Page 8 of The Last Dance You Saved
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.
