High Stakes Read Free Page A

irritated,
not warm and tingly all over.
    His eyes zeroed in on her bare left hand,
and he smiled, revealing a flash of white teeth and disarming grin so sexy it
should have come with a warning label. No man had a right to be this handsome.
It simply wasn’t fair to the poor unsuspecting girl seated next to him with no
hope of defending herself when endless hours filled with nothingness stretched
out before them.
    “Your boyfriend must be crazy to let you
travel to Sin City all by your lonesome.” His voice was low and raspy, filled
with sexual innuendo and promise.
    “I, uh…” Spit it out, damn it. “Don’t
have a boyfriend.”
    He licked his full lips as his intense eyes
outlined her face. “Husband, fiancé… lover?” His voice deepened even more as he
uttered the last word, sending thrill bumps skittering across her bare skin.
    “No, no, and…” She drew a shallow gulp of
air into her lungs, but the word still sounded breathless. “No.”
    “Damn, I really need to fly commercial more
often. I had no idea what I was missing out on.” He smiled again as he extended
his hand. “Liam.”
    She hadn’t expected his hands to be
calloused or rough, and they weren’t. He was obviously accustomed to sitting
behind a desk, and that suited her just fine. She loved elegant, refined men,
and he more than filled the bill. “Alisa.”
    He brought her hand to his lips and seemed
in no hurry to tear his mouth away as his eyes remained fixed on hers. He
turned her hand over and she couldn’t chase away the image of his tongue
flitting across her pulse point.
    “Tell me about yourself, Alisa.” He finally
released her hand as he shifted slightly in his seat to face her.
    “Um, well, I’m from Nashville.”
    He smiled. “I suspected as much.”
    Since they were flying out of Nashville, it
was a safe assumption. “How about you? Where are you from?”
    “Home base is San Francisco, but I travel a
lot for business.”
    She should be relieved. San Francisco was a
safe distance from Nashville, definitely too far for a casual fling. “What do
you do?”
    He smirked, as though her inquiry amused
him. “I’m in the hospitality industry.”
    “That’s nice.” She sensed he was a private
person, guarded even, so she didn’t want to delve too deep, but she couldn’t
resist the urge to repeat the question he’d asked earlier. “Since you asked me,
it only seems fair. Wife, fiancée… lover?”
    He chuckled as he plucked an invisible
speck of lint from his tailored dress pants. “No, no, and no.”
    “Hard to believe,” she muttered, treating
herself to the same brazen onceover he’d given her.
    He quirked a dark eyebrow while giving her
a lopsided grin. “I am married…” He watched her expression carefully. “To my
career. Not much room in my life for anything else, I’m afraid.”
    “Oh, I see.” That was fair warning if ever
she’d heard it. Not that she needed to be put on notice. They lived in
different states, and she was far too busy with her new business venture to
even consider acting on the undeniable attraction between them, no matter how
tempting indulging in one night of careless fun might be. But according to her
father’s terms, anything that could land her in the tabloids was off-limits. Of
course, they wouldn’t have to worry about that if they were tucked away in a
private hotel suite. She cursed her errant thoughts. She’d never engaged in a
meaningless one-night stand, and this wasn’t the time to start, not when her
entire future was still up for grabs.
    Her father made it clear: one slip up and
he wouldn’t hesitate to pull the plug on her financing. He called it tough
love. She called him a control freak, and they agreed to disagree.
    “So, what do you do, Alisa?” The way he
said her name felt like a caress drifting across her skin, and she could
imagine her name on his lips while he was lost in an intimate moment.
    She crossed her legs as she cursed her
overactive