some decisions were really simple.
Sure, I’d thought about it when he asked.
I’d considered all the angles, while I’d surveyed the casino floor, thinking of bets and payoffs.
Thinking of this city. Of the chances people took.
This was a city rich with secrets.
Full of stories.
And it was a place that offered itself as a haven for pushing boundaries.
So this was a boundary they wanted to cross.
I got that. I could respect that.
And more so, I believed that at times like these you needed to say yes.
Put simply, when your best bud asked you to do him a solid and help fulfill his woman’s fantasy—the same woman who’d turned his life around and made him embrace every goddamn day again—you didn’t want to hear that he knocked on the door of the Magic Mike stripper or the Chippendale dancer and asked that guy instead. You wanted to know he came to someone he could trust with his most important request.
Someone who respected the sanctity of the love between him and his girl.
I knew those two.
I understood their connection.
And I’d helped my friend get his act together. I’d helped him when he’d needed it most.
I suspected that’s why he had asked me.
Because we had a foundation. We had mutual respect.
As I brushed my teeth and listened in the quiet to my thoughts, it occurred to me that I was actually honored that they’d put so much trust in me.
But I wasn’t a saint. I wasn’t just doing a buddy a solid. Hell, there’d be no hardship at all in pleasing a woman like Lily.
She was a stunner.
There was only one little issue. It had been a few months for me, and chances were I was going to be turned on past one hundred on the dial of ten.
But if I fired early I’d blow the whole thing. That’d be a helluva way to ruin my buddy’s gift to the love of his life.
There was only one solution.
As I slid under my covers that night, I pictured kittens. Cute little kittens tussling and playing. Then duckies. Adorable baby chicks swimming to see their mama.
Yup.
If matters got too heated, I’d have a few perfect turn-me-off images.
For now, I made sure I had a solid night’s sleep then a hard-as-hell workout the next morning.
And I took matters into my own hands. Three times.
Then I went to work, zeroing in on my caseload, chatting with clients, talking with producers. Adam and I touched base on the deals I was inking for him with a cable network.
“And I gave my usual closing line,” I said to him on the phone.
“And what’s that?”
“I asked, ‘Is this the best you can do?’”
“And does that work?” he asked.
“Considering the network just came back with a fifty grand increase in this streaming rights deal, I’d say it worked.” I grinned, pleased as hell with my work. I was firing on all cylinders.
“Dude. You are the man,” he said, emphasizing each word.
“I am,” I said.
And when I hung up, I felt that way. I was the man. The man who got stuff done. The man who took care of his clients. The man who looked out for his friends.
And tonight I’d be the man who helped a buddy.
I was very much looking forward to lending a hand. By the time evening rolled around, it was game on, ducks and kittens on deck.
8
Lily
I nearly forgot about my conference.
Except, I didn’t really forget, but all I could think about the next day was the room at the Bellagio that Finn had reserved for us, and what would transpire in it that night.
Before I could go there, I had to pop into one of the lobby bars and meet two of the agents on my panel tomorrow, Josh and Haven.
Tomorrow seemed like it existed in another world. Tomorrow I’d have to be professional Lily, onstage in a ballroom, interviewing two top sports agents on the business of negotiations.
Tonight, I had to slip into a different role, and I was flustered thinking about the evening ahead. I was a few minutes late to my meeting, too, because I’d needed new lingerie. Obviously.
One did not simply get pleasured by two men without new lingerie.
I stopped at Ava’s, a decadent lingerie boutique in the hotel.
Soft music played from the store speakers, and the plush carpet seemed to invite me in as I strolled inside. The scent of lavender drifted into my nose, and my eyes devoured the exquisite displays of underthings.
Lace, satin, silk.
Everything called out to me.
I needed something delicious.
Something