by North, Paige
“Oh, what?” I stroke her hair back from her face. I look into her sweet blue eyes, then sketch my finger down her cheek.
Soft.
So pretty.
Mine.
She smiles a silly-drunk smile, and somehow that reaches into a deep part of me that wants to be a gentleman, even though I’m not.
It’ll pass.
“Oh,” she says, leaning back her head and looking at me just as intently as I’m looking at her. “That was some kiss.”
“I told you I can make this a night you’ll never forget.”
“Vegas,” she whispers.
“Yeah.” I grin. “Vegas.”
I tease my lips over hers, playful, promising, and then bring her into a real fucking kiss. She pulls at my shirt, and it seems as if she’s holding her breath as I draw at her like the finest champagne, tasting and savoring her. It’s got to be the vodka making my mind spin like this. It’s got to be frustration making me want someone, anyone this badly.
She moans softly under my mouth, and an answering growl comes from deep within my chest as I run my tongue between her lips, opening her up to me. She arches a little as she takes me inside her, melting against me as I ravish her, stroking her tongue with mine, making her whimper and tug at my shirt until it slips out of my trousers. I become a mass of throbbing sensation, utterly lost in her as we keep making out, occasionally coming up for air but going right back at each other because we can’t help ourselves. We’re drunk, we’re chemically insane, we’re…
I slide my hand from her waist upward, and she smacks it away. All right, we’re not getting past kissing just yet, but fuck, I’m not going to worry about it, because she’s going at me with a hunger that’s keeping me hard and hopeful.
I hear a rattling sound next to us, then resurface from all this heat to see the cocktail waitress exit through the curtain. It’s enough to make me realize that I’m not alone with Everly in our own little world. Lilac has brought us another bucket of vodka, and the music is still beating its way through the nightclub outside.
Then there’s a ding from somewhere on the seat, and Everly blinks up at me. I’m caught by those angel eyes of hers just before she fumbles for her phone on the cushions, where it fell earlier.
She squints at it. “Oh.”
“Sounds like your vocabulary has been reduced to that one word.”
She blushes, and if I were to guess, I’d say she’s never been kissed until she creams. God, she’s adorable. Good enough to eat.
I smile as I notice how her leg is halfway across my lap, making her skirt ride up so it exposes a length of curvy, pale thigh. I rest my fingertips on her calf and trace circles on her skin as she bites her lip and then reads her phone.
“My friends,” she says. “They’re wondering where I am.”
“Tell them you’re in paradise.”
She gives me that narrow-eyed look that says she thinks I’m kind of a jerk. Which I am.
Another text dings. She reads from the reads to me.
“‘We’re with the tech guys’.” She giggles and continues reading the text. “‘Come with us to another club.’” She looks at me and shrugs. “They’re with some guys who were buying us drinks earlier.”
Fuck, she is cute. “How many drinks?”
“Enough.” She lifts her hand and holds two fingers barely apart from each other. “I have this much experience in drinking. But after tonight, I’ll be such a pro.”
I frown, because I don’t want her to be a pro. I like the amateur Everly, because her apparent innocence is a cock throbber. Who knew?
As she starts texting her friends back, I grab the newest vodka bottle and tip that fucker back and drink until a different kind of heat consumes me. Everly still has a hold of her own bottle, and she takes a long drink, too, then resumes texting.
When she’s done, she slaps the phone onto the table. “I told them I’m having way too much fun here but and they should party with the tech guys until our flight leaves tomorrow afernoon.” She laughs again. “Afternoon. Boy, I think I’m real drunk.”
“Join the club.”
“But I have good reason to be drunk.”
Really? Tonight she also came to the realization that she’s going to die alone, just like me? What a coincidence. “What reason is that, Heavenly?”
She beams at the nickname, and her pure charm only encourages the hound dog inside me that’s barking to get back out.
But then the beaming stops and she shakes her head. “I don’t want to think about it. I mean, I shouldn’t be so bothered about what’s going on back home, right? I’ve been wanting to get out of my small little town forever, and maybe this is the first sign that I should leave.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about, but I nod and slip my fingers from her calf to her knee, which is also adorable. I explore its adorableness with my thumb, making circles.
She leans her elbow on the back of the seat and rests her cheek in her hand. My dick approves as blood pummels me even harder and I concentrate on her knee again.
She sighs. “I’ve always dreamt of leaving home behind and goin’ somewhere like Chicago, L.A., or even New York…”
Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world. I get that last part, and I look up from her knee as she keeps talking so earnestly.
“I’ve just never had the guts to leave everyone and everything I’ve known behind. I love my friends and family, and I’ve always been too attached to my lil’ hometown to leave it all for good. It’s just that, deep down, I’ve always felt that I’m destined for something more. You know what I mean?”
“That’s because you were destined for me.” I grin at her.
She melts into a smile, but then shakes herself out of it in what seems like a moment of total sobriety. I slide my fingers to the back of her knee, enjoying the moist warmth there. She wiggles a little in her seat as if it tickles, and, shit, every move she makes still kills me.
“I’m only gonna say this ‘cos I’m drunk.” She lifts her finger. “But I think you might be right about me running into you tonight. I never knew kissing could be such fun. Fun is my Vegas destiny!”
I cock an eyebrow. “Just how many times have you been kissed before?”
She shrugs. “A few.”
Now I know why she was blushing at the mere mention of blowjobs.
She rolls her eyes and rests her cheek in her hand again. “Truthfully, I’ve had one serious boyfriend. His name was Jake.”
“Only one serious boyfriend? Does that mean…”
“I’ve slept with only one guy? Boom! Yup. And his name was Jake. Did I tell you that?”
I nod.
She gestures with her vodka bottle. “You’d think with a name like Jake, the sex would be awesome.”
“It wasn’t?”
“Meh.”
Meh?
“Pretty dull,” she says. “Perfunctory. I actually don’t get the deal about sex, but now I sure get the deal about kissin’.”
I put down my vodka bottle. “Are you telling me you think sex is boring?”
She nods.
Fuck, I’d love to show her how wrong she is.
I stroke my fingers into the cove of her knee again, and she squirms. She’s not made for boring sex. Hell, I can practically scent her arousal, can imagine how wet she is for me.
She sighs again, but this time it trembles. I look at her and she looks at me with those big blue eyes.
“Anyway, I’m gettin’ shloshed tonight because I’m worried about everyone in town, worried about my three older brothers, my younger sister, and my parents and what’ll happen to them from here on out.”
She sounds so inconsolable that something bends in my chest. “You sure you don’t want to talk about it?” I ask, wondering if I’ll regret it. It’s completely out of character for me to ask someone to share their feelings, and I tell myself it’s the vodka and not Everly that’s making me sentimental.
“No
.” She straightens up, and I know it’s on purpose because she’s realized she said too much already. “My family will end up fine. My dad’s a total boss—totally domineering—and he’ll find a way for everyone to survive. There’re lots of people in town who’ll figure a way out of the mess we’re in.”
I try not to let what she’s saying dig into me, because I’ve left a lot of small towns in shit situations every time I buy out one of the businesses their economy depends on.
That how I survive. “You know, your dad and mine might get along pretty well.”
“Why’sh that?”
“My old man is a domineering guy, too. He was in the military for most of his adult life.” And he raised me to be just as mean, tough, and without compassion.
As we fall to silence, I don’t tell her how I can never please that asshole, not even when I was young, busting my balls as a star football and baseball player, then earning my way into a prestigious college without his help. He only criticized me more. Then I hammered my way into the business world, becoming a multimillionaire seemingly overnight, then a billionaire last year. So fucking what, though, right? I can’t even get a pat on the back from the guy when I score the most beautiful women in the world. Most dads would at least give their sons a wink and a nudge for that.
Everly is watching me, and I brush off my issues and put on another grin, because I have no shits left to give tonight.
I pick my vodka bottle back up and toast her with it. She sits up and does the same to me.
“Here’s to drinking away all the bullshit tonight,” I say.
“Amen!”
Then we both drown our sorrows.
And we keep drowning them as the night goes on.
5
Everly
It feels like I’ve swallowed a bunch of nasty fur balls, and my head is killing me.
I slowly open my eyes, and it feels like I’m rising from the dead. But then my mind clicks into gear, and I realize I’m only waking up to another day in the life of a small town girl. Except, this morning, my small town is under siege from a rapacious company that’s about to tear Norfolk and all its families limb from limb, and I’m going back home to face that reality.
But I’m not in Norfolk right now. I’m in Vegas at my BFF’s bachelorette party.
At least I was…
Holy shit, where am I now?
My opulent surroundings register in my brain: a huge room with a king-sized bed I’m lying in with sheets that feel expensive against my skin…a carved dark-wooded headboard and golden lamps…thick, fancy curtains blocking out most of the sun…leather sofa near a desk…flowers in big, fancy vases…
I am not in the room I’m sharing with my friends over at Harrahs. So where am I?
I quickly sit up, and the covers fall down to expose my lacy bra and panties. Then, through my groggy haze, I see a shirtless man next to me sprawled on his stomach on top of the bedspread with his face turned away from me.
I gasp. Shit—did I have sex with someone?
Oh, dear God, did I get that drunk?
Panic envelopes me, but then I calm down when I see that the guy is still wearing trousers and one of his fancy Italian leather shoes.
Phew. Double phew! Because I remember him. His name is Jaden, and obviously things didn’t go too far with us if he still has his pants on. Thank God.
My hopping pulse starts to recover, but as I keep looking at Jaden, tingles fly through me, settling between my legs until I shift. His broad back is corded with muscles, and his black hair is boyishly tousled. I remember it was much neater than this last night, but the memory is cloudy, especially as I check out his wide shoulders and rocked arms right now. Every time he takes a breath, his muscles flex, and my fingers itch to trace the lines of him.
But…jeez, Everly. Really? Shouldn’t I be figuring out how I even got into this situation with someone I barely know?
Just as I start to get out of bed, it all rushes back to me in a series of strobe-like flashes: the nightclub…the scavenger hunt…me going to Jaden’s veiled table to ask him about blowjobs…me and him making out like we were magnetized and couldn’t stay off of each other…me and him talking and drinking and hopping into a limo and drinking some more as we drove downtown to some building and filled out a form on a computer and then…
Oh.
Oh, fuck.
FUCKFUCKFUCK!
It’s true that I didn’t have sex with Jaden, but I might’ve done something way more stupid and irresponsible…
Oh, dear God, there’s a quick way to find out if my suspicions are true, and as I slowly lift my hand, hoping that I’m not going to see what I think I’m going to see, I hold my breath…
Only to have it tangle in my lungs when I catch the sparkle of a diamond ring on my finger.
6
Everly
A sudden, overwhelming wave of nausea hits me, and I rush out of bed and run to the bathroom. I get there just in time to puke everything but my lungs into the toilet.
Afterward, I slouch down to the marble floor. I’ve never felt more awful and embarrassed and utterly blindsided. It’s like another part of me—the Drunk and Evil Everly—took over my body last night and did things with it that Normal Everly’s brain can barely comprehend. And, unfortunately, as I lie here, I start to remember more of last night: driving in the backseat of the limo and laughing it up with Jaden as we pull up to a drive-through window at one of those small wedding chapels…Jaden slipping the ring onto my finger and then both of us madly falling into a deep, head-spinning kiss…
Okay, that part was awesome, and I revel in the memory for a lovely moment. Then everything else slams me again—the consequences for my absolute stupidity—and I flush the toilet, then crawl to the sink to wash out my mouth and splash water on my face.
I wither back to the cool tile floor. The huge bathroom looms over me. I couldn’t care less about the inviting bathtub or the opulent signs of grandeur like the expensive TV or gold trim. I merely wonder what the hell I’m going to do now.
Married.
To a stranger…
I don’t know how long I lie there, feeling as if my world has tilted so far off its axis that it has no chance of ever righting itself, but then things get even worse.
“You okay?”
A deep, dark voice. The last voice I want to hear.
I look up from the floor to find Jaden leaning against the doorframe, filling the entrance with his massive, gorgeous body. He’s still shirtless, his abs cut, his arms and chest and shoulders like carved granite. And, damn him, the only evidence that he might be even a little bit hung over is the stubble shadowing his jaws and his dark, ruffled, carefree hair that slumps over one of his cool, gray eyes before he lazily pushes it away from his forehead. He’s definitely more put together than I am. He doesn’t even have just one shoe on anymore—he’s barefoot, and that sign of nonchalance makes him even hotter.
I feel the heat all over my skin, caressing it until my clit aches.
He’s running a slow gaze over me, reminding me that I’m wearing only my bra and panties. They’re a cute lacy set of bra and panties, but as I start to remember that I’ve just barfed my guts out, I begin to feel very unsexy.
I press my cheek to the floor, wishing I could burrow into the tile and disappear. “As a matter of fact, I’m not okay.”
I hold up my wedding ring finger to show him.
When Jaden merely shrugs, I unenergetically switch from holding up my ring finger to saluting him with my middle one, then close my eyes and let my hand fall to the floor.
“Vegas,” he says, like it’s no biggie.
I open one eye. “Oh, you often come to Las Vegas and marry random women?”
“Actually, this is the first time that’s happened.” He loosely crosses his strong arms over his wide chest and keeps watching me. “I only vaguely recall getting carried away last night.”
“Carried away?” Both eyes are open now. “That’s w
hat you call it? Because we evidently got married!”
“True. I’ve got some texts on my phone from my hired driver, who facilitated every request I made of him last night. He arranged for the ring you’re wearing as well as our trip to the Marriage License Bureau downtown. He even took care of contacting the chapel for our ceremony.”
“Ceremony. Hah.” My God, my family is going to kill me for getting married in a freakin’ drive-through. “Jeez, how can you be so casual about this?”
He shrugs those amazingly broad shoulders again and loosely stands away from the doorframe. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll put a call in to my team of lawyers, and they’ll start the application for an annulment. It’ll be granted immediately, considering we’ve been married for less than twelve hours and neither of us even knows the other.”
Then, just like that, he saunters into the bathroom as if I’m not lying here like the world’s shabbiest rug. He grabs a shaving kit and toothbrush from the counter and strolls back to the door. “I’ll use the second bedroom’s bathroom and leave this one to you.” He finally gives me a puzzled look, as if it’s just now hitting him that he’s got a dumbass sprawled all over the floor and he doesn’t know how to clean it up. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Sure. I only drank half the vodka supply in this town and found myself married as well as epically hung over this morning. Everything’s just great.”
He chuffs, then jerks his chin at the counter. “All right. Feel free to use anything in here.”
And then he saunters out, just as no-big-deal as you please as he shuts the door behind him.
What was that?
I nearly cry as the answer comes to me. That was my freakin’ husband.
But he said we’d get an annulment. It can’t happen fast enough.
I roll over and take another look around the bathroom and its lavishness. We’ve got to be in a suite, and as I push myself to my feet, I see evidence that we’re in The Venetian, one of the swankiest hotels in Vegas.
