Hot Number (2 page)

“That’s good to know. Have a nice evening,
then.” She gave him a wave and moved away as fast as the impossibly
difficult boots would let her.

“Hey, you,” came a voice from the side.

Cassie sauntered up from between two rows of
slots. Stunning in a red and black slip dress that showed off her
perfect legs, her friend looked gorgeous and completely in her
element. No doubt she would attract all kinds of masculine
admiration this week, and she would revel in every bit of it.
Unlike Sadie, who already felt unnerved by her first encounter with
a man who wanted to pay her the same kind of attention.

The prospect of having Cassie by her side
this week left her with mixed feelings. Yes, they had planned a
crash and burn trip—a no holds barred adventure designed to make
her forget her miserable existence. Cassie was supposed to be her
safety net, the friend who would keep her from making any truly
stupid mistakes. But Sadie was starting to figure that Cassie was
more likely to throw gasoline on any fire that threatened to
develop. Cassie wanted her to get laid, plain and simple.

Then again, that
was
kind of the
point. If Sadie were to make a Letterman list of the top ten things
she wanted to do in Vegas, some form of sexual activity would
occupy several of the slots. She’d resolved to do it all—gamble
till she’d blown her stake, take in male strip shows, and drink
mojitos around the topless pool. But sex with a hot guy was
definitely priority one. Sex with a guy she’d forget about before
her return flight took off for Chicago. Wild, crazy sex that might
even make her start to come alive again. To remember that there was
more to life than strings of numbers and equations.

Cassie glanced over Sadie’s shoulder, no
doubt examining Mr. No Neck as he retreated down the aisle. “Who
was that guy you were talking to? He’s kind of hot.”

Sadie grimaced. “Just someone I bumped into.
Literally. My right ankle collapsed and I fell against a California
Redwood. At least that’s what he felt like.”

“Mmm, he looks like he does weights, for
sure.” Cassie had her eyes glued to the guy’s broad, muscular back
as he disappeared into the crowd.

“He wanted me to go to the bar with him,”
Sadie said, eyeing her empty glass.

Cassie’s brows shot up. “So, what are you
doing standing here shooting the breeze with me?”

Sadie rolled her eyes. “Come on, we just got
here. Do I need to latch on to the first caveman who waves his big
club at me? Especially one whose brain is apparently as minimal as
his neck. Good Lord, he actually told me I used
big
words
.”

“Here we go again,” Cassie sighed. “You
wouldn’t be doing the New York Times crossword puzzle, you’d be
doing
him
. Sade, you’ve got a mighty, mighty brain, but
sometimes you can be as thick as the yellow pages. I’m obviously
going to have to stick closer to you from now on.”

“Sure. Where are you hiding the gasoline
can?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Just a random thought from the
universe.”

Cassie gave her a puzzled grin. “When was the
last time I told you how weird you are?”

“About half an hour ago. Anyway, you told me
you wanted to give roulette a try, so let’s do it. I just sincerely
hope I can make it all the way over there without falling on my
face.”

Together, they picked their way through the
crowds that jammed every aisle of the packed Desert Oasis casino.
With every step, Sadie regretted the ridiculously high heels. Back
home, she always chose flat shoes for work and sneakers for walks
and weekends. The boots, the jeans, and the hey-look-at-my-boobs
top seemed to be doing their job, though. Guy after guy checked out
both her and Cassie as they passed between tables. Never had her
material assets received such thorough scrutiny. But then again,
this was the first time she’d made any effort to show them off.
Slutty outfits were not standard attire in a university
classroom—at least not from the professor.

“I love roulette,” Cassie chirped as they
chose a table with a particularly handsome croupier. “I like to
play my birthday numbers—seven and twelve. And my dress size—four.”
She carefully placed five dollar chips on the four-seven and
nine-twelve lines.

Sadie wrinkled her nose. “I’ll play, but I
don’t much like roulette odds.” She flagged down a waitress clad in
a harem girl’s outfit of neon colors. “I could use another of these
mojitos, couldn’t you?” Cassie nodded and Sadie ordered for them
both. It would be her third of the evening, on top of the champagne
they’d cracked open back in their room.

Cassie grinned and patted her knee. “Way to
go, girl. That’s the way to loosen up.”

Sadie dropped a ten-dollar chip on red. “I’m
getting so loose you might end up calling for a stretcher to get me
back to the room.” Though her blood alcohol level was inching up
toward the red line, she had no intention of cutting herself off
anytime soon. Wild and crazy was great in theory, but she knew she
couldn’t do it without serious Dutch courage.

“Hopefully, someone other than an EMT will be
escorting you to your room later. Unless the EMT is a cutie,”
Cassie answered as the croupier spun the wheel. The ball rattled
around the slots before coming to rest.

“Seven red,” intoned the croupier.

“Yes!” Cassie whooped, high-fiving Sadie. “I
told you my birthday was lucky. And you won, too, Sade.”

Sadie shook her head, astounded by Cassie’s
first bet luck. “True, we both won, but my odds were only
thirty-seven to eighteen. Yours were thirty-seven to two on each
bet. That’s extraordinarily lucky. Not to rain on your parade,
Cass, but you could sit here an hour or two playing splits like
that and not get another winning ball.”

Cassie’s bright red lips twitched with
amusement. “If you were a superhero, you know they’d call you
Mighty Math Girl, right? But you told me you’d never been in a
casino in your life. So, how come you know so much about
roulette?”

“I just Googled a few things. You know me. I
remember everything when it comes to numbers. And I didn’t want to
come here completely unprepared.”

Cassie plunked two more chips down in
precisely the same spots. “Tell me exactly when you have ever been
unprepared, Professor Bligh.”

Sadie ignored the question—and everything it
implied—and put ten dollars on even. “I’m only going to play
red/black and odd/even. That way I won’t lose much, if anything.
It’s blackjack that I’m really looking forward to. That takes some
brain power.”

The waitress reappeared, setting their
mojitos before them. Raising her glass in a silent toast, Sadie
drained almost half the fruity and deceptively potent drink in one
swallow. A sparkly kind of excitement began to fizz along her
nerves.

“However,” she said with a little hiccup, “I
know better than to try blackjack when I feel like this. One should
not play blackjack with a fuzzy head, Cass. And right now my head
is getting rather fuzzy. Fuzzy-wuzzy, like a little teddy
bear.”

She started to giggle at her own lame joke,
and when Cassie joined in, Sadie lost it. Nervous excitement—fueled
by more alcohol than she’d drunk in years—spilled out as
uncontrollable, silly giggling, behavior that would normally have
mortified her.

But there was nothing normal about this Vegas
trip, and that was just dandy with her. She’d had more than enough
normal to last a lifetime. It was way past time to change things
up.

Nick Saxon’s jaw had dropped open when he a
caught a glimpse of the evening’s first bout of trouble. When he
came back on the floor after his short dinner break, the bimbo’s
outfit had instantly snagged his attention. Over the top even by
Vegas standards, it was probably giving every businessman and jock
anywhere near her a hard-on. Hell, even he had started to get
aroused, despite his lousy mood.

She looked and acted three sheets to the
wind, but didn’t seem to have the brains to sit down at a table and
stay out of trouble. A little thing, maybe five-two if she ditched
the crazy boots, she looked incredibly sexy in low-slung black
jeans that clung like a second skin to her luscious ass and thighs.
Her shirt was a gauzy scrap of pink cloth, so transparent that he
could see the outline of her nipples through it and the obviously
sheer bra. Every bit of saliva in his mouth had evaporated when
those pretty buds tightened into hard beads under the blasts of
cold air from the casino’s supercharged air conditioning. He’d had
to turn away, repressing a curse as a burgeoning erection pushed
against the zipper of his suit pants.

When Nick had finally gotten his wayward
libido under control and could turn back to observe the show, Miss
Hottie had started to totter around again in her fuck-me boots. Her
unsteady gait had made her generous breasts jiggle in a delicious
little dance. One loser, obviously mesmerized as she wriggled past
him, had sideswiped a cocktail waitress and almost sent a tray of
drinks crashing to the floor. But the little package of C4 never
even noticed the commotion. Even better—or worse, depending on your
point of view—a minute later her right ankle had turned out and
she’d fallen into a tall, muscular guy, splashing her girlie drink
onto the floor.

Oh, yeah. Trouble had blown into town.

Instinctively, Nick started toward the chaos,
but then decided to hold back. He wouldn’t toss the bimbo off the
floor just yet. No, he’d keep a close eye on her a while longer.
Now that he thought about it, that wouldn’t be the toughest thing
he’d ever had to do.

* * *

“See that big guy standing a couple of rows
over, beside the pillar?” Cassie nodded toward her left. “Don’t
look right away.”

Sadie tried to appear nonchalant as she swung
her head around. When she located the pillar and the man in
question, she realized he was staring directly at her, his gaze
hard and assessing and implacably fixed on her. Not on Cassie. Not
on anyone else at their roulette table. On
her
.

She desperately wanted to avert her eyes, but
something kept them locked in position. Maybe it was the intensity
of his focus, or the heat emanating from his dark eyes. Even from
this distance she would have sworn they were about the deepest
brown she’d ever seen, so deep they looked almost black.

Most men would be embarrassed to be caught
staring so shamelessly at a woman. But not this guy. He never even
blinked.

“He’s staring at me, Cass,” she hissed.

“No kidding. Hell, I wouldn’t mind a hunk
like him looking that way at me. Whew, he thinks you’re hot,
Sade.”

Sadie swallowed nervously. If that intense
gaze was a come-on, she wanted nothing to do with it. “Uh, I don’t
think so. He looks like he thinks I’m an idiot.”

Cassie gave a reluctant laugh. “Maybe you’re
right. Now that I think about it, I’d say he’s casino security. He
sure looks the part. I guess he’s probably keeping an eye on you to
make sure you don’t bowl over anybody else.”

Casino security
. Cassie probably had
it right. She should just ignore him. No doubt he would lose
interest as long as she didn’t do anything else to cause a
commotion.

Sadie lowered her gaze, staring down at the
colorful piles of chips on the table. But the man’s image had
burned itself into her retinas. Though his frowning stare had
unnerved her, she had to admit that his looks were mesmerizing.
Everything about him left one overwhelming impression: big, tough,
and more than a little dangerous. The deep navy suit and white
open-necked shirt accentuated his tanned, rugged features, as did
his black hair and heavy five o’clock shadow. A gorgeous specimen.
Gorgeous, but scary.

Then again, casino security agents were
supposed to look scary, weren’t they?

Lifting her head, she braved another peek at
him, letting her gaze run over his brawny chest and broad
shoulders. Then she returned to those hard eyes and almost fell off
her stool. They were still relentlessly fixed on her, and still
making her as edgy as hell.

She sucked in a shaky breath, her head
spinning both from the effect of the alcohol and that unnerving
inspection. “I need to get out of here, Cass. Not just away from
this table. I mean right out of the casino.”

Cassie looked dumbfounded. “What are you
talking about? We’ve just started to play. Is that guy the problem?
If it’s bothering you that much, I’ll go tell him to back the hell
off.”

Sadie quickly shook her head. “Please, no
more drama tonight. I’m not sure what’s wrong. I just feel really
uncomfortable all of a sudden.” She swiped the back of her hand
across her brow, surprised at the perspiration beading on her
forehead despite the near-frigid temperature of the casino. “You
stay, okay? I need to go up to my room for a while.”

“You sure? You want me to come with you?”

“I’ll be fine. I’ll rendezvous with you
later.” Sadie grabbed her drink, scooped up her small stack of
chips and gave Cassie an air kiss.

Unfortunately, the shortest route to the
elevators ran directly past Mr. Scary Security Man. She gave a
quick thought to walking straight up to the guy and telling him to
lay off the surveillance, just like Cassie had threatened to do.
But that idea, along with her courage, disappeared in the time it
took to process it. No. Better to steer completely clear of him
tonight and hope not to see him again.

By the time she reached the main aisle, a
quick glance to her left told her he hadn’t moved. But at least he
wasn’t still looking straight at her. She turned to her right.
Going in that direction meant she’d have to practically circle the
casino floor. Just what she needed—extended navigating in her
skyscraper boots. But so be it. She needed to get back to her room,
calm down, and remind herself why she was here in the first
place.