Shine Not Burn (9 page)

I wanted to slap my own face with the direction my mind was going.
 
Girlfriend material?
 
What the hell is wrong with you?
 
You’re in Vegas for chrissake!
 
Get control of yourself.
 
Tonight is not the night for lifeplan action
.
 
But a one night stand?
 
Maybe …
I sat up straighter and looked at the table, lifting up my card at the corner.

He turned to face the table, but leaned a little closer to me than the stool would normally allow.
 
“You okay?”

I looked at him, surprised to find his face so close again.
 
I wasn’t complaining at all, though.
 
He had a pretty damn fine face, after all.
 
“No, I’m great.
 
Why?”

He smiled a slow, lazy smile that lit me on fire.
 
“You look a little nervous.”

I blew out a huff of air.
 
“It’s because you’re too damn good looking.”
 
The second the words left my mouth I heard them and cringed inwardly.
 
“Did I just say that out loud?”

“I’m not sure.
 
What was it you thought you said?” he asked.
 
He was teasing me.
 
I could hear the smile in his voice, but I couldn’t look at him.
 
Then my humiliation would be complete.

 
I took a big breath for courage.
 
“I am having a bit of a hard time acting like an intelligent human being with you sitting so close to me.”
 
I was losing my breath, and there was nothing I could do about it short of asking for oxygen or leaving his presence, and I definitely wasn’t ready to do that yet.
 
Talk about potential.
 
This guy had the potential to be my Vegas fling.
 
The wild and crazy sex Candice had talked about on the plane.
 
The forget-Luke-and-move-on man.
 
I looked at him really quick and then faced forward again.
 
Could I have sex with this guy?
 
A total stranger who I know nothing about?
 
Who I’ll never see again?
 
Whose name I don’t even know?

“My name’s Mack, by the way.
 
What’s yours?”

Panic mode, level eight.
 
What is he?
 
A mind reader?
 
Okay, scratch the not-knowing-his-name part.
 
The question is, could I have a one-night stand with a man named Mack who wears a cowboy hat to a casino?
 
He put his forearms on the table as he looked at his cards and waited for my answer.
 
They showed lean muscles under tanned skin and golden highlighted arm hair sprinkling the surface enough to make me wonder what he had going on under his shirt.
 
Yes.
 
I can definitely do this.

I looked at him.
 
He caught my eye and smiled at me, revealing just the slightest dimple in his left cheek … and it was all over for any self control I might have possessed before coming to Vegas.
 
“My name is Andrea, but my friends call me Andie.”

“Andie it is, then.”
 
He draped his arm across the back of my chair, standing so he could get closer to me.
 
“What are you going to do, Andie?
 
Hit or stay?” He wasn’t even looking at the cards.
 
His piercing blue eyes were staring into mine, possibly daring me to take a challenge.

I didn’t even look at my cards.
 
“I could do either one right now and it would make me really happy.”
 
The thrill that ran up my spine was nothing compared to the electricity that jolted my entire body when he leaned towards me and put his face near my ear.
 
His breath tickled my skin as he spoke.

“I meant on the table.”

I smiled, the devil in me taking over.
 
“Wherever, whatever.
 
It’s your call.”

He tipped his head back and laughed, rubbing his hat on his head a few times while he grinned like a madman.
 
“You’re somethin’ else, Andie, you know that?”
 
He took the cocktail from the waitress who’d shown up behind us and handed it to me.
 
I had three drinks now and I planned to drink every one of them.
 
Once he’d gotten his beer and tipped the girl a few dollars, he raised his bottle in my direction.

“Here’s to getting lucky in Vegas.”

I grinned like a crazy fool.
 
“I’ll drink to that.”
 
I clanked my glass against his bottle so hard some of the drink sloshed out.
 
He backed up really quick, pointing a finger at me.
 
“You’re dangerous.
 
If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to get me all wet again.”

I shrugged, sipping my drink as innocently as possible.
 
Then my mouth opened up and more ridiculousness came out.
 
“Turnabout’s fair play.”

He didn’t say anything but he lifted an eyebrow.
 
And I noticed for the next three hands of blackjack, all of which we both won, he got closer and closer to me, until I was turned sideways and one of his thighs was in between mine.
 
If I scooted any closer to the edge of the stool, I’d be humping his leg, but I totally didn’t care.
 
I didn’t even worry about where my friends were or what was taking them so long to find me.
 
I knew Candice would return eventually, even if she had to put Kelly down for the night upstairs first.
 
And I felt more than confident that Mack would take care of me until they came back.
 
If I were being honest, I’d admit that while I waited for my friends’ return, I sent up a few prayers to the goddess of love, begging that Candice not be able to find me for a really long time.

Chapter Eleven

MACK GRABBED MOST OF THE chips in front of us and put them in a plastic cup with the casino’s logo on it.
 
He flipped a chip worth twenty dollars at the dealer.
 
“You ready to get outta here?”
 
He sounded surprisingly sober considering how many beers he’d drunk.

“But what about these ones?” I asked, touching to the ones he was leaving behind.

“Those are yours.”
 

He must be confused.
 
Or maybe he’s drunker than he looks.
 
I felt a little panicked when I realized maybe it wasn’t confusion or beers … maybe he didn’t know that I’d been using his chips all along.
 
I looked at the twelve hundred dollars of multi-colored chips in front of me.
 
“Those aren’t mine, they’re yours.
 
I kind of … took some of your chips in that first round.
 
I’m sorry … I panicked.
 
They said you’d lose your seat.”
 
I grimaced at him, wondering if I’d just blown my chance at a roll in the proverbial hay with the sexiest cowboy this side of the Mississippi.

“You won ‘em fair and square.
 
Let’s just say I backed you for a little while, ’til you got on your feet.”

I bit my lower lip as I considered whether I should insist that he take the money.
 
I soon realized sitting still and concentrating like that was a mistake, though; the room was spinning way too much for well-reasoned, rational arguments.
 
I decided it was more prudent to focus my energies on walking a straight line instead of denying any right to the money.
 
I’d lost count of how many free cocktails I’d drunk in the last hour that we’d been playing, but I knew from the way the gambling pit was going round and round that I’d imbibed a couple too many.
 
I stacked the chips up and fit them into the palm of my hand.
 
Twelve hundred dollars was surprisingly light.
 
“Thank you, cowboy.
 
That’s incredibly generous of you.”
 
I grinned like a drunk fool, which is exactly what I was.
 
“I’ll just have to find a way to pay you back, I guess.”

“Come on, let’s go get some fresh air,” he said, holding out a bent elbow for me.

“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” I asked sliding off the stool, and shoving my hand through the hole at his side.
 
I only punched him in the ribs a little.
 
It was when my feet hit solid ground and I got a better hold on my dizziness that I realized what a dork I sounded like.
 
Talk about a mood-breaker. “I did it again, didn’t I?” I asked, sighing.
 
So much for the sexy black dress and the Jennifer hairstyle.

“Did what?
 
I didn’t notice you doing anything.
 
Do you want to put your shoes on?”
 
He pointed to the spot under my stool where Kelly’s shoes lay in a small, spikey pile.

“If by saying shoes you mean the Devil’s torture devices down there, then no.
 
I definitely don’t want to put them on.”
 
I frowned at the way-too-high heels, wondering how much trouble I’d be in if I just left them there.

He leaned over and grabbed them, crossing them over in the middle and holding onto them with his free hand.
 
“How about I wrangle them for you ’til you feel like putting them back on?”

“Good plan.
 
I should probably go up to my room and change into something more practical anyway.”

“You’re staying here?
 
In the hotel?”
 
He stopped, a few feet away from the blackjack table, causing me to bump into him.

“Yup.
 
In a bitchin’ suite.”

“Humph.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Nope.”
 
He didn’t offer any further explanation and I didn’t ask for one.
 
It didn’t matter anyway, right?
 
No need to complicate things.

He started walking again.
 
Our bodies were side-by-side, his upper arm rubbing up against my right breast.
 
Even that innocent bit of touching sent a thrill through me, especially as I wondered if it was intentional on his part.
 
He didn’t have to walk so close, but he was.
 
Or maybe it was just me, clinging to him like a piece of seaweed clings to a rock.
 
God, please don’t let me be seaweed!

“I haven’t heard that word in a long time.
 
Bitchin’.
 
I like it.”

“Stick with me, cowboy.
 
I’ll show you all kinds of retro cool stuff.
 
Like my Jennifer Anniston ‘do.
 
You like it?”
 
I flicked my hair back and forth before glancing up to see if he was looking.

“It’s pretty,” he said, smiling a little.
 
He turned and stopped, causing my arm to come out of his.
 
He was just inches away, staring down at me.
 
Putting the shoes in his other hand with the cup full of chips, he put his free hand on my shoulder, his expression suddenly going serious.
 
My heart dropped with a thunk.
 
He’s going to tell me he’ll see me later.
 
He’s going to disappear.
 
I knew it.
 
The Jennifer Aniston hair flip was too much.
 
Dammit!

“Listen, Andie.
 
I know you’ve had a lot to drink, so I kind of feel like the gentlemanly thing to do is give you a chance to walk away … if that’s what you want to do.”
 
He was staring at me with those damn glowy blue eyes of his, and I felt like I was being hypnotized by them.
   
Being with him was so much easier to manage when I wasn’t looking right at him; I could notch down the sexy to something manageable when his attention was anywhere but on me.

“Walk away?
 
Walk away from what?”
 
Playing a little hard to get seemed like the prudent thing to do just in case he was just being a good samaritan by hanging out with me.
 
He sure sounded like one now, and in my experience, falling for a guy who has no interest in me is a particularly painful process.

He put his free hand on the top of his hat and moved it back and forth, making the curls in the back move too.
 
“I don’t know what I’m saying.
 
That last Bud went right to my brain and addled it a little, I’m afraid.”

“Addled.
 
Good word.
 
Are you coming up with me while I change my shoes?”
 
I had zero fear of Mack being the wrong kind of guy to invite up to my room.
 
He totally didn’t come off as rapist material.
 
Me, on the other hand, I wasn’t so sure about.
 
He was nearly irresistible, and if he got the ball rolling, I sure wasn’t going to stop it from going straight downhill a thousand miles an hour.
 
No matter what though, I didn’t want to leave Vegas with any regrets.
 
If he wanted to get all hot and sweaty together, then we were going to do that, no question.
 
Screw second thoughts, screw ex-boyfriends who break up by text message, and screw complications.
 
All I wanted was one night of reckless abandon so I could get all this craziness out of my system and go home with a clean slate, ready to kick ass, take names, and get on with my life.

“Do you want me to come up?” he asked.