After I got her naked tonight.
Because damn, I couldn’t wait to see what she could do to me in bed.
Mia eyed me. “I should say no.”
“Why? Who refuses food when they’re hungry?”
“A woman who should be playing hard to get.”
“Are you? Playing hard to get?” She hadn’t walked away yet. That was all I cared about.
“Not as well as I should be.”
“Who says you should be playing anything?” I put my hand on the back of her chair so that I was in her space, but not touching her. “It’s the holidays. We’re both alone in a bar. We’re just talking, no big deal.”
She nodded. “You’re right. We’re just talking.”
For now.
I was going to take Mia home and peel back all her layers.
Chapter Three
Mia
One entree, two drinks, three venue changes, and four hours later, we weren’t just talking.
Nope. We were in the back of a car headed to where James was staying, and his enormous hand was on my knee stroking the bare skin. That hand was gradually making inroads on my thigh, giving me goosebumps and a pit of arousal deep in my core, as James basically eye-fucked me. He kept giving me smoldering intense looks that made me wish like hell we were alone. It was a good eye-fuck. I could have come from it if I had tried, which said fantastic things about where the night was headed.
It was possibly the longest ride in the history of Uber, even if it was only about two miles.
We hadn’t even kissed yet because I wasn’t going to make out in a bar or two feet away from a driver and now I was absolutely impatient for him to kiss me. Yearning to have him lean over and take my mouth with his, hard. There had been an almost-kiss while standing on the sidewalk outside the casino, where we had been waiting for our ride, but we’d been interrupted by a laughing group of friends stumbling outside.
Earlier, James had talked me onto the Ferris wheel and to see the Bellagio fountains, which I had never really paused to watch because I was perpetually rushing around from job to job. He casually spent some of that three grand in his wallet on my food and drinks, opened doors and pulled out chairs, and acted like I was the most interesting thing to happen to him in Vegas. I was flattered and flirty and now I wanted him to tear my dress off and really make me forget the real world and all of my pressing responsibilities like my mother’s lingering medical bills from her diabetes and heart attack scare.
I’d had a great time and had felt more free of stress and worry than I had in a year, all the while knowing that James didn’t live in Vegas. This was just one night. One unexpected, entertaining, arousing night of laughter and sex before I went back to being regular Mia, the maid and dog walker and barista. Mia of the three jobs. Broke Mia who took care of her mother. Mia whose rent was a tiny bit late every month.
Not this Mia. The Mia who was wined and dined by a large man with expensive taste and a jagged little scar that should have all been intimidating but was somehow cute. The man who sold rich shit to rich people and bought rare rich-ass bourbon. This was a once-in-a-lifetime-Mia moment and I was going to enjoy the hell out of James Beckett Junior, the luxury boat salesman.
The second the car pulled up in front of the condo James was staying at, he opened his door and jumped out with a word of thanks to the driver. He went around and opened my door and offered me a hand. Not with a smile, but with a look that made my nipples hard. I slipped my hand into his and stood up, hauling Mississippi along with me. That did make him grin as he glanced at my bag.
Once I was standing, he shut the car door, and leaned down to murmur in my ear. “Please tell me you have condoms in that thing and not just your personal massager.”
His breath tickled my flesh. “You’re just asking me that now?” I asked him. “Good thing I’m prepared for anything, because yes, I do have condoms.” A whole box that had never been opened. I didn’t have time to have a relationship, to date, or even to have sex.
“You’re amazing, Mia.”
It was going to happen. The kiss. He had that look. The hooded eyes, the tilt of the head. I might be out of the game, but I could read his intention. I put my palms on his chest, wanting to explore more of that hard chest I’d gotten a feel of when blotting his shirt with ice water.
Then his lips were on mine, and in the cold December air, under the bright lights of a high-rise building on the strip, I lost myself in James’ kiss.
He was smooth and skilled and knew how to sell more than boats as his hands threaded through my hair and his mouth caressed mine.
I didn’t think there was a woman alive who would turn down a night in his bed after experiencing what he could do with his tongue.
After getting swept away thoroughly to the point of heavy breathing and wrapping my ankle around his so I could be closer, James broke away.
“Kyle is a fucking idiot,” he said.
That made me laugh softly. “I’ll tell him you said so if he ever resurfaces.”
“His loss is my gain,” he said, running the pad of his thumb across my bottom lip.
“I highly doubt I was going to sleep with Kyle,” I said, giving him a sly smile.
His eyes darkened. “Damn. Come on.” He led me through the front doors.
The condo was all glass and leather furniture in the lobby. James was greeted by both the doorman and the concierge as “Mr. Beckett,” which indicated to me this was a swanky-ass place if they even knew guests by their name. Neither man seemed to find it strange James was practically dragging a redhead with a giant handbag to the elevators. I didn’t care enough to worry about it. All I cared about was getting upstairs as fast as possible, and the nagging reminder in the back of my brain that I had to be at work at six in the morning and it was getting later and later.
Fortunately, he was good at making me forget that fact.
James eased me against him in the elevator, one arm around my waist, the other pulling my hair out to study it. “Is this your natural hair color? It’s beautiful. It’s like a fall sunset.”
He was either drunk or well, drunk. My hair was nothing to wax poetic about. It was brown with an infusion of orange. Like the crayon, burnt sienna. “It’s my natural color.”
Letting the strands of my hair fall away from his fingers, he cupped my cheek. “Kiss me, Mia.”
He didn’t close the distance between us. He wanted me to do it, for whatever reason. But there was something hot about it, the way he confidently waited, knowing I would. I felt flirty and attractive, fully in the moment. So I didn’t hesitate to go up on my tiptoes and wrap my fingers around the fabric of his shirt for balance. I kissed him, and it was a deep, sensual kiss that would have been perfect except for one thing. I pulled back.
“James?” I whispered, staring into his eyes. We were so close our breath was intermingling.
“Yes, Mia?”
“I have a leg cramp. You’re very tall.” I was trying to ignore it, but my left calf was screaming.
He laughed softly. “My apologies.”
“I don’t stretch or get enough exercise,” I admitted. “I work too much.”
The elevator door opened and he bent a little and shocked the hell out of me by picking me up under the ass with one arm. One arm. Like it was no big deal. Holy hotness.