Sweet Sinful Nights(14)

He caught her up to speed with Clay, who’d been married for a few years, and had a baby daughter now.

“I can’t believe you’re an uncle,” Shannon said, shaking her head in wonder. It was crazy how she’d softened as soon as he addressed the issue of her family, the one thing she didn’t like to discuss. Except, she always had talked about them with him. Maybe all this time she’d been looking for someone to talk to, and he’d filled that gap.

“My niece is adorable.” He took out his phone, clicked open his galleries, and showed Shannon a photo of Carly Nichols, Clay and Julia’s little girl.

Shannon moved even closer, and a wide smile spread across her face. “She’s so cute.”

“She really is. Here are the three of them.”

“She’s beautiful, your brother’s wife.”

“They’re kind of insanely perfect for each other. They even have the world’s coolest dog. Here’s Ace.” He flipped to another picture and pointed to the Border Collie mix they’d adopted a few years ago.

“My brother Ryan has a dog like that. Named him Johnny Cash. Because he’s mostly black. The Man in Black and all.”

“Great name.”

“Ryan treats him like a king. I think he even cooks him steak on Sundays.”

“Lucky dog,” Brent said with a smile.

“Have you been back in Vegas for long?” she asked, as she ran her fingertip absently along the rim of her martini glass.

“A little over a year. I moved here for standup after Late Night Antics, then back to L.A. again for a few years when I got my own show, then I returned again last year to start the clubs,” he said, tilting his head back and forth. His life post-college had swung like a pendulum between the two cities. “I live over near downtown. Want to see?” he asked, gesturing to the window.

“Yes.”

He stood up and held out a hand. Not that he expected her to take it, and she didn’t, but he placed his palm softly, ever so softly, against the small of her back. He barely touched her; there was a millimeter of space between them, but her breath caught, and she trembled slightly before straightening her spine.

They stood by the glass, him behind her. All of Vegas shimmered below, the lights of the city like fireflies, the skyscrapers rising up through the night, as neon streaked to the horizon. He pointed north, past the lights of the Stratosphere. “That’s me over there.”

“I love that neighborhood.” She gestured beyond, and he was turned on simply by the way she raised her arm. Damn, he was easy. Anything she did, any move she made, bordered on sexual for him. She could have a baggy sweatshirt on and he’d still be ready to go. “And that’s me,” she said.

She was so damn near to him as they stood gazing out the window into the brightly lit night. His entire body buzzed like an exposed electrical line because of this woman—flesh and blood, curves and muscle, strength and beauty—mere inches from him.

“That’s nice,” he said, his voice raspy and hot, but there was nothing nice at all about this moment.

She turned to look at him, and neither one of them said a word. Her green eyes were dark and intense. Her lips were so close. The inches between them were swallowed whole by the connection that crackled between them. She seemed to sway closer, and he moved in, seizing the moment.

He lifted his hand to her hair, still sleek in its twist, different from the shade she’d had when he knew her, but beautiful just the same. A strand had fallen loose, chestnut brown and curled. He touched it, ran his finger across the single lock. Time melted away as he leaned into the familiar crook of her neck. The craving for her ran so damn deep it lived inside his bones.

He inhaled her, that honey scent, a new smell that in an instant marked her.

“Shan,” he whispered, rough and gravelly, filled with so much want for her, which had built over the years, grown higher, spread further, formed roots. Inhabited him. He was desperate to have her in his arms again, to smother her in kisses that erased all the years.

“Brent,” she whispered, his name sounding like sugar on her tongue.

He buried his face in her neck, layering kisses on her soft skin. “Where have you been?” he asked, though it was entirely rhetorical. She hadn’t been with him. He hadn’t been with her. That was the answer.

“Where were you?” she countered softly.

He lifted his face and looked her in the eyes as he brushed the back of his fingers along her cheek. “Thinking of you,” he said.

He didn’t know how he’d gone from breaking two glasses to finding her falling into his arms. But that was where they were. He cupped her cheeks in his hands. “You’re so f*cking beautiful,” he rasped out, and then he crushed her mouth. He consumed her lips. He kissed her hard, and greedily, and the world around him turned black and small. It faded into a speck of nothingness because there was room for nothing else in his world but her. Nothing but the utter perfection of Shannon Paige-Prince wrapped around him where she belonged.

No time had passed.

No years had flown by.

No regrets had dug deep inside him.

They kissed like it was a first time, and a last time, and like it was all time. They kissed like two people who wanted to climb into each other’s skin, to smash into the other person. There were no doubts. No questions. She had to feel everything he felt. She had to want a second chance, too.