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“Happy Birthday!” my group of girls yells at me as we clink our glasses together. I chug down the champagne much faster than I should, but I’m fine.

It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve had champagne despite the fact that it’s my twenty-first birthday.

We just came from a club and took a quick detour at the casino bar for a glass of champagne before we head to the next club. “Let’s play blackjack,” I suggest, wanting to try everything I can now that it’s legal.

“I want to try the slots,” Cassie says, and a few of the other girls opt for the slots, too.

“I’ll come with you,” my best friend Mia says.

“Meet back here in a half hour?” I suggest, and everyone nods.

Mia and I head toward the first blackjack table with two open chairs we see, and there’s a super hot guy sitting there playing by himself.

“Mind if we join?” I ask the table in general since I don’t really know the etiquette. The man on the other side of the table doesn’t look up from his chips, and the dealer eyes Mia and me.

“IDs please,” the dealer says as we sit, and I reach into my wallet and proudly hand it over as Mia does the same.

“Happy birthday,” she says, and I thank her as I slide the card back into my wallet and toss a hundred-dollar bill onto the table like I know what I’m doing.

“It’s your birthday?” the man on the other side of the table asks.

When I glance up at him, our eyes connect across the small table. My jaw falls open as a beam of heat seems to pass between the two of us, as if our eyes have powered some electrical connection the likes of which this planet has never seen before. The room goes silent and it’s as if we’re the only two people in it, in the casino, in Vegas…in the entire world. It’s surreal, some out of body experience as I feel like I’m looking into my future, like I already know this man even though I’ve never met him before.

He's a little older than me, but it’s hard to tell how much older. His blue eyes light with surprise as they focus on mine, like he feels the same thing I’m feeling, this weird feeling like my life’s about to change.

He runs a hand through his dark hair and then along his jaw peppered with the sexiest scruff I think I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s not quite a beard, but it’s almost a beard that covers a chiseled, strong jawline.

Even just sitting at a blackjack table, he looks like he could command the attention of every single person in this room.

Mia elbows me, pulling me out of my trance, and the volume in the room turns back up as I realize I’m staring.

My cheeks flush as my voice seems to return to me, but I have to clear my throat before any words squeak out. “Yes, it is.”

“Happy birthday,” he says, and he shoots me a smile.

But it’s not just a smile.

It’s absolutely devastating. It’s the kind of smile that burrows into your soul, the kind of smile that makes me want to take him upstairs to my hotel room.

My eyes flick down to his lips.

It’s the kind of smile that makes me dream of what those lips taste like. What they’d feel like on mine, on my body.

Damn.

“Have you ever played blackjack before?” he asks.

I shake my head. “Want to teach me?” I’m flirting, but I can’t help it. How do you not flirt with Hottie McHotFace? It’s my body’s natural response.

He laughs, his lips tipping up into a warm smile, and a tingle runs from my chest all the way down to my toes.

“Sure. Come here,” he says, patting the chair beside him, and I practically fall off my chair to get to him.

The dealer pushes chips over toward Mia first and then toward me in my new seat next to Hottie McCuteGuy. I glance at his hands, and good gravy even they are hot. They’re all strong and lean, like the rest of him, and the sudden image of those hands on my body flashes through my brain.

Welp, I know that’s an image that’ll stay with me a while.

I blow out a breath.

It’s just blackjack, Gabby. Focus on the cards. He’s just being nice. Plus he’s like…older. There’s no way he’d be interested. Slow your roll.

“Put two chips on the circle,” he says, and his voice is all gruff and deep and even that is sexy.

Geez, this dude.

“Two chips?” I ask.

“Oh, man, you really are a newbie. It’s a ten-dollar table, so yeah, two chips equals ten bucks.” He nods toward the little sign that tells us it’s a ten-dollar table, and I nod…and then I watch as he takes a few chips off the top of his pile in the circle.

“Why’d you do that?” I ask.

“I’m not betting a hundred bucks a hand with a total newb playing next to me.”

I giggle. “I know the basics. I’ve played at home with my dad before, just never in a real casino.”

“Prove it.”

The dealer, whose nametag reads Kelly, deals the hand, setting a card each in front of Mia, me, and Hottie McHotStuff, face up, and then she deals one to herself face down.

“What about you?” he asks Mia, and the slightest twinge of jealousy bolts through me that he’s talking to her rather than me.

I brush it off.

He’s just a guy at a table being friendly to the birthday girl.

Scratch that. He’s just a hot guy at a table being friendly to the birthday girl.

“I’ve played a couple times,” she says.

The dealer gives us each another card before placing one face-up on top of her other one that’s face down.

The dealer is showing a seven. I glance at Mia’s cards. She has a ten and an eight, and she waves her hand to stay.

I look down at my own cards. I have a three and a six.

“The object is to beat the dealer, and a nine doesn’t beat a seventeen, assuming she’s got a ten under there. So tap the table if you want another card,” the hot guy tells me.

“I thought the object was to get to twenty-one,” I say, narrowing my eyes at him.

He shakes his head. “You want to get closer to twenty-one than the dealer without going over. If she has a sixteen or less, she has to take another card.”

I tap the table, and she gives me a queen.

“Nineteen,” he says. “Wave your hand if you want to stand at nineteen.”

“What if I want another card?” I ask.

“Then I’m going to another table,” he mutters.

I giggle and wave my hand.

He has a twenty, so he stays, and the dealer flips over a ten, giving her a seventeen, which means we all win.

He holds up a fist, and I bump his with mine.

And then I freaking die right there on the spot as his hand touches mine for the first time. It’s a simple, friendly gesture, but in my semi-champagne-tipsy state, it feels like something else entirely.

My face flames as heat seems to engulf me, and a waitress comes by just then.

“A glass of champagne, please,” I order, and Mia gets one, too.

“Miller Lite.” He throws another poker chip on top of his pile.

“Do I need to do that, too?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Up to you. I don’t know your budget, but when I win, I stack one winning chip on top of the pile.”

I do the same, and Mia does, too. My budget went out the window when I sat next to Hottie McSexyPants.

Yeah, another glass of champagne is a great idea right about now.

We all win another round, and on our third hand, the dealer deals me an Ace. She sets my other card face down. “Why’d she do that?” I whisper.

“She’s teasing you,” he whispers back.

I don’t really know what that means, so I wait my turn. She flips my card over when it gets to me, and sure enough, it’s a jack.

“Twenty-one,” he says, and I let out a little whoop. “Hold your cheer until she shows her cards. If she’s got twenty-one, you tie.”

My brows dip. “What?” I nearly screech. “I might not win with twenty-one?”

He shrugs. “That’s the way the cookie crumbles, babe.”

Babe .

Oh my God.

Did he really just call me babe ?

Hottie McGorgeous just called me babe ?

I die again. Right there on the spot.

The dealer flips her card, and she has a six. She pays me my money with a little extra for the blackjack on top, and she finishes the hand with Mia and the hottie. He wins, she loses, and we go again.

And again and again.

I’ve doubled my money after a half hour, and not only do I still not know this guy’s name, but I’m also supposed to be meeting my friends.

Mia, who has not doubled her money, cashes in her chips. “It’s time to go meet everyone.”

“I think I want to play here a little longer,” I say. It’s my birthday, and I’m winning and having fun laughing and drinking with this sexy stranger at my table.

Maybe I want to get a little crazy tonight. Would that be so bad?

I’m in freaking Vegas. I’m twenty-one now. I want to live a little, and what better way to celebrate my birthday than flirting a little longer with Hottie McHandsome?

“I’ll tell them,” she says.

“Thanks, Mia.” I shoot her a furtive grin on her way by, and she lets out a little laugh.

“Your friend’s name is Mia?” the hot guy asks, and that little pang of jealousy darts through me again. Is he interested in her? “Should I call you Mia’s friend, birthday girl, babe…or something else?”

I laugh. “Birthday girl or babe would be fine, but my name’s Gabby.”

“Nice to meet you, Gabby,” he says, and the way my name rolls off his tongue sends a shiver right down my spine. “I’m Cooper.”

“Nice to meet you, Cooper.” And then, because I’m a huge dork apparently, I stick out my hand for him to shake. He chuckles and grabs it in his, and damn if I don’t feel the launching of a million butterflies flapping way down low in my belly as they ascend all the way into my chest.

“Thanks for teaching me how to play blackjack.”

“My pleasure.” He leans in close. “I can think of a few other things I could teach you.”

My eyes widen as I catch his innuendo, or maybe the champagne is playing tricks on me.

“You know, like roulette or craps,” he amends, and my cheeks flush at the gutter where I find my mind. I keep my eyes down on the table as I feel his gaze on my profile. “Wait a second. Were you thinking I was implying something else?”

I laugh a little nervously. “Baccarat?” I suggest, and he laughs.

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too.” He winks at me, and I giggle. He really is flirting with me. It’s not just my imagination.

I spot the girls across the way as they all stare at Cooper, and he notices them, too.

“Are those your girls?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say.

He waves at them, and they all squeal to my total and complete mortification.

“You want me to give them a show?” he asks.

My brows dip. “What does that even mean?”

He laughs, and before I realize what’s happening, his hand finds the back of my head and he pulls me in until his lips crash down to mine.

A million different sensations hit me all at once as his lips move over mine. His are firm and commanding at the same time as they’re gentle and tender. He smells like beer mixed with some sort of woodsy aftershave, and he intensifies the kiss as he opens his mouth and his tongue brushes mine. It’s not tentative or nervous like the boys who’ve kissed me in the past. No, this is all man. He is one-hundred percent confident in what he’s doing, and I have no issue sitting here allowing him to do it to me for the rest of the night.

Allowing him to do whatever he wants to me for the rest of the night.

I don’t even know him, but I know feelings. I know attraction. This is it.

The room goes silent again as the only thing I hear is the rushing of blood through my body as it seems to come completely alive with his mouth covering mine.

He pulls back, and his eyes are hazy when they focus in on mine again.

“Whoa,” I breathe, and he chuckles. The volume comes on again in the room, and I hear my friends squealing across the way.

He seems wholly unaffected while I’m just glad I’m sitting because my knees would’ve given out after that. He leans in toward me. “I’ve wanted to do that since you first sat down,” he murmurs, and maybe we’re both a little drunk…and maybe that’s the recipe for the kind of twenty-first birthday I’ll never forget.