Sinful Desire

Was John talking about him? Giving Sophie details of the case? The possibility was so damn enticing. He was dying to know. But guilt knocked louder inside him, telling him to stop hurtling down this path of deception with Sophie. She hadn’t a clue that he was likely one of those witnesses her brother didn’t trust.

He needed to focus just on the woman, and forget this tenuous link between brother and sister, woman and cop. Besides, he had friends in the District Attorney’s office. His hockey buddy Marshall from high school was now an assistant D.A., and now that Marshall was back in town from his vacation, Ryan didn’t need to sniff around this gorgeous woman and take advantage of her open heart.

He stared off in the distance, the city turning blurry as his eyes went out of focus, and he shoved off the questions about Stefano, and people his mother associated with, and anyone else who might have been involved in the murder. He blinked, refocusing to the here and now. To the best second date he’d had in ages. To the only one in a long time that made him want to have a third date.

“Do you like it up here?” he asked.

“The view is amazing,” she said, as she gazed at the endless sea of neon and night.

“I fucking love Vegas,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her waist, and rested his chin on her shoulder, drinking in the aerial show.

“You do?”

He nodded. “Yeah. This city will chew you up and spit you out or it will embrace you and lift you up. Vegas always gives you the choice—to crawl in the gutter or soar in the sky.”

“I choose soaring in the sky,” she said softly.

“Me, too.”

They soared, high above the city they both called home, hovering in the summer night sky as stars winked on and skyscrapers raced to the heavens. He loved this city. He loved his home, with all its troubles, and problems, and crimes. Maybe he wasn’t that different from Sophie’s brother. He wanted Vegas to be all that it could be.

He did his best to make that happen, too.

She craned her neck to look up at him. “Would it be too bold to say I wanted you to kiss me again right now?”

“Kissing you is becoming a favorite habit of mine.”

And so he kissed her. A lingering, luxurious kiss as the capsule swooped down toward the ground. But soon the kiss climbed the heat scale, and by the time the observation wheel had completed its rotation, lust had camped out in his body, and desire was ruling the rest of the night.

Good thing he’d booked a limo simply to drive around town. He needed to get her in it, stat, and get her naked. Then, he’d regain some of the control he’d felt slipping away during all that talking.





Chapter Ten


The gleaming white limo waited in the portico. The driver wore a black cap. A soft blue light glowed along the wood paneling of the bar where the champagne chilled.

That was all Sophie saw in the three seconds after he shut the limo door before he pounced on her.

There was no other way to describe it.

She was pinned on her back on the leather seat. His palms were planted firmly by her sides, and he stared at her hungrily as sexy techno music played from a speaker near the bar.

“Are you still mad at me about the jeans?” she asked, her breathing coming quickly. The car began to hum as it pulled away from the hotel, vibrating gently as it rolled along the Strip in Sunday night traffic.

“Do I look mad?”

“A little.”

“Does it turn you on if I’m angry with you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not mad. Because you have this,” he said, lowering his hand between her legs and fingering the hem of her pink skirt. “If you hadn’t brought it I wouldn’t do what I’m about to do. I’d send you home hot and bothered. Instead, I’m going to reward you.”

“How will you reward me?” she asked, as anticipation flared through her nervous system. This moment was the cusp—the tantalizing precipice before they ignited. The way he gazed at her like a predator sent her temperature rising. She wanted him so much. She wanted whatever he planned to give her.

“This,” he said, crushing her mouth in a kiss that scorched her body. He lowered himself onto her, and she moaned loudly, ready to offer a prayer of thanks to the universe for the delicious weight of his body. He was strong, and cut, and she hadn’t even seen him with a shred of clothing off, but she knew from the feel of his arms and the firmness of his ass that his body was going to be the most fuckable one she’d ever laid eyes on.

Not that she’d glimpsed many, but who cared? It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know he was hard everywhere, and it turned her on beyond all reason, past all normal levels of arousal. She’d dreamed about this kind of chemistry, about giving up control, and it was even better than she’d imagined. His commanding touch set her mind free.