“Shouldn’t you be getting your bag?” She nodded at the carousel where the others stood. It had just come to life, and suitcases were being disgorged onto it.
He glanced at a carry-on-size duffel on the floor at his feet. “I’m a light packer.”
Wendy looked down at her own carry-on, then back at her friends, who were still waiting for their bags, chatting as they watched the rotating conveyor belt. She waited for Noah to say something. To throw out some zinger or other. Or, if he had in fact heard her ordering “the deluxe package” and had jumped to the obvious—though incorrect—conclusion, to try to put a stop to her plans, like he had that night in the bar in New York.
He said nothing.
Fine. They would just stand here side by side until the bags arrived.
She knew how to withstand scrutiny, to be cool under pressure. She certainly wouldn’t think about the feeling of Noah’s hungry mouth on hers.
Or his cock pressed against her as she writhed against him like a…like a person who would order up “the deluxe package” in Las Vegas? Damn it all to hell.
“I’m not—”
They’d both started speaking at the same time, but he’d beat her by a heartbeat. “We’re not getting a stripper.”
She blinked, taking a moment to absorb the declaration and to adjust to the conversational tone it had been delivered in. She’d been prepared for rage or mockery. Or…something.
Was it possible he simply didn’t care that he’d just overheard what had probably sounded like her attempting to hire a male prostitute? And why was that, somehow, more mortifying than the idea that he did care and was going to get all up in her face about it like he had in that bar in New York?
“Why not?” she ventured, feeling like she was stepping onto a minefield. “I don’t think Jane cares.” Jane’s official stance on the matter was that what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, and she’d reportedly told Cameron as much.
“Well, it turns out Cameron does.”
Wendy was surprised. Surprised enough to remove her attention from the fascinating baggage-collection scene she’d been staring at and turn to Noah.
Which had been a mistake. Because he was looking at her so intently, she feared his eyes might be capable of burning through her skin. Stopping her heart.
Ugh. She wanted to look away again, but to do so felt like admitting defeat somehow.
“Yeah,” Noah went on. “When Jay started planning the bachelor party—before I took over—I said I wasn’t doing anything that would directly or indirectly disrespect Jane, and Cameron said, ‘And you think I am?’ He got quite pissy about it, actually.”
“Oh, that doesn’t necessarily mean no stripper.” Wendy waved a hand dismissively. That made more sense. It was cute that that’s how Noah had interpreted Cameron’s statement, though. “I wouldn’t assume Cameron thinks a stripper would be disrespectful.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “So that’s why he went on to specify no strippers, I suppose.”
What? Damn. Okay, surprising point to…Cameron there. Cameron who wasn’t even in the…game? Or whatever this was she was doing with Noah.
“That’s probably also why,” Noah went on, “he told me he didn’t care what the single guys in attendance did, but that we needed to keep it to ourselves. I believe his direct quote was ‘You, Noah, can have a three-day orgy for all I care, but I don’t want to know about it.’”
Wendy cleared her throat, still not willing to look away even though she had no idea why. The words “Noah” and “three-day orgy” in the same sentence could not be doing wonders for her appearance, dignity-wise. Her face flamed, and her scalp prickled so painfully she feared her hair might actually start falling out before his eyes.
Well, shit. She was officially crushing on Noah Denning. Again.
Except this was different. This wasn’t some adolescent starry-eyed crush. She didn’t do that anymore. This was lust. Which, though inconvenient, wasn’t the end of the world.
At least, she consoled herself, he couldn’t see what was happening between her legs. He couldn’t see the slick of moisture that had gathered there as a bunch of images and concepts—Vegas, the “deluxe package,” Noah, three-day orgy—swirled in her mind.
Or maybe he could. Because as if on cue, his eyes dropped. Slid, really, down her body. She’d been dressed for flying, so she was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a pair of Keds—not exactly siren material. But it didn’t seem to matter, because when his gaze cycled back up and found hers again, his eyes burned as surely as did her skin. There was something in that searing gaze.
A warning.
She just wasn’t sure exactly what about.
But she stared back at him defiantly anyway. Because it seemed that now they were having a staring contest, and she didn’t intend to lose.
“Hey, you light packers, we’re all ready to go!”
Jane’s voice came floating over. Surely it was okay to look away from Noah now. It wasn’t ceding if their…thing had been interrupted by someone else.
Right?
She had no idea who had won that round.
* * *
Where the hell was Wendy?
The guys, who were staying at the Paris hotel, had gone to collect the girls, who were staying at New York, New York, for dinner, and everyone had gathered in Jane and Wendy’s room for a glass of wine before they left. The guys had been as surprised as Noah had by the appearance of the women in Vegas, but none of them seemed to mind having their party crashed. Cameron and Jane were all lovey-dovey, and Elise and Jay were talking about playing checkers later, which almost seemed to him like some kind of foreplay.
Wendy was nowhere in sight, even though this was her and Jane’s room. Noah had had to restrain himself from asking where she was. Had to tamp down the spike of…what? Anger? Panic? The spike of something that came from the notion that perhaps she was out enjoying the “deluxe package” he’d heard her order earlier. But that was ridiculous, if for no other reason than he’d quite clearly heard her say midnight, and it was only seven thirty.
He told himself to calm the fuck down. He couldn’t even be sure what he’d heard meant what he feared it did. Really, why would those four women be hiring a prostitute? Jane certainly wasn’t going to be, uh, partaking of those services. Neither was Elise. Normally, he’d think that any “deluxe package” being ordered was for Gia, who, God bless her, was an unapologetic party girl. But before he’d overheard the actual transaction, he’d heard Gia and Wendy talking about wanting to hook up while in Vegas. Gia had expressly told Wendy she didn’t want to, uh, hire out for the task.
Which left Wendy.
There was no other interpretation.
And wasn’t it just like her? She had a low tolerance for bullshit. She was young, single, and in Sin City.
But also? No fucking way. He might have been out of line last month when he’d prevented Wendy from picking up a guy in that bar in New York, but this was different. This wasn’t a one-night stand based on mutual attraction. This was a financial transaction.
And, honestly, it mystified him. Yes, Wendy was no-nonsense. Practical. But she was also gorgeous. Smart. The whole package. If she wanted, she could have a lineup of guys willing to do her bidding, whether that was show her a good time for a night or prostrate themselves at her feet for a lifetime.
But anyway, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t a mystery that needed solving, because it wasn’t happening. He was going to call in all his retroactive overprotective pseudo big brother chips, and Wendy was going to find her “girls gone wild” party crashed by more than one guy tonight. The clock would strike midnight, and just like Cinderella, Wendy’s fantasy would disappear like a smashed pumpkin.
And this had nothing to do with their little war.
Wendy—the real one, not the imaginary one he’d been picturing in all kinds of unsavory scenarios—emerged from the bathroom wearing a short red dress. It knocked all his plotting right out of his head.
T
he dress had one sleeve that reminded him of a wide-strapped tank top, and then the neckline did this diagonal sort of thing, leaving her other shoulder bare. As a result, one of her collarbones was covered, and one was exposed.
The asymmetry of that was making him a little crazy. Certain things come in pairs. Shoes. Gloves.
Breasts.
And, apparently, collarbones.
He wanted to drag down the bodice of the one side and expose her left collarbone.
“Wine?”
He had no idea how long Gia had been standing next to him offering a glass of wine.
“Sure, thanks.” He cleared his throat and surveyed the room as he took a sip. Gia and Elise wore black, and Jane wore dark green. They were made up for a night on the town. Gia and Jane had pouffed their hair up, and Elise wore hers piled on top of her head. Wendy, by contrast, wore hers in a simple high ponytail—the better to show off that damned solitary collarbone, he supposed. But instead of a hair elastic, the pony was somehow magically secured by a coil of her own hair. Her face was bare except for dramatically darkened lashes and a slick of red gloss on her lips.
She looked like a prom queen, like an effortlessly beautiful girl ruling over her court of lesser princesses. Next to Wendy, the others looked fussy. Like they’d tried too hard, whereas Wendy had just pulled her stunner of a dress out of her carry-on, maybe sharpened her one collarbone, and called it done.
“Everything okay, brother-mine?” Jane asked, and Noah blinked rapidly as he nodded. Could you lie with a nonverbal gesture? Because with a sudden thud in his stomach, he realized that was what he was doing. He could no longer deny what was happening here. Could no longer chalk up what had happened in New York to momentary insanity. To “some kind of bizarre New York vacation aberration thing,” to use Wendy’s terminology.
Because why else was he losing his mind over the goddamned “deluxe package”?
He was officially lusting after his little sister’s best friend. Over prickly, complicated, not-interested-in-buying-the-milk Wendy Lou Who, who was planning to get it on with a stripper tonight.
Goddamn it. This was a huge fucking problem.
“You know what they say!” Elise trilled, making a funny face at Hector as Noah forced himself to tune in to the conversation around him. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!”
“Hey, you don’t need to tell me,” Hector said, and Noah rolled his eyes. He hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d told Wendy about Cameron’s rules for the weekend. Not that Hector needed Cameron’s blessing, but he seemed to have taken the “go ahead and have an orgy, but don’t tell me about it” as an imperative.
Still, it was gross to tell the women about his plans, wasn’t it, Noah wondered as Hector outlined his aim to “get with” a showgirl. Wendy was, apparently, planning to sleep with a gigolo tonight, but you didn’t hear her bragging about it.
Oh, Christ. How was he so fucked up that he was simultaneously blowing a gasket over Wendy hiring this guy and proud of the way she was comporting herself while doing so?
“Not a prostitute,” Hector clarified. Noah couldn’t help but look at Wendy, who was examining her fingernails. “A showgirl. Like in the movie.”
“The movie?” Jane asked. “You mean Meet Me in Las Vegas?”
Hector looked at Jane blankly.
“Diamonds Are Forever?” Gia suggested.
“Nope,” Hector said. “Showgirls.”
Cameron put his head in his hands. Noah wasn’t really sure how upstanding Cameron had collected such a Neanderthal of a friend. But the women laughed.
“You go for it, Hector.” Jane patted his back affectionately.
“Yeah.” Elise looked intently at her husband, Jay. “There’s something about Las Vegas, isn’t there? Like, a ‘when in Rome’ sort of vibe? I mean, we are in Sin City, right?”
Hmm.
An astonishing idea landed fully formed in Noah’s mind. Maybe his huge fucking problem wasn’t so huge. Maybe it wasn’t even a problem. Wendy wanted to get laid in a no-strings sort of way. And…
What happens in Vegas…
He looked at Wendy again. At Wendy’s goddamned collarbone.
No. He was being irrational. There was a reason he steered clear of casual sex, namely that he didn’t like losing control—Bennett had been right with his armchair diagnosis. And that was with women who weren’t Wendy. Wendy specifically added a whole layer of complication he didn’t need. So he was just going to have to suffer through unrequited lust and focus on his mission: derail the deluxe package.
Her phone rang and she jumped. He did, too, not because of the phone per se, but because he’d been so attuned to her, his body was like a mirror of hers. She jumped; he jumped.
“I’m sorry, I have to take this,” she murmured as she slipped through the door that linked Jane and Wendy’s room with the one next door, which he assumed belonged to Elise and Gia.
He waited ten seconds, then got up and walked to the dresser where the wine bottle was resting, on the pretext of pouring himself another glass. The conversation had moved from movies about showgirls to actual shows that could be seen in Vegas, and while everyone else seemed interested in a classic revue featuring the aforementioned showgirls, Jane, God bless her, was trying to get someone to go see Celine Dion with her.
He slipped through the connecting door.
The adjoining room was dark, which he hadn’t expected. He stood still, straining his ears. He did not hear her. He saw no cell phone glow. The only light in the room was a sliver coming from its main door. She’d flipped the latch so she could leave the room but still get back in. He moved toward the light and tried to remind himself that he wasn’t dying.
Even if Wendy slept with a sex worker in Vegas, he wouldn’t die. His lungs would continue to expand and contract. His heart would continue to beat.
Probably.
He could finally hear her. She was standing in the hall talking on the phone.
“And what about music?”
He moved as close to the slit in the door as he dared.
She giggled.
He hated that.
“Her favorite musician is actually Josh Groban, but I don’t know if that’s really the best music for the, um…evening.”
Then she laughed again, harder, the signature Wendy cackle.
Goddammit.
“That sounds amazing. Thank you!”
Then another pause. He could hear the sound of tapping—maybe her fingernails against the metal door frame.
“Right. Yes. About that…” She was a little breathless.
Fuck. He wanted to punch the wall. The only reason he didn’t was that this conversation was all theoretical. Because Wendy was not sleeping with this guy. He didn’t care if that made him a presumptuous asshole; it wasn’t happening.
“That sounds great, Gunnar.”
Gunnar? The stripper-slash-prostitute was named Gunnar?
Something happened in his head then, a sort of rushing sound, except “rushing” was too mild a word. It was more like a tsunami. Rage and confusion swirled around inside him. He had to lean back against the wall and take a few breaths.
When he was able, a moment later, to clear the blurry gray spots from his vision and tune back in, she was wrapping up the conversation.
“Okay, then!” she trilled. “We’ll see you at midnight!”
Yes, Wendy, we’ll see you at midnight, and you’d better be ready. Because you thought we were having a good-natured little battle over whose party was cooler? Not anymore.
Now it’s war.
Chapter Twelve
The girls were drunk. Well, Jane, Elise, and Gia were drunk. Wendy herself was stone-cold sober. Somebody had to take responsibility for this no-longer-low-key bachelorette party. She glanced at her watch. Eleven thirty. They were at the Coyote Ugly bar in their hotel—it had been hard to pry the girls from the guys and herd them back to the hotel after dinner, so she considered it a triumph that they were
even back in the hotel, knocking back kamikazes and cheering on the house dancers as they gyrated and performed their elaborate routines on top of the bar.
In all her travels, Wendy had never darkened the door of a Coyote Ugly—not the original one in the real New York or any of the dozens of franchises elsewhere. She could see now that her judgment had been sound. “Oh no, you don’t.” She grabbed Elise just as she was about to climb on the bar at the invitation of one of the dancers.
“Oh, come on!” Jane said. “She should go!”
“Come with me, Jane!” Elise exclaimed. “Let the single ladies stay here and be sticks in the mud.”
“Look.” Wendy let go of Elise and lifted her hand into the air—but she used the other one to grab Jane, who seemed like she was considering Elise’s suggestion. “I’m not trying to be a stick in the mud. Go dance—for sure. But on the bar? You’re both drunk off your asses.”
Jane wrenched herself from Wendy’s grip but stumbled a bit in the process. “Whoa.”
“See?” Wendy raised her eyebrows. “You’ll fall to your death if you get up there.”
Jane, undecided, turned to Gia, who’d been watching the whole exchange in silent amusement. “Gia, you’re the tie-breaker. Good idea or bad idea?”
Gia did not hesitate. “Bad idea. Why don’t you hit the jukebox instead and see if they have any Josh Groban?”
Jane clapped her hands, delighted by the diversion, and skipped off, pulling Elise along with her.
“This place is the worst,” Gia said.
Wendy raised her club soda in a toast of agreement. “I’m surprised Hector isn’t here.”
“Ha!” Gia barked a laugh.
Wendy thought again how the one good thing that had come out of this wedding was the deeper kinship she’d discovered with Gia. Something about being in solidarity with Gia in the eye of the party storm emboldened Wendy. “Let me ask you a question. Do you think Cameron is right for Jane?”
She regretted the question the moment it was out, because Gia’s face scrunched up in confusion that soon morphed into concern. Maybe even pity. Wendy could handle pretty much anything, but not pity.
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