter Eleven

  Four hours. They had four hours.

  The first two, they spent gazing into each other’s eyes, boinking like bunnies, and cooing like a couple of lovebirds.

  Then they spent an hour trying to figure out what the hell to do next. Midnight wasn’t getting any further away, after all.

  The final hour, they went back to shagging and cooing and clinging blindly to hope in that little den of a room, because the world was easier to understand that way.

  Trey climbed out of the shower for the second time in four hours and yanked his clothes on just in time to hear the heavy lock click. He looked up to see two wolf shifters open the door and tip their heads down the hallway in an unmistakable order. He grabbed Kaya’s hand and hung on to it as they were marched all the way back to what he’d already started thinking of as the throne room.

  Not a window anywhere. Not a clock, just a lot of gold-edged mirrors that mocked every step he took. The place was like a casino, just a lot quieter. And somehow, he didn’t have the feeling he’d walk out of this den a winner.

  Shit, shit, shit. A few hours ago, he and Kaya had everything they needed: the money and the phone number. All they had to do was call the guy holding her sister for ransom and set up the switch. All so simple — if only they could get away from these wolves.

  The reflection in the mirror taunted him. Did you really think it was going to be easy?

  A gnawing sense of dread grew in his gut, and he tugged Kaya closer until her shoulder bumped against his with every anxious step.

  “Dixon.” A voice growled at him, and his head snapped up. Roric, the alpha, was glaring down from his dais like a medieval king.

  He nearly growled back. If he’d been alone, he might have played the role of subordinate to this powerful man. But he had Kaya with him, and stubborn alpha instincts took over. The instinct to protect. To throw out his chest and make a stand. To show he would not be pushed over.

  He stared right back, and the reigning alpha’s gaze locked him in place.

  “Here I was, thinking we had just another couple of visitors…” Roric paced across his little perch like a restless lion, looking for a way out.

  Not a promising start.

  Kaya’s fingers tightened over Trey’s as Roric nodded to himself. “Made a few phone calls…”

  Trey hid a grimace. Shit, shit, shit.

  “Seems that Lana Dixon of Twin Moon Ranch has no idea her cousin is visiting my territory.”

  Good news in one way, because at least Trey had a chance of keeping Twin Moon pack out of the trouble he’d stumbled into. Bad news, because it made him a lone wolf, with no one to cover his ass.

  His stupid ass. Had he really thought he could roll in and out of Vegas a couple of thousand dollars richer without being noticed?

  He threw up his hands. “I was hitchhiking to LA and the driver let me out here.”

  Roric ignored him and paced on. “I give my regards to Lana, hang up the phone, and what happens?”

  Trey glared in the heavy pause that ensued. How the hell did he know?

  “Seems someone else is calling me at the same time, wondering what motherfucker wiped out his gargoyles.” Roric stopped pacing and threw an icy look his way. “Wondering what motherfucking wolf wiped out his gargoyles. Asking if it was one of mine.”

  Shit. He hadn’t just annoyed the Westend alpha, he’d stepped on his toes.

  “And I get to wondering if that wolf has anything to do with the wolf who wandered in here, you know?”

  Trey clenched his jaw. It wasn’t as if he’d wandered willingly into this screwed-up wolf den.

  “And, meanwhile, it seems the little lady has trouble of her own,” Roric went on, sneering at Kaya.

  She stiffened, and Trey did too. Little lady?

  “Seems the lady owes money to an associate of mine.”

  Kaya’s fingers dug into Trey’s as her lips formed a thin line. Maybe she was like him, biting back her inner beast’s teeth before they could extend out of her gums.

  “The same associate, as it turns out, whose gargoyles were damaged.”

  Damaged, like maybe they’d chipped a nail and not run head-on into a bus or the steel frame of an awning.

  “So what’s a wolf to do?” Roric’s stiff posture made it clear he wasn’t expecting an answer. Finally, he sighed in a way that said, So much work in my little fiefdom, so little time. “So I decided to invite my associate over. Get this misunderstanding settled, once and for all.”

  Now, why didn’t Trey like the sound of that?

  A tall, dark figure with a sleek black ponytail stepped forward from the shadows on the left side of the hall. The man wore a tailored, black-on-black Armani suit that made his pale skin seem almost translucent. His eyes instantly dismissed Trey but lit up as they prowled over every inch of Kaya’s body.

  Her hand trembled in his, and all Trey could do was hang on. A growl built in his throat.

  “Miss Proulx, I presume,” Roric’s associate said in a light European accent of some kind. He gave a tiny bow, like he was a goddamn count or something. When he straightened and smiled at her, the points of his teeth showed.

  Kaya gasped in recognition.

  A second later, Trey caught on, too. Those weren’t teeth. They were fangs. Vampire fangs. The guy who was holding her sister for ransom was a vampire?

  Trey sniffed the air and found it void of any scent — a hallmark of vampires. A real-life, pointy-fanged, bloodsucking vampire.

  He glanced at Kaya. Tell me you just forgot to mention the vampire part.

  She shot back an apologetic glance that said, Minor detail.

  Minor detail? The sister wasn’t just indebted to some Vegas gambler, but to a vampire gambler. Vampires were sneaky, conniving creatures who could suck even the strongest wolf dry of life. Vampires fought dirty and preyed on the weak.

  And yet this one was somehow associated with the Westend wolves. Trey glared at Roric. How could any wolf stoop so low as to deal with vampires?

  Roric gave him a merciless shrug that said, Business is business, son.

  It was just as Lana had warned him: Westend pack fostered a mercenary attitude so uncommon among wolves.

  “I’ve heard so much about you,” the vampire said to Kaya. “We’ve been waiting so eagerly for your visit.” His eyes caught on her chest, and a scarlet-red tongue licked his pale lips.

  A second vampire appeared behind him, then a third, shoving a stiff captive along.

  “Get your hands off me, asshole,” the woman grunted.

  “Karen!” Kaya shouted and darted forward.

  Trey caught her arm and yanked her back. No way was he letting Kaya close to a vampire. They were already way too close. As in, a thousand-mile radius kind of close.

  “Hi, Kaya,” Karen sighed, twisting out of the vampire’s grasp. “Sorry I got hung up with half of fucking Transylvania here.” She rolled her eyes and made a mockery of their names. “Igor and Ivan.”

  The brunette who looked so much like Kaya exaggerated the vowels — Ee-gor and Ay-van — and the vampires rolled their eyes.

  “Igor,” the first corrected her, clearly not for the first time.

  A little smirk slipped onto Karen�
��s lips. “Whatever.”

  Christ, she was feisty, just like her sister.

  “We have the money,” Kaya blurted. “We were bringing it to you.”

  “Oh, yes?” Igor, the head vampire, raised a thin eyebrow.

  “Actually, I have the money,” Roric smirked, holding up the bag of cash his men must have brought in from the car.

  “My money!” Kaya and Trey blurted in unison.

  “My money, now.” Roric grinned.

  “What? You wouldn’t!” Kaya yelped.

  Roric raised his eyebrows in challenge. Of course, he would.

  “Money I’m happy to give my associate to reimburse him for his losses.” Roric shot an accusing look at Trey. “Minus, of course, a small fee for rescuing you out in the desert.”

  “Rescue?” Kaya sputtered.

  Trey growled openly. So he’d inadvertently messed with whatever tenuous pact Roric’s pack had with the vampires. Surely, wolves would stand together when the going got tough?

  Roric shook his head. Fat chance, kid.

  Igor flicked a fleck of lint off his sleeve and sighed. “Reliable gargoyles are so hard to find these days. And the price witches charge for new ones…”

  Roric nodded. “All in the name of maintaining smooth business relations, of course.” He threw a thin smile at Igor and shrugged at Trey’s incredulous look. Yes, these vampires are snobs, but what can you do?

  Trey shook his head. Wolves colluding with vampires? Back home, wolves and vampires gave each other a wide berth, just in case. But this was Vegas and shady Westend pack. Why was he not surprised?

  Igor turned his nose up and brushed a delicate lace hanky against his nose. Heathens, his dismissive look said.

  “That’s our money!” Kaya snapped, stretching to her full height. Her eyes flashed with fire, and he wondered if she’d start breathing fire. A trick that would come in awfully handy at a time like now.

  Trey bared his teeth at the vampires, backing her up. Really, he ought to be correcting her. Technically, it was his money, but somehow, he didn’t care. The line between what was Kaya’s and what was his was going gray and blurry, like none of that mattered as long as they stood together. Stayed together.