Chapter Three – Heels In Hand
Chapter Three
Sadie
HEELS IN HAND
Performed by Priscilla Block
Rafe’s hand on my elbow shot pure lust through my veins. While it had been a really long time since I’d tangled my body with a man’s, I knew for a fact I’d never felt anything this strong before. This heady. This addicting.
I wanted to feel his touch on every inch of me.
That thought sobered me up slightly. Not that I was drunk—I’d only had that single glass of bourbon. No, the high I felt was all for Rafe and his dark, broody intensity. I wanted to see what the carefully leashed man in a pressed suit looked like when he let his feral growls have full rein. I wanted him to demand I forget everything but him and his caresses. But the realization that his hands would find the scars covering a portion of my body had me slowing as we headed down the corridor.
As if thinking of the wounds had brought them to life, the limp I still fought when exhausted found its way to the surface. I saw it reflected in the shiny brass elevator doors as we made our way toward them, and Rafe’s all-seeing eyes caught it before I’d been able to rein it in.
“Are you hurt?” he asked. When I looked up, desire still burned, but his expression was twined with a concern I disliked. I didn’t want concern tonight. Or gentleness. Or pity. God, pity would be the worst. I’d had enough of that after I’d been shot.
I raised a single brow, smiled my best smile, and let loose my full Southern accent as I said, “Nope. Not hurting. Just have an old gunshot wound that acts up now and again.”
For a moment, several long heartbeats, he didn’t seem to register what I’d said, and then something glorious happened. The scowl he’d been wearing ever since walking into the piano bar broke apart, and a smile emerged. Full and beautiful with that single-sided dimple that had set my pulse rate zooming earlier and increased it to full throttle once more.
“Trying to take back your ante, Tennessee?” Clearly, he thought I was joking. But he’d find out the truth soon enough, and he might be the one to withdraw. I hadn’t risked showing them to anyone until now, but they still weren’t pretty, even all these months later.
“You know us wild-west women, Slick. Gunshots don’t slow us down.”
And then something even more miraculous happened—he laughed. He’d done it earlier when we’d been in the upstairs bar, but that had been reserved and half-hearted. This felt real and full, and I swore the world stopped. Everything around us slipped out of focus as his rumble weaved through me. Deep. Enthralling. Full of hidden promises I wanted to explore.
The elevator doors opened, we stepped inside, and he waved his phone at the panel. The digital display requested a code, and he hesitated for a second before punching it in. The green screen behind the brass bars shifted, displaying the view of The Strip as we zipped upward.
My heart thudded against my chest as our eyes met. I swore I could see fire in his depths. I almost expected him to haul me to him and kiss me right then and there, but instead, he ran a single finger from my shoulder to my elbow and back. Just that simple action made my thighs quiver. I swallowed the nervousness that tried to flutter to life and stepped forward to eliminate the distance that remained between us, but his palm landed on my chest, halting me. He glanced up at the corner of the elevator.
“Not here. But once the door of my suite shuts, there won’t be a place on you I won’t touch.” The promise in his voice was a sensual purr.
The bell dinged, and the doors swooshed open. He held them for me, meeting my gaze with a heated one. “Last chance, Tennessee. Are you in, or are you out?”
I didn’t even hesitate. I simply stepped out of the elevator, causing his jacket to brush against my bare arm as I went by, sending off another million sparks throughout my body.
“I’m not folding,” I tossed back. “Are you?”
He didn’t answer with words, but he stepped out beside me and tugged my hand into his, fingers twining with mine in a way that made me ache all over. Not just in my body, but in my heart and soul. And suddenly, at the very worst time, I realized I truly wanted what my siblings had found—a forever after. But that wasn’t what this was tonight. This was simply a few hours of passion and sin and forgetfulness.
Only one door existed on this floor of the hotel, and when he unlocked it with a wave of his phone, it revealed a penthouse suite at the top of the hotel’s spiral. The small entryway was layered with golden marble. An ornate mirror hung over a Baroque table dwarfed by a huge floral display in whites and golds. Short steps led down into a living area where two walls of glass revealed the night sky aglow with the neon lights of The Strip far below us. The stunning view of the Las Vegas streets gave way to a midnight shadow that hid the peaks of mountains in the distance.
The living room was decorated with the same mix of eighteenth-century Baroque and 1920s Art Deco as the rest of the hotel, except the luxury here was ratcheted up to a whole new level. A Monet I thought might be an original hung on the wall, Fabergé eggs encrusted with diamonds and rubies graced the side tables, and Tiffany lamps with vibrant geometric forms cast warm light over hand-woven rugs covering portions of the marble floors.
My cowboy boots clacked loudly in the quiet as I dropped my clutch on a side table and headed for the wall of glass. Not a single outside sound could be heard, and yet I still imagined them. The drunken laughter of the people carousing from casino to casino. The jangle of the slots spilling onto the streets. The music of the fountains.
“Nice view, Slick.”
In the reflection of the glass, I saw Rafe take off his jacket and lay it neatly and precisely on the back of the couch. He stood for a moment, hands in his pockets, as if he was debating one last time whether he wanted to go through with this. I raised a brow, cocking my head sideways, and his eyes locked on mine in the window.
“I don’t bring people here,” he said, looking away for several long seconds before crossing the room in two purposeful strides. He came to a stop right behind me. Two warm hands found my arms, sliding slowly and tantalizingly upward, caressing my shoulders. “I certainly don’t bring women into my space. But for some damn reason, I wanted to see you here, up against my glass. Bare.”
I’d hardly had time to register the words, to have them land in my heart like an arrow, before his fingers slid under the thin straps of my dress and, with a smooth jerk, broke them both. The neckline sagged, and with a gasp, I caught it before it could reveal my chest.
His head dipped, and hungry lips found the curve of my neck where it met my shoulder. Warm. Wet. Strong. My legs wobbled, my core clenched, and his dark eyes held mine in the hazy reflection. Holy hell, he’s going to devour me in the best possible way , I thought just as he yanked on the hem of my dress, pulling it from my hands and dropping it so it puddled around my cowboy boots.
When I tried to turn around, those strong hands captured my waist, keeping me facing the window. Every part of me was achy. Scorching. Yearning to touch as much as I was being touched. His mouth and fingers seared separate paths along every sensitive nerve.
A mewl escaped me. A sound I’d never made before and was almost embarrassed to have done until I saw, in the reflection, the way his lips curved upward. He tangled a hand in my hair, tugging my head backward, not quite cruelly but not gently either, so this time when our eyes met briefly, there was no glass between us. This time, it was all real connection. All fire and brimstone.
And then that delicious mouth found mine.
If I’d thought those lips were sensual and hot on my skin, the way they took command of my mouth was out of this world. Powerful. Hungry. Claiming ownership. God…he could easily ruin me. I panicked for a heartbeat, and then his tongue was demanding entrance, and I simply gave in to whatever was going to happen. My lashes fluttered shut as I accepted each stroke, each taunt, each delightful tease.
Time stood still as I lost myself to the single most beautiful, most potent, most incredible kiss of my life. One that would brand itself into my soul and stay there for an eternity.
When he drew back, I moaned my displeasure, lids fluttering open to meet dark and stormy depths. “I’ve wanted to do that since the moment you walked into the club yesterday,” he growled, and then he was incinerating me again with demanding lips.
When I twisted again, to touch as much as I was being touched, he let me. The grip on my hair disappeared as his hands found my waist, fingertips digging into the skin, while his kiss led me on a decadent trip to sin and salvation. I blindly tugged at the buttons on his shirt, desperate to find skin.
My back hit the cool glass as his mouth dipped, trailing down my neck and chest. A flick of tongue and teeth had a tortured cry escaping me. He lifted me up, and my legs automatically surrounded his waist, my dress barely dangling from one boot. The thin lace scrap at my core pressed into his zipper sent another shockwave through me.
With his hands and arms so close to the scars on my right side, I hesitated again. As if sensing it, he drew back, eyeing me.
“What’ll it be, Tennessee?”
The fact he was still giving me an out at every turn only made me want him more. My only response was a kiss fueled by need, daring him not to stop. Daring him to continue until we’d both gone over the wild edge I could already feel approaching.
With an ease that spoke to sculpted and carved muscles I’d been unable to glimpse in their full glory yet, he carried me away from the windows, down a hall, and through a darkened doorway. My legs flexed around him, and for the first time, I heard a grunt of pleasure escape him.
It filled me with power. Control. Desire.
I wanted to see him completely unleashed. I wanted to see him unraveled just like he was unraveling me.
He hit a switch with his elbow, and a room done in satiny blues and shiny golds came briefly into focus. He broke our embrace, setting me down on a mahogany dresser and putting a hint of distance between us. He pulled his shirt out of his pants, and I caught a glimpse of a flat, tanned stomach with muscled ridges and a delightful V pointing downward to where his pants tented, revealing his reaction to our heated embrace.
When I reached for the buttons on his shirt, craving more of the alluring visual, he pushed my hands away. His dark-chocolate gaze ate me up, dancing over my heaving chest, sliding over the curves of my stomach and hips I’d worked hard to return to their former shape over the last year.
I knew the moment he found the scars, because his breath caught. His hand landed on the largest one where the bullet had entered before stroking the crisscrossing white lines along my upper thigh. Because some of my nerve endings had never recovered, I couldn’t feel everywhere he touched, but I could still see every brush of his fingers. It was almost more enticing this way, to feeling nothing in some places and then suddenly have other parts erupt in an explosion of lightning.
“What the hell is this, Tennessee?” Anger and concern dripped through every syllable. “You were serious? You were shot?”
His dark brows furrowed together. Just as I reached up to soothe them with my finger, just as I started to tell him it was nothing when we both knew it wasn’t, the sound of the penthouse door slamming shut rattled through the space.
His head jerked toward the bedroom door as a female voice rang out. “Dad?”
Shock reverberated through me. He had a kid? Did that mean he had a wife too?
Panic spread over his face before it rippled with frustration and then closed off completely.
The next thing I knew, I’d been torn from the dresser, and my dress was shoved into my hands.
“Stay here. Get dressed. I’ll come and tell you when it’s safe to leave.”
The door shut with a firm and yet quiet click behind him.
I stared at the back of it, lust turning to embarrassment that dissolved into fury.
What the actual fuck?
“What are you doing here, Fallon?” I heard him demand. His voice was dark and full of the same startled irritation I had swelling in me. I couldn’t hear his daughter’s response, but I heard his deep, furious exclamation. “You did what?”
Their argument drifted farther away. I looked down at the dress in my hands with its broken straps. Humiliation brought tears I blinked back. No way in hell was he going to find me crying. No. Way.
I slipped into the shimmering dress I’d been so happy to buy, allowing my anger to grow. I moved to the mirror over the dresser, found the broken straps, and tied them behind my neck in a way that would at least hold the top up until I got to my room. My cheeks were flaming. My hair was mussed. My mouth was bright red from the sensual kisses we’d shared.
I would have been happy to see this reflection if we’d finished what we’d started. I’d wanted one unforgettable night with a stunning man. If we’d been able to spend a few hours together, I would have left without ever knowing he had a kid…and maybe a wife. Goddamnit.
I’d lived nearly three years without sex. Lived three years growing the courage to let someone see my battered body, and this was what I got for it? Some asshole sleeping around on his wife? Some jerkwad who’d brought me back to his home and stripped me bare in his living room where his daughter could easily have caught us with my naked back up against the glass?
Asshole.
I had to squeeze my eyelids tight to keep the tears of anger and mortification from leaking out. I didn’t want him to see them and think I was sad. Screw that. I was furious.
I was almost tempted to walk out the door, down the hall, and slam my way out of the penthouse, leaving him to explain to his daughter just who I was and what we’d been doing. It would serve him right.
But it wouldn’t be fair to her.
And I needed my room key, which was in my clutch sitting on a table.
Would she notice? Would he remember to grab it?
I paced by the door, waiting in the quiet, and my temper grew the more minutes that passed.
Without my phone or any visible clock in the room, I could only guess how long I stood there before the doorknob turned.
He looked…stoic. The wall that had covered every emotion earlier this evening had returned in greater force. But his words were full of regret. “I’m sorry. You’ll have to leave.”
He had my clutch in his hands. I grabbed it and pushed past him. Even furious, with my body trembling now with anger instead of desire, the mere brush of his arm caused heat to sizzle through my veins. Those damn tears returned because what I’d experienced with him had been so beautiful. Stunning. Unimaginably powerful and real.
I stormed toward the door and felt him on my heels. I knew without looking that he was warily scoping the living room for sight of his daughter in order to slip me out like some dirty secret. What we’d been doing wasn’t dirty. It was human and normal, and it might have been the best few hours of my life if we’d finished.
Was his daughter old enough to understand that? She’d walked into the suite on her own, unless he had a wife who he’d also greeted, and I just hadn’t heard.
That made my stomach turn.
I made it out the door, and I’d already reached the elevator and pushed the button before he caught me, tugging my elbow.
“I’m sorry, Sadie,” he offered. It was emotionless. A half-offered apology.
My chin went up. “Do you have a wife to go along with the daughter?”
At least I got a true emotion this time. Shock and anger. “If I was married, you wouldn’t have been in my home.”
It felt like it was the truth, but what the hell did I know?
The elevator pinged, and the doors opened. I stepped inside and hit the button for my floor, but he held the doors.
“She wasn’t supposed to be here,” he said, voice low and dark and deliciously broody. “I wouldn’t have invited you up if she was.”
Somehow, that hurt even more. It shouldn’t. I’d known what this was from the moment he’d stood up in the piano bar and answered my dare. One night. He wasn’t bringing the woman he was dating home to meet his family. This was supposed to be two people sharing a few hours of pleasure and respite. And yet, the humiliating sting of being shuffled out the door like a bad seed burned through me.
“Don’t sweat it, Slick. I’m sure I can find Leo or Deke or some other willing partner to finish what you couldn’t.” Something a lot like fury flashed over his face before the wall came down again. I had no intention of doing anything but running back to my room and washing away the embarrassment, but he didn’t need to know that. He didn’t need to know his kisses would be impossible to replace tonight. Maybe ever. Any others would seem like cheap knockoffs.
I raised a brow at his hand holding the door open.
His jaw clenched, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as if he was going to say something, but instead, he let go and stepped back. His intense gaze remained locked on me while the doors closed.
I sagged back against the wall, deflating immediately.
Stupid. The entire night had been stupid. What had I been thinking? I hadn’t come to Las Vegas to get laid. I hadn’t even really come for the dart tournament. I’d come to get answers for my family. To find the truth about our past that we may not like and may be unable to set right.
I’d forget about tonight. I’d put it behind me and concentrate on finding out if our McFlannigan ancestors had really been the liars and thieves I’d started to fear they had been. The honor my sheriff brother served with, the noble way Ryder and Gia had taken down a cartel…it might all have been for nothing if, at our core, we were nothing more than the offspring of a mob family who’d ravaged the West.