by Cherrie Lynn
She was fully awake now, staring at her brother in shock. He wouldn’t look at her. She turned her attention to the table, where the turn card had just been dealt, and then to Damien, who sat back with an expression that could have been carved from stone.
Does he have him? Emma thought. Maybe he has him! Maybe he has the best fucking hand in all of poker. He’d better not be going all-in unless he has a royal fucking flush. He’d better not be going off of tells, and he damn sure better not be bluffing. Damien would smell it all over him.
On the table rested the flopped king of hearts, the king of clubs, and the seven of hearts. The turn card had been the eight of spades, which had prompted Ben’s bet. Well, Ben wouldn’t be able to make a royal flush out of that, so that meant she needed to kill him. But the two kings were promising. If he held a king . . . he would at least have three of a kind. He might even have a full house. Emma allowed herself to breathe. It was okay. It was all going to be okay. Ben wouldn’t let her down, not now. Not in this.
All eyes at the table were now on Damien, who sat leisurely stacking and unstacking his chips, his features shuttered as the probabilities no doubt raged behind his eyes. Emma found herself hypnotized by the movements of his elegant hands. He was in no hurry to fold, she thought with some trepidation. He was thinking hard about his chances to knock Ben out here and now. Oh God. His fingers kept up their mesmerizing, almost soothing motions . . . unstacking, stacking. Unstacking, stacking. Clink, clink. She couldn’t look away. A drop of sweat made its way down between her breasts. The way he gently caressed those chips, Emma was almost jealous. She might never know the touch of those hands on her body after all.
That twinge was definitely not sadness, she told herself. Not at all.
“Call,” he said, standing up to whoops and hollers all around. Only then did Emma notice their one table had become the center of attention for everyone else in the massive room.
Oh God.
Ben got to his feet and tossed his cards down face-up. The eight and the six of diamonds. Given the king and the eight in the community cards, that gave him two pair, kings high. Which was good! But it wasn’t the best fucking hand in poker like she’d hoped. A king on the river would give him a full house. Which was even better. But it wasn’t a guarantee.
When Damien flicked his cards across the table, she would have fallen if she’d been standing. The king and the six of spades.
He had three of a kind. Emma racked her brain. Was that better or worse than two pair? She mentally pawed through every conversation she’d had about hand rankings with Benjamin, but came up empty.
She only had to look at Ben’s face to know he was already beaten.
But there was one more card to be dealt, and Emma held her breath as the dealer put it down.
The king of diamonds. The room erupted. Her brother had gotten his full house. Joy and hallelujah . . . but even Emma knew that four of a motherfucking kind beat a full house.
Emma looked helplessly at Damien’s face, as her brother paced circles and raged and cussed, before finally blaming Damien and his dealer and grabbing Emma’s arm as if to pull her from her chair and out of the room. But she knew she would fall flat on her face if she got up right now. Through it all, she watched Damien, nothing of defeat or victory in his expression as he tossed back a glass of scotch and glanced at Emma as he handed the empty glass back to the girl who’d been fetching them drinks all night. He’d probably fucked her, too.
She calmly pulled her arm from Benjamin’s insistent grasp and folded her hands in her lap. It was done, she’d signed her body away for Ben’s sake, and she would follow through.
But first she needed to throw up.
* * *
He found her half an hour later, sitting on the marble floor in the bathroom, her head leaned back against the wall, eyes closed. Kneeling beside her, Damien gently placed a damp washcloth across her forehead. Only then did her eyes open, and her hand went up to hold it in place, her fingers just brushing his.
“Better?” he asked.
“Not really. Thanks anyway.”
Sighing, he sat down across from her, stretching out his legs and crossing his arms. “Benjamin took off around the time you bolted from the table.”
Her lips thinned. The pink gloss was long gone and her curls had wilted and half her makeup had run down her face, but she was still stunning to him. Her hand shook where it clutched the washcloth as she bathed her face with it. “Lucky him.”
“I can take you home, Emma. It isn’t as if you have to stay here.”
“I’ll take a cab.”
“That’s entirely unnecessary. I’ll get you home and take care of your car. I’m not your enemy, you know.”
At that, she lifted her head and glared at him with bleary eyes that seemed unable to focus. He expected a tongue lashing, but it didn’t come. Instead, she shot to her knees and heaved into the toilet. Damien supposed he should be grateful she hadn’t aimed at him. He got up and left her long enough to grab her a bottle of water from the small refrigerator in the reception area.
“Just leave me alone,” she groaned as he came back and placed it on the floor beside her. “This entire night has been humiliating enough without you watching me puke.”
“Why?”
“Jesus Christ, you have to ask?”
“You accomplished what you wanted. You got your brother out of here.”
Her head snapped up then, her hazel eyes burning at him and mascara running around her eyes. “I rather hoped to accomplish it without selling myself.”
“He was all too eager to sell you.”
“I hate him,” she choked out, her voice dissolving into hiccupping sobs. “I hate him so fucking much.”
“Sit back. Here.” As soon as he got her settled against the wall again, he unscrewed the lid off the water and held it to her lips. “Drink.”
She did as he instructed, throat muscles constricting delicately. He tried not to notice that her dress had slid so high up her thighs that another movement might show him the color of her panties. As badly as he wanted to know, she was a mess right now. He gently extricated the washcloth from her grip and wiped wayward water drops from her lips.
“I shouldn’t have drunk so much,” she said miserably.
“Understandable, given the circumstances.”
“That you put me in.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I did?”
“Okay, fine. It’s all Ben’s fault. I realize that. It’s just . . . you could’ve helped me without teaching him a lesson, or whatever it is you’re doing.”
“You think that’s what I’m doing?”
“I don’t know what you’re doing! I just know it’s weird.”
“I presented you with an option. You took it.”
“I know.” She sighed. “And I knew when you presented it that it would come to this.”
“And yet you accepted.”
Emma didn’t reply, only leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes again. Damien let his gaze travel the long lines of her body, down her bent legs, ending at her perfect bare feet with their smattering of freckles and seashell-pink toes. Unable to resist, he reached down and wrapped his fingers around one slim ankle. Emma reacted as if he’d shocked her, her body jerking and her eyes flying open, but she didn’t pull away. Her skin was supple beneath his grip, smooth and warm. Her pulse fluttered against the tips of his fingers, delicate as hummingbird wings, and he drew a slow circle with his thumb around the little protrusion of dainty bone in her ankle while she watched him with her breath held.
A gorgeous pink blush rose in her cheeks and a muscle flexed under his hand, as if to test his grip. And he knew that her sweet, sensitive skin, her body, would never lie to him. He faced the same problem; if he didn’t get up from here soon, she would see visible evidence of his truth tenting the front of his pants.
But even though she might be his for all of next month, tonight wasn’t for him. “Let
me take you home,” he said, not letting her escape his gaze. Finally, she pulled herself together and nodded, then let him help her get to her feet.
Chapter Six
The fresh, rain-washed air did her some good, but Emma still prayed that she wouldn’t throw up all over his leather seats as Damien opened the passenger door of his shiny black Jaguar for her. Her stomach was still questionable despite her emptying its contents no less than three times since fleeing the poker table.
Probably a surefire way to get him to call the whole thing off . . . ruining his upholstery. She watched him walk around the front of the car and still felt the heat of his grip around her ankle. Gentle yet possessive, somehow reassuring. It had brought a calm over her emotions she shouldn’t be feeling at all.
But her body was on fire. With one touch he’d stayed her worries and awakened the rest of her. She could only imagine what sex with this man would be like. Knowing she would find out made her toes curl in her pumps.
“Nice car,” she said as he got in. “It suits you.” Dark and sleek and predatory. It smelled of leather and him, the faint masculine scent that teased her senses whenever she was in his presence. She wondered if his bedsheets smelled that way, too. She wondered if his fucking was as carefully controlled as the rest of him, or if he might unleash his passion among tangled sheets and sweaty bodies. What would he sound like when he groaned in her ear? Or maybe he’d be a silent, stoic lover. She couldn’t imagine him letting anyone know they’d broken through his barriers, even in the heights of pleasure.
Why did he have those walls around him, anyway? What was he hiding?
Her assessment of his Jag must have amused him; he blessed her with his sly grin as he pulled his door shut, closing out the Houston street noise. “Don’t forget to leave your keys with me and I’ll make sure your car is taken care of,” he said as the engine purred to life. Emma dutifully plucked her wad of keys from her clutch and removed the fob to her car, dropping it into a cup holder.
“Thanks,” she said softly.
“It’ll be there when you wake up in the morning.”
As he pulled onto the damp street, she noticed his radio was on a rock station. Interesting. She wouldn’t exactly peg him for a classical guy, and definitely not country, but grinding, grungy guitars seemed out of place as well.
“August on Fire,” she said, reading the band name on the color display. “I like some of their stuff.”
“My brother is the lead singer.”
“Are you kidding?”
“We’re not only going to Vegas for a poker tournament. Zane has a concert, and my oldest brother, Mike, is defending his title. He’s the Attack Force heavyweight champion.”
She stared at him wide-eyed. “You guys are busy.”
“You could say that.”
Yet this morning in his office, he’d denied having doting parents. How did three brothers rise so high in the world without any kind of support? Possible, of course, but it seemed such a rare thing. “You must be proud,” she said tentatively.
“Of course.”
“I’ll get to go to all these things, too?” Meet his brothers? Seemed a little too personal for his high-priced prostitute.
Damien took a corner a little too fast for her sensitive stomach, and she winced and fidgeted as the world outside the car whirled. She should have brought a wastebasket along. His driving wasn’t so controlled. “If you want. It’s up to you.” He sounded as if he absolutely could not care less.
“Can you slow down? I’d hate to barf all over your car.”
That, at least, he seemed to care about. His speed halved and he eased along as she gave him directions to her house. If some of her neighbors saw this car prowling their streets, they would be pounding on her door in the morning to find out what the hell was going on in her life. It wasn’t a bad neighborhood, but hundred-thousand-dollar cars rarely ventured into this part of town.
If only they knew.
“Second on the right,” she told him, trying to scrutinize her little house through his eyes as they approached. It was small but tidy, with her little flower gardens on either side of the porch. She was proud of it. She’d worked for it, and it was hers, and she found she didn’t much give a shit what he thought.
“Nice,” he said as he pulled in the driveway, surprising her.
“Thanks. You pay for it, I guess.” The grim realization doused her pride a bit. He would be paying for a lot more, too.
He laughed at that. “No. Your hard work pays for it. Can I walk you inside?”
Oh God. She mentally went through the rooms, trying to remember if she’d left anything embarrassing out in the open. Yeah, the outside was tidy, but she had so few visitors who weren’t family or Liz (practically family), she sometimes got a little lax on housekeeping. But she wasn’t a slob. It should be fine. And Bentley was going to tear Damien’s ass up. It should be fun to watch.
“Sure.”
As she unlocked the front door, feeling his presence looming behind, she awaited the inevitable barrage of Chorkie fury with bated breath. When it didn’t come, she frowned and stepped inside. “Bentley Bear?”
Her four-and-a-half pounds of black attack dog came pattering jauntily from her bedroom, tail wagging, little claws clicking on the hardwood floor. Damien stepped in the door behind her. Now Bentley would go berserk. If hearing a stranger didn’t set him off, seeing one definitely would.
Except it didn’t. Frowning, she scooped him up and practically thrust him at Damien. “This is Bentley. He hates strangers.”
Damien reached up to let Bentley sniff curiously at his hand, then scratched the little dog between the ears. “Could have fooled me.”
Traitor! You little fucking traitor.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “He barks at everyone at least once. He still hates my brother.”
Damien’s eyes met hers, but he didn’t comment. Yeah, yeah, she knew the sayings. Never trust people your dog didn’t like. She’d never actually believed it, and she didn’t believe it now, just because Bentley was off his game. If she could somehow speak doggy language, tell him, This is the man trying to take Mommy away from you for a month, then Bentley would be chewing him up right now instead of tilting his head up into Damien’s caresses.
I will not be jealous of my dog.
“What am I going to do with him when I’m with you?” she asked.
“He can go anywhere you go, can’t he?” he said simply.
“I suppose so.” She frowned at the love fest happening in front of her. Finally, she pulled Bentley protectively to her chest. “All right, enough. He’ll be begging to go home with you. You can’t like him more than me, Bentley,” she scolded her little dog, putting him down and shooing him toward the kitchen.
“I’m sure that’s not a danger,” Damien said, glancing around her living room before settling his gaze on her again. “It suits you,” he said, one corner of his sinful mouth tugging upward.
When she’d said that to him about his Jaguar, he hadn’t asked for elaboration, and so she didn’t ask for it now. While she’d been pondering adjectives like fierce and lethal, she was afraid he would come back with neat or homey, and who really needed to hear that from a man she’d be fucking in the very near future?
“Well,” she said awkwardly, “thanks for the ride.”
“Do you need anything?”
Emma racked her brain for something outlandish, just to see if he would do it for her. It might be fun to make his thirty days a living hell, make him ready to send her nagging ass back home like Ben had said. Damien was probably no stranger to high-maintenance women, but she could show him a thing or two about high maintenance if she put her mind to it.
In the end, though, there was only one thing she could think of. “Tomorrow off,” she told him, and he chuckled.
“Done. I’m sure you hate the thought of staring at numbers all day, given the shape you’ll be in.”
It would probably soothe her
. But he was right; her head would be pounding in hangover hell. “Thanks.”
As Damien gave a brief nod and turned for the door, she couldn’t resist one final barb. “You know . . . my brother says you won’t make it thirty days with me.”
“I will,” he said without looking back. “I have my ways.”
What the hell did that mean? But he was gone before she could ask. If she’d dared.
* * *
The next morning, as promised, her car sat in her driveway. Emma went out in her flip-flops to walk a suspicious circle around it, as if it might explode at any minute. Satisfied that nothing was amiss—except wondering where he might have left her key fob—she surveyed her flowers for a minute, then clomped her way up her front steps. Knowing him, he would make her call him to ask—
A single red rose lay on her porch swing.
Emma pushed her sunglasses to the top of her aching head and cast a glance around her neighborhood, quiet at this hour of the morning. No gorgeous men jumped out from anywhere to surprise her, so she walked over and picked up the rose, bringing its soft petals to her nose for a sniff. Attached to it was a little red envelope made of rich, velvety paper, swollen by its contents. Emma ran her fingertip along the seam to find her key fob, along with a couple of extra-strength Tylenol. She had to laugh, then turned the envelope over to read the words scrawled in Damien’s strong black script: Feel better. ~D Underneath was written a phone number she assumed was his personal cell.
He was a shit. But he was a thoughtful shit.
After a cup of much needed coffee, she knew she’d better make good on her promise to call Liz and let her know what happened last night. Liz was absolutely the only person she could talk to about this. Hopefully even Benjamin would never bring it up again. Ever.
“Girrrrl,” Liz said after Emma poured out the whole sorry story. “You’re making this shit up.”
“I wish I were.”
“Seriously, I’m checking my calendar to make sure it isn’t April Fool’s.”