The Stars Lie

“Elise, if you don’t want to go tonight, you don’t have to. I’ll understand if you say you’re not up to it,” Carissa Edwards said to her best friend Elise, a sympathetic smile on her face as she studied the girl standing in front of her. Elise was only nineteen, young with no life experience under her belt. That wasn’t to say that Carissa had life experience, but she had seen a little more of how harsh the world could be at her twenty-three years of age. Elise had just gone through her first major breakup, and Carissa, being the good friend that she was, could only think of one way to remedy the broken heart the bastard had given her best friend.

A night out in Vegas. They’d spent all day driving to the supposed Sin City, and now that it was nighttime, both girls could say they were impressed with the view from their hotel room at the Luxor. But as it got closer and closer to the time that Carissa had decided they’d head out to the clubs, Elise began changing her mind. She had never been drunk, and she’d never gone into a club. This was a lot of firsts for one night, and she didn’t know if this was how she wanted to fix what had been broken. But she could tell that Carissa was really looking forward to this, and she didn’t want to ruin her friend’s good time, especially when the older girl had been there for her through so much shit in the last few days. She put a semi-sincere smile on her face and shook her head, sitting on the edge of her bed to pull her stiletto heels on. They had been mandated by Carissa, and even if Elise had never worn such shoes before, she had to admit that she liked the way they looked on her feet.

“No, its fine,” she smiled at her friend. “I really don’t mind doing this. I’m just kind of nervous,” she admitted before standing up. She wobbled a little bit on her feet, but she didn’t fall over, and instead smiled at her friend, who nodded in approval.

“That dress is going to knock every man in the club dead tonight,” Carissa grinned at her friend. “And you don’t need to be nervous. You have me, and I have mace. I won’t let anything happen to my best friend,” she reassured Elise, who nodded. The two of them didn’t say anything else as they

-x-

There were more people in the club that Carissa had chosen to take them to than Elise had ever seen gathered in one place before in her entire life. The music was loud and booming, though it was tolerable, with rock songs and recent pop songs that she recognized from the radio blaring through the speakers. Bright neon lights were flashing throughout the club, almost like a rave, but more refined than that. There were a lot of people dancing, though there were also people sitting in booths and at tables that were spread out in the large club.

“So, this is what Vegas nightlife is like,” she thought to herself with a nervous smile as Carissa led her towards a table she had spotted that looked to be empty. Just as the two of them were closing in on the chairs, two men walked over to it as well. Elise felt her heart skip a beat when she looked at the man standing in front of her. It was almost as if everyone else in the room vanished, and it was just him standing in front of her.

The man standing in front of her was taller than her five foot five frame by at least five inches, making him six feet tall easily. He had a snarky, know-it-all grin plastered on his bronzed skin, and aviator sunglasses covering eyes that she couldn’t see. His shoulders were broad, and she was sure that if she felt his stomach, there wouldn’t be an inch of fat anywhere on him. The man was literally built of muscle, and he was definitely a very good-looking man.

“Is this your table?” Carissa asked them with a flirty smile, though it wasn’t the man that Elise had checked out that her friend was interested. Instead, Carissa was looking at the man’s companion, a shorter, dark-haired man with high cheekbones and colorful tattoos inked into his strong arms.

“No,” the slighter of the two shook his head. “Is it yours?”

“Not yet,” Carissa smirked at them before placing her purse on the table. “But it is now. But since you reached it at the same time we did, why don’t we share it? I don’t see another open table, and I’d hate to put you out.”

The men looked at each other, and it seemed to only take them a few minutes before they nodded, taking the two chairs that were across the way from Carissa and Elise’s chairs. The four of them sat down, and Elise blushed when she realized that she was sitting directly across from the man she’d been staring at.

Her blush turned even darker when she saw that his eyes were focused solely on her, as if there was no one else in the club with them. Like it was just the two of them in existence. Carissa and the other man were already engaged in conversation, and Elise didn’t want to annoy her friend when it had been so long since she’d had a night for fun. She was about to make an excuse to run to the bathroom when she felt a callused hand rest on top of hers on the table. She looked up and saw the stranger smiling at her. This time he wasn’t smirking like he knew everything. This time, he was giving her a genuinely friendly smile.

“What’s with the blush?” He asked her with a humored tone of voice. At his words, Elise felt her face heat up even more, and he let out a hearty laugh before shaking his head, still leaving his hand on top of hers. “I’m not making fun of you. I think it’s really kind of cute. Innocence in a city like this is hard to come by,” he told her with a devil’s grin before licking over his bottom lip.

Elise just returned the smile, looking up at him. A sense of humor was something she found calming, and this man definitely had that going for him. He seemed like he was too good to be true. Not only was he good-looking, but he also had a sense of humor. He had to have some kind of downfall.

“I’m Matt,” he introduced himself when she didn’t speak. She looked up, and studied him. He definitely looked like a Matt, she finally decided. He pulled the aviators off of his eyes and set them on top of his head before meeting her gaze directly. His eyes were a beautiful shade of hazel that could only be described as caramel mixed with honey, with some sage green thrown in random spots that seemed to light them up.

“It’s nice to meet you, Matt,” Elise said in a small voice, reaching her hand up and shaking the hand that he’d previously had placed on top of hers. “I’m Elise.”

He grinned at her name, and nodded his head. Matt couldn’t say he’d ever seen a girl quite like Elise in a place like Vegas before. She was beautiful, though not in the way that magazines and photographers would say. Her face seemed radiant without the help of makeup, and her eyes were a soft shade of denim grey that would appear to be bland on any other face. She had a small body, but wide hips and nice legs, he noticed as he nonchalantly looked towards her legs. And they looked fucking amazing in the stiletto heels that she was wearing.

“Well, Elise, have you ever been in Vegas before?” Matt asked her pleasantly, though he could already safely assume just by looking at her that she had indeed not been to Vegas before. He smirked when she shook her head, biting her bottom lip, and he stood up before looking over at Elise’s friend and his own, who were completely enamored in one another. “If your friend doesn’t mind, I’d like to dance with you for a little bit.”

He was bluffing, and when his friend scoffed and looked at him with a dubious smirk, Matt knew that he could see right through it. Matt just wanted an opportunity to get closer to Elise; to feel her body with his hands, and to feel her holding on to him as they moved to the beat of whatever song was playing on the speaker system. Her friend nodded, shoving Elise’s shoulder lightly.

“You should definitely go with him,” her friend encouraged her before looking at Matt. “You’ll take care of her, right? Brian and I are thinking about heading back to mine and Elise’s hotel, so I want to make sure she’s in good hands.”

“I’ll make sure she stays out of trouble,” Matt nodded friendlily. Brian backed him up, and Matt had never been so grateful to have a friend like him in his life.

“He’s a good man, Elise,” Brian told her with a friendly smile. “He won’t do anything stupid. You’re safe with him.”

Elise nodded, brushing some hair behind her ear. She didn’t exactly feel comfortable splitting up with her best friend for the rest of the night, knowing that her friend was going to have sex with a complete stranger. But she didn’t want to ruin Carissa’s good time, and so she went along with it, smiling at Matt.

“Of course. That sounds like a plan,” she told her friend before taking Matt’s hand when he offered it to her. He led her away from Brian and Carissa, who were starting to get their things together to leave, and Elise felt a slight pang of worry in her stomach, wondering if something bad would happen tonight. Matt squelched that feeling almost immediately when he pulled her closer to his side.

“If you don’t want to dance, we can just find another table or something,” he said smoothly into her ear, pushing some hair out of the way. Elise couldn’t help but shiver slightly as his hot breath hit her neck, and she shook her head as she looked at him.

“No, I’m fine. I’m just worried about Riss,” she said. It was half a truth, in the very least. She had never seen the appeal of having one-night-stands with men you’d never see again, though Carissa had a different view on things. She knew her friend had frequent one-night-stands when she wasn’t in a relationship, but it didn’t change the fact that she was one of Elise’s best friends, and she didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. She’d heard the horror stories and the news reports, and she didn’t want her friend to become a statistic. Matt sensed her worry, and patted her back softly.

“Bri’s a good guy,” he told her with a smile that told her he was being honest. “He wouldn’t hurt someone, especially not a lady. He’ll take care of her. I promise,” he told her quietly. Elise bit her bottom lip as she looked up at him before she finally nodded.

“Alright,” she agreed with him. He smirked, and then grabbed her hand again, leading her towards the dance floor. There were a lot of couples crowded on to the floor, so he had to pull her closer so he wouldn’t lose her in the crowd. He started to help her figure out the moves, grabbing her hands and placing them on his shoulders while he grabbed her hips. It wasn’t how most other people in the club were dancing, he knew, but then again, Elise wasn’t most other people. He could already tell she was unique in some way, and he wasn’t going to treat her like just some fresh piece of ass.

Elise had never done dancing even remotely to what she and Matt were doing now. Where she’d grown up, the waltz was considered a dance, or possibly the foxtrot. But she’d never done ‘club dancing,’ and even though it embarrassed her to admit it, she was getting a little turned on from the feeling of Matt’s body pressed tightly up to her front, his strong hands holding on to her hips as he moved them together.

“You’re good at dancing,” he murmured into his ear as he touched her hips softly, sliding his hands higher instead of lower, like she’d been expecting him to. She blushed when she looked up to him and saw him watching her, and then stopped moving. She wasn’t drunk, and she wasn’t high. But she was definitely turned on, and Matt was looking at her in the same way that she knew she was looking at him. He seemed to sense that her mood had changed, and he grinned once more before he just stopped and held her hands in his. “If I’m coming on too strong—”

“You’re not,” Elise smiled up at him. Her heart was beating a lot harder in her chest than it normally did, and her palms had gotten sweaty as Matt held them. She was considering something she’d never seen the appeal of. Never before had she had a one-night-stand, although she wasn’t so innocent that she’d never had sex. She knew arousal when she felt it, and she knew she was aroused right now. She knew she wanted Matt, and looking at the way he was studying her, he wanted her, too.

“I’m staying at this hotel,” he murmured into her ear, lacing their fingers as he grazed his lips across Elise’s cheek. He knew he should feel guilty for wanting her. She wasn’t his type. She didn’t have fake boobs or blonde hair, like most of the women he consorted with. Instead, she was natural in every way, and she had that graceful sort of awkwardness about her. She was far too innocent for a man like him, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d never been a man with a strong will, and right now, he wanted Elise.

Elise nodded, biting her bottom lip. Matt saw that she hadn’t changed her mind, and he grinned as he started to lead the two of them away from the club and towards the lobby of the hotel part of the casino. The walk wasn’t long, and the ride in the elevator took longer. The second they were in the privacy of the elevator, Matt had her positioned between the wall and himself, and he was kissing her. Elise didn’t try to stop him, and as the minutes ticked by as they waited for the elevator to reach his floor, his touch seemed hotter and hotter on her skin.

There was finally a sharp ding as the elevator doors opened a few moments later, and he led her down the hallway quickly towards the door that led into his room. She was too taken with desire to be with him that she didn’t care how high above the Vegas Strip they were, and she didn’t care about the killer view from the windows at the end of the hallway. She just cared about having Matt fulfill her need now.

He fumbled with the keycard for a few moments before he finally managed to open it, and he smirked when she pushed him inside. It wasn’t like what she usually acted like, but then again, Matt was bringing out a different side of her; a side she hadn’t known that she possessed.

He took her into his bedroom and quickly closed the door behind them as she walked over to the bed and sat down, pulling her shoes and dress off quickly. By the time Matt turned around to look at her from the door, she was only wearing the lacy black panties and bra that she’d put on underneath her dress earlier, in her own hotel room.

A low, guttural moan fell from his lips as he quickly stripped his own clothes off, and Elise knew then that there would be no foreplay tonight. She didn’t mind that, though. She sighed contently as he moved over to the bed, and smirked when the bed buckled just a little as he positioned himself over her.

He wasted no time in covering her mouth with his again, unable to get enough of her taste as his hands roamed every inch of her body, taking in the soft curves and contours of her skin, setting it on fire with his callused fingertips. She panted into his mouth when he moved his lips from hers and trailed them down her chin and jaw to her neck, and then lower still to the valley between her breasts.

“Matt, stop teasing me,” she muttered to him, making him look up from her stomach. He smirked at her before sliding his way back up her body, and he dropped his boxers before reaching into his pants on the floor to grab a condom out of his wallet. She helped him to roll it over himself when he’d gotten the package opened, and she smiled up at him as he positioned himself above her entrance. She was more than prepared enough for him, and he held on to her shoulders when he pushed in slowly.

Elise groaned loudly at the feeling of him pushing inside of her, and held on to his shoulders as he started to move slowly. Both of them knew this was a one-night thing. Or at least, that’s what they thought as they moved together. Both of them were too concentrated on the sheer pleasure of being together to notice his condom split when he came, and they were both too exhausted afterwards to notice that he had released inside of her without any protection. When Elise woke up a few hours later and left to return to her own hotel to make sure Carissa was alright, she was feeling too good to think about the possibility that Matt might play a bigger part in her life. And they were both thought they were far too young to think that both of their lives had just changed.