He smiled back. “Looks like you’ve been busy.” He lifted an eyebrow at me and then looked pointedly at the table.
Chapter Ten
MY NIPPLES GOT HARD UNDER my dress and a zing of something electric went right down to my the space between my legs. I was too flustered to come up with anything even mildly intelligent in response. “Yes. Busy learning blackjack.”
“Your girlfriend’s a quick study,” said the old man. He motioned the dealer for a hit. When he looked at his card he frowned and then flipped them both over.
I counted them up, letting the girlfriend comment just breeze on by. “Busted,” I said, very sad that he’d lost. I pouted in his honor.
The dealer swooped up his cards and his money.
The old man nodded. “Busted, indeed.” He stood and motioned to his chair while looking at the cowboy. “I’m done. Good luck to you both.”
I spun around, my legs brushing up against the cowboy. I tried to ignore the way that simple touch was making my pulse hammer in my veins. “You’re leaving?”
“Yep. Time to call it a day.”
“Aw, that’s a bummer. But thank you so much for your help.” I hopped off the stool and grabbed him in a hug. He totally reminded me of my grandpa who’d died three years earlier.
He patted my back. “It was my pleasure, Lady Luck. Have a nice evening.” He shook the cowboy’s hand. “Take care of her. She’s got lots of potential.”
“I’ll do what I can,” said the cowboy, nodding once.
I watched my mentor walk away, wondering what he meant by that. It sounded nice. I liked the idea of having a lot of potential. There were people who’d known me for years who’d never say such a thing about me, but they weren’t allowed to ruin my night. Not tonight. I pushed their ghosts out of my head.
The cowboy held the back of the stool I’d been saving for him. “Are you staying?” he asked.
I stood there, my face suddenly flaming red and my body screaming for more of him than just a blackjack partner or victim of my clutziness. What the hell. “Sure. I have to finish this game, right?”
He nodded. “Take this seat.” He motioned at the one with his chips in front of it.
I took it, feeling the sweat break out under my arms when he claimed the seat recently vacated by my busted buddy.
“Do you want to see my cards? Your cards, actually?” I asked. I fingered the chips in front of me for a few seconds and then jerked my hands away, resting them in my lap.
“Hands on the table, please,” said the dealer, frowning at me.
I threw them up to rest on the padded bar in front of the pile of chips, afraid I was about to get arrested for attempted cheating.
The cowboy lifted up first the cards on the left and then the ones on the right. He whistled his appreciation. “Well done, Lady Luck.”
He was close enough that I could smell him. For the first time in all the years I’d known Candice, I fully appreciated her habit of leaning in to inhale people’s scents. I wanted to get his man-scent up into my brain. It was doing something to me that I’d never experienced before.
Pheromones. My eyes widened. I was totally being drugged by this guy’s manliness. How easy can a girl get? Maybe that should have offended my feminist self, but all it did was make me want to bury my nose in his neck. I glanced at him, biting my bottom lip in consideration. Am I tipsy enough to do it? He was leaning over looking at the cards, and it would be so easy.
I bent at the waist just the slightest bit and closed my eyes, inhaling deeply but slowly so he wouldn’t hear it. When I opened my eyes, his face was just a few inches from mine.
“Are you okay?” he asked, humor tipping up the corners of his luscious mouth.
“Uhhh … yeah. Are you okay?” I looked down at his crotch. “Did you take care of yourself in the bathroom okay?” Half a second later I choked on my own tongue. Did I actually just say that?
He chuckled softly. “I got my pants as dry as I could, all considered, if that’s what you mean.”
I nodded, afraid to speak at this point. Who knew what would come flying out of my mouth next. I was dangerous with this many cocktails in me.
The dealer distracted me from my embarrassment, turning over our hands and paying out or taking money. I looked at his cards. He had an ace, a three, and an eight. I counted furiously in my head. Eleven, three, that’s fourteen plus eight that’s … twenty-one? No! Twenty-two! Is it twenty-two? I looked at the cowboy. “What’s that mean?” I asked, pointing to the dealer’s cards.
“He busted. Anyone not over twenty one wins, and you get a little extra for having blackjack.”