CHAPTER 8 Cassie Fields
A Deal’s a Deal
We cash out our machine when it gets down to twelve hundred bucks—still a major win, but according to Grayson, that’s the threshold where we won’t have to be hand paid and report our winnings to the government.
He hands me six bills once we cash in our ticket.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say, trying to hand it back.
He raises a brow. “A deal’s a deal.”
I offer him a smile as I tuck the money into my purse. “Okay, then let’s head upstairs.”
He smirks. “Before all that, I need some fuel. You?”
“Fuel?”
“Food. Maybe another drink.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Are you asking me out on a date?”
“What if I am?”
What if he is, indeed. I’m finding myself incredibly surprised at every turn by this man. We both know why we’re here, yet he isn’t in a rush to get me upstairs. That fact alone makes me feel like he’s a gentleman—one who it might be harder to say goodbye to than I first anticipated .
But I’m not na?ve. I know where this is going, and I know the limit of where it can go considering the life I have back home paired with the life he leads.
It’s not going to go beyond tonight.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun while we’re here in the moment.
“Then who am I to say no?” I ask.
He chuckles, and we head over toward the bar to order more drinks. Once those are in hand, we wander around until we find a place that serves snacks.
Once we put in our order for chicken tenders and sweet potato fries, we find a table and wait for our food.
“So…do you come to Vegas often?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I haven’t been here in years.” Since before I had kids. Instead of asking him why he’s staying in a hotel, I ask an even dumber question. “Do you do this often?”
“Do what?”
“Pick up women at nightclubs and take them back to your hotel.”
He chuckles. “I wouldn’t say often , but I wouldn’t say I’ve never done it before. I’ll be honest, though. I never shared chicken tenders and sweet potato fries with any of them.” He lifts a shoulder. “I’ve never walked through the gardens or stopped at the slots with them. Never made a bet like the one we made. And this part is going to make me sound like a total asshole, but I never found myself interested in any of them the way I’m interested in you.”
I raise my brows in surprise. “In me?”
He nods and presses his lips together. “Yeah. You’re…I don’t know. You’re real. You seem like a genuine person, and I don’t come across that very often these days.”
I reach over and squeeze his hand. I’m not sure why that’s my reaction, but I guess his words sort of make me feel a little sorry for him. He deserves someone who’s real, and part of me has this feeling like I wish it could be me. Like I wish this could go beyond tonight.
I mean…obviously it won’t. It can’t. We’re from completely different worlds. I’m a mom trying to pick herself up and prove herself to the world as I try to figure out who the hell I even am as an individual, and he’s a professional football player who lives in Vegas.
But just because we’re only in it for one night doesn’t mean we can’t still be genuine with each other.
“What’s your secret superpower?” he asks me completely out of the blue.
I twist my lips. “I don’t think I have one. What’s yours?”
“Throwing a perfect spiral. And probably staying calm under pressure.”
“Oh, I can make it rain. And I can turn coffee into productivity.” I shoot him a smug smile.
“You can make it rain?” he asks.
“Yes.” I nod emphatically. “Every single time I wash my car, it rains the next day.”
He laughs. “I know every word to every song by the Beatles.”
“The Beatles? Why?”
“My mom is a huge fan.” It’s the first time he has mentioned anyone in his family, and I’m curious to know more. But I also don’t want to know more. I don’t want to leave in the morning with the image of him treating his mother well as he sings Beatles songs in the car with her, not when this is just supposed to be a hot hookup.
Those are the types of details that will make me wish this could have been more rather than one moment frozen in time.
“I have a lot of useless knowledge of early two-thousands Top Forty songs,” I admit. “Lyrics, artists, song titles. ”
“What band is your favorite?”
I twist my lips as I think it over. “I always really loved Fall Out Boy, but I don’t know if I’ve ever consciously called them my favorite.”
He nods and squints a little as if he’s trying to recall some songs by them.
“‘Centuries’ would be killer on a pregame playlist,” I say nonchalantly. “Just saying.”
He chuckles. “I’ll be sure to add it.”
I wonder if he really will. I wonder if I’ll leave any sort of impression on him or if this is just another random night with another random woman to him. I like to think I’m special, but I’m also rooted in reality.
Our food is delivered, and we make small talk about our preferences between barbecue sauce, honey mustard, and ranch—both of us settling for honey mustard even though we both prefer ranch, but neither of us wants ranch breath given the next activity on our schedule.
We laugh as we eat, we finish our drinks, and he takes care of the check.
The date portion of the night is coming to an end, and I can’t honestly remember a night where I’ve had this much fun with a man. I didn’t know I could, to be honest.
But now I know because the man across the table from me is teaching me.
I wonder how old he is. I make a mental note to look that up later. It seems irrelevant to the conversation, and I certainly don’t want to bring up the fact that I’m possibly five or more years older than him. But I’m still curious.
I’ve never been with someone younger than me. Even in high school, I gravitated toward older boys. I always liked the juniors and seniors when I was a freshman, and when I got to college, the first guy I went for was Alex, who was two years older than me.
But none of that matters anymore, and it certainly doesn’t matter tonight.
He stands from the booth and holds his hand out to me, and I slide my hand into his, surprised yet again at how natural it feels.
How wonderful it feels.
And I really can’t wait for all the feels that are coming next.
It’s a natural stroll from the casino toward the elevator, which is filled with others waiting to head upstairs in the main tower. My heart starts beating a little faster with anticipation as the elevator carries us up to the thirty-fourth floor, and we exit, still taking that same sort of leisurely walk. We both want to get to what’s happening next, but we’re both content just being together.
This is not what I was expecting from my first one-night stand. I was expecting clothes being torn off in different directions and that heady, lustful, heat of the moment sort of animal sex. I wasn’t expecting to be treated like a lady on a date, but feeling all of his attention centered squarely on me has somehow been an even bigger rush than the alternative would’ve been.
He flashes his keycard at his door, and he holds the door open for me to enter first. It’s a suite overlooking the fountains below, and I can’t help when I head over to the window to check out the view. When again in my life will I ever get to see these fountains from this vantage point?
The answer is probably never again, so I take full advantage of it.
In fact, I take my phone out of my purse and snap a photo. The fountains are going off, and it’s incredible from up here as I watch the water as it rises and falls to the beat of whatever song is playing outside that we can’t hear in here.
I switch to video for a beat, and that’s when I hear his voice behind me.
“What a view.”
I end the video and turn at the sound of his voice, and I slide my phone into my purse and set it on the table in front of the windows. “It’s gorgeous.”
“Not to be cheesy, but I was talking about your ass.”
“That was super cheesy, but I liked it anyway.” I let out a nervous giggle, and he walks over toward me and pulls me into his arms.
His eyes are filled with something new and different when they fall onto mine.
I clear my throat nervously. The gaze we share is heated for a beat, and then his eyes flick down to my mouth.
His lips fall to mine, and I feel myself letting go.
It’s very nearly like an out-of-body experience as I fall into this kiss. It’s a kiss that’s full of want and need and desire and all the things that have been sorely missing from my existence for far too long.
He opens his mouth to deepen the kiss, and my legs feel shaky like in the back of the car on the way here, but this time I’m standing. I grip onto his upper arms to steady myself, but I don’t know if I can be steadied with this man.
He came in from out of nowhere and absolutely swept me off my feet, and I find that I sort of like being unsteady.
I sort of like that he doesn’t know me. I like that I can be whoever I want.
And what I want to be right now is a woman intent on both giving and receiving the kind of pleasure I’ve never had before in my life.