Stop Dragon My Heart Around Read online

  “Thor,” the blonde beside her whispered and smacked her gum again. “I bet he has a big ole hammer too.”

  Beside her, Leo smiled and shrugged, like he had some super hero secret he couldn’t share. Ridiculous.

  “This is not Thor,” Tee said with an uncomfortable laugh. Next to the diminutive young women, she felt gawky. She straightened her stooping shoulders and stretched to her full height. Then, she gave the two a smile she hoped conveyed patient helpfulness.

  Leo was tall, even taller than her, with blondish hair that brushed his shirt collar. His eyes were deep set like the actor’s, and he definitely had the forearms and muscle packed in all the hunky places. But he was so much more than some hammer-throwing cartoon.

  He was Leo.

  He was real, and she’d wanted him from the first moment he’d walked toward her across the Bellagio foyer. Leo took up space, and the people had naturally moved out of his way. He’d looked like some avenging angel come to take her to task for her misdeeds. Then he’d smiled at her, and her heart had done a ridiculous loop-de-loop and she’d been lost.

  She’d never felt like she belonged anywhere, always a misfit on the reservation. Being with Leo was like finding the other half of herself. Even that first day. Nothing she’d experienced the following three years had been able to untangle the double knot of longing Leo tied in her heart without even trying.

  “Tell them you’re not Thor,” Tee said.

  “Good day, ladies.” Leo poured on his Australian accent and the two shrieked like schoolgirls. “I’m actually Leonidas Ryan, head of Casino Operations, but people often say I look like that actor.” He looked at her in question.

  “Chris Hemsworth,” Tee said with an eye roll. “You’re nothing like him.”

  “Yes, he is,” Trixie said, staring at Leo like a carb-dieter drooling over a loaded pizza. “Those eyes, those shoulders. That accent. I bet you have a six pack too.” She smiled at him and twirled her blonde hair around her finger.

  “I guess that makes me the God of Thunder.” Leo patted his flat stomach and winked. “With a vee-rry large hammer.”

  Tee stepped between him and the women. “What did you ladies need?”

  She knew it was ridiculous to be jealous. Hell, Leo routinely took the whole flippin’ Flamingo chorus line out for kicks. But sometimes she just couldn’t help herself.

  He should be hers.

  Her obsession with him was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever permitted herself in her overly focused life. But there it was. She loved Leo. God help her, she probably always would. She’d be sitting in a rocking chair on some nursing home porch someday, playing Keno and thinking about his abs and his smile.

  And his vee-rry large hammer.

  The brunette peeled her eyes away from Leo and looked confused.

  “The bra,” the blonde said, nudging her.

  “Right,” the brunette said. “I need a bra, but the shops are still closed.”

  “This sounds like girl stuff,” Tee said to Leo. “I thought you had some important meeting to go to?”

  He sat on the arm of the couch. It was in the center of the room with a comfy grouping of leather chairs, a sunset-colored rug spread under it. Slowly, he swung his lower leg in Thunder God circles. The women’s eyes followed his every movement.

  “I need to see my casino hosts in action sometimes,” he said. “For evaluation purposes.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Tee said. “Just five minutes ago, you couldn’t get out of here fast enough.”

  “Carry on.” He laid on the accent and folded his hands over his knee.

  The two women leaned their shoulders together. Their contrasting dresses made a black and white triangle out of their stance.

  Tee fought exasperation and shook her head. “What kind of bra do you need?”

  Trixie turned around and showed her the back of her white evening dress. “I need one of those convertible ones that you can unhook and cross at the back.”

  The white dress straps did crisscross and the bottom drooped below her ass dimples. “Dannys” was tattooed in cursive at the base of her neck below her ponytail. Unless Trixie was honoring the prevalence of all the many Dannys in the world, Tee suspected the tattoo was missing an apostrophe.

  Details. Every visitor to Vegas seemed to embrace a lack of necessary details in their visit. These women were no exception. That was what Tee was for, after all.

  Bras and details.

  “Yep, I know just what you mean,” she told the girls, all female-to-female camaraderie. “I’m wearing one of those today. They’re handy.”

  Trixie was holding her over-the-shoulder pose and watching Leo hopefully. “Very nice,” he commented from the couch. Trixie smiled and wiggled her hips, making the white satin shimmy.

  “Vee-rrry, very nice,” Leo drawled.

  Tee put her hands on her hips. “Quit flirting with my player’s fiancées.”

  “Fiancées?” Leo raised a brow.

  “Double fiancée, plural, affianced women—you know what I mean.”

  “Oh, it’s okay,” Angie said. “Mr. Ryan is just getting our engines revved, but we know where our garage is parked.”

  “See, Ms. Alameda, no worries here,” Leo nodded to Tee, not pointing out the obvious: garages couldn’t be parked. “These ladies know a thing or two about men’s cars—and they definitely know where their garage is parked.”

  Tee was surprised the blonde had actually remembered Leo’s last name with all the big thoughts running through her head. She took a calming breath. That was mean. Helping these women find a bra was her job. Her job paid the bills—hers and the reservation’s.

  She refocused.

  “Well, then.” She turned back toward the women. “Let’s get your garage doors all locked up.” They nodded, seemingly oblivious to the sardonic word play between her and Leo. “The stores will open around ten, and there’s a nice lingerie shop on the west side. I’ll get you a map.”

  “Oh noooo,” Trixie said. “I need it now. We all agreed on black and white for the theme today. I’m white and Angie is black. Danny needs us with him for good luck.”

  The blonde nodded, and smacked her gum extra loud as if a low-watt bulb had burst in her brain. “I know, you could just give her your bra.”

  “My bra?” Tee asked.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Tee saw Leo quit swinging his foot. “But if I gave you my bra, I’d have to walk around all day without one. I’d be braless.”

  “Your shirt is loose,” the brunette said. “No one will notice.”

  “What size are you anyway?” the blonde asked.

  “32 C,” Tee said.

  “It might work,” Trixie said. “Give it here.”

  Tee flushed hot from her toes to her head. Leo’s eyes burned on her back and she made up her mind. At least when she was rocking at the nursing home, she’d know she’d tried to get his attention every chance she had.

  Nerves tightened the back of her neck and raced down to her upper arms. She wobbled a fraction on her high heels, but reached into the vee of her white blouse, unsnapped her bra in the front, slid the straps off her shoulders, and handed it to Trixie. It wasn’t the sexiest bra she had, just white cotton without a hint of lace, but it would work under the dress.

  Leo still hadn’t moved.

  “There’s a private bathroom right through that door,” Tee said, pointing behind her desk.

  “Thanks.” The girls took their black-and-white selves into the bathroom and shut the door. Their muffled giggling was the only sound in the room.

  Tee glanced down. Her white shirt clung to her breasts. The rosy nipples were just visible through the sheer material. She turned toward Leo.

  He sat very still and frowned as if just discovering a card cheat, and watched her walk toward him without saying a word. She stopped in the space between his open legs.

  “I’ll go to the thing with you.” The words slipped out of him, heavil
y accented and tight.

  “The thing?” Her heart was pounding, and the air was stuffy and too thin. There was only him, looking at her like he wanted to toss her under him on the couch. She wanted that. He wanted it too. She knew it.

  “You have to wear a bra.”

  “Details, Mr. Ryan. Details.” She touched his hands, but he didn’t release their tight clasp.

  “Tee.” He looked over her shoulder and she felt him pulling away mentally even as he remained inches from her. “This can’t happen between us.”

  His rejection caused an embarrassed flush to heat her face. Her flirtatious hopes doused on a foolish tide. It seemed she was still trying to fit in where she didn’t really belong.

  She dropped her hand and stepped back.

  “Knock-knock,” someone called from her door. Tee twisted to see Mr. M. standing in the opening. “Hey there, Shug-ah Britches,” the Montana cattleman said to her. “You seen my lovely ladies?”

  “Yes,” Tee said automatically.

  Leo stood. “Get a bra on, Shug-ah Britches.” Leo’s tone was hard, patronizing. He brushed past her and walked out the door. Mr. M. moved out of Leo’s way and came uninvited into the office.

  Hurt fisted in Tee’s gut as she watched him leave. Her eyes shone with frustrated moisture, and she let her hair fall forward to hide her expression from Mr. M. She took a minute to compose herself by walking to her desk. She pulled on the black corduroy jacket she kept on hand to fend off the casino’s overzealous air conditioner.

  “They’re just changing in my bathroom,” she told Mr. M.

  Mr. M settled himself into one of the oversize chairs and stretched out brand new blue snakeskin boots on an ottoman. He sighed and tipped back the tip of his black cowboy hat. A sweat line showed across his forehead.

  “Can I get you something to drink while you wait?”

  Mr. M. smiled, his weathered face creasing at the corners of his eyes. “The girls have got me drinking Sex on the Beach these days.”

  “A nice, fruity choice,” Tee said with little enthusiasm.

  She should have known that an all-hat-no-cattle cowboy—with two fiancées and a wife—would drink a girly 1980’s drink. She stepped to her bar and took out a crystal glass, and then measured vodka, peach schnapps, orange juice, and cranberry juice into a shaker and poured the concoction over ice.

  “Do you like cherries?”

  Mr. M whipped his head toward her. “Do you mean like code-language cherries?” he whispered.

  Tee stopped mid-pour and watched Mr. M.’s face redden. “Has Roy been offering you code-language cherries?”

  “I’m not into the cat houses,” Mr. M. said. “I got my own girls.”

  “Right.” Tee smiled reassuringly. Most of the time, the big whales did bring their own cats. “Still, if Roy did offer you some code-cherries, you could report it. Code-cherries are illegal inside Clark County. The Nevada Gaming Commission would have his head.”

  “Roy was always sayin’ funny things. Half the time I didn’t know what he was talkin’ about.”

  Tee sighed. No one ever wanted to turn Roy-the-scumbag in. It was more of the details no one wanted to attend to while on vacation in Vegas. Everyone just wanted to have their fun and leave what actually happened in Vegas, in Vegas.

  “You’re more of a straight shooter. I can see that.” Tee handed him the full drink with two maraschino cherries in it and sat beside his chair. The seating arrangement was strategic, enabling her to be close enough to invite her player’s confidences, but not close enough to encourage impropriety.

  Mr. M. nodded and took a puckering first sip of his drink. “Thank you. I was parched.”

  Tee swept her hair over her shoulder and folded her hands. While her black jacket hid her braless state, it ruined her outfit. She’d wanted to be a little bit disco today, with a stretchy slit-shoulder white top, short skirt, and silver platform shoes. The dangly silver belt at her waist matched her navel-brushing necklace, to which she’d added a big silver dream-catcher. Saturday Night Fever meets a sexy shaman. She’d liked it.

  Now she imagined she just looked mismatched and confused.

  Fitting.

  Tee smiled at Mr. M.’s corner-eyed perusal. “How’re you and the ladies liking the Ruby suite?”

  “You an Indian or something?”

  “Yes. I’m Native American.” Tee liked to meet questions about her ethnicity head on. “My father still lives on the Paiute reservation north of here, and my mother died last year.” She swallowed through the tightness in her throat at the thought of her beloved mother.

  “You’re really tall for an Indian.”

  “They make tall Native Americans, too.” Tee’s tone was correcting and sharp. Mr. M. looked up at her with a frown.

  Tee forced a smile to take the bite out of her words. “How would you and Trixie and Angie like to go see the Crown Jewel’s Cirque du Soleil show tonight?” She paused to let the offer sink in. “Tickets are usually $200 dollars. I can get you in the front row if you like.”

  “Sounds good.” Mr. M. drained the rest of his Sex on the Beach and set the glass on the coffee table. Tee could hear Trixie and Angie in the bathroom. Their muffled giggling seeped down the hallway, and Mr. M. smiled, showing a gold filling on his left incisor.

  They both stood as Trixie and Angie returned. The girls paused with their arms linked and posed coquettishly for Mr. M.

  “Girls, whoo-wee,” Mr. M. said. “You’re a sight.”

  Trixie and Angie turned left, then right.

  “Looks like you’re all set then,” Tee said. “What else can I do to help with your table time?” she asked carefully. She’d learned to be very, very low-key when bringing up players’ gaming habits. Gamblers were a superstitious bunch. You never knew when you might use the wrong word, on a full moon, when the player wasn’t standing on one leg thinking about Elvis.

  One of her whales had to have his lucky leprechaun underwear laundered every morning before he would play, and another had to have brown sugar in his toilet bowl. A bellman had to stand at attention outside his bathroom to reload the stool after every flush.

  “Not a thing, Ms. Tallulah. Not another bloomin’ thing.” Mr. M.’s voice choked up and he put his right hand over his heart. “I’ve got everything…I’ve ever wanted right here with these two beautiful, smart, amazing women.”

  The sincerity of Mr. M.’s feelings hit Tee under her breastbone and tunneled to her aching heart. She would never have that from Leo. At the rate she was going, she might not ever have it from anyone. If she didn’t win the bonus and finally get a place of her own, she would be sleeping on Jane and Mei’s futon for the rest of her life, working around the clock to send every spare dollar back to the reservation.

  She forced a smile and watched the trio leave her office with an actual spring in their steps. “You all have fun. Let me know if you need anything,” she called to their black and white and love-written-all-over it backsides.

  Chapter Three

  Leo stared into a large fireplace in the communal area of the dragon’s quarters on the top of the Crown Jewel. He felt caged up—cornered—trapped inside the luxurious casino. His dragon throbbed for release. Between his shoulder blades itched with pulsing wings that needed to fly.

  He focused on the orange and red fireplace flame, trying to calm his mind. The placid flame mocked him with its polite dance of piped-in natural gas. The blue-to-orange-to-red flare was not hot, nor unpredictable, nor dangerous in any way—it was as impotent as a lion in a cage.

  Or a fire dragon, stuck inside his human skin.

  He had to get out of there.

  Stepping away from the fireplace, Leo scanned the communal area. Dragons, in their human forms, mingled here and there. They used the large area to chat and dine before dispersing to the open rooftop of the casino to fly or return to their living quarters in the tines of the “crown” that sat on top of the casino.

  The living quarters were eve
n grander than the main casino. Gold and semi-precious jewels glittered from the walls, mosaic Italian tile lined the floor, and old world limestone columns provided the wall supports. Leo tried to let the jeweled haven calm him with its pleasant vibration. Usually the feel was akin to the happy humming of classical music. Today, though, the vibe was strident heavy metal, and the call of the jewels rattled through his blood with an angry cacophony of frustration.

  What he needed was a good fistfight, then a smiling showgirl to soothe his wounds and get Tee out of his system. Kane, his fellow dragon lieutenant, caught his eye. He was a storm dragon and, in his human form, a member of Tee’s Native American tribe. Kane’s face was impassive and his black eyes watched him unblinking. Maybe he would oblige.

  “What’re you looking at?” Leo glared at him.

  Kane shook his head in his silent way and crossed the few feet that separated them to stand just outside Leo’s personal space, his wide body leaning back on heavy, flat boot heels.

  Leo met his black-eyed stare. “I’m in the mood for a brawl. How about you?” Fire leaped through his system and he watched an answering aggression surge in Kane before it was controlled and banked.

  “Tee has asked you to go with her to Black Earth,” Kane said.

  Whatever Leo had thought Kane would say, it wasn’t this. “So?”

  “You should go.”

  “What?” The suggestion pissed Leo off even further. “She’s not my mate. I thought you didn’t want me to dishonor her.”

  “There’s trouble with the tribe.”

  Leo listened to the spaces between Kane’s cryptic words. “What kind of trouble?”

  “Trouble for the Chief.” Kane lowered his voice and perused the room, as if one of the human-formed dragons might deign to care about the drama in one feeble human life. “Trouble for Tee.”

  Leo scanned the room as well, his dragon senses on high alert. A hodgepodge of human ethnicities mingled in the cavernous room: faces from the Far East, darker-skinned ones from the southern climates, and pale ones of the people of the arctic north.

  The human-formed dragons in the room were striking to look at, all fine-featured and fit. Except those males whose dragon forms were waning. Leo easily picked out these dragons by their shaky pallor and desperately shifting eyes. They needed a mate. Soon, or they would lose their dragon form and die.