Loved in Las Vegas: The Traveling Calvert Sisters, #2

By Tori Ross

Regina Calvert's in Las Vegas for her friend's bachelorette party. Regi, barely old enough to gamble, hopes to make enough money at the slot machines and game tables to move out of her parents' house and enjoy the weekend with her friends. But when a night with a casino dealer and his Hungarian cousins goes downhill, Regi finds herself stranded on the strip with no cash, no phone, and a friend that accidentally ingested acid.

Craig Lucky's enjoying the weekend at his own friend's bachelor party, but his world is rocked when he comes upon a damsel in distress in the middle of the Las Vegas strip. After helping Regi and her friend, Craig asks Regi out for a night on the town.

Regi and her friends soon learn that nights and weekends in Vegas don't always go as planned.

Each Traveling Calvert Sisters story is about 25-35K words long and can be read in any order. HEA guaranteed!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tori Ross
• Release date: Jun 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223758716

Tori Ross

Tori Ross writes romantic comedy and erotic superhero romance. When she's not writing, she runs a podcast called The Smutty Book Lady and Friends and can be seen reading any genre of books. She lives in Missouri with her family and a very high-maintenance dog.

Book preview

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Loved in Las Vegas

Tori Ross

Copyright © 2022 by Tori Ross

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Printed in the United States

Edited by April Pearson

Cover by Get Covers

Contents

1.Loud

2.Apology Not Accepted

3.The Blind Date

4.Police Involvement

5.Ghost Stories

6.Hunting

7.Girl Time

8.Burgers and Kisses

9.Neon Boneyard

10.Sex Club Antics

11.Running the Course

12.Bow ChickaWah Wah

13.Goodbyes are Hard

14.One Month Later

Acknowledgments

About Author

Loud

W hat is that awful sound? I ask, looking at passing travelers to see if they’ll make the screeching cacophony stop. The carnival sound makes my head throb, and I’m suddenly nostalgic for funnel cakes. The airport in St. Louis didn’t have this noise.

Rachael grabs my elbow and drags me through the concourse until we’re out of range of whatever is making that dreadful sound. Around me, people look at me like I’ve lost my mind, and Rachael giggles at my apparent lack of cultural knowledge.

Maybe I have lost my mind. I’m here for Grace’s bachelorette party, and my mother told me that Las Vegas is nothing but a den of prostitutes and gangsters. I explained that I don’t think Al Capone’s buddies are still alive and hanging out in a techno foam club on the strip, but once Dottie Calvert gets something in her head, it stays there.

It’s the slot machines, Rachael says, nodding back to a little alcove behind us, the blinking lights almost blinding. They’re all over town, especially at the hotel, so you should get used to it.

Is Regi having culture shock? my friend Sara asks, sauntering up to us from another gate.

Of course, I’m having culture shock. My family has nine children in it. For my whole life, vacations meant riding in my family’s conversion van which was really more like a short school bus. In fact, we had to beg our parents not to buy one of the little yellow school busses our district was unloading for cheap when I was about ten. That would have been crossing the line, and my sister, Lila, even went on hunger strike until they agreed not to make that the family vehicle.

The fact is, we never went anywhere. It was mostly due to the cost of travel for a family of eleven, but my mother also says she would have died from the laundry pile after vacation and didn’t want to have to spend the entire vacation taking at least one child to the bathroom.

I’ve never left my hometown of Alton, Illinois other than to hop across the river to St. Louis with my family for a day or visit our local waterpark in Grafton, a neighboring town.

Sara pulls her long, blonde hair back from her face with a hair tie before wrapping her arms around Rachael and me. We haven’t seen her since high school graduation three years ago because she went to college in San Francisco while Rachael and I stayed home at the local community college. It’s been three years, and I’m still there, taking my sweet time getting the associate degree my mother begged me to consider. I had other ideas for what I wanted to do but decided to humor Mom.

Are we all ready to party once Regi’s ears adjust? Rachael asks, playfully jabbing her index finger into my forehead. A piece of my medium-length red hair flops into my face, and she pushes that back for me, tucking it behind my ear.

Is Grace here yet? I ask, wanting to get her bachelorette party off the ground.

She’s meeting us at the hotel, Rachael explains, looking at her phone and scrolling through to find the text message from Grace. Apparently, she’s already at the roulette table and lost fifty bucks.

Let’s get going. I could use a break from this sound.

My mouth is open so wide that it could attract flies. Do they even have flies here? I haven’t seen any. Maybe it’s on account of the dry air. Or maybe it’s because we left the airport, climbed directly into a limousine that cost way more than I budgeted for an Uber, and I focused on the palm trees the entire way to the strip hotel where we’re staying.

Sara and Rachael laughed at my facial expressions of awe the whole way to our accommodation. I spaced out after the first five minutes while they plan our first night here. Looking around, I’m overwhelmed and glad they’re planning. I wouldn’t know where to start.

Grace is waiting at the hotel car drop-off area when we arrive, bouncing on her toes with excitement as I roll down the window and wave. She looks every bit the bride she’ll be in a few weeks when she marries her fiancé, Kevin. Her long, brown hair is braided and swept to the side, and her teeth are so white that it’s obvious she had some kind of dental help with them.

Traveling in style, huh? Grace asks, pulling us in for respective hugs as soon as we exit the limo.

Rachael insisted we start the trip out right, I mumble, hopeful that my funds last Rachael’s lavish lifestyle. My job leading ghost tours in my hometown isn’t exactly the type of money I can use to ride around in limos all weekend. I know Sara is in the same boat with her money situation. She lives in a high-rent apartment in San Francisco with four other roommates and works at a literacy non-profit. Not exactly make it rain in the club money.

Well, we’re going for sushi in a couple of hours. Does anyone want to hit some tables first?

I cringe a little. More money, although, I know I’ll have to gamble a bit. When my friends first floated this trip idea, I had daydreams that I could win enough at the tables to move out of my parents’ house. Reading up on gambling showed me that probably isn’t realistic. Still, it would be nice to afford my own place soon and nice to hit some big jackpot here.

I’m going to save my gambling money for tonight, I shrug. I could use a nap if we’re going to party hard.

Grace leads us to our standard hotel room with two full beds, and I crawl under the covers of the bed I’ll share with Sara. I close my eyes and sink into the lush pillows and thick bedclothes as the girls apply lip gloss and mascara, fluffing their hair and switching handbags out to more streamlined choices.

I must doze off because I wake up to Sara shaking my shoulder, a smile on her face. Regi get up and get ready for dinner and your date.

My date? I ask, blinking my eyes and looking around the room. It’s dark outside the windows and the neon lights of the other hotels light up the skyline. What the hell are you talking about?

I met this guy named Laddie at the roulette table. He says he and his two cousins can take us out on the town tonight. One cousin for Rachael, Laddie for me, and a cousin for you.

I shake my head like I have cobwebs in it. "I took a nap, and you set me up on a blind date? What about Grace? She’s getting