Chapter One
Fallon
Ever since this bucket of metal called a plane left
the ground, I’ve been asking myself if spending my last nickel on this trip will
be worth it. Even though it means going without food at times, I stashed away
every tip I earned to save for this. My mountain of debt is enormous, but then
again, I keep telling myself, you only live once, right?
When the plane suddenly lurches, I know it’s going to
roll completely over at any minute. I want to get off this carnival ride so
badly I can taste it. My fingers tightly clench the armrest and I’m pretty sure
if I ever deplane, my imprints will be left behind forever.
I feel a light patting on my arm and then I hear,
“It’ll be just fine, dear. Those are only crosswinds from the desert. We always
have those in Vegas.” The flight attendant announced moments before that we’ve
been cleared for landing, but from the motion of the plane, I fear we won’t
make it.
Glancing to my right, I see the tiny, elderly woman
sitting next to me. My nerves are so shot, my attempt at smiling is an epic
fail.
Fallon,
sweetie, always remember to keep your chin up. Negative thoughts will only
bring you down.
Dad’s words come back to me, a soothing balm to my
tattered nerves and empty bank account. God, how I wish he were still here. I
wouldn’t be in this damn mess of debt right now. It’s been six years, but
sometimes the pain is so raw that it feels like yesterday.
“Honey, is this your first time flying?” The voice
next to me breaks me out of my daydreaming.
“Hmm? Oh, yes, ma’am,” I squeak.
“Ah, I see. Well, this is all part of flying and very
normal.”
“Really? I feel like I’m on a sideways Tilt-A-Whirl at
the county fair.”
“Oh no, honey, this is smooth. I’ve been on some real
doozies, I tell you. So what brings you to Vegas? Are you going to lose all
your money to the slots?” she laughs.
“Huh?” My anxiety has me so edgy, I’m not following the
conversation for a second and then it hits me. “Oh, no, ma’am. I’m here for the
Wicked Wench’s Conference.” I don’t have a spare nickel to spend on the slots
as it is.
She nods and eyes me for a second. “So, are you a
Wench then?”
“Oh no! I’m a blogger,” I tell her, glad for the
distraction from the chaotic flight.
The noise of the engines has picked up so she is
leaning closer to me now, trying to hear. “A what? A booger?”
“No! Not a booger! A blogger!”
“Oh, a blogger. I’ve always wanted to see you girls
dance. Do you have those fancy clicking shoes? Can you kick your legs high up
in the air? I bet you can. You look like you could be limber like that.”
By the time I start to explain that I’m a blogger and
not a clogger, the plane rolls to a stop and the seatbelt light goes off. For
an elderly woman, she moves like lightening as she shoots out of her seat and
flies down the aisle. I sit and stare at her with my mouth hanging open.
Obviously she knows the ins and outs of flying much better than I do. I’m lost
in the sea of shoving people as eager as I am to get off of that death trap.
As I’m pushed along the jetway, I finally emerge into
McCarran International Airport. The place is huge! Taking a deep breath, I
knock the monster of intimidation back and follow the signs to Baggage Claim,
eager to meet my fellow book bloggers for the first time.
We are a gang of five that met online over our love
for romance novels. We teamed up through Twitter first and then Facebook. As we
found ourselves chatting and becoming friends, our interest in the same genre
triggered the idea for us to start a book blog where we could review and post
about our favorite books. I think it was Kat’s idea originally, but it took off
like a forest fire in a Santa Ana wind.
We decided to celebrate our first anniversary by
attending the Wicked Wenches Con in Las Vegas together. It would finally give
us the chance to not only meet each other in person, but also some of our
favorite authors of romance. Kat Graham, Amanda Cook, Mandy Henderson and
Andrea Simpson are my partners, though I look at them as my family. They’ve
done more for me in the last year than my mom has in the past five. Honestly,
if they had purchased me a paper clip, they would’ve done more than my mom, however
that’s another story.
I finally locate the conveyer belt thingy and watch
for my bag when my phone dings. I look to see it’s a text from Kat.
Kat: I’m here.
Are you?
Me: Yep…just
waiting on my suitcase.
Kat: Where?
Me: Carousel #15
Kat: On my way!
Five minutes later, the bags start to roll down and
mayhem ensues. I’ve never seen anything like it. From what I can tell that belt
keeps going around in a big circle and eventually it’s going to get back to me
again. I can’t figure out why those people are in such a frenzy over it.
Suddenly, I hear a giant screech followed by a squeal
and turn around to see a blur with long, light brown hair flying towards me. It
comes as no surprise that we both end up on the ground, hugging and laughing.
As women tend to do, we find ourselves talking a mile a minute and eventually
notice the area around Carousel #15 has cleared out and mine is the only bag
still circling on the belt. We laugh for another few minutes before standing up
to collect it.
Kat takes one look at my bag and breaks out in peals
of laughter. She’s hugging her sides and bent over while I’m worried she’s
going to topple on her head.
“Stop already!”
“I’m sorry, but damn, Fallon, where the heck did you
get your luggage? From duct tape’s anonymous? You need to go to duct tape
rehab.”
I shrug as I give Kat the evil eye, but then I break
down in giggles. My suitcase does indeed look like something the Tin Man from
The Wizard of Oz would carry since it’s mostly silver. Granted, underneath the
strips and strips of tape, there is a black bag somewhere, yet I’ll be damned
if I can see it now.
“Okay, you win. It is awful, isn’t it? I didn’t have a
choice, though. It was either that or less money for shooters and the shooters
won.”
Kat nods. “Excellent choice. Come on, let’s go hunt
down Amanda.”
We head out of Carousel #15 and don’t have to look
far. Walking towards us and shouting at the top of her lungs is a gigantic hot
dog nestled inside of a bun, complete with squiggles of mustard and ketchup.
The only thing human about it is the face and it’s yelling out, “Where’s the
Virgin for Vegas? Where’s the Virgin for Vegas? Have I got a wiener for you!”
I take one look at her and do a one-eighty with the
intention of running away. However Kat grabs my wrist before I get the chance.
“Oh, no you don’t. You have to take this like a woman!”
“Oh my God. You can’t do this to me!” I’m ready to
drop to my knees and beg.
“Oh, yes we can! Now smile and look pretty,” she
laughs.
I can’t believe this. What are they doing? Amanda
approaches, dressed up like a fully loaded hot dog and hands me a tequila
shooter. “How ‘bout a nice shooter for the Vegas Virgin?”
At this point, I down the tequila and want to crawl
inside my bundle of duct tape. “Please, you all. Don’t do this.” I frantically
look around to see if anyone’s watching.
“We’re not doing anything except for kissing that
dreadful virginity of yours good-bye,” the wiener announces.
“Shit, shit, shit!”
“Don’t worry, Fallon. It’ll get better with more
tequila,” Kat assures.
I poke out my arm and say, “Then give me some more and
make it fast.”
Amanda hands me another shooter. “How ‘bout a nice,
juicy wiener to go along with that, ma’am?”
“Oh, dear God.” If anyone ever died of embarrassment,
I was sure it would be me. Like right this minute!
Kat puts her hand on my face. “Amanda, I think we need
to cool it. Her face is on fire and I’m not sure if it’s the tequila or you.”
“It’s her.” I grab my hunk of duct tape and march
straight outside.
Behind me I can hear, “Little Virgin, wait up. Little
Virgin, we have to meet Mandy and Andrea!”
I frenetically wave my hand behind my butt. Right now,
I only care about one thing and that’s getting away from the giant wiener
that’s determined to get me drunk on tequila shooters and announce to the world
that I’m a ‘Little Virgin’. I continue to shoo them away as I turn to check if
they’re following me when I barrel into something quite firm and hard that
sends me flying flat on my ass. The concrete is scorching and my thighs
instantly feel like fried eggs hitting the frying pan on sizzling butter.
“Aiyee,” I scream as I try to stand back up. By this
time my ass is in the air as I roll to my hands and knees. Now my palms and
knees are on fire. “Dammit! Shit, that’s hot!” I say as I jolt to my feet, arms
flailing while I try to straighten my skirt.
I finally glance up to find two, deep, emerald green
eyes gazing at me. Well, that’s not exactly true. They’re slowly scanning me
from top to bottom until they then stop and lock onto my cleavage. The reason
for this is that my left nipple is more than half exposed. Okay, it’s
completely exposed.
“Oh fuck!” I squeal as I tug my bra up and adjust my
top. Why does this crap always happen to me?
I look back to see that Amanda and Kat are just
awestruck. Not at me, but at green eyes because, glory-freakin-hallelujah, he’s
one beautiful man. And why wouldn’t he be? Only I would fall down, ass in the
air, boob hanging out in front of a gorgeous man. It wouldn’t happen in front
of a wrinkled up, old, toothless man. Nope, never. I go for full on nipple
exposure with the well-built, rugged, green-eyed blond that looks like a sex
god, orgasmic-producing Eden.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Forgive me. I should watch where
I’m going.”
“Are you all right?” he asks and then scrapes his
teeth across his lower lip right before he bites down on one corner.
Holy-put-my-panties-in-a-wet-wad! That voice and
mouth. Green eyes has a sexy British accent to match the rest of his perfect
self. Heart meet pink sparkly toe nails.
My head tilts a bit, as if I’m trying to figure out
what he just asked me. “Huh?”
“I asked if you were okay. You took a good fall there
on your bum. Just wanted to know if all was okay there?”
Somehow my hand starts unconsciously rubbing my butt.
“Oh. Yeah, I guess so. All’s good on the bum here.” My voice has gotten all
throaty on me.
Tall with unruly dark blond
waves falling over his forehead, he stands there and stares at me. Then those
magnificent orbs slowly rake me from head to toe again. Even though it feels like
it’s a hundred and fifty degrees in the Las Vegas August heat, chills break out
over my entire body. Every single hair—even the microscopic ones
that I so diligently try to keep waxed—stand at attention,
reminding me of their existence. An overwhelming urge to grab and kiss this
hunk of sexiness charges into me, and I have no idea who he is. I can’t stop
ogling his face… his bottom lip is full, and when he runs his tongue along it,
I have to clamp my lips together to keep myself from moaning.
“So it looks like you’re here for a visit then?”
“Yes, a long weekend.” My voice still sounds funny to
me, all husky and throaty.
“Well, perhaps I’ll see you around the strip then.”
And again, those magnetic greens of his inspect me from head to toe. “Have a
nice day then,” I hear him say.
I can’t move. I’m as still as a marble statue until
the girls each grab one of my arms.
“If Vegas is full of those, I’m never going home,” the
giant wiener claims.
We walk back inside to meet the other two of our gang,
while I’m still addled by my encounter with green eyes.
***
We collect Andrea and Mandy and then seek out our
transportation to the hotel. As we wait in line for the bus to take us there,
the chills I had earlier have morphed into rivulets of sweat as they stream
down my body. Not a single thread of my clothing is dry. This place is a
freaking oven. When they talk about desert heat, they aren’t kidding. The only
good thing to come out of it is Amanda had to ditch the giant wiener outfit. I
think she would’ve died if she hadn’t.
“Did you all realize it was gonna be this damn hot? I
feel like I’m in Hell,” Andrea says.
“Hell can’t be this hot, and if it is, well then, I’m
gonna start really doing some serious prayin’ cuz you all, this is crazy!” I
say. “I think I just sweated off my right butt cheek.”
Our bus finally shows up and we about knock the other
people over to get on board. I’m ashamed to admit I’m not sorry in the least
for that ghastly behavior of mine. It’s either that, or walk around with only
one butt cheek, and the way I am thinking, it will be really hard to lose my
virginity with only one butt cheek.
At least the ride to the hotel doesn’t take very long.
When we pull up to it, though, we’re kind of disappointed. “Well, they sure
made it look a lot nicer online,” Andrea harrumphs.
We all agree with her, but there isn’t anything to do
except go inside and check in. So that’s what we do.
The lobby is a bit outdated and has a space odyssey
look to it, but it’s clean with a casino and bar. What more can we ask for,
right? The other nice thing is it is only a couple of blocks from the
conference and all the cool hotels. The Space Nugget will do just fine for the
next five days.
We had booked two adjoining rooms so we could share
two bathrooms. The rooms are tidy, but they’re seriously lacking in decor.
“Well, it’s clean and cool and what do we care about
anything else, right?” Mandy asks.
“Yeah, it’s not like we’re gonna be in here a lot
anyway,” Kat replies. “I’m happy if the air conditioning works.”
So we all unpack and decide what to do that night. The
convention kicks off in the morning, so that leaves tonight open. Tomorrow
night is our big party with R. T. Sinclair.
Everyone starts tossing around ideas of what to do and
our excitement mounts. We’re in the world’s largest adult playground and we
have a plethora of places to choose from.
Amanda has a look in her eye that I’m beginning to
understand. She once talked about hitting the male strip clubs and I’m all for
that, but right now my stomach is telling me it wants some food. I’m relieved
to hear her say, “Hey, what do y’all say we hit the town? Grab a little food,
hit a casino and then do some shooters!” she shouts.
Everyone
is on board with her suggestion, so we all get ready for our first night out on
the town.
