by Katy Evans
He rocks his hips.
Once.
Twice.
Pleasure starts bubbling inside me. I rock back to him, clutching him to me, grabbing the back of his head and kissing him hard.
I don’t know what happens as he rocks his hips to mine, as he dry-fucks me on the dance floor, but suddenly my world crumbles and burns, nothing exists but earth-shattering, convulsing, soul-blinding pleasure. I don’t even know if he comes with me and for how long or for how long I’ve lost reality, but when I’m back in my body his kiss is deep and slow, absorbing my cries.
What a liar.
“You’re not too bad,” I say, breathless.
“Really? I’m not noticing.” His voice is husky, his gaze half-mast and heavy.
“You’re not?”
He gives a slow shake of his head. “I’m noticing you’re breathless and flushing.” He ducks his head to my ear. “You just fucking came in my arms.”
I cut my gaze up at him, boldly admitting in a breathless whisper, “And I didn’t hold back.”
Wow. I don’t know how I can say these things to him. I instinctively seem to know they’re the kind of things he wants—needs—to hear.
His whole body radiates strength as he clutches me tighter, gaze direct and unflinching as he looks down at me with hooded eyes.
I swallow thickly, and he sets his hand tighter around my waist, gripping me as he drops a kiss on my temple and heads back to my ear. “Do you want more? What are you thinking about? What’s got you so turned on, hmm?”
I swallow, breathless, limp in his arms after my O.
“Winning.” I tip my chin up at a proud angle, unable to hide the sound of my haggard breaths.
His gaze glimmers in heat. “No. Not winning.”
“Yes, winning our bet.”
“You really want my mouth between your thighs, don’t you, Red?” He’s looking down at me with twinkling eyes and almost purring low and thickly.
“I . . . uh, no! It’s an ego thing!” I counter.
“Or a mouth-between-your-thighs thing.”
He seizes my hand and starts leading me out, to an empty playing table.
“Come here. Sit. I’ve got something better to do.”
He sits at the table.
I smile back and sit beside him.
After what just happened and the way I came undone, I’m embarrassed. I stare around the casino nervously. “Focus,” he says.
“On what?”
“On me, Red.”
I swallow, my eyes jerking to his unreadable features. His eyes gleam. He relaxes.
“I’ll play for more. More than you sleeping in my arms tonight,” he tells me.
“For what?”
“Three minutes, my tongue in your mouth.”
“Ugh.”
“It’s just a game, Red.”
“More like war.”
“Why?”
“Well every time you bet you’re either losing money or clothes or self-respect.”
“That’s the principle of everything in life. Everything has a price. The price of winning is betting—sometimes more than what you’re comfortable with. You win some, you lose some.” He gathers me up from the table. “Let’s take this upstairs.” He dials his phone. “Oliver, meet me at the elevator bank.”
“What’s the most devastating loss you’ve ever had?” I ask him as we board and Oliver slips in with us.
Oliver clears his throat. “I can say it wasn’t on card games, miss.”
“Thank you, Oliver,” Cullen says with a stony growl and a bleak glare.
“Yes, sir.”
Oliver closes his mouth, and I’m left wondering what he means. We step out of the elevator and straight into our suite, Oliver following. “Every time I lose I’m wearing this.” Cullen jerks his white button shirt off. “Burn that.” He tosses it at Oliver, who catches it midair.
“Yes, sir.”
“Get me a few of my black ones. Three or four. I always do well in black.”
“Done, sir.”
“That will be all, Oliver. Goodnight. Get yourself a good dinner, sign it to the room and head back to the house. I’ll call if I need anything.” He shuts the door behind Oliver and eyes me in interest. “Now where were we?”
“We were saying you need institutionalization.” I shrug somberly as if I’m not teasing him.
“No. We were saying you’re overdressed for the occasion.” His gaze rakes me up and down.
He sits on the living room couch, leaning forward as he speaks.
“Strip poker. We play to the end, then I’ll go all in for three minutes with your mouth.”
I gape at him. I can’t stop swallowing the moisture in my mouth. “So . . . if I win, you take your clothes off?” I ask, hedging.
“That’s right, we play for clothes. Then I play for your mouth.”
I laugh sardonically. “You’d need to go very far to get to that point and I’m not letting you get that far. You see, I’m feeling lucky tonight too.”
I’m not about to mention the few bucks I lost at blackjack.
That unlucky streak at the tables wasn’t exactly unlucky; I only lost because I couldn’t stop thinking about Cullen. And his mouth. His eyes. His touch.
God, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
Cullen smiles, a smile all too clear and adrenaline-inducing. A smile that says,
It’s on.
Once we say it, there’s no turning back though. Cullen pulls out two decks of cards, and I sit at the edge of the huge living room couch, fidgeting as I watch him shuffle them. It feels like I locked myself in a hotel room suite with a wild cat. My heart stutters with all the testosterone in the air.
The word handsome is far too tame for this guy. He’s so much more. Darker, harder, more man. More . . . magnetic.
All sex, and I agreed to play strip poker with him. Something I’ve never done in my whole life.
“Are you comfortable there?” he asks.
“Not really,” I admit.
He slides his eyes to the floor, and I settle on the carpet.
He pulls out a tray of chips and each is worth a hundred thousand dollars.
“I don’t have a hundred thousand dollars.”
“We won’t be betting money. We’re betting what you’re wearing, like we said.”
“And you?”
“That too.” He settles down across from me.
The game begins, and after the first three rounds, I’ve only had to remove my shoes and necklace. Cullen still hasn’t removed anything.
The next two hands, I have to tug off my dress, and Cullen has to remove his belt.
I’m in my underwear. He’s still in slacks and his undershirt. Blast him.
I’m getting more and more into the game, and more and more naked by the second.
I might be seeing things, but I swear his pupils go blacker every time I cast an article of clothing aside.
My physical reactions to this guy astound me. My insides seize every time we show our cards and our eyes meet, and when my insides finally relax, everything resumes at a frantic pace. My breaths, my pulse, my thoughts.
He’s big, at least six feet two, and dark as twilight. Everything about him is dark except those diamond-platinum-jeweled eyes, eyes he tracks me with as I stand to undress.
He drags his open hand around his jaw while studying me with a gripping focus, the kind that he uses when he’s at the tables with a real player, someone he views as his equal, someone with the potential to ante up and stay in the game.
Win or lose.
A fight to the death.
The lamplight casts shadows over his face. Las Vegas buzzes outside the window, but suddenly, inside the suite, things have gone very, very still.
We deal again. I show him a straight flush, while he just has a pair.
He grabs his undershirt and pulls it over his head. He looks frustrated and I love it. It’s my turn to eat him up.
Oh my.
“Let the angels sing,” I purr, whistling.
He growls, that little tell of his when he doesn’t want to smile or laugh.
“I like what I see.”
“Oh you wanna play that way?” He drags his eyes over the swell of my breast and I know I’m at a disadvantage.
Still.
I look.
My breath catches at the sight of his bare chest. His arms are ripped and muscular, defined and so strong my stomach’s got a fire inside it. I admire how smooth and tan his skin is and try not to notice how thick his neck is, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he speaks.
“Good girl, Wynn.”
I try not to notice his mouth moving, talking, but it’s hard not to want to shut him up with my own and let the hot bastard have his three minutes times a thousand.
We deal again, and soon I lower my cards, afraid that I don’t have much to win.
Shit. My bra is gone now.
Cullen rests back on his elbows and watches me take it off. I feel restless now, unable to play. Trying to cup my breasts in each hand and hold the cards is impossible. So I cross my arm over my breasts, frowning. “Last one or I’ll have nothing to bet.”
“Your mouth, Wynn.”
He’s watching me for a moment, his breathing even, but the shade of his eyes is swirling, darkening by degrees to a molten metal.
His words reach me, scrape me. I feel like a raw nerve, a live wire.
“Okay,” I breathe.
He smiles then, a smile so honest that I want to kiss his mouth and suddenly, desperately, want him to win the next one.
A rush of sensation slides under my skin as I absorb his smoldering gaze. I’ve never seen eyes in that exact shade before. They look almost transparent now. But it’s the unreadable, mysterious look in those hooded eyes that draws me in even more.
Imagining those eyes seeing me as we have sex takes over my mind, and my girl parts tickle so hard I want to squirm.
We deal.
I win. To my shock and disbelief.
“I’ve got nothing,” Cullen growls.
With a slow, uncharacteristic smile, he stands and unbuckles his jeans, lowering the zipper. My jaw hangs open as I notice his huge cock straining against his boxers. I can see the tip of that cock pushing out of his boxers—fully erect. Very pink. Very swollen.
When he discards his jeans, I’m raw with desire.
I long to touch and kiss him, but he’s dealing. Again. And it’s sinful torture, the kind of torture that makes my eyes grow heavy while my mouth turns dry.
My hands shake as we play another game—and now I’m desperate, desperate, for him to remove his boxers somehow.
I lick my lips and study my cards, noticing how Cullen is studying me.
“Nothing again.” He tosses his cards to show me he had nothing, and my heart starts to pound as he stands to jerk off his boxers.
Oh my god.
My eyes hurt from the beauty of it.
“You didn’t even play,” I accuse.
“Oh. I played. We’re still playing for those three minutes with my tongue in your mouth.”
I can’t concentrate with the sight of his beautiful cock on display and naturally I lose the next game.
“Come here, Wynn.”
“You—you want your prize.”
He nods very slowly, almost warningly, watching me approach, still with one arm covering my tits. The way his eyes drink me in and travel from the top of my head to the tips of my feet makes it hard to breathe.
When I reach him, he grabs me by the hips and drops me down to his lap, and then his hands are engulfing my face and he bends. His lips part my own, his breath on mine as his tongue flicks into my mouth. I can’t remember my name.
Flutters of heat bubble in my veins.
A shot of heat races through my bloodstream as his tongue flicks my mouth again. His hands fist in my hair as he tilts my head sideways for better access, and then his tongue is all over mine, rubbing and stroking, wetly caressing.
He scrapes his fully-hard cock against my sex, the only thing separating me and him is the flimsy fabric of my panties.
He makes a low, savoring sound, a long, drawn-out mmm. I’m breathless when I ease back. I wonder who else he makes those sounds for.
He comes back for the full three minutes and lays me down, all the while kissing me, and I don’t want to stop, my lips moving with his. I feel so hungry, so hungry I can’t stop my hands from wandering up his arms, around his shoulders, into his thick, dark hair. I grab him and hold on, my mouth parting wider beneath his, his tongue devouring me, flick by flick, plunge by plunge. I part my legs, needing something, some sort of pressure, between them. And when the weight of his body comes down on top of me, his erection feels so good that I arch up to get closer.
He groans softly, fisting handfuls of hair as he tears free and looks down at me with heavy-lidded silver eyes. “Tease,” he says. “You’re sleeping beside me tonight.”
Cullen helps me up, gathers our clothes, then guides me with a hand on the back of my neck as he walks me into his room. He watches me obediently climb into his bed as he sets our clothes aside. He reaches beneath my body to pull the comforter back, and then joins me from the other side, his hard arm sliding beneath me.
I watch the muscular curves of his arms flex with the move. I look into his eyes as we face each other.
My fingers want to do things to him, and so does my mouth and every part of me that can move or taste or hear or see. But I don’t let myself move. It takes every inch of my willpower not to.
“I said you’d wear the lingerie.”
“This reveals more. I’m basically only wearing panties,” I contest.
He’s already naked, and I can’t get enough of looking at his ripped abs, his chiseled chest and arms, every part of him defined, hard, athletic, proportionate, perfect.
“We’ll save the lingerie for next time.”
His eyes darken as he drinks me in semi-naked in his bed, and he leans down to set a kiss on my lower abs, between my pussy and my belly button, right above the edge of my panties. Then he sets one on each of my nipples, which are peaked and hard, begging for his attention, whispering, “I like you just like this,” and I groan and say, “Don’t cheat,” before he lies down next to me and slips his strong arms around me again.
“We said you could kiss my mouth, nothing else,” I breathlessly remind him.
“You can’t blame me for trying.” He pulls me closer. So close that I can feel his cock deliciously, soul-searingly hard against my abdomen. He looks into my face, and I shift my hips a little closer to his.
“I want to know how you feel,” he says. “Before we head back to Chicago, you’ll be dying for it.”
“Ha. No doubt you think I’ll be dying for you like all your—”
He reaches up with one hand to tip my face up, and then he slowly parts my lips and gives me his tongue. I shudder uncontrollably as that hot, wet, familiar tongue flicks over mine.
We kiss for a little while, until I’m panting and his cock is so hard that I feel moisture against the skin of my abdomen. My whole being is undone with the way this guy kisses me.
When he strokes his hand down my cleavage, spreading his fingers out to touch my ribs, my waist, I could swear he’s touching the most sensitive places of my whole body.
He groans as I stroke my fingers along his chest.
“You feel good,” I quietly admit. “You work out, don’t you?”
“Inside you, I’ll feel better.” His expression is dark and savage as he hisses out that promise. “And yeah, I do.”
I relax in his arms and press my cheek to his chest, listening to his strong, steady heartbeat, and before I know it I’m asleep.
* * *
I wake up to the sunlight, relaxed and snuggled into a delicious warmth. When I realize it’s Cullen and his smooth, muscled chest and hard arms around me, I take a brief moment to help my ovaries settle down from the ha
ppy shock. My eyelids flutter, and I find him staring at me.
We survey one another.
Silently, I reach out to touch my fingers to his jaw and the light stubble there. “I slept divine,” I admit, voice sleepy. “Thank you. Did you sleep at all?”
He studies my features as he brushes my hair back, a gorgeous smile on his face.
“What? You didn’t film me while sleeping, did you?”
“No. But not for lack of wanting.” He studies me. “We should probably get dressed.”
I shut my eyes and relish the feel of his hand on my back. The nearness of his dick to my pussy. The sound of his low, deep breathing, which is slow and even compared to my choppy little breaths.
“Yeah, we should get going.” I ease out of bed and get dressed, aware of him sitting up in bed, propped with his arms behind his head and the sexiest, most kissable smirk on his lips.
“Do I sense hesitation in your voice?”
I halt in the middle of zipping up my dress. “What?” I’m breathless. “No. I’m . . . if you think I’m going to tell you your life sucks . . .”
He nods somberly.
“It doesn’t.”
He frowns at that, and I shake my head and continue dressing. “I just really like it here with you. But gambling is still wrong, and art is magic. I need to head back in two days . . . let’s make the most of today. I’m hopping into the shower. I’ll see you in a bit,” I say from the door.
He gives me a gut-wrenchingly sexy smile, and my toes curl against the carpet as I lift my heels and walk barefoot to my room. What is going on here?
The butterflies the mere thought of repeating last night give me are the craziest little things I’ve ever felt.
The thought of curling up in bed to him at night. Nothing but him and me. I’m scared by how much I want that. I’m scared that it’s been . . . days and all I can think about is Cullen. Breathe Cullen Carmichael. Live Cullen Carmichael.
Because this life? It’s not real. Las Vegas is a fantasy. Thinking of anything long term with Cullen is a fantasy. It will only leave me feeling even emptier once it’s done.
TONIGHT