Baby Blues - A Vegas Baby Novella

We both knew my job wasn’t at risk. I was too damn good at it, and he’d never trust anyone else with the safety of the empire he’d built—let alone his family—as much as he did me. “I’ll be sure to tell Autumn you threatened to fire me if I bugged you two when I spin her a sob story about having nobody to sit with since those bastards stole my sisters away from me.”

“If you do that, I’ll be sure to tell your sisters that you called their husbands bastards,” Drew tossed back, folding his arms over his chest and raising an eyebrow in challenge.

I shrugged and grinned at him. “It’s not like they don’t know I’ve said worse about the men who ‘swept them off their feet.’”

My sisters couldn’t be too pissed at me for it since they’d tossed around some threats of their own to their future brothers-in-law. We were a close-knit crew and very protective of each other, but Griffin, Maddox, and Will had proven they could be trusted with my sisters’ hearts. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t still keeping a close eye on them. I always would.

When I walked into Smoke and Rhythm five hours later and spotted Addilyn Cole on stage, my plan to fuck with Drew some more flew out the window. My entire focus centered on the woman with long, curly black hair and almond-shaped brown eyes. She was a tiny thing who’d barely come up to my shoulder when I pulled her close—which was going to happen, and soon—but the red dress she was wearing showed off her curvy body. It also bared too much of her sun-kissed skin, and I fought the urge to rip off my jacket and toss it over her shoulders so no other men could see what belonged to me.

The surge of possessiveness roaring through my blood was a shock. I’d never felt anything like it. Hell, I’d given my buddies, Drew and Becket, as well as my sisters’ husbands a hard time about falling for their women so quickly, and now here I was, ready to take on anyone who even thought about standing between me and a woman I knew nothing about.

Stalking across the lounge, I snagged a booth to the right of the stage. It was in the shadows, allowing me to keep an eye on Addilyn without freaking her out during her first performance for the Lennox. I was aware of everyone around me, but my attention never wavered from her as I sipped at the whiskey the waitress brought me. I hadn’t ordered it, but the staff was well aware of my preferences.

I spent a lot of time at the Lennox and was a regular at the bars and restaurants in the hotel. My position as the head of security came with a lot of power, so Drew’s employees didn’t want to get on my wrong side. They spent almost as much time trying to impress me as they did him. It was something that I hadn’t cared about in the past but would come in handy now that I’d be at Smoke and Rhythm whenever Addilyn was here. The staff would soon learn that helping her meant helping me, and they’d bend over backward to make sure she had anything she needed.

With the sound of her low, soulful voice surrounding me, the anger and frustration over her missing background check drained away. If any red flags popped up, I’d take care of them personally. I couldn’t be pissed at Drew any longer, not when his quick thinking had ensured that the woman who was meant to be mine hadn’t left Las Vegas before I’d had the chance to meet her.

Chapter 2

Addilyn

They say D minor is the saddest key, but when you were a rhythm and blues singer like me, it held a wealth of beauty. The melancholy sound and haunting minor chord progressions help the listener to feel the true soul in the music.

However, it was my opening night at the Lennox Hotel and Casino. My new home until I decided otherwise. I was so excited that I almost went with a jazz set, but the name of the lounge was Smoke and Rhythm, and I wanted to prove that the singer fit the name. So, I compromised with myself and chose to open with a classic.

I held the old-fashioned microphone close to my red-painted lips and crooned the words to BB King’s “The Thrill is Gone.” The spotlight shined on me and the small band behind me on the stage. It wasn’t blinding, but I let it blur my vision of the audience so I could lose myself in the song. When the guitar solo started, my hips began to move with a mind of their own, and after a minute, my whole body was swaying and twisting with the sultry tune.