Random Acts of Fantasy (7 page)

Hell, I liked orgasms, period, so whatever he was about to do was just fine.

But good God, man,
do
it.

“Close your eyes.”

Oh. This was getting even better. I did as told and then—

“You have the best ass on the planet,” he murmured in my right ear as he leaned over me, the head of his cock pressing gently into my folds, the heat of his muscled belly resting hard against my curves.

“You say the most amazing things,” I whispered back, wet and pumped for him, my brain pulsing now like my nether regions. My belly hot and in need of release.

The stroking began then, a soft lapping that felt all too much like a tongue against my wetness. As Trevor began doing something to make that happen just below my clit, he eased himself into me, inch by inch, my pussy walls clenching down—fast—so ready.

So needy.

“What is that?” I asked, reaching down.

“Uh uh. No touching!” he ordered. A steely tone in my Trevor’s voice made a zing shoot through me.
Oooh
. He was being the master. I loved this game.

“This is Joe,” he said softly, stroking that…
thing
…up from where the top of his cock entered me to my clit, the maddening rush of restraint fleeing my body so fast.

The orgasm slammed me hard, my breath catching as I flooded into the moans and cries that normally took so long to elicit from me. Trevor began to hammer me hard, long, deep strokes exactly what I needed as his thighs tightened, and I knew he was achingly close, too.

“God, Trevor, I—” Words failed me as he somehow maintained those dizzying strokes on my clit, so like Joe’s tongue, and still pumped from behind, using the exact right angle to make me insane. Thrashing, I let go entirely, my mind running off with my sense of propriety as I became primal, my communing with Trevor so basic and animalistic it made me cry out with the sheer joy of connection.

And because fucking felt so soothingly good.

We were on top of the world, wet smacking noises and complete abandon all making us dance with our bodies, and Trevor came in a rush. Hot pushes combined with a full-body tensing. Then hands that dug into my hips as he picked up the tempo at the end told me he was finishing, the strokes becoming long and drawn out as he shuddered, then leaned against me, chest to my back.

The strokes on my clit stopped. The air was full of our warmth, our release, our panting and gasps as we came back to center.

Center is
soooo
overrated.

“What’s the name of that island? The guy on the phone didn’t say, did he?”

Trevor smiled nice and wide, a Cheshire Cat grin that I could feel deep inside me. “Oh, yes, he did.” He just shook his head slightly and chuckled.

I smacked him on the chest as he drew out the suspense. “C’mon! What is it?”

After taking a deep breath and frowning just enough to look a little bewildered, then intrigued, he said just one word:

“Eden.”

Chapter Four

Joe

I managed, through sheer force of will and a snort of crushed ADHD meds, to get that final paper in on time, and here I was, at Logan Airport with the motley crew, getting ready to board our plane for Miami.

The journey would then continue with a private plane to the island. The contract had checked out, and we hadn’t been asked for a penny for the travel arrangements. They’d even sent up pre-paid Visa cards for incidentals and meals. One slick operation. Darla couldn’t stop squealing about how it was raining money from
Fantasy Island
, and while I’d thought she was a bit gauche about it, over time it started to look like she was right.

And, besides—gauche was good when it made you smile. I hadn’t seen her this happy since the first time she’d seen us perform after we convinced her to move out to Boston. Magic. She looked like magic personified, as if a muse had come forward in time from ancient Greece and arrived in a seedy downtown bar by the colleges, crazy-wild hair and bright green eyes full of nothing but…

Shit.

I almost said “love,” didn’t I?

I was sunk.

I’d only been home for four days, and with Christmas coming, time was tight. After two days of hot monkey sex so frequent and hard I had chafing marks on my dick that spelled out “SOS,” the day of travel was a relief. At least Darla couldn’t hump me on a plane.

Hm.

Wait.

The Mile-High Club hadn’t occurred to me.

Bzzz
. Fuck. That had to be my mom again. Learning to ignore her had become like a second full-time stint for me, an education of sorts that began with not answering her texts. I was so close to blocking her, but doing so meant she’d block me.

From money.

I put up with it, but I was getting so desperate. $10,000 was a way to buy my independence a little. Just a little. If this gig turned into more gigs, or a tour, then I’d have an excuse to quit...er, take a leave of absence from law school and be financially independent.

Win-win.

Add in a Mile-High Club stint with Darla and make that win-fucking-win.

You’ll be home for Christmas, right?
Mom asked for, oh, the umpteenth time.

Not if my plane crashes
, I texted back.

My phone rang. I ignored it. Three calls later and the TSA dude started glaring at me. We were in line and Darla and Trevor were arguing about whether some football player who trash talked a team was justified or not.

I finally relented and picked up the phone. “Mom?” I made fake sounds like the line was breaking up. “—can’t—you—”

“That doesn’t work on me anymore, you faker,” she said in that tight tone reserved for being pissed. “Don’t make jokes about dying. Please. That plane joke made me reach for a Xanax.”

The weather report made her reach for a Xanax. Starbucks running out of peppermint lattes made her reach for a Xanax. When everything made her turn to the twenty-first-century version of Mother’s Little Helper, why not throw in a morbid plane-crash joke?

“If my plane crashes, will you stop texting me?” I got the evil eye from a TSA agent. And then found ten more of them lasered in on me.

“Ixnay on the ayn-play ash-cray okes-jay,” Darla said in the worst pig Latin attempt
ever
.

A man standing behind us wearing a University of Michigan sweatshirt, salt-and-pepper hair thick and wavy, whispered to his blond wife, “Is she speaking Arabic?” The alarm in his voice was more fury than fear. My gut tightened and I set my bag down, Mom’s tinny voice fading into the background as I took a good look at the couple, sensing trouble.

She looked me up and down, a cougar look in her eyes, heavy makeup covering wrinkles and bringing out crystal-blue eyes that were predatory. “He looks dark enough to be an Arab,” she whispered, pronouncing the last word like
AY-rab
.

“I’m an American,” I assured her. “Born and raised in Boston. I have relatives who came over on the
Mayflower
.”

The woman’s eyes lit up. “We were there last week. Lovely little seaside town with a wonderful cafe and that little natural foods and soap store—”

“Then what about
her
?” the husband said, flinging a thumb toward Darla.

“I know you’re too stupid to know the difference between pig Latin and Arabic,” Darla said, “because anyone who roots for Michigan over the Buckeyes must be.” Darla’s eyes were glaring with such intent at the front of the guy’s shirt I thought she was trying to make it spontaneously combust through sheer force of will. Reminded me not to piss her off or I’d find my chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

Caused by her eyes.

“Joey!” My mom’s voice came over the phone as I watched the brewing war, my lovely blond, unruly woman taking on these Midwesterners who looked at us with confusion. What did they see?

“Gotta go, Mom. No plane crashes. No worries, and no more phone calls and texts! See you December 23.” Click. I ended the call and turned the fucking phone off, like pinching an umbilical cord.

“Can we get through one public event without having an altercation?” Trevor asked, his arm stretching around Darla as he tried to smooth things out. They were both blond, Trevor tall and muscled next to Darla’s lush figure, the two of them more comfortable with each other after my semester of living apart. He was such an opportunist.
I
wanted to be the one touching her.

Starved for more, I’d been interested less in sex (shut up) this past few days and more in just being together. The rush of the trip, the planning, practicing our gig routine, and being treated like a stud during a mare’s time in heat left me no room to breathe. In fact, this was the first time since August where I felt like I owned my own body and mind.

And now a Wolverine fan was yelling at my woman.

“You know how you find Ohio from Michigan? Go south until you smell it and east until you step in it.”

“That’s a West Virginia joke, you jackass,” Darla shot back. The line began to move and we all kicked our duffle bags accordingly. Instruments had been checked when we got to the airport.

“Ohio, West Virginia. Potato, potah-to….”

“Are we seriously standing in front of a TSA agent who could have us getting prostate exams instead of luggage exams in three seconds flat, arguing over which state in flyover land is less shitty than the other?” I asked.

“You ever been to Michigan, son?” the man asked me.

“No.”

“Been to Ohio?”

I couldn’t help but crack a nostalgic grin. “Yes.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said, shaking his head with a sigh.

Darla held up a palm. “I am-yay un-day ith-way is-ay onversation-cay.”

Amy started snickering. Then Sam.

“Aitor-trays!” Darla hissed.

A white-shirted TSA agent came over to us, sending a zing of fear from the base of my throat down to my balls. The only thing that could fuck up this trip was, well…

Happening right before my eyes.

Thank God I’d scrapped my plan to bring some outstanding recreational hallucinogenics with me. Last time I flew I’d managed it, but this time I’d decided to play it safe.

Darla’s big mouth, though…

“And if anyone’s giving Joe a prostate exam today, it’ll be me,” Darla declared in a voice that was just loud enough to make people three lines over turn and cringe. “A semester apart gives me the right.”

Snickers turned to groans of disgust. “Oh, man,” Sam whispered, while Amy suddenly became very interested in a game of
Candy Crush
on her phone. That’s right. Candy fucking Crush.

Something was off. Darla was on edge and jerky, bouncing like a little kid with three espressos in him, waiting in line to see Santa Claus before heading over for a day at Disney World. A little too excited and overstimulated.

A lick of guilt hit me. Why hadn’t I paid more attention to her? Something was wrong.

Blessedly, the line moved quickly and we made our way to the scanners without incident.

Until Darla.

Darla

Here I was, shoeless and hopeless, overcome by despair and fear, a river of anxiety so toxic running through me, like a Koch Brothers company infesting West Virginia’s water supply.

Because I had a secret Joe and Trevor didn’t know:

I’d never been on a plane in my life.

Stop laughing—when in the hell was I supposed to get on a fucking plane? In between standing behind a counter asking people whether they wanted menthol cigarettes or the 2-for-1 sale on the cheapies and taping plastic sheeting to the trailer’s windows in winter? Seriously. I’d been on a bus. Buses are different.

Buses don’t randomly fall out of the damn sky when they run out of gas.

I knew, in theory, that it was safer to fly than to drive, but that’s like saying, statistically speaking, it’s safer to go find a mother in a crowded mall when you are a kid and get lost. With my luck, I’d go find Andrea Yates or Susan Smith.

So pardon me for thinking that this whole “aerodynamic transportation” thing was a bit overwhelming. Riding a Greyhound on a class trip to Niagara Falls was about as sophisticated as I got with organized public transportation. Uncle Mike always just figured out a route for me on big rigs if I needed to go somewhere farther than my old car would take me.

The only people I knew back in Peters who flew regularly were the rich kids, and by “rich” I meant mostly the ones whose parents actually owned the businesses the rest of us worked for, like Mr. Hipkin, the gas station owner. Saw him once or twice a year, but his son was three grades ahead of me in school, and you can bet your ass little Mikey never cleaned up dog vomit in front of the Corn Nuts display.