“I don’t. That was my first time actually playing. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to play.”
“Yet another advantage of having a brilliant mind?”
She shrugged, took a sip of her iced tea, then kept her focus on the napkin she was tearing into strips. “Or having a professional gambler as a father.”
“What?” The chip in his fingers froze halfway to his mouth. “I thought your dad was a traveling salesman.”
“Admitting to people your dad makes his money as a criminal gambler isn’t the sort of thing you tell people.” Finally she peered up at him, her eyes imploring him to understand. “Not even your best friend.”
Damn. Alyssa had always been sensitive about the topic of her parents and in her position, he probably would have kept everyone on a need-to-know basis, too. But it stung a little to realize she hadn’t viewed him as separate from “everyone.”
He dropped the chip onto the small plate, his appetite all but forgotten. “So all those times he was gone for months at a time?”
“Traveling with his partner to different casinos or underground tournaments. Sometimes hiding from people he owed money to until he could win enough to pay them off. Then he’d show up at our door whenever his luck ran out, and he’d stay just long enough to make promises he’d never keep and convince my mom to give him more money from her trust fund my grandma left her.” She swirled her straw around in her iced tea and stared at the ice cubes as they clinked against the glass.
“Whenever he came home, Mom and I almost fooled ourselves into believing we were a normal family. My parents were happy to see each other; my dad always brought Mom and me presents. He spent time with me, teaching me how to read people or count cards and stack the deck. We’d go to dinner, and I’d watch them laugh and smile and I’d think…maybe this time it’ll last. Maybe this time things will be different.”
But it never was. She didn’t say the words aloud, but they hovered over her like a dark cloud threatening to drench her in its bad memories.
“Hey,” he said, reaching across and taking her hand in his steady grip. “Let’s not take any trips down memory lane today, okay? Let’s stay focused on the here and now.” She took a deep breath and nodded with a wan smile. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Chapter Seven
It was called a Lollipop Passion Goblet and for a damn good reason.
When Dillon disappeared during their appetizer course, he’d returned with an alcoholic concoction of pineapple, melon, and coconut flavors. It tasted like heaven in the tropics but looked like the genius brainchild of a third grader’s imagination.
A glass goblet the size of a small fishbowl held neon-green liquid and literally “smoked,” courtesy of a chunk of dry ice. The thick layer of white sat on top of the drink, a ghostly version of whipped cream that bubbled over the edge like a witch’s cauldron. Topping it all off was a playful garnish of a unicorn lollipop, the rainbow kind that swirled up a long stick and could always be found in old-fashioned candy shops. It was stuck into the drink upside down with two candy necklaces wrapped around the handle.
Absolute. Perfection.
Alyssa took another long sip from her straw and felt the last of her tension slip away. It was hard to remain serious with a candy choker around her neck and another double wrapped on her right wrist. The edges of her mouth tipped up in a lazy smile as she swirled the ice around with the sucker and let her thoughts spill freely like the smoke from her drink.
Though she wasn’t even buzzed, the alcohol had helped lift the melancholy mood she’d been headed toward after discussing her father. It also aided in taking the edge off the underlying anxiety she’d felt since waking up next to her best friend after he’d thoroughly fucked her for several hours the night before and again that morning.
Wow, Aly, crass much? Apparently the liquor had also loosened her internal vernacular. Or maybe it was the multiple mind-blowing orgasms. Either way, she couldn’t think of a different phrase that did it any justice, much less one that was more polite. There hadn’t been anything polite about what they’d done on her bed. And in her bathroom. And bent over the desk…
“Aly.”
Her eyes flicked up to his as she dragged her thoughts, kicking and screaming, back to the present. “Hmm?”
Dillon placed his forearms on the table and leaned in so the nearby customers couldn’t hear his gruff question. “Is it your intention to make me and every other man around us jealous of that sucker?”
Alyssa froze, horrified to realize that she’d been working the long shaft of candy in and out of her mouth, unwittingly mimicking the base images filling her head. She had two choices: admit she’d had no idea what she was doing and then pretend like it never happened, or ride this new wave of sexual exploration and see what she was truly capable of.