Friends with Benefits

by Margot Radcliffe

  Their history was littered with complications. The fact that all those years ago he’d created a program for her casinos mainly so he’d always be in her life should have been clue enough for her that he wanted to be more than friends, but she’d been willfully oblivious. After college, he’d even told her straight-out that he loved her, but she hadn’t taken the admission seriously, which had been the wake-up call he’d needed.

  She hadn’t been interested in the pudgy nerd he’d been back then so he’d gotten a gym membership and started his company in the crappy studio apartment he’d rented on the Strip, and the rest was history. He’d moved the fuck on and any boyhood fantasies he’d had about Alexa had gone in the trash along with the majority of his oversize hoodies. His reputation with women was legendary, which was saying a shit-ton for a town with the highest population density of fuckboys in the country.

  He and Alexa both were two of Vegas’s notorious players, but over the past few months he’d been considering showing his hand. He’d accomplished his goals and now he was ready for something else, a new challenge before things got stale. He didn’t want to be that creepy old guy out on the prowl.

  And if there was ever a challenge to be had, it was Alexa Lawson, who was currently living up to his boyhood fantasies in a painted-on black pencil skirt and silky red camisole.

  “Let me take care of that other little problem and we’ll get going,” she informed him, rising from the couch and shrugging back into her suit jacket. Her demeanor already signaled that she had returned to business mode, which was equally as sexy as her relaxed mode. As far as his dick was concerned, she actually didn’t have a non-sexy mode.

  Carter installed some updates on her assistant’s computer while Alexa dealt with Jason and Chris. Both men were shouting angrily and he suppressed the urge to rush in there and protect her, but she didn’t need him. Before too long the room got quiet and she must have shown them the evidence. His software had uncovered Chris’s friendship with the customer who kept winning and video evidence of them talking and splitting the take. It was a cut-and-dried situation.

  He was impressed that Alexa never had to raise her voice, she just got shit done. However, when the cops showed up, he realized just how serious the matter was. Software company CEOs like himself generally didn’t deal with the police even though, ironically, his software literally caught thieves. Watching the men in blue cart Chris and Jason away in handcuffs was awkward to say the least, especially considering the way Chris sneered at him. Everyone knew what his software did, so while Alexa did the firing he was technically the one who put Chris in jail.

  When they were gone, Carter returned to her office as she was pouring herself another drink.

  “You didn’t tell me about the police,” Carter said, scratching the back of his head.

  “They’re thieves,” she said simply, joining him on the sofa. “Thieves go to jail.”

  Her phone rang and her uncle’s face appeared on the screen.

  She put him on speakerphone, and John Lawson’s perpetually jovial voice crackled through the international phone lines loud and clear as a bell.

  “Well, Alexa my love, thank you for taking care of another snake in the grass.”

  She grinned at Carter and he returned it. Alexa’s uncle was a big personality but also a man of integrity, which was hard to find in Vegas. Like Alexa, he’d admired him all his life.

  “I know you’re going to be upset, dear, but like we talked about, I’m ready to retire. I think we should put the casinos up for sale,” John said, shocking both him and Alexa.

  “What?” Alexa burst out, her eyes wide and stunned. “Uncle John, I thought you were joking about that. You just went to France to scout out new casino locations.”

  Alexa jumped off the couch and started pacing, clearly about to lose her shit as she turned the speaker off and held the phone to her ear. He ignored the urge to comfort her because he knew she wouldn’t let him.

  “Yes, of course, Uncle John. The next news article you read about me will be about my heroic dog rescue or helping an elderly widow find love again.”

  She sank back down onto the edge of the sofa next to him and tapped the phone to end the call.

  “What the hell was that?” Carter asked, resisting brushing away the piece of hair stuck in her red lipstick.

  Alexa shook her head, mystified. “Like you heard, he wants to retire and sell the casinos, but my reputation is causing a problem with potential buyers. If I clean it up and he can sell the Wild Nights and Hard Eight casinos, he’ll give me Halcyon outright.”

  Carter refilled her glass with the last of the martini from the shaker. Even though it was a good deal for her as far as Halcyon was concerned, he knew she’d rather die than lose the other casinos, too. Alexa was Las Vegas and those casinos; she’d lived and breathed them her entire life. As kids, they’d run the floors of Wild Nights and Hard Eight instead of their backyards, as teenagers they’d worked whatever odd jobs they could, and as adults they’d enjoyed the casinos as they were meant to. But she’d also do whatever her uncle needed no matter how it might hurt her.

  “So what’s the play?” he asked, handing her a glass. He often felt like he lived to serve Alexa. Whatever she needed, he did. It was a mutual codependence, as long as he never tried to press her to talk about feelings. Ever since her parents died she’d cut herself off from anything too serious.

  “I don’t know,” she said, sounding a little lost. “I have to clean up my image, I guess.”

  “So how do you want to do that? I can take over the media aspect of it, make sure content of you doing wholesome stuff gets shared in cyberspace.”

  She nodded. “That’s good, but I need to do more. Like practice abstinence and wear a chastity belt, apparently.”

  He laughed at the impossibility and she smacked his arm, unamused.

  She slumped down into the back of the couch and he put his arm around her shoulders, breathing in the light apple scent of her hair. She’d used the same shampoo and conditioner since high school and it tugged at his gut like it always did.

  “I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” Carter told her, letting go of her to take a fortifying drink of his martini.

  She stilled then, looking over at him speculatively.

  “I don’t like that look,” he drawled.

  “I need a fake fiancé,” she announced, clapping her hands together. “That would solve everything!”

  “And exactly how would that solve everything?” he pressed. Perfect, he thought. He was about to leave for a year just as she decided to get fake-engaged to some random Vegas loser.

  “Think about it,” she insisted, kneeling on the couch and facing him. Her hair fell over her shoulders in thick chestnut waves as she moved. “For example, if you and I got fake engaged, it would solve all my problems. We don’t have to invent a backstory because everyone in town already knows we’re close, and spending more time together wouldn’t be terrible because we actually like each other. It would be the quickest way to get everyone to believe that I’ve settled down.”

  “Wait, you want me to be your fake fiancé? Uh, no way in hell.”

  “Why not?” she asked, her head doing that cute little tilt it always did when she was curious about something. “If you’re worried about San Francisco, I think a month is more than enough time to convince people I’m a changed woman.”

  Why wasn’t it a good idea for them to pretend to be engaged? he mused. Maybe because their friendship had become a game to see how long he could be in her presence without throwing her down on the nearest surface and fucking her until they both couldn’t remember their own names? Yeah, maybe that was why.

  “I just don’t think I’ll have time. There’s a lot to do before the move.”

  She looked slightly crestfallen, but a fake engagement was just too much to ask of him.
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  “You could stop dating for a while,” he suggested. “You’d get the same result.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed. “But it will take longer.”

  “Yeah, but that’s a good thing, right?” he reasoned. “You don’t want your uncle to sell the casinos right away. In the meantime, maybe you’ll think of a way to change his mind.”

  The possibility seemed to at least distract her. “I’m too wired to talk about this now. Let’s get out of here.”

  He nodded and followed her out of the office, relieved that he’d put an end to the fake fiancé thing.

  They stepped out of the elevator onto the ground floor and the crush of the Friday night crowd was instant sensory overload. The electronic whirring of machines, the tinny clink of coins and the underlying bass beat of rumbling conversation was enough to drive a decent person to recklessness. The anonymity was liberating.

  When they finally stepped outside into the bright lights of Vegas, he could tell that Alexa needed to blow off some steam and wasn’t surprised when she grabbed his arm.

  “Come on,” she urged, pulling him across the street to Elysium. “Let’s gamble and make bad decisions.”

  “So much for reinventing yourself,” he pointed out.

  “Tomorrow,” she promised with a wink, shoving open the front doors to the towering casino.

  CHAPTER THREE

  AS SHE’D KNOWN he would, Carter waited for her while she played several hands of blackjack even though he hated gambling. She won her last hand with twenty-one and turned around to celebrate with Carter, but he wasn’t there.

  She collected her winnings and left the table, roaming around until she finally found him in the grand lobby talking on his cell. As he spoke, a deep crease formed between his eyebrows and he ran an agitated hand through his already mussed hair. He was completely oblivious to the women around him doing everything but stripping to try to get his attention.

  She waded through the crowds, intending to apologize for ignoring him, but when she reached him he didn’t notice her, either.

  It was positively demoralizing, as she was literally right in front of his face. Both of them were married to their jobs, but he could at least acknowledge her existence. She put an arm around his waist just to see if she could get his attention away from work, but he barely glanced at her. Instead walked out of her arms as he barked at someone about profit margins.

  Flustered, Alexa watched him walk away before turning her attention to the rest of the lobby.

  Her gaze stuck on the glass art installation. It was an explosion of color and light and fanned out over most of the lobby’s ceiling, the flower pinwheels stunning in their intensity. Customers’ phones all pointed up to capture the joyful riot of bold-colored flowers. But the pictures people took wouldn’t capture the significance of the glass sculpture, the subtle striations of color in the individual pieces, or the delicate and thoughtful way the flowers had been arranged and hung to maximize the light. So much of it would be lost in translation.

  Her parents had taken her to see it as a teenager when the casino first opened. It was one of the last things they had all done as a family before her parents died.

  She glanced back at Carter, but he was still on the phone.

  Skirting the perimeter of the display, she found the piece she wanted. The bright magenta flower with a dark red center that fanned out to the palest of pink on the ruffled edges had been her mother’s favorite. She’d been Alexa’s best friend. She’d told her mom everything, from getting her period, to her first crush, Perry Knightly, who now sat on the Las Vegas City Council, and all the little inconsequential things that made up her life. But since her parents died, she’d had trouble opening up to people, because having to wade through the abyss of that kind of grief to get to happiness again felt insurmountable.

  She blew out a frustrated breath and gave the flower a final look. It was still beautiful, but rather than grounding Alexa as it usually did, the memory of her parents made her anxious. She would never stop missing them, but she loved her life and was thankful for everything she still had. Her uncle had made her work her ass off doing every job in the casino, including scrubbing toilets, which wasn’t a pretty picture in a casino that gave alcohol away for free. She’d worked hard and was making her mark on Vegas. Life was good.

  However, now Carter was leaving town, quite possibly her uncle if he was serious about retiring, and even Halcyon might be out of her life if she didn’t get her shit together. Where did that leave her? Alone in Las Vegas without her best friend and only living family? That sounded awful.

  A man in faded, ripped jeans and two full sleeves of tattoos comprising vivid Mexican sugar skulls and raging flames stopped next to her to study the sculpture. His tight black T-shirt hugged imposing biceps and pecs that practically begged to be touched. Just the kind of guy she liked to have a good time with.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” she asked him, following his gaze upward.

  He glanced over at her, and she felt him take her in from bare legs to ample cleavage. His deep brown eyes met hers with an appreciative twinkle.

  “I’ll say,” he drawled, his voice gruff and a little rough around the edges, like his outfit.

  She smiled up at him, loving the chance to flirt with someone. It was so easy. Men were so easy.

  “Do you ride?” she asked, nodding to the chain on his pants and the scuffed black motorcycle boots.

  He nodded. “You?”

  Head tilted, she gave him a coy smile. “Of course. But not usually on the first date.”

  “Set you up for that one, didn’t I?” He grinned, taking a step into her space.

  The smell of leather and oil tickled her nose as she breathed him in, vaguely thinking that she preferred Carter’s fresh and spicy scent. It reminded her of laundry and money. Not that biker guy didn’t have his own appeal based on sheer muscle mass alone.

  “You did,” she agreed, glancing up at him. “So are you here to gamble or just look at the art?”

  His head tilted. “Would you believe me if I said just to look at the art?”

  It was her turn to give him a once-over then, which he visibly enjoyed, the corners of his eyes crinkling with amusement. “I’d say there’s a fifty-fifty chance,” she concluded.

  “I’m a tattoo artist. Sometimes I come look at this to get inspired.” He lifted up the front of his shirt to reveal a massive tattoo covering his washboard abs, the bombs of color similar to the flowers above them.

  She reached out a hand and traced one of the blue shapes with a finger. “That’s...unexpected,” she murmured, marveling at the artistry of it and the myriad of colors and shapes winding over his skin like a trippy Pollock painting.

  “Yeah, I’m only a hardheaded motorcycle dude like sixty percent of the time,” he joked.

  She pulled her hand back and his shirt fell down, which made her nearly sigh out loud in disappointment. Abs and art like that should never be covered up.

  “What about you?” he asked, taking her hand in his like a pro, tracing the same fingertips that had touched his chest. “You here to gamble?”

  She didn’t necessarily feel a spark between them, but that didn’t mean there couldn’t be one later. He was just the kind of distraction she needed. “I’m always ready to gamble.”

  His thick arm slid around her waist then and her eyes slid closed in anticipation of a kiss that never came.

  Her eyes popped open to see Carter standing there, his arms crossed and mouth knotted into a sinister frown.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Carter demanded, looking more pissed off than she could ever remember him being. Especially at her. He never got angry at her.

  Biker Guy released her, but kept a hand on her back. He didn’t look scared of Carter, but he should be. Though Biker Guy’s muscles were larger, Carter had been studyin
g jujitsu since he was a kid and could kick a lot of ass in very little time. Specifically, he’d put a football player in the hospital for grabbing her ass at a party in college once.

  Alexa wasn’t exactly sure who Carter was addressing, but before she could answer, Biker Guy did it for her. “Who are you?”

  Alexa stepped in front of Carter, imploring him to be cool with her eyes. “I’m busy, Carter. Can I just catch you later?”

  Carter’s blue eyes darkened dangerously under the lenses of his glasses. “I don’t think so.”

  Biker Guy gave Carter an assessing look. “If the lady wants to be left alone, I’d say that’s what you should do.”

  Alexa sighed. As much as she was annoyed by Carter’s intrusion and high-handedness, this interaction needed to end before it turned into a scene that would get back to her uncle. That was exactly the last thing she needed at the advent of her reputation-cleanup initiative.

  She held out her hand to the Biker Guy. “Mind if I see your phone?”

  A corner of his mouth lifting, he reached into his back pocket and handed it over. She programmed her number into his contacts, showing him the face where she’d typed in her name as Your Best Ride. Someone sue her, he was hot.

  “Call me soon,” she instructed.

  “I look forward to it,” he said with one last once-over. “You take care.”

  When he was gone, Alexa returned her attention to Carter, who was still standing with his arms crossed over his chest and looking murderous.

  “What the hell is your problem?” she demanded.

  “I was gone for all of three minutes and you’re hitting on some random guy who by the looks of it could be a serial killer?”

  She doubted serial killers were lovers of rainbow glass, but she could be wrong. More importantly, that wasn’t the point at all.