He put his free hand on the top of his hat and moved it back and forth, making the curls in the back move too. “I don’t know what I’m saying. That last Bud went right to my brain and addled it a little, I’m afraid.”
“Addled. Good word. Are you coming up with me while I change my shoes?” I had zero fear of Mack being the wrong kind of guy to invite up to my room. He totally didn’t come off as rapist material. Me, on the other hand, I wasn’t so sure about. He was nearly irresistible, and if he got the ball rolling, I sure wasn’t going to stop it from going straight downhill a thousand miles an hour. No matter what though, I didn’t want to leave Vegas with any regrets. If he wanted to get all hot and sweaty together, then we were going to do that, no question. Screw second thoughts, screw ex-boyfriends who break up by text message, and screw complications. All I wanted was one night of reckless abandon so I could get all this craziness out of my system and go home with a clean slate, ready to kick ass, take names, and get on with my life.
“Do you want me to come up?” he asked.
Screw playing hard to get. “Yeah. Come on.” I took him by the hand and half-dragged him over to a bank of elevators. “I think my friends are up there. I don’t have a key so they’d better be.” I pushed the up button, trembling a little over what I was doing, namely bringing an almost complete stranger up to my room an hour after meeting him so I could rip his clothes off and be a wild and crazy slut. I was so ready to be a prostitute right now. Twelve hundred bucks was definitely going to buy him a blow job. All I could think about was what he might look like under all those cowboy clothes and whether that bulge I’d seen going down his leg would measure up to my imagination.
“Your friends don’t like to gamble?”
“Yeah, but one of them got too drunk so the other one was taking care of her.”
“They left you alone in that dress?”
I tried really hard not to smile. “Kind of. Not really.” One of the eight elevators dinged and opened. As I stepped in, I said, “I would have helped too, but I saw this totally hot guy in a cowboy hat and I got a little distracted.” I cringed at the way my words were slurring together. I was trying so hard for cool, but was afraid I was getting closer to fool. Pressing the button for the right floor, I did my best to act like I hadn’t just totally revealed my hand.
“Is that so?” he asked. “Do I need to go speak to him?”
I turned around, a sneaky smile on my face. I tilted my head, letting my hair hang down over my shoulder. “Maybe. What would you say to him?”
He moved closer. “I’d tell him he missed out. That I got there first and to step aside.”
“Are you sure about that?” I asked trying not to pant like a bitch in heat. He was so close I could feel the sexy coming off his chest. My knees were turning to jelly over how tall and broad-shouldered he was. And that stupid cowboy hat … I should have hated it. It should have taken all the sexy away and turned him into a hayseed country bumpkin. But it didn’t. It made him a wild thing. A dangerous stranger, untamed. Completely unconcerned with what anyone else thought, and comfortable in his own skin. If I hadn’t been so drunk I would have been too intimidated to even talk to him. Instead, I was stepping forward to meet him halfway, my eyes drinking him in and not at all ashamed to be doing it.
His voice dropped to a near-growl. “The question is not whether I’m sure, but whether you are. Because I know exactly what I want, and I’m not the kind of guy who’s afraid to go after it once I see it.”
He dropped the shoes and the chips in a messy pile and was up against me wrapping his arms around my waist when the elevator dinged. We’d reached my floor. A second later the doors slid open.
His head came down slowly and the brim of his hat blocked out the light coming from above. We were in a cocoon of sexual energy, and I didn’t want to stop long enough to get off the elevator. I put my hands on his chest, moving them up over his soft cotton shirt to his shoulders, reveling in the strong, lean muscles I felt there. Wrapping my hands around his neck, I buried my fingers in the curls at the back of his head when he bent down to meet my lips with his.
Our mouths connected and the passion that had been building flared up strong and hot. Nothing about our earlier flirtations and not-quite-accidental touches had prepared me for this. His lips were full and soft, but demanding in the way they pressed against mine and moved quickly to angle for more. I didn’t wait for an invitation, opening my mouth and letting my tongue lick his lips, daring him to come out and play. He took my dare with a moan, his bold tongue charging out to tangle with mine. I’d never in my life been kissed like this.
The doors slid shut. Mack reached over and pushed the button for my floor again, but we were already going down.