"And you look like an angel."
Her lips turned up in another smile and knocked the wind out of him. Again. He'd already thought she was pretty. But when she smiled, she was breathtaking.
"Almost." Her smile trembled and she looked shy again. "My name is Anna."
He couldn't wait another second to touch her, to know whether her curves felt as soft as they looked, and tugged her closer, pulling her as close to him as they could get in a public bar with their clothes on.
Lord, but he wanted to get even closer. No clothes between them, no other music than the sound of her passion as he made her come with his hands. His mouth. His cock. Jesus, he could feel the pre-come rushing already. Just from holding her.
"Dance with me, Anna."
Her name was soft on his tongue, just as soft as he knew her skin would be when he finally got her clothes off.
She didn't push him away, but she did shake her head and bite her lip before saying, "I don't really dance."
He had to laugh at that, appreciating the flash of irritation in her eyes at his response.
"Are you saying I'm going to be your first?"
His question hung in the air between them, heavy and pulsing with double meanings.
Jesus, he'd never been with a virgin in his life. Never wanted to be. Not when he appreciated a woman's experience so that it was wasn't up to him to do all the work. But the things he wanted to do to this woman--right f**king here, right f**king now--were crazy.
Batshit crazy.
Her flush--and lowered eyes--answered his question. "No. Of course you're not my first."
"Are we still talking dancing, Anna?"
Her gaze shot up to meet his again and she opened her mouth, but no words came out.
She looked so cute, standing there trying to figure out how to respond to his very forward question. He knew he wasn't being fair, playing with her like this, but it was so much fun.
He was having fun.
Cole Taylor didn't have fun. He was all business, all about crushing the competition.
Sure, he partied as much as the next rich, single, pro-football player, and of course he took the best-looking women in the world to bed, but it wasn't so much about having a good time as it was about taking his due.
And yet, standing in the middle of a Las Vegas nightclub with a woman whose name he'd only just learned--but whom he wanted more than any woman he'd ever met--Cole felt completely off his game.
The truth was, he was tired. It had been a long, frustrating day looking for a nice girl to take to his grandmother.
His dying grandmother.
"Cole? Are you okay?"
He blinked and looked into Anna's clearly concerned ocean eyes, felt something soft and warm on his forearm and realized she'd reached out to touch him.
Women looked at him in lots of ways--with dollar signs in their eyes, with lust, with anxiety when he was about to dump them--but never with concern.
Never like they actually cared about him.
"My grandmother is sick."
Shit, where had those words come from?
She moved even closer, put her other hand on him. "I'm so sorry."