Star Crossed (Stargazer #1)(15)
Author: Jennifer Echols

“And they have fountains running over the velvet, to lubricate it, for effect.”

He cleared his throat.

“Like a vagina,” she said with gusto.

That was it. He burst into laughter. Several men passing turned to stare because his outburst was so loud, or because he looked so strange wearing a genuine smile. He reached for his champagne and polished it off.

“You okay there?” She pursed her lips, suppressing her own smile as he nodded. She didn’t press him further, though. She let him off the hook. Sighing, she said, “I probably won’t get in, but it’s fun to try. Maybe I’ll see you there later?”

He considered making a joke about her inviting him into a vagina. But that was a joke she would make, or some guy with a sense of humor. The kind of guy she was probably married to or—dating, he decided, glancing at her ringless hand supporting her chin.

He managed, “It does sound like fun, but I’m sure I won’t get in, either.” Of course he was on the list to be admitted. She was, too, or she would argue with the bouncers and make phone calls until they let her behind the velvet rope.

“Thank you for the champagne.” She stood—first bending so that he got a glimpse down her white shirt at her cle**age and the lacy edge of her pale bra, then straightening.

He stood with her. Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought there was a moment when she looked up at him in the near darkness, her blue eyes big with something other than teasing. A spark passed between them.

And then she was sliding out of the booth and rounding it to make her way through the crowd to the back room where the action and the catastrophes were.

Sitting again, he watched her go. Then blinked. Slapped one hand to his jaw to make sure it hadn’t dropped. Her tight skirt had seemed like normal business attire from the front. Now he saw that an exaggerated zipper ran all the way down the back. It was a detail some crazy designer had added to make the standard offering a little different. It was also way too risqué for conservative New York offices, including his own. She was wearing it anyway.

And wearing it well.

He longed to watch that zipper sway all the way into the back room, but he couldn’t afford for her to catch him staring at her like she was a scantily clad celebrity and he was her starstruck fan. With supreme effort, he tore his eyes away and looked through the glass wall at the casino floor again, wondering what minor luminaries he’d missed while Wendy had his full attention. He put his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand and was just realizing he’d unconsciously imitated the position she’d taken sitting there when he heard a voice close by.

“Hey.”

Wendy was standing beside him. As he looked up at her, he couldn’t help wondering whether she’d engineered their positions on purpose, so that he would be gazing up at her instead of the other way around.

But she’d lost the mocking tone in her voice. “I just wanted to say . . . ” She frowned down at him. “Take care, Daniel. You don’t seem like yourself.” Her gaze focused on his battered eye.

And then the teasing came back. Before he could stop her—and how would he have stopped her?—she reached out and ruffled his hair.

She walked quickly through the writhing crowd, toward the Big O. The long golden zipper on the back of her black skirt wagged violently as her hips shifted. He felt his cheeks burn with anger that someone in the bar might have witnessed her overly familiar gesture. Yet he still felt the soft touch of her fingertips brushing along his scalp. And he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her ass.

She was so tiny that she disappeared behind the dancers. He glimpsed her white blouse again, glowing among all the black. She vanished again. And then he saw her talking to the bouncer at the entrance to the inner room. He hoped against hope that the bouncer would refuse her entry, and Daniel could save face after that hair ruffling by interceding for her, coming to her rescue.

The bouncer held the door open for her, and she slipped inside.

Daniel pushed away his champagne flute and stood, eyes never leaving the door of the inner room. He’d heard stories about Wendy’s exploits his whole professional life. Now that he thought about it, he was amazed their paths hadn’t crossed before. But he was finally feeling something he hadn’t felt since he’d gone head-to-head with her for the Clarkson Prize.

Challenged.

4

As Wendy walked away from Daniel’s table, she started to get that sinking feeling, with mountains looming over her. She knew she had no filter. She had very good instincts about what made other people tick, and very bad ones about what made herself tick, or how far she could take her natural inclination to tease, like stopping on her walk to elementary school and poking an ant bed with a stick. It was only afterward, as she was retreating from an encounter, that she realized she’d made a mistake.

She looked back toward Daniel. She couldn’t see him past the wall of bodies dancing around her. It didn’t matter anyway. She didn’t really want to know whether he was still glaring at her, did she?

Flushed with embarrassment and adrenaline and the certainty that she’d ruined everything in her first hour in Vegas, Wendy stammered through her introduction to the burly bouncer at the door to the inner room. Luckily, her name had made it onto his list. At least someone in Lorelei’s camp wasn’t too coked up to sweat the details. But Wendy felt coked up herself at the moment and was in no shape to introduce herself to Lorelei as her savior.

Stepping through the doorway into the second party, she noticed with disappointment that the club was decorated in blue rather than pink velvet and did not glisten or otherwise look like anything remotely resembling a vagina. Clearly the designers were not as creative as she was. She fought her way through the even tighter crowd and retreated to an empty bench in a corner. She couldn’t make a call because being overheard would be disastrous, and the music was too loud anyway. But she could take deep breaths and text Sarah.

Daniel “Cheekbones” Blackstone is here. Was trying to draw him out and when I left I patted him on the head. Probably should not have done that.

In less than a minute she had Sarah’s response.

YOU WHAT? He will be MORE likely to one-up u now. Why couldn’t u just have too many friendly drinks w him and leave him w the impression ur a lesbian???

Wendy laughed at this description of Sarah’s own modus operandi. She texted, Touché, which her phone autocorrected to Touched, which was not what she’d meant at all.