Dictatorship of the Dress (9780698168305)

by Topper, Jessica

  WHERE LOYALTY LIES

  The gift shop in the hotel was closed, but I struck gold at the drugstore down on East Chestnut. As I reached into my pocket for money to pay, my hand hit my Bluetooth and, as if on cue, my phone began to blare.

  Tim and his great timing. Although I had promised in my last text I’d talk to him later. Later had to be short, and it had to be now. Popping the hands-free piece in so I could pay and hurry back to Laney, I answered it.

  “Dude. You are missing wall-to-wall pussy here!” he said in greeting. I could hear pounding club music and the clinking of glasses in the background. “Not to be believed! You’re such a lame-ass. Why aren’t you here by now? No excuses!”

  “It’s kind of a long story, best shared over a beer.” I turned my collar up and pushed against the wind whipping up from the lake.

  “What? I can’t hear you, I’m drowning in pussy!” Tim bellowed. “I just wanted to tell you, you have the coolest freaking boss ever! He totally hooked us up at the Palomino! Limo ride, VIP line passes, premium bottles, and the best seats in the house! Free floor dances, too.”

  “Which boss: Butler or Bidwell?” I pushed through the revolving doors of the Drake and stepped back into the hushed warmth of the lobby.

  It had to be Butler, I reasoned. Bidwell would be sending nothing short of a noose for me, after my phone call with Sloane.

  “The one who doesn’t have a daughter you’re boinking,” he quipped.

  “Oh. That’s Butler.” I paused, but didn’t correct him. Like I said. Long story.

  “Did you show him the itinerary? How’d he know we were going to hit the Palomino?”

  “Yeah, I gave him a copy. He said he wanted to live vicariously through us for the week.” Warren was my only groomsman who, ironically, couldn’t get off work to go.

  I pushed the up button on the elevator and smiled politely at an elderly couple, dressed in their theater best, who stepped off when the doors opened. Tim continued to drone on about the abundance of nameless women shaking their nakedness in his face in celebration of the almighty dollar.

  “Did you know there’s a law here in Vegas that they can’t serve alcohol in the all-nude places? Only the topless places can, except for the Palomino. Best of both worlds! It’s nudie, with a full bar! God bless the grandfather laws in the U. S. of A.!”

  Leave it to Tim to wax patriotic about pussy.

  “Listen . . . and tell the guys. No posts on the social networks or anything. If Sloane—or her father—gets word I’m somewhere else . . .” I was on our floor and literally counting the doors that would lead me back to Laney.

  “Dude.” Tim was all of a sudden as serious as the war veteran he was. “I will always have your back. No questions asked. You know that. But you should call your boss and thank him.”

  “I will eventually,” I said, giving the hotel key card one smooth pass through the lock and swinging open the door of the darkened room. “I’m a little preoccupied right now.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Tim laughed. “What’s her name?”

  “That’s classified, Sarge.”

  Looking up from the door, I spied Laney standing in the bathroom doorway. The lone light from the bathroom silhouetted her form exquisitely. She had her hip cocked and one arm languidly over her head, leaning on the doorjamb. Even in the dim lighting, I could see her long, bare legs peeking out from beneath the short robe she was wearing.

  Tim had no idea what VIP treatment was.

  “A one-woman private show, huh? You lucky bastard!”

  I ended the call and tossed the phone down on the nightstand, along with my all-important purchase.

  “Doing a little feng shui in here?” I asked, noticing a chair in the path.

  “Hit that light behind you,” she said huskily, “and have a seat.”

  I did what I was told, the sconce casting a warm light over her path as she sashayed toward me.

  “Straight from Sin City,” she announced, “live on our stage for one night only . . . Miss Laney Hudson!”

  Smiling and shaking my head, I raised my brows and leaned back to appreciate the view as she swiftly bared the robe off her shoulders and dropped it to the ground.

  Good God. She was perfect.

  And she was wearing my tie. Along with little else.

  Strutting those last couple of feet toward the chair, she straddled my lap and draped her arms over my shoulders. “Long day at the office,” she said breathily. She pulled the clips slowly from her updo and swung her hair to its full length. “I can’t wait to unwind . . . all over you.”

  “Hard work, huh?” I gulped.

  “So hard.”

  “Must be all those PowerPoint presentations,” I quipped, remembering her comment about strippers on board the airplane.

  With my thumb and index finger, I lightly flicked my tie hanging in the hollow between her breasts and trailed my pinky down along the inside curve of her barely-there bra.

  She smiled and leaned toward me, opening her legs even wider across mine as she murmured, “You know it. Can you help a girl out with her spreadsheets?”

  Oh, man, I was in danger of blowing a wad over computer geek dirty talk. She was good. “You are driving me absolutely wild. You know that, right?” I told her.

  “Really? And I haven’t even mentioned my flowcharts yet,” she said with a wink.

  I shook my head and groaned and ran my fingertips along the interiors of her thighs until she quivered.

  “Who’s the wild one now?” she asked in a husky whisper.

  It was a straight shot from the chair to the bathroom, and the huge vanity mirror in there was angled perfectly over her bare shoulder to give me a view of what I was missing from the back. Her lacy black boyshorts dipped in a slight V where her tailbone curved, and the fabric hugged each rounded cheek. Even that black lace thong she had unknowingly taunted me with back when I eavesdropped on her phone call in the hotel bar could not have made her sexier than she was right now. Those fiery wings tattooed across her shoulder blades fluttered as she arched and trembled under my touch.

  As she reached behind her to unhook her bra, I turned my attention away from the mirror and focused on her. God, she was so beautiful. Creamy skin, with that reddish gold hair spilling over her breasts like a velvet curtain. She still had that warm sugar cookie scent, but it was suddenly more complicated, mixed with the heady scent of her desire.

  She had just one more tattoo, and there was no way I could’ve spotted it before that night. Wisps of black ink plumed from her left hip, starting somewhere below her waistband, and followed the curve of her rib cage. It was the plume of a different kind of feather, a beautiful lone peacock feather, stunningly realistic in its color and detail, that proudly sat on the side swell of her left breast.

  It literally took my breath away.

  She glanced down as I reacted, and whispered, “Oh, that. For luck.”

  Wow. So much better than a Pez dispenser.

  “Talk about product placement,” I breathed, my fingers memorizing its lines.

  Her face close to mine, she parted her lips in a sexy pout. With just my tongue, I touched the top one, right below the spot where it pinched up in a bow.

  She gasped, flicking her own out to meet mine, and we lightly teased each other with French kisses, lips never touching lips. It was the hottest thing I had ever experienced, closing my eyes and not knowing when or where I was going to feel that gorgeous tongue of hers next.

  I reached to remove the Bluetooth from my ear.

  “No, leave it in,” she insisted, whispering in my free ear. “I like a challenge. Good boy.”

  “I can’t guarantee . . .” I started.

  She began to nibble her way down my neck, and I lost all track of what I was saying.

  “Is that a banana on your tray table,” sh
e cooed, “or are you just happy to see me?”

  “Oh, I am so, so happy to see you . . . so ready.”

  My cell phone began to angrily buzz for attention on the nightstand. She leaned over my shoulder. “Warren Butler?”

  “Oh, fuck.” Warren had even worse timing than Tim. “It’s one of my bosses. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, it is technically a workday. Night.” Laney giggled, her breasts tantalizingly close as she leaned to hit the talk button on my phone.

  “Warren,” I said, with more bravado than I had intended.

  I placed a finger to my lips. Laney smiled wickedly and began to unbutton my shirt. “How are you, sir?”

  “I was about to ask you the same thing, Scout. Did you get my gift?”

  “Yes, thank you for hooking us up! What a pleasant”—I sucked a breath of air as Laney began nibbling her way from my earlobe down to the hollow of my throat—“pleasant surprise. You really didn’t have to.”

  I heard the bleating of traffic in the background. It was nine o’clock in the evening back in New York, and Warren Butler was no doubt just leaving the office. “Well, I thought it might go a long way toward ‘getting it out of your system,’” he replied, his voice grim.

  “So I take it Bidwell told you about our morning meeting yesterday?”

  I wondered if he had heard the latest. Thinking about my dire straits at work, along with the two powerhouses there playing me like a pawn, would normally work wonders against my libido.

  But with Laney in my lap, using her superpowers of seduction, nothing was getting me down. Literally. She was freeing me of my oxford dress shirt and peeling my undershirt over my head.

  Taking true advantage of my hands-free device, I gripped her luscious bottom and lifted her toward me, tonguing her ripe nipples and kissing my way, openmouthed, down her smooth belly. She trembled against me, her fingers running through my hair as she threw her own head back with a ragged sigh. Two could play at this game.

  “Yeah, kid. He told me. So this is my way of saying sorry.” He probably took my silence as disapproval, because he hastily added, “I wish I had never introduced you to her, Noah. I feel like I threw both of us under the bus, son.”

  Both of us? I figured my head was on the chopping block, but Warren’s?

  “Wait, what do you mean?” I asked, leaning back.

  Laney judged this as my assent and took over, running her hands up my pecs and across to my bare shoulders. As she moved to kiss her way down my abs, I felt her hands busily work my belt buckle.

  It took all my concentration to stay in the conversation, because all I could picture was throwing Laney down on the bed and making her scream with pleasure. But in the back of my mind, I knew what he was going to say and braced myself for it.

  “I brought in the wunderkind. You. So Bidwell basically let me know, in no uncertain terms, that our little partnership will be kaput if this wedding doesn’t happen.”

  I was speechless, but not because I had a mouthful of Laney this time.

  “But Noah . . . Scout. Listen to me. I will understand your decision, either way. I know you want to do what’s right. But you need to do what’s best for you.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I managed, leaning back and squeezing my eyes shut as Laney’s nimble hands freed me. I noticed he didn’t add his customary “your dad would be proud of you no matter what” pep talk, and I was grateful.

  “Enough of the doom-and-gloom crap. Now tell me, are the seats as good as I was told they’d be?”

  I sat up and watched Laney, beautifully clad in just my necktie and her panties, as she began to shimmy her way down between my legs.

  “The view is spectacular,” came my strangled reply as she took me in her mouth and began to roll slow circles with her tongue.

  “That’s what I wanted to hear. It’s the least I could do. We’ll talk when you get back next Monday, okay?”

  I threw off the earpiece after we’d ended the call, and let out a long, low growl. Laney had me so deep, so gone. I ran my hands through her hair as she moved, taking me dangerously close to the edge with each inch.

  Fuck. I was going to blow this deal. Bidwell was going to pull out if I stood my ground, and it was going to screw one of the most important people in my life in the process. The thought was enough to paralyze me.

  But I didn’t let it. I didn’t care. Tonight, the only thing that mattered was Laney. I was going to shut everything else out and make her scream my name all night.

  All systems go.

  Three Little Words

  I felt every muscle in Noah’s body clench. His side of the conversation with his boss was less talking, more just listening. If he really was, in fact, listening at all. I loved trying to break his cool, professional exterior, but the truth was, he was revving me up just as high as well. Just the way he looked at me so intensely, those dark eyes a night storm of desire, was enough to make me want to moan. I absolutely ached for him. His fingers tangled in my hair, rubbing slow circles behind my ears, and his breathing was becoming more irregular.

  “I want you, Laney. So bad. Come here, baby.”

  His strong arms were coaxing me up, back into his lap, and in one deft move he flipped me over the side of the chair and neatly onto the crisp sheets of the bed.

  Leaning over me, he began to pepper my face slowly with kisses: my temples, my forehead, down my eyelids, and over my cheeks before finding my mouth with his. Softly and seductively, his tongue made me forget about time and space.

  I could hear him shedding the rest of his clothing, his lips never breaking contact with my skin. My body yearned for his touch; I felt like a goddess as I arched to meet him.

  “Oh, Noah,” I gasped, as he lightly bit my neck, giving my nipples just the right amount of pressure between his thumbs and forefingers.

  I pushed his curls back off his face so I could watch as he slowly made his way down to each one, nuzzling them with kisses as his thumb found my navel and his fingers began to lightly play on my panties.

  “Please,” I whimpered, but I had no idea what I wanted.

  I was crazy with wanting all of him, all over me, everywhere. Those nimble fingers grazed the lacy hem of my panties, skimming them off my hips and down my legs.

  I felt his tongue flick at my waist and slide up my side, tracing the long path of my lucky tail feather tattoo. He kissed the blue-black eyespot on the side of my breast before coming back to my center.

  “Mine,” he said throatily, giving a gentle tug on his tie, still around my neck, and claimed my lips with his once more.

  “Do you want it back?” I whispered against his mouth.

  Noah sat up and didn’t say anything for a moment. Taking the end of the tie, he lightly brushed it along my cheek. Then his fingers deftly loosened the knot out, and he began slowly sliding the length of it down my naked body, moving along with it. I felt a delicious, silky sensation as he passed it over my delicate parts, giving me wild fantasies.

  “I want you. Just you,” he answered, tossing the tie to the floor. “It’s what I’ve wanted since you sat down next to me on that plane.”

  I thought back to the first glimpse I had had of him, of how I had stolen glances so I could sketch him. I wished he would let me draw him now, rising above me in all his naked glory. He was gorgeous, an Adonis, all for me.

  “Tell me again what my favorite body part on a woman is,” he dared huskily, as he hiked my leg over his smooth, chiseled shoulder.

  “Ankle?”

  The word caught in my throat as I felt his scruff, rough against my foot, and he started kissing his way up my leg.

  “That’s a start,” he murmured, his breath hot against my skin.

  I fell back against the pillows as he took his time, inch by inch, up to his desired destination. The glance he flicked up at me, just as he hooked hi
s tongue on the very tip of me, set me on fire. His curls were so soft against my thighs, and his strong hands found mine. Lacing our fingers together, he rendered me useless.

  For the third time that day, I felt as if I had dropped off the face of the earth. Falling and shattering into a million pieces as he brought me to a screaming finish on the edge of his talented tongue.

  Noah Ridgewood.

  Drake Hotel.

  Right now.

  Best. Sex. Of my life.

  “Condom,” I begged, pulling him up to the top of the bed.

  “I’m on it.”

  I heard the crisp tear of the packaging and then I was on him, mewing, kissing, and pressing up against him. His hands were on my ass, guiding me. “Laney,” he panted, as he thrust up to meet me. I could tell he was barely hanging on, teetering on that cliff he had had me gripping just moments before.

  “Come with me,” he moaned.

  I bit my lip, my eyelids fluttering as I rode him high and hard.

  “No, you come with me.”

  “You mean to Hawaii?” He heaved against me, and I took him to the hilt.

  “You were talking about Vegas, right?” I asked, slowing my pace, but keeping him deep.

  “Oh, God,” he groaned. “Laney!” He gripped my hips. “With me, here, now.”

  “I don’t think I—”

  I felt his fingers between us, spreading me, and he tilted his body so I had complete control, bucking and quaking as another impossibly hard wave crashed over me.

  “Oh, Noah!”

  He gave in to his own release, crying out with me, kissing me in wide-eyed wonder as his body wracked with hard, shuddering spasms beneath my quivering clench.

  “That was fucking incredible,” he managed, as I settled myself into the crook of his arm. His fingers toyed with my hair, and we were quiet, spent.

  “Best layover ever,” I agreed, waiting for my heart to resume its normal rhythm.

  “Totally.” He laughed. “I might never fly direct again.”

  “You know, I could come to Vegas,” I said, running my fingers lightly through the goody trail of hair near his navel. “I could be your all-you-can-eat buffet, your lucky roll . . .”