Sins & Needles(72)

“That’s a lot of casinos.”

“He has a lot of men. That’s why next time, we’re staying under Connor Malloy’s name.”

“Next time? Where are we going?”

“Vegas, baby.”

He sat back in his chair, adjusting his glasses. “Sin City. Seems appropriate.”

We left Laughlin in a cloud of dust.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN





It wasn’t too long until we reached the congested Las Vegas Strip. The car ride there had been somber and quiet. Both of us were tied up in our own heads, pondering our fate. I tried to ignore the fear that Javier was out there, hunting me like a hound dog, and instead focused on our next set of actions. We needed to do this right this time. We had to pretend we were high rollers. We’d stay at a fancy hotel, we’d frequent the casinos like the Venetian, the Wynn, the Monte Carlo. We’d gamble, lose money, and laugh about it over cocktails. We’d play the perfect, rich to our tits couple. And then we’d leave.

It was crowded, glaringly sunny and warm. Everyone on the Strip was drunk and wearing clothing far too skimpy and bright for before noon. To tell you the truth, I envied them. I don’t think I’d ever gone on a vacation my whole life. I was always working, always on. It was a full-time job pretending to be someone else.

I selected where we were going to stay and pulled into the entrance of the Aria hotel. Camden craned his head to look at the tall, shiny building.

“Impressive,” he said. “I’m going to assume Connor Malloy has some money.”

“Yes, he does,” I said, parking the car at the valet. “Both of us do. We’re rich and we have a lot of money to spend here. A lot of money to win.”

He nodded in nervous agreement. We got out and I slipped the valet $500, telling him my car was a coveted collectible and needed to have extra special attention away from prying eyes. The valet enthusiastically agreed and told us he’d keep it out of sight. Good.

Once inside, we got a room under his new ID. He obviously couldn’t use his real credit card, so I decided to be Ellen Waits and slipped them my (well, her) credit card to hold the room. I thought there was no space on that card but it still went through fine.

Our room was on the seventeenth floor and beautiful. I pressed a button for the light-blocking, automatic blinds and they withdrew, leaving us a view of the pool area and the impossibly glassy hotel next door. We flopped our stuff onto the beds.

“What’s our first step?” he asked, stretching his arms behind his head. Once again, I tried to not look at the tattoos around his abs. Once again, I failed.

“Well, we’ll need to go out and get some nice clothing. I mean, really nice. High roller kind of nice. You’re going to look like James Bond.”

“Does James Bond wear glasses?”

“If he does, they’re probably x-ray vision. You’ll have to pretend.”

He grinned, the first smile I’d seen on him in a while. “I don’t need x-ray vision. Now that I’ve seen you naked, I can picture it real well.”

I rolled my eyes and started going through the bags and sorting stuff. Yep, I’d have to get a whole new wardrobe. And my boots would definitely not do.

Camden walked over to the window and gazed out of it. His broad shoulders and narrow torso made quite a compelling silhouette. “Isn’t it a bit early in the day to go gambling?”

“We’ll go tonight.”

“What are we going to do until then?” He turned his head and looked at me.

I shrugged. “There’s a lot to we have to do.”

“We’re going to the pool,” he said, and walked away from the window, brushing past me.

“What? We can’t go to the pool!”

He fished out a wad of cash from his suitcase and put it in his wallet. “Why not?”

“Because. This isn’t a vacation, Camden.”

He folded his arms. “I know it’s not. But we don’t have much else to do and I’m not sitting in the hotel room. Come on, I’m tired and I probably stink. I want a shower, I know you do too. I want to go to the pool for an hour and relax. What’s wrong with that?”

“Uh, everything,” I told him. “We don’t get to relax. We’re on the run.”

“You’ve been on the run practically your whole life,” he said, stepping closer to me.

“Yeah, so?”

“So, I think you need to rethink the way you’re doing things. It’s just an hour.”

Now it was my turn to cross my arms. We did have the time. I did feel gross from the day’s journey. It would probably do me good to just try to relax and clear my mind. But, aside from the fact that there’s no way I could relax knowing Javier was out there…I hated swimming pools. It sounds dumb, but when you’ve tried your hardest not to show your deformity in public, you tend to avoid situations where your pants are off. Other than as a child, I’d never even owned a bathing suit.