Random Acts of Fantasy (15 page)

Was it this building? This place? Something in the air? Maybe we’d all accidentally swallowed some of Joe’s pills. I should have been exhausted after all that travel and the job of managing Darla, but instead I was pumped. Hyped. Ready to take on our role here and to check out the island, to have some fun and bring some awesome to the stage.

Whatever change was happening to me and Liam was welcome, as far as I was concerned.

I liked it.

“It bother you?” I asked Liam.

A half-smile stuck to his face. “Damn if I know. It’s just…weird.”

“You keep saying that.”

“I keep feeling it.” His frown faded and he blinked, running a hand through his hair.

Darla came back over and the six of us convened near a fountain that I could stare at for the next hour and still not take in its full majesty. “We’re checked in.”

“Where are the room keys?”

She handed us little stickers, like nicotine patches. “Here. Just put it anywhere on your body and it automatically opens your room.”

Five sets of eyebrows shot up. “We’re microchipped?” Joe sputtered. “What the hell is in that patch? Soma?”

“What’s Soma?” Darla asked in a dreamy voice, her face tipped up to the sky, taking in the artistry of the ceiling. Could she be more lovely?

“Haven’t you read
Brave New World
?” Joe didn’t seem to be as affected by…whatever this was. He was Joe, sharp edges and all.

“Nope. You read
Laid Bear
? Good book. The bear shifts into a human and they have sex a lot.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “You’re equating one of your mom’s romance novels with Aldous Huxley?”

“How can you two fight in a place like this?” Amy asked. Her face was luminous. Sam was a lucky man. My cock twitched and I quickly turned my attention to Darla, because I wasn’t going there. Amy was…off limits. Always and forever.

But damn if every woman in this place didn’t look good enough to eat. In every way possible.

“Cut the crap and let’s go find our rooms. Then we need to talk to whoever is in charge of facilities and ask about equipment setup, rehearsals, sound checks, how they want this presented, speakers,” Joe cut in. Ever the businessman. Which was fine with me, because I didn’t want to do any of that right now.

I wanted to grab Darla, find a quiet corner of beach, and make love in the sun all day. And have Joe join us halfway through.

She smiled at me as if I’d just said that aloud, and just as my dick responded, my heart melted. Everything here was larger than life. The walk down the hallway made me feel like I was in a Gatsby movie. My parents had taken me to plenty of luxurious places with Persian-rug-lined hallways and century-old carved oak walls. None of that impressed me.

It was the feel of the place. Darla stared at everything with her mouth wide open, eyes like saucers. I knew she didn’t get out of Peters—ever—so this had to be a thousand times more overwhelming for her than it was for me.

I needed to remember that.

So deep in my own thoughts I wasn’t paying attention to everyone, I almost plowed over poor Amy as the entire gang came to an abrupt halt.

“Trevor!” Liam called back. He, Joe, and Sam were clustered around a series of framed photos on the wall between guest rooms.

“Yeah?” What could be so interesting in a hallway?

“It’s Taddy! Holy shit, Taddy did her centerfold here!” 

A zing of hotness filled every inch of my skin and I pushed past Darla and Amy to see if Liam was serious. He was right.

“Who’s Taddy?” Darla asked. 

All four of us guys laughed. “You don’t know?” I asked, amazed.

“Why would Taddy be plastered all over the walls here?” Joe asked, his voice lulled into the same sense of reverence that we all had. Sam just stared, saying nothing, his hands tapping at his sides. 

Amy spoke. “If you bothered to read the words—oh, hey, look! There are words next to the picture. Who knew?—you’d see that they shot this spread ten years ago, here. On the island. Apparently the centerfold is a big deal.” She and Darla shared a look that made it clear they didn’t understand the enormity of that particular event. 

My opinion of this place just went up a level.  

“Which room is ours?” Liam asked, eyes still on the framed picture. 

“They didn’t say. You just—” We walked past a room and a tiny nameplate near the door went from blank to Liam’s name, and the door opened on its own.

We all stopped cold.

“Did you do that?” he asked, pointing.

Darla shook her head. “Nope. Must be that patch thing.” None of us had put them on. We each held the little piece of paper they were stuck to.

“Is this
The Twilight Zone
or what?” Liam said.

“If this is
Twilight
, watch out for sparkly vampires,” Joe cracked.

“In a place like this…” Darla trailed off as she looked at the fine molding, paintings that probably cost more than my house in Sudborough, the lavish interior that stretched on and on for what seemed like miles.

“Well?” Sam said, shoving Liam a little too hard. “You too afraid to go in?”

“Chicken?” I asked.

“Where? You bring Mavis?” Darla asked, snickering. “Where’d you hide her?” She patted my ass.

Everyone erupted into laughter.

They would never, ever let me live that one down. I patted her ass in return and upped it, sliding my hand up her thigh from behind, making her squirm.

And then I walked down the hall, waving my little patch, waiting for—

Open sesame.

Darla

I could pull up eight feet of carpet in this hallway and sell it on the black market back home and have enough money to buy Mama a real house. This place was unreal.

And I mean that.

Unreal. Like something from the greatest movie set ever, except this was reality. Seriously real. It wasn’t fake or made up. We were living in some sort of alternate world where marble steps and fancy carved teak and oak adorned everyfuckingthing.

And they didn’t get the furniture from no Rent-A-Center, that’s for sure.

Trevor triggered something in the door to one of the guestrooms—excuse me,
suites
—and the door opened. I waved my little patch all over, wandering about seven doors down, and…nothing.

Same with Joe.

Trevor walked in the open door and Joe closed the door behind him.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

Joe held up one finger, then waved his patch.

Click. The door opened.

Aha. We three were sharing a room. Someone had done their homework.

Big time.

I looked down the hall—Liam had his own room, and it looked like Sam and Amy shared one. How did they know? Promoters didn’t care about the personal relationships in a band. Just didn’t want that shit overflowing into the performance.

But here? The people who ran Eden seemed to know way, way too much about us. This was getting creepy.

Luxuriously, fabulously creepy. I could handle it for five days, right?

If I could fly on the Giant Metal Tube of Death and have a sexy tie-dye session with Joe after eating elephant tranquilizers, then I could manage this.

Joe stood in the open doorway to our room. “You have to get in here,” he said in a low growl, walking over to me and grabbing my arm. With a lurch, I was across the threshold.

This was like a blend between a French palace and a Las Vegas penthouse suite. The room had a swimming pool in it.
In
it. A pool about the size of ten king-size beds shoved together, and little waves lapped at the surface. A trickle of water running down the wall wasn’t because of a busted pipe, but from some manmade waterfall, the clear glass wall leading down to a fish pond. A fish pond inside this room.

You could fit half a football field in here.

Trevor came around a corner, eyes exploding. “You. Have. To. See. This.” I followed, Joe practically running. You didn’t often see Joe impressed by anything, so my sense of the surreal was correct. This was way bigger than anything we’d all experienced.

It was nice not to be the inexperienced rube for once.

Trevor held open a heavy door and we entered a room with its lights turned down low. My eyes took a few seconds to adjust, and then—
whoa
.

A full recording studio. Professional setup, with the sound box and the guys’ instruments all organized exactly in the blueprint they used onstage when they performed. Someone had
really
done their homework, and it made me smile.

Because life isn’t like this. No one takes the time to look at all the layers and make them fit so your experience and emotions are optimized to the fullest.

Someone here had done that—and not just with the band stuff.

With all of us.

It felt…creepy. But good. Is creepy-good a feeling? If not, it should be.

Joe emitted a low whistle. “This must’ve cost a fortune.”

“I don’t think the person who owns this island has any problems with spending a fortune,” Trevor added, practically jumping up and down with joy as he touched and checked the equipment, the instruments, the walls. His chest was heaving with excitement, and the deep rumble of his voice as he expressed his glee made me wet and wanting.

Hot damn.

“I’m going to find the bathroom,” I announced, all ladylike and shit. What I wanted to do was fuck them both, but I had an idea, and it didn’t involve the little couch in the lounge area next to the sound box in the recording room.

The Recording Room. Now we had rooms I was naming?

Sure beat my Purple Passion Place back home.

The bathroom made me scream. My shriek brought Joe and Trevor running.

“The shower is bigger than my entire trailer back home!”

And it almost was. Twelve gold nozzles popped out of the upper edge of the tiled mosaic walls at different angles, and there were two detachable shower heads. Two! Where would you aim two of those?

Oh. The thought made me…

“I am feeling very, very dirty right now,” Trevor whispered in my ear, pulling my hair back from my ear and sliding his hand along the waistband of my pants. Joe came on over and began rubbing my back under my shirt, which he dispensed with faster than you can say “Eden.”

“You are?” I turned to Joe and pressed my bare breasts against him, sliding to get just enough friction to make my nipples nice and tight, my hips pressed against his basket, his groan all I needed to hear.

Trevor stepped back and worked the shower mechanism. It looked like you needed a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering to turn it on. Somehow he did, and hot, steamy spray filled the glass-walled shower.

“I’m awfully dirty, too,” I murmured in Joe’s ear, nipping at the lobe. He pulled away and stripped naked, giving me a fantastic show.

One of the downsides of being in a long-term relationship with someone is that they never undress you for sex after, say, the tenth time or so. The clothes become your job. No one ever says it aloud, and it’s not like one of you says “Hey, I’m too impatient/lazy/whatever to slowly tease you and strip you nice and slow,” but that’s what happens.

Watching Joe made me want to do the slow undressing thing to him, but Trevor’s naked cock shoving against my cleft nice and fast kind of put a damper on that.

These guys were ready. Judging from the tingling need deep down inside, right where Trevor’s hands were sliding as Joe undid the clasp on my pants, I was, too.

“Mmmm,” I moaned as my pants pooled at my ankles and I stepped out of them, the steam filling the entire room now, the glitter of water on glass and gold like sunshine. My heart, my clit, my core all sang with anticipation at the hot glide of their hands on my body, and my own palms’ hungry need for their skin melded into one big, wet, well…

Dream.

We moved as one tangle of sizzling skin and sultry want, this passion so big it couldn’t be contained in our bodies, Trevor’s tongue parting my lips as Joe guided us to the shower wall, the click of the door opening and the rush of fine mist barely registering. My skin pinpricked with the shock of the hot spikes of water, and I gasped.

I wasn’t sure if that was from the sensation of the spray or from Trevor’s fingers finding my clit, and I sure wasn’t going to waste any part of my consciousness trying to sort it all out. My body wanted theirs, pressing against their erections, one against my mons, the other pushing up against my ass, the pleasure of two chests against my torso like being pressed into service to a god of lust.

Connection was so much more than flesh, though the way Trevor strummed my little red nub was the kind of connection a woman could enjoy forever and always, my own hand finding Joe’s cock, ready and beautiful, like a work of art. I couldn’t see it; my view of everything was obscured by clouds of steam and mist, the effect like something my mind conjured in a deep reverie.