Page 107 of Vegas Heat

Adrenaline courses through me. I want this. I wanthim. I want him in a way I don’t quite understand…in a way I’ve never wanted anyone before him, in a way I’ll never want anyone after him.

His eyes lock onto mine, and the stormy blue depths is all I see. I stare into them, his full of anger and fear and hopelessness, and I’m frozen to the spot as I take a breath.

I smell him. I’m close enough to breathe in that woodsy scent, the smell that became so comforting to me so quickly. I’m close enough to see the hitch of his breath, the flapping of his pulse in his neck.

“What the fuck are you doing with that jackass?” he demands.

“It’s not your business,” I grit out thickly.

“You can do better.”

I jut my chin upward a beat. “You mean like you?”

“You know it can’t work between us.”

“Why are you pushing so hard against it?” I ask him for the millionth time. There’s a begging desperation to my tone, but he stands firm for a beat.

And then his mouth crashes down to mine.

Now this…thisis a kiss.

It’s hot and angsty and dramatic as his mouth opens and the urgency kicks in. His tongue moves against mine, one of his arms slinging around my waist as he hauls me closer to him, the other hand still perched on my arm. I kiss back with everything I have, wrapping my arms around his body, my fingertips reaching under his shirt so I can feel the warm, smooth skin of his back. I moan into him as he kisses me, pressing my body to him as closely as I can.

It's messy and wet, hot and sultry.

No space separates our bodies, and he shifts his hips so I can feel how hard he is for me, how ready he is. His mouth brutalizesmine with his kiss, teeth clashing together and tongues battering in some sort of epic battle that we’re both winning.

Except we can’t. Neither of us will win, not when he keeps building a stronger, taller wall between us.

And that’s when we both hear it. The front door opens and closes. My father’s voice rings loud and clear through the house as Cooper kisses me. “Gabriella?”

He pulls back, his eyes hazy as he drops his hand from my arm and unlaces his other arm from around me.

He takes a large step back, nearly bumping into the wall behind him. “I…I can’t. I can’t do this.”

He’s stuttering—unusually for the always cool and poised Cooper Noah, and I take a little pride in the fact that I’m the one who caused him to lose his cool.

“I can’t resist you, but I have to fight this. Ihaveto. Too many people are depending on me. I can’t fuck it up.” His voice is low and resigned. He doesn’t want to walk away from me, from this, fromus, but he has to. He’s convinced himself of that, and even though he’s having a hard time fighting against it, he’s trying to make good on the commitments he made, and I’m throwing something that’s nothing more than a friendship with a boy who’s more interested inhimthan he is inmeright in his face.

He steps away, down the hall, down the stairs, back to whatever food he was making in the kitchen, back to start a conversation with my father, and I stare after him until he’s long gone, the scent of him still in my nostrils and the feel of his lips imprinted firmly on mine forever.

CHAPTER 22: COOPER

Maybe I should just live in a hotel until my house is ready.

Or maybe I could stay with Kaylee.

But moving out now would just look suspicious, and that’s the opposite of what I’m trying to do here.

I’ve never felt more stuck in my life.

I could stay away—could hang out somewhere else, but I’m new to town. There’s always action in Vegas, but the people I trust around these parts consist of Kaylee and Ben, who are busy with babies and the start of a football season; Danny, who I spend most of my time with except when he’s busy banging somebody; and Troy, who I can’t exactly confess my most recent heartbreak to given the fact that he’s the one person I’m trying to hide it from.

I could go out, sure. I could meet people. I could make new friends pretty easily.

But it’s hard when you’re almost thirty-three and you own a status as a celebrity. I guess I could head to Troy’s club to meet people in situations similar to mine, but I don’t really want to. There’s a stigma with a place like that, and even if I want to stay on the first floor, that doesn’t mean everyone else will want to.

The season will start soon enough, and since Troy has unofficially named me team captain, I’ve started spending time sketching out details for building brotherhood through teamwork. He gave me an office near his where I can work, and I’ve gone in early every morning this week to work out and then to sit in my office watching film, strategizing, and getting to know the strengths of the players already assembled on the teamas I do some research onto the short list of players Troy thinks we’ll be acquiring in the expansion draft in a couple months.

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