She shook her head. “No, but I’ve been wanting to go ever since it opened a few years ago. I keep meaning to go, especially considering how much I love gangster movies.”

He nudged her with his elbow. “Let’s go.”

She nudged him in return. “You’re holding out on me tonight. The zip line, the Mob Museum. Everything’s above the belt,” she said, and though those all distinctly felt like the elements of a date, they were also things you’d do with a friend. She wasn’t crossing lines. She wasn’t breaking promises. This was good, old-fashioned hanging out with someone whose company she enjoyed.

Plain and simple.

* * *

The answer was yes.

He was absolutely holding out on her. He wanted her, but he wanted her to see that they could have amazing sex and an amazing time. They wandered through the crowds, soaking in the neon and lights, the exuberance of the summertime atmosphere, and not once did he feel a lick of envy for the twenty-somethings bobbing around with long, tall plastic glasses full of liquor in their hands. Nope, he was a happy son-of-a-bitch as they walked through old-time Vegas, then up the steps of the museum that documented the history of the mob.

“We’re closing in thirty minutes,” the ticket taker said in a monotone at the entrance.

“We’ll be speedy,” Colin said, and they walked inside the stone building, and strolled first through exhibits on famous “made men,” both in the mob and popular culture, perusing photos of some of the most notorious Mafiosi over the last one hundred years, like John Gotti. Next, they checked out an installation of movie posters.

“Is there anything better than a mob movie?” he asked, and Elle nodded in perfect agreement.

“Love them. Casino. Epic. The Departed. Fantastic. Road to Perdition. Chilling.”

“Eight Men Out. Proof that the mob had its hands in everything. Even fixing the World Series.”

“Everything,” she said, enunciating each syllable as she echoed his sentiment. They stopped at a huge framed poster of Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro, and Joe Pesci. She pointed. “Goodfellas. Best mob movie ever.”

“Best closing lines ever, too,” he added, and they turned to each other, speaking in unison. “I’m an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.”

He raised his hand and they knocked fists.

“Isn’t it amazing,” she began, “how being a regular Joe was Ray Liotta’s worst nightmare? He dreaded not being a gangster, and somehow you felt for him when it happened. You sympathized with his plight as a regular schnook,” she said, her voice rising in excitement.

He gestured to the poster for The Godfather. “I don’t even know what it is about the mob. They do horrible things and live a life of crime, and yet sometimes we root for them in movies. It makes no logical sense.”

“Look!”

She grabbed his arm and tugged him to a series of sepia-tinted photographs from Vegas through the years, highlighting famous moments in the city’s history and the role of the mob in each milestone.

“It’s just crazy to think how much of this town was built on crime,” she said in awe, as they stared at a photo of the Flamingo Hotel when it opened in 1946. “‘Operated by noted mobster Bugsey Siegel,’” she said, reading the plaque.

He tapped the wall next to an image of The Sands Casino in the 60s, a home base for Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack that was owned by a New York mob man. “And it spread far and wide. Some of the biggest hotels in the city were owned and operated by this wild combination of Mormon businessmen and the mob, so they could have a legitimate appearance on the outside, and money laundering and street muscle on the inside.”

“The whole notion that there is the underbelly of crime everywhere, all around us, blows my mind,” she said, pressing her fingertips to her forehead and miming an explosion.

Colin nodded in agreement. “Handouts, corrupt cops, men on the take, informants, and the guys in suits circulating around town every day, weaving in and out of casinos. Looking like me, or like one of my brothers, or just anybody.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Is this your way of telling me you’re in the mob?”

He affected a wise guy smirk. “Doll face, it’s time you knew the truth. You’re sleeping with a made man. You want to know who I really am? I’ll tell you, sweet cheeks.” He pointed to an interactive screen on the far wall that read “Mob Nickname Generator.”

“Oooh, I’m finally gonna learn my honey baby’s real name.” She rubbed her palms together as they reached the screen.

He tapped it, and they chuckled at the rubric the screen asked them to fill in: name your racket, with options like money laundering, casino skimming, and blackmail; what’s your role, such as capo, soldier, business associate, corrupt judge; and what is your mob era, with choices like prohibition, the swinging 60s, and the modern era.

Elle went first, entering her picks, then reading her status report. “Ooh, I’m a mob girlfriend. Men buy me things and who am I to turn them down? They parade me around town and take me to dinner, and my name is ‘Elle ‘Moneybags’ Mariano.’” She snorted. “Ha. I wish.”

“My turn,” Colin said, and together they decided he’d be a corrupt politician, and he read the result aloud. “I just take what’s offered to me, okay? Nothin’ wrong with that. The mob slips me a few things now and then—some cash, a free meal, a bottle of my favorite bootlegged whiskey. What’s the big deal? I’m Colin ‘Scotty’ Sloan.”

She dragged her nails through his hair. “Colin Scotty Sloan, you are one handsome fella,” she said, in an over-the-top floozy accent. It was jokey, but it still turned him on. Or maybe it was just that her proximity was making an instant impression on certain parts of his anatomy. Because that part was standing at attention now, announcing its intention to have her, and to have her soon.

“I’m gonna take you out for that fancy meal you deserve, sweet thing,” he said, snaking his hand down her back and squeezing her ass. “Show you off as mine.”

“Oh, I like that, Scotty Sloan. I like it very much.” She slid her body close to his, rubbing her sexy frame against him, making contact with his erection. She arched an eyebrow and gazed south. “Seems you like the idea, too, don’t you?” She lowered her voice to a sexy purr, dropping the mob girlfriend accent and returning to pure, dirty Elle.

“You think so? What makes you say that?” he asked, egging her on.

She pressed harder against his dick and started circling her hips. No one was in this exhibit room but them, with the eyes of generations of made men watching. “This,” she said in his ear, then dropped her hand to his jeans, grabbing him through the denim as she palmed the outline of his cock. He groaned from her touch. “This fantastic hard-on makes me say you like the idea of parading me around town.”

He jerked her even closer. “No, this hard-on says I like doing much more than parading you around, Elle Moneybags Mariano.” He grabbed her hand, walked her to the exit sign, pressed hard on the heavy door below it, and entered a stairwell.

Ah, stairwells. The perfect locations for a little something.

Her eyes blazed with mischief as he spun her around and backed her against the wall. “Like I said, I’ll do more than parade you around. Since that’s what you want,” he said, cupping her face with his hands and gazing at her. He drank in her absolute fucking beauty with his eyes, savoring the way she looked. The lusty expression, the parted lips, the racing breath.

She was so sexual, so raw in her needs, and he loved it. Loved it so damn much. He lifted his thumb to her mouth, brushing it against her lips. “Do you realize I’ve never gone down on you?” he asked. “What the fuck is up with that?”

“I know,” she said, breathily. “I want it so badly.”