Lust (Vegas Nights 2)

“Excuse me for being unable to just flip the emotional switch and pretend like I don’t care.”

“Don’t care about what? Have you considered I might be more understanding if you tried talking to me?”

She averted her eyes before bringing them back, but the original fire was diminished. Her cheeks were flushed pink, and her chest shuddered with her exhale. “I don’t want to tell you another damn thing about me, Adrian Potter. You already know too much.”

But that was the thing, wasn’t it?

I didn’t know nearly enough about her.

“Then my point still stands. Get yourself together. You’re not being paid to fuck off, Perrie. You’re being paid to locate hookers.”

Now, she took that step back.

Stepped back.

Hooked her purse strap over her arm.

Held her hands out, palms up, wrists together.

Expression flat and unfeeling, eyes cold and detached, she said in the most unemotional voice I’d ever heard, “Stop looking. You already found your hooker for the night.”

I looked at her hands. Pink nails dug into her palms where she’d balled them into fists. Teeny, tiny scars dotted the inside of her left wrist, but her right one was unblemished, completely perfect in comparison.

Slowly, I reached and took her hands in mine. I pulled her arms apart and lowered her hands to her sides, then released her.

“I’m not arresting you. If I wanted you in jail, you’d already be there,” I said quietly.

“Save yourself the hard work.”

“I’m not arresting you, Perrie. End of.”

She lifted her hands once more, fists ready, wrists already turning upward.

I grabbed them.

I pulled her into me.

And I kissed her.

I pressed my rough lips against her soft ones, hearing and feeling her sharp intake of air. She froze against me, but she didn’t move. She didn’t move and she didn’t fight.

She kissed me back.

Releasing her wrists, I cupped the sides of her face as her hands fisted the sides of my shirt. Sweetness battled with the faint taste of mint as she parted her lips and our tongues met. She leaned into me a little more, grasping at more of my shirt at the same time my fingers snaked around her neck and teased her hair.

My thumbs brushed her jaw as our tongues battled. Heat thumped through my body ferociously, desire and need forming an almost undeniable urge as blood rushed right down to my cock.

This was wrong, and I knew it. Just minutes ago, I’d been telling myself this was the line I wouldn’t cross, but here I was, crossing it and doing nothing to stop myself.

Truth was, I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t stop kissing her. She tasted of more than sweetness and mint. She tasted of obsession and she smelled like addiction.

She felt like danger.

Not a danger to anyone else, but to me. I’d kissed her but once and thought about it a thousand times, yet now, with my lips on hers, it felt as though I’d just found my Achilles Heel.

Her name was Perrie Fox. She had blond hair and dark eyes and a killer body and a soul just waiting for someone brave enough to understand her.

Perrie broke the kiss with a tiny gasp, but she didn’t release my shirt. I rested my forehead against hers and squeezed my eyes shut tightly. That was so fucking wrong—a huge ass mistake, yet I didn’t regret it.

How could I? My heart was pumping faster than it had in years, and never, ever had I so badly wanted to push a woman against a wall and fuck her where anyone could find us at any second.

“That was unexpected,” she whispered.

I laughed. It was the only thing I could do. She’d summed it up so damn perfectly, because I hadn’t expected me to do that, either.

“Uh, I’m sorry?” I offered, letting my hands fall from her neck, no matter how little I wanted to.

“Are you sorry?” She peered up at me through her eyelashes, finally letting go of my shirt and stepping back.

“Do you want me to be?”

“Is this a trick question?”

I paused. “I don’t know. That’s why I wanted you to answer.”

She opened her mouth, then stilled. A blush rose up her cheeks before she finally answered me. “You don’t have to be sorry. Unless you want to be.”

My lips tugged to the side in a half-smile. “I don’t want to be.”

“Okay. Good.” Perrie nodded her head once, almost as if she were telling herself it was okay for her to not want me to be sorry. “So…Should we go back to work now?”

I glanced at my watch. We’d been gone ten minutes, and my phone was buzzing in my pocket.

Sam.

“Hey,” I answered. “What’s up?”

“They wouldn’t let us in,” he answered grimly. “We waited in line, but we couldn’t even flash our badges because it’d give us away.”

“Not a lot you could do even then.” I stepped away from Perrie, holding my finger up. “How reliable was your information?”