4

MACY WAS not at all prepared for the way it felt to kiss Griffin. She was attracted to him, sure. But she hadn’t imagined how contact with him could set her every nerve on fire.

His lips on hers, his hard body against her, his tongue coaxing her into opening up to him even more—it was scorching. It was sensory overload.

She moaned into his mouth, and the sound reminded her that they were in public. She backed off, reluctantly broke the kiss and put a few discreet inches of distance between them. Griffin kept his arms around her, not letting her get too far away.

“Sorry, guess I got a little carried away.”

“You and me both,” she said, smiling.

“You’ve got lipstick everywhere,” he said as he rubbed his thumb against her chin.

“So do you.”

She found a tissue in her purse, along with a compact, and they took turns removing all-day-wear hot pink from themselves.

“Want to walk a little farther down the strip?” Griffin asked.

Macy eyed the hordes of people crowding the sidewalks, and the long line of traffic backed up in each direction. She knew Las Vegas was a popular weekend destination, but wow. It was like Mardi Gras without the parade. No, the casinos were the parade.

But as with everything else this weekend, she decided her policy should be to dive in head-first. “Sure, why not?”

They walked back out to the sidewalk and joined the throng of people, took in the sights, gawked at the whole spectacle. When Griffin took Macy’s hand in his, her first instinct was to pull it away—he was her coworker, after all. And her biggest rival, too.

But that didn’t exactly make sense if she planned to sleep with him in a matter of hours. And she did, didn’t she?

Yes, she did.

She took a deep breath and banished all the niggling doubts that had her on edge.

She was in Sin City, and she wanted more than anything to let the town live up to its reputation. She wanted to have a weekend worthy of such a place, if that made any sense.

“We could catch a show,” Griffin was saying, and Macy wondered what else she’d missed while she’d been spacing out.

“Catch a show? Now?”

He gave her a look. “Have you been ignoring me again?”

She felt her face warming, and it had nothing to do with the heat outside. “Um…”

“How are we going to work together if you think nothing I say is important?”

“That’s not what I think at all. I’m sorry—I was just so busy looking at everything, I didn’t hear you.”

“But this happens a lot—you tuning me out.”

“It’s just that, well, you seem always to be so convinced that you’re right, you don’t want to hear anyone else’s opinion. And I guess I feel like, if my opinion doesn’t matter to you, then why should yours matter to me?”

Okay, so this wasn’t exactly foreplay talk. But if he wanted the truth, she’d give him the truth.

He stared at her, stunned for a moment. “Is that really how I act? Like I’m always right?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Right now is a rare exception.”

“You must think I’m a total jerk.”

Uh, yeah. A sexy-as-hell jerk, but still a jerk.

“No,” she lied. “I just think you’re maybe a bit arrogant, that’s all.”

They reached a crosswalk and stopped to wait for the light to change. About thirty other people were already crowded around also waiting. Macy peered up at a giant flashing video screen advertising a show where almost everyone looked naked.

Griffin followed her gaze. “Looks interesting.”

“I guess if you like naked people, definitely.”

“Does anyone not like nakedness?”

“I hear it’s pretty unpopular in certain circles, but I, frankly, am all for it when done appropriately.”

“Define appropriate.” His smile betrayed his confused tone.

“You know. Not at weddings, not at the post office, not in a Speedo if you’re sixty years old—that sort of thing.”

“Got it. Doubt you’d find anyone to disagree with those rules.”

“Well, talk to the retirees wearing Speedos.”

“You want to catch a show after dinner?”

“I was thinking maybe we should see the one playing at the Golden Gate, since, you know, we’re actually supposed to be working on their campaign and all.”

“True. Do you even remember what their show is?”

The light changed, and the mob of people crossed the street with Macy and Griffin in the middle of the pack. The hotel on the next corner had rock music blasting from speakers hidden somewhere, and Macy waited until they’d passed before she spoke again.

As they walked, she noticed there were no birds around. Not a single one. In spite of the fact that there were trees and water fountains everywhere.

“Isn’t it kind of weird that there aren’t any birds here?” she asked when they’d cleared the loud music.

“I didn’t notice,” he said, looking around. “But now that you mention it…”

“Maybe they have snipers on the hotel rooftops, shooting any flying creature that enters Las Vegas airspace and threatens to piss off the tourists who then might not want to gamble.”

“And maybe there are guys up there with nets, too, to catch the bird carcasses before they hit the ground.”

Macy winced at the image, then relaxed into Griffin’s side as he put his arm around her to steer her away from a discarded hot dog on the ground. She hadn’t expected to feel so at ease around him when they were away from work. Or to like his off-the-clock personality, which wasn’t nearly so cutthroat competitive and aren’t-I-great cocky.

“You’re kind of sick, you know.”

“You started it with the snipers.”

Scary how they had such similar senses of humor. Macy rarely met guys who could not only laugh at her jokes, but could join in and do her one better.

“We seriously have to investigate this no-bird phenomenon. Maybe we could use it in the ad campaign—Come to Las Vegas, where no birds will crap on your head.”

“Or…Las Vegas—the town where nature will never interfere with your vacation.”

“This is great stuff. We should be writing it down.”

“I’ve got a voice recorder in my pocket,” Griffin offered.

“Hmm, maybe on second thought…”

“You never answered me about the Golden Gate’s show. Any idea what it is?”

“Oh, sorry, I got distracted by the hordes of tourists. I think there’s a couple of shows. There’s that weird show with all the half-naked people wearing body paint and tap-dancing, and then they have a late-night adults-only show with what we can only assume are lots of dancing people in various stages of undress.”

“Sounds like the show for me. But if it’s very late—”

“I may be otherwise engaged.”

“Just you?” he said, one eyebrow cocked.

“Okay—we may be otherwise engaged. Happy now?”

“Extremely.”

With all their talking, Macy hadn’t been paying much attention to where they were going, and only now she realized that they’d managed to get themselves up onto a walkway that crossed over the strip.

“Do we have any idea where we’re headed?” she asked.

Griffin pointed to a huge hotel with a lake in front of it. “The Bellagio is over there. I figured we’d try to catch one of the fountain shows.”

“I’m getting hungry. Feel like grabbing some dinner?”

“I know a place inside the Bellagio. Unbelievable fondue. Sound good?”

“Perfect,” she said.

They smiled at each other kind of goofily, and suddenly they were locked in one of those movie moments when time stands still and the audience knows that there’s a big shift occurring in the relationship. They were going from competitive coworkers scrambling to get the same promotion, to star-crossed lovebirds sadly doomed to a failed relationship—only they don’t know it yet.

Except, Macy did know it. And she hated that she knew it. And she wished like hell that she could have had this weekend without the foreknowledge of the train wreck to come.

   

GRIFFIN WASN’T normally a fondue kind of guy, but there was something about eating food on a stick with a woman that was distinctly erotic. The whole thing had serious foreplay possibilities. Freud probably would have had a field day with the concept, but hey.

They wandered through the casino, relying on Griffin’s shaky memory of the restaurant’s location. Around them, the din of slot machines dinging and whirring combined with the smoke in the air and the passing scantily-clad cocktail waitresses had Griffin feeling as though he was doing something slightly scandalous, which only heightened his arousal.

That damn kiss had left him nearly insane with wanting Macy. What was he going to do when they had to work together again come Monday? Drag her to the nearest bathroom stall and have sleazy public-restroom sex?

Even that thought turned him on. He was a basket case.

Macy tugged him toward a row of slot machines. “I’ve got some extra quarters to blow,” she said. “I’m getting tired and thirsty. Let’s take a break and buy a drink.”

She sat down at a machine and Griffin sat at the one next to her.

“I think this is why they make the restaurants hard to find—so you’ll get lost and end up gambling instead.”

“Clearly it’s an excellent strategy,” she said as she fed a quarter into her machine.

Griffin spotted a waitress and waved her over. “What would you like to drink?” he asked Macy.

“A cosmopolitan might quench my thirst,” she said as her slot machine whirred and stopped on a losing spread.

He placed their order with the waitress, then turned and watched Macy continue to feed quarters into the slot.

“You’re not having much luck,” he said after her tenth or eleventh loss.

“I don’t really believe in luck. So probably I shouldn’t be gambling. I just wanted to try it once.”

“You’ve never gambled before?”

“You just watched me lose my virginity,” she said.

“Should I feel honored?”

“Not yet.” A little smile played on her lips, and Griffin remembered again why she drove him so crazy at work.

She was the perfect ingenue. So seemingly sweet and guileless, but just beneath the surface lurked a woman who wielded her feminine charms like a deadly weapon.

It took little more than a look, a smile, the slightest gesture, and he could have his entire train of thought wiped away, replaced by fantasies of her and him and a lot of sweaty sex.

She turned her attention back to the machine. “I’ve got five more quarters. The odds are in favor of my winning something soon, right?”

“If it’s all about the odds and not luck, I’d say the best you can hope for is getting your quarters back.”

“Oh ye of little faith.”

Another quarter in the slot, and the cherries all lined up. The machine lit up, and fifty quarters came dinging out.

“See,” Macy said. “It’s not luck. It’s just odds. And I didn’t win much—further proof that no luck was involved.”

“Hey, I’m not arguing with you. Most people’s seeming luck is hard work and planning, but you can’t spend any time on a sports field without knowing that sometimes luck enters into it.”

“You still play any sports?” Macy asked.

The waitress arrived, gave them their drinks and Griffin paid her.

“I play softball, basketball, soccer, the occasional round of golf, volleyball—”

“Okay, okay, you still play sports.”

She had to have heard of his athletic abilities around the office, where he’d pretty much dominated everyone who’d challenged him to a match of anything after work hours.

“How about you?”

“I’m not very coordinated, and I’m afraid of balls.”

He tried not to laugh.

“The big ones that come careening toward my head during athletic events, I mean.”

“Absolutely. I wasn’t thinking anything else.”

She rolled her eyes and started gathering her tokens up in a plastic cup that had been sitting beside the machine.

“So what do you do to stay in such great shape?”

“Kickboxing aerobics classes twice a week and Budokon twice a week. Plus roller-skating on Sundays.”

“What’s Budokon?”

“It combines martial arts, yoga and meditation. Sounds weird, but it’s actually very cool.”

Griffin was trying not to be impressed, but he was. For a girly girl, she had a pretty kick-butt workout routine. And he had a weakness for women who stayed in shape.

“And you go roller-skating? Like at a roller rink?”

“No, at Golden Gate Park. Sunday afternoons it’s the happening place to be. And it makes me feel like a kid again, except without all the misery and angst.”

“I can’t believe you were a miserable kid.”

“Believe it. If you knew my mother, you’d see why.”

“What’s with all the aggressive aerobic workouts?” he asked, then downed a good long swallow of his Heineken, trying not to get a boner from the image of Macy dressed in skimpy workout clothes, sweaty and practicing kicking ass.

“I’ve got lots of pent-up rage, I guess,” she said with a self-deprecating smile.

“From?”

“Maybe from the aforementioned mother—I don’t know. Or maybe from being the biggest nerd in school and never having the guts to stand up for myself.”

“There’s no way you were a nerd.”

“Oh, yes, there is.” She finished gathering her tokens, then polished off her cosmo in one long drink. “Let’s go cash these in,” she said.

Griffin followed her to the cashier’s counter, and once Macy had collected her money, they got directions to the fondue place and discovered they’d been only one wrong turn from getting there.

The restaurant was sleek and modern, with lots of dark shiny surfaces and low, moody lighting. Each table consisted of a round booth, and a hostess led them to a small one made for two. They slid into the seat, where it was nearly impossible not to touch when sitting together. Knees and hips brushing against each other, Griffin decided this was an even better place to bring a date than he’d remembered.

They checked out the menus, placed their orders, and the waitress quickly came back with a complimentary appetizer cheese fondue and rosemary bread for dipping.

Macy dipped a piece of bread and took a bite. “I could take a bath in this stuff,” she said afterward.

“I’d like to watch that.”

“You’re not about subtlety, are you?”’

“Subtlety’s overrated.” Griffin took a bite of bread dipped in fondue, but he barely tasted it.

He was too focused on the sight of Macy taking a bite herself, and the way her mouth looked so impossibly erotic with that slightest drip of cheese on her lower lip that she tried and failed to retrieve with a flick of her tongue. His sadly predictable cock stirred, like clockwork, and he shifted to ease the tightness of his pants. But that led to his leg entangling with Macy’s, and then he wasn’t sure if he wanted to sit through a whole damn dinner suffering this kind of delicious agony.

Couldn’t they just go back to the hotel room now and get naked?

Well, he probably wouldn’t win any points for subtlety or class by suggesting it now. But he could hurry things along a little by making sure Macy was suffering the same kind of agony as him. It only seemed fair.

He slipped his hand across her thigh and inadvertently pushed her skirt up. Which left his hand on her bare, silky thigh.

She paused in mid chew and looked at him as though she was amused in either a good way or a bad way by his boldness. When she edged her thigh closer, inviting his hand to go farther up, he had to assume it was the good kind of amusement.

The dim lighting and the mostly enclosed booths gave them just enough privacy that an onlooker would have to be straining pretty hard to see what was going on under the table. Griffin slid his hand a little farther toward heaven; her eyes fluttered shut, and her mouth softened.

Tempting his self-control, he leaned forward and kissed her. His tongue brushed against the drop of cheese on her lip, licked it off, then took the time to explore the rest of her lip’s satiny surface. When he summoned all his self-control to pull away, her eyes were still closed.

And when she looked at him again, her sultry brown eyes were clouded with blatant desire, a do-me expression so loud and clear he was surprised other people weren’t staring.

But the restaurant was only half-full, and the tables were arranged for maximum privacy so that none of the booth openings faced each other. There really wasn’t anyone, other than passersby, who could even stare.

He eased his hand up farther, and his fingertips brushed the warm juncture of her thighs. Her gaze turned daring.

She smiled a secret little smile. “I dare you.”

Her thighs parted, and all the blood left his brain. He should have passed out, but being a typical guy he had plenty of experience with blood rushing to his groin, and somehow he managed to remain upright.

Her panties were the silky kind, and they didn’t seem to cover much. Griffin slipped his fingers over the top of them, down to where she was hottest, over her clit, and she made a purring sound low in her throat that could have toppled lesser men.

This wasn’t the kind of dipping he’d had in mind when he’d suggested they get fondue, but hell, sometimes the best things in life were the unplanned events, the little invitations out of the blue, the secret exchanges under the table.

She picked up another piece of bread and dipped it in the pot of cheese, then offered it to him. He took a bite, keeping his gaze pinned on her, and then she ate the remaining bread slowly as she watched him.

He glided his fingers over her, back and forth, back and forth, watching her melt against the seat. When the waitress arrived and placed their dinner fondue on the table, along with trays of their dipping meats and vegetables, he stilled his hand, and Macy cast him a mock-offended look.

When the waitress left, Macy said, “Why’d you stop?”

“Sorry. I didn’t want to get busted and have to try and fit our fondue into carryout containers.”

“Yeah, the fire probably wouldn’t travel well.”

“Or we’d have to extinguish it, and by the time we got to the hotel we’d have blocks of cheese instead of dip.”

“I’ll feed you if you’ll go back to what you started,” she whispered as she dipped a carrot stick in fondue and offered it to him.

“That’s the best offer I’ve had in a while,” he said, then took a bite as he slipped his fingers under the edge of her panties.

Her eyes fluttered shut again, and she dropped the carrot on a tray. As he glided his fingers between her lips and over her clit, he could see her breath growing shallow, could almost taste her. He slipped a finger inside her, where she was slick and wet, and suddenly the whole idea of eating dinner seemed preposterous.

What the hell had they been thinking? They could have been in a hotel room by now, getting it on while they waited for room service. Screw room service, he didn’t really need anything to eat except Macy.

“What do you say we blow this fondue joint?” he asked.

She opened her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m not doing a very good job of upholding my end of the bargain by feeding you.”

“I’m not really interested in eating carrots right now.”

She made a sad face. “I ruined dinner for you?”

“I’d rather have you for dinner.”

“I really work better as a dessert. And if we leave now, I’ll lose my chance to entice you with lots of mouth and tongue work on the carrot sticks.”

Griffin smiled at her ability to make fun of herself. But with his finger still inside her, he wasn’t really in the mood for conversation. He glided his slick fingertips over her clit, around in circles, slowly, as her eyes took on that glazed look again.

He wanted to make her come right here in the middle of the restaurant. He’d never done anything so public before, aside from a stupid stunt in high school under the football stadium bleachers, but as an adult… Macy wiped away all his reservations, all his common sense and apparently all his fear of being arrested.

She was getting wetter and wetter, and just when he thought she was about to come, she pulled away. Moved her leg, gently removed his hand from her, and made some adjustments to her clothes as she put a discreet distance between them.

She smiled a slow, wicked smile. “I don’t want to have dessert first,” she said. “Let’s save some fun for later.”

“I’ve got all kinds of fun in mind for later. I thought that was just an appetizer.”

The tightened coil inside him loosened, and while his cock was still hard, he could feel some of his sense coming back to him. Okay, he could wait. He could play the respectable guy, sit here and eat dinner, delay gratification.

No problem.

“We can’t let all this fondue go to waste, I guess.”

She picked up a piece of salami, dipped it and took a bite. He stared at her mouth again, mesmerized.

Sure, he could make it through dinner. He might have to go to the bathroom and hammer some nails into the wall with his erection, but he could make it no problem.