Overnight Wife Read online

  Overnight Wife

  Penny Wylder

  Copyright © 2019 Penny Wylder

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or businesses, organizations, or locales, is completely coincidental.

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  Contents

  1. Mara

  2. Mara

  3. Mara

  4. John

  5. Mara

  6. Mara

  7. John

  8. Mara

  9. John

  10. Mara

  11. John

  12. John

  13. Mara

  14. John

  15. Mara

  Epilogue

  The Wife Arrangement

  Books By Penny Wylder

  1

  Mara

  “To girls’ trip!” My best friend Lea laughs and raises her shot glass to clink it against mine.

  I take a deep breath, trying not to let the cloying scent of tequila or the stickiness of this nightclub floor get to me. Or the absolutely terrible layout and lighting situation. Did they really think blue underlighting would flatter anybody? Amateurs. I knock my shot—calling it a glass feels far too classy for the plastic neon glowing-in-UV-light container—against Lea’s and toss it back without breathing again. That helps to dull the immediate throat and nostril burn of the tequila as it slides down my throat.

  With a triumphant “Ha!” I slam my second shot down against the countertop. The cheap plastic container promptly breaks in two pieces. I shoot the bartender a wry smile as he reaches over to scoop it up, rolling his eyes.

  Lea, on the other hand, elbows me, looking for all her worth like a proud mama bird who’s just shoved its poor fledgling out of the nest headfirst. “Look at you! Mara Greene, a regular party girl. Who’d have thought.”

  I roll my eyes. “This is not going to become a trend, Lea.”

  “Hey, a girl can dream.” Her grin widens as she grabs my hand and tugs me toward the dance floor. This particular overly loud beat does sound pretty familiar, in a way that reminds me of college, where Lea and I met. She was the loud and bossy socialite majoring in acting, I was the nerdy shy girl on stage crew who preferred to operate the spotlight rather than stand in front of it. Normally you wouldn’t peg the two of us as being a good match, but Lea marched right up to me after I worked on a background set for her solo tryout, wrapped me in a hug and announced that anyone as good with staging as I was had to be her friend.

  We’ve been close ever since. Even if we don’t share too many weekend activities—Lea’s more of the club scene girl, and I’m more of the “in bed by 9pm so I can wake up pre-dawn to go fishing with my father” type.

  A pang that has nothing to do with the tequila strikes me right in the chest. Right above my heart. I rub at it, wincing, and try to force my thoughts away from my father. It’s been two years since he passed, but it still hurts just as much as it did on the day he died.

  “Are you gonna start dancing, or do I need to buy you another tequila?” Lea shouts in my ear over the heavy thud of the bass.

  I sway my hips in tune to the music and she flashes me an approving grin. I have to admit, after the tequila works its way into my bloodstream and I start to work up a sweat on the dance floor, it does feel nice to cut loose.

  “So?” Lea calls again, when that song peters out and before the next one gets up to full speed. “How are you loving Vegas?” Her eyes twinkle with amusement.

  I laugh and roll my eyes. She talked me into driving out here from LA where we both moved after graduation last summer. Lea’s waitressing and going on auditions every spare moment. And me? I just landed my dream job. Like an actual, honest-to-goodness stage coordinator gig, designing and building props for a huge media company, Pitfire Media, hosting their first play at the biggest theater in the city.

  So, some celebrations are in order. As well as a much-needed break from reality for Lea.

  Hence my agreeing to this madness. “I guess it’s not the worst,” I shout back at her, even though, to be honest, I’m having a lot more fun than I expected.

  “You’re gonna be a club regular by the time the weekend’s up,” Lea promises, and I snort.

  “This is a special occasion. Besides, it’s your fault. What did you tell me? ‘You need to learn how to cut loose’?”

  Lea grins. “I stand by that declaration.”

  “Then you’d better be ready to help with the consequences tomorrow, when I need a metric ton of caffeine and Tylenol just to crawl out of bed.”

  Lea shoves my shoulder playfully. “Rule number one of Vegas, Mara: we do not worry about next-day consequences while we’re still out.”

  With that, she spins away from me to wrap her arms around the neck of the nearest guy. He’s pretty cute actually, tall and gangly and not at all Lea’s usual burly macho type. But maybe she’s trying new things tonight, too.

  I wonder if I can be that brave. Before the thought is even in my head, though, I’m dismissing it. I didn’t come here to hook up with someone. I just came to celebrate my new job. End of list. But cutting loose is going to be hard to do with my mind still stuck in LA, wondering how my first day on the job will go the day after tomorrow.

  Pitfire is a huge deal. They’re new, but they’re already big in both LA and New York, not to mention a few smaller cities between. They expanded fast, like startup-level fast, thanks to their extremely young CEO. The CEO who everyone tells me is the most eligible bachelor in LA.

  Not that I plan on mixing work and pleasure. Tequila might burn, but that is a cocktail with disaster written all over it.

  My head buzzes pleasantly as I skip back toward the bar after the next song, leaving Lea wrapped up with her new friend, intent on finding some water. This buzz is ideal, but if I dehydrate too much, I don’t want to know how bad I’ll feel in the morning.

  As I walk over, I cast a discerning eye around the club. The lights, if anything, are even worse by the bar than they are in the middle of the room. You’d think that a club with as great a reputation as this one—not to mention one that pulls in so much money—would be able to afford a nicer lighting setup. Or even a stage with any sort of backdrop, instead of just a dingy, stained red curtain to hide the yucky bare black walls.

  Oh well. There’s no accounting for taste. And while Vegas has been more fun than I expected, classy and tasteful aren’t exactly words I’d use to describe it.

  “Buy you a drink?” asks a guy near the bar. He grins at me, but his eyes do that long, lingering up-and-down thing that tells me he’s already undressing me in his head. Then he actually has the nerve to lick his lips afterward.

  “Thanks, but I’m good,” I reply before I move to step around him toward a less crowded section of the bar.

  That’s when he grabs my hand to stop me. I’m staring at him open-mouthed, shocked at the nerve, while he rubs his palm against mine, his eyebrows shooting up with surprise. “You’ve got a lot of callouses for a pretty young thing.” He tugs me toward him and I try to wrench myself free, waking from my stupor at last. But his grip is too tight. He’s got corded muscles visible all up both arms. Bigger muscles than I have, despite my day job doing heavy lifting and construction work, and I’m no match for him.

  “There’s no shame in hard work,” I tell him, narrowing my eyes. With one last tug, I wrench my hand free. He staggers a step, but rights himself before I can mak
e a break for it.

  “What kinda hard work do you do?” He gives me the once-over again—or I guess the twice-over now—and my stomach churns with nausea.

  “The kind that’s none of your business,” I snap, already turning on my heel to leave. I storm off the dance floor, away from the bar. There’s a little corner a few steps away that looks fairly abandoned. Yes, okay, hiding in a darkened corner wouldn’t exactly earn Lea’s approval, but I need a break from this party girl lifestyle. Clearly it is not my thing.

  I lean against the wall and let my head fall back against it, my eyes drifting shut. I can feel the thump of the bass through the wall I’m leaning against and through the soles of my feet. I smell the sticky scent of sweat and spilled rum and cokes, too. But at least I’ve got a little bit of breathing room now. Enough to clear my head and get the sensation of that creepy guy’s touch off my body.

  Just then, I sense warmth at my arm. I crack one eyelid to spot someone approaching my hiding spot, and I stiffen, expecting that guy to try again. Guys like that don’t know when to quit.

  But the man who stops in front of my hidey-hole is unfamiliar. I tilt my head back to squint up at him. He’s tall and dressed more like he’s about to walk into a board room than into a club. He’s unbuttoned his dress shirt cuffs and rolled them up far enough to give me a glimpse of his strong, veined forearms. His tie is loose around his neck. His dark eyes dance with amusement when they catch mine.

  “Don’t worry,” he says, his voice low and yet still audible over the blast of the music, a trick I wish I could steal for when I’m on set and shouting into my mic to be heard over rehearsal music. “Your new friend won’t be bothering you anymore.”

  I glance past this guy toward the doors and I spot two bouncers escorting the creep out of the club, while he tries to twist out of their arms, protesting. It brings a small smile to my face. “Your doing?” I ask.

  “I don’t like men who can’t take no for an answer,” he replies. “Especially not ones who insult the concept of hard work while they’re at it.”

  My cheeks flush, and I hope this guy can’t see it in the dark of the club. “Well, thanks for that, knight in…slightly disheveled suit.” I gesture at him with a grin.

  He returns it, and oh, damn. He is even hotter than I thought at first. The club lights illuminate sharp hollows under his cheekbones and a sturdy brow. He’s got the kind of face that makes you immediately think about how he’d be in bed: stern and commanding, a total dom in the best possible way. “I agree with you, you know,” he says. “About hard work. There’s no shame in it.”

  He takes a step closer, and I couldn’t back away if I wanted to, with the wall at my back, and me still leaning against it. Besides, I don’t want to. I raise my chin to keep my eyes locked on his, even though he’s a good head taller than me. “That why you look like you just stepped out of a board room, even though you’re in the middle of a club in Vegas?” I ask, surprising myself with my audacity. Normally I don’t really talk to guys. I don’t bother. I’m too busy for a relationship.

  But this could never be a relationship. Hook ups in Vegas don’t become anything more than just that. And maybe a hook up is what I need. After all, I’ve been working my ass off at school for years. When I finally graduated, I worked my ass off some more at internships and applying for jobs, until I finally landed my dream gig. This is my one weekend to let off steam before I have to become a responsible adult. Before I start working full-time, and God knows how long it’ll be before I have the chance to do anything even remotely resembling a casual hook up again.

  My mystery man laughs, like he’s startled, too. Good. Something about his serious demeanor makes me want to surprise him. To catch him off his guard and make him laugh, if I can. “What can I say? The club scene isn’t normally my beat. Wound up here by chance.” He’s grinning as he says it, his gaze sweeping over me. But unlike the creeper, it doesn’t bother me when this guy checks me out.

  In fact, I’d like him to keep doing it. If nothing else, it will distract him from noticing that I’m doing the same thing to him. Giving that sexy body of his a once over of my own, because damn, that suit fits him perfectly. And it makes me wonder how it would look on my hotel room floor.

  “What a coincidence,” I call back to him, raising my voice as the music gets louder. “Me too.”

  “Well, we should celebrate then. What are you drinking?” He winks at me and holds out an arm, like a real gentleman. Right here in the middle of a bunch of gyrating clubgoers, it strikes me as even more unusual.

  I loop my arm through his. “Tequila, mostly,” I admit, and I’m gratified to see him cringe.

  “You need something more suitable. What do you usually drink, when you’re not clubbing in Vegas?”

  I laugh. “I don’t know. I’m not much of a drinker. Something simple, maybe. Not too sweet.” He leans across the bar and orders us both vodka tonics—top shelf, I notice. “You don’t have to do that,” I call in his ear. “I’m fine with well drinks.”

  “You shouldn’t be,” he replies, amusement dancing in his dark eyes. “A girl like you deserves top shelf everything.”

  For some reason, those words send a curl of pleasure through my belly. Even more so when he trails a hand up my arm to rest on my shoulder, his fingertips alighting so gently on my skin that they raise goosebumps the whole way up. I shiver, unable to suppress it, and his grin widens, as if he knows exactly what he’s doing to me.

  He probably does. Bastard.

  It makes me want more.

  The bartender passes us our drinks—it didn’t take long at all, not like when Lea and I ordered shots before. I suspect the bartender must have been keeping an eye out for this guy. Probably because he’s the type to buy top shelf liquor in a club like this.

  “What’s your name?” I call into his ear. Unless I’m mistaken, he flinches for a second, as though hesitating.

  “John,” he calls back. Okay. No last names. I can dig it. We are, after all, in Vegas. The land of anonymity. That’s fair enough.

  “I’m Mara.” I stick out my hand, which seems hilariously formal and awkward after I do it, making another blush bloom across my cheeks. But John just places my drink into my hand and leans in until his lips graze my ear.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mara.”

  I swear, if a guy could make you come with his voice alone, John is the one who would do it. Deep and baritone, it vibrates all the way through my body, making my thighs tighten and my belly clench. I shift a little closer to him as I take my a sip of my drink.

  Wow. I never really thought of well drinks as that much different from the better versions, but after a night of crappy tequila and mixed vodka drinks, the difference is stark, even to my already-tipsy senses. This tastes miles better than any vodka cran or vodka and lime drink I concocted back in my dorm room with the cheapy bottles I could afford back then .

  I raise my glass to toast John, and as they clink together, I grin at him. “So. Two hardworking non-partiers meet at a club… that sounds like the start of a joke.”

  “Or the start of a very promising evening,” he murmurs, which makes me inhale, tense again, for all the right reasons.

  Without waiting for me to finish the drink, John takes my free hand and leads me toward the dance floor. “I thought you didn’t club,” I call to him.

  He smirks. “No. But that doesn’t mean I can’t dance.” With that, he shifts his arm to my waist, pinning me against him. I drape my arms around his shoulders, my drink still in hand, the cool glass pressed against his back. He does the same, and his cold glass chills the nape of my neck, making me shiver again—but also offering a welcome respite from the heat beginning to build in this club tonight.

  I lean in close to him, and he shifts his hips against mine. I follow his rhythm, swaying with him. He wasn’t wrong. He’s a good dancer, which for some reason surprises me. But I follow, and he holds me closer, and I try to ignore the way I can
feel him growing hard, his erection stiffening through the tight fabric of his pants. His cock is pressed right against my belly, digging into me hard enough that I can practically measure the length.

  Huge.

  I sway with him, and neither of us says a word about how aroused we’re getting, even though I know if I checked my panties right now, they’d already be soaked, and he’s barely even touched me.

  John spins me around so my back is to him, and I move against him, getting into the rhythm. I take another sip from my vodka, and glance out across the floor, catching Lea’s eye. She flashes me a thumbs-up and raises an eyebrow, the universal girl code for “you all good?” I flash one back and grin so she knows my dance is 100% consensual and much enjoyed.

  She winks and goes back to her own partner, the same cute guy I noticed her dancing with earlier.

  The song fades and another one starts. Next thing I know, I’ve finished my drink. I lean back against him, going up on tiptoes to shout in his ear. “Another one?” I ask.

  “Are you sure?” His gaze dances over to me, more amused than anything else. “You seem a little loose on your feet already.”

  I narrow my eyes. “I am a grown woman, thank you very much. And I would like more of that delicious top shelf vodka of yours. Unless you’re going to make me go back to well…”

  He laughs and catches my hand, pulling it to his lips. He kisses the back of my knuckles, then leans down to kiss my jawline, just below my ear. “I wouldn’t dare,” he whispers, his breath hot on my skin, tickling all over.

  Then he weaves back through the club toward the bar, and right around there is where my night grows fuzzy…