CHAPTER NINE

“Come with me,” he said, quickly zipping her jeans, straightening her top, and guiding her in her woozy, buzzy state back into the exhibit hall, where a security guard dressed in black barked, “Closing time in ten minutes.”

Colin saluted him. “Yes, sir.”

Elle kept her head down, her hair forming a curtain around her face as he led her through the made men room, down a hall, and to the bathroom. He pulled the door open, locked it behind them, and grabbed her waist.

“Put your hands on the sink now.”

Obeying, she slammed her palms against the marble counter.

“Look at me in the mirror,” he said, and she met his gaze in the reflection as he yanked her jeans down her legs. “These jeans are so fucking tight,” he muttered as he kneeled, tugging them to her knees, then just below. He stood back up, and tapped her ankle with his foot. “Spread wider.”

She obliged as he unzipped his own jeans and rolled on a condom.

She bent her back and lifted her ass, and he smacked it once with his palm. “Can’t resist,” he said playfully. “Too tempting.”

“Don’t resist.”

“Never,” he said, and slid the head of his dick against her heat. “So wet. Did I do all this to you?” he asked, as if he didn’t know the answer.

“I’m pretty sure this is the eighty-seventh pair of panties you’ve melted right off me,” she said with a sexy glint as he rubbed himself against her. His dick was pointing its way home, begging to be deep in her, but oh, did he love just savoring the slickness before he sank inside. He fucking loved coating his dick in her slippery heat before he felt her clench around him.

“Eighty-seventh? That’s it? I need to work harder.”

“Speaking of hard—”

Her words were silenced as he buried himself in her. “Oh fuck, Elle,” he said on a groan, as he savored that intense moment when he was first inside the woman he craved. He picked up the pace, meeting her eyes in the mirror. Her amber eyes were glossy and full of lust, and her cheeks were rosy from the glow of her first orgasm. “I love looking at you as I make you come. I want to watch you fall apart again as I fuck you,” he said, low and husky in her ear.

“I want that too. So badly.”

Setting a fevered rhythm, the second hand ticking in their ears, he stroked into her. She moaned on each thrust, panting as he filled her. “You tasted so damn good on my fingers,” he said huskily. “I can’t wait to have you. When I do, I’m going to show you exactly why you came so many times alone at night thinking of me.”

“I did, Colin. I did,” she said, swiveling her hips as he pumped into her. “I thought about fucking your face all the time.”

Oh hell. Those words were like a straight shot of lust through his bloodstream. They set him on fire. They flipped switches all over. He groaned deeply. “I bet you were saying all sorts of filthy things to me in your head. I bet as you fucked yourself alone in bed you were saying Oh Colin, fuck me with your tongue. I want to ride your face. Did you say that?”

Her body answered with an epic shudder, a wild tightening against his dick, which was so damn hard inside her. Her slick walls gripped him as he slammed in and out of her, pulling back so only the tip was in her. He paused momentarily, then whispered in a low, dirty growl in her ear, “Colin, I’m going to come all over your face. I’m going to come so fucking hard on your face,” he said to her, and her eyes glazed over, and her body trembled, and everything, everything, everything in her reaction told him he was not only right, but she was there, finding her way to a second coming. He let go of her hip, and glided his finger across her clit. “Say it,” he commanded, as he fucked her deep and rubbed her clit.

“I’m going to come so fucking hard,” she said, her voice falling to pieces as she came on him. She started to cry out in ecstasy, but he clamped his palm over her mouth. He fucked her furiously, holding in all her screams, keeping her quiet as his balls tightened and his own orgasm tore through his body, consuming him like a torrential storm ripping across the coastline.

He cursed as he came hard.

He wanted to collapse onto her, to wrap his arms around her and just exist in this sated, blissful state. He looped his hands around her sexy waist, holding her close. He brushed his lips against her collarbone, and she shivered then flashed him a small smile.

“Attention, the doors are closing in two minutes. Thank you for visiting the mob museum. Bugsey is not alone tonight. We have just received word that Al Capone is haunting the premises.”

“Al Capone!” Elle said in a stage whisper. “Oh no!”

Quickly, Colin pulled out and disposed of the condom. They straightened up, and a minute later, walked to the exit, thanking the ticket taker and the security guard who locked the door behind them.

On the front steps of the museum, Elle grabbed his hand. “Let’s play some poker, Colin Scotty Sloan.”

He wished he didn’t like it so much when she kept her fingers locked through his as they spent the next hour wandering through Fremont Street, playing slots, then a round at the five dollar tables.

When it was time for her to go, he walked her to her car. “I had a really great time,” she said, but before he could say “me, too,” she brushed her hands together, as if she were wiping the evening away. The night was over. It had a before and an after. “That’s that. Now I’m off to be a mom.”

Her voice changed. Her tone shifted. Her whole demeanor transformed. She was moving from Elle the sexy, wanton woman who was dirty and bold and who liked to fuck hard, to the other Elle.

The one who had no room in her life for him. The one who erected walls and ramparts to keep him out. His heart sagged, knowing he might never be able to knock those down. They might simply be unscalable because of how he’d lived and who he’d been before her.

Choices had consequences. Every single one. He’d made some terrible choices when he was younger, and even though those days were far in the rearview mirror, he was feeling the repercussions as he walked her to her car and said good night before she drove off to her real life.

* * *

Fun.

That was good, plain fun.

That was basically the best night she’d had in ages.

She shook her head in amazement as she slowed her car at a red light on her way to pick up Alex.

“Fun,” she said out loud, as if the word was a new concept.

In many ways, it was to her. Elle hadn’t had that sort of evening in…well…in many years. Sure, she always had a blast doing roller derby, but that was more of a necessary outlet, her own therapy to handle living with an addict, since she’d started on the team when she was with Sam then continued when she kicked him out. And, yes, she and her son had gobs of fun playing zombie games, going bowling, and challenging each other in Pac-Man at the roller rink after her matches.

But adult fun? Date fun? Fun as a woman?

That had been eons ago. Like, maybe the Paleolithic period. Getting knocked up as a teenager didn’t give you many opportunities for fun.

Tonight though, from the zip line to the museum visit to hand holding along Fremont Street…every single second was lovely, and a small part of her heart already longed for another night like it.

She never thought she’d have a bad time with Colin, but she hadn’t imagined they’d have such a good one. It made perfect sense that they’d gel, she reasoned, as the light changed and she hit the gas. The two of them had clicked from day one. They’d chatted easily when they first met, sharing a similar view on the value of community service, the importance of being role models for youth, and the benefit of giving kids a chance to have fun, too. But tonight she learned they had even more in common, little things, like their shared affection for mob movies and their fondness for the stories of Vegas.

Then there was the sex. Oh, the toe-curling, sheet-grabbing, mind-blowing sex. As she turned onto the street where Alex’s friend lived, her chest tingled with the memories of how he’d taken her against the sink after sending her over the edge in the stairwell. He was direct and dirty, and he seemed to embrace that she was, too. He was also commanding and intense, and relished telling her exactly what he wanted from her.

She wanted all the same things.

And admittedly, a quiet part of her wanted more of him. A part she rarely acknowledged. Try as she might to keep him in the friend zone, being friends with him only made him more appealing. But she had to stay strong. Had to maintain the boundaries. That was the only way to protect her son, and to keep her promises to herself. Colin was a great friend and an amazing lover, and surely she could have him as both for some time. No need for complications.

She pulled into the driveway, cut the engine, and walked to the door. Her girlfriend Janine answered, greeting her with “You all set for the match next week? Friday evening.”

Janine was the jammer on the Fishnet Brigade, their roller derby team.

“Absolutely. Gotta block for my Cool Hand Bette,” Elle said, using Janine’s skate name.

“Excellent. I’ll pick you up and drive?”

“It’s a plan.”

Minutes later, she was driving Alex home.

“How was the movie?”

“Awesome,” he said, then proceeded to tell her about how intensely realistic the velociraptor attack had seemed. Elle smiled and laughed, all the while thinking she could so do this.

Nothing was going to stop Elle “Moneybags” Mariano from having her cake and eating it too.

Not a damn thing.

Not even the crack of dawn.

Because that piece of her that had longed for more woke her up early the next day. It tugged at some untended spot within her, like a small child grabbing her mother’s shirt, asking for another cookie. She didn’t entirely know what her heart wanted. She wasn’t even in tune with the language it was speaking. But something compelled her to go.

As she peeked out the window, the sky turned the shade of dark blue that comes before the sun rises.

She pulled on shorts, a tank top, and a pair of her white roller skating socks with the row of red skulls around the knee, left a message for her snoozing son, and took off to surprise Colin.