Weathering Jack Storm (Silver Strings G Series) (31 page)

Jack.

Jack was too far away for a positive recognition of his face, but she would know that swagger and that demeanor in any crowd. Currently, he was scanning the packed room, and she quickly dropped her eyes loath to meet his gaze when he found her.

Through her lashes, she sneaked another look and was reminded of watching him walk that hospital hallway the day of Tristan’s surgery. How far they had come together, and yet the feeling was suddenly full circle—Jack walking back into her life and the uncertainty that came with each step.

Spotting her, he veered straight to the table, and her muscles stiffened bracing for a confrontation, but he only lowered himself to a chair. Pulling out some bills, he laid them on the felt of the table and pushed them toward her.

Politely, he hobnobbed with his neighboring players, and her senses soaked up the deep rumble of his voice. Following procedure, she called out his money amount before locking it in the box, and the chips fell together with a soft clack as she counted them out by stacking. Warily, she pushed the stacks to him knowing she should just signal Clayton and ask to tap out.

Still, Jack had begun this figurative game, and she was literally ready to see where he would go with it.

“Place your bets.” Passing her hand over the table, she listened as Striker and Jack continued their conversation. The third player was sipping at his drink and keeping an interested ear open.

“You seem familiar bro.” Striker eyed Jack while casting his ante with the rest.

“I get that a lot.” Jack shot a casual grin, and she saw him reassuringly touch the cap hiding his long locks of hair.

“I bet you do. I bet you do.”

At this knowing tone, she shot Striker a look, as did Jack. With a secret smile, the man tapped the table indicating a hit from the deck. It was obvious that even though Jack had downplayed his appearance, he had been made.

Jack in turn tapped the table and continued through a few low cards before she busted him with the dealer deck.

“Too bad man. Too bad,” Striker commiserated.

Jack nodded in answer and flagged a cocktail server while Striker held out his hand in introduction. It was the first time Marissa had ever heard his name, but she knew he would always be Striker in her mind. Now, on a first name basis, the local man asked, “What brings you to Gulf Port, Mississippi, my man?”

“A much needed break.” Jack paused to order water when the server made her way over, then finished, “Sometimes you just have to stop and sort things out, you know?”

“Sounds like woman trouble.”

“Mmh.” Jack nodded in agreement and silently scooped in his winnings as she shuffled for the next hand.

“Ain’t it always? Ain’t it always?” Striker shook his head.

Deftly, Marissa dealt, snapping the cards from the deck and remaining silent as Jack continued his own game—whatever it was.

Striker tapped the table twice before giving the stay signal, and she moved to Jack who seemed to be staring over her shoulder. When an uncomfortable span of time passed, she had to break her stubborn silence.

“Sir?”

“Sir!” He seemed to be choking back a laugh, and she felt her face heat in both embarrassment and anger.

“Something funny?” She felt her brows lift in a challenge and professionally forced them to relax back into a normal position.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever been addressed as ‘sir,’ by anyone except my son.”

With more skill than she handled the deck and dealt each card, Jack cleverly played the Tristan card.

A significant emotional strategy for so many reasons. The spawn of passionate sex. The source of shared maternal and paternal feelings. The light of both of their lives.

She actually felt limp when those incredible eyes hit hers, and he murmured, “Hit me.”

Her lips fell apart reading more than one meaning in those two words. ‘I need to hit that, Mariss.’ On more than one occasion, he had caught her as she passed by, usually at the pool, and whispered for her ears alone that sexy phrase. Ridding the image, she flipped a card on the table.

“Hit me...”

Okay, she was not imagining that. That was the husky voice he used when his lips were against her ear. Shakily, she flipped another card and hungered over his smug smile.

“As much as I love saying that, I guess I’m good for now.” Jack hovered his flattened hand over his cards and shot her another cocky smile.

Moving her gaze, from the face that had her insides aflutter, to his generous card total, she flipped her own cards and busted. As she counted the pay out, the rest of the table, apparently feeling the chemistry between her and Jack, snickered from his comment.

“Yeah, my woman and I parted ways many years ago.” Striker struck up conversation again as Marissa hit the button on the card shuffler.

“Sorry to hear,” Jack came back, and his next words put her heart on high alert. “I aim to do everything I can to get mine back.”

A middle-aged man took a seat at the table, and she verbally reported the cash amount and heard Clayton’s okay. With a numb greeting, she exchanged the newcomer’s money for chips.

“Do it,” Striker encouraged Jack. “You don’t want to be old and alone like me.”

“I’m just stupid. But I warned her about that.”

When his water arrived, Jack paused to tip the waitress and then rolled the corners up to peek at his cards.

“Ain’t we all?” Striker consoled and sent Marissa a smile. “All men are stupid. Right, sweetheart?”

“I don’t know about all, but I can sure think of—a few.” Biting her tongue before she replied “one,” which would secretly single Jack out, she tried to play nice since every indication so far was that he came in peace.

Jack’s hand busted, and as she raked his chips toward her, Striker joked, “There she goes, taking your money again.”

Reflexively, Jack pushed his ante forward and cocked his half grin. “Yeah, she is good at that.”

Freezing in the midst of stacking the chips into the tray, she shot her look to his face, and immediate guilt flashed his expression.

“I didn’t mean that. I didn’t. I was talking strictly about this right here.” His eyes pinned hers willing her to believe, and she did.

Conceivably, the remark had been a slip up, something she never would have taken personally had their horrible fight never happened. Yet, it had happened. This comment, no matter how innocent, brought all those black feelings back.

The rest of the table eyed this odd tension between dealer and player, and she concentrated on the chips again.

Over the last few minutes, and especially now, as she struggled to reign in her bitter memories and emotions, her table had slowed.

Because Clayton had known her for years, he knew something was not right and moved to her side. “Marissa? Need to tap out?”

Shaking her head, she shuffled the deck. “I’m fine. Thanks.”

Considerately, he hovered, astutely knowing something was not right, and he looked for anyone who might be giving her trouble. His touch on her shoulder was light, brief, and professional, but it did not escape Jack’s attention. The identification on his vest didn’t go unnoticed either; she saw Jack’s gaze zero in on it.

Clayton was a name Jack knew well from texts that occasionally rattled her phone.

“What are you doing here Marissa?” A glower clouded Jack’s face, and his voice rumbled like thunder on a very distant horizon. Except he was very close. Only a table separated them. Suddenly, his proximity made her feel even more emotionally vulnerable.

“Working...”

“If there is anyone who doesn’t need to work it is you.”

“That is where you are wrong.” Their eyes locked together, and her chin swung to a defiant angle. “I owe someone ten thousand dollars, and I intend to pay every penny back.”

“No you don’t, and no you won’t.” His voice was weary but firm. “Tap out, or whatever you need to do here. Because we are leaving.”

“This is him?” Clayton let the personal question slip before catching himself. His voice rang with the authority of a boss and the empathy of a friend. “You’re tapped out.”

“No, I’m fine. He was just leaving...” Finally, able to tear her gaze from the pull of Jack’s assessing eyes, she sent an apologetic look around her table, and a flush crept up her neck when she realized what a spectacle she and Jack had become.

“Not without you Mariss my honey.” Jack’s assurance was heated, husky, and haunting in its familiarity.

Folding his arms across his chest, Clayton pulled rank. “Riss, you need to sort this out, and this is not the place to do it.” Then in concern he added, “Or you won’t be able to come back.”

“Oh she won’t be coming back.” Jack’s assurance was also menacing. “Should I make sure of that right now? Will a big scene–”

“Jack, stop! Please, stop!” Humiliated, she appealed to him, and infuriated, she assaulted him with a look that halted his words mid-sentence.

To the patrons at her stalled table, Clayton was professional and friendly as he passed out tickets for a complimentary meal. “We will have another dealer momentarily.” To Marissa, he leaned in and whispered, “I can stay with you if you need backup.”

“Get the hell away from my wife, asshole!” Jack’s frosty tone rapidly heated. When he breached the invisible line between staff and players, Clayton further blocked him with a well-placed step. Jack’s features contorted in fury, and he warned, “Mariss, I am about three seconds away from punching his face in. If he touches you again, he’s dead. If he doesn’t put some distance between the two of you, he’s dead.”

The word dead used in this sense was a trigger word in many places, and a casino was one of them. Wanting to diffuse the situation before Jack brought on more heat than he intended, she hurriedly prepared to leave the table.

Her training kicked in, and she turned back to hold her empty hands palm up for the camera’s which were inset into the ceiling.

Security moved in fast, the burly men intent on keeping disruptions out of the playing environment, and she shouldered around Clayton to reach Jack first. Pushing her idiot man toward the exit, she held her hand up in a mannerly halting motion to the men in uniform whom she was on friendly terms with, but they continued to advance.

“Please, it’s okay. We are leaving,” she assured. A mild panic tingled her nerves at the thought of Jack being detained and his identity going on record, or worse, a police record.

After a couple of questions, they were given the go ahead to leave. Jack’s arm snaked around her waist as they approached the lighted exit sign leading to the concourse beyond. Because her emotions felt jumbled, she stiffened at the intimate contact before relenting to the baser instinct that craved his touch. Pressing her hip to his, she curved her own arm around him savoring the warm, hard feel of his body.

Because in Mississippi, gambling was only legal on an interstate waterway, the corridor was long that connected the ‘boat’ to the main building. At this time of the afternoon, it was crowded with players coming or going. For a minute, she and Jack walked in silence keeping near the wall to one side.

“I know you are still mad, but you don’t know how close I was to throwing you on that table and banging your brains out.” Jack bent to her as he spoke, and his words washed intimately over her face. “Unless you want to end up in the first bathroom or closet we pass, you better come up with a plan fast. And that plan better be fucking now; fighting later.”

AS USUAL, WITH WORDS ALONE
, he had her hot and bothered. Even though she wanted to tell him to fuck off, she wanted more to fuck him.

Fighting off the spell she had fallen into with the mere memory of him against her in every way, she shoved away, and her fingers curled in an effort to keep from slapping his smug face.

The reason things were not working between them was because sex worked so well between them, allowing other conflicts to be pushed aside instead of resolved. Wordlessly, he slipped his arm back around her waist and once more, she returned the embrace. What if because they fought first, they never fucked again?

“This is a hotel as well as a casino.” Grudgingly and yet so eagerly, she volunteered the information.

“Where do we check in?”

A swipe of a black card had them swiping a key card less than a quarter of an hour later. The second they entered the room, he had her pressed to the wall, and his tongue was swiping hers before the heavy door clanged closed.

He broke lip contact long enough to turn the lock, and she saw that the key card had dropped to the floor at their feet.

Reaching up, she jerked at his disguise cap, and when his hair spilled free, she forked her fingers into the warm, silken, familiar strands.

A grin hovered on his lips. “I find that uniform strangely hot, or probably it’s just ‘cause I know you are hot underneath it...”

Returning his mouth to hers, he skimmed his hands up under her shirt, and worked them under her bra. Their groans were simultaneous. With a hook of his fingers, he lifted his lips again, long enough to rake the shirt over her head. His kiss went from her neck to the exposed cleavage, and when her bra disappeared, she grabbed at his shirt desperate for skin to skin contact.