“You seem awfully happy, Gilligan.” He noticed.
“Why wouldn’t I be? You’re actually here.” I was stupid-happy, and torturing myself. I wanted nothing more than to drag him upstairs and rip his clothes off. But, I had just met him, well this embodiment of him. I tried to be a responsible adult. I’d rip his clothes off later. I wasn’t specific with myself how much later. “Okay, come here and start chopping.”
I handed him the knife. I watched as he carefully and slowly sliced through the onion. It was like he had never cut vegetables before. I had to remind myself that his body had amnesia, and Peter had probably never cooked.
I began making my weekly batch of hummus. I was finally able to give him a taste of my cooking. The look of amazement on his face when he tried the hummus made me feel really good about my skills. I smiled like a fool when Mike came in. Brand and I stood working side-by-side in the kitchen laughing. He kept smiling at me, and I at him.
Mike looked like he was going to start drooling as he checked Brand out. Brand hadn’t noticed, but I saw Mike’s gaze appreciatively rake up and down Brand’s physique. Brand was physically very commanding at six-five with long dark dreads. His mixed heritage of Pacific Islander and Anglo, and African-American gave his skin a soft warm color. Even though he could no longer play football, he continued to lift weights. He had pecs that should be classified as weapons, they were so well-muscled. He was built like an inverted triangle, and his butt in jeans was a thing of beauty.
“Hey Mike, this is Brand. He’s my…” I paused, I was about to call him boyfriend but I needed to run that by Brand first. I hoped he wanted to be my boyfriend for a very long time. “My new friend.”
“Really, Gilligan? My new friend?” Brand turned to Mike extending his hand. Mike took it. “I’m her boyfriend, and future fiancé.”
“You’re certainly confident, and large,” Mike managed. He was a bit taken aback. So was I. I think we were both staring at Brand with slack jaws.
Brand had a deep hearty laugh. Mike took over perching on the stool while Brand and I worked in the kitchen. They got along, and I sensed a budding bromance. I was still having a hard time believing I finally had Peter in a physical body. I smiled like an idiot all afternoon.
Mike left to meet friends for dinner. I think he made an excuse to leave for a few hours so we could be alone. Just as I thought I should drag Brand up to my room, he swept me up into his arms and carried me upstairs. I giggled with excited anticipation. I loved every second that he touched me. He could touch me, and I could touch him, and I was awake.
Brand certainly seemed to remember how to kiss. Then again, maybe it was the Peter memory that guided him. “I’m pretty sure I remember how to do this,” he said after I made a smart-ass comment about it.
Brand’s lips were warm and soft. Softer than Peter’s had been. I needed to stop comparing then and now—same spirit, same love, different body. I had thought the Peter Keith body had been pretty wondrous. Smooth skin, ticklish hairs, firm muscles, amazing fingers and lips. But Brand Paulo’s body was mind blowing, and I hadn’t even seen all of it yet.
“I missed you,” I moaned into his mouth as he kissed me more.
He reverently removed my clothes. His hands were amazingly large, and I felt remarkably delicate as he ran his hands across my collarbone and down my arms. His touch was gentle as he took me in through his fingertips. His expression said he was just as amazed at touching me, as I was by being touched by him.
I had to stand on my tip toes to reach around his neck and pull him down to me. I wanted his mouth against mine. He lifted me into his embrace, holding me close against his chest, without crushing me. He held me like I was made of fine bone china. His clothes felt rough against my sensitized skin. All of my nerve endings were alive with anticipation—and they were all exposed.
He placed me on my bed. I stood, towering over him. He smiled, laughing up at me as I had to bend over to keep kissing him. I straightened and he placed kisses between my breasts, before pulling me closer and claiming more of my body with his mouth. I loved the eroticism of being nude while he was dressed, but I was also eager to touch him skin on skin.
Brand had focus and his lips kept me distracted from remembering I needed to remove his clothes. He trailed kisses lower on my abdomen. His hands braced me, holding my legs and butt firmly in place. I tangled my fingers in his hair, letting the locks twist and twine with my fingers. I loved the look on his face as he kissed me, eyes closed against high cheek bones.
I’m glad he braced me so thoroughly, because my knees buckled when he lowered his mouth farther and began sucking on my sex. I grabbed his hair for support. I could hardly breathe. Brand knew exactly what he was doing. His tongue was more magical than I remembered. He definitely had to be able to breathe through his ears to accomplish what he was doing.
I cried out before remembering to stifle the sounds I wanted to make. Even though Mike wasn’t home, our walls were thin enough I had to watch my noises for the neighbors on the other side. When Brand pulled away from me, he grinned large and wide.
I wanted more—more of him touching me, more of his tongue, more of his skin, more of his love. Brand lowered me to the bed, and then began undressing. He pulled his T-shirt off over his head. My mouth went dry. His abs were a washboard of defined muscle, he had almost no chest hair, but a thin line of dark hairs led from his bellybutton and disappeared into his waistband.
He watched me as I assessed his physique. I couldn’t have drawn a more splendid specimen. He tossed his shirt to the side, and then pulled on his belt. My God, the bulge in the front of his jeans was impressive. He reached down and lifted his foot to pull off his shoes, one leg at a time. It wasn’t exactly a strip tease, but it was a tease all the same. I couldn’t lay there and watch anymore. I rose up on my knees and began tracing the tattoos on his chest and shoulder. The tiger tattoo covered half of his chest—it integrated with geometric tribal markings that covered his shoulder and down his arm past his elbow.
I traced his tiger tattoo delicately with my fingers, tickling him. I loved his giggle, and his smile. He had muscles on top of muscles, and he giggled. His body was amazing. His skin was smooth and his muscles were tight and hard, like velvet covered rocks. I know I gaped when he was finally completely nude in front of me. I thought he had been slightly larger than proportional before, but now—whoa. Brand was exceptionally proportional. My first thought was I would need a hinged jaw to accommodate all of it when I turned him into my personal lollipop. My second thought was I was going to be ruined for any man after this. I smiled at that thought. I wouldn’t need any other man after Brand. If I had anything to say in the matter, there wouldn’t be any one after him, I would be perfectly happy with this man for the rest of my life.
Everything felt a million times better while conscious than it ever had on the dream plane. I needed more hands to touch him. I couldn’t touch enough of him at once, and I needed to touch all of him. I tasted as much of him as I could. His skin was salty, and he smelled of exotic spices. Brand hissed when I laved one brown nipple.
I licked the tiger, almost expecting it to taste different to my tongue. I trailed my tongue over his shoulder following the ink work to his back. I kissed across and down his back. I don’t know if I ever kissed down anyone’s back before, but it didn’t matter. I wanted to kiss all of him, claim him with my lips. I scraped my teeth across his ass, it was insanely well-muscled and firm.
“No biting,” Brand protested as he rolled over and grabbed me. My trail of kisses across his body interrupted. My lips didn’t protest at all, they were distracted by his lips again. I was back underneath him. He held himself up with straightened arms. Our mouths were busy twining tongues, my hands caressed his muscled arms. I dug my fingers into his triceps. He had the arms of a superhero. His knee moved between my legs, they wrapped around his hips in invitation.
I wanted to cry with joy when he finally entered me. Brand thrust and I los
t my breath as I accommodated all of him. He felt familiar, yet better. I pushed dreads away from his face as he looked down at me. I loved his long dark hair. I loved his expression of fierce concentration as he made love to me. And with the emotion exuding from all of my pores, this wasn’t sex, this was physical love at its finest.
His skill and movement inspired noises of elation. The more he thrust, the more sound I made. I finally had to shove a pillow over my face to muffle the screams of joy. When I reached my personal rapture, Brand continued to work me until it almost felt like torture. For him, reaching orgasm was just the beginning, muscle function in my lower body was controlled by his thrusts.
I didn’t have star bursts and fireworks when I came. I had the big bang, the forming of the universe, birth of stars and solar systems. I saw planets collide to form other planets, and stars exploding in super nova bursts. If Brand continued to do what he was doing to me, I would know the secrets to creation and see the true face of God.
Brand’s growl of satisfied completion brought me back to earth. I did see the face of the gods, they all looked like Brand Paulo. He rolled over onto his back, pulling me across his chest. I pushed up on my elbows, so I could focus on his beautiful face, those big brown eyes on me.
“I love you, Gillian,” his voice was full of emotion. His fingers toyed with the hair around my face.
“I can’t tell if I’m talking to Brand or Pete. They’re his words, but it’s your voice,” I confessed
“They are both me,” he said.
“So when I say I love you Peter, you won’t get mad or be hurt that I call you by the wrong name?”
“No, we’re one and the same.” He chuckled, his hands stroking up and down my back.
“I’m in love with Peter Keith, I guess that means I’m also in love with Brandon Paulo,” I said, studying his face.
“So, how soon before you marry me?”
I laughed, “Your boyfriend status didn’t last long, did it? Fiancé now, huh?”
“I take that as a yes, that you will marry me.” He smiled. “I messed up my life the first go round. I’m going to do it right this time. I need you to be complete. You helped me to realize what I need to be a better person. I need you to make me a better man.”
“I guess then I’ll say yes.” It was hard to kiss him I smiled so hard.
Epilogue
“No, I swear, she would be perfect. If she was ten or fifteen years younger.”
I stared at my ankles, they were propped up on a pillow in front of me, and they were swollen. “She’s practically in her fifties, she’s supposed to be twenty-five. Yes, she’s still gorgeous, but she’s gonna look like his mother.” Actually all of me felt swollen. Thirty-eight weeks and counting.
Brand hadn’t kept his fiancé status much longer than he did his boyfriend status. He quickly advanced to husband, and now, impending father.
“We need an unknown, but I don’t want someone who everyone is going to say is a young so-and-so.”
Tails from the Urban Jungle had been picked up for a cable series. That meant it could be as hot and sexy, if not more so, than originally written. I was on the phone with my agent. She called to discuss some casting options. I knew who was in my dream cast. I was hoping they kept my characters at least close to their original descriptions. I kept fighting with the studio over who would be appropriate for Michelle.
They kept trying to white-wash her. Her ethnicity was key to her character, and they needed to stop trying to get blonde Swedish actresses to play her. I was glad I had insisted on having a say on the casting in the contract. I trusted them regarding acting skill, but I was very particular about the visual presentation—the two actresses from my dream list that would be perfect were too expensive and a touch too old.
My agent said she had called with a surprise. So far, discussing the casting problems regarding the Michelle Cole character did not qualify as a surprise. It had been an on-going issue for the past six weeks.
I was tired, and ready to not deal with this. I was really hoping all of this would have been settled before I was ready to not do anything but have a baby. I passed that point two days ago.
“You promised me some good news, this wasn’t it was it?”
“No, Gil, that wasn’t it. So, are you sitting down?” she asked.
“It’s all I ever do these days.”
This pregnancy had been going perfectly. I had morning sickness for a text-book perfect three months. I looked like I had swallowed a basketball. Nothing else ‘got pregnant,’ my face barely changed, nothing was swollen, my butt hadn’t gotten bigger, honestly, and I hadn’t even gained that much weight. I hovered around the ideal gain of twenty five pounds my doctor wanted for me.
I was still relatively active until my ankles decided it was time to swell. The rest of me swelled up soon after. As soon as that happened, I was put on restricted activity and lots of bed rest. My doctor announced that maternity leave started immediately. It had only been a few days but I already started to go stir crazy. I wasn’t allowed to do anything. Anything.
Brand fussed over me. It was like his first pregnancy, he didn’t remember when Devon’s mother had been pregnant, and Peter had never been a father. He was actually quite cute and endearing. It helped that I did like him taking care of me. But, I still wanted to be able to do things for myself, instead of being stuck sitting on the couch all day long.
“They got him, Gil!” she announced proudly.
I sat up more.
“Really?” I started a wiggly dance of happiness while on my butt.
“He’s signed, and he’s hitting the gym to bulk up!”
“YES!”
Liam James was contracted to play Johnny Urban!
Excerpt from Bright Phantoms
I had just swung my leg over the rail to the high platform when I heard my name.
I peered down over the edge. It wasn’t far, I wasn’t the climbing type so it seemed farther away than it really was.
“Yeah, that’s me.” I called down to the runner who shielded his eyes with a clip board.
“They need you down in makeup.”
“What?” That made no sense. I wasn’t a makeup artist, and I wasn’t an actor. “I don’t do makeup, you want Mary.” She was the head of special effects makeup and I knew she was on set this week.
“Nope, they sent me after Danica Kensington. Said you knew about sunscreen.” His conversation made less than no sense. “Can you come on down? Glenn requested you specifically.”
Oh shit, wonder-kid Glenn Russell was asking for me? Okay he wasn’t a kid anymore, he was older than I was, but he came on the scene with a big splash fresh out of UCLA film school, and that reputation clung to him like glitter—there wasn’t any easy way to get rid of it.
Well, let it never be said that I left the director of a movie waiting on me for long. I swung my leg back over the side rail and climbed my way down.
“What the hell does Glenn want me for? How the hell does Glenn even know who I am?” I shot off questions a mile a minute as I followed him down and around the path into the ravine where the makeup trailer was parked.
Glenn Russell was at the point of his career where he could write his own paycheck. He hit Hollywood hard with a lightning strike on his first film. Number one box office ticket sales first two weekends, and that was during the Christmas release season. His next film pulled the same magical numbers, but for a total of four weeks and with a June opening. He was movie magic himself when it came to action adventure. Having him on this project was insurance that the studio would have a hit on their hands.
To be honest, the studio was stacking the cards at this point. A Sebastian Hale Adventure was a guaranteed hit no matter what. They always earned enough at the box office to ensure there would be more movies made. Then they added to the mix the hottest director of the decade, and let’s face it, casting Liam James as Seb Hale was not a dumb move at all. That man was…
I stopped w
alking. I may have stopped breathing. I don’t get star struck on principal, plus it makes my job really hard to do, but damn. There was no way anyone would have guessed he flat-lined in a car wreck just over eighteen months earlier.
Liam James stood in front of me, half naked, wearing only his Sebastian Hale requisite loin cloth. Okay, for this particular adventure it was a linen Egyptian kilt. That was part of the story’s shtick, no matter where in time Seb Hale ended up, he somehow managed to lose all his modern trappings of civilized clothes. Except for his shoes, and frequently for comedic relief, his sock garters.
I was saved that particular ridiculous look today, he wore proper English riding boots up to his knees. Those were some fine looking knees.
His arms were crossed, and damn if that pose did not make his shoulders look a mile wide and his hips distracting. Kilts shouldn’t hang, clinging just below the hip bone like that. It was almost indecent. Not that I was complaining. Liam James was an incredibly good looking man. He had built his career as a blond. After his car accident he let the natural dark coloring grow out. I now gazed upon the new Sebastian Hale for the first time, and he stole my breath.
Enjoyed Dead Sexy? You need Bright Phantoms!
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About the Author
Bio-engineered to be the only redhead in a generation of blonds, Lulu feels that “aliens” may actually be the best answer for a life-time of being asked, “Where did you get that red hair from?”
She did not come into writing from years of scribbling words on paper. Her background is rooted in visual arts and making pictures. Encouraged to make those pictures out of words Lulu began writing just to see what would happen. What happened was two full-length manuscripts in three months.
Lulu cannot ride a horse, a motorcycle, spin a hula hoop, or play roller derby. Yes, she has attempted all of those, even if it has been decades since she’s been on a horse or a motorcycle. She embraces the crazy that comes with that one little genetic mutation, and attempts to live up to the reputation that proceeds her. Lulu would like to apologize for her contribution to the hole on the ozone layer from her use of hairspray in the 1980s.
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