2.

Tradition is really just peer pressure from dead people.

Dice

D ICE

“I could sit here for an hour every evening and never get bored,” Cydney said before she took another bite of her snow cone. “Vegas has always amazed me.”

“You’ve been here before?” I asked as I watched an obviously drunk couple stagger past.

“Just for work - meetings and such. Never for pleasure.” She laughed before she said, “Although, I will say that the few times I’ve been here with my tata, we did this exact thing, although she usually had a cocktail in hand while I ate my snow cone.”

“Your tata?”

“My grandmother. She started the company I work for and then my dad took over. Now, he’s slowly handing the reins to me and my siblings.”

“So, you do have a day job.”

“What else would I have been doing with a laptop at the pool?”

“Scrolling through social media or something,” I said with a shrug. “Isn’t that what all the kids do nowadays?”

“Kids? Really? How old do you think I am?”

“I have no idea, but I know I’m old enough to realize that’s a loaded question,” I answered.

“You’re not that much older than me, I’m sure.”

“How old do you think I am?” I asked.

Cydney studied my face for a few long seconds before she reached up and touched my cheek. Her fingers ran over the skin at my temple and then she rubbed her thumb over the corner of my mouth before she said, “You spend a lot of time in the sun, but I can tell you wear sunglasses. You should apply sunscreen more often and maybe even switch to a higher SPF.” She let her hand drop from my face and scooped out another bite of her snow cone before she said, “If I had to guess, I’d say that you’re thirty-eight, possibly a little older, but not more than forty.”

“How did you do that?”

“Am I close?”

“I’m thirty-nine.”

Cydney smiled and said, “Your address is on your business card. I’ll send you a bottle of sunscreen that I think would suit your skin type. You’ve got good skin, it just needs a little tender loving care to stay that way.”

“Okay, you opened the door, and I can’t resist walking through it. How old are you?”

“How old do you think I am?” I cleared my throat and pondered my answer, but before I could say anything, she ordered, “Be honest. You’re not going to hurt my feelings.”

“Twenty-four.”

“Wrong.I’m thirty-three.”

“Don’t bullshit me.”

“I’m not.” She shrugged one shoulder and then smiled before she said, “Better living through chemistry. My tata says that all the time and I know it’s true, but I was also blessed with good genes. My mom and aunt don’t look anywhere near their real ages, and my sister and I are the same way.”

“Is it just you and your sister?”

“No. I also have two brothers.”

“Are you close in age?”

“My sister, Tad, is almost twenty-eight. Chief is twenty-six, and Garner is twenty-three. What about you? Any siblings?”

“Only child,” I answered as I shook my head.

“Even if I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, I still wouldn’t have had the childhood of an only child. I have a huge family with more cousins than I can count.”

“Your parents have a lot of siblings?”

“Tata and Papa didn’t get married until I was a few years old, so my aunt and uncles on his side are Dad’s step-siblings. Mom only has Aunt Izzy. However, Dad’s club brothers have a bajillion kids that I grew up with.”

“Your dad is in a club? A motorcycle club?”

“He is. So am I.”

“That’s progressive.”

“What is?”

“That your dad’s club let you join.”

Cydney scoffed before she said, “Oh, no. Not a chance. We had to form our own club.” Cydney grabbed her phone and scrolled through it before she held it out to me. “There’s me and some of the girls outside our clubhouse before the last run we took.”

“Texas Queens MC, Rojo, Texas,” I said as I read the name on one of the women’s cuts. “I like that. I’ve heard of the Kings and the Knights. Is your club affiliated with them?”

“Yes. My dad is a King. So are three of my uncles - Luke, Eli, and Stoffer.”

“I’m impressed that you’ve got your own bike.”

“Admit it. You’re curious about my club too.”

“A little bit.”

“I'm actually one of the founding members and the treasurer.”

“No wonder you like spreadsheets,” I joked.

“What do you like?”

“Pina coladas and getting caught in the rain.”

Cydney burst out laughing, and I couldn’t resist laughing with her. There was just something about her openness that made me feel like everything was going to be okay, which was odd because I barely knew her and she definitely didn’t know anything about me.

“What do you do for a living - for real this time, Jimmy Buffet.” I was about to answer her when she giggled and said, “Did you see those three over there?”

I looked over and saw three young women, all dressed as if they were going to a black tie event, wearing sequins and heels, walking into one of the casinos.

“Yeah.Why?”

“Can you hear their theme song?”

I chuckled as I shook my head and then laughed even harder when Cydney held her spoon like a microphone and sang, “I wanna be where the sugar daddies are, I wanna see, wanna see ‘em spending. Wandering free, wish I could be, part of their world.”

I started applauding, and Cydney jumped off the bench and bowed to her audience of one. “Thank you.”

“If we sit here long enough, will I get to hear more of that?” I asked.

“Possibly, but if we sit here all night, I won’t have any salacious details to tell the girls when I get home.” Cydney took a step closer to me, and I moved so she could step between my legs. When she was just inches away, her breasts even with my face, she said, “Is it true that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas?”

“Generally, yeah,” I said before I let my eyes trail down her neck to the swell of her breasts. I swallowed hard before I asked, “What do you have in mind?”

“I would like for you to accompany me to that lovely hotel over there and do things to me that will make me smile every time I think about this town.”

“And then what?” I asked.

“And then I leave tomorrow and go back to my life while you stay here and live in yours.”

“That’s it? You want a quickie . . .”

“I said nothing about a quickie, sweetheart.” Cydney put her knee on the chair beside my hip and then straddled my lap, smiling when she felt how hard I was for her already. She wrapped her arms around my neck and ran her fingers through my hair before she said, “But if it has to be a quickie, then could we have four or five of them before I have to leave tomorrow?”

“Just four or five?”

“You talk a big game,” Cydney said as she tilted her head and brought her lips just a breath away from mine. “I don’t want words, I want results.”

My chuckle was cut short when she kissed me. I shut my eyes because the fireworks going off in my brain could probably be seen from the Space Station. It took everything I had not to thrust my hips up and . . . As if she read my mind, Cydney ground herself against me, and the heat of her core singed me through my jeans.

I had considered taking Cydney back to my home, but that was before she relegated me to a one-night stand. I had a rule that those should never invade my personal space. I wasn’t an angel by any means and had enjoyed my share of meaningless sex. However, I liked to keep those encounters separate from my everyday life.

Unfortunately, with Cydney’s suggestion, that meant she didn’t want any part of the real me. She just wanted to have some fun on her short vacation before she went home and got on with her life.

When Cydney pulled away, gasping for breath, I wondered if she’d felt the same spark I had. I realized that she hadn’t - or she was very good at hiding it - when she said, “What do you say, Kenny? Want to make a memory with me?”

She gasped when I stood up with her in my arms but then smiled when I said, “I’m yours for as long as you want me to be.”

“Then let's make a lot of them together.”

◆◆◆

CYDNEY

The voices in my head were having an argument so loud that I was almost positive it might lead to hearing loss.

It was a fight between my conscience, the rebellious nature that I thought had disappeared in my early twenties, and the woman in me who wanted more than anything to see Kenny naked. I didn’t know which voice I wanted to win, but I had to say that I was leaning toward the naked idea and more than willing to deal with the regret tomorrow.

All in all, my inner Scarlett O’Hara was speaking the loudest, and I decided to follow her advice and think about regrets and repercussions tomorrow. Right now, I wanted to coast on the high of a wonderful evening spent with a man who didn’t know anything about me or my family and had no expectations or judgments.

I let my legs drop and kissed Kenny as he slowly set me on my feet. When I pulled back to look up at him, he still had his eyes closed, so I asked, “Is everything okay?”

“Shh. I’m thinking about Mrs. Kowalski.”

“What?”

“She was my third grade teacher.” Kenny took a deep breath in through his nose and then slowly blew it out through his mouth before he said, “Okay. That worked.”

“What worked?”

“Mrs. Kowalski can not only ruin every student's day with her mere existence, but she can also deflate a hard-on in less than ten seconds.”

I burst out laughing and asked, “Do you know how much I want to test that theory?”

“What do you mean?”

I wrapped my arms around his neck to pull him down for another kiss as I molded the front of my body to his. “Are you still thinking about Mrs. Kowalksi?”

“I knew you were trouble from the minute I laid eyes on you, and you’re just proving me right.”

“Sometimes trouble is fun, don’t you think?”

“I’ve been trying to stay out of trouble for most of my life, and now I’m dying to be in trouble.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah,” Kenny gave me a kiss that curled my toes and made me melt even further into him. “You are trouble.”

It didn’t take long at all to get our hotel room secured, and even though I’d spent the entire afternoon and evening with him, I knew I still had to follow the safety rules my friends and I had been living by for the majority of our lives - not just in situations like this, but in every situation where we found ourselves out of our comfort zone.

I dialed her number and waited for my best friend to pick up. It didn’t surprise me at all when the first thing she asked was, “What’s wrong?”

“I knew you’d think something terrible happened, but I really needed to talk to you, so I called anyway.”

I could see the worry on Amethyst’s face when she asked, “You’re okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“How’s Bella?”

I couldn’t help but laugh when I said, “Last time I saw her, she was on her way to being better than fine.”

“What does that mean?”

I realized that it looked like my friend wasn’t wearing any clothes so I asked, “Are you naked? Oh! I guess your date went better than I imagined it would.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“I’m in Vegas, Amy. Of course I’ve been drinking. Is he still there?”

“Yes.”

“Is he naked? Is he asleep? Show me if he lives up to his name. Okay, I guess that wouldn’t . . .”

“He’s not asleep, Squid. He can hear everything you’re saying.”

“Hi!” I said cheerfully, greeting Amethyst’s new man - Tama’i. “You probably don’t remember me, but I met you at the wedding.”

Tama’i got closer so I could see him on the screen and said, “I remember. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I won’t keep Amy long, I just need to get some information to her.”

“Do you need me to get out of here so you can talk?” Tama’i asked.

“Just don’t hold anything you hear against me, okay?”

“I won’t.”

“Okay, here’s the scoop, Amy. I’m going to do something I’ve never done before and probably never will again. I didn’t call so you’d talk me out of it, just so that you wouldn’t kill me later when you found out I did a ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’ thing.”

“Don’t you dare get married, Cydney Mason!”

“Girl, really?”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to spend the night with a man I just met. Don’t judge me.”

“Not judging, just concerned.”

“I’m going to send you a picture of his ID and then share my location with you so you know where I end up, okay?”

“Are you serious right now?”

“He’s smart, funny, tattooed, and sexy. He doesn’t know anything about me, and that’s kind of refreshing, so, yes. I’m completely serious right now.”

“You’re gonna do this even if I give you ten reasons why this is a bad idea, aren’t you?”

“Can I make a suggestion?” Tama’i asked.

“Sure,” I agreed.

“Where are you?”

“I’m at Caesars.”

“Don’t leave the hotel,” Tama’i said simply. “If you want to bump uglies with a stranger, make him pay for a room, and don’t leave the property. Send Amethyst the picture of his ID, walk with him to the front desk to get the room key, and tell the desk clerk that you’re going up to the room with him.”

“Just throw my business right out there, huh?”

“They have facial recognition software all over that place. If something happens, you’ll be on their radar from that point on, so make sure you have your hair out of your face so it can pick up your features. They’ll also have him on record too.”

“Good idea.”

“I don’t know that it will help in the event you’re in danger, but it will at least give us some idea of where to start looking if something happens,” Tama’i admitted grudgingly. “I’ve got some good friends there, so if you need anything, call Amethyst and I’ll get you their contact information. If Amethyst hasn’t heard from you by ten tomorrow morning, I’ll call and have them track you down.”

“I like him,” I said cheerfully.

“Girl, you’re crazy. Send me a pic of his license.”

“It’s on its way. Love your face, hag! I hope I have as much fun as you have obviously had with that whole afterglow vibe you’ve got going on. High five, big guy! You’re doing something right!” Tama’i was still laughing when I waved and then ended the call.

“You called your friend just in case I’m a serial killer?” Kenny asked with a grin.

“I did. Now, let me see your license,” I ordered.

He glanced over my shoulder at my guard, who was still following us at a distance. As he pulled his wallet out, he said, “Just so you know, I’m not cool with him joining in.”

I barked out a laugh and said, “It wasn’t my choice to have a tail all day and night, but I didn’t put up a fight. I don’t know where he’s going to stay tonight, but the only person I want in the room with me is you.”

I took a picture of his license and sent it to Amy and then shared my location with her so she could access it any time she needed.

“Now, I’m going to follow Tama’i’s suggestions and go with you to get the room key and then let you take me upstairs to give me some astounding orgasms along with some good memories to look back on.”

“Were you serious when you said you hadn’t ever done anything like this before?”

“Absolutely,” I said as I nudged him toward the counter. “A one-night stand with a stranger is impossible where I come from.”

“If that’s the case, then I’m going to give you more than just memories, Cydney. I’m going to make it my mission to give you incomparable sex that will stay with you for the rest of your life and ruin you for any other man.”

“That’s not really fair.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because if no other man will ever measure up, then I’ll be awfully lonely for the rest of my life.”

“You won’t have to be. I’ll always be here for you to come back to.”