her fantasy seduction.
She wanted to dance. She really did. But she couldn’t make her feet move.
“Hello, gorgeous,” drawled a friendly voice at her shoulder.
Well, that made her move. Gia damn near jumped out of her shoes. With a deep breath, she turned to brush the guy off, then pressed her lips together to keep from groaning aloud.
Holy crap. Mark Lane from Marketing.
Seriously?
She’d been here less than five minutes, and she was already busted.
Then she caught sight of her reflection in the mirrored wall behind Mark and blinked. That really was her?
Thanks to extensions and Feria, her hair was a flowing mass of titian waves instead of her usual chestnut swing. Brown contacts, a painful squeeze of her credit card at the MAC counter and the removal of her lip ring ensured she didn’t look anything like her usual techie self.
Her body, poured into a little black dress, the glittery fabric hugging curves made all the curvier by her Bombshell bra, had never looked this way at the Monday-morning meetings.
But was it a good enough disguise?
Did Mark recognize her? Other than a few casual comments at the lunch counter, they weren’t pals. But still…
If she could fool him, she promised herself, she’d be able to nail this fantasy. And then, she hoped, she’d get to nail Luke Monroe, too.
“Hi,” she greeted with a smile that was more a twitch of her lips than her usual full-on grin. She watched him carefully, as if he were a time bomb that could explode all over her life at any second.
Her fingers itched for the phone that wasn’t in her purse, wishing she could warn Caryn to be ready to spin some damage control. If Mark outed her, within minutes everyone at Tri-Solutions would be tweeting, texting and posting on Facebook. Soon the sad, humiliating tale of that time Gia Renyard pretended she had what it took to be a bombshell in Vegas would go viral. She’d be mocked and laughed at for years.
Panic slid down her throat with greasy fingers and fear crawled through her belly. Tiny white dots spun in front of her eyes until Gia realized she was holding her breath. She let it out in a huff, then forced her lips into a stiff, slightly painful smile. It wasn’t as though he’d caught her using Luke as a stripper’s pole.
“I’m Mark.” He offered his hand.
Her body almost hit the floor as tension poured away.
He didn’t know who she was.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
“Are you local?” he asked. “Or are you just visiting?”
Like every other guy she’d ever known, instead of waiting for a response, he launched into a soliloquy about himself. Where he was from, why he was here, how cool the CES show had been.
Gia was too excited to care.
He really didn’t know who she was.
He didn’t recognize her.
She would have jumped up and down in delight, but there was a serious danger that her boobs would fly right out of their Bombshell bra. Which would probably make it harder to get rid of the guy.
Not that he was a creep. And he was good-looking. A little more metro than masculine, he gave a smile that was pure flirtation, and the interest in his eyes was genuine. But he wasn’t Luke.
And it was Luke she was here to do.
“Looking for a dance partner?” Mark said, tilting his head toward the dance floor, then after a second tilting it the other way toward the exit and giving his brows a wiggle.
Oh, cool. Because girls just loved tacky euphemisms. His smile was suggestive as he gave her another once-over. He ended the inspection with a wink, as if his approval were something she’d been standing there waiting to get.
Gia barely resisted rolling her eyes.
“Thanks, but I’m waiting for someone,” she finally said, keeping her words husky and low.
“A hot babe like you shouldn’t be waiting. You come dance with me, teach that guy not to take you for granted.”
“Sorry.” She softened the refusal with a smile but still shook her head.
With a look that assured her she didn’t know what she was missing and an easygoing shrug, Mark slipped around her and headed toward easier game.
She waited until he’d wrapped his arm around a leggy brunette before giving a quick happy dance. He’d totally fallen for her disguise. It was as if he’d flipped the switch. Suddenly, she wasn’t Gia with all the hang-ups and self-doubts. She was Giavanna, or Vanna, as the Girlz had dubbed her. Sexy, confident and ready for the wildest sexual adventure of her life.
Unfrozen now, her feet guided her to the bar.
Now to find her fantasy partner.
Her room was upstairs, in easy luring distance.
She’d bought every sex toy or teasing temptation she could think of.
She’d been waxed, polished and buffed to her body’s all-time best.
And now she’d passed the incognito test.
So this was it.
She was ready to make her weekend fantasy into a deliciously wicked reality.
All she needed was Luke.
Vegas was man-land on steroids.
Booze, babes and buffets. It didn’t get much better than this.
Beer in hand, Luke Monroe looked around The Bank, the hottest nightspot in the Bellagio. It was like a modern playground for the wild and horny. He was used to good-looking women, but here they had a sexy edge that screamed kinky good times with none of that “morning-after respect” drama.
“Dude, it’s like my dreams in Technicolor,” Matt Jones said as he sidled up to the bar, giving Luke a punch to the shoulder. “I don’t know what I want to do more. Hit the dance floor, find a babe and snag one of those VIP booths or head back to the craps table so I can win enough to pay for something immoral and illegal in a few states.”
“You know what I like about you? You don’t let that ugly face of yours get in the way of your sex life.” Luke grinned.
“Hey, I work hard to look this good. I owe it to the ladies to share what I’ve got going on, ya know.” Matt rubbed one finger over his carefully trimmed goatee, his teeth flashing against his dark skin. “Unlike you, who does jack but still has women throwing themselves in your path.”
Luke shrugged. Women had been throwing themselves at him since they were little girls wearing pigtails and he was more interested in collecting Pokémon cards than females. It wasn’t that he didn’t
