Moving through the flow of New Year's Eve hard partiers clogging the craggy downtown Las Vegas streets, Krissy O'Claire owned the Strip. Curiosity and attraction clung to her as tightly as every provocative inch of her long-sleeved sequined Armani minidress. The thrill of strangers' attention lifted her higher than her five-inch stilettos could hope to.
This was the reaction she'd wanted when she'd left the sex-on-a-hanger dress in her condo's closet instead of shipping it to California with the rest of her clothes. This was the shot of excitement she'd craved when she had delayed her travel plans, choosing to linger in Vegas another night before starting off the new year with a new career in a new city.
Tonight was about vanity—about being seen. And it was about damn time. In the ten years since Krissy had graduated and moved to Vegas, her best friend and college roommate's hometown, she'd been practically invisible. Buried under her medical career and white lab coat. Hidden behind her professorship and curves-concealing cardigans and dark-rimmed glasses.
Which was what she'd desired for a long time. Even as she performed aesthetic miracles for her patients, she concealed her own beauty, which seemed to attract jealousy from women and superficial interest from men. Celebrities, athletes, were the worst—as shallow as a Petrie dish.
When she'd snaked into this dress, she'd wanted to feel the late December chill whisper across the length of exposed leg and had wanted to see how the garment's sequins would catch and spin the glittering rainfall of the Strip's lights. When she'd agreed to carve out a slice of her night to help her best friend, Charlotte Blue, dodge yet another blind date—arranged by Charlotte's own mother, as was often the case—she'd wanted to grant this one last favor in the name of friendship.
Or was it guilt? Friends and colleagues assumed her stay in California would be temporary, where she'd spend her one-year sabbatical from UNLV, but she knew the truth. All she had to do was say yes, and her visiting surgeon position in San Francisco would be made permanent.
She was going to say yes.
But first, Krissy was going to warm herself up with a spicy cocktail at Kuánghuān. In English, Kuánghuān translated to Revelry. The Asian-themed nightclub was as famous for its award-winning drinks as it was for its X-rated fortune cookies. She sidestepped a nicotine-hungry group lighting up outside the establishment, and let herself be drenched in the red-hued decadence of the place as she snagged a drink and wondered which of the dozens of patrons was Russo, a man waiting for a date who'd sent a proxy to dump him on New Year's Eve.
Krissy drank her cocktail without preamble and split open the accompanying fortune cookie. Ride it hard tonight—satisfaction guaranteed.
Snorting, she tossed the paper into her clutch purse and continued man-browsing.
Aha. There, straddling a chair at a table-for-two with a bottle of scotch and a snapped fortune cookie, was a guy whose strong back and arms were bound in a black leather jacket. Grinding bodies, earsplitting music, the ambiance of temptation—of getting dirty, nasty, shaken apart tonight and clearing the slate with New Year's resolutions tomorrow—all faded out of focus. Crossing the floor to him, she avidly collected more details. The jacket was unzipped, with the collar flipped up…his hair was cut close to the scalp, but the wavy texture was still visible…his mustache and beard framed a mouth that twitched in a way that might've seemed smug had it not been for the glint of wariness in his eyes when he looked at her.
Krissy envisioned her thong dropping in surrender. Instinctively she knew Mister Rough and Tough in all his leather sexiness had to be Russo.
Spider and fly, they were.
But which one am I?
