7
I pinch my nose and take a deep breath as I drop beneath the water. The bathtub in this suite is a huge corner tub, and it’s currently so full with bubbles I can barely see the wall behind it.
Water. It’s my soother. My cleanser. Swimming, a bath, a shower—it doesn’t matter. Swimming is for frustration, a shower for a quick fix, and a bath when things are so f*cked up.
The water ripples when I come back up for air. I lean my head back against the tiles and let out a long sigh.
I miss Seattle. I miss the certainty and structure of my days. The regular clients, the nights with Liv, the frequent calls and texts from Monique. In reality I’m only a few miles away, but it feels like a whole world. It’s been six days yet, it feels like a lifetime. I miss my lingerie room, my bedroom-come-closet, my client extension. I miss brusque texts and excited phone calls, and hell, I even miss Liv’s whining after work because the hot guy she works with still hasn’t noticed her, no matter how low she unbuttons her shirt.
I glance at the clock I brought in and sigh again. Business nights for Aaron mean business nights for me, and although we’re only going for a casual dinner and a couple of hours in the casino, I have to remember that I’m working. That’s it. Working.
The cold air of the bathroom hits my skin the second I ease myself from the bath. I shiver and wrap the towel around me, savoring the fluffiness of it. What is it about hotel towels? God.
Empty. That’s the only way to describe the suite. Silent. Lifeless. Empty.
I grab my cell from the side and text Aaron’s number. What do I wear?
The response is immediate. Something Vegas. But classy and sexy. Something that is so very you.
Another message comes before I’ve had time to finish unzipping my suitcase.
Something that makes every guy in the casino want to f*ck you.
Now that I can do.
I whip a bright pink, white-spotted lingerie set out, remembering how he liked the set I wore yesterday. F*ck. Why does that even matter?
The dusky pink lace dress I pull out after makes all those thoughts disappear, and I slide it over my wet hair until it hugs my body to perfection. Bobby pins slide into my hair perfectly, holding it to one side the way I know Aaron likes.
The dress. Classy, he said. The hair. Sexy, he said.
White-heeled pumps fit my feet perfectly, and I grab a matching white purse. I slip my credit card, cell, and lipstick inside it.
You, he said. White depicts innocence, but it’s also deceptive. That’s me all over. Deceptive.
Where do I meet you? I brush some mascara across my lashes, making them curl at the ends, the perfect accent to my smoky eyes.
“Right here.” Aaron appears in the doorway, perfect and poised. His suit is crisp and tailored, and it hugs every part of his body from his shoulders to his ankles. His pants hug his f*cking ankles, for the love of God.
I sweep my eyes across his face, his jaw that’s holding a hint of a perfectly trimmed five-o’clock shadow, and over his hair that’s swept to the side.
“That didn’t take you long.”
“I knew you were waiting.” His fingers brush mine as he hands me my purse.
I curl my fingers around the satin. “I’m ready now.”
The elevator suffocates me as he moves closer through our journey down. The air gets gradually heavier, more pressing, until I’m so focused on breathing, on the rhythmic in-and-out and the rise and fall of my chest. So much so I can barely feel Aaron’s hand curving around my waist and pulling me into his side.
“You have to kiss me tonight,” he says into my ear in a low voice.
“I know.” I tilt my body into him, a rare streak of vulnerability going through me. I take a deep breath. “Tell me what you want me to be.”
The door opens and he pulls me to the side. The bright lights and loud shouts of the casino melt into nothing at the hot sensation of his hand sliding from my side across my stomach. They fade into silence at the buzzing across my skin, at the absolute hum through my veins.
His fingers caress my cheek gently as they glide up it and around the back of my head. “Be you. The sexy, carefree, gorgeous you.”
I take a deep breath in. “Mia or Dayton?”
My skin tingles at the way his other hand trails down my side. “Be you, Bambi. Be Dayton. I don’t care a single bit for your alter ego. Be the gorgeous, amazing, and enticing woman I know is in there hiding.”
I don’t know if I remember how to be myself, even as the blaring noise of the casino surrounds us and envelopes us. The last time I was truly myself was the day I walked away from him, so what he’s asking is absolutely a challenge.
“Be the person you fight against every day.” His lips brush across my jaw. “For me.”
“That’s a dangerous thing you’re asking. For both of us.”
“What’s dangerous is this dress.” Appreciation fills his tone. I try to ignore the spark of pleasure that sneaks through me.
“I mean it.” I bring my eyes to his. “You’re playing with fire, Aaron. People who do that get burned.”
“I don’t play with fire, Dayton. I stoke it and make it burn hotter and faster until it consumes everything in its path. I’ll never take a spark where I can have a roaring flame.” Heat flares across my lips as his mouth hovers above mine. “Playing would imply I’m not being serious. I’m always serious when I want something. And right now, I want you. I want you, and I want you to go out there and act like you f*cking want me.”
“Are you asking me or telling me to do that?”
“I’m telling you you’re going to go out there and act like you want me until you actually do. Until you want nothing but me and my body. Over you, under you, inside you… Go out there with me and don’t leave until there isn’t a part of your body that isn’t crying out for mine.”
He draws back and pulls me with him. His steps are stronger than mine, more assured, more determined. Try as I might, I can’t match them. My head is spinning too much. Not because of the request, but because I already want him. Because it’s impossible not to want him when he turns heated, darkened blue eyes on me. Because it’s impossible not to in the face of pure, unadulterated lust.
Even now with his hand at my side, I can feel sparks emanating from his fingertips and spreading through my stomach. They all head downward. God, they head downward until I’m afraid a mere glance from him will have me aching in desperation.
We approach the casino bar and Aaron steers us toward two other couples. Two sharply suited men and two beautifully done-up women. They reek of class and money. Of everything I pretend to be each and every day. Of what I’m pretending to be now.
Aaron introduces us, and the whole time pleasantries are being exchanged, his eyes flit to me. I avoid his gaze, instead flicking my eyes over his shoulder, to his forehead, at his lips. I ignore the tightening of his grip at my waist and sink into him a little farther, a faked yet convincing smile on my face. I pretend and pretend and pretend until my cheeks hurt and my stomach aches from laughing.
When Antony Barnes says that they’re leaving, I almost breathe a sigh of relief. Until Aaron lays a hand on my cheek and turns my face into his. Until his takes my lips with his, soft and gentle and full of too much realness for it all to be a show.
And I realize the ‘leaving’ refers to the guys. Now I have to sit here at a table near the restaurant bar with two women whose names I barely remember.
“So, Dayton.” The blonde turns a genuine smile on me. “What do you do?”
“Me? Oh.” I wrap my fingers around the stem of my wine glass. F*ckf*ckf*ck. “I’m all dot com. Design—websites, graphics, book covers, and the like.”
“Oooh, really?” The darker blonde—is it Abigail?—asks. “Anything we’d know?”
“Oh, no. Nothing big. Mostly for self-published authors. There’s a big market there right now.”
“Oh, that’s lovely. I don’t have much time to read these days.”
Thank you, Mom, for always making me believe in books. “That’s a shame.”
“Yes. I wish I did, but Antony is forever off on business and dragging me to functions like this.”
The light blonde rolls her eyes. “Yes, it’s a hard life.”
“Just because you enjoy traveling, Brea, doesn’t mean we all do.” She stands. “Excuse me for a moment.”
“Of course.” I give my politest smile and lift my glass.
How long do I have to do this shit? How many times do I have to do this? Small talk and pretending to give a crap about rich bitches wasn’t mentioned when I agreed to this.
I seriously need to get Monique to draw up contracts for jobs like this.
“Ugh.” Brea tops up her wine and holds the bottle over my glass. I nod in reply, and we sit in silence while she fills it. The empty bottle hits the table with a dull clunk, and a sigh leaves her dark red lips.
“I love this, you know? This lifestyle. The traveling, the dinners, the parties, the nights out… It’s not something I ever expected I’d have. I’ve been with Patrick since we were seventeen and I helped him build his business—from selling soap samples out of the trunk of my car. Some of us”—she nods in the direction Abigail left—“were born into a life of privilege.”
Oh, sweet Jesus. Is this my welcome into the Rich Bitch Wives Club? I want my invitation revoked.
“I know how hard our husbands work to give us this.”
Or they just buy you because they’re presumptuous bastards.
“And it riles me that she takes it for granted, you know? Not to mention she doesn’t work. At all.”
“Do you?” Crap. That came out bitchier than intended.
Brea laughs. “You sound surprised. I do, yes. I work in Rick’s company. We own it jointly. We started it together.”
Well, shit me. “That’s great!”
“It sure is. I do all the designing and fragrance testing, and I leave all the business stuff to him. I could never do what he does.”
“I don’t think I could do what Aaron does either. The amount of offices he’ll take charge of in a few weeks is, quite honestly, scary.”
“Absolutely.” She nods. “Have you been together long?”
I nearly choke on my wine but swallow it instead. Somehow. Why am I not prepared for this?
That’s right. I’m Dayton, not Mia. Stupid damn client orders.
“Um, not really. We knew each other a long time ago.” My lips curl into a small smile.
“A second-chance romance? Oh, how romantic!”
“Something like that.”
A second-chance romance with a tidy six-figure sum behind it. Sweep me off my feet, baby.
“Are you in Vegas for much longer?”
“Only tonight. We’re flying to Sydney tomorrow afternoon.”
“What a coincidence! We have some new samples, so we’re taking a working vacation over there, starting Saturday. It would be great to catch up—you know, get away from the men for a few hours.”
Congratulations, Dayton Black. You’re the newest member of the Rich Bitch Wives Club.
Abigail never came back—not that it bothered Brea any. She filled the very awkward conversation with her life story.
She’s twenty-four, Patrick is twenty-six, and her severe allergies lead to the start-up of their business. When he unknowingly bought her a soap basket that sent to her the hospital, he set about trying to find a soap without the ingredient she’s allergic to. Failing that, he made one.
I think I just heard the greatest love story of the twenty-first century. I also think I need to vomit.
“You look tense.” Aaron steps behind me and rests his hands on my shoulders, his thumbs digging in at the bottom of my neck.
I bend into his touch, unable to help the sigh that escapes me. “So would you if you’d had the night I have.”
“Same again.” He nods at the bartender and sits me on a stool. “Let me guess. You got the soap allergy story too?”
I turn. A small smile plays on my lips. “For real? He told you too?”
“Oh yes. He wants us to do his marketing.”
“No wonder his wife was so far up my ass she could see my brain,” I mutter.
Aaron laughs, a rich sound that curls my toes. “Dayton,” he admonishes. There’s nothing to it. He’s merely masking his amusement. “Behave.”
“Not often I get told that. In fact, it’s almost always the opposite.”
His thumbs stop moving, and my hair flutters away from my ear when he leans forward. “How much wine have you had?”
I prop my chin on my hand and reach for my glass with the other. “If there were such a thing as too much wine, I’d go with that.”
“I’d say, in this case, there might be.”
“Pfft. Wine is the greatest invention. Next to the vibrator, of course. They’re equally fabulous.”
“And you’d know this…?”
“Because I own several. All right with that, Mr. Stone?”
I hear his breath catch before I feel his fingers grip my waist.
“Say that again,” he demands, his voice low against my ear.
“Say what? About the vibrators?”
“After that.”
“Mr. Stone?”
“Yes. That.”
His growing erection presses against my back, and I smile sexily.
“Aha. Some things do change, don’t they?” I clasp my hands in my lap just in time. The feel of him pressing against me makes me want to reach my hand back and cup him, wrap my fingers over his hard length, but that would be awkward in the middle of a crowded Vegas casino.
Oh, f*ck awkward.
My hand comes between us and I trail my fingers down his erection. His grip on me tightens, and I can feel his restraint. Feel him fighting the urge to jerk his hips and push his cock right into my hand.
“It didn’t change until roughly five seconds ago,” he responds in a gruff voice. “The only places I get called Mr. Stone are in the office or a boardroom. How the hell do you make it sound so f*cking sexy?”
I spin on the seat and curl my fingers around his silky red tie. I tug him down to me until our breaths mingle in the space between our mouths.
“I’m a master of manipulation, Mr. Stone. I could take the most menial object or phrase and turn into the object of your greatest desire if that’s what I wanted.”
He sinks his fingers into my hair. “And you wanted my name to sound sexy.”
“If I’d wanted to do that, you’d be dragging me out here while fighting the urge to pull my dress up and expose my very expensive, very pink thong that doesn’t cover a lot at all. If I’d wanted to do that, we’d be back in that suite right now with you begging me to allow you inside me.” My smile grows. “No, I didn’t want your name to sound sexy. I wanted it to sound enticing.”
“Color me enticed,” he murmurs. “More about your thong than the way you said my name.”
“It’s bright pink and has white spots.”
He pauses then pulls back, his eyes a swirling mass of amusement and heat. “You are the only woman I know who would talk about her underwear so publicly. Not to mention sex.”
I finish the last of my wine and stand, smoothing my dress over my thighs. “Why wouldn’t I? Underwear isn’t anything to be ashamed of, and sex most definitely isn’t. I’m not exactly the type to sit in the corner and blush at the mention of the word ‘p-ssy’ or ‘cock.’”
The elevator doors close and cold glass hits me as I’m spun into the wall.
“There aren’t many women who can say those words and not make them sound crude.”
“They’re crude words. They’re not supposed to sound sexy. At least alone. Accompanied by someone who can talk as well as he can f*ck? They’re the sexiest words in the English language.”
His heavy exhale covers my mouth. “What are you doing to me, Dayton?”
I move my hips forward and smirk. “Do you need me to answer that?”
He takes my bottom lip between his teeth and tugs lightly, sending a lightning spark right down to my *. I don’t need or want him to answer it.
I don’t want words. I want skin-on-skin contact. Mouths against mouths. Tongues tracing necks and trailing across stomachs. Hands grasping and toes curling and lips parting and breath catching.
I want every single f*cking thing I know I’ll regret tomorrow.
The air in our suite is heavy as we enter it. I can feel Aaron’s eyes tracing my body as I drop my purse on the sofa and move to the windows. Vegas shines up at me the very same way his want shines over my body. It illuminates the room the same way he illuminates me.
Aaron and Las Vegas have a lot in common. Vegas is Sin City for a reason, and Aaron is the walking embodiment of that. They’re both tempting yet obvious, filled with sexual domination that’s attracting and compelling. They make you need them, even if you know they’re the very worst thing for you.
Temptation and sin have no bounds.
Vegas has no bounds.
Neither does Aaron.
And the two combined makes me want to destroy my own.
“You’re drunk,” he whispers in a low tone from just behind me. “You should go to bed.”
“I’m not seventeen anymore. I can handle my wine, thank you.”
“It’s not that I’m worried about. It’s about having you standing in front of me after acting like the woman I know.”
I turn and press my back against the glass. “You’re too caught up in the past.”
He runs his thumb down my jaw to my bottom lip. “In the past? No. It’s not the past I’m caught up in.”
My eyes fall to our shoes. “It’s barely been a week. You can’t possibly be caught up in anything else other than the need to be inside me.”
“You have no idea.” He steps closer, pressing his body against mine. Hot. Hard. “Right after I spoke to you at the Tower, you nearly tripped but caught yourself at the last moment. I knocked your coffee all over you, and I’ve never seen anyone more shocked in their life. Like you expected no one to be there although I’d spoken to you. Your eyes met mine.” He tilts my face up, and I open my eyes to his. “And I knew. I knew then, seven years ago, that no one would compare to the girl standing right in front of me. The second our eyes collided, I knew you were something so much more than I’d ever imagined, and I had to have you. Even if it was just for a moment, I had to make you mine.
“If I knew then, standing in front of you for the first time, that I was captured, caught, royally f*cked, then don’t tell me now that I’m not. Don’t stand there with a guard around your heart and your memories and tell me that I’m not still caught up in the person who stole my heart and ran f*cking marathons with it.”
“F*ck you and your memories.”
“And f*ck you and your defiance, Dayton. Just for five goddamn minutes, surrender control. Let me in.”
I draw in a deep breath. No, no. My job is the epitome of control. Every detail of my life—controlled. My orgasms—controlled Every. F*cking. Thing.
“No.” I push back into the glass harder.
Aaron’s hand slides to my side and undoes my zipper. He tugs the dress down roughly until it’s pooled at my feet and my bare skin is against the cold glass.
“You can surrender by choice or I can make you,” he whispers in my ear. “Either way, you’re coming tonight.”
“People could see me. Probably can,” I breathe unnecessarily. We’re so f*cking high up that the only thing that would have a chance at seeing me is the International Space Station.
“Yet the only person who will see your face as you come is me.” Aaron kisses down my jaw, and I tilt my head back. F*cking wine. F*cking job. F*cking—
His lips take mine in a deliciously rough way. I grab his collar and hold him against me, kissing him with the same fervor he’s kissing me with. F*ck. I’m kissing him so desperately that I’m practically begging for him to make me come right now.
His fingers trail down my body, curving over my breasts and sliding down my stomach to the top of my underwear. He runs his finger beneath the material and around to my ass. He cups it tightly, pulling me forward so I can feel how turned on he is. So I can feel the hard length of him against me.
My * throbs and my p-ssy aches at the feel of him against me, and his fingers trailing around the top of my thigh sure as shit aren’t helping.
Sense says that I need to push him off of me and lock myself in the bedroom, but my body has taken over. It’s telling me that I need him and the release he can give me.
“F*cking hell. Dayton.” My name is a harsh hiss when his fingers creep beneath the material of my panties. I gasp at the touch of him against me and push my hips into him. Gently, slowly, he pushes two fingers inside me and small cry leaves me.
I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be touched by someone who cares about more than their own pleasure. What it’s like to have lips against your neck, a hand flat against your back, fingers stroking and slipping into your aching p-ssy. What it’s like to have someone touch you for you.
Aaron pushes his lips against mine as he curls his fingers inside me. His thumb flicks across my * with each movement of his wrist, sending pleasure ricocheting through me.
“You’re so wet,” he murmurs against my lips. “And it’s for me. Isn’t it?”
I gasp and claw at his back as a wave flows through me.
“Dayton.” He nips my neck. “Answer the question?”
“The…what? Oh god.”
He pushes his thumb down hard on my *. “This. How wet you are. It’s all for me, isn’t it?”
I want to grit my teeth even as I moan loudly. “Yes.”
“Say it.”
“Can’t.” Oh f*ck. Wave after wave floods my body, pushing me to the edge, and he stops. Takes his hand. F*cking bastard. I’m teetering on the edge of a runaway oblivion.
“Say it.” He rubs my * to make his point.
I thread my fingers into his hair. “Yes. It’s for you. I’m wet for you, Mr. Stone.”
“F*ck.” He plunges his fingers back into me and I ride his hand until I’m over the edge, blinded by heat and pleasure. Thrashing against him and crying out into his shoulder. Holding him to me and squeezing his fingers inside me with everything I have.
And he never lets go. He stands there, his fingers curved inside, his thumb pressing my *, and waits until I calm.
I open my eyes to his. He takes his come-covered fingers and slides his hand over my hip to my ass.
“I forgot how devastatingly beautiful you look when you’re coming apart in my arms.”
I hold his gaze, mine never wavering, never flitting away, never doing anything but returning the intensity coming from the brilliant blue of his eyes. “That was your reminder.”
“Oh no, Dayton. That wasn’t a reminder. That was only the beginning.”