Hold 'Em: Vegas Top Guns, Book 3 (33 page)

But her third shot went down as quickly as its predecessors. As she reached for the margarita, her hand grazed the edge of the glass. It toppled. Frozen lime and tequila spilled across the bar’s grimy surface and sloshed onto her uniform.

“Ah, fuck,” she muttered. “That’s not good.”

“Most sensible thing you’ve said in an hour. Out we go.”

Mike grabbed her under the arms and hauled her off the barstool. She protested, even fought a little, but he would always be stronger. They both knew that. It was what made their play so tantalizing. So when he needed them, his muscles were right there, able to restrain her flailing protests.

He wished it were as easy to restrain the wicked turn of his thoughts and how violently her harsh, stripped words pulsed and throbbed in his blood. She’d never given him much. What she’d said at the bar was almost cruel, here, now, when there was nothing to do but endure the moment. No trust to make the most of it.

Five minutes later they were in a cab. Mike’s arms had numbed but not in any pleasant way. Just rigid. Inexorable. Holding everything in. This wasn’t about sex anymore, and not even about protecting Leah from herself. This was about salvaging, perhaps, something of what they had.

Which meant he told the cab driver to take them to a motel. Any motel.

If they went to his place, they’d be right back in the middle of temptation—and no way in hell would he let her top him. If they slept at Leah’s tiny apartment, they’d be on her territory.

She snuggled against his side. He put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close, kissing the top of her head. Such a fucking mess. The whole damn thing. Because even though they were pressed together as closely as ever, Mike felt himself pulling back. It wasn’t safe to be this vulnerable. Cold took the place of calm.

The cabbie dropped them off at a white stucco motel that looked like something out of
Psycho
. Not exactly Caesar’s Palace. A rickety railing leaned off the second-floor balcony. Trim that may have once been green had faded to the look of a Midwestern thunderhead. Two letters on the vacancy sign were dark.

As dusk gathered up in night shadows, external floodlights flicked on. Mike guided his stumbling charge, his hand laced with hers, as he reserved a room and hauled her up the external open-work staircase. She listed, her feet dragging. The tequila had hit her pretty hard by the time they reached the room. Whatever hope he’d had for their stay to be decent was extinguished, but it was private.

Leah set about peeling off her uniform. No pretense or seduction. She shrugged out of her tuxedo coat, yanked off the tie and cummerbund, and bent at the waist as she tugged down her trousers.

Mike leaned against the closed door. A single lamp over a scuffed table by the front window cast a sickly yellow pallor over the scene. He hadn’t seen her in more than a week, and this was his reintroduction to the graceful perfection of her body. Something out of a prison movie.

She turned to face him as she shook loose the bun barely secured at her nape. A quick flick sent waves of dark silk tumbling loose over her bare shoulders. His one speck of hope was the gold necklace around her throat. She still wore it, and yet his right wrist remained bare.

She eased toward him, unsteadily, wearing only her underwear—a matched set made of perfectly innocent white lace. The look in her dark eyes was anything but innocent.

Unconsciously Mike prepared himself. This wasn’t going to be pretty or good or clean.

“Pet?”

“What, Leah?”

“That’s not the right answer.” Her face twisted around a frown. “I am the ranking officer in this room, am I not?”

“You are. But I’m the sober one.”

She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. “I’ll give you that one, Michael.”

“Good. Bed, then. You need to sleep this one off.”

She didn’t back down, instead standing toe-to-toe with him. He pressed his hands flat behind him to keep from touching the soft, warm temptation she presented.

“Just look at you, Michael.”

The way her eyes feasted on his face, his neck, his chest was a powerful aphrodisiac. He was still such a sucker for how she made him feel, like some extra-powerful version of himself.

Without warning she bent at the waist. Her hands were at the zipper of his dress trousers before he could register what he saw. Leah’s face so near to this cock, tugging down his briefs.

A wrenching shudder worked up his back.

Her hands wrapped around his hard-on. Fingers interlaced, she gave him a rough squeeze. That loosened the frozen tension from his arms. Grabbing the back of her head was the easiest thing in the world. He wound those loose strands around and around, covering his palms, holding her there.

For a split second, he wondered if they’d reversed roles. By all rights he should’ve been the one to determine what happened next, but the thick sludge of his blood had come to a stop, waiting. Even now, resenting Leah for what she’d done to wreck something fun and exciting, he couldn’t punish her the way she deserved.

She knew it.

“I’m in control here, pet,” she whispered against his swollen flesh. “And I’m going to prove it.”

Her tongue darted out and slicked his head. Again and again she teased him, licking, edging him higher. She didn’t even pull against his hold. Like a dare. If he wanted to hurt her, he was going to have to do it all on his own.

Mike didn’t have the stomach to hurt her. Never had. The very idea turned his bones to jelly. So he could only use the hair banding his hands as an anchor. A touchstone.

He didn’t trust her.

Leah’s mouth closed over his head. His balls had drawn up tight. Sweat moistened the thin skin below his navel.

Her mouth popped off. “Spread your legs, pet.”

Jesus.

He did it, giving her access to the sensitive stretch of his inner thigh. She petted up with firm, kneading stokes, which pinched just short of pain. Her ass was perfectly rounded where she bent at the waist. The sight of her head bobbing back and forth, his cock disappearing into those perfectly luscious lips, was almost enough to send him over, plummeting toward a hot, shaky release.

Instead he grabbed beneath her jaw and pulled her back. His dick was wet from her saliva, still hard enough to pound nails. The surprise in her eyes turned hard. He didn’t give her the chance to taunt him, to command him.

Mike yanked her off the dingy carpet. He’d intended to drag her to the bed and seduce her properly—if there was such a thing at that moment. He lifted her into his arms, but she wrapped around him. A second skin. Her mouth crashed into his, all teeth and lips and rough sweeps of their tongues.

The bed would wait.

Settling Leah hard on the floor, her legs swaying, he yanked down the thin lace of her panties. She moaned, eyes so heavy-lidded and soft. Her mouth still teased him, quirked into a half smile.

“So crude, Michael.”

After snatching a condom out of his trouser pocket, he rolled it on. She was back, flush against his body, before he could steady himself. His uniform separated them. He wrapped his hands around her back, palming her ass. The heat of her lips and the wicked scratch of her fingernails along his scalp burned away the last of his control.

He positioned his head at her slick entrance and shoved deep. Leah arched in his arms. Her mouth went slack on a long moan. He pushed her up against the nearest wall. The jolt of her back hitting that implacable surface jerked through them both, right where they joined. Mike found her mouth again, kissing hard. Demanding. Knowing he could only take what she’d already decided to give. That helplessness made him rougher.

Pounding now, he drove her hips against the wall. Her pussy was hot, slick, sucking at him with every thrust. Even then, so near to his completion, he withheld. Fuck, he was waiting for permission.

She shattered in his arms. Her inner muscles clutched his erection. Her release shivered over him in a long, low groan. “Come on, my good boy,” she whispered against his ear. “Rougher now. Do it.”

Mike pressed his forehead against the wall, tucked beside Leah’s sweaty neck. He closed his eyes, thrusting, fucking her, until he finally let go. His orgasm ripped a gasp out of his throat. White heat shot up from his groin in waves of pure, streaking pleasure.

Breathing roughly, with Leah’s scent all around him, he blinked clear of the haze. His equilibrium was gone. She’d stretched her toes back to the floor, but Mike didn’t have any faith in her ability to stand. Not when he doubted his own legs.

“See, pet,” she said, her voice still a little sloppy. A triumphant smile edged her mouth. “Mine to command.”

His satisfaction evaporated with those few words. He licked his bottom lip, where he could still taste their kiss. It was flavored with tequila and a dark, sour fear.

Fear that this had been the last time.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Leah’s head hurt like a son of a bitch before she even opened her eyes. She crushed her palms against gritty sockets, trying to secure her brains before they dribbled out in a wet pile. Her tongue was pebbled with the acidic bite of cheap tequila. When she rolled over, her stomach flipped a few extra times.

Fuck. Just
fuck
.

That it had been bound to happen didn’t make the reality easier, especially when her stomach might turn inside out any second.

Even through squeezed-shut eyelids, a sudden wash of white light hurt like fucking hell. Carefully, she turned her head and squinted.

Mike stood in the open doorway of the hotel room. His dark blue slacks were hitched low over his lean hips. The plain white T-shirt he’d worn under his dress uniform almost glowed in the Nevada dawn. He smashed one shoulder against the doorjamb, his other hand wedged against the far side, as if trying to hold himself there. His bent head said he didn’t even want to look at her.

Leah scoured the back of her hand over her glued-nasty mouth. Couldn’t blame him for that one.

The room was dingy. Trashy. Once-white sheets were twisted around her, exposing the dirty mattress. Fast flashes of the night zipped through her head like a photo slideshow. Christ, they’d slept on that? Twined together, desperate to get closer.

Well,
she’d
been desperate to get closer, to wrap around him. He’d tried to get her to lie flat, to simply sleep. Holy shit, he’d held her hair back as she cuddled up to the toilet, ridding her body of the cheap booze.

“Rise and shine for another beautiful fucking morning,” she drawled. Her hair was a snarled mass.

“Is that what we’re calling it?”

He pushed out of the doorway and shut it quietly behind him. The sudden gloom was easier on her eyes, with the only light coming from a muted television. That didn’t make looking at him hurt less.

She read the magnitude of her fuckup in his every sharp motion.

Pushing to a sitting position meant her head hit nuclear levels, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t having this conversation lying upside down on a shitty motel bed, much less flat-out naked. The room spun when she put her feet on the ground. Her panties were a lost cause, but she found her bra and trousers.

She ran her fingers through her hair but didn’t get very far. The hangover’s sharp pinches magnified through her tender scalp. “You know what they say. Start each morning as you mean to go on.”

He didn’t say anything. Just watched her. Carefully. As if he knew what was coming.

So she’d oblige him. Do them both a favor. Cut it off before giving up more of her heart and smashing more of his. Maybe she should’ve done it weeks ago.

She found her button-down shirt and pulled it on. “So I was thinking…”

Mike folded his arms over his chest. That wide, lovely chest. “We both know how dangerous that can be.”

After running cloudy water from the tap, she splashed it over her face. The mouthful she took to swish out the nasty taste didn’t wash it clean—or unstick the words in her throat.

“Get on with it, Princess.”

That name crawled the wrong direction down her spine when coming from his mouth. “Do I really have to say it?”

“Yeah. You do.” He pushed away from the wall, coming toward her.
At
her. So intently focused. His wide mouth had flattened and his eyes were dangerous slits. “Look around, Leah. Is this what you want for us? Shitty dives?”

She gripped the chipped Formica counter. “You know it’s not.”

“Then stop acting like this is the best we can do. I won’t be your dirty secret anymore.”

“It’s no one else’s business!”

Beyond the career she’d fought to protect from just such monumental mistakes, she wanted to guard what they did. It was special. Precious. More than that, it was fragile. If she couldn’t get it right when they were alone, how the hell would she manage in front of the whole damn world?

“It’s
my
business.” His voice was so deep. Harsh. The chill edged into her bones and locked her joints. “I won’t be jerked around anymore.”

“I’m not trying to jerk you around.” She forced herself to breathe or she’d black out. “I’m trying to let you go.”

“Fuck that.” He moved all the way into her space. Hovered behind her. The tall length of him heated her skin. Their eyes locked in the mirror, through the smeared streaks of cleanser. “You’re running scared.”