Maybe if she hadn’t paid nonrefundable money for the seven-day, five-night vacation package to Caesars Palace, she would have taken one look at the debauchery in those beautiful eyes and run home. Maybe if her mother hadn’t warned her about the decadence in Vegas, she wouldn’t have been so intrigued to see it for herself.
She’d spent the previous two years caring for her mom and taking care of her affairs after her death and she’d needed a break. A vacation from her life. She had a list of everything she wanted to do in Vegas, and she was determined to wring every last dime out of that vacation.
That first day by herself she’d spent walking up and down the Strip, staring at al the people and col ecting stripper/hooker cards. She’d windowshopped at Fendi, Versace, and Louis Vuitton. She’d found a pink bead bracelet at a sidewalk vendor and played a few slots in Harrah’s because she’d read somewhere that Toby Keith stayed at Harrah’s. But she’d only fed the slots until she lost twenty bucks. Even then, she’d been very tight with her money.
She’d lounged by the pool, and that night she put on a white sundress she’d bought at a Wal-Mart in Helena and hit Pure. She’d heard about the nightclub inside Caesars. Read in People and Star magazines that celebrities hosted parties in the bar. At first, things inside Pure were slow. She sat within the stark white interior and rol ing pastel lights, nursing a few drinks and wondering, “Is this it?” Is this what everyone raves about? But by eleven, the bar picked up, and by midnight she was dancing and having a good time. By 1:00 A.M., the dance floor was a crowded mash of warm bodies, and she was in the middle of it, moving her butt to Jack Johnson, letting go, being young, and having more fun than she’d had in years.
Within the mix of hot bodies and warm tequila glow, she’d become instantly aware of a pair of big hands on her waist. For a second or two she hadn’t thought much of it. The floor was crowded, and people were bumping into each other. She took the touch for an accident, but when it became obvious to her booze-soaked brain that the touch wasn’t accidental, she threw an elbow into a solid wal of muscle and looked over her shoulder. Way up into baby blue eyes and a face that dropped her jaw. Yel ow light slid through his hair and lit him up like a golden god. He didn’t smile or say anything. Not even “hel o.” He just looked at her, his hands lightly resting in the curve of her waist, not a bit sorry that he was touching her. Blue and green lights flashed across his face as sex rol ed off him in hot waves. His gaze held hers, and she knew trouble when it stared down at her. She knew it by the tumble in her stomach and the catch in her breath. She knew she should run. But she didn’t. Instead, she stood there, feeling the pulsing beat of the music through her feet up to her heart. She stood there, staring into those mesmerizing blue eyes like she’d fal en into some bizarre, dizzying trance. Either that, or she’d downed more tequila than she thought. He lowered his face and asked next to her ear, “Are you afraid?” His deep, rough voice touched the side of her throat and raised the tiny hairs on the back of her neck.
Was she?
No, but she definitely should be. Maybe it was the alcohol or Vegas or him. Probably al three. She shook her head and he pul ed back and looked into her face as an easy, confident smile pushed up the corners of his lips.
“Good.” He raised one of her hands to his shoulder and once again rested both palms in the curve of her waist. “That’s real good.”
For such a big guy, he could move. He was fluid and at perfect ease with his body. He pul ed her closer until the front of her sundress almost touched his blue T-shirt. Almost. She could feel the heat of his chest and smel the scent of soap and skin and beer. He moved his hips with hers, his knee finding a spot between her thighs. Her hands slid across his hard shoulders to the base of his wide neck. This wasn’t happening. This sort of thing didn’t happen to her. Not the pounding in her heart or the hot pulse down low in her bel y. It wasn’t real. He wasn’t real. He certainly wasn’t on her to-do list. His lids lowered a fraction as he looked down at her, her body in perfect time with his, his hips flirting with hers but never actual y touching. “I saw you,” he said next to her ear. “And I like the way you move.”
She liked the way he moved, too. Any man who could move like he was making love on the dance floor had to know how to make love in the bedroom. Autumn wasn’t exactly a virgin. She’d had a few boyfriends. Some of them had even been pretty good in bed, but she had a feeling that this guy knew things. The kinds of things that came with lots of experience and dedicated practice. Things that turned up the heat in her abdomen.
“Are you a dancer?”
She was almost insulted, but this was Vegas. “Like a stripper?”
“Yeah.”
“No. Are you?”
He laughed. A low rumbling next to her throat. “No, but if I were, I’d give you a free lap dance.”
“Bummer. I’ve never had a lap dance.” She had a feeling he couldn’t say the same.
“I’ve never given one, but for you I’d be wil ing to give it a try.”
As she pul ed back to look up into his face, his lips slipped across her cheek and brushed the corner of her mouth. She sucked in a hard breath, and her chest got tight.
“But not here,” he said. “Come with me.”
She didn’t know him. Didn’t even know his name, but she wanted to. She wanted to know al of him. She wanted to go anywhere he wanted to take her.
She should run.
This time she listened. She took a step back, and his hands fel to his sides. He raised one brow, and before she lost her mind completely, she turned. He reached for her. She felt his hand on her arm, but she kept on going. One foot in front of the other, al the way up to the sixth floor. She shut herself inside her room and locked the door. Him out or her in, she wasn’t sure.
This sort of thing did not happen to her. She didn’t dance like that with guys she didn’t know. She didn’t stare at their lips and wonder what it would be like to kiss them.
Her mother had been right. Las Vegas was a decadent, moral y dangerous place, and she should have heeded the warning. Nothing was real there. Not the canal at the Venetian, the volcano at the Mirage, or the people at Pure. Handsome men did not look at Autumn Haven as if she were the only woman in a bar fil ed with beautiful women. And she, Autumn Haven, did not contemplate sex with complete strangers. Not even strangers who looked like the guy in the bar.
She packed her bags, but when she woke the next morning, her head cleared, and she decided she’d overreacted. She’d had too much to drink and blown everything out of proportion. Her memory of the night before was a bit hazy, and she was fairly sure she hadn’t real y contemplated hooking up with some random guy. The touch of his hands on her waist hadn’t been as hot, and he wasn’t as impossibly good-looking as she recal ed through her tequila goggles. But even if it was al true, the chances of its happening again were as about as likely as running into that same guy in a town crammed with hundreds of thousands of guys.
She spent most of the morning in her room getting over the slight headache she had earned the night before. After lunch, she put on a black bikini with gold hearts she’d splurged on at the Fashion Show Mal the day before. She slathered herself with sun screen, dumped it along with several magazines in her beach bag, and headed down to the pool.
From the hotel’s brochure, she knew that the pool was cal ed Garden of the Gods Pool Oasis. Which pretty much described the elaborate pools, massive columns and urns, rows of palm trees and winged lions. In the brochure, she thought Caesars should have added decadent to the description. The Garden of the Gods Pool and Decadent Oasis
By the time she made it to the pools, it was a little before one in the afternoon and inching toward a hundred degrees. The sun toasted the top of her head, and she took a big floppy hat out of her bag and found a white lounge chair in one corner beneath a cluster of palms. Being a natural redhead didn’t mix with the hot sun. She either burned or freckled. Neither was an attractive option.
A cabana boy took her drink order, and she relaxed with a tal glass of tea. Not the Long Island kind. At least not right then. With her hat dipping over her left eye, she sat back with a Cosmo magazine and settled into an article about the most intense erogenous zones on a man. According to the article, it was just beneath the head of the penis cal ed the frenulum. Autumn had never heard of it and brought the magazine closer for a better look at the diagram.
“There you are, Cinderel a.”