by Donya Lynne
She laughs, and I want to wrap the sound around me. I’m sure this must be what angels sound like.
I’m too awestruck to speak.
She sets her pocketbook on the bar and bites her plump bottom lip, making me want that lip between my teeth instead of hers. “Is that a yes or a no? I can’t tell.”
“Huh?”
She laughs again, waving her delicate hand through the air. “Never mind. It will just have to remain a mystery.”
Love at first sight has never been something I believed in, but this intoxicating twentysomething is making me reconsider my opinion.
I force myself to recover from my temporary verbal paralysis and rewind our brief conversation. What did she ask me again? Oh, that’s right. She wanted to know if I was a magician.
I fan the cards out on the bar in front of her. “Pick a card.”
“So you are a magician?”
I smile evasively and bob my head patiently in the direction of the cards. “Go ahead. Pick one.”
Her bright, playfully cautious smile reveals straight, white teeth, as well as two adorable dimples. “Okay.” She briefly scans the cards then plucks one from the middle.
“Look at it, but don’t let me see.” I gather the remaining cards and hold them in my left hand.
Amusement sparkles in her brown eyes as she secretively tilts the card and peeks at it. Her eyes remind me of doe eyes. Large, dark, innocent.
“Got it?” I ask.
“Uh-huh.” She holds the card facedown on her lap.
I extend the deck of cards toward her. “Go ahead and slide it back into the deck anywhere you like.”
“Are these marked cards?” she asks, uttering a soft laugh as she slides the card into the stack.
“No.” I pull the deck toward me and begin shuffling. “This is just a regular ol’ deck of cards you can buy at the store.”
“Skulls and crossbones?” She eyes the box sitting on the bar. “I doubt I can find those at the store.”
“Okay, so I bought this deck online. Point is, there’s nothing special about them.” I continue shuffling then stop, split the deck, and set one stack on the bar. “Pick up the top card.”
She does as I instruct then frowns at the card she’s holding. “This isn’t my card. I had the—”
“Of course it isn’t.” I lift the other stack of cards still in my hand, showing her the one on the bottom. “Your card is right here.” I pull it out. “It was the eight of clubs.”
It was an easy trick to pull off, but she gasps anyway, taking the card from me. “How did you do that?” She flips it over as if that will reveal a clue as to how the trick works.
“It’s magic.” I take the card from her, place it with the rest, and then slide the deck back inside the box.
She rests her elbow on the bar, partially facing me with her head tilted to the side, her cheek resting on her hand. “Then you are a magician?” The look she gives me says she expects me to answer this time.
“No.” I give a little shake of my head then tuck the deck inside my pocket. “But I wanted to be one when I was a kid.”
“I think you missed your calling.” Another one of her soft, angelic laughs flutters from her throat. “You’re obviously talented.” She attempts to catch the bartender’s attention but fails. “So, what stopped you? If you wanted to be a magician, why aren’t you one?”
“Uh . . .” My gaze drifts toward the dark-haired diva and her moon-sized diamond ring.
Before I’ve even learned this stunning blonde’s name, my past as a con man has reared its ugly head. How am I supposed to tell her that I didn’t follow my dream of becoming a magician because, at the age of eight, I began pulling cons?
This is what I meant earlier about how I’ll never be free. One way or another, my past is always going to interfere. I can’t tell the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met that I’m a con man. A criminal. A fucking dirty lowlife who scams people out of everything from drinks to jewelry to money. She’d be off her chair and out the door faster than a junkie spends his last dollar on a dime bag.
“Let me guess,” she says, saving me from outing myself (because there’s something about this girl that makes me want to tell the truth), “you realized there’s no money in magic.”
I force a smile and lift my gaze. “Something like that.”
As our eyes meet, a sense of calm washes over me, followed immediately by an odd effervescence. Like a million microscopic bees have been released inside my body. She has an aura that makes her appear backlit, even though no light shines on her. There’s just a brightness about her. As if God has laid His hand on her and led her to this very spot beside me for a reason.
About a year ago, I was dealt my first royal flush, the highest hand possible in poker. A hand so rare some players go their whole careers without being dealt one. That was the one and only time I almost lost my shit. The first time my poker face cracked. If only that had been the final hand in a tournament game, it would have been poetic.
Staring into my mysterious lady’s eyes, I feel the same as I did holding that royal flush. Completely captivated, totally smitten, and lost in the rapture of the moment. Screw holding my poker face.
I grin. A crooked, cheesy, confused kind of grin like the ones little kids get on their faces when they catch their parents kissing.
I’m buzzing for real, and it has nothing to do with the shot of whiskey I drank five minutes ago.
“My name’s Max.”
Her brown eyes sparkle as she smiles again. I could live in her smile. “I’m Nash. Well, Natasha. But my friends call me Nash.”
How does one get to be Nash’s friend? Because I want to apply for the job.
“Do I qualify as a friend?”
Her cheeks flush and her lashes flutter as she shyly lowers her gaze. “I don’t know. I only just met you, Max. I’m not sure if we can call ourselves friends when I only just learned your first name.”
“Potential friends then,” I suggest.
She raises her eyes to mine and blinks slowly, as if she’s as captivated by me as I am by her. As if she’s looking into the eyes of God the same way I am, only I never knew God was a beautiful woman with whiplash legs and a five-alarm body.
“Sure. Potential friends.” The words roll hopefully off her tongue, wrapped in a lightly heated promise of more.
Her disarming allure cuts clean through me, and I change my mind. I don’t want to be friends with Nash. I want to be something more. Her companion. Her lover. Her knight in shining armor the way I failed to be with Charli.
In Nash, I see my redemption. I see the path toward true freedom. She’s my second chance to get it right.
I glance toward the diva with the ring.
Then I turn a smile toward Nash as I wave down the bartender. Shaun says he’ll give me up to the authorities if I don’t get him that ring by morning.
Well then, I guess I’d better make the most of the time I have with Nash while I have it. Or call his bluff. Either way, that ring will not be in Shaun’s hand come sunrise unless he steals it himself.
As the bartender works our direction, I ask Nash, “Would you like to have a drink with me, potential friend?”
She flashes me her stop-me smile. “Sure.”
The bartender steps in front of us, waiting expectantly.
“A bottle of your best Champagne, please,” I tell him.
After all, I’m supposed to be celebrating. And now that I’ve met Nash, I’ve found the perfect woman to share the celebration with.
Chapter 2
Nash
Synapses detonate throughout my body as I rise on a wave of pleasure.
“Yes, yes, God yes . . . don’t stop . . . don’tstopdon’tstopdon’tstop!”
As my nails dig into Max’s biceps, my body seizes, jolting euphoria into my muscles as I come undone, falling into spasmodic shudders beneath him.
“Jesus!” Max continues thrusting, propped on his arms above me,
glistening like a bronzed, sandy-haired god. He has hair the color of wheat, appearing blond or brown depending on how the light hits it. And right now, it’s all mussed-up brown, falling over his forehead as he drives into me. His pecs twitch. His elbows tremble. The tendons in his neck strain. His face has turned a ruddy shade of crimson, and his skin has pulled tight around his eyes.
I’m still coming, crying out, gasping, my pleasure prolonged by the brutal pounding of his hips between my thighs, his impressive cock demanding more from my body than I thought I was capable of giving.
“Fuck, oh fuck . . .” His body jerks, and his elbows finally give.
With a keening grunt, he collapses on top of me, driving his arms between my back and the mattress as his body lets go in a rush of spasms. He buries his face against the side of my neck, nudging my hair aside with his nose, finding my flesh with his teeth. He doesn’t bite me hard. More like a love nip.
I feel every inch of him kick inside me. I feel the muscles of his stomach twitch against mine. I feel his back quiver beneath my arms as I hold him against me. I feel his breath pour over my neck and shoulder as he gasps through each pulse of pleasure that rips through him.
Our joined bodies are a temple of solace. There is nothing bad here. No sorrow. No pain. No blackmail. In this one stolen moment, my past can’t hurt me.
Soon enough, the moment will be over, and I’ll once again have to atone for what I’ve done, and the job will be the same as it was before, but for now—for a little bit longer—I just want to enjoy the feel of him.
He breathes through the tail end of his orgasm and settles against me like I’m as much his comfort as he is mine. We’re criminals escaping our real selves, stealing innocent identities for a few short minutes, dipping our big toes into the pool of societal normalcy, seeing how the other half lives.
I shouldn’t have slept with him.
I mean, I really should not have slept with him. This wasn’t part of my assignment.
But my employer did say to use any means necessary. I could spin this situation so that having sex with him was totally necessary.
Even so, I wasn’t supposed to enjoy any means necessary as much as I just did. Not to the point that I can already feel my heart slipping from my grasp, right into his.
I can’t even say my being in his bed is a result of the Champagne we drank. It didn’t help me say no, but it didn’t make me say yes, either. That was all my doing.
Max just wasn’t—isn’t—what I expected. I knew from the pictures I’d seen of him that he was handsome. I knew he was a sharp dresser and that under different circumstances I’d be thrilled to be on his arm. And maybe that still does excite me, even though I know he’s a con man.
The truth is, in person, he’s so much more than the short dossier I’d read about him said he was. Well, it wasn’t so much a dossier as it was a single page of notes, including his name, his profession, and his Vegas itinerary. Oh, and the pictures, of course. Four of them, all taken in Del Mar. And let’s just say Max looks good in blue board shorts and a white, skintight Billabong surf tee, soaked from head to toe, carrying his surfboard out of the ocean.
He looks even better in a black silk button up and dark denim, with his hair neatly styled, throwing a sexy poker face at his opponents. Yes, I snuck a peek at him while he was playing earlier. I shouldn’t have, but I did.
I close my eyes and fight back a groan as reality begins to invade my thoughts.
Just a little longer. Can’t I enjoy my reprieve from my past a little longer?
My mind shoots to last night. To iBar. To the bottle of Champagne he ordered, followed by dinner, dancing, and that first stolen kiss.
Had last night only been a few hours ago? It’s early morning now. God, it feels like so much longer.
He’s a good dancer. Something his dossier failed to mention, but something I, as a trained dancer, greatly appreciated.
There we were, in the middle of the club, dancing amid a mash of humanity crammed tightly onto the dance floor in what had to be a fire code violation. Someone bumped into me from behind, forcing my breasts to crash into Max’s chest, and my face to come within an inch of his. I sucked in my breath as his gaze instantly dropped to my mouth, both of us frozen.
Then, in a show of heady confidence that did more to awaken my arousal than I was prepared for, he pulled me more forcefully against him and claimed my lips with his. I welcomed the kiss and the way it sent flames down my back and up my thighs. The way it made my nipples tighten. The way I invited his tongue to meet mine as I plunged my fingers into the thick, short hair above the nape of his neck, urging him to give me more.
The rest of the night is a blur. All our seemingly nonsensical conversations nothing but a forgettable front for the demanding chemistry that erupted between us the moment I sat down beside him.
When our eyes met, I worried I wouldn’t be able to complete my assignment, but I forced myself to remember the repercussions if I didn’t. I couldn’t afford to fail. I just needed to get inside Max’s room, it didn’t matter how I got there or how eager I was to make it happen.
Now I’m here. First mission accomplished. Now I just have to finish.
I caress his firm back, which is slick with sweat. He’s a solid man. A man built from hours of surfing every week. Muscular, tan, and fit. Virile.
But in the few all-too-short hours I’ve known him, I know there’s more. He doesn’t act like the con man his dossier described. At no point have I sensed he’s been anything but genuine with me, but I do feel like he’s hiding something, even if he hasn’t lied to me.
He definitely hasn’t marked me, though.
Not like I’ve marked him.
He moans and presses a tender kiss against the side of my neck, followed by one on my shoulder, breaking me from my troubling thoughts.
I kiss his hair. “That was nice.”
I feel like such a phony. What we just shared was nice, and I want nothing more than to do it again, but I’m telling the truth out of one side of my mouth while lying out the other.
He props himself on one arm and gazes down at me. The curtains are open, showering the room with the brilliant lights of Vegas at night, but the troubled shadows that fall over his face seem borne of something other than the darkness.
Does he know? Can he sense why I’m really here? Is there some mental acuity that comes from being a con man that allows him to sniff out a con when it’s happening to him?
He studies me in silence. The seconds tick by, but time seems to slow down. He knows. That has to be why he’s looking at me that way. Like he doesn’t know how to deal with me now that we’ve had sex, because how can something that feels so good come out of lies and deceit?
Maybe I should confess. Maybe he’ll understand why I did it. Maybe he’ll offer to protect me. He is a con man. He knows how to disappear when he needs to. We can disappear together.
“Max, I—”
“Ssshhh.” An unexpected smile spreads over his face, and he lowers himself until our lips meet in a chaste brushing of skin against skin. “Don’t talk. Just let me enjoy this a little bit longer.”
Those aren’t the words I expected, but they certainly aren’t unwelcome. They make me feel like we’re in this together, even though he has no idea who I really am. It’s as if we’re both victims of circumstance trying to set a new course. I know that’s the case for me. Perhaps it is for him, too.
The look of wonder in his expression makes me smile, which in turn makes him do the same.
A few more seconds pass. Then his smile brightens. “So, are we friends now?”
At first, I’m not sure what he means, then it dawns on me. Potential friends. That’s what we called ourselves while sitting at the bar. Before a bottle of Dom Pérignon loosened my inhibitions and helped me forget about my assignment for a few hours.
I laugh. “I don’t know. Can we be friends when I still don’t know your last name?” I actually do know it, but it’s
best for me to pretend I don’t.
“I don’t know yours either, but I think we just got very friendly, don’t you?”
I gaze up at him expectantly.
Using his fingertips, he brushes back my hair. “It’s Davis. My last name is Davis.”
“Miller,” I say. “Natasha Miller.”
“Pleased to meet you, Natasha Miller.”
“Likewise, Max Davis.”
“So, are we friends?”
I let my gaze travel down his naked torso to where we’re still joined at the hip. He rolls his hips against mine, jarring my senses with the promise that the night isn’t over.
I interlock my fingers on the back of his neck and meet his eyes. “I’m not sure, yet.”
He raises one eyebrow as his mouth curls into a mischievous smirk. “What’s it going to take to convince you?” He rocks his body against mine, and my eyes drift closed as I sigh.
“More of that,” I murmur, letting my eyes slowly open.
What I want is more time to forget who I really am. Time to drift away and make our Vegas fantasy my new reality.
He’s above me, watching my face as if giving me pleasure is his only purpose. The long hair on top of his head falls forward in a tumble of thick, tousled waves. He’s sex incarnate.
“Then I guess I’d better get another one of these.” He grabs a condom off the bedside table.
“Good idea.”
The second time is just as good as the first, and thirty minutes later, with the remnants of another orgasm still warming my body, I watch him disappear into the bathroom.
The shower turns on.
I give him a few seconds then leap out of bed, grab my pocketbook, then fall to my knees in front of the room’s safe.
With shaking fingers, I take out the device, attach it to the safe next to the digital keypad, attach my earpiece, and plug in the wire that leads from a small, slender unit about the size of an iPhone to the unit on the safe.
