Aidan could have laughed at the expression on Melissa's face. She thought something different than what he meant. Good.
"Play a little?"
"Yeah. You know...poker, blackjack, craps, some of the games."
"Oh, that. I don't play."
"You work for a casino and you don't ever play the games?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I just don't."
"So, you suck at gambling, huh?"
She lifted her chin and cast him a defiant glare. "I do not. I just don't like to gamble."
"I can see where gambling would be a problem for you. After all, it's risky, takes you out of your comfort zone."
Her eyes narrowed and she said, "I'm perfectly comfortable gambling. I'm just..."
"Just what?"
She hesitated before answering. "Unlucky."
Ah, so there was the problem. "Luck plays some part in gambling. Skill is another and knowing when to walk away a winner and when to cut your losses and leave the table."
"Well, I understand all the games and the concepts, I just can't seem to ever win, so I don't try."
"Come on." He took her by the arm and led her to a blackjack table. "I'll teach you."
"I don't want--"
"Just consider it research, okay?" Damn, but the woman was difficult to loosen up. He swore she was deliberately being obstinate just to piss him off.
But this time she followed along, albeit reluctantly, and sat next to him at a blackjack table. A friendly dealer smiled at both of them.
"Hi Sandy," Aidan said after he read the dealer's tag. The woman nodded politely and began to deal.
It didn't take Aidan long to figure out why Melissa never won.
"You're doing it wrong," he whispered as she once again stayed when she should have hit.
"No, I'm not."
"You have to hit on sixteen. It's a no win otherwise."
"Not true. I've won before."
"The odds are against you."
"I'll do it my way."
"You'll keep losing."
She sighed. "That's what I keep telling you. I'm not lucky."
"Then let me teach you."
She turned her gaze on him, those green eyes of hers melting his resolve to stay impersonal. "Give it your best shot."
He did, and within half an hour she'd won more than she'd lost. Another half hour and chips were piling up in front of her. The more her winnings grew, the bigger her smile. She liked winning.
And she definitely did not suck at gambling. Once she'd mastered the basics, she focused on the game, the other players' cards, the dealers' hands. He swore he could hear the wheels turning in her head as she calculated her hand versus the house.
Gathering up her chips, she said, "This is great! Let's go play something else now."
He laughed and took his winnings, following her to the craps table.
"Okay, teach me how to play this one."
Melissa was a quick study. Her laughter and exuberance at winning rubbed off on the gathering players around her. Before long she was leading the pack in chips and amassing quite a fan club.
Unfortunately, many of those were men. Men who ogled her, practically drooled on her, touched her arm and high-fived her when she won.
Melissa seemed to enjoy it, her gaze shifting to his every now and then. Quickly she'd avert her eyes and smile up at some guy standing next to her.
And Aidan didn't like it one damn bit. Reminding himself that she wasn't his woman, he backed away and watched, playing a little bit here and there, but mainly keeping his eye on Lissa.
She ignored him completely, concentrating on the game and the men hovering near her. She laughed with them, let them hug her when she rolled successfully, and seemed to be having a great time.
He, on the other hand, was nearly ready for a meltdown. He wrangled his way into the crowd and touched her arm. "You ready to go?"
"Not yet. I'm winning, Aidan! Look!" she said, pointing to the large pile of chips in front of her.
"I see that. I thought you might want to try another game."
"Come on, pal," a tall, blond guy said. "She's our lucky star. Let her stay awhile."
"Yeah," said a good-looking older man who smiled down at Melissa. "We don't want to lose our winner here."
Aidan forced back the grinding jealousy that stabbed at him, plastering on a polite smile. "I can appreciate that, guys, but we really need to get going."
Melissa turned and arched a brow at him. "I'm not ready to leave yet. Why don't you go play at one of the other tables and I'll find you when I'm done here?"
When she turned away and started another roll, Aidan stepped back. Dismissed. He'd been dismissed by her as if he were nothing more than a lackey to carry around her winnings for her.
Didn't that beat all? For years he'd been the one women flocked to, he'd been the one that all the females wanted to spend time with. And now he'd found a woman whose company he really enjoyed, and she'd just given him the brush off.
The hell with that. He'd get her attention like no other man could. Starting right now.
The energy had already begun to swirl inside him and he didn't need to work hard to call forth the magic. In fact, it started so strong he had to tamp it down a bit so he wouldn't knock her off her feet.
Then again, maybe that's exactly what he'd do. No small little quirks here or there, but a full blown big one.
Closing his eyes he directed the energy toward Melissa, then waited for the show to begin.
*
The first sizzling jolt hit Melissa without warning, making her instinctively want to reach down between her legs and intensify the pleasure.
Recalling she was in the middle of a very public, very crowded casino, she pulled her hand away and reached for the cushioned side of the craps table.
Whoa. What the hell was that? A shot of desire unlike anything she'd ever felt, and completely out of the blue.
"Come on, honey, it's your roll."
She looked up at the blond man standing next to her and smiled. "Sure. Let 'em roll." She tossed the dice, hoping whatever it was that had just hit her was an isolated occurrence.
"Oh yeah! Won again!" the blond said, hugging her to him.
When she moved away from the man it hit her again, this burst of sensation stronger than the last. It was like having a huge, hard penis slide inside her for the very first time--that sweet ache that made her moan out loud.
"Did you say something, sugar?" one of the men asked.
Oh God, had she really moaned? What was happening to her? She shook her head at the man and smiled weakly, hiding her shaking hands by clutching the dice in her hands.
She could barely throw them across the table as another pleasure peak shot through her. Her nipples hardened, becoming more than obvious tips against her silk dress. Hopefully no one would notice.
Yeah, right. A man at the other side of the table nearly lost his eyeballs as they bugged out of their sockets. Why hadn't she brought a sweater?
And more importantly, what the hell was going on? No one was touching her, and she'd never felt pleasure like this without caressing herself or being fondled by someone else.
Yet she was being touched. She felt it, both outside and in, as if a warm hand gently caressed her breasts, then traveled slowly down her belly and cupped her mound.
She shuddered at the nearly unbearable sensations, the dice falling out of her hands as something that felt like a cock slid inside her. But there was nothing between her legs, nothing but a pulsing, pounding pleasure that turned her legs to jelly. She squeezed her thighs together as if that alone would stop the vortex of sensations, but it only increased her pleasure until she had to bite down on her lower lip to keep from whimpering.
Someone placed the dice into her hands, but she couldn't concentrate on what she was doing. A warm, wet heat settled over her clit, pulsing gently, rhythmically stroking. She couldn't breathe. The vibrations intensified, an
d if she didn't know better she could swear she was getting close to--
"Oh my God!" she screamed. The dice flew out of her hands and across the table and she gripped the padded sides as an orgasm of epic proportions washed over her. The crowds around her screamed too, but she was in such a haze of pleasure she had no idea why. She shuddered, aching to slide her fingers into her now soaked pussy and enhance the pleasure arcing through her.
Thankfully the people at the table thought she'd screamed about the dice, which brought about another stack of chips in front of her. Through their whoops and whistles and cries of joy, she managed to ride out her climax until she could breathe semi-normally again.
Panting and more than a little wobbly, she breathed in and out steadily, hoping to calm her raging heartbeat. What the hell had just happened to her? No longer able to concentrate, she piled her chips into a plastic bucket and left the table, much to the consternation of the other players.
After she cleared the crowd and cashed in her chips she found Aidan leaning casually against a bar stool, a cold smile on his face. He'd been near the craps table the entire time. His eyes had darkened a near stormy black, and he gave her a knowing look as if he knew exactly what had just transpired.
But he couldn't know, could he?
As soon as she stopped in front of him, he grabbed her arm.
"We're going outside for a little talk," he said, dragging her through the doors of the casino lobby.
Chapter Six
Ignoring Melissa's objections, Aidan all but dragged her outside. He paused for a few seconds, looking left and right, then pulled her to the side of the building, pressing her against the brick wall. When she tried to push away he held her there by placing his hands on either side of her shoulders.
Shrouded in the darkness, he couldn't see her eyes, but her heaving breaths told him she was more than a little perturbed.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she hissed.
What the hell was he doing? Kidnapping her? Taking her away from the ogling eyes of the men who'd surrounded her? Hell if he knew the answer.
But after watching her squirm and feeling the same erotic sensations that she'd felt, he had to get her out of there, had to get closer to her, had to--
What? Ravage her right here against the building? In public, outside, where anyone could spot them?
Wasn't a bad idea at that.
"I'm tired of you playing games with me," he said, his body aware of her pulsing heartbeat. Her scent wafted over him, sweet and musky like a woman who'd just enjoyed a soaking orgasm. He was dying to drop to his knees and taste her sweet honey.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You know damn well what I'm talking about. You don't want to have anything to do with me, but you smile and flirt with the guys at the tables in there, letting them put their hands all over you."
She reached up and pushed against his chest, but he refused to budge. "I did no such thing. I was playing craps."
"Uh huh. You were playing games all right, but the games you played were with me. I'm not stupid, Lissa."
"Are you sure?" she replied, her voice loaded with sarcasm. "And don't call me that."
Fury boiled inside him until the ground shook with a rumbling thunder. "Call you what? Lissa?"
"Stop it."
"Lissa," he said again, this time lowering his voice, letting it trip seductively off his tongue.
"No. That's not my name."
"To me it is." Although her muscles still tensed, it was tension of a different form. He felt the change in her, the abrupt switch from anger to heated desire. "Melissa is cold and unfeeling. Lissa is hot. Lissa has a few naughty thoughts that she'd like to express but might be a little afraid to."
"No."
He chuckled, knowing she'd already given up the fight. Now he had to convince her of that fact.
"Lissa has fantasies."
"I do not," she shot out. "No, wait. Stop calling me that. That's not who I am."
"I think you'd like to act on some of those fantasies, but you haven't found the right man to unleash the wild part of you that aches to be set free."
"And you think you're that man?"
He reached for her, lightly trailing his fingers over her bared shoulders and down her arms until he felt her shudder. God how he wanted to see her face, see her eyes light up with passion, but not here. Here he wanted privacy, darkness, a place where he could hide her away and take a little taste of her.
And maybe, just maybe, get her to admit that the passion boiling inside her was for him.
"Tell me, Lissa," he continued, relentlessly touching her skin every place she was bared. She sucked in a breath when he drew his fingertips over her collarbone and stopped just short of slipping them inside the silky dress to caress her breasts.
She wanted him to. He knew damn well she wanted him to.
"Tell you what?" she said, no longer able to hide her panting breaths.
"Tell me what you want to do right now." Then he did slide his hand inside her dress, lightly skimming the sides of her breasts. They were soft, straining against his hands.
She shivered, her breasts rising against his hand. "I want to go back to the hotel."
Moving his hands inside further, he glided his thumbs over her already hard nipples, rewarded when she sucked in a breath.
"You want me."
"No," she whispered, but her protest was weak.
He reached down, grasped her hand and placed her palm on the granite hard bulge in his pants. "Feel that?"
"Yes."
"I want you. Right here and right now. I've been hard for you for hours. Now tell me what you really want."
She didn't answer, but she didn't remove her hand, either. His cock strained for release. He needed her hands on him.
"Come on, cher, tell me what your mind and your body want. Tell me what you'd like at this moment if you could do whatever you wanted."
"I...I can't."
"Yes, you can. No one's listening but me."
"Please, Aidan," she stammered. "I can't do this."
"Why?" He moved his hand to her hair, loving the feel of the silken tresses gliding along his palm.
"Because it's not who I am. I'm not a hot seductress, I'm not sexually free. I don't give men blow jobs in public parks at night, I don't let a man give me an orgasm in the same venue, and I'm not about to fuck you up against this building."
Her body shook with her words, whether from fear, uncertainty or just plain desire he couldn't tell. "How about you just rub my cock until I come, then?" he teased, trying to lighten the situation.
She hesitated, chewing her lower lip. Finally, she spoke in a ragged whisper. "Okay."
"Huh?"
"I said okay."
Holy shit. She'd agreed. Thoughts of her stroking him outside the busy building already had his cock straining to be free of his pants.
The fact that Lissa was bold enough to agree to it excited him even more.
She reached for him, threading her fingers through his hair and pulling him toward her, all vestiges of hesitancy gone. "Kiss me."
He allowed her to pull him hard against her. His mouth swept down over hers and took in her moist, sweet taste, shuddering when the heat passed through him. He let loose the crack of thunder as Lissa seared him with her lips and tongue, unable to control the elements when he couldn't even control himself around her.
"Damn, woman, you make me hot," he breathed against her cheek.
"I can make you hotter," she teased, reaching for his belt and loosening it so she could grab the button of his pants.
Frantically she worked to pop it open and slide the zipper down, quickly reaching inside. She moaned excitedly when she circled his erection with her fingers.
He bit back a curse and rested his palms against the hot brick of the building. Lissa pulled his cock free and circled it with her hand, skimming the tip with her thumb. He ached to spill his seed all over her greedy
little fingers and began to pump his shaft within her enclosed hand.
"It's so hard, Aidan, and pulsing."
"I told you, I've been hard for you all night."
"Good."
Whatever had bothered her before, whatever reservations she'd had about involving herself physically with him, seemed to have vanished. Aidan wasn't about to question her motives, and couldn't at this moment if he wanted to. The feel of her hands grasping his length and circling, stroking, pumping him, was more than he could handle.
Thunder boomed overhead, lightning arcing through the sky for the briefest of seconds, but long enough to capture Lissa's face in its ethereal light.
She grabbed his lower lip between her teeth. Her eyes had darkened, pupils dilated and all but obliterating the sea green orbs. Their eyes met and fire passed between them. Thunder cracked so loud that Lissa jumped, momentarily releasing her grip on his aching cock.
"Don't let go," he groaned.
"It's going to rain," she protested, turning her head toward the ramp of the hotel leading into the lobby.
"No, it's not going to rain." He reached for her wrist and placed her hand over his cock, then folded his fingers over hers. "Do it, baby... make me come."
He kept his fingers on top of hers, loving the sensation of her hand on his penis. He guided her, showed her the rhythm.
"Yes," he murmured, "just like that, cher." She was wild, her movements increasing as his pleasure heightened. The combination of her innocence in public sex and the wicked thrill of possibly being discovered with his cock exposed did a number on his normal restraint.
"Come for me," she commanded, squeezing his shaft harder, grasping him with both hands now and twisting him into knots as she cupped his balls and tugged lightly. "Come for me now, Aidan."
He lost it. Purely and simply lost it. Fighting to keep from shouting out, he leaned against the wall of the building and shot come all over Lissa's hands, pumping furiously into her palm and fingers as his climax soared through him. A fierce wind blew against them, the elements sounding out their own pleasures as he fought to rein in the forces of nature threatening to explode around them.
Melissa stayed with him the entire time, milking every drop with her hands until he relaxed and touched his forehead to hers.
Their breath mingled, hot and spicy and full of arousal. He kissed her lips, tasting the desire that burned within her, knowing that although he'd been satisfied, she was still on fire.