“Great name.”
“Ryan treats him like a king. I think he even cooks him steak on Sundays.”
“Lucky dog,” Brent said with a smile.
“Have you been back in Vegas for long?” she asked, as she ran her fingertip absently along the rim of her martini glass.
“A little over a year. I moved here for stand-up after Late Night Antics, then back to L.A. again for a few years when I got my own show, then I returned again last year to start the clubs,” he said, tilting his head back and forth. His life post-college had swung like a pendulum between the two cities. “I live over near downtown. Want to see?” he asked, gesturing to the window.
“Yes.”
He stood up and held out a hand. Not that he expected her to take it, and she didn’t, but he placed his palm softly, ever so softly, against the small of her back. He barely touched her; there was a millimeter of space between them, but her breath caught, and she trembled slightly before straightening her spine.
They stood by the glass, him behind her. All of Vegas shimmered below, the lights of the city like fireflies, the skyscrapers rising up through the night, as neon streaked to the horizon. He pointed north, past the lights of the Stratosphere. “That’s me over there.”
“I love that neighborhood.” She gestured beyond, and he was turned on simply by the way she raised her arm. Damn, he was easy. Anything she did, any move she made, bordered on sexual for him. She could have a baggy sweatshirt on and he’d still be ready to go. “And that’s me,” she said.
She was so damn near to him as they stood gazing out the window into the brightly lit night. His entire body buzzed like an exposed electrical line because of this woman—flesh and blood, curves and muscle, strength and beauty—mere inches from him.
“That’s nice,” he said, his voice raspy and hot, but there was nothing nice at all about this moment.
She turned to look at him, and neither one of them said a word. Her green eyes were dark and intense. Her lips were so close. The inches between them were swallowed whole by the connection that crackled between them. She seemed to sway closer, and he moved in, seizing the moment.
He lifted his hand to her hair, still sleek in its twist, different from the shade she’d had when he knew her, but beautiful just the same. A strand had fallen loose, chestnut brown and curled. He touched it, ran his finger across the single lock. Time melted away as he leaned into the familiar crook of her neck. The craving for her ran so damn deep it lived inside his bones.
He inhaled her, that honey scent, a new smell that in an instant marked her.
“Shan,” he whispered, rough and gravelly, filled with so much want for her, which had built over the years, grown higher, spread further, formed roots. Inhabited him. He was desperate to have her in his arms again, to smother her in kisses that erased all the years.
“Brent,” she whispered, his name sounding like sugar on her tongue.
He buried his face in her neck, layering kisses on her soft skin. “Where have you been?” he asked, though it was entirely rhetorical. She hadn’t been with him. He hadn’t been with her. That was the answer.
“Where were you?” she countered softly.
He lifted his face and looked her in the eyes as he brushed the back of his fingers along her cheek. “Thinking of you,” he said.
He didn’t know how he’d gone from breaking two glasses to finding her falling into his arms. But that was where they were. He cupped her cheeks in his hands. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he rasped out, and then he crushed her mouth. He consumed her lips. He kissed her hard, and greedily, and the world around him turned black and small. It faded into a speck of nothingness because there was room for nothing else in his world but her. Nothing but the utter perfection of Shannon Paige-Prince wrapped around him where she belonged.
No time had passed.
No years had flown by.
No regrets had dug deep inside him.
They kissed like it was a first time, and a last time, and like it was all time. They kissed like two people who wanted to climb into each other’s skin, to smash into the other person. There were no doubts. No questions. She had to feel everything he felt. She had to want a second chance, too.
This was not only a kiss. It was crashing back into orbit. It was gravity reinstated. In the press of her lips, in the slide of her tongue, in the gasps she made, they hurtled back in time. All mistakes were erased in this moment.
He dropped a hand to her lower back, yanking her close. Kissing was not enough. Lips would only get them so far. He had to feel her, touch her, taste her. She was his, and even though they were kissing in front of the entire city, he was all alone with her.
He couldn’t get close enough to her. She pressed into him, a full body collision, grinding against him. He groaned as he reclaimed her mouth, his entire body consumed with a lust so powerful he didn’t know how he’d make it out of the bar and back to his house, to a room, to her place, wherever, anywhere, without fucking her along the way.
As she rubbed her body against him, he could feel the heat between her legs. It fried his brain and short-circuited his skull. The desire to touch her enveloped him. He wanted to watch her undress, to stare at that to-die-for body that he’d missed so terribly, to roam his eyes over her curves as she lowered herself onto him and rode him the way she liked.
Hell, the way she fused her body against his told him all he needed to know. She wanted the same things.
He kissed a line along her jaw to her ear as she breathed hard. “Come home with me tonight,” he said, skimming his hand along the outside of her thigh.
Her hand connected with his cheek, and his head snapped to the side.
His head rang. His skin burned from the sharpness—the unexpected sting from the slap that came out of nowhere.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she asked, pulling away.
“What the fuck is wrong with me?” he repeated, shock reverberating in his bones. He opened his mouth to say more, but no words came.
She leaned in close and whispered, “Let me give you a tip, Brent. When you haven’t seen a woman in ten years, maybe say you’re sorry for breaking her heart before you try to fuck her again.”
Frustration seared his nervous system. “Fuck,” he said in a low hiss. “I’m sorry, Shan.”
She narrowed her eyes and shot him an icy stare. “That would have been a lot more believable if it didn’t require a prompt.”
Without skipping a beat, he gave it right back to her, firing off a retort. “How was I supposed to say it when your mouth was on mine? Tell me that, Shan. Tell me that,” he said, jutting out his chin, waiting for her answer.
She grabbed her silver scarf from the chair and glared at him as she brandished it. “Next time you want to see me you’ll need a better excuse than sitting on my scarf.”
She stormed off, but when she was a few feet away, he called out, “It’s called a wrap. Don’t forget that. It’s a wrap.”
She stopped in her tracks. He swore red clouds billowed off her, and as she clenched her fists, he was willing to bet she was fighting every urge to give him the finger.
She resumed her pace.
As he watched her walk away, this time he was pissed off too. The woman wouldn’t cut him a fucking break. She’d avoided his phone calls those first few days. She’d ignored every attempt he’d made to contact her. And now, she was kissing him back, then getting pissed at him for wanting her.
What the hell?
He used to think he understood her. He used to think he was the only one for her.
But she gave new meaning to the word whiplash.
CHAPTER SIX