Free Rough and Tumble by CRYSTAL GREEN Page B

there,” he said. “It reminds me of mermaids.” He reached out to touch her hair. “And so do you.”
    If her hair had nerve endings, it’d be on fire. Her skin definitely was, flames licking up and down her arms, her chest . . . everywhere else. Tickling, lapping, promising better things to come.
    Not knowing what else to do, she stood. “I’ll see you in four hours at the Seahorse Lounge, then.” She’d already started walking away. “For
drinks
.”
    He smiled, as if thinking that he was going to get a hell of a lot more than drinks tonight if he could manage it.

6
    Four hours later, Cash sat in the agreed-upon lounge, surrounded by soft green and blue lights. Seahorse statues leaned out of the beige walls behind the bar, flanking a topless, inviting mermaid, but the rounded aquarium in the center was innocent and serene, nearly blocking out the trilling music of slot machines and pop songs from the sound system.
    As he crossed a booted ankle over his thigh, he started to go for the pack of smokes he’d tossed on the table, then decided against it. Molly P. Preston didn’t like the habit, and even though she’d be surrounded by it during her stay in this town, he’d go along with her conditions. For now.
    Until he could talk her in to where he wanted her to be by the end of the night.
    â€œAnything else I can get you?” asked the cocktail waitress as she bent her knees and slid his club soda onto the table. She smiled at him, tall and ladylike.
    Normally, Cash wouldn’t have hesitated to let her know what else she could get him, but the woman wore a wedding ring. More important, Molly was going to be here soon, and nothing was going to put out this fire tonight except for her. Afterward, he could move on to the next game, then the next.
    â€œI’ve got someone joining me,” he said while the waitress straightened back up with her tray.
    â€œAny idea what they want?”
    â€œI’m working on finding that out.”
    The waitress smiled at him and moved on, but his head stayed wrapped around the question. What did someone like Molly want? He could only guess, and it wasn’t anything a man like him could afford—and he wasn’t talking about money. She’d want the boyfriend package: steady job, steady income, steady emotions.
    At least he’d roped her in for the night, even if it hadn’t exactly been in an honorable way. Who would’ve ever accused him of being honorable, though?
    He took a drink, glancing toward the casino floor, where a cluster of gaming tables waited for tourists to throw away their money. And what do you know?
    There she stood, Molly P. Preston, fenced in by her friends.
    He barely saw anyone else, though, not while her mermaid-blond hair drew most of his attention. She’d pulled the strands back into a bun again, just like when he’d first laid eyes on her, and he burned to undo it so he could bury his face in the light cloud of it. Her delicate features fascinated him, too—features like the thick lashes that surrounded her eyes, which weren’t blue or green exactly; it was like they couldn’t decide what they wanted to be. Then there were those pink, beautiful lips that turned up at the corners and could either tell him to go to hell tonight or else part in a moan, just like in all the fantasies he’d already had about her.
    Cash saved the best for last as he perused the rest of her—the legs that went on for miles, that tiny waist, those breasts that’d fit real nice in his palms.
    Unfortunately, she’d packaged herself up nice and tight, wearing a white sleeveless button-down blouse and a slim black-checkered skirt that made her look like . . . well, an accountant. During the poker game, her friend Arden had let a few factoids about Molly slip, but after talking to Molly at the bar and finding out how prissy she was, he