“We both know that night was hot as hell...”

But can she handle the heat...knowing that it can’t last?

Chicago-based food critic Parker Jones is in serious trouble. She’s reviewing one of Las Vegas’s hottest barbeque joints—and the hottest thing in the place is the restaurant’s mouthwatering sex-on-a-stick owner. Her only choice? To hide why she’s really there. Not exactly her finest moment. But NFL-quarterback-turned-restaurateur Hugh Matteson might prove too delicious to resist...

Only, Parker certainly didn’t anticipate the explosive sexual chemistry between them. It’s intense. Sizzling. And satisfying the way that food can never be. So naturally, Parker does what any rational, commitment-phobic grown woman does. She bails.

Parker should have known better. Hugh’s entire professional career has been about not giving up—even after his last serious relationship imploded publicly. And he’s definitely not about to let Parker disappear if he has anything to say about it.

Because this thing between them is hotter than a Carolina Reaper. His quick grin, that lightning bolt of lust whenever he touches her—oh, Parker could fall for this guy, and hard. But when you’re cooking with a fire this hot, it’s only a matter of time before someone gets burned...

Harlequin DARE publishes sexy romances featuring powerful alpha heroes and bold, fearless heroines exploring their deepest fantasies.

Four new Harlequin DARE titles are available each month, wherever ebooks are sold!

MARGOT RADCLIFFE lives in Columbus, Ohio, right now, but surrenders to wanderlust every couple of years, so it’s hard to say where she’ll end up next. Regardless of location, her apricot dog will be by her side while she writes fun romances that hopefully make readers laugh and space out for a bit. With heroines who aren’t afraid to take what they want and confident heroes who are up to a challenge, she loves creating complicated, modern love stories. She can be found @margotradcliffe on Twitter and @margot_radcliffe on Instagram.

Also by Margot Radcliffe

Friends with Benefits

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Sin City Seduction

Margot Radcliffe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09946-2

SIN CITY SEDUCTION

© 2020 Terra Rogerson

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To Catfish.

For being just the right amount of withholding.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

PARKER JONES LOVED her job. Didn’t just tolerate it like some of her friends whose chosen careers made the Sunday scaries look like a slasher film, but really loved it and couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Except possibly swimming-pool-raft model; those people always seemed super happy, and lounging in water with beverages was a skill she’d be happy to cultivate on a professional level. In reality, however, she was a food writer for the online magazine Gastronomic, so her days out of the pool were spent traveling and eating delicious food across the country, her current city being Las Vegas.

And as she watched Hugh Matteson, ex-NFL quarterback and owner of the restaurant she was currently reviewing, saunter across the floor of his extremely successful barbecue joint, Blue Smoke, she couldn’t help but add another bullet point to her gratitude list.

Decked out in a deep violet suit with a white shirt, lavender pocket square and no tie, he looked like he had the world on a string, a confident smile curving his firm lips as if he’d never not had a reason to be happy. Medium brown hair, clipped short, was pushed back and sideways away from his forehead and was just basic-bro enough to ground him in the realm of the living. His jaw was square and strong, the likes of which would compel Gaston to take up facial exercises. Sharp hazel eyes (she’d googled him, obviously, because research) were lit with an enterprising spirit she recognized in her own.

One of his big paws was casually shoved into a pants pocket, sure and easy as if everyone he spoke to was a friend and not a complete stranger. Straight white teeth completed the picture, but she knew that one of his incisors was crooked. A pale white scar, nearly two inches long, was etched across his left cheek and another jagged one separated his right eyebrow into two parts. In some of the photos she’d seen of him he’d worn a steel bar with a screwdriver piercing in the space between the sections, but it was absent today. Apparently, that’s what his former teammates called him, the Screwdriver, because he never stopped driving. She didn’t quite get it, but apparently, football or whatever.

He wasn’t handsome; that was a silly, pale word to describe the sheer mass of man and the obvious contradictions that made up Hugh Matteson, ex-athlete, successful businessman and, lest she forget, tabloid fodder. Even before her research, she’d recognized his name from the constant press coverage his breakup had received. Several years ago, his fiancée dumped him. Not such an extraordinary story, but the timing was unforgettable. The breakup came shortly after his career-ending injury and mere weeks before their wedding day, and then was brutally followed by said fiancée’s elopement to this very town with the guy who replaced Hugh as the New York Comets quarterback. It would have broken lesser men, but no one looking at Hugh now would ever guess that he’d once been the most pitied man in sports.

He exuded sheer magnetism and Parker felt an electric pull in the pit of her stomach that she rarely, if ever, felt. Part of why she loved her job was because it freed her from her responsibilities home in Chicago, also known as her father, who was still recovering from the fact that his wife (and Parker’s mother) walked out on them nearly fifteen years ago. Her life on the road was hers and hers alone. The fact that Hugh wasn’t relationship material wouldn’t stop her from having fun with him. Because he looked like he could be a veritable Disneyland in bed.

As a rule, all her relationships ended the next morning anyway, because she was on the road most weekends and rarely home, but also because attachments weren’t really her thing. When your own mom walks out on you, it tends to shake your faith in the reality of commitment.

Returning her attention to her plate of barbecue, she had to admit that she was tragically underwhelmed by the food. So having fun with the owner, who, considering his lackluster food, was the only smoking-hot thing in this particular barbecue joint, was probably a bad idea. There was an air of the generic everywhere, in fact. The floor-to-ceiling wood paneling and sunbaked longhorn skulls perched high on the walls screamed typical roadhouse decor, but it was something she could forgive because it was Vegas, the city that had invented camp, forgotten it, and then invented it again. It was better than the sports theme she’d expected at any rate, so points for that.

Pulling out her tablet, Parker began typing her initial thoughts for the review she’d write later. She’d ordered nearly everything on the menu, including two sampler platters consisting of sausage, brisket, ribs, pulled pork, salmon and chicken along with corn bread, collards, baked beans, and mac and cheese. The different barbecue sauces themselves were bland, which was downright heresy for a barbecue place. The smoke on the meat was just enough, but it was obvious that they used the same kind of wood to smoke all their varieties of meat, which was such a cop-out.

She managed to type out a few notes, but kept getting distracted. Hugh was working his way around the perimeter of tables that ran along the outside wall and eventually she abandoned even the pretense of working to watch him. Smiling at a blue-haired woman in an I Heart Las Vegas sweatshirt who had reached out and taken his hand, the corners of his eyes crinkled and lit up his whole face, which without the smile tended toward menacing. Her breath stopped at the sight, not quite a catch because she was a grown woman, but edging in that direction. His free hand abandoned his pocket and covered the woman’s hand in his, a warm two-handed grip, before he crouched to get down to her level so he could hear her better. Parker had no idea what the woman was saying, and her expression was serious, but by the end of the conversation they were both laughing.

Then as if in slow motion, Hugh rose from his crouch, turned and caught Parker right in the act of blatantly staring at him. Turning back to her food would have been the best thing to do, but instead she held his gaze, because, hell, she wanted to. After a moment she looked away because staring was rude, but that look had communicated what she’d wanted. That, yes, she agreed with America that he was aesthetically advantaged, and also yes, she’d like to explore that advantage in a behind-closed-doors type of situation. Because that was what her work life was about. When she was on the road, she could be herself instead of her father’s caretaker or the girl her friends still coddled because her mom ran out on them for a flashier life.

Then he was coming her way, making a beeline through other hopeful diners whose yearning eyes followed him as he passed them by. Her throat tight, she inconspicuously slid her tablet off the table and back into her bag so he wouldn’t have another reason to be suspicious. Except upon further thought she should have acted like she was reading a book. No one ate alone without a buffer of some kind and here she was with half the food in the restaurant in front of her. Nervous and hating it, she took a drink of beer, one thing she couldn’t complain about. From a local brewery in town, the light hoppy effervescence was the perfect fit to wash down rich, smoky barbecue.

Wiping the foam away from her mouth, she looked up to see him standing there and her entire body froze, with the exception of her wet hand sliding over the paper napkin spread across her lap.

“Enjoying your meal, ma’am?” he asked, an amused eyebrow raised, the one with the scar. His voice was grumbly and rough as he eyed the pile of food eclipsing the surface of the scarred oak table.

“Indeed,” she got out, having second thoughts about engaging with him. Either he’d clock her as a reviewer right off the bat or he’d assume that she was the lone competitor in a food-eating contest. Either way, she’d feel guilty for the unflattering review she’d ultimately be writing.

He held out his hand, but then thought better of it when he saw that her fingers were caked in barbecue sauce. “I’m Hugh Matteson, the owner. Just wanted to make sure we were taking care of you tonight.”

Looking up into his eyes was an epically bad idea, because she’d love to be taken care of by this guy. He was even better up close, dark scruff shadowing that movie-star jaw; hazy green eyes ringed with brown were clear and amused, hands so large she bet he could hold a toddler in his palm. He was also imposing, well over six foot five, and smelled like a man who took care of himself—musky cologne hung on the air like a summer’s breeze over a marsh, intriguing and mysterious. She fantasized about forgetting the article altogether and taking him back to her hotel room for the night.

“I’m Parker Jones,” she finally said, starting and stopping again around the bubbly catch in her throat from the beer.

“Were you expecting someone else?” he asked pointedly, his gaze cataloging her many entrées. “Or a group of people?”

“No, it’s just me,” she admitted, giving him what she hoped was a cheeky smile. Like “I’m just a girl who couldn’t decide,” not “I’m writing an article about your mediocre food.”

Part of her wanted to admit who she was, because she’d never been shy about writing unfavorable reviews before, but she wanted to flirt back with him even if it wouldn’t amount to anything. He was, after all, a famous athlete, and she was a woman with barbecue sauce already crusting around her fingernails.

“I just really like barbecue,” she added when he still hadn’t responded.

That caught him up and he laughed, eyes crinkling, dimples in all their glory, that lickable crooked incisor up close and personal. His voice was lush and deep, plunging like an ocean wave pulling away from shore. An answering pull in her middle had her shifting in her seat. This was probably the reaction he received from every woman he met, which was just the reminder she needed to stop her X-rated thoughts right in their tracks. He was the kind of guy who could ruin her life, and it still wasn’t quite put back together after the first time.

“I can see that,” he finally managed, that amused grin still firmly in place. “But I’ve always been partial to a woman who could eat.”

She laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, I can eat.”

“Apparently,” he said, leaning back just slightly on his wing tip’s heels.

They smiled at each other then in a moment of shared amusement and she felt the bubble of anticipation in her stomach grow.

“Parker Jones,” he repeated, the words rolling off his tongue experimentally. “That name sounds familiar for some reason. Like Lois Lane or Jessica Rabbit.”

Shrugging, she met his eyes again. “Sorry, don’t know. To my knowledge I’ve never been a comic book character, and we’ve definitely never met.”

“No, I would have remembered you,” he agreed.

“Are you sure? I’m not always surrounded by tables of food.”

He smiled again, their eyes still locked as if glued to each other. Breaking contact, she shoved a forkful of brisket in her mouth, nearly choking at the amount and the fact that it was far too dry.

Seeing her distress, he took a seat in the round wooden booth, his arm poised to make contact with her back, but she shook her head vehemently as she swallowed. “I’m fine,” she choked out, reaching for her mug of beer.

Guzzling it down, she felt his eyes on her, saw him gesturing to a nearby waiter who wasn’t hers. “Can we get two more of whatever she’s drinking? Quickly, please.”

“Oh, that’s too much,” she rasped, waving the request away.

“One’s for me,” he stated simply, as if she’d invited him to sit at her table.

In fact, once she’d fully caught her breath again, he decided to help himself to one of her ribs as if they were old friends having dinner together. Watching him chew was like a porno, that tight jaw, gnashing and grinding. She really needed to reevaluate her choices if this was the kind of thing she’d been brought to, getting turned on by a man eating. Honestly, it was too much, and yet admittedly, also very on-brand.

“Are you from Vegas or just visiting?” he asked, throwing the clean rib into the basket already half-full of them.

“Just visiting,” she informed, taking another sip of beer. She wasn’t eating any solid foods until he went away and it was safe to chew again.

“Where are you from then, Parker Jones?”

The waiter set down two frosty mugs of beer, the foamy white heads just barely not running down the sides, and she wondered exactly what she should say. Revealing too much about herself would be a problem. It wasn’t outside of the realm of possibility that as a restaurant owner, he’d read her stuff. “Chicago.”

“And you’re in Vegas by yourself, or just this dinner?”

“Vegas.”

He seemed to consider that for a second. “Business or pleasure?”

Shit. She didn’t want to lie, but he was going to ask her what she did and she wouldn’t have a good answer. Unfortunately, she was a terrible liar, so it would have to be the truth. “Business.”

“Let me guess,” he said, looking over the wealth of food again. “Soup kitchen director?”

She laughed, not expecting a joke. At least not a funny one. “Nope. Though I have volunteered at plenty of them.”

“Good for you,” he said, his eyes sliding over her face and down her chest. She wasn’t wearing anything revealing, just a pair of jeans and a black V-neck T-shirt with a fitted burgundy blazer. All choices designed to hide any sauce or grease stains she might incur during the sampling process.

Nonetheless, his gaze stopped on her cleavage, and those tingles of anticipation rolled over her skin like a long-lost friend knocking at her front door after an extended absence. It’d been a long time, but she remembered them like it was yesterday. He quickly collected himself, straightening in his seat and meeting her eyes again, vaguely apologetic. If he hadn’t just tried to save her life when she was choking, she might have given him a hard time about it, but she also didn’t want to draw out the conversation considering what she was hiding.

“And you own the Blue Smoke Restaurants,” she filled in. “And used to play some kind of sports game?”

That got him smiling that shy, humble smile again, his eyes drifting downward and his tongue sticking in his cheek. “Football,” he supplied, eyes dancing with amusement. “The sport, that is.”

“Gotcha,” she said. “The one with the ball.”

“Yeah, that one,” he replied, shaking his head at her playful obtuseness. “So what do you do?”

She took a deep breath, having spent their entire conversation trying to figure out the answer to this very question. “I write for a lifestyle magazine.” Not technically a lie, so: points.

“That’s pretty cool,” he said, his thoughtful gaze catching hers again.

Those hazel eyes were intelligent and sharp, at turns making her feel as if she were the only person in the room, but she knew at the same time they were evaluating his waitstaff and his diners’ satisfaction.

“Yeah, it’s my dream job.”

“A lifestyle magazine,” he repeated. “So, like, laundry tips and stuff?”

She shrugged, the anxiety crawling up her back. “I’m not too into laundry,” she hedged. “It’s more like menu planning and leisure activities.” Like where to eat, she thought guiltily. Where was that waiter with her check and please don’t let him ask the name of the magazine.

“Ah,” he said, grabbing the platter with the chicken and sausage. “You mind?”

She shook her head.

“Thanks,” he said, unrolling the extra setting of silverware the waiter had left, probably anticipating another person after all that she’d ordered. “I haven’t had dinner yet and I don’t know that we have enough take-out boxes for all this anyway.”

Her eyes shut. Dear God. She knew he was just joking but still struggled against the embarrassment climbing up her neck. Oh, it was so, so bad.

“I just wanted to try a little of everything,” she explained lamely, not ready to give her cover away regardless of how it might look. She didn’t care what he thought of the amount of food she’d gotten. “It all sounded so good and I’m only in Vegas for a couple of weeks.”

“Your first time?”

“No, I’ve been several times.”

“I’ve never been a huge fan of it,” he admitted, “but it’s home for now. My real one is a ranch in San Antonio where I grew up.”

“San Antonio is great, though the tiny Alamo was a bit of disappointment.”

He laughed again. “Yeah, well, I think that’s the point. The little guys lost the battle, but Texas came back to win the war. Think about how small the actual building is, and they defended it to the death against a larger and more powerful Mexican army. They knew they would die and did it anyway.”

“Fair enough. Disappointment retracted,” she said, holding up her hands in supplication. “I should know better than to disparage Texas in the first place.”

“Texas forever.” He grinned, repeating the popular catchphrase and holding up the longhorn steer sign on his hand, pointer and pinkie stretching up proudly.

She rolled her eyes, watching as he chewed on a piece of sausage, his expression turning thoughtful.

“Parker Jones, lifestyle writer in Vegas on business alone. You got any other plans besides eating the best barbecue in town tonight or would you wanna get out of here?”

And then Parker thought she might choke on just actual air this time.

She didn’t choke again, but came damn close. Holy shit. Was this really happening? A one-night stand with a famous football player? One-night stands never gave her this much agita and she knew it was because this one was different. She was already enjoying herself and could actually fall for him. Her heart beat a chaotic jangle in her chest and sweat coated her palms. Rubbing them discreetly on her jeans, she met his eyes and her shock must have shown.

“I don’t mean for that,” he said quickly, holding up a hand. “I mean, not that I wouldn’t. Hell, of course, but I just meant I could show you around. You know, as a local. I’d hate to think of you doing this whole trip alone. Besides, I don’t meet many women who can eat this much, so I feel like this is my opportunity to get to know the kind of girl who at least gives it a shot. There are a lot of points on the board for making the effort.”

It was a joke she couldn’t quite laugh at, but she appreciated it and she wanted to stay with him. Didn’t want the warmth of his body heating her left side to suddenly vanish without her really memorizing it to take out at a later date when she was back home, a place she was always slightly miserable if she were being honest.

“Sure, I just have to pay the check and we can go. Since apparently I can’t box this stuff up.”

Chuckling at the throwback to his previous joke, he stood, holding out his hand to help her from the booth. “How about I have the leftovers sent to where you’re staying.”

“But the check,” she pointed out.

“It’s on me, sweetheart. Keep your per diem for the next place you visit.”

She bristled at the patronizing endearment and the per diem crack, as if she couldn’t afford to go out to dinner on her own. Like she was just some girl who couldn’t make it in the world and had to depend on her job’s petty cash to buy her enough food to eat for an entire month.

Suddenly, it felt like she had rocks in her mouth, dry and crackling, and she wanted to grind them between her teeth until they were dust.

He must have read her displeasure because he held up a hand. “We can have the bill sent to your hotel, okay? I was just trying to be nice. If I can’t buy a girl dinner at my own restaurant, I don’t know when I can, you know?” His tone was overly conciliatory, which only served to irritate her more.

“Maybe I’ll just wait here for the check. I have an early day tomorrow and I’m very tired,” she backtracked, yawning to make it more believable.

Hugh crossed his big arms in front of his gorilla-wide chest, the tailored fabric of his suit pulling over the bulging muscles outlined underneath. Although it looked like it, he wasn’t trying to be intimidating; she thought it was just his way of digging into his stance, which was obviously going to be to try to get her to go out with him. “Ms. Jones, I’m sorry if I offended you, but we’ve been looking at each other tonight the same way I hope people look at my food when it comes to their table. I don’t pick women up in my restaurants ever and I’m interested, so I’d be grateful if you’d give me another chance and come grab a drink with me.”

As far as apologies went, it was pretty good, but she’d already made up her mind not to do it since it was a bad idea for a lot of reasons. If things had been different and she hadn’t been intending to write a review of his restaurant, she would one-night-stand the shit out of this guy, but alas, life was only that simple for the pool-raft models.

“Listen,” he began just as she opened her mouth to tell him the aforementioned resolution. “I haven’t been on a real date in years, not one with a woman who minds if I pay a check or not anyway, and I know we literally just met, but you seem pretty cool. I have it on good authority that I’m not great at this shit, so if you could cut me some slack I would really appreciate it.”

She smiled; she couldn’t help it. He didn’t have to be vulnerable with her but he’d gone there, and it took guts to do that with a complete stranger.

“Whose authority?” she asked idly, still deciding what to do. “Who doesn’t think you’re good at picking up women in your restaurants? Seems like that would be pretty easy.”

His lips thinned at the playful jab and his look was bland. “Well, my ex-fiancée for one.”

“Did you call her ‘baby’ and try to put her in a corner?”

His thick eyebrows came together at the old movie reference. “No, that doesn’t even make any sense.”

“Well, you called me sweetheart and I hated it, just like I would hate to be called baby. And your offer to pay for my meal put me in a corner, metaphorically, if you know what I mean. So if you think about it, it really works on a lot of levels.”

Hugh stared at her, a corner of his mouth twitching.

“You know what we call this entire conversation in football?” he asked, arms still crossed and that meaty thumb drumming impatiently on the upper bicep of his opposite arm.

“A touchdown?” she tried.

“Nope, intentional grounding. Where you try to kill the play before it even begins.”

“It sounds like your words are saying you didn’t like my joke, but your face is saying that you did.”

He laughed for real then, the sound rich and deep, warming her belly more than his food had. “Yeah, I fucking liked it. I like you, too, so will you forgive me for trying to get what I have to assume is one of the largest meals ever ordered in my restaurant taken care of?”

She met his eyes, shaking her head at his food crack. “One drink and then I really do need to get home.”

“Fair enough.” He waved over a waiter to explain the situation about her leftovers and check.

“What hotel?” he asked.

“Halcyon.”

“That’s a good one,” he approved.

“It’s pretty for a casino in Vegas,” she admitted, finally rising from the booth.

He offered her his arm and she slipped her hand through, trepidation filtering through her body along with just plain anticipation.

“And your fiancée might be right that you’re bad at the pickup, but your follow-through is exemplary.”

“You have no idea just how accurate that statement is,” he told her, his tone edged with a delicious dash of danger and irony.

CHAPTER TWO

HUGH DIDN’T GET nervous as a rule. He’d faced down the largest men in the country running at him at speeds only athletes conditioned over the course of their entire lives could achieve, so a girl in his restaurant shouldn’t have made him as edgy as he was, but Parker Jones was doing it. And not just because she had a chest not even his famously large hands could get around, though that was a huge plus.

He hadn’t been interested in a woman beyond sleeping with her in a long damned time. If that was a commentary on him as a person, so be it, but after the hell he’d been through with his ex he hadn’t trusted his own judgment to pick women. The scandal was long gone, but he’d never really gotten over being the nation’s poster child for cuckolding. Nor the fact that Amanda was happily married with the family they’d dreamed about. He’d thought he’d have three kids by now, but the thought of finding someone who wanted him for him and not who he’d been as a player was too much work.

So the fact that Ms. Jones gave him some butterflies didn’t mean much. She didn’t even live in the city, and a little what-happens-in-Vegas action was just fine with him. It didn’t matter that when he’d caught her staring at him earlier, something inside him had flickered on. She was beautiful with cool blond hair and warm brown eyes, curves that lasted for days, and expressive lips that he’d wanted to lick his own barbecue sauce off of. And now he also knew she was sarcastic and fun as hell.

He held her hand, small and soft nestled in his long-fingered grasp, wondering when was the last time he’d done something simple like that for a woman and coming up short. Maybe he really had taken himself out of the game for too long, like the guys said, but every time he thought about really giving a woman a chance he remembered all that bullshit with his ex. If girls didn’t want to be with him for the money and notoriety, then they really wanted to be with him because they felt sorry for him. He honestly didn’t know which was worse. But already Parker didn’t seem to care about either his money or his past, which felt good. The sympathetic head tilt was usually the first thing women gave him, whereas she’d just lit him up and thrown his money back in his face. Already, a small piece of him felt liberated.

“When did you retire?” Parker asked when they got outside, a gentle breeze blowing a lock of pale hair across her face. His yellow McLaren was sitting in the first spot near the door.

“Six years ago.”

He guided her toward the car, but she resisted, pulling her arm and breaking their forward momentum. “I assumed we were walking somewhere.”

“We can if you want, but all the bars around here on the Strip are pretty much tourist traps.”

At her raised eyebrow, he gestured to his car. “I’m not going to kidnap you and take you back to my place against your will. This is not that, I promise. Just a drink, like we agreed.”

She didn’t look completely convinced, white teeth chewing nervously at her dark pink lip. If she’d been wearing lipstick it had worn off, probably during her meal.

“But if it did end up being more, would that be the worst thing?” he threw out because fuck it, they were adults. “I mean, like, as long as we both want to.”

She shook her head and he shoved his hands into his pockets. Hooking up usually wasn’t this hard for him. Most girls would have asked to drive his car by now, and he couldn’t even get Parker to have a drink with him.

“We can have a drink on the Strip if you want. Totally innocent and you’ll be close to Halcyon. The problem is that I’ll be bothered by fans at those kinds of places and we won’t actually get to talk.”

She considered him and he waited as patiently as he could. “Okay,” she finally said, her tone still dubious.

“The place I have in mind would be private but it’s too far to walk, so if I don’t drive we’ll have to use an app and ride in some guy’s car.”

“I had a lovely minivan experience on the way here,” she claimed primly. “He even had a candy bowl, so I bet you feel foolish for being so snobby about ride-sharing now.”

She pulled her phone from her bag and started tapping away. He accepted what was happening because after a moment of surprise that she’d easily wrested control from a situation he thought he’d been manipulating masterfully, he realized he actually kind of enjoyed not being in charge. It was a theme that ran through his entire life. He made his own decisions, the decisions for his parents, he’d managed his team on and off the field, he was always in charge of what he did on dates, he managed an entire chain of restaurants, but now here he was in the parking lot of his own restaurant waiting for someone else to decide his fate tonight. He hadn’t known it was a thing that he’d enjoy, but he didn’t hate it.

“I got the luxury option for you,” she told him. “Whatever that means for a person who drives a car for a living. The app says a black Acura sedan.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“You’re suddenly amenable to the car?”

He shrugged. “No, but I’m not going to argue with you.”

Their eyes met in a benign challenge that he found oddly exhilarating, like when he was on the sidelines watching the other team play just waiting for his turn to go back out on the field. Only instead of the playing field being full of elite athletes, it was a single woman with a body designed to make men crumble before they could even attempt a play.

“Good,” she told him, a corner of that full mouth raising in a playful smirk. “I hate difficult people.”

He snorted because they hadn’t been together for more than a half hour and he knew she wasn’t exactly easygoing. And neither was he, for that matter. His own baggage was so heavy only a man of his imposing stature could carry it. He didn’t fault her for knowing what she wanted and doing what she needed to do to get it.

“What?” she asked, reproach in her tone when he didn’t follow up his snort with an actual response.

“Both of us are difficult, sweetheart. It’s why we’re standing here on the street together waiting for a car we don’t need instead of me finishing the night talking to my guests and you eating your weight in barbecue. We like it.”

Just then the black Acura pulled up, the familiar emblem of the car service on the windshield.

“Not bad,” he told her, and she just rolled her eyes.

Taking one last look at his own car that he loved and cherished, he helped Parker into the back seat of their ride, his fingers itching to cup the ass he could barely take his eyes off of as she bent to get inside.

“So where are we going?” she asked, oblivious to the fact that he was seconds away from completely mauling her.

“Oh, did you not want to choose?” he asked, meeting her eyes in the relative darkness of the back seat. The blue lights of the restaurant’s sign shone onto her face, highlighting her pursed lips, which only made him want to kiss that know-it-all expression off of it.

“It’s your town,” she argued.

“Structure,” he instructed the driver, a young man in his twenties who was more or less indifferent to their presence. He had a dirty-blond man-bun and beard that looked like it was taking its time filling in.

The kid pulled away from the curb, and because Hugh had become intensely private about what he shared with the public, he stayed silent for the short five-minute drive to Structure. The bar was on the top floor of the Crown Royale casino and had breathtaking 360-degree views of the city, but mostly he’d chosen it for the privacy. Because he wanted privacy with Parker. Every single dirty thing he wanted to do to her demanded it.

They rode the elevator to the club’s entrance, where they were enthusiastically greeted by Jesse. He requested one of the semiprivate spaces.

“Nothing but the best for you, Hugh,” Jesse breathed, her eyes going dewy and sentimental. “And thank you again for that little loan. It really helped me out.”

“Loan implies I want it back, sweetheart,” he told her, giving her a wink. “I don’t. Consider that car a gift from me to you.”

She leaned up to give him a kiss on the cheek, her long blond ponytail swaying back and forth behind her. “You’re the best, Hugh.”

Jesse was a young girl in her twenties, but had a broken-down car and a small child she needed to provide for, so he’d provided the money to replace it. Structure was one of his favorite places in the city and he’d gotten to know the employees very well over the years, and when she’d needed help, he helped. He would have done it for anybody really, and often did. It was part of the reason he didn’t have relationships. Everyone wanted a piece of him and the only pieces he was willing to give any woman nowadays had dollar signs on them.

He felt Parker’s eyes on him and knew she could be thinking any number of incorrect scenarios. But he’d never slept with Jesse. Not that he wouldn’t, but he hadn’t. That said, he’d given cash gifts to a lot of women he’d slept with, not because he’d felt strongly about them, but precisely because he didn’t. Relationships weren’t gonna happen again as far he was concerned. He’d loved Amanda and she’d made him the literal laughingstock of America, which meant that now, if he had to pay women to leave him alone, he’d do it.

Following Jesse, Hugh led Parker through the club, which was comprised of small rooms and nooks furnished with couches and easy chairs. The decor was Vegas-style Roman, weathered columns reached from the floor to the ceiling and created an intimate space. Dim lighting threw shadows on the paintings of nude women and men on the walls enjoying life’s baser pleasures. Gold-leaf ceilings and bloodred furniture gave the place a lurid feel, like just being there was the first step in finding Eve’s apple and getting to sin for all eternity.

Jesse led them to a small corner room, cordoned off in case people like him showed up, with two red velvet couches and a single gold lamp with a deep red shade that cast the whole space in a muted, sensual glow. A gold coffee table sat in between the couches and he held open the red velvet drape for Parker to enter.

He sat next to her on one of the couches and fought the urge to take her hand again, wanting to feel her skin, to learn it, feel it warm up in his until they were sharing heat.

“I’ve never even heard of this place,” she said, taking in the decadent room.

“It was the only bar we could go and actually hear each other,” he explained. They were far enough away and enclosed so that the music from the bar was a dull rumble in the background instead of a roar. But that wasn’t the only reason he’d chosen this particular place. He only did what he wanted now and he didn’t want to take selfies or answer questions about his glory days—he wanted to flirt with a girl.

“It looks expensive,” she observed, playing with the gold tassel on the lamp.

He shrugged. “I don’t know what expensive is anymore,” he told her honestly. He was also done pretending he was some “aw shucks good ol’ boy” so people liked him. He was a multimillionaire, closing in on nine digits, and he wasn’t going to apologize for it.

Her eyebrow raised and that corner curved up in her signature smirk again. “Look at you,” she purred. “Mister big football man.”

“That’s right,” he said, inching just the slightest bit closer to her as the waitress arrived to take their drink order. He rattled off his favorite red wine, feeling Parker’s eyes on him.

“Maybe I didn’t want wine,” she said when the waitress had left them alone again.

“You should have spoken up then. It’s not like you’ve had a problem with that so far.”

She laughed, shaking her head at the truth of his statement. “Were you sad to retire from football?”

Getting comfortable, he stretched his arm across the back of the couch until he could almost touch her long blond hair with his fingers. “Yeah, the first couple of months were fucking devastating. It was the thing I’d done my entire life. I literally didn’t know anything else outside football, but I had a business degree from UT so I thought I might as well use it.”

“What did you injure?” Her eyes involuntarily scanned his body for what might be out of place.

Damn, he did not want to talk about this shit. Not right now. It was not at all sexy, but Parker was the long game. He already recognized that even if long in this case meant however long she was in town.

“It was late in the fourth quarter against the Steelers, a really physical defense, and I got tackled head-on. I had a compound fracture in my leg, which isn’t too big a deal when you’re a regular person, but the NFL was over for me. The recovery alone was nearly a year, then the conditioning to get back into shape would have been another. I would have been over thirty by the time I could even think about returning to the game, and no one ever has after that kind of injury.”

“So you like running the restaurants?” she asked, changing the subject, which he was really thankful for.

“Hell yeah, I love eating and building something of my own. And I’m in charge, just how I like it.”

She rolled her eyes at his pomp, but then gave the hand resting on the back of the couch a quick squeeze. “I’m sorry about the injury,” she said, her voice steady and earnest. “Do you live with pain?”

He shook his head, but it wasn’t the entire truth. No one left the NFL without some measure of pain management. It was the nature of the job.

The waitress brought them their wine and two glasses, and Hugh poured them halfway full.

“Pinot noir is my favorite,” she told him before taking a small sip, those fuck-me lips closing over the delicate rim of the wineglass. His cock twitched with the X-rated visual of what they’d look like closed around him, her guarded eyes looking at him with want and need and completely lost to lust.

“After the accident, I toyed with buying a vineyard and bottling my own wine, but decided I was more of a smoked meats kind of guy.”

“Definitely seems more on-brand,” she agreed, a corner of her mouth lifting.

“You like making fun of me?” he asked, calling her out on the smug smile.

She shrugged. “Was I?”

Their eyes met, heat darting between them until finally he took a drink of his wine.

“What? A football player can’t be into something highbrow like wine?”

“I didn’t say a word,” she claimed, even though she’d said enough without any words at all. “I think you’re very sophisticated. Your car probably costs more than my house, so I wouldn’t presume to make those kinds of judgments. Plus, this was a deep-cut wine choice. I’m impressed.”

“Do you cover wine in your lifestyle magazine?” he asked, hoping to find out something of substance about her.

“Sometimes, but I’m actually a trained sommelier,” she revealed, and he raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“What? A girl who eats unlawful amounts of barbecue can’t be into something highbrow like wine?” she asked, throwing his own words back in his face.

Damn, he liked her. Liked getting as good as he gave. His ex had wanted him to tiptoe around her feelings like they were Tiffany glass, whereas Parker could dish it out and take it with a smile. It was sexy as hell and his cock throbbed again, coming to life by slow but unstoppable degrees.

“Which leg?” she asked when he didn’t have a response right away. He’d been too busy fantasizing about fucking her on the gold coffee table beside them. Hell, probably the Persian rug would be good enough for the filth he had in mind.

He stretched out his left leg, the one on the outside of the couch, far enough to nudge her foot with his own. It was an innocent touch, just his wingtip nudging her black canvas sneaker, but he felt it in his dick and the back of his head which was clouding over from lust.

“Sorry,” he got out, kneading his leg the slightest bit. “It’s a little stiff.”

She looked suspicious at first, and rightly so, because it was a major line of bullshit. It’d been the other leg in the first place, and in the second place that leg didn’t hurt at all.

“Do you need a hot compress or something?” she said, raising an eyebrow.

“Might be nice if you could massage it for a minute, just to warm it up.”

She laughed, the sound high and incredulous. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“You’re not going to just let me sit here in pain, are you?”

“Don’t you have something you could take?”

He shook his head. “I don’t like pills.”

He jerked at his leg without even an ounce of shame. He wanted her and knew she wanted him, too, from the lingering looks, the jumping pulse at her throat when he touched her, the way she worried that lip. They were two strangers who liked each other; it wouldn’t be a big deal if they saw it through. It was the very tagline of Vegas, for fuck’s sake. He would be doing her a disservice not to offer her that kind of opportunity on her visit.

“Maybe I should go,” she suddenly said, standing up. “Seems like you need to tend to that leg anyway.”

He shot up then, too. “Please don’t. I was just kidding about the massage.”

“What are we really doing here, Hugh?” she asked. “It’s not like we came out together to form a lasting friendship. I’m only here for a month.”

“I just want to get to know you.” And a month was a long damn time.

“Or you want to fuck me,” she said baldly, the words shooting straight to his groin.

He didn’t bother to deny it. “Of course I do. Look at you, and you’ve been riding my ass all night. We’ve been fucking each other with words since the moment I sat down at your table. But I get it, it’s too soon and you want to go, but can I please have your number? Because I’m serious about wanting to know you.”

Her mouth opened, ready to stick him with whatever accusation might render the truth of his statement null and void. But instead, she just murmured, “Fuck it,” and pulled all two hundred and fifty pounds of him to her.

His lips met hers in surprise, but it didn’t take him long to shift to straightforward lust. Once he got his bearings he took control from her, crowding her into the dark corner of the room where they blended in with the black around them. Hidden from all the dirty shit he wanted to do to her.

She pulled her mouth from his and glared at him. “And if you pay me for this, I swear to God I will claw your eyes out. I don’t need to be taken care of.”

The words were clear and a corner of his mouth lifted. No, he didn’t suppose she was. “Noted.”

So he yanked up her T-shirt, running his hands across the smooth skin of her sides and back, diving into the kiss again, coaxing her mouth open wider this time. Her little whimpers of pleasure drove him beyond madness, and he slipped one hand from under her shirt to tunnel back up into that silky halo of hair, adjusting her head so he could go even deeper, their tongues feasting on each other, excavating their secrets with desperate curiosity.

Sticking his knee between hers as an invitation, she didn’t leave him hanging, riding hesitantly at first, but then moving her hips in earnest. It was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen, ever been a part of. “You’re sexy as hell, Parker,” he breathed hotly against her lips, swallowing another one of her greedy moans. “Ride me, sweetheart. I want to see you come.”

So saying, he flicked open the placket of her jeans as his other hand drifted from her back to her breast, testing the heavy weight in his big hands. He wouldn’t have cared if she had small breasts or large breasts—frankly he was more of a big-picture person—but fuck if that flesh didn’t overflow in his meaty hands, making his cock throb a bass beat under the metal zipper of his pants. His hips started moving in time to hers as she rubbed over his leg, her hands grasping the lapels of his coat, tugging him against her but in turns pushing him away as she arched into him.

Sliding his hand in her pants, he found her slick and hot. He’d give a lot to be able to see her, to lick and suck until she was screaming louder than the music on the dance floor, but this was what they were doing right now. And then later he’d ask her to come home with him, so they could do this right and he could make her breakfast in the morning and then whatever the hell else she wanted. Hell, maybe even an actual date at some point.

She threw her head back, pale neck arched in pleasure as he ran his thumb over that sweet, lust-soaked nub. Changing the tempo and the pressure, he learned what she liked, what sent her closer to the edge, could feel the muscles in her abdomen tense against his arm. “Come on, baby,” he whispered in her ear, his thumb pressing on the verge of pain just to torture her. “You know you want to come. No one can hear you, no can see you, but you know they’re all there, just down the hall, don’t you?”

She whimpered against him, bucking hard against his leg, and he let his hand move farther down, pumping two fingers inside her, agonizing over his own arousal as her moans got lower, more guttural, as if the sensation was coming from deep inside her.

“Fucking touch me,” he commanded, unbuckling his belt and dealing with the zipper. He couldn’t handle it anymore. He wanted to slide his cock into that dripping pussy and fuck her in front of every single person in this bar, wanted them to see him give her pleasure. The music was quieter in their private corner room, but it pounded through his veins like the downbeat to his own racing pulse.

Her cool hand weaved inside his boxer briefs, pulling his thick cock out, the tip already leaking. Their eyes met as she lifted her hand and licked her palm before running her thumb down the underside, teasing, testing, gauging his reactions. He pumped harder inside her, using three fingers now, stretching and exploring, loving her gasp and her involuntary squeeze on his cock in answer. She regained herself, straightening her back and taking his mouth again as her hand flew over him. He grunted against her mouth as they got each other off with the entire world down the hall. It was indecent, erotic, lewd, and it was only a hand job. He’d had his first in middle school, and yet nothing he’d done since compared to the heat in his stomach, the pooling of energy in his back, electric tentacles grabbing his insides up in a rough, greedy fist of passion so tight he could barely breathe.

Frantically, he pulled her shirt up under her bra because he was going on her stomach—that was the only option at this point.

They were in a rhythm now. He was back on her clit rubbing in time to her quick, staccato strokes, designed to drive him insane with the featherlight abrasion of her hand. “Harder,” he instructed, his thumb on her clit following suit.

“You’re bossy,” she breathed, taking his order, her hand clasping around the base of him and dragging up slowly and firmly. He couldn’t get enough of that measured climb.

“Don’t know why you’d think otherwise,” he growled as her hand ran over the tip of him, lubing her up again to better handle him, to deliver even more mind-bending pleasure.

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” she gasped, giving one last good tug before her head fell back and she cried out her orgasm. He swallowed the sound with a kiss, knowing that while they were unlikely to be discovered, the possibility existed.

Coming down, her eyes glazed in the dim light, she squeezed him again, pumping like mad until all his muscled contracted at once and he let go, spurting onto her stomach in thick bursts as his knees grew limp and worthless.

He met her eyes, working for his next breaths, and was stunned by what had just happened. The hottest moment of his life with a woman he barely knew in a club he knew too well begat a feeling of serenity he hadn’t felt in years. Maybe the senselessness of it was what he needed, a fling with someone who normally wouldn’t give him the time of day. Parker wasn’t a football groupie or someone who just wanted his lifestyle; she was someone who’d nearly fucked him in a public place just because she liked him. He really hadn’t known how powerful that would be.

He reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out the two-hundred-dollar silk pocket square, and cleaned her stomach off, going against his caveman instincts to rub it into her skin so he was part of her. He’d save that for another time, because after discovering this kind of chemistry, there was no doubt that there’d be another time.

Gently pulling her shirt back down and dealing with her jeans, he dropped a light kiss on her forehead, brushing his thumb across the apple of her cheek. “That was fucking crazy,” he told her, helping her down from his leg, making sure she had her balance before taking her hand.

She just nodded, still dazed by what had happened.

Looking up at him, her mouth opened and then closed again. Before finally she said, “I need to go to the restroom. Sorry.”

And then she was rushing up the hallway.

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