Any Man of Mine

Chapter Seven

Any Man of Mine:

Good in Bed

Good didn’t begin to describe sex with Sam. It was more than good. More than satisfying. More than anything she’d experienced. It was hot and greedy. Wet and soul-shattering. He was methodical and spontaneous, raunchy and gentle. Autumn was twenty-five and not a virgin, but Sam knew things. He knew more than just where to touch. He knew how.

He took her to his bedroom inside a thirteen-hundred-square-foot suite. She had a quick impression of oversized leather furniture, black marble, stocked bars, and towering windows before he tossed her on a big king-sized bed covered in dark blue velvet. He’d said he shared the suite with buddies, but Autumn hadn’t seen them. She never heard them either.

Being with Sam wasn’t making love, but it was more than just sex. More than just a few hours of fun in the sack. Her whole body felt alive. Like she was speeding a hundred miles an hour, on fire, racing toward orgasm that arched her back and curled her toes. They had sex twice. The second time much slower and more methodical than the first time, which had began earlier in the pool and ended with them falling off the bed and finishing on the floor.

When she left the suite three hours after entering it, her elbow hurt and her knees were a little tender. She didn’t remember hitting her elbow, but she did remember hitting her knees.

A smile twisted one corner of her lips as she stepped into the bathtub in her own room. Sam told her he’d call after he showered. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that she was more than just an afternoon hookup; but if not, that was okay. He hadn’t used her any more than she’d used him. She had no expectations and no regrets.

She reached for a white washcloth and unwrapped a small bar of soap. A drop of water fell from the spigot into the bath, and the scent of the finely milled soap filled the room as she washed her face and the spot where Sam had kissed her throat. She ran the soapy cloth over her breasts and belly and slid down in the water until the back of her head rested against the edge of the tub. She brought her feet close to her behind under the water and closed her eyes. She’d never hooked up with a random guy before. One she didn’t really know. The one-nighters she’d had in the past had been with men she’d known. At least somewhat. She wasn’t all that sure those counted as one-nighters. Most of those times, though, she’d done the clothes scramble, afterwards followed by the walk of shame.

This time, she didn’t feel ashamed. Although she probably should. She’d been raised on shame. Been raised to believe that the price of sin was not a good time but a good guilty conscience. After Autumn’s father had left, her mother embraced religion with both arms. Holding it tight against her chest like a shield. Autumn had been seven, Vince ten, when everything they knew changed. They went from a two-parent home to living with a mother incapable of adapting to the changes in her life. For the first few years, her mother sat around waiting for her husband to come back. When he remarried and began a new family, and it finally became apparent that he wasn’t going to return, Joyce Haven turned to God. She replaced her husband with Him.

As a general rule, Autumn didn’t have a problem with religion or people who lived their faith. If religion made a person better, more grounded, then she was all for it. But she did have a problem with people who couldn’t make a decision without consulting God about everything from buying a car to radiation treatments. She believed God gave her a brain and the wisdom to make decisions on her own. The bad decisions she made were just part of life’s learning curve.

For almost two years, she’d put her life on hold to take care of her mother. She’d fought hard, most times harder than Joyce, but in the end, nothing had worked. She didn’t resent taking care of her mother. She loved her mom and missed her every day. There was a permanent hole in her heart and life and family. If given the choice, she’d do it again. She wouldn’t even have to think twice about it.

But now. Now her life felt empty. Vince was gone, she was alone, and she had to figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life. She could go back to school and get her business degree. Before her mother’s illness, she’d been enrolled part-time at the University of Idaho and working two jobs. She’d worked days for a florist and nights as a server for a local caterer. She’d enjoyed both jobs and wouldn’t mind getting those jobs back when she returned to school.

Autumn felt her fingers get pruney, and she unplugged the tub. She grabbed a towel and looked at her watch, sitting next to the sink. It was half past five. An hour and ten minutes since she’d left Sam’s suite. The phone hadn’t rung.

It didn’t ring as she rubbed coconut-scented lotion into her skin or when she pulled on a fluffy hotel robe. Nor when she brushed her teeth and dried her hair. She assumed she wouldn’t see Sam again. That was okay. She wouldn’t have minded seeing him again, but she had her to-do list, and riding the roller coaster at New York New York at night was next on it.

As she moved from the bathroom, she jumped as someone pounded on the door. She placed a hand over her thudding heart and looked through the peephole at Sam, standing there in jeans and a black polo shirt. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep a smile from spreading across her lips. “You lost?” she asked as she opened the door.

He tilted his head to one side. “You’re not dressed?”

“I just got out of the bathtub.” She let him in and leaned her back against the door.

An unrepentant grin flashed across his lips. “I was hoping to catch you naked.” He lowered his mouth to hers and slid his hand inside her robe. He cupped her breast, and they stayed inside her room until the next morning. They ordered room service and a movie and stayed in bed. Between bites of mint-crusted lamb, she learned that Sam lived in Seattle and played hockey for the Chinooks. Autumn didn’t know a lot about hockey, but his being a professional athlete made perfect sense given his muscles and incredible stamina. It also somehow made the time she spent with him more final. Not that she thought their friendship, or whatever it was, would last beyond tomorrow, let alone Vegas. But just knowing who he was, what he was, put an end to any thought of a lasting relationship before one started. She’d dated a football player in college, but he’d dumped her for a cheerleader. Jocks always ended up dating cheerleaders or sorority girls or starlets.

While in Vegas, she just wanted to enjoy her time with Sam for as long as it lasted. She liked him. He was easy to be with, and he was amazing in bed. Or in the tub, on the floor, or up against a wall. He did things with his mouth that made her scream, and someday, when she was old and barely able to scoot her walker down the hall of some nursing home, she would remember her wild week in Vegas with a gorgeous hockey player. She’d smile, and the other old ladies pushing their walkers would just think she was senile. They’d never know about Sam. No one would know about Sam. Ever. Sam would always be her naughty little secret.

That afternoon, they left Caesars and ate lobster bisque, mushroom-covered tenderloin, and asparagus tips at Delmonico in the Venetian. They washed it all down with a bottle of red wine. He asked about her life, and she told him about her dad leaving when she’d been young and about taking care of her mother.

“I have one brother, but he’s in Afghanistan somewhere doing whatever it is that he does.” She took a bite of tender asparagus and looked across the table at Sam. She told herself that the little pang she felt in her stomach was from hunger and not from Sam’s blue eyes looking back at her. “How about you? Any brothers or sisters?”

He took a big drink of his wine and glanced across the crowded restaurant. “I had a sister.”

When he didn’t offer any more information, she lifted a palm and prompted, “And…?”

“And she died.”

“When?”

“A few years ago.”

She put her hand over his. “I’m sorry.”

He looked back at her, anger setting his square jaw and leaking out of him like a dark shadow spilling across the table. “What’s on your to-do list?” Subject closed.

She kept her hand on his, and her thumb brushed across his knuckles. Mixed within all that anger was dark pain. She could see it. Feel it, sharp and tangible. The kind of pain she knew all too well. The kind that could steal your breath if you let it. “Tonight, I want to ride the roller coaster at New York New York. I think it’ll be cool to look down on the Strip all lit up.”

He took another drink of his wine, and she felt the tension ease, sucked back inside wherever he kept it. “I have to meet the guys at the Voodoo Lounge tonight. Why don’t you come with me instead of riding a roller coaster.”

She slid her hand toward her and tucked it into her lap. There was only one part of her body that she wanted to ache for Sam, and it wasn’t her heart. Anything beyond lust was too risky. She shook her head. “Why don’t I meet you there?”

His brows drew together, and the corners of his mouth lifted in a bemused smile. “Are you playing hard to get?”

She needed some distance. Needed a little space to breathe and clear her head before she did the unthinkable and started to have feelings for him. “Maybe.”

“Honey, it’s a little late. Don’t you think?”

Maybe, but she had to try. If not, she was afraid she might start to think of him as more than just a wild Vegas hookup. And that couldn’t happen. That was impossible.

He reached into his wallet and pulled out a VIP pass. “This will get you in the door,” he said as he handed it across the table toward her. “We have a table on the balcony. Try not to be too late.”

How late was too late? Autumn was an on-time girl and had never understood the concept of fashionably late. But that night she arrived at the Voodoo Lounge after eleven. It just about killed her to wait that long. She spent her time shopping for a strapless dress and a black thong. She took a long bath and put her hair up in big curlers. She put on more makeup than usual, and beneath the black tube dress, she only wore her tiny panties. She caught one last glimpse herself before leaving the room. She looked like herself, only different. She looked… sexy. Which was a new look for her. Especially after the last few years.

It was Sam. Sam made her feel good about herself. It was the way he looked at her. The touch of his hands. The way he whispered her name in her ear. He made her feel desired and sexy.

The Voodoo Lounge was on the fiftieth and fifty-first floors of the Rio, and Autumn walked to the front of the line and flashed her VIP pass. She’d never had a VIP pass to anything and was immediately taken up in a glass elevator and shown down a black-lighted foyer. Like most bars, the Voodoo was dark and smelled like booze and too much perfume. It had neon pink and blue lights, and a hip-hop band played in one corner of the small space. She rose onto the toes of her black pumps and looked through the crowd. She didn’t spot Sam right away, so she made her way through the bar to the large outdoor balcony. A breeze caught her hair, and she pushed it behind her ears. In one corner, a DJ spun records from the sixties and seventies, and on the perimeter of the balcony, were groups of cozy tables and chairs and Sam. He stood within a cluster of people, mostly women, laughing and chatting and having a good time. He wore a blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Compared to the women, Autumn looked conservative. A platinum blond, wearing a tiger-print haltered minidress, put her hand on his arm, and he didn’t seem to mind. Autumn turned toward the bar and looked over the menu. A gentleman parked at the bar suggested a Witch Doctor, but she didn’t want anything big and bulky that she would have hold with two hands. She ordered a mojito and watched as the bartender threw the glass into the air and caught it behind his back. She cast a glance over her shoulder at Sam, who was still occupied. This time, one of the women touched his chest. She turned back and dug a twenty out of the little black purse hanging from a silver chain on her shoulder. The guy next to her tried to buy her drink, but she declined. He seemed okay, and if it weren’t for Sam, she might have struck up a conversation with him. He had short dark hair and a thick neck and kind of reminded her of Vince.

She pointed to the smoke rising from the guy’s big fishbowl of a drink. “What’s in your Witch Doctor?”

“Rum, coconut rum, banana rum, more rum. Wanna sip?” He turned the straw toward her.

She shook her head and laughed. “No thanks. Four shots of rum is about three too many for me.” She handed the bartender a twenty and felt Sam behind her a fraction of a second before he slid his hand around her waist and pulled her hair to one side.

“Who’s the asshole?” he asked next to her ear.

She supposed she could get all jealous and indignant because he let women touch him, but she didn’t have any right, and jealousy was such an ugly emotion. “Hi, Sam.”

“What are you doing?”

“Getting a drink.”

“I see that.” His voice was a dark, seductive rumble across her skin. “What took you so long to get here?”

She smiled at the bartender, who put her change and mojito on the bar. “I was buying underwear.”

“Mmm. What kind?”

She shoved her change into her little purse, then turned her face into Sam’s. “Black thong. ” He smelled a little boozy. Like he’d been at it a while. One thing she did notice about Sam, besides his six-pack and massive good looks, was that he drank a lot. At least to her, and she’d spent three years at the University of Idaho. A notorious party school, but this was Vegas. Most people drank a lot in Vegas.

“Sexy.”

For the first time in a very long time, she felt sexy. “I’ll show you later.” Another thing she noticed about Sam, besides his smooth voice and smoother hands, was that he never really seemed drunk. He didn’t slur or get sloppy. He was never obnoxious, and all that booze did nothing to impede him in the bedroom. He never forgot a condom or the job at hand.

He kissed her neck, then took her hand, and they weaved their way past the dance floor to a table near the edge. They passed a big staircase leading to the upper deck, where a big American flag waved in the breeze.

He introduced her to a guy named Daniel and another named Vlad. One was Swedish, the other Russian. They were both huge and both had women hanging off their arms. Over “Sweet Home Alabama” playing in the background, the two introduced the women in the party. Vlad’s accent was so thick, Autumn thought she caught the names Jazzzzzz and Teeeeeena, but she wouldn’t bet on it.

Daniel’s quizzical gaze seemed to pick her apart and put her back together. “You’re the reason Sam can’t make it to Scores.”

“Or Cheeetaz,” Vlad added.

The boys obviously loved the strip clubs, and Autumn wondered if the women with them grabbed poles for a living. “The first night we met, Sam thought I was a dancer.” She took a drink, then set the glass on the table. “I think he was disappointed.”

“I wasn’t disappointed.” He slid his arm around her and pulled her against his side.

Daniel’s brows lowered. “You okay, Sam?”

“Yeah.” He turned his attention to the glittering city below. The brilliant, flashing skyline of the Strip and the surrounding area lighting up the desert like stars. “You wanna get out of here?”

She looked up into his profile, at the blue neon light and night shadows against his cheek and jaw. “Is something wrong?”

His grip on her waist tightened. “It’s the thirteenth.”

“Are you superstitious?”

The last strains of “Sweet Home Alabama” trailed off into the breeze, only to be drowned out by the city below. “Yeah.” He looked down at her. “Is ‘have sex in a limo’ on your list?”

She felt his grasp ease to a soft caress. “No.”

“Wanna add it?”

He had to be joking. “Got a limo?”

“Yep.” He flashed her a grin as he reached inside his pant’s pocket and pulled out his cell phone. “Good night, everyone,” he said, as his hand moved to the small of her back, and they headed toward the bar. In the elevator on the way down, his palm slid to her behind and stayed there until they stepped outside the Rio.

A stretch Hummer waited by the curb, and she guessed he wasn’t joking. He helped Autumn into the enormous vehicle and paused a moment to speak with the driver before crawling in after her.

“Does he know what you have planned?” she asked, as the door shut and closed them in the dark interior. Running lights lit up the floor like a 747, and a small bulb shone on the control panel. Even if he wasn’t joking about sex in a limo, could she really go through with it?

“Probably.” Sam fiddled with buttons, and the privacy window slid up.

“I’ve never had sex with someone watching.” And she wasn’t so sure she could do it now.

“He can’t see.”

“Are you sure?”

“Reasonably.” He found a radio station and turned up the volume of Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”

Through the dark interior, his mouth found hers, and there was a sort of desperation in his kiss that she’d never felt before. A sort of need and greed. Like he wanted to eat her up. Consume her, right there in the back of a stretch Hummer.

She was leaving in a few short days, and so was he. She’d never see him again, and having sex while speeding through Vegas was a lot better than thinking about going home, alone. The car sped away from the curb, and Billy Joe’s voice filled the limo. As he sang of loneliness and shallow hearts, Autumn straddled Sam’s lap and placed her hands on the sides of his face. She kissed him long and hard as his hands crept up her thighs because this was Vegas, and apparently she didn’t have a problem with sex in a limo. Not even with only a reasonable assurance that the driver couldn’t see. Nothing was real there. Not the façades, nor the fake canals and volcanos. Not the promise of easy money or the feelings threatening to overtake her good intentions. Certainly not the affair that had nothing to do with love.

Sam’s big hands slipped over her hips and up her sides. He tugged at the top of her dress until it was around her waist, and her bare breasts rested in his palms. His thumbs brushed across her hard nipples, and he said things.

“I need you,” he groaned. “I need you to fill me up.” He said other things. Dirty things. Things about what he wanted to do to her and how. Things about what he wanted her to do to him. Things that only a man like Sam could get away with saying.

He reached between her thighs and pushed her thong aside. He touched her and did those things he said he was going to do. Later, in her hotel room, she did things to him that made him groan and beg her not to stop. Things that brought a smile to his lips.

It was good to see him smile.

The next morning, she woke alone. She didn’t know whether to be sad or glad. She turned over and went back to sleep. At noon, Sam called her room to tell her to meet him in the lobby at six and to wear something comfortable but not flip-flops. She wondered what he had planned, and when the time came, she wore a jeans skirt, white tank top, and leather sandals. He wore jeans and Clint Eastwood T-shirt, and they ate Chinese and drank Tsingtao.

“What’s left on your to-do list?” Sam asked, and took a long pull from the green bottle.

“A lot. I haven’t done half the things on it.”

“Yeah.” He smiled and lowered the beer. “Sorry about that.”

“You don’t look sorry.”

He shrugged. “You should thank me. Your list sucks.”

She gasped. “No, it doesn’t.”

“I’ve never seen a suckier list. It’s like you got out Frommer’s and circled things you wanted to see.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “Fodor’s online.”

“Same thing. I wasn’t on your list. Sex in a limo wasn’t on your list. Hell, you’re in Vegas, and you don’t have one damn strip club on your list. Not even a male review. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a nun.”

Her nose wrinkled. “I really have no desire to see men dancing around with their wieners out.”

He blinked. “I can’t believe you just said ‘wiener.’ ”

She ignored him and glanced about the Chinese restaurant to make sure no one was listening in on the conversation. “I don’t want some guy’s balls flying around my head, and if one of them actually put his… penis… on my shoulder, I’d freak out.”

He tilted his head back and laughed. Long and loud and attracting attention. She didn’t care. He had a great laugh, and she wished he’d laugh more.

“I cannot believe you’re the same girl who jumped on me in the limo last night.”

She couldn’t either.

“And you didn’t seem to mind my balls flying around your head last night.”

She bit the corner of her lip to keep from smiling.

He lifted one hip and pulled out two tickets from his back pocket. He handed them to her.

Her mouth dropped open. “Cher?” She looked up into his face. “How did you get tickets?”

“I got my ways.”

“Are you going to Cher with me?”

“That’s why there are two tickets.”

He hated Cher. “But you’re not gay or desperate to get laid.”

“That’s true.”

“You don’t like Cher.”

He grinned. “I like you.”

Oh no. She was in trouble. Big bad horrible trouble with blond hair and smiling blue eyes. Her throat got tight, and the air left her lungs. Her heart felt like it was expanding in her chest, and if it didn’t stop, it would burst. Right there in Beijing Noodle No. 9. Her eyes watered. This was horrible. From that very first night, she’d known he was the kind of trouble she should avoid. She just hadn’t realized he would overwhelm her and make her fall for him.

“Don’t cry. It’s just Cher, and they are nosebleed seats. No big deal.”

It was a big deal. Huge. She swallowed hard, past the big lump in her chest. She didn’t care about Cher. She’d only wanted to go because she was in Vegas, and it was a farewell tour. She wiped the tears beneath her eyes. “I don’t know what to say.” And she didn’t. Despite knowing better, she was developing dangerous feelings for him. It was stupid and rash and real. It felt real, but she didn’t know if he felt the same way.

During the concert, she wrapped her arm around his and watched the bright stage show and Cher’s parade of costumes. She liked it more than she thought she would, but when Sam started to snore, she woke him, and they left early. They moved to the casino and played blackjack and craps and roulette. Mostly he played and she watched. They drank free booze until about 1:00 A.M. Autumn felt light and hazy, and as a joke, she bought Sam a Cher T-shirt. They’d both laughed like it was the height of hilarity when he put it on. And when Sam decided that they needed to find an Elvis impersonator, she thought it sounded like a great plan. “Elvis impersonator” was on her list, but unfortunately, the only one still awake was at the Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel.

Even years later, she was never quite sure how they’d arrived at the chapel or whose idea it had been to go inside and watch Elvis marry people, but what was clear, what had always remained clear, was standing outside the chapel, looking up at the marquee and the bright flashing names of the most recently wed. In big orange letters: Just Married, Donna and Doug.

“We should get married.”

She looked at him, the orange light bathing his face and glowing in his blond hair. “Are you kidding?”

He shook his head. “No. It just feels right.”

Her heart pounded boom boom boom in her chest, and her stomach got all light and queasy. “Sam…” She swallowed hard. “I don’t think-”

“Don’t think.” He pulled her against him, and his mouth swooped down to take hers in a full, wet kiss that sucked out her breath and overwhelmed what little wits she had left. She loved him. Somehow, she’d fallen in love with Sam, and she wanted to be with him. Maybe it was fate. Meant to be. Love at first sight. Right?

He pulled back. His lips wet from the kiss, he looked at her from beneath lowered lids. “Say yes.”

“Yes.”

He smiled, and within an hour, they were Mr. and Mrs. Samuel LeClaire. He’d paid for the Hound Dog Special, which in hindsight was apropos given Sam’s hound-dog ways. But hindsight was always twenty-twenty, and that night the Hound Dog Special meant goodies that included four candid wedding photos, roses, and a plush Hound Dog keepsake. Once outside, they’d watched their names flash in bright neon, and instead of rings, they got their names tattooed on the other’s body. By the time they made it back to the hotel room, the sun was just rising over the desert. They ordered room service and made love without a condom. At least she thought it was love. She’d felt it in every part of her body, including her heart.

She woke just after noon, alone except for her stuffed Hound Dog. Sam was gone, but she wasn’t worried. He’d come back. He always did, and they were married now. Their future was together. He’d never come right out and said he loved her, but he had to. He’d pursued her since that first night at Pure, and last night they’d promised to “love each other tender.” She smiled and stretched. The wedding had been impulsive and rash, to be sure, but she didn’t regret it.

By three, she got a little concerned, and by four she was worried that something had happened to him. She didn’t have his cell number and called the front desk. She asked to be connected to his room and was informed that he and the rest of his party had checked out.

Checked out? She slid her feet into a pair of flip-flops, grabbed her room key, and headed to his suite. Except for the maids changing beds and vacuuming, the place was empty. No suitcases. No Sam. He must have checked out to move into her room. So where was he?

She’d spent the rest of the day and night waiting for him to come pounding on her door. Every time someone passed her room, her heart stopped, but it was never Sam. She couldn’t believe he’d left her without a word. She was confused. Where was he? As she stared at the photos of them, standing before the Elvis impersonator, she told herself that he’d come back. He would. He had to because they were married.

She told herself he’d be back as she waited and worried and watched the news for any report of an accident. She even stayed an extra day, waiting, but he never even called. By the next afternoon it became clear that he wasn’t coming back, and she boarded a small plane to Helena.

She arrived home a few hours later, numb and hurt and confused. Had anything that had happened been real? It had sure felt real, and her heart ached like it had been real.

The wedding certificate was real. Sam had turned her head, broken her heart, and knocked the wind out of her, and what was she to do? He’d married her and left her in a hotel room. She didn’t know if she should fly to Seattle and talk to him. He probably wouldn’t be that hard to find. She didn’t know what to do and felt like she was living in a fog. When she did finally hear from him at the end of the next week, it was through his lawyer, demanding a divorce. He’d left her stunned and her heart crushed. Too bad that hadn’t been enough for him.

A month later, when she’d informed his attorney of her pregnancy, she’d been so scared and alone, and she’d hoped-hoped even though she knew better-that he’d tell her it was okay. That he’d be there for her and the child. That he’d help her out so that she wasn’t totally alone. Instead, he’d demanded a paternity test.

The next time she laid eyes on him again was the day she’d put Conner in his arms. He’d had tape across his nose and one of his eyes was black-and-blue. Her heart had squeezed, and her throat had hurt from holding back emotion. He’d looked at her as if he really didn’t remember her, and any love she’d felt for him turned into a deep, burning hatred. Right there in his lawyer’s office, and she’d wished she’d been the one to punch him. If he hadn’t been holding her son, she might have.

Autumn shut the notebook on her desk and rose from her office chair. Now she felt nothing. Peace settled across her heart as she walked from her office and moved upstairs. Life was good. Her son was in the bedroom asleep across the hall from hers. Her business was great, and she didn’t hate Sam. She was sure that he would always do things to make her mad. He was selfish and couldn’t help himself, but she didn’t hate him. Her heart didn’t ache; nor did her head feel like it was going to explode when he walked into a room. When she’d opened the door that evening and seen him with Conner in his arms, she’d just felt relieved that her son was home. Safe.

She was free from the hot and cold emotions. Free from the push and pull of love and hate. Free to feel nothing for Sam.

Nothing at all.