BABY TEETH
Dylan McAlister, tycoon, former church baby, gorgeous player, kisses me in the hallway of the penthouse floor in this five-star hotel. It’s a soft kiss, a sweet kiss, but the heat’s been building between us since the moment I met him in the hotel bar.
A pretty woman opens the door, interrupting our moment. “Oops, sorry,” she says and starts to close it.
“That’’s okay.” Dylan reluctantly pulls away from me. “No worries.”
“Great to see you, Mr. McAlister.” She flashes us a toothy, million-dollar smile.
Breathe, Evie, breathe, I remind myself, and we walk inside. Technically, Dylan and I met on an arranged engagement about forty minutes ago. This is a work gig. I’m not here on a real date. I’ve known him for under an hour.
And yet I feel like I’ve known him forever. We enter the sleek penthouse suite – a confident, comfortable couple – that move in vaunted circles such as these with ease.
A pristine poker table is set up at the far end of the living room. Mostly men gather around it, chatting in that passive aggressive way white collar rivals do when they’re revved up and ready to rumble, albeit in a civilized way. Right before they draw blood.
I recognize a few of the players from newspapers and magazines. The middle-aged man with the lean face and hawk nose owns Chicago’s professional soccer team. His fortune was built from great granddaddy’s newspaper empire. He parlayed those millions into an even larger domain. The beefy, red-faced short guy stars in TV commercials for his string of popular fast food restaurants across the Tri-State area. He has to be the Fast Food King with the lizard tongue Dylan warned me about. The sole, elegant, thirty-something woman standing next to the table has a few million followers on Instagram. Dylan wasn’t kidding. She’s the heiress to an elegant department store chain.
Yikes. This is a far cry from a 25th high school reunion at a VFW in the suburbs. This crowd is big money, big attitude, and I’m just a rental date wearing a borrowed dress.
“I need to be polite, civilized,” Dylan says. “Go say hi to the crew before things get ugly. Before I figure out who are the Christians and who are the lions. It changes with every game. You need anything?”
“I’m fine,” I say. “I’m great.”
He leans in, kisses me on the cheek, and whispers, “Cast your lucky charm spell for me, Evie. I need this to be a good game.” He pulls away and looks at me as if for a blessing. “A very good game.”
I rub my hands together theatrically and blow on them.
He winks at me, turns, and heads to the table.
“McAlister,” the beefy guy says. “Wasn’t sure you’d make it. Thought you were still at church. Praying.”
“I’ve been praying for you non-stop, Glenn,” he says, taking off his jacket and draping it on the back of the chair. “Please stop all your sinning. It’s exhausting.”
“Prayer can be a dirty job,” the heiress says. She shoots me a jealous look and regards Dylan with more than business in her eyes. “But someone has to do it.”
No, no, department store heiress. You can just shut that shit down right now because I’ll be covering all Dylan’s dirty business needs tonight.
A bartender mixes cocktails at a bar set up in the corner of the suite overlooking downtown Chicago. A handful of waitresses circulate, taking orders and refilling glasses. I need to kill some adrenaline and movement always does that for me. Sadly, I don’t think jogging around the room in heels will help me blend in. I make my way to the bar and order a drink.
“Evelyn,” a woman says, touching my shoulder lightly.
I swivel and lay eyes on a pretty redhead in her thirties. Her dress fits her like a glove and looks like it cost more than the one I borrowed from Amelia.
“My name’s Annie,” she says, smiling warmly, holding out her hand with its neatly polished nails. “Dylan asked that I introduce myself. If you need anything while you’re here, all you have to do is ask.” She shakes my hand, her palm cool.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Is this your first time attending a game?”
I nod and sip on a bubby water with a lime.
“You’re in for a nail biter,” she says. “An excruciatingly slow, exhausting nail biter. We brewed the extra strong coffee. You can always take a nap in the adjoining room if you need to lay your head down for a few minutes.”
“People do that?”
“People do whatever they have to gain an advantage or to win at a high stakes underground poker tournament. Make yourself at home.”
I have plenty of time over the course of the next twenty-four hours to learn about the game. Players draw at the beginning to pick seats. It’s a cash contest. The buy-in is fifty thousand, the lowest chip five thousand. Pretty masseuses massage players’ tight shoulders and necks. Coffee is practically main-lined.
The room’s kept chilly. Annie tells me it’s done to help the players stay awake. I don’t see any non-legal drugs but there are three bedrooms and multiple bathrooms in the back of the suite. Drugs aren’t my thing, but I’m also not a cop and I’m not keeping track of anyone other than Dylan tonight.
About that. The look on his face is neutral but I find myself tuning into this man and I’m not all that happy about what he’s feeling. When the sun cracks on the horizon, he’s holding tight to five stacks of chips. By late afternoon his vibe is shaky and he’s down to three. When the sun sets almost twenty-four hours after we walked into this penthouse, the confidence he exuded earlier bleeds through the cracks in his façade onto the sole stack standing.
At the end of the marathon game, Dylan wins more than he loses. According to my calculations, he leaves the tournament thirty thousand ahead, including the money he spent on me. He’s not broke but he’s not balls-out champion either.
That honor goes to Glenn. He’s sweaty and beaming, brimming with bravado as he tips the dealer and staff generously. I don’t look at him because I don’t want to see him look at me while he licks his lips.
The bartender and waitresses close up shop. Servers collect the remaining glasses, transfer food from silver platters to plastic containers. Players wander out of the suite – some content, some pissy. All wiped.
Dylan smiles at the dealer, makes small talk, and tips her. He walks over to me, face strained, like an overworked coffee pot on its last legs at a Sunday church breakfast. “Ready, Evie?” he asks, his voice cracking.
“Yes.” I was not his lucky charm tonight, and for that I feel like a jerk. Technically, I have no control over this and yet for some reason it feels like I let him down. I want to make it up to him, collect him in my arms, kiss all his worry away. Promise things will go better the next game.
“Evie, what do you think?” Annie asks. She’s still immaculate, and looks like she just slept an uninterrupted eight hours. Not like she’d been up for twenty-four.
“Pretty much what you said. A nail biter, slow speed chase,” I say. “And somehow — still exhilarating.”
“Exactly,” she says, squeezing my arm. “I’m so glad I got a chance to meet you.”
“You too.”
“See you soon, Dylan?” Annie asks.
“You got it,” he says.
We exit the suite and hang with the small crowd of players and their support crew loosely clustered in the hallway waiting for the elevator. “How are you?” I ask, rubbing Dylan’s arm.
“Crap,” he says under his breath. “But I have to look like sunshine just spanked my ass and I liked it so much I invited it back for more.”
“That good,” I say.
But Dylan suddenly hangs back when the elevator arrives. “Go ahead,” he says to the others. “I need a private moment with my girl.” He turns to me, his eyelids heavy. He manages a quirk of a smile and nuzzles my neck. He brushes his lips against me as if he’s talking dirty. “Buy me time,” he whispers and nips at my ear.
The scruff of his beard scrapes against my sensitive skin and the pulsing between my legs returns. Adrenaline. Hormones. This man. God knows what perks me up. Who needs caffeine? Who needs sleep? I suspect I’d wake up happy every morning if I took a daily dose of Dylan McAlister.
I pull it together, sigh, and giggle as if on cue. “Dylan. You’re naughty. Stop,” I say loud enough for the people crowding on the elevator to overhear.
“Perfect,” he whispers, and kisses the length of my neck. My skin pebbles, my nipples grow hard.
“Get a room, McAlister,” a guy says.
“Happy to loan you the spare key to my place,” the heiress says. I clench my fist around my purse and I’m half tempted to punch her.
“Yeah, yeah.” Dylan waves them off. The moment after the elevator door closes, he slumps against the wall and runs a hand through his thick hair. “Maybe we should take the stairs. I’m not sure I’m able to keep a straight face with these people.”
“The game’s over. You don’t need to worry about them anymore tonight. Besides the lobby’s twenty-five floors down and I’m the walking dead.” I punch the button for the elevator. “Do you want to talk about it? Tell me what’s going on?”
“What’s not going on,” he says, and checks his phone. “I’m off grid for twenty-four and all hell breaks loose.”
“Like?”
But Dylan’s eyes rip from his phone and train on the Fast Food King who won tonight’s pot. “You were on fire, Glenn.”
“I know,” Glenn says, his chin thrusting proudly forward, his tongue snaking between his lips. He devours me with the look of someone who is flush with victory and desires his spoils.
Ew. I edge closer to Dylan.
The elevator arrives and we step inside. “You coming?” Dylan asks, holding the door.
“Nah,” Glenn says and waves dismissively. “Grabbed a room down the hall. See you soon, McAlister. Be sure and bring the new girl with you.” His eyes linger pointedly on my breasts, and slide like oil down my waist to my ass. He adjusts himself with one hand and my skin crawls as the gate slides shut.
In the elevator, Dylan leans back against a wall and berates himself. “I should have folded that hand earlier. I know this shit.”
“I think you did great.” I lean in to him, brushing a thick lock of hair off his forehead.
“I’m used to doing better,” he says. “I’m used to doing a lot better. Truth is, Evie, I’m losing my game.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself.”
“If I’m not hard on myself, I won’t be around this business for much longer,” he says, weariness rolling off him in waves that could drown a girl.
He’s wiped. Beaten. It makes my heart hurt. I take his hand in mine and squeeze it but I’m not sure he even feels me. He stares off into space inside that pristine cage, replaying the game in his head, worry slicing lines across his handsome face.
“There was a moment when Glenn hesitated,” he says. “I should have known he was bluffing. But he’d been playing fast and I didn’t follow my instincts.”
“We all make mistakes.”
“Not these kinds. These were stupid.” The elevator opens and we exit. I link my arm around Dylan’s as we walk through the lobby. My feet hurt. I’m hungry. I’m craving a hard mattress and cool sheets. I haven’t stayed up for twenty-four hours since I crammed for a final my junior year of college.
But then I remind myself that I prayed to God to help me do a good job tonight. I’m not about to let that go because all the adrenaline’s worn off and I didn’t get the outcome I prayed for. Sometimes unanswered prayers can be blessings in disguise.
We make our way through the lobby. There’s a fresh crew of guests and workers and the attention directed at me isn’t so appreciative this time. Curious looks circle thick around us like garbage running down the disposal. Judgment slops over me like a pail of dirty mop water. A well-dressed older woman hits me with one of those glares that lasts only a few seconds but carries a thousand words, none of them good. I avert my gaze just in time to catch the eye fuck from her husband. Ugh.
Sadly, no, I didn’t spend the last twenty-four hours in bed with Dylan. I just look as though I did. But even if I had, who died and made these people Law & Order: Special Morals Unit? Their attitude irritates me, lights a fire under my ass, and I up my game. I raise my eyes, meet theirs defiantly, and throw some sass in my step.
Outwardly, Dylan’s calm. Inwardly, he’s a walking disaster, still lost in thought. We exit through the hotel’s revolving doors. I can practically hear the clock tick-tocking down on our date but I desperately don’t want our time to end. “Buy you a drink?” I ask. We pause curbside, a dozen or so yards away from the front door waiting on a ride.
Circles under his eyes, he’s still so handsome, a few strands of silver in his temples, his white shirt rumpled with sweat and nearly twenty-four hours of playing a game of mental ‘Chicken.’
“You’re a sweetheart, Evelyn.”
“Evie. Remember?”
He looks me in the eyes – really looks at me – and the fog evaporates like vaped weed in a college dorm. And boom, Dylan transforms back into the ballsy player who spotted me the moment I walked in the bar. The guy who gifted me a diamond horseshoe necklace. The man who made me go weak in the knees when he fastened that necklace around my neck and marked me his ‘Lucky Charm.’
He wraps one strong arm around my waist, and draws me flush against him. “Where are my manners? I didn’t thank you yet for tonight.”
My throat turns tight, scratchy, and I smile up at him. “Hey stranger. I didn’t do that much. But, it’s nice to see you again.” My body’s flush against his, the heat building fast between us in the sultry Chicago summer night air.
Dylan’s muscular, all hard planes and angles, the day-old scruff on his jaw making him even hotter if that’s possible. He’s the poster child for the boy next door who grew up to be the sexy as fuck man.
I want to strip off his shirt, rip off my dress, and get naked with him. I don’t have to make a decision, it’s already been made. Dylan McAlister’s the first man I’ve wanted to be with in years. He’s the client I’m going to sleep with.
“I checked out, didn’t I?” His cock stirs against me, growing harder by the second.
“Yes.”
Kiss me, Dylan. Take me somewhere private. Unzip this dress. Pull it off me.
“I’m back,” he says. His erection presses insistently against my pelvis.
“I can tell.” The V between my legs is throb throbbing, my skin’s on fire, my panties pooling between my thighs. He’s going to kiss me for real this time but is he ever going to ask to sleep with me? Oh, Jesus, why am I even wondering? The sizeable hard-on digging into my pelvis is a giant clue.
Kiss me, Dylan. Strip for me – first that shirt, please. Let me draw my fingers down your chest with one hand while I unzip your pants with the other.
My V card was punched a few years ago, claimed by one guy who I genuinely liked before I discovered his ‘roommate’ was actually his live-in girlfriend. But my real dirty secret is that I haven’t had sex since then. I haven’t been with anyone in two years. It used to embarrass me and I didn’t talk about it because I thought I was some kind of freak who attracted unavailable men.
But right now? Right now, I am thanking God I waited. I am thanking God I said no to the extra money, no to the perks, the decent apartment that I could have afforded if I had slept with the last twenty clients I went on dates with. Instead, I paid for mom’s psych treatment. I helped out Ruby with college. I lived in the same crappy apartment because part of me still wanted to believe that a happily ever after could happen for me too. I held out for a hero. I held out for Dylan McAlister. Finally, the waiting is over because the hero is here.
Kiss me, Dylan. I want to watch your hard cock release from those dress pants. I want to take it in my hand and stroke it from base to head.
He pulls me closer as if he heard my thoughts, his erection growing more impressive, more insistent by the second. “Evie.”
He might be tired, but honey, under those rumpled clothes, he’s tight and lean, all corded muscles. The scruff of his unshaven beard alternately tickles and scrapes against my neck as he leans in and whispers, “I might have lost tonight at poker tonight, but darling, you’re my winning hand.”
A small moan escapes my lips. “Good.”
Will Dylan take me back to his hotel suite? Will he kiss me before or after we enter? Will he run his hands through my hair? Unzip my dress slowly, just as slowly as I unwrapped his present? Will he press kisses down my neck, his lips grazing mine, the scruff of his beard scraping against my skin? Will he pull down the thin sleeve of my dress, push it further with impatient hands? Will he cup my breast, his thumb tracing circles on top of my lace bra as my nipple grows taut under his touch? Will he unhook my bra, lower his mouth to my breast, draw my taut nipple into his mouth, suck on it, scrape his teeth against it? Will I try not cry out as he unzips my dress with one hand, the other traveling down my stomach, landing on the edge of my panties where he plays with the edges of my lace thong?
‘Delicious, Evie,’ he’ll say, cupping the V between my legs, as I grow wetter and wetter, arching into his fingers with need. Want. By the time he slips his fingers inside the lace, tracing my skin with skilled fingers, insistent fingers, making his way to my center, my pelvis throbbing, the ache building inside me, pulse, pulsing, his fingers reaching for me, brushing against my clit, detouring to caress the inside of my thighs, will I bite my lip in an effort to not cry out? Will I …
But my fantasy pop-pop-explodes like a kid on a sugar high tearing through a birthday party, poking a pin in balloons, because Dylan does not kiss me. Instead, he pulls away, sighs, and gives his head a shake. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”
“What?”
“I almost forgot.” He lifts a fat envelope from his coat pocket and slips it into my purse. He sighs, reaches for me, but stops himself. He rumples my hair like I’m his kid sister and busses me on the cheek.
“Are you okay?” I ask, my stomach dropping hard.
“Sure,” he says, and walks a few feet away from me.
“Right.” I sway, a little unsteady on my aching feet. The need and urging and wetness of my desire is deflated by his return to professionalism. I’m completely thrown by the 180-degree spin and try not to stare at him in disbelief. “Is something wrong?”
Did I do something stupid? Did I ruin this thing we had going on between us? Because I’ll guarantee you I was not making up the chemistry. It was sizzling between us, alive, and ready to do the cha-cha.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he says. “Unfortunately, I’ve got to catch some Zzzs, catch a plane, and blow out of Chicago. Big game tomorrow night in Tulsa.”
“Got it,” I say, the pit in my stomach growing more vicious, like it’s birthed baby teeth in the last fifteen seconds and is chewing on my insides. But now’s not the time or place to push it with Dylan.
He’s the client.
I’m the escort.
He’s the boss.
I’m the employee.
But, boy oh boy did I read this one wrong. I feel like an idiot, a naïve, foolish girl. I might be wearing a two thousand dollar dress but honey it’s not all that easy taking the insecure out of the girl who’s been insecure most of her life. Dylan lifts an arm and signals a driver. Regret drills thin, mean holes in my bones.
I replay the last twenty-four hours in my head, desperately searching for the stupid thing I said, the stupid thing I did or didn’t do that would explain his 180, when a truckload of fear and panic broadside me as if being hit by a runaway car.
Blood drains down my arms, a chill descends my spine like I’ve been shot up with Novocain. My fingers turn numb and I wriggle them just to make sure I still can. Crap. What did I screw up? What did I do to cockblock this man?
And suddenly I get it: the gut-chewing feelings bookend the heady ones I experienced twenty-four hours earlier when Dylan secured the lucky charm necklace and his fingers brushed the little hairs on the back of my neck, his touch making my nipples hard. His pride, generosity, and determination soared within me like a shot of courage mixed with premium single malt scotch.
But now all the bad feelings, the horrible ones — the funhouse mirror versions stomp about inside me like mean minions eating me alive.
And then I realize these aren’t my feelings after all.
They’re Dylan McAlister’s.
And I’m having an empathic reaction.