She clenched her jaw, grabbed his collar. “I can’t just go have sex with you, Brent.”
“Why not? Isn’t that pretty close to what we’re doing now?”
She swallowed hard, and let it out in a harsh, broken whisper. “Because it was never just sex with you.”
But she didn’t stop moving on him. She only slowed the pace, because she couldn’t break the connection. This electric thread was part of them, part of who they were, part of who they were becoming again. She downshifted from the madness to a slow grind. He followed her lead, adjusting his rhythm too, shifting his touch to a softer one, as he ran his hands along the bare skin of her arms. Gently, he kissed her shoulder, making her shiver. “What was it with me?”
She cupped his cheeks, and looked him in the eyes. Spoke the truth. “It was everything,” she said, as she moved against him, the friction sending another powerful wave of desire through her. “All of it. This. You. Us. You were everything to me.”
He laced a hand through her hair. “Do you have any idea how much I want to be everything to you again?”
She shook her head. She was still stuck in time. The freshness of the hurt felt so new again. “Do you have any idea how devastating it was when you broke up with me?”
He groaned, sounding annoyed. Defeated. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about the past,” he whispered as he kissed her neck. His lips were barely there, just the flutter of a hummingbird’s wings. Even so, the kiss turned her liquid. How the hell could they kiss and argue? But then, that was what they’d always done. Even while they fought, they could never stop touching.
“I can’t hide from the past. I can’t move on unless we talk about it.”
“Then tell me,” he said roughly. “Tell me what you want to talk about so we can start over.”
“How do I know it will be different?” she asked, as she leaned her head back and succumbed to the strange combination of kissing and confessing. Or touching and talking. “Because of the shoes, because of the bracelet, because of scarves and lunches and the dinner and the tickets this weekend to Alvin Ailey?”
“No. Those are just things. It’s what’s behind those things that matters, and that’s how I feel for you. Because I would do anything to have you back,” he said, holding her face and forcing her to look him in the eyes.
And as she did, something inside her cracked open. The ice that she’d packed around her heart that he’d been chipping away at day by day, thawed completely.
“It’s harder for me to just start over than it is for you,” she blurted out, even though it was selfish, what she was saying. She knew that. But she couldn’t escape the painful truth of who she was. She stared fiercely at him, keenly aware of both the intensity of this conversation and the pressure from his erection between her legs pressing hard against her damp panties.
“Why? Why is it harder for you?”
“Because you broke my heart—don’t you get it? Mine had already splintered into a million pieces one night in a driveway, and I can only sustain so many breaks before it’s shattered.”
She stopped moving on him, and let the tears slide down her cheeks, as they’d done so many times with him. He gathered her close in his arms, and stroked her hair.
“Let me be the one for you. I won’t break your heart again. I promise.”
She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe herself, too. But there were things she had to tell him. Things that might tear him apart. “I don’t want to break your heart either.”
He smiled that crazy, gorgeous, cocky lopsided grin. He rapped his knuckles against his chest. “I’m tough. I can handle anything you throw at me.”
She wasn’t so sure, but even so, she loved this side of him.
Heels clicked against the floor. Someone was walking past them. The sound of the footsteps sped up. She covered her mouth and widened her eyes, and he laughed silently.
Then, maybe because of his admission, or maybe even more so because of hers, she brushed her lips against his, and kissed him softly, picking up the pace once more. She felt a freedom from the weight of memories. Maybe simply voicing them was what she had truly needed to move on. Oh, how she wanted to move on.
In every way with him.
Every. Single. Way.
“Soon,” she whispered in his ear. “Soon. I want to be with you again. I want you in every way. I swear.”
The talking of the past stopped, as it needed to. She’d said all she truly needed to say, and now all she wanted was to feel. Because she felt so much for him. More than she’d wanted to when she’d first agreed to dinner. More than she’d ever expected when he’d walked back into her life. Damn him, damn the heart, damn the body.
“Babe,” he said in a soft but firm voice. “Rock your body against me.”
“How is it we can talk like this and I’m still hot for you?” she murmured in his ear.
“Because I turn you on and because you’re crazy about me, too,” he said, low and sexy, and just for her. She shivered against him, saying nothing, refusing to give voice to the yes that formed on her tongue as she began moving again, her small body riding his big, strong frame.
“Just like that. Keep it up,” he told her, urging her on. “I can feel you getting close.”
“I’m so close,” she said on a quiet gasp.
“Let go. Let go for me,” he said as he thrust his hips up against her, and yanked her down harder on him.
She let the past fall behind her once more as she returned to what they’d been doing before. Coming together. She moved on him, harder, faster. There were no more words, no confessions, and no questions. Just movement. Their need for each other had never been quenched. She didn’t know if it ever would be, even as her belly tightened and she felt the start of that intense rush of pleasure. She pushed onto him, hitting that point where she lost control, and came apart for him, grabbing his back, biting down on his shoulder, falling apart in his arms.
In a broken photo booth in the back of a casino.
Of all the damn places in the world. Yet it felt so right.
But even through the haze of her orgasm, she knew she couldn’t escape the past. She couldn’t hide from it in all this contact with him.
Soon, very soon, she was going to have to tell him that he’d been the father of her child.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The ace of diamonds winked at him, a mate to the ace of clubs that the dealer revealed next on the green felt of the blackjack table at the Luxe.
“I’ll split,” he said to the goateed dealer.
Together, Brent’s two aces were a bust. Torn apart, they gave him a second chance in the game.
“I’ve got a very important question for you,” Mindy said, as the dealer laid a three on top of her eight and Matchbox Twenty played overhead. The band was in concert at the Luxe in two weeks, after the Alvin Ailey troupe departed from its brief stay at the hotel’s new theater.
“Hit me,” Brent said to his friend, and she rolled her eyes at his pun. “What’s the question?”
Mindy adopted a girly, love-struck tone. “Have you thought about what you’re going to wear tonight to Alvin Ailey?” She batted her eyes and squeezed his arm. “It’s such a big decision.”
“Bow tie. Seersucker suit,” Brent said with a straight face, as the dealer slapped two new cards face up for Brent. Only the two of them and a lone bald guy nursing a tropical drink played at that table on a Saturday afternoon. The goateed man dealt Mindy another card, too. A six, giving her seventeen.
“And a panama hat. That’d be a nice touch,” Mindy added, nudging Brent with her elbow as he stared happily at his new cards. Eight and a nine. Didn’t get much better than that.
“Absolutely,” he said. “Or, call me crazy, I could just go with jeans and a nice button-down shirt.”
“I’ll stay,” Mindy said to the dealer, then to Brent, “Fine. Be that way.”
The bald man busted on his turn, then the dealer drew until he
reached 17 and had to stand. It was house rules, and Brent beat him with his 18 and 19.
“You lucky bastard,” Mindy said in a low whistle.
Brent simply shrugged, an admission that he’d always had some kind of Midas touch at the tables. But he also had another more important skill, and while it was one he’d told Shannon he was not applying in relationships, it was a rule to live by if he wanted to survive in the casinos with a wallet intact.
Scooping up the chips, he tipped an imaginary hat to Mindy. “And on that note, I’d better quit while I’m ahead.”
“Thanks a lot. You killed me there, taking all the good cards,” she muttered.
“Play another round. I’m out.”
The bald man with the piña colada took off, too.
“Stay with me. Be my lucky charm,” she said, and Brent relaxed in the chair as Mindy went up against the house again, trying to win back some of her losses. “By the way, have I ever told you that Michael Sloan is insanely hot?”
Brent groaned. “Can we not talk about how hot you think her brother is?”
“Oh, they’re all lookers. All three of them,” she said, with a breathy sigh. “All three. I’d take any of them, honestly. Ryan, Colin, Michael.” She counted off on her fingers.
“Okay, you really need to stop now.”
“Hey,” she said, lowering her voice, a sign that she was downshifting to a more serious moment. “Speaking of tonight, does she ever talk about what happened with her family?”
Brent nodded. Mindy had lived in Vegas her whole life. She knew the Paige-Prince saga, since it had been in the local news when they were both in high school.
“It’s weird, don’t you think?” she continued. “The Royal Sinners.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just the whole idea of them. Like the Latin Kings, or the Crips and the Bloods. I hate them,” she said, her voice a harsh seethe as the dealer slapped her cards on the green felt and “Overjoyed” sounded through the casino.
“They’re street gangs. Of course you hate them. That’s like hating cancer.”
“They went kind of quiet for a while there. A few years ago. Did you know that?”
He shook his head. He honestly hadn’t tracked the goings on of the gang culture. But Mindy knew the underbelly of the city of sin better than anyone. “Five or six years ago, it seemed like they’d all kind of fallen apart. But I hear they’re trying to be active again. Recruiting new members. Hitting the streets again with drugs, tagging, fights over territory.”
He clenched his fists. His blood went cold. “Should I be worried? For her? For her family now?”
Mindy shook her head and squeezed his shoulder. “I wasn’t saying that at all. When you started seeing her again, I did a little digging into Stefano with some of the guys I know on the force. A couple of them were active when it all went down. They say Stefano was on the outs when he killed Thomas Paige. He was doing his own thing. Kind of separating from the Sinners.”
Brent’s jaw tightened. A fresh wave of hate surged through him. He hated that Shannon had gone through that, that this kind of canyon of awful had not just touched her life, but had marked it. Had been the line in it. The before and the after. “So, he was, what? The odd man out in the local gang?” he asked, as the dealer tipped his forehead to Mindy, his way of asking her next move.
“Hit me,” she said to him, then dialed down the volume. “Supposedly. They said his girlfriend disappeared, too, around then. They’d wanted to question her to see what she knew, but couldn’t find her. Anyway, those were just the things I heard. That’s all.”
That’s all. That’s all. That’s all. The words reverberated in his head, mingling with the anthemic chorus of the pop song about a love so powerful it consumes you with joy.
Joy. Hate. Love. Death. They were inextricably linked.
“Hey! Look! I got twenty-one!” Mindy clapped in glee.
“Then it’s time to cash out,” he said.
She shook her head. Her eyes lit up with a fresh wave of excitement. “No way. My lucky streak is just starting. It’s my day off. I’m staying.”
“I’ll catch you later then, lucky lady,” he said, and headed to his office, needing work, needing business, needing the relentless focus on contracts, and deals, and plans to erase the cold metallic taste of hate that the discussion of gangs had left in his mouth. No fault of Mindy’s, and all things being equal, he’d rather know the details than not know them. But he was ready for that part of Shannon’s past to stay firmly in the ground, and never fuck with her future.
Focus on the present. Focus on today. Focus on tonight.
The trouble was, the conversation gnawed at him. He opened a browser window and searched Google for news on “Royal Sinners.” He read a few articles—drug busts and convictions here and there. That was it. Like she’d said, the gang seemed to have petered out for a bit. All in all, this had to be a good thing—that the gunman her mother had hired hailed from a gang that had dwindled in power and was now focused on drugs. Shannon’s father’s murder had never been about drugs; it was a cut and dried murder-for-money crime.
Brent shut the browser, parked his boots on his desk, and rang his buddy who ran the Luxe hotel chain—Nate Harper, who lived in New York with his wife. After they caught up briefly on work and business, Brent made his request. “Hey man, you know anyone at this hotel who can score me a nice suite last minute on a Saturday night in Vegas? Happy to pay top dollar.”
Maybe it was wishful thinking. Maybe it was just some mad hope. Or perhaps he simply wanted to be prepared for any and all possible outcomes tonight. Hit, stand, or double down.
Nate laughed loudly. “You hoping to get lucky at my property this evening?”
“I’m always hoping to get lucky,” he said.
“I’ll take care of you. Stop by ops on the way out. Alfonso will get you a key,” he said, referring to the property manager on site. Brent knew the guy well.
“I owe you,” he said.
“I owe you. Your club is driving business like crazy. It’s like a goddamn slot machine that pays off every time,” Nate said, and Brent grinned. That was what he liked hearing. Edge was indeed the golden goose. He zeroed in on that for another hour, then checked the time. He needed to head home and get ready to pick up his date. No motorcycle tonight. He’d reserved a town car.
On the way out through the casino, Tanner’s name flashed across his phone screen. He nearly crossed his fingers, praying the man wouldn’t say something to ruin his Saturday.
“Hey Tanner. What’s up?”
“Meeting was moved up. Gotta do lunch instead of dinner,” Tanner barked.
Brent’s shoulders tensed. “Tomorrow? What’s the deal?”
“The neighborhood association president, Alan Hughes, has to drive his daughter to summer camp on Sunday night, so dinner won’t work tomorrow. Only lunch. But listen, I think I’ve got him fluffed nicely for you.”
Fluffed. The man actually used a porn term. “So he’s leaning our way?”
“It’s looking like that. See? I told you I’d be good for you. I bet you want to pay me extra each month on the lease, don’t you?” Tanner said with a raspy laugh.
Brent shook his head in exasperation. Tanner was a piece of work. “Glad to hear that about Alan,” he said, avoiding the other comment. He flashed briefly to his conversation with Bob from the comedy club, who’d been getting fleeced by his landlord, too. Fingers crossed that this meeting tomorrow would send them all down the right path. Brent could continue the expansion of Edge, and Bob would have the new job he needed to pay the bills.
“So be here by noon, got it? Same location. McCoy’s.”
“See you tomorrow.”
Brent sighed heavily in frustration as he hung up. Win some, lose some. He called his assistant and asked her to change his flight from the morning to the midnight red-eye to New York. That gave him two hours with Shannon after the show ended. Crap. Make that one hour, sin
ce he’d need that hour to get to the airport and through security. Even so, he picked up a key from Alfonso.
Wishful thinking for sure at this point. But sometimes you had to roll the dice.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Not too long now,” Michael said. “A few more edits.”
Shannon drummed her fingernails against her kitchen table as she peered at the computer screen with Michael. “Colin’s such a loud mouth,” she said with a laugh.
“I know,” he said, taking a break from tapping away on her keyboard to pat her on the back. Michael had stopped by to help her finish editing a video she’d shot of rehearsals for the Edge show at her studio. The dance was almost perfect, but there was a section she wanted to review with her assistant choreographer. The problem was that Colin had stopped by during the rehearsal and had started talking her ear off about a new investment his firm was making.
“Ding dong,” she’d told him. “Now I’m going to have to edit out the audio.”
“Oh shit,” he’d said, covering his mouth.
“I’m assuming you don’t want to take a chance on anyone but me hearing about the new data storage company that has a ten times valuation of blah blah blah,” she’d said quietly, parroting him back as she held her phone to record the dancers.
“That’d be a no,” Colin had whispered, then mouthed a thank you as he zipped his lips shut and let Shannon finish shooting the video.
Michael was a whiz at editing video, so he’d stopped by to help her remove Colin’s audio. Which also meant now was as good a time as any to tell him what she was up to tonight. She hadn’t said a word to him last weekend at her grandmother’s house, but she didn’t know then that she’d actually be dating—seriously dating—her ex-fiancé. Now she was, and she didn’t like cloaking her life in lies around her brothers, especially Michael. They were as tight-knit as a clan could be, and that was because they’d protected each other and trusted each other through thick and thin.
She steeled herself for his reaction. Of all her brothers, Michael had been the biggest fan of Brent, and then turned the other way when Brent left her.
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