LITMIR.BIZ

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the past. And she was a different woman.

      “Why not?”

      “Because unlike you I need more than four hours of sleep every night. I need a solid eight and I’m tired.”

      She had a point. His cell had been vibrating with new messages and he saw Raul, his general manager, hanging around the hostess stand waiting for him. Hayden’s reality involved work for almost a solid eighteen hours a day. But that didn’t mean he was letting this go. “Are you free for breakfast?”

      “Just coffee. It takes a lot of work to open a store in three weeks, plus I have a conference call with Paige and the developers for our D.C. project at 9:00 a.m.”

      He pulled his BlackBerry phone/PDA from his pocket and checked his calendar for tomorrow. He had an 8:00 a.m. meeting with the gaming commission. Followed by a meeting with his roulette-table staff. And he needed to talk to his head of security about the man who’d been sitting in the front row at each of Roxy’s performances for the last three weeks.

      “What time?” he asked. He’d move some stuff around if he had to. But his schedule was already tight. Why was he doing this? He didn’t question his motives, only knew that if Shelby was willing to work toward something solid, hell, he was, too. It felt right, having her here with him.

      She shook her head, her thick hair slipping over her shoulder and down her chest to curl over her breast. “I don’t know…seven?”

      He remembered how her neck tasted, how soft her skin had felt under his touch, and everything in him went on alert. He wanted this woman. Wanted her naked in his bed. He could see her against his gray sheets. A splash of color in his black-and-white bedroom.

      She stared at him.

      “What is it? Seven isn’t good for coffee?”

      He shook himself, but he couldn’t push away the image of her lying on his bed with a couple of pillows shoved under her hips. Those lush long legs open, inviting.

      “No, that’s perfect. I’ll have a key card sent to your room. Just come up when you’re ready.” He was ready now. He didn’t know if he could wait. If he could let her set the pace for this reunion of theirs. He wanted to take the lead. Get her into bed and push away the past in the most elemental way. To reassert his dominance over her by making her his.

      “Hayden…”

      “Yes?” he said. He signed the check and slid out of the booth.

      “I’m supposed to be seducing you,” she said, joining him.

      “Do you think Tristan really waited for Isolde?” he asked, reminding her of the opera she loved, the one that he’d let her talk endlessly about when they’d dated long ago.

      She smiled. It was all that was sexy and sweet. Much like the woman herself. “I’m sure he didn’t, but he was a warrior.”

      “Maybe I am, too,” he said, putting his arm around her and leading her out of the restaurant. He’d learned some hard lessons when she’d left him. He’d become a different man because of her. He had realized he was no longer the golden boy who had everything handed to him. Instead, he knew, in his heart, he was a man who’d fight for what he wanted.

      “I thought you were a gambler,” she said.

      “Can’t a man be both?” he asked, leading her to the bank of elevators. He didn’t really want to dwell on his own shortcomings.

      “You tell me,” she said.

      “I already did.”

      “Where are we going?”

      “I’m escorting you back to your room.”

      “That’s so sweet,” she said.

      He bit the inside of his mouth to keep from smiling. “I’m a sweet guy.”

      “Ha. Don’t think you can put the moves on me and I’ll invite you in.”

      “Put the moves on you? Give me a break. I’m a little more suave than that.”

      They got in the elevator car. There was another couple already in there who got off on the thirtieth floor. Shelby’s suite was on the thirty-fifth. She pulled her key card from her purse when the elevator stopped on her floor.

      “Good night,” she said, stepping out.

      He followed her into the hall. “Yes, it has been.”

      “Don’t, Hayden. This isn’t easy for me.”

      “I’m not pushing, baby. I’m just seeing you home. Something we never did before.”

      She flushed a little bit. He wondered at the secrets she hid. Her background wasn’t like his, and he hadn’t pushed her to talk about it. Maybe that had been part of the problem. He’d easily accepted the personal boundaries she’d set because they’d allowed him to make her into what he wanted her to be.

      “About that…”

      “Don’t say anything more. This is double or nothing. The stakes are high, and as you said, you need some sleep. We’ll start again in the morning.”

      He took her key card from her hand and unlocked her door for her, pushing it open. She paused in the entryway, the glow from a lamp backlighting her.

      She looked ethereal, with her thick wavy hair falling around her shoulders. Her skin was soft and pink, and that little white top skimmed her curves.

      He bent down to brush his lips to hers. Just a sweet salute to the agreement they’d made. But once his lips touched hers, all that fled and he needed more.

      She parted her lips and he tasted her sweet mouth. He touched his tongue to hers as he braced one hand on the doorjamb and buried the other in her hair, holding her head still.

      He lifted his head slowly. Her eyes were heavy lidded and he saw the first flush of desire on her face. If he pushed now he could have what he wanted tonight, but he knew that he’d lose ground when tomorrow morning came.

      He rubbed his thumb over her lower lip before dropping his hand to his side. He passed her key back to her. “Now it’s a good night.”

      He waited for her to step inside her room and close the door and then he walked away. He wasn’t really sure what was going to happen with Shelby. He didn’t believe in love. Which might be why he’d overlooked the fact that Shelby had obviously kept a lot of her life from him. But for the first time since he’d opened his casino, he felt really alive.

      Shelby had set her alarm for six o’clock but didn’t need the buzzing to wake her up. Her sleep had been plagued by fevered dreams of Hayden. He’d always been her guilty, erotic, secret dream man. The one she visited late at night when no one else could know.

      His kisses had refueled a fire that had never been extinguished. She was restless and edgy when the alarm finally rang. She hurried through her shower and dressed in record time.

      Everything with Hayden was exactly the way she’d always dreamed it could be. But in the back of her mind the thought that Alan had sent her here weighed heavily. She didn’t know how to bring up Alan without alienating Hayden once more.

      Anxious to see him again, she deliberately hesitated in her suite. She didn’t want him to know how much she craved him. She wanted to have a little of the control she’d ceded so easily to him last time, some sort of equality. But she wasn’t sure how to find it.

      The key card for his penthouse apartment had been delivered to her last night, just twenty minutes after he’d left. She held it in her hand. It was the key to something she’d always wanted. Something she hadn’t believed in enough to stick around for the last time. But now…

      The phone rang before she could complete the thought. She picked it up reluctantly. Only two people would call her here. Paige, her business partner, or Alan.

      “This

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