Page 30 of Ice

“Gift shops. Heck, we could go hit the Walgreens down the block and find swimsuits. Twenty minutes we’ll be maxing and relaxing.”

“How can you act as if nothing is going on?” she questioned.

“When you turn on one of your widget makers,” he said, and her left eyebrow rose, “do you watch the whole process? Or do you get a sandwich and let the machine do what it does?”

“I watch, because the second there’s a glitch, I need to be there, fixing it.”

“I forgot who I was talking to,” he chuckled, shaking his head. “The lazy men you work with—”

“Who says I work with lazy men?” she replied with a light laugh.

“Educated guess after close to three decades of being a man. They go get a sandwich. That way, if anything goes wrong, it’s because a woman touched it.”

“Mmmhhmm.” Her lips pursed, the scenario a bit too realistic.

“Well, at this very moment, I have my machine running, and if I let it run, a widget will come out. If I hover and push, everything will jam up, and all I’ll have is a clunking machine.”

“And the police?” she questioned, because he may live on the far side of the law, but she didn’t.

“Are so desperate they asked me to help them,” he said, his hands grasping her upper arms lightly, then rubbing up and down. “Hand to God. Let’s go find us a matching pair of swimsuits like proper tourists and hit the pool.”

If Bree’s mother knew she was wearing a drugstore-special two-piece on a rooftop pool in Vegas, she might as well book the backhoe to dig the grave. Any other time this would be idyllic. The man had a body she did her best to pretend wasn’t calling for her. Deep cuts from muscles created from hard work were outlined with a myriad of tattoos and a smattering of dark hair on his tanned skin. Ice spent over an hour splashing around in the pool with the kids before they hit a buffet, and each needed to carry a kid back to the room. Heat, water, and an overload of carbs might as well have been a horse tranquilizer to the twins. After Bree finally got to take the shower that had been interrupted, she came out to find Ice was gone again.

Toweling off, she heard the door open in the double bedroom, and heavy booted feet entered the space. Bree stood barefoot, with only a cami and pajama bottoms as she watched as Ice dropped a few cubes in a set of tumblers followed by a light amber liquid. He sliced a lemon in half, squeezed the juice into the two glasses, and stirred each with a tiny plastic saber. Then he sliced an orange and placed a circular piece in each drink, followed by spearing two bright red maraschino cherries with the sabers.

“You are way overdue for a stiff drink,” he said, passing her the glass, then clinking his with hers.

“That was some pretty tending there, barman.”

“What can I say? Bartending is required in all K-through-twelve education in town. The twins are slacking a bit, but they are in a private school.” He took a sip, and she followed.

Her eye twitching a bit in anticipation of the mix of citrus and hard liquor, she was pleasantly surprised at how smoothly it went down. The latent burn warmed her chest, and she had to cover her heart with her hand.

“I should have asked what you liked,” he said, and she waved her hand to dismiss him.

“This is fine, just been a while,” she admitted as she wandered back into the single room, then heard a click of the door behind her.

Alone, she stood by the window. She could partially see the water show at the Bellagio starting up. The sun had set, and the town began to sparkle, a mirage in the desert playing out as bright lights flashed in a perfectly timed show. An icy chill slid down the column of her throat, and she turned to see Ice as he trailed his tumbler along her neck while his body heat warmed her back.

“My bad,” Ice purred as his left hand locked on the windowsill and his tongue followed the same path his glass had to capture any remnants of condensation left behind on her skin. “I think I got it all.”

“Is Max short for Maximus? Maxwell? Or Maximillian?” she asked, hoping to stave off the hormones launching through her system and turning slightly so her side was flush to his front.

“Maxwell,” he said, though his focus was elsewhere, lower than her eyes for sure. Lifting his drink, he ran the bottom of the glass slowly across her chest from one spaghetti strap of her camisole to the other, the trail of condensation similar to the one he’d licked off her neck. “Though very few call me that.”

“Why?” she asked, bracing herself for his touch, only to have him set his drink on the sill and stare into her eyes.

“Respect,” he said. “You want me to clear my mess?”

“How did you get the name Ice?” she asked, swallowing to search for moisture before taking a sip, trying to search back to the last time she had asked, only to come up empty.

“I found I’m better at showing than telling.” A devilish grin teased his lips as the rough pad of his thumb swiped where she wished his tongue had.

“Why does that worry me?” she questioned, setting her drink next to his as two of his fingers fished out a cube from his glass, her heart racing as the sliver of space between them melted away.

“We all have those little voices in the back of our head warning us of danger,” he said, sending a flutter through her body from the cube sliding along the column of her neck to the crest of her breasts. “Some of us run from it, while others run into the fire.”

His words were drawn out as if melting from his tongue on a warm day. Smokey eyes had her locked in place, the mix of heat and cool sending her senses over the edge. Warmth pooled low in her belly when Ice’s pinky tugged the top of her camisole down to the edge of her nipple, peaked, hard, with icy liquid outlining the darkest part of her skin that had to be near obsidian at this point from the blood rushing.

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