2. Jezebel

CHAPTER 2

JEZEBEL

I could feel Cole behind me, and when I passed the double doors that led to the kitchen, I saw his reflection from the corner of my eye and smiled to myself. I only ever played to win.

“Hey, I don’t even know your name,” he called.

I grinned over my shoulder. “Bella.”

Anyway, that was how I ended up in Cole’s dated home a little before midnight, naked with my legs spread as he went to town with his tongue. And by all that was holy, he knew what to do with it.

“If you thought you’d lose the bet, why did you agree to it?” I asked, tunnelling my fingers through his thick brown hair. “Are you a risk-taker? You like to play long odds?”

At first, I’d pegged him for the cautious type, but on the roof, he’d surprised me by heading for the dance floor and pulling me along with him. The free drinks might have provided some encouragement, but he’d kissed me back when I pushed him up against a palm tree and checked out his junk.

Which was impressive, by the way .

He looked up, his chin glistening. “No, I just wanted to taste you.”

“Don’t fucking stop.”

He was a magician with that tongue, his fingers too, and if he kept flicking my clit like that, I might be tempted to invite myself over again. But I never went back for seconds. Not anymore. The only constants in my life were Priest, my girls, and the gold-standard vibrator I kept in my nightstand drawer. Some of my former roommates had come back into my life as well, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I had more bad memories of those days than good.

Cole added another finger into the mix, and I nearly blurted out my phone number.

Fuck.

I bit my lip hard as I sorted through my thoughts. Cole Gallagher wasn’t the type of man I usually gravitated toward. I picked out the players, the dirty flirts a decade older than me who wanted a night of fun and nothing more. If they had the telltale dent of a wedding ring on their finger, so much the better—they’d keep their mouths shut about the mystery brunette who was there when they fell asleep and gone in the morning. And they always fell asleep. I took as many orgasms as I could wring from them before I stole out like a thief in the night, and even if they had the sexual prowess of a sea slug, I knew how to use them to get myself off. If they didn’t have the skill, they could watch while I educated them.

But Cole needed no lessons.

If I hadn’t slipped his wallet out of his pocket and rifled through the contents while he wasn’t looking, I might have thought his middle name was Venom. But it wasn’t. It was Benjamin. Cole Benjamin Gallagher. He hadn’t been kidding about the lack of cash—he was carrying forty bucks and a credit card—plus he had a San Gallician driver’s licence and an international driving permit. There was also a keycard for the Galaxy, which was one of the shittier hotels in Sin City, and I’d breathed a sigh of relief when I realised he was an out-of-towner.

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 Cole had been 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.”

It wasn’t a complete lie. I’d had a hand in many of them.

“Wow. Sorry the international relations thing didn’t work out.”

“Don’t be. My job means I can touch many lives.” I braced my hands on his abs and nestled his cock between my thighs. “What’s your story? There’s not much water in Vegas. ”

Not unless you counted Lake Mead, and that dried up more every year. Sin was starting to worry that the shitty little pimp she’d tossed into the middle several years ago would resurface.

Cole heaved out the longest sigh. “I’m currently reevaluating my life. You ever been at a crossroads where you don’t know which road to take?”

Yes, but I refused to discuss it with a stranger. I wasn’t a damn therapist. I’d come here for sex, not to dispense career advice or listen as a man I barely knew bemoaned his poor life choices.

“Map-reading is a skill I never mastered.” I tore open the foil and covered up his impressive equipment. “But I can promise to take your mind off the decision.”

Damn, his cock was perfect. Not so long that it poked me in the uterus, thick enough for a delicious stretch. Tulsa had given Dusk a Clone-a-Willy kit for Christmas, and for a brief moment, I considered slipping the emergency ketamine shot out of my purse and borrowing it. How long would it take me to get home and back?

Bad Jezebel.

Cole gripped my hips, and I found my rhythm, sliding all the way up his shaft and angling my pelvis so the head hit exactly the right spot when I dropped back down. I was so damn slick the thing freaking glided.

“Fuck, Bella,” he choked out, his breathing erratic.

“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“You’re so bossy.”

“And?”

“And I like it.” He sounded surprised.

Cole moved his hands to my breasts, cupping them and then squeezing hard enough to send electricity zapping to my clit. I threw my head back as he stroked with his thumbs. My nipples were sensitive, always had been, and his touch was hard enough to make me moan .

“Give it all to me,” I demanded. “Every fucking inch.”

He thrust his hips up to meet me, and our gazes locked, his forehead sheened with sweat. Usually, my favourite position was reverse cowgirl so I didn’t need to look at a man’s face, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

“You feel so fucking good,” I told him, and it was true. Cole wasn’t particularly adventurous, but I’d always pick vanilla with a few sprinkles over a power struggle with a wannabe dom. My tastes were particular. I liked a little kink, but I didn’t enjoy being told what to do.

He sat up to kiss me, arms wrapped around my waist as I ground on him to the hilt. I wasn’t far off now, and I knew, I just fucking knew , that I’d made a mistake tonight. Cole Gallagher was going to ruin me.

“Are you close?” I whispered.

“Waiting for you.”

The orgasm steamrollered through me, and I muffled my cries against his neck, my walls clenching as his cock jerked and released. And for the briefest moment, I wondered what it would be like to be normal. To be a writer or an accountant or a waitress with a modest house and a husband to come home to each night, instead of spending my life plotting death and destruction.

Boring, probably.

Cole kissed me deeply, and I felt myself getting pulled to a place I didn’t want to go. Feelings were as dangerous as bullets for a woman like me, and I’d already paid the price once. Instead, I slid back and offered a reluctant smile.

“You okay?” he asked.

No.

“I owe you a blow job.”

“You won the bet.”

“We both knew I would, and it’s only fair that I get to taste you too.”

I shoved him down on the bed, and maybe I was a tiny bit angry. Angry that he’d delivered on a promise he hadn’t even made, and angry at myself for lifting the lid on emotions I’d locked away years ago. I should have left, just put on my dress and walked out, but Cole didn’t deserve that. Unlike most of the men in my life, he hadn’t done anything wrong.

“I don’t expect you to?—”

“Hush.” If I was sucking his cock, I wouldn’t have to look into those intense sea-blue eyes. “Relax.”

Cole was a man who knew how to follow instructions, and I sucked him all the way into my throat until he groaned. He was never going to forget this night. If I couldn’t get him out of my head, then he was damn well going to remember me too. Cole fucking Gallagher. A man who was totally wrong in every way that mattered. A thorn working its way into my fucking side.

Shit.

Good thing Marcel couldn’t hear my inner monologue, or I’d owe his fucking swear jar a fucking fortune. Marcel was our house manager-slash-cook, our decorator-in-chief, and a pain in all of our asses.

Damn it all to hell.

I wasn’t gentle. I scraped my teeth along Cole’s shaft and pinned his thighs with my hands when his hips began to buck, dug my nails into his skin when he tried to fight me.

He wouldn’t win this.

But when had it turned into a battle?

I cursed in my head as he shot his release into my throat, digging deep for my self-control. But tonight, it had deserted me. And when he flipped me onto my back and fucked me in the way he wanted, which was a whole lot gentler than I was used to but still devastatingly satisfying, I didn’t utter a single complaint.

The worst part ?

As he held me tight, his front pressed to my back, he whispered the words I never wanted to hear.

“What if what happens in Vegas doesn’t have to stay in Vegas?”

I didn’t freak out, and considering how out of sorts I felt, I was pretty proud of myself for that. No, I did what any sensible person would do in that situation and pretended to be asleep.

Then I waited.

I waited for Cole’s breathing to slow, for his arms to loosen, for his pulse to steady.

And then I slithered out of bed, tiptoed to my clothes, quickly got dressed, and made my escape.

Or so I thought.