One Exquisite Touch: Book One in The Extravagant Series Read online

  One Exquisite Touch

  Book One in The Extravagant Series

  Lauren Blakely

  Little Dog Press

  Contents

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  About

  One Exquisite Touch

  I. The Masquerade

  1. Sage

  2. Cole

  3. Sage

  4. Daniel

  5. Cole

  6. Sage

  II. After The Masquerade

  7. Sage

  8. Sage

  9. Cole

  10. Sage

  11. Cole

  12. Cole

  13. Cole

  14. Daniel

  15. Cole

  16. Sage

  17. Sage

  18. Daniel

  19. Sage

  20. Cole

  21. Cole

  22. Daniel

  23. Sage

  24. Sage

  25. Daniel

  26. Cole

  27. Sage

  28. Sage

  29. Sage

  30. Cole

  31. Sage

  32. Sage

  33. Cole

  34. Daniel

  35. Cole

  36. Sage

  37. Sage

  Daniel’s Epilogue

  Cole’s 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

  Thanks for Last Night

  * * *

  The Gift Series

  The Engagement Gift

  The Virgin Gift

  The Decadent Gift

  * * *

  The Extravagant Series

  One Night Only

  One Exquisite Touch

  One Time Only

  One Alluring Chance

  One Shameless Secret

  * * *

  MM Standalone Novels

  A Guy Walks Into My Bar

  * * *

  The Heartbreakers Series

  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 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)

  * * *

  Seductive Nights Series

  Night After Night

  After This Night

  One More Night

  A Wildly Seductive Night

  About

  A sexy rivals-to-lovers standalone, rich with masquerades, billionaires and forbidden trysts!

  * * *

  When the invitation arrived, it detailed the rules of the masquerade -- no names, no identities.

  * * *

  I set one more-- find a most wicked man for one night.

  * * *

  The kind who'll bring me deliciously naughty pleasure in dark corners.

  * * *

  But as the clock ticks to midnight, he finds me, whisks me away to a secret alcove, and delivers all that dirty bliss and then some.

  * * *

  We make arrangements for another secret rendez vous before I rush out of the ball.

  * * *

  But fate has other plans, since I see my most wicked man the next morning. Because that man is the billionaire owner of the hotel across the Strip from mine.

  * * *

  My rival. My enemy.

  * * *

  We vie for business every second of every day, so the last thing I can do is let him in my bed at night.

  * * *

  I give in one final time, in a daring, risqué game of chance, and then I vow to resist.

  * * *

  And that's what I do every time I see him, every time I get to know the brilliant, mercurial man who wants a piece of my business.

  * * *

  Until the night he ups the stakes.

  * * *

  And I have no choice but to see his bet and raise it. ONE EXQUISITE TOUCH is a wickedly racy, high-stakes love story between a man and a woman. It also features several sexy MFM love scenes.

  * * *

  One Exquisite Touch is a standalone in The Extravagant series. Other standalones include One Alluring Chance and One Shameless Secret.

  One Exquisite Touch

  By Lauren Blakely

  * * *

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es? Sign up for my VIP mailing list here!

  Part I

  The Masquerade

  If you’ve already read the prologue, AN EXTRAVAGANT TRYST, go ahead and skip to “After the Masquerade” to read the full novel for Sage and Cole! If you haven’t picked up AN EXTRAVAGANT TRYST, start here and enjoy a scorching, red-hot romance!

  1

  Sage

  Tonight, I am my opposite.

  First, I start with my makeup.

  I smooth on foundation, dust on powder, then set to work on my eyes. I turn them smoky, seductive, lined with black, winged at the corners.

  They’re cat’s eyes, and seeing them like this sends a dangerous thrill through me.

  A thrill I want to feel.

  This is not how I look in the boardroom. There, I am subtle, all beige and nudes, blouses and suits.

  After-hours, on nights like this, I become midnight and shimmer.

  Next, I run the mascara brush through my lashes, over and over, making them thick and long, and transforming them into a look-at-me style. When I’m done, I dip another brush into a shiny powder and slide the faintest dusting of glitter across my shoulders, making my skin glow with gold.

  I shiver, picturing lips on my shoulders, hands on my back, fingers on my waist. Briefly, I close my eyes, my imagination running wild, escaping to places I haven’t traveled in a long time.

  Visiting far-off lands rich with pleasure, and islands teeming with bliss.

  I open my eyes and let out a long exhale, settling back into the moment.

  Blush comes next, as I highlight cheekbones I’d never dare to make so noticeable during the day. Sure, the blush won’t be visible, but it’s necessary like this as I change from day to night.

  As I peer into the mirror, I check my reflection from the right, then the left.

  Do I look like the co-CEO of one of the premier hotels on the Las Vegas Strip? I ask that question to the woman in the mirror, and with a devilish grin, I answer out loud, my lips quirking up. “I better not look like the owner of The Extravagant, and I don’t think I do at all.”

  I run an old-fashioned silver brush through my hair, and the smoothing sensation gets me into character too. Everything about this evening belongs to a character.

  A character who craves.

  A character who didn’t crave for a long time.

  Tingles rush through me as I slide further into the seductive world of make-believe, pinning up my blonde hair on one side, leaving it long and wavy down the back.

  Yes, this too is the opposite of my workday self.

  By day, I wear my hair up in a French twist or a low knotted bun. Those are my daytime styles because they say business.

  Tonight, I personify pleasure. Or at least the pursuit of it.

  That’s what I need desperately. Need it for my heart. Need it for my mind.

  And so I RSVPed to the invitation my friend Eliza sent me to a fundraiser for a local charity we both support, one that provides scholarships for female athletes who can’t afford college otherwise.

  You are cordially invited to a black-and-white masquerade. Elegant attire required. Don’t forget your mask.

  As if I’d forget my mask.

  The mask is my permission slip. The mask will let me be this other self, the one who’s only now discovering the delight of this late-night masquerade.

  And I’m nearly ready. But I need my good luck charm. My silver hair clip.

  I glide through my suite in The Extravagant, finding it on the marble coffee table in the spacious sunken living room, when there’s a rap on the door.

  Three raps, a pause, followed by two.

  It’s Eliza.

  Smiling, I head to the door, check the peephole, and nearly squeal when I see my friend.

  I yank open the door and gasp, the only suitable reaction to her costume. A white strapless dress clings to her trim frame, hugging her breasts, her waist, her hips, her thighs. The skirt stops at her knees, but the bustle flares out behind her all the way to the floor. The white dress is etched in black lace. A butterfly mask adorns her green eyes. She is a vision in black-and-white.

  “Guess who it is?” She’s all coy and playful, jutting out a hip.

  I tap my chin. “Hmm. Could it be the sexiest woman at the ball tonight?”

  She laughs, a smoky sound, as she sashays into my suite. “Flattery will get you everywhere. Except, well, my chariot. I gave Johnson the night off. Any chance we can use yours?”

  “Of course we can use my . . . carriage,” I say, letting the door fall shut behind her as I beckon her into the place she knows well, since we’ve been best friends for several years.

  As the door snicks shut, her eyebrows dance, and she waggles her fingers in my direction. I’m wearing only my underthings. “You do know ballroom attire is required, right? You’re not just showing up in your lingerie?” Eliza asks.

  I feign surprise. “No! Really? I thought a white lace bra-and-panty set would highlight my mask so perfectly. You think not though?”

  “Oh, well, if you’re aiming to complement the mask, then surely a bra made of feathers and a thong made of gems would be a better ensemble,” she says, faux serious as she flicks a strand of her chestnut hair.

  I cringe. “Ouch. That hurts just hearing it.”

  “Imagine wearing it.”

  I shake my head. “Never. Thongs should be abolished,” I say as we cross the living room, returning to my dressing room.

  “I’ll sign that petition. Hell, I’ll start the movement.”

  “You have my full support in the anti-thong crusade.” I gesture to my white lace bra. “But don’t worry. I have the perfect costume for the theme of the party.”

  Tonight’s masquerade ball is themed “Imagine,” something I’m particularly skilled at lately. My imagination is a fertile ground for so many things. “I just haven’t slipped into it yet. The hair always goes first. It’s a rule.”

  “You love your rules. You have rules for so many things,” Eliza says playfully.

  “And rules for fun are good too. Especially this one.” I stop in the dressing room and raise a making-a-point finger. “Always leave them wanting more.”

  Eliza nods, a wise look in her green eyes. “Those are indeed words to live by.”

  I peer into the mirror, then click open the silver hair clip with an inscription on the inside, reading it once more. Brilliant for brilliant. The words tug on my heart. They always do, from the very first time I wore this years ago.

  I slide the silver pin into the side of my hair, then clip it, loving the way it catches the light just so, loving, too, how it’s another way to remember those I love.

  “Gorgeous,” Eliza proclaims.

  “Thank you,” I say, and I want to feel gorgeous. I crave lushness.

  And lately, I’ve needed it.

  It’s become necessary to be able to live this life, to balance everything. To take over the reins of my parents’ hotel as I’ve done, and run the financials. To strike deals, to negotiate, to crunch all the numbers.

  The world I inhabit all day is oak and chrome, numbers and sums.

  For a while, that pin-striped, spreadsheeted world soothed the ache in my heart.

  Profit and loss statements were my balm.

  And they worked well enough.

  They helped me move on from the pain and grief, then from an unexpected heartache too.

  Now, I’m here. On the other side.

  So I’ve begun exploring a world at night beyond the boardroom. A party here, a party there. I’ve enjoyed a few evening fetes as an observer, donning a mask, a costume, and a new hairstyle. Going for a whirl on the dance floor in a ballroom, letting music and champagne whisk me away to another time, to the Renaissance, to Venice, to Victorian England.

  What wonders a party can work on a wounded heart.

  A party can play its part in mending the soul.

  “And now, perhaps for a little costume. Emphasis on little,” I say sa
ucily to my best friend as I yank open the closet door.

  Her jaw comes unhinged as she surveys the shelves and racks glittering with gowns, dresses, and finery.

  “Girl, have you been buying out all the sexy costumes in this city?” She strolls in, checking out my walk-in wardrobe, filled with corset after corset, dress after dress. Vintage, Victorian, Venetian. Brocade, gothic, leather.

  What can I say? Dress-up has always been my thing.