situation could be summed up in four words: He was so fucked.
All Tease and No Please
C ammie Sheppard switched to her silver cat-shaped Foster Grant sunglasses—she was already bored with the pink Bebe glasses, but fortunately, she always traveled with two pairs. The late afternoon sun was glaring off the road as the black stretch limo cruised from McCarron Airport to the world-famous Las Vegas Strip. And then, beyond it, to the Palms Hotel. She couldn't help thinking that this ride in from the airport did not offer a favorable first impression of Sin City. Lining the boulevard were cheap motels, cheaper places to eat, the same kind of tchotchke stores that you'd find in Hollywood, only with a Vegas theme instead of Tinseltown. Billboards—dozens of them—advertised big hotels and the various over-the-hill stars playing off their name recognition there, just to have a steady gig. Also touted were the extravaganzas that only tourists from Des Moines would actually pay to see: the Folies Bergere at the Tropicana, the Cirque du Soleil at the MGM, and their pathetic moral equivalents at the Luxor and the Rio. Skimpy costumes, big breasts, long legs, all tease and no please.
And who could forget the headliners? Cher, who kept promising to retire but couldn't keep her butt off a stage—Cammie was ready to
pay
the woman to pack it in. Tom Jones? Engelbert Humperdinck? Puh-leeze. They'd been washed up even when her father and his high school friends had come out to Vegas.
Still, Cammie knew that Vegas had always been happening for Hollywood's young and hip, who skipped all the over-the-top tacky cheesy tourist shit. Or else reveled in the joy of mocking the tourists, an art form unto itself. They were all about private parties at VIP locales, special unadvertised after-hours shows that you had to know about, things like that.
The limo was a stretch job. The buttery leather seats were arranged facing one another. In between, a bar was tucked into one side and a digital sound system connected to a library of thousands of MP3s into the other. Cammie had been in dozens of limos just like it—but not with Adam. Now they sat next to each other, her body fitting easily against his.
“Ready for a great time?” he asked softly.
Cammie nodded and smiled up at him. He smiled back, leaned in, and tenderly kissed her forehead. Nice.
Only one problem. “Nice” and “Cammie Sheppard” weren't often used in the same sentence. She liked Adam. Maybe even loved Adam. But lately she'd begun to feel like she was in sugar shock. There was no doubt that in Cammie's long career with the opposite sex, no boy had ever been so wonderful to her. True, some might have been better in bed (Adam had been a virgin until Cammie had relieved him of that burden), or richer, or all-around sexier. But none of them had had his genuine character, his depth, his sensitivity.
Character? Depth? Sensitivity? Gawd. She wanted to gag all over again. Adam was the definitive good guy; she was the proverbial bad girl. And the truth was, bad boys were just so much … juicier.
But. The “but” was a killer. Any time she gave even a passing thought to the notion of breaking up with him, she felt sick to her stomach. Anxious, stressed, and so alone. He was inside her skin. She needed him the way she needed to breathe, needed someone to see the best in her. Even when she couldn't see it herself.
One of the reasons she'd been psyched about this trip with Adam was to see if she could bring out his naughtier side. If Adam could be just a little bad, maybe she could appreciate that he was usually a lot good.
Or maybe he could even just play at being bad. Fun and games. She glanced up at him and he smiled. No, he would never pull it off. Her cutthroat über-agent father was fond of saying that character was destiny, and bad-boyness just wasn't in Adam's character. Anyway, he'd never know about any of the thoughts she'd been having recently. It wasn't like she was
All Tease and No Please
C ammie Sheppard switched to her silver cat-shaped Foster Grant sunglasses—she was already bored with the pink Bebe glasses, but fortunately, she always traveled with two pairs. The late afternoon sun was glaring off the road as the black stretch limo cruised from McCarron Airport to the world-famous Las Vegas Strip. And then, beyond it, to the Palms Hotel. She couldn't help thinking that this ride in from the airport did not offer a favorable first impression of Sin City. Lining the boulevard were cheap motels, cheaper places to eat, the same kind of tchotchke stores that you'd find in Hollywood, only with a Vegas theme instead of Tinseltown. Billboards—dozens of them—advertised big hotels and the various over-the-hill stars playing off their name recognition there, just to have a steady gig. Also touted were the extravaganzas that only tourists from Des Moines would actually pay to see: the Folies Bergere at the Tropicana, the Cirque du Soleil at the MGM, and their pathetic moral equivalents at the Luxor and the Rio. Skimpy costumes, big breasts, long legs, all tease and no please.
And who could forget the headliners? Cher, who kept promising to retire but couldn't keep her butt off a stage—Cammie was ready to
pay
the woman to pack it in. Tom Jones? Engelbert Humperdinck? Puh-leeze. They'd been washed up even when her father and his high school friends had come out to Vegas.
Still, Cammie knew that Vegas had always been happening for Hollywood's young and hip, who skipped all the over-the-top tacky cheesy tourist shit. Or else reveled in the joy of mocking the tourists, an art form unto itself. They were all about private parties at VIP locales, special unadvertised after-hours shows that you had to know about, things like that.
The limo was a stretch job. The buttery leather seats were arranged facing one another. In between, a bar was tucked into one side and a digital sound system connected to a library of thousands of MP3s into the other. Cammie had been in dozens of limos just like it—but not with Adam. Now they sat next to each other, her body fitting easily against his.
“Ready for a great time?” he asked softly.
Cammie nodded and smiled up at him. He smiled back, leaned in, and tenderly kissed her forehead. Nice.
Only one problem. “Nice” and “Cammie Sheppard” weren't often used in the same sentence. She liked Adam. Maybe even loved Adam. But lately she'd begun to feel like she was in sugar shock. There was no doubt that in Cammie's long career with the opposite sex, no boy had ever been so wonderful to her. True, some might have been better in bed (Adam had been a virgin until Cammie had relieved him of that burden), or richer, or all-around sexier. But none of them had had his genuine character, his depth, his sensitivity.
Character? Depth? Sensitivity? Gawd. She wanted to gag all over again. Adam was the definitive good guy; she was the proverbial bad girl. And the truth was, bad boys were just so much … juicier.
But. The “but” was a killer. Any time she gave even a passing thought to the notion of breaking up with him, she felt sick to her stomach. Anxious, stressed, and so alone. He was inside her skin. She needed him the way she needed to breathe, needed someone to see the best in her. Even when she couldn't see it herself.
One of the reasons she'd been psyched about this trip with Adam was to see if she could bring out his naughtier side. If Adam could be just a little bad, maybe she could appreciate that he was usually a lot good.
Or maybe he could even just play at being bad. Fun and games. She glanced up at him and he smiled. No, he would never pull it off. Her cutthroat über-agent father was fond of saying that character was destiny, and bad-boyness just wasn't in Adam's character. Anyway, he'd never know about any of the thoughts she'd been having recently. It wasn't like she was
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