CHAPTER EIGHT

Elle stared at the crowds along the Fremont Street Canopy seventy-seven feet below her.

Deep breath.

She wasn’t afraid of heights, but she was afraid of, well, of dying. Or, more precisely, dying stupidly. Like jumping into a lake and cutting her head on a rock. Like parachuting. Like crashing from a zip line. That kind of death.

Logically, she knew a zip line wasn’t a dangerous activity in the spectrum of dangerous things. But her rapidly beating heart, which seemed to be fighting its way out of her chest, begged to disagree. Her skin prickled with nerves—the kind she hadn’t felt since she was younger and danced with danger. Now, as an adult, she tried to keep her risks manageable.

You can do this, she told the portion of her brain that had zero interest in skydiving and bungee jumping. Just a zip line. It’s exceedingly safe, and ridiculously fun.

Plus, Colin waited patiently on the other side, hovering in his seat. The parallel zip lines ran down the length of the covered Fremont Street that was the epicenter of downtown Las Vegas—old Vegas, with the Golden Nugget, and slots that still relied on coins rather than tickets. It was Vegas before mega resorts broke ground on the Strip.

Everyone rode the line here on Fremont Street. It was part of the experience. Besides, cruising along a zip line was a perfectly manageable risk. Man-made, controllable. The kind she could handle.

“I’m ready,” she said to the attendant. In a rush, so she wouldn’t back down, she let go and stepped off the platform, zipping off in her seat harness. She unleashed a rollercoaster shout of excitement. Adrenaline surged through her veins as she soared above the specks of miniature people, and a sense of wild glee engulfed her as she sped, faster and faster. She glanced briefly to the left, where Colin sailed above the crowds on his downhill flight along the canopy.

Screw fear. This was a pure rush, as the summer breeze whooshed past her, reminding her of the thrill she felt when roller-skating, the high-speed chase around the rink. The charge that raced through her overpowered her primal worries. She rode several blocks in the sky.

She flew the final feet to the end of the line. The guy on the platform helped unhook her. “How was it?” he asked.

She gave him a thumbs up, her heart still pumping wildly.

Minutes later, she climbed down from the platform and met Colin on the street. He wrapped his arms around her. “Admit it. You loved it,” he said with a gleam in his eyes.

“Loved it,” she said breathlessly, her pulse pounding in her veins. “Absolutely loved it.”

“Excellent. Tomorrow morning you’ll join me for kayaking at the crack of dawn at Black Canyon,” he said.

She shuddered. “Kayaking? Like in a lake?”

“That’s generally where one kayaks.”

“That comes with a chance of flipping over and cracking your head on a rock. Pretty sure this zip line is all you’re getting out of me when it comes to crazy sports.”

“Kayaking in flat water? Chance of flipping over is slim to nil. So low risk it’s beyond low risk.”

She patted his chest. “In that case, I have somewhere to be at the crack of dawn tomorrow. Hmm. Where could it be? Oh right,” she said, snapping her fingers. “Sound asleep in my bed.”

“Mmm. Bed. Another potential extreme sport.”

“Now that I might be up for,” she said, then lingered in his embrace, inhaling his freshly showered scent—clean, and sexy. She didn’t hold back. She pressed her lips to his neck and kissed him, letting herself savor this part, this permission she’d given herself to enjoy the sexy times with Colin.

He drew a sharp inhalation, and asked, “Payback for the other night?”

She nodded and roped her arms tightly around his waist, playfully gripping him, keeping the focus squarely on what they were—friends with benefits. Nothing more. “And now I shall take you to a secret location and smother your neck in kisses that make you turn to putty in my hands. See if it works as well on you as it does on me.”

He leaned his head back and laughed deeply. “That’s a viable option for tonight. Or I could take you to the Mob Museum and we can find a dark corner there.”

“The Mob Museum?”

“Ever been?”

She shook her head. “No, but I’ve been wanting to go ever since it opened a few years ago. I keep meaning to go, especially considering how much I love gangster movies.”

He nudged her with his elbow. “Let’s go.”

She nudged him in return. “You’re holding out on me tonight. The zip line, the Mob Museum. Everything’s above the belt,” she said, and though those all distinctly felt like the elements of a date, they were also things you’d do with a friend. She wasn’t crossing lines. She wasn’t breaking promises. This was good, old-fashioned hanging out with someone whose company she enjoyed.

Plain and simple.

* * *

The answer was yes.

He was absolutely holding out on her. He wanted her, but he wanted her to see that they could have amazing sex and an amazing time. They wandered through the crowds, soaking in the neon and lights, the exuberance of the summertime atmosphere, and not once did he feel a lick of envy for the twenty-somethings bobbing around with long, tall plastic glasses full of liquor in their hands. Nope, he was a happy son-of-a-bitch as they walked through old-time Vegas, then up the steps of the museum that documented the history of the mob.

“We’re closing in thirty minutes,” the ticket taker said in a monotone at the entrance.

“We’ll be speedy,” Colin said, and they walked inside the stone building, and strolled first through exhibits on famous “made men,” both in the mob and popular culture, perusing photos of some of the most notorious Mafiosi over the last one hundred years, like John Gotti. Next, they checked out an installation of movie posters.

“Is there anything better than a mob movie?” he asked, and Elle nodded in perfect agreement.

“Love them. Casino. Epic. The Departed. Fantastic. Road to Perdition. Chilling.”

“Eight Men Out. Proof that the mob had its hands in everything. Even fixing the World Series.”

“Everything,” she said, enunciating each syllable as she echoed his sentiment. They stopped at a huge framed poster of Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro, and Joe Pesci. She pointed. “Goodfellas. Best mob movie ever.”

“Best closing lines ever, too,” he added, and they turned to each other, speaking in unison. “I’m an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.”

He raised his hand and they knocked fists.

“Isn’t it amazing,” she began, “how being a regular Joe was Ray Liotta’s worst nightmare? He dreaded not being a gangster, and somehow you felt for him when it happened. You sympathized with his plight as a regular schnook,” she said, her voice rising in excitement.

He gestured to the poster for The Godfather. “I don’t even know what it is about the mob. They do horrible things and live a life of crime, and yet sometimes we root for them in movies. It makes no logical sense.”

“Look!”

She grabbed his arm and tugged him to a series of sepia-tinted photographs from Vegas through the years, highlighting famous moments in the city’s history and the role of the mob in each milestone.

“It’s just crazy to think how much of this town was built on crime,” she said in awe, as they stared at a photo of the Flamingo Hotel when it opened in 1946. “‘Operated by noted mobster Bugsey Siegel,’” she said, reading the plaque.

He tapped the wall next to an image of The Sands Casino in the 60s, a home base for Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack that was owned by a New York mob man. “And it spread far and wide. Some of the biggest hotels in the city were owned and operated by this wild combination of Mormon businessmen and the mob, so they could have a legitimate appearance on the outside, and money laundering and street muscle on the inside.”

“The whole notion that there is the underbelly of crime everywhere, all around us, blows my mind,” she said, pressing her fingertips to her forehead and miming an explosion.

Colin nodded in agreement. “Handouts, corrupt cops, men on the take, informants, and the guys in suits circulating around town every day, weaving in and out of casinos. Looking like me, or like one of my brothers, or just anybody.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Is this your way of telling me you’re in the mob?”

He affected a wise guy smirk. “Doll face, it’s time you knew the truth. You’re sleeping with a made man. You want to know who I really am? I’ll tell you, sweet cheeks.” He pointed to an interactive screen on the far wall that read “Mob Nickname Generator.”

“Oooh, I’m finally gonna learn my honey baby’s real name.” She rubbed her palms together as they reached the screen.

He tapped it, and they chuckled at the rubric the screen asked them to fill in: name your racket, with options like money laundering, casino skimming, and blackmail; what’s your role, such as capo, soldier, business associate, corrupt judge; and what is your mob era, with choices like prohibition, the swinging 60s, and the modern era.

Elle went first, entering her picks, then reading her status report. “Ooh, I’m a mob girlfriend. Men buy me things and who am I to turn them down? They parade me around town and take me to dinner, and my name is ‘Elle ‘Moneybags’ Mariano.’” She snorted. “Ha. I wish.”

“My turn,” Colin said, and together they decided he’d be a corrupt politician, and he read the result aloud. “I just take what’s offered to me, okay? Nothin’ wrong with that. The mob slips me a few things now and then—some cash, a free meal, a bottle of my favorite bootlegged whiskey. What’s the big deal? I’m Colin ‘Scotty’ Sloan.”

She dragged her nails through his hair. “Colin Scotty Sloan, you are one handsome fella,” she said, in an over-the-top floozy accent. It was jokey, but it still turned him on. Or maybe it was just that her proximity was making an instant impression on certain parts of his anatomy. Because that part was standing at attention now, announcing its intention to have her, and to have her soon.

“I’m gonna take you out for that fancy meal you deserve, sweet thing,” he said, snaking his hand down her back and squeezing her ass. “Show you off as mine.”

“Oh, I like that, Scotty Sloan. I like it very much.” She slid her body close to his, rubbing her sexy frame against him, making contact with his erection. She arched an eyebrow and gazed south. “Seems you like the idea, too, don’t you?” She lowered her voice to a sexy purr, dropping the mob girlfriend accent and returning to pure, dirty Elle.

“You think so? What makes you say that?” he asked, egging her on.

She pressed harder against his dick and started circling her hips. No one was in this exhibit room but them, with the eyes of generations of made men watching. “This,” she said in his ear, then dropped her hand to his jeans, grabbing him through the denim as she palmed the outline of his cock. He groaned from her touch. “This fantastic hard-on makes me say you like the idea of parading me around town.”

He jerked her even closer. “No, this hard-on says I like doing much more than parading you around, Elle Moneybags Mariano.” He grabbed her hand, walked her to the exit sign, pressed hard on the heavy door below it, and entered a stairwell.

Ah, stairwells. The perfect locations for a little something.

Her eyes blazed with mischief as he spun her around and backed her against the wall. “Like I said, I’ll do more than parade you around. Since that’s what you want,” he said, cupping her face with his hands and gazing at her. He drank in her absolute fucking beauty with his eyes, savoring the way she looked. The lusty expression, the parted lips, the racing breath.

She was so sexual, so raw in her needs, and he loved it. Loved it so damn much. He lifted his thumb to her mouth, brushing it against her lips. “Do you realize I’ve never gone down on you?” he asked. “What the fuck is up with that?”

“I know,” she said, breathily. “I want it so badly.”

“Why has this not happened yet?” he asked as he stroked her bottom lip softly with the pad of his thumb.

She shook her head. “Because we’re always screwing? Because we go straight to the main attraction?”

“Maybe.”

“Or because we’ve never been someplace private enough?”

“Maybe that’s it. Because when I go down on you, I want you without a stitch of clothes on. I want to spread you out, worship your sexy body, and take my time licking and kissing and sucking you all over. I want to taste every inch of your skin before I bury my face between your legs,” he said, dropping his hand to her jeans and cupping her. She moaned as he felt how hot she was through her clothes.

“Are you going to do it here?” she asked, and she sounded so damn desperate and hungry and horny that he was dying to strip her jeans to her ankles, kneel before her, and taste her heat. But no. He had patience. He was going to have her when he had time to feast.

“No,” he whispered. “But when I do, it’ll be like this.” He angled her head slightly, then flicked his tongue gently over her parted lips. She gasped, shuddering as he lightly brushed his lips over hers. He ran the tip of his tongue over the seam of her mouth, as if he were tasting her sweetness. The possibility of lapping up her sweet pussy electrified him, sending heat roaring through his blood as he licked her as if he was going down on her. She trembled in his arms as he showed her precisely how he intended to lavish attention on her, how he’d kiss and suck and then devour her. God, he wanted her. He wanted her so badly. On his mouth, flooding his tongue, all over his lips, drenching his chin. He kissed her like that. Like a man consumed. Like a man who had to have her, taste her, touch her. His hands clutched her cheeks, his lips fused to hers, and his mind raced with images, sensations, and fantasies about how she’d taste with her legs wrapped around his neck, writhing and bucking as she grabbed his hair and came hard on his tongue.

Fuck.

He couldn’t take it anymore. In a mad fury, he unzipped her jeans, and dipped his hand inside her panties. Oh hell. This was wetness. This was lush, delicious heat. He stroked her and in seconds his fingers were coated.

“Look at you,” he said, breaking the kiss. “Look at how fucking wet you are.” He pulled his hand out of her panties and brought his fingers to his mouth. His eyes rolled shut as he tasted her—like sex. She tasted like sex and lust. He opened his eyes to find her staring at him hungrily, jaw agape.

“Don’t tease me,” she said, gripping his shoulders.

“I’m not going to tease you. I just needed a taste,” he said, then returned his hand to her panties, sliding his fingers in the delicious crease between her legs. The stairwell was dark and echo-y and every sound, every moan bounced on the heavy walls as he stroked her.

“I want you to taste me soon. I want you to eat me. I fantasize about it all the time,” she said on a sexy groan as he rubbed her clit, a hard little diamond—swollen, wet and begging for his touch. He slipped a finger inside her heat, thrilling at the instant reaction it elicited from her. She clasped a hand over her mouth, capturing her own moan. Her knees buckled, and he used his free hand to steady her. Gripping her hip, he moved his mouth to her ear. “Fuck my hand,” he told her.

She rolled her hips, riding his fingers as he thrust inside her tight channel. “You fantasize about me a lot? About me eating you?”

“Yes,” she moaned as she rode his fingers. “God yes. Every night.”

“You think about me fucking you?”

“Fucking your hand. Fucking your face. Fucking your dick. I picture it all,” she said, her voice broken and breathy as she rocked into his touch.

“God, I love how much you want to fuck me,” he said, in a ragged voice. His dick was so hard it was practically staging a mutiny in his jeans. It was ready to bust out and take over. To sink in and spend the whole night inside her.

But he wanted her pleasure more. Her release. Her bliss. And he knew how to find it. He knew the way around her body because he’d never wanted anyone with this kind of raging intensity. He crooked his finger, hitting that magic spot that sent her flying. She curled her fingernails into his shoulders, digging in, holding on, as her mouth formed a perfect O. He sealed his lips to hers, swallowing her cries of pleasure as she came hard on his fingers in the stairwell.

“The Mob Museum is closing in ten minutes. Attention, museum-goers. The Mob Museum is closing in ten minutes. If you don’t wish to spend the evening with the ghost of Bugsey Siegel, we strongly suggest you wrap up your visit. Don’t say we didn’t warn you,” the voice on the loudspeaker said in a Jersey accent.

Elle’s shoulders shook, whether from laughter or the aftershocks of her orgasm or both—it was hard to tell. But deciphering the finer meanings of her reaction took on less importance than his need to be inside her.

Now.