Invitation to Seduction: Open Invitation, Book 1

INVITATION TO SEDUCTION

OPEN INVITATION, BOOK 1

JASMINE HAYNES

Copyright 2012 Jasmine Haynes

Cover Design by Rae Monet Inc

This is copyrighted material. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

Author Note: this book contains explicit material

Previously published in 2006 as part of the
Open Invitation
anthology

Summary

Here’s your invitation to The Sex Club, elegant, classy, sexy, every woman’s fantasy, every man’s desire...

When her best friend drags her out to a bachelorette party, Debbie Carter knows one thing for sure—this will be the last time she'll try to attract the opposite sex. She's learned the hard way that she isn't desirable anymore. But when she flirts with a man at
The Sex Club
, she gets far more than she bargained for, and the game she plays soon turns to obsession for the fire in one man’s touch. Will she have to choose between the love of her life and her secure, safe, yet intolerable existence.

Stephen Knight enters the club looking for the woman he has fallen for over email and through her art work. She's everything he's ever dreamed of and seeing her in the flesh makes him desire her physically as well. As her passion comes to life in his arms, Stephen's lust turns to love. Wanting far more from her than a few nights of seduction, can he make her believe in forever?

Dedication

To Linda Simi, for always listening, and actually hearing, too.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Jenn Cummings, Terri Schaefer, Rose Lerma, Lucienne Diver, and Christine Zika.

Prologue

The echo of her moans faded through the open window into the summer night. The tremors of her self-induced orgasm dissipated. Hot, she pushed the covers aside, then rolled and hugged her knees. Her belly ached as if she were starving, and a giant-sized fist squeezed her heart.

Lately, she’d taken to moaning loudly and thrashing on the bed in the hopes that her husband would get so turned on he’d have to join her. Instead, he upped the volume on the TV. She’d made the mistake of suggesting they turn one of the guest rooms into a den so they could use the living room for entertaining. They didn’t entertain, so the room never got used, and now she had surround sound pounding through the wall that adjoined their bedroom.

She could count on one hand the number of times he’d made love to her in the last five years. She clearly remembered the last time. Halloween, after they’d run out of candy and turned off all the lights so the kids wouldn’t knock. Nine months ago. My God, she could have had a baby in that time. Not that she wanted to become a mother at the age of thirty-nine.

No, she wanted him to make love to her more than once in nine months.

So what had happened to them? He’d never been as sexual as she was, but in a slow degradation of their intimacy, lovemaking had dwindled to practically nothing. Three years ago, she’d suggested he see a doctor. For her, the specter of impotency was more palatable than believing he’d stopped wanting her. As delicately as she thought she’d broached the subject, that had been one of the worst arguments in their fifteen-year marriage. He’d reacted as if she’d accused him of murder, he’d refused to get help, and he wouldn’t even acknowledge there was a problem.

Right or wrong, she’d taken the path of least resistance and never mentioned impotency again. But she couldn’t help feeling that if he truly loved her, he wouldn’t be so unwilling to at least participate in finding a solution.

She couldn’t breathe over the pain that seized her throat, her chest, every muscle, every corpuscle. She didn’t crave only sex. She wanted the seduction, the passion, the fire, that overwhelming high when a man groaned, then whispered, “I’m going to die if I don’t get inside you right this minute.”

Without that kind of passion,
she
wanted to die.

The worst thing was, she couldn’t tell anyone. Her friends would look at her as if she’d lost her mind.
Why haven’t you left him? Why are you still there? Where are your guts? Leave him! Or at least take a lover.

Her guts were lying on the floor in a puddle beside the bed, ripped out by the TV’s unbearable volume in the next room.

He wasn’t a bad man. He didn’t beat her, he did the dishes every night, he managed not to pee all over the toilet seat, and most of the time he left the lid down. He could make her laugh until her sides hurt, and he knew something about everything, not the know-it-all kind of thing, just smart and well-read. He made her coffee in the morning and called her from work every day. He stopped on the way home for the milk she’d forgotten to pick up, and he never complained if all she had time to prepare was some boxed meal where all she did was add hamburger. When she was freaking out over something at work, he soothed her frayed nerves. He was a good man.

Together they’d worked hard so that next year she would be able to retire to focus on her stained-glass work. She now had a contractor who recommended her custom windows to his upscale remodel clients. She’d opened her own business checking account, and she’d been in the black for months. Their future looked bright. Financial freedom was just around the corner.

But what good was a flourishing business when you barely had the will to get out of bed in the morning? What good did it do to think about changing your life when you were terrified that no one else would want you either? That you’d end up alone.

Old.

And unwanted.

Chapter One

“What are you wearing tomorrow night?”

Sackcloth
. “I haven’t decided yet.”

Debbie Carter hadn’t decided on her attire for tomorrow night’s bachelorette party because she hadn’t decided if she was going. She wasn’t sure she could take all the happiness, the giddiness, and the sexual innuendo. Well, where they were going, there might be more than sexual innuendo. A lot more. She was too damn tired to withstand it all.
Not now, please, not now.

Stacy, her friend and manicurist for years, shook Debbie’s fingers. “Relax, will ya? Bad day at work?”

Bad day, bad year.
Right now, the most she could manage was a topic shift. “Don’t you think it’s kind of strange that Virginia’s having her bachelorette party at a sex club?”

Stacy rolled her eyes. “She’s hit the big four-oh, and she’s getting married for the fourth time. What do you expect, a nice little girlie get-together that her grandmother could attend?”

“I’m not sure about this. Tell me what goes on at these places.”

A wicked grin curved Stacy’s lips. “That’s what we’re going to find out. Did you tell your husband where we’re going?”

She’d thought about mentioning their destination, wondering if the idea would get his motor running. She’d chickened out for fear that it wouldn’t. “No. Men are sworn to secrecy about what happens at bachelor parties, and women should do the same.”

“Jeez, everyone knows what goes on at bachelor parties. Some little hottie with big tits jumps out of a cake and goes down on the groom.”

“Do they?” Debbie leaned forward. “How do you know?”

Stacy winked. “With inducement, someone always tells.”

Debbie knew what inducement Stacy had used. Forty-five, with a body and face that looked ten years younger, she didn’t hide the fact that she was a woman at her sexual peak. With her red-gold hair, D-cup breasts, and a sexy laugh that turned men’s heads, Stacy attracted the opposite sex like honey. Debbie admired her for it, though she avoided looking in the mirror when Stacy was standing next to her. Not because of the hair or the breasts or the full lips. No, it was the sparkle in her friend’s green eyes. That was what men wanted. They looked at the body, listened to the seductive laughter, but they approached because Stacy was so...alive. No one gave a damn about her age.

Next to her, Debbie felt ten years older instead of five years younger.

“Come to my house first. I’ve got an outfit for you.”

“You know, I really think I’m going to skip this one.” She wasn’t good at mingling. Not in her current frame of mind.

“No.” Stacy scowled. “You are
not
skipping this.”

Debbie tilted her head at the sharp tone. “I’m not sure I can handle it.”

Stacy’s fingers tightened on hers. “You deserve this. And I’m going to make sure you have it.”

Her sudden intensity made Debbie’s heart race. “Have what?”

Looking down, Stacy seemed to realize she’d stopped filing Debbie’s nails. She started once more, accidentally getting too close to the cuticle and filing the skin away. Debbie winced.

“Sorry.” Stacy dabbed the spot of blood with antiseptic. “I just think you need to have a little girl fun. We’ll have something to talk about for the next few months. Please come.”

It was strange the way Stacy now talked to her fingers, and Debbie was convinced something odd had been in her tone, but the party had been planned for weeks. There would be just the three of them. Stacy, Debbie, and Virginia. More than ten years ago, they’d met at the company they’d all worked for in various departments. Though moving on to new jobs, they’d kept up the friendship, getting together every couple of months for dinner and girl talk. Which inevitably, with Stacy at the table, turned to sex talk. Increasingly, Debbie had found herself unable to join in the fun.

Which was pathetic. She had to stop feeling so damn sorry for herself. If she wasn’t careful, the inscription on her tombstone would read, “
She pitied herself to death.
”

“You don’t have to do anything, Deb. I know you’re married. But you’re not dead.”

Not physically, but deep inside, something
felt
dead.

“There’s no harm in looking. It’s a girls’ night out.”

Girls’ night out. Just for fun. Something they could shock themselves with later. A taste of the wild side. It couldn’t hurt her husband. He didn’t really care anyway. In fact, he’d be glad she wasn’t scrutinizing him across the dinner table, wondering if tonight would be the night.

It was only one night. Maybe, as Stacy said, she deserved it. And dammit, she
needed
to enjoy herself and end the excessive pity party she’d been engaging in lately. “All right, I’ll go. What time do you want me at your place?”

“Seven. Aren’t you even going to ask me about the outfit?”

“No. I’m giving you carte blanche.”

Stacy sat back, regarding her, once again forgetting to file. “Wow. That’s trusting.”

Actually, it was scary as hell. Stacy had an awesome—and somewhat revealing—wardrobe.

Patting her hand, Stacy went on, “Well, don’t worry, I won’t give you something that doesn’t fit your boobs. So tell me, how’s everything going with your contractor?”

“Oh my God. Stephen knows tons of people interested in my windows. I’ve done over sixteen pieces. Really big stuff, not sun catchers. Thank you so much for putting him in touch with me.” Debbie felt her enthusiasm rise and her spirits lift. The only thing that gave her joy these days was working a beautiful piece of stained glass. That was truly the only time she felt in control of her life. Stephen, though they’d never met face-to-face, only emailed, had done a lot to help her feel that way. “By the end of the year, if this keeps up, I’ll be able to quit work.”

Stacy did a final buff. “That’s great. I’m so happy for you. I’ll pick out your polish while you go wash your hands.”

“Don’t choose anything too outrageous.”

Stacy smiled, another wicked grin.

* * * * *

“It’s a veritable mansion.” Virginia, seated in the backseat, rolled down her window. For the outing, she’d worn a peach silk suit, the skirt covering her to her knees. Next to Stacy, and Debbie in her sexy borrowed skirt and blouse, Virginia looked like a maiden aunt. Yet this place had been her choice, though Debbie thought The Sex Club was way out of character for Virginia.

Set amid a grove of eucalyptus at the end of a long, sloping drive, with the moon providing the only illumination, the house looked like something out of a Vincent Price movie. A hulking behemoth over three stories high, with dormer windows at presumably the attic level. No lights filled any of the windows. No valet parking attendants swarmed about the wide stone porch. Not a single living soul moved; not even a curtain flickered.