Page 4 of Hard Luck (Blackstone House)

So you can imagine my surprise when we climbed into a cab and it headed toward McNeil.

McNeil was full of historic homes. No hotels there.

But by then, it was too late. I’d briefly considered bailing out, but jumping from a moving vehicle was never a good idea, especially in a dress. Been there, done that, got the road rash. Anyhow, I deserved a fucking orgasm. This afternoon, I’d watched politely while Brax married a woman he barely knew, and their saccharine vows had left a bad taste in my mouth. It wasn’t that I didn’t want them to be happy, it was more… I don’t know… That I didn’t believe in happiness? And there weren’t enough hours in the day for me to clean up all the messes others created.

A few hours of mindless pleasure was a far more realistic goal, and Cole was certainly delivering.

Those delicious ripples of pleasure built into waves, and my hips moved of their own accord, matching the rhythm of his tongue. Shit, he even knew how to find my G-spot. My fingers dug into his scalp as I tipped over the edge, and yeah, the sight of him fucking me with his tongue was definitely getting filed away in my album of flick pics.

Oh, he wasn’t done yet. Cole kissed his way up my body, pausing to swirl that magic tongue around my pebbled nipples. Damn, he was handsome. And probably the owner of some deeply buried flaw because I couldn’t understand why he didn’t have a girlfriend otherwise. Or possibly he did, and he’d just left her behind in San Gallicano while he did whatever in this time warp of a Vegas home? Was it a house exchange? An Airbnb? The room we were in seemed small for a master, and it lacked the eclectic knickknacks that filled the rest of the house.

Maybe I’d snoop through his phone before I left, purely out of curiosity, you understand. I’d watched earlier when he typed in the PIN, and the phone was in his jacket pocket. The jacket I’d dropped on the floor in the hallway after I shucked him out of it. It bothered me when I couldn’t get a good read on someone, and Cole Gallagher was more of a mystery now than he had been when I spotted him on that barstool.

“Do you have a condom?” I asked. That was a rule I’d never break.

I tasted myself as he brushed his lips across mine.

“I’ll run to the store.”

“No need. I have one in my purse.”

Actually, I had three. My purse was small, and I only carried the essentials, but I never left home without protection. Cole flopped onto his back while I rolled off the bed and rummaged under my discarded dress for the pretty silver clutch that Barbie had gifted me for my twenty-ninth birthday. Cash, credit cards—not in my real name, obviously—lipstick, mascara, Ruger LCP II, suppressor, tampons, switchblade, condoms, and a tracking device for those little emergencies. I fished out the Trojans and tucked the bag away out of sight.

“You came prepared,” Cole said, but under the admiration, there was a note of curiosity. Curiosity and caution.

“If a man came prepared, would you question it?” I added in a giggle as I straddled him because I didn’t want to come across as too much of a bitch, even though I absolutely was one.

“If I found myself in this position with a man, I’d question myself.”

This time, my laughter was genuine.

“So you’ve never been tempted to experiment?”

“Not my thing.” He tilted his head to the side. “Have you?”

“Who didn’t mess around in college?”

Me. Mainly because I didn’t even go to college. After high school, I’d spent two years on a fruitless quest to find my father and then joined the Army.

“Guess I was too busy studying.”

So Colehadbeen to college. “What was your major?”

“Marine biology.” Interesting. “You?”

“Major in international relations, minor in creative writing.”

Okay, so I wasn’t great at the diplomacy part, but I did have a lot of hands-on experience in resolving problems overseas.

Cole gave a low whistle. “So you have a high-flying job now?”

Pro tip: when you’re bullshitting your way through a hookup, it’s okay to lie, but don’t make yourself sound too interesting. It encourages men to lose focus. Once, I’d told a douche from Omaha that I worked in a lab and studied meteors, and his dick had deflated as he yapped on and on and on about his father, who was part of the team building the next lunar lander.

I pulled a face. “Turns out college degrees aren’t the golden ticket to a six-figure income. I’m a freelance writer.”

“Really? What do you write? Maybe I’ve read your stuff.”

“Obituaries.”

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