Socialite's Gamble

by Michelle Conder

  ‘Hope I’m not interrupting anything.’

  At the sound of Aidan Kelly’s lazy drawl, Martin Ellery released her and shoved her to the side. Cara sighed with relief.

  ‘Well, look who’s come to call,’ Ellery sneered. ‘Lover boy himself.’

  Cara made a small strangled noise in the back of her throat she hoped neither man heard. The last thing she needed was for Aidan Kelly to find out what she had let Martin Ellery believe.

  And what was it about this man that brought out the worst in her? Or was there a blue moon tonight? Was she going to turn into a pumpkin at midnight?

  ‘You’re the one with the moves, old man.’

  Cara shivered. The cooler winds brought on by the earlier monsoon had nothing on Aidan Kelly.

  ‘What do you want, Kelly?’ Ellery demanded.

  ‘Fresh air,’ Aidan said, casually strolling closer. ‘Seems I might be in the wrong place.’

  ‘That’s because the bar’s closed,’ the older man sneered.

  ‘Doesn’t look that way to me.’

  Ellery’s eyes narrowed. ‘I have to say it was a surprise to see you here tonight.’

  Aidan propped himself against the polished balustrading, his lazy gaze taking in the sparkling spectacle of the Strip below. ‘Was it?’

  The air fairly vibrated with tension but Aidan Kelly, Cara noted, was better at hiding it than his opponent.

  Ellery widened his stance. ‘You’ve bitten off more than you can chew taking me on, son.’

  With just the barest turn of his head, Aidan’s eyes had the arrogant Martin Ellery pinned to the spot like a wrestler on a gym mat. ‘Don’t ever call me “son” again,’ he warned quietly.

  ‘Oh, stop with the intimidation tactics,’ Ellery blustered. ‘Better men than you have tried to best me before and they’ve all failed.’

  Aidan smiled, more a baring of his teeth. ‘I think you’re being a bit paranoid, old man. I came here to play poker. Like you.’

  Ellery scoffed. ‘Well, enjoy your winning streak. It won’t last.’

  ‘They never do,’ Aidan drawled as if he felt sorry for the fact.

  Cara swallowed. He was a formidable adversary and instinctively she knew that to go up against him would be dangerous. Not that she was intending to if she could avoid it. She hated conflict, much preferring to pull a pillow over her head and hide than have an out-and-out stoush with someone.

  Cowardly of her, perhaps, but between the desire to find out how his beautiful mouth would feel on hers and the urge to run for her life, Cara would choose the latter any time. Because, she suspected, if she ever did kiss Aidan Kelly, she’d come out of the experience changed for ever.

  Oh, but now that her mind had wandered down that particular track it was hard to pull it back. She wondered what he would do if she asked him to just stand still while she kissed him and then forget it had ever happened.

  And where exactly did you leave your brain tonight, you idiot girl? she berated herself. Because it’s certainly not inside your sorry head.

  As if reading her thoughts, Aidan cut his gaze to hers and then let it drop to her lips. They tingled and she felt the strongest urge to part them.

  Suddenly she felt very much like the meat in an overcooked sandwich as she stood between the two men.

  ‘Maybe it would be best if we all returned indoors,’ she said, knowing it was her job to dispel the sudden hostility that emanated between them.

  Unfortunately neither one of them paid her any attention.

  ‘You’re out of your depth, boy. Just like your father.’

  Cara felt the bite in the air and sucked in a quick breath. She had no idea what the trouble was between the two men but Martin Ellery had just raised the bar if the sudden tension in the man behind her was anything to go by.

  Slowly turning around Cara half expected Aidan to have a knife at the ready but instead he smiled benignly at the man who had clearly tried to insult him. Watching him she wondered if she’d imagined the tension she had, moments ago, felt pulsing out of him. Perhaps it had just been her own.

  ‘Gentlemen—’

  ‘You want to be careful, Kelly.’ Ellery surprised her by putting his hand back on her waist. ‘You might lose more than you bargained for.’

  Oh, no. Cara stiffened in mortification at the thought of what Ellery was about to reveal.

  ‘Stop worrying so much, Martin,’ Aidan said amiably. ‘You’re starting to sound paranoid.’

  Ellery’s hand shook slightly before it tightened on her and Cara did a quick sidestep. If they wanted to butt heads with each other, they didn’t need her around to watch.

  Before she could make her escape, though, Ellery blocked her way. ‘See you at the table, Kelly.’

  ‘I look forward to it,’ Aidan drawled.

  Ellery glared at him on his way past and completely ignored Cara, leaving her standing on the balcony in a pool of coloured lights with a man who threw off enough testosterone to power the Strip for a year at least.

  ‘So, that was interesting?’ she murmured in an attempt to fill the awkward silence.

  ‘Only if you like dirty old men.’

  Okay …

  ‘I don’t know what the problem is between you, but … maybe you should go easy on Mr Ellery,’ Cara felt compelled to say softly. ‘I think he’s really scared of you.’

  Aidan Kelly didn’t move a muscle. ‘He should be.’

  And so should I, she thought a little desperately.

  ‘Do you like dirty old men, Miss Chatsfield?’ he asked mockingly.

  Try as she might Cara couldn’t stop her eyes from taking him in. With his sleeves rolled to his elbows and his formidable shoulders he was possibly the most virile man she had ever seen outside of an action movie. ‘Well, that depends on your definition of old.’ She smiled to try and lighten the atmosphere. ‘But as a general rule I would say not.’

  ‘Then stay away from Ellery. He’s poison.’

  She paused. The late-night breeze teased the hair at her temples and in the distance the rattle of New York–New York’s roller-coaster and requisite screams from the passengers could be heard. She felt flushed even though the night was still cool and her hands had definitely turned clammy.

  ‘Thanks for the warning,’ she said as brightly as she could. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me I’d better get back.’

  Except for some reason she didn’t move.

  ‘What did Ellery want?’ Aidan asked suddenly.

  Cara shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’ His blue eyes penetrated deep inside her. ‘Are you with him?’

  ‘Am I …’ Cara felt her brows draw together. ‘As in, am I seeing him?’

  He waited and she knew that was exactly what he meant.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘Absolutely not!’ Just the thought of it made her feel ill.

  The intense man in front of her shifted his weight and seemed to tower over her even though he hadn’t really moved. ‘Then you shouldn’t smile at him as you have been all night.’

  Cara frowned. ‘I’ve been doing my job.’

  ‘You’ve been giving him come-on signals with that smile of yours that promises unparalleled pleasure.’

  Cara was shocked by his words. If asked, she would have said her smile had no effect on him whatsoever. But now, with his thick lashes shielding his thoughts from her, she felt an unexpected jolt of sexual awareness deep in her body.

  She couldn’t stop her eyes from falling to his enticing mouth, the strong column of his neck. It was impossible not to imagine how his mouth would feel pressed against hers because she’d been doing it all night. She imagined he would taste heavenly. Like his scent.

  He stepped closer to her, and without meaning to, Cara backed against the wall.

  This man didn’t have to smile to promise a night of unparalleled pleasure, she thought, he just had to look at a woman. His confidence and subtle air of power were
all the aphrodisiac she would need to have her silently beg for him to take her in his arms, to lower his head and kiss her. To have her feel a yearning ache deep in her pelvis she’d never experienced before.

  ‘My smile doesn’t—’ She stopped when she realised that his eyes were fixed on her mouth. They lingered there before rising to hers, heat radiating from their glittering depths.

  ‘Yeah, it does,’ he said gruffly. ‘And it might get you what you want with a poor, unsuspecting chauffeur, but a man like Ellery will take it as a green light whether you want him to or not.’

  All Cara heard in that statement was the word chauffeur. ‘You know,’ she whispered, completely mortified, ‘don’t you?’

  Aidan stepped into her personal space and she had to tilt her head back to look up at him. ‘What I know is that you’ve been driving me crazy all night. Tell me, Miss Chatsfield.’ His voice had grown rough and Cara’s eyes collided with his. ‘Do you deliver on that sex-kitten reputation of yours or are you an absolute let-down when the glamour is stripped away?’

  Jolted once again, but this time by the harsh note that had entered his tone, Cara thought that her father would say the latter. Definitely the latter.

  Before she could think about how to respond he had stepped closer still. Close enough that she could feel his heat, see the faint trace of stubble forming on his strong jaw. The air grew thick as he studied her, hot prickles of awareness chasing themselves over her cheekbones and down to her lips as if his intense gaze was an actual caress. The inside of her mouth felt like it had never had any moisture in it, and she couldn’t move.

  His head lowered and every cell in her body sharpened to a single point as she waited for his kiss. Waited for his mouth to touch hers. It was the worst feeling in the world and also the best—that heightened anticipation, that feeling of being poised on the edge of a roller-coaster. You know your stomach is going to flip and you might even feel sick but the thrill of it would be worth it. Worth—

  His mouth touched hers. A whisper of contact. Fleeting. Gentle.

  For a second they both stared at each other, wide-eyed, their lips barely an inch apart, their warm breaths mingling, and then he moved, wrapping one hand around her waist and anchoring the other in her hair, his mouth slanting over hers with hungry skill.

  Cara felt dizzy as the ground beneath her feet tilted and she had to close her eyes and grab on to him for support. Before she knew it his tongue licked along her closed lips and she didn’t even think of holding back as she opened to him.

  He made a rough sound against her mouth that sent tingles down her spine, and gathered her closer, pressing her breasts into his torso, moulding her lower body to his. He was aroused—and huge—and Cara let out a low moan as his mouth took everything she had to offer.

  His lips were warm and firm and then his tongue was in her mouth and—oh, God—sensations zigzagged through her, causing heat to pool at her core. With a small sound she kissed him back and twined her tongue with his, her fingers squeezing his wide shoulders and curving around his neck and into his thick hair. In that moment she could have been anywhere—Paris, Rome … Mars—and she wouldn’t have been aware of anything but his kiss.

  Unfortunately a loud bang somewhere below startled them both and before she could blink she was free, her breaths coming in short, sharp pants. She pressed her hand to her chest, not unlike the stewardess earlier, and stared at him completely dumbstruck.

  His eyes bored into hers, his breathing just as uneven as her own. She stared at the buttons on his shirt, his impressive chest that moved up and down like bellows as he attempted to contain his breathing.

  ‘Meet me later. After the game.’

  It wasn’t a request, but a command. Rough. Forceful. Exciting beyond measure.

  Cara couldn’t look away from the burning hunger in his gaze, her blood as thick as treacle as it flowed through her veins. All she wanted to do was lean into him, assuage the hollow ache deep in her body. She’d never had such a visceral reaction to a man before and her mind recoiled from it as much as it craved it.

  Her lips buzzed and even though her mind kept telling her that it was wrong, that she should show caution, that she would only get hurt, she took a deep breath and said the only thing that she could.

  ‘Yes.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HAD HE REALLY asked Cara Chatsfield to meet him after the game?

  Aidan couldn’t quite believe it. But there was no doubt that the blood still hummed through his veins and once again he had to force his mind away from that kiss and back to the whole purpose of his being here.

  Kissing her had been a spur-of-the-moment thing and he just didn’t do those. Everything in his life was planned out to the nth degree. His housekeeper often teased him about it, but secretly he knew she loved how orderly his life ran. ‘Like clockwork,’ she’d chortled more than once.

  Yes, like clockwork. Just the way he liked it. He liked knowing that there were no nasty surprises around the corner. Nothing that would throw him off track. And why was he thinking about such things right now? Now when he needed his mind razor sharp and focused.

  And okay, he found Cara Chatsfield attractive, but so what? He’d found women attractive before and never been controlled by his libido like that. So she smelled pretty and she had a small brown mole beside her right ear. Really what she was was a piece of fluff.

  And no matter how beautiful the package he wasn’t a man who would ever be interested in someone who was fundamentally untrustworthy. Even short term.

  Cara Chatsfield was too young, too wilful and most likely too shallow. What was annoying to him—no, what was appalling—was that given all that he knew of her reputation he also knew that he would still meet up with her later on. Still take her to his bed. For some reason she … Fascinated was the wrong word, but he couldn’t think of what the right one was to describe how he felt about her.

  Basically, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Like now. She was talking to one of the bartenders across the room. Annoyingly she had barely come close to the main table since their run-in out on the balcony. And what a thing to call it. He could have laughed. He’d followed her out, come over all superior about Ellery and ended up pressing her into the wall and losing his head. Nearly losing his head, he amended.

  He recalled the way Ellery had been holding her when he’d stepped through the terrace doors. Cara’s brief look of relief. She’d said they weren’t lovers and that she wasn’t interested in Ellery but why hadn’t she slapped the other man’s face? And why even think about that? Her response was her own business, not his. The fact was, he wasn’t her keeper and she and Ellery weren’t lovers. He didn’t need to know anything else about her to enjoy the promise of those feminine curves. And nor did he want to. Pleasure was all this was about.

  Abject pleasure.

  And maybe he’d organise a late supper for them both back in his room, have a drink together and then … then they’d have sex. It would be great if that kiss was any indication and then … then he’d wake up tomorrow, fly to the conference his company had organised in Fiji and that would be the end of the delectable Miss Chatsfield.

  The back of his neck ached and he heard it crick as he eased his shoulders. The barman she was talking to was about her age. They’d probably watched the same kids’ programs.

  Kids’ programs?

  Hell of a way to win a poker game, Kelly, he admonished himself. Real sharp.

  His eyes cut across the table to Ellery, who was straightening one of the few remaining towers of chips he had left. This was why Aidan was here. This man. Or more specifically, to ruin this man, and if that somehow brought a sour taste to his mouth, then … who cared? He’d made a promise to his dying father that he would destroy Ellery, and Aidan always kept a promise. The fact that his father hadn’t requested the promise just showed Aidan how damaged he had been by Ellery’s deceit because, really, his father should have gone after the man himself for what he’d do
ne to him. Instead he’d bailed out on life.

  Hell.

  Aidan swiped a hand through his short hair as a line of sweat trickled down the back of his neck. A woman’s laughter drifted across the room. The sound husky, sexy. Cara. He made a fist with the hand that had held the nape of her neck, his body recalling how silky smooth her skin had been, how the sinuous length of her had fit so damned perfectly against him. How the taste of her had been so damned fine.

  ‘Mr Kelly?’ The croupier recalled his attention back to the cards. ‘The bet is now with you.’

  Ruthlessly reinstating his ironclad powers of concentration Aidan breathed deeply and tuned Cara Chatsfield and everyone else out. He had a good hand. A winning hand. And unless he was mistaken about Ellery’s tell, he didn’t.

  With only the Korean furniture magnate, who had already bowed out of this round, left at the table after five hours of play, Aidan decided it was time to go in for the kill. Especially since he could feel his lack of sleep creeping up on him. Better to preserve what energy he had left for more pleasurable pursuits than this one.

  ‘I’m all-in.’ He shoved his pile of chips into the centre of the table amidst gasps from the small crowd that had gathered around.

  Martin Ellery looked back at him through eyes gone a little wild. A pretty normal reaction when earlier he’d stupidly used his company as collateral to buy extra chips and he had little left to show for it.

  The man was staring down the barrel of absolute ruin and Aidan was holding the gun. And he couldn’t have felt better.

  Finally, after years of watching his father fade away before his eyes, Aidan was going to enjoy watching this bastard squirm.

  Ellery’s upper lip twitched almost imperceptibly but Aidan didn’t know if that was because he was scared or angry. Cara’s soft words about going easy on Ellery came back to him and he ruthlessly shut her voice out. She had nothing to do with this. Nothing.

  Minutes ticked by as Ellery contemplated his move and the small, fascinated crowd pressed closer.

  ‘Come on, Ellery,’ Aidan snapped. ‘Call or fold.’