Carter's Cuffs (11 page)

She sat up then, thinking it was high time they got off the ground. “So now you can keep your end of the deal and unlock these cuffs, and this can be over. Because it has to be.”

He sat up next to her, but she didn’t look at him, just went on. “You get that now, right? It’s over. You need to let me go, Carter.”

“Give me a night,” he said.

She shifted her eyes to his. “
What
?”

“Give me one night to show you that you don’t want to be alone. And that what you feel for me isn’t bad. And that losing control of yourself can be a very good thing.”

Chapter Six

Carter focused on the concrete beneath his feet, which he was drilling into with a jackhammer, the noise deafening to most people, but he used earplugs to protect his hearing. They were just getting started on the strip’s next mega-hotel, which required destroying some old concrete on the large, otherwise empty site. The Las Vegas sun beat down hard, but he was used to it and wouldn’t have traded it. He’d migrated from Boston some years back and only went home to see his family at the holidays. He would have liked seeing his parents more often, as well as his brother and sister and their growing broods, but Las Vegas provided an endless stream of work, mostly nice weather, and lots of beautiful women.

Not that he was noticing many beautiful women lately—other than Erin.

Saturday night had been unbelievable. He’d planned to confront her, get that answer and seduce her with those furry handcuffs he’d bought—but he’d never imagined how intense things would get, or that she’d end up confiding in him so deeply.

The truth was, he couldn’t stop thinking about that soft girl he’d uncovered inside her. And he had the scary feeling that maybe he was…falling in love with her. He knew it was quick, but wasn’t that how love worked sometimes?

He stopped the jackhammer with a sigh. Leave it to him to fall for the one chick in Las Vegas who wanted nothing to do with guys. He still thought her reasoning was pretty insane, but apparently the loss of her dad had affected her in a lot of deep ways that even
she
didn’t completely understand. And he hoped like hell he could convince her, make her realize that caring for somebody could make you stronger, not weaker, if you let it. But she was so stubborn that he had his doubts.

A tap on his arm made him remove one earplug to hear the words, “Knock off for lunch, dude.”

He looked up to see his buddy Drew—construction worker by day, college student by night. Although in his late twenties, Drew had just decided to pursue a degree in psychology last year. He and Carter weren’t longtime friends, but they usually walked up the strip together each day at lunch to grab a burger or some tacos, so Carter had gotten to know him pretty well. He was majoring in sexual psychology—mainly, Carter suspected, because he was a horny bastard—and he generally had more wild stories to share than Carter. But he was a smart, friendly guy, too, and Carter liked him.

Laying the jackhammer down, Carter wiped his hands on his old jeans, then tossed his hardhat aside, leaving only a navy bandanna tied around his forehead. Drew followed suit, ditching a white hardhat in the gravel to reveal straight but shaggy blond hair above the five o’clock shadow already darkening his face even though it was only noon. Carter scratched his own darkly stubbled chin, aware he hadn’t shaved the last couple of days. Erin was so constantly on his mind that he’d grown tired, lazy, lost in the haze of wanting her and not being sure he was going to get her.

“How’s your wild lady cop?” Drew asked as they hit the sidewalk at the edge of the empty, sprawling lot.

It was only Monday, so Carter hadn’t had a chance to fill Drew in on the latest. However, as they headed to a nearby McDonald’s, decked out in extra neon due to its Las Vegas Boulevard address, Carter hit the high points, focusing not so much on the sex as the end result—that she’d reluctantly agreed to give him a night to make her want a relationship with him more than fear it.

“Damn,” Drew said, shoving a couple of fries in his mouth as they sat at one of the brightly colored outdoor tables watching the traffic go by. “You got it bad for this girl, don’t you?”

Carter wasn’t too proud to be honest. “Looks like I do.”

“So what’s your plan? How do you convince her?”

Carter took a bite of his Big Mac and grinned. “More of what we’ve already been doing. Good, hot sex. Because as much as I like her with her clothes
on
, the sexual chemistry between us is…” He blew out a breath, remembering. “Fucking outrageous, man. So that’s what I’m relying on.”

“It’s not enough,” Drew said with a short, precise head shake.

Carter blinked. “Huh?”

“You haven’t won her over with hot sex
yet
. You have to do something that pushes the envelope. Her issue is that she thinks losing control is going to endanger her, right?”

Carter nodded, curious to hear what Mr. Psychology Major was going to say.

“Then you have to play into her fears, turn them around.”

Okay, nothing too insightful there. “Dude, I’ve got a brain—I already got that far on my own. Give me something new.”

Drew ate a few more fries, finished his own Big Mac, then slurped on his Coke while Carter waited. Finally he said, “Look, you know the girl, I don’t. But here’s my advice. Whatever you do, you have to take it to extremes. You have to show the girl that surrendering can be…really hot.”

“We’ve already used handcuffs, twice.”

Drew flashed a pointed look. “Then guess you’re gonna have to go
way
extreme. To the very edge. Take her where she’s never been before, where she’s never even thought about going—and make her love it.”

As Carter sipped on his Coke, two sexy girls in short skirts and high heels, with “tourists looking to party” written all over them, smiled at him and Drew. He smiled back just to be nice, but he was thinking about Drew’s suggestion.

The girls left the sidewalk and approached, looking like carbon copies of the Hilton sisters. The blonde reached up to lower big sunglasses just far enough that she could gaze seductively overtop of them. “So, boys, is it true what they say? What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas?”

“Sure is, beautiful,” Drew said with a wink. “If you want to make some memories together, I’ll be happy to let you leave ’em here with me when you go home to your boyfriend.”

Carter zoned out into his own thoughts as one of the girls wrote down their room number at the Bellagio, and they probably thought he was a bore, but he didn’t mind letting Drew take both of them. What he’d just said had Carter’s mind spinning. People who visited Vegas could do wild things here, then after they left pretend they hadn’t happened and didn’t matter. But when you
lived
here, you didn’t have that luxury.
Erin
didn’t have that luxury. So maybe Drew was right. Take her to the edge, take her someplace she’d never go otherwise—someplace the soft girl inside her would feel
deeply
—and make it feel good, and right, just by virtue of the fact that he was the tour guide. Do that and how could she forget it—how could she
stop
feeling it when it was over?

Yep. Make her give him absolute and total control—and she’d see that letting someone take care of her a little would make her stronger, happier and more complete, even as a cop. Make her know that he was gonna be there for her, loving her, whether she liked it or not.

* * * * *

“So tomorrow night’s the night, huh?”

Still in her hooker garb after another long night outside the Desert Oasis, Erin glanced across the car toward Danny. They’d made three busts through the course of the evening and she was exhausted, both physically, from standing on those fuck-me platform heels all evening, and mentally, from trying to do her job while all this chaos with Carter hovered in the back of her mind. “Unfortunately,” she replied, still unable to believe she’d let Carter talk her into a whole night alone with him.

“I still don’t get you on this,” Danny said, shaking his head. “You’re crazy about the guy, and he’s ga-ga over you, too, but you don’t want to be around him.”

She hadn’t given Danny any details—basically, she’d told him they’d ended up getting involved and that despite trying to keep emotions out of it, she felt more for the guy than she was comfortable with and had called a quick end to it. Oh, and that now she’d also agreed to give him a chance to change her mind. “We’ve been through this before and you know how I feel about it.”

Danny shrugged. “It was easier to take when I thought you were happy that way, by yourself, no one in your life but your mom and a few friends. Now I see you’re really into this guy and trying to fight it, and it bugs me.”

“Well, bug schmug—it’s
my
life. Now can we please change the subject? What are
you
up to tomorrow night?” After working three nights in a row, they were both off tomorrow and the next day.

“Oh, you know, real exciting stuff. Dinner with Ann and the kids. Maybe rent a movie, maybe play some X-Box with Johnny.”

Erin always enjoyed listening to Danny talk about his family. Even when he tried to sound bored, like now—implying that compared to her night, his would be a snorer—a contented little smile always played around his lips when he spoke about them. She let him go on talking—Johnny was playing a soccer tournament this weekend and Megan had gymnastics. The gymnastics were expensive as hell, but she loved it so much they didn’t want to pull her out of it. And on it went, that little smile she could almost hear in his voice as they headed toward the downtown bureau.

Of course, once she got in her own car and headed toward her place, she no longer had Danny’s life to distract her from her own. Driving through the neon jungle toward home, she couldn’t help reflecting on her anger at her dad. She’d had a few days to work through that now, to understand and accept it. She couldn’t believe she’d not recognized it all this time, carried it around inside her—but as Carter had reminded her, she’d gotten good at pretending, in more ways than one.

She’d even gone to her dad’s grave yesterday afternoon before work, taken flowers, and told him she forgave him for leaving her and her mom alone in the world. Despite herself, a tear had snuck out. “Maybe it made me stronger,” she’d told him, kneeling there. “I hope it did. I’ve tried like hell to be strong, Dad.” Of course, lately, her strength had felt depleted by her lust for a certain construction worker.

But she’d also made a decision—or made it more
firmly
anyway. As far as Carter was concerned, she was going to indulge in one more night of full-blown pleasure and that was it. She was going to let herself go completely during her evening with him, going to throw herself into it with reckless abandon—because the man knew how to please her and if she was going to do this, why not make it a night to remember, maybe the best of her life.

But then, after that, it was over—for real this time.

She knew now that she was simply incapable of fucking him without feeling an emotional link, yet she would just have to deal with the fallout of her brief, passionate time with him. Tomorrow night would be the last encounter in their short, tumultuous affair, and the next morning she would start the task of getting over him.

Of course, she’d still see him all the time, in the halls, looking all hot and sweaty and dirty good, but…well, maybe she’d move. She liked it here, she thought, pulling into the quiet Green Valley condo community, and she liked the friends she’d made in the building, but she knew the condo had already appreciated in value since buying it last year, and if she felt the need to put more distance between them, she could always move away. They were building
new
condos right up the street, after all.

She found parking directly in front of the building, and as she got out, she heard a familiar female voice call, “Hey, girlfriend.”

She looked up to see Diana—and Marc—curled up in a lounge chair together on their balcony, situated between hers and Carter’s. “Hey,” she said, then glanced down at herself. “Uh, don’t mind the sleazy outfit. I’m still on hooker detail.”

“Mmm-
mmm
,” Marc said, teasing her. “How do I get Diana on that?”

It was only then that she noticed Diana appeared to be wearing nothing but a slinky, silky robe, and as for what Marc wore, she couldn’t tell, but it wasn’t much. She forgot sometimes what she’d slowly picked up on about her neighbors—they were freer spirits than her when it came to sex.

Disentangling herself from Marc’s embrace, Diana got to her bare feet and took the few steps to the balcony’s railing, resting her arms on top. Her short kimono draped open in front, flashing nearly as much round, sexy cleavage as the skimpy tank top Erin had on. She smiled down at her. “Hear you got a hot date tomorrow night with a hot guy.”

Geesh, the whole world wanted to talk about this, didn’t they? Well, she was going to nip this in the bud. “Yeah, but this thing with me and Carter—he’s a great guy and all
and
totally hot, but…it’s not gonna go anywhere.”

Diana tilted her head knowingly. “Because you need to stay tough and keep your guard up and not get involved with anyone?”

Erin only sighed. “Carter has a big mouth. I keep forgetting how close you and he are.”

Diana just shrugged. “He only told me because I kept asking him about you when he came over for pizza last night. And I know you probably don’t want my advice, but I’m going to give it to you anyway.”