Breaking Beauty: Devils Aces MC Part 8

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"This method is unusual-and a little more complex-because we don't keep track of the Aces. But it's also a balanced system because if you count through an entire deck of 52 cards, you should end with a count of zero. Otherwise, you're keeping the count wrong."

Romy took in the numbers, the wheels of her mind churning slowly. Bryson instructed her that she'd need to memorize this chart, and work as his check whenever she could at the table. An effective card counter-and their foil-would a.s.sign particular point values to a particular card once it was played, thereby creating the ability to estimate perfectly what was left in a deck.

For the rest of the afternoon into evening, Bryson drilled her. They started with smaller, simpler card games-Texas Hold 'Em, Omaha, Five Card Draw. But Bryson was an expectant teacher. They moved quickly through the ranks of poker and on to Single Deck Blackjack, Double Deck, European and Atlantic City variations purely for practice. They landed on Vegas. Bryson reminded her that certain casinos on the South Side played with six decks; others eight. Their practice called for more spontaneous statistics than even her degree had demanded in months, and by the sunset, Romy still felt only shakily capable with her new skills. She was impressed with Bryson's fluidity with all the games. For someone who hadn't finished high school, he was incredibly intelligent.

"I know it's a lot to take in," he said finally, after a particularly exhausting rep of Follow the Queen. "But you've got the technique down. You just need to get faster."

Romy collapsed against one of the Pillow People they'd designated as other players on the floor.

"And be able to keep a poker face while Zaida watches me like a hawk. And while Lefty watches me, from HD security cameras. And while men ogle me, and grope me, and..." She bit her lip.

"Remember that you'll be leaving most of the leg work to me," Bryson said, coming around the table to ma.s.sage her shoulders. "I just need you to be aware of how I'm counting, so you can give me hints as you deal. Maybe tomorrow, we can practice tells and signals for your hole-card."

"What if they find out? What if they catch me before the tournament ends, and take me back to the cellar, and..." Here, her imagination stopped short. Once again, the evils they were dealing with seemed irreconcilable with the peaceful atmosphere of her apartment, their banter, the picnic basket filled with games.

"Romy, I told you. Be on your toes, but don't panic. All of the Aces will be helping. In whatever ways they can." Behind her, Bryson's voice had taken on that throaty quality she recalled from yesterday's phone conversation. He applied more pressure to the tops of her shoulders, letting his fingers grind harder and harder into her tense muscles.

"That feels nice," Romy murmured. Her sleepy pulse quickened. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck.

"How about this?" Bryson growled, letting his joints dance down her back. Gently, his hands slunk below the straps of her cami. The thin s.h.i.+rt seemed to melt away at his touch.

"That feels nice, too," Romy said, her voice pitching up. She felt her face grow hot.

Without a sound, Bryson continued his ma.s.sage. He came to a squat behind her, letting his arms work tirelessly on the bare muscles of her upper back and down, down, farther down, kneading hard at the folds of her s.h.i.+rt. When he reached the base of her spine, a loosened Romy made a bold move: she reached down and peeled off her cami, exposing her bare back to him. The apartment's cool air tingled across her dampening skin.

"Romy," Bryson said, a note of plea in his voice. "You are so f.u.c.king beautiful..."

But before he could complete the thought, Romy took his calloused hands and placed them over her heaving b.r.e.a.s.t.s. His fingers found her erect nipples; he rolled them between his thumbs and forefingers. Her lover shuddered.

"f.u.c.k it. I want you...so f.u.c.king bad." he murmured into her hair.

"I want you," she responded, swiveling around then. She gathered Bryson's torso between her legs, and drew him towards her on the chair. With a look of animal intensity, he bent lower, picked Romy up, and carried her towards the pillow-less futon in the center of the small living room. He rolled her down gently there, as if he were draping a blanket over a chair.

Romy tugged Bryson's s.h.i.+rt up and over his stomach, resting her palms briefly on the flat of his abdomen. As he raised his arms to peel the garment over his face and toss it casually to the floor, Romy pushed her lips into the trailing fur along his belly, sucking and tasting the salty skin there. She wrangled a quivering hand below the belt of his jeans, and very nearly reeled backward when her fingers connected with his ram-rod c.o.c.k. His shaft was smooth, long, and her encircled fist barely fit around it. Looking up, she saw that Bryson's eyes had rolled backward in his head at the contact. He thrust his pelvis towards her, utterly supplicant.

While one hand worked his body, the other groped to unb.u.t.ton his belt, and unzip his jeans; these fell to the floor with a clatter. Bryson didn't wear underwear and to her pleasant surprise, his exposed body unveiled only more of the sweet smell of his skin. She was thirsty for him now. Forcing contact as he bucked with pleasure, she positioned her arms around the neat, symmetrical scoops of his a.s.s and slid her mouth across the tip of his c.o.c.k.

He arched his back towards her and groaned softly. Romy's kisses grew more ardent-she sucked on her lover's flesh, feeling him grow harder and harder in her mouth. Bryson rocked his hips as she took him deeper and deeper into her throat. Just when she thought she'd brought him to the edge of o.r.g.a.s.m, he eased himself away from her lips.

"Lie back," he commanded, in a voice thick with needing. His erection quavered. Romy pushed herself against the stripped frame of the couch, and snaked a hand down her body, under the rise of her own shorts. She rubbed herself slowly, holding Bryson's gaze.

The muscular man before her eased his naked body down over hers, never once breaking eye contact. A strand of sweaty hair had fallen into his eyes. His breath was ragged. Slowly then, he continued to slide himself across her exposed torso, in a rhythmic motion. With a free hand, he joined Romy's moving fingers in the crotch of her jeans. He pressed up, against her fingers and she cried out in ecstasy.

"Romy Adelaide," Bryson whispered, in the growling voice from before. But there was a tenderness in his timbre. He moved his mouth closer to her ear, and then down to the patch of skin just below her lobe. He kissed her there-softly at first, but then with more vigor. Soon, he was sucking greedily on her neck.

Romy was wetter than she could ever remember being, and her skin felt electric to the touch. "I need you inside me," she murmured into Bryson's thick mane.

And he followed her command. Bryson rose off her chest to survey her body again. Romy recalled that near-pious look of wors.h.i.+p on his rapt, beautiful face. She also sized him up from her p.r.o.ne angle: all that rippling, tight flesh, stretched like a drum over his thick muscles. With both hands now, her lover was fussing frantically with the b.u.t.tons on her shorts; when he'd finished, he eased them gently down over her legs. He stood again, bent low, and proceeded to kiss her dripping center through the silk of her underwear. Romy bucked at the contact and she let herself cry out.

He slipped two thick fingers along the edge of her panties, teasing her with her own wetness before sliding them inside of her-as he began to stroke himself with the other hand. The pressure he applied was intense, but measured. She felt herself gus.h.i.+ng over his hand. Her body contracted and stretched as his gestures grew faster, harder. Then he bent low again, letting his tongue take a slow lap of her c.l.i.t. Her a.s.s clenched and she felt her body tense before she gave herself over to the intense o.r.g.a.s.m cras.h.i.+ng over her. She came into his mouth, harder than she ever had before.

Before she had a chance to recover, Bryson mounted her once more. Scanning her eyes for approval, he softly pushed all the fabric away from her p.u.s.s.y and pushed himself slowly inside of her. They moaned in unison, each overcome with inexplicable pleasure as their bodies intertwined. Romy's body was still rocking and shaking from the powerful o.r.g.a.s.m, her c.l.i.t still sensitive. And Bryson's c.o.c.k was swollen-deft with its movement, but huge, seeming to stretch her soft flesh to its limits.

She tilted her body towards him with what little power she could summon from her quivering thighs, and Bryson reached over and gathered the small of his lover's back in his palms. They bent away from each other like petals of a flower, but Bryson continued to push up and against her. They fit together so perfectly, every inch of their lower bodies seemed to be touching. Romy reached across her mate and summoned the strength to squeeze his sculpted b.u.t.tocks in her sweaty fingers.

He kissed her neck, still rocking her slowly. Romy gave in to the contact fully, feeling her body begin to build towards an impossible second o.r.g.a.s.m. She clenched his a.s.s tighter, and Bryson yelled with a primal pleasure as his thrusts came quicker and quicker.

"Are you going to come?" Romy managed, though her voice was hoa.r.s.e from the moaning.

Bryson couldn't respond, but his eyebrows joined across his face in a kind of apology. With a pleasing shudder, Romy felt her lover contract and pulsate inside her. He came for a long moment, dripping hot against her welcoming thighs. Romy gripped his wilting frame, letting the last few thrusts of his member against her walls take her to a sapping, sweet second climax. She let her head fall back against the couch frame, utterly spent.

They lay that way for a while, like exhausted athletes. Long enough for the sun to dip fully below the horizon, and long enough for tall shadows to stretch across the parlor walls. Bryson's skin became cooler and cooler as he gathered his breath. Their chests were still pressed tight against one another, and she could feel the strong thump-thump of his heartbeat. Romy let an arm and a leg droop off the couch. She felt the cool wood of her apartment's floor, and was surprised: it seemed impossible that this pedestrian wood, that pedestrian table, that all of these pedestrian things could exist just the way they always had-when the important part of the world now seemed dramatically different.

With a sudden burst of energy, Bryson shook himself off his lover's body and came to a standing position. She missed his touch immediately. Instinctually, Romy reached for him.

"I didn't..." Bryson began, as he hunted for his s.h.i.+rt and pants. "Look, I don't want you to think-"

"Shhh," Romy said, curling into a ball. She felt the cool patches along the couch where their combined wetness lingered. "You don't have to say any of that. I know. And I'm on the pill, if that's what you were worried about."

"That's not it," Bryson said. He was buckling his pants. "I mean, of course it was, but...see, Romy..."

"You're anxious around a woman after you've near-literally drilled her brains out?" Romy asked coyly. Another improbability: seeing him standing there, mere moments after their coitus, she found she wanted him again.

"If it's a woman I really like, yes. Yes. I guess what I'm saying's that I really f.u.c.king like you."

"Language!" She mocked.

"I mean it." And now, he bent low. "You're the most incredible woman-person-I think I've ever met."

"Stay with me," Romy blurted. "Sleep here tonight."

"Oh, baby. I want to. I just don't think-what if you're being watched, you know?" The look in Bryson's eyes was all pain and longing. He kissed Romy on the forehead.

"But I'll be back here tomorrow. Earlier than is polite or reasonable. And I won't be able to sleep between then and now, for obvious reasons." And then came that melting grin, that beloved melting grin. She felt she owned this particular face Bryson made. Was responsible for it, whenever it appeared.

"So goodnight, my sweet darling. You will be safe as you sleep. I promise."

With that, the man rose. He left the picnic basket on the table, they'd need it for tomorrow's session, but took the leather jacket he'd swung over her kitchen chair earlier that day. He unfolded the jacket and draped it gently across Romy's naked form.

"Collateral?" she asked. Her eyelids were beginning to flutter. She was drained enough to fall asleep right there on the bare futon.

"A promise," he said simply. Then Bryson Vaughn stood tall, and made for the exit. She listened all the way from the sound of the foyer door closing sharply until she heard the gunning of his bike against the quiet street. She listened until she couldn't hear the engine anymore. She nestled below his leather jacket, coc.o.o.ning herself in the smell of him. And then-not long after sunset-Romy fell asleep.

When she woke the next morning, with a crick in her neck and a messy house, Romy was briefly confused. Why was she on the futon? Why were the pillows off the futon? Why was she s.h.i.+vering in the cool blast of AC? Goofy, on seeing her waking, came to nuzzle his owner immediately.

"Poor little guy," Romy murmured. "You didn't even go out last night."

Rising and blinking to a hot Vegas sunrise, Romy hunted for her pet's leash through the mess of abandoned card games and clothes which were strewn about her living room. At a glacial pace, the events of last night were returning, revealing themselves in clues: the hastily pushed aside furniture. Her clothes, littered over the floor. Romy reached first for the leather jacket that had slid to the ground in her sleep, pressing her nose deep into its aromatic folds: Bryson. He'd been here last night. They'd f.u.c.ked. The memories this brought back were compelling enough that Romy felt a sudden lightheadedness-so she fell into a waiting chair.

As her dog lapped at her ankles in antic.i.p.ation, Romy clutched her head in her hands. A part of her felt hungover, but sans all symptoms-she was merely out of joint with the real world. Today was what? Tuesday? Tuesday meant no cla.s.s, but lots of studying. But how could she be expected to study after such a miraculous, non-mundane thing had come to pa.s.s? Bryson Vaughn had laid her across this very couch. He'd looked at her the way she'd always dreamed of being looked at. He'd looked at her like he understood her completely, and cared about her. He'd looked at her like he'd never seen another naked woman, or heard another person string a sentence together before. She felt tingles moving about her sleepy nerve endings. Though she'd never been fast to care about someone before, Romy felt the urge to let herself admit that she cared about Bryson.

Collecting her disparate thoughts and feelings as if in a bucket, Romy prepared for the day. She took her dog on a walk. She righted the living room. She showered and dressed. Then, she began to study the charts her bad boy lover had left behind. Despite her humming blood, she wouldn't let herself forget the stakes of Sat.u.r.day's mission. It was, after all, the whole reason they'd been forced to forestall their relations.h.i.+p. Romy fought away the dark, flickering hypothetical of being made to sleep with another man. She wouldn't be able to do it, she decided simply-not after last night. She'd rather take whatever punishment Zaida or Lefty could cook up. There was but one man for her now, one knight in s.h.i.+ning armor. Only one.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

Around the same time that morning, at a road stop diner out near city limits, Kellan Vaughn glared out a picture window at the swallowing Western light on the plains. He'd left his parent's house before the sun came up, in the grand tradition of Devils Aces-men. He didn't care for the ghosts that haunted his childhood bedroom. He was simply too eager to see their bona fide counterpoints-namely, the Romy of his memory in real life. His obsession with her memory was getting stronger and stronger, harder to contain. He couldn't articulate why her safety had become so important to him now.

Bryson was supposed to meet his brother at the road stop diner and had also risen early with the sun. As he drove across the flatland towards their meeting spot, practicing ways to keep the guilt from his expression, anxious thoughts tore through his mind: What if Lefty DiMartino had found out about the affair, and was at just-this-moment sending muscle to Bryson's apartment in order to break his knees? As it always does, s.e.x had complicated everything. But Bryson grinned, in spite. Come h.e.l.l or high-water, he wouldn't trade a moment from last night for anything.

He was nearing the meeting place and could even discern a shape in the window directly facing the road which might have been a Vaughn man. And sure enough: there was Kellan, waving indolently at his brother from behind a familiar pair of Aviators. Those gla.s.ses, Bryson knew, had very clearly been swiped from the bedside table of a likely-sleeping Hughie V.

"Glad you could meet me," Bryson said as he rolled into the cafe. "We've got a lot of planning to do. I know the last time I checked, you were a good card shark. Still true?"

"Jesus, brother. Sit down! Take a load off first, eh? You want pancakes? On me?"

Bryson glanced at his watch. "I should actually be going kind of soon, Kelly. Just wanted to go over this Sat.u.r.day with you, so we can kick off prepping. First things first: you'll need to check out the Windsor, get the lay of the land. Their style is pretty Strip-typical-"

"I'm not saying anything until you get a coffee." His kid brother pouted a little, jutting out that famous lip inherited from their perpetually-snarling father. "Oh, and Mom and Dad say hi."

"Kelly, I don't have the time to just sit and shoot the s.h.i.+t with you."

"Why?"

"I've got to get back to Romy. We've got to work on her tell today."

"Let me come with you! I'd like to see her again." Again? Bryson sputtered on his gla.s.s of tap-water. Slowly, he pushed the gla.s.ses up the bridge of his face. Again?

Kellan seemed to realize he'd chosen the wrong words. "I mean...you know. Just to get an idea of ..."

"Again? What do you mean again? You know her? You know Romy Adelaide?"