A Match Made in Vegas Read Online Crystal Kaswell

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He smiles and pulls me into a long, slow kiss.

All love and affection and need and promise.

This big, beautiful life in this tiny little apartment (well, by the standards of our parents' places. By Manhattan standards, it's massive).

And I'm excited to share it with someone else.

Or two more people.

Or three.

And I'm excited to torture him too.

I slip my robe over my nightgown, and I make a point of tossing my panties on the floor. "I might be too tired after."

Jackson smiles. "That's a bad bluff, princess, and you know it."

Meanwhile, on a Manhattan street, outside the apartment

Rome

Here's some life advice: next time your boss asks you to keep an eye on his rebellious daughter, don't.

I know what you're thinking. How am I supposed to tell my difficult, overprotective boss sorry, but your wildflower is annoying as hell.

The man knows she's a troublemaker.

That's why he wants help.

And I owe this family everything.

I can't explain the real problem. I can't say hey, boss, I want to help, I do, but the thing is, once upon a time, your daughter and I fucked, and things didn't end so well, so maybe find someone else for the job.

But I could find a graceful excuse. Another gig. An illness. The loss of a body part. A nonessential one.

Would I part with a pinkie to spare myself a week watching Laurel Steele?

I'm a guitarist. I need my fucking pinkie.

Now, the pinkie toe—

"Finally!" Laurel interrupts my daydreams of deforming myself to get out of this.

Our car, the yellow cab we hailed at the airport, is stopped in front of a midtown building. The building that houses her brother's apartment. The place we're staying for the next week.

Her brother and his wife, the lawyer and the doctor, the success stories in both their families. (Not that there are any success stories in mine. Unless you count evading a third strike and life in prison as a success).

Another thing I can't say to the boss. I know you work with "at risk" kids because you were an "at risk" kid yourself, but your daughter thinks hardship is a broken heel.

Laurel glares at me. As if she knows I'm thinking about her. Somehow, she knows I'm thinking about her shoes. She taps her heel (and, yes, she did wear heels on a cross-country flight) against the floor of the cab. Impatient.

She doesn't want a babysitter.

She especially doesn't want me as her babysitter.

I get it, I do. I don't want the job either.

But the woman refuses to make nice. What am I supposed to do? Tie her up and force her to sing kumbaya until we both achieve inner and outer peace?

That will take until the end of time. We're not inner peace people. And we've been at war since the day I ended things.

Even if, every time I see her, she acts as if she hasn't thought about me in years. Her eyes betray her. Even now, the fire in her dark eyes betrays her. It says I hate how much I want to mount you.

And, well—

I hate how much I want to feel those heels digging into my back.

Before, I was—

Fuck. Why is she so sexy when she scowls? There's something about her anger. The pure, honest passion of it.

Nathan is right.

I'm a masochist, plain and simple.

"Are you ready, Romeo?" She shoots me and the cabby the world's sweetest smile.

The driver, a guy about her dad's age with brown skin and a thick accent, responds with a smile of his own. He's charmed by her. Most people are.

She almost sells the smile too. I only barely see the cracks at the edges. The stiffness of her brow. The hate in her eyes.

"You know it's Rome." Short for Roman. As in the Roman Empire. But she finds the nickname hilarious. She especially loves referring to my current girlfriend as Juliette. Not that I have a girlfriend at the moment. Or an interest in a girlfriend.

Work is my life.

When would I find time to date, talk, fall in love?

I don't even have time to fuck myself.

Also a problem. Especially right now, with Laurel's gorgeous brown eyes fixed on me. She's a beautiful girl. Dark, wavy hair, full, red lips, slim curves, long legs.

The line of her calves in those shoes—

Fuck me.

"Yeah." I nod. I'm ready. Ready enough. I pay with the company credit card—this is a work trip, after all—get out of the car, help the driver with our bags.

It only takes a minute for me to work up a sweat. It must be eighty degrees. Maybe ninety.

Even though it's past midnight, the street hums with energy. Conversations from a rooftop restaurant. Music from a bar patio. Two women around our age, laughing as they walk down the street.

It's not what I expect from midtown Manhattan—isn't this where people go to work and shop?—but it fits the city that never sleeps. The sky does too. It's not the same deep, almost black-blue it is in Laurel's backyard.

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