Fool Me Once: A Bad Girl Romance Read online

  "Cute story," he said simply. "You're up. Call or fold?"

  I stuck out my lower lip and folded, giving up another few chips. Dane didn't even bother stacking them properly! He just dumped them into the growing slush pile of chips in front of his seat. I glared at them, as if the chips themselves had personally betrayed me.

  I did have another option, I knew, although I hesitated to go that far. I could always, if things got bad enough, consider just cheating outright. The cards were flexible, and not that big in my hands. I wasn't wearing the best clothes for it – a sleeveless, practically skin-tight dress didn't offer a lot of places to conceal a palmed card – but I was pretty sure that I'd be able to palm at least one of the cards if I tried.

  If only I was wearing a shirt, something with long sleeves.

  Something more like what Dane was wearing, with those loose sleeves hanging right near his cuffs, the perfect place for a card to temporarily vanish until he needed it-

  I froze.

  No. It couldn't be.

  Was that how he was winning?

  "So, Dane," I said nonchalantly, pushing another couple chips into the pot without even looking at my cards. Instead, I kept one eye on his hands, watching his fingers closely. "What do you do for a living, when you're not hustling a poor girl at cards?"

  "You jumped at the chance to hustle me, if I'm right," he replied dryly. "And when I'm not getting pulled into back room card games by the idiot that I consider to be my best friend-" he turned and glared momentarily back at the black guy behind him, who again looked embarrassed and held up his hands in mute protest, "-I work at a tech company downtown."

  "Yeah, IDS," the black guy spoke up, puffing up his chest a little. "Integrated Data Solutions. We're big on-"

  He didn't get anything else out, as Dane sent another withering glare over his shoulder at his so-called friend. Clearly, Mister Aristocratic didn't want to share too many personal details. I'd probably agree with his decision, if I was rooting for him in the slightest.

  "I don't care much about companies," I said, shrugging. "But what about you? What do you do, then?"

  This provoked another frown. "What, at work?"

  "No, not at work, silly." I doubted that it would work, but I leaned forward once again, giving him yet another glimpse of the girls. Really, the guy ought to be down on bended knee, thanking me for all these great looks at my cleavage! But again, all the reaction I could see was a slight tightening of his jaw, a little flex of his neck muscles. "What do you do for fun? You go out to clubs a lot? Meet a lot of cute girls, go dancing?"

  Baldy, who had sat around to watch the two of us play against each other, let out a little snort at this. I guessed that, since Dane had stolen away most of his chips, he was rooting for me to crush the guy. "Guy doesn't know what to do with a cute girl when she's sitting right in front of him," he sniggered.

  I smiled at him. "Thank you," I said sweetly.

  Baldy's eyes, of course, shot straight to my chest, fastening on like they'd been pulled in by magnets. So at least my powers weren't totally gone; they just didn't seem to affect the Aristocratic Man of Steel, Dane Whatever-His-Last-Name-Is, sitting right in front of me.

  I turned back to Dane. He'd won the last hand, of course, and now our rat-faced dealer was collecting the cards. I, however, kept my eyes down on his fingers, watching as he tossed his cards back over for the dealer to scoop up.

  There! There it was!

  Admittedly, I wasn't a hundred percent confident. I had tossed back a couple of vodka and cranberries, at first to appear confident, and later to keep my nerves from acting up. Maybe I'd misread the blur.

  But I'd call myself eighty percent certain that my eyes weren't lying to me. I'd seen Dane toss back four of his five cards, sure enough – but instead of returning the fifth card, his fingers flickered, and that card vanished up into his sleeve. An instant later, another card – a different card, I knew – had dropped out to take its place.

  He was cheating! No wonder he'd been winning! No wonder he was now winning against me!

  But now what? How should I play this? The dealer slid fresh cards to me, and I picked them up and tossed a couple of chips into the middle without even bothering to look at the hand I'd been dealt. Should I call him out? Or should I let him win, and then confront him afterwards, threaten to turn him in to the other guys if he didn't share some of his illicit winnings with me? What would yield a better payout?

  He was looking at me, I realized. For a moment, I thought that he knew how I'd figured him out. But then, his lips moved, and I realized that he'd been speaking to me, waiting for me to respond.

  "What did you say?" I asked him.

  He gestured again at my meager remaining chips. "I'm asking you how much you have left. I'm pushing you all in."

  Of course, I couldn't protest. He had more than enough chips to bet my entire stack, probably several times over. I counted out the chips, pushed them into the middle, and watched as he did the same.

  And immediately afterward, Dane flipped over his hand, dropping it face-up on the table! "Not much point in hiding it, is there?" he asked, giving me a little grin. "So, what have you got?"

  I flipped over my own cards, wincing as I saw how they failed to compete against his hand. Dane had managed to pick up three queens in the deal, while I only had a pair of eights. I didn't think that I'd be likely to win this.

  And indeed, after trading in a couple of cards, Dane swept my last remaining chips over to his side. "Looks like that's the end of that," he said, sounding... relieved? Had he been worried, even though he'd been cheating?

  "So, what are you gonna do with her, now that you've won her?" sniggered Baldy, once again running his eyes suggestively over me. My hand itched to reach out and smack him. "Cause if you don't want her, me and the boys have some good ideas-"

  The look that Dane aimed at Baldy suggested that, despite his arrogant attitude, he didn't feel any warmth towards his fellow players. "I'm sure that I can find plenty to do with her on my own," he said coldly, and my heart sank. That didn't make it sound like he'd treat the whole thing as a joke and let me go.

  I reconsidered my options. I didn't have long to think, however, as Dane stood up from the table, pushing the chips towards the rat-faced little dealer. "Now, can I get my money back for these?" he asked, sounding like he was just asking about the price of apples at the local supermarket.

  The little man scowled, but he didn't really have much of a choice. He counted out the stacks of chips that Dane handed over, peeled a thick stack of bills off of a wad that he produced from somewhere under the table, and thrust the money out to Dane with a little mutter that I couldn't catch, under his breath. Dane, as stone-faced as always, just took the money, riffling his thumb through it.

  "Good," he said. He shot his black buddy a look that I didn't understand, and then turned towards me. "And now, for you-"

  "You cheated!"

  The words burst out of me in a rush, almost too fast for anyone to follow. I forced myself to take a deep breath, and then repeated myself.

  "You cheated!" I said again, this time managing to pronounce them a bit more clearly. I pointed a finger up at Dane, giving it a convincing little wobble. "I know that you were cheating," I went on. "I saw you doing it at the table! That's how you won!"

  For the first time, I finally saw real emotion flash across Dane's face – fear. Good. I felt a little surge of petty satisfaction in my stomach. Served him right; someone ought to call him out for it. I glanced behind me, looking for Kelsey's position. Thankfully, she was close enough to the door still for me to grab her as I lunged for my escape in a moment.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Dane said shortly. His voice still sounded as solid and unemotional as ever, but I caught the little flicker that lingered in his eyes. He wasn't sure how much I knew, so he'd decided to bluff his way out. "I'm not cheating. Don't blame me for just not being any good at poker-"

  I turned
away from Dane, to the other men in the room. Not surprisingly, they'd all straightened up at the mention of cheating, and they didn't have much warmth in their eyes for Dane at the moment. After all, he was on the verge of walking out of the place with their money, as well.

  "Check his sleeves!" I called out to them. "I saw him slide a card up his sleeve!"

  "Oh, bloody fucking shit," Dane muttered, almost too softly for me to catch it. "You've really screwed things up, woman, you know that?"

  I turned back to him, trying to give him an extra smarmy grin. "Looks like your jig is up-" I started to say, but I didn't manage to finish getting the words out.

  Instead, Dane came lunging forward, shouting over his shoulder to his buddy. "Marcus, get the hell out of here!" he called.

  Marcus. That was his black friend's name.

  I, however, had other concerns at the moment. Because as Dane came lunging forward, one of his hands locked onto my wrist – and before I knew it, he was pulling me along with him!

  Chapter Eight

  DANE

  *

  Shit. Shit, damn, blood and bloody ashes.

  Not surprisingly, the curses didn't make me feel much better – especially not with the threat of immediate violence still looming just above my head like the proverbial Sword of Damocles itself.

  I'd almost been home free! Even before this frustrating, crazy woman, Ruby, entered the area, I'd been well on the way to winning back all of Marcus's money that he almost threw away. In fact, she provided a halfway decent distraction, keeping the other men from realizing that I'd just managed to beat them at their own hustle.

  But then, just after finally winning it, ready to walk away, she'd shouted out that I was cheating!

  Did she know? Or was she just clutching at straws, desperate to get out of fulfilling her promise to me now that I'd won her?

  That answer came a second later, as some of the other men in the back room started to unfold from their seats. "Check his sleeves!" Ruby shouted out, horribly, scarily accurate. "I saw him slide a card up his sleeve!"

  She had caught it. How had she seen it? I'd been careful, moving quickly. My first impression of her – that she was dangerous, there to pull her own hustle – came rushing back to me, shouting "I told you so!" inside of my head. I angrily brushed it aside. No point in focusing on the past, now. Gotta figure out how I'm going to survive the next couple of minutes.

  My eyes shot over to Cueball, Ferret, and the third guy who'd been in on the original scam. All three of them were rising up to their feet, and I saw Cueball slipping thick fingers into the pocket of his jeans, likely reaching for some tool that I wouldn't be happy to see.

  Time for me to get out of here.

  "Marcus, get out of here!" I shouted over my shoulder.

  "Wait, but-"

  I spun around and grabbed the stack of cash. Most of it belonged to him, so hopefully he could hold onto it and not lose it in the next few minutes. I thrust it out into his chest, waited just until his fingers came up to instinctively wrap around it, and then shoved him bodily towards the door.

  "Go on, run!" I shouted again, and he finally obeyed the command.

  There. One person out. Now, I just needed to get myself to safety.

  As I turned to run, however, my eyes fell on Ruby, still standing there in front of me. I swear, incredibly, she looked smug! As if she'd managed to find the way to wiggle out of fulfilling the debt that she now owed to me.

  Well, I wasn't going to let her get away with it. So as I ran past her, I reached out and seized her wrist. She exclaimed in surprise, but I'd caught her off balance, and managed to drag her along with me and get her moving in my direction.

  "Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing?" she yelled up at me as I pulled her around, swept my arm around her to pin her arms at her sides so that she couldn't struggle against me.

  "Getting out of here with my prize!" I snapped back at her. Probably mean of me, but the damn girl deserved it. She'd been teasing me all evening, trying to flirt with me and distract me! It had taken all my focus to keep from panting over her like the rest of the degenerates in this back room, and I'd only made it until now because I wanted to keep my focus on the game and not get myself knifed.

  And now, she'd managed to put my internal organs in jeopardy, despite my precautions. Just perfect.

  Even now, as she squirmed a little against me, I had to use every bit of my willpower to keep from getting sidetracked. She felt... well, she felt really good in my arms. Almost good enough to distract me from the imminent danger that I faced, from the angry men with knives who wanted their money back.

  I gritted my teeth and forced my legs to move faster. I could feel a little muscle in my neck tensing as I clenched my jaw together. I'd been straining that muscle all night, doing my best to not stare at her cleavage. She really did have an amazing rack – even a few glances, snuck in surreptitiously, were enough to tell me that.

  We were at the entrance to the back room, now, where one of those steroid-popping, no-neck bouncers stood. He had made the mistake of watching only the outside room, however, not the front room, and he wasn't up to speed on what had been developing behind his back. I managed to drag Ruby past him before he could even turn more than halfway around.

  "Where are you taking me?" Ruby demanded, even as she kept on struggling against my grip. I growled, tightening my grip and fighting her. Didn't she understand that she wouldn't last thirty seconds with those men, especially in that dress?

  "Out," I snapped back at her, conserving my breath for running away. Out in the club, I spun around, searching for an exit. There were too many people on the dance floor; I'd never be able to make it through that crowd in time to get out before Cueball and his pals caught up with me.

  "Let me go, and I'll show you how to get out," Ruby piped up, still in my arms.

  I skidded to a stop, spinning her out and instead grabbing her by both shoulders. Was this girl totally crazy? "What are you talking about?" I all but shouted at her.

  She actually grinned cheekily up at me! "Well, good to see that you're not totally made of stone! Look, let me go and I'll show you how to get out of here before those goons catch up to you."

  "How about you show me how to get out of here, and I won't throw you back to them?" I retorted, fighting hard against my instinct to shake her back and forth. "How long do you think you'll be able to keep them off, ready to pop out of both the top and the bottom of your dress at the same time?"

  "Aha! So you did notice me!" Ruby said, and this time, I really did shake her back and forth.

  "That's what you're thinking about now?" I glanced over my shoulder, and sure enough, Cueball and his cronies had managed to emerge from the back room. They were looking around, scanning the club for my face.

  Ruby saw them, too, tilting her head even as I still pinned her arms at her sides. "Fine. Okay, go out through the kitchen, over there. There's a back door-"

  I didn't let her finish. Cueball's eyes fell on me, but my feet were already back in motion. I ignored his angry roar behind us and plunged once again forward into the crowd, dodging through the dancing bodies until we reached the entrance to the kitchen.

  "You again!" a bartender shouted as we ran through, but I didn't even slow down.

  Ruby managed to wrench one arm out of my grip, but she just gave the bartender a little wave as we ran past. "Sorry about not getting you more tips, Danny!" she called out to him.

  I wasn't really listening. Instead, my eyes locked onto salvation, just ahead of us – a back door! I lowered my shoulder and hit it hard, knocking it open and charging out into the refreshingly cool, clean air of outdoors. I sucked in a deep breath, not even caring about the vague but permeating odor coming from the dumpster nearby the back door in the alley.

  In fact...

  I quickly threw my shoulder behind the dumpster, giving it an exploratory shove. It resisted, but slid a few inches under my exertions. "Give me a hand!" I snap
ped at Ruby, and she moved to help. Together, we shoved the dumpster forward so that it blocked the back door.

  Not a second too soon. Just as the dumpster slid in front of the door, it flew open – but stopped at just two inches cracked, Cueball's angry face peering out through the crack.

  "Hah! Suck on that, dummies!" Ruby shouted, flashing Cueball a shot of her raised middle fingers.

  Cueball just roared incoherently, and then turned to look back behind him. "They blocked the back door! Around to the front!" he yelled, as the door drifted back shut.

  Ruby turned back to me, still smiling. "Well, we've got enough time to make ourselves scarce. Shall we duck out of here before they get out through the front and run around to the alley?"

  With that, she turned to leave – but once again, my hand shot out and snapped onto her wrist, holding her back. "Hold on," I said to her. "Where do you think you're going?"

  "I got you out of there," Ruby explained, rolling her eyes at me as if this ought to be obvious. "So you're going to let me go."

  "Nope. Not happening." Normally, I would have just let her go. But right now, I felt steamed from how she'd put me at risk, and adrenaline kept flowing in my veins from the narrow escape. This night might have started going off track because of Marcus, but it had been Ruby who ended up crashing the train. "I believe that I won you for the rest of the night, and I intend to make very good use of that. Now, come on."

  As I pulled her down the alley, out and away from the back entrance to DeMarco's, Ruby's face fell as she realized that I was serious. "Wait a second, what exactly do you have in mind?" she protested.

  I turned back to her, putting on my most devilishly evil smile that I could manage. I just thought about all the trouble she'd caused me, and the expression came pretty easily, to be honest. "Oh, you'll just have to wait and find out – but trust me when I say that you'll hate it," I practically giggled from how I was making my words sound as evil as possible. "It's gonna be so degrading for you!"