Lex scrubbed his hand hard over his brow. Crap, this was a messy tangle of love, adultery, murder, and revenge—old Las Vegas mob-style. And the only reason he’d stumbled upon this dark and dirty truth about his own past was because Harold Rothchild’s old connection with Frank Epstein had led him here.
“…there are still people in town who will go to great lengths to ensure that the past stays where it belongs—buried. You go trying to mess with that, and you’re looking to be messing with some real bad ghosts…”
Yeah, well now he knew just how bad those ghosts really were.
“What is your illness?” he asked calmly.
“An advanced form of leukemia. When my system starts to fail, it will be very fast. And it could happen anytime. Today. Tomorrow, next week.”
Lex stared at her for several beats, then turned and exited the penthouse without looking back, his heart stone-cold numb.
His soul empty.
Mechanically, he pressed the elevator button for the lobby and began the ride back to ground level.
He finally had one answer he’d been searching a lifetime for—he knew the name of his father. And he felt more alone than ever, more at a loss as to who he really was. Because in a way, he’d just lost his mother. He’d just lost everything he thought he’d ever known.
Empty, emotionless, alone, he exited the elevator.
And there she was—Jenna—pacing agitatedly in front of the elevators, wearing an innocent summer dress with a small floral print, flat sandals, loose-flowing hair. Her eyes lit brightly when she saw him, and she ran to him.
Lex took her in his arms, wrapped himself around her. Held tight. As tight as he dared without hurting her. She was suddenly a buffer against the overwhelming emotion threatening to crack out of him, the only thing stopping him from crumbling. The only thing in this world that mattered to him right at this moment.
She looked up, eyes warm, soft and caring. “I wanted to say I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I should never have asked you to go against your job, your principles.”
He closed his eyes against a sudden sharp burn, put his head back, battling to keep it all inside. But she cupped the back of his head, made him look at her, and she leaned up on tiptoe and kissed him.
Through her summer dress he could feel her breasts, her nipples hardening, and he felt himself implode. He had to make love to her. Right now. In Epstein’s hotel. Jenna’s mouth opened warm, soft under his. Kissing her, Lex backed toward the check-in desk. “A room,” he murmured against her lips. “We need a room.”
They started up in the elevator, his tongue tangling with hers as he slipped his hand under her dress. He lifted her bare leg, smooth as silk, hooked it around him, finding her panties damp. His heart began to race, his breath coming short. Knowing the cameras, the eye-in-the-sky was watching, he thrust his fingers inside her, began to move them. Jenna sagged against him, sinking down onto his fingers, deepening his reach as she hooked her leg higher. He felt her undoing his fly, taking his erection into her hands.
She hurriedly guided him into herself, and Lex grabbed her buttocks as she curled her other leg around his hips and they crashed back against the mirror. With near-blind passionate hunger, a desperate need to find himself, to find her, he thrust up into her. She threw her head back, hair cascading down her back as she clung her arms around his neck.
This was one thing that felt true, real, right…and he pumped into her, fast, repeatedly, supporting her weight as she gasped, one hand sliding on the steamy mirror the other flying back to grip the railing as she came with a sharp cry, just as the bell clanged onto their floor.
Chapter 12
Stumbling backward into the room, kissing, they backed clumsily toward the bed, door slamming shut behind them. Lex dropped Jenna onto the covers, lifted her dress over her head and removed her panties. She moved her hands to his hips, slid his pants down his powerful thighs, exhilaration burning in her chest. “All of you,” she whispered. “I want to see all of you.”
It was turning to dusk outside, the vibrant flickering wattage of Vegas pulsing hotter as the sky over the desert dimmed to mute purples and browns. The light from the window was surreal, and it made him look like something from an erotic dream—Mediterranean skin olive and smooth, his muscles pumped with energy, literally vibrating for the same kind of release she’d had in the elevator. His hair hung in a loose lick over his forehead, and his features were predatory, etched with hunger for her, eyes fierce dark emeralds—something had shifted in him. Something had been set loose—primal and aggressive. And hot damn, she liked it.