Take Me (Take Me 1)

“One more couldn’t hurt,” she said as she brought the rim of the glass to her lips. Besides, all of a sudden being a runway model for a night didn’t seem so bad. She only had to make it down to the end of the plank to pose for pictures. It would take sixty seconds, tops, then she’d go find Luke and they would have a good laugh about it all.

Just so long as he didn’t bring his twin brother with him.

When Travis gave her one of his disdainful looks, or worse yet, ignored her completely, it made her feel like dirt. Less important than dirt, even.

Lily didn’t know how two people could be less alike. It was especially strange considering Luke and Travis were identical twins. Luke was warmhearted, fun and nonjudgmental. On the other end of the spectrum, there was Travis, with his piercing verdicts. Lily had been watching him from afar for long enough to know that all he cared about was pleasing himself and looking at pretty things. And that, Lily knew, was the crux of the problem between her and Travis.

She wasn’t pretty enough for him. Or thin enough. Or perky enough. And none of those things were ever going to change.

As kids, she and Luke and Travis had been inseparable. The three musketeers. But then the boys’ mom died when they were ten, and everything changed. No, she thought with a sigh, not everything. She and Luke had remained incredibly close, best friends to this day. But Travis had never been the same after that. And no matter how much she wanted her old relationship with Travis back, no matter how much she tried to let him know she was there for him, Travis kept rejecting her. Turning his back on her. Lily told herself she had given up on him, but in her heart of hearts, she knew it wasn’t true.

Could you ever completely give up on someone that you loved? From her painful experience with Travis, Lily didn’t think so.

Janica ran back to Lily, breathless, and stuck something in her free hand. “I almost forgot to give you this.”

“What is it?” Lily said as she grasped the edge of a purple feather.

“It’s your mask. Actually, I should probably put it on for you so that you don’t mess up your hair or makeup.” Janica slid the mask down over Lily’s riot of red curls, gently laying it against her face and tying the ribbon behind her head.

“Wow,” Janica breathed. “I thought you looked amazing before, but now you look…” Her words fell away, and Lily’s heart raced with renewed panic.

“Like an old lady on Halloween?” Lily said, mocking herself.

Janica shook her head. “God no. Not at all. You look like royalty. Like a queen!”

The words were no sooner out of Janica’s mouth then the stage manager grabbed her by the shoulder.

“You’re on in sixty seconds,” he said, and Janica turned and ran to get her first model ready to walk.

I look like royalty? Like a queen? The words swam around in Lily’s already muddled-by-bubbly brain.

A part of her wanted to turn around and look in a mirror to see if her little sister was telling the truth, but the other bigger part of her that never ever shut up was scornful, like always.

More like queen-size, that part of her said.

On any other night, Lily would have believed the voice. Being beautiful was laughable. She had spent a lifetime with her shoulders hunched to hide her too-big br**sts and her hair hanging over her face to hide blue eyes too bright and red lips too big. But suddenly, an unfamiliar feeling of boldness swept through her from the tips of her toes to the feathered mask on her made-up face.

Grabbing another glass of champagne off the tray of a passing waiter, she swallowed it in one gulp, letting the now-familiar warmth and easiness flow through her. Without giving herself another moment to doubt, she turned around to the full-length mirror behind her.

Lily gasped. The woman staring back at her was a stranger.

A beautiful, stunning, sexy stranger.

Her hands flew to her hair, which had been brushed and lacquered until her curls looked better than any hair commercial ever did, shiny and glowing as it cascaded past her shoulders. Behind the mask, her eyes shone like the blue of the Caribbean, and her lips looked full and kissable.

She looked just right. Not too big. Not too small. Curvy in all the right places, her large br**sts and round hips nicely offset by her waist.

But even as she surveyed herself in the mirror, Lily knew that Janica’s dress was responsible for the amazing change. She had always known that her sister was incredibly talented, but to see how Janica’s dress had turned Lily from supersize to just right shocked her to the core.

One of the models in Janica’s show stepped up behind Lily in the mirror, the model’s long, ultrathin limbs showcased by the short, strapless dress she was wearing. “Wow, you look amazing,” she said to Lily.

The words, “Thank you,” popped out of Lily’s mouth, and she bit her lip in surprise. When was the last time she had actually accepted a compliment?

More to the point, when was the last time she had actually believed a compliment?

The model walked away, and Janica called to Lily from several feet away. “You need to get in line behind Ellen.”

Lily took a deep breath and a crazy thought popped into her head. What if she acted like a model while she was out on the runway? What if she decided to be supersexy for a few minutes in her life? Who would it hurt?

Maybe with some help from The Dress she could be invincible.

She had seen the rehearsals and knew that the original plus-sized model had planned on shimmying and swaying to the music as she made her way down the runway. Janica hadn’t asked her to try it, knowing that Lily would have definitely said no.

The Dress would really shine if the audience saw how well it moved over the curves and valleys of a real woman’s figure.

With only seconds to go before she walked out onto the runway, Lily made up her mind. She would do it.

For as long as she had The Dress on she would behave like a queen.

A sexy, take-no-prisoners queen.

And then when the night was over, she would go back to being the same old Lily she had always been, having had a taste of something dangerous and wild to savor for the rest of her life.

Chapter Two

The emcee announced, “Spring Collection by Janica Ellis,” and Travis slid down deeper into his seat. He dreaded the moment that Lily plodded onto the runway, stuffed into a sheer, skin-baring outfit.

He could hardly believe that Lily had let her little sister bully her into taking part in a fashion show. Lily couldn’t find her spine if it bit her in the butt, but saving Janica by modeling in a fashion show was pushing things way too far. Even for Lily.