When Clint reached down to pull Delilah to her feet, she looked up at him and smiled. “We don't have enough time for that,” she whispered. “Just let me do the inspiring.”
Clint might have liked to do a few things to her, but he wasn't about to argue with her proposition. Instead, he leaned against the smokehouse and sifted his fingers through Delilah's long black hair as she wrapped her lips around his cock once more.
The closer Clint got to his climax, the more Delilah reacted. She moaned deeply at the back of her throat, sending a powerful hum all the way through Clint's body. He closed his eyes and held her head still as he began pumping in and out of her mouth. She took to that just fine, and pressed her tongue against the base of his cock as he slid in and out. The moment he eased up, she took control again by sliding her wet lips along every inch of his shaft.
One more of her throaty moans was all Clint could take. He exploded in her and she swallowed every last drop before letting him help her to her feet.
“Now that's what I call inspiration,” Clint said as he hitched up his jeans and buckled his belt.
She led him inside and ordered them both a drink. Clint had a beer while she tossed back a shot of whiskey. Players were drifting back to their tables, and the owner of the place looked ready to make another one of his grand announcements.
Once some more bodies cleared away, Clint was able to get a better look at Delilah's faro table. “You might want to get back to your game. And you might want to take some muscle with you.”
“What?” she asked as she snapped her head in that direction. “Why?”
Clint didn't need to say another word. She was more than able to see George and two other men clustered around Carl. They were too far away for Clint to hear what was being said, but he knew a pack of wild animals when he saw one.
“You want some help?” Clint asked.
Delilah pushed him back as she walked forward. “No. You won't win me any money by getting kicked out of the tournament. Just get back to your game and let me handle this.”
While he wasn't comfortable with letting a woman walk into a potentially bad spot, Clint felt a lot better when he saw Les moving to meet her at the table. When she got there, she gave George and the other two a piece of her mind, swatting at the men and shoving through them as she did. One of George's friends looked ready to start something, but thought better of it when Les's massive hand slapped against his shoulder.
Clint smirked as he watched the troublemakers try to maintain their dignity while putting some distance between themselves and Les. The hulking guard didn't even need to make a move toward his guns to put the fear of God into those three. Clint couldn't help but notice the looks that were being tossed toward Carl, however. Obviously there was some unfinished business between George and the quiet black man.
During the entire spat, from the time when George had been spouting off to when Les came to break up the small group, Carl hadn't lifted a finger. He'd stayed perched upon his stool, kept his head down and didn't make one threatening move. Some men, however, wouldn't look at that kind of behavior as peaceful. They'd see it as weakness, and if a wild animal sensed weakness, it would only be a matter of time before they attacked again.
“Back to your tables, gentlemen,” the dandy saloon owner announced. Deferring to a few of the other players, he added, “And ladies.”
George wandered back to his chair and Clint did the same. Carl's predicament was over for the time being, which meant it was time to play some cards.
ELEVEN
It seemed highly doubtful that any high-caliber professional gamblers even knew where Trickle Creek was. That, combined with the relatively small stakes of the tournament, meant the games played that night wouldn't exactly grow to epic proportions. Throughout the next several hours, Clint found himself relaxing into an easy pace with the men at his table.
Every so often one of those men would surprise him, but they mostly lived up to the expectations Clint had formed after first making their acquaintance. The cowboy was good for a laugh, but was on his way to being broke. Wendell and Bull played just as they had the night before, while Mack provided some real competition. All in all, it made for a fun evening. By around two in the morning, Clint sat behind a healthy stack of chips and was on a first-name basis with everyone in the saloon responsible for serving drinks.
“Hey, Sandy,” Clint hollered as he leaned back in his chair and waved to a stout woman carrying a tray. “Another round for my friends.”
“Friends, hell,” Mack said. “I'll keep taking your money no matter how many drinks you buy.”
“Wouldn't have it any other way.”
The drinks came and the next hand was dealt moments before the owner announced that it would be the last of both for the day. The cowboy was the first to act and when he looked at his cards, he winced. It was an obvious tell, but had proven to be an accurate one. “I bet five,” the kid said.
Picking up on the tell and too tired to be sly about it, Mack threw in a handful of chips. “Another twenty.”
Wendell looked at his cards a few times, reached for his chips, checked his cards again, and then called.
Clint checked his hand. When he pushed his chips in, he made sure to glare at the kid and then snap a quick look over to Mack. The first man was already shaky, so intimidating him wasn't hard. The second man didn't quite know whether to attribute Clint's confidence to the cards he'd been dealt or the beer he'd been drinking.
After silently checking his cards, Bull tossed them away. He might not have been much of a risk-taker, but he knew the game and could read the players well enough to come out slightly ahead by the end of the night. He held on to the deck and dealt the next round. The cowboy took three cards, Mack stood pat, Wendell took two, and Clint took one.
“Twenty to me, huh?” the kid asked. “Any of you fellas trying to bluff me?”
Without taking his eyes from Clint, Mack said, “You don't want to call, boy. So don't.”
“Yeah, you're right.” The cowboy tossed away his cards and stood up. “Do I just leave my chips here?”
“Yeah.”
“All right, then.”
Mack didn't take any pleasure in shoving the kid out of the game so easily. He simply looked at his cards once, set them down, and then folded his hands over them like a small tomb marking their final resting place. “How much you got left, Adams?”
“Not quite as much as you,” Clint replied.
“Have you even looked at that other card you were dealt?”
Tapping the neat stack of cards in front of him, Clint shrugged. “Don't need to.”
“You haven't looked at it. If your hand was so good already, you wouldn't have needed another one. So you're waiting for me? Fine. The bet's a hundred.”
Where Clint had yet to look at his replacement card, Wendell couldn't stop looking at his. Now that the bet had been made, he looked at them twice as much. Finally, he shook his head and shoved his cards toward Bull. “You two are going to fight this out, so I won't get caught in the middle. It's too late for that kind of nonsense.”
“It's never too late for any kind of nonsense,” Clint replied. “I raise another fifty.”
That caused one of Bull's eyebrows to rise. Although he didn't say much, he clearly enjoyed watching antics like this one at his table.
Mack, on the other hand, wasn't enjoying himself much at all. Every muscle in his face tightened up, and he lifted one finger to rub idly under his nose. Every other second, his eyes darted to the top card on Clint's stack. “You haven't looked at that card. I know it.”
Clint knew it too, but merely took another drink of beer and stretched his feet out as if he was content to sit there all night and all day.
“You're a good player, Adams,” Mack said, more to himself than to Clint. “You gotta have something to be in this hand, but it can't be better than what I got. You're just trying to make me think too hard about this, aren't you? You think I'm tired or you picked up something along the way to make you think I wouldn't call a raise like this.” Suddenly, Mack nodded. “All right, then. What if I raised another sixty?”
“You sure about that?” Clint asked. “That'll put just about everything you took away from Bull and the kid into the middle of the table.”
If Mack had been looking for a flinch from Clint, he didn't get it. “Four of a kind, huh?” he speculated. “Or is it just two pair? Were you fishing for something or do you already have a big hand?” When he still didn't get a reaction from Clint, Mack pushed in fifty dollars' worth of chips and said, “All right, then. I'll just call. I've got a straight to the jack. Can you beat it?”
“Well, let's see about that.” Clint turned over the four cards he'd kept to reveal the three, five, nine, and ten of spades.
Mack's face darkened and he scowled at the cards in disbelief. “You called with that? You didn't even look at your other card and you raised? I watched you! You didn't look at your fifth card yet! How could you do something that stupid?”
Casually, Clint flipped over the single card he'd asked for. It was the deuce of spades. “Looks like it was a smart play after all.”
While Clint raked in the chips, Mack leaned back and shook his head. “You're either real crazy or real stupid.”
“You didn't have me pegged for either, did you?”
“No, sir. I sure didn't.”
“That's the beauty of poker,” Clint said with a grin. “Don't you just love this game?”
TWELVE
“What in the hell was the meaning of that?” Delilah asked as she stomped after Clint.
He'd left Pace's and had just crossed the street when the tall brunette all but ambushed him. “I gambled,” he said in his defense. “That's part of the game, you know.”
“Gambling is one thing. That was almost a disaster! You could have lost almost all your money on that last hand! You could have ended your entire tournament!”
Clint locked eyes with her and spoke in a measured tone. “Those things can happen whether I look at my cards or not. Poker's not just about who has the best hand. It's about playing against the other people at the table.”
“I know that,” she said angrily. “But you don't make a raise without even knowing what the hell you've got.”
Sighing, Clint shrugged his shoulders and said, “I admit, I didn't think he'd call that last one. Since he did, that shows me a lot about him and the way he bets. If you want to find out all you can about another player, you've got to get your hands dirty.”
“You only won because of blind luck,” she snarled.
“That's a big part of poker too. Besides,” he added as he pulled her closer and dropped his voice to something just above a whisper, “that last hand drove Mack even crazier than it did you. He's got a good head for odds and percentages. He watches everything and thinks he's got every angle figured. Seeing me play like that against him jammed a nice little burr under his saddle. Seeing me win will eat at him for every second of every hour until the next hand is dealt.”
As if to prove his point, Mack left Pace's and headed toward one of the nearby hotels. Even from across the street, Clint and Delilah could hear his boots pounding against the boardwalk as he hissed a stream of obscenities to himself.
“Rather than try to outthink someone who already knows the angles,” Clint explained, “it's sometimes better to show them a few angles they'd never considered.”
“He sure does look pissed,” Delilah said.
“Yep.”
“And you did take a bite out of his chip stack.”
“He'll recover from that well enough,” Clint told her. “Just like I would have recovered if I hadn't gotten that fifth spade.”
For the first time since she'd stormed after him, Delilah calmed down. “You were planning for what to do after losing that hand?”
“Of course. Nobody makes any big wins without risking some big losses.”
“And that was your way of getting under Mack's skin?”
“Yep. Also,” Clint added, “I was getting bored.”
All of the grief that had been on her face before returned in full force. There was even some redness and swollen veins in her forehead to go along with it. “Do you know how much this tournament is costing me?”
“Yes. You mentioned that.”
“Did I also mention I upped the bet on you? If you get knocked out this soon, I'll be in debt to a lot of people for a long time.”
“That's your problem,” Clint said. “Next time you want to wager more of your money or credit or whatever, you should ask me first.”
“And when I do?”
“I'll advise against it,” Clint replied.
She looked as if she was going to explode, but eventually reined it in. “Now you're trying to get under my skin, right?”
“Maybe.”
Before she could reply to that, Delilah was cut short by some commotion coming from Pace's Emporium. The front door slammed open and Carl hurried outside. The commotion came from the men that followed him outside.
“Don't you walk out on me!” George snarled. He was flanked by the same two men that had backed him up before, which made him talk louder and strut with more confidence than when he'd been alone. “You hear me, nigger? Stand still when I'm addressing you!”
Carl started to straighten up, but quickly hunkered down again and quickened his steps.
“What does he want with Carl?” Clint asked.