Hot Number (7 page)

As that startling image crowded into her
mind, her face flushed with heat. Could he read her thoughts? God,
she hoped not. He’d think she was a slut, for sure.

Time to push back
. “I appreciate your
concern, but I’m giving the ankle a good rest, as you can see,” she
said in a haughty voice. “A little sun and some time in the pool
should do wonders.” She rolled over on her side, draping an arm
over her bare breasts. “And I’m behaving myself—so far, anyway.
Though who knows what the evening may bring.” Okay, now he
would
probably think she was a slut, but she couldn’t resist
taking a parting shot.

Saxon’s mouth settled into that
all-too-familiar hard line as he pushed his sunglasses back on.
“You have a good afternoon, Ms. Bligh.”

He turned and strode away, his long, easy
gait carrying him quickly past the beckoning female looks from the
poolside. With a sigh, she watched him go, not shifting her gaze
until he disappeared into the double sliding doors of the
hotel.

* * *

Nick strode down the narrow hotel corridor
toward the casino floor, mentally kicking himself for venturing
into the
Skin
pool area. No doubt Carson would have a report
on his desk within hours, if not minutes. Sure, Nick would give the
disturbance created by those three losers as his excuse, but both
he and Carson knew a little dust-up like that wasn’t an incident
requiring intervention by security staff.

He’d told himself he’d only pop his head in
the entrance to see if she did really have the guts to try the
topless pool. But when he spotted those three drooling dogs around
her and her friend, he’d wanted to chuck them into the water. And
when the asshole next to Sadie stuck his mitt on her leg...well,
that was it.

But damned if the little firecracker didn’t
up and whack the guy first. She might be trying to convince herself
and the rest of Vegas that she was up for anything, but that small
action spoke volumes. Then, for no good reason Nick could figure
out, he’d turned frosty on her. Maybe it was the very fact that she
had actually gone to
Skin
in the first place, letting her
ample assets all hang out, even though he suspected it wasn’t
really her thing. And, yes, it had pissed him off to stand there
watching those clowns leering at her soft, beautiful breasts. But
so what? That failed to explain why he felt...well, jealous was the
only word for it. But why over this woman?

He slowed down, pausing outside the main
casino floor as he tried to shrug the tension from his shoulders.
Maybe he should swing by Starbucks and grab a coffee. Try to ease
down his jacked-up hormones, since they were clearly to blame for
catapulting him into this screwed-up state. Since he’d come back to
Vegas four months ago, he’d been too busy taking care of his mother
and working crazy casino hours to have much of a sex life. Sure, he
could have settled for a few one-night stands with horny tourists
on the prowl, or taken up some of the spoken and unspoken
invitations thrown his way by hostesses and dealers, but nothing
had felt remotely right.

Until Sadie Bligh. Somehow, she felt kind of
right. And that realization had caught him completely off-guard. He
could be wrong, but he’d finally pegged her as a shy geek trying to
masquerade as a wild child. Though that wasn’t exactly an
endangered species in Vegas, she seemed different—her cheeky verve
and her oddly encyclopedic vocabulary, all layered over a shy
clumsiness. There was something really endearing about that. At
least to him.

Okay, and then there was her body. Man, was
she hot. Last night in the interview room had been hard enough on
his system. Today, watching her at the pool had tested every bit of
his self-control. In fact, when she’d draped herself across that
poolside bed—funny how she’d lost her shyness once he’d showed
up—he hadn’t been able to repress a particularly stimulating
fantasy, one that involved her luscious tits and a bottle of suntan
lotion. And the way her gaze had latched onto his zipper, she’d
damn well noticed his cock stirring in response.

Like it was stirring now, just thinking about
her.

Shit.
He was so screwed. Nick knew
there was no chance he’d be able to leave Sadie Bligh to the pack
of horny jackals that would be trailing her around Vegas all week.
Buzz Carson be damned.

“Of course Nick’s interested in you!” Cassie
shook her blond, perfectly coiffed mane in obvious exasperation.
“You really think it was a coincidence that he showed up at the
pool this afternoon?”

Sadie started scanning the crowd as they
passed into the flashing chaos of the casino, pretending she didn’t
give a hoot what Nick Saxon felt. “Maybe. But if the sheriff really
is interested, he’s got a perplexing manner of demonstrating it.
I’m convinced he just disapproves of me, plain and simple. Like I’m
some pain in the butt, trailing trouble in my wake.”

“Well, there’s that…”

Cassie had to dodge Sadie’s quick punch.

“Don’t laugh,” Sadie said, grimacing. “I feel
like that cartoon character that goes around with a black cloud
over his head. That’s probably what Saxon sees when he’s anywhere
near me. Monstrous, doom-laden thunder clouds.” She shouldn’t let
it bother her, but just once she wished she wouldn’t make such a
fool of herself around a cute guy.

Grimly determined to have a good time, Sadie
forged her way through the craps tables toward the blackjack pit.
No matter whether the sheriff disapproved or not, she would have a
great
time if she had to kill herself trying.

Cassie hurried to keep up with her. “You are
so wrong, Sade. Trust me. You are hands down the smartest person
I’ve ever known, but you get a D-minus when it comes to figuring
out guys. You totally turn Saxon on. Anybody with eyes can see
that.”

Craning her neck, Sadie checked out the
blackjack tables for one that had two empty chairs side-by-side.
“Let’s try that one,” she said, pointing to a ten-dollar table.
“Look, I hope you’re right. I really do. But I’m not going to hold
my breath waiting for him to make a move. We’re here to have a good
time, and Nick Saxon sure isn’t the only hot guy in this town.”

Cassie grinned. “Atta girl. You’re right. We
always have to be open to the gifts presented by the universe.”

Sadie nodded in stout agreement as they took
the two vacant middle seats at an otherwise full table. She asked
for two hundred in chips. Cassie, looking dubious, asked for
fifty.

“I know I’m going to regret this, Sade. I
don’t know a thing about this game, other than apparently a lot of
people get pissed off at you if you don’t play exactly the right
way.”

Sadie briefly touched Cassie’s hand in
reassurance. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure people will cut us a
break. We can’t be the only blackjack rookies in Vegas.”

“Yeah, but you told me you studied the game.
If I know you, that means you’re damn near an expert by now,”
Cassie said with a knowing air.

Sadie pushed two chips into the rectangle in
front of her. “There’s a standard system that’s easy to learn. If
you stick to the system, the odds say you’ll still end up losing
around a couple of percent over the long run. But on any given
night you can be up. Or down. Maybe even by a lot.”

“So, that means
you’ll
be okay, but
I’ll be screwed. Have I got that right?”

Sadie laughed. “That’s about the size of it.
You have to decide on your limit and walk away when you hit
it.”

“Well, I figure that’ll take about ten
minutes. Then I’ll head back to the slots and veg out until it’s
time to hit the club.”

Sadie nodded absently, already focusing on
the game. Cassie was right. She probably would be out in about ten
minutes, whereas Sadie had every intention of challenging—and
beating—the house.

“Why don’t we meet up in my room at eleven?”
she replied. “I’ll need to change, though you look perfect
already.”

Cassie had chosen a lacy camisole and a
short, sexy skirt for the casino, while Sadie had opted for jeans
and a pink Polo tee shirt. After last night, she had learned her
lesson. No more wardrobe malfunctions on the casino floor.

The dealer whipped cards out of the shoe with
lightning fast skill, two to each of the six players, and two
dealer cards. Cassie drew a queen and a six, Sadie a nine and an
eight. The dealer flipped over his first card, an eight.

When Cassie’s turn came around, she held up
her palm to indicate she’d stand with the sixteen. Sadie cringed,
while the guy on her left in the anchor position shook his head
with a sigh.

Sadie waved away the dealer, sticking on
seventeen.

The anchor guy stood too. The dealer flipped
over the hole card—a jack.

As their chips were swept away, Cassie turned
to Sadie. “The way that guy reacted I guess I must have screwed
that one up.”

“It’s okay. Standing on sixteen is
instinctive for people who don’t know the basic strategy. But the
strategy says you should have hit on a dealer eight.”

“Jesus,” Cassie groaned. “I’d need a freaking
chart or something to play this game.”

“There
is
a chart you can memorize.
It’s in here now.” Sadie pointed a finger at her temple.

“Ah, yes. I wouldn’t have expected anything
less from Professor Genius.”

Sadie grinned as the dealer laid out the
second hand. This time Sadie stood on twelve against the dealer’s
five.

“Good for you,” the guy next to her said in a
low voice. “Nice to see you know what you’re doing, not like some
of the airheads around here.”

Sadie didn’t know whether to thank him for
the compliment or jab him in the ribs for taking a shot that was
obviously aimed at Cassie. She settled for an imperious glare.

An hour and a half later, long after Cassie
had departed for greener pastures, Sadie hit a winning streak. Her
two hundred dollar stake more than doubled. And it didn’t surprise
her a bit to find she could remember every card played, and could
easily keep a running track of the distribution of high and low
cards. According to her research, card counters called that the
heat of the shoe.

When the third shoe hit a plus seventeen,
Sadie knew there were a lot of high cards left unplayed and started
tripling her bets. After she won four of the next five hands, the
anchor guy started following her lead, raising his own bets. She
kept her bets at sixty dollars a hand until she got another hot
shoe, and then upped them to a hundred. That drew the attention of
the pit boss, a pretty stick of a young woman in a black suit that
hugged her waif-like form. Petite she might be, but her piercing
gaze was pretty much the female version of the sheriff’s stare. She
managed to look thoroughly intimidating.

When Sadie’s stack of chips had tripled in
size, with the pit boss looking grimmer by the minute, she decided
it was time to switch to a table with a higher minimum bet. That
way her moves might attract less attention. She found a hundred
dollar table nearby, and ordered another mojito as she took her
seat.

When the two players on her right both pushed
out a pair of hundred dollar chips, Sadie followed suit. She’d
never been the slightest bit audacious, but coming to Vegas was all
about pushing past her limits. So far, audacity had been good
strategy, at least when it came to blackjack. She might be striking
out in the guy department, but numbers were her life. This she
could do.

As play continued and her stake grew, an
unfamiliar and exciting energy rippled through her body, making her
hands tingle and setting her nerves on edge. Taking a slow, deep
breath, she reminded herself that she was already more than fifteen
hundred dollars to the good. Unless she got a particularly vile run
of luck, she’d end up a few hundred ahead for the evening, at
worst.

But her hot streak didn’t quit. When her
first two cards were a seven and a four, she doubled down against
the dealer’s five. With a ten in the hole, the dealer dealt himself
a nine and busted. Sadie had to bite down on her lip to keep from
shrieking with excitement.

The next few hours flew by in a whirl of
chips, cards, and one or two more mojitos. When it was time to go
back to the room to meet Cassie and change for the nightclub, she’d
raked in nearly three thousand dollars. As she cashed out, a
powerful rush roared through her body, sending all her senses into
overload. It felt so damn good she could hardly catch her breath.
If she hadn’t made a commitment to her friend, she would have
stayed at the table until dawn, or whatever passed for dawn in that
perpetual indoor twilight. But she couldn’t disappoint her pal.
Cassie had carried on all day about how she couldn’t wait to check
out the hotel’s new nightclub,
Esprit
.

Trying to play until dawn would have been
risky business, anyway. If she’d hung in much longer, she had to
believe the pit boss would have fingered her for counting cards. As
it was, she’d already had more scrutiny than any other player at
her tables. She gave a ghost of a laugh.
Sadie Bligh. Vegas card
counter!

Pushing her way through the crowd to the
elevator, she struggled to analyze the unfamiliar emotions she’d
felt all night—the highs and lows, and the thrill of having a stack
of chips in front of her that the other players eyed in envy. Even
the sense of danger when she fell under the scrutiny of the pit
boss had been kind of exciting. It all made her feel so…alive. Not
once tonight had the Eagleton Prize intruded into her
concentration. Not once had she worried about the gaping hole the
loss of that prize had blasted into her career plans.

She chuckled softly as she hurried down the
hall to her room. For almost four hours, she’d even
managed—mostly—not to think about Nick Saxon. Given the impact he’d
had on her senses, maybe
that
was the biggest miracle of
all.