Kiss Me Twice

By Jami Alden

A woman never forgets her first love... or her first broken heart. Karen Sullivan can't forget Mike Donovan. Hotter than hot, he made her fall hard and fast, and left her shattered in his wake. Still, when a chance meeting brings them together, she can’t resist just one more night in his arms. But she quickly realizes that giving into lust is playing with fire, because gorgeous Mike Donovan still has her heart.

Please note, this title was previously published by Kensington Publishing.

4 Stars from Romantic Times Book Reviews!
“Delicious is an apt title...blends romance, suspense and hot sexual encounters. Her characters are compelling and multidimensional, and the sexual tension between the protagonists sizzles until it finally explodes.

Praise For Jami Alden:
“Jami Alden always takes you on a wild ride!
- New York Times best seller Catherine Coulter

“The perfect balance of emotion and romance.”
-New York Times best seller Maya Banks

“Hot and emotionally charged, Jami Alden always delivers.”
-New York Times best seller Shannon McKenna

“A fantastic story that will keep you hot and bothered.”
-Romantic Times Book Reviews for Private Party

“Alden can wring every emotion from her characters.”
-Romantic Times Book Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jami Alden
• Release date: Jun 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9780986304637

Jami Alden

Like so many romance readers, my first romance novel was by Kathleen Woodiwiss - The Flame and the Flower, to be exact. I was thirteen. I spent the next month ignoring my friends while I worked my way through her back list. Shortly thereafter I discovered Judith McNaught, Johanna Lindsey, Karen Robards, Catherine Coulter, Shirlee Busbee among others, and devoured their lavish historical epics full of overbearing alpha males and the women who brought them to their knees. I was hooked. My high school teachers marveled at my ability to read romance novels under the desk and still score straight A's. I started to imagine myself, living in a cabin in the mountains somewhere, writing romance novels.It took me quite awhile to pursue my dream. After graduating from Stanford with a degree in English Literature, I worked in a variety of not so interesting admin jobs before I began my career in marketing. It wasn't exactly my dream job, but at least my writing appeared on several web sites and in many software marketing brochures. Unfortunately I wasn't able to fit the phrase "and her loins melted like hot wax" into any of them.During my stint as the world's surliest receptionist, I took my first stab at writing. The result was a very melodramatic western historical which reads like a bad Elizabeth Lowell rip off. It's currently languishing on my hard drive, forever stuck on page 330.Then in fall 2001 I had an incredible stroke of luck and got laid off from my marketing job. I decided it was time to stop saying I wanted to be a writer and to actually give it a serious go.Four years later, I sold my first book and now I'm pretty much living the dream of getting paid to write romance. I don't live in a cabin in the mountains, but I do live in a rural-ish town near San Francisco (hey, we have deer and bunnies, along with the occasional coyote) with 2 sons, and a dog who patiently listens to my dialogue and helps me work out plot points. When I'm not writing, I enjoy running, reading, cooking, and watching a brain numbing quantity of food network programming.

Book preview

KISS ME TWICE

By

Jami Alden

Smashwords Edition

Kiss Me Twice

First published by Kensington Publishing Corporation, 2006

Copyright Jami Alden 2007

Ebook copyright Jami Alden 2015

Ebook published by Jami Alden 2015

Cover Design by Seductive Musings

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,without permission in writing from the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products or the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Chapter One

Karen Sullivan slid onto a seat at the bar of Cleo's Lounge. The martini bar sported a decent crowd, but the bartender noticed her right away.

What will you have?

She crossed her leg so the slit up the side of her white mini slid open along her right leg, no doubt offering a nice glimpse of thigh, and she shifted her leg so it wasn't pressed too tightly against the vinyl, ensuring the flesh stayed smooth. It sucked that even the leanest thigh could look lumpy and cottage cheesy if the flesh was pressed too tight.

Karen smiled up at him through her lashes, leaning forward so he could appreciate the draped neckline of her coral and white flower-print sleeveless top. How about a lemon drop. With extra sugar.

The bartender cast an appreciative smile. Coming right up. He made a big show of pouring the vodka, flipping the bottle and swirling it as he poured. Lemon juice and ice followed it into a shaker, which he shook with a vigor that would have done a paint mixer proud. He poured it into a sugar-rimmed martini glass with a flourish and set her drink in front of her.

How is it? he said, eyes riveted on her mouth.

Karen raised the glass and deliberately swiped her tongue along the rim and took a generous swig. Delicious.

The bartender's eyes glazed over, and his mouth went slightly slack.

Hey, dude, can we get some beers over here? a deep voice boomed.

I think you have some other customers, she said, gesturing her glass in the man's direction as she idly stroked her collarbone.

Uh, right. He reluctantly backed away.

Karen rolled her eyes. Men. They were so freakin' easy. Another ten seconds and she would be drinking for free all night.

Mentally she scolded herself. Hadn't she vowed to stop using her looks to attract guys with no potential? Even if the guy was a potential source of free alcohol. Or, at the very least, focus her attentions on good men with good relationship potential instead of assholes who wanted nothing more than a hot piece of ass.

Not that her strategy had gotten her very far tonight. Here she was, drinking alone on a Saturday night in a lame club in Caesar's Lake Tahoe. Staying in her room definitely would have been the wiser choice, but she couldn't stand her own company. And call her shallow, but the admiring glances she'd received from the male patrons were a superficial balm for her badly bruised ego.

It could be worse. Caesar's definitely had its cheese factor, but it was a hell of a lot better than Circus Circus, where Brad had taken her.

Brad. What a dick. It should have been a tip-off when he'd planned their weekend trip around gambling in Reno. He'd said he wanted to do something fun that was close to Sacramento, so she'd given him the benefit of the doubt.

At the end of the day, Brad had chosen the hotel because it had the cheapest rooms and a complimentary prime rib buffet.

Which wouldn't have been such a big deal if he'd been a typically clueless man and had honestly tried to plan a nice weekend for them.

But just like every man in her past, all he wanted was to get laid.

She took another gulp of her lemon drop, surprised to see it was already nearly gone. But the liquor did little to cool her fury as her conversation with Brad echoed through her head.

Maybe next week we could have a barbecue and I could meet some of your family, she'd said. They'd been sitting on the lumpy love seat in their hotel room. Brad had leaned in to kiss her, the smell of prime rib laced with beer almost enough to knock her over.

He had jerked back at her words. Why would we want to do that?

We've been dating for over a month, and I just thought it would be good to meet your family since you spend so much time with them.

Warning bells had gone off in her head at the uncomfortable expression that crossed his face.

Karen, come on, we're not exactly at the parent-meeting stage. It's not as though this is all that serious... That last word had trailed off as he'd realized her elevated expectations.

What do you mean? She had a sinking feeling she already knew the answer.

Well, you're, you" he'd stammered.

I'm what?

You're a, ah, a woman a guy has fun with, you know"

A slut? She stood before him, hands on her hips. Fast? Loose? Trashy? All terms she had heard applied to her since high school.

Brad had held his hands up as if to ward off the anger radiating from every pore of her body. No, not that. Just not... He'd paused, hands dropping limply in his lap and head drooping forward. Just not the kind of woman I could imagine bringing home to my mother.

So you've just been biding your time for the last month and a half, wanting to fuck me for a while before you settle down with a nice girl?

Yeah, I guess, he had replied, his tone belligerent. What do you expect? The way you dress, the way you act? We have mutual friends, Karen. I hear things. I know you're not exactly Snow White.

It had been on the tip of her tongue to tell him flat out that she hadn't been with a guy for almost two years, ever since she realized that she was never going to be happy if she didn't stop sleeping with guys who didn't even like her. But she'd be damned if she'd give Brad the satisfaction of knowing she'd chosen him as the best candidate to end her dry spell.

She snapped back to reality as the bartender whisked her empty glass away, replacing it with a full drink in one move. This one's on me, he said with a wink.

He was sort of cute, she mused, in an overgrown, beefy frat boy sort of way. A little young for her, but she probably would have given him a toss a few years ago. If she hadn't had anything — or anyone"better to do.

But not now, she reminded herself firmly. Brad, the bartender, they were all the same. Was it too much to ask for a guy who actually liked her for who she was and not just because she gave a good blow job?

So what if she dressed provocatively, used her beauty to get things she wanted? There was more to her than that. She wasn't Mother Teresa, but deep down she was a good person.

A fact she'd been trying to convince herself of for the past two years and was pretty close to believing.

She'd actually thought Brad was the guy who saw beyond the surface and really liked her.

What an idiot. She finished her second drink with an unladylike slurp. Apparently she was so out of practice looking for nice guys she was no longer capable of identifying one.

Not that she'd ever been able to find one. The last time she'd thought she'd managed to snag a good, upstanding guy, he ended up worse than all the rest. And she'd been paying for it ever since.

Mike Donovan wound his way through the casino on his way back to Club Nero. The cavernous, smoky room echoed with the ringing of slot machines, groans of disappointment, and hoots of victory as patrons won or lost.

Too bad he hated gambling. A few hands at the blackjack table would be the perfect excuse to delay rejoining Day 2 of his brother's bachelor party in full swing at the biggest nightclub Caesar's Lake Tahoe had to offer.

Mike politely brushed off a cocktail waitress dressed in a mini toga and continued across the casino floor. As much as he dreaded going back to the noisy club full of drunken, sweaty bodies, he knew he couldn't avoid it. His baby brother was marrying Kelly Sullivan in two weeks. Pretending to enjoy the celebration of Nick's last few days of freedom was the least he could do.

As he passed the bars and restaurants on his way to the club, he heard the remarkably pleasant sound of a blues band spilling out of the hotel's martini bar. Mike paused and poked his head inside. Unlike at Club Nero, the crowd here was big but not overwhelming. The band played at a level that provided a nice backdrop but didn't eliminate all possibility of intelligible conversation.

And, he noticed as he looked at bottles lining the shelves of the back bar, he bet he could get a decent glass of cabernet here.

It was unlikely his brothers would miss him for one drink, he decided. When he'd left, Tony had been flirting with a stacked redhead and Jake was helping the groom-to-be fend off the advances of all the women Tony sent over