Hit: A Thriller (The Codename: Chandler) by J.A. Konrath, Jack Kilborn, Ann Voss Peterson Read Free Book Online Page B

bodyguard. And while he cried in his tequila, I could work on Bratton.
    Sorry, Heath. Destiny is a real jerk sometimes.
    I did a false shuffle, known as a riffle, riffle, strip. It looked like I was mixing the cards, but they were exactly where I wanted them to be.
    I purposely dealt Heath a nineteen.
    I had a face card up. My down card was ten. Five grand to the very horny Chiquita. I went to turn my card up, and Heath placed his hand on mine.
    “What?” I asked.
    “I will take a card.”
    “You’re hitting on nineteen? No one hits on nineteen.”
    “I have no choice. For some reason I suspect you have a twenty.” He trailed his fingers down to mine, then laced them. His thumb found my palm, and began the same movement it had performed between my legs. And I’d be damned if it didn’t feel like he was touching me there all over again.
    “So all I can do,” he breathed, “is pray that lady luck gives me a two and a night with you that I promise neither of us will ever forget.”
    “You’re crazy.”
    He continued to stroke my hand, and I knew if he kept it up I’d come.
    “Crazy to want to make you weep with passion? To see your face when it is so devastated by pleasure it is even more beautiful than it is now? To explore every inch of your body until you plead for me to stop because you can’t take any more? Have you ever begged a man to stop, bonita ? Begged him because you thought you had no more to give, because you were so sensitive the ecstasy was almost pain, only to have him coax more from you until you were sure you would explode?”
    “No,” I said, barely a whisper, feeling my need throb as he released my hand.
    Then I dealt from the bottom of the deck and gave Heath a two, cursing myself as I did it.
    Chandler
“Sex is a weapon,” The Instructor said. “As such, it requires practice, training, and knowledge of when to use it. You never point a gun at anyone you don’t intend to shoot.”
    We agreed to make good on the debt sometime after Bratton’s business in Las Vegas was over. Then Heath turned down the charm a notch, the cards were put away, and my libido returned to status quo. Our conversation meandered to travel. He’d been to almost as many countries as I had. Apparently, before becoming Bratton’s bodyguard, he’d done some mercenary work. Odd, because though he seemed capable, he didn’t have the gung-ho mentality I normally associated with mercs. If anything, he seemed more like a spy than a grunt.
    I admitted to visiting France and Spain, two places a high class Chicago call girl might go on vacation, and that lead to a lengthier discussion of bullfighting, which Heath apparently was passionate about, even to the point of participating as an aficionado práctico , or amateur bullfighter, and running in Pamplona.
    Bratton woke, and I administered to him, sneaking another dose of the ipecac into a glass of cola this time and sending him back to retching in the tiny bathroom. If Bratton recovered, I’d likely be spending long hours at the casino, maybe only stopping for a quickie, not a lot of time to arrange for his death. If he was sick, he would have to stay in his hotel room, isolated and helpless.
    Just where I wanted him.
    We landed at McCarran International, and a car was waiting to whisk us to our hotel. I hadn’t been in Vegas for a while, and judging from the view out the limo window, it was bigger and brighter and more boisterous than ever. Neon glared in the night, highlighting everything from the pyramid at the Luxor—its beam of light shooting into the sky—to the spires of mythical Camelot that made up the hotel Excalibur, to the skyline of New York, New York, complete with circling rollercoaster. The Bellagio’s famous fountain danced across the street from the Paris Hotel’s Eiffel Tower. Finally passing Caesar’s Palace’s columns and the volcano at the Mirage, we reached the Venetian.
    The resort itself was built to be a miniature Venice, yet too