Any Man Of Mine

He certainly wasn’t on her to-do list. His lids lowered a fraction as he looked down at her, her body in perfect time with his, his hips flirting with hers but never actual y touching. “I saw you,” he said next to her ear. “And I like the way you move.”

She liked the way he moved, too. Any man who could move like he was making love on the dance floor had to know how to make love in the bedroom. Autumn wasn’t exactly a virgin. She’d had a few boyfriends. Some of them had even been pretty good in bed, but she had a feeling that this guy knew things. The kinds of things that came with lots of experience and dedicated practice. Things that turned up the heat in her abdomen.

“Are you a dancer?”

She was almost insulted, but this was Vegas. “Like a stripper?”

“Yeah.”

“No. Are you?”

He laughed. A low rumbling next to her throat. “No, but if I were, I’d give you a free lap dance.”

“Bummer. I’ve never had a lap dance.” She had a feeling he couldn’t say the same.

“I’ve never given one, but for you I’d be wil ing to give it a try.”

As she pul ed back to look up into his face, his lips slipped across her cheek and brushed the corner of her mouth. She sucked in a hard breath, and her chest got tight.

“But not here,” he said. “Come with me.”

She didn’t know him. Didn’t even know his name, but she wanted to. She wanted to know al of him. She wanted to go anywhere he wanted to take her.

She should run.

This time she listened. She took a step back, and his hands fel to his sides. He raised one brow, and before she lost her mind completely, she turned. He reached for her. She felt his hand on her arm, but she kept on going. One foot in front of the other, al the way up to the sixth floor. She shut herself inside her room and locked the door. Him out or her in, she wasn’t sure.

This sort of thing did not happen to her. She didn’t dance like that with guys she didn’t know. She didn’t stare at their lips and wonder what it would be like to kiss them.

Her mother had been right. Las Vegas was a decadent, moral y dangerous place, and she should have heeded the warning. Nothing was real there. Not the canal at the Venetian, the volcano at the Mirage, or the people at Pure. Handsome men did not look at Autumn Haven as if she were the only woman in a bar fil ed with beautiful women. And she, Autumn Haven, did not contemplate sex with complete strangers. Not even strangers who looked like the guy in the bar.

She packed her bags, but when she woke the next morning, her head cleared, and she decided she’d overreacted. She’d had too much to drink and blown everything out of proportion. Her memory of the night before was a bit hazy, and she was fairly sure she hadn’t real y contemplated hooking up with some random guy. The touch of his hands on her waist hadn’t been as hot, and he wasn’t as impossibly good-looking as she recal ed through her tequila goggles. But even if it was al true, the chances of its happening again were as about as likely as running into that same guy in a town crammed with hundreds of thousands of guys.

She spent most of the morning in her room getting over the slight headache she had earned the night before. After lunch, she put on a black bikini with gold hearts she’d splurged on at the Fashion Show Mal the day before. She slathered herself with sun screen, dumped it along with several magazines in her beach bag, and headed down to the pool.

From the hotel’s brochure, she knew that the pool was cal ed Garden of the Gods Pool Oasis. Which pretty much described the elaborate pools, massive columns and urns, rows of palm trees and winged lions. In the brochure, she thought Caesars should have added decadent to the description. The Garden of the Gods Pool and Decadent Oasis

By the time she made it to the pools, it was a little before one in the afternoon and inching toward a hundred degrees. The sun toasted the top of her head, and she took a big floppy hat out of her bag and found a white lounge chair in one corner beneath a cluster of palms. Being a natural redhead didn’t mix with the hot sun. She either burned or freckled. Neither was an attractive option.

A cabana boy took her drink order, and she relaxed with a tal glass of tea. Not the Long Island kind. At least not right then. With her hat dipping over her left eye, she sat back with a Cosmo magazine and settled into an article about the most intense erogenous zones on a man. According to the article, it was just beneath the head of the penis cal ed the frenulum. Autumn had never heard of it and brought the magazine closer for a better look at the diagram.

“There you are, Cinderel a.”

She slapped her Cosmo closed and raised the brim of her straw hat. She looked way up into a pair of black Oakley’s covering eyes she knew were a beautiful blue. He was even bigger and better- looking in the sunlight. He wore a pair of gray Quicksilver board shorts and a white tank with large armholes around his massive shoulders.

“What are you reading?”

“Makeup tips.” She tried to act cool as she shoved the Cosmo into her bag. Like she wasn’t reading about penises and like outrageously goodlooking men talked to her every day. “Have you been fol owing me?”

He chuckled and sat on the chaise next to her. “Keeping my eyes open for you.”

“Why?”

He dug in his back pocket, then handed her the pink bead bracelet she’d worn the night before. “You lost this.”

This was Vegas. Nothing was real in Vegas. Certainly not good-looking men tracking her down to return a cheap bracelet. She opened her palm, and he dropped it in her hand, the beads stil warm from his body. “Thank you.”

“I was fairly drunk last night.” His brows lowered, and he looked around. “So is there anything I need to apologize for?”

“No.”

“Damn. I was kinda hoping we got into trouble.” He returned his gaze to hers. “Why are you hiding way back here in the corner?”

“I’m not hiding. I’m just avoiding the sun.”

“Hungover?”

She shook her head. “I burn.”

He gave her that slow easy smile she’d seen the night before. The one she’d thought her tequila buzz had made up. “I could put sunscreen on your back.”

She lowered her hand from the brim of her hat and tilted her head to look at him. There was only one sensible option. Run away again before she got herself into trouble.

He held up his hands as if he were completely harmless. She wasn’t fooled. “I won’t touch you anyplace you don’t want to be touched.”

But she didn’t want to run. She was on vacation. Nothing counted on vacation. And certainly nothing counted in Vegas. Wasn’t that their motto? What happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas? “Sorry. I already put some on.”

“That makes one of us.” He looked up at the broiling sun and cringed. “I can practical y hear my skin sizzle.”

She pointed up at the palm trees. “In the shade?”

“I’m sensitive.”

“Uh-huh.” She reached into her beach bag and pul ed out a tube of sunscreen. “It’s SPF 40 and—” He whipped off his shirt, and she about fel out of her chair. Holy crap! He had big pecs and shoulders and a six-pack of kil er abs. She’d never seen anything like him. Not in person, anyway. Not close enough to lick. Would probably never see anything like him again. Where had he come from? What did he do for a living? Lift smal buildings? “What’s your name?”

“Sam.”

He looked like a Sam. “Autumn,” she said, and swung her legs over the side of her chaise. “Autumn Haven.”