Carson parked himself on the edge of his desk and crossed his arms, his biceps pulling the white cotton of his shirt tight.

Amusement, and something that looked like satisfaction, lit his eyes and he chuckled.

"What's funny?" I asked.

"You. You're jealous."

"Jealous?" I sputtered. "I'm not jealous. I just don't see how you could ask me to call off my engagement last night and then be in here with another girl this morning!"

"Did you call off your engagement?" he asked quietly.

"What? No! No," I said, shaking my head.

"No?"

"No."

We stared at each other for a few beats, my pulse kicking up another notch and a tick starting in his jaw.

I stood up taller, conjuring up my resolve and putting my hands on my hips. "I just came here to tell you we couldn't see each other again."

"You already told me that last night," he said.

"Yes, well I did, but I'm telling you again. To make sure you heard me."

"That's why you came here? To make sure I heard you?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.

I nodded my head. "Hmm hmm. To make sure you heard me," I repeated.

"I was two feet away from you when you said it, Grace."

I rolled my eyes. "Well, I know you heard me. But I want to make sure you know, you heard me."

Carson stared at me, his eyes narrowed and his chest rising and falling steadily. I could practically see the wheels turning in that head of his.

Suddenly, he stood up from the edge of his desk and stalked toward me. I backed up, but he kept coming until my back hit the wall. My pulse skyrocketed and I sucked in air. The delicious smell of him, clean soap and Carson Stinger, was suddenly all around me, intoxicating me.

"Yes, I heard you, Buttercup. Did you hear me when I told you I didn't agree?" he asked.

He leaned in toward me, taking one finger to lift my chin so that we were staring at each other eye to eye. He studied me for a few seconds. "Look at you, Buttercup. You're all worked up–that brain of yours going a million miles a minute, isn't it? You've been trying to solve this problem in your head since you jumped out of my truck last night, haven't you? Maybe since you walked out of this hotel yesterday afternoon. It's got you all twisted up, turned inside out. How'd you sleep last night, Grace? Did you want to shut that brain of yours off? Give the control over to me? Let me take charge until you were mindless, the only thing coursing through your system, pure pleasure? Wouldn't that have been sweet relief, Buttercup?" His voice was like silk, flowing over me, making me shiver with want.

I stared up at him as his eyes glittered down at me. Yes I wanted that. God, I wanted that so badly I ached. I wanted him, needed him. The memory of what he could do for me was so vivid in my mind, I wanted to scream with frustration.

Carson moved closer to me, putting his hands up on the wall to either side of my head, and bringing his thigh up so that my core was resting on it. He reached a hand down and lifted my skirt up so that I was pressed firmly down on him. I moaned out with the pleasure, pressing down harder, my eyelids fluttering closed. God, what was I doing? Suddenly, I couldn't think.

"Does he do this for you, Grace?" he leaned forward and whispered in my ear. "Do you scream out his name when you come?" My eyes felt heavy and I was vaguely aware that I was moving on his leg, bolts of pure arousal pulsating through me. God, it had been so long.

"Answer me, Buttercup, does he do this for you?" Carson ground out, sounding angry now. My eyes focused on him, but skittered away at his question. He froze and I cried out in frustration.

He brought his right hand down and took one finger and put it on my chin again, turning my face until I was forced to look into his eyes. He studied my face for a couple beats. "You haven't slept with him," he said finally, almost expressionless.

My eyes tried to look somewhere else but the rest of his fingers came up to grip my chin, not allowing me to look away. "Why, Grace?" he breathed, his eyes so intense, I felt like they would scald me.

I tried to shake my head. "I… I just…," I whispered.

He studied my face again for several seconds and he grunted, as if he was satisfied with something that he saw. And then his thigh started moving against my core again and I moaned out. I was lost, the sweet relief of the mindlessness he was bringing me more addicting than any drug I could imagine.

"Do you want me to stop?" he asked. "If you do, just say the word, and I'll stop."

I shook my head from side to side. "No, don't stop. Don’t stop," I breathed out, sweet, heady pleasure coursing through my veins.

As he moved, he started talking, "I'm not going to play games with you, Grace," he said, his voice smooth and low. "I got a whole lotta shit that I'm pushing aside, against my better judgment, to give things a shot between us."

His hands came down from the wall and moved up my ribcage, opening my jacket. "Why?" I breathed.

He chuckled. "Because apparently when it comes to you, I'm a damn fool," he said, but I heard the smile in his voice even though my eyes had fluttered closed again.

His hands came up to my breasts and his thumbs rubbed my nipples through my thin blouse. I gasped out, a surge of moisture flowing down to my core. Something was… I should stop this, I just… I couldn't think. I didn't want to think.

"I never could purge you from my blood, Buttercup," he whispered. I moaned. I could feel an orgasm just beyond my reach and I wanted it. I wanted it so badly, I was desperate. "I don't think I ever wanted to," he said, moving closer to my ear. "I want you to give us a chance too," he said.

He leaned in and started kissing up my neck, his lips as soft as butterflies against my skin, his thigh circling faster against my core, his thumbs moving over my nipples. I started panting.

"Have you fucked anyone since me?" he asked. I was brainless, mindless, nothing mattered except the intense pleasure just beyond my grasp.

"No! No!" I admitted. "Ahhh. Oh God, Carson. No, not since you," I breathed out.

"God, I like that," he growled into my ear and then kissed up my neck, licking and sucking the skin gently. His movements sped up, tipping me over the edge, intense waves of pleasure washing through me, making me shudder against him. Just as I was about to scream out, he plastered his mouth on top of mine, drinking me in, moaning himself, as I panted into his mouth.

As I came down, my foggy brain clearing, and reality rushing back in, I looked up dazedly into his eyes.

He was gazing at me intensely, his eyes dark with hunger, but with something tender too. I was mesmerized.

He opened his mouth to speak when there was a loud knock on the door. It jolted me fully back to reality. I gasped and started moving away from him, shimmying my skirt down over my hips as he took his leg down and moved away from me too.

"Stay there," he said quietly to me. "Who is it?" he called out.

"It's me, man," I heard from the other side of the door.

Carson swore under his breath and glanced over at me, his eyes running down my body to make sure I was decent, I assumed.

He pulled the door open. "Hey, Leland. What's up?"

"They're almost here," I heard him say.

Carson paused and huffed out a breath. "Okay, I'll be right there," he said.

I heard the man on the other side of the door let out a small laugh. "You got a woman in there or what?"

The reality of what had just happened washed over me. I smoothed my skirt down and walked around Carson, moving out the door. "Um, if I have any more questions, I'll call you," I said, stepping around a large man about our age with dark, almost black hair, wearing a dark blue suit.

I caught the surprised expression on his face just as I turned and started walking quickly back up the hallway, toward the casino.

"Grace–" Carson called out, but I ignored him and sped up, my legs weak as I practically ran to my car.

As I pulled out of the garage, I waited to turn onto the street as an entourage of black limousines and SUV's with international flags, made their way in front of me and pulled to a stop in front of Trilogy. I craned my neck to watch as Carson walked out the front doors of the hotel and shook hands with a man getting out of the first limousine. I supposed foreign dignitaries stayed in Vegas all the time. I looked away and turned in the other direction, driving away as quickly as possible.

* * *

Carson

I was alone in the small room. I walked to the corner and stood the tiny Dixie cup upright. It had fallen over with my last throw. I moved back to my chair and sat down and aimed again.

"He shoots! He scores!" I said quietly as my dime plunked straight into the small cup.

I retrieved the dime and shot a couple more times, making each shot easily. I was bored. I stood looking at the closed door for a few seconds, and finally walked over to it and turned the doorknob.

Someone was usually in here with me, but today there wasn't anyone. They hadn't had anyone extra to "babysit" me. I rolled my eyes. I was hardly a baby. I was eight years old. The man of the house.

I knew what my mom was doing and it made me sick. It made my stomach turn to know that she was under the covers with some man, naked, while they made a movie. She called herself an actress, but I had heard other people, people who whispered behind my back, call her a whore. I knew what a whore was, of course. I knew it meant that she screwed people for money. And I knew it was true. Every time I asked her to stop doing the job she was doing, she would yell at me and ask me how else I expected to eat.

I guessed it would also mean that she had to stop taking the pills and sleeping for most of the day.

I snuck around the corner and heard the music coming from the front room. I also heard grunts and other strange noises. I knew they were sex sounds, and that I should go back to the room they had told me to stay in. But for some reason, my legs kept moving forward.

I peeked my head around the corner and my eyes grew big, and I put my hand over my mouth to keep myself from yelling out. My mom was in the center of a bed and there were three men around her, all naked. One was behind her, slapping his privates into her and she had another man's penis in her mouth. The man to her right was yanking on himself and as I watched, he grunted and streams of white pee went all over her hair and face.

I wanted to run over to her and push them off of her. I wanted to kick them all in the face and stomp on them. A protectiveness for my mom rose up in me and I choked out a small sound, tears springing into my eyes.

I ran toward her and suddenly, she was on the bed on her back and I was over her choking out, "Mom! Mom!" She was beaten and half dead, blood running out of every orifice. She looked up at me through cracked, swollen lids and… smiled. The sweetest smile I had ever seen. As she smiled, her face transformed, her features growing younger and prettier. "Ara," I breathed out.

I shot up in bed, panting. My phone was ringing.

"Hello," I said, my voice groggy, even to my own ears.

It was Leland. "Hey Carson, Josh's bail was just set. Two million."

I closed my eyes for a beat. "Can we cover it?"

"We? No. Trilogy? Yes. I'm on my way to the bank now. I just wanted to let you know."

"Okay, keep me posted."

"Will do."

I hung up and collapsed back on my pillow, glancing at the clock quickly. I had slept in after working late the night before, and then tossing and turning most of the night once I finally fell into bed. I stared up at the ceiling. That fucking dream. I'd had it before but not for a couple months now. I wondered if it was because Grace was back in my life–sort of. Shit, I'd messed up with her. I was having a hard time feeling too sorry about it because seeing her come again was fucking fantastic, but I had scared her off. Kissing her in my truck the night before had just gotten me all crazy possessive, and fucking horny. Let's call a spade a spade. And so when she had burst into my office, talking about him again, I had taken charge of her in a way that I knew she'd probably respond to–and she had. And she'd asked me not to stop. But the fuck of it was, she probably regretted it. And that made me feel like shit.