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 f**king 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 f**k late morning Vegas sun. Five seconds later, halfway through a scan of the bodies around the pool, he forgot about the hot as f**k 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 f**king 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 g*y. Since the f**ker 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 f**king 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 h*ps 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.

“They got a gym so I’m guessin’… yeah.”

This got him another bright smile then her shades did a head to lap and back again before she observed, “You aren’t in swim trunks.”

“Lexie, I’m half black. My tan is permanent. I don’t need to work on it.”

“Right,” she muttered, still grinning.

It was then he cast his mind back to try to pull up Ronnie Rodriguez. Rodriguez had f**ked himself the middle of his sophomore year but saw a shitload of playing time the season and a half before he did it. Therefore Walker could pull him up but not much except the fact the brother was lean, tall and black. How he got the last name Rodriguez, Walker didn’t know. Then again, Shift had the last name Martinez and he, too, was black. Maybe it was some Texas thing.

What Walker did know was that a lot of white bitches didn’t mind playing with black but they sure as f**k didn’t take it home to Daddy and black was black even if it was full, half or a nuance.

He also knew Lexie didn’t have a Daddy but if she did, she’d take black home and, he figured, with her sass, Daddy didn’t like it, she’d tell him to go f**k himself.

On this thought, he asked, “Had breakfast?” and she shook her head.

He turned his and saw the outside restaurant at the side of the pool.

Then he looked back at her. “I’m hungry.”

“Me too,” she agreed, let go of his hand and moved instantly.