Chapter Two
Daniel
We cross Las Vegas Boulevard, and the built-in GPS in the rental tells me how to find the flower shop.
Beside me, I catch Rosie sneaking glances at my profile. I can feel her confusing, burning gaze, but I can’t look back at her.
The plan was simple. Pick up the girl, deliver her to the hotel, and head out for the night.
Because it’s not often I get a weekend in Vegas, but when I do, I like to play cards. High-stakes games. Real money. The kind of money I didn’t always have. The kind I worked hard to earn. Life-changing money.
There aren’t many things in life that give me that kind of rush. I’m a tightly controlled man. A father, although after this weekend, my daughter will officially be a married woman herself, and my responsibilities there will ease a little.
I’m feeling some kind of way about that because being a father has been my single driving force for the last twenty-two years.
And now my child has decided to have a Vegas wedding to a man fifteen years older than her?
Leaving me more time to unwind at a card table, in theory.
And maybe find someone to take back to my suite—an indulgence I haven’t allowed myself in all the years I was being a father. Because a long time ago, I made a reckless choice and knew far too well what the consequences could be.
That was the plan, anyway.
But when I stalked into the airport arrivals area, I found little Rosie, all grown up. It was a painful reminder that what I wanted in theory and what I actually wanted with every fiber of my being were two very different things.
For months now since I dragged her out of The Roadhouse, pressed her against the wall, and demanded to know why she was drinking alcohol, I’ve wanted this girl to be mine.
And since she hissed up at me that she was almost legal, that it didn’t make a difference, and that I was embarrassing her in front of her friends, I have wanted to drag her home and show her all the difference it makes.
But there are lines one does not cross.
That night took me by surprise. When I saw her at The Roadhouse, it had been a few years since I’d last seen her.
A few very important years. The kind that takes a girl and turns her into a woman.
Years that can change the relationship between a young woman and an old guy who should know better than to want her in nothing but her nerdy little T-shirt.
Straddling my face as I lick her sweet little cunt until she cries out my name.
I’d managed to convince myself it had all been a fantasy. That she hadn’t been everything I ever wanted that night outside the bar back in Conception Ridge. That it didn’t matter if she hated me for being an overbearing, prudish old man because she was never going to be mine.
But as soon as I saw her tonight, curves spilling out of yoga pants, making yet another cartoon T-shirt stretch in all the right ways, I knew those few years hadn’t been an illusion. This was not the Rosie I once knew.
This young woman was ripe and breedable, and I needed to be very fucking careful that I didn’t ruin the tenuous relationship we still had.
Father of the bride and maid of honor.
We had two days of wedding-related tasks ahead of us when all I wanted to do was drive out to the desert, drop my right hand to the curve of her thigh, and tell her I knew exactly how to celebrate her birthday.
My face between her thighs, my apology for past mistakes given in the form of slow, firm licks against her clit.
“The flower shop is. . .” She twists her head to the right. “Back there.”
The GPS unit tells me the same thing in a cool, detached tone. I had fully tuned out, apparently.
Fuck. Me.
I shove down the dark fantasies I shouldn’t have and circle the block.
Once we’re inside, both Rosie and I try to introduce ourselves at the same time.
“We’re here about—”
“I’d like to speak to your manager.”
Rosie turns and gives me a what the fuck expression. Then she looks back at the clerk. “The Burke Ruiz wedding on Saturday?”
“My daughter’s wedding,” I bark.
The clerk’s wide eyes soften, and she smiles at Rosie. “Your dad’s nervous, huh?”
“She’s not—” I start to protest.
Rosie waves her hand in the air. “Oh, you know how they get. Can’t bear to see their little girls all grown up.”
There’s a dig somewhere in there, a punishment for treating her like a little kid a few months ago.
But she’s got it all wrong. I’m deeply fucking pleased she’s all grown up. Sarcastically referring to herself as my little girl makes my cock—already heavy and aware of her—twitch in delight.
“Okay, I have all your details here. We spoke on the phone, right?”
Rosie pauses before answering, and I wonder how far she’ll take the ruse of pretending to be Melanie. Then she sighs and shakes her head. “I’m not actually the bride. I’m the maid of honor. But this is her dad! We. . .”
She gives the entire story, including showing the clerk the text messages from my daughter.
Way too much information.
But it endears her to the florist, who tells us how nice it is that we could stop in. She says she’ll show us the flowers they’re going to use and finally reassures us that everything will be just perfect on Saturday.
All in all, it’s way more talking than was necessary, but it gets the job done.
Rosie takes a few pictures of the orchids, texts them to Melanie, and thanks the clerk for her time.
Back outside, I follow her to the car but set my hand on the passenger door before she can open it. “I think we need to clear the air,” I say firmly.
I need to tread carefully. But I won’t have her stewing over a misunderstanding, either.
She blinks up at me, the sassy control she exhibited in the flower shop gone.
She may not be a little girl anymore, but she is still too damn young.
It’s a punch in the gut.
“I know you’re a grown woman,” I finally manage to say. “I won’t repeat the same. . . I won’t. . .”
Her lips part as if to reply, then she pauses, and the tip of her tongue swipes out. Wet, pink. Little.
“You won’t push me against a wall and demand to know if I’ve been drinking?”
“I didn’t push.”
“You pinned me against it, just like you’re pinning me to the side of your car right now.” Her words are breathless now. Less smooth.
Her gaze is full of fire. A warning that she might be young and innocent, but she is on a mission this weekend to make Melanie’s wedding perfect, and my bossiness will not get in the way of that.
I lift my hand and stroke my knuckles over her cheek.
My goal is to be softer than before. I didn’t want to pin her to the car—just like I didn’t mean to pin her to the wall of The Roadhouse.
I tried to make her look at me both times without touching her too much.
I fix that now by touching her cheek, and now I can’t stop because the soft press of her cheek under my fingers is doing fucked up things to my sense of right and wrong.
Her breath hitches as I drag my fingers down the side of her throat.
Fucking hell.
I force myself to step back. “It won’t happen again.”
It’s a short drive to the hotel. A short, tense drive, but the unspoken conflict between us fade as soon as I hand the keys to the valet and Rosie hops out of the passenger side.
I get her suitcase from the trunk, then meet her at the passenger door. She’s gazing up at the glittering lights of the hotel soaring above us.
“This is nothing like Conception Ridge,” she breathes. Her eyes are wide with wonder, and a smile plays at the corners of her soft mouth. “Wow.”
“Not a bad start to your birthday weekend?”
She laughs gleefully. “I’ll say.”
“Good.” I gently place my hand on her elbow and steer her inside, painfully aware that this is the second time in a short span of minutes that I’ve touched her.
But now that I know what her skin feels like under my fingers, I can’t stop. All I can do is keep it on this side of I’m your best friend’s dad.
Unfortunately, my plan to get her a room hits a snag at the counter when the clerk shakes her head. “I’m terribly sorry, sir. There are no other rooms available tonight. There’s a conference until tomorrow, but we might be able to arrange for a room at another hotel.”
“I have—”
“No, that’s fine.” I’m careful not to look at Rosie after I cut her off because I don’t want to see her protest. “Ms. Johnson can be added as a guest in my suite.”