Page 75 of All Bets Are Off

My head buzzes with endorphins from the praise, and as I tear my lips from his, I hold up a finger in front of him. “Wait right here.”

I slip off the bed and out of the bedroom. Across the hotel suite, I find his wallet and flip it open, praying that this man has enough of an ego that he carries around more than one condom. He does. I pluck the foil wrapper from his wallet and waltz back into the bedroom, brandishing it between my index and middle finger with a smirk.

“Get that ass back over here,” Jameson orders, patting his hips. He’s leaning back against the headboard now, waiting patiently for my return, and somehow his boxers have evaporated into thin air in the seconds I’ve been gone from the room.

Parading back over to the bed with a strut in my step, I tear open the foil packet and slide the condom over him while he watches, his hips lifting from the bed in anticipation. I resume my position from before, resting on my knees either side of his body. Biting my lip in concentration, I rise and guide him inside of me. I hum a sigh of satisfaction, embracing that feeling of him once more. So full. So . . . I sigh contentedly. Pure heaven.

I glance up at him and he gives me an encouraging nod. I press one hand to the headboard behind him, the other on his shoulder, and I put every damn Pilates class I’ve ever attended to good use. It’s like an art, the performance I pull off. I grind back and forth around his dick, rotate my hips in rhythmic circles, even switch from sitting on my knees up onto my feet at one point to take him even deeper. My breasts bounce as I move and he grabs them, pulls my hair, squeezes my ass, anything he can get his hands on.

“Fuck, I’d let you steal my watch now for sure,” he hisses, wrapping a hand around my back and pulling my body flush against his. “I’d let you steal everything I own, Evelyn.”

I work him close to the edge, then get myself there, too, rubbing frantically at my swollen clit as my legs begin to tire. I throw my head back, eyes squeezed shut. I bounce faster, harder. Touch myself more desperately. Embrace Jameson’s hot mouth against the soft skin of my neck.

And then it rips through me, that second eruption of pleasure, and I feel my weight collapse against him as a gasp tears from my throat.

Jameson seizes control. Both arms wrapped tightly around my back and holding me close, he thrusts hard and purposefully from beneath me, until he’s panting, breathless, and filling the hotel suite with the sound of his desperate groans.

We’ve worked up such a sweat. Our skin is clammy, flushed from exertion, and my heart pounds at an alarming rate. I cup Jameson’s face in my hands and force him to look at me as he recovers.

“I don’t often come twice in ten minutes. In fact, never,” I say. “Honestly, I feel a little delirious. Like I’m lightheaded and seeing stars.”

“You and me both, baby girl.” Jameson blows out a long breath, then laughs, all gorgeous and husky, the laugh of a man who’s just gone for two rounds with a woman ten years younger than him. “I’m done making work calls. Wherever you go for the rest of the day, I’m following you.”

“Then freshen up,” I say, planting a kiss on his forehead and running my hand playfully through his damp hair, “because we have a bachelorette party we need to get back to.”

31

Adelaide

I start to believe, despite the rocky start with Liam this morning and my conflicted feelings for Connor, that perhaps today might just turn out okay.

We’ve all spent a few hours together, grabbing a bite to eat and gambling some more in the casino without any drama. Evie temporarily disappeared, but returned shortly after with Jameson by her side, her hand defiantly interlocked with his. It’s nice to finally have everyone together, all the guys and us girls—except Melissa, of course. We’ve plowed through drinks at an alarming speed, collectively lost far too much money, and cracked one too many jokes at Hailey and Theo’s expense.

At least I have my answers with that. I’d have hated for the two of them to sneak around behind my back, thinking they couldn’t trust me to be cool with it. We’re all adults here, and I think Hailey could do with someone like Theo in her life. He’s extroverted and confident, her complete polar opposite, and I’m sure he has a fighting chance of pulling her out of her shell. They don’t leave each other’s side all afternoon, but they also don’t touch each other that much and I wonder if they’re intentionally holding back on the PDA. Although I am cool with it, I still think it’ll be weird to ever watch them kiss. It’s why I shielded my eyes back at the sign this morning. Maybe one day . . . but that day is not today.

I’ve been refraining on the PDA front, too. Navigating Liam is proving challenging, because I don’t want him to suspect that anything has changed, but I just can’t fake it anymore. Every time he rests his hand on my thigh, I find a way to shake it off. Every time he puts an arm around me, I find a reason to walk away. Every time he tries to look me in the eye, I look at absolutely anything else but him. But I also remain calm and complacent, close by his side, engaged in his conversation. He won’t have forgotten about the show us girls are attending later, but if we stay surrounded by the others, he’ll have no choice but to suck up his disapproval. He won’t lose his temper with an audience.

Except he did . . . Yesterday at the pool party.

So maybe today might not turn out okay, after all. There’s still every possibility Liam may blow up again, because his perfect façade is beginning to crack.

Connor has permanently hovered nearby. Wherever I go, he is no more than five feet away from me, observing my interactions with Liam. I try my best not to make too much eye contact with him, but I also know it’ll look suspicious if I avoid him entirely, so it’s a balancing act. It’s so difficult to act indifferent around him when I feel anything but. No one knows about the secret conversations we’ve shared over the weekend. No one knows that last night Connor’s lips were locked with mine.

“It’s High Roller time!” Hailey announces, brandishing her crumpled, torn copy of her itinerary. “Drink up and let’s go.”

Happy hour on an observation wheel overlooking the strip is definitely something the men are on board with, because it involves copious amounts of alcohol. We get the last of our drinks down our throats, close out our bets, and head out of the Cosmopolitan’s casino onto Las Vegas Boulevard. We can see the LINQ High Roller from here, but like everything in Vegas, the distance is grossly deceiving. It becomes a twenty-minute walk under the blistering, dry heat of the Nevada sun, and my feet are not happy in these heels. The only saving grace is that it’s nice, as a united group, to walk the strip together for the first time all weekend.

The Bellagio fountains sing and dance as we pass. Club representatives offer us free guest list entry for various clubs later. A drunk woman waves her Fat Tuesday yardstick cocktail at us with cheers of delight before her husband sheepishly whisks her away, even though I was fully willing to welcome her into my bachelorette party. Anything goes on the Vegas strip. It’s like Disney for adults, a place where everyone is happy.

More than five hundred feet high, all modern and white steel and glass, the High Roller towers over the very end of the LINQ Promenade. You really have to focus to notice its slow rotation, and I think of how it looked last night in the dark, all twinkling neon lights, as Connor and I flew overhead in the helicopter.

Thanks to Hailey’s incessant need to be organized in advance, us girls already have our tickets. The guys purchase theirs at the counter, and together we all head through the security check and out onto the loading platform. The giant pods slowly pass us by as people are loaded on and off.

“It’s quiet today, so you guys can take a cabin to yourselves,” one of the attendants informs us, then grins. “Y’all ready to get drunk? Because you’ll be surprised how many drinks you can get through in thirty minutes. Just don’t make me pick any of you up off the floor when you come stumbling off at the end!”

We all share a laugh as we wait, everyone in good spirits. Eventually it’s our turn to step into one of the pods, and a bartender joins us, wheeling on a portable bar cart with her. The doors seal shut and the pod smoothly begins to rise.

“I’m Trina!” the bartender tells us as she sets out a row of plastic cups. “I’ll be spending the next thirty minutes with you guys, serving you whatever you want and as many as you want. But first, let me see those IDs!” Once satisfied we are all over twenty-one, Trina starts pouring out nine identical cocktails with a cheeky grin. “No allergies in the group? Everyone good with pineapple? If so, let me get you all started with a favorite drink of mine.” She passes out the drinks, which are sunset orange in color, and then points to a small speaker on the edge of the bar cart. “Do we have a music preference?”