Just One Regret(17)

She nods again, but stays silent.

“Is that okay?” I ask, because I want her voice. I want to hear the softness in it.

“Yes. Okay, Grayson, whatever you want.”

A low laugh rumbles deep inside my chest, and I move my lips to her ear, grazing her soft flesh. “I’ll remember that promise later.”

Sarah jumps off the couch, her feet barely hitting the floor before she’s skipping over to Kennedy. “Come on, we’ve got fancifying to do to our gorgeous selves.”

Laughing, Kennedy shakes her head and pulls away from me. “See you later?”

“Don’t take long,” I tell her, my voice darkening and my dick hardening.

I turn my head, watching them walk out of the hotel room, Sarah pulling Kennedy along in that happy-go-lucky way I’m learning is the way the pipsqueak lives.

As soon as the door clicks shut behind them, I snap my head toward Lynx. “What’d he say?”

He shakes his head and I feel my ire rise all over again. Fucking drunk. “He didn’t answer the phone. Called six times and all of them went unanswered.”

Familiar disgust swirls inside my gut. He’s probably on a bender, the few minutes he was on the phone this morning the only time he’ll be sober for days.

“Fuck it,” I tell the guys. “Let’s forget about this shit and deal with it when we have to.”

I have a reality to avoid and a fantasy to play out later.





Ten





Kennedy





I have no idea what I expected out of a Vegas nightclub, but where we end up—on some plush, circular couch on the upper floor of a club in the Mirage—exceeds anything I could have imagined. The dance floor is already packed with people. I can look down at them from the railing over my shoulder, and the music is so loud that the floor beneath my feet vibrates along with the bass line.

Everything in this place drips with sex and money, and I haven’t stopped scanning the crowd, enamored by the amount of famous people I’ve seen walk past us. And…is that a Kardashian ass?

I shake my head, try to focus on the conversation at the table, but my senses are overwhelmed.

It’s not just because of the club.

Grayson hasn’t stopped touching me since he met us in the lobby of our hotel. He took one look at my white chiffon dress—that hits just below my ass in the middle, the sides draping slightly longer at my outer thighs—and scowled. Then he wrapped his arm around my lower back and leaned in toward my ear¸ hissing, “You’re not farther than two feet away from me for the rest of the night.”

I couldn’t quite tell if it was because he liked what he saw, or if it had something to do with his earlier anger. Perhaps it’s simply male-driven possessiveness to claim a woman within five feet of you.

Regardless, I haven’t argued. I haven’t seen the point. I like him touching me too much. But I have taken his earlier statement—before we left his suite to go back to our own hotel to get ready—to heart.

Tomorrow, I’ll join him in reality. Tonight, I plan on enjoying him.

I snag the raspberry-flavored sparkling water in front of me and take a sip. The drink bubbles and pops in my mouth, but it does nothing to cool the burning inside me. I’ve been on edge all night. Every touch, every graze of his skin along mine, and I’ve wanted to whisk him away back to his suite and give us hours of privacy.

The entire table erupts in joyful laughter and I’m snapped back to the present. Across the table from me, Sarah slaps her hands on the table and shouts, “I’m not freaking kidding you!”

I have no idea what they’re laughing at but when all eyes turn to me, I know it can’t be good. Sarah has more embarrassing stories of me than anyone else, and when she suddenly exclaims, “I still can’t believe she was dripping wet and they let her go,” I have a good idea.

The night I went swimming in the fountain right outside my college’s memorial building. It was a dare—one I took after one too many beers on one of the few times I’ve drunk too much.

It was also months after I gave birth to my child. Sarah was trying her hardest to get me out of the depressed hole I’d sunk into after handing my child over to parents who were more capable of parenting than I would be.

I jumped in, I swam—fully clothed—and when everyone else ran at the first sight of the campus police, I was too waterlogged and sluggish from the alcohol to move fast enough. Somehow, the security guys—who weren’t that much older than me—let me go with a warning when I told them I was looking for a contact lens.

I’m pretty sure it was because I was wearing a white shirt and no bra.

I shake my head at Sarah, smiling. She’s trying to embarrass me and it’s not working. “It was just a silly college dare.”

“Do you still do them?” The corner of Grayson’s lip crinkles up as he leans closer.

“Do what?”

“Take a dare.”

I swallow, and his eyes drop to my mouth. I can practically see the cogs spinning inside his head.

“Nope,” I reply, smacking my lips together. “Never.”

Shaking his head, he tsks. “You know better than to lie to me, Kennedy. Now you have to pay up,” he says and begins sliding out of the chair. He extends his hand and I take it without thinking. It’s become instinct to want him touching me any way I can get it. “Dance with me.”

He tugs me to my feet and I try not to wobble on my gold strappy heels. It took forever to figure out the maze of straps that wrap and wind all over the top of my foot, in between two of my toes, and up and around my ankles almost to my calves. They’re sexy as hell and cost more than I make in a week, but because I got such a great deal on the dress, I splurged on shoes.

As Grayson’s eyes rake down my body, pausing as he gets to my legs, I’m so thankful I did. I’ll buy twelve more pairs just like these, in various colors, if it means Grayson keeps looking at me like this.

“Excuse me,” a feminine voice says, and I twist my neck to look over Grayson’s shoulder. He does the same and straightens his back, putting me behind him.

In front of him, the woman who’s about ready to burst out of her way too tight corset top smirks at me. “I’m a huge fan, Mr. Legend. Can I get your autograph?”

I swear I feel Grayson’s sigh vibrate against his back that presses against me.

“Sure. What would you like me to sign?”

The woman, most definitely not a lady, flicks up a Sharpie marker and thrusts out her chest. “Me.”

She smiles.

I snicker. Seriously? I’m right here, right behind him, and this woman is thrusting her boobs in Grayson’s face.

He turns his head, catches my expression, and with a quick look, shushes me.

“Sure, honey,” he drawls, giving her his attention. I cover my mouth with my hand to hide my laughter when instead of signing her proffered fake boobs, Grayson scrawls his signature scratch down her bare forearm.

He hands the cap back to her and smirks. “Thanks for enjoying my fights. Have a nice night. Now excuse me, I have a girl to dance with.”

His lips quirk into a sexual grin and the woman’s mouth drops open, her eyes sliding behind his shoulder to meet my amused smile.

His hand drops to mine, entwining our hands together, and then he tugs me along. I begin giggling as soon as she’s behind us, and have a hard time maneuvering the stairway through my laughter and the tall stiletto heels.

“Do women really do that?” I ask, unnecessarily. Clearly they do. I just saw it happen. “Freaking hell, Grayson, you’re a celebrity!”

He glances at me over his shoulder and arches a brow. “You’re just now figuring that out?”

He seems amused.

To me, even though I was watching him on television, he was just my former best friend—fellow child of drunken assholes.

“I guess I hadn’t really noticed it or thought about it much until the other night.”

His eyes narrow, seemingly assessing my words and the truth in them. It makes me feel uncomfortable. I’m not given much time to consider why he wouldn’t believe me when we’re thrown into a mess of hundreds of bodies, pressed together, and alcohol freely flowing all over the place.

Grayson’s grip tightens around my hand and he keeps pulling me, keeping me close to him but moving bodies out of the way at the same time. Which doesn’t really seem necessary.

As if most of the men and even the majority of the females seem to know that The Legend is in the building, the crowds part as he pushes his way through. People’s heads swivel and spin as they try to watch us.

It’s mystifying and overwhelming and by the time we finally reach the dance floor, with Grayson’s arms around my back, his hands resting just above the curve of my ass…I feel out of my element.

I belong in Cambridge.

Not Vegas.

I’m a simple interior designer for a local decorating firm.

I don’t know the first thing about what has become of Grayson’s life.

I’m off-balance, and not because of the heels this time, when Grayson’s lips brush against mine.

“Do you have any idea how badly I want you?”

My pulse jumps to my throat. Perhaps it’s my heart. I barely process the words Grayson’s spoken before his lips are back at my ear, his hands on my waist drifting lower.