The Marriage That Didn't Stay in Vegas (BWWM Romance)

The Marriage That Didn’t

Stay in Vegas

A Novella by

Phoenix Rayne

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

© 2015 Phoenix Rayne. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized reproduction, in any manner, is prohibited.

Published by Ambiance Books

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              The sun was beaming on my face and my head was swimming.  I couldn’t tell if I was on the floor or the bed.  I stared up at the ceiling, afraid to move too quickly.

              “What the hell did I drink last night?” I asked myself. 

              I heard someone stirring nearby.

              “Hello?” I called out.

              Someone moved again. 

              I held my breath as I realized someone else was breathing in the room with me. “Hello, is someone there?”

              A groan came from below. 

              I slowly tried to get up. I soon realized that I was on the floor and I wasn’t on the bed.  Well, I was on the bed, but a body laid between the bed and me.  Wait, I’m still not telling you this right.  I was laying on somebody.  His chest was as hard as stone and ripples were deep. With a body this tan and toned, he had to be a stripper.

             
Shit! I’ve screwed a stripper
. I looked down and oh yes; I had been rode, hard from the looks of it.  I slid out of the bed as quietly as I could, held on to the cream color sheets as tightly as possible and saw my weave piece draped over the bedside lamp.   I snatched it and then went in search of my clothes.  I found a heel under the bed, my panties under the window, and my dress in one of the corners.  Now all I needed was my other shoe, my bra, and my purse.  I looked over the bedroom and found nothing.  I looked over towards the bathroom and saw my other shoe.  I snatched it up quickly.  I searched the bedroom all the way over again and still nothing. 

              In the sitting area, I saw my bra hanging from the ceiling fan with no way I could reach it. I went to the wall and turned on every switch.  All of the lights came on and the curtains opened wide.  The ceiling fan didn’t move an inch.

              “Shit!” I yelled a little too loudly.

              I froze, but I didn’t hear the stripper stir.  I saw my clutch on the counter and grabbed it.  I dropped the sheet and got dressed, still braless.  I tried a few more switches and still nothing but more lights. 

              I walked to the front door and stopped.  If I’d had sex with this man, I at least needed to know his damn name.  I looked around the big room and didn’t find a sock, a shirt, not anything belonging to a man.  I tiptoed back into the bedroom, and the stripper was still lying flat on his back buck-naked. 

             
Dear God, what a body
…

              I definitely did not want him waking up and seeing this train wreck. I found a white, button-down shirt, a pair of cuff links, and socks.  No pants, no wallet, and no cell phone were insight.  I saw some black fabric underneath the stripper and I cringed.

              “Shit,” I whispered this time. 

              I had to get the fabric from under him. I was almost certain it was a pair of pants.  I tugged and nothing; I pulled again and he stirred a little. I kneeled down on the bed quietly and slowly.  I tried to push him, but he wasn’t budging. I yanked at the fabric one last time and he was still knocked out. 

              “Screw the pants,” I whispered. 

              I turned to get off the bed, but a pair of the lightest brown eyes I had ever seen yanked me back down.  They were the color of honey and I was mesmerized.  He pulled me down on top of him, and then he rolled us both over.  He towered over me while he kissed my neck.

              “Phoebe,” he whispered in my ear. 

              I was in utter shock.
The stripper knew my name, my real name. 

              By the time I collected myself, he was snoring again. It took me forever to get from under him, but I finally made it.  Once I was freed from Conan’s grip, I bolted. 

             
Screw those pants and this stripper
. 

              I grabbed the rest of my shit and ran to the front door.

              “Pheb?” he called from the bedroom. 

              I swung the door wide open and dropped one of my heels on the floor.  I bent over to pick it up and saw a piece of paper that had been slid underneath the door.  I opened it quickly: a bill. I shoved it in my purse and ran down the hallway.

              When I stepped off the elevator, my heels clicked against the marble floor as I walked.  I saw the ladies' room and headed in that direction.  I got a few stares but nothing major.  When I looked in the bathroom mirror, I gasped.  I looked like shit, and I scared myself.  Two older women walked in and gave me a once over. Both of them went into stalls.  I scrubbed my face free of smudged makeup. 

              My phone rang from inside my purse. 

              “Hello?” I answered.

              “Where are you? We woke up, and you’re not here,” she yawned.

              “Addison, what the hell happened last night?” I scowled.

              “What?”

              “I woke up in bed with a stripper!” 

              One of the ladies was out of her stall and washing her hands now.  She stared at in me in utter shock with her mouth slightly agape.

              I grabbed my purse and walked out of the bathroom.  “Hold on a sec.”

              As soon as I turned the corner, I saw the stripper at the front desk.  He wore a pair of black pants and a t-shirt.  The concierge was pointing towards the bathroom and the stripper was coming my way.  I ran down the side hall and entered the kitchen area.  The cooks stared, but no one said anything.  A couple of them pointed towards the exit and then kept right on cooking.  I guess they saw shit like this all the time.  I went out the back door and into a narrow alley.

              “Pheb!” I heard Addison yelling from the phone. 

              I put the phone back up to my ear and started walking towards the street.  “I’m sorry. I’m back now.”

              “How did you end up in bed with a stripper?”

              “What?!” I heard Daphne yelling in the background.

              “I don’t know. What happened last night? And why in God’s name would you let me leave with a stripper?”

              “I didn’t!”

              “God, why is this happening to me?”

              “Pheb, what all do you remember about last night?”

              “Shit! Not too much. We got dressed, headed for Caesars, and that’s really about it.  No! Wait, I remember Gray Mercy.”  

              “God, you drank Old Gray Mere? No wonder you can’t remember shit,” Addison snickered.

              “What’s Old Gray Mere?”

              “A little bit of shit and hell in a cup.”

              “Where is she?” I heard Daphne again.

              “She doesn’t know yet.”

              I stepped out towards the front of the building and looked up. “I’m at the Venetian.”

              “Oh honey. Hail a cab. You don’t know how to get back to the hotel.”
              I flagged down a cab and hung up with Addison. 

              By the time I got back to the hotel, I had to do the ultimate walk of shame.  I felt everyone’s eyes on me, and my stomach turned.  I slid my key card into the slot, and the light turned green.  I walked in, not making eye contact with any of them.  The main sitting room was trashed. They must’ve had a wild night.  The room looked like it had been hit by a tornado.  Clothes, shoes, and empty champagne bottles were thrown all over the place.  I just walked by them all and headed for my bathroom.  

              “Honey, wait!” I heard Addison calling for me, but as I passed, I threw one hand up and kept walking. 

              I knew I would cry in the shower, but I wasn’t prepared to do this in front of an audience.  I got to the bathroom, shut the door, and turned on the water.  I removed my earrings and slid off my bracelet.  I took off both of my rings and heard a gentle knock at the door.

             
Wait a second
; I usually only wore one ring, not two.  I definitely should not have had a princess-cut, diamond ring on my left hand.  I picked the sparkly ring up and stared at it with wide eyes. 

              There was another light knock at the door again.

              “Who is it?” I asked while still in a daze.

              “Your husband,” a rough unfamiliar voice said to me. 

              I looked over at the door as it opened slowly and there stood the stripper.  He held a key in his hand and gave me a small grin.  I remembered when we checked in, the bellboy told us that each bedroom had a key in the kitchen draw. 

              He said, “People get locked out or they lock themselves in their own rooms.  This is Vegas.” He winked back at us when he showed us the keys. 

              One of the girls must have given the spare to him.  Them coldblooded Bitches. 

Chapter 1

The Groom

              Xavier James Luther was thirty-two years old. He didn’t have any children and had never been married.  He was from Hugo, Oklahoma, but now lived in Mountain Ranch, California.  I had heard of Calaveras County before, but I always thought it was nothing but wild cattle up there.   He had two Labradors, eighteen chickens, one rooster, six guineas, one hundred cows, forty sheep, seven horses, four donkeys, six bulls, and twenty-two pigs.  He told me all this at the edge of my hotel bed. 

              Xavier was extremely handsome, but I wasn’t letting that clog my mind.  He was obvious slow of some sort or maybe he had a mental issue.  I was shit-faced drunk last night, but he had told me twice already that he remembered everything that happened perfectly.  So, he was obviously sober and he obviously wanted this marriage to stay active.

              “I don’t have any money,” I told him quickly before he could tell me something else about him.

              “Why are you telling me this?”

              “Because you should know.  I make 54 K a year, and Sallie Mae student loans are kicking my ass.  I’m a couple of paychecks from being broke.  This trip alone has taken my checking account down to its last nine hundred dollars.  My rent is $1,800 a month, my car note is $600 a month, my car insurance is $150 a month, and I have illegal cable.  I steal my downstairs neighbor’s Wi-Fi, and I sometimes steal my neighbor’s Sunday paper from across the hall . . . while he’s at church.  I’m a very bad person, and I can barely take care of myself.”

              I was hoping that would’ve woken him up from his slumber.  He was probably thinking since I was a hefty girl that I could cook, well that was a negative.  He probably found out what I did for a living, but life as a paralegal was not what it was all cracked up to be.  On the other hand, he might have thought I had childbearing hips and maybe he wanted a couple of kids pushed out of me. 

              He chuckled and stood. “I know you don’t remember any of this, but I told you last night, I love you and you only.  I wanted to marry you, Phoebe Alexis Courtland.”

             
Oh shit, he knew my government name.

              “You gotta go,” I uttered immediately.

              “Wait, what?”

              “Leave! You! Now!”

              “Phebs?”

              “I’m sorry. I don’t know you,” I said as I pushed him out of the room. 

              He didn’t fight me on this but just backed away with his palms up.  I slammed the door in his face and then locked it. 

              I stripped down and finally got into the shower.  I tried to scrub everything off me.  I wish I could’ve cleared my head up a bit so I could remember everything that had happened last night.  When the water turned ice cold, I got out of the tub.  I dressed in t-shirt and jeans; I had no energy to put on anything else.  I cracked the door and saw the girls sitting on the couches. 

              I pushed out a big breath and opened the door wide. “Thank God! He finally left.”

              They all looked at me with wide eyes, and then Addison pointed behind me.  I turned and there stood Xavier, drinking a glass of milk. He gave me a wave. I turned around and went back into my bedroom, closing the door.  This went on into the wee hours of the night.  Everyone tried to get me out of my room… well, everyone but him.  I never heard another peep from him for the rest of the evening.  I finally couldn’t take it anymore. I slid into some flats and grabbed my wallet to go out to search for food.  I walked out into the sitting area; there wasn’t a soul insight.  I guessed everyone had gone to bed, and the rancher finally gave up.  I opened the front door quietly and gently pulled it shut.  I turned around, and he stood.

              “Phebs please don’t run from me.”

              I walked past him and headed for the elevators.  He followed behind me silently.  Neither one of us said a word.  We, both, got onto the elevator and rode it down.  The bell dinged and the door opened once we got to the bottom floor.  A wedding party was waiting to get on, and it sickened me to my stomach.  I rolled my eyes and stomped past the kissing couple, who couldn’t keep their hands off each other.  We passed by the front desk, and the friendly concierge smiled wide.  He snapped his fingers at a small group of employees, and they rushed towards a luggage holder loaded with flowers.  Each one of them picked up an arrangement of some sort.

              “Señor, I have the bouquets,” he called out to Xavier.

              Xavier didn’t say a word, and he didn’t lose his stride behind me.  The employees all smiled wide at Xavier and frowned once he past them with their arrangements in hand.

              “Señor!” the concierge yelled. 

              We walked out the front entrance and headed for the strip.  He stayed behind me and never said a word.  After a couple of blocks, I felt a light tug at my elbow.  I turned and Xavier was holding a door wide for me at one of the strip's diners. It was called Vicky’s Diner, and it had an old school greasy spoon diner feel. There were Tiffany styled lamps everywhere.  It made me smile and think of my grandmother’s sitting room.  She loved Tiffany style lamps, and I had two of her favorites in my apartment. 

              I walked in, and Xavier followed behind me.  I was admiring the lamps when he lightly tugged at my arm again.  He walked down to the last booth, and I followed.  He waited until I sat down before he had his seat; he acted like the perfect gentleman. 

              “Hi, you two. Oh, you know what they say. Once you last your first twenty-four hours in Vegas, you’ll be together forever.” The waitress wore a wide smile.

              “Honey Dew, you want the French toast again?” she asked.

              I nodded.

              “And Cowboy, you want the steak and eggs, right?”   

              “Yes, Ma'am,” Xavier said to the red-lipped waitress. 

              “Oh and I gave your card and book to my boss a couple of hours ago. We’ll see what he says,” she whispered over to him. 

              He grinned and nodded while she walked away to place our orders.

              “So, is this some kind of twisted version of
Hangover
?”

              “What do you mean?” he moved in and whispered across the booth from me.                I could tell he wanted me to talk a little softer.  He stared around with a small grin at the people staring at us.

              “I mean this.” I waved my hand in the air, still putting on a show for the patrons.  “Apparently, we came here last night.” I crossed my arms and squeezed myself tight.

              “Phoebe, the last thing I wanted to do was upset you.”

              “Well, it didn’t work,” I said forcefully to him.

              Our waitress came back with two waters and two coffees. I picked up the coffee at once, but I shook so hard that most of it was on the table.  I was in a state of rage and trying to focus on one thing right now was almost impossible.  He yanked some napkins out of the dispenser and started wiping up my mess at once.

              “Kit, can we get Phebs a glass of O.J.?  She hasn’t eaten anything all day, and I think her stomach would appreciate a little sugar first.”

              “Oh, sure thing.” She touched my shoulder gently and walked back towards the counter.

              “Do you want to leave?  Is this place upsetting you too much?”

              “No! I want you to leave because you’re upsetting me too much!” 

              He put his head down and shook it from side to side. “I won’t leave you.”

              For some reason, his words meant so much more than if he just walked out the door without saying anything.  I felt safe with him, and I didn’t know why.  I wanted to reach over and place my hand in his.  I imaged he would kiss it and rub it against his face.  I could almost feel the stubble from his chin on my hands.  I watched his face now, and I could tell he imagined the same thing.  I edged my hand towards him, and he slowly reached for me.

              “Here’s your O.J., Honey Dew,” the waitress interrupted us. 

              I shot my hand back into my lap, but Xavier’s lingered on the table. He watched me with desperate eyes. I had a strong feeling this man would wait forever for me.  I gave the waitress a small smile and she went to the table next to us.

              “Give me your hand?” he begged in a whisper. 

              His whisper made my insides moan. I shifted in my seat. 

              “Phoebe?” he whispered again. 

              I closed my eyes, clenched my now pulsating vagina, and whispered, “No.” 

              “Look at me, Phebs?”

              “No, X,” and then my eyes shot wide open.  I looked at him, and he was grinning from ear to ear.

              “You called me X!” His eyes lit up like Christmas.

              “You haven’t called me that since . . . ” He drifted off a little, and I saw whatever he was thinking made his eyes roll to the back of his head. “Well, you haven’t called me that in a while.” He had a little more pep in him now, and he shifted in his seat as if he couldn’t stay still. 

              “How did we meet?” I asked him.

              “We… we met here,” he choked.

              “Here?”

              “We met right here in this booth. Addison dared you to come over and ask me if I had a farm… And I told you yes. Then, you rolled your eyes and sat down.  Then, you asked me if I had a horse.  I told you yes, and you took your jacket off.  Then, you asked me if I had a tractor, and I told you yes.  You pulled off one of your earrings, then. . .”

              “Strip date,” I breathed.

              “Yeah, that’s what you called it.”

              “You must have looked very cowboyish last night.”

              “Well, yes, ma'am, I did, Wranglers and all.”

              “You don’t look very cowboyish tonight.”

              “No, no I don’t.  I had to run for my life to catch my wife this morning, so I left the Wranglers at my hotel.” Xavier looked down at the table.  He pushed his wedding band around and around his ring finger now. 

              Kit came back with our spread. Xavier held his head down for grace and then started eating.  This man ate as if he was starving.

              “Have you not eaten today?”

              “No ma'am. If you don’t eat, then I don’t eat.”

              I rolled my eyes and he laughed at me. 

              “So, what do you know about me?” 

              “Don’t you want to know how far you got with the strip date?” he asked.

              “No need.”

              “Why not?”

              “Because you’re not the kind of guy that would let a girl go that far in public.”  

              “I wouldn’t.”

              “I figured.”

              He stared at me for a moment and then cleared his throat. “Well, you’ve been a paralegal for almost seven years. You have a white Persian named Meow Meow. You drive an Infinite. You're terrified of horses, you can’t swim, you’re an only child, and you’re from LA. Your parents were never married, you’re not religious, and your left foot is a half a size bigger than your right. Your favorite color is red, your birthday is August the 5
th
, you hate gladiator sandals, and you love spinach and Brussels Sprouts. You want to own your own clothing store for the not so perfect bodies. You wish you had a big family, but you, your mom, and dad are all from one-child families. You and Addison have been best friends since pre-k, and you and Daphne met in junior high.” 

              I stared at him.  This man knew my life story, and I don’t even remember telling him. 

              “And, you have a birthmark on your right inner thigh; it’s kind of shaped like Ivy,” he whispered over to me. 

              I dropped my fork. I couldn’t eat another bite. He had really messed me up big time.  A man came over to our table and asked Xavier if he had time to speak with him now.  He nodded, wiped his mouth, and slid over in the booth.  The man sat down next to him, right across from me.

              “Honey, this will take just a second,” he said to me.

              I gave him a smile and waved them to go ahead.

              “Mr. Gaines, this is my beautiful wife, Phoebe. Phoebe, this is Mr. Gaines. He is one of the managers of this fine establishment.”

              Gaines pushed his hand out for me, and I shook it.  Then, he sat down a thin folder and opened it. 

              Xavier poured ketchup on his hash browns and drizzled hot sauce on top.               “Honey, try these. You love them like this.”

              He pushed his plate towards me, reached over, and took mine.  He dived straight in as if it was his plate.  I took a fork full of the bloody looking hash browns.  I closed my eyes and sucked in all the many flavors.  The hash browns were amazing; I opened my eyes and noticed I had an audience.  Both of the men sitting across from me stared.  Mr. Gaines was blushing, and Xavier's breathing was slow and long.  I gave them a smile and dug in for some more.  The men were done by the time I had finished everything on Xavier’s plate.  They shook hands, and Xavier laid two twenties on the table.