What The Luck - The Complete Box Set

by Winters, KB

  “There isn’t much to tell, really. He took me to the gala, but we didn’t end up staying very long.”

  “Cause he wanted to take you back to his room and pleasure you with his big fat juicy cock!” She was practically squealing with delight.

  “No, Dix. We didn’t stay because I had to get your drunk ass away from some guy who wanted to date rape you!”

  Before the words even fully left my lips I already regretted snapping at her, and when I dared to look over at her, it was like a thousand tiny knives ramming into my chest at the broken look on her face.

  “Wow. Elle, I had no idea I was such a burden. I’m sorry I got in the way of your magical, princess date night. Thing.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” I started to go to her, but she got up and crossed the room to lock herself in the bathroom.

  I knocked lightly on the door. “Dix, I’m sorry. Please come out.”

  “Leave me alone, Ellie. I’m obviously not worthy to hang out with you and Richy Rich anyway.”

  I bit my lip for a moment, trying to figure out what to say. I knew she wasn’t going to be easy to convince that I hadn’t meant it. And maybe that was because in some way, I had. Things had been going really well with Dylan at the party. Maybe if we’d been able to spend more time together, outside of his hotel room, we would have bonded over something other than sex and it would have been harder for him to toss me aside like leftovers.

  Who am I kidding? Dylan was not the kind of guy to actually want to date a girl like me. Hell, I’d been shocked to find he even wanted to sleep with me. If anything had scared him away, it was my too-big thighs or the muffin-top when I sat down or wore jeans that were too tight.

  He was drop-dead fucking gorgeous and probably far more used to dating super models, actresses, and socialites. Picturing him with some perfect, size two blonde on his arm made so much more sense than him being with me.

  I knew it was true and sometimes, the truth hurt.

  And now, I’d let him get in between me and my best friend.

  “Dixie, please, let me in. I need to explain.”

  “I’m seriously not interested. Why don’t you go see what your boyfriend is doing today?”

  I pinched my eyes shut as a new wave of disappointment washed over me. I hated myself for even wishing it—but a part of me did want to be with him until he left to go home.

  “Because he doesn’t want me. That’s why.” I tried to keep it together, but my voice cracked slightly at that statement.

  Dixie was silent on her side of the door, but after a minute, the handle jiggled underneath my palm and I backed off to let her come out.

  “What do you mean, he doesn’t want you?” Her eyes were still wide, but they had lost the angry edge.

  “He kicked me out of his room this morning and told me he didn’t want anything else with me. I was just a fling. Some vacation trophy, I guess. Although, seriously, how much of a trophy is all this?” I gestured down at my body.

  Without another word, Dixie wrapped her arms around me and squeezed.

  Chapter Three — Ellie

  “All right, now that we have the proper supplies, go ahead and tell me what happened,” Dixie said.

  We’d left the hotel room to go down and enjoy one last trip through the breakfast buffet. I’d loaded my plate up with pancakes, waffles, fruit, and bacon without flinching. When I’d first found out about the trip, I’d gone on a crazy juice fast to try and get beach ready. In the process, I lost five pounds, and so as we made our way through the line of delectable foods, I’d given myself permission to regain as many of those pounds as I wanted.

  If I were going to be alone—at least I’d be well fed.

  Dixie had retrieved huge mugs of coffee and a plate of plain toast for herself. She was still feeling a little queasy and didn’t trust her stomach to tackle the full bounty of the buffet.

  “I don’t know. It seems so stupid now,” I started, before biting into a chunk of pineapple. “We were at the gala, talking and drinking. It was all going really well. I’d been looking for you all night and he spotted you dancing. I knew you were…” I trailed off, unsure how to proceed. I didn’t want to risk her getting offended or hurt.

  “Being a drunken slut,” she filled in with a laugh.

  “Dix,” I scolded. “No, no. You were fine. It was that dick-head guy that was with you. Anyways, he got all mouthy with me and Dylan stepped in. He punched the guy in the face!”

  “What the hell? Why don’t I remember any of this? Jeez, I have got to stop drinking. I miss all the good stuff.”

  I laughed. “Anyway, we got you back to the room and then we went for a walk on the beach, talked about his life, my life, and went back to his room for the night.”

  “And then you fucked like wild animals, right?”

  “Oh, my God, Dixie!” I could feel my cheeks light up.

  “Well?” she waggled her eyebrows at me, “Does he howl?”

  “Dixie!” I said in a hushed tone. I could feel my face heat up and then we both burst into giggles.

  “That’s what happened, right?” Dixie asked, before taking a bite of her plain toast.

  I nodded, stuffing a whipped cream covered pancake in my mouth. “It was so crazy. We did things…like…sexy things that I’ve never done before— or even thought of doing before. But it wasn’t weird or freaky. It was a little overwhelming but, like, to the core, ridiculously fucking sexy.”

  “Mmm. Mr. Hot Cock sounds like quite the gentleman. Sounds fun, but I want deets.”

  “Not here Dix, I’ll tell you on the way home. It was incredible though.”

  ”I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little jealous. I’m also jealous of that bacon, gimme some,” she said as she swiped a piece of bacon from my plate.

  “Yeah, well don’t be,” I said, dialing down the stars-in-my-eyes feeling as I crash-landed back to reality. “It was a total waste. He let me sleep over in his room and was being sweet, saying all the right things, definitely doing all the right things. And then this morning, out of nowhere, he wakes me up and tells me I need to leave. I threw a fit. God, he probably thinks I am a total drama queen.”

  “Fuck what he thinks! He doesn’t matter, remember?”

  I nodded but felt tears welling up all over again. I looked up at the ceiling, watching the fan blades spin around to try and wait it out.

  “Elle, come on.” Dixie grabbed me by the shoulders and forced me to look at her. “He’s not worth your tears. No guy is.”

  “I know you’re right. It’s just hard because I thought—God, I’m so pathetic. I just thought maybe there was something there, ya know?”

  I hated myself for sounding like some rom-com star, wrecking her mascara for no reason and blubbering on and on about a guy. It wasn’t my style. At all. But I couldn’t seem to stop.

  “I’m so pathetic. I’m probably PMS’ing. Wonder if they have any chocolate over there?”

  “Ellie, listen to me. You’re not pathetic. He clearly led you on. I mean really, what kind of douche bag buys jewelry and all that, just to send you packing? I mean what the hell?”

  “See! Exactly! That’s what I’m talking about. First of all, he had already slept with me. Like seriously. Not just a wham-bam thing, but a full blown fuck—outside! So, he’d already gotten what he wanted. Right?”

  Dixie nodded as she munched on her dry toast.

  “So, why did he chase me down, invite me to the gala in front of you so that I would basically have to agree, and then, yes, buy me diamond jewelry.”

  “I have no idea. This must be some new breed of d-bag.” She was pensive for a moment. “Maybe the necklace was a rental? I know celebrities do that kind of shit for the red carpet. It would still be weird, but maybe less weird if he didn’t actually spend money on it.”

  “No, he told me to keep the necklace and the rings.” I shook my head. It was all so confusing. I’d hoped that Dixie would help me figure it all out, but she seemed just as
confused as I was.

  “Wait. Rings? You didn’t tell me anything about the rings.”

  Oh, shit. I felt my cheeks turn fifty shades of red again. “It’s kind of…personal.”

  “Ellie, I’m your best friend. I know everything about you. When you started your period, when you got your first kiss, your dirty dreams about Thor.”

  “Not Thor! Chris Hemsworth dressed up as Thor!” I corrected.

  “Oh, excuse me, you’re right. That is soooo different.” She started giggling and I couldn’t help but laugh along with her.

  I looked around for a moment. Our table was fairly isolated since it was past breakfast time and the mad rush seemed to have already dissipated. “All right. They were diamond nipple rings.”

  Dixie let out a cackle so loud that everyone that was left turned to stare.

  I’m pretty sure my face got even redder…if that was even possible.

  “Shh! Shh! Stop,” I pleaded.

  “Oh my God! Ellie, are you fucking with me?” she asked, still a little too loud for my comfort.

  “No. I wish I was. They linked to the necklace and every time I moved they would pull and…” I felt myself getting wet at the thought. Apparently, my body was still on team Dylan, despite all evidence and good sense showing that was not only not an option, but also just a generally bad idea.

  “Wow. I would have paid to see that.”

  “Um, that’s a weird thing to say,” I said, crossing my arms over my breasts protectively.

  She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

  I dropped my arms and laughed with her.

  She waggled her eyebrows and leaned across the table. “So, can we talk about the rest of the kinky stuff? Or would that make you sad all over again?”

  I shot her a dirty look. “I told you, on the flight home. I want to get as far away from this place as I can before I remember what he did to me…”

  “You suck.”

  “I do and I did. Now stop.”

  “Well, excuse a girl for trying. You’re the only one getting any action on this island, so I’m a little starving for some dirty deets.”

  I rolled my eyes. As far as I knew, Dixie’s longest dry spell was two weeks.

  “What do I do now?” I asked.

  “There’s nothing to do. Ellie, listen, you had a fling. It’s okay. Just chalk it up as a new experience in your life, learn from it, and move on to the next. That’s what I do.”

  I was listening to her, but found little comfort in her advice. I didn’t care what Dixie did, as far as relationships went, but I certainly wasn’t striving to be like her. I wanted a relationship someday. I wanted to get married and have a family. I figured that Dixie would eventually settle down, despite her protests to the contrary, but she was going to party like a rockstar for as long as she could.

  “All right. Well, I’m stuffed. What do you want to do for the rest of the day? How are you feeling?” I asked her. I pushed my plate away and leaned back in my chair.

  “Let’s go lay out and get a drink. I need something to take this headache away and the pills aren’t cutting it.”

  We spent the afternoon lying out on the beach, soaking in the sun and trying to store it away for winter. I even dropped the sarong and let my cheeks get full exposure. I no longer cared what people would think. It was my last day of vacation and I was going to enjoy it.

  ****

  By dinner time, I calculated that I’d squashed ten million, four hundred thousand and three thoughts about Dylan as the day had progressed. Trying to keep him out of my head was turning into a full-time job. I had no idea what I was going to do once I got back to school. My class load left little time for daydreaming about tall, dark and scruffy men in a tropical paradise.

  Which really was a shame.

  “How ya hanging in there?” Dixie asked as we sat down to our dinner in the hotel restaurant.

  “Meh. Other than a sunburn on my ass, I think I’m fine.”

  Dixie ordered us two margaritas, just the way Dylan had ordered them when he first came up to us on the beach, and my heart sank a little lower.

  Make that ten million, four hundred thousand and four thoughts to squash.

  I sighed loudly.

  “Is everything all right, ma’am?” the waiter asked as he brought over our full-to-the-brim drinks.

  “Yes, thank you.” He offered a smile and then left. “Great. I’ve attracted the concern of the masses,” I added when he was out of earshot.

  Dixie rolled her eyes. “If anyone should be moping, it should be me. We’ve been on this fucking island for five days and I haven’t gotten any action. What a waste of my new bikini.”

  I laughed. “Well, I’m sure you could figure something out if you really put your mind to it. But, I’ll remind you that we do have a very early flight tomorrow morning. I was thinking of staying up through the night and then crashing on the plane. Whaddya say? An old fashioned sleep-over?”

  Dixie wasn’t paying attention to me. I turned in my chair to see what she was staring at and wasn’t at all surprised to find that her eyes had locked on a guy coming into the restaurant.

  “Dix?”

  She snapped her attention back to me. “Sorry, what’d you say?”

  “Our flight leaves really early tomorrow, remember?”

  “Uh huh.”

  I sighed. I’d lost her. There was no point in trying to get her to focus now. So I sipped on my drink and nibbled at the appetizer plate that had been deposited a few minutes before.

  Without fail, the guys sent over a couple of fresh drinks. Dixie went over to thank them personally, but I stayed behind, preferring to offer a friendly wave of thanks. I took a sip of the new drink and decided that was enough. It certainly had nothing on the drinks Dylan had ordered for us on the beach.

  Ellie, you gotta let him go. I told myself.

  Logically, I knew that he was probably back in New York by now or at least at the airport. In his little speech, he hadn’t given a specific timeline. Not that it had been needed. All I’d needed to know what that I’d been cut from the line-up.

  Thinking back on it again, I realized that he’d probably slept with the two hoochies who had shown up at his door and then lied about it when I pressed the issue. I decided to hang onto that as fuel for my self-induced hatred of him. If nothing else, it should make it easier to forget all about him.

  So I thought.

  Chapter Four — Ellie

  “Ellie! You won’t believe it!” Dixie said, rushing back to the table.

  “Let me guess. He’s single, interested, but there’s just one catch. He needs someone to babysit his wingman if he’s going to be able to go out with you?” I rattled off, watching Dixie’s smile fade with each word.

  “For fuck’s sake, Ellie. You make it seem like I do this to you all the time.”

  “That’s because you do.”

  As Dixie’s roommate, I was often her party friend. I mostly went along to keep her out of trouble and to occasionally drink a little and meet new people. It wasn’t really my thing, but she was my best friend, so I did it anyway. It seemed that the guy she was most interested in was always with a buddy, and therefore, if she wanted to sneak away with the guy, it fell to me to keep the friend occupied so he wouldn’t know he got ditched.

  If girls travel in packs, then guys definitely travel in pairs.

  I looked past her to the two guys sitting at the other table. They were good looking in the tan, blond, surfer sort of way. Unfortunately, my palate had recently become a tad more interested in tall, dark and perfectly stubbled.

  “Well, if you don’t want to, I’m not going to drag your ass over there. But I will say, I think you should come with us because it will be fun and it might help you purge what’s his name dick head out of your system.”

  She had a point. I knew the responsible thing to do would be to go back to the room and start packing, but I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts any more th
an I had to, and I knew that if Dixie got her wish, she wouldn’t be going back to the room anytime soon.

  Knowing her, she would get tangled up and forget all about our flight. I would have to pack her bags as well as mine and track her ass down in time to catch the first shuttle back to the airport.

  No, it would be better to keep her close. That way, I could make sure she didn’t stay out all night.

  “All right, let’s go,” I agreed.

  Dixie squealed in delight and I tried to put on a happy face. I stuffed the last artichoke dip covered chip into my mouth before getting up and following her across the room. I had no interest in the friend and figured some garlic artichoke cheese breath ought to make sure he didn’t get too close.

  “Ellie, this is Steve. Steve, my friend Ellie.”

  “It’s Steph, actually, Stephan,” he corrected.

  Dixie just giggled.

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “And this is my brother, Brad.”

  Dixie arched an eyebrow in my direction. I knew just what she was thinking. We had never pseudo-dated brothers before. It was probably on some sort of bucket list of hers, though. She would think it was cute, and knowing her, kinky in some kind of way.

  My nipples were still aching from the diamond rings that Dylan had clamped on them, and my skin still showed the faint outlines of the bruises he’d left. There was no way I was going near kink anytime soon. With Dylan, it had been easy and exciting. The thought of trying to replicate that rush with someone else not only seemed impossible, but was also a kind of a turn off.

  “We were going to get a drink at the hula-looking bar on the beach. Have you ladies been yet?”

  I started to shake my head but Dixie interrupted. “No, but we wanted to! That sounds so fun. Ellie, don’t you think so?”

  I quickly changed my gesture to a nod. “Yeah, fun.”

  Dixie grabbed a hold of Stephan’s arm and the two of them clung together as we all made our way out of the restaurant.

  Brad offered me his arm, but I ignored it and walked in front of him a couple of paces. I had to keep him occupied—there was nothing in the roommate agreement that said I had to flirt with him.