Hold 'Em: Vegas Top Guns, Book 3 (15 page)

“It’s a fine art, isn’t it?”

“Sure is.” With a flick of her ponytail she nodded toward his cuff. “You’re wearing it again.”

A sneaky feeling very close to smugness made him smile. “Yeah.”

“I took it off you,” she said, her voice low and tense.

“Sure. But you didn’t put anything in its place.” He shrugged. “I’m not going without just because you want me to.”

Tin Tin started up on a really decent rendition of “Bang a Gong” by T-Rex, which should’ve been hilarious. But it wasn’t. More like sort of…impressive?

Mike lost interest, however, as soon as Leah’s breath touched his cheek. She was that close as she said, “What I want you to do is what you do. Isn’t that right, pet?”

A hard shudder closed over his chest. He shut his eyes to soak up the sensation. He wasn’t that fucking easy. “Admit it. This thing irks the shit out of you. You don’t want it to, but it does.”

She leaned back in the chair, arms crossed. Something near to a pout turned down her lush lips. If he thought about those lips on his cock, Mike knew he’d be lost. So he kept his attention on the hot daggers she was throwing with her gaze.

“Who gave it to you?” she asked simply.

“A woman.”

“Details, please.”

“If this is an information exchange, Princess, then I get some too.”

She shrugged as if she had nothing to hide, but her eyes dropped to the scuffed bar table.

“What were Fang and Tin Tin talking about? Do you drink?”

“I did,” she said. “I’ve been good lately.”

“Is that what last weekend was, then? Just a fix for your boredom?”

“You’re going to pay for this, you know. I can’t retaliate now, but—”

“Don’t bother,” Mike interrupted. “See, because you can make all the threats you want and I won’t care.” He pressed his thigh against hers, angling his mouth toward her ear for more privacy. “Because worst-case scenario? You drag me home and have your way with me.”

“Take it off, Michael,” she said, her eyes back on his cuff.

“Hell, no. And have your eagle-eyed fuck buddy take note?”

“My…?” She broke into a full-bellied laugh that dragged Fang and Cass’s attention away from the stage. Leah waved them off before returning to Mike, her whisper still mangled by laughter. “You think me and Jon?”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s just
ew
. He’s an A-number-one control freak who has very particular tastes, none of which go my way.” Her breath was nearly a caress against Mike’s ear. “I’ve only slept with one man in the squadron and that was Fang. A long time ago. He was still a captain back then, and it lasted all of three weeks. Now close your damn mouth, Michael, and tell me who gave you that cuff.”

He blinked a few times, but her quick confession and tone of voice had done a number on his ability to think. She’d pitched it just right—just husky enough and commanding enough to become part of his blood. He’d resisted throughout the week, when her orders petted his fur backward. At that moment it was more fuel to an already simmering hard-on.

“Her name was Georgia. My first Dom. Divorced. Kids in college. She wanted to show me a good time and I let her. End of story.” He pressed his elbows into the table and hunched forward. “Now either quit dickin’ around with me or take me home.”

Chapter Seventeen

Leah was coming to hate that silver cuff on Michael’s wrist. In the low light of the bar, the dully polished surface still managed to gleam. It wasn’t as if she had the right to demand he take it off, though that hadn’t stopped her. The order had been instinctual. If he was going to flaunt being claimed, as subtle as the cuff might be, she would be the one to do it. Except he was right in pointing out that she hadn’t offered anything in return.

“You’ll answer one more question,” she said.

His mouth curved wide into that smirking grin, the one that made her fingertips itch. “Why should I?”

The way she leaned toward him was a little calculated. The forward shift of her shoulders gave him a prime view down her skimpy halter top. His eyes shifted a whole shade darker.

“You’ll answer because you like pleasing me.”

He didn’t react, unless she counted the jerk of his chest on a fast breath. A glance at Ryan and Cass said they were still fully occupied watching Jon.

She slid her hand under the table, dragging her nails up the inside of his thigh. Such a pity that his jeans would dull the prickling sensation. The side of her palm pushed up against his dick.

“Are you wearing your other piece of jewelry?”

His tongue slicked over his lip before he nodded. Slowly. “Yes.”

No
ma’am
.

She bristled. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“You don’t want that,” he said with the slightest smile. “Not here.”

Goddamn it, he was right—for the second time that night. She crossed her arms over her chest and sat back in her chair, feeling perilously close to pouting. What she really wanted to do was unsnap the woman’s damn cuff and leave it spinning on the table as she hauled Mike’s ass out of there.

Hello, obvious land. She wouldn’t even make it out to her bike before Jon would text her, asking what the fuck was up. Which meant she and Mike had some time to kill. Eventually Ryan was forced onstage, but no matter how much shit they gave him, Mike passed. Vehemently.

Through the whole night, Leah ratcheted tighter and tighter. Her body had flipped the switch between work time, which meant behaving, and playtime—which had her thinking of Michael. The things she could do to him. The things he’d do for her. It wasn’t enough that he was sitting next to her and breathing the same air.

For fuck’s sake, she practically wanted him to breathe
her
air. The air she gave him.

Sick, much?

Even that didn’t stop her. Nor did her second time onstage, singing Puddle of Mudd’s “She Hates Me”—the not-safe-for-work version, of course. Her buzzed-high energy kept her restless and so damn horny.

When Mike stepped away to make a run to the bar, her nerves only worsened. In need of a distraction, she narrowed her eyes at Jon, who now sat at the other end of the table. His buzzed head was down-turned, looking at something glowing in his hands.

“Are you texting Heather?”

He flicked a glance up at her before returning to his iPhone. “You gonna make something of it?”

Cass’s head swiveled. “If you’re dirty texting, you can ask Ryan to give you pointers. He was
very
good at it when I was in Italy.”

“Geez, woman,” Ryan blustered, wrapping a loose grip over her mouth. “Can’t you keep anything to yourself?”

Her eyes sparkled as she tugged his fingers down. “I keep plenty of secrets.”

Just like that, they were off to the races again. Nuzzling up against each other. Normal. Happy.
Nothing kinky here, people, move along.

No sense abusing a pair of cute-ass puppies, so she returned her attention—and her frustration—to Jon. “I never thought I’d see the day when you were whipped.”

His eyebrows arched as he tucked the phone away. “I’d be careful of the crap you throw around, Princess. Unless you want me to tell Mike here about the time I picked you up from that bar in the Palms.”

“Oh, please,” said a deep voice from behind her. “Tell me. I could use something to hang over her head when she’s riding me about the simulator.” Mike slid into his seat and deposited a round of drinks on the table. Including another Dr. Pepper for her. If she had one more sip of soda, cherries or not, she was going to fizz away.

She shook her head. “Don’t you say a freaking word, Tin Tin, or I’ll tell Heather about that blonde at the Nellis Air Day.”

“Check and mate. Sorry, Strap. You’ll have to dig that story out on your own.” His mouth slipped into a smirk she’d seen plenty of times before. “Maybe you’ll have some luck if you ask her pretty, pretty please.”

Cold chills rippled over Leah’s skin. Of course if anyone was going to pick up on a strange vibe, it would be Jon. That was just his way, not that he used his kernels of knowledge for anything other than shit-talking his friends.

Beside her, Mike flinched infinitesimally. No one but Leah would have noticed, because no one else was as incredibly attuned to the tiny movements of his body.

Even that realization jacked her higher. More aware. The way his throat bobbed over a hard swallow. The way his laugh lines slipped away. Every observation fed on itself.

She snagged an unclaimed beer without thought. Cold condensation blended with the hotter sweat of her palms.

She’d only taken a swallow before Mike leaned into her space. His mouth brushed over her ear. “You don’t get to top me if you’re drunk.”

“Top?” she echoed.

His voice was as quiet as a kiss stolen in church, and just as forbidden. “Dominate. Tell me what to do. Hurt me.”

She shuddered against the visceral reaction that jumped in her stomach. The heavy tumbling. “What makes you think I want to?”

He hiked his arm to the table, deliberately placing that silver cuff in her line of sight. “I think we both know the answer to that.”

“Bullshit,” she said automatically. But she put the beer down anyway. “I want you to do something for me, then.”

He hadn’t given her the
yes, ma’am
she was craving. Instead he offered something almost as good, even if he didn’t realize it. His eyes immediately shifted to their deep blue. The one that said she’d taken him by surprise. “Name it.”

“Meet me in the bathroom. Women’s. Ten minutes.”

“Done.”

She slipped away from the table, making sure to stop by to talk to some women she knew from another unit. They were out for a girls’ night, and Leah had to deliver the bad news that yes, Ryan and Jon were both off the market. The questions about Mike were much less deftly handled. She didn’t have any claim on him, but she couldn’t seem to lie and say he was involved with anyone else.

Instead she popped smoke and headed for the bathroom, nerves making her hands shake the whole way.

Thank God the tiny room was clean. White-tile walls gleamed. Even better, it was private and had a single locking door. Since the night was relatively young, she hoped they wouldn’t be interrupted.

Leah managed to keep her guts together until the knock on the door. Then her heartbeat amped to fuck-all overdrive. Zooming. She plastered a smile on her face, in case it wasn’t Mike, and opened the door.

It was him all right. The hot, dark light in his eyes completely belied his casual grin. “You rang?”

She grabbed his T-shirt. Yanked. Hard. He staggered into the bathroom. She slammed the door shut and flipped the lock.

Then she was reaching up and spreading her hands over his head. Spearing through his hair. She could still get something of a grip on him, at least on top. The shaggy, lovely length through the back was all gone.

It didn’t matter. She pulled him down to her mouth, took his with a fierce kiss—releasing the energy she’d been riding for the past two hours.

She reared back and gasped. “We won’t have long before someone needs it.”

“I think we’ll manage.”

He curled a grip around her hips and lifted her. Fucking
easily
. She’d never been a tiny girl. Not many guys could pick her up as if she were a kitten.

Mike hitched her ass onto the white porcelain sink. “What do you want, ma’am?”

“Make me come. I think you have about five minutes. Can you make it happen, Michael?”

He grinned. “Not a problem.”

She grabbed his wrist and cupped his hand against the front of her jeans. Her hips surged up, into his touch. She’d never been much of a skirt kind of girl, not to mention that riding her bike in one was pretty uncomfortable, but she wished she was wearing one then.

Her teeth grazed the thick column of his neck, especially the tendon that said he was holding back on her account. She wanted to bite, but that visible spot would go against his rules.

“Your fingers,” she breathed. “In my pussy.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said around a smart-assed smile.

He opened the top button of her jeans. Her zipper parted almost as fast. She lifted her hips to let him pull the denim down to her thighs. The porcelain was cold against her ass.

Then his hand was on her. In her. Delving between her lips. Circling her with a single finger. He dipped inside, collecting some of her moisture, before returning to her clit.

God, it was good.
He
was good. He already knew right where to touch, right where to stroke. The amount of pressure she needed to rock up into his moves.

No matter the tension that had been eating her, she didn’t want to be caught. Not when she was trying to clean up her name. But she couldn’t seem to stay away from him now that it wasn’t on-the-job time.

“Kiss me,” she ordered in a harsh whisper.

His mouth was on her instantly, as if he’d only been waiting for permission. He kissed her deeply while his fingers kept up their strokes and dips and swirls.

Trembles shook down her legs, even after she hitched them around the backs of his thighs. Her hands felt empty, so she delved under his T-shirt and filled them with his hot, sleek skin. She spread her fingers over thick muscles, then curved them into near hooks—the better to scrape down his flesh in one long, steady stroke. He hissed in a soft breath.