Prologue
Lauren
* * *
The room was spinning.
A crusty film had glued my eyes shut. I tried—God, I tried—but no joy. Or maybe I knew that whatever might greet me when I opened them would be worse. The furry taste in my mouth had to be related. Better to just die here alone.
Except I wasn’t alone. I was warm, but in a way that wasn’t fueled by my own body heat. This was someone else’s, and I instinctively knew its source was male because it was so foreign to me.
I was in a bit of a rut.
But perhaps no more? I moved my tongue around my mouth, didn’t enjoy that much, so I stopped. A tuft of something hairy tickled my nostrils. I blew it away. It returned, determined to be added to my list of grievances.
By the time I managed to crack open an eyelid, a question had formed: was I wearing a hat? Not only was my body being spooned by a hot, hard brand of masculinity, but my head was covered by … I reached up and tentatively pulled.
A wig.
More specifically, a black licorice, polyester concoction.
The strains of “Suspicious Minds” wormed in my ear. Elvis? Yes! We had come across one of those crazy flash mob things, and there was me thinking flash mobs were a thing of the past, but this was a full-blown Vegas e-vent.
Also, we.
Tiny construction workers were jackhammering inside my skull. I tried lifting it. Didn’t make much progress. But I had to push through because I was in a hotel room, completely hungover, with a man—and now I realized which man—and an Elvis pompadour balanced precariously on my head.
I elbowed behind me. “Wake up.” It came out way-yup.
My bedmate grunted into my neck and tightened his grip, a large hand clamped possessively over my breasts. It felt so natural there, so right, which meant my instincts were way off. An awkward turn in his arms forced him to release his hold and presented me with a blonde Lhasa Apso-styled mop. No face, just hair. Either we had mixed up our wigs in the dark or … it came back to me in fits and spurts and not a few giggles.
Elvis. Marilyn. I was the King and he was the bombshell. We had thought it so funny. So subversive. Everyone looking so fine, all hugging and laughing and shouting “I do.”
I do what? I. Do. What?
I poked at him again, and despite the fact I couldn’t see his face and felt like shit, I might have let my accusing finger join a couple of non-accusing digits and flatten against his abs. The heat of him through his shirt, the sheer unyielding steel, was a pleasure I couldn’t deny myself.
About the only pleasure I would get out of this because nothing interesting had happened last night. I was ninety-nine percent sure of that, though not for lack of trying on my part. Something about him being a gentleman … The details were just out of reach, a dust speck dancing in a sunbeam.
What I did know was that after fourteen years of not speaking to each other, I was back in Alexei Nazarov’s arms.
“Nazarov.” Another poke. Annoyed at his non-reaction, I pulled the wig off his face and found those cool Arctic blues staring back at me. “You’re awake.”
And you were feeling him up.
“Of course I am, Silver Eyes. Your elbow is sharp.” That clipped, Russian-accented diction was the perfect companion to the sexy graveled tone. And “Silver Eyes”? I’d forgotten how that made me feel, and hearing it again turned my insides gooey.
I had no doubt I looked like a mess, but trying to look my best for Alexei Nazarov was a rather pointless exercise. The man was a Russian hockey god, eleventy billion on the ten-point perfection scale, capable of slaying any woman with that come-hither eyebrow and the snap of his million-dollar fingers. I had known him since my last year at college when he blasted in and turned my world upside down. We had fallen out, but last night had fallen back in. To nostalgia. To friendship. To something a little dangerous.
I was in Las Vegas to meet with Devon Trent, one of my football boys, and put him at ease about my big move: striking out on my own with my sports talent agency. A couple of my clients were squirrely about it. They needed a dab of soft soap and the assurance that I was still the tigress in their corner, that my connections and tenacity made the difference, not the backing of a bigger outfit.
With worries assuaged to the best of my ability and a martini in hand in the Paris hotel lounge, I ran into Nazarov, right winger with Seattle. He was in Vegas for a teammate’s bachelor party, and seeing him in a bar halfway across the country was strange, to say the least.
Not as strange as what came next.
We drank. We talked. We laughed and drank some more. I even unblocked his number. And with each passing moment, some of the tightness about why we had gone non-contact uncoiled. The walls shimmied down, lubricated by vodka, hockey, and that indescribable hum of energy that had always existed between us.
I didn’t remember much after that.
