Her High-Stakes Playboy. Kristin Hardy

touch. But just when he had her shuddering, crying out mindlessly, just when she could feel the climax looming, he moved away.

      “Don’t stop,” she cried raggedly, the pressure of the unrealized orgasm pounding through her.

      “I’m not. I’m just changing gears.” Breathing hard, Del slid off to stand beside the high bed. She felt a little thrill as he pulled her to the edge, stepping close enough to stretch her legs up the length of his torso, her ankles hooked over his shoulders. Stiff and hard, his cock jerked just a little with arousal as he sheathed it. Then he took the head of it and slid it into the slick cleft between her legs, running it up and down a few times, each brush of the smooth skin against her engorged clitoris making her gasp.

      “Oh, like that,” she rasped, but he shook his head.

      “I think you’re resourceful enough to do it for yourself,” he murmured and in that instant pumped his hips to slide into her up to the root.

      Thick, hard, solid, it dragged a cry from her. Moving against him, she savored every bit of friction as his cock slid in and out, in and out. She trembled on the edge of orgasm.

      But she didn’t quite go over. It was taunting to feel so much, to have his hands sliding up and down her legs and still have her desire remain unslaked.

      She had to do something or she’d go mad. She needed hands on her breasts, needed something to ease the throb. One hand crept closer to the vee between her legs. When her finger slid into the warm wetness, when she felt the slide of it over the hard knob of her clitoris, she gasped.

      “Oh, yeah, touch yourself,” Del said softly, and Gwen swore he got harder. “Show me what you like.” He caught her ankles and moved them apart a little, watching her avidly, watching himself move in and out of her.

      Any vestige of self-consciousness was gone. Gwen circled her finger over her clit, each touch tightening the tension that strung her taut, each touch in time with the hard, swift strokes of his cock. She was almost delirious with the sensation that battered her from all directions. Close to the edge, she was so close she didn’t think but raised her free hand to her breast, brushing the tender skin, squeezing the nipple.

      “Oh, man,” Del cried out raggedly, even as the bolt of sensation flung her over the edge to orgasm. It was hard, jolting, tearing staccato cries from her as the pleasure battered her over and over again. And even as she was still shuddering with pleasure, he groaned and spilled himself.

      SOFTNESS. WARMTH. DEL REDMOND woke to find his face pressed against a fragrant spill of hair, his arms full of silky, curvy woman. It wasn’t an experience he’d had very much of since his divorce two years before. Or very much the year or so before his divorce, come to think of it. He liked it, the way Nina fit in his arms, spooned against him. He liked it a lot.

      As to the night before, well, it had been mind-blowing, pure and simple. The way she’d touched him, the way she’d moved, had brought him astonishing release. The two of them might not know each other from Adam outside of bed, but in it they were incredibly compatible.

      Of course, he was in Vegas to work, not to have a fling with a woman. Then again, so long as he got the job done, who was to care? And this wasn’t just any woman. This was a woman who attracted him, who aroused him.

      Who intrigued him.

      A low whine had him glancing at the nightstand to see his muted cell phone flashing. Recognizing the number, he gave a quiet curse and slipped his arm out from under Nina. She rolled over with a sleepy murmur, dragging the covers with her.

      Del rose and headed to the bathroom. “Redmond here,” he said, closing the door and sitting down on the edge of the tub.

      “It’s ten-thirty in the morning. Where’s your copy, Redmond?”

      “Morning, Perry, how are you?” Del could picture Ed Perry, the Globe’s comfortably paunchy sports editor, his balding head counterbalanced by a neat Vandyke.

      “How am I? Not nearly as good as you, I’m sure. So where’s my column on the poker life, champ? What are you doing—drinking, chasing after women?”

      Del glanced uneasily at the door. “I wrote a story yesterday. I’ll get it filed this morning.”

      “You know, I send you to Vegas, plum assignment. This is not what I expect in thanks.”

      “Hey, this was your bright idea, not mine.” Walking to the counter, Del pulled his electric shaver out of his leather toilet kit.

      “Who was the one bitching about another year covering the All-Star game?”

      “Me,” Del admitted.

      “Is that a razor I hear? Are you shaving?” Perry demanded. “You really have spent the day in bed.”

      “You’re the one who’s always telling me to multitask,” Del reminded him. “I’m not a gambler, Perry. The last time I was in Vegas was when I played here in college.”

      “Not a gambler, huh?” the editor grunted. “So how was it again you fleeced me for forty bucks in last week’s poker game?”

      Del moved the razor in circles over one cheek, then the other. “Look, a friendly poker game with the guys to drink beer and shoot the shit is one thing. Out here you’re talking hard core. These people are up all night. Everything I own reeks of cigarette smoke.” He ran the razor along his jaw.

      “Switch that thing the hell off, will you? It’s buzzing in my ear like a mosquito.”

      “Bitch, bitch, bitch.”

      “Me? What about you? Anyway, you were getting stale. I figured something different would shake you up.”

      Del snorted. “Hardly. You just wanted to distract me from the newsroom job.”

      “Newsroom job?” Perry repeated innocently.

      “Don’t give me that. You know I want to apply for that opening in the metro section.”

      Perry sighed. “Del, you’ve got a good gig here in sports. Why do you want to gum up the works going after an entry-level reporter’s job?”

      “You just don’t want to have to break in a new writer.”