Hot Number (6 page)

“Something to drink?” A poolside waiter
rolled up with a stainless steel drink cart. He couldn’t have been
more than twenty-two, but Sadie could see Cassie already drooling
over the young, tanned hardbody. “I can mix anything you like right
here. And ice-cold Evian water is free.” The kid gave Cassie a
lingering glance, then unabashedly checked out Sadie’s chest.
Something unpleasant twisted in her gut.

“Give me a pineapple mojito, Sunshine,”
Cassie said, stretching her long body out like a cat in the sun. As
she reclined on the pillow, her pert breasts jutted into the
air.

Sadie gave the waiter a wry smile. “Make that
two, please.”

“We’d be real pleased to buy you girls those
drinks,” someone said from behind them.

Sadie cautiously looked over her shoulder,
trying to minimize the movement of her breasts. Three guys from the
nearest cabana had slipped up while they were talking to the
waiter. All looked to be in their early or mid-twenties.

Cassie gave her a questioning lift of her
eyebrows and Sadie groaned inside. The men—boys, really—were too
young. Some of her students were older than these guys. Plus, they
looked a little too far into their beer, and she hated that she
couldn’t check out their eyes behind their sunglasses. Still,
Cassie looked more than interested, and Sadie didn’t want to have
to have an argument with her about it later. After all, this was
why they were here. She shrugged her shoulders at Cassie, but then
froze when her breasts jiggled from the movement.

“Well, why not?” Cassie said with a sultry
smile.

The one who looked to be the leader of the
pack gave her a lopsided grin. “Great! We’ll grab some chairs and
pull up alongside.”

After the chairs were arranged, one guy sat
alongside Cassie, one beside Sadie, and one in front of the
day-bed. The men all introduced themselves, though apparently they
thought no last names were necessary. Sadie got the pack leader,
Todd, beside her.

“We’re here for the poker tournament at
Caesar’s,” Todd drawled in what he probably thought was a
sophisticated voice. “How about you girls?”

“Oh, we’re here for a little sun and fun in
Sin City,” Cassie answered. From the way she tilted her head and
said those few words, she sent a clear message of sexual
availability. Maybe even that both of them were available.

Sadie gave Cassie a quick roll of her eyes
but her friend ignored her.

Todd unleashed a smarmy grin. “Where are you
from?”

“Chicago.” Cassie managed to make the
one-word reply sound like a come-on.

“Cool.” It was the first word Kevin, the guy
sprawled in the chair beside Cassie, had uttered—probably because
he’d lost his concentration staring at Cassie’s breasts.

Todd came forward in his chair and leaned
over the day bed, deliberately bringing himself closer to Sadie’s
body. She resisted the urge to shrink back. She would
not
let this jerk sexually intimidate her.

“So, what do you do in Chicago, Cassie?” Todd
asked.

“I’m a secretary in the math department at
the University of Chicago. In fact, I’m
her
secretary.”
Cassie flicked a glance toward Sadie.

“You’re
her
secretary?” Todd raised
his eyebrows. “Wow. Are you like an administrator or something,
Sadie?

Oh, Lord. Worse and worse. She hated when men
asked what she did for a living. If Cassie hadn’t given the game
away, she’d have told the guy she taught sixth grade at a private
girls’ school, or worked as a bookkeeper at a funeral home.
Anything but a college professor.

“I teach mathematics,” she said, trying not
to sound defensive.

Todd jerked back as if she had zinged him
with a cattle prod. “Jesus. You teach university math?”

Oh, well. At least now he might leave her
alone. “That’s correct.”

Unfortunately, he didn’t respond the way she
had anticipated. Most men headed for the hills when they found out
what she did for a living, but Todd spread his legs wide and
propped his elbows on his thighs, leaning as close to her as he
could without falling into her lap.

“Well, that’s fantastic. I never much liked
math, but a hot teacher like you sure could have changed my mind.”
He tried to say it in a sexy voice, but it came out more as a beery
rumble. His stale-smelling, alcohol breath washed over her, causing
her stomach to rebel. She shrank back against her pillow, trying to
put some distance between them.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sadie noticed
that even Cassie was cringing at Todd’s inanity, leaving her
wondering how they could gracefully get rid of these idiots. A few
minutes with them had already seemed like an eternity. Right now,
she wished she were anywhere else, including walking headfirst into
a sleet-filled, February wind howling down Michigan Avenue.

But Todd and his cronies seemed oblivious.
They spent the next twenty minutes regaling them with stories about
the poker tournament, providing endless detail on all the brilliant
moves of poker stars neither of them had ever heard of. And as the
beer kept flowing, the three men got increasingly loud and
obnoxious. Sadie would have given her right arm to get out of
there, but Cassie still seemed to be enjoying all the masculine
attention. It appeared they wouldn’t be escaping anytime soon.

Sadie’s tolerance ran out a few minutes later
when Todd slid his hand onto her thigh. She gave it a hard
slap—harder than she’d intended. “And what exactly led you to
conclude that I would welcome your paw on my leg?” she snapped in
her best schoolmarm voice.

Todd’s eyes snapped wide open and he jerked
back as if he’d been bitten by a rattlesnake. His chair slammed
into a woman sitting behind him, knocking her forward and cascading
her drink across the day-bed beside her. Splashed by the flying
daiquiri, the young woman on the day-bed shrieked as if it were
acid.

Sadie rolled over to check out the chaos the
oaf had caused. Todd looked befuddled as the two women began to
give him a verbal beat-down.

“Hey, Sade,” hissed Cassie. “Take a look over
there. Down at the end of the pool.”

Sadie gazed across the shimmering expanse of
blue-green water to the other end of the pool. Shielding her eyes
with the flat of her hand, her heart gave a jolt as she saw what
Cassie was talking about.
The sheriff
. And he was striding
in their direction—fast.

Saxon looked utterly out of place in his
light grey suit, white dress shirt and black shoes. Even the pool
staff at
Skin
wore only shorts. But though his clothes
looked out of place in the blazing sun, the man radiated a
controlled and totally masculine cool. In contrast, a sudden,
furious heat raced through Sadie’s limbs.

Even behind his sunglasses, she could tell
his gaze was fixed on her. His mouth hadn’t even hinted at a smile.
Her little spurt of excitement faded, and unease took its place.
Would he think her a tramp for baring her boobs in public? She
shouldn’t give a damn about what Nick Saxon might or might not
think, but she was surprised to find how much she did.

“Shit, that jerk in the suit looks like he
wants trouble,” Todd groaned.

“He’s hotel security,” Cassie told him, not
bothering to repress her grin. “I really don’t think he’s somebody
you guys want to mess with.”

The guys cast wary looks at each other.

As Saxon headed straight for their day-bed,
other women’s heads turned as he strode down the length of the
sparkling pool. One young blonde quickly rolled from her stomach
onto her back, offering him a full view of her impressive,
evenly-tanned breasts. For an instant, Sadie contemplated drenching
the woman with her mojito. Fortunately, Saxon saved her from
wasting her drink by striding past without the slightest turn of
his head.

Way to go, Sheriff
.

First, Saxon stopped to talk with the women
who’d been bumped and splashed. Their eyes threw daggers at Todd as
they told the sheriff what he’d obviously already witnessed. He
called over two of the poolside servers and got them started on the
cleanup, then thanked the women for their patience before turning
to confront the guilty parties. Legs planted wide apart, he stood
like a modern-day cowboy, blocking out the sun with his tall,
muscled body. Every bone inside Sadie seemed to dissolve into a
puddle of warm honey.

After a polite nod to Cassie and Sadie, Saxon
zeroed in on the three stooges. The guys had stood as he
approached, and now shifted nervously on their feet. She couldn’t
see the sheriff’s eyes behind the shades, but knew from his body
language—and the tension shimmering in the air around him—that his
testosterone had spiked into the red zone.

Sadie pushed her sunglasses up on her head
and let her gaze drift up the body of the incredibly hot man
standing next to their day-bed. Damned if his groin wasn’t at her
eye level. Like they’d been glued, her eyeballs seemed stuck in
place, inspecting the tantalizing bulge below his black leather
belt as she waited for him to rain down the fire.

Todd finally piped up, his voice climbing
into a range not much below a squeak. “Is there a problem, man?
We’re just hanging out and having a good time with these
ladies.”

Saxon’s lip actually curled, his attitude
akin to a panther eying a field mouse. Insignificant and not worth
eating.

God
. Even the sheriff’s arrogance
turned her on. She almost finished melting right there on the
spot.

“Yeah, I’d say there’s a problem when some
jackass knocks a couple of women over and scares the wits out of
them.” His voice sounded as sharp and cold as a steel blade. “You
created a disturbance and, according to the two ladies you
inconvenienced, it was obviously caused by an excess of
alcohol.”

“Hell, it was an accident,” Todd mumbled. “I
didn’t mean to bump into her chair.”

“Right. An
accident
that happened
after you stuck your hand somewhere it didn’t belong,” Nick
snapped. He stared at each of the men in turn. “You three will want
to be running along now. Go have a workout, or do something else to
work off the booze.”

Todd glowered at him, looking like a sulky
kid. The other two guys glanced nervously at each other, but nobody
moved.

Saxon slowly pulled off his sunglasses and
the temperature around the pool dropped by several degrees. His
glare was like an ice pick. Maybe even an ice axe. Sadie had to
bite the inside of her cheeks not to laugh at the effect it had on
the stooges.

“Do I really need to ask you again to
leave?”

Though the sheriff didn’t raise his voice,
Todd and his buddies picked up their drinks and slunk off,
muttering to each other and casting dirty looks at Saxon over their
shoulders.

Sadie let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks. You
saved us the trouble of getting rid of those idiots ourselves. They
were as dense as granite.”

“I’m glad to have been of service, ma’am.” He
turned his eyes toward Cassie. “I’ve met your friend, but we
haven’t been properly introduced.”

It didn’t make any sense, but she liked the
way the sheriff called her ‘ma’am’. Somehow, he managed to make it
sound both sexy and respectful. “Nick Saxon, Cassie Hearn,” she
said, nodding toward each of them in turn.

Cassie didn’t waste any time. “Hello, Nick.
May I call you Nick?”

His lips twitched, and he nodded.

“Thanks a bunch for the timely pest control,
but would you mind blocking someone else’s sun? You’re about as big
as a redwood.” Cassie flashed a smile to show she was just sticking
a needle in him.

He grimaced. “Sorry, but you northerners
should be careful about how much sun you get, anyway. Especially
you, Ms. Bligh. You’re so pale, you’ll burn fast.”

Well, she certainly felt the burn, but it
wasn’t from the sun. Feeling reckless—which seemed to happen every
time she laid eyes on him—Sadie decided to play him a bit. “I don’t
think so, Mr. Saxon. I’ve applied copious quantities of lotion. Do
you think I need some more?” She ran a hand experimentally over the
flat of her stomach.

His eyes narrowed and darkened as he followed
her hand.

“Sade, I’m hot. I think I’ll take a dip.”
Cassie jumped up from the bed and, without waiting for Sadie’s
reply, swayed over to the side of the pool.

For a moment, panic swelled at the thought of
being alone with Nick, but Sadie willed it down.
This
was
what she wanted.
This
was precisely what she had come to
Vegas for.

She inclined her head toward Cassie’s vacant
spot. “Lots of room on the day-bed if you’d like to rest up a bit,
Sheriff. You must be sweltering in that suit. In fact, I’d like to
buy you a cool drink in thanks for rescuing us.”

“Sorry, I can’t do that. I’m on duty. Anyway,
I’m used to this weather. I grew up here, and it’s a nice, dry
heat.”

“Are you kidding? So is the heat in my oven,
but I don’t want to live inside it.”

He laughed. “I know. It’s murder on everyone
but the locals.”

Sadie drew her legs up and propped her
forearms on her knees. For the first time all day, she was
beginning to enjoy herself. “You seem to be here all hours of the
day and night. Are you ever off duty?”

He glanced over his shoulder, as if someone
might be watching. “I take my job seriously.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she
responded dryly.

His smiled faded, his eyes narrowed again,
and the sheriff was back on duty. “How does your ankle feel today,
ma’am? You gave me the impression it was in pretty bad shape last
night, but you seem to have recovered quickly.”

Sadie started to bristle. Had he come to
Skin
to check out her body or just rattle her chain some
more? Or, and this made her stomach give a sickening little flop,
was he just humoring her while he did his job? Granted, she was
hopeless at reading men, but she swore that the heat blazing in
those onyx eyes clearly signaled he was thinking of stripping off
her skimpy bikini bottom, coming down on top of her, and having sex
right there on the day-bed. And part of her couldn’t think of
anything she’d rather do more.