Hold 'Em: Vegas Top Guns, Book 3 (20 page)

Leah Girardi. Uncertain. It didn’t scan.

The only thing that made sense was, well, she didn’t usually come across as a chick. He was beginning to realize how hard she worked to be accepted. Now that she wasn’t drinking, she pushed that line even harder. Eyes on target. Goal in sight. Keep the boys from drooling over her absolutely amazing bod.

So, he’d tagged along to a car show. That meant absolutely nothing in the scheme of what they’d already shared. Yet she’d been as flustered as a girl on her first date.

Time to keep that up. He needed to know what manner of female waited under the flight suit and hot pink helmet.

Matching black underwear, that’s what.

Goddamn. Forget the sex.

Maybe for a minute.

He signaled to turn into the restaurant’s parking lot.
La Hacienda Grande
. How very original, and very in keeping with Las Vegas. A neon sign in the shape of a curvy woman wearing only a sombrero perched on the roof. No wonder Eric had recommended the place.

He killed the engine and pulled off his helmet. Leah did the same. For a moment, their gazes caught. They were both breathless, sweaty, and riled with an indescribable buzz of energy. Her eyes were wide. Her lips parted and quirked in that way he could relish for an eternity. He couldn’t recall another woman who so effortlessly combined cute, sexy and daredevil into one irresistible package.

Then again, when staring at her, Mike couldn’t think about much of anything. Just her. He was always curious where they’d go next, but leaving the sexual direction up to her freed his mind. He’d come to appreciate his easygoing response to most things, which was decidedly more peaceful than white-knuckling his way through tours of duty.

“I got you once,” she said.

“When I let you.”

“
Let
me?”

“Give it up, Princess. You’re never gonna beat my machine.”

She looked him up and down, her smirk just this side of voracious. He wasn’t beyond admitting that he dressed for her when they were together. Form-fitting black T-shirt? Worn-in jeans and black biker boots? Flight jacket? Check, check, check. He knew what drove her crazy. The power didn’t go one way. Her frank appreciation, followed by a flash of unchecked hunger, proved as much.

Yes, it was good to be a sub. That didn’t mean he was completely without desires and intentions. He only needed to go about them in a different way. He’d cultivated a certain set of skills to keep things interesting and satisfying—for them both, he hoped.

Only they weren’t in bed yet. His smirk felt good. Let her chew on a loss for a while.

But damn, the girl was relentless. “Gimme that beast on the way home and I’ll beat you,” she said. “Hands down.”

He laughed outright. “If you think I’m letting you on my BMW other than plastered across my back, you’re insane.”

Leaving her to whatever competitive protest she needed to mumble, Mike walked toward the restaurant’s front door. Mariachi music. The scents of cayenne pepper and cumin and fry oil. Awesome.

He waited, holding the door, until she met him there. “After you, Princess.”

Another middle finger as she flounced past.

He laughed again. “Is that the theme of the evening?”

“Fuck you? Yup, sounds about right.”

“Excellent.”

He needed a minute to admire Leah as she shed her flight jacket. Same squad patches. Same blood chits sewn in the lining. They were comrades. That still sent a weird jerk of discomfort down his spine, but it wasn’t as strange as before. Flying was probably more intrinsic to her identity than it was to his. He’d just about lucked onto his path. She’d barreled there with that same determination, surpassing his accomplishments along the way.

Target. Goal. Win.

In any man, he would’ve admired her ambition, but he couldn’t get it through his head when it came to her, or any woman pilot. How could he still be so opposed in the face of one obvious fact?

He respected her.

A short, portly man with a giant black mustache ushered them into the main dining area. It wasn’t hard to follow him in the packed joint. His sombrero was
massive
. The walls were painted in classical Mexican pastels and geometric shapes, but those shapes vaguely resembled six dancing girls.

“I didn’t know Picasso did restaurants,” he said near Leah’s ear.

“I didn’t know you had such questionable taste. It’s making me reconsider our whole relationship.”

“Relationship, eh? That sounds serious, Princess.”

“Shut up. All I’m saying is that I took you to one of the most spectacular car shows in the world. In return, I get Rorschach nudes.”

“Seems a fair trade to me.”

Her grin let loose. “Let’s just hope the food is good. One star for atmosphere.”

The sombrero deposited their menus on the table of a back booth. Black pleather crackled beneath Mike’s ass as he sat down. Leah shot him a wicked eyebrow when her seat made the noise. “
Really
?”

“Yes, really,” he said.

The man took out a small notepad. “Drinks?”

“Coke,” Leah said.

“Same.”

Mike watched his departure. “That has to be the most intimidating sombrero-to-head ratio I’ve ever seen.”

This time she laughed so hard that she snorted. She clapped both hands over her mouth and smothered the sound. For a moment, he could only stare. He’d never heard her laugh like that. No smirking or husky anticipation. Just…
free
.

“You ass,” she finally said, gasping. “Now the whole restaurant’s staring at me.”

“You think a lot of yourself. Naturally they’re still dumbfounded by that UFO on his head.”

“I’m gonna buy one for you and make you wear it.” Her brows wiggled suggestively.

“Red light.”

“Wuss.”

A different man—perhaps their real waiter rather than the maître d’—brought their Cokes and took their orders.

Mike ran a finger along the top of the red plastic tumbler. “I would’ve been disappointed with real glasses.”

“Now all we need are plastic plates.”

“And so much cheese that it won’t matter what the hell we ordered.” He sipped out of a straw and leaned back. Leah’s eyes followed the movement of his chest. Yes, very nice. “Anybody can do fancy in Vegas and anybody can do gaudy. It takes real skill to find genuinely inadvertent tacky.”

Her eyes shimmered with humor—almost as nice as her appreciation of his body. He liked knowing they had some spark of connection outside of work and sex.

“How did you find this place, anyway?”

“Eric,” he said.

“Figures.”

“He’s not as bad as your tone implies.”

“He’s absolutely that bad and you know it.”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “Yeah, he is.”

Leah didn’t like Eric, although she seemed okay with Dash. Hell, if Mike were a chick, he wouldn’t have been Eric’s biggest fan either. The guy was positively Neanderthal when it came to women. Sex, yes. Equals, never. That attitude used to align perfectly, back when he and Eric first met in Afghanistan. Not so much anymore.

Hoping to scramble back from a topic that wasn’t laughing or bullshitting, he spied a mariachi band as they emerged from the kitchen.

Leah turned to stare then dropped her head into her hands. “It just keeps getting worse.”

“No,
better
.”

“You make me doubt the sanity of the Air Force recruiters. Seriously.” No matter her protests, she hadn’t stopped smiling since sitting down on the creaky black upholstery. “I mean, there had to have been a section on humor, right? Did I forget? Maybe because ‘funny’ and ‘not funny’ should be damn obvious.”

Mike dug his wallet out of his back pocket. He pulled out five dollars. “Well, lookie here. It’s a mariachi magnet.”

He hadn’t known Leah’s eyes could get that wide. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“No?”

“Absolutely not. Mike, put that away.”

“See, here’s the thing.” He tried to take her hand, all fake suave, but she slapped his knuckles. That only made him chuckle harder. “If I lure them over here and that pisses you off, I get tons out of it.”

“How do you figure?” Her mouth had scrunched into something like a pout—probably the closest she could manage.

“I get to see you blush, and probably laugh. Then I get to enjoy how you’ll exact your revenge when we get home.”

“You assume you’re going home with me, Michael.”

Her tone was so perfectly modulated that he did a double take. She held her dominatrix expression for about three heartbeats, which stopped him cold. Only a sparkle of play across her top lip gave her away. In the spirit of fairness, it was his turn to give her the finger.

“It’s gonna become tradition,” she said wistfully. She placed her chin on interlaced fingers and fluttered her lashes. “I’ll never think of being flipped off the same way.”

When Mike reached out again to take her hand, she let him. He kissed her knuckles, whereas she’d slapped his. Sounded about right. He looked into her eyes. Dead on. No games. Just the weight of all he could bring to bear as a man. The effect registered across her features: dilated pupils, an intake of breath, lips parted so slightly.

Against her skin he whispered, “I
am
going home with you, ma’am.”

“Yes.” Her voice was a rasp. She took a quick drink of Coke. “Yes, Michael. You are.”

He released her completely—hand and eyes. “But not before a song.”

Leah tried to catch his forearm while he waved the fiver toward the trio of mariachis. “Don’t! Mike!”

He was way bigger, in every sense. Holding the bill out of reach was no trick. He chuckled at her attempts, particularly enjoying how her struggles bounced her breasts. That filmy double-layer tank top wasn’t doing a very good job of containing her eagerness. Her nipples were hard points beneath the lace. He liked to think it wasn’t because of the air conditioning. The fire snapping in her eyes laid that doubt to rest.

“We’re just supporting independent artists,” he said. “It’s the philanthropist in me.”

The food arrived just before the mariachis surrounded their table. Huge guitars. Huge hats. A huge grin on Mike’s face. His cheeks were going to bust open. He paid the men and pretended to take their musical skills
very
seriously while snatching glimpses of Leah’s expression. She doggedly ate whatever she’d ordered. It definitely had cheese. If he didn’t know better of her courage, he would’ve sworn she was trying to hide her face with her hand. She kicked him beneath the table. Repeatedly.

The singers crooned until Leah couldn’t hold back anymore. She hid her mouth behind a couple paper napkins and leaned back in the booth. Laughter danced in her eyes and shook her shoulders. Maybe she was hiding proof of Mike’s victory, or maybe she tried to keep from hurting the musicians’ feelings. Either way, they shared that moment from across the table.

He licked his lower lip. On purpose. Like some sort of club slimeball. She gasped for breath and swatted the air, as if that would make him lay off. Not a chance.

Just when his tolerance for his own game wore wearing thin—
damn
they were loud at such close range—the mariachis bowed and moved on.

A young woman followed them. In her arms was an oblong basket bearing roses. This time Mike didn’t show off while retrieving money from his wallet. Leah was still chuckling to herself, eating in earnest rather than as a means of defense.

His own food would be stone cold by the time he got around to it. Didn’t matter. Different hungers stirred his body, and he couldn’t claim they were entirely sexual. He liked her competitive streak and her one-of-the-boys ability to shit talk, but he adored being able to make her laugh.

“
Señorita
?”

The young woman veered toward their table. The exchange of dollar for rose took place so quickly that Leah had no time to protest. The flower girl was gone in a whisk of colorful fabric and dark hair.

He caught Leah’s hand again and reclaimed the entirety of her attention. Again, that balance of power. He would deny her few things in the bedroom, but out in the world? He was the man. That meant giving his date a flower.

“For you, Leah.”

She shook her head, as if by reflex, and then with more force. He almost believed she would refuse it, which would put a whole other spin on their future.

A dead end on more quasi-dates.

Enjoy the sex while it lasted.

Then back to colleagues.

Slowly, however… So slowly, she lowered her eyes to gaze at the single red rose. She closed her fingers over the stem and swallowed. “Thank you, Michael.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Almost a week later, Leah pushed a different plate away with a groan. Her hands folded over her stomach as she leaned back in her seat. “God, I feel so naughty.”

Cass Whitman smiled and licked chocolate sauce off her spoon. “I’m pretty sure this qualifies me as brilliant.”

“I agree.” Leah couldn’t resist another forkful of triple-chocolate cake. “Are you going to tell Ryan on me? He’ll make me run ten miles if he finds out we went straight to dessert.”