"That isn't true. He had me. He had a Mom and two sisters he loved. But he saw no other future," I defended lamely. "And he promised me he took care of his girls."

"He lied."

My back went straight. "You don't know him."

"He lied."

"You don't know that," I snapped.

His back came away from the headboard and his torso twisted to face me. "Woman, he sold cunt. You value your cunt?"

I closed my eyes and looked away, giving him his answer.

"Right," he whispered.

I opened my eyes, looked at him and whispered back, "He gave a shit about me."

"He... did... not," Walker enunciated every word clearly. "The only reason he didn't pimp you is because he knew you wouldn't be pimped. He got the barest fuckin' inklin' he could sell you, he'd have done it. Now, I got a dick and I assume he had a dick so, seein' as he and I have that in common, I'll tell you, your pussy was my pussy I would not be sellin' pussy, not that I'd do that shit anyway. I would not be sellin' dope and I wouldn't do that shit either. What I would do is make fuckin' coffee drinks if it meant you could wear your heels and feel good about sleepin' in my bed. He didn't do that. This means he did not give one shit about you."

He stared into my eyes and I let him. Then I looked back at the game. Then I experienced a miracle and that miracle was the fact that I didn't get crushed under the weight of the full understanding I never, ever let myself comprehend that Ronnie Rodriguez was a pimp, a dealer, a loser, selfish, morally void and just plain stupid. He may have started out loving me but the minute he decided to piss his future away when he fucked up in Indiana, he stopped loving me or anyone and I was blind, in love and wanted so badly to belong to something, anything, anyone, I never let him go.

"I'm an idiot," I whispered to the game.

"You're human," Walker said to me, voice firm and I looked back at him to see he was reclined again against the headboard.

I tipped my head to the side. "So, no sympathy for Ronnie for making fucked up decisions, but me, I'm just human?"

"You loved him and didn't want to give up on him. That is not wrong. He didn't love you and didn't give a shit about anyone but himself. That is wrong."

I shook my head. "That doesn't jive, Ty."

"Oh yeah. It does," he returned. "Think I explained I have a dick. Think I told you what I'd do if your pussy was mine. I was fuckin' up and you weren't givin' up on me, I hope to Christ I'd be the type of man who'd pull my head outta my ass and earn that devotion. Makes him worse, he didn't and left you to the wolves. But you givin' that devotion, that isn't wrong."

"It was stupid."

"So, you know when the limit's up on love?" he asked and I felt my chest depress as the profound weight of his question hit me.

"No," I whispered.

"Right. No. No one does. Not you. Not me. No one. You loved him, you believed in him, far's you were concerned, he didn't take those hits, the day after, he coulda got his head outta his ass and done right by you. You held onto that belief. Nothin' wrong with that except the fact that he never manned up and that's on him not on you."

It was my turn to stare at him and I did this trying to come to terms with the fact that he was sage.

Then I told him. "I think I'm done sharing."

To that, he muttered, "I bet."

And to that, I replied, "Your turn."

He jerked up his chin and then stated immediately, "I'm thirty-six. Never been married. I'm a licensed automotive mechanic... or I was. My Dad's alive, a drunk and an asshole. My Mom's alive and a bitch 'cause her husband's a drunk. Or maybe he's a drunk because she's a bitch. Whatever, they define dysfunction and I been livin' with that shit since I had memories. My Dad's parents hated my Mom and died doin' it. They had reason. My Mom's parents returned the favor with my Dad but their reasons, in the beginning, were different and total bullshit. They're alive and I had not one thing to do with them when I was a kid, their choice, and not when I grew up either and that choice was mine. I got a younger brother who's a pain in everyone's ass. He's thirty-three and been married four times, got five kids and my guess, he marries women and makes babies 'cause he gets off on bein' a pain in the ass and wants to spread that shit around far's he can. Good news is, he moved to Los Angeles and that proved far enough away, his talent with being a pain in the ass didn't reach. I grew up in Carnal, Colorado and I just got done doin' a nickel for a crime I didn't commit in a state I never stepped foot in until I was extradited there to stand trial."

Then he stopped talking.

I waited.

He shared no more.

Then I asked, "That's it?"

"That's it."

"I shared more than you," I pointed out.

"How you figure that?"

"Okay, I didn't share more but mine was more personal and included me coming to terms with something I've been avoiding coming to terms with for nearly twenty years. Those terms are uneasy terms and I'm still processing but still. You shared a lot and some of it was big, as in way big, but there was no detail and hence that's not it."

"Said give and take, didn't say it would be equal. You picked, I picked. That's fair."

It was not.

And because it wasn't, I asked, "You didn't commit the crime you served time for?"

"Nope."

"What happened?"

His eyes moved directly to the game.

"Ty," I called and his eyes came back to me. "What happened? How could you ?"

"What'd I say?" he cut me off to ask.

"What?"

"What'd I say?" he repeated.

"About what?"

He held my eyes. Then, low and more rumbling than normal, he stated, "That's it."

And that, obviously, was it.

"Next time we play this game, you get to go first," I declared and then watched with intense fascination as his lips curved up the minutest bit.

Then they uncurved and he muttered, "That's fair too."

Then his head turned to the TV.

I got off the bed and went to the champagne.

Ty Walker's eyes moved from the TV to Lexie.

She was curled on her side facing him, hands under her cheek, knees tucked nearly to her middle, still wearing her classy but sexy pink dress but she'd finally taken off the classy but sexy shoes. Her eyes were closed. She was out.

He studied her thinking she was probably the only woman he'd ever known in his vast experience of women who could pull off classy and sexy while being married by Liberace.

Actually, truth of it was, she was the only woman he'd ever known who could pull off classy and sexy at all.

Then he studied her thinking that Ronnie Rodriguez was one serious dumb fuck and this was not evidenced by the fact that he lost the sweet life God saw fit to grant him through providing him with immense talent on a basketball court. But instead, it was evidenced by the fact that the classy, sexy pussy lying asleep at his side in a king-size bed in Vegas was lying asleep at his side in a king-size bed in Vegas and not curled into a living, breathing Ronnie Rodriguez who didn't spend every ounce of energy earning the privilege of having the classy, sexy pussy right then lying asleep at Ty Walker's side.

On that thought, he moved off the bed, went to the table and grabbed the tray on which Lexie had stacked their used dishes. While walking to the door, something caught his attention, his head turned; he looked into the bathroom and stopped.

Her bouquet was in the sink resting in a couple inches of water.

Seeing it, he balanced the tray on one hand, felt his back pocket, finding the keycard still there, he walked out the door. He set the tray on the floor by the door and scanned the hall. Then he walked down it. At the end, he looked right and saw it on a narrow table between the elevators. He went to the vase with the fake flowers on top of the table, yanked out the flowers, put them on the table and walked back to their room, putting out the do not disturb sign.

In the bathroom, he pulled the bouquet out of the sink, let out the water, used a glass to fill the vase and then shoved the stems in it.

Then he walked out of the bathroom, around the bed and set the flowers on her nightstand.

Then he undressed and didn't blast the AC like he wanted to considering she was not covered. Then he slid between the sheets and turned out the light.

Chapter Four.

Total Goof. Total Cute.

Ty The next morning, Walker slid the keycard into the slot, waited for the green light, slid it out and walked into their hotel room. He hit the bedroom area and saw the maids had been through, bed made, vacuum marks on the floor.

No Lexie. But a note on his pillow. The maids likely made the bed and placed it back where Lexie put it.

He tossed the sweaty towel he was carrying on the bed, walked backwards, opened up the closet, crouched to the safe, opened it and scanned it.

All good.

He closed it and walked back into the bedroom to the note.

He picked it up and read it.

Hubby, At the pool. If I don't return by nightfall, it's your marital duty to rescue me. If it goes that late, this means I've passed out on a lounge chair in Vegas in summer so my advice is to stock up on aloe vera before you launch the rescue effort.

Lexie Walker stared at the note thinking that Alexa Berry...

Strike that.

Alexa Walker was fucking funny.

Then he stood there staring at the note thinking how much he liked the name Alexa Walker.

Then he stood there staring at the salutation of the note and thinking the bitch was a goof but also thinking he liked that.

Then he stood there staring at the handwriting of the note and memorizing her scrawl which was not girlie or precise but spiky, the cursive words often disconnected and they had no slant, she didn't lean this way or that, she sat comfortably in the middle.

Then he folded the note and dropped it to the bed. Twenty minutes later, having showered away the sweat from his workout, shaved, dressed in jeans, a white tee and his boots, he went to the bags on the desk, grabbed his new shades and then he went to the note on the bed and shoved it in his back pocket. Then he grabbed the keycard.

Then he went to the pool.

His first thought after hitting the late morning Vegas sun was that he did not want to be in the hot as fuck late morning Vegas sun. Five seconds later, halfway through a scan of the bodies around the pool, he forgot about the hot as fuck late morning Vegas sun because his shades had pinpointed his wife.

String bikini the color of raspberries. Hair still in that mass of thick, wild curls but bunched up at the top back of her head, long locks having escaped and trailing down her neck. Skin glistening with suntan oil. Mostly exposed body better than he expected and he'd expected her body to be pretty fucking great. She had her shades on and tipped down to a magazine spread in her hands, her knees bent, soles of her feet in the lounge, towel draped over the back.

He moved toward her and tagged Bag of Bones at her ten o'clock making Walker wonder if he'd been wrong about the guy. He'd suspected closet gay. Since the fucker had chosen to trail Lexie and not Walker, maybe not.

She sensed him when he was twenty feet away, her head came up and he knew she knew Bag of Bones was there because, the second her shades hit him, her gorgeous face split into a blinding smile.

She flipped her magazine closed and tossed it to a table beside her that held a rapidly melting iced coffee drink.

Five feet away, she called, "Hey, hubby."

There it was again. Fucking goofy but the way she did it, he had to admit, also fucking cute.

He jerked his chin up and the instant he arrived at her side, her hand shot out, closing around his and tugging. He didn't resist her pulling him down to sit on the side of her lounger as she shifted her hips and legs so her bottom half was resting at an S on its side in order to give him room and she curled her thighs around the back of his hips.

"Woke up alone. Where'd you go?" she asked, her hand still in his, her head tipped back to look up at him and he was glad he was wearing sunglasses because, at her question, his eyes moved from her tits to her face and he didn't think she noticed.

"Workout."

"Dude," she said low, her mouth still curved up at the ends.

Dude. Yeah, total goof.

"Dude?" he prompted when she said no more.

"We're in Vegas," she stated.

"Yeah," he agreed.

"Is it legal to work out in Vegas?" she asked, her head tipping, the bunch of hair at the back of it shifting with the movement.