Skintight (5 page)

Shit. He didn't have enough left in the safe and he
knew without asking that Kirov wouldn't allow him to leave to visit an ATM machine. “Will you take my IOU?”

“For ball.”

What the hell, he thought blurrily. He had a good hand. “Gimme a piece of paper.”

He wrote the IOU and tossed it into the pot. Then he turned over his king-high straight.

Sergei turned over four twos.

For a minute Jax thought he was seeing double. God knew he'd been having a tough time focusing. But then he realized he'd just lost his grandfather's World Series baseball. His gut twisted and he felt sick. Still, a bet was a bet.

Long after the Russian left, Jax remained at the table thinking about losing the ball and wondering what difference it made to him. It wasn't as if he wanted the damn thing himself. It had been the frigging bane of his existence for as long as he could remember, a symbol of everything that was wrong between him and his old man.

So why the hell did losing it bite so deep? He assured himself it was merely because he'd been outmaneuvered by someone he didn't respect. It had nothing to do with the way he'd carelessly tossed aside a memento his father had put a lot of stock in.

That was his story.

And he was sticking to it.

 

J
AX GAVE HIMSELF
a shake. Enough of this trip down memory lane. He didn't want to think about things he couldn't change.

Maybe he'd cashed in his chips too soon. Because what he needed right now was the slick feel of a new
deck of cards in his hands, the tink and click of a stack of chips sliding through his fingers. He needed to inhale the scent of green felt and nervous players.

The game had been his one constant companion for the past dozen or so years, and if there was one thing it had taught him it was that some days things just went to shit despite his best efforts.

But there was always another poker game.

 

“H
EY
, T
REEN
,” the dancer named Jerrilyn called from across the dressing room. “I heard some interesting news about your hot new beau.”

Treena finished wiping greasepaint from her face, then lowered the hand towel, aware that the backstage chatter had softened. In the mirror she saw the other woman walk toward her; then, before Treena could even swivel to face her, Jerrilyn bent down and met her gaze in the mirror.

“You missed a spot.” Jerrilyn indicated a patch in front of Treena's left ear where a smear of stage makeup remained. “So, anyhow,” she continued as Treena scrubbed at the splotch, “I've got a new honey, too. His name is Donny and he's a huge World Poker fan. I'm talking a guy who
lives
for the televised tournaments, if you can imagine such a thing.” Shaking her head, she plopped down on the vacated stool next to Treena. “It's sure as hell lucky he's good between the sheets or we wouldn't have anything in common.” Then she flapped her hand. “But that's neither here nor there. What I wanted to tell you is that when I was telling him about how you and Jax met last night and got to the part where you said, ‘Well, Gallagher, Jax Gallagher, I believe I
would like to have breakfast with you,' Donny went ape-shit. Did you know your boy Jax is part of the big poker tournament that's gonna be held over at Bellagio at the end of the month?”

“Yeah, he mentioned that this morning.”

“Did he mention his ranking? Because apparently he is
big
on this circuit. Donny says he's probably one of the top five winners of the past couple years. And according to my guy, that equates to huge—and I'm talking
mega
—winnings.”

“And he's a hottie, too,” Michelle piped in from down the row of stools in front of the long lighted mirror.

“Um, um, um,” Eve murmured and grinned at Treena. “Money
and
sex appeal. Sugar, I'm thinking you definitely hit the jackpot with this one.”

“Did I tell you all about the television special I'm going to be in?” Julie-Ann asked.

“Ad nauseam,” Carly said, strolling into the dressing area from the shower room. Reaching her station next to Treena's she dropped her towel and picked up a pair of silky undies from the countertop. She raised a brow at Treena as she stepped into them and adjusted the thong's fit. “So what are you going to wear on your date?”

Treena removed the nylon skullcap that enabled her to fit all her hair under the wig from the final act and rose to her feet. Fluffing out her curls with both hands, she strode over to the garment rack. She stopped in front of it and slid aside a couple of costumes that the wardrobe mistress hadn't yet collected for repair. Unhooking the hanger containing the cocktail dress she'd brought from home, she swung around and held the gar
ment against her front for her friends to see. “What do you think? He indicated I should dress up.”

It was an above-the-knee, empire-waisted, black-and-gold crocheted dress that was cut low in front. It had a slip-dress lining and tiny capped sleeves, and its bias-cut hem was finished with silky eight-inch knotted fringe that swayed with the least little movement. She raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Oh, hell, yeah,” Juney breathed, coming over to inspect the dress. “Where did you get this?” She fingered the fringe. “This is totally hot. I'm going to have to borrow it sometime.”

“Whenever you want,” she agreed. She'd gotten it when she and Big Jim had first gotten married, but she refused to dwell on that. She'd realized this afternoon that it had been ages since she'd anticipated anything the way she was looking forward to her date with Jax tonight—and she was damned if she was going to let guilt ruin her evening. She hooked the hanger back on the rack and returned to her station to get ready.

A few moments later Julie-Ann said admiringly, “It sure is nice the way you can just forget your husband's only been dead a few months.”

Carly half rose from her stool. “Listen, you little bi—”

Treena reached up and halted her with a hand on her arm. “It's okay,” she said quietly, and turned to Julie-Ann. “My husband has been dead for over four months,” she said evenly, “and he was ill practically our entire marriage before that. I was faithful to him while he was alive, and I hardly think going out with another man now can be considered dancing on his grave.”

“Of course not,” Julie-Ann agreed with an innocent blink of her eyes. “That's what I said. It's nice that you can just forget all about him and have fun with another guy.”

No guilt, no guilt,
she reminded herself and returned Julie-Ann's saccharine smile with an equally insincere one of her own. “Isn't it?” she agreed, and turned back to finish applying her makeup.

Despite her best intentions, Treena knew Julie-Ann had introduced a faint niggle of unease into her anticipation. It disappeared, however, the moment she clapped eyes on Jax when she entered the main salon a short while later.

He straightened away from the pillar he'd been leaning against, his gaze frankly admiring her. “Yowsa,” he said, stepping forward to meet her. “You look fantastic.”

“Thanks. You're looking mighty spiff, yourself.” And he was. Carly's description of big and built accurately described him in his pin-striped, double-breasted suit coat that stretched wide across his broad shoulders. Once again he was wearing jeans, but tonight he'd paired the two items with an elegantly knotted, subtly striped silk tie and a fitted royal blue dress shirt that accentuated the shade of his eyes.

“Thank you, ma'am.” He ran his finger beneath the tie. “Believe me, this is strictly in your honor. I don't know who invented these things, but if you ask me they oughtta be shot.”

She laughed. “Poor baby,” she said without an iota of sympathy. “But you're a gambling man. I'll see your necktie and raise you the average bra anytime. You dragged that out for a special occasion? Try wearing
something that digs grooves in your hide twelve to eighteen hours a day, every day of the week.”

His gaze dropped to the wide scoop of her bodice where it culminated in a deep V between her breasts. “Not a particular problem for you tonight, I see.”

Doing her best to ignore the sudden heat flashing through all her secret places, she shot him a grin. “Yeah, well, if only one of us gets to be comfortable, I vote it's me.”

“That seems fair.” He took her elbow and escorted her out onto the street. The night sky was a rich midnight blue, and a balmy desert breeze whispered gently through the palms. “Now, this is more like it,” he said in satisfaction. “I'm afraid I've lost my ability to adapt to triple-digit-degree weather.” He looked from the neon-lit Strip to her tall-heeled, strappy sandals. “What do you think? Can you walk to the Aladdin in those things? I can always call for a car.”

She made a rude noise. “Please. I can play basketball in these. Walking a few blocks is a piece of cake.”

“If you say so,” he said skeptically. “Forget the necktie and bra. If you ask me,
those
have gotta be the real torture device.” Then his gaze rose slowly from his contemplation of her ankles, grazing her calves, her knees and her thighs, before continuing higher. His eyes were an intense and brilliant hue that pinned hers in place when they finally reached her face. “But I have to admit they make your legs look fabulous.” He glanced down at the fringe that swung against the limbs under discussion. “Or maybe it's your legs that make the shoes look sexier 'n sin.”

“Oh, man, you're dangerous, you know that? I can
see I'm going to have to stay on my toes if I want to avoid getting swept right off my feet.”

He arched a brow. “Like you don't come equipped with an arsenal all your own? What do you call those shoes, that dress, those lips? Honey, I have a feeling you were
born
loaded for bear. I'm the one who'd better stay on my toes here or I won't stand a chance.”

His voice went flat on the last sentence, but when she shot him a questioning glance, he gave her a rueful smile and shrugged. “Sorry. Had a sudden flashback there to my geeky, gawky teenage years.”

“Oh, sure,” she said doubtfully. “Like I'm supposed to believe a big, good-looking guy like you wasn't overrun with more girls than you knew what to do with? You were probably captain of the football team, beating off perky little cheerleaders with a stick.”

Jax couldn't stop his sudden bark of acrimonious laughter. “Captain of the football team?” he said, images of being a fourteen-year-old in an eighteen-year-old's world looming large in his head. “Hardly.” When she just blinked at him, he admitted, “I gained my full height around the time I turned twelve, but I was in college before I developed the coordination to go with it. Hell,
regular
girls thought I was a nerd—never mind the most popular girls in school.”

Arriving at the Desert Passage shopping center adjacent to the Aladdin Hotel, he looked down at Treena as he opened the door for her, taking in her pretty whiskey-brown eyes and mass of Pre-Raphaelite curls. “Believe me,” he said drily, “I admired girls like you from afar.”

She shot him a startled glance as they walked into the
North Africa setting that hosted the shops and restaurants of Desert Passage. “Like me?” Stopping beneath the twilight-blue domed ceiling, with its streaky clouds of gold and pink, she laughed up at him. “Trust me, you wouldn't have admired me, from afar or otherwise. I wasn't part of the in crowd. I was the tall girl with the unruly carrot-colored hair who only wanted to learn to dance well enough to get out of town. And since the school I went to had a student body whose biggest ambition was to kick Lehigh Valley High's ass at football or be voted Homecoming Queen, Miss Popularity I wasn't.”

So she'd been a misfit like him as a teen, he thought as the maitre d' at the Commander's Palace perused the reservation list, then summoned a waiter who led them to their table. Big deal. She'd sure as hell clawed her way to a better place since then, hadn't she?

Her little tease of a dress was a prime example of just how much she'd changed her image. If he didn't drag his gaze away from her breasts pretty damn soon, his pants weren't going to fit.

She had the prettiest tits he'd clapped eyes on in a long time. They were small, yet round and high, and the way her outfit's neckline flirted with her cleavage threatened to give him the granddaddy of all hard-ons.

Which was nuts. What was he, seventeen? He'd made a cold-blooded decision to check into the Avventurato rather than the Bellagio where the tournament would take place simply because Treena Sarkilahti McCall worked there and he'd needed the advantage of propinquity in order to carry out his plan.

He knew he could see her breasts buck naked five
nights a week at the ten-o'clock show if he wanted. So what was the big deal about seeing them partially exposed now?

Something, he admitted grudgingly. There was just something about the sight of her pale smooth curves straining against black fabric that he could not ignore, game plan or not.

“This is lovely,” Treena said, glancing around the dining room with its green walls and harem-tent ceiling. “I've heard a lot about this restaurant but I've never been here before.”

“I haven't been to this one, but I've been to the original in New Orleans. I thought you'd enjoy it.”

“Oh, I will. I love eating out.”

“Do you? And here I'd kill for a home-cooked meal.”
So invite me over, sweetheart.
He gazed at her expectantly.

She merely gave him that knowing, one-sided smile. “Are you nuts? I'd eat in restaurants every day of the week if I could afford to.”

“Trust me, it gets old.” But he could see he was going to have to work harder than he'd expected to elicit the invitation he desired. He got down to some serious wooing.