Sin City Seduction

It was a joke she couldn’t quite laugh at, but she appreciated it and she wanted to stay with him. Didn’t want the warmth of his body heating her left side to suddenly vanish without her really memorizing it to take out at a later date when she was back home, a place she was always slightly miserable if she were being honest.

“Sure, I just have to pay the check and we can go. Since apparently I can’t box this stuff up.”

Chuckling at the throwback to his previous joke, he stood, holding out his hand to help her from the booth. “How about I have the leftovers sent to where you’re staying.”

“But the check,” she pointed out.

“It’s on me, sweetheart. Keep your per diem for the next place you visit.”

She bristled at the patronizing endearment and the per diem crack, as if she couldn’t afford to go out to dinner on her own. Like she was just some girl who couldn’t make it in the world and had to depend on her job’s petty cash to buy her enough food to eat for an entire month.

Suddenly, it felt like she had rocks in her mouth, dry and crackling, and she wanted to grind them between her teeth until they were dust.

He must have read her displeasure because he held up a hand. “We can have the bill sent to your hotel, okay? I was just trying to be nice. If I can’t buy a girl dinner at my own restaurant, I don’t know when I can, you know?” His tone was overly conciliatory, which only served to irritate her more.

“Maybe I’ll just wait here for the check. I have an early day tomorrow and I’m very tired,” she backtracked, yawning to make it more believable.

Hugh crossed his big arms in front of his gorilla-wide chest, the tailored fabric of his suit pulling over the bulging muscles outlined underneath. Although it looked like it, he wasn’t trying to be intimidating; she thought it was just his way of digging into his stance, which was obviously going to be to try to get her to go out with him. “Ms. Jones, I’m sorry if I offended you, but we’ve been looking at each other tonight the same way I hope people look at my food when it comes to their table. I don’t pick women up in my restaurants ever and I’m interested, so I’d be grateful if you’d give me another chance and come grab a drink with me.”

As far as apologies went, it was pretty good, but she’d already made up her mind not to do it since it was a bad idea for a lot of reasons. If things had been different and she hadn’t been intending to write a review of his restaurant, she would one-night-stand the shit out of this guy, but alas, life was only that simple for the pool-raft models.

“Listen,” he began just as she opened her mouth to tell him the aforementioned resolution. “I haven’t been on a real date in years, not one with a woman who minds if I pay a check or not anyway, and I know we literally just met, but you seem pretty cool. I have it on good authority that I’m not great at this shit, so if you could cut me some slack I would really appreciate it.”

She smiled; she couldn’t help it. He didn’t have to be vulnerable with her but he’d gone there, and it took guts to do that with a complete stranger.

“Whose authority?” she asked idly, still deciding what to do. “Who doesn’t think you’re good at picking up women in your restaurants? Seems like that would be pretty easy.”

His lips thinned at the playful jab and his look was bland. “Well, my ex-fiancée for one.”

“Did you call her ‘baby’ and try to put her in a corner?”

His thick eyebrows came together at the old movie reference. “No, that doesn’t even make any sense.”

“Well, you called me sweetheart and I hated it, just like I would hate to be called baby. And your offer to pay for my meal put me in a corner, metaphorically, if you know what I mean. So if you think about it, it really works on a lot of levels.”

Hugh stared at her, a corner of his mouth twitching.

“You know what we call this entire conversation in football?” he asked, arms still crossed and that meaty thumb drumming impatiently on the upper bicep of his opposite arm.

“A touchdown?” she tried.

“Nope, intentional grounding. Where you try to kill the play before it even begins.”

“It sounds like your words are saying you didn’t like my joke, but your face is saying that you did.”

He laughed for real then, the sound rich and deep, warming her belly more than his food had. “Yeah, I fucking liked it. I like you, too, so will you forgive me for trying to get what I have to assume is one of the largest meals ever ordered in my restaurant taken care of?”

She met his eyes, shaking her head at his food crack. “One drink and then I really do need to get home.”

“Fair enough.” He waved over a waiter to explain the situation about her leftovers and check.

“What hotel?” he asked.

“Halcyon.”

“That’s a good one,” he approved.

“It’s pretty for a casino in Vegas,” she admitted, finally rising from the booth.

He offered her his arm and she slipped her hand through, trepidation filtering through her body along with just plain anticipation.

“And your fiancée might be right that you’re bad at the pickup, but your follow-through is exemplary.”

“You have no idea just how accurate that statement is,” he told her, his tone edged with a delicious dash of danger and irony.

CHAPTER TWO

HUGH DIDN’T GET nervous as a rule. He’d faced down the largest men in the country running at him at speeds only athletes conditioned over the course of their entire lives could achieve, so a girl in his restaurant shouldn’t have made him as edgy as he was, but Parker Jones was doing it. And not just because she had a chest not even his famously large hands could get around, though that was a huge plus.

He hadn’t been interested in a woman beyond sleeping with her in a long damned time. If that was a commentary on him as a person, so be it, but after the hell he’d been through with his ex he hadn’t trusted his own judgment to pick women. The scandal was long gone, but he’d never really gotten over being the nation’s poster child for cuckolding. Nor the fact that Amanda was happily married with the family they’d dreamed about. He’d thought he’d have three kids by now, but the thought of finding someone who wanted him for him and not who he’d been as a player was too much work.

So the fact that Ms. Jones gave him some butterflies didn’t mean much. She didn’t even live in the city, and a little what-happens-in-Vegas action was just fine with him. It didn’t matter that when he’d caught her staring at him earlier, something inside him had flickered on. She was beautiful with cool blond hair and warm brown eyes, curves that lasted for days, and expressive lips that he’d wanted to lick his own barbecue sauce off of. And now he also knew she was sarcastic and fun as hell.

He held her hand, small and soft nestled in his long-fingered grasp, wondering when was the last time he’d done something simple like that for a woman and coming up short. Maybe he really had taken himself out of the game for too long, like the guys said, but every time he thought about really giving a woman a chance he remembered all that bullshit with his ex. If girls didn’t want to be with him for the money and notoriety, then they really wanted to be with him because they felt sorry for him. He honestly didn’t know which was worse. But already Parker didn’t seem to care about either his money or his past, which felt good. The sympathetic head tilt was usually the first thing women gave him, whereas she’d just lit him up and thrown his money back in his face. Already, a small piece of him felt liberated.

“When did you retire?” Parker asked when they got outside, a gentle breeze blowing a lock of pale hair across her face. His yellow McLaren was sitting in the first spot near the door.

“Six years ago.”

He guided her toward the car, but she resisted, pulling her arm and breaking their forward momentum. “I assumed we were walking somewhere.”

“We can if you want, but all the bars around here on the Strip are pretty much tourist traps.”

At her raised eyebrow, he gestured to his car. “I’m not going to kidnap you and take you back to my place against your will. This is not that, I promise. Just a drink, like we agreed.”

She didn’t look completely convinced, white teeth chewing nervously at her dark pink lip. If she’d been wearing lipstick it had worn off, probably during her meal.

“But if it did end up being more, would that be the worst thing?” he threw out because fuck it, they were adults. “I mean, like, as long as we both want to.”

She shook her head and he shoved his hands into his pockets. Hooking up usually wasn’t this hard for him. Most girls would have asked to drive his car by now, and he couldn’t even get Parker to have a drink with him.

“We can have a drink on the Strip if you want. Totally innocent and you’ll be close to Halcyon. The problem is that I’ll be bothered by fans at those kinds of places and we won’t actually get to talk.”

She considered him and he waited as patiently as he could. “Okay,” she finally said, her tone still dubious.

“The place I have in mind would be private but it’s too far to walk, so if I don’t drive we’ll have to use an app and ride in some guy’s car.”

“I had a lovely minivan experience on the way here,” she claimed primly. “He even had a candy bowl, so I bet you feel foolish for being so snobby about ride-sharing now.”

She pulled her phone from her bag and started tapping away. He accepted what was happening because after a moment of surprise that she’d easily wrested control from a situation he thought he’d been manipulating masterfully, he realized he actually kind of enjoyed not being in charge. It was a theme that ran through his entire life. He made his own decisions, the decisions for his parents, he’d managed his team on and off the field, he was always in charge of what he did on dates, he managed an entire chain of restaurants, but now here he was in the parking lot of his own restaurant waiting for someone else to decide his fate tonight. He hadn’t known it was a thing that he’d enjoy, but he didn’t hate it.

“I got the luxury option for you,” she told him. “Whatever that means for a person who drives a car for a living. The app says a black Acura sedan.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“You’re suddenly amenable to the car?”

He shrugged. “No, but I’m not going to argue with you.”

Their eyes met in a benign challenge that he found oddly exhilarating, like when he was on the sidelines watching the other team play just waiting for his turn to go back out on the field. Only instead of the playing field being full of elite athletes, it was a single woman with a body designed to make men crumble before they could even attempt a play.

“Good,” she told him, a corner of that full mouth raising in a playful smirk. “I hate difficult people.”

He snorted because they hadn’t been together for more than a half hour and he knew she wasn’t exactly easygoing. And neither was he, for that matter. His own baggage was so heavy only a man of his imposing stature could carry it. He didn’t fault her for knowing what she wanted and doing what she needed to do to get it.

“What?” she asked, reproach in her tone when he didn’t follow up his snort with an actual response.

“Both of us are difficult, sweetheart. It’s why we’re standing here on the street together waiting for a car we don’t need instead of me finishing the night talking to my guests and you eating your weight in barbecue. We like it.”

Just then the black Acura pulled up, the familiar emblem of the car service on the windshield.

“Not bad,” he told her, and she just rolled her eyes.

Taking one last look at his own car that he loved and cherished, he helped Parker into the back seat of their ride, his fingers itching to cup the ass he could barely take his eyes off of as she bent to get inside.

“So where are we going?” she asked, oblivious to the fact that he was seconds away from completely mauling her.

“Oh, did you not want to choose?” he asked, meeting her eyes in the relative darkness of the back seat. The blue lights of the restaurant’s sign shone onto her face, highlighting her pursed lips, which only made him want to kiss that know-it-all expression off of it.

“It’s your town,” she argued.

“Structure,” he instructed the driver, a young man in his twenties who was more or less indifferent to their presence. He had a dirty-blond man-bun and beard that looked like it was taking its time filling in.

The kid pulled away from the curb, and because Hugh had become intensely private about what he shared with the public, he stayed silent for the short five-minute drive to Structure. The bar was on the top floor of the Crown Royale casino and had breathtaking 360-degree views of the city, but mostly he’d chosen it for the privacy. Because he wanted privacy with Parker. Every single dirty thing he wanted to do to her demanded it.

They rode the elevator to the club’s entrance, where they were enthusiastically greeted by Jesse. He requested one of the semiprivate spaces.

“Nothing but the best for you, Hugh,” Jesse breathed, her eyes going dewy and sentimental. “And thank you again for that little loan. It really helped me out.”

“Loan implies I want it back, sweetheart,” he told her, giving her a wink. “I don’t. Consider that car a gift from me to you.”

She leaned up to give him a kiss on the cheek, her long blond ponytail swaying back and forth behind her. “You’re the best, Hugh.”

Jesse was a young girl in her twenties, but had a broken-down car and a small child she needed to provide for, so he’d provided the money to replace it. Structure was one of his favorite places in the city and he’d gotten to know the employees very well over the years, and when she’d needed help, he helped. He would have done it for anybody really, and often did. It was part of the reason he didn’t have relationships. Everyone wanted a piece of him and the only pieces he was willing to give any woman nowadays had dollar signs on them.

He felt Parker’s eyes on him and knew she could be thinking any number of incorrect scenarios. But he’d never slept with Jesse. Not that he wouldn’t, but he hadn’t. That said, he’d given cash gifts to a lot of women he’d slept with, not because he’d felt strongly about them, but precisely because he didn’t. Relationships weren’t gonna happen again as far he was concerned. He’d loved Amanda and she’d made him the literal laughingstock of America, which meant that now, if he had to pay women to leave him alone, he’d do it.

Following Jesse, Hugh led Parker through the club, which was comprised of small rooms and nooks furnished with couches and easy chairs. The decor was Vegas-style Roman, weathered columns reached from the floor to the ceiling and created an intimate space. Dim lighting threw shadows on the paintings of nude women and men on the walls enjoying life’s baser pleasures. Gold-leaf ceilings and bloodred furniture gave the place a lurid feel, like just being there was the first step in finding Eve’s apple and getting to sin for all eternity.

Jesse led them to a small corner room, cordoned off in case people like him showed up, with two red velvet couches and a single gold lamp with a deep red shade that cast the whole space in a muted, sensual glow. A gold coffee table sat in between the couches and he held open the red velvet drape for Parker to enter.

He sat next to her on one of the couches and fought the urge to take her hand again, wanting to feel her skin, to learn it, feel it warm up in his until they were sharing heat.

“I’ve never even heard of this place,” she said, taking in the decadent room.

“It was the only bar we could go and actually hear each other,” he explained. They were far enough away and enclosed so that the music from the bar was a dull rumble in the background instead of a roar. But that wasn’t the only reason he’d chosen this particular place. He only did what he wanted now and he didn’t want to take selfies or answer questions about his glory days—he wanted to flirt with a girl.

“It looks expensive,” she observed, playing with the gold tassel on the lamp.

He shrugged. “I don’t know what expensive is anymore,” he told her honestly. He was also done pretending he was some “aw shucks good ol’ boy” so people liked him. He was a multimillionaire, closing in on nine digits, and he wasn’t going to apologize for it.

Her eyebrow raised and that corner curved up in her signature smirk again. “Look at you,” she purred. “Mister big football man.”

“That’s right,” he said, inching just the slightest bit closer to her as the waitress arrived to take their drink order. He rattled off his favorite red wine, feeling Parker’s eyes on him.

“Maybe I didn’t want wine,” she said when the waitress had left them alone again.

“You should have spoken up then. It’s not like you’ve had a problem with that so far.”

She laughed, shaking her head at the truth of his statement. “Were you sad to retire from football?”

Getting comfortable, he stretched his arm across the back of the couch until he could almost touch her long blond hair with his fingers. “Yeah, the first couple of months were fucking devastating. It was the thing I’d done my entire life. I literally didn’t know anything else outside football, but I had a business degree from UT so I thought I might as well use it.”

“What did you injure?” Her eyes involuntarily scanned his body for what might be out of place.

Damn, he did not want to talk about this shit. Not right now. It was not at all sexy, but Parker was the long game. He already recognized that even if long in this case meant however long she was in town.

“It was late in the fourth quarter against the Steelers, a really physical defense, and I got tackled head-on. I had a compound fracture in my leg, which isn’t too big a deal when you’re a regular person, but the NFL was over for me. The recovery alone was nearly a year, then the conditioning to get back into shape would have been another. I would have been over thirty by the time I could even think about returning to the game, and no one ever has after that kind of injury.”

“So you like running the restaurants?” she asked, changing the subject, which he was really thankful for.

“Hell yeah, I love eating and building something of my own. And I’m in charge, just how I like it.”

She rolled her eyes at his pomp, but then gave the hand resting on the back of the couch a quick squeeze. “I’m sorry about the injury,” she said, her voice steady and earnest. “Do you live with pain?”

He shook his head, but it wasn’t the entire truth. No one left the NFL without some measure of pain management. It was the nature of the job.

The waitress brought them their wine and two glasses, and Hugh poured them halfway full.

“Pinot noir is my favorite,” she told him before taking a small sip, those fuck-me lips closing over the delicate rim of the wineglass. His cock twitched with the X-rated visual of what they’d look like closed around him, her guarded eyes looking at him with want and need and completely lost to lust.

“After the accident, I toyed with buying a vineyard and bottling my own wine, but decided I was more of a smoked meats kind of guy.”

“Definitely seems more on-brand,” she agreed, a corner of her mouth lifting.

“You like making fun of me?” he asked, calling her out on the smug smile.

She shrugged. “Was I?”

Their eyes met, heat darting between them until finally he took a drink of his wine.

“What? A football player can’t be into something highbrow like wine?”

“I didn’t say a word,” she claimed, even though she’d said enough without any words at all. “I think you’re very sophisticated. Your car probably costs more than my house, so I wouldn’t presume to make those kinds of judgments. Plus, this was a deep-cut wine choice. I’m impressed.”

“Do you cover wine in your lifestyle magazine?” he asked, hoping to find out something of substance about her.

“Sometimes, but I’m actually a trained sommelier,” she revealed, and he raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“What? A girl who eats unlawful amounts of barbecue can’t be into something highbrow like wine?” she asked, throwing his own words back in his face.

Damn, he liked her. Liked getting as good as he gave. His ex had wanted him to tiptoe around her feelings like they were Tiffany glass, whereas Parker could dish it out and take it with a smile. It was sexy as hell and his cock throbbed again, coming to life by slow but unstoppable degrees.

“Which leg?” she asked when he didn’t have a response right away. He’d been too busy fantasizing about fucking her on the gold coffee table beside them. Hell, probably the Persian rug would be good enough for the filth he had in mind.

He stretched out his left leg, the one on the outside of the couch, far enough to nudge her foot with his own. It was an innocent touch, just his wingtip nudging her black canvas sneaker, but he felt it in his dick and the back of his head which was clouding over from lust.

“Sorry,” he got out, kneading his leg the slightest bit. “It’s a little stiff.”

She looked suspicious at first, and rightly so, because it was a major line of bullshit. It’d been the other leg in the first place, and in the second place that leg didn’t hurt at all.

“Do you need a hot compress or something?” she said, raising an eyebrow.

“Might be nice if you could massage it for a minute, just to warm it up.”

She laughed, the sound high and incredulous. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“You’re not going to just let me sit here in pain, are you?”

“Don’t you have something you could take?”

He shook his head. “I don’t like pills.”

He jerked at his leg without even an ounce of shame. He wanted her and knew she wanted him, too, from the lingering looks, the jumping pulse at her throat when he touched her, the way she worried that lip. They were two strangers who liked each other; it wouldn’t be a big deal if they saw it through. It was the very tagline of Vegas, for fuck’s sake. He would be doing her a disservice not to offer her that kind of opportunity on her visit.

“Maybe I should go,” she suddenly said, standing up. “Seems like you need to tend to that leg anyway.”

He shot up then, too. “Please don’t. I was just kidding about the massage.”

“What are we really doing here, Hugh?” she asked. “It’s not like we came out together to form a lasting friendship. I’m only here for a month.”

“I just want to get to know you.” And a month was a long damn time.

“Or you want to fuck me,” she said baldly, the words shooting straight to his groin.

He didn’t bother to deny it. “Of course I do. Look at you, and you’ve been riding my ass all night. We’ve been fucking each other with words since the moment I sat down at your table. But I get it, it’s too soon and you want to go, but can I please have your number? Because I’m serious about wanting to know you.”

Her mouth opened, ready to stick him with whatever accusation might render the truth of his statement null and void. But instead, she just murmured, “Fuck it,” and pulled all two hundred and fifty pounds of him to her.

His lips met hers in surprise, but it didn’t take him long to shift to straightforward lust. Once he got his bearings he took control from her, crowding her into the dark corner of the room where they blended in with the black around them. Hidden from all the dirty shit he wanted to do to her.

She pulled her mouth from his and glared at him. “And if you pay me for this, I swear to God I will claw your eyes out. I don’t need to be taken care of.”

The words were clear and a corner of his mouth lifted. No, he didn’t suppose she was. “Noted.”

So he yanked up her T-shirt, running his hands across the smooth skin of her sides and back, diving into the kiss again, coaxing her mouth open wider this time. Her little whimpers of pleasure drove him beyond madness, and he slipped one hand from under her shirt to tunnel back up into that silky halo of hair, adjusting her head so he could go even deeper, their tongues feasting on each other, excavating their secrets with desperate curiosity.