One Night Only
An After Dark Novella
Lauren Blakely
Little Dog Press
Contents
Also by Lauren Blakely
About
One Night Only
1. Ivy
2. Ivy
3. Callum
4. Stone
5. Ivy
6. Callum
7. Ivy
8. Callum
9. Ivy
10. Callum
11. Callum
12. Stone
13. Ivy
14. Ivy
15. Ivy
16. Callum
17. Ivy
18. Stone
19. Ivy
20. Callum
21. Stone
22. Jackson
Epilogue
Also by Lauren Blakely
Contact
Copyright © 2020 by Lauren Blakely
Cover Design by Helen Williams.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. This contemporary romance is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This book is licensed for your personal use only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with, especially if you enjoy sexy romance novels with alpha males. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Also by Lauren Blakely
Big Rock Series
Big Rock
Mister O
Well Hung
Full Package
Joy Ride
Hard Wood
The Guys Who Got Away Series
Dear Sexy Ex-Boyfriend
The What If Guy
The Gift Series
The Engagement Gift
The Virgin Gift
The Decadent Gift
The Extravagant Series
One Night Only
Only One Touch
Once Upon a Real Good Time
Once Upon a Sure Thing
Once Upon a Wild Fling
Boyfriend Material
Asking For a Friend
Sex and Other Shiny Objects
One Night Stand-In
Lucky In Love Series
Best Laid Plans
The Feel Good Factor
Nobody Does It Better
Unzipped
Always Satisfied Series
Satisfaction Guaranteed
Instant Gratification
Overnight Service
Never Have I Ever
Special Delivery
The Sexy Suit Series
Lucky Suit
Birthday Suit
From Paris With Love
Wanderlust
Part-Time Lover
One Love Series
The Sexy One
The Only One
The Hot One
The Knocked Up Plan
Come As You Are
Sports Romance
Most Valuable Playboy
Most Likely to Score
Standalones
Stud Finder
The V Card
The Real Deal
Unbreak My Heart
The Break-Up Album
21 Stolen Kisses
Out of Bounds
The Caught Up in Love Series:
The Swoony New Reboot of the Contemporary Romance Series
The Pretending Plot (previously called Pretending He’s Mine)
The Dating Proposal
The Second Chance Plan (previously called Caught Up In Us)
The Private Rehearsal (previously called Playing With Her Heart)
Stars In Their Eyes Duet
My Charming Rival
My Sexy Rival
The No Regrets Series
The Start of Us
The Thrill of It
Every Second With You
The Seductive Nights Series
First Night (Julia and Clay, prequel novella)
Night After Night (Julia and Clay, book one)
After This Night (Julia and Clay, book two)
One More Night (Julia and Clay, book three)
A Wildly Seductive Night (Julia and Clay novella, book 3.5)
The Joy Delivered Duet
Nights With Him (A standalone novel about Michelle and Jack)
Forbidden Nights (A standalone novel about Nate and Casey)
The Sinful Nights Series
Sweet Sinful Nights
Sinful Desire
Sinful Longing
Sinful Love
The Fighting Fire Series
Burn For Me (Smith and Jamie)
Melt for Him (Megan and Becker)
Consumed By You (Travis and Cara)
The Jewel Series
A two-book sexy contemporary romance series
The Sapphire Affair
The Sapphire Heist
About
A delicious new After Dark novella featuring a strong, protective bodyguard and the beautiful, brilliant hotel heiress he protects…
I shouldn’t want my bodyguard the way I do. His job is to protect me. It’s not to fulfill all my filthy wishes.
And so I resist him, fighting the enticing pull of the strong, powerful man who watches over me.
Until the night we combust in my penthouse suite.
It won’t happen again, we say the next day.
Besides, my mission is singular — pull off the event of a lifetime — a one-night only concert with one of the world’s biggest rock stars.
A man my bodyguard happens to know.
And a good bodyguard knows all sorts of things about his client. Turns out he knows my secret desires, and he wants to make them come true. Including a VIP engagement so I can experience both men at the same time…
I want to say yes, but what if I fall even more in love with the man whose mission is to keep me safe?
ONE NIGHT ONLY is a red-hot, sexy love story with a toe-curling, sheet-grabbing MFM sequence.
One Night Only
An After Dark Novella
By Lauren Blakely
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1
Ivy
I can feel his eyes on me.
Usually, they’re everyplace else.
That’s what he’s paid to do, after all. They see everything. They anticipate. They know.
But in this moment, his eyes are on me, and it heats me up.
I can’t let on, of course.
But then, I’m good at not letting on what his dark gaze does to my body.
A second later, Callum looks away, his gaze elsewhere, scanning surround
ings, always watching.
That’s his job.
Mine is to promote, to chat, to talk up this place I love, so I focus on leading a private group of VIPs, not on checking out the man who I hired to be near me most of my evenings. Callum Blackwell is a regular presence in my work life, and he makes that part of it feel less like work and more like . . . possibility.
Like sparks.
Like a pulse beating in overtime.
The red soles of my black heels click against the mosaic floor, and I gesture to the imported marble beneath my shoes. “As you can see, the Bellagio has nothing on us,” I say, a note of pride in my voice as I escort my board on a personalized tour of the recently revamped hotel my sister and I own and run.
The Extravagant, after years in disarray, is finally living up to its name and its legacy of luxury.
I couldn’t be prouder to show off the hotel’s renovations, turning it into a shining jewel on the Strip.
Jewel being intentional.
That’s how we want it to be seen. Precious, gorgeous, mesmerizing.
The crew of VIPs shuffles behind me, smiling, oohing and aahing, tossing out the occasional question. I answer them all, then stop at the centerpiece of the lobby redo just beyond the opulent front desk.
A giant sculpture.
I gesture to a gorgeous collection of handspun glass crafted to look like a life-size jewelry box, dripping with replicas of diamond necklaces, sapphire earrings, and ruby bracelets. “This is our theme: beauty in all its forms. Everything in this hotel must be beautiful. That’s the image we want to project here at The Extravagant,” I say, standing beside the lush display.
One of the longtime board members, who knew my parents, offers a kind smile as she tucks her jet-black strands of hair behind her ear. “It’s the Carmichael way,” Marjorie says, and her words, that statement, feel like a warm hug.
I swallow back the temporary lump in my throat. Memories of them always bring a swell of emotions. “Indeed. Sage and I are pleased to carry it on to a new generation of guests,” I say, all chin up, lipstick on, as my mother would have said.
Callum nods, almost imperceptibly. He never met my parents, but he damn well knows they’re why I do what I do.
Why I work hard from morning till night.
A reedy man with horn-rimmed glasses clears his throat, chiming in. “And what sort of plans do you have to lure in new guests?” He’s another one of our longtime Carmichael Hotels board members.
“Great question, Jeremy,” I say, and the answer is easy. Because the answer is the why behind this change my sister and I planned when we reimagined the flagship hotel we inherited a few years ago. She’s the business powerhouse, eating numbers for breakfast, while I’m the public face, fashioning the image for this twin-owned skyscraper I call both business and home. “Beauty. We plan to emphasize the beauty, and the cachet of it,” I tell the group. “And we’ll center our goals around that. Let me tell you the specifics.”
I detail the strategy as I guide them through the glittering casino, past poker tables flush with gamblers and swank restaurants that are already drawing in new crowds, and to the end of the cavernous concourse. The whole time, the unmistakable presence of Callum, mere feet behind me, beats like a thrumming in my veins. This awareness of him is almost like breathing now. It’s every second I’ve felt it since he took over my detail one year ago.
No one spends more time with me than that man with the carved cheekbones, the chiseled jaw, and the intense dark brown eyes that seem to know me, to see inside me.
He’s custom-made for protection, and he looks the part. His dark tailored suit hugs his big body in all the right places. Just the perfect amount of tight on his arms, his thighs, and his ass. Sometimes men that broad, that tall, don’t look great in suits, but with the body of Dwayne Johnson, Callum sure as hell does.
And those lips. They look so damn kissable.
Shake it off, Ivy.
I stop in front of the players’ lounge, its brushed platinum sign designed by a local artist. I field a few final questions.
Marjorie sweeps out a hand behind us to indicate the tour we’ve just finished. “We’re hoping this early embrace of the new branding and design goes as well as you envision. I think I speak for the whole board, though, when I say we’d like to see the guest numbers continue to rise over the next several months and beyond. Do you have any big plans to make a splash and draw in crowds going forward?”
I smile, my best professional I’ve got this grin. “We do, as a matter of fact. I’m putting together the finishing touches on a series of must-see events right here with worldwide entertainment stars, and I hope to share those very soon with all of you.”
She nods approvingly. “Color me intrigued. Can’t wait.”
“I promise it won’t be long. And I’m so glad you’re all delighted with the new look and feel of the hotel,” I say to the group.
I shake hands, thank them, and say goodbye.
As they weave their way through the casino, I take a moment to enjoy the ambience of The Extravagant, to drink in the lush surroundings. Portions of this hotel have been shut down for the last few months as we’ve revamped. But now we’re open again, all nine hundred rooms, twelve restaurants, seven bars, and two clubs.
Open and ready, I hope, for a new wave of business.
This project has consumed me. It’s stolen all my breath and my mind and my heart. Ripping apart and restoring a massive hotel has been nothing short of exhausting and energizing—often both at the same damn time.
But as the last of the board members disappear beyond the tables, I can breathe again.
Relief at last comes over me, the blissful feeling that another high-wire day is ending and night is unfurling ahead of me. Nighttime is my favorite time of day, when I can relax and unwind in my suite with a book or a bath or a massage.
My indulgences are simple and, frankly, all I’ll allow.
I have time for little else.
Maybe tonight I’ll partake of a cocktail and a lavender bath bomb.
Until I head upstairs, though, it’s just Callum and me and this pull I feel toward my bodyguard. A pull I’ve never acted on for so many reasons.
Partly because I rely on him for protection, but also for . . . more.
In the last year, Callum has become my sounding board, my confidante. He’s wise, direct, and pulls no punches.
A co-CEO needs that.
I meet his dark gaze. “So, tell me. What did you think?”
He shrugs a shoulder, scratches his stubbled jaw, and takes a few seconds to answer. “It wasn’t bad.”
I narrow my brow. “Oh, stop.”
He gestures flippantly to the lobby. “If you’re into that kind of thing. Fancy hotel, high rollers, pretty art.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I say petulantly, but I’m smiling, since I know he’s teasing.
“Oh, it’s not?” he asks, deadpan.
I shoot him a searing stare. “You know it’s not.”
“I could have sworn it was,” he says, toying with me as he does sometimes. I swear he knows exactly how to rile me up.
I might have been groomed for this job since I was born. I might have lived in this hotel since before I could walk. But I’ve only been running it for a few years now, and I want to do right by my family. I want my parents, may they rest in peace, to be proud of my sister and me. “Impressing the board is no easy feat. Did I pull it off? I need to know. I want to know for real. No teasing this time.”
Perhaps sensing the earnestness in my question, he sets a strong hand on my bare arm, sending a spark over my skin. I swallow, trying to tamp down the intensity of my reaction to this simple touch.
I ought to be accustomed to his touch by now. To a hand on my back. On my elbow. To the occasional arm around me.
I ought to be immune.
I am not. Not in the least.
I glance down at his big hand covering my skin. My mind races with
images—images I must ignore. That hand on my waist. My breasts. Lower still …
Callum nods down the hall, indicating let’s walk. We are good at that. Walking and talking. It’s the way we spend our afternoons and evenings here on the property, traversing it, cutting from conference room to suite, from bar to restaurant, checking out everything on the premises, him having my back the whole time.
So, I focus on that rather than on the goose bumps rising on my skin from his touch. I smooth a hand down my black sheath dress as if that’ll rid me of this longing for him.
News flash: it doesn’t.
“You were great, Ivy. Of course they were impressed.”
I look at his profile, the slight curve of his grin. “You think so?” I can’t mask my excitement, or my nerves. “I wanted to show off all these changes. I know they’ve seen the new lobby and so on, but I want them to be wowed by our vision, by how everything has come together.”