Calling His Bluff

by Amy Jo Cousins

  “Holy shit. I think I am very sorry you were not dancing for me,” Diego said and smiled as he lifted her hand and kissed it.

  “Gracias.” Returning his smile, she stepped off the dance floor, needing a break.

  Only to stumble for the second time that evening when J.D. appeared in front of her, a wall of muscle that vibrated with tension beneath her palms as she steadied herself against him.

  He grabbed her hand and pulled her through the nightclub, weaving in between men and women without slowing, a slight hitch in his step the only sign that he couldn’t actually flatten anyone in his way. The long hall that led to the club’s exit was illuminated at intervals by towering half-circles of glass block columns that were spotlit from below.

  Just before the last of these columns, J.D. yanked her to the side of the hall and turned her to face him. Backing her up against the join where the black wall met the curving arc of cold glass, he caged her in with a hand braced on either side of her head.

  “I’m almost glad I don’t have my camera.” He leaned in toward her. “You would have melted it.”

  She was still breathing hard from the dancing, and she breathed him in with every inhalation. Warm and faintly spicy. She arched her back away from the cold surface behind her shoulders and saw the lift of her breasts reflected in his eyes when he loomed over her.

  “About these rules of yours…”

  “Screw the rules,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling his mouth down to hers.

  Even with her eyes closed, the light was shining as she took that last step and fell into the heat.

  Chapter Five

  Las Vegas Boulevard was the widest street in the world.

  Just waiting for the traffic light to turn and allow them to cross the street was taking more time than Sarah wanted to wait before getting her hands on J.D.

  A small crowd of people waiting to cross the Strip packed in around them. J.D. stood at her back, stroking her hair behind her ear before leaning in close to whisper, “I just want to be clear here. When you said, ‘Screw the rules,’ did you mean—”

  “What floor are you staying on?”

  She spoke just loudly enough for him to hear. She kept her eyes locked on the traffic zipping past her, attempting to use any heretofore-unknown telekinetic powers she had to will it to a halt.

  “Forty-two.”

  She took a step back and bumped up against him. Reached back and gripped the hard muscles of his thigh, digging her nails in deep. She felt his arousal surge against her hip and an answering cramp of desire between her own legs. She did this to him, made him hard with wanting.

  “My room then. Thirty-three is closer.”

  The short, sharp groan behind her had her biting her lip, wishing he were the one doing it.

  “Christ, you’re killing me.” His hands raced up her sides along the draped edge of the dress’s halter top, his fingertips dipping under the edge of the fabric to skim the sides of her breasts. She inhaled sharply and felt the movement of her ribcage change the position of his fingers. She could calculate the difference down to the millimeter.

  With an oath, J.D. strode around her and off the curb, halting the cab that was about to pass them by the simple expedient of stepping in front of it. He jerked the door open, pushed her in the back seat and slid in beside her before she had a moment to point out the obvious.

  “The Bellagio,” he ordered, and shoved a twenty through the window in the partition. Then he leaned back against the door of the cab and pulled her on top of him.

  A cab driver in Vegas clearly saw stranger things than people getting into a cab in order to cross the street. He said something cranky about going a block to turn around and then pulled away from the curb.

  Sarah straddled J.D.’s lap. She braced one hand on the cracked vinyl seat cushion and leaned her weight against his shoulder with the other. His body was hard and strong beneath hers. Her hair fell down on either side of her face, curtaining off some of the light and glitter of the Strip.

  J.D. looked at her, his eyes heavy-lidded and his hands resting lightly on her hips.

  “Hey.” She grinned down at him and circled her hips experimentally against the thigh that was wedged between her legs.

  “Hey.” He grinned up at her and slid a hand down her backside to her bare thigh before sliding it back up under the dress.

  She could see the exact moment he realized his hand was encountering nothing but bare skin, and then his fingers tangled in the thin satin string of her G-string. Whatever she might have said was lost when he clamped his other arm across her back, crushing her to him as he captured her mouth with his own and plunged his tongue inside.

  It was a duel, a battle to control the kiss, her angle, his depth, the winner of any given moment willingly surrendering control seconds later to the next frantic motion of tongue and teeth and lips. She bit his lip and then sucked on it to soothe. His tongue surged into her mouth, dancing delicately around hers, teasing her with tiny flicks until she chased it, thrusting deeply into his mouth.

  She ground against him in earnest now, desperate to increase the pressure.

  It took more than a few moments for either of them to realize that the scratching sound they heard was the cab driver clearing his throat.

  They both fell motionless at the same time.

  “Hmm. Err-hem.”

  She lowered her forehead to J.D.’s shoulder.

  “Ahem. We’re here.”

  J.D. quaked beneath her, and she didn’t dare look into his eyes. If she did, she knew she’d burst into embarrassed laughter. She bit her lip and felt her shoulders shaking with silent giggles.

  “Right,” J.D. said and sat up, dumping her unceremoniously off his lap. Digging his wallet out of his pocket, he caught the cabbie’s eye in the rearview mirror before passing him another twenty. “Have a good evening.”

  “Not as good as yours is gonna be.”

  She made it all the way out of the cab without laughing. Smoothed her dress back down over her thighs and kept a casually bright smile locked in place. She hoped her lipstick wasn’t suffering from that porn star smear. Tossing her hair back over one shoulder, she prepared to follow J.D. calmly into the hotel as if she hadn’t ten seconds before been steaming up the backseat of a taxi.

  Then she spotted the half-dozen attendants crowded around the valet stand in front of her, all of whom were studiously staring at the ground or off into space. None of them were looking at her or J.D., but they were all fighting back smiles.

  Discretion was a lost cause. She threw her head back and laughed. God, it was good to be alive.

  J.D. was leading her by the hand again and he looked back over his shoulder with a quizzical grin. She shook her head as her laughter slowly eased.

  Until she heard the first “Whoo-ee!” from behind her, drowned out quickly by male guffaws and hollers, and she lost it again.

  She couldn’t have said which way they walked through the cavernous lobby, but she found herself standing in front of the correct bank of express elevators, still laughing, just as a door slid open in front of them. Flashing his room key at the watchful security guard, J.D. pulled her inside and stabbed the close door button with a staccato beat until the elevator did just that, cutting off the entrance of what looked like an entire bachelorette party.

  “Did you see those guys?” she giggled, feeling wanton and sexy and very, very desired.

  “I don’t want to see anybody.” Hands on her hips, he backed her up until she felt the chair rail circling the elevator walls press just beneath her butt. “Except you. And you, I want to see naked.” He nipped at her mouth, a short sharp kiss. “With all the lights on.” Again. “For a long, long time.” Again. “And then I’m gonna go get my camera.”

  She remembered that cameras were focused on them even now, the feeds wired into a security suite staffed by dozens, before she gave in to the need to taste him again.

  “Okay.”


  Besides, half of Vegas had already seen her plastered all over him in that cab.

  But she was prepared this time, and her leg was only wrapped partway up his thigh when the elevator chime announced their arrival at her floor. The doors slid open with a near-silent whoosh and she backed out of the elevator, one hand still holding his, the other beckoning him with a crooked finger.

  Follow me.

  She turned and strode noiselessly down the thickly carpeted hall, already snagging her room key from her tiny purse. Suddenly she regretted her corner room with its gorgeous views of the Bellagio lake and the Paris Hotel to the east and one colorfully illuminated hotel after another to the south. The Monte Carlo, the MGM Grand, New York-New York and beyond.

  It was a very long walk from the elevators to her room.

  When they got there, she couldn’t get her key into the door. J.D. was crowding her, distracting her with testing bites on the bare skin of her shoulder, and she was surprised to find that her hands were shaking a little.

  Sudden nerves bloomed in her stomach and she closed her eyes for a second. Her palm was flat against the door in front of her. She had to ask.

  “J.D., are you sure we—”

  “Yes.” His voice was low and hard, but then he wrapped his arms around her from behind, surrounding her with his strength. And she felt, oddly enough, comforted. This was J.D. with her. No matter how surreal the circumstances or how either of them felt when the sun rose, she knew he would be kind. Deep down, he always had been.

  She fit the key into the lock.

  “I beg your pardon.”

  There was someone in the hall with them.

  “You’re excused,” J.D. growled and reached past her to turn the knob and push the door open.

  “I really am terribly sorry.”

  Sarah was horrified to realize that she recognized the man’s voice.

  She attempted to squirm around, but she was caught between J.D. and the door. She finally had to hiss at him to back up before she was able to turn and face Mr. Fiorentino.

  Calming her raging blush was a lost cause. She plastered a bright smile on her face and relied on Mr. Fiorentino’s professional tact. Surely, he was accustomed to ignoring awkward situations. Mr. Fiorentino did not fail her.

  Without betraying by so much as a twitch of his lips that he found anything unusual about the situation, the floor manager of the casino handed her an envelope.

  “I was going to slip this under your door. I hoped you might see it tonight,” he said. “One of the entrants in the WPT preliminary round the Bellagio is hosting on Saturday has dropped out due to illness. The event promoters are here already, and your name came up in conversation as a player who would be a valuable asset to their program.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him as J.D. said, “WPT?”

  “World Poker Tour,” she explained before quizzing Mr. Fiorentino. “My name came up?”

  His microscopic shrug and lifted hands seemed to say that he wasn’t sure if he should take the credit for that or apologize to her.

  “They were mentioning how inconvenient it was to start one of the tables short a player. The competitors would not appreciate the fact that one qualifier would be required to eliminate fewer opponents than the others. I said the Bellagio had a guest who could play at that level.” And then he broke into a smile. “A guest whose recent play might have enabled her to afford the entrance fee for the tournament?”

  “Only just,” she said, knowing the buy-in for the preliminary round of one of these things could go as high as $25,000.

  “The only difficulty,” he continued, gesturing to the envelope she held, “is that they are on a very tight schedule. If they do not approve a new entrant this evening, they will simply do without. I had hoped my note would arrive in time for you to come downstairs and meet with them. I apologize again for interrupting.” He bowed his head briefly and kept any humor he found in the situation to himself. “I understand congratulations are in order. My dealer informed me that you were just married.”

  “Thank you,” Sarah skipped past the comment and glanced at J.D., who was now standing beside her, close but no longer touching. Before he could even indicate an opinion, she shook her head and turned back to Mr. Fiorentino. The idea was flattering but crazy, and although the mood had cooled somewhat in light of this recent development, she had not forgotten that she’d been thirty seconds away from what had promised to be some truly mind-blowing sex.

  “I am sorry. It’s lovely of you to think of me, but it’s just not poss—”

  “Wait a minute,” J.D. interrupted. “Wait. You should go.”

  All the warmth was sucked out of her body at in an instant.

  Excuse me?

  Her mouth and eyes widened with surprise, and not the nice kind of surprise like getting a birthday present a week early, as she craned her neck around to stare at the man who’d just told her that he wanted to see her naked.

  She stared at him or a long, long time.

  “Excuse me?” She repeated her mental exclamation out loud.

  “Would you give us just a minute?” J.D. didn’t wait for an answer as he unlocked her door, propelled her into the room and closed the door behind him. “Listen, I think you should go meet these guys.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, shook her head and then reopened them.

  Yup. Same guy. Nice suit, loosened tie. Incredibly broad, thick shoulders. Not nearly as on top of her as he’d been a couple of minutes ago.

  “Am I crazy or were we just about to engage in some wild, roll around on the floor, wake up the next day and wonder how you got those bruises in interesting places sex?”

  She just wanted to be clear.

  Then he grimaced.

  Grimaced? Well, what else could you call it when a man looked like he was torn between pain and regret?

  “Yeah,” he said. Still with the grimacing. “That sounds about right.”

  “And now?” She’d make him say it.

  “Now—”

  He thrust his hands in his pants pockets and stared at the ceiling. Stared at the walls. Stared at the floor. Stared anywhere but directly at her. She couldn’t take it.

  “You changed your mind!” she accused, whacking him across the shoulder with her little purse. “Two minutes of talking in the hall and you don’t want to do it anymore? Are you kidding me?”

  J.D. caught her wrists and shackled them tight at her sides.

  “I didn’t change my mind, believe me.” A dark heat flashed in his eyes and his hands tightened almost painfully on her arms. Then she saw him shut it down and take a mental step back. “But it has occurred to me that there might be…ramifications that we should consider. And maybe this poker thing gives us a moment to think.”

  “Ramifications?” She tugged out of his hands. Clearly he didn’t understand that she had a flat pack of scalpels in her med bag. “If you are for one second thinking of my brother, I’m—”

  “I won’t say the idea of Tyler didn’t cross my mind, but no, that’s not the—”

  “—a grown woman, and if I want to hop in the sack with the entire Pacific Fleet, he has nothing to say—”

  “—only reason I think you should check this out.” He was pacing back and forth across the carpeted entryway in front of her, and it was irritating her just to look at him. So she stepped into the bathroom and flipped the switch. Might as well check on the state of her makeup while he weaved his flimsy excuses. She leaned over the padded vanity stool to get closer to the mirror that ran the length of the wall over the double sinks.

  J.D.’s voice carried to her from the abbreviated hall. He had moved on to how this tournament would be the culmination of a lifetime of dreams for her and she shouldn’t deprive herself of such a chance.

  Blah, blah, blah.

  Never mind that she’d never thought once, much less twice, about tournament play. If the man had changed his mind, he should just say so. He’d been caught up in the mom
ent, and now he wasn’t.

  Simple enough.

  Her lipstick, however, was a lost cause. She wiped her mouth with a tissue and slicked on a new coat of deep red gloss. Then she left the bathroom.

  “Look,” J.D. seemed relieved to have her back in his line of sight. “I am not saying we shouldn’t do this. But an hour one way or another won’t change anything. And there’s one thing I want to do. An errand. So you go meet these guys. I’ll find you downstairs in an hour or so, and we can see if we’re still…” He stepped closer to her. Trailed a finger lightly down her arm. “On the same page.”

  She let the surge of desire rise in her like a slow wave in a calm ocean. Then, like a wave, it moved past her without leaving any trace of itself behind.

  “Yeah, I don’t think so.” She reached up and patted his cheek before turning around and leaving the room. She spoke over her shoulder. “That ship has sailed.”

  Outside her room, she found Mr. Fiorentino a little ways down the hall, talking into a cell phone. He finished his conversation at once and smiled at her.

  “Thank you for waiting,” she said and took him by the arm. They headed for the elevator bank. “How’s your baby, by the way?”

  “Winston? He lost three pounds thanks to you. Fit as a fiddle. Your husband isn’t joining us?”

  “Indeed, he is not.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t congratulate you on your marriage earlier. I was misled by the fact that you checked in alone,” the manager said when they arrived at the elevators and pressed the call button.

  “Yes, well, when I arrived in Vegas, I didn’t have a husband,” she said after a moment. It was simpler than explaining. Elevator doors opened.

  “Ah.” For the first time, she saw his face light up as his mouth tipped into a broad smile. Here was a true believer in romance. “Las Vegas. Wonderful things happen here.”

  “Wonderful, indeed,” she said and watched the elevator doors close.

  * * *

  “Okay,” J.D. said to the empty hotel room. “That didn’t go well.”

  He strolled over to the marble-topped bistro table by the window and drummed his fingers against it. The fountains were dancing again outside the window, some thirty floors down, although it almost seemed as if they could shoot this high. The jets of water dipped and swayed and shimmied in a hypnotic fashion.