Page 9 of Puck
But yet I couldn’t quite make myself stop him from massaging my neck. Damn me.
He chuckled. “You’re a prickly one, ain’tcha, princess?”
“If you’re such a big shot, then how are you going to get us out of here?” I rolled my eyes and huffed, and then the huff turned into an involuntary breath of relief as he shifted his touch and found the worst knot and managed to knead it away. “Do you even have a plan?” I asked, my eyes sliding closed as he worked the tension out of my neck.
“Get everyone somewhere safe, find a way to contact the boys . . .” his next words were whispered in my ear, “and then get you naked and make you come at least a dozen times.”
I shivered. “Bullshit.”
“Which part?”
“You couldn’t make me come a dozen times even I did let you get me naked, to which, by the way—no.”
“I saidat leasta dozen. Bet you a thousand bucks I can.”
Damn him. Damn him. And damn me—doubly, for being so affected by him and for being a sucker for a bet; I offset my income during college playing poker . . . and not always honestly. Street habits died hard, what could I say? If you could count cards and bluff as easily as breathing, and had tens of thousands of dollars in college debt, yeah, you were gonna cheat at poker. And sometimes, you let yourself get roped into high-stakes games simply because you had a really hard time turning down a bet.
“At least twelve times? In what span of time?”
Puck’s laugh was low and dark with lust. “Like to gamble, do you?”
“No,” I said, the denial automatic. “Well, maybe. Yes.”
Another chuckle. “A thousand bucks says I can.”
I groaned. “I’m not taking your wager, Puck Lawson.”
“Yes you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
The sirens were all around us now.
Someone cleared her throat. “Sorry to interrupt, you two,” I heard Layla say, “but we kinda need to get going soon.”
Puck backed away from me, and I breathed a sigh that was equal parts relief and disappointment.
“Time to move,” Puck said. “We need a cell phone so I can get hold of the boys. Layla, you stay here, watch the rest of these ladies. Colbie, you come with me since you can actually talk to people around here.”
“Do we have any money?” I asked.
Puck dug into his pocket and came up with a handful of wadded up bills in various sizes and colors. “I took this off Anton.” He fished a small roll of hundreds out of a different pocket. “Plus my backup cash. There’s a thousand here if we need it.”
I took the stolen currency from him and sorted through it. “Two thousand in rubles, two hundred in euros, and about a hundred in dollars.” I did some quick mental conversions. “According to the rates as of yesterday, this is about . . . three hundred forty dollars total, not including your personal stash.”
Puck stared at me. “You can do currency conversions in your head?”
I shrugged. “I’m in imports and exports, so knowing the conversion rates is part of the job.”
“And you speak Russian and Chinese?”
I nodded. “I specialize in Russian and Chinese high-end imports.”
He seemed impressed. “Nice. Smart chicks make me horny.”
I lifted an eyebrow at him. “I’m starting to wonder whatdoesn’tmake you horny.”
He laughed. “You have a point. There isn’t much. Nuns . . . I’m not a fan of nuns, except the fake ones in porn. Centipedes also freak me out. Um . . . the IRS—they piss me off to no end. Pretty much everything else makes me horny.” He let his eyes rake down my body blatantly. “A hot, smart, educated woman with a wicked sharp tongue? You got me rockin’ a chubby, and I don’t even know what color your bra is yet.”