twenty-four-year-old would fall victim to appendicitis right after losing her job and declining to pay the huge hike in fees for COBRA?
It seemed beyond unfair. But she was the one who had been dumb enough to borrow money last month from Yvonne…to tide her over until her new job started.
Yvonne grasped Nikki by the upper arms and shook her—not so gently. “Get a grip, girlfriend. I put myself on the line for you. You can’t back out now or I’m gonna look bad and my manager will blame me when these guys call and complain. I do not need that, and I don’t have time to get somebody else over here to cover this event. So you move your little culo and climb into that cake before I slap you into next month.”
Nikki stiffened in surprise. Yvonne’s tone wasn’t so friendly and lighthearted anymore. Neither were Yvonne’s fingers as they dug into her flesh. And her eyes—they’d hardened to the point of glassiness.
Nikki should have known better than to trust a woman who’d succumbed to Miami’s latest in cosmetic surgery trends and gotten butt implants.
That friendly neighbor who had become a neighborly friend? She’d turned into Tonya Harding with PMS. What had Nikki gotten herself into?
“Do it,” Yvonne ordered, in a menacing voice. She looked utterly capable of going after Nikki’s knees with a tire iron.
That, combined with the fact that she had committed to tonight’s job, persuaded Nikki to raise her left foot in its ridiculously high spike heel and swing it over the edge of the wooden cake.
“Good girl,” said Yvonne.
Nikki refused to look at her. Good girl? I am dressed like a hooker and I’m walking around with a Brazilian. She straddled the edge of the cake and peered around, looking for any sign of the occupant of that spiderweb. Nothing with beady little eyes or more legs than her stared back.
Nikki swallowed hard.
“C’mon already,” Yvonne said, wearing a look of contempt and little else herself. She grabbed Nikki by the ankle that still dangled outside the wooden cake and shoved it in, knocking her off balance.
Nikki lurched and clutched wildly at the walls, finally sliding down into a nervous crouch. Her rear end felt unnaturally exposed and the G-string gave her a fierce wedgie that she didn’t have room to fix.
No spider, no spider, no spider, she repeated to herself. Nothing to be afraid of. Thirty seconds, a couple of minutes at most, then you’ll be wheeled into the party and you’ll jump out on cue. Breathe evenly. You can do this. Just for one night.
Because this was the last night, the only night, that she’d humiliate herself this way. Monday she started her new job. And she would deliver pizzas on the side, do data entry at night, sell cosmetics—whatever it took. She’d pay off her cards somehow. But not like this.
“I’ll be hanging in Ralph’s office,” Yvonne said. Ralph, her cousin, owned the strip club. “You can come get paid afterward.”
She shook her head as she stared unblinkingly at Nikki. “You’re actually scared. That’s pathetic. Get a smile on your face this second. Now, head down.”
Nikki produced a smile as genuine as a Vuitton bag on a New York street-vendor’s cart and bent forward. Then everything went terrifyingly black and airless as the lid crashed into place.
ADAM TRIED TO LOOK as enthusiastic as the other raucous, on-their-way-to-drunk guys at Mark’s bachelor party. He waved a beer around and even did a couple of tequila shots, but inwardly he sighed.
The only good thing about his rebel year in high school was that it had gotten the partying mostly out of his system—and then he’d had to pay a steep price to get his life back together. Not even the local junior college had wanted him until his persistence wore down the admissions people. He’d finally been able to transfer to a state university’s pre-med program, but only after two years of a solid 4.0 GPA.
He cast a surreptitious glance at his watch, making plans to sneak out and spend a passionate night back at the hotel with his anatomy text. And he cheered wildly and made ape noises with the rest of them as a bouncer wheeled in a giant, shopworn “cake.”
Mark’s round cheeks had flushed with alcohol, which turned his naturally ruddy complexion a dark red. His short, curly hair stuck up in tufts, courtesy of all the headlocks and noogies the guys had inflicted. He gazed at the cake expectantly, and the others moved like a herd to stand around the front of it.
Derek made coyote noises, as if he were howling at the moon. Pete grinned his good-natured, Mr. Customer Service grin and waited patiently. Gib stood, bowlegged as he always did, looking as though he’d produce a rope and lasso the girl as soon as she emerged. Jay lounged with his hands in his pockets, eyes almost crossed. He was probably writing a murder mystery in his head.
Adam rolled his own eyes and stepped around to the back of the wooden cake, since he figured watching their expressions would be a lot more fun than watching the skanky chick who’d jump out of it.
Joe Cocker’s “You Can Leave Your Hat On” suddenly blared from the speakers in the room. How original. Adam turned an amused gaze toward Mark’s face and waited.
Then the top of the plywood confection exploded off. Adam had a brief impression of golden corkscrew curls and a gorgeous, smooth ass in a hot red G-string before a feminine elbow slammed into his nose. Pain seared him between the eyes, and his glasses damn near embedded into his forehead. Adam lurched backward from the impact, sliding through a pool of some spilled drink. The next thing he knew, he was on the floor, with something cold and sticky seeping through his pants.
“Oh, God!” A distressed feminine voice floated down to him. “I knew something like this would happen!”
Was this a nightmare or a dream? Despite the pain, Adam registered that delectable ass again, facing him as she clambered out of the stupid cake, on legs that seemed to reach all the way to heaven. Funny how heaven looked a lot like the satin string that disappeared between her cheeks.
Correction. Heaven looked a lot like the barely restrained breasts that now swiveled toward him and bounced as she tottered over on her ridiculously high heels.
Adam’s eyes widened as she bent over him and dangled the breasts like ripe, luscious fruit above his face.
“I’m so, so, so sorry!” she said. “I told Yvonne I was claustrophobic. I told her not to make me get in there. Are you okay?”
He blinked. The guys were all falling over themselves laughing—especially Mark. Only Pete, Mr. Customer Service, called out—between knee-slaps—the same question. Was he okay?
Adam gazed up at the spectacular breasts again. And like a gift from the universe, they lowered closer to his face as he lay prone. “Yeah. I’m okay,” he said weakly, eyes glued helplessly to them.
The breasts heaved, and a sigh of feminine relief wafted down to him in the form of sweet, minty breath. “Oh, thank goodness. I was afraid I’d killed you.”
Manfully, Adam looked away from her breasts and focused instead on her face, which was a mistake, since he found himself drowning in her large, seawater-green eyes. Not even the fact that she wore awful false eyelashes and cauldron-black liner could change the loveliness of those eyes or the shocked
