“Do you want me to take you back to the room and show you my treasure chest?” She twisted her shoulders from side to side to draw attention to her breasts.
He laughed and stared down at her cleavage. “Aye, matey. I’ll take a gander at your fine booty as well, love. But later. I’m having fun.”
As promised, they backtracked to watch the dancing, colorfully lit water fountain at the Bellagio.
“All this water makes me have to pee,” Rebekah said.
“Was that a come-on?” Eric asked, scratching his head as if perplexed.
“Not unless you want a golden shower.”
“Let’s cross at the end of the block,” he said. “You can stop in the restroom before we go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower.”
“And then you’ll tell me why you brought that leather trench coat?”
“I’ll do you one better. I’ll show you.”
She left Eric in a shop in the lobby of the Paris hotel while she went to the restroom. When she returned, he’d bought her a keychain with a charm of the Eiffel Tower.
“When we head to Europe with the band next summer, we’ll have to visit the real Eiffel Tower in Paris,” he said. “After we visit a real castle, of course.”
“I’ve never been to Europe,” she said, thinking how much this man enriched her life. “I can’t wait to share the experience with you.”
He purchased two tickets for the elevator that would take them to the observation deck high above. “Put this on,” he said, holding up the trench coat so she could slip her arms into the stiff sleeves.
“Why? Is it cold up there?”
“No. I just want to give Sed a hard time.” Eric grinned.
“Sed? Is he here?”
“You’ve seen his sex tape with Jessica, right?”
Of course she’d seen it. Most of the free world had seen it.
Rebekah’s eyes widened, and her heart skipped a beat. “We are not doing that, Eric.” First of all, there were people everywhere and second, she doubted she had Jessica’s bendiness or that Eric had Sed’s impressive upper body strength.
“Just pretend. I want to record it and send it to him for a laugh.”
“I doubt he’ll think it’s funny.”
“Well, I’ll think it’s funny. Whose side are you on?”
She considered Sed her boss. Yeah, he was merely the vocalist of the band, not the entire band, but he always called the shots and the rest of the band followed his lead. So if she got on his bad side, he might find an excuse to find a new soundboard operator.
“Please, Rebekah,” Eric said, making begging motions with his clasped hands.
“Fine, but if I get fired over this…”
“You won’t get fired.”
“Or arrested,” she added.
“Now that, I can’t guarantee.”
The view from the observation deck was breathtaking. The strip was lit up in all its neon glory, and the unusual shapes of the casinos—castles, pyramids, cityscapes, and even the tall spire at the far end of the strip—gave Rebekah plenty to gawk at. Eric sighted a likely victim to record their antics and went to pester him.
“Are you sure Lionheart won’t be pissed?” asked the guy wearing a Sinners T-shirt.
“He’ll think it’s hilarious,” Eric assured him as he set up his phone to record.
Rebekah wasn’t so sure, but she played along, calling out, “Jessica, oh Jessica,” in a deep voice while she thrust her hips against Eric, who was doing his best to lean backwards to hold onto the fence behind him and answer her in a falsetto. “Oh yes, Sed. Do me, baby. I don’t care who’s recording this. I’m oblivious to my surroundings when you’re giving me dick.”
Even though their little show lasted only a minute or two, they accumulated quite a few gawkers who thought they were hilarious even while a few conservative types shook their heads in disapproval and gave them a wide berth. When Eric was satisfied with their mock sex scene, he signaled his cameraman to stop recording and then went to watch the video, laughing with the congregated crowd.
“Perfect,” he complimented his assistant.
Rebekah shook her head and took off the coat. She hoped Jessica didn’t hate her for life for participating in Eric’s little prank. Even though the scandal had happened before Rebekah had met any of them, she knew Jessica had been devastated when the original video had gone public.
Rebekah folded the leather trench over one arm and gazed out at the fountain across the street. She watched the sprays of water dance and sway to the song blaring over the background road noise. After the crowd dissipated, Eric joined her.
“Are you mad?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. I just figured we came up here for some romance of our own, not to make fun of Sed and Jessica.”
“If you want, I can put on the coat and wrap my arms around you so I can feel you up with no one being the wiser.”
“The only part of that I really want is the wrap your arms around me portion,” she said.
He didn’t comment further, just stood close behind her, hugged her back against his chest, and rested his chin on the top of her head.
“The fountain looks cool from up here,” he said.
“It all looks surreal from a distance.”
Eric’s phone started ringing. “Sorry,” he said. “I forgot to shut it off after I sent that video to Sed.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “Speak of the devil,” he said with a laugh. “Do you care if I take this?”
She kind of did. Their honeymoon was supposed to be about the two of them, not about anyone back home. But she shrugged and Eric answered the call.
She could hear the angry tone of Sed’s voice, but not his actual words as he growled at Eric.
“Learn to take a joke, dude,” Eric said into his phone. “It’s funny. Did you show it to Jessica?”
More cross words came from Sed’s end of the line.
“She’d think it was funny.”
Rebekah took the phone out of Eric’s hand and held it to her ear, catching the tail end of what Sed was saying.
“…still very sensitive about it.”
“Sed, this is Rebekah. I want to apologize for my part in that video. I shouldn’t have let Eric talk me into it.”
“Oh, hey, Rebekah. You did a good job on my voice.”
Stunned, her gaze darted up to meet Eric’s. “I did?”
“No.” Sed laughed. “You sound like you swallowed a frog. I get that he was just making a joke, but it’s still too soon. Just make sure he doesn’t send it to Jessica. It would upset her.”
“Are you sure? It might make her feel better to laugh about it.”
“I think she’d rather forget it ever happened.”
“I’m sure if it hadn’t gone public, she’d remember that time with you as special.” And hot. Rebekah was feeling flushed just thinking about what the two of them had done not far from this very spot. She’d never have the guts to go through with something like that. Let some guy in a parking garage watch her have sex with her husband in the safety of their room, sure, but not go at it in a public place.
“You think?” Sed sounded unsure and the man never sounded unsure about anything.
“You could ask her.”
“I’ll do that. Now keep your husband in line so I don’t have to break his neck the next time I see him.”
Rebekah chuckled, knowing Sed’s threats against Eric would never see fruition. He’d probably whop him a good one in the head, though. “I’ll try, but it won’t be easy.”
She handed the phone back to Eric who, after getting another chewing out from Sed, hung up and shoved the device into his pocket.
“He never has a sense of humor where Jessica is involved,” Eric grumbled.
“Maybe because he’s serious about her.”
“I’m serious about you, but that didn’t suddenly turn me into a lamewad.” He wrapped his arms tightly around her, hugging her from behind. “Maybe I am lucky,
after all. No one else understands me the way you do. I’m lucky we found each other.”
“The way we found each other wasn’t lucky at all,” she murmured, a pain stabbing into her chest as she thought about her brother’s accident and how he might be permanently disabled because of it. If Dave hadn’t broken his neck in that bus accident, she wouldn’t have needed to stand in for him as soundboard operator and she probably never would have gotten close to Eric. Eric was the kind of guy that took a while to grow on a person. Her first impression of him hadn’t swept her off her feet, but once she’d seen the tender, generous heart he carefully guarded with his inappropriate jokes and pranks, she’d been a goner.
“That’s true,” he said. “Do you want to go somewhere else? I feel kind of… I don’t know…”
“Guilty for tainting one of Sed and Jess’s special places?”
She felt him shrug behind her. “Not really. This place is kind of boring.”
She wasn’t buying it. He practically had guilt seeping out his pores. She turned in his arms and pressed her ear to his chest, listening to his heart beat. “I’m never bored when I’m with you.”
His hand cupped the back of her head, pressing her closer, and he kissed her hair.
“I think we’d be even less bored riding the rides at the top of the Stratosphere.”
“I’ve always wanted to ride those,” she said, leaning back to look up at him. “Everyone I know is too chicken to get on any of them and riding by myself would have been pretty lame.”
“Then let’s go.”
They took the monorail to the far end of the Strip and when they reached the top of the Stratosphere, which looked like a spaceship perched on the top of a tall spire, Rebekah stared down at the ground far below and thought perhaps she’d been a bit hasty in wanting to climb into an amusement ride that hung over the edge of a tall building. Saying she wanted to ride the contraption and actually standing in line to get on it were entirely different things.
“Are you sure you want to ride this?” Rebekah asked Eric as he bounced up and down on the balls of his feet like a seven-year-old. “I hear it’s pretty intense.”
“I’m all in, but if you’re scared—”
“I’m not,” she interrupted, her stomach a tangle of nerves and nausea.
She played brave through the short line and while she strapped herself in, but when the ride started, she screamed like a little girl who’d woken in the night covered in poisonous spiders. The ride only lasted a minute—during which she was certain fifteen years of her life had been stolen. Unfortunately, she opened her eyes when the car was pointing straight down, and her stomach took a free fall the entire seven hundred feet of empty space between her body and the ground. Eric was whooping beside her with unparalleled glee. The man was obviously insane.
When it was over, Rebekah climbed from the car with wobbly knees and clung to a nearby railing for stability.
“That was awesome!” Eric shouted. “Let’s go again!”
Just the thought of getting on again made bile rise in Rebekah’s throat. She shook her head vigorously.
“You didn’t have fun?”
She plastered on a brave smile. “Once was all the fun I can take.”
“Let’s go see our ride photo,” he said, taking her hand and tugging her toward a photo booth.
They located their photo easily. Eric had his hands in the air and wore a euphoric expression on his lean, rugged face. Rebekah looked like she’d just discovered the eighth circle of Hell.
Eric laughed his ass off as he pointed at her terrified expression. “You were petrified.”
“Was not!”
He placed a comforting hand on her lower back and nudged her up against his side. “I was a little scared too,” he said in a low, soothing tone.
She stared up at him, clinging to his comforting words. She didn’t like to think of herself as a wimp. Ever. “You were?”
He grinned. “Not really, but if it makes you feel better—oomph!”
He deserved that elbow to the gut. Her legs were working properly again, so she stomped off while he bought the goddamned picture of them on that death trap.
“I’m going to hang this on the fridge,” he said when he caught up to her on the escalator, a much saner way to head down.
“Do you really need to tease me about everything?” she snapped.
He was so busy staring at her in shock that he stumbled over the landing when they reached the bottom.
“I’ve never teased you about being scared of something,” he said as he trailed after her to the next down escalator. “Because I’ve never seen you afraid. You’re a rock.”
“You have seen me scared,” she said. “Just last week when I thought my cancer had come back.”
“That’s entirely different.” At the bottom of the escalator, he pulled her aside and out of the flow of foot traffic. “Rebekah, that was a real threat to your life. I’d never joke around about something like that. This”—he flapped the photo at her—“was just a perceived threat. If I’d thought you were in danger, of course I wouldn’t have teased you for being afraid.”
She bit her lip and stared at his chest. Perhaps she had taken his teasing too hard, but she needed him to understand why. And after the misunderstanding that had almost torn them apart, they’d promised each other to always talk about their problems and differences.
“Please don’t make fun of me when I’m scared,” she said. “I’ve had to be strong for so long that showing any weakness really bothers me.”
He cupped her face and encouraged her gaze to meet his. His thumb caught a stray tear on her cheek. How mortifying. Here she was claiming to be strong and she was crying like a child.
“Sweetheart, you don’t have to carry your entire burden anymore. I’m here to shoulder as much as you’re willing to allow. You’re my everything.”
His face blurred beyond her suddenly watery eyes. Those were the words he’d vowed to her. Words he believed so much he’d had tattooed on his skin. Words she hadn’t quite comprehended until that moment.
“Can we go back to our hotel room now?” she asked. “I’ve had about all the fun I can handle for one night.”
He grinned and pecked the tip of her nose. “You know the real fun starts when we’re alone together.”
Of course she knew that.
Chapter Seven
Waiting on the curb with their luggage, Eric yawned widely, stretched his arms over his head, and then lowered them to scratch his ribs. He would have liked to stay in bed for another few hours. Rebekah had kept him up—both in an awake and in an aroused kind of way—all night. Apparently she found Vegas inspiring. After she’d sucked on his lance and he’d buried it in her treasure chest, she’d allowed him to explore her pyramids and raid the dark passage she referred to as her tomb. She didn’t let him fuck her in the ass very often, so that had been an unexpected treat. But now he was tired and wasn’t ready to climb back into the minibus to head to their next destination. He’d never understand why she was so against spending two weeks relaxing in Tahiti, but he had to admit he was having fun. Lots of exhausting, imaginative fun.
When the valet brought the Volkswagen around, complaining that the thing didn’t want to stay started, Eric crammed their suitcases into the back. “Do you want to drive?” he asked Rebekah.
“You know she won’t run for me.”
“The valet managed it,” he pointed out.
“Eventually,” he said as he accepted the tip Rebekah handed him.
“I’d rather you drive.” Rebekah gave him a sweet smile. She knew he was weak to that smile, damn it.
“And I’d rather nap. You wore me out last night, woman.”
She grinned. “And I’ll be wearing you out again tonight and tomorrow night and the night after that, so you might as well get used to it.”
He climbed behind the wheel without further argument. He did like the sound of those plans of hers.
Under
Rebekah’s navigational direction they journeyed along a stretch of highway that seemed to be heading nowhere.
He was pretty sure they were going to the Grand Canyon—seeing as he saw directional signs for the natural wonder every twenty miles or so—but he didn’t want Rebekah to feel like she wasn’t carrying out this surprise of hers effectively. He still felt bad about upsetting her after they’d braved that scary-as-fuck amusement ride. He never wanted her to experience any hurt, and he definitely didn’t want to be the one to cause her pain. She’d forgiven him almost instantly, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was a bad husband.
She hadn’t talked to him at all since they’d found the road that would lead to their next destination. She must still be pissed, but unwilling to gripe him out while they were on their honeymoon. He glanced at her, expecting her to be fuming, but instead found that she’d fallen asleep. He grinned. It was mighty unfair that she should get to nap while he had to drive.
“Rebekah!” he yelled, honking the horn madly.
She jerked awake, her hands flying out to both sides to steady herself.
“I think we’re here,” he said, nodding excitedly at a particularly ugly patch of barren wasteland complete with tumbleweeds.
“You scared the shit out of me,” she said, one hand covering her chest. She peered out the windshield and then rolled her eyes. “You know damned well we’re going to the Grand Canyon.”
“We are? Cool!” It was cool. He’d been there a few times before, so he knew this for a fact.
“Have you ever been there?”
He started to shake his head, but remembered that they’d pledged to be honest with each other. Even little white lies could damage a relationship if they became a habit. “A few times,” he said, reaching across the van to take her hand. “But never with you.”
She smiled and squeezed his hand. “Have you ever had sex there?” She wiggled her eyebrows at him.
“Uh… Only with a donkey.”
Her eyes bulged. “What?”
“The mule turned me down.”
She slapped at him. “That’s disgusting!”
Almost Paradise (Sinners in Paradise #2/Sinners on Tour #7.2) Page 7
