by Jessica Lake
His Irish Coffee
The Cocktail Girls
Jessica Lake
Copyright © 2018 Jessica Lake
All Rights Reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.
Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.
Contents
1. Lila
2. Declan
3. Lila
4. Declan
5. Lila
6. Declan
7. Lila
8. Declan
9. Lila
10. Declan
11. Lila
12. Declan
13. Lila
Epilogue
Get Drunk On Love!
More!
Irish Coffee Recipe
Also by Jessica Lake
Author Information
1
Lila
Sin City.
Vegas, baby, Vegas.
A neon-lit oasis of debauchery in the middle of the desert, the city of beautiful women, spectacular shows, designer boutiques and Michelin-starred food.
I'm not so interested in shows, designer labels or overpriced meals.
No, what I'm interested in is money. Not the kind of money I see thrown around by high-rollers, either. What I need is about seven hundred thousand dollars. A paltry amount, really – the kind of dough that a certain class of person will drop at a roulette table on a single night, or use to pay off their mistresses when the wife's antenna starts picking up strange signals.
And what do I have going for me, in order to earn this that kind of money? A fancy degree from a prestigious college? A huge and well-connected social group? A keen mind for business? I don't have any of those things. I'm 21 years old, I barely managed to graduate high school after my mom got sick, and I grew up in the kind of small, mid-western town where owning the local used car dealership made you high-status. So you might say I don't have much going for me at all. There is one thing, though...
2
Declan
She's beautiful. I mean, she's more than beautiful. She's the kind of jaw-dropping that makes a man do a double-take not because he wants a second look (although believe me, I want a second look) but because his brain can't quite believe what his eyes are seeing.
I've been in this ridiculous city for less than 24 hours and already I've seen more gorgeous women than I saw in all my 27 years in Tamhnall, Ireland. But I'm not here to meet women and I'm not here to gamble my money away. I'm here to give my best friend Kevin the send-off he deserves before he marries the love of his life. That's all. That's it. We're flying back home in 5 days. I have clients flying in from Dubai in just over a week, to check up on the progress of their yearling. I'm a busy man. I don't have time for –
"Welcome to the LBD. Can I get you a drink, sir?'
Words. Talking. Someone is talking. With some effort, I tear my gaze away from the vision across the room and look at the woman addressing me. She's gorgeous, too. Tall, blonde, inexplicably working in a high-end cocktail bar in Vegas and not stalking the runways of Paris.
"Uh," I say, as my mates look on with open grins on their faces, amused to see me flustered. "Uh – yeah. A – just a beer, please. If, uh –"
"A beer?" Kevin – the groom-to-be – chides, already slurring his words a little. "A beer?! Fuck that, Dec. We're in Vegas! You're not having a beer. How about one of those –" he turns to Andy – "what was that gingery whiskey thing we had? What was –"
"A penicillin?" The blonde suggests, parting her lips to reveal a row of perfectly straight, perfectly white American teeth.
"Yeah!" Kevin shouts. "One of those! Make it 6 of those, actually. We're all having a pesh – a pesh – a pen –"
"A penicillin," Conor cuts in and the beautiful cocktail waitress smiles and nods and looks to the other end of the bar, gesturing towards her co-worker – the one who I'm not sure I can even look at again without losing the ability to think.
3
Lila
A bachelor party – I can spot them from miles away. A single-sex group of men, usually in their late 20s or early 30s, almost always pretty drunk before they even walk in the door and, given the right handling, almost always generous tippers. These ones look European somehow, as I walk over to the bar to help Katya with the order. They're wearing those tight-fitting jeans that American men haven't quite taken to, and they've got that 'we're in a foreign country so we don't have to behave' vibe to them. It's not a problem. If there's one thing I've learned since taking the job at the LBD, it's how to handle mildly intoxicated men.
I lean over the bar, keenly aware of the eyeballs lavishing attention upon my every curve, and nod at Katya, so she knows I'll lend a hand. She leans in close, whispering in my ear.
"Irish, I think. Maybe Australian. Bachelor party. Good tips, yes?"
Katya is Russian, and like me she's learned to play to her strengths – in her case a sexy accent and mile-long legs.
The men – not just the ones we're serving but all the men in the bar – stare. They do it helplessly, without thought, and I don't blame them. It's by design. Maximo only hires the hottest girls he can find, and I figure if beauty is finite – and one look at my mother tells me it is – I might as well make use of it while I've got it.
I notice one of the men while I help Katya with the drinks, although I don't give him any sign. He seems slightly apart from his friends, somehow. He doesn't look as drunk as they do, and he's got a half-amused smile on his face and eyes as pale and blue as a glacier.
"That one is hot," Katya whispers as she brushes past me. "In the back, with the –"
"Yeah," I nod, before she can finish. "A little."
It's not just his eyes. When I place his drink on a white linen napkin on the bar, the man with the ice-colored eyes approaches and I am immediately aware, even without looking directly at him, of his physical presence. He's tall, but not so tall that he stands out for it. And he's well-built, broad-shouldered in a way that speaks to genetics as much as it does to time spent in the gym. But I see a lot of tall, well-built men every day. The LBD is, as Maximo likes to say, a 'classy joint.' We attract a certain kind of clientele. Moneyed, educated, able to converse with beautiful women without tripping all over themselves. And the bachelor parties, of course, who spend money so freely old Max usually doesn't turn them away unless they look like they're going to cause a real scene.
So why is this man, who I have yet to even speak to, suddenly making it feel like all the air has been sucked out of the room? Why am I so aware of him, standing there in front of me with only the bar between us? And what is that low hum in my belly, like someone has installed a train track out back of the LBD, and sent a train rumbling down the tracks? I don't know. All I know is that when I look up to give him one of the polite-but-slightly-saucy smiles I've perfected over the past few months, he's looking right at me.
4
Declan
I resist the urge to blink again, the way a man would if presented with a different kind of impossible vision – a levitating car, for example, or an inexplicable card trick. Is she real? She seems real. She's talking to the blonde, pulling the back of her dress down where its ridden up almost to the very top of her tawny, perfect thighs. And then she places
my drink on the bar and looks up at me and it's like I can feel every cell in my body suddenly turning its attention directly to her.
"There you go, sir. Your penicillin."
She is composed seemingly entirely of a series of soft, smooth curves. My brain takes her in that way, in little pieces, because it would be too much to take her in all at once. Her hair is dark brown, thick and pulled into a ponytail. A ponytail – Jesus, how long is it since I've seen something as simple and mesmerizing as this cocktail waitress' ponytail? It bobs as she moves, the glossy tendrils tumbling over her shoulders and her slender, graceful neck.
"Thank you," I reply, lifting the drink to my lips and taking a sip.
"Where are you boys from?" The blonde asks, addressing the entire group of us. "Australia?"
"Australia?!" Kevin booms, laughing out loud and shaking his head exaggeratedly – he really is quite drunk already. "Australia?? We're from Ireland, girl! But I might be willing to forgive you for that mistake if you apologize nicely."
The blonde smiles at Kevin and I see exactly what she's doing, I know without doubt that she wouldn't be giving poor Kev the time of day if she wasn't being paid to do so. I don't judge her for it – not at all. I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of his drunken affections, either, so I can't blame any woman who feels the same.
"I'm sorry about him," I say, leaning against the bar and addressing the stunning brunette – who is still standing in front of me, watching the exchange between Kevin and her colleague with what looks like mild amusement. "He doesn't get out much, so he's a little giddy – you understand."
She giggles, and then stops herself halfway through, as if realizing she's still at work. Her eyes are a deep brown, so dark I can't see the pupils, and her top lip is slightly fuller than the lower one, both glossed a bright pink. I can't stare at those lips for too long, not without thoughts – and other things – popping up where I don't need them.
What would it be like to feel those lips parting under my own? To feel this girl's raw hunger for –
"Mate, put your eyes back in your head and come sit down."
It's Andy, and I can see from the look on his face that I haven't been subtle. Fuck. The brunette is watching me, an unreadable expression on her face. I give her a nod and grab my drink before joining my friends.
"She's well fit," Andy says, looking towards the bar when we've sat down on leather seats so cushy it feels like I'm floating. "The women here are something else. I knew they were going to be but this – I mean – I've never seen women this hot in my life. Don't know how I'm gonna go back to Tamhnall now."
"How much do you think?" Conor asks, also looking towards the bar. "For the night, I mean, with one of those two?"
"I don't think they're prostitutes," Andy chuckles. "Not every woman here is for sale."
"Of course they are!" Conor insists. "This is Las Vegas, isn't it? Isn't everyone for sale here – or rent, anyway? Come on, what do you think? A thousand quid? Two thousand?"
"It'd take a lot more than two grand to get a girl that hot to jump on your skinny arse!" Sean laughs, and the conversation immediately devolves into how much it would cost to get an attractive woman to sleep with Conor.
"At least ten grand," Kev says.
Sean shakes his head. "Nah. I reckon there's no amount of money that'd get Conor laid. Even hookers have got to have standards, right?"
As we take the piss out of each other and drink, I glance up towards the bar again. A middle-aged man is talking to the brunette, and she's giving him that same bland smile I saw her friend giving Kevin, nodding as he speaks, her ponytail dancing. When she turns to carry a tray of drinks to another table, the man openly ogles her body and I'm surprised by the hostility that boils up in my chest, the instant urge to grab him – a stranger – by the back of his shirt and drag him out onto the street.
I can't even pretend to myself that any of my instincts are chivalrous – they're not. They're about as far from chivalrous as it's possible to get.
5
Lila
I pop my purse open on the cracked counter in the staff bathroom as Katya eyeballs my make-up disapprovingly.
"Ugh," she says, and I almost laugh out loud at her directness. "You have a good-paying job now," she continues, frowning as I squeeze the last contents of a tube of drugstore brand lip-gloss onto my lips. "You don't have to buy these cheap things anymore, Lila. You can buy nice things now, you know. I can take you this weekend if you like? To the Chanel counter at –"
I shake my head before she can finish. "No. And you know why. Besides, this lip-gloss doesn't look any different to yours – the only difference is it didn't cost a week's grocery money."
Katya leans forward, closer to the mirror, and re-applies concealer under her eyes. "I'm not talking about a lot of money, you know. 50 dollars? Then you don't have to carry around that sad little collection of –"
I turn, on the verge of getting angry, and eyeball her. "That's 50 dollars my mom could use! How many times do I have to tell you this? I'm not here to get rich, OK? It's OK if you are, but I –"
Katya shakes her head and looks contrite. "You're right. I'm sorry. I forget sometimes about your mother and her illness. I shouldn't have said anything – you Americans are so good at not saying things, aren't you? I am still learning how to be like that – how to not say things. Of course you need to look after your mother before anything else! And if that means you have ugly make-up then so – how do you say it? So it be?"
"So be it," I grin, amused because part of me actually enjoys Katya's directness about my 'ugly' make-up. "And yeah – so be it. My make-up is ugly. Big deal, I'll survive."
I slip my thumbs under the straps of my dress – a very tight, very short, very black Hervé Leger number given to me by none other than Katya after another one of her frequent closet clean-outs – and adjust them on my shoulders before turning around to inspect the view from behind.
"Damnit my ass is hanging out of this thing. You have to tell me when that happens!"
Katya shrugs. "But you get much better tips that way. I bet those Irish boys leave us huge tips tonight – they better, because I need a new pair of Louboutins. Did I show them to you? The ombre rainbow patent Pigalles that –"
I nod and roll my eyes. "Yes, Katya, you showed them to me. Like, a thousand times."
"Then you understand how much I need them," she replies, catching my eye in the mirror. "Anyway, we better get back out there before Max gets angry."
"You go ahead," I say. "I'll just be a sec."
The minute Katya's gone I go back to my 'ugly' make-up, safe now from her taunts, which hurt even though I know she doesn't quite mean them to. I brush a little more glittery gold shadow onto the centers of my lids, and then top up the highlighter on the tops of my cheeks and give myself one last look before heading back out.
I run into someone as soon as I leave the employee bathroom – someone big, someone who smells good, although if anyone asked I wouldn't quite be able to describe how or why – and assume it's one of the security team.
But it's not one of the security team. It's that Irish guy – the one from the bachelor party, the one who made my stomach feel a little funny.
"Oh!" I say, flustered to be so close to him – because we really are standing quite close to each other in the narrow hallway. "Did you – um, were you looking for the, uh, the bathrooms? You –"
But I stop talking then, because he's looking right at me and I suddenly can't seem to remember what I was saying.
How is it that I've stood close to people before – that I've stood close to men before – and it's never felt like this? It's never given me weird butterflies like this, never sent a strange, tingling warmth through my belly?
"I –" I start, and then immediately stop because I've made the mistake of looking up, right into his eyes, and there's something there in their icy depths that makes me swallow, hard.
"You what?" He asks, his lips curling into
a crooked smile. Does he know the effect he's having on me? I think he does.
"I –" I try again. "I –"
"You're beautiful," he says. I've heard it before, a thousand times if I've heard it once, always from men. Young men, old men, attractive men, ugly men, men with beards, fat men, men in shiny suits, men wearing too much cologne. Men. I know to react to being told I'm beautiful. Smile. Look away briefly, as if flattered, but not for too long – not long enough to give them the idea that I'm interested.
It feels, standing in front of this burly Irishman, a little like it did in high school, standing in front of the class to give an oral report (public speaking terrifies me). My heart flutters in my chest, my cheeks burn and tingle and I'm too caught up in the moment to do any thinking. And I probably should be thinking. I should be thinking about the fact that I'm at work, or that I don't know the man who seems to have cast some kind of anxious, heated spell over me.
"What?" He chuckles gently, and I swear to God my knees weaken at the sound of it. "Don't tell me no one's ever told you you're beautiful before?"
Even as I look down to the floor, plush red carpet and dark wood trim, my own feet in the sky-high heels Maximo insists we wear, I don't really see any of it. I'm not aware of anything except the man in front of me, and the few short inches of space, crackling with electricity, between us.