Sinful Longing (Sinful Nights, #3)(17)
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.