Authors: Kim Tiffany
Sin City Tryst
Luck be a lady tonight.
A bachelorette weekend takes a steamy turn when full-figured
Sara Fenyes unexpectedly encounters her secret crush in the city of sin. A self-proclaimed
wallflower, Sara knows that when it comes to relationships, being alone is
always a safe bet. Now if she could just remember that in the presence of a
certain sexy firefighter, who also happens to be the groom’s best man.
Ethan la Montagne has had it bad for sultry Sara for as long
as he can recall, but he can’t seem to keep her in one place long enough to
tell her. A stag party in Vegas offers an opportunity to catch her unawares and
raise the stakes on their cat-and-mouse game.
When inhibitions fly out the window, Sara and Ethan generate
enough heat to rival the brightest lights on the Strip. But what happens afterward,
when reality intrudes and misunderstandings tip the odds against their favor?
Together they must decide if what happens in Vegas should stay in Vegas.
Sin City Tryst
Kim Tiffany
Chapter One
“To the future Mrs. Sean Duke!”
“Hear, hear!” Glasses were raised to a chorus of squeals and
raucous laughter. Sitting at a table full of plastered women smack in the
center of Wolfgang Puck’s at the MGM Grand, Sara Fenyes discreetly adjusted the
overflowing cleavage in her snug velvet halter top before raising her glass and
joining the toast. She smiled as she spotted her ebullient best friend at the
end of the table, decked out in a white sundress and a hot pink homemade sash
with the words “Bride-To-Be” printed in rhinestones.
Angie stood and raised her martini glass, and the table
quieted. “Ladies, I just want to say that I don’t know how I would’ve made it
through these past six months without your support.” She turned her gaze toward
Sara and winked. “I know I haven’t been the easiest bride-to-be, but you guys
have been amazing. Thanks again for sticking with me through thick and thin.”
Sara snorted and grinned at Angie’s choice of words. “Thick
and thin” was right. The ordeal of finding bridal party dresses that looked
equally fetching on Angie’s wasp-waisted relatives as well as Sara’s own solid
size-eighteen figure had proven itself an insurmountable challenge. In the end,
Angie had decided on a voluminous shirred pink gown with marabou accents for
her bridesmaids and maid of honor. While the frippery frock made the
bridesmaids look positively ethereal, the poufy proportions made a complete
mockery of Sara’s substantial curves, shorter legs and thick waist. It made her
look and feel like a shrink-wrapped Hostess Snowball.
But hey, she figured her best friend was only getting
married once. It was the least she could do.
“Oooh, Sara, can I have a bite of that?” asked Angie’s
twenty-two-year-old cousin Carolina from New York City. She was an aspiring
model, and everyone called her Caro for short. She looked longingly over at the
remnants of Sara’s butternut squash ravioli—swimming in browned butter and
fragrant sage—from across the table and sighed. “I haven’t had carbs in, like,
forever.”
“Sure, help yourself,” Sara replied, pushing the plate
toward her. She watched in amusement as the alarmingly slender girl took a
single, infinitesimal bite of pasta and savored it with her eyes closed. She
shook her head and sat back with a sigh.
“Oh my gawd, that is so decadent. But so many calories… You
have no idea how lucky you are that you can eat that whenever you want.”
Sara raised her eyebrows a little at Caro’s comment but
remained silent. The vapid young woman had been taking random pot-shots at her
size for the past two weeks and Sara had almost grown immune to it. She’d been
told all her life that she was a thicker version of her paternal Hungarian
grandmother, who was now in her seventies and still zaftig and beautiful in
Sara’s opinion. She took considerable personal pride in the comparison. What
was the point in eschewing bread baskets in restaurants for the rest of her
life just to satisfy irritable, self-absorbed carb-Nazis like Caro?
She eyed the dry mesclun greens on her dinner companion’s
plate with a grimace. They needed a healthy dose of olive oil, lemon and garlic
to make it good and palatable in her book. Sara didn’t believe in depriving
herself of good food when it was a special occasion such as this. Without a
word, she yanked her plate back and popped another luscious, buttery bite of
ravioli into her mouth, chewing slowly and enjoying the firm texture of the
pasta.
Bliss
. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Angie waving
at her madly, trying to get her attention.
Mouth full, Sara cocked her head and shot her a questioning
look.
“
Behind you
,” Angie mouthed back at her, waggling her
eyebrows.
Frowning, Sara turned to peruse the crowds of people
occupying the casino floor and nearly choked.
Shit!
What the hell was
he
doing here? Bachelor parties and bachelorette parties weren’t supposed to
rendezvous in Vegas!
“Sean! Baby! Over here!” Angie called out. She jumped up and
the lights on her sash began blinking wildly, and several people around them
laughed and started clapping. Sara watched a tall, ruggedly handsome blond man
separate himself from the small posse he was with and make a beeline toward his
fiancée. Sean Duke, better known as the groom, made his living as a firefighter,
and with every step women swooned at the sight of his bulging biceps and
chiseled good looks. He was Angie’s rock, a thoughtful and authoritative
partner, the perfect foil for her innate flightiness.
Regretfully, his imposing bodaciousness was the furthest
thing from Sara’s mind at present. Focusing all of her attention on the dregs
of butter left on her plate, she tried hard not to stare at one particular
dark-haired, whipcord-lean, golden-eyed stud who brought up the rear of the
devastatingly good-looking group.
Ethan la Montagne was Sean’s best man and fellow firefighter
at Station 54. He was also the top-billed star of every masturbatory dream that
Sara had indulged in for the past two years. He was a bonafide sex-god—bronzed,
broad-shouldered and soft-spoken, with tousled dark curls and a set of lethal
bedroom eyes in a shade of hot-buttered hazel. Just a glimpse of his sexy mug
never failed to send her thighs a-clenching and she inevitably spent the rest
of the day shifting uncomfortably at her work desk entertaining kinky thoughts
that involved tying him down and molesting him within an inch of his life.
Given her close connection to Angie and Sean at the
firehouse, the four of them had dinner together a couple of times a week at
their apartment, which was the highlight of her social calendar if Sara was
completely honest with herself. Over time she had discovered that Ethan was not
only delectable eye candy, but funny and kind and a great listener to boot. Day
after day her attraction had grown, to the point where she positively ached to
touch him whenever they were in close proximity. Across countless dinner tables
she’d imagined tasting his smiling mouth and running her fingers through his
unruly curls. At night her fantasies took a decidedly erotic turn as she
imagined his huge, hungry, blunt-tipped hands stroking and kneading her entire
body before dragging her thighs apart and plunging his steel-corded cock deep
inside her cunt. Yum.
Sara generally appreciated the fact that her plus-size body
was strong, healthy and capable of vigorous physical activity. But she wasn’t
immune to the fact that she was the largest woman sitting at that table.
Ethan’s rough-hewn good looks and quiet intensity intimidated the hell out of
her and she seriously doubted that she could ever trump up enough courage to
come right out and tell him how she felt. She just wasn’t in the same league.
In her experience, opposites didn’t attract, and she and Ethan were about as
far apart on the sex-appeal meter as two people could get. Sure, she’d dated a
few guys, but none of the men had ever seemed particularly enthused about her
substantial curves, which had made for some pretty boring, vanilla experiences
in the bedroom. She couldn’t help but feel homely and self-conscious around him
now, and she sensed the devastating impact that a single dismissive glance from
him could have on her threadbare ego.
Shit, even a lot of the overweight guys she’d gone out with
had preferred twiggy little androgynous bodies to her own, and a few had made
no qualms about telling her so. So why the heck would someone like Ethan, Mr.
Tall-Dark-and-Do-Me personified, want to dabble with the likes of her when he
could easily have his pick? Sara had worked too hard to cultivate her
friendship with Ethan to muck it up by admitting her unrequited attraction to
him. It compelled her to strive even harder to mask her true feelings for him.
Being privy to the inner workings of her personal life,
Angie was of course aware of her unrequited lust, but understood Sara’s reasons
for wanting to keep him in the dark. It was a big girl’s prerogative, after
all, to protect her fragile pride against inevitable rejection when it came to
the opposite sex. The last thing Sara wanted was to lose his company entirely simply
because he felt awkward about not being able to return her feelings. She’d
settle for what she could get and be satisfied with that.
At the opposite end of the table, Sean swept Angie into his
beefy arms for a brief but searing kiss, taking her seat and plopping her down
on his massive lap. He nuzzled his fiancée’s neck and nodded at the table in
general. “Ladies,” he acknowledged with a wide smile.
“Hi Sean,” they all chorused back, shifting around to make
room for the men.
“Hope y’all don’t mind us crashing the party. I just
couldn’t stay away from my girl,” said Sean, toying with the end of Angie’s
ponytail as she looked up at him lovingly from her perch on his lap.
There was a collective round of mingled groans, sighs and
giggles, and Sara found herself grinning along with the table. They were so
bleepin’ in love and adorable that people couldn’t help but feel good around
them.
“Hey, Sara.”
A true smile bloomed on her face as she savored the sound of
Ethan’s deep, resonant voice. He crouched beside her at almost eye-level,
gracing her with the full effect of his handsome features. He always smelled so
good, like toasted almonds and spicy aftershave. Sara squelched the urge to
bury her nose in the tempting little niche where the corded muscles of his shoulder
met his thick, strong collarbone…
Grabbing her water goblet, she downed it gratefully before
answering. “Ethan! How’ve you been?”
“I’ve been good.” His voice licked across her nerves and she
quivered like a taut bow. “You look great,” he murmured, his warm gaze
caressing her from head to toe, pausing appreciatively at the intricate and
clingy velvet top before meeting her wide-eyed gaze. “I really like your hair
like this.” He swept a light hand over her wavy dark-brown locks, which she had
left loose and swinging against her shoulders that evening instead of gathered
in its usual messy coil at the nape of her neck. Before she could think of a
reply, he tucked a few of the rogue ringlets behind her ear, briefly skimming
the sensitive skin along her jaw. She tried not to purr like a cat being
stroked. God, she had it bad.
“Thanks,” she said with a flustered smile, trying to ignore
his distracting touch. “Wanna sit down?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
“There’s a seat right here,
Ethan
.” Caro’s
sugary-sweet voice carried over the din.
Oh, I’ll bet there is
, Sara thought with a scowl. She
bit her lip as she watched Caro pat the wooden bench beside her and peer up at
Ethan from under her long, undoubtedly false lashes. “It’s kind of tight, but
if we work it right you can slip right in.” Caro’s voice dripped with obvious
innuendo.
Sara gawked at Caro in mild disbelief. To think that she’d
shared her pasta with the wench! She knew Ethan wouldn’t refuse the offer.
Their table was full and Sara couldn’t hope to share her own bench with him on
account of her own resolutely wide hips and derriere. She watched with what she
hoped was a neutral expression as Ethan slipped into the seat right across from
her beside Caro, who leaned into him with a coy smile.
“Wow! I had no idea we’d be meeting up with you guys. Are
you coming with us to the club later?” She shook her long blonde tresses about
as she spoke, reminding Sara of a beautiful, sleek Afghan hound she saw once on
a televised dog show.
“Um, no,” Ethan said with raised eyebrows as Caro gave him
the full come-hither stare that Sara knew made lesser men melt into a puddle of
goo. “We wouldn’t want to cramp your style, after all. The fellas and I have
other plans at the other end of the Strip.” As he spoke, Sara watched him frown
and pull a long strand of blonde hair away from the front of his dark knit
shirt. She snorted with suppressed laughter, and Ethan caught her eye and
winked.
Caro made a mock moue as she rested her perfectly coiffed
head against one brawny shoulder, looking up at Ethan coquettishly. “That’s a
shame. I really wanted to see your moves.”
Sara felt her smile fade and she averted her eyes. But it
was too late. The image had already been indelibly burned into her brain. She
was loath to admit it, but they made a striking couple. The sight of Caro
flirting with Ethan while encased in a miniscule white strapless mini-dress
that could have easily doubled as a leg warmer on Sara made her feel
exceptionally enormous and unwieldy in comparison.
Like a friggin’ continental landmass beside a lacy, delicate
archipelago.
She silently chastised herself for caring. So what if Ethan
seemed a tad too appreciative of Caro’s waifish frame, rail thin and narrow
from stem to stern? That was fine with her. She had her own mini-arsenal of sex
toys to help take care of things whenever she hit a dry spell. And the past two
years had been a very long drought indeed. She thought about the new vibrator
and remote that she had tossed into her evening bag earlier that evening while
she had been getting dressed. Their group had made plans to visit a male strip
club later that evening off-Strip and thought that it would be great fun to
make Angie dance around with a bright pink dildo up on stage. But as Sara
watched the play of mouthwatering muscles in Ethan’s forearms as he engaged in
small talk with her arch nemesis, she suddenly felt the need for some very
personal relief of her own.
The strip clubs were lousy with cocks. Surely Angie wouldn’t
begrudge her the one that was safely stashed in her purse.
She pushed her chair back decisively. “Excuse me a minute,
you guys,” she murmured in a low voice, not really expecting anyone to have
heard her. She was surprised when Ethan instantly made to rise as well, but she
waved him back down.
“No, no, don’t get up,” she said. “I’m just going to freshen
up. Be back in a jiff.” Sara reached for her sequined clutch and shoved it
under her arm before making a beeline toward the nearest ladies’ room across
the crowded casino.