Page 1 of Just One More Night
CHAPTER ONE
INDIANAMARCH,CALLEDIndy by her loved ones and much filthier things by her lovers, landed in Prague on a gorgeous June afternoon, ready to face her destiny.
It had been two years since one night in Budapest had changed everything.
Two years since she had made a promise before flying standby back to New York, where she’d moved in with her far less free-spirited older sister—who never would have gone to Budapest in the first place and wouldn’t have gotten into the trouble Indy had no matter where she went.
Bristol was thegoodMarch sister.
She had recently gotten her doctorate after a lifetime of endless, serious, and committed studying. Indy, on the other hand, was committed to having fun. And while she was at it, living up—or down—to everyone’s expectations of the other March sister.
Notbad,she liked to say. Butbetter.
Especially because when she said things like that, and vamped it up, it made her sister roll her eyes. And then laugh in spite of herself.
Indy and Bristol had settled on these designations for themselves when they’d still been little girls in small-town Ohio. And all these years later, Indy still thought she’d made the better choice. She’d decided school was boring in roughly the fourth grade and had decreed that she had better things to do, leaving Bristol to study away to her heart’s content while she danced and partied and ran around just being silly, because she could.
Bristol would probably be off studying right this minute—because there were apparentlypostdoctorates for people who felt the one PhD wasn’t enough—if it weren’t for the little summer adventure Indy had sent her sister off on.An opportunity to discover the parts of you that aren’t all about your mind,at last, Indy had told her—but that was another story.
Indy smiled at the notion of studious, killjoy Bristol getting her freak on out there as her plane taxied toward the gate, bouncing a little on the tarmac. She couldn’t wait to see if her big sister finally loosened up a bit—and couldn’t really imagine what aloosened upBristol would look like. As the plane came to a rocking stop at the gate, she gathered up the small carry-on that was all she’d brought with her and held it on her lap, watching as all around her, people leapt to their feet and started dragging much heavier bags out of the overhead bins.
It always looked so unpleasant. And then the reward for all those heavy bags was that you then had to lug them around with you. Where was the fun in that?
Indy never troubled with much baggage, figurative or literal. After college she’d backpacked around for a couple of years, but never with one of those massive packs that some people toted across the planet that made them look like unfortunate tortoises. Their packs were always seventeen times their body weight, the better to mark them to all and sundry as a tourist, and barely fit in the narrow, often cobbled streets that they were always trundling along in. Not to mention, they might as well have worn neon signs inviting any predators to take a swing their way.
No thanks, she thought now, though she smiled nicely enough at the woman next to her and her two enormous, overstuffed suitcases.
That wasn’t how Indy operated. She was less about neon signs that weighed her down and more about going with the flow. And she’d never had an issue with predators.
Well. She stood up from her seat when she could finally step out into the aisle and considered. That wasn’tentirelytrue, was it?
Indy had made up no itinerary, back in her world-traveling backpacker days or even today. Becauseitinerarieswere boring. They nailed you down to a time and a place and ascheduleand Indy was all about never, ever being boring, nailed down to anything, or, God forbid, the kind of person who couldn’t grab a drink without consulting seventeen sticker-laden planners and her phone’s calendar app. She’d watched Bristol—whose whole life was about schedules and responsibility and tedious meetings about any number of inane things—whittle away her life in tiny little recorded increments on hundreds of planner pages, but Indy had never wanted any part of that kind of nonsense. She had barely made it through college. Not because she was dumb, but because there were always so many more delicious things to do than study. Or sit in a yawn-worthy lecture. Or write dreary essays that were never about the things that interested her.
Those being, in no particular order: life. Sex. Fun.
Indy wanted to squeeze every last bit of the good stuff out of every single day, then roll herself around in it until it became who she was. On a cellular level. What else could possibly be the point?
Sadly, that was not, it turned out, the kind of mission statement the average employer liked to see on a résumé. Or the average landlord liked to hear about when rent was due, so it was a good thing for Indy that Bristol was always so dependable.
Still, Indy never had too much trouble finding work. Or getting laid, for that matter, and the two often twisted together in ways she was sure she could probably hashtag about—if she weren’t too busy living to live tweet. She didn’t have any particular airs and was perfectly happy to take a waitressing job here or a temp job there. Just as she was happy to roll under one man in the morning and ride a different one that night. Jobs and men were an endlessly renewable resource, in her experience. There were always, always more when a girl was game for whatever came her way.
Her sister and her perfectly lovely parents back in Ohio did not understand Indy’s approach to life—and only Bristol knew the more salacious details, thank you. All her parents knew was that Indyhad trouble settling down.
Her mother thought she needed a man. Indy had to bite her tongue every Christmas to keep from saying things like,don’t worry, Mom, I’ve had many.She didn’t think that would shock the unflappable Margie March. Nothing could, in her experience. But it would open up her personal life to conversation, and Indy always figured that was a bad idea all around.
Particularly these past two years when, she could admit, her usual carefree, hedonistic attitude had become something a good deal more...manic.
It was true. She’d had something to prove, hadn’t she?
Indy shivered a bit in the cab that drove her from the airport down into the old city. Prague spread out before her like a fairytale, but not the kind of fairytale that warmed the hearts of wannabe Disney princesses. Bristol had been the one who loved those happy ever afters when they’d been girls. She’d always longed for the Prince Charmings and the perfect kisses.
But Indy had been far more intrigued by the Big, Bad Wolf. She’d seen no reason for Little Red Riding Hood to waste her time swinging an axe or even getting a passing huntsman to do the same on her behalf.
Not when there were so many other things to do in the dark.
She shivered again, even though it was warm in the cab. The truth was, Indy had been aching like this since she’d left Budapest. It had only gotten worse over time. Her nipples were always so tight they hurt. Her pussy was alwayssowet. Sometimes she could simply clench her thighs together and make her clit throb, or even get herself off sometimes, but none of it was enough.
None of it was near enough.