“There’s something I’m dying to find out…”
They stood face-to-face in the crowded restaurant, and when someone walked past, Layla was forced to step closer to Sam to make room. He watched her green eyes dilate in a telltale sign of arousal. “Oh? And what’s that?” she asked lightly.
A slight upturning of her lush lips made his stomach crave something other than food. Continuing to play the game, he answered, “Whether or not you taste as good as you look.”
Before she could respond, Sam closed the few inches separating his mouth from Layla’s, giving her plenty of time to pull back. She didn’t. In fact, she leaned forward.
Her mouth tasted like a juicy peach just begging to be devoured. He flicked his tongue out, licking the rim of her lips, then dipping it inside. He’d never tasted anything sweeter, hotter, more addictive…
Desire hit, strong and hard. And Sam suddenly realized just how hungry he really was….
Dear Reader,
Sugar ’n spice and everything…naughty. That description fits the three heroines in our KISS & TELL miniseries to a T. Especially Layla Hollister, no matter how much she’d like to have you believe otherwise. Especially when fellow physician and resident hottie Sam Lovejoy comes onto the scene.
In Night Fever, general practitioner Dr. Layla Hollister literally shivers whenever she hears plastic surgeon Dr. Sam Lovejoy’s name. The truth is she would never have been attracted to him if she’d known who he was when they met. But she didn’t know. And attracted? Well, that doesn’t begin to cover how she feels about the notorious Dr. Lovejoy. The problem is once he catches on to her feverish condition, he relishes challenging her on all she’s come to believe about life and love…and about hot, sticky sex!
We hope Layla and Sam’s sizzling journey leaves you running for a cold shower! We’d love to hear what you think. Write to us at P.O. Box 12271, Toledo, OH 43612 (we’ll respond with a signed bookplate, newsletter and bookmark), or visit us on the Web at www.BlazeAuthors.com and www.toricarrington.com for fun drawings.
Here’s wishing you love, romance and hot reading!
Lori & Tony Karayianni
aka Tori Carrington
Night Fever
Tori Carrington
This one’s for the incomparable Kathryn Falk, Lady of Barrow, the extraordinary Carol Stacy, the gifted Giselle Hirtenfeld/Goldfeder and the entire staff at Romantic Times BookCLUB. You all are the stuff of which heroines are made!
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
1
Hollywood Confidential—October 13, 2003
A casting call went out for an actress with natural breasts to perform a love scene with heart-throb Ben Damon. Not a single candidate has stepped forward, leaving this reporter to wonder if there’s a pair of natural breasts left in all of Tinseltown….
DOCTOR LAYLA HOLLISTER closed the latest edition of the gossip rag she’d picked up on her way to the restaurant and glanced at her own modest breasts. They were all but nonexistent beneath her high-necked white blouse. She resisted the urge to wave her hand and say, “Me! My breasts are natural!”
Not that it mattered. Of the nearly two million people in L.A. proper, not to mention the ten million in L.A. County, she was one of the ten percent not interested in an acting career. Not in a bit part in a commercial or music video. Not even in a starring role opposite one of the world’s best-looking men. De nada. Add that she was also a third-generation Hollywood native whose family tree didn’t include any actors and, well, she was even more of a rarity. She made a face, peeled off the piece of lime stuck to the side of her glass, and sipped on her club soda.
At any rate, the casting agents would get one look at her small bustline and probably laugh her out of the studio. Yes, they may be fishing for natural, but it was a pretty good bet they were looking for Halle Berry breasts and not her own boobs that essentially hadn’t grown one iota since she was twelve and had bought her first training bra. Her well-endowed mother, Trudy, had told her she must have inherited them from her father’s side of the family. Layla had thought it was God’s idea of a cruel joke. At least until she was twenty and so busy with medical school she’d had little time to think about her breasts beyond the time it took to buy a new bra.
The paper rustled as she put it on the empty stool next to her. She glanced around the packed bar, wondering when her table would be ready. The restaurant she’d chosen had recently hit the trendy list, not because it was new, but rather because some star or another had stopped for a meal there and it had instantly become all the rage. She’d chosen it because it was close to home and she liked the food. So did Reilly, Mallory and Jack.
She sighed; just thinking of her three friends made her smile. She hadn’t had many friends growing up. Okay, she’d had none—unless you counted Dirtbag Della who’d come to her house a couple of times back in second grade. Della had been the only person willing to hang out with the gangly geek in bottle-bottom glasses, at least until Della’s mother had moved into a house where the shower worked and Dirtbag Della had suddenly qualified for Clique Three status. Then when Della had gotten a nose job at age eleven, she’d quickly moved up to Clique One and forgotten Layla existed altogether.
She found herself shrugging her shoulders even now, pretending not to care. And at twenty-seven, she really shouldn’t. But she was only human and every now and again memories of her childhood in a town where looks were valued over everything else sometimes got to her.
She nudged her watch around her wrist. Where were Reilly, Mallory and Jack anyway? She was usually the one running late. As if on cue, her cell phone vibrated in the purse in her lap. She extracted the palm-size receiver, then answered when she saw the number was Reilly’s.
“Can’t make it, Lay. Sorry,” her friend said without so much as a hello. “Last-minute order came in for three batches of Big Fat Greek Baklava and, well…you know.”
Layla did know. The only thing worse than being an ugly kid in Hollywood was being a fat kid. And she sometimes thought that Reilly Chudowski—once known as Chubby Chuddy—had had it worse than Layla had. Reilly had long since taken off the weight, but she seemed determined to keep upsetting the status quo by opening a pastry shop called Sugar ’n’ Spice smack-dab in the middle of healthy diet country. Surprisingly Reilly had turned a modest profit the first year. Now her goal was to corrupt the whole of L.A. with Sugar ’n’ Spice.
“Give Mallory and Jack a kiss for me, will ya?” Reilly requested.
“We still on for next Saturday night?” Layla asked.
“Your place,