by Carmen Faye
The smell of eggs and toast filled the kitchen, replacing the smell of smoke and sex, and it filled me with warmth in a different way. Breakfast with someone was so much better than breakfast alone.
“That smells fantastic,” Rip said. He leaned back in his chair, eyes closed, fingers interlinked behind his head. With his arms up, it made his biceps and his pectorals pop, and he had a body on him that was worth looking at. With his eyes closed, I took the opportunity to stare. He looked at home in my kitchen. With his eyes closed, the stark planes in his face and his black hair and tan skin made him look like some sort of Adonis.
It was nice having a male around. I hadn’t had testosterone in the house for so long, I’d almost forgotten what it was like.
“Eggs on top of the toast or next to it?” I asked when the eggs were done and the toast had popped. Rip opened his eyes only halfway, leaving him with drooped eyelids and a sensual look on his face. I forced my attention away from his lips. I wasn’t attracted to him that way.
The sex was good, but I really wasn’t.
“Let me butter it,” Rip said, as he got up and walked to the fridge. A man who did something around the house? That was rare. In my opinion, men were just there to tell me how to serve them.
“And on top,” he added, answering my question.
When I’d dished up, we sat at the table together, eating in companionable silence. The toast was perfect, with just the right amount of butter melted into it. My eggs were next to my toast, and I appreciated how he’d slathered the bread as if butter was going out of fashion. The more calories the better. The clatter of the knives and forks on the plate was the only sound in the kitchen.
“What’s next?” I asked, breaking the silence. I put another bite of eggs in my mouth and chewed, looking at Rip.
He swallowed. His blue eyes were electric, the kind of color you didn’t just see in real life.
“How about we go on a date?” he asked.
I blinked. “I meant with the cards,” I said. I was a little caught off guard. A date? I didn’t do dates. Not since Tom. I’d promised myself I wasn’t going to get involved with a guy like that ever again. Being open to a man was being vulnerable, and I wasn’t going to be vulnerable. Rip took another bite and nodded while he chewed.
“I know what you meant,” he said with half his food still in his cheek. “But I’d like to take you out on a proper date. We’ve slept together twice and we haven’t really spent time socially to make up for that. Isn’t that what women need so that it doesn’t feel like men just want their bodies?”
What relationship books had he been reading?
“But this isn’t a relationship,” I pointed out.
“So? It doesn’t have to be. It’s just dinner.” He smiled at me with a brilliant smile, teeth white despite the fact that he was a smoker and he was in the middle of a meal.
He shrugged. I thought about it. He was being nice. He didn’t want it to be just about my body, which was a refreshing change. And this wasn’t a relationship, it was just dinner. Like he’d said. Nothing wrong with that, right?
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not like other women. I’m quite happy with just sex.” That wasn’t exactly true, but I’d resigned myself to that fate, so it was close enough. After all, I didn’t want to tempt fate. If you started dating the people you worked with, especially in the circles we were moving in, you ran into trouble.
Rip looked at me, expectation clear on his face. It seemed almost cruel to say no to him. But what was the alternative? Let him woo me and—God forbid—fall for the guy? Get my heart broken?
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because if we get romantically involved, it can compromise what we’re trying to do.” That, and it could also compromise my own heart. I was willing to lose almost everything in my life, but my heart wasn’t one of those things.
He shrugged again. “Fine,” he said, and he cocked one corner of his mouth up in a lopsided smile. “We’ll just make it about sex then.”
I couldn’t help but smile. He was being really nice about it. And he was right, it wasn’t as if we were going to get involved with each other. It was just sex. I didn’t care—so that made it uncomplicated. And if he did end up falling for me, I wasn’t the one who was going to lick my wounds.
“You know that I’m not attracted to you that way, right?” I asked. I had to be sure he knew where I was standing. After all, women were the ones who got emotional and attached after sex. I didn’t want him to generalize with me.
He nodded. “I don’t think you’re attractive either. At all.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re a liar,” I said.
“Yes. I think you’re hot. But it’s just dinner, as I said. I’m not going to expect you to sign your life over to me. And the last thing I need right now is to have some woman depend on me.”
“Because you don’t make enough money,” I interrupted. He pulled a face at me.
“I just think it would be good if we spent time together in a friendly capacity. Not just work. You know what they say about all work and no play.”
I laughed again. Rip was funny. Funny and interesting. And he was right, we couldn’t focus on work alone. Besides, maybe if we knew each other better as people, it would work in our favor while we were hustling people. A team had to know each other. It was always like that. Why not get to know each other in the right capacity? It didn’t help that he didn’t know who I was as a person but knew my favorite positions.
I pushed the last bit of food around my plate, trying to weigh out the pros and cons. Being involved with him wasn’t going to work. But it would if we did it the way we were doing it.
I finally nodded. “Okay,” I said. “Sure. A date. But you can’t make it romantic.”
He smiled and nodded. “I don’t know if you noticed, I’m not romantic. No flowers. Ever. Exes used to complain.” I laughed again. “And I have terrible habits. I really just think about myself.”
“Good” I said, still smiling. “So do I.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Rip ended up staying the night—not because we were suddenly all close because we were sleeping together and talking about dates, but because I felt bad to boot him out the door at this hour of the night.
From what I could tell, he lived in some scrappy motel on the other side of town. I wasn’t exactly living in the Ritz myself, but my house was more than big enough for the two of us…and I kind of liked having him around.
He got the couch though. There was no way he was going to sleep in bed with me, even if we were sleeping together. Continuous tense.
We weren’t that tight, and if I could help it, we would never be. I wasn’t ready for a relationship. My gambling habits left little space for someone of worth in my life, and I preferred to be on my own, unless it meant it was going to double my income.
Like with Rip.
Although it was debatable if that was going to be the case. He’d had a good night and all, but seventeen and a half after our payments and splitting it? It seemed meager.
It was a case of put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is…and so far he was telling rather than showing.
But either way, that was how he ended up at my breakfast table again, not even twelve hours after he’d been there last. He was already up and rummaging in my fridge by the time I stumbled out of bed.
My body was deliciously spent, and even though it had been short and sweet, the sex lingered like an echo between my legs.
When I saw him bent over in front of my fridge, memories of last came back to me and my body bloomed again, ready for round two.
Which wasn’t going to happen. One way to really curse a working relationship was to make sex a regular thing. It was a surefire way to mess up pretty much anything other than a romantic relationship.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He looked up as if I’d caught him red
-handed, eyes wide and stepping back from the fridge like there was something wrong he could be doing in there.
“Nothing,” he said and scratched the back of his head. “I was looking for breakfast. I…ah… was thinking of making some for you. Us. You know, because you let me stay here.”
I smiled. That was very sweet of him.
“What were you thinking of making?”
He shrugged. “Eggs seemed a little redundant, but I can make a hell of a French toast sandwich. Eggy, but not too much. If you’d like? It’ll be like you haven’t tasted before.”
I nodded. “Sure,” I said. “Always nice when someone else is willing to do the work.
The roles from last night were reversed, as I took a seat at the table and he positioned himself in front of the counter. He broke four eggs in a bowl and mixed it up with a fork. He pushed it to the side and started making cheese and tomato sandwiches with fluffy white bread.
“I’m glad last night went well,” I said to break the silence.
“Better than it would have if you hadn’t trained me so well,” he said. I rolled my eyes at the flattery.
“This isn’t the kind of life most people just end up in though. You handle it like you’ve been doing it a while.”
Rip shrugged. “It’s really all I know. I’ve tried the corporate world and I’ve tried my own thing and none of it really stuck.” He shrugged again, and it made me think that he cared a lot more about what he was saying than he was trying to let on.
“Yeah, it didn’t really work for me either,” I said. I got up and got out two glasses, pouring us each orange juice. I put his glass next to him on the counter and returned to my seat with mine.
I watched what he was doing for a moment. He’d made the sandwiches and he’d put the whole thing in the egg mix for the bread to suck up. When he wanted to turn it, the tomato fell out, and he swore, pushing it back in with his fingers when it was turned, getting egg on himself. Such a man.
“How did you get into it?” I asked. I didn’t just want to break the silence; I was curious about who he was. Semi-housetrained with his cooking skills, good in bed, and not bad when it came to a lady, the gambling train was still one I couldn’t just picture him on without a bit of backstory.
“I started off as a cat burglar, actually. It’s a world removed from where I am now, obviously, but it worked for me back then. I got involved with a couple of guys who realized my talent—I was good at stealing shit—and it grew from there from a one-man act to something a little more organized.”
I raised my eyebrows. A cat burglar. Rip had the kind of looks that would make everyone look twice, women out of lust and men out of envy. He didn’t seem like the type to blend in, which was what I thought you needed as a burglar. It was what you needed as a gambler too, come to think of it. Standing out just didn’t fly too well when you were trying to get more money than was your due if you wanted to play by the rules of the unrealized American Dream.
“I’ve always been good at scamming. A club a lot like the Crucifix Six got ahold of me, and for a while, I was on their side, giving them what they wanted in return for what I needed. It paid the bills, and I met a few people along the way.”
He was quiet for a while, as if he was thinking about something. His shoulders curved forward, a picture of sadness as he fried the egg-soaked cheese and tomato sandwich in the pan.
“Anyway,” he carried on, squaring his shoulders as if he physically pushed the thoughts that hurt away. “It turned out they weren’t everything they made themselves out to be, and I ditched them. No time for that shit in my life.”
The words were bitter, and they carried a lot more history than I could figure out.
“I got into the gambling game because being a thief and a cheat isn’t that much different from the gambling scene we’re playing. It’s also a lot easier because it’s legal half of the way, which is more than burglary is.”
He shrugged again, that forced nonchalance, and flipped the first sandwich out on a plate. It smelled divine and my stomach rolled in response. He put the next oozing sandwich in the pan, and it made contact with a sizzle.
I got the feeling that he wasn’t telling me everything. Saying that it was a step up from thieving wasn’t exactly the reason you started gambling.
“Why did you start playing the tables?” I asked. I was interested in his story, and it had been so long that I’d been alone with my own backstory it was nice to hear someone else’s for a change.
He was quiet for just a split-second longer than was customary, and that made me think he wasn’t going to tell me the truth.
“Master of my own fate, and all that,” he said.
Which smelled like a lot of bullshit to me, but I didn’t say that. I wasn’t going to push where I wasn’t welcome. I didn’t know him well enough, and I didn’t want to force him to confide in me. Lovers confided in each other. We didn’t qualify. We were just fuck buddies.
Rip flipped the other sandwich out on the next plate and put the hot one in front of me. What a gentleman. I got up to get knives and forks and handed him a pair. When I cut the first piece and put it in my mouth I moaned.
“This is so good,” I said, mouth full of food. I’d never had anything like this. To me French toast needed syrup and bacon, not tomato and cheese. But damn. It was like the prefect mix between an omelet and a grilled sandwich. Perfect after-sex food.
We ate together in silence. After a while, Rip cleared his throat.
“So, how did you get into this?” he asked.
I shrugged. I wasn’t in the mood for my backstory, which made feel like asking him might have been cruel, but whatever.
“You know, you meet a guy, you do things you wouldn’t have done otherwise because you think it’s love, and the next thing you know, you don’t want to leave the habits you created even after you left the guy.”
Rip nodded and took another bite, and I wondered what was going on his mind. It had been the most condensed version of my life that I could give him. I’d called it a habit because I didn’t like thinking of it as an addiction, the way my sister did.
And it wasn’t exactly Tom who had gotten me into gambling. I’d been the one to push him to try it out, and it had been our thing, not because I loved him but because he’d loved me. But that was all too much detail to go into, and that version of the story just made me feel dirty and like a bad person.
I didn’t want to think about the fact that I made someone do something, I didn’t like to think I had a problem, and I didn’t like talking about my past.
And all of the above I could avoid by being on my own all the time. I played better that way, I lived better that way, and it was a perfect way not to get my heart broken.
I flipped that, too. I hadn’t left him; he’d left me. Because of the gambling… the money I’d lost until we’d hit rock bottom. I’d been a real party back then. A party where no one else was invited.
It was only after Tom had left that I’d learned to count. Not just to prove to the world that I wasn’t a complete fuck up, but to at least be able to look after myself. If you couldn’t cut an addiction, you made it work for you.
That didn’t make it any less of an addiction, but it was a hell of a good way to disguise it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Rumor’s Lounge wasn’t the kind of place I wanted to visit all the time. It was too much of a scummy pub—even though the owners were high up in the ranks and had a lot of money. They had to have a bunch of money. I was bringing them so much money now, and that was just me. How many people did they have who also had to pay to be in the right circles?
And from what Alex had said, they had a lot of places all over the city.
When I walked in the white-suited lackey Harry against the far wall saw me straight away and nodded at me as if he’d been expecting me. I didn’t make an appointment before coming or anything, so I wondered what they would have done if I didn’t show up when they expected me to.
>
If they were anything like the Stone Cold Club, which I was more than willing to believe, they would send someone out to bust my kneecaps as a warning, and if I still didn’t show, they would come after me to retrieve the cash with a bullet.
Guys like those in the Crucifix Six and the Stone Cold Club had everything except a conscience. It was another reason I’d run away from them. Emmett was by far the biggest reason, but I couldn’t imagine being like any of those men. I couldn’t lose my heart.
It sounded pretty damn pansy-ass, but that was the truth—and I was going to stick to it. Emmett had had heart, and if there was anyone I wanted to be like, it was Emmett.
I followed Harry into the office where I’d spoken to Tucci the first time and put the black bag with his cut on the low table in front of him. He was sucking on a cigar that looked way too fat to be in a man’s mouth. Men just weren’t supposed to open their mouths that wide—leave it to the women.
