The Winning Hand Read online

  little bitch who was dealer before you’s no better. I want some damn action here.” He thumped his fist on the table.

  “Problem?” Mac stepped up to the table.

  “Back off. This is none of your damn business.”

  “It’s my business.” A subtle signal had his floor man, already moving toward the table, stopping. “I’m Blade, and this is my place.”

  “Yeah?” The man lifted his glass, gulped. “Well, your place is lousy. Your dealers think they’re slick, but I can spot them.” He slammed his glass down. “Bled me for three grand already. I know when I’m being taken.”

  Mac’s voice remained low, his eyes cool. “If you want to lodge a complaint, you’re welcome to do so. In my office.”

  “I don’t have to go to your stinking office.” In one violent gesture, he knocked his glass from the table. “I want some satisfaction here.”

  Mac held up a hand to hold off the two security guards who were moving rapidly in his direction. “You’re not going to get it. I suggest you cash in and take your business elsewhere.”

  “You’re kicking me out?” The man shoved away from the table. On his feet he wasn’t steady, but he was big, burly, and his fists were clenched. “You can’t kick me out.”

  Ready violence flashed into Mac’s eyes in a quick, icy flare. “Want to bet?”

  Rage had the man trembling, visibly. But drunk or not, he recognized the cold fury staring him down. “The hell with it.” He snatched up his chips, sneered. “I should’ve known better than to trust some Indian dive.”

  Mac’s hand shot out like a lightning bolt, grabbed the man by the shirtfront and hauled his bulk onto his toes. “Stay out of my place.” His voice was dangerously quiet, his eyes flat as ice. “I see you in here again, and you won’t leave standing. Escort this … gentlemen to the cashier,” Mac instructed his security team. “Then show him the door.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Half-breed son of a bitch,” the man shouted as he was led away.

  Mac’s head jerked around when a hand touched his arm. Instinctively Darcy backed away from the frigid fury on his face. The muscles beneath her fingers were like iron and she quickly dropped her hand. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. He was dreadful.”

  “Plenty more where he came from.”

  All she could think was if anyone ever looked at her with eyes that icy, that powerfully cold, she would shatter into tiny shards. “There shouldn’t be.” She bent down, started to pick up the glass the man had knocked to the floor, but Mac snagged her hand and tugged her up again.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I was going to clean up the—”

  “Stop.” His temper was still on the end of a straining leash, and the order snapped out. “You don’t belong here,” he muttered, and began to pull her away from the tables and the still-gawking crowd. “It isn’t all fun and games. It isn’t a damn castle. There are people like that in every corner.”

  “Yes, but—” He was striding so quickly through the breezeway to the hotel area that she had to trot to keep up.

  “You ought to be back in Kansas, tucked away in your library.”

  “I don’t want to go back to Kansas.”

  He pulled her into the elevator and jammed in his master card for her suite. “They’ll gobble you up in one tasty bite. I damn near did it myself.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Exactly.” He rounded on her, frustration, fury, self-disgust punching inside his gut. Her eyes were as big as saucers, that delectably curved top lip just beginning to tremble. “Exactly,” he said again, struggling for calm. “I have to go down and take care of this. Stay up here.”

  “But—”

  “Stay up here,” he repeated, pausing between each word, then giving her a nudge out of the elevator and into her suite before he did something insane. Like clamping his mouth on hers. “You worry me,” he muttered as she stared at him. “You’re really starting to worry me.”

  They continued to stare at each other until the doors shut.

  Chapter 4

  Darcy kept her spa appointments the next morning because she thought it would be rude not to. But her heart wasn’t in it. Even being scrubbed with exotic sea salts, massaged with oils that made her think of some Egyptian handmaiden and having her face packed with thick cool goo the color of ripe pomegranates didn’t lift her mood.

  He wanted her to leave, and she really had nowhere to go.

  It didn’t seem to matter that as soon as the documents came through she’d be able to travel to all the dazzling places she’d read and dreamed about. She wanted to stay here, in this wonderful, exciting place, with all the lights and the sounds and the crowds and the seamy edges.

  She wanted to gamble again, to drink champagne, to buy more sparkling earrings. She wanted just a little more time in a world where men with faces that should be sculpted in copper paid attention to her as if she were worthy of their interest.

  She wanted, more than anything, a few more magical days with Mac before her coach turned into a pumpkin and the glass slipper no longer fit.

  She wanted him to smile at her again in the way that transformed his face into one glorious piece of art.

  He was so lovely, not just to look at, she thought, but to be with. He had a way of turning those wonderful blue eyes on her and making her think he really cared about what she thought, how she felt, what she had to say.

  She’d never been able to talk to another man the way she could talk to him. Without feeling inadequate and foolish. Or simple, she supposed.

  But she’d taken up too much of his time, gotten in the way. She’d always been better off fading into a corner and watching other people live. Once you stepped out too far, into those lights, you ended up doing something silly or foolish that made those who knew … things wish you’d slip away again.

  The money wasn’t going to change who she was. A pretty dress, a new haircut—it was only gloss. Under it, she was still awkward and average.

  “You’re going to love this.”

  Shaking off the blue mood, Darcy looked over at the technician. She’d already forgotten the woman’s name, which was, in Darcy’s opinion, as rude as not keeping the appointment in the first place. Flat on her back on the padded table, she focused on the nameplate pinned to the breast of the soft pink uniform.

  “Am I, Angie?”

  “Absolutely.”

  To Darcy’s shock, Angie tugged down the thin blanket and began to paint warm brown mud on her breasts. “Oh!”

  “Too warm?”

  “No, no.” She would not blush, she would not blush, she would not blush. “What’s this for?”

  “To make your skin irresistible.”

  “Nobody’s going to see it where you’re putting it on,” Darcy said dryly, and Angie laughed.

  “Hey, this is Vegas. Your luck could change any time.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” Giving up, Darcy closed her eyes.

  She and her new, irresistible skin had barely stepped back into her suite when the buzzer sounded. Her tongue tied itself into knots the minute she opened the door and saw Mac.

  “Got a minute?” he asked, then stepped inside when she only nodded. “I don’t have much time, but I wanted to let you know the press has the bit between their teeth. The mystery woman angle has them fired up. They’ll play that for a few more days, but it won’t stop there. There’s bound to be a leak sooner rather than later. You’ll need to be prepared for that.”

  “I’m not going back to Kansas.” It came out in a burst, fueled by an anger that surprised them both.

  Mac raised his eyebrows. “So you said.”

  “I’m not going back,” she repeated. “I have enough of the cash you advanced me to get a hotel room.”

  “And you’d do that because …”

  “You said I shouldn’t be here.”

  “I don’t believe I did.” But he remembered his temper of th
e night before, and thought he might have said something along those lines. “It’s certainly not what I meant.” Annoyed with himself, he dragged a hand through his hair. “Darcy—”

  “I know I’ve been taking up a lot of your time. You feel responsible for me, but you don’t have to. I’m perfectly content to keep out of the way. I can just stay up here and write. That’s what I did last night after … well, after.”

  He held up a hand, guessing correctly it would stop the flood of words. “I’m sorry. I was out of line. I let that idiot last night get to me, and I took it out on you.” He dipped his hands into his pockets. “But it did make me realize that you shouldn’t have been there, and that you certainly shouldn’t be wandering around a casino alone.”

  She’d been on the point of yielding when his final statement put her back up again. “You think I’m stupid and naive.”

  “I don’t think you’re stupid.”

  Her eyes flashed, fascinating him with the sudden and unexpected fire of gold. “Just naive, then. Probably a bit incompetent and certainly too …” Her mind went on a fumbling search for the word. “Too midwestern to take care of myself in the big, bad city.”

  His eyebrow arched in a way she found both charming and infuriating. “You are the one who walked into town with less than ten dollars, no purse and nothing but the clothes on her back, aren’t you?”

  “So what! It got me here, didn’t it?”

  “Point taken,” he murmured.

  “And last night wasn’t the first time I’ve seen an evil-minded drunk, either. I’m from Kansas, not Dogpatch. We’ve got plenty of drunks in Kansas.”

  “I stand corrected.” And struggling mightily not to grin.

  “And you needn’t feel obligated to look after me as if I were some stray puppy who might run out into traffic. There’s absolutely no reason for you to worry about me.”

  “I didn’t say I was worried about you. I said you worried me.”

  “It’s the same thing.”

  “It’s entirely different.”

  “How?”

  He studied her. Color was warm in her face, her eyes were dark and shining. It wasn’t just anger she was feeling, he realized, but bruised pride as well. And that was undeniably his fault. He sighed. “You’re really leaving me no choice. You worry me,” he repeated, and laid his hands on her shoulders. “Because …” Slid them down her arms, around her waist. Watched her lips part in surprise just before he covered them with his.

  The world tilted. Every coherent thought in her mind tumbled out and scattered. Hopelessly lost. His mouth was just as she’d imagined it would be. Hot and firm and clever. But now it was on hers, luring her into some exciting airless space where everything shimmered and shook. Colors brightened, blurring around the edges before they melted together and turned as liquid as her bones.

  His tongue swept over hers, teasing, inviting, mixing his dark, intimate taste with her own. Smooth, so smooth, that glide of tongue, that slide of lips, that she seemed to coast bonelessly down the long chute of sensation toward a spreading pool of liquid heat.

  Her hands had come up to clutch at his arms for balance. He could feel the pressure of her short nails through his jacket, a contrasting signal of anxiety even as her lips opened and gave. Nerves and surrender, a dangerous mix, punctuated by the helpless little whimpers of pleasure that sounded in her throat, combined to take him deeper than he’d intended, to make him want more, much more than he’d expected.

  What he’d begun churned through him and demanded he finish—his way. Then and there, and thoroughly. She was aroused. So was he. However innocent, she wasn’t a child. And he wanted her. God, he wanted her.

  Her eyes remained closed as he drew her away. He watched the tip of her tongue trace her curvy, unpainted lips before she pressed those lips together, like a woman lingering over a particularly lush taste. Even as her lashes fluttered, a hot fist of need balled in his gut.

  Her eyes were dark and clouded, fixed now on his. A flush glowed on her cheeks. A swallow rippled her throat.

  Damn, he wanted, desperately wanted, to take her in one greedy gulp until nothing was left but the sighs.

  “Why …” Her breath was coming too fast for the words to be steady. “Why did you do that?”

  Be careful with her, he reminded himself. Very careful. “Because I wanted to. Is that a problem?”

  She stared at him for a long moment. “No,” she answered with such weighty seriousness he nearly smiled. “I don’t think so.”

  “Good. Because I’m not finished yet.”

  “Oh.” His arms were tightening, easing her close again. Bodies met again. “Well …” Her eyes drifted shut. “Take your time.”

  Her innocence was as bright as a beacon, and outrageously arousing. No, not a child, he thought again, but the odds were weighted heavily against her. And he had no right to use that as leverage. Grappling for control, he rested his forehead on hers. Slow down, he ordered himself. Better yet, stop.

  “Darcy, you’re a dangerous woman.”

  Her eyes flew open. “Me?”

  The shock in her voice did nothing to relieve the tension centered in his gut. The tension was a bad sign, he decided, a signal not just of desire, but of desire for her. Very specific, very exact and completely inappropriate. “Lethal,” he murmured, then stepped back.

  But he kept his hands on her shoulders, not quite able to break all contact. She was searching his face now, her big gold eyes still blurred from the first kiss, her mouth pursed in anticipation of the next. He could have lapped her up like cream.

  “Have you ever had a lover?”

  She blinked, then her gaze lowered to stare at the buttons of his shirt. The shirt was black and silky. It had felt warm and smooth under her hands. She wanted to touch it again. To touch him. “Not exactly.”

  His brow lifted again. “Despite its infinite and entertaining varieties, sex remains a fairly exact pastime.”

  She had the distinct impression he didn’t intend to kiss her again after all. Sexual frustration was a new, and not entirely pleasant, sensation. Vaguely insulted, she frowned up at him. “I know what sex is.”

  No, he thought, she didn’t. She didn’t have a clue what he wanted to do with her, to her. If she did, he imagined she’d run as far and as fast as her pretty fairy legs would carry her. “You don’t know me, Darcy. You don’t know the rules around here, or the pitfalls.”

  “I know how to learn,” she said testily. “I’m not a moron.”

  “Some things you’re better off not learning.” He gave her shoulders a light squeeze when the phone began to ring. “Answer the phone.”

  She turned on her heel, stalked over to the desk and snatched up the receiver. “Yes? Hello?”

  “And who might this be?”

  The abrupt demand in a thick burr was so commanding she answered immediately. “This is Darcy Wallace.”

  “Wallace? Wallace, is it? And would you spring from William Wallace, the great hero of Scotland?”

  “Actually …” Confusion had her pushing a hand through her hair. “He’s an ancestor on my father’s side.”

  “Good blood. Strong stock. You can be proud of your heritage, lass. Darcy, is it? And are you a married woman, Darcy Wallace?”

  “No, I’m not. I—” She snapped back and her brows drew together. “Excuse me, who is this?”

  “This is Daniel MacGregor, and I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  She managed to close her mouth, take a breath. “How do you do, Mr. MacGregor?”

  “I do fine, fine and dandy, Darcy Wallace. I’m told my grandson is paying a call on you.”

  “Yes, he’s here.” Weren’t her lips still tingling from his? “Um. Would you like to speak to him?”

  “That I would. You have a fine, clear voice. How old might you be?”

  “I’m twenty-three.”

  “I wager you’re a healthy girl, too.”

  Totally at sea, she nodded
her head. “Yes, I’m healthy.” She only blinked at Mac when he cursed under his breath and grabbed the phone away from her.

  “Shall I check her teeth for you, Grandpa?”

  “There you are.” Pleasure, and no remorse, rang in Daniel’s voice. “Your secretary transferred me. Of course, I wouldn’t have to be transferred all over hell and back to have a word with my oldest grandchild if you ever bothered to call your grandmother. She’s feeling neglected.”

  It was an old ploy, and made Mac sigh. “I called you and Grandma less than a week ago.”

  “At our age, boy, a week’s a lifetime.”

  “Bull.” He couldn’t stop the smile. “You’ll both live forever.”

  “That’s the plan. So, I hear from your mother—who bothers to call home from time to time—that you lost yourself a million-eight and change.”

  Mac ran his tongue around his teeth, glancing over as Darcy wandered to the window. “You win some, you lose some.”

  “True enough. And was the lass I was just speaking to the one who scalped you?”

  “Yes.”

  “A Wallace. Good, clear voice, good manners. Is she pretty?”

  Mac eased a hip on the desk. He knew his grandfather well. “Not bad, if you overlook the hunchback and the crossed eyes.” Idly he flipped open the notebook on the desk as Daniel’s hearty laughter rang in his ear.

  “She’s pretty then. Got your eye on her, do you?”

  Mac lifted his gaze from the pages crowded with margin-to-margin writing, and studied the way Darcy stood facing the window. The sun was a halo over her hair. Her hands were linked together in front of her. She looked as delicate as a wildflower in the unforgiving heat of the desert.

  “No.” He said it definitely, finally, wanting to mean it. “I don’t.”

  “And why not? Are you going to stay single all your life? A man your age needs a wife. You should be starting a family.”

  As Daniel blustered on about responsibility, duty, the family name, Mac cocked his head and read a page. It was about a woman sitting alone in the dark, watching the lights of the city outside her window. The sense of solitude, of separation, was wrenching.

  Thoughtfully he closed the book again, laying a hand over it as he watched Darcy watch the city. “But I’m having such fun, Grandpa,” he said, when Daniel finally paused for breath, “working my way through all the showgirls.”

  There was a moment’s pause, then a roar of laughter. “You always had a mouth on you. I miss you, Robbie.”

  Daniel was the only one who ever called Mac by his childhood name—and then he used it rarely. Love, Mac thought, was inescapable. “I miss you, too. All of you.”

  “Well, if you’d tear yourself away from those showgirls, you could come visit your poor old granny.”

  Obviously Anna MacGregor wasn’t within hearing distance. Mac could imagine the punishment she would mete out if she heard her husband call her “poor,” “old” or “granny.” “Give her my love.”

  “I will, though she’d prefer you give it to her yourself. Put the lass back on the phone.”

  “No.”

  “No respect,” Daniel muttered. “I should have taken a strap to you when you were a boy.”

  “Too late now.” Mac grinned. “Behave yourself, Grandpa. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “See that you do.”

  Mac stayed where he was after he replaced the receiver. “I’ll apologize for