Page 20 of Nothing Stays in Vegas

He hadn’t meant the laugh to sound so harsh, but that was how it came out. He crooked his finger under her chin, made her look at him. “Not even close. Besides, it wasn’t you in Vegas. And it wasn’t me for that matter, either. I would never be that bad of a lay. This was our first time, baby.”

She was staring at him. “The emails were all real.”

“I’d hope so. I mean what kind of girl would you be to spend hours every night fabricating details like loving New Kids on the Block and hating horses? Or that your favorite dates are at museums? Or that you like Jell-O better than pudding?”

Burying her face against his armpit, she laughed a delighted, giggly laugh. “I can’t believe you remember that stuff, or that I even told you! New Kids on the Block…my private shame. How could I let it get out?”

“How could I want you anyway?”

Lara leered at him a moment. “Confess. You love boy bands too.”

“Lady, now you’ve gone too far.” Locking his arms around her back, he rolled them over so he was again resting between her legs. “I’m going to have to teach you a lesson.”

Lara stretched out her arms above her head. “Mmm, really…is it going to be hard and long?”

Cal burst out laughing, but his cock had already responded to the call. “Yes.” He slipped inside of her with one thorough thrust. “Very.”

Chapter Nine

“You did what?” Bitty covered her mouth, but Lara could see the rise in her cheeks and knew exactly what the shocked, gleeful expression behind that well-manicured hand looked like.

She paced across the pristine staff kitchen, pausing to look out the window at the turbulent sea. “It. We did it… Bitty, oh my God, what am I going to do? He’s everything I’ve ever dreamed about, but better. I could love this man. And I’ve been lying to him since the minute I laid eyes on him.” Lara wrapped Cal’s shirt across her chest, not for the warmth but for the sense that he was still holding her.

With the rain beating down, he’d made her take his shirt to cover her own, which had apparently been rather revealing when wet. It was cold and damp, but it still smelled like him and she was savoring the scent.

“Okay, calm down. First, was it good? I bet it was. You two have so much chemistry… I know it was good—”

“Bitty! You aren’t helping.”

“Wow, it must have been great.”

Lara eyed her cousin with diminishing patience and an increasing sense of dread. There was no way out of this. If she told Cal the truth about Vegas, she jeopardized Dette’s future. If she continued lying to him, she put her own future with him at risk. Wringing her hands, she waited for the answer to come to her. Something obvious that made the solution so simple she’d have to laugh about the torture she was putting herself through.

Nothing.

Bitty slumped back in her chair and popped an apple wedge from the bowl on the tabletop into her mouth. “Look, Lara. It might be a bit early for love. So let’s calm down. You’re starting to sound like Dette, getting this flipped out.”

“No. You don’t understand, you were totally right about how worked up I was after emailing with him for three weeks. I was playing it cool, in case it wasn’t the same when he got here. But everything about him is better. We made love down in the boathouse—”

Bitty perked up. “The boathouse? On the couch?”

“No, the floor. Well, the wall and then the floor. And then the table—but it doesn’t matter. We talked for hours after that. It was the easiest, funniest, deepest conversation I’ve ever had. He laughs at my jokes, he loves the same things I do.” Lara dropped into the chair beside her and stared dreamily at the ocean. “He doesn’t like horses either and…he knows all the words to ‘You Got It’.”

“New Kids? You told him about your obsession with that decades old boy band pop trash?” Bitty’s lip curled in distaste. “Didn’t I make you swear you would never to tell a man you seriously liked about that? Wait, you said he knows the words? Holy crap. You two are a match made in Hell.” Bitty took her wrist and pulled her close. “You have to tell him the truth.”

Lara’s lips pressed together between her teeth as she nodded. “I want to, but I can’t do it to Dette. I have to tell her what’s going on between us. She’s going to lose her mind.”

“Yeah, that’s for sure. Telling her you are together is a good place to start. But you need to be honest with this guy. He’s worth more than Dette any—”

“Elizabeth Caroline Sinclair, you stop that talk this minute.” Mary marched across the kitchen and smacked a second bowl of apples down on the table in front of them. “That is no advice to be giving Lara. Lord knows Dette’s given you a pile of good reasons to resent her, but she’s still family and she deserves better than that.”

Bitty scowled, looking down at the wide white tile floor. Mary was the only person Lara had ever met that her cousin couldn’t handle.

“Sorry, Mary.” She narrowed her eyes and then leaned forward. “But Lara’s about to throw away the guy she’s fallen in love with to lie for Dette.”

Lara flung the back of her hand into her cousin’s arm and glared at her.

“You talkin’ about that handsome Cal? You girls know how I feel about lies. Nothing good can come from them. But that doesn’t give you license to talk such trash about Claudette, either. Now I need these apples peeled and sliced for my pies this afternoon, so you girls stop eating and start peeling. Lara, you have some thinking to do and this is as good a place to do it as any. Bitty, you keep that sassy mouth of yours shut. Lara needs to sort this out for herself.”

---