CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
ONE NIGHT
Camilla Stevens
Copyright © 2016 Camilla Stevens
All rights reserved.
ISBN:
ISBN-13:
This book is dedicated to my own muse…who shall not be named.
Want to read the follow ups to the Happily Ever Afters in Camilla Stevens’ books (sometimes with happy little surprises)? Follow her on Facebook, where you can also find out about upcoming releases, Advance Reader Copies (ARCs) and promotional sales.
www.facebook/authorcamillastevens.com
To get to know her on a personal level follow her on Twitter at: @CamillaStevens4
Website: www.camillastevens.com
CHAPTER ONE
NATALIE
Natalie Damond checked her watch. It was well past 1 a.m. She sighed. It was hopeless, there was no getting back to sleep. She got up from the bed and grabbed her e-reader. At least she had that to keep her company. That and the steamy book it contained.
Maybe she’d head down to the bar. The lounge area in front of the fire looked like the perfect place to get lost in the latest erotic romance she had packed into her e-reader. Erotica wasn’t her usual fare, but since her sordid break up with Malcolm two weeks ago, she needed release somehow.
He was mostly likely getting his release with the skank that she’d caught pictures of in his phone, she thought bitterly. The funny part was, she hadn’t even been snooping. She’d just borrowed it to look up the look up the address of a restaurant they were headed to and the text—sext—had come through right as she had plugged in the name of the place. All plans for dinner had been lost in the fight that ensued.
Natalie shook her head. She needed to stop thinking about him. That was the whole point of this weekend after all. Her friends, Denise and Mia, had dragged her up to Lake Tahoe for a girls’ extended weekend. Apparently she had been a bit too broody lately and this was their way of giving her a fresh start.
It actually hadn’t taken much dragging on their part. Lake Tahoe was nice all year round of course. It was even nicer when it was between the winter and summer seasons and rooms were discounted. They were staying in a rather fancy hotel that looked like a huge chalet and catered mostly to the jet-setting ski crowd. This time of year it was somewhat dead and they’d been able to snag a small suite for a dime. Natalie and her girls had done a wee bit of gambling, a wee bit of playing spades, and a lot of shopping. And a lot of drinking. Naturally.
In her friend’s defense, it had been very cathartic. Natalie had ranted and raved and called Malcolm and whoever that girl was all sorts of vile names. She’d sworn off men forever, then in the next moment whined that she needed to get laid desperately.
The three of them had started early today and finished off the wine by 9 o’clock. The buzz from the wine had worn off. A good, long nap was apparently all it took. Now she was wide awake while her friends snoozed away in their own beds.
Natalie grabbed a pair of stretch pants, threw on a sweatshirt and a pair of UGGs. At 28 she was probably a few seconds—maybe minutes—too old to be cavorting around in the cliché uniform of every college coed on Earth. Pulling her hair back in a loose loop held together with a rubber band didn’t help with her appearance.
Screw it, she thought. This was her weekend. She was entitled to dress however the hell she wanted. Besides, it was a Sunday during the off season. How many people could there probably be down there at 1 a.m.?
When she made it to the first floor it looked like she had the bar and adjoining lounge area all to herself. She smiled with mild relief as she headed up to the bartender who seemed to appreciate finally having a little distraction.
Natalie wasn’t one to go for hard liquor, preferring a beer or wine, usually only with food. The only exception was something she had created herself by happenstance. It wasn’t even much of a drink, but it was the perfect thing to sip while curled up with a book next to the huge fireplace in the seating area.
“You wouldn’t happen to have any milk back there, would you?” she asked in her most endearing voice. A lot of bars didn’t and if he had to make his way to the kitchen she wanted to butter him up a little. “There’s this drink I like, a shot of Bailey’s Irish Cream mixed with milk, no ice.”
“Actually we do,” he said, “You’d be surprised how many women we get who want White Russians with skim milk, not cream.”
Natalie scrunched her nose. “Please tell me you have something besides skim.”
She hadn’t meant to sound so snarky about it, but being curled up near the fireplace with watery skim milk and Bailey’s wasn’t at all what she pictured.
He chuckled and shrugged his shoulders “Sorry,” he said, then gave her a look. “How about this, it’s pretty dead here so I’ll have some brought up, just for you.” He winked after he said it and she smiled appreciatively.
“Oh, don’t go to trouble!” Natalie said with mild protest. Really, that idea was exactly what she had in mind.
“Not a problem,” he assured her.
While he dialed the kitchen, she looked over at the seating area and noticed a man sitting in a chair. The back of the chair had faced the foyer so she hadn’t noticed him when she first came in. He was looking at her in front of the bar with a mixture of amusement and interest.
Shit, she thought. So much for having the area to herself.
As she gave him a more thorough once-over, she immediately became self-conscious of how she looked in this ridiculous, and far too young, get-up.
He had sandy, light brown hair with one rebellious lock that fell onto his forehead. There was a decent amount of stubble, a few shades darker, covering a strong jaw and chin. The eyes that were appraising her—a pang of regret in her choice of clothing went through her—were light, but she couldn’t tell the color from this far away.
She looked away as if searching for another area to sit, but studied him in the corner of her eye. Even though he was sitting down, she could tell by the way his legs bent and how the top of his head reached the back of the chair that he was tall. As her eyes wandered down, a small spark of satisfaction went through her as she realized that he was dressed no more fashionably than she was. He had on a threadbare t-shirt that clung to his well developed chest and shoulders. The pants were definitely pajama bottoms of some sort. The shoes were fur lined slippers. Apparently 1 a.m. bar patrons thought alike when it came to comfort over fashion.
Still, she subtly removed the rubber band from her hair, and combed her fingers trough her mane as nonchalantly as possible. She didn’t want to give him any ideas, but at the same time, she didn’t want to look like a total slob.
A young woman appeared at the bar with a half gallon of whole milk. She smiled gratefully at the bartender as
he poured the milk into a glass and threw a shot of Bailey’s on top.
“Cheers,” he said, handing it to her with another wink.
“Thanks so much,” she said. “Sorry for all the bother.”
“Not a problem,” he assured her. “I’m right here if you need another.”
She took the drink and looked around for a place to sit.
Dammit! The man in the chair had nabbed the best spot in the seating area, right next to the fire. There were four armchairs, all placed around a central coffee table. She could go to one of the sofas or chairs placed elsewhere but it wouldn’t be the same.
She could just sit in one of the chairs opposite him, but it was just so…intimate. She certainly didn’t want to make him think that she was making a subtle pass at him, even if he did look like prime rebound material.
He saw the dilemma in her eyes and raised his glass to her, indicating it was perfectly fine by him if she were to sit in the chair opposite him.
Natalie twisted her lips, looked around once more at other chairs, then sighed and worked her way over to the chairs by the fireplace.
“Didn’t mean to intrude,” she said, her voice subtly making it clear that it was he who had intruded on her plans.
“Not a problem. I was expecting to have the place to myself,” he said, in response, not so subtly making it clear that she was in fact the intruder.
His voice was rich and husky, with a hint of playfulness. Definitely rebound material…if she were so inclined.
JAKE
Jake Cavanaugh had heard those ridiculous things on her feet tread across the foyer before she even stepped foot in the bar. The acute senses he had developed in his former career never really seemed to fade in civilian life.
He had glanced up just in time to see her sweet talk the bartender into picking up the phone for some request on her part. Like any heterosexual man, Jake had checked her out as she leaned over the bar, no doubt squeezing her breasts together between her crossed arms the way women did when they wanted something from men.
He had recognized the get-up immediately. Living in New York, where every other block housed a college or university, there was no shortage of young girls parading around in pants that were nothing more than a second skin, hair thrown up in a rubber band, and the same atrocities this one had covering her feet.
At 34 years old Jake had very little interest in some girl who was barely old enough to drink. The lyrics to Steely Dan’s Hey Nineteen flitted through his mind as he took another sip of his very expensive whiskey.
All the same, even dirty old men such as himself could admire from afar.
His eyes slid up the curve of her thighs and round backside, all perfectly outlined in the thin, cotton fabric of her “pants.” Though he still didn’t understand how girls could get away with going around in public wearing them, he had to admit that the one standing at the bar wasn’t too shabby.
It wasn’t until she had turned around that he noted she wasn’t some freshly minted 21-year-old. She had a slight maturity to her that belied the clothes she had on. The smooth brown skin of her face was still youthful, but definitely grown up. This was not some girl whose main concern in life was what party to go to. So what in the world was she doing in those damn clothes?
On the other hand, who was he to talk about clothes? He glanced down at the old t-shirt and pajama bottoms he had thrown on to come down to the bar, thinking he’d have the place to himself. It was the off season after all, which was just how he liked it.
Jake had just finished the first draft of yet another Nick Zane novel. Being lucky book number seven of the successful series, he could afford the thousand dollar bottle of whiskey he sipped on to celebrate yet another culmination of writing in hibernation. After the fifth one, Wright publishing had started giving him extremely nice advances.
No one had been more surprised than Jake when his first attempt at writing about the lone wolf CIA agent, single handedly saving the world, one bomb scare at a time, had been picked up by Wright Publishing House. He was even more surprised when the first run made its way to the top of the Best Sellers List. Perhaps it was his authentic voice. After all, he did have some first hand knowledge on the matter.
After leaving his rather specialized unit in the service, he had taken some time off, mostly exploring the state and national parks the country had to offer, before starting up a new career. During this period he had spent his nights and weekends punching out the first installment of the series on the crappy laptop that had been second-handed to him by his sister. He had of course dramatized it based on the shit he saw in the movies and TV. The reality of saving the world was both far more mundane—and far more catastrophic—than the average person needed, or wanted, to know. Six best sellers later, he was sitting in some fancy hotel drinking a glass of whiskey from a bottle that probably cost more than the laptop he had written his first book on.
His usual modus operandi was to enjoy his whiskey while staring into the fire and thinking about life. His usual modus operandi was also to enjoy it in silence…alone. It gave him time to reflect on his his life and stew in it. Which was the exact opposite of what he should be doing. He had finally started to adjust to a life that was not him being prepared to jump at a moments notice to some “disturbance” going on in a part of the world tourists weren’t likely visit. He was slowly beginning to appreciate settling down…or at least his version of it.
He hadn’t actually thought about settling down, at least not in the sense that his sister would have liked. It was hard enough putting a lease on an apartment in New York and actually living in it for more than a month. He couldn’t imagine the idea of the whole picket fence, 2.3 kids, and a dog. His sister, Janet had all that and it seemed ideal—for her. Sitting here in this chair, staring into the fire, thinking of his next book was about as close to perfect as his life got.
Such thoughts were thrust to the back of his mind as he saw the girl—woman—looking around for a place to sit. Jake had the not so slight impression that the area he was sitting in had been her original choice to perch for the night and the mere presence of another human being had ruined those plans. He could sympathize.
Still, far be it for him to ruin another individual’s enjoyment in life. He was enough into his bottle to raise up his glass, encouraging her to go ahead and take a seat across from him. A reassuring smile in her direction made it clear it made no never mind to him, despite that being the exact opposite of how he felt.
Jake had watched her pull her hair out of that rubber band and comb her fingers through it out of the corner of his eye. It was nice to know he still had it. Of course, women were a vain species. Maybe it wasn’t just him.
The hair framing her face was an improvement over the sloppy little bob she had moments ago. He was an expert at getting details without the target knowing they were being observed and he put those skills to use.
Cute face, and the cheekbones crossed the line right into sexy. Those lips, though. In the few moments of their acquaintance he had seen her bite, twist, and lick them. She probably had no idea the effect that had on the opposite sex.
He had already had a spectacular view of her legs. Perhaps those leggings really weren’t such a bad idea after all. It certainly led men straight to the point.
Then there were the “shoes.” What fashion demon cursed the human race with those things? They literally looked like furry tree stumps. Sure they looked comfortable, but at what cost? Ah well, no one was perfect. It would be nice to take a closer look and see just how imperfect this mocha-colored intrusion actually was.
Right about now he was wondering what she had to offer under that baggy sweatshirt of hers. University of Southern California. So she was a Trojan then. He smiled inwardly at the reference to a certain brand of latex.
And the hits just keep on comin’.
CHAPTER TWO
NATALIE
Natalie settled in the chair diagonal to where the stranger sat. It m
eant being further away from the fire, which sucked, but she didn’t want to invite any conversation. He didn’t have a book with him. In fact, all he had was a bottle of something brown and a glass to pour it in. Just him and his infinite stare into the fire. No, she definitely didn’t want to invite conversation. Moody drunks were the worst.
Looking at him, he had a strangely satisfied smile on his face. He had probably just got over a divorce or something. Who would divorce a man that looked like him was beyond her. Then of course, there was that saying, no matter how hot a guy was, some woman was tired of his shit. Usually men said it in reference to women, but Natalie saw no reason why it shouldn’t work vice versa, especially with her experience lately.
Keeping her face pointed directly at the reader in front of her she rolled her eyes up to catch a better glimpse of him now that she was closer.
Natalie had dated white men before and she certainly had her Hollywood crushes. How could anyone not fall for Michael Fassbender? This one had more of an Alex Pettyfer look to him. If he were older…and more rugged…and slightly more enigmatic.
Why on Earth was she trying to size this guy up? She was here to read and enjoy her grown up milk.
Yeah, that should help. Reading an erotic romance while sitting in front of a fire with a hot guy.
“I don’t bite, you know,” he said, still staring into the fire, swirling the drink in his hand around in lazy circles.
Natalie jumped, a tiny jolt of embarrassment running through her. Had he noticed her checking him out?
“Come on, I know it’s gotta be hard reading that thing that far away from the fire,” he said, looking her way with a sympathetic and slightly patronizing smile.
“I’m fine,” she lied. The reader was backlit, but it would have been so much better to be by the fire.
One Night: A BWWM Interracial Romance Page 1