Stroke of Midnight (1Night Stand)

By Kelli Scott

Marley Arbuckle is looking for a little payback, closure, and a boost to her confidence after being cheated on by her fiancé—not necessarily in that order. Choosing a 1Night Stand date in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve to exact her revenge, she’s planned the affair down to her perfectly styled hair and every last manicured fingernail and pedicured toenail. But what she didn’t count on was meeting Ian O’Keefe.

Ian has his own dark reasons for contacting Madame Evangeline for a no-strings-attached night of desire with a beautiful stranger. He’s got something to prove to himself and a long road to recovery after losing his wife. His redemption may begin with Marley, but can she teach him to love again?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Decadent Publishing
• Release date: Dec 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781613336403

Book preview

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Stroke of Midnight

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 by Kelli Scott

ISBN: 978-1-61333-640-3

Cover art by Fiona Jayde

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

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Catered Affair

Stroke of Midnight

A 1Night Stand Story

By

Kelli Scott

Chapter One

What was I thinking?

Marley Arbuckle swayed right, and then left in front of the full-length mirror, checking for wrinkles on her little-black-dress. She skimmed one palm along the curve of her butt and glided the other hand over her flat-from-not-eating-due-to-nerves stomach. No panty lines, love handles, or bra straps showing. Whew! She wore fuck-me stilettos for confidence. Fingernails painted some cutesy color called Strawberry Fields Forever, but she’d renamed the hue Blood and Guts Red due to the carnage of her present personal life. The manicure would be cracked and chipped by the end of the weekend—no doubt about it. Her hair and makeup perfectly styled and applied, courtesy of Eshwaldo.

No last name. I am an artiste, he’d said with flare and hand gestures. Apparently, sculptors of beauty didn’t require surnames.

All things considered, I look damn doable. And it only took a talented team of professional glamour experts, hours of primping and plucking, and a small fortune to make it happen. Money well spent. She had to give a tiny measure of credit to her new diet plan based not on carbs or calories, but betrayal and disappointment, the greatest of all appetite suppressants. The sleepless nights and crying jags had wreaked havoc on her face. Nothing a day at the Castillo Resort Hotel Spa hadn’t fixed, or camouflaged at any rate, by exfoliating, hydrating, and moisturizing.

She ought to feel like a princess on a much anticipated wedding day, rather than a jilted bride-to-be out for revenge. The dress should be white satin over lacy lingerie, removed slowly and sensually by a loving groom in the honeymoon suite, instead of a little-black-dress and sinful black panties yanked off by a stranger in the heat of passion.

Please, let there be passion.

The hotel room she’d reserved at the Castillo Hotel screamed, fuck me all night long and once again in the morning for good measure. Rich, smooth-to-the-touch textures in warm shades of gold, with a splash of red, dressed the space from floor to ceiling. Opulent furnishings she would pick for her own home, if she could afford them, decorated the open area. Even the bathroom with its jetted tub for two—hell, three or four people would fit in it—begged to be fucked in. Same with the enormous shower she could put her entire bathroom in back home. Why else did someone need six pulsating showerheads for Pete’s sake, except for sin?

She was in Sin City, after all.

Instead of consummating a New Year’s marriage with the man she’d dated all through college, had been engaged