Any Man Of Mine (11 page)

She sat back on her heels and laughed. “How do you feel about Celine Dion?”

“I’ve never been that desperate to get laid.” He sat up and grabbed her wrists. As he rose from the chaise, he pulled her up with him. In the little shaded spot in a corner of Garden of the Gods, he ran his hands up her arms to her shoulders. “Am I on that list?”

Even if she’d thought to put: rub-lotion-on-random-hot-guy on her list, she could not have envisioned Sam. “No, but I could pencil you in.” She touched his sides and pecs, anywhere her hands could reach. “Right after: meet an Elvis impersonator.”

He touched her, too. Her arms and shoulders and the bare curves of her waist. His thumbs fanned her bare belly, back and forth and pressed into her navel. She tore her gaze from the etched muscles of his chest and looked up into his eyes, the same hot, smoldering blue as the Nevada sky above his head. The fine hairs on her arms tingled and sent a shiver down her spine. Her nipples and belly got all tight, and he slid his palms to the small of her back. Slowly, he pulled her against him until the tips of her breasts brushed his chest. He raised one hand and took her hat from her head. He tossed it on the chaise and stared into her eyes. “That hat has been driving me crazy. Teasing me with little glimpses of your pretty face.” His gaze slid down her cheeks and stopped at her mouth. “There’s something about you that makes me want to catch you in my hands and touch you all over.”

She knew the feeling and rose onto the balls of her feet.

“It’s hot out here,” he whispered against her lips.

Yeah. Even in the shade, it was unbelievably hot and sweaty.

One of his palms slid down her arm to her hand. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” She liked Sam. She liked talking to him, and she really liked touching him. She wanted to spend more time with him, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to spend that time in bed. Okay, she did want to, but she knew she shouldn’t.

“Someplace cooler.” He raised his face, and she dropped to her heels.

Cooler?

He turned and pulled her across the hot concrete, past towering lions and columns, to the edge of the pool. He dropped her hand and eased himself into the waist-deep water. She sat on the side of the pool and dangled her legs over the side.

“Are you afraid to come in?” Sunlight turned strands of his hair gold while the water lapped his navel.

“No. I’m just not a very strong swimmer.” And she didn’t want to get her hair wet.

He slid his hands up the outsides of her thighs and stepped between her knees. “I won’t let you drown.” His fingers toyed with the gold-cord bows tying her bikini bottoms together at her hips. “I like you too much to let you drown.”

Which begged the question. “Why?” Why her out of all the women in Vegas?

“Why do I like you?” He raised his gaze from the ties at her waist, up her stomach and breasts to her face. “You’re pretty, and I like the way you dance. I like your hair.”

“It’s red.”

“Naturally?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve never been with a natural redhead.” He flashed her a smile and slid two fingers beneath the golden cord. She half expected him to make some lame comment about her having a fiery crotch. Like some of the guys she’d dated, but he didn’t. Instead he said, “I want to know more about you, Autumn Haven. A lot more.”

She sucked in a little breath that got all tangled up in her chest. “Like if I’m married, have kids, or committed a felony?” That wasn’t what he wanted to know more about, and they both knew it. Did she want more, too? She knew she shouldn’t.

“For starters.”

“No to all three.” She slid her hands up his arms to the hard balls of his shoulders. There were a lot of things in life she shouldn’t do. A lot of things she’d missed out on over the past two years. “How about you?”

“Not married. No kids.” He grasped her thighs and eased her off the side of the pool. Her legs automatically wrapped around his waist, and he said, just above a whisper, “No felony, but by the time this weekend is over, I just might do several things that could land me in jail.”

The crotch of her bikini pressed into the front of his swim shorts. Pressed into the long hard length of his erection. Beneath the surface of the water, she squeezed her legs against him and against the hot, tight pressure building between her thighs. A lot of things like sex. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. I’ve only lived in the U.S. for about two years now, and I don’t know what’s illegal here.” He lifted one wet hand and pushed her hair behind her shoulder. His cool fingers brushed down her spine to her bottom. “Sexually speaking.”

The cool water swirled about her legs and behind and the hot, liquid press of her body into his. The sensation of hot and cool heightened her sexual awareness, and she glanced around at the other people lounging about or standing in the large pool. She and Sam were far from alone. People could see them. This wasn’t her. She didn’t do this sort of thing. Not with a man she’d just met. Not in public. “Where are you from?”

“Originally Saskatchewan.” He moved backward until the water lapped at the bottom swells of her breasts. “Canada.”

Growing up, she’d lived close to the Canadian border in three different states. She summoned up her best Canadian accent and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her hard, aching nipples into his chest. “I think everything is legal in Vegas, eh?” she said next to his ear.

His chuckle was low and deep in his throat and ended in a groan as he grabbed her behind in both hands and lifted her slightly. “Everything?” Slowly, she slid back down his body. Down his hard chest and harder erection. He kissed the side of her neck, right where it met her shoulder. He sucked her skin into his hot, wet mouth, and any reservations she might have had about spending time in bed with Sam burned to a crisp beneath the hot Nevada sun.

Her head fell back and her breasts lifted. “Everything.”

Good in Bed

G
ood 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 falling 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 call 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 small bar of soap. A drop of water fell from the spigot into the bath, and the scent of the finely milled soap filled 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 belly 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 really know. The one-nighters she’d had in the past had been with men she’d known. At least somewhat. She wasn’t all that sure those counted as one-nighters. Most of those times, though, she’d done the clothes scramble, afterwards followed 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 finally 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 all 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 illness, she’d been enrolled 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 pulled 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 roller 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 football player in college, 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 wall. 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 hall 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 all 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 spilling across the table. “What’s on your to-do list?” Subject closed.