Chapter 8 #2
Tiffany’s breath hitched at the gravel in his voice, which had thickened his accent. Maybe she shouldn’t want to – but she did. She sure as shit couldn’t think about anything else, and maybe she was playing with fire but her chin lifted anyway. ‘Maybe I do.’
His lips quirked in a slight smile. ‘It’s… not exactly suitable for work.’
‘Just as well I’m off the clock, then.’ Now she was definitely playing with fire. ‘I’m a big girl, Theo. Why don’t you let me decide what I can handle in my down time?’
Blue eyes locked on hers as he picked up his glass and took a slug of whisky, watching her over the rim as he swallowed.
Holding her gaze, he brought it back to the table but held it firm.
‘I want to strip off your tie, rip open the buttons of your blouse, push up your skirt, bend you over this table and fuck you from behind.’
Tiffany’s heart banged hard against her ribs as each filthy word dropped like stones into the silence. She supposed she was meant to recoil from his deliberate crudity. Be shocked. Scandalised. Affronted.
It would have been a lot easier if she was.
But she wasn’t. She was titillated. Her breath roughened with every detail as he took her right into the thick of the fantasy until she was picturing herself, stiletto-clad feet wide apart, legs spread as if he was frisking her instead of fucking her, her lacy bra exposed as his big body surrounded her, fully dressed apart from his open fly as he pounded her all the way to the climax she could already feel simmering between her legs.
Jesus. She shouldn’t want that. But she did. The throb between her legs intensified as a husky breath slid slowly from her lips. ‘A shame about that no-sex dare, huh?’
And the fact she had more self-respect than being a rich man’s plaything.
The angle of his jaw clenched white as he raised his glass to her, his lips twisting into an ironic smile as he drank, draining the remains in one swallow. It thudded as it landed on the table.
‘Maybe don’t wear the uniform tomorrow night,’ he said, then turned away throwing, ‘Goodnight, Tiffany, sweet dreams,’ over his shoulder like he hadn’t just almost brought her to orgasm from words alone.
Sweet dreams? Fat chance of that.
* * *
Theo stopped at the saloon entrance the next night. Tiffany was behind the tables again, dispersing chips. In her uniform. Looking as sexy and untouchable as the previous night, the neat knot of her tie taunting him, her Robert-Palmer-glossy lipstick beckoning like a siren from the rocks.
As if she sensed his presence, she glanced up from the chips and their gazes locked. For a beat, she didn’t look so sure of herself, before the uncertainty vanished and she smiled at him, a very definite challenge in her eyes. ‘Evening, Tiffany,’ he murmured.
‘Evening, boss.’ She returned the greeting with an irritating amount of chirpiness.
‘Hey, boss,’ Kelly said, oblivious to the undercurrent. ‘The others close behind? I’ve mixed together a signature cocktail to start the night but won’t pour if they’re a while away.’
‘They should be here in a few minutes,’ he replied as he crossed casually to the back of the room where the tables were set up.
‘Awesome. I’ll get them out on a tray now.’
Coming to a halt in front of her, Theo lowered his voice. ‘I thought we agreed you weren’t going to wear the croupier uniform any more?’
It had starred in his dreams last night. Fevered dreams that had woken him this morning in a twist of sheets with raging morning wood that wouldn’t quit. Not until he took himself in hand and did something about it while picturing the exact filthy scenario he had laid out to her last night.
That he wanted to do – for real – right now. Ask Kelly to leave, lock the door and fuck her over the blackjack table.
Flicking a glance over his shoulder at Kelly, Tiffany also kept her voice low. ‘I don’t think we agreed to anything.’
‘ Theé dóse mou dynamierde ,’ Theo muttered under his breath, asking for strength.
Her and that fucking uniform was going to be the death of him. How was he supposed to concentrate on gambling when he wanted to pop all those buttons and bury his face in her tits?
‘What if I asked you nicely?’
‘I’d ask you if that was an order.’
Christe. An order. Do not think about ordering her out of that uniform. Ordering her to her knees. Ordering her to open her plush, red mouth. ‘What if I said yes?’
‘I would say, “But sir, I’d be disappointing your guests, who don’t seem to have a problem with what I’m wearing.”’
Theo snorted. Of course they fucking didn’t. They were guys with twenty-twenty vision. Even Hugo had joked this afternoon that she could turn him straight when she’d found some aloe vera ointment for his nasty sunburn.
Which had made Theo irrationally pissed off.
Watching his so-called friends flirting with her all day because they knew how it annoyed him was making him crazy. Hell, they’d be merciless if they knew he and Tiffany had already slept together.
Theo narrowed his eyes. ‘I can live with their disappointment.’
Separating the chips into piles, she said, ‘What if I was to tell you I like it? It’s boss . I like how flattering it is to all these big bones of mine. And yes’ – she lifted her gaze and caught his eye – ‘I like the way men look at me in it.’
Her gaze held a clear you-got-a-problem-with-that? challenge. And he didn’t. The uniform flattered her Rubenesque form perfectly, and the fact she knew that and got off on the attention it brought her was sexy AF.
But conversely, it also made him want to break things.
‘I don’t like the way men look at you in it.’ And yeah, that might make him a Neanderthal, but he could live with that, too.
She smiled sweetly then returned her attention to the chips. ‘I guess that’s a you problem.’
Narrowing his eyes, he leaned in as he murmured, ‘You know this is playing with fire. You know where this is going to lead?’ Theo never considered himself much of a sage, but there was an inevitability about them that both scared and attracted him in equal measure.
‘Yeah, except’ – she looked up again and also leaned in a little – ‘I wasn’t stupid enough to take a no-sex vow.’ She straightened and returned her attention to the chips.
Well, she had him there.