C H A P T E R  T W O

Holli

Get your head out of your ass, girl.

If he would stop looking at me, I might be able to pull this out of the bag. Wrong fricking night to have the cards fall against me. Wrong night for a run of bad luck.

Wrong night for me to suddenly find my inner Cinderella all twinkle-toed and distracted about a guy.

It doesn’t help that these three douchebags at the table are marking me and playing every move to push me out. They think I don’t know, but under my dimples and pouts, I’m no babe in these woods. I see their play.

“Hey, short stack.” The one with the squint addresses me with the condescending nickname. “You ready to take your ball and go home?”

The dealer waits on my next move, along with the rest of the table, and the slightest of tremors shake my pinky finger. I can’t think. But it’s not the cards.

No.

It’s him. I felt it from the moment I walked in that door. This soft tugging in my belly toward the shadowed corner where he stands in his stupid, perfectly fitted black suit and orange tie. Staring at me with eyes that remind me of caramel drizzle on dark chocolate ice cream. God, I’m hungry.

Who the hell has the balls to wear an orange tie? And then look hot as fuck in it?

It’s as though there is an invisible string he’s got wrapped around his fingers and he’s dragging me, slowly but surely, toward those ice-cream-sundae eyes. And, for God’s sake, the slight cleft in that chin. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that on a man before, not even sure I would like it on anyone else, but this guy? Jesus, it fits him as well as that dang orange tie.

I look around the table, feigning an aura of indifference. Six of us are left.

The game started off pretty well. I was up a grand after an hour, ready to clean out some wallets. Then we all took a table break, and things changed. I came back, and three guys started pushing me every hand, doing everything they could to shove me out. I’m good at my game, but when a three-way alliance starts hammering, even the best players with the best cards are going down.

Now they all have six or seven fat stacks sitting in front of them, and I’m down to half of one. About five hundred dollars of the ten grand I started with.

Fuck.

Not. Good.

“Top of the food chain ain’t for everyone, bubblegum.” Douche number two sticks his eyes to mine, biting back a smile that’s threatening his chapped lips. He’s wearing a purple polo shirt with a dumb-ass flipped-up collar, and he needs to tone down the fucking Drakkar Noir because my eyes are burning.

But I won’t be drawn into his shit. Instead, I return his vitriol with my sweetest Charleston charm. “You know, it sure is lookin’ like you’re right, hon.” I feign embarrassment and look down at the table. Flip up the corners of my two cards and fight the urge to shift in my chair. My jeans are tight as hell as the seam running down my lady parts is starting to chafe.

I got nothing.

And if I’m reading these three right, the cards are with them. As well as each other.

I’m fucked.

And I can’t shake the suspicion that I wouldn’t be losing quite so badly if not for the man in the corner, the one who’s got my princess panties soaked and my nipples hard as pebbles. He hasn’t said a word to me directly, but he doesn’t have to. I know who he is.

I’ve never met him before tonight. Nobody I ever met at the house games and bar-run poker rooms had ever actually talked to him. Not until I met Cruzer through my stupid roommate, Angela. But everyone in Detroit with any time in this game knows of Lincoln Kirk.

His status as the top dog in high-stakes private poker rooms borders on legendary. When my roommate’s boyfriend, or whatever he is, Cruzer, said he’d vetted me for this game, I was over the damn moon. I knew it was my chance, probably the only one I’d ever get. But now I’m simultaneously humiliated and as aroused as I’ve been in a very, very long time.

I was a little surprised Cruzer had an in with this level of game, if I’m being honest. I mean, he runs his own deal, mostly numbers on big fights and sports, but I guess he’s better connected than I thought. Because here I am, getting my ass handed to me, courtesy of that little white business card I waved around at the door.

“I’m all in.” The few lonely chips I have left clatter together as I shove them across the royal-blue felt, then watch as the emotionless dealer flicks my final card in front of me.

On the outside, I’m hoping my expression hasn’t changed, because my heart is currently doing things that have me honestly quite concerned. But the truth is, I’m not sure if it’s because I’m bluffing my ass off or because Lincoln Kirk is not even trying to hide the fact that he’s been staring at me and nothing else for the last hour.

Add to that, what if my bluff doesn’t work?

I owe the house five grand. The money I brought here was a chunk of what I’ve got stashed away to pay for my master’s program at Southern Utah University. But I promised myself and my mother that I wouldn’t touch that money, for love or hate. I’ve spent three years getting my undergrad, paying for everything with my backroom poker winnings, going to classes year-round. But I’ve been accepted into the Forensics program there, and I’ve promised myself my hustling days are over once I arrive.

So, the five grand I brought with me tonight?

That’s my broken promise to my mom.

I took it out of my school fund, and I needed another five to pay the tuition bill that’s due next week. Either that or it’s bye-bye masters for another year. Or forever. Who knows.

Now I owe the house another five. I’m going headlong in the wrong direction.

Not to mention, I won’t make it another year. I can’t. This life is killing me. Just because you are good at a thing doesn’t mean it’s good for you. I want to cash out, follow my passion. The best Forensic program in the country is at Southern Utah, and I intend to get there.

Wide-open spaces.

Fresh air.

Not something I know anything about, but I want to.

My dreams are filled with images of slow drivers winding their way down a single main street. I dream of diners where the waitress with the drawn-on eyebrows and the scent that’s taken right from the Avon catalog knows your order before you sit down. Where other people walking down the street ask about your uncle Fred’s bursitis.

And every time I dream this dream about my magical new life, there’s a man there too. His face is never clear, but he’s always there. Standing behind me, a quiet strength about him, but I know who he is.

In the dream, he’s a husband.

My husband.

I didn’t ever think I’d want one of those, but apparently, my dreams have other ideas.

Some of those dreams, this poker game was going to make a reality. But now it looks like it’s going to laugh in my face and screw me six ways from Sunday, because the next five minutes turn in all the worst possible ways for my position. I’m fucked. Even my annoying eternal optimism throws in the towel.

I take a deep breath as I push my cards into the middle of the table and feel the tension break as “The Three Douches” collectively congratulate each other with sniffs and bobbing eyebrows. It’s almost surreal that the other two tables should still be going strong, oblivious to the black hole into which I’m being sucked.

“Sorry, bubblegum.” Douche number three reaches over to tousle my hair, and I jerk my head sideways. When his move is thwarted, he turns instead to high-five his buddies.

“Don’t fucking touch me. Yes, you are sorry.” I smile and nonchalantly brush my hair from my face before popping my lips. My heart is thumping as my mind races to figure out a way out of this. From the corner of my eye, I see the Walrus behind the desk, staring my way, waiting for me to leave the table.

We both know why. He’s the accountant, and I’ve got a debt to pay and no way to pay it.

Unless I dig my hole even deeper into my school fund.

There’s nowhere to run, either. No hiding from this. But I can’t stay at the table, so I hike up my panties and scoot back my chair. I’m a rat in a trap with a hungry tomcat staring me down.

With a glance toward Walrus, I watch his drooping eyelids blink—slowly, purposefully—as his lips manipulate the wet stub of the cigar that hangs between them.

Oxygen turns scarce as I forcibly lighten my steps under the menacing gaze of the Walrus.

I’m betting another “ku ku ka choo” is not apt to pass his lips this time.

“Listen. Walrus. Honey.” I lean my elbows on the desk, ass in the air, jutting out a hip.

From the black shark eyes staring back at me, my feminine wiles are going to have no effect, but it’s all I have left. What do I have to lose? “House spots me another five—I swear I’m good for it. Just a bad run. You know Cruzer, right? How ’bout just another five?”

A warmth begins to gather on the backs of my legs. It bolts upward and makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand upright.

By the time I turn around, Lincoln’s voice is already in my ears, and I feel like I’ve just thrown back a few shots of cheap tequila.

“I know Cruzer.” Lincoln Kirk’s voice could melt the habit off a nun.

He’s standing just to my right, right next my ridiculously upward placed hip. His deep-set chocolate and amber eyes take a shameless stroll up and down my body before he continues. “If you think his word is what spotted you your five G’s this evening, you’re wrong. Dropping his name now isn’t going to get you another ten. Or five. Or anything.”

“Then what will?” I force a hardness into each word, set my jaw, and muster all my defenses. I have to. Because this man is waging an all-out offensive on my senses, and I’m about to lose any control I’ve managed to salvage.

But there’s something else. It’s my sixth sense that’s piqued more than any other. It’s not necessarily danger that’s running his long, icy fingers up and down the indent of my spine. I think it’s opportunity, mixed with a healthy shot of once-in-a-lifetime chance.

“How old are you?”

Lincoln’s question catches me off guard, and I hesitate for a moment. Maybe, if I’m young enough, I’m not about to get slapped around to prove a point about not borrowing money you can’t pay back.

But I don’t think that’s what this is about. The way he’s looking at me...

Something like a grunt or a chuckle rumbles from Walrus. Involuntarily, my eyes flick to him, but it doesn’t take me long to right myself. Standing as tall as my stature will allow, I trade my hip jut for a new position with my ass sitting on the front of the desk and my arms crossed over my chest.

Which also helps to hide how hard my nipples are, stopping them from telling these seasoned people-readers exactly the effect this beefy drink of top-shelf bad boy is having on me.

I lick my lips, and against my better judgment, I go with the truth. “Twenty-one.” I wait for the usual incredulous response I get when I tell someone my age, but it doesn’t come.

I figure a couple decades or so down the road, I’ll be damn happy that I look so much younger than my chronological age. Pulling out my driver’s license to prove my age is fine if I’m buying alcohol, but just to get some asshole to shut the fuck up because he doesn’t believe me gets old fast.

Lincoln’s slow nod is knowing, confident, as if the answer somehow makes sense. “Follow me. I’ll make you a deal,” he orders, then moves closer.. His hands slip into the front pockets of his black trousers, and I swear I see him adjust.

Without any other course of action, I fall into step behind him. He’s bigger than I first thought. Broad, but not gym-rat thick. The suit that pulls across his back fits him in a way that has my breath coming in little-girl gasps. When my eyes fall to his ass, an audible squeak escapes me. I don’t miss the nearly indistinguishable twitch of his head at the noise.

The five players left at my table are back into the game as we stroll by. Just another night and I’m collateral damage. I’m not even sure if I could buy back in if they would let me. But Lincoln said we’d make a deal, and making deals is a particular skill I possess in abundance.

And I’m going to do whatever I can to get back in that game, because there are only two things I suck at.

One, relationships.

Any kind. Even friendships.

But most of all, romance.

I don’t know, there’s just something about relating to another human being on a deep, intimate level that I don’t seem to grasp. I can’t do it. I’m always calculating, seeing them as another player in the great poker game of life. Wondering what they are thinking. What they are trying to get from me and how I can bluff my way out or take them for what I need. Doesn’t make for much of a mutually satisfying interaction, especially long term.

Second — and this is the big one.

I suck at losing.

Thankfully, I don’t do it often.

Because, did I mention? I fucking hate it.

So the fact that I make my living hustling at a game that is predicated upon either winning or losing, you could say it is both my greatest strength and my Achilles’ heel.