Sinful Desire

by Lauren Blakely

  Maybe it was time to try a new approach.

  “So here’s the story,” he said, then told them about the only woman he’d ever even started to let into his heart. He kept it short and simple, sticking to basic facts.

  When he was through, Shannon slammed her hands against his chest. “You ass.”

  He stumbled into the pool table, surprise racing through him.

  Brent cracked up. “She doesn’t pull her punches. You gotta watch out for Mrs. Nichols,” he said.

  “Tell me about it,” Ryan said, straightening up.

  “Why are you here? Seriously? Go,” she said, pointing to the door. “Go find her and tell her you weren’t using her, and that she’s the first woman you’ve ever felt a damn thing for, and that you’re all sorts of messed up in the head,” she said, tapping her temple, “but that you want to try for her. Or maybe do you want to wait ten years for her to come back into your life?”

  Brent raised a beer. “Can’t think of a better advertisement for going after the woman you want this very second than our example,” he said, gesturing from Shannon to himself. “Go get her now, man. Get her now.”

  Shannon turned to her husband, and the look in her eyes and the smile on her face said it all. They were in mad love.

  He didn’t know if that was what he was pursuing with Sophie. It felt more like…possibility.

  And hell, possibility seemed worth it. When it came in a package of brains, beauty, and heart, wrapped up in a peach dress, it seemed worth it for sure.

  He searched through his mental files, trying to remember where Sophie said she’d be on Saturday. Something about the fundraiser. Doing some work with her ex. Was she at home? At her office? He snapped his fingers when he remembered.

  “Fine,” he said, then leaned closer to Shannon and whispered, “But can you give me that dress?”

  She smiled widely. “Of course. It’s in my car.”

  He turned to the rest of them. “All right. Wish me luck. You gonna stay here and keep Johnny Cash company and eat the sandwiches?”

  “We are, and then we’re going to spend the day in your pool and wreak havoc,” Colin said. “Leave now so we can start this pool party.”

  * * *

  The ballroom at the Venetian was perfection.

  Sophie had just walked Clyde through a quick rehearsal of his opening remarks, showing him where he would enter the stage, and demonstrating how the podium would be set up for his introduction at the fundraiser.

  She thanked the operations manager for the quick use of the room and then headed to the elevator with the event’s biggest donor. Clyde wagged a finger at her as they stepped into the elevator. “I can’t wait ’til next Saturday.”

  “It’s going to be a great event,” she said with a bright smile she hardly felt.

  Inside, her mind was a cluttered mess. She still didn’t know what to make of Ryan, or whether she wanted to keep moving forward with him. Too bad relationships weren’t math problems with precise answers. They were essay questions in a philosophy class, and they came down to judgement.

  She wasn’t sure what choice she wanted to make, or even if there was a choice anymore. For all she knew, Ryan might have closed the gates on that flicker of possibility she’d sensed last night. Shut it off like a switch. She was willing to bet he was good at that. That the man had a built-in eject button, and could easily parachute himself to a soft landing far away from her.

  “That’s not what I meant. I meant that I’m looking forward to meeting your gentleman at the event,” Clyde said with a wink, mentioning the man in limbo in her life. “The man who has captured the attention of Las Vegas’s most eligible bachelorette.”

  Oh God. She cringed, absolutely cringed from head to toe, and stem to stern, at that designation. The feminist in her wanted to brandish her claws. The shrewd businesswoman in her affixed her best shiny, happy face. “Oh Clyde, you do shower me with compliments,” she said as they reached the ground floor. She attempted to steer him back to the matter at hand, so she could avoid the issue of her date, since she might not have one anymore. “I’m glad everything is in order for the benefit. Thank you again for stopping by on a Saturday morning to have a look-see.”

  He was undeterred. “Sophie, I want to say, if it doesn’t work out with this fellow for whatever reason, you have an open door with me to connect with Taylor.”

  In the blink of an eye, her wishes went from blurry to crystal clear.

  She didn’t want an open door with Taylor. She wanted Ryan. She wanted the one and only man she’d felt such passion and lust and desire for.

  There it was. Her answer. Her choice. This relationship was a math problem. Two plus two equals four, and four was Ryan Sloan.

  Now she needed to figure out what to do with the result of her simple addition.

  “You are so very sweet. And now I have an appointment I must race to,” she said, and pointed down the hallway.

  Once out of earshot and eyeshot, she breathed a huge sigh of relief and headed to the Grand Canal Shops to meet Holden for a cup of coffee and some much-needed retail therapy. A beat of happiness played in her heart as she neared the cafe—she’d always enjoyed Holden’s company, and she needed her best friend even more today. Over lattes and quality time with Kenneth Cole, Coach, and Christian Louboutin, she caught him up to speed on her latest news, showing him Ryan’s photo from his corporate website.

  “I hope it’s not over,” she admitted.

  “So on a scale of one to ten, how much do you like him?” he asked as she tried on a peep-toe silver stiletto with a strap over the heel.

  “One hundred,” she said, peering at the red-soled shoe in the mirror of the boutique. “But I don’t know where we stand.”

  He met her reflection in the glass. “Those look amazing. And honestly, it sounds more like you’re in a holding pattern.”

  “I detest holding patterns. I hate uncertainty. Not to mention, the whole thing just makes me feel stupid.”

  “So tell him as much. Tell him what you need. That he needs to be open with you,” he said, as she slipped off the shoes and gestured to the counter so she could pay for them.

  “And I feel stupid, too, because Clyde is breathing down my neck. It’s like everyone is using me. I’m sorry if that sounds dramatic, but Clyde clearly has his sights set on me because he thinks I’ll never try to touch his money. And then I have to wonder if Ryan had his own agenda.”

  “Did it seem like that?”

  As the saleswoman rang her up, Sophie let the reel of her time with Ryan play before her eyes. Date by date. Night by night. Email by email. Moment after moment of intoxicating, inescapable pleasure. Ryan had always seemed focused on her. Only her. Her pleasure, never anything else.

  She floated back to the diner and his heady words.

  If you were mine, I’d never let you want for anything. I’d take care of you, and all your needs. All the time. Anytime. Whatever you needed, I’d give you.

  A current of longing swirled inside her. Of missing. Of wanting.

  “No,” she admitted, taking the bag from the employee. “I was his only agenda.”

  “Then,” he said, as he patted her shoulder, “it seems you might want to let him know you’re falling for him. Especially since I think he’s here right now.”

  “What?”

  He gestured to the entryway of the Louboutin store. “I’m assuming the insanely handsome man in the University of Michigan T-shirt, holding a shopping bag and looking just like the guy in the photo you just showed me, is here to see you?”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  She was too stunned to say much more, but the softness in his voice, and the vulnerable look in his beautiful, dark blue eyes, settled her nerves.

  Ryan turned to Holden standing next to her. “You must be Holden. I’ve heard a lot about you. Pleasure to meet you,” he said, extending a hand. “I’m Ryan.”

  Ho
lden took it. “Likewise. Nice to meet you, too.”

  “Sophie tells me you’re a talented piano player, and that I’ll get to hear you next week at the benefit,” he continued, and Sophie’s jaw nearly crashed to the floor. She’d never expected possessive, jealous, dominant Ryan to talk so easily to her ex. Sexuality aside, most men wouldn’t do so well talking to a prior lover, let alone a woman’s former husband.

  “Thank you. I hope you enjoy the Beethoven.”

  “I have no doubt I will. That is,” he said, returning his focus to her, “if Sophie will still have me.”

  Holden smiled broadly and dropped a quick kiss on her cheek. “I believe that’s my cue to go,” he said, then exited the store, threading through the Saturday afternoon shoppers at the Grand Canal Shops.

  She was left in the middle of the Louboutin store with the man she’d kicked out of her house last night. “How did you find me here?”

  “Don’t forget, I was Army Intelligence,” he said with a grin.

  “And they taught you how to locate women who are shopping?”

  He shook his head. “No. But you told me you were going to be here today, and since you’re a classy woman, I picked the classiest shoe store as your possible location. That is, after I tried a few other shops.” She loved that she was the object of his treasure hunt. “So,” he began, rocking lightly back and forth on his feet. “I’m not terribly good at this whole talk-about-feelings-and-stuff thing, as you’ve probably gathered by now. So I’m just going to be blunt and lay it out.”

  He took a beat, drawing a breath. Her heart raced as she waited for his next words. “I want to try with you. And I want to take you to the benefit, and introduce you to my brothers and sister, and I’m pretty sure Johnny Cash is eager to meet you.”

  Her heart tripped over itself. “I want all that, too.”

  He wrapped an arm around her waist, and she melted, just melted from the simple touch. “I need you to know, I was never using you. I won’t lie and tell you it didn’t cross my mind that you were the detective’s sister, and I won’t insult your intelligence by saying I didn’t wonder if you knew anything about the case. I did wonder,” he said, and she nodded, listening intently to his serious tone. “But that literally lasted for a minute, maybe two. And it ended as soon as I set eyes on you at Aria. Because once I saw you again, none of the other things mattered. I wanted you with an intensity I haven’t felt before. And the more time I spent with you, the greater that desire became.” His fingertips traced soft lines on her waist. “I know we haven’t even seen each other that much in the grand scheme of things, but I already feel something for you, Sophie. Something deep and powerful,” he said, and those words weaved through her, humming in her body, buoying her heart and her spirit.

  “I feel the same,” she whispered. “I barely understand how it’s possible that I met you a little over a week ago.”

  “I know.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “It makes no sense to me, either. It was pure, one hundred percent lust at first sight, and then it somehow became more. I can’t risk losing you by being so damn stubborn.” He pulled back to look her in the eyes again. His dark blue gaze made her stomach pirouette, and the way he brushed his fingertips along her arm had her skin sizzling. Chemistry—they had a surplus of it, so much they could sell it on street corners, or bottle it and make a mint. Only, she didn’t want to sell it. She wanted to hoard it, because this kind of reaction—like and lust, passion and possibility—didn’t come around often. She needed to grab it, explore it, and see where its magic took them.

  “You didn’t lose me. I promise.”

  “I know I messed up by not telling you more about my family, and I can’t promise I won’t mess up again. And I don’t really know that I’m able or ready to just sit down and tell you every single sordid detail of my life—”

  She pressed her hand to his chest, thrilling at the feel of his firm body beneath the light cotton of the T-shirt. “You don’t need to tell me everything. You don’t have to deliver your biography on a silver platter, Ryan. I already want to see you more. I just want to know more about you. Bit by bit, day by day, as you’re ready to share.”

  He nodded and clasped his hand over hers. “I meant what I said at the diner. I don’t ever get beyond three dates because I don’t like to share. So you need to know you’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted to get closer to. You do something to me that drives me wild and makes it impossible for me to think about anything but you.”

  She couldn’t contain her grin if she tried. “You’re pretty much ever-present in my mind, too.”

  “Now listen, I’d really like to get you naked, but I also want to get to know you. So what would you say if we did something totally Vegas and took a gondola ride and talked?”

  “I would love to get to know you better, Ryan Sloan,” she said. He held out his elbow, and she hooked hers through it, walking with him to the gondolier, excitement ping-ponging through her because they were starting something.

  Starting over, and starting anew, and starting fresh.

  They were going to make a go of this for real, stripped down and bare, hearts and minds.

  And—probably pretty damn soon—bodies, too.

  But for now, there was a boat, and there was water, and there was a fake skyline that looked like a bright blue summer day, so she settled into his arms and bobbed along the canals inside The Venetian.

  “Why don’t you tell me more about hockey?” she asked.

  * * *

  Whew.

  That was not easy.

  That was like…scaling a mountain.

  Lifting a car.

  Leaping over a tall building.

  But to have Sophie in his arms again, her lush, ripe body snuggled next to him as they floated down the manmade canal? Yeah. Worth it.

  Giving voice to emotional truths was exhausting. But she was happy, so damn happy, to listen to him talk about hockey. And he was relieved, so damn relieved, not to have to dig any deeper right now. Fine, he’d probably have to later. But for the moment he explained the basics of a line change, the different penalties, and the puck-before-skates rule.

  “So the puck has to cross the blue line before the skates when you move to the opposing team’s zone?” she asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “And if the attacker has both his skates across the line before that happens, it’s an offside and there’s a face-off,” she said, as she processed the rules he’d explained while the gondolier crooned a love song in Italian.

  “You could be a ref now,” he said, clasping his hand more firmly around her shoulder. She wriggled closer, and the boat passed under a brick bridge.

  “That’s my next calling, I’m sure,” she said resting her head against him. He stroked her hair, and this moment was one of the most surreal of all—living in the present on its own terms. “And why do you like hockey?”

  He shrugged and smiled. “It’s just fun.”

  “Fun is good.”

  “Were you looking for some deeper reason? Like it was my dad’s sport?”

  “No. But was it?”

  “Nah. He wasn’t a sporty guy. He was all about cards, and cars, and poker, and pool. He loved this town because he loved the little bets. He had a regular card game going with his buddy Sanders and his other friend Donald. They played poker every third Thursday of the month. Never more than fifty bucks,” he said. He was tempted to add that his mom used to give his dad a hard time about playing, saying they didn’t have the money to spare. He’d respond by telling her that fifty dollars wasn’t going to make or break their month. He was probably right on that count. Besides, he was good at cards, and used some of his winnings over the years to pay for night school classes the last year of his life. But while Ryan might be able to share little details of his dad with Sophie, he wasn’t ready to delve into the fights his mom and dad had. Letting Sophie into his life didn’t mean baring every single tiny detail. It meant not hiding the things
that mattered. Like his memories of his father. “He was a good guy. A good man. He wasn’t perfect, but he took care of us, and he taught us manners and respect, and he never missed a chance to go to the park.”

  She slinked out from his hold and turned to face him. “He sounds like a great guy. I’m sure you miss him.”

  “I do,” he said with a nod. “I really do.”

  He sighed heavily, and Sophie must have decided hockey and this admission were enough for now, because she cupped his cheeks and brushed her lips to his. It was a soft kiss at first, and she explored his lips as if she were kissing him for the first time. Soon enough she pressed harder, nipping with her teeth, nibbling and sucking, and making him groan in the middle of the canal, with the stripe-shirted gondolier mere feet from them.

  The kiss was a new beginning. A promise of more to share. A hint of what they might become.

  And it blurred the rest of the world. Because all he knew, felt, and wanted had been reduced to the soft and sweet feel of her lips, the smell of her skin, and the scent of her hair.

  Then she picked up speed, veering out of poetic and into ravaging. He’d never let her lead in a kiss before, but he did now, and she sure knew what to do to him. She knew how to play rough, how to kiss like a tiger, hard and hungry. She’d turned him on well past the point of propriety in a gondola.

  He broke the kiss, clasped his hands on her shoulders, and looked her in the eyes. “Spend the rest of the weekend with me. Come to my house. Swim with me. Meet my dog. Play a round of pool. Besides, I have a change of clothes for you if you need one,” he said, holding up the bag with the peach dress in it.

  She made grabby hands, and he yanked back the bag. “You can have it if you say yes.”

  Her eyes lit up. She tapped her chin, pretending to think about it. “I feel like you left one very important thing off the to-do list.”

  He lowered his hand to her ass and squeezed hard. “No, beautiful. That’s a given. Fucking you will be the main agenda item.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six