Her head fel back and her breasts lifted. “Everything.”
Chapter Seven
Any Man of Mine:
Good in Bed
Good didn’t begin to describe sex with Sam. It was more than good. More than satisfying. More than anything she’d experienced. It was hot and greedy. Wet and soul-shattering. He was methodical and spontaneous, raunchy and gentle. Autumn was twenty-five and not a virgin, but Sam knew things. He knew more than just where to touch. He knew how.
He took her to his bedroom inside a thirteen-hundred-square-foot suite. She had a quick impression of oversized leather furniture, black marble, stocked bars, and towering windows before he tossed her on a big king-sized bed covered in dark blue velvet. He’d said he shared the suite with buddies, but Autumn hadn’t seen them. She never heard them either.
Being with Sam wasn’t making love, but it was more than just sex. More than just a few hours of fun in the sack. Her whole body felt alive. Like she was speeding a hundred miles an hour, on fire, racing toward orgasm that arched her back and curled her toes. They had sex twice. The second time much slower and more methodical than the first time, which had began earlier in the pool and ended with them fal ing off the bed and finishing on the floor. When she left the suite three hours after entering it, her elbow hurt and her knees were a little tender. She didn’t remember hitting her elbow, but she did remember hitting her knees.
A smile twisted one corner of her lips as she stepped into the bathtub in her own room. Sam told her he’d cal after he showered. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that she was more than just an afternoon hookup; but if not, that was okay. He hadn’t used her any more than she’d used him. She had no expectations and no regrets.
She reached for a white washcloth and unwrapped a smal bar of soap. A drop of water fel from the spigot into the bath, and the scent of the finely mil ed soap fil ed the room as she washed her face and the spot where Sam had kissed her throat. She ran the soapy cloth over her breasts and bel y and slid down in the water until the back of her head rested against the edge of the tub. She brought her feet close to her behind under the water and closed her eyes. She’d never hooked up with a random guy before. One she didn’t real y know. The one-nighters she’d had in the past had been with men she’d known. At least somewhat. She wasn’t al that sure those counted as one-nighters. Most of those times, though, she’d done the clothes scramble, afterwards fol owed by the walk of shame.
This time, she didn’t feel ashamed. Although she probably should. She’d been raised on shame. Been raised to believe that the price of sin was not a good time but a good guilty conscience. After Autumn’s father had left, her mother embraced religion with both arms. Holding it tight against her chest like a shield. Autumn had been seven, Vince ten, when everything they knew changed. They went from a two-parent home to living with a mother incapable of adapting to the changes in her life. For the first few years, her mother sat around waiting for her husband to come back. When he remarried and began a new family, and it final y became apparent that he wasn’t going to return, Joyce Haven turned to God. She replaced her husband with Him. As a general rule, Autumn didn’t have a problem with religion or people who lived their faith. If religion made a person better, more grounded, then she was al for it. But she did have a problem with people who couldn’t make a decision without consulting God about everything from buying a car to radiation treatments. She believed God gave her a brain and the wisdom to make decisions on her own. The bad decisions she made were just part of life’s learning curve.
For almost two years, she’d put her life on hold to take care of her mother. She’d fought hard, most times harder than Joyce, but in the end, nothing had worked. She didn’t resent taking care of her mother. She loved her mom and missed her every day. There was a permanent hole in her heart and life and family. If given the choice, she’d do it again. She wouldn’t even have to think twice about it. But now. Now her life felt empty. Vince was gone, she was alone, and she had to figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life. She could go back to school and get her business degree. Before her mother’s il ness, she’d been enrol ed part-time at the University of Idaho and working two jobs. She’d worked days for a florist and nights as a server for a local caterer. She’d enjoyed both jobs and wouldn’t mind getting those jobs back when she returned to school.
Autumn felt her fingers get pruney, and she unplugged the tub. She grabbed a towel and looked at her watch, sitting next to the sink. It was half past five. An hour and ten minutes since she’d left Sam’s suite. The phone hadn’t rung.
It didn’t ring as she rubbed coconut-scented lotion into her skin or when she pul ed on a fluffy hotel robe. Nor when she brushed her teeth and dried her hair. She assumed she wouldn’t see Sam again. That was okay. She wouldn’t have minded seeing him again, but she had her to-do list, and riding the rol er coaster at New York New York at night was next on it.
As she moved from the bathroom, she jumped as someone pounded on the door. She placed a hand over her thudding heart and looked through the peephole at Sam, standing there in jeans and a black polo shirt. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep a smile from spreading across her lips. “You lost?” she asked as she opened the door.
He tilted his head to one side. “You’re not dressed?”
“I just got out of the bathtub.” She let him in and leaned her back against the door.
An unrepentant grin flashed across his lips. “I was hoping to catch you naked.” He lowered his mouth to hers and slid his hand inside her robe. He cupped her breast, and they stayed inside her room until the next morning. They ordered room service and a movie and stayed in bed. Between bites of mint-crusted lamb, she learned that Sam lived in Seattle and played hockey for the Chinooks. Autumn didn’t know a lot about hockey, but his being a professional athlete made perfect sense given his muscles and incredible stamina. It also somehow made the time she spent with him more final. Not that she thought their friendship, or whatever it was, would last beyond tomorrow, let alone Vegas. But just knowing who he was, what he was, put an end to any thought of a lasting relationship before one started. She’d dated a footbal player in col ege, but he’d dumped her for a cheerleader. Jocks always ended up dating cheerleaders or sorority girls or starlets.
While in Vegas, she just wanted to enjoy her time with Sam for as long as it lasted. She liked him. He was easy to be with, and he was amazing in bed. Or in the tub, on the floor, or up against a wal . He did things with his mouth that made her scream, and someday, when she was old and barely able to scoot her walker down the hal of some nursing home, she would remember her wild week in Vegas with a gorgeous hockey player. She’d smile, and the other old ladies pushing their walkers would just think she was senile. They’d never know about Sam. No one would know about Sam. Ever. Sam would always be her naughty little secret.
That afternoon, they left Caesars and ate lobster bisque, mushroom-covered tenderloin, and asparagus tips at Delmonico in the Venetian. They washed it al down with a bottle of red wine. He asked about her life, and she told him about her dad leaving when she’d been young and about taking care of her mother.
“I have one brother, but he’s in Afghanistan somewhere doing whatever it is that he does.” She took a bite of tender asparagus and looked across the table at Sam. She told herself that the little pang she felt in her stomach was from hunger and not from Sam’s blue eyes looking back at her. “How about you? Any brothers or sisters?”
He took a big drink of his wine and glanced across the crowded restaurant. “I had a sister.”
When he didn’t offer any more information, she lifted a palm and prompted, “And… ?”
“And she died.”
“When?”
“A few years ago.”
She put her hand over his. “I’m sorry.”
He looked back at her, anger setting his square jaw and leaking out of him like a dark shadow spil ing across the table.
“What’s on your to-do list?”
Subject closed.
She kept her hand on his, and her thumb brushed across his knuckles. Mixed within al that anger was dark pain. She could see it. Feel it, sharp and tangible. The kind of pain she knew al too wel . The kind that could steal your breath if you let it. “Tonight, I want to ride the rol er coaster at New York New York. I think it’l be cool to look down on the Strip al lit up.”
He took another drink of his wine, and she felt the tension ease, sucked back inside wherever he kept it. “I have to meet the guys at the Voodoo Lounge tonight. Why don’t you come with me instead of riding a rol er coaster.”
She slid her hand toward her and tucked it into her lap. There was only one part of her body that she wanted to ache for Sam, and it wasn’t her heart. Anything beyond lust was too risky. She shook her head. “Why don’t I meet you there?”
His brows drew together, and the corners of his mouth lifted in a bemused smile. “Are you playing hard to get?”
She needed some distance. Needed a little space to breathe and clear her head before she did the unthinkable and started to have feelings for him.
“Maybe.”
“Honey, it’s a little late. Don’t you think?”
Maybe, but she had to try. If not, she was afraid she might start to think of him as more than just a wild Vegas hookup. And that couldn’t happen. That was impossible.
He reached into his wal et and pul ed out a VIP pass. “This wil get you in the door,” he said as he handed it across the table toward her. “We have a table on the balcony. Try not to be too late.”
How late was too late? Autumn was an on-time girl and had never understood the concept of fashionably late. But that night she arrived at the Voodoo Lounge after eleven. It just about kil ed her to wait that long. She spent her time shopping for a strapless dress and a black thong. She took a long bath and put her hair up in big curlers. She put on more makeup than usual, and beneath the black tube dress, she only wore her tiny panties. She caught one last glimpse herself before leaving the room. She looked like herself, only different. She looked… sexy. Which was a new look for her. Especial y after the last few years.
It was Sam. Sam made her feel good about herself. It was the way he looked at her. The touch of his hands. The way he whispered her name in her ear. He made her feel desired and sexy.
The Voodoo Lounge was on the fiftieth and fifty-first floors of the Rio, and Autumn walked to the front of the line and flashed her VIP pass. She’d never had a VIP pass to anything and was immediately taken up in a glass elevator and shown down a black-lighted foyer. Like most bars, the Voodoo was dark and smel ed like booze and too much perfume. It had neon pink and blue lights, and a hip-hop band played in one corner of the smal space. She rose onto the toes of her black pumps and looked through the crowd. She didn’t spot Sam right away, so she made her way through the bar to the large outdoor balcony. A breeze caught her hair, and she pushed it behind her ears. In one corner, a DJ spun records from the sixties and seventies, and on the perimeter of the balcony, were groups of cozy tables and chairs and Sam. He stood within a cluster of people, mostly women, laughing and chatting and having a good time. He wore a blue dress shirt with the sleeves rol ed up. Compared to the women, Autumn looked conservative. A platinum blond, wearing a tiger-print haltered minidress, put her hand on his arm, and he didn’t seem to mind. Autumn turned toward the bar and looked over the menu. A gentleman parked at the bar suggested a Witch Doctor, but she didn’t want anything big and bulky that she would have hold with two hands. She ordered a mojito and watched as the bartender threw the glass into the air and caught it behind his back. She cast a glance over her shoulder at Sam, who was stil occupied. This time, one of the women touched his chest. She turned back and dug a twenty out of the little black purse hanging from a silver chain on her shoulder. The guy next to her tried to buy her drink, but she declined. He seemed okay, and if it weren’t for Sam, she might have struck up a conversation with him. He had short dark hair and a thick neck and kind of reminded her of Vince. She pointed to the smoke rising from the guy’s big fishbowl of a drink. “What’s in your Witch Doctor?”
“Rum, coconut rum, banana rum, more rum. Wanna sip?” He turned the straw toward her.
She shook her head and laughed. “No thanks. Four shots of rum is about three too many for me.” She handed the bartender a twenty and felt Sam behind her a fraction of a second before he slid his hand around her waist and pul ed her hair to one side.
“Who’s the asshole?” he asked next to her ear.
She supposed she could get al jealous and indignant because he let women touch him, but she didn’t have any right, and jealousy was such an ugly emotion. “Hi, Sam.”
“What are you doing?”
“Getting a drink.”
“I see that.” His voice was a dark, seductive rumble across her skin. “What took you so long to get here?”
She smiled at the bartender, who put her change and mojito on the bar. “I was buying underwear.”
“Mmm. What kind?”
She shoved her change into her little purse, then turned her face into Sam’s. “Black thong. ” He smel ed a little boozy. Like he’d been at it a while. One thing she did notice about Sam, besides his six-pack and massive good looks, was that he drank a lot. At least to her, and she’d spent three years at the University of Idaho. A notorious party school, but this was Vegas. Most people drank a lot in Vegas.
“Sexy.”
For the first time in a very long time, she felt sexy. “I’l show you later.” Another thing she noticed about Sam, besides his smooth voice and smoother hands, was that he never real y seemed drunk. He didn’t slur or get sloppy. He was never obnoxious, and al that booze did nothing to impede him in the bedroom. He never forgot a condom or the job at hand.
He kissed her neck, then took her hand, and they weaved their way past the dance floor to a table near the edge. They passed a big staircase leading to the upper deck, where a big American flag waved in the breeze.
He introduced her to a guy named Daniel and another named Vlad. One was Swedish, the other Russian. They were both huge and both had women hanging off their arms. Over “Sweet Home Alabama” playing in the background, the two introduced the women in the party. Vlad’s accent was so thick, Autumn thought she caught the names Jazzzzzz and Teeeeeena, but she wouldn’t bet on it.
Daniel’s quizzical gaze seemed to pick her apart and put her back together. “You’re the reason Sam can’t make it to Scores.”
“Or Cheeetaz,” Vlad added.
The boys obviously loved the strip clubs, and Autumn wondered if the women with them grabbed poles for a living. “The first night we met, Sam thought I was a dancer.” She took a drink, then set the glass on the table. “I think he was disappointed.”
“I wasn’t disappointed.” He slid his arm around her and pul ed her against his side.
Daniel’s brows lowered. “You okay, Sam?”
“Yeah.” He turned his attention to the glittering city below. The bril iant, flashing skyline of the Strip and the surrounding area lighting up the desert like stars. “You wanna get out of here?”
She looked up into his profile, at the blue neon light and night shadows against his cheek and jaw. “Is something wrong?”
His grip on her waist tightened. “It’s the thirteenth.”
“Are you superstitious?”
The last strains of “Sweet Home Alabama” trailed off into the breeze, only to be drowned out by the city below. “Yeah.” He looked down at her. “Is
‘have sex in a limo’ on your list?”
She felt his grasp ease to a soft caress. “No.”
“Wanna add it?”
He had to be joking. “Got a limo?”
“Yep.” He flashed her a grin as he reached inside his pant’s pocket and pul ed out his cel phone. “Good night, everyone,” he said, as his hand moved to the smal of her back, and they headed toward the bar. In
the elevator on the way down, his palm slid to her behind and stayed there until they stepped outside the Rio.
A stretch Hummer waited by the curb, and she guessed he wasn’t joking. He helped Autumn into the enormous vehicle and paused a moment to speak with the driver before crawling in after her.
“Does he know what you have planned?” she asked, as the door shut and closed them in the dark interior. Running lights lit up the floor like a 747, and a smal bulb shone on the control panel. Even if he wasn’t joking about sex in a limo, could she real y go through with it?
“Probably.” Sam fiddled with buttons, and the privacy window slid up.
“I’ve never had sex with someone watching.” And she wasn’t so sure she could do it now.
“He can’t see.”
“Are you sure?”
“Reasonably.” He found a radio station and turned up the volume of Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”
Through the dark interior, his mouth found hers, and there was a sort of desperation in his kiss that she’d never felt before. A sort of need and greed. Like he wanted to eat her up. Consume her, right there in the back of a stretch Hummer.
She was leaving in a few short days, and so was he. She’d never see him again, and having sex while speeding through Vegas was a lot better than thinking about going home, alone. The car sped away from the curb, and Bil y Joe’s voice fil ed the limo. As he sang of loneliness and shal ow hearts, Autumn straddled Sam’s lap and placed her hands on the sides of his face. She kissed him long and hard as his hands crept up her thighs because this was Vegas, and apparently she didn’t have a problem with sex in a limo. Not even with only a reasonable assurance that the driver couldn’t see. Nothing was real there. Not the façades, nor the fake canals and volcanos. Not the promise of easy money or the feelings threatening to overtake her good intentions. Certainly not the affair that had nothing to do with love.
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