Breaking Beauty (Devils Aces MC): Vegas Titans Series by Celia Loren Page A

her joints, relax
her skin. Meaning arrived in her mouth first. “Bryson?” she asked, trembling.

CHAPTER NINE

     
     
    Zaida had the power and presence of a horsefly—she could be
both everywhere and invisible at once, and bite your ass when you least expect
it. For the opening moments of Romy's tournament, her boss was all instruction:
“Fifty thousand dollars buy-in!” she'd declared, eyeing Bryson's end of the
table like day-old fish. “Only real guest. ” But before Romy could ask
for clarification on these strange new rules, Zaida had disappeared. Turning,
she'd seen Bryson grimacing up at her from behind a fat stack of orange chips.
     
    Finding Bryson at her blackjack table once more was mostly
wonderful, but not a little humiliating. Whatever he'd been thinking before
about her dubious night-job was surely spiked with the new, untoward facts of
this “promotion”—namely, her salacious body sleeve. Romy now felt deeply
self-conscious of all the flesh her uniform exposed. In fact, she had a
difficult time meeting the leery gaze of all the other men here in the Needle,
who stared at her body freely, and with unabashed imagination.
    She'd of course have preferred that Bryson not see this.
What great relationships have ever started with a skankily clad
blackjack dealer and a monied drifter? Then, of course, she was getting ahead
of herself: there was a whole volley of neurotic, girly questions still
demanding response. Like, what was he doing up here? How did he have this kind
of cash to begin with? Why did Zaida refer to him as “not a real guest”? And
mainly, was his presence a coincidence of tourism, or had he really put in an
effort to track her all the way up to the Needle?
     
    She decided, at last, to be glad of his presence—she felt
safer knowing he was by her side. Bryson's muscles seemed as uncontainable as
ever. Today, he was pillowing out of a light blue button-down. No reason she
couldn't enjoy herself a little tonight too.
     
    And was it her imagination, or did something about him seem
protective? Though he wore the sturdy black sunglasses as usual, something in
his manner was decidedly more severe than as in their previous encounter. He
didn't jiggle his arms. He didn't joke. His jaw was set. And whenever she
leaned across the table to place cards, Bryson leaned forward as well—as if to keep
her dangling neckline beyond the watch of the other players.
     
    The tournament began with six men, who would winnow their
number down to two before a final take-all round. Taking brief stock of the
table, Romy noticed an older Asian businessman with a crooked grin and many
gold rings; a has-been eighties rapper with the weatherworn face of a drug
addict; two bland, blonde American businessmen who might as well have been
twins for all their similar mannerisms and...a particularly grisly brand of
high-roller; an obese, freckled, older man who referred to himself in third
person as, “The Dap.”
     
    “Very good,” Zaida muttered from the shadows, as soon as the
table was assembled and purchased. “Very much money here. Very good.” She was
right, there was $300,000 on the table in front of these men, and that was just
for the first round of one tournament.
     
    “Let's get this hootenanny on the road, doll,” The Dap
bellowed, sloshing some of a martini down his maroon velvet suit. “Papa wants a peep-show .” Though she was miffed at this remark, Romy took it in
stride—even as she felt Bryson's whole body constrict with rage beside her. She
pressed on. She dealt the first hand. And the men applauded, each in various
degrees of intoxication.
     
    There were no amateurs here: once the cards were played, the
men grew silent. Serious. The older businessman murmured under his breath in
Cantonese as the gentlemen rounded the table, hitting, staying, splitting, and
doubling-down appropriately. To quell the silence, Romy repeated a hunk of
Zaida's vague instructions:
     
    “We'll continue like