A Little Something Extra

Her smile turned evil as she stared out across the black waters of the loch.

“The one Kirsty has for her lingerie shop,” she said, and then she started laughing.

Jena and Matt’s Honeymoon in Vegas

This story takes place between Calamity Jena and Bad Boy

“I feel like we’ve landed right into the middle of every Hollywood cliché,” Matt Donaldson said as he looked out of their hotel window.

Arms snaked around his waist from behind. “Stop complaining,” his wife said. “It’s Vegas, baby!”

It was indeed. Beneath them, the famous Strip bustled with people, so many of them at times, Matt wondered why they weren’t tripping over each other.

“How the hell do they police this?” His cop brain spun with the dynamics of keeping the city safe for residents and tourists alike.

“Well,” Jena said as she slid around to his front. “They have more than one cop for a start.” She beamed up at him, her hair wild around her shoulders, evidence that they’d spent the day in bed. “Is my small-town man freaking out over the big city?”

“I hate to break it to you, Princess, but this isn’t a city. This is Disney for deviants.”

She smacked her palm in the middle of his chest. “Stop being such a stick-in-the-mud. We’re here to have fun. You need to loosen up and relax.”

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. Maybe if they’d honeymooned on a desert island, he’d be able to relax. But here? Impossible. Everywhere he looked there was something that made him want to arrest someone. So far, he’d spotted two guys selling something illegal from the back of their car, at least three hookers working the tourist crowd, and a pickpocket making a mint from people while they watched the Bellagio fountains. And that was only the stuff he’d seen on the trip from the airport to the hotel.

“I know when you look out the window all you see is the seedier side of things,” Jena said, “but try to see it through my eyes.”

She turned to face the window and leaned back into him. Automatically, he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. It’d only been a few short months since he’d almost lost her, and he never passed up on an opportunity to hold her close and remind himself she was alive and well.

And his.

“All those sparkly lights,” Jena said, “and the over-the-top hotels are like Christmas decorations. They make me feel like all I have to do is set foot outside the door, and I’ll have an adventure. And the people? They’re just like us. They’ve sacrificed and saved so they can come have fun for a few days in a place that sparkles everywhere they turn. They’ve pored over the events websites, getting excited about which show they’re going to catch and which restaurant they’ll eat in, or which tacky tourist thing they’ll see first. And then, when t

hey’re standing in front of the tackiest tourist attraction, they’ll grin at everyone around them, knowing they’re all in on the joke together. Because, we know it’s tacky, but for this vacation, we’re going to let ourselves enjoy it anyway. You see people getting conned, but I see people trying new things, stepping out of their comfort zones, letting their hair down and having some fun.”

Matt buried his face in her throat and nuzzled her soft skin, breathing her scent deep into his lungs and filling himself with her. “Don’t worry, Princess, I won’t get in the way of your fun.” He also wouldn’t stop noticing the cons, but he’d keep the observations to himself.

“Our fun,” she said firmly as she arched her neck for him.

“Our fun,” he agreed as he nibbled behind her ear, making her shiver in his arms.

“You need to stop doing that, or we won’t get out of this hotel room.” But she wiggled her curvy backside against him while she protested.

“That doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.”

Jena made a sound that was partway between encouragement and protest. “We’ve been in here all day. Not that I’m complaining, but the town’s just waking up, and I’m hungry.”

“We could call room service.” He nipped at her shoulder.

“Matt,” she complained, half-heartedly for sure, but it was still a complaint. “I want to show you something of my life before I moved to Scotland. I can’t do that from a hotel room.”

“Princess, you were a go-go dancer in Atlantic City. This is Las Vegas.”

“And we couldn’t go to Atlantic City because of that mob thing.”

He worked to relax his suddenly tense muscles. That mob thing was her ex-boyfriend trying to blow up half of Scotland to get her back.

“Plus,” she said. “Where’s the fun in honeymooning in your hometown? Here, I can give you the club experience I helped create in Atlantic City. Only, no mob. Trust me, it will be great. You’re going to have a blast.”

No. He wasn’t. But he was going to grit his teeth and make sure she had a blast.