Hot Number (5 page)

“Mr. Saxon, wait!”

He looked back over his shoulder. “Yes, Ms.
Bligh?”

Sadie shocked herself with the words that
sprang from her mouth—words she didn’t seem to be able to hold
back. “Perhaps it would be a good idea if you were to keep an eye
on me whenever you can. You never know what trouble these clumsy
feet might get me into.”

Though a half-smile acknowledged he’d heard
her, he strode away.

Cassie’s scowl showed she was still seething
at the way Sadie had been dragged away last night for questioning.
“I’m glad you didn’t let that Prince of Darkness intimidate you.
And it’s a good thing you called me right after he brought you back
here, or I’d have had to hunt him down and murder his ass.” She
flopped down onto Sadie’s bed, tucking her legs underneath her.

“That might have been a little extreme, Cass.
I’d hate to see the best secretary I’ve ever had wind up on death
row.”

Sadie had reached Cassie on her cell right
after Nick Saxon dropped her off at her room. It hadn’t been easy
to paint a realistic picture of her experience in the underground
security room, or its aftermath. She had felt pitched onto a
complicated roller coaster of emotions from the moment Saxon pulled
her off that poker table and escorted her from the casino
floor.

After a nearly sleepless night, Sadie had
gone for long walk up the Strip before meeting Cassie this morning.
Despite her fatigue, she’d needed to work off some energy—energy
that still left her nervous and jumpy. But she needed to stop
stewing about the sheriff and her own messed-up emotions, and get
on with having a good time. Just on cue, the early afternoon sun
streamed in the south-facing window, promising a perfect afternoon
for a sojourn by the European pool.

Freshly showered and stark naked, Sadie
contemplated the sunflower yellow scrap of fabric she was about to
squeeze her butt into. She’d only worn a bikini once in her life
and, appalled by what it didn’t cover, had promptly chucked it in
the trash. And that bikini had twice the amount of fabric as the
one currently resting on top of the fluffy hotel duvet.

She glanced up at Cassie, who still looked
angry enough to hunt down Nick Saxon and punch him out. Now that
would really put a damper on their vacation.

“Listen, I’ve thought a lot about what
happened,” Sadie explained. “The guy was just doing his job. I
don’t think he got any particular pleasure out of grilling me.”

Sighing, she picked up the bottom half of the
bikini and draped it across her butt. “This thing is
so
not
going to cover my big ass.”

Cassie rolled her eyes. “First of all, you
don’t have a big ass, so stop saying that. Second, these things
aren’t like the old bikinis, Sade. They design them now to show off
what you’ve got, and you’ve got plenty of good stuff in your trunk.
So, stop worrying. We’re going to turn some heads at the pool. I
guarantee it.”

“Easy for you to say.” Sadie skimmed her eyes
over Cassie’s long, slender frame. Underneath the white robe, her
friend’s tiny, fuchsia-colored bikini was closer to a thong than a
traditional suit. Though Cassie’s breasts were on the small side,
Sadie knew she would have no trouble flaunting them. Guys around
the pool would be knocking each other out of the way to buy her a
drink. That’s just the way it was with Cassie—she had the kind of
effortless, sexy poise that Sadie found impossible to emulate.

“Now that I know he doesn’t resort to torture
down there, I have to say I wouldn’t mind having your security man
interrogate
me
. You have to admit, he
is
smoking
hot.” Cassie set her mouth in a playful pout. “Maybe I should bust
up a table tonight and see what happens.”

Sadie felt a flush creep up her neck. A
mental picture of Cassie alone with the sheriff, deep in the gulag,
invaded her brain. She didn’t like it. Silently, she stepped into
the bikini bottom and pulled it up to her hips.

“That’s what I thought,” Cassie said,
breaking the short silence. “He got to you, didn’t he?”

Sadie sat down on the bed and picked up the
skimpy bra. “I couldn’t stop thinking about him all night. God, he
just radiates something, Cass. Power, I suppose. Self-control and
discipline, too.”

“Sade, you’re forgetting the most important
word. Sex. S-e-x. The guy radiates sex like the freaking sun
radiates heat. Hell, I could feel that from forty feet away last
night when he was checking you out.”

Ignoring that last comment—and the thrilling
little pulse it set off between her legs—Sadie headed for the
full-length mirror. She craned to look over her shoulder, then
grimaced. “Could I be any whiter? I thought you were crazy to go to
that tanning salon back home. Now I think I should have gone with
you.”

“I doubt Saxon will be upset that you’re not
bronzed like a statue. I think he’s impressed with you just the way
you are.”

Sadie gave a dissatisfied grunt. She’d
replayed the scene with the sheriff a thousand times, analyzing the
nuances of his words, the aggressive jut of his jaw, the way the
deep pools of his eyes had bored into her. Analysis was what she
did—what she’d always been good at. Yet Nick Saxon had been too
reserved and contained for her to figure out. Inexperienced with
men, she was probably reading too much into the way his gaze had
raked over her.

“It’s not going to go anywhere,” she said
with a dismissive shake of her head. “Hot Vegas security guys don’t
chase after clumsy professors unless they want to reprimand them
for bad behavior. Besides, I tossed a big chunk of bait at him, and
he still walked away without a word.”

“Maybe he didn’t want it to seem like he was
hitting on one of the hotel guests. They probably have rules about
stuff like that. You shouldn’t write him off yet, Sade. Not if you
felt some fire between you.”

“I wish. Well, I think I wish.” Sadie wrapped
the robe around her nearly-naked figure and slipped on her Crocs
flip-flops, mustering up a brave smile even though her mouth had
suddenly gone dry with nerves. “Well, party girl, I guess I’m as
ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s hit the ogle pool.”

* * *

“Saxon, what the hell was going on up on
thirty last night?” Buzz Carson growled at Nick from behind his
mahogany desk. “One minute you’re lacing into some drunk broad
downstairs, the next minute the two of you are strolling along,
arm-in-arm, and then having a nice little chat
inside the door
of her room.
”

The chief of security had summoned him to his
lavish corner office as soon as Nick had arrived for his shift.
Carson’s belligerent questioning didn’t surprise him. The security
cameras caught everything, and the chief would never pass up an
opportunity to apply coarse-grind sandpaper directly and firmly to
Nick’s ass.

“Chief, if you read my report about the lady
who smashed up a Pai Gow table last night—”

Carson cut him off. “Yeah, yeah. I know it
was her. Scrivens told me that much. What I want to know, Saxon, is
what you were doing escorting that broad to her room. Getting
chummy, were we? You know the rules as well as I do.”

As one of the technical operators on duty
last night, Wally Scrivens would have reported Nick’s appearance on
both the thirtieth floor and the interview room surveillance
cameras. A Carson sycophant, Scrivens liked nothing better than to
throw some dirt Nick’s way.

“Did Scrivens forget to mention that the
guest in question was practically unable to stand on her feet, let
alone walk unaided all the way to her room?”

Carson’s momentary silence told Nick he’d hit
the mark.

“Okay, let me get this straight. You’re
saying this babe was so shit-faced that she smashed up a poker
table, and then couldn’t even get her ass back to her room without
you holding her upright?”

“Well, she’d had a fair bit to drink.
But—”

Again, Carson didn’t let him finish his
sentence. “So, you put her on the list immediately, right?”

Carson meant the casino’s blacklist. People
designated persona non grata at the Desert Oasis. Since the casinos
circulated their lists electronically, a blacklisting at one often
meant being shut out at all the major hotels.

Nick shook his head. “That didn’t make sense
to me. She admitted that she’d had a bit too much to drink. But the
real cause of the accident was her boots. Plus, she said she’s
naturally clumsy.”

“She’s naturally clumsy,” Carson said,
sneering. “And you bought that load of horseshit? You know better
than to fall for a line like that, Saxon. The bimbo played you like
a nickel slot. You should have run her out of here. Jesus!” The
burly Vegas ex-cop hauled his bulk out of the chair and stomped
over to the full-length window that overlooked one of the hotel’s
sprawling pools.

“It was my call to make, and I made it. I
believed her. Don’t we want to give our patrons the benefit of the
doubt?” Nick forced down his anger, keeping his voice level. “And
I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t keep second-guessing everything I
do, Chief.”

Carson spun back, surprisingly light on his
feet for a man of his size. His round face and thick neck turned an
unhealthy shade of purple.

“I’ll do whatever I damn well please around
here, Saxon. The reason I have to keep on top of you is because I
don’t trust you. You don’t have the instincts for security. And
you’re too soft, sometimes. Like now. I told your buddy upstairs we
shouldn’t hire you, but he insisted on sticking me with you. But if
you keep making stupid decisions, even Webb won’t be able to stop
me from firing your ass.”

Carson never let Nick forget that Michael
Webb, the assistant general manager and Nick’s father’s best
friend, had insisted he be hired despite Carson’s vigorous
objections. For some mystifying reason, Carson hated hiring
ex-military men, and that seemed to go double for Nick.

Nick had a pretty long fuse and he was used
to taking crap from superiors in the Marines, but his frustration
with Carson was about to blow. The last thing he needed was to lose
it and punch out his boss. This job was too important—and had been
too difficult to nail down—to let his temper go unchecked. He’d
have to keep swallowing Carson’s abuse and make sure he didn’t give
the chief even the smallest mistake to use against him. “Is that
all for now, Chief?”

“Yeah, go on, get out of here.” Carson waved
a dismissive hand. “Just do your job, Saxon. And that doesn’t mean
babysitting drunks.”

Nick turned on his heel and strode out,
shutting Carson’s door behind him with a satisfying thump.

Sadie Bligh had been front and center in his
mind since he’d met her, and Carson’s tirade had only made it more
difficult for him to push her from his thoughts. Last night, she’d
practically handed him an engraved invitation to sample her
considerable charms. If he’d been thinking only with his dick, he’d
have pushed her into the room and found out exactly what was
filling out those skintight jeans. Fortunately, his
self-preservation instincts had been strong enough for him to walk
away. He’d known all too well that security’s state-of-the-art
surveillance system caught damn near everything that went on in
every corner of the hotel, the casino, and the extensive grounds,
including the pools.

Damn.
The European pool
. Nick
couldn’t shake the mental image of her stretched out on a poolside
lounger, her soft, pale breasts bared and slick with tanning oil.
He rarely ventured into that part of the pool complex, because
guests deserved as much privacy as possible. They didn’t need staff
hanging around for cheap thrills—not even security staff.

He headed back to his office and immersed
himself in the reports the staff had filed overnight. As much as he
told himself he shouldn’t go near the place, he knew there wasn’t a
chance in hell that he wouldn’t check out that pool later
today.

If for no other reason than to reassure
himself that Ms. Bligh was keeping out of trouble.

* * *

“Sadie, just take the damn thing off!” Cassie
had already dropped her own bikini top into the pool bag at her
feet. Sadie summoned up her courage, reached around her back and
popped the snap on her bikini. There were maybe fifty guys around
the pool, but only about a dozen women, several of whom appeared to
be in their fifties and sixties. They had way more guts than she
did.

“That’s better,” Cassie said with an
encouraging smile. “Now, lie back and enjoy the attention.”

Sadie gritted her teeth, tamping down the
urge to fold her arms across her chest. Fooling around at a sunny
topless pool had seemed like a fun idea back in frozen Chicago. But
now that the skin had hit the sun, so to speak, she had to struggle
with an overwhelming sense of vulnerability.

Arranging a fluffy pillow that smelled of
coconut-scented suntan lotion behind her head, she cautiously
stretched out on the day-bed they’d reserved. There was more than
enough room for her and Cassie, though it couldn’t hold a candle to
the luxury of the private cabanas that hovered haughtily over the
less fortunate below. A couple of them had been rented by a group
of noisy, twenty-something young men. In between gulps from tall
beer glasses and boisterous laughter, the guys diligently surveyed
the limited number of female breasts below.

The Desert Oasis had fittingly named this
pool
Skin.
It hummed with noisy energy in the dry heat that
was tempered only slightly by the tall, swaying palm trees
surrounding the pool area. Rock music blared from speakers on all
sides, and a deejay kept up a steady stream of jokes in between
songs—some ribald enough to bring a hot flush to Sadie’s face. In
fact, the whole thing was beginning to feel like torture, not the
sexy escapade she had once hoped it would be.