Deception

Prologue

Prologue

“COME ON, DOUG, ONE lap dance isn’t going to kill you!” John Hadley shouted over the loud music. He put an arm around Doug’s shoulders and punched him playfully in the stomach. “Hell, you’re not even married yet, and she’s already got you dragging the old ball and chain.”

Doug smiled. “I know. I know. It’s just that I promised Tania I’d look but not touch.”

His other friend, Pete, handed him a Long Island Tea and snorted. “For one, you’re in Vegas, and you know the drill – what happens here, stays here. Two, you’re not married. Not yet. Three, you’re not even allowed to touch the strippers, so, technically, you’d be keeping that promise.”

“Exactly,” John said, as the music died and the current dancer, a long-legged blonde, picked up her piles of bills from the stage and skipped off. “Besides, this is your stag party, man. It’s a rite of passage to have n***d women crawling all over you before you cash in all of your chips. Come on, Douger! Grow some balls, and quit being such a candy-ass.”

Doug pushed his wiry glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose. “Listen, guys, I’m perfectly fine just watching them dance around n***d. I don’t need a lap dance. Seriously.”

“If you knew what you were missing, you’d know that you need one,” John replied, ogling a voluptuous brunette who was leading another guy towards the back of the club. He decided to flag her down for himself before the night was over. Personally, he didn’t give a rat’s a*s if his wife found out. Not like Lori would even care, since she’d been holding out on him for the last two months, claiming that she was too pregnant for s*x. He knew for a fact that other women had s*x in their third trimester. It was more than obvious to him that she was just being overly paranoid and difficult.

Women, he thought, slamming back the rest of his Whiskey Sour. All Lori had to do was clean the house, spread her legs a couple times a week, and pick up his dry-cleaning on Fridays. Was that really too much to ask?

“If you can’t touch them anyway, what’s the point? Anyway, I doubt I’m missing anything I can’t get at home,” Doug replied, twirling the ice around in his glass. “Not with a woman like Tania. Hell, she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” Doug waved his thumb toward a waitress who was cleaning up one of the tables. “She’s just as hot as any of these girls I’ve seen tonight, and that’s why I’m not even tempted. I’m still pretty much in awe that a girl like her is even interested in a man like me. Hell, I’m pretty sure that I hit the jackpot with her.”

Pete’s eyes met John’s. Both guys knew very well that Doug’s fifty-million-dollar inheritance made him very interesting to a gold-digger like Tania. She was the one who’d actually “Hit the jackpot.”

“Our next long-legged siren will have you squirming in your seats when you see the way she moves,” announced the D.J. “Let’s give it up for Montana, a sinfully hot redhead who I guarantee, none of you horny bastards would mind spending eternity with.”

“Here you go, Douger,” John said as the stripper stepped onto the stage wearing a red sequined Dream-Girl-From-Hell costume. “We know how much you like redheads. Whoa, this girl’s drapes might even match the carpeting.”

Doug chuckled as Eminem’s song, Shake That, began pounding through the club, and the girl on stage began to move her body. He had to admit, this chick was the sexiest stripper he’d seen all night.

Pete chuckled. “Oh... Douglas... Tell me you’re not going home tonight without getting a private dance from her? Look at the way she grinds to the music.”

Doug nodded. “Uh, yeah, she’s nice.” His pants began to tighten as she gyrated her hips on the stage and tossed her thick mane of curls from side to side.

“Nice? She is hotter than hell.” John opened up his wallet. “Let’s get her over here.”

Doug watched as the stripper’s eyes scanned the crowd until they rested on him.

Him.

She smiled seductively, and his throat went bone dry.

“Oh, yeah. Here we go!” John hollered as she stepped through the strobe lights toward the metal pole in the center of the stage, wrapping a black stiletto boot around it. “Oh yeah, ride that pole, girl!”

Doug watched in fascination as Montana slid her body around the metal suggestively. Not only was she beautiful, but the swell of her breasts and the curve of her heart-shaped rear made him forget about everything else.

Their eyes met again and she grinned, as if reading his thoughts. She flipped herself upside down and straddled the pole with her long, supple legs, making him wish that he was made of metal.

“Baby, lose the costume!” Pete shouted.

Montana uncurled her legs and hopped away from the pole. Then she slid down to her hands and knees, and crawled over toward the three drooling men, her eyes gleaming in the dark club.

A surge of intense desire slammed into Doug’s crotch as she stared at him directly. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead as he fought to contain himself. He felt like a teenager watching his first porno.

John chuckled. “Now this is why we’re in Vegas. They don’t make them like this back home.”

Doug had to agree. In fact, Montana was even more beautiful up close.

Her green eyes held his as she reached out and touched Doug’s cheek, making his legs feel like jelly. “You ready for me, Douger?” she purred.

Unable to speak, he nodded.

Montana stood back up while he stared at her long legs, imagining what that creamy skin would feel like under his fingertips. It was a struggle to keep from leaping onto the stage and finding out.

With a wink, she turned her back to them and gave her bustier a firm tug. The men across the stage howled in approval when she raised the lacy piece of cloth above her head, and tossed it away.

“You’re killing us, Montana,” Pete yelled, l*****g his lips.

She looked over her shoulder at Doug and gave a seductive smile. “You want some too, Sugar?”

“Yes,” he croaked.

Montana’s grin widened. She turned around and Doug stared in wonder at her perfectly sculpted globes. They were the color of porcelain, reminding him of the Gaya melons he’d purchased recently in the grocery store. His mouth began to water as he pictured his tongue on the fruit.

“Beautiful,” he whispered, opening up his hands. He longed to touch them, feel their weight in his palms, and press his mouth against their softness.

She got on her knees and cupped them with her own small hands, as if in offering. “So, you like?”

“Hell yes,” Pete answered, reaching toward her with his left hand.

Her eyes grew cold. “Stop!” she hissed. “Not unless I give you permission.”

Pete’s hands dropped and his face went slack.

Her eyes drifted back to Doug’s and she smiled as if nothing had transpired. She stood back up and pulled the rest of the costume away from her body until she wore nothing but a red G-string and her black thigh-high stiletto boots.

The crowd around the stage roared louder. Wallets came out and bills were thrust into the air while she teased them with her curves, rocked her hips to the music, and took possession of everyone in the club.

As her song began to end, Montana swung her hips back over to Doug. She leaned down and touched his cheek tenderly. “Meet me in the parking lot in ten minutes.”

It was a demand, not a question.

“Yes,” he replied, staring at her lush lips. He’d never seen anyone so beautiful.

With a dark smile, she pressed her glossy lips against his and stood back up. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

“Never,” he replied, forgetting all about Tonia. His upcoming wedding. The future.

Satisfied, Montana moved her gaze to Pete and John, who were staring up at her in adoration. She smirked. “Oh, and bring your friends. The more the merrier.”

Although slightly irritated, Doug agreed. Whatever this exquisite woman wanted, he’d give it to her.

Anything and everything.

And he did...

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CARMELA FELT SLIGHTLY dizzy as she pushed the cleaning cart out of the motel room and into the dry afternoon heat. She closed the door and rubbed her pregnant belly, trying to somehow calm the baby inside who wasn’t due to arrive for another month.

“Settle, mi bebé,” she whispered.

If only she could afford to stop working and relax the last few weeks before her maternity leave. Unfortunately, her husband, Luis, had lost another job, and now she was the only one paying the bills.

She clucked her tongue and sighed.

Luis.

His drinking was getting out of hand, and sometimes she wished she had the courage to stand up to him, to tell him to stop being so selfish. But love was a funny thing and very unpredictable. Even though his drinking bothered her, she would do anything to keep Luis, so the thought of him leaving her kept her quiet. Besides, she knew that she couldn’t complain too much because even at his worst, Luis was still a better man than her own father, who’d physically abused her mother stone-cold sober. Sure, Luis drank until he passed out most nights, but he never threatened or raised a hand to her.

Never.

For that reason, she still held a small ray of hope that possibly, someday, he would quit drinking, and be the man she needed him to be. For now, however, she had the bills as well as the baby to worry about, and was determined to work until her water broke.

Ignoring another kick from the feisty baby, she pushed the cart to the next motel room and knocked on the door.

“Housekeeping!” she called.

No answer.

Sighing, she repeated it again, and when nobody answered, Carmela shoved the key into the lock and opened the door. When she stepped inside of the dark room, her stomach rolled in protest as a pungent, coppery smell filled her nostrils. Grimacing, she flipped on the light switch and gasped in horror at the gruesome c*****e someone had left behind. “Oh, dios mío!”