Nina Bruhns - Las Vegas - Scandals

“You? What do you mean?”

“So quickly they forget.”

“Oh. Right.” They were stuck like glue until Special Agent Duncan decided to arrest her. Which meant Conner’d have to come to the club with her.

A memory washed over her, of him sitting in the front row sipping champagne like a dissolute sultan, watching her take off every stitch of clothing. And—oh, God—how turned on she’d been. By him. By his negligent air of wealth and power. And the hungry look in his eyes as his gaze had caressed her nude body. No wonder she’d gone off like a rocket when he touched her later on.

She swallowed. “I suppose you’ll insist on going with me.”

“Oh, absolutely. Wouldn’t miss it.” He winked.

That’s what she was afraid of.

That, and the nutcase who might now be after her because of that damn ring. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea he went with her, after all.

Bad enough she’d invaded his dreams all night like some kind of teasing succubus, but even now, the next morning, sun shining, birds singing, the little witch was still torturing him. Deliberately. With malice aforethought.

Conner frowned, taking in the sight that had nearly made the tray of coffee and croissants he was carrying spill all over the Mexican patio tiles. The French doors to the cabana had been flung open. Sheer curtains billowed out from them in the hot desert breeze. Inside the dim room, the scene was straight out of one of the erotic dreams he’d been haunted by all night.

Vera. Nude. Sprawled on her stomach across her bed…Except in his dreams of course it had been his bed. Sheets in a tangle. Her skin moist with a sheen of sweat. Her hair in a mess as though from his fingers…Except his fingers had unfortunately been nowhere near her last night.

Seeing her like that, he’d been shocked enough that his first thought was that she was dead. Lying there brutally murdered, like his cousin Candace. The memory of that crime scene had streaked through his mind, nearly tipping the tray in his hands. Thankfully she’d stirred immediately at the sound of the rattling dishes so he knew she was okay, or he would really have lost it.

As it was, he was now close to losing it for an entirely different reason.

The woman was a sensual vision. Her hot body even sexier than in his dreams.

Easy, boy.

She’d made it clear last night she was no longer interested in sex with him. He’d honored her wishes and hadn’t pushed it, although he was pretty sure he could have changed her mind with very little effort. They obviously had chemistry. Potent chemistry. And lots of it.

But this…this was unfair.

Or maybe it was an invitation? Had she gone to bed naked, hoping he would come to her?

What an idiot. He should at least have tried…

“Conner?”

He started at the sound of her throaty, sleep-muzzy voice. The dishes rattled, and he had to catch the tray for the second time to keep from dumping it.

“Yeah. It’s me.”

She turned over in the bed, and he gripped the tray even harder. Pure torture. “What have you got?”

Besides a hard-on? “Breakfast,” he croaked. “Interested?”

“Mmm.” Her arms rose in a languorous stretch. “Coffee, I hope?”

Lord, help him.

“Yep.” He reached a nearby patio table just in time, depositing the tray on the round glass top with a clatter. After righting the cups and returning the croissants to the plate, he turned, ready to abandon all pretense and just go in and devour her, when she strolled by with another stretch, heading for the pool.

“I feel divine! Haven’t slept so well in ages,” she declared, pushing her mane of chestnut hair back from her face. “I love sleeping with the doors open, with the warm air and the smell of the desert. Haven’t been able to do that since I sold the mobile home.”

He paused, nonplussed. Okay. Obviously not an invitation. He grappled for a thread of conversation that didn’t involve the words condom or go down. “Mobile home?” he asked.

She shot him a look, stopping at the edge of the pool and dipping a toe into it. A toe that was bare, just like the rest of her. “I grew up in the Sunnyvale Mobile Home Park, just outside of town.”

He knew that. He was just momentarily brain-dead. “No air-conditioning?” he ventured.

She smiled. “No.”

She executed a perfect dive into the water. He let out a long, long breath, and for a few minutes he watched her expertly cut through the water, the joy in her movements contagious. He wanted to join her in the worst way, but in a sense it would have been like some fool painting daisies into a Monet. Perfection spoiled. He forced himself onto a patio chair, peeled off his shirt because he was suddenly far too warm and poured coffee instead.

She bobbed up at the side of the pool, folding her arms along the coping. “Hope you don’t mind. I couldn’t resist a quick dip. We have a pool in our apartment building, but it’s indoors.” She wrinkled her nose as though that were a cardinal sin.

“Take all the time you like. I’m enjoying the view.”

She tilted her head. “Not misinterpreting, I hope.”

“I’ll have to admit,” he said, taking a sip of strong black coffee to jolt his mind back up where it belonged, “your…lack of inhibition did take me in a certain direction. I now stand corrected.”

She smiled and lithely hoisted herself from the water and onto the deck in one fluid movement. Like Venus rising from the sea. She padded to the table with water flowing from her lightly tanned skin like drops of molten gold, and reached for his cup. She put it to her lips with eyes closed and long lashes sparkling with water droplets. He had to grip the arms of his chair to keep from surging to his feet to lick them off. Along with the rivulets trickling down her perfect breasts.

He stifled a groan.

She set the cup down on the table. “Give me a minute,” she said. “I’ll get dressed.” Then she disappeared into the cabana.

He cleared his throat, found his voice and called after her, “Don’t bother on my account!”

And he knew then if he hadn’t before—which deep down he had, but up until this very moment had chosen total, blind denial. One thing was for damned certain.

He had to have her.

Really have her. All to himself. For a few days. A week. Maybe even a month. Long enough to explore that chatterbox mouth with its guileless smile, that amazingly sensual body and the wonderfully sassy woman inside it.

Oh, yeah. He’d have her, all right.

He’d find a way to make her want him.

And the sooner the better.

Or he might just go completely out of his mind.

“I have a proposition for you.”

Vera halted her coffee cup halfway to her mouth and glanced at Conner. “What kind of proposition?” she asked. Like she couldn’t guess.

Frankly, she’d been expecting this. She was actually surprised he’d managed to hold out as long as he had. Nearly a whole hour. While they’d talked of her childhood, his crazy relationship with his famous cousins and what it was like to stare up at the night sky out in the vast desert and see a billion gazillion stars up there and wonder if there was any other life in the universe.

Nevertheless, disappointment sifted through her. For some unfathomable reason, she’d thought he might be different from all the other men who tried to get in her pants. She’d hoped he was different. He’d been lost in thought for the past few minutes, and she’d really believed he was adjusting his perception of her. Starting to see her as a whole person and not just a nude body onstage or an easy seduction in an elevator.