“Um, so that’s my husband’s fault,” Autumn piped up through the speaker.
Julian was startled at first by the disembodied voice coming out of nowhere, but he recognized Autumn and glanced down to see my phone in my hand. “What are you talking about?”
Autumn sighed. “I’m so sorry.”
“You can’t honestly be firing Julian?!” I yelled.
“Oh, shit.” It was a little freaky when Drew and Julain said the same thing at the same time. But Jullian’s face was the only one I could see and he was staring at my desk.
“Drew accidentally sent the flyers to Anna instead of Kyler.”
Kyler worked directly under me, managing the front line with our staff. Were they firing me too?
Julian groaned. “Thanks for the heads up,” he said calmly. “Tell Drew he owes me. Big time.” Before anyone could say another word, he lifted my phone from my hands and hung up.
“I don’t understand what’s happening…” I trailed off, thoroughly confused by Julian’s laid back attitude when our employers and, I thought, friends were giving us the axe.
Julian wrapped his arms around me and kissed my cheek, then he looked down at me with a rueful smile. “Drew hired Lulu at my suggestion. I saw her act last year at The Venetian and I knew she’d be a good replacement”—he put a finger over my lips when he saw I was about to speak—”temporary replacement for me. She’s filling in, baby. Not permanent.”
“Okaaaay, then why was everyone hiding it from me?” I queried, my mouth curled down in frustration.
“Because the reason she’s taking my place for a while is—or was supposed to be—a surprise.”
My brows shot up and Julian chuckled. “I’m making us both disappear.” He winked at me, which set off a group of butterflies fluttering in my stomach. It didn’t matter how long we’d been together, he still had that effect on me.
“Stop talking in magician-speak and spit it out,” I snipped, less angry and frustrated, but still a little annoyed.
“Baby, I’m taking you on that European vacation you’ve always talked about.”
My jaw literally dropped, and my eyes went wide. “What?”
Julian laughed and his green eyes sparkled. “Yep. I paid attention to everything you said and started making plans years ago. But I knew we wouldn’t be able to do it until the kids were a little older because you wouldn’t want to be so far away from them for a long period of time. Plus, it took a while for me to find a replacement I felt was worthy of the job.”
“How long?”
“Well, we’ll be gone a month—”
“A month?” Was he nuts? I wasn’t leaving my babies for a whole month.
“Baby, you wanted me to spit it out, so close your pretty mouth and let me speak. Or I’ll close it for you.”
I thought about how he would accomplish that and heat trickled through my body, going straight to my core and making my panties damp. A slow, sinful smile spread across his face, proving he knew exactly where my mind had gone.
“You can talk some more later, and I’ll give you a demonstration,” he teased with a smirk. I nodded and he went on. “You and I will only be by ourselves for two weeks. The kids will join us for the last two.”
“I—I don’t know what to say.” My mind was whirling as excitement began to build inside me. Was this really going to happen?
“It’s definitely happening,” he answered, making me wonder for the zillionth time if he should be doing a mind reader bit in his show. “I just know my wife.”
Suddenly, he released me, only to sweep me up into his arms and stalk out of my office. I sighed, daydreaming about all the romantic places we were going to visit, and desire unfurled inside me as I thought about all the yummy, dirty things we’d be doing while we were there.
“As for what you should say,” he drawled. “I’ve got some ideas.”
Not surprisingly, he requested to hear me calling his name...screaming seemed an acceptable response as well.
Several hours later, I was exhausted from all the “talking,” but it had been worth every word.
“I hope the hotel rooms I booked are soundproofed,” he mumbled as he cuddled me into his chest. “Because damn, baby. I don’t get to hear you like that very often, and it is hot as fuck. For two whole weeks there won’t be any kids to worry about waking up.”
“What about the other people staying at the hotel?” I giggled.
“If they don’t want to hear me make my wife scream, then they need to find someone to fuck who will drown it out.”
He was so matter-of-fact, I burst into laughter, but it quickly became a moan when the movement rubbed Julian’s thickening cock against my clit. He hadn’t pulled out of me yet, and in the time it took to roll us over so I was straddling him, he’d hardened completely and was stretching my pussy around his swollen shaft.
“Show me, baby,” he demanded as he began to move. “Ride my cock and show me how you’re going to shout the walls of our hotels down.” He grabbed my hips as I worked myself up and down, speeding up as my climax loomed in front of me.
When I fell over the edge, Julian punched his hips up and buried himself as deep as possible. “Anna! Fuck!” he roared.
When I could think clearly again, I smirked. I wasn’t the only one who was going to make plenty of noise.
Extra Extra Epilogue
Julian
“Anna,” I growled, “This won’t change my mind…” I trailed off with a groan as my wife swallowed my cock. Fuck, my resistance was deteriorating. I made every effort to give my wife anything she wanted, but when it came to her safety, I wouldn’t budge. And that included letting her go out on the strip with her girlfriends without me there to watch over her.
She’d even tried seduction a few times, which I highly encouraged. But this was the first time she’d begged from her knees, and I was about ready to give in. I might have been a world renowned magician, but what people didn’t know, what they would never know, was that my wife was more magical than I would ever be. Somehow, she’d learned to turn a lion into a purring cat. Yeah, I was putty in my wife’s hands. And her mouth. And her pussy.
“Are you sure?” she asked before she licked up the underside of my dick, then sucked hard on the shaft.
“Oh, fuck, Anna,” I groaned. “That’s it, baby.”
She popped my cock out of her mouth, and I glanced down to see her kiss-swollen lips in a pretty pout. “Please?”
Son of a bitch. I was generally powerless to her when she said please like that, but seeing her do it on her knees with the tip of my cock kissing her lips. A smile curved her lips and she went back to giving me a blow job with gusto born of gratitude.
Yeah, she’d won and she knew it.
Any more thinking became impossible as she drove me to orgasm and I came long and hard down her throat.
“Damn, baby,” I grunted when my knees wobbled and I slid down the wall into a boneless heap.
She crawled onto my lap and kissed me sweetly. “Thank you. I promise to be good and I’d be more than happy to reward you when I get home.”
My cock jumped at the thought, but I shut it down to have a serious conversation with my wife. I might have given in, but I had conditions. “No busting the three-drink limit. No leaving the house without panties, no skirts, nothing that shows off too much skin, no talking to strange men. And I’ll be talking to Zack about Amelia,” I warned her. “No daring each other. No seedy bars. Call when you arrive at the restaurant and again when you leave.”
I stopped to think if there were any other conditions, and Anna smacked my chest. “So I should wear an outfit that covers me from head to toe in one-hundred-ten-degree weather. Walk because I can’t talk to a cab driver. Eat at a chain restaurant. And stick to water. Anything else?” she asked dryly.
“Your head can be uncovered,” I answered.
“Good grief, you crazy man,” she snipped as she stood.
“Okay, maybe those were a
little extreme,” I admitted grudgingly. “How about we meet in the middle?”
“I'll tell you what, I’ll think about your demands. That’s the best you’re going to get.”
That Friday night, I grilled her about her night as she showered and got ready.
“What are your plans for tonight?” I asked casually.
She paused her application of mascara to shrug. “I didn’t plan anything except the date.”
When she left the house, it was clear that I’d lost every battle. Her white, lacy dress hugged every curve, and I knew there would have been a line if she’d been wearing panties under the mid-thigh length skirt.
I’d been temporarily stunned by her beauty, and that was the only reason she’d been able to slip out in that sorry excuse for a dress. The only thing that kept my head from exploding was knowing I’d have eyes on her all night.
None of my friends had been happy about the girls’ plan either, so we decided to make sure our women were protected, even if they didn’t know. Most of us weren’t unfamiliar with the concepts of stalking and kidnapping. At least they were our wives now.
I met Drew at the front door of The Lennox, knowing that the girls intended to meet up there first.
“I suggest you go after your wife now,” Drew said quietly.
My eyebrows rose, and he shot a glance toward the entrance to the casino where I spotted my wife walking in on the arm of an unknown man.
I trusted Anna implicitly, so I knew there had to be a logical explanation. However, that didn’t mean my possessive, jealous side didn’t consume me at the thought of another man touching my wife.
Throwing Drew a dark look, I raced in the direction Anna had gone. When I had eyes on her again, the man was holding open the door to a private room.
When I reached the entrance, I threw open the door only to come to a sudden halt. The room was filled with people. There were bright decorations, tables of food, and a stage where the man I’d seen with Anna was walking up to the microphone in the center.
“SURPRISE!”
I stared at the crowd of my friends and family, my jaw hanging as I realized what was happening. In all the years Anna and I had been together, she’d never been able to keep a secret from me. My business was deception, and I could see it coming from a mile away.
Anna walked toward me from the center of the group, a bright smile lighting up her beautiful face. “Happy birthday, babe.”
I yanked her into my arms and crushed my mouth over hers. My wife was fucking amazing.
“How the hell did you pull this off?” I asked suspiciously when I finally let her up for air. I didn’t like the idea that my woman had learned to keep things from me.
Anna grinned proudly. “Autumn planned it all for me. I didn’t know anything but the date. So there was no way for you to extract the information.”
I laughed and kissed my wife again. “I love you,” I mumbled against her sweet lips. When I pulled back, my eyes swept down her body. “You are utterly enchanting, baby,” I told her softly. Then I leaned in to put my mouth to her ear. “But if you don’t have something else to change into, we’re leaving right now.”
Her shoulders shook as she giggled. “Relax, Julian. I knew you’d stalk me tonight and decided to torture you a little. I have another dress in the other room.”
I breathed a sigh of relief but caught her arm as she started to walk away. “I hope you don’t like this dress too much, baby. Because you’ll be wearing it again later, and I fully intend to tear it off your sexy as fuck body.”
Anna shivered and turned heated eyes on me. “Promise?”
I debated making us disappear right that moment, but Anna shook her head, obviously reading my expression. “We worked hard on this, Julian Storm. You will not disappoint our friends.”
I pouted a little, and she laughed. “I’ll make it up to you.”
That cheered me right up, and I gave her one more hard kiss before whispering, “I love you.”
“Just so you know for later, those are the magic words,” she tossed over her shoulder sassily as she walked away.
Happy birthday to me.
Kiss Me, Baby
Amelia Flores was in Vegas for a bachelorette party when the bride dared her to kiss a stranger. The shy food blogger didn’t plan to follow through with her cousin’s challenge until she spotted Zack Parker. They’d never met before, but the attraction she felt toward him was explosive.
It wasn’t every day a woman strolled up and gave Zack the best kiss of his life, but life as a single dad had taught the billionaire to recognize life’s bounties. It took a single touch of her lips for him to realize the mysterious beauty was meant to be his. Now he was going to pull out all the stops to make her his wife.
1
Amelia
“C’mon, Amelia, don’t be a stick in the mud. Pick a dare instead of truth.”
I wanted to stomp my foot in frustration, but I’d probably end up spraining my ankle since my cousin talked me into wearing three-inch spiky heels when I usually went with flats or wedges. The only thing worse was the sparkly halter top and skinny jeans she’d forced me to pour myself into. But I couldn’t say no—not when we were in Vegas for her bachelorette party. Unfortunately, agreeing to stuff I didn’t want to do had been the theme of the day, which didn’t bode well for me. This was only the first day of our trip, and odds were good the stuff she wanted me to do was going to get worse as time went on.
Being the only sober one in the bunch was turning out to be a lot less fun than I’d expected—and my bar had already been set pretty low. But I was Maria’s maid of honor, so I couldn’t skip out on the trip.
“Are you sure you want to keep playing truth or dare?” I asked for about the tenth time in the past hour. “We’re almost at the hotel, and it’s been a long day.”
“No excuses!” cried one of Maria’s friends from college.
“Yeah, pick a dare!” the others chimed in.
“Fine,” I huffed. “Dare.”
Maria’s eyes lit up, and she rubbed her hands together in excitement. “I want you to kiss a guy before we get back to the suite.”
Kiss a guy?! I figured whatever she’d dare me to do was going to be outside my comfort zone, but I hadn’t expected her to tell me to accost a stranger. Especially when she knew darn well that I was a virgin. Not that she was daring me to have sex with some guy I picked up off the street, but still. Maria knew me well enough to know how weird I’d feel going up to some guy and laying a kiss on him. Then I brightened as I had an idea—maybe if I kept the kiss PG, I wouldn’t die of embarrassment.
Maria crushed my hopes when she added, “And it has to be a real kiss on the lips with tongue.”
I wrinkled my nose and heaved a deep sigh, my shoulders dropping as I trudged along with Maria and the rest of her bridal party. The next six blocks were torture. My feet were killing me, and the girls pointed out about a dozen guys they thought I should kiss. By the time we were less than a block away from our hotel, I was starting to seriously worry about how much they’d all had to drink because their picks were terrible. The last one had been walking into an attorney’s office whose awning advertised quickie divorces. He’d been wearing a tux, and the woman with him was still in her bridal gown. Presumably, the guy had gotten married last night and already regretted the decision. Kissing him in front of the woman he was about to divorce was out of the question because I definitely didn’t need that kind of drama in my life.
“There’s no way she’s going to do it,” one of the bridesmaids mumbled.
“Probably not,” Maria agreed before lifting the bottle of the one hundred and ninety-two proof Polish vodka she’d snagged at the ice bar we’d hit up before calling it a night. “But I’m cool with that too because then she’ll have to take a shot in a forfeit. That will be almost as funny because Amelia isn’t much of a drinker, and this stuff is like jet fuel.”
I grimaced, reminding myself that my cousin re
ally did love me even if she wasn’t showing it in the best way at the moment. She’d had more than her fair share of that vodka, along with several other drinks tonight. Blaming her teasing on the alcohol, I was almost ready to call off her harebrained dare and take a swig from the bottle when I spotted him—the only man I could picture myself kissing tonight...or any night, for that matter.
He strode out of the hotel and casino directly next door to the one where we were staying. He was wearing a black suit that looked as though it had been tailored to fit his tall body. His dark hair was overdue for a cut, and my fingers itched to run through it, and I could practically feel the scruff on his face scraping against my soft skin. Something about this man had my dormant libido roaring to life.
As his head turned in our direction and his dark eyes met mine, I whispered, “I’m not going to need the vodka.”
“Huh? What’d you say?” Maria asked, her brow wrinkling in confusion.
“You’re not going to get the chance to see me drinking that jet fuel.” I sped up my pace, stepping as carefully as I could in the shoes that were bound to land me in the emergency room if she made me wear them again. Glancing over my shoulder, I added, “I accepted the dare, and I’m going to go through with it.”
Maria came to a sudden halt, her jaw going slack in shock at my announcement. Her friends stopped with her, and they all watched as I approached the man I planned to kiss. His gaze swept down my body, and as I got closer, I was able to see the male appreciation in his dark eyes. Knowing the attraction was reciprocated helped settle most of my nerves at doing something so out of character.
My newly discovered confidence took a nosedive when I stumbled and crashed into his chest, but I wasn’t going to allow that to stop me. With his strong hands wrapped around my upper arms—conveniently holding me steady—I rose as high as I could go on my toes and pressed my lips against his. I felt his fingers tighten as a deep groan rumbled up his chest. Emboldened by his response, I gently stroked my tongue across his bottom lip. I figured that would be enough to satisfy the dare, but when his lips parted, I took the kiss further. My heart raced as my tongue swept inside his mouth to tangle with his. When I heard my cousin and her friends hooting and hollering, I reluctantly pulled away from my mystery man.
Vegas, Baby: Complete Series Page 48