The Do-Over: Blackout Series

DEDICATION

To my darling husband, who got a do-over in marriage with me!

BLACKOUT: A Romance Anthology

Close Encounter by Stephanie St. Klaire

The day started with a quick screw, a couple of quirky two-bit cons and ended with a diabolical serial killer. What do you do when the lights go out? Run.

The Do-Over by Christi Barth

The best way to move on after being dumped? A hot fling. An even better way? Revenge sex and the chance to turn the tables on the guy who dumped you...

Night & Day by Bethany Lopez

One explosive weekend together nearly ruined them. But, there's no way Simone and Micah can ignore their chemistry when they're alone in the dark.

Night Games by T.K. Leigh

Note to self: Never agree to play an innocent dice game during a blackout in Vegas. I should have known it wouldn’t remain innocent, not in the city of sin.

Absolutely Mine by Terri E. Laine

I made a promise to stay away from my best friend’s little sister. But it’s Vegas and that’s one promise I’m probably going to break.

Just Us by J.H. Croix

Ellie asks me to promise her one thing. We can’t tell her brother about us. Small problem though. One night will never be enough.

Blind Faith by Lauren Runow

I never expected to be locked out of my room basically naked in a total blackout. Thinking that would be the biggest shock of my night was my first mistake.

Dirty Thoughts by C.A. Harms

He was the crush I never thought I’d see again. Yet here we were in Vegas, during a total blackout. I figure why not explore all the possibilities, or more like let him explore me?

Going Down by Lisa Shelby

She’s the only person I’ve ever loved and I’m the last person she wants to see. She’d hoped to avoid me as much as possible in Vegas, but when we get stuck alone in an elevator, not even she can deny that our chemistry still runs hot.

Hard Luck by K.A. Ware

Ellis James is my kryptonite, the only person who could drag me back to Vegas after I promised myself I was done with that life. I'd bleed for her, I'd die for her, but can I save her?

Becoming His by K.I. Lynn

When I slammed into Hollywood heartthrob Reid Gallagher, I never imagined it would turn into a first date I’d never forget. After all, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas...right?

Honeymoon Hideaway by Cary Hart

What’s worse than being locked in a room with a vibrating bed and your sworn enemy? Waking up next to him... naked! Did I mention he’s also my boss? Oops.

Free Bird by Leddy Harper

She’s a showgirl who wants out of Vegas. He’s a rugby player who wants a bit of company. Can they both get what they want?

To learn more about our contributors, and their stories:

www.privatepartybookclub.com/blackout

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Embarrassing for a writer to admit, but I can’t even express how grateful I am to Stephanie St. Klaire for including me in this project. I loved the idea of Blackout from the first moment, and it was so much fun! Thanks also to Cary Hart for being a cheerleader, doing all the things, and being generally awesome. 

CHAPTER ONE

DOES IT BOTHER YOU to kiss a man with twelve million people watching? The question came from out of the darkness behind the camera.

Anda Weiss blinked against the harsh trio of stage lights trained on her. Then she blinked again, trying to buy a little time to figure out an answer that didn’t sound slutty or overly prim or out-and-out stupid. Nothing came to mind. Probably because over the last ten weeks she’d discovered that talking directly into a camera was hard.

Frustrated at the whole process, she twirled one long, dark wave of hair around her finger. For a second, Anda kind of wished it was her microphone cord wrapping around the neck of the bossy woman barking questions at her.

The red record light on the camera blinked off. The regular overhead lights came on in the small, and more importantly for filming, windowless hotel catering office.

Jenny Morton, whom Anda actually liked a whole bunch when not barking questions from behind the camera, drew her sandy blonde eyebrows into a frown. Anda, quit playing with your hair. We talked about that. It makes you look brainless and indecisive.

"Gee, thanks for the pep-talk. I’m sooo motivated to bare my soul now."

Jenny walked around the tripod to crouch next to Anda’s chair. She stabbed at the bridge of her cat-eye glasses with one finger. You know I’m only trying to help. Unlike most of the other women on this show, you’re smart and funny and have a future in front of you that doesn’t involve showing your boobs.

Thanks. Now I feel a million times peppier.

Not really. A future where she got to keep her clothes on for a living was a pretty low bar. Jenny’s heart was in the right place, but she sucked at an inspirational speech. Not that it mattered.

Jenny’s job was to conduct these confessional interviews with all of the women on the hit reality show, Man of Her Dreams. Getting the women to talk was the tip of the iceberg.

Getting them to cry and curse was Jenny’s real objective. She actually got a bonus for every three sobbing breakdowns achieved per week. The fact that she’d paused recording to help Anda not look bad said a lot about the unauthorized friendship they’d struck up during filming.

After flipping off the overheads, Jenny hit record again. Remember, the faster you answer these questions, the faster you can get back to the Man of Your Dreams.

Okay. The thought of rejoining the man with dark, Italian good looks, piercing blue eyes and muscles that wouldn’t quit turned out to be all the inspiration Anda needed to get her mouth in gear.

She flashed a—hopefully—sassy smile. Who says Chance DiMarco is the man of my dreams?

I do. America does. And you do, by not quitting the show. You’ve survived ten rounds of cuts by Chance, three of Internet voting, a horrible jellyfish sting, and worst of all, sharing a bathroom with five other women. Nobody puts themselves through that unless they desperately want the guy. Which brings me back to the question: does it bother you to kiss a man with twelve million people watching?

If she opened up and answered honestly, this round of interrogation would end. So Anda closed her eyes and thought back to her first kiss with Chance.

He’d broken tradition—and pissed off the producers of the show—by refusing to wear a suit. Said that if he had to make a first impression on thirty women, along with the viewers, he’d damned well make a truthful one. And he only wore suits to funerals and weddings.

Anda couldn’t imagine any viewers complaining. He’d dried up the mouths—and moistened other parts—of every woman on the show the moment he stepped out from the French pavilion in the Denver botanical garden. They’d circled like sharks, waiting to take a bite out of him.

Chance had paired jeans with a black vest over a grey shirt, unbuttoned enough to show off his crisply curling chest hair. Oh, and his sleeves were rolled up just enough to reveal the veins and deep tan of his muscular forearms. It was impossible that a stiff suit could have made him look a single notch sexier.

She hadn’t expected to receive a kiss at that initial cocktail party. But she’d worried more than a few times in the run up to the first night of filming about what would happen if the casually cocky stuntman did decide to get physical.

I thought it would be weird. Anda shook her head. She’d been sure it’d be worse than that. Definitely awkward. Uncomfortable. That I’d worry about sucking in my stomach, and whether or not our legs should touch, or how to react if he got all aggressive and tried to slip me tongue.

Jenny let out a sympathetic giggle. And?

And instead, it was pure magic. Her eyelids drifted back open. Anda stared into the darkness, remembering how he’d pulled her behind a staircase and straight into his arms. When Chance kissed me, I forgot about the cameras. No, she corrected herself, "it was more that I wasn’t able to think about the cameras. Chance—his lips, our kiss, the surprising licks of desire that ran through me at his touch—became my whole reality."

The record light flicked off. You do know how crazy you sound, right?

Crazy about Chance, sure. Anda slid off the chair and smoothed the hem of her tangerine tank over her matching capris. Yes, it’s crazy to fall for someone this fast. But when it happens, it’d be even crazier not to hold tight and enjoy the ride.

A loud gasp came from the darkness. And the record light winked back on. Oh my God, there’s been riding? You guys ‘did it’ already and we missed it somehow?

Anda couldn’t tell what Jenny was more worked up over. As a friend? That she hadn’t shared sexy secrets....or as a show staffer? Annoyed at having missed a potential ratings spike of an episode?

Sometimes Jenny straddled the line between loyal friend and loyal crew member in a very hazy way. Anda tried to overlook it because the show would be over in two weeks. Then she’d go back to her normal life and there’d be no remaining conflict of interest for Jenny to work around.

No, of course not. You—and America—have seen everything there is to see. How would secret sex even be possible? The contestants were miked and taped from the moment they woke up to lights out. Although Anda’s blood pressure spiked at imagining what it would be like to finally be naked with Chance. No sex yet. I was talking about the wild and wonderful path I’m galloping down to falling in love.

That’s a much less interesting comment, Jenny grumbled as Anda opened the door.

Sorry, she said over her shoulder. I’m here to find the man of my dreams, not to keep you or America entertained.

Your priorities are skewed. And in no way in line with the contract you signed.

Ordinarily, Anda would linger and chat until Jenny’s mood turned around. Cut off completely as she was from her friends back in Los Angeles for the duration of the show, Jenny’s friendship had been a bright spot amidst the unrelenting catfights with all the other contestants.

But right outside the door stood Chance. One look at him was all it took to send every single thought flying from Anda’s mind. Lust fogged over her brain as she slammed the door shut behind her. Not that it gained her a speck of privacy. In the hall along with her sort-of boyfriend were a sound guy, two cameramen and the director.

Anda gobbled Chance up with her eyes in great, greedy bites. His black curls were, as usual, a sexily tousled mess. One that her fingers craved to mess up even more. The black tee, with a faded logo of one of the hundreds of movies he’d worked on, stretched taut across his pecs and clung to his chiseled abs. Beneath black cargo shorts were long legs covered in dark hair. A few shiny white scars slashed around his left knee, and in two diagonal lines along his right calf.

Chance laughed off the scars, called them set souvenirs, even though the accident that caused them had