Rough and Tumble (6 page)

“Fair enough.”

He opened the door for her, sweeping his arm with a mocking flourish to escort her in. She knew he was poking fun at her prissiness, but that was okay. All she wanted to do was straighten up this mess with him, give him “the pleasure of her company,” and get on with the trip.

Something inside her gut sank at that, mostly because she suspected that she wasn't sure exactly what she wanted from this trip besides . . . Well, when they'd started out, she hadn't been sure. But now she liked that her heart was beating faster than it ever had during any of her boring dates. Liked that her head was spinning as if she couldn't get enough oxygen into her when all she could breathe in was his scent: leather, soap, and a little tobacco-ey earthiness.

She leaned over to a nearby ashtray, snuffed out the cigarette, then walked into the saloon, where more tourists and motorcycle enthusiasts had come to crowd the bar. But the tables were empty, and she headed for one in the corner, near the potbellied stove.

Somehow Cash got there before she did, and he pulled out a chair for her. But to get to it, she had to move past him, and when her hip accidently brushed against his leg, a rush of shivers made her skin scratch with goose bumps.

As she sat, she rubbed her arms, as if the air conditioner and ceiling fans were making her cold. Sure.

When he took a chair next to her, he stretched out his jeaned legs, making her much too aware of the muscles beneath the denim, the friction that rose between them even from an inch away.

He lifted his finger to Kat at the bar, probably asking for drinks, then said, “I suppose it's a good time for you to let me have it.”

Let him have it? As much as her libido liked the phrasing, she got her mind out of the gutter as he spoke again.

“Your little friend Sofia sure gave me a little shit already. I thought she was the shyest of your group.”

“Not when it comes to standing up for her friends. Just out of curiosity—does
your
friend Hooper take tourists to that back room often? Is fleecing tourists a regular thing with him?”

“When a guest in this saloon wants a game, he gives 'em one.”

“And how many of those games have you been here for?”

He smiled. “A few. Had a great one a couple weeks ago.”

Interesting. So that was how he'd afforded the good whisky he'd bought her?

She got down to brass tacks. “Here's the bottom line. Arden can come up with the money if you allow her some time. How long are you willing to give her?”

It was a long shot. Arden was in no financial shape to be wasting ten thousand dollars. Sofia couldn't contribute that much, either, and Arden had no family to depend on, so she was in a tight place. Molly's extra money was going to her sister, and her assets weren't liquid enough to help Arden out in this much of a pinch. Molly didn't even have any parents to ask for help.

“How much time are we talking?” Cash had a hold of his lighter, and he was running his thumb down the casing. Down Bettie Page and her siren's body.

Molly could almost feel the caress, but she put all her energy into focusing. “A month. Does that sound reasonable?”

He fixed that melty green gaze on her, and she almost slid down in her chair to the floor. Then he smiled.

“If I wanted the money,” he said, “I would've already negotiated that with your friend.”

Oh, oh. And,
Oh my God, that was hot
.

Focus, Molly.

He continued. “Your buddy has the fever—visions of winning the pot on the table were dancing through her head, and she couldn't stop herself from betting more than she could afford. I can read people, and I could tell she wasn't good for the ten thou right off the bat.”

“Then why did you continue playing with her?”

Cash shrugged those wide shoulders. “I knew what I wanted, and I was gonna get it.”

What he wanted.
Her
.

Beneath her sundress, her nipples went hard, her skin moist.

She had a choice here, and her body was begging for her to make the decision
it
wanted. But her brain was saying something else. So was her pride.

“I'm not for sale,” she said between her teeth.

He assessed her, his smile growing. Then he outright laughed. And when Kat arrived to set down a glass of whisky for him and a faux ginger ale for her, she gave Cash a hard glance before leaving them alone.

Pushing back his long hair with one hand, he let out a sigh, putting down the lighter and picking up his drink. “All I want is a date tonight, darlin'. Didn't your friend tell you that?”

So Molly hadn't been wrong?

It took a moment to absorb everything. This was real. It wasn't some cute little situation where he was going to go, “Just kidding!” and let Arden off the hook. None of them knew this man or how he'd react to being shafted for ten thousand dollars if Molly didn't agree to his terms.

“A date,” she finally said.

“Yeah, just a date.”

As reassuring as that should've sounded, it wasn't. “Do I have any input on this?”

The smile he gave her said that she could name any terms she wanted but he'd get his way in the end. Well, they'd see about that. Molly hadn't handled multimillion-dollar accounts because she was a brain-dead fool.

She sat back in her chair, her fingertips touching her sweating soda glass. His gaze strayed there and, impulsively, she traced the moisture on the surface.

His eyes clouded for a moment before he raised them to her again, hungrier than ever now.

Her pulse picked up speed.

It must've been obvious that he had a blushing effect on her because he laughed again. “You're not a person to cross, are you?”

“My friends and I are very protective of each other.”

“Especially when it comes to going on a date with someone like me.”

“I don't generally associate with bikers, so you'll have to excuse my wariness.”

His smile tapered off. “I'm not a biker.”

Right.

“No lie,” he said. “I've got a black classic Ford Thunderbird parked at the side of this building. Not exactly biker-issue.”

If he wasn't a biker, then what was he? Whatever it was, the look on his face when he'd spoken about the car said volumes: it was his pride and joy, and he didn't like being categorized.

Was it weird that this comforted her slightly?

And who was she to talk about “weird” when she'd already jumped down the rabbit hole with her friends today?

She grabbed one of the cocktail napkins the bartender had set on the table, took a pen from the purse over her chest, and started to scribble.

“I'm sure you've signed contracts before,” she said.

He only chuckled in resignation, then took a slug of whisky.

When she finished, she pushed the napkin to him. “This basically says that you're excusing Arden Pope from the ten thousand dollars she owes you after you and I go on this date. Please sign the bottom.”

He put down his drink and nudged it away, motioning to Kat the bartender again. “Let's get a witness over here, just to make this extra official.”

He shot her a smart-ass smile, and as he held the pen, she noticed how long his fingers were. That gave her the sexy shivers all over again. So did the fact that she was negotiating a freakin' date with Mystery Man.

“By the way, is this in triplicate? Do I get a copy?” he asked sarcastically, looking the napkin over as Kat arrived at the table.

“I could . . .”

“Never mind.” He looked up at Kat. “I'm signing a very serious document here. You're seeing me in action, right?”

“Right.” Kat didn't blink an eye. She'd probably witnessed kookier things in this saloon.

With a flowing jumble of letters, Cash signed the napkin, then gave it and the pen to Kat. She signed, too, and walked off to continue manning the bar.

So it was done. No matter how you said it, Molly had agreed to sell herself, and in a warped way, it turned her on.

Ignoring the rush, she looked over the napkin. “I can't read your name.”

“It's there.”

“I'd like to print your full name under the signature.”

“Hell.” He sighed gruffly. “It's . . .”

He said something she didn't understand before he got to his last name, which was Campbell. She marked that down.

“What was the first part again? It doesn't look like ‘Cash.'”

He muttered it one more time, and she sent him an exasperated look.

“Beauregard,” he said dismissively. “Beau.”

Wait.
“I thought your name was Cash.”

“Nickname.”

“Because you're a cardsharp?”

“Right. But no one calls me anything but Cash.”

Whoa, he was kind of touchy about this. Beau was a good name. A gentleman's name, very old-fashioned. Maybe that's why he'd ditched it.

But he'd been forthcoming, so she didn't dwell. She was even surprised he'd played along by signing his supposedly full name.

She shoved the napkin and pen in her purse. “I'll need a bit of time to check in to the hotel with my friends and . . .” Take a cold shower? Probably that, too.

“Caesars Palace?” he asked. At her startled look, he added, “Arden mentioned it during the poker game.”

“Great.” Clearly, Arden had given more away than money. Molly only hoped her friend hadn't blabbed too much.

Cash said, “There're a lot of bars in Caesars, but there's one you'll probably like in particular. The Seahorse Lounge.”

“Is that where we'll meet?”

He leaned closer and gave a slow look at her hair, which she hadn't bothered to put back into its bun.

“Yeah, we'll meet there,” he said. “It reminds me of mermaids.” He reached out to touch her hair. “And so do you.”

If her hair had nerve endings, it'd be on fire. Her skin definitely was, flames licking up and down her arms, her chest . . . everywhere else. Tickling, lapping, promising better things to come.

Not knowing what else to do, she stood. “I'll see you in four hours at the Seahorse Lounge, then.” She'd already started walking away. “For
drinks
.”

He smiled, as if thinking that he was going to get a hell of a lot more than drinks tonight if he could manage it.

Four hours later, Cash sat in the agreed-upon lounge, surrounded by soft green and blue lights. Seahorse statues leaned out of the beige walls behind the bar, flanking a topless, inviting mermaid, but the rounded aquarium in the center was innocent and serene, nearly blocking out the trilling music of slot machines and pop songs from the sound system.

As he crossed a booted ankle over his thigh, he started to go for the pack of smokes he'd tossed on the table, then decided against it. Molly P. Preston didn't like the habit, and even though she'd be surrounded by it during her stay in this town, he'd go along with her conditions. For now.

Until he could talk her in to where he wanted her to be by the end of the night.

“Anything else I can get you?” asked the cocktail waitress as she bent her knees and slid his club soda onto the table. She smiled at him, tall and ladylike.

Normally, Cash wouldn't have hesitated to let her know what else she could get him, but the woman wore a wedding ring. More important, Molly was going to be here soon, and nothing was going to put out this fire tonight except for her. Afterward, he could move on to the next game, then the next.

“I've got someone joining me,” he said while the waitress straightened back up with her tray.

“Any idea what they want?”

“I'm working on finding that out.”

The waitress smiled at him and moved on, but his head stayed wrapped around the question. What did someone like Molly want? He could only guess, and it wasn't anything a man like him could afford—and he wasn't talking about money. She'd want the boyfriend package: steady job, steady income, steady emotions.

At least he'd roped her in for the night, even if it hadn't exactly been in an honorable way. Who would've ever accused him of being honorable, though?

He took a drink, glancing toward the casino floor, where a cluster of gaming tables waited for tourists to throw away their money. And what do you know?

There she stood, Molly P. Preston, fenced in by her friends.

He barely saw anyone else, though, not while her mermaid-blond hair drew most of his attention. She'd pulled the strands back into a bun again, just like when he'd first laid eyes on her, and he burned to undo it so he could bury his face in the light cloud of it. Her delicate features fascinated him, too—features like the thick lashes that surrounded her eyes, which weren't blue or green exactly; it was like they couldn't decide what they wanted to be. Then there were those pink, beautiful lips that turned up at the corners and could either tell him to go to hell tonight or else part in a moan, just like in all the fantasies he'd already had about her.

Cash saved the best for last as he perused the rest of her—the legs that went on for miles, that tiny waist, those breasts that'd fit real nice in his palms.

Unfortunately, she'd packaged herself up nice and tight, wearing a white sleeveless button-down blouse and a slim black-checkered skirt that made her look like . . . well, an accountant. During the poker game, her friend Arden had let a few factoids about Molly slip, but after talking to Molly at the bar and finding out how prissy she was, he would've guessed that she was something similar anyway. A librarian maybe. Either way, she hadn't exactly looked like she crunched numbers by day in that sundress she'd been sporting earlier. And with that blond hair flying free.

The only nonaccountant part of her now that he could see was a pair of black high heels with peekaboo toes and straps encircling her ankles, a subtle tease. All in all, he had the feeling that she was a laced-up nerd who needed only a nudge to undo that strict bun again.

Heat shot to his groin, and he ran a hand through his hair, which was still damp from the shower he'd taken. It wasn't like he'd gone out of his way to dress up, but somewhere inside of him, excitement had been flickering all day—the anticipation of a kid on his first date.

But that was fucking dumb. Still, as she talked with her friends—were they arguing?—he stood from his chair, wanting her to see that he was already waiting. Wanting her to tell her buddies to go away so she could come to him.

Funny, because he was usually running the other way.

Just as the thought tailed off, their gazes locked, and a yank of desire made him tense up. So pretty. So off-limits. So not-his-usual type. And that made him want her more.

She raised her chin, then walked toward the lounge's entrance, waving to her friends. They stood by a bank of slot machines, their hands on their hips, but he didn't care about how they stared at him. Molly was cutting a path through the tables, smoothing a hand over her skirt like she was nervous. Or maybe there was another reason she picked at her clothes an awful lot. It was one of her tells.

He pulled a chair out for her, then waited until she was sitting before he took his again. He knew from experience that manners were only a warm-up, a sort of foreplay that got a woman thinking good things about a guy, letting him go further and further until he got what he wanted.

“You made it,” he said, grit in his voice. He hadn't expected it to be there.

“I told you I would.” She ran a hand down the strap of the purse she'd slung across her chest, then nodded toward his drink. “That looks like soda.”

“I'm driving, and I'd hate to crash my car.”

She slanted a gaze back toward her friends, giving them a subtle get-out-of-here gesture. Arden, the redhead he'd cleaned out at the poker game, frowned until the tiny exotic-looking Sofia reluctantly pulled her away.

Molly laughed uncomfortably. “They wanted to make sure everything started smoothly.”

“Good, but I'm glad they won't be hovering all night. Your posse's not a part of the deal.”

Freezing in place, she gave him a wide-eyed look. But then she laughed and shook her head. “Sorry. I thought you said something else.”

“What—that your pussy's not a part of the deal? I wouldn't discount that, Molly.”

Now her mouth opened wide, too, before she clamped it shut. Damn, this woman was out of her element with him, and that made this meeting even more fun. He'd tapped virgins before, when he was younger, but most of his usual type now was of the heavy-eyeliner category. Molly made him think about what he might have been like if he'd been dealt a whole other set of cards in life. Made him . . . want.

A spurt of anger flared deep inside his gut, but he put it out like he always did. And when the cocktail waitress dropped by again, he looked to Molly.

“What'll you have?” he asked.

“I don't know. I drank a lot of whisky this afternoon, and I'm not quite over it.”

“Then you need the Hair of the Dog.” He looked at the waitress. “One shot whisky, one tablespoon honey, and double cream for her. A glass of water, too.”

As the waitress left, Molly sent him one of those suspicious glances he was getting to know so well.

“I've heard of the hair-of-the-dog-that-bit-you theory,” she said, “but I didn't know it was a drink.”

“An old Scots remedy, so they say.” He grinned and allowed his gaze to linger on her—down to her lips, to her chest, back up again. “Don't ever tell your friends I didn't take care of you.”

She smoothed down her blouse.

“Why're you always doing that?” he asked.

“What?”

He adjusted his T-shirt, demonstrating. “That.”

She seemed surprised that he'd noticed, then blanked her expression. Maybe she should've been in the poker game today instead of Arden.

“No reason.”

“It's what they call a ‘tell' in poker,” he said. “Some people show on their face that they're holding a hand that's good or bad, but some have got other signals they're not even aware of, like picking at their clothes.”

She sat up straighter in her chair. “You're extra-observant, aren't you?”

“It's how I get by.”

“Is that right?” She rested her elbows on the table, leaning toward him like she was going to read him as easily as the latest book club selection. “Are you telling me that you play cards for a living?”

Well, if he was going to ask for a night with her, this was part of the deal, he supposed. Women liked to think they knew the men they were with, so you had to tell them a thing or two. “I'd call poker a supplemental income. But I find other work wherever I go.”

“I already heard that. Sofia said that your card-dealer friend Hooper told them you're in construction, and you move from place to place. But he didn't mention the gambling part. Maybe that's because it would've tipped off Arden not to be playing at your table.”

The waitress arrived and set down Molly's cocktail. Cash took out his money clip and gave her a fifty-dollar bill.

“Thanks.” She smiled gratefully and took off.

Molly's eyes got real big again. He kind of liked making them that way.

“Never let it be said that I don't spread the wealth.” He took another drink.

She brought her glass closer to her, sniffing at it, like she'd done at the bar with the whisky.
Creature of habit
, Cash thought.
Easy to read
.

Easy to conquer?

Before drinking, she said, “If you're so keen on spreading the wealth, maybe you'd consider spreading it to Arden?”

He laughed. She had him there. “Ten thousand dollars is a lot of spreading, princess.”

Was that a blush he saw? It was hard to tell because of the low lighting, but maybe she'd thought of a different kind of “spreading.” That's a conversation he'd love to expand on.

But he had the feeling Molly didn't do dirty talk. She was pure vanilla, from her hair to her skin to probably her likes and dislikes. The temptation to dirty her up tapped at him.

He goaded her. “Don't you have ten thou on hand to loan your friend?”

“Not exactly.” She wrapped both hands around her drink, her nails smooth and shaped just so. Her grip seemed tight.

He didn't want to mess that hard with her. “Arden mentioned what happened with your job.”

“Oh, she did?”

“She told me a little about it after she lost the money to me. She was still kind of toasted, even though her powers of concentration in that game were pretty good, and she spilled the story about how your boss drove you out and how you girls wanted a nice trip to get your mojo back. Or maybe I heard that part when she was talking too loud at the bar.”

Molly kept staring at him like she expected him to say more, but when he didn't, she seemed relieved.

There was something else to this story, wasn't there? Interesting.

When she shook her head and muttered, “I'm going to kill Arden twice,” he chuckled.

“It's really not funny,” she said. “This trip hasn't exactly been what I was thinking it would be.”

“Didn't you want something different?” he asked. “I'd say you now have an adventure you can bring back to your weekend parties with all your Gap-wearing friends back home. It's just too bad that you didn't stop by the Rough and Tumble at night. Then you'd really have some stories.”

“You mentioned that earlier. Everyone crawls out of the woodwork at night, yada-yada-yada.” She drank a healthy dose of her cocktail.

“There're some real characters that materialize after dark, all right. They're probably descending on the saloon about now, too. A band will be playing some roadhouse music, the place will have beer splashed all over the floor, and I guarantee one or more of my friends will sweet-talk some girl into doing a striptease on the bar. It's a Rough and Tumble tradition—first man to get a new girl to dance there has his drinks paid for that night. Everyone puts money in a pot early on.”

“And how many rounds have you had for free?”

He sat back in his cushioned chair, crossing his arms behind his head. “That's confidential.”

She laughed. “I'll bet your friends would tell me.”

Friends. He could see them now, their eyes popping out of their heads if he brought an accountant to the Rough & Tumble at night. Most of the girls there would be experienced—they'd be fun and free like he was, all of them running away from something or other outside the bar.

Shit, he'd love to take Molly there, showing his friends that he was top dog in the get department before he eventually moved on to wherever he'd be going next.

But there was a part of him that wanted to keep Molly from all that wildness, wanted to keep her to himself. That part of him was weak, though, and he stuffed it away. He was never going to be weak for a woman—or anyone—again.

He tested her out. “My friends could tell a few tales, mostly about me. I wouldn't want you to
ever
meet up with them.”

Yup, that'd intrigued her. As she sipped her drink, she assessed him, then set down her half-full glass, running a finger over its rim. The gesture tickled him in his gut, riffling something that shouldn't be disturbed.

She smiled. “Maybe I'll go out there one night with Arden and Sofia. That way I can have my posse with me while I get the dirt on you.”

It was the opening he'd been hoping for. “Maybe we should just go out there tonight.”

Her gaze went smoky, like she was actually considering the possibility, like there was even a chance that she was as insanely attracted to him as he was to her. If that was the case, she was good at hiding it. Girls like her flirted, but they never followed through.

So what made him think she'd go there tonight to be shown off like a trophy he'd won?

When she finished her drink with one decisive toss back, pounding her glass on the table, he had to look at Molly P. Preston twice. Was that a wild streak he saw? The same one he'd detected when she'd accepted his offer of a whisky at the saloon this afternoon?

“So it's too much to hope,” she said, “that the date doesn't end here? You're dictating that I go with you to that saloon now?”