Page 6 of One Time Only (One Time Only 1)
He pauses, like he’s cycling through options on a multiple-choice question.
I laugh. “I guess that’s a no.”
“Just tell me, man—where did you grow up? Don’t play these little information games.”
But games are a necessity with him. “I bet you’d like to know.”
“Oh, so that’s how we’re doing it? You giveth, then you taketh away.”
And I crack up. The man makes me crazy. He makes me laugh, and he makes me feel sometimes like this isn’t a job. Hell, he makes me feel that way often.
I toss him a bone. “I’m from Maine.”
The grin that crosses Stone’s face is epic. “Jackson Pearce is from Maine. It’s all coming together. I’m picturing you at a lake house. Some gorgeous view. Your dad was a lobster fisherman. Am I right? Tell me I’m right. I know I’m right.”
I stare straight at him. “My dad’s a firefighter.”
“That tracks.”
I look at my watch.
My shift ends soon.
I need to cut this conversation off—it’s too much fun.
This can’t last all night. His friends went back to their suite, and that’s my reminder that he has places to be. That this attraction I feel for him is going nowhere. Time to put it not just on the back burner, but in the ice chest.
“Don’t you need to return to your private party?” I bite out.
“No,” he says, all casual. “I’m done there.”
I seethe inside, black tar roiling through my veins. I try, I try so damn hard not to picture him at his private party, not to see what he might have been doing a few hours ago.
“Where do you want to go, then?” I ask, aiming to keep my tone even.
But failing miserably.
I can hear the jealousy in it.
All I can do is hope he doesn’t pick up on it.3StoneWhere do I want to go?
That is the question.
I drag my hand through my hair and listen for the siren call of midnight seduction. This is Vegas after all. I could do anything, go anywhere—I have the world at my feet.
But I’m having far too much fun with my bodyguard.
And that’s a problem.
The longer I spend with him like this, all casual and chill, the more my little head is going to try to occupy the big head and plant all kinds of inappropriate thoughts upstairs.
Thoughts that make me wonder why he said, Don’t you need to return to your private party? as if it bugged the shit out of him.
Do I want to read into that?
Hell yeah.
Will I?
No way.
And that means I should go someplace else. I should get far away from him. Because I don’t tango with people who aren’t interested in me.
I run through the options. “Maybe I want to go to Rapture because I heard that club is dope,” I say, gesturing in the general direction of this hotel’s sweetest nightclub.
“That’s a possibility,” he says, with the same enthusiasm one would muster for a dental exam.
Ah, this is easier. Riling him up. So much simpler than deconstructing whether he meant anything at all by how he said one little thing. I throw out another option, as if I’m serious. “Or maybe I’ll go to a diner. Someplace on the Strip. Get a burger and fries, maybe even a milkshake.”
He scoffs. “You’re a health guru. You eat kale salad and carrots. You’re a vegetarian, man. And everyone knows that.”
I give him a grin. “Ah, you do pay attention.”
His eyes lock with mine. “We’ve established that all I do is pay attention. That’s my job.”
“And you, my man, are tops at it.” I heave a sigh, stretching out my neck. That gives me an idea. “I hear great things about the spa at this hotel. I’m pretty sure it’s open late. What do you think, J-man? What are the chances that I could slip in there and get a massage tonight?”
His jaw is set hard, but his tone stays deadpan. “I’m sure they’d make an exception for you.”
I wiggle my brows, messing with him some more. “You want to go with me? Hey, how about we do that? Just like a couple of bros. We’ll get massages. Get our nails done.”
Jackson shakes his head. “Things that will never happen.”
“I don’t know. I could use a massage to work out the kinks.”
“Yeah, work out the kinks. That’s what you did tonight,” Jackson mutters.
I latch onto the way he said kinks. That last word seemed to rankle him. I sit up straighter, deconstructing once more. Replaying his words, how he talks. There’s something in his tone. It’s got a hint of . . . jealousy?
Is that it? Is that what I hear in Jackson’s voice?
Suddenly, I’m holding a few key puzzle pieces—first, the “Don’t you need to return to your private party?” one, and now the “That’s what you did tonight” piece.
And they might fit together, if I can turn them just so.
