“Well, I guess you better read the directions first to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“My Y chromosome makes it impossible for me to read directions. It all looks like Farsi or Martian.” He jumped a little when he pressed a button and the toy deflated with a loud burp. “Jesus.”
“You’re excused,” she said on a laugh, realizing too late she’d just made a fart joke with a guest holding an inflatable butt plug. She hoped to God this didn’t make it onto the guest feedback card at the end of his trip.
“I shouldn’t have had the burrito for lunch,” he said, continuing his retrieval of the sex toys on the floor. She continued to snort unprofessionally when she really should get a grip on herself.
Kelsey held up the box, frowning at the bottom where it was split open along the flaps. He glanced up and peered through the opening at her.
“Hold on, I think I have a box you can use.” Micah scrambled to his feet and disappeared behind the bar that separated the kitchenette area from the rest of the suite. She continued to locate the ones buzzing on the floor and turned them off as he bumped around in search of a box. “Found it! My publisher sent a few books for me to sign.”
She looked up as he rounded the corner with a box about the same size as the one that had failed her so miserably. He held it out but tugged the container back when she reached out.
“Wait.” He lifted his lip in the sexy half-smile that she already liked seeing on his face. Its heat contrasted in the best way with the shy, dark brown cast of his eyes and the reserved but warm lilt of his accent. She knew where his heroes got their ability to make every heroine fall for them so hard. He looked in the mirror. “If I give you this box, I want something in return.”
Kelsey tried to frown but it was impossible. He was having too much fun and he had her interest piqued, but she was also suspicious. Usually when a guest said that to her, there were serious strings attached and often of the sexual variety.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to call me Micah.” When she opened her mouth to protest he cut her off. “Not in public. I don’t want you to get in trouble, but if it’s just the two of us, don’t call me Mr. Holmes. I feel like I need to pull out a pipe and find a sidekick named Watson every time someone calls me that.”
She’d thought he was going to ask her out, and she recognized the bite of disappointment in her gut. There was no denying their attraction to each other, and she’d grown accustomed to men in Vegas for a few days not wasting any time to go after what they wanted; she’d arrogantly expected that he was the same. It wasn’t like she could accept him anyway.
First, there was the “no fraternization with the guests” rule at the Masquerade. If she was caught, she would be fired and that was something she couldn’t even fathom. She loved her job. Second was her own rule to never get involved with a Vegas tourist ever again. She’d been burned too many times by men who took off their wedding rings or forgot their commitments back home the minute they hit the airport terminal. Kelsey had learned the hard way that “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” meant the girl you romanced morning, noon, and night. The only thing that stayed behind in Vegas was her broken heart.
He was waiting for her answer, and she decided she could give him this. At the Masquerade the guest was always right, and this request was harmless.
“You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Holmes.” She couldn’t help teasing him and let a laugh loose when he narrowed his eyes and refused to let the box go. “Fine, Micah.”
“I don’t know why that had to be so hard.” He squatted down and helped her place the sex toys in the box, using a long pink one to emphasize his point. “After you’ve shared a sex toy, you have to be on a first-name basis.”
“When we aren’t within earshot of other guests or my boss.”
“Of course.” He plopped the last dildo in the box and stood, holding out his hand to help her to her feet. She took it gratefully, knowing that if she tried to get up on her own she’d run the risk of letting Micah know exactly what she wore underneath the black pencil skirt of her uniform. He leaned over, picked it up, and handed her the box. “Do you need a hand delivering this orgy-in-a-box?”
“No. Thank you, but no.” Kelsey took the box from him and found herself staring up in to his face, answering his grin with one of her own. She knew she should back up and put her professional mask on, although it was hard to do when she stood holding a box of butt plugs next to a really cute guy who made her laugh. “I’ll be off to make my…delivery. I’ll be in touch about the convention, but remember to give me a call if you need anything.”
Micah gave her another flash of his grin as he shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’ll be seeing you, Kelsey Kyle.”
And she was looking forward to it.
Chapter Two
Wednesday
“Micah, when are you going to be done with this damn book?”
He sat on the sofa and watched Allen George, his agent, pace back and forth over the marble floor of his suite. Micah knew better than to interrupt him when he was trying to bully him into delivering the manuscript early. He reached over and grabbed his beer off the coffee table, taking a sip before settling back against the cushions.
“Allen, I’ve been here since Friday doing nothing but work on the damn book. Nobody wants to be done more than I do.” And God knew that was the truth. If he could go back five years and never answer the ad for a ghostwriter, he would. Micah would have taken the fucking note handed to him by his creative writing teacher and used it for target practice.
“Will this one really be the last? Are you still going turn down eight figures and make me a poor man? Do you have any idea how much fifteen percent of a gazillion dollars actually is? Do you?”
“I think math is your job,” he said.
“Fifteen percent of a gazillion dollars is enough for me to build two pools at my house in Turks and Caicos.”
“Fuck you, Allen.” Micah laughed, throwing a pillow at the man who’d become his friend over the years. He was greedy, loud, and obnoxiously extravagant with women, sports tickets, and cars. The total opposite of Micah, but he’d not had a better friend since his time in the Marines. “I’ve made you very rich over the years. How much money do you need?”
“More,” Allen said as he threw himself down on the couch. “And it’s not about needing the money, Mike. You know that.” He tipped his own beer back and shook his head. “I don’t know how you can turn down that kind of money for three more books.”
“It’s easy because I don’t want to write these fucking books anymore. I never meant for this to be my career, and it won’t matter how much money they throw at it.”
“All right, all right.” Allen held up his hands in surrender. They’d had this conversation a million times, drunk, sober, hungover, in person and on the phone.
“Sell my military thriller and make sure you can continue to live up to the level to which you’ve become accustomed, princess.”
“That hurts, asshole.” Allen grabbed at his chest. “It’s true, but it hurts.”
“I’ll call down to front desk and get you a Hello Kitty Band-Aid.”
Allen sighed, his frustration evident, sending a kick of unease to Micah’s gut. This wasn’t just a social call, and his friend didn’t have good news. He reached over, picked up his beer, and took a long swallow. He was pretty sure he would need all the alcohol he could get for this conversation.
“Micah, we have no offers on your book unless you agree to write romance for the house as well,” Allen said, his tone more of an apology than anything else. Of course he would think that this was his fault.
“Well, that fucking sucks, but it’s not your fault.”
“It’s my job to sell your books. I think the blame lies completely in my lap.” He shoved Micah in the shoulder. “It doesn’t mean I won’t keep trying if that’s what you really want.”
“That’s what I really want.” He sighed
and leaned his head against the back cushions of the sofa, staring at the overly carved ceiling of this outrageously overpriced suite. “I know it’s shitty to turn down that kind of money, but I don’t want to be obligated to write anymore of these books. I really don’t want to do it.”
Allen was quiet on his end of the couch, the only sound the thunk of his beer bottle being placed on the table.
“This is what I don’t get, man. How do you write these incredible books when you don’t believe in love? They are the most romantic shit ever put between two covers. You write the ‘books that make America fall in love’ for Christ’s sake.”
“I hate that stupid tagline…”
“You can hate it all you want, but it’s true. You even get me weepy when I read them.” His friend smacked him on the shoulder. “We’ve been friends long enough that I can tell you I thought you had a vagina after I read your first book.”
That got his attention. He swiveled his head to glare at his best friend. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m just saying I didn’t believe a guy wrote them when I first read them.” He held his pointer finger up to forestall the comment Micah wanted to make. “I know you don’t actually have a vagina. I’ve seen you at the gym and you’ve got plenty going on down there to make the rest of us feel bad.”
“Stop looking at my dick, Allen. Seriously.”
“I only looked that one time, and you’re missing my point.”
“You have one?” He snorted and ducked another jab that almost made him spill his beer. “I’ve been writing for a solid week, please don’t make me read your mind.”
Allen got up and headed over to the kitchen area, opening the refrigerator to get another beer. He removed the bottle cap before he continued. “My point is that you write this shit that gets every woman in America crying and then climbing on top of their husbands who immediately start begging their doctors for Viagra by the truckload, and I don’t know how you do it when you don’t date…”
“My lifestyle doesn’t make it feasible.”
“You don’t have a sex life to speak of…”
“As long as my hands aren’t amputated, my sex life is fine.”
“That’s pathetic and disturbing,” Allen said and took a swig from his beer bottle. “But what I don’t get is how you don’t believe in love and you still write books that sell like ammo during the zombie apocalypse.”
Micah thought about explaining all the shit in his head about love and life and what went through his mind when he sat down to write a book, but he’d have to get into Becky and his marriage and his divorce and the Marines and getting blown up, and he didn’t want to go there. Not today. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in love, it just wasn’t easy to find, and to make it last was even rarer.
After he’d become successful, women had been plentiful and aggressive, perfect for a guy who was shy and still bearing the scorch marks from his divorce. He’d had to make very little effort to gain a woman in his life. A few attempts to jump back into sex and relationships and he’d learned the hard way that women either wanted his money or expected him to be the hero in their favorite book. One look at his modest lifestyle, and conversation that didn’t sound like a script, and they were gone, pissed off like they’d been sold a bill of goods.
After those terrible experiences, he’d given up dating. Nothing killed the mood faster than wondering what the person you were with really wanted from you.
“It’s not hard to sell the happily ever after in four hundred pages,” he said and finished off his beer.
It was trying to make it work beyond that first kiss, the wedding photos, and the life of real-time epilogue that was hard. Bills, deployments, children, in-laws, and the day-to-day stuff were what happened next. Couples who made it that far were rare.
Allen stared at him from across the room, waiting to see if he was going to say more, but he just shrugged. That was all he had.
“Okay, back to the books. Have you taken another look at the business proposal I put together for setting up your own publishing company and self-publishing your books?” Allen asked and Micah groaned.
“I don’t want to have to run a company. Hire people. I just don’t.”
“But you might have to. I wouldn’t be much of an agent if I didn’t tell you the cold hard truth.”
“You want to stay and have dinner?” Micah asked. He’d eaten every meal for five days by himself, and he could use a little company. He normally preferred his own company, but even he had to surface from the cave every now and then and make a human connection.
“I can’t. There are a couple of publishers here already, and I set up drinks and dinner with them. Sorry.”
“No worries. I should stay in and work on the book anyway.” He briefly thought of Kelsey, wondering if it would be too stalkerish to call her up and ask her to have dinner with him.
“The convention organizers will touch base with you tomorrow and will coordinate all the events with the personal concierge the hotel is providing for you,” Allen said as he swiped over the screen on his phone. “I’m trying to find her name and contact info to send you.”
“Kelsey. Her name is Kelsey Kyle,” he said, enjoying the look of shock on Allen’s face. “I have her card. She dropped it off earlier.”
Allen glanced around the room, surveying the mess with a shake of his head. “You had a woman in here? And you spoke to her?”
Micah sighed, dropping his empty bottle in the trash and leaned on the granite countertop of the bar. He wasn’t going to argue with Allen and his observation. He wasn’t good with women. He never really knew what to say and when they expected him to be one of the heroes of his books—or worse, the actors who played them in the movie versionit was never a good scene.
“She was really easy to talk to.” He laughed remembering how they’d met. “After she dropped her box of dildos and butt plugs on the floor, it wasn’t that hard to talk to her even though she is one of the prettiest women I’ve ever seen.”
And for a man who made his living with words, “pretty” was the best he could do with the way she made him a little tongue-tied. Kelsey’s skin was a flawless caramel complemented by copper-colored eyes and full, plump lips that easily curved into a smile. Her cheeks and the upper part of her chest flushed pink with embarrassment, but a dimple appeared on the right side of her mouth when she laughed. Long, dark hair fell to the middle of her back and had a slight wave. With her heels on, the top of her head reached his shoulder, which meant she was much shorter than his six feet four inches in height. He could go on and on. The problem had been noticing all the things about her that made her beautiful but trying not to get caught.
“Wait.” Allen held up his hand and gave him a disbelieving look. He started counting off on his fingers to emphasize his point. “You had a pretty woman in here who was easy for you to talk to, and she brought her own butt plug?”
He smiled. “Yep.”
“You need to marry her and find out if she has a sister for me.”
“I was thinking about asking her to have dinner with me,” he said, knowing he was going to get the exact reaction he received.
“Who are you? Really?”
“Fuck off, and don’t give me shit about it. You’re always telling me to get back out there and now I’m thinking about it, I don’t need your crap.”
“What are you going to do? Charm this girl and whisk her off to the backwoods of Bridger Gap?”
“What? No.” Micah shook his head at that ridiculous comment. He wasn’t sure he was ever going to be ready to take a walk down the twisted path to love ever again. When you got burned like he did, to describe him as skittish was an understatement. “Allen, I’m not talking about hearts, flowers, and a quickie wedding down on the Strip, but as you pointed out, I need to get laid.”
He thought about how long it had been for him. Almost a year. The last time had been with the woman who’d posted a picture of him sleep
ing the next morning with a caption that said he fucked like his heroes…long and hard. Nice. That had been really fun to explain to his mom.
“If you need to get off, I can get you a”
Micah cut him off before he could even finish that sentence. “I don’t pay for sex. Jesus.”
Allen watched him closely, his eyes assessing and making Micah feel like a bug under some kid’s magnifying glass in the heat of summer. He could feel the impact of his friend’s scrutiny, and he knew Allen was making plans and wondering what he could do to help Micah along.
Just. No.
“Allen, I’m serious. Back off. You’re my agent, not a pimp, and you have horrible taste in women.”
His friend was not pleased with the “down boy,” but he acknowledged the order with a shrug as he pocketed his cell phone. “Fine, but you better tell me if this thing with the girl becomes something I can make a big deal about.”
Micah smiled and promised himself that he would follow through and ask her out. There weren’t many women who tempted him, but Kelsey Kyle was on the top of the short list. “Allen, you’ll be the third person to know.”
Chapter Three
“Ms. Kelsey Kyle, let me introduce you to Saul and Babette Forasch,” Perry said.
Kelsey put on her best smile as she extended her hand to the couple seated on the plush sofa in the luxuriously appointed VIP concierge suite. She’d met Saul before: he was a frequent high roller here at the Masquerade and was very demanding. The last time he’d been a guest she’d had to arrange the delivery of four Gray’s Papaya hot dogs from New York City with less than six hours notice because he wanted them for a late-night, after-the-poker-game snack. While the adventure had curled her hair with stress, she’d really appreciated the five hundred dollar tip he’d given her.
“Mr. Forasch, it is so nice to see you again,” she said as she turned to greet the sixth Mrs. Forasch. Babette was probably Kelsey’s age with huge breasts and red hair that defied gravity, and was covered from head to toe in designer clothes and bling. She screamed “trophy wife,” and it was a testament to Saul’s prenuptial agreements that he could afford to keep her in the style most gold diggers wanted to attain. “Congratulations on your marriage, Mrs. Forasch. I’ve arranged for a sensual couples massage in the penthouse as a gift from the Masquerade. You tell me the time, and I’ll make it happen.”
Her Secret Lover (What Happens in Vegas) Page 2