Split the Aces Read online

  Synopsis

  Two women ride a wave of passion that threatens to consume them in a world of fast money and fast times in the neon glare of Sin City.

  It’s lust at first sight for blackjack dealer Rae Sutherland and conventioneer Cori Romero. Rae wants more from life than the constant shuffling of cards in a smoke-filled casino, but for now, she revels in the excesses of life and appreciates the never-ending parade of women at the tables. Cori is looking for something besides her day-to-day grind and she’s aching for a new adventure but doesn’t expect to find it on the Vegas strip. Fueled by the encouragement of friends and Captain Morgan, she auditions for a singing gig and her path inevitably crosses Rae’s. In spite of themselves, their relationship develops into something deeper than the initial intoxication of attraction, but both wonder if it's worth the gamble.

  Split the Aces

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  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  Split the Aces

  © 2008 By Jove Belle. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-401-0

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: May 2008

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Jennifer Knight

  Production Design: Stacia Seaman

  Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

  By the Author

  Edge of Darkness

  Split the Aces

  Chaps

  Acknowledgments

  My heartfelt gratitude to Len Barot for having the vision and business savvy to make Bold Strokes the coolest ticket in town. I’m especially grateful that you invited me along for the ride. What a rush.

  Thanks to Jennifer Knight for ironing the bumps out of the road. The depth of your knowledge never fails to amaze me. In a pinch, I’m betting on 17 black.

  Michelle, keep growing, you’ll get there. Thanks for saving my schedule-impaired ass time and time again.

  Tara, thank you for thirteen years, three gray-hair-inducing children, and the never-failing support. Without you, I’d still be searching for home and there would be no room in my heart for writing.

  Finally, to all my friends, thank you for pitching in for daycare during the crunch times. I love you guys in spite of your questionable judgment.

  Dedication

  For Tara – you are my true north.

  Chapter One

  She had thirty minutes till she had to be back behind her blackjack table, and Rae Sutherland wanted to get laid.

  She also wanted to smoke, but the Camel would still be an option later when she went on her fifteen-minute break. The five feet five inches of Midwest farmer’s daughter leaning against the slots might not. They’d spent the last two hours circling each other, the woman moving to Rae’s table and away again. The teasing promise never left her baby blue eyes. It was time to find out if she would deliver or run away.

  Rae cut through the crowd, stopped well within the blonde’s personal space, and claimed her hand. Without so much as a hello, she led her off the casino floor.

  “Where are we going?” the woman asked.

  Rae didn’t slow her pace. She cast a sideways glance at her intended “date,” letting her eyes fill with as much sex and heat as she could manage. The blonde’s small gasp made her smile. Her message had been received loud and clear.

  “In here.” She ushered her new playmate into a storage room full of retired gaming machines, a graveyard of old Vegas that seemed to thrill her “guests.” She locked the door and backed the woman against a tall slot machine. “We need to be quiet.”

  Urgent fingers fumbled with the studs holding Rae’s shirt together. “Don’t you want to know my name?”

  Not really. Rae pushed the blonde’s collar open and bit the soft skin where her neck blended into her shoulder, not hard, just enough to transmit intent. Moving her lips up, she murmured in her ear, “Sure, tell me.”

  She wouldn’t remember but that was beside the point.

  “Deb.”

  Tonight’s hot snack crushed her mouth against Rae’s in a sudden, forceful invasion that left her spinning. God, she wanted this woman. Naked. Now. She controlled the kiss, drawing Deb in, then surging forward, sliding her tongue into the welcoming warmth. Deb sucked hard and bit down lightly. The sharp edge of teeth shot pure fire to Rae’s belly. Deb wasn’t nearly as sweet as her shy, flirtatious glances across the casino had implied.

  She broke free before Rae was ready, leaving Rae off balance, chasing after those teasing lips. Before she could reclaim Deb’s mouth, she was brought up short by a pair of hands on her breasts. Deb squeezed and twisted her nipples, jarring her to the tightrope fine line between pain and desire. Rae felt the moan building in her chest.

  “God, how do I get this open?” Deb asked with a growl. She wrapped her hands around Rae’s lapels, the fine onyx studs forgotten as she jerked hard to open the front.

  Rae gripped her wrists, holding her firm. “I have to go back to work in a minute.” She barely managed to get the words out.

  “Right.” Deb’s smoldering look was colored with disappointment and urgency.

  She dropped to her knees, tugged open Rae’s fly, and pushed her pants and underwear down her legs. A trail of bumps rose in the wake of her fingers. Rae was accustomed to being the one in charge but variety worked for her. She didn’t object when Deb’s smooth tongue found her aching clit.

  This was the moment—the few intense seconds between possibility and Oh, my God, this is really happening—that kept Rae chasing down new women night after night. All thought fell away as her muscles began the hot dance toward release. When the doorknob rattled, she froze for a second and they stared at each other. Technically, Rae was off the clock, but she didn’t want to be caught with her pants around her ankles and a casino guest on her knees in front of her. That would require too much explanation to her boss, and Rae didn’t want to provide any extra fodder for his fantasies.

  Deb’s evil smile of challenge made her nervous. The smart thing to do was obvious. Whoever was rattling the door had given up but they would be back. She should get out now, while she could. Instead, she said, “Hurry.”

  Deb wrapped her lips around Rae’s clit, her tongue pressed flat against it, and sucked. Hard. Rae squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out everything but the wet pulse of need. The encounter wasn’t tender and romantic, but the throbbing beat coursing through her body demanded release. She locked her knees, willing herself to stay upright. Pinpoints of light formed in the blackness behind her closed eyelids.

  “Christ.” She gripped the slot machine with one hand, using the cold steel to ground herself. Her other hand found traction in Deb’s hair, holding tight as she felt her body coil for release.

  Deb’s tongue beat a pounding, escalating rhythm that coursed through her until she overflowed. The orgasm skittered through her like a chain of firecrackers, and if not for Deb’s hands around her hips, holding her firm, she would have fallen to the floor in a quivering heap.

  “God-fucking-damn.” She wanted to curl up and sleep, chain smoke a pack of Camels, and
slam back a triple shot of tequila. All at once. Instead she urged Deb upright with a not so gentle tug on her hair. “My turn.”

  She spun the blonde around and pushed in close, trapping her against the unforgiving, smooth glass of the slot machine. Deb struggled, turning her head to the side, her face a mix of shock and lust. Bursts of steam clouded the surface as she gulped air, quiet. Waiting.

  Rae cupped the tight breasts, feeling the nipples straining through the layers of fabric as she ground her hips against Deb’s ass. It was a great ass, round, firm, begging to be spanked. Rae wished she had all day to devote to worshiping it, making it shine red as she rode Deb hard. She’d have made her wait, made her plead. She glanced at her watch. Lunch was over in ten minutes. Not nearly enough time to do all she wanted.

  She squeezed Deb’s nipples, building to a hard crescendo, then scraped her nails down Deb’s sides, digging in firmly enough to be felt through the layer of fabric.

  “You’ve done this before.” She punctuated her words with small nips to the back of Deb’s neck, ending with her teeth clamped around the gasping blonde’s ear. “A quick, hard fuck with your pants around your ankles, only a door to separate you from the party.”

  She could have been talking about her own sexual encounters over the past two years. She flicked open the top button of Deb’s jeans. “Behind that innocent smile, that girl-next-door face, there’s a woman like me who just…” She thrust against her and popped open another button. “…wants…” And another. “To fuck.”

  Rae skipped the rest of the buttons and forced her hand inside, over the thin barrier of Deb’s cotton panties. She rounded Deb’s clit and rubbed gently. “God, you’re hard.”

  Deb pushed back in a slow grind, and Rae squeezed her fingers down tight and milked the long edge of her desire, using the friction of the fabric to both mute and intensify the sensation. Sounds of casino life crowded in on them, urging them to hurry.

  “Is this what you want?” Rae thrust her hips harder against Deb’s ass. “To be fucked by a stranger?” She increased her tempo, tattooing a slower counter-rhythm against Deb’s clit. “From behind? Pressed up against a wall? A door? An old slot machine?”

  Deb strained against her. Rae could feel the beginning tremors of climax vibrating beneath her fingers. The loud clanging of somebody hitting the jackpot reached them as Deb tensed impossibly tight, shuddered, then sagged against her.

  Rae flattened her hand, palming Deb’s sex through her come-slicked panties. Her sexual partner’s trembling, irregular twitching made her irrationally happy, as it always did. A glance at her watch told her she had only a few minutes to return to work. Barely enough time to wash her hands. Ready to be done with this encounter, she withdrew and backed away.

  “I hate to run, but I have to get back to work.”

  Deb stared at her. “Really?” Her voice held a slight tremble.

  What was it about tourists? It’s like they thought she would be all of a twitter in the afterglow, so affected by imported pussy that she’d forget the things that really mattered, like her job.

  “Yeah, really.” Rae spoke softly, forcing herself to think of puppies and teddy bears. Hopefully that would make her sound nicer than she was, possibly even kind. She pulled up her pants and fastened them. “You can wait here for a few minutes if you want. Just lock the door when you’re done.”

  She smoothed her hands over her shirt, straightened her tie, and gave her hair a flip. Her long, pale bangs settled low over her right eye. Without a backward glance, she unlocked the door and stepped out into the smoke-dimmed light of the gaming floor.

  *

  Cori Romero smoothed her hands over the oil-slicked body sprawled across her massage table. The gentle trickle of water from a nearby fountain and the “Sounds of Nature” CD were intended to be calming, but her fingers tingled with energy.

  She’d been expecting her regular Saturday afternoon client, Jeff Lindstrom, a man with enough hair on his back to carpet her entire office and then some. A few months ago, she’d offered the gentle hint that he should schedule a wax, but the big man only laughed and claimed he couldn’t give up his pelt because his wife relied on him to keep her warm at night. Cori was sure there were other less hair-dependant ways he could achieve this goal, but she didn’t mention them.

  Now, with the wife in question, Patty, stretched out beneath her probing fingers, Cori knew Jeff was out of touch with what was really needed to keep her warm. He had called at the last minute to say he wouldn’t be able to make it but Patty would keep the appointment in his place. The substitution was a pleasant surprise at the end of a crappy week.

  Cori dug into a knot low in Patty’s back. The taut skin was darker than her own olive complexion, through time spent in a tanning bed. Patty tensed beneath her insistent touch, then relaxed.

  “Mmm, feels good.” She shifted her hips slightly, pushing against Cori’s hands.

  Her sleepy murmur reminded Cori, with a jolt, of how long it’d been since she’d heard those words in a personal setting. She forced herself to focus on decidedly unsexy images, like Jeff’s hair-covered back. Of course, that led her thoughts along a winding trail to the very sexy, naked back of his wife.

  She glanced at the clock on the wall, willing herself not to respond to the delicious temptation in front of her. Only ten more minutes of thinking clinical thoughts and her workday was over. Mentally, emotionally, she wasn’t interested in the woman she was massaging. However, her body, specifically the growing wetness between her legs, didn’t care if Patty was single, married, or scheduled to enter a convent at the end of the week. Cori squeezed her thighs together. She just had to keep it in her pants a little longer before she could escape to the safety of her apartment and indulge herself in a good book and the frothy pleasure of a tall latte. First, however, she’d need to change her underwear.

  She shifted her thoughts to the coming week. She was leaving Wednesday for a massage convention in Las Vegas and wouldn’t return until the following Monday. Maybe while she was there she would find an outlet for all her pent-up sexual energy. Casual affairs were not her usual style but, she had to admit, the possibility of an impromptu liaison in Sin City held a certain appeal. Why else would she have agreed to go? God knows, she wasn’t interested in learning anything more about massage. Her career had long since lost its fascination for her.

  Although she’d learned the science behind her massage technique in school, she still worked primarily by instinct, following tension through the muscles automatically. That’s what led her hands over Patty’s firmly muscled butt to the top of her thighs.

  “You’re really tense.”

  “I wonder why.” Patty shifted her hips again, this time parting her legs slightly.

  Cori jerked her hands away, flustered by the implication in Patty’s voice. She knew she’d allowed the possibility to linger between them since their introduction an hour earlier. She’d enjoyed Patty’s frank appraisal and obvious approval. Still, no matter how long it had been since she’d been with a woman, no amount of time was long enough for her to forget that Patty was straight. And married.

  “Sorry.” She covered Patty’s body with the soft cotton sheet and patted her shoulder in what she hoped was a friendly, platonic sort of way. “Time’s up.”

  As she moved toward the door, Patty grabbed her hand, halting her hasty retreat. “Wait.” She sat up, letting the sheet pool around her waist. “You don’t have to run away.”

  As much as Cori craved some excitement in her boring workaday routine, this was not what she had in mind. How was she supposed to gracefully turn down a woman who was clearly accustomed to getting what she wanted? Furthermore, did she really want to? There were no laws specifically prohibiting a sexual relationship between a massage therapist and her client, but technically Patty was paying for Cori’s time. Being likened to a prostitute thudded in Cori’s head, squashing the already-miniscule possibility of expanding the encounter.

 
; “Mrs. Henderson,” she said with intentional formality, reminding them both of her marital status, “I’m flattered but I have other obligations I must see to.” It wasn’t true, but the white lie was the safest way out of the room.

  Patty’s bottom lip turned down in a pout. “Really? Perhaps I could schedule an appointment for next Saturday? For a more specialized massage.”

  God, the woman was persistent. Cori wondered if she was giving off some sort of desperate-lesbian pheromones that attracted aggressive straight women.

  “I’m going to be out of town next weekend.” Her voice sounded disappointed even to her own ears.

  Before Patty could respond, Cori thanked her for coming to Eden Body Works and bolted out the door and down the hall to the employee lounge. She carried with her a new determination to meet a woman to play with in Vegas, one who wasn’t off-limits.

  Chapter Two

  “Tell me we can stay here forever.” Julie’s voice held a pleading edge, like a child begging for a too-big serving of dessert.

  Cori turned her head toward her friend and pried one eye open. “By the pool?” She shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

  They’d arrived in Las Vegas less than two hours ago, barely taking the time to drop their bags in their shared room before heading to the pool. Compared to the constant gray of the overcast Seattle sky, the sun-drenched day was idyllic. The slate patio was awash with people in various states of undress, sprawled on loungers and posing around the pool. Cori studied the crowd, speculating about a few of the women, but she wasn’t nearly brave enough to approach anyone. Perhaps a few more of the blended blue drinks that were served poolside would bolster her courage.