One Wild Wedding Night_ Runaway - Leslie Kelly [1]
“Look out, Chicago , horny bridesmaids are on the prowl.”
“I don’t imagine too much can happen since Gloria’s with them.” Gloria was happily married to Nick’s oldest brother. The mother of three had seemed relieved when her husband had offered to take their boys home so she could enjoy the night on the town with the rest of the bridesmaids. “She’ll play chaperone.”
“Oh, right. Chaperone to a lawyer, a bookkeeper, a stripper and a Rockette.”
“You got something against strippers and Rockettes?” she asked, cocking a challenging brow.
He had finished working her sleeves open and slid around behind her to start on the long row of tiny buttons up the back of the dress. As he slid each one free, he kissed the tiny bit of skin revealed, sliding his lips over each of her verte-brae with heart-pounding restraint and sensuality.
“Uh-uh, Cookie. Some of my favorite people are strippers and Rockettes.”
She dropped her head forward, sighing as he continued to undress her. Conversation was the last thing she wanted. Thoughts of her bridesmaids began to fade.
But before thrusting the whole subject out of her head altogether, she reassured them both. “They’ll be fine. They’re grown women, they’re not driving, and they’re in a group. What could possibly happen?”
Chapter 1
Leah Muldoon hadn’t known the other members of the wedding party until a few days ago, but she knew she liked them. Which wasn’t too much of a surprise—Leah liked everybody.
That was a rarity in her business, considering every pretty woman was a potential rival on the stage, but she didn’t care. Stripping was merely a way to pay the bills while she went to school to get her nursing degree. Just an easy way to sock away the cash by exploiting the only asset she had: her body.
It sure as hell beat using that body for the kinds of games her stepfather had asked her to play when she was sixteen. Well, he’d asked her once. Then she’d stabbed him and taken off, becoming a teenage runaway…another statistic.
That probably sounded worse than it was. She’d only stabbed him in the wrist. And it had been with a fork. But the pig had definitely deserved it, if only for destroying her few remaining decent feelings about the home she’d grown up in.
“You’re all lucky to be part of such a great family,” she said, offering a loopy smile to Izzie’s sister Gloria, a petite brunette with a big mouth and a lot of hair. The woman sat on the other side of the table at the crowded Chicago pub.
Vanessa, one of Izzie’s friends from New York—a tall, gorgeous black woman with the longest legs Leah had ever seen—cleared her throat and lowered her rum and Coke. “Hello?”
“Okay, we’re both outsiders. Want to be my sister?”
“Sisters can be a pain in the ass. Let’s stick to friends.”
Friends. Sounded great. Exactly what she needed most.
Well, almost. Lovers would be a big plus, too. It had been a long time since she’d had a man in her bed.
Gloria took offense. “Hey, not all sisters are pains in the ass.” She glanced at her own sister, Mia, the attorney.
Mia stared at her glass, a grin tickling her full lips. “I’ll plead the fifth.”
When the laughter died down, Bridget rose, saying she was ready to leave. Leah glanced at her watch and decided to leave, too. “I have to nap off those mai tais in case I decide to go in to work tonight.” She yawned, having worked until two last night.
“I dance better when I’ve had a drink or two,” said Gloria.
“You think you do,” muttered her sister.
“Watch it or I’ll pluck the little hair ya have left.”
Smiling, Mia shook her head. Her short black hair gleamed. “Uh-huh, sure. I’d like to see you try, old lady.”
Gloria had been getting ribbed all week about being the only married bridesmaid and had endured lots of mother-of-three-never-gets-laid comments.
Leah wished she could stay and enjoy more of the friendly bickering, as well as the typical men-suck griping among single women, but she figured she ought to at least think about going to work. She wasn’t on the schedule,