by Blake Wilder
Well, I knew exactly what I wanted.
“You up for it?” she asked.
I was up alright and I was sure she’d meant her question exactly the way it had sounded. I liked her. “Always up for giving a beautiful woman what she wants.”
She smiled and sat up to the table. “That was a great answer.”
“But,” I said, making her hand stop, hovered over her chips. “Straight up. No cheating.”
She looked intrigued. “What are the stakes?”
“I win, I get to see you again tomorrow night for dinner.”
She didn’t seem surprised. She was good at reading people.
“What makes you think you need to win that?” she asked. “Maybe you could just ask for it.”
My cock liked that answer a lot. But I was damned good at reading people too and I knew that this woman was as intrigued by me as I was by her.
“Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?” I asked.
A smile teased the corner of her mouth. “Yes.”
I held my hand out, waiting for her to shake on our deal. It seemed strange, I know. We were both liars and cheats. But I had a feeling that if she made a promise to me, she’d keep it. If she didn’t want to or couldn’t, she would find a way of not-quite-promising. It took her a few seconds. She was obviously thinking it over and I appreciated it. Because when she slipped her hand into mine, the surge of fuck yeah I felt was incredible and totally worth the few moments of trying to decide how I would go about convincing her. Of course, that could have been a hell of a lot of fun too.
“So since I can just have what I want without having to win, ask me what my new stakes are,” I told her, not letting go of her hand.
She let me hold her hand, her pupils dilated. “What are your new stakes?”
“If I win, our time together tomorrow starts at breakfast rather than dinner.”
That surprised her. “That’s a lot of time together without really knowing how it will go. What about the breakfast after our dinner?”
“I’ll take that one too.”
Her eyes widened. “How can you possibly know that you want that much time with me?”
I stroked my thumb over her knuckles and watched her lips part slightly. “Because you are the first person to make me not care about losing a hand of poker.”
She wet her lips and regarded me seriously for a moment. As if she was trying to read me. Finally, she nodded. “Okay.”
I studied her eyes and felt a smile spread across my face. “You’re agreeing because you’re convinced that you’re going to win.”
She seemed amused that I’d figured that out. “Yes, I am going to win.”
I shook my head, completely entertained and turned on by this woman. “No cheating though.”
“You don’t think I can win without cheating?”
“Can you?”
“Definitely.”
Her confidence was pretty damned hot too. “Why cheat then?”
She looked like she wasn’t sure she should answer. Finally, she said, “It’s more fun that way.”
I got that. I totally got that. “The risk of being caught?”
“The control,” she said. “My chances of winning are good in any game. But I like knowing how it’s going to go for sure.”
“You play games of chance but you don’t like being out of control?” I asked. She was fascinating.
“I play games that pay big,” she corrected me. “I don’t play for fun. I play for money.”
Ah, so there was one difference between us. I did play poker for fun. I stole art for money.
“Fair enough,” I said. But she’d agreed to not cheat during our game. “I appreciate that you’re willing to give up some of that control with me.”
My cock liked the idea too, but he was, as usual, thinking about the bedroom. What would it be like to have this woman—clever, astute, confident, in charge—giving some of that over to me? Letting me be in control of her body and pleasure, even for just one night?
Yeah, I wanted that suddenly.
I could tell she was thinking something along those lines as well. Her breathing had sped up slightly, her fingers curled into mine, and her eyes had dropped to my mouth. I didn’t think she was even aware of it.
“You’re so confident you’re going to win,” I said bringing her gaze back to mine. “What are your stakes if you end up…on top?”
The flicker of heat in her eyes said she’d caught the innuendo but she seemed to be seriously considering the question. But I knew she had known what she wanted even before she’d decided to play me again. As she’d said, this wasn’t a game of chance for her. I was already figuring out that meant in all ways from the way the game would go to what exactly she walked away from the table with.
“You spend the rest of the night with me,” she said.
I jolted with surprise, then pleasure. “I—”
“And—” She went on before I could. “It’s spent in your suite and we’re both naked and we don’t leave for anything until the sun comes up tomorrow morning.”
Lust surged through me and I had to actually swallow hard. I knew that I was going to have to hide my wallet with this one, but I didn’t care. I had to have her. I had the insane urge to take this gorgeous little liar and make her as real as a person could get—naked and wrung out from real, raw orgasms. It was like a personal challenge to prove that I didn’t just read her body language across a poker table, but that I could actually know a woman that clearly hid a lot from most people.
“You’d rather have that than dinner?” I asked, my voice husky.
“I can have dinner with nearly any man in this casino,” she said.
“But not every man can give you what I can.” It wasn’t a question. It was a fact.
She nodded. “That’s what I’m betting on.”
I couldn’t lose here. I was going to see her again after standing up from this table. If she won, I was going to see a whole lot of her in fact.
But then no dinner.
I could read it all over her face. She wanted a one-night stand. She had no intention of giving me her name. Or seeing me after sunrise.
And suddenly I really wanted that dinner with her. Which meant, I needed to win this game.
I had the definite feeling that I was about to be dealt the most important hand of my life.
Two
I studied the man at the poker table with me.
Okay, there were two men, but I wasn’t going to have a hot and dirty one-night stand with the dealer. The dark-haired man with the scruff on his jaw, who filled out his clearly custom-tailored jacket with broad shoulders and a natural ease that said he wore three-thousand dollar suits all the time, and watched me with hot, dark eyes that said he was captivated by me and wanted to figure out why…yeah, he was a whole other story.
I didn’t have casual relationships. My mother was the queen of love-’em-and-leave-’em and I was doing everything I could to not follow in her footsteps.
But you know what? Fuck that.
I was in this damned casino because of her footsteps and as long as I was here for the reason I was here, I deserved this guy.
That’s right. Deserved him.
He was like a chocolate martini made with Grey Goose and Godiva. Not something I do on a regular basis, but something that, when put right in front of me, I couldn’t say no to.
Just because I worked hard to not be like my mother didn’t mean I hadn’t inherited a few things from her. Like a penchant for hot, rich, cocky men who could deliver on every promise their dark eyes and smirking mouths made.
I didn’t want to be here. I’d left Vegas seven years ago and had vowed to never return.
But moms with cancer always trumped everything else.
Even deeply held personal oaths.
And revenge really was the best reason to do crazy, dangerous, I’ll-die-if-I-don’t-at-least-try things.
So, here I was. Essentially an or
phan—if you could be an orphan at age twenty-seven—and hell-bent on hurting the man who had broken my mother’s heart. Her leaving him hadn’t hurt him. Her death hadn’t hurt him. So I was going to cause him pain in the only way possible. I was going to take something from him. Something that mattered to him only because he was a vindictive son-of-a-bitch.
But that was going to take a few days. In the meantime, I needed to gather intel and, frankly, my courage.
And I needed to blow off some steam.
That’s how I’d ended up at the poker table in the first place. I hated poker because it represented everything else I hated—being out of control, taking chances that could end up to be devastating, temptation that I had never really been strong enough to resist, cheating.
Yep, cheating.
I cheated at poker. Blackjack too, but I was better at poker. It wasn’t the game itself that gave me the rush. It was the cheating. It added another layer of skill to the game. Oh sure, real poker players who studied their opponents and picked up their tells and just flat-out had big enough balls to gamble had a type of skill. But poker was a game of chance. Not like roulette or craps. You had a little control. But mostly, Lady Luck determined how things went at any given poker table.
Well, Lady Luck was a bitch and I didn’t feel one bit bad taking the game out of her hands. She had fucked me and my mom over—as in giving us what seemed like everything we wanted and then ripping it all away—more than once. So I’d decided to fuck with her. I didn’t need luck. Not if I was cheating. Yes, that made me a bad person. I knew that.
It was why I’d moved to Kansas. I’d been determined to go straight, do the right thing, be a better person. I had to get away from Vegas to do it, of course. I’d grown up here and the neon and the glitter and the echoes of just-one-more that hung in the air were like a drug. Just one more drink, just one more toss of the dice, just one more hand…those were always the things that preceded people making some stupid decision that sent them home with regrets.
So I’d gone to farm country. No glitter. No throw-caution-to-the-wind.
Okay, Kansas City isn’t exactly farm country but it’s more or less in the middle of it and, overall, people were nicer and more conservative there. I’d been good for seven years.
But now I was back in Vegas and I wasn’t leaving until I got my revenge. Then I’d go back to Kansas and live the rest of my life as a nice person. I might even actually bake the brownies for the next potluck at work instead of swiping them from the office on the third floor.
I just needed one more weekend in Vegas.
See what I mean about that one-more-time thing?
And, okay, I also needed the hot, rich poker player who’d caught me cheating and now wanted to spend the day with me tomorrow.
Did I worry he was seducing me to get his money back?
I wouldn’t call it worry.
If he fucked my worries away—gave me a couple of good orgasms, threw in some dirty talk, and called for room service before he took the money I’d won from him tonight— I’d call it even. I needed those orgasms more than I needed the 5K, I’ll tell you that much.
“You’ve got a deal,” tall, dark, and ace-up-his-sleeve (literally—I’d seen it) said.
I gave him a full, sincere smile. Oh, I was absolutely sincerely happy about him agreeing to my terms. Was I going to win this game? Were there more cows in Kansas than people? I mean, probably. That seems like that would be true.
But yes, I was going to win this hand. You know why? Because if I did, he was getting laid. Getting laid was always a bet a man would take.
Still, we could go through the motions. That was fine. It added to the flirtation and seduction.
Did I feel a little hesitant about going up to a strange man’s room for sex? I would. If he was a strange man. But, I had a gift. I really did. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a superpower but others might. I could read people. I’d learned about scams and cons and games from my mom. I’d been conning tourists on the strip since I was ten and a good scam was all about confidence and reading people. I’d learned early how to size people up and figure out their buttons. I could tell an easy mark from fifty paces.
This guy was an easy mark. At least as far as getting laid was concerned.
Did I mention that I’m now in marketing? And that I’m damned good at it? Like, I kick everyone else’s ass all the time on any and all campaigns I’m assigned? That isn’t really a surprise, right?
I can sell anything to anyone. You don’t like brussels sprouts? Spend fifteen minutes with me and you’ll be buying them by the bushel. Love cats but already have eight? Talk to me and you’ll have twelve by lunchtime. Completely opposed to tattoos? Have coffee with me and you’ll be inked up by the end of the day. I mean, what field would a con artist go into when she tried to go straight? Politics? Ha. That’s hardly “going straight,” you know? I mean, I’d be amazing in politics. But D.C. isn’t all that different from Vegas and I was trying to not burn in hell. I felt like selling overpriced tennis shoes and oversized televisions and overcaffeinated drinks to people who didn’t need any of the above was kind of a gray area.
“So let’s play,” I told him. “I’m ready.”
I was so ready. I wanted to take him upstairs, strip him down, and ride him like he was the mechanical bull at my favorite cowboy bar in K.C. But I’d play cards with him first.
We both tossed chips into the middle of the table to get started and the dealer dealt us each five cards. I picked up my hand. Not great. I had two tens. A pair. It was just the two of us playing with the entire deck so the chances of him having a lot was also small, but two of a kind wasn’t safe enough. I traded out my three other cards. My opponent did the same.
I watched him across the table. He watched me. His mouth quirked up at the corner and I narrowed my eyes. What did he think he knew?
I still only had a pair. But I really didn’t know what he had.
I’d been studying him as we’d played with Bill, Todd, and Wyatt. I always studied my opponents. Even if I was cheating and knew I’d win, I liked to try to figure people out. This man was difficult though. Because I kept getting distracted by how good looking he was and how much I wanted to feel his scruff scraping over my breasts. Also, he was good. He didn’t have many tells and I’d quickly figured out that the one he did seem to have—raising that right eyebrow when he looked at his cards—wasn’t a tell. It was a trick. His attempt to throw off anyone who was trying to figure out his tells. I liked that. Honestly, casual players like Bill and first-timers like Todd and Wyatt would never figure out that he was messing with everyone. But I’d seen it after only one hand.
I also thought that he was onto the fact that I’d figured that out. I think he found that amusing.
I could sit here across the table from him all night.
Or I could push him up against the inside of his hotel room door and suck his cock until his knees buckled.
The fact that I wanted to give a blow job more than I wanted to play cards said a lot about this guy.
I added three chips to the center. “Raise.”
He took in my bet, then placed his own chips, meeting the amount. Then he added two more chips. “And I raise you.”
Huh, he thought he had the winning hand. Okay. I added chips to the pot to equal the amount he’d added, but didn’t raise. “Call.” I laid down my hand.
He spread his out with a satisfied grin. He had a full house. He’d won.
I stared at his cards. No way. How did he have a full house? I looked up at him but, other than the smug smile, I could see no indication of a tell that he’d cheated.
I lifted an eyebrow. With sex on the table besides all the chips that clearly neither of us really cared about, I would have expected him to fold honestly. He didn’t want to go upstairs with me? He’d rather have dinner? As I’d told him—I could have dinner with anyone. As could he. Easily. Any woman in this place would have dinner with him.
> What the hell?
“Wanna go two out of three?” he asked.
And that’s when I knew—he had cheated.
“Did you pull all five out of your sleeve or did you only need two or three?”
He pulled the chips toward him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He did. I could see it.
I stood and rounded the table. Then I slid into his lap. He looked up, obviously surprised but making no move to push me off of his lap. I wiggled a little, just to check out how it was affecting him. Sure enough, there was a piece of nice, firm evidence right against my hip. I looped an arm around his neck and leaned in, running my other hand up the front of his jacket. I didn’t feel any cards in the inside pocket of his jacket, but I hadn’t really expected to. That would be too obvious and too difficult to reach for during the game. I put my cheek against his. “I have no trouble patting you down for cards,” I told him.
His hand, heavy and warm, settled on my hip and squeezed. “What are you going to do if you find any?”
“Insist on recompense, of course,” I said. I slid my lips to his ear. “You pull a full house out of your pants, you better be pulling something else great out of there.”
He pressed me down against his hard cock and said roughly against my ear, “You’ll be the one pulling it out, wrapping your hot little hands around it, and stroking it until I’m ready to fuck a screaming orgasm out of you.”
That. Right. There.
All I needed to hear. I hadn’t found any cards as I’d run my hand over both of his jacket sleeves and, while I would have happily run my hands over more of him, I didn’t care. He’d cheated to get to have dinner with me? Fine. So, it wouldn’t be a one-night stand. But I was going to be in Vegas for…well, as long as it took. The sooner I could get into Maxwell’s house and grab the painting, the better, but I was prepared to stay until I got it done. No matter what, though, I was going to still be here tomorrow and I did have to eat after all. So fine, I’d have dinner with this guy.
