Sweet Sinful Nights

by Lauren Blakely

  A smile spread across her face—that was reward alone. She dug into the shopping bag, and took out a box, then opened the top. He catalogued her reaction. Her eyes seemed to twinkle with happiness, then she brought a hand to her chest, then she took out the pair of red leather shoes with a strap over the arch of the foot.

  “You’re still a size six, I presume?”

  She nodded as she slipped off her black heels, and tried on the new ones. “I can’t believe you got me shoes.”

  He leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “The shoes looked hot, and you’re hot, and I always liked to fuck you in shoes, because you used to leave them on and that was insanely hot. Which pretty much describes you. Hot.”

  “So let me get this straight. You think I’m hot?” She raised an eyebrow.

  “Yeah. Your understanding is right on,” he said, deadpan.

  “And is this your way of trying to fuck me again, Brent? By buying me shoes and making me laugh?

  “Yes,” he said with a nod. “Does it turn you on?”

  “You know it does.” She stretched out her leg across his, and modeled the new shoe, then spoke in a smoky whisper. “Does this turn you on?”

  He nearly groaned as he answered, “You know it does.”

  “Do you want me to wear them on Saturday night? When you take me to Alvin Ailey?”

  “Yes.”

  All he could think about now was her in those shoes on Saturday, and what might happen later that night. Images flashed wildly before his eyes. Her legs on his shoulders. Her legs in a V. Those heels digging into his back. His tongue all over her naked body, spread out before him. Her spine curving in an arch as he took her once again, and sent her over the edge.

  Damn, he liked the reel his mind was playing. Far too much.

  “I’ll even let you pick me up if you want,” she said, and he nodded vigorously, thrilled that she was giving him her address finally. She reached for her phone. “I’ll text it to you right now, and then I’ll be wearing these shoes when you come get me,” she said in a come-hither voice that made him want to come hither that instant.

  He wasn’t going to be able to get up for a long time because he was so fucking hard. Good thing his phone rang, and Tanner’s named flashed across the screen. Perfect boner killer when he needed it.

  “Let me grab this for one minute,” he said to Shannon, then answered the phone. “Hey, Tanner. What’s up?”

  The man wasted no time with hellos. “Here’s the deal. You need to meet the leader of the neighborhood association. Let him know Mr. Late Night Funny Guy can be a real businessman. Can you get to New York this weekend? I set up a meeting Sunday night.”

  He cursed silently. Saturday night was his big date with Shannon. No way was he backing out. Not after the time he’d missed taking her to Alvin Ailey in college, and not when he was trying to do everything right now. But he could catch an early Sunday morning flight. “I’ll be there in time for a seven p.m. dinner.”

  “Fine. I’ll send you details,” Tanner said in a gruff tone.

  “Hey, I put in a few calls to the parks department in the city. I made a donation to have some of the parks there revitalized, like you suggested.”

  “Good. Keep that shit up. You got a long row to hoe.”

  After Brent hung up, he gestured to the phone. “The neighborhood association in New York is being difficult about my plans to open a club there,” he said, then caught her up to speed on the situation as he paid for lunch.

  “Hmm,” Shannon said, tap dancing her fingers on her chin as they walked out of the restaurant.

  “Hmm, what? You coming up with a perfect plan for me or something?” he joked.

  “Actually, I was thinking. Even though your meeting is Sunday, I could record a rehearsal in San Francisco next week when I’m there with the dancers. You can show it to them after so they can see it’s more Cirque du Soleil than Scores.”

  He stopped in his tracks, and raked his eyes up and down over the woman at his side. This time, though, he was admiring her business savvy. “That’s brilliant.”

  As they left, he vowed to do whatever he had to in order to keep her in his life. Work had won his heart ten years ago. He had to show her that she was more important than work.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A pink and purple illustration of an animal stared at her.

  “I don’t even want to ask why you’re buying that,” her grandmother said with a laugh, pointing to Shannon’s purchase as the cashier at the party store rang them up.

  “It’s a surprise for someone,” Shannon answered with a wink and snatched the little gift and tucked it into her purse.

  “That’ll be fifty-seven twenty-one,” the cashier said, bagging up the balloons, streamers, cups and party favors that Victoria had picked up for the birthday party she was throwing for her great-granddaughter’s third birthday—the grand-daughter of Shannon’s aunt.

  Before her grandma could stop her, Shannon slid her credit card through the machine to pay.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” the older woman said.

  Shannon flashed her a smile as she tucked her card into her purse. “I know I didn’t have to. I wanted to.” She scooped up the bag and headed to her car. They’d attended a sunrise yoga class, then stopped at the store on the way home, and now Shannon needed to return to the studio for a few hours before her lunch date.

  It was definitely a date.

  “Might that someone you’re surprising be your old beau?”

  “Beau. Boy. You’re so old-fashioned, Nana,” Shannon said as she backed out of the lot and turned onto the main drag.

  “Well?” she asked pointedly. “Is he?”

  Shannon shrugged, but her lips curved into a grin. “Maybe.”

  Victoria patted her knee as they slowed to a stop at a red light a few blocks from her home. “Excellent. So what are we going to do about your brothers then?”

  “What about them? The fact that all three are total pains in the ass?” Shannon teased.

  “Not that. The fact that they’re all single. Maybe we need to set up a matchmaking service for those boys.”

  “Good luck getting the three cavemen married off,” Shannon joked as the light changed, and she turned left onto Victoria’s street.

  Her grandmother gestured grandly, as if she were putting their names in lights. “Matchmakers for the Paige Men.”

  Shannon startled for a moment at hearing that name. They were all so used to being Sloans now.

  “I meant the Sloan men,” her grandmother quickly corrected.

  Just like that, Shannon’s mind latched onto another Paige man. The one who was long gone. Try as she might, the past was never far away. Little things slammed her back in time. Like her old name. Like driving, of all things.

  Her father’s final moments had been in a car, driving home from work late one night, pulling into the driveway of his home. The one place where he should always have been safe from harm.

  She pressed her teeth into her bottom lip, holding her emotions in as she turned into her grandmother’s driveway.

  It was only a driveway. A mundane, ordinary slick of concrete. Her grandmother didn’t even live anywhere near the home where her dad had been shot. But as she cut the engine and looked at her father’s mother, she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Victoria was thinking the same thing. That she, too, had been jolted out of a festive moment of party planning and pretend matchmaking and hurtled back in time to eighteen years ago. She saw it in her grandma’s eyes—the same sadness she felt was reflected back at her.

  “Sometimes it’s hard just turning in the driveway,” Shannon said softly. “Makes me think of my dad.”

  Her grandmother clasped her hand. “I know. Every day, I think about him.”

  Shannon looked down at their hands. “I miss him.”

  “I do too, sweetie.”

  After she walked her grandmother inside and said goodbye, she returned to her car. Sh
e scanned the surrounding area, as always, alert for anything amiss. Listening for that footstep crunching on the grass. Seeking the shadow of someone who wasn’t supposed to be there.

  The hair on her neck stood on end, and for a second, she wished she carried her gun with her. But that weapon was locked away at her home.

  Shannon’s eyes roamed the sidewalk, the house, and the garage before she unlocked the car door. This hyper-alertness fried her nerves. No one was there. It was morning. She was safe, and Victoria was fine, and she had to refuse to live in fear. She had to kick the damn specter of hidden guns, and gangs, and shooters, and plots for murder far out of her daily agenda.

  She took a deep breath, letting it spread through her body, coaxing it to ease away the stranglehold of the past. Good thing she was seeing Brent that afternoon. He was her antidote. He’d wash away the cruel memories.

  But by the time lunch rolled around, she no longer wanted to rely on her old habits with Brent. He’d always been her magic bullet to extradite the pain. Maybe to truly change, she needed to give instead of to take.

  Over salad and pasta at an Italian restaurant inside Caesars Shops, she asked him more about work, peppering him with questions about his clubs, the expansion, his vision for Edge, reminding herself the whole time not to be jealous. She listened intently, because she didn’t want to feel an ounce of resentment for his choices, including the one to ditch the very industry that had once been so important to him.

  “And Edge will keep on growing,” she said.

  “That’s the goal,” he said with a wide smile. He truly seemed happy with his new path. That was his special talent. He knew how to find the happiness in everything. Someone like him never seemed to need much, while she often felt she required far too much. That was exactly why she’d picked up the gift at the party store. He loved the little things in life.

  “Close your eyes,” she said, after the waiter cleared their plates and she joined him on his side of the table.

  “You gonna blindfold me? I’m game,” he joked as he followed her order.

  She reached into her purse, rolled up his shirtsleeve, and dipped a cloth napkin in a water glass.

  “Go ahead. Undress me here. I don’t mind,” he continued.

  “I know you don’t, you dirty man.”

  “You wouldn’t have me any other way.”

  “You’re right,” she whispered as she positioned the square of paper on his arm, then pressed the wet napkin on top of it and counted to thirty. When she peeled the backing paper off, she told him to open his eyes.

  “Tada!” She showed him the mark she’d left on his arm, and his big, deep laugh rumbled across the restaurant.

  He nodded approvingly at the pink and purple temporary tattoo of a little horse she’d fixed to his bicep. “A pony. You got me a pony. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted.”

  “It’s not quite a badass flying Pegasus, but if you’re a good boy, I’ll get you a winged one next,” she said.

  “Or a unicorn maybe?”

  “That could be arranged.”

  After they left the restaurant, they wandered past the designer shops of Caesars, with luxuries from the likes of Gucci and Louboutin. She peered in the windows of her favorites, admiring a pair of black shoes and a dove gray bag.

  “Thank you for taking time out of your day for me,” she said as they continued their stroll.

  “Nothing I’d rather do.”

  “Will you have to work late to make up for playing hooky?”

  “Maybe, but it’s worth it.”

  A flash of color caught her eye. In the midst of all the black and silver high-end items, she spotted an old-fashioned photo booth down a quiet hallway that led to the restrooms. Painted bright red and white, the booth boasted a sign advertising Four photos for $1.

  “That’s a bargain,” she said, then grabbed his hand and tugged him to the booth. “Let’s get a picture to go with your cool new ink. Show it to your brother. Let him know how wild and crazy you can be.”

  “We can even put on disguises and shoot cool selfies,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Please let there be a fake mustache. Please, pretty please.” He held up his hand and crossed his fingers.

  She swatted him and grinned. In the past, contact with him had blotted out the bad. But this was better. This was about laughter, and talking, and her giving something to him. Something silly, but then, she knew he liked those gifts best of all.

  Strange as it sounded, she knew he would cherish a ridiculous photo of the two of them. She pulled him inside and yanked the curtain closed.

  “Damn,” she said, snapping her fingers when she saw the Broken sign slung across the viewfinder. “No wonder no one was down this hallway.”

  “We can make our own photo booth picture. You must have something in your purse.”

  “Right. Of course. Let me just get out my purple wig. And the fake nose I keep in there,” she said, deadpan.

  “Now you’re talking.”

  Instead, she grabbed her sunglasses, and slid them to the bridge of her nose, puckering her lips. He bared his teeth in an exaggerated grin and flexed his bicep, showing off his new pink and purple pony ink. She snapped a picture on her phone and showed it to him.

  “We are so hot together,” he said, with over-the-top admiration. He patted his thighs. “Climb up. Take another picture.”

  “You’re just trying to get me to sit on your lap.”

  “Yes. I am.”

  She straddled him, the soft cotton of her black dress flaring across his jeans, then held out the phone. “Smile,” she instructed.

  But instead of smiling, he wrapped his arms around her, planting a soft, wisp of a kiss on her neck.

  Her eyes floated closed as her thumb slid aimlessly across the screen, capturing them. She didn’t stop to look this time, because he was brushing his lips along her neck, buzzing a path to her ear. She let the phone fall to the bench along with her sunglasses, and turned to meet his lips. The goofiness vanished. The silliness evaporated as the moment folded and unfolded into something else, shifting from temporary tattoos and selfies to a hot, wet, deep kiss that swamped her body with desire.

  She moaned his name as if he were all she wanted, and he was. “Brent.”

  “You can’t resist me,” he said, breaking the kiss for a moment. He ran his hand up her back, against the fabric of her dress, and she arched into him, moving in time with his touch.

  “You’re such a cocky bastard,” she tossed back.

  “Just admit it,” he said, as he gently tugged her bottom lip through his teeth, making her moan. He flicked his tongue across her top lip in such a slow, sexy, seductive fashion that she thought she might reach the peak of a climax if he kept it up. “Admit you can’t resist me.”

  She sighed and gave in. No point denying the truth they both knew. “Not when you kiss me like that. Not when you touch me the way you do.”

  “I better do both again, then,” he said as he worked his way up her neck, kissing her throat, her jaw, her cheek, then her earlobe. Her body practically vibrated from the tender and delicious way he traveled across her skin. The kiss was driving him wild too, judging by the bulge in his jeans and the pressure from his fingers as he dug them into her hips with each each lick, each sweep of his tongue.

  She could subsist on this moment. She could use it as the balm to her overactive brain, to all the harsh moments that rattled into her life from out of nowhere. Keep taking more from him—more kisses, more touching, more contact.

  But she wanted to give, too. To give to him as he’d done for her.

  “My turn,” she said, as she returned the favor. She worked her way up his neck, kissing his jaw, then his earlobe. He grasped her harder as she mapped his skin, loving his clean scent, his rough stubble, and his hard body.

  “You’re quite good at taking your turn,” he murmured.

  She nibbled on his earlobe, and he pumped his pelvis up into her on a muffled groan. A b
last of heat tore through her, and taking and giving smashed together.

  “Ride me,” he said in a rough, husky voice. They were wanting all the same things. Wanting the give and the take as well. “Ride me hard. Like I know you want to.”

  His words ignited her. She followed them to the letter, as they collided in a mad frenzy in the photo booth. Through their clothes, she was grinding against him in seconds, her white panties and his jeans the only barriers. They became a tangle of teeth and heat and madness, as she kissed him ruthlessly and slammed against him. He kissed back the same way, wild and untamed, his hands knotting through her hair, pulling hard. Grabbing. Biting. Tugging. Hands and fingers clawing everywhere. Their breaths turned loud. If anyone walked by on the way to the restroom, surely they’d hear her moans of desire.

  She didn’t care.

  Not with the way his lips consumed her, taking over this bruising, needy, dangerous kiss that felt like tipping over. Like she was losing what little control she had of her emotions for him. She was poised, teetering on the edge of something. This week had been so sweet, so delicious, so like a perfect courtship that it made her remember how deeply she’d been in love with him before. The way he’d treated her stirred up all those feelings she’d forced out of her mind and shoved into a box for the last ten years. They were resurfacing, breaking free of the past, and fighting their way up her body. Terrible, dangerous feelings that threatened to take over her mind.

  She moved faster, harder, kissed more deeply, her desire climbing higher.

  But then he placed his hands on her shoulders, and gently, but firmly, pushed her away. Forcing her to look at him.

  “Shan, why don’t we get a room?” he asked, his eyes hazy with lust. “You know I want you so much. You’re driving me wild, and we’re practically fucking with our clothes on in a photo booth. C’mon,” he said, tipping his forehead to the curtain as if to say Let’s go.

  And then, like the motherfucker it was, the past grabbed her throat. Like a slingshot, it snapped her back to everything that had broken between them.