A Match Made in Vegas Read Online Crystal Kaswell

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Or I'm in a post-sex haze. That's also possible.

"Back to the hotel?" he asks.

I want to be alone with him, I do, but I don't want to run into someone we know. I don't want them to ruin the magic. Not yet. "I have another idea. If you trust me."

"I do."

Chapter Nineteen

Daphne

The bar is a strange mix of tropics and elegance. Fake palm trees and real hibiscus wrap around the mahogany bench seats. Little white string lights cover the gold and cream wallpaper. A bartender in a Hawaiian shirt pours tiki drinks and martinis in equal measure.

This is Las Vegas. Always trying too hard to look chic and cool and landing in some delightfully tacky place.

There's even a neon sign of a palm tree.

Is it ridiculous on purpose or on accident?

Am I doing all this on purpose or accident?

Cassie is still my best friend. And those martinis are exactly what her ex would drink. This is the sort of place he'd like, actually. He'd buy into the false attempt at modernity and class. He'd sit there and talk our ears off about music without letting anyone else get a word in.

And, yes, Cassie does that now, but she and Damon discuss it together. They're obnoxious together.

And, well, I can be honest. Cassie's type is musicians who think they have exquisite taste. She likes annoying people. My brother is annoying. I love him for it, but I don't suffer from any illusions he's not a little self-important.

When he starts talking about guitar riffs or, god forbid, the genius of grunge songs about heroin sounding like love songs, as if Cassie hasn't already told me that a million times, as if no one has ever made the observation that love is like a drug, and addiction is like an abusive relationship—

Jackson presses his palm into my lower back, and my other thoughts scatter.

I try to call them back. I try to remember the way Cassie cried over her ex's cheating. I try to picture myself in her childhood bedroom, listening to Fiona Apple, eating coffee ice cream, promising her I'd always be her other half. Like Meredith and Christina in Grey's Anatomy. We'd always be each other's person.

But we weren't. I was too busy with school, and she was too hurt, and she fell in love with my brother.

I took the excuse to move across the country.

Isn't that bad enough? I shouldn't hurt her more. I shouldn't sleep with her brother. Even if it's equal. The whole abandoning her for the East Coast thing makes it very much not equal.

And, well, that ship has sailed.

I'm not one of those people who suggests oral sex isn't sex.

I already blew her brother in the limo.

Is it really worse to add intercourse to that?

No.

It doesn't matter.

I want him too much. I've denied myself for too long. I'm not willing to do it again.

I lean into his touch.

He brings his hand to my shoulder. The brush of his fingertips against my skin. That's all it takes for me to know this is the right choice.

Maybe it's not the smartest choice, maybe I'm not the best friend, maybe I'm out of my mind—

I'm still making the right choice.

Desire pushes my thoughts away. The surroundings overpower me. The gold fixings and dim lights and lush plants. And Jackson in all linen, the tropical, wealthy half of the bar.

I'm in a cheap, sexy sequin dress. The tacky, over-the-top, let's drink and fuck and throw money on craps tables half of the bar. But I don't feel embarrassed about my lack of conventional class. The tawdry look makes my skin flush.

That's the appeal of Las Vegas. It's sexy and classy and trashy and tacky all at the same time.

Everything we've done tonight is all mixed together in a perfect blend of sass and class, and all of it is screaming sex.

Or maybe some of that is me.

I want to mount him so badly.

Jackson looks around the space carefully. Even after three drinks, he's lucid enough to survey the scene.

"I didn't take you for a tiki girl," he says.

"I'm not. I have other aims." The ones outside, by the pool. This bar was on a Reddit thread of the best places to have sex in public in Las Vegas. One user even assured others the staff won't call the authorities if they catch you. Sometimes, they don't even ask people to stop. They spot the exhibitionists, nod do your thing, and go about their business.

Maybe she got that info in a porno. Maybe it's a fantasy.

I'm tipsy enough I don't care. I want to indulge my fantasies.

I take his hand and move toward the bar. "After you."

Jackson hails the bartender. Of course, he doesn't order a mix of rum and tropical fruit. He orders an old-fashioned.

Somehow, the classic cocktail doesn't sound obnoxious on his lips. It suits him.

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