My lips thinned at her before I turned back to my drink, lifting it beneath my nose to catch that aroma high as it burned my sinuses. Just as the glass rubbed my bottom lip, Scarlett dipped herself in front of me.
And right there, in the look she gave me from up close, I saw exactly how she got away with as much shit as she did.
When she wanted to, Scarlett Avery could make herself appear deviously innocent. She widened her eyes so they looked like a doe’s, parted her lips so they left just a slit of space to breathe through. Then she lifted one of her eyebrows just barely, as if it alone could do the begging for her.
“So, can I?” she asked, angling her face down and slowing the bat of her eyelashes to something demure.
If I’d been any other man, I might have buckled for her.
“That’d be a no.”
In a split second, she dropped the act to the floor and stomped all over it as she threw her hands widely. “But we’re in Las Vegas! People come here to drink and play games.”
Casting her a glance over my shoulder, I asked, “You want to play a game?”
She eyed me suspiciously. “What do you have in mind?”
“Just put the two things you want to do together.”
“A drinking game? What are we, fifteen?”
A teasing sip of the Jack Daniels washed my tongue before her comment stalled my focus, and I moved my drink away again.
“You started drinking at fifteen?”
She scoffed. “Spare me your judgment.”
Assume all she wanted, I wasn’t judging. I was just struggling trying to picture Special Agent Avery managing a daughter who rebelled against the system he was so tight up about abiding. He was wound about as tight as a damn cuckoo clock. Even paperwork being filed wrong sent his cuckoo anthem singing.
That man's blood pressure was probably through the roof trying to keep track of this hellraiser.
The conversation dwindled into silence, and I sank down onto the bed I’d been given by default. I loved silence, and I loved the cheap therapy of alcohol.
I never usually needed to drink during the day. Only when nighttime crept in. Over the last three years, I’d mastered the fine art of finding that line between obliterated-piss-your-pants drunk and not enough to keep that damned reoccurring nightmare locked away.
Eventually, the redhead across the room ruined the perfect silence. “What kind of drinking game did you have in mind?”
I sighed, running a hand back through my hair. Fuck, I need a shower. “You can make anything into a drinking game. Washing the dishes could be a drinking game.”
“Okay,” she dragged out, coming around to my bed. “So then what do you suggest, Idea man?”
Shrugging, I tipped back another cool sip. “What are some of the games you play with your friends?”
“I don’t have any friends.”
“Oh that’s right.” I let out a not-so-friendly chuckle. “Forgot you were a badass.”
Her eyes on mine narrowed, and I knew I’d hit a nerve. Just didn’t fucking care.
“I have a game idea.” Scarlett made her announcement, purpose in her pointed words. “Every time you’re an ass to me, you have to take a shot.”
The glow of her fire was back, outlining her curves and warning me to back off. The curl of her lip and the clench in her fists told me I was provoking the spitfire I’d seen back at that gas station. Gone was the mute and vacant girl who I’d brought up here. In her place was a woman whose flames were as bright as her fire-red hair, the heat of her anger crystalizing the green of her eyes to glinting emeralds.
Scarlett Avery was an entirely different woman when she was pissed off and enticed the worst parts of me as a man—the depraved and lonely parts I kept hidden for a reason.
I wanted that easy night in, just to drown my liver in whiskey and pass out. I swear I did, but her wildfire was already burning a pathway to me, spurring on my own bad choices and bad behavior. In my head—not even the back of my head, but a front and center thought—I fucking knew I shouldn’t engage her.
But before I could stop myself, the flippantly decided words were out of my mouth as I set myself dead center in the path of trouble.
“All right. And how about every time you’re a sarcastic brat, you drink.”
She pulled her ruby red lips over her teeth. “Deal.”
Lifting my glass in the air, I winked at her just to watch her orange glow of fury turn red.
“Bottoms up.”