Texas Hold 'Em Read online

  The engine roared to life and the tires kicked up dirt and grass as we peeled away. Carrie held on, but not as tightly, and she rested her head on my back.

  As I pointed the headlight toward my apartment, I hoped she wasn’t badly hurt.

  Chapter 8

  Carrie

  Tex got off the bike first. His long legs were a serious advantage. As soon as he had both feet on the ground, he offered me his hand to guide me off the bike too. Everything hurt as I gingerly swung one leg over the seat and slid off the other side.

  Carefully, he undid the straps under my chin and removed his helmet from my head. He took my chin in one hand while tucking the helmet under his other arm. With his other hand, he held up a finger.

  “Follow my finger,” he said.

  While he held my head in place, I followed his finger with my eyes as he slowly moved it back and forth. Somewhere nearby, crickets chirped.

  “How’s your head?” Tex’s gaze was razor focused as he watched my eyes.

  “Not as bad as my hips,” I said.

  When we crashed, I’d been rocked forward into Tex, and the pressure on my hips as I tried to stay in the saddle had been incredible. It hurt even more to be thrown off the bike, but I was lucky to have been able to tuck my legs so I didn’t get caught by the bike as it flipped over and slid.

  “Anything else hurt?” he asked, releasing my chin.

  “Oh you know, just my criminal record. Before Reno I was squeaky clean. And I mean squeaky clean. Now I have a handful of corpses on my rap sheet.”

  He smiled. “Rap sheet, huh?”

  “What else do you call it?”

  “Ledger?”

  “Sure. Whatever. Either way, I’m a murderer. Three weeks ago I was a reputable Ranger who could have transferred anywhere in the country she wanted. Now I’m bottom of the barrel scum.” I winced. “No offense.”

  Tex chuckled and began walking to the back door of the warehouse. “None taken. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

  I looked down at my ruined jeans, blood-stained white shirt, and tattered jacket. Luckily, I’d been in head-to-toe denim, and it didn’t presently feel like I’d been too chewed up by the road. Then again, adrenaline might have been sparing me the bulk of the pain.

  With dread hanging over me, I followed Tex inside and down the humid hallway to his apartment. As soon as we got inside, he walked straight to the metal door off the kitchen, which he propped open with the toe of his boot while he lit a cigarette.

  I lingered inside and watched him smoke. I’d never seen a man who could make it look so sexy.

  He caught me watching him. The reflection of the orange end of his cigarette blazed in his eyes.

  I cleared my throat. “Are you hurt?”

  He exhaled a plume of smoke. “Only as much as my ego.”

  “Your ego?”

  “Never dropped a bike before.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh.”

  He flicked the end of his cigarette and chuckled. “I’m fine, Hart. A few scrapes and bruises. Nothing serious.”

  A few scrapes and bruises, I mused.

  I could see one of those bruises playing peekaboo at the collar of his black shirt. At some point he must have struck his collarbone, either on a part of his bike or the ground. The skin was angry and red around a purpling bruise that seemed to grow darker the longer I looked at it.

  Tex rolled his shoulder and his shirt moved up over the bruise.

  I wondered what other damage his clothes might be hiding. I’d been lucky to be on the back of the bike, but he would have taken the brunt of the impact.

  “Do you think he knows yet?” I asked.

  Tex studied me as he took a long pull, held the smoke in his lungs, and released. “Bates?”

  I nodded.

  He sighed and flicked the rest of his cigarette on the pavement stones before crushing it under the heel of his boot. “Probably. Bates is a clever bastard. He’d have had his boys under orders to report back to him as soon as they put me down. Or put you down,” he added almost apologetically. “I reckon since he never heard from them, he’d have sent out a search party. No doubt the crash scene is already cleaned up and swept under the rug.”

  I bit my bottom lip.

  “What are you worried about?” Tex filled almost the entire doorframe as he turned to face me. He smelled like sweat, cigarettes, and oil.

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “My career, okay?” I snapped. “I’m worried about my career. Everyone back in Austin is bound to hear about this now. I have friends there, friends who might come looking for me.”

  “Then I suggest you make sure they don’t.”

  “And how am I supposed to do that?”

  He shrugged. “Sounds like a you problem to me.”

  I scowled at him as he brushed past me. The door fell closed. “You know, I don’t think you’re nearly as much of a prick as you want me to think you are.”

  He pulled his shirt off over his head, exposing a back full of scars and fresh bruises. “Oh yeah? What makes you think that, princess?”

  I marched over to him. “Five minutes ago you genuinely cared if I was hurt or not. And now that you know I’m okay, you’re back to your brooding, bitchy, dismissive, asshole self.”

  He smirked. “It’s a good thing you’re a Ranger, not a detective.”

  “Fuck you.”

  His smirk turned into a shit-eating grin, and I wished that devilish smile of his didn’t make my knees weak.

  “I’m not excited to pay you a compliment, Hart,” he said as he stepped toward me, swaying with more swagger than any man had any right to possess, “but the way you handled yourself tonight? It was sexy as hell.”

  I lifted my chin but dared not break my composure. “Not all women consider being called sexy a compliment.”

  “Fine.” He reached out, hooked a thumb in the belt loop of my destroyed jeans, and tugged me toward him. I stumbled ungracefully into his chest. “I take it back then. You were impressive.”

  “Better.”

  “And a great fucking shot.”

  It was my turn to smile. Now he was getting closer to all the right things to say to a girl like me. “Keep going.”

  His hand left my belt loops and moved up my stomach. “You’re hell on wheels, aren’t you, Hart?”

  Here it was. Finally.

  He wasn’t looking at me like I was a cop anymore. He saw something else. Someone else.

  And I liked it.

  It felt like freedom.

  “You were the one riding like hell tonight, not me,” I breathed as he moved closer, filling up the space between us.

  My heart hammered away in my chest, beating a rhythm I’d never heard before. My bones thrummed with anticipation and I wondered if Tex could feel it as he put a hand on my hip and slipped a finger into the waistband of my jeans.

  “It was kind of fun while it lasted, wasn’t it?” His voice was low and soft.

  “We almost died.”

  He nodded and looked down as he opened the fly of my jeans with a flourish of his wrist. “We did.”

  “You have a strange definition of fun.”

  “Admit it,” he breathed as he slid his hand down the front of my jeans. I gasped as he touched me. The warmth of his palm against my flesh sent a tremble through me. I caught his wrist with both hands, and he stilled. His gaze, hooded with lust, met mine. “You liked it.”

  My heartbeat quickened as I remembered how it felt to hold him so tightly as we fled for our lives into the night. I thought of the thrill and the sheer terror as the bike went down, and the spike of adrenaline that brought the clarity and control I needed to roll to my knees and fire off those shots. In that moment, I was the woman I knew I’d been born to be.

  Not the one bound to a desk pushing papers like all her superiors wanted.

  I let go of his wrist and whispered, “I did… like it, I mean. Minus the almo
st getting shot part. And the crashing part. I could have done without that.”

  “Woman,” he purred, “stop talking.”

  His lips crashed into mine.

  He stole all the air from my lungs as his tongue plunged into my mouth. He seized the front of my jacket in one fist and held me against him while his fingers rolled over my clit. I whimpered, caught in the grasp of a man who had done things I couldn’t fathom with the very hand moving inside my jeans. The thought spiked my blood pressure and a rush of dizziness broke over me. Pleasure rolled through me, and Tex must have felt it because he chuckled against my lips and pressed a finger inside me.

  I clung to him.

  He pressed in deeper and let out a low growl of satisfaction when I sighed. It felt so damn good.

  “You can’t lie to me now, princess,” he whispered, his breath hot against my ear. “I can feel how much you like the thrill. The rush.”

  I squirmed in his grip.

  He released my jacket to rip my jeans down, pin me against the metal door, and force his knee between my thighs. “And here I was, thinking you were a good girl with southern values.”

  His hand found my pussy again. I was so wet for him. He rubbed me in slow circles while I fumbled with my tongue, which felt thick and useless in my mouth as he pressed two fingers inside me.

  “I am a good girl,” I managed.

  He trailed kisses down the side of my neck. “Good girls don’t lie.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  Tex fucked me to a delicious rhythm with his fingers. “A good girl would tell me to stop.”

  No. Stop playing games with me.

  He pressed a thumb to my clit. “So tell me to stop, princess.”

  He didn’t stop. He kept working me, and he knew damn well the position he was putting me in. Part of me wanted to tell him to stop—I wanted to fulfill the role of being a good girl and maybe string him on a little longer. Obviously, I had him right where I wanted him.

  And he had me right where he wanted, too.

  I’d be a fool to believe otherwise.

  Tex stopped using his magic hands and unzipped his jeans. He let them fall around his knees and pulled open a drawer in the kitchen within reach. He pulled out a condom, pinched it between two fingers, and waved it in front of my face, taunting me for an answer.

  I held my tongue.

  Tex dropped his boxers. His cock sprang free and he stepped even closer. I felt him resting against my stomach—felt the heat and the size of him. I swallowed hard and he watched my throat with hungry eyes. When he reached up to brush my hair away from my face and rest his hand on the base of my neck, I held my breath.

  For a man who had done terrible things, he sure could be gentle.

  He handed me the condom with his other hand. With trembling fingers, I unwrapped it.

  He smiled as he watched me desperately trying to get the condom out of the wrapper but didn’t offer to help. Finally, I achieved my task, reached down, and took him in one hand. He didn’t flinch, but his breathing hitched.

  Maybe I had more power than he wanted me to believe.

  Slowly, I rolled the condom on his shaft. The hunger in his eyes burned brighter, and as soon as I had it on him, he reached down, gripped my hip, and forced my leg up. He arched his hips forward and pressed against me. The metal door bit into my shoulder blades but I barely felt the pain as he gave me an inch, followed by more, and more, and more, until I felt like I was going to burst.

  I pushed at his chest, not knowing if I needed more or less.

  He stopped with a furrowed brow. “Did I hurt you?”

  I gazed up into a face that I still didn’t understand, but desperately wanted to. “Not any more than you did when you dropped your bike.”

  His handsome features stretched in a grin. “You’re a wicked woman.”

  Nobody had ever said such a thing about me before, and it made me smile.

  I draped an arm behind his neck and sank my fingers into his hair. “Just fuck me.”

  Chapter 9

  Jameson

  Carrie’s body felt like it was made for me.

  The curve of her hip against my hand set my nerves on fire. The way she clung to me, pulled me down to her for kisses, and clawed desperately at my back as I thrust inside her—it all felt so primal and visceral. I couldn’t recall a moment where I felt so present or grounded. This woman, the taste of hot sauce on her tongue from the wings, the smell of dirt in her hair from the crash, was so much more real to me than my own heartbeat in my chest.

  I pressed deep inside her.

  She pressed her head back against the door and closed her eyes as she moaned with pleasure. I kissed her neck, her chest, her shoulders. She rolled her hips and arched her back, trusting me to hold her in place, and I did, pushing deeper into her until she could take all of me.

  Maybe she was a bad girl, after all.

  I cupped the back of her neck and drove deep inside her. Her eyes fluttered open, and she gripped my wrist. Her lips formed a silent O and she stretched to the tip of her toes as I fucked her harder and harder until her thighs trembled and she let out a cry of pleasure. Her knees buckled, but I held her up as she came. She held my shoulders as I rocked inside her, working up to my own climax. Her pussy clenched and released around my cock with every thrust. She was so swollen, plump, and soft. I could hardly stand it.

  Carrie took a fistful of my hair in her hand and pulled me down to her. “Let it go,” she breathed.

  I shuddered.

  She kissed me like we were both on fire, and I wanted nothing more than to burn with her. She rolled her hips and murmured against my lips for me to come.

  “For me,” she whispered.

  The fire raged and suddenly broke.

  I shuddered with the release. She dragged her nails down my back and held on for dear life until the flames flickered and died.

  Carrie hung her head and panted for breath as I stepped back and released her leg. She tucked her hair behind her ears.

  I pushed the door open behind her, grabbed a cigarette from the counter, lit it, and took a drag.

  Carrie waved the smoke away. “You smoke like a chimney.”

  I tipped my head back to exhale upward. “Even an orgasm can’t stop you from complaining, huh?”

  She blushed and smiled. “Shut up.”

  I nodded down at her bloody knees. “We should get you cleaned up.”

  She pointed at a gash in my hip from where I slid across the pavement. “You too.”

  I flicked the ash off the end of my cigarette. “I have rubbing alcohol in the bathroom.”

  She turned, showing me her bare, perky, perfect ass, and shimmied across the apartment to the bathroom, where I heard her rummage through cupboards.

  “It’s in the red kit,” I called.

  While I finished my smoke, Carrie brought the kit out into the living room and unpacked its contents on the coffee table. I joined her after cleaning myself up, and we sat in front of each other on the hardwood floor, naked, dabbing at each other’s cuts with alcohol-soaked cotton swabs.

  “Ow,” Carrie hissed as I hit some road rash on her elbow with the alcohol.

  “No pain no gain.”

  She jabbed my hip with her cotton swab.

  “Watch it!”

  “No pain no gain,” she mocked.

  I snorted. “Cute.”

  She glanced up at the warehouse windows. “The sun is going to come up soon.”

  It had to be close to five thirty in the morning. Somewhere along the way I’d completely lost track of what time it was. I didn’t much care about the minutes ticking by as I sat on my floor with a beautiful girl, dabbing at her wounds.

  I couldn’t deny that I was in awe of her.

  One minute she was gentle and feminine, and the next she was a smashing hit at Jackson’s and blending effortlessly in with the group, and then she was rolling to her knees returning fire after I crashed my bike, and hitting every mark.


  “It was pretty incredible how you handled yourself tonight,” I told her.

  She watched me with apprehension. “Is there a ‘but’ coming?”

  “No.”

  “Well in that case, thank you.”

  I chuckled. “My brain was a fucking mess. I didn’t have my head on straight and there you were, already firing perfect shots and saving our asses. How’d you do it?”

  Carrie shrugged as she pressed a bandage onto my hip with gentle fingers. “I was the best shot at the Ranger Academy. I broke records that were almost eight years old. Nobody has yet to beat me in following classes.” She sat up straighter. “I’m an expert marksman and proud of it.”

  “As you should be. When did you first learn to shoot?” I pressed gingerly at the bandage she’d applied to my hip while she began packing up the first-aid kit.

  “My dad taught me.”

  “Was he a Ranger too?”

  Carrie shook her head. “No. School teacher actually.”

  “Really?” That surprised me. “A school teacher who taught his daughter how to fire a gun. There’s a story there.”

  She smiled wistfully and zipped up the medical bag. “My dad raised me on his own. My mom abandoned ship when I was two and left him for another man who whisked her away to Florida.” She scoffed and shook her head. “Stupid woman. It all fell apart for her, of course. The man she cheated on my dad with cheated on her, started another family, and left her high and dry in a one-bedroom condo with nothing to show for herself. She called my dad back, wanting to make amends and have a chance to repair her relationship with me. I was ten by that time and never really felt like I was missing a parent. Dad filled in all the empty spaces for me. So he left it up to me, and with every passing year, I knew more and more that I wanted nothing to do with her. She hurt him too badly. She made her choice.”

  Carrie was a strong woman now, and she’d been a strong girl, too. “That couldn’t have been easy.”

  “It wasn’t,” she admitted. “But I don’t think my dad and I would have become as close as we are if she hadn’t left. He floundered for a long time trying to figure out how to bond with me. He loved mechanics, you see, and mathematics. I wasn’t interested in any of that kind of stuff. He’d try to find common ground but we didn’t share interests. Until, when I was thirteen, he took me to a gun range for the first time.”