Convict: A Bad Boy Romance (59 page)

In fact, dancing on pillars above the dance floor, there seemed to be a number of women wearing petticoats, cowboy boots, and bikini tops. Kirsten immediately felt over-dressed in her high-necked, knee-length dress.

Is this what’s sexy now?
she wondered.
Bikini tops and petticoats?

“Go dance!” Lily shouted. “I’m going to get us drinks!”

Kirsten just nodded, and let Peyton and Mary pull her onto the floor.

She didn’t know any of the songs they were playing, but Kirsten was far too drunk and far too
divorced
to give a shit, so she wiggled her booty and got down her with bad self. Lily brought her a drink, she danced with someone okay-looking for a while before getting bored with him, she and Peyton shouted along the words to
Pony
when the DJ played it.

After a while — ten minutes, an hour, Kirsten had no idea — she needed a break. And another drink.

“I’ll be back!” she shouted to the other three, then fought her way across the dance floor to the bar. As she walked, she could feel sweat dripping down her back and between her breasts. For a moment, she leaned against a pillar, took a deep breath, and tried to cool down.

Then she proceeded to the bar, which was totally surrounded by a mob of people. Kirsten sighed and pressed herself into the back of the mob, totally prepared to wait a while for another drink.

It wasn’t long before she felt someone tap her on the shoulder, and she turned around, a tiny spark deep inside hoping it was Houston and Jack.

“Hey,” said a random guy. He was wearing a button-down shirt silk-screened with skulls, not tucked into his jeans.

Kirsten didn’t get excited.

“Hey,” she said, a little warily. It was times like this that she wished she hadn’t thrown her wedding band down a gutter in a fit of rage. Even if she wasn’t married, it would have been useful for getting rid of men she didn’t want to talk to.

He leaned in toward her ear, and Kirsten felt herself stiffen.

“You know, if you wore a darker color, you’d be really attractive!” he shouted, then looked at Kirsten, eyebrows raised.

What the hell?
Kirsten thought.

“Did you just give me fashion advice?” she shouted back, trying to make herself heard over the din.

“Just that you’d probably get more attention,” he shouted. “Hey, let me buy you a drink to make up for it?”

Kirsten blinked and took a step away from the guy, who was making the smuggest face she’d ever seen.

“No!” she shouted. “I’d rather buy my own drinks than get one from you, dickbag!”

The guy narrowed his eyes.

“Good luck with that,” he said, viciously looking her up and down.

Kirsten gritted her teeth. Then she flipped him off with both hands and walked around the bar, getting in another part of the line, and
seethed
.

Who the hell does that?
she thought.
He just called me ugly and then tried to flirt with me. Is this something people are doing now? Insult-flirting?

As she fumed, she watched one of the dancers on the pillar, waving her skirt around, twisting her upper body, and looking completely bored.

I guess this is just her job
, Kirsten thought with a slight shock.

Then there was another tap on her shoulder.

Kirsten whirled around, ready to give that asshole a serious piece of her mind, mouth open to tell him
exactly
what she thought.

It was Jack, two drinks in his hands. Next to him was Houston.

Kirsten didn’t say anything, just stood there with her mouth open.

“I just saw you practically eviscerate some poor asshole, and I thought maybe I should have a drink ready for you when I approached,” Jack said, a sparkle lighting his green eyes from within. “Are you a Manhattan drinker, or a gin fizz drinker?”

Holy shit, I can’t believe they showed up
, Kirsten thought. She finally closed her mouth and looked from one to the other, and even though the two tall, rugged cowboys were totally out of place in this too-shiny nightclub, she was still
very
glad to see them.

“I’ve never had a gin fizz before,” she shouted, and Jack handed her a tall, narrow glass.

“They’re supposed to be good here,” he said. “According to the reviews, Heist has very good prohibition-era cocktails, if you get something besides red bull and vodka.”

“Thank you,” Kirsten said, and took a long, slow sip. Something fizzed against her tongue, as promised by the name, and then there was the slightly evergreen tang of gin, then an herbal sweetness.

It was pretty good.

“So,” she said, looking from one to the other. “What are you doing here?”

“This is where you said you’d be,” Houston said, grinning and shrugged. “So here we are.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“Really, though,” she said.

She took another sip. They were right. This thing was
good
.

The two men exchanged a glance.

“Fine,” said Jack. “We’re secretly undercover agents sent by the FBI to make sure that this nightclub isn’t an elaborate plan to cover up a real, Ocean’s Eleven-style heist on a casino.”

Houston nodded gravely.

“It could be the perfect crime,” he said, without a trace of humor.

Kirsten waited a beat, and then Houston’s eyes started to crinkle at the corners, and she laughed.

“That was almost ridiculous enough to be true,” she said.

“You can’t blame me for trying, right?” said Jack. He sipped on the Manhattan that Kirsten hadn’t selected.

She considered them, cocking her head to the right a little.

“Want to come dance?” she asked, deciding that she didn’t care if her friends saw her dancing with two tall, hot men, who
might
be shifters of some sort.

“Is there line dancing?” asked Houston.

“There is if you line dance,” Kirsten responded, as seriously as she could.

“I dance a mean electric slide,” said Jack. “Let’s do this.”

I
’d go
out there and do some ballet moves if she wanted
, thought Jack. It didn’t matter that he knew nothing at all about ballet. If Kirsten had asked, he’d have tried in a
heartbeat
.

She grabbed him by the hand, her gin fizz in the other, and he followed her to the dance floor, Houston right behind. Whatever was playing — something electronic and beat-heavy — wasn’t something that he ever listened to, but it was easy enough to move his body in time with it.

Before Jack knew what was happening, they were on the dance floor, Kirsten in front of him, her wide-set eyes smiling up at him, Houston behind her.

Jack wasn’t sure he’d ever seen his mate happier, and his heart clenched.

I think this is it, but what if it isn’t?
he wondered.
What if all the other women confused everything so much that I just won’t know, even if I think I know?

Below him, Kirsten moved her hips against his, biting her lip and looking up at him. As a dancer, he could tell she was a little awkward, not totally sure what she was doing, but he couldn’t have cared less. He put a hand on her shoulder and she put one on his hip, gyrating against him.

Her drink spilled a little over her hand, but she just laughed and sipped it, licking the droplets from the underside of her wrist, her brown eyes sparkling.

Behind Houston, another girl came up, a tall, leggy brunette with a tight gold dress cut almost down to her navel, and she put one hand over Houston’s shoulder, rubbing herself against his back. He stopped dancing and half-turned toward her, frowning. The girl smiled and said something flirty to him, and for half a moment, Jack recognized the perfect opportunity for the two of them. The kind of thing he’d normally jump on instantly.

Objectively, she was
hot
.

Then he looked down at Kirsten’s face as she turned, and that other girl didn’t matter at
all.
Houston said something to her, the other girl looked pissed, and he put his hand on Kirsten’s hip, drawing her closer.

She blushed a little, looking faintly pleased.

Jack let himself get lost in the music. He was pleasantly tipsy after a couple of drinks — they’d been there for a while already, looking for Kirsten — and he just let his body move in time to the music, not caring at all what he looked like.

After a while, Kirsten finished her drink, the ice clinking in the bottom of the glass.

“Want another one?” Jack shouted into her ear.

She shook her head, pointing at the side of the dance floor, where things were less crazy, and then they all moved over there.

“Want to get out of here?” Houston shouted, handing their empty glasses to a server passing by with a tray.

Kirsten’s eyes widened, and Jack could sense her stiffen.

She’s not like the rest
, he reminded herself.

“There’s a karaoke bar in the Hard Rock casino that does 80’s night on Saturdays,” he suggested.

I don’t even care if we get to have sex with her
, he realized, the thought sending a shock through him.
I just want to hang out with her
.

He glanced up at Houston, and could practically see the exact same thought process in his mate.

Kirsten looked up at them skeptically.

“Just karaoke, right?” she said, casting a glance around the crowd. Jack could see the veins in her neck pumping hard, and he had to fight the urge to put his mouth there, hear her sigh as he felt her pulse with his lips.

Not now
, he admonished himself.
Now is just karaoke.

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Houston said, making an X somewhere over his stomach.

She looked relieved.

“Okay,” she said. “Sounds good.”

* * *

F
ifteen minutes later
, the three of them were standing in the cool Vegas night air, third in line for a cab.

“I might never hear right again,” said Houston.

“My ears are going to ring for a week,” said Kirsten, laughing. “That’s probably a good sign that I’m too old for clubs, anyway.”

Jack grinned. He made fun of Houston for being an old man sometimes, and it made him nearly giddy to watch
her
join in the fun.

“You’re not even the one wearing cowboy boots on the dance floor,” he said. “You can just call me gramps next time we try to dance.”

The line moved forward a little.

“What’s your deal, anyway?” Kirsten asked, glancing over both men. Jack could tell that she was more than a little tipsy, though he wasn’t exactly sober himself. “What’s with your whole cowboy thing?”

Houston grinned.

“We’re cowboys,” he said.

Kirsten rolled her eyes.

“You are not,” she said. “What’s your deal? Do you pick up girls at casino bars and then follow them to nightclubs and then take them to eighties karaoke just because you know this particular girl has kind of a
thing
for cowboys?”

Jack’s heart wriggled in his chest.
She has a thing for cowboys?

“We’re here for the Western States Rodeo Championships,” he said.

The line moved forward again.

She narrowed her eyes.

“You do rodeo?” she asked, incredulously.

“Are you trying to tell me I’m too old?” Houston teased. “I’m offended.”

She blushed, then scrunched up her face, then laughed.

“Come on,” she said. “That’s not real. Be serious.”

Jack simply pointed at a group of forty-something men crossing into the casino, wearing cowboy hats, jeans, and boots, essentially the same thing that they wore.

“Oh,” said Kirsten.

Then they were next in line. A cab pulled up, and Houston looked at her apologetically.

“Mind sitting in the middle?” he asked.

Kirsten laughed.

“I think I can handle it,” she said.

He opened the door, letting her in first, then crossed to the other side of the cab, both he and Jack waiting until she was settled before sliding in. It was a tight squeeze, and the length of Kirsten’s thigh pressed against Jack’s, her body heat lighting a fire deep inside him that felt brand new.

Don’t you touch her
, he thought to himself.
She’s made herself pretty clear
.

If she were anyone else, literally
anyone
else, he knew that they’d have given up and moved onto someone more receptive hours ago. But even though it was Las Vegas and attractive, scantily clad women were everywhere, she was the only one Jack had noticed since he’d seen her.

He had no idea what was going on, but he didn’t think he minded. Not yet, at least; tomorrow, when they all went back home, might be a different story.

“The rodeo championships are really in Vegas?” she asked, once the taxi started rolling. The driver had the partition closed, and Houston slid a credit card through the reader in the back. Jack couldn’t blame the driver for keeping it closed; he probably saw more than enough drunk idiots every night.

“They really are,” confirmed Jack. “Think about it, is there a more rodeo town than Las Vegas? The place is practically made of over-the-top bragging and rhinestones.”

She laughed again. The sound made Jack feel like jello.

“Why do you come out for them?” she asked. “Aren’t most rodeo riders, like, twenty-two?”

“Are you saying I don’t look twenty-two?” Houston asked gravely.

Houston was thirty-five.

“He’s just fucking with you,” Jack whispered conspiratorially into her ear. “He’s way too old for rodeo. His sideburns are almost completely gray.”

“You mean they’re almost completely
dignified,
” Houston corrected Jack, perfectly able to hear his mate’s whisper in the cramped back seat.

Kirsten reached out one finger and ran it along Houston’s graying sideburn, even though it was dark in the back of the taxi. Just watching her touch his mate sent an electric thrill down Jack’s spine, and he felt like he was ready to burst at the seams, explode, do
something
.

I have no idea what to do now
, he thought, his brain spinning.
I’ve got no road map for this. None at all.

“Very dignified,” she agreed. “But you still haven’t told me why you’re at rodeo championships.”

“I used to ride,” Jack said. “A long time ago.”

“Were you good?” Kirsten asked.

Jack just nodded.

“I’ve got a closet full of trophies back at the ranch,” he said. “I almost won Western States once, thirteen years ago.”

Her eyes went wide. “Wow,” she said.

Jack wanted her to look at him that way forever.

“Is rodeo a career you can have?” she asked. “I mean, long-term?”

Jack laughed.

“Not at all,” he said. “Most people age out by the time they’re twenty-four, maybe twenty-five. I don’t know anyone who got out with less than five broken bones and a couple of concussions. Hell, by comparison, I got lucky.”

“You had less than five?” Kirsten asked.

Jack could see the Hard Rock casino coming up.

“Lucky is relative,” Houston said, his brow furrowing at Jack. “He’s got less permanent injuries because he came close to dying all at once.”

The cab pulled up in front of the sliding glass doors, and Jack got out, turned, and offered his hand to Kirsten.

After considering for a moment, she took it, and his heart swelled.

“I got gored pretty good,” Jack admitted.

Houston snorted.

“He was in an induced coma for a week, so he got the better of it,” he said. “He didn’t have to watch himself lying in bed, half-dead.”

“Broke nearly all my ribs and punctured a lung,” Jack said, reluctantly. He hated talking about the injury, mostly because Houston was right — between the morphine and the coma, he didn’t remember much. Really, it was Houston who’d been through hell that week, having to wake up every morning to see if Jack had made it through the night.

“The doctors told me that if I’d taken it half an inch up, I’d have been dead instantly.”

“Oh god, I’m sorry,” Kirsten said. “A... cow? Gored you? With its horn?”

“A
steer
, actually, and yes,” said Jack. “Went all the way through and out my back. I’ve still got a hell of a scar.”

He tapped the left side of his ribcage, right in the spot that still hurt sometimes when the weather turned or he lifted something heavy wrong.

“Can I see it?” Kirsten asked, her eyes still wide.

“How about you buy me a drink first?” Jack teased, winking. “I don’t just take my shirt off on the first date.”

She blushed again, then laughed.

“Touché,” she told him, and then they stepped through the automatic sliding doors and onto another casino floor.

* * *

T
he karaoke bar
was pretty different from the nightclub. It was dimly lit, lined with booths, and had elaborate goth-looking electric candelabras all over the place, but the clientele was decidedly less cool. Mostly it seemed to be older people in leather jackets, drinking Jack Daniels and having themselves a great time.

The three of them headed for the bar, where Houston got out his wallet and leaned over.

“No,” said Kirsten. “Let me get this round.”

Houston made a face at her.

“What if I say no?” he said.

“Please?”

Jack recognized something in her face. She was still nervous about them, he could tell. Kirsten obviously wasn’t the kind of girl who went out a lot, or had a lot of people buying drinks for her, judging by her reaction to the other guy who’d tried to buy her one at the club.

“How about this,” Jack said. “We buy you drinks, but pinkie-swear that you don’t owe us anything.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” she said, blushing even harder.

“Buy your own drinks again tomorrow,” Jack said. “Just for tonight. We promise.”

She made a face.

“My scar hurts every time you don’t let us buy you a drink,” he said, trying to look serious.

“Okay, okay,
fine
,” Kirsten said, half smiling and half rolling her eyes. “I don’t even think you
have
a scar, since you won’t let me see it.”