Sin City Seduction

by Margot Radcliffe

  “Yeah, it’s my dream job.”

  “A lifestyle magazine,” he repeated. “So, like, laundry tips and stuff?”

  She shrugged, the anxiety crawling up her back. “I’m not too into laundry,” she hedged. “It’s more like menu planning and leisure activities.” Like where to eat, she thought guiltily. Where was that waiter with her check and please don’t let him ask the name of the magazine.

  “Ah,” he said, grabbing the platter with the chicken and sausage. “You mind?”

  She shook her head.

  “Thanks,” he said, unrolling the extra setting of silverware the waiter had left, probably anticipating another person after all that she’d ordered. “I haven’t had dinner yet and I don’t know that we have enough take-out boxes for all this anyway.”

  Her eyes shut. Dear God. She knew he was just joking but still struggled against the embarrassment climbing up her neck. Oh, it was so, so bad.

  “I just wanted to try a little of everything,” she explained lamely, not ready to give her cover away regardless of how it might look. She didn’t care what he thought of the amount of food she’d gotten. “It all sounded so good and I’m only in Vegas for a couple of weeks.”

  “Your first time?”

  “No, I’ve been several times.”

  “I’ve never been a huge fan of it,” he admitted, “but it’s home for now. My real one is a ranch in San Antonio where I grew up.”

  “San Antonio is great, though the tiny Alamo was a bit of disappointment.”

  He laughed again. “Yeah, well, I think that’s the point. The little guys lost the battle, but Texas came back to win the war. Think about how small the actual building is, and they defended it to the death against a larger and more powerful Mexican army. They knew they would die and did it anyway.”

  “Fair enough. Disappointment retracted,” she said, holding up her hands in supplication. “I should know better than to disparage Texas in the first place.”

  “Texas forever.” He grinned, repeating the popular catchphrase and holding up the longhorn steer sign on his hand, pointer and pinkie stretching up proudly.

  She rolled her eyes, watching as he chewed on a piece of sausage, his expression turning thoughtful.

  “Parker Jones, lifestyle writer in Vegas on business alone. You got any other plans besides eating the best barbecue in town tonight or would you wanna get out of here?”

  And then Parker thought she might choke on just actual air this time.

  She didn’t choke again, but came damn close. Holy shit. Was this really happening? A one-night stand with a famous football player? One-night stands never gave her this much agita and she knew it was because this one was different. She was already enjoying herself and could actually fall for him. Her heart beat a chaotic jangle in her chest and sweat coated her palms. Rubbing them discreetly on her jeans, she met his eyes and her shock must have shown.

  “I don’t mean for that,” he said quickly, holding up a hand. “I mean, not that I wouldn’t. Hell, of course, but I just meant I could show you around. You know, as a local. I’d hate to think of you doing this whole trip alone. Besides, I don’t meet many women who can eat this much, so I feel like this is my opportunity to get to know the kind of girl who at least gives it a shot. There are a lot of points on the board for making the effort.”

  It was a joke she couldn’t quite laugh at, but she appreciated it and she wanted to stay with him. Didn’t want the warmth of his body heating her left side to suddenly vanish without her really memorizing it to take out at a later date when she was back home, a place she was always slightly miserable if she were being honest.

  “Sure, I just have to pay the check and we can go. Since apparently I can’t box this stuff up.”

  Chuckling at the throwback to his previous joke, he stood, holding out his hand to help her from the booth. “How about I have the leftovers sent to where you’re staying.”

  “But the check,” she pointed out.

  “It’s on me, sweetheart. Keep your per diem for the next place you visit.”

  She bristled at the patronizing endearment and the per diem crack, as if she couldn’t afford to go out to dinner on her own. Like she was just some girl who couldn’t make it in the world and had to depend on her job’s petty cash to buy her enough food to eat for an entire month.

  Suddenly, it felt like she had rocks in her mouth, dry and crackling, and she wanted to grind them between her teeth until they were dust.

  He must have read her displeasure because he held up a hand. “We can have the bill sent to your hotel, okay? I was just trying to be nice. If I can’t buy a girl dinner at my own restaurant, I don’t know when I can, you know?” His tone was overly conciliatory, which only served to irritate her more.

  “Maybe I’ll just wait here for the check. I have an early day tomorrow and I’m very tired,” she backtracked, yawning to make it more believable.

  Hugh crossed his big arms in front of his gorilla-wide chest, the tailored fabric of his suit pulling over the bulging muscles outlined underneath. Although it looked like it, he wasn’t trying to be intimidating; she thought it was just his way of digging into his stance, which was obviously going to be to try to get her to go out with him. “Ms. Jones, I’m sorry if I offended you, but we’ve been looking at each other tonight the same way I hope people look at my food when it comes to their table. I don’t pick women up in my restaurants ever and I’m interested, so I’d be grateful if you’d give me another chance and come grab a drink with me.”

  As far as apologies went, it was pretty good, but she’d already made up her mind not to do it since it was a bad idea for a lot of reasons. If things had been different and she hadn’t been intending to write a review of his restaurant, she would one-night-stand the shit out of this guy, but alas, life was only that simple for the pool-raft models.

  “Listen,” he began just as she opened her mouth to tell him the aforementioned resolution. “I haven’t been on a real date in years, not one with a woman who minds if I pay a check or not anyway, and I know we literally just met, but you seem pretty cool. I have it on good authority that I’m not great at this shit, so if you could cut me some slack I would really appreciate it.”

  She smiled; she couldn’t help it. He didn’t have to be vulnerable with her but he’d gone there, and it took guts to do that with a complete stranger.

  “Whose authority?” she asked idly, still deciding what to do. “Who doesn’t think you’re good at picking up women in your restaurants? Seems like that would be pretty easy.”

  His lips thinned at the playful jab and his look was bland. “Well, my ex-fiancée for one.”

  “Did you call her ‘baby’ and try to put her in a corner?”

  His thick eyebrows came together at the old movie reference. “No, that doesn’t even make any sense.”

  “Well, you called me sweetheart and I hated it, just like I would hate to be called baby. And your offer to pay for my meal put me in a corner, metaphorically, if you know what I mean. So if you think about it, it really works on a lot of levels.”

  Hugh stared at her, a corner of his mouth twitching.

  “You know what we call this entire conversation in football?” he asked, arms still crossed and that meaty thumb drumming impatiently on the upper bicep of his opposite arm.

  “A touchdown?” she tried.

  “Nope, intentional grounding. Where you try to kill the play before it even begins.”

  “It sounds like your words are saying you didn’t like my joke, but your face is saying that you did.”

  He laughed for real then, the sound rich and deep, warming her belly more than his food had. “Yeah, I fucking liked it. I like you, too, so will you forgive me for trying to get what I have to assume is one of the largest meals ever ordered in my restaurant taken care of?”

  S
he met his eyes, shaking her head at his food crack. “One drink and then I really do need to get home.”

  “Fair enough.” He waved over a waiter to explain the situation about her leftovers and check.

  “What hotel?” he asked.

  “Halcyon.”

  “That’s a good one,” he approved.

  “It’s pretty for a casino in Vegas,” she admitted, finally rising from the booth.

  He offered her his arm and she slipped her hand through, trepidation filtering through her body along with just plain anticipation.

  “And your fiancée might be right that you’re bad at the pickup, but your follow-through is exemplary.”

  “You have no idea just how accurate that statement is,” he told her, his tone edged with a delicious dash of danger and irony.

  CHAPTER TWO

  HUGH DIDN’T GET nervous as a rule. He’d faced down the largest men in the country running at him at speeds only athletes conditioned over the course of their entire lives could achieve, so a girl in his restaurant shouldn’t have made him as edgy as he was, but Parker Jones was doing it. And not just because she had a chest not even his famously large hands could get around, though that was a huge plus.

  He hadn’t been interested in a woman beyond sleeping with her in a long damned time. If that was a commentary on him as a person, so be it, but after the hell he’d been through with his ex he hadn’t trusted his own judgment to pick women. The scandal was long gone, but he’d never really gotten over being the nation’s poster child for cuckolding. Nor the fact that Amanda was happily married with the family they’d dreamed about. He’d thought he’d have three kids by now, but the thought of finding someone who wanted him for him and not who he’d been as a player was too much work.

  So the fact that Ms. Jones gave him some butterflies didn’t mean much. She didn’t even live in the city, and a little what-happens-in-Vegas action was just fine with him. It didn’t matter that when he’d caught her staring at him earlier, something inside him had flickered on. She was beautiful with cool blond hair and warm brown eyes, curves that lasted for days, and expressive lips that he’d wanted to lick his own barbecue sauce off of. And now he also knew she was sarcastic and fun as hell.

  He held her hand, small and soft nestled in his long-fingered grasp, wondering when was the last time he’d done something simple like that for a woman and coming up short. Maybe he really had taken himself out of the game for too long, like the guys said, but every time he thought about really giving a woman a chance he remembered all that bullshit with his ex. If girls didn’t want to be with him for the money and notoriety, then they really wanted to be with him because they felt sorry for him. He honestly didn’t know which was worse. But already Parker didn’t seem to care about either his money or his past, which felt good. The sympathetic head tilt was usually the first thing women gave him, whereas she’d just lit him up and thrown his money back in his face. Already, a small piece of him felt liberated.

  “When did you retire?” Parker asked when they got outside, a gentle breeze blowing a lock of pale hair across her face. His yellow McLaren was sitting in the first spot near the door.

  “Six years ago.”

  He guided her toward the car, but she resisted, pulling her arm and breaking their forward momentum. “I assumed we were walking somewhere.”

  “We can if you want, but all the bars around here on the Strip are pretty much tourist traps.”

  At her raised eyebrow, he gestured to his car. “I’m not going to kidnap you and take you back to my place against your will. This is not that, I promise. Just a drink, like we agreed.”

  She didn’t look completely convinced, white teeth chewing nervously at her dark pink lip. If she’d been wearing lipstick it had worn off, probably during her meal.

  “But if it did end up being more, would that be the worst thing?” he threw out because fuck it, they were adults. “I mean, like, as long as we both want to.”

  She shook her head and he shoved his hands into his pockets. Hooking up usually wasn’t this hard for him. Most girls would have asked to drive his car by now, and he couldn’t even get Parker to have a drink with him.

  “We can have a drink on the Strip if you want. Totally innocent and you’ll be close to Halcyon. The problem is that I’ll be bothered by fans at those kinds of places and we won’t actually get to talk.”

  She considered him and he waited as patiently as he could. “Okay,” she finally said, her tone still dubious.

  “The place I have in mind would be private but it’s too far to walk, so if I don’t drive we’ll have to use an app and ride in some guy’s car.”

  “I had a lovely minivan experience on the way here,” she claimed primly. “He even had a candy bowl, so I bet you feel foolish for being so snobby about ride-sharing now.”

  She pulled her phone from her bag and started tapping away. He accepted what was happening because after a moment of surprise that she’d easily wrested control from a situation he thought he’d been manipulating masterfully, he realized he actually kind of enjoyed not being in charge. It was a theme that ran through his entire life. He made his own decisions, the decisions for his parents, he’d managed his team on and off the field, he was always in charge of what he did on dates, he managed an entire chain of restaurants, but now here he was in the parking lot of his own restaurant waiting for someone else to decide his fate tonight. He hadn’t known it was a thing that he’d enjoy, but he didn’t hate it.

  “I got the luxury option for you,” she told him. “Whatever that means for a person who drives a car for a living. The app says a black Acura sedan.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  “You’re suddenly amenable to the car?”

  He shrugged. “No, but I’m not going to argue with you.”

  Their eyes met in a benign challenge that he found oddly exhilarating, like when he was on the sidelines watching the other team play just waiting for his turn to go back out on the field. Only instead of the playing field being full of elite athletes, it was a single woman with a body designed to make men crumble before they could even attempt a play.

  “Good,” she told him, a corner of that full mouth raising in a playful smirk. “I hate difficult people.”

  He snorted because they hadn’t been together for more than a half hour and he knew she wasn’t exactly easygoing. And neither was he, for that matter. His own baggage was so heavy only a man of his imposing stature could carry it. He didn’t fault her for knowing what she wanted and doing what she needed to do to get it.

  “What?” she asked, reproach in her tone when he didn’t follow up his snort with an actual response.

  “Both of us are difficult, sweetheart. It’s why we’re standing here on the street together waiting for a car we don’t need instead of me finishing the night talking to my guests and you eating your weight in barbecue. We like it.”

  Just then the black Acura pulled up, the familiar emblem of the car service on the windshield.

  “Not bad,” he told her, and she just rolled her eyes.

  Taking one last look at his own car that he loved and cherished, he helped Parker into the back seat of their ride, his fingers itching to cup the ass he could barely take his eyes off of as she bent to get inside.

  “So where are we going?” she asked, oblivious to the fact that he was seconds away from completely mauling her.

  “Oh, did you not want to choose?” he asked, meeting her eyes in the relative darkness of the back seat. The blue lights of the restaurant’s sign shone onto her face, highlighting her pursed lips, which only made him want to kiss that know-it-all expression off of it.

  “It’s your town,” she argued.

  “Structure,” he instructed the driver, a young man in his twenties who was more or less indifferent to their presence. He had a dirty-blond man-bu
n and beard that looked like it was taking its time filling in.

  The kid pulled away from the curb, and because Hugh had become intensely private about what he shared with the public, he stayed silent for the short five-minute drive to Structure. The bar was on the top floor of the Crown Royale casino and had breathtaking 360-degree views of the city, but mostly he’d chosen it for the privacy. Because he wanted privacy with Parker. Every single dirty thing he wanted to do to her demanded it.

  They rode the elevator to the club’s entrance, where they were enthusiastically greeted by Jesse. He requested one of the semiprivate spaces.

  “Nothing but the best for you, Hugh,” Jesse breathed, her eyes going dewy and sentimental. “And thank you again for that little loan. It really helped me out.”

  “Loan implies I want it back, sweetheart,” he told her, giving her a wink. “I don’t. Consider that car a gift from me to you.”

  She leaned up to give him a kiss on the cheek, her long blond ponytail swaying back and forth behind her. “You’re the best, Hugh.”

  Jesse was a young girl in her twenties, but had a broken-down car and a small child she needed to provide for, so he’d provided the money to replace it. Structure was one of his favorite places in the city and he’d gotten to know the employees very well over the years, and when she’d needed help, he helped. He would have done it for anybody really, and often did. It was part of the reason he didn’t have relationships. Everyone wanted a piece of him and the only pieces he was willing to give any woman nowadays had dollar signs on them.

  He felt Parker’s eyes on him and knew she could be thinking any number of incorrect scenarios. But he’d never slept with Jesse. Not that he wouldn’t, but he hadn’t. That said, he’d given cash gifts to a lot of women he’d slept with, not because he’d felt strongly about them, but precisely because he didn’t. Relationships weren’t gonna happen again as far he was concerned. He’d loved Amanda and she’d made him the literal laughingstock of America, which meant that now, if he had to pay women to leave him alone, he’d do it.