by Artemis Hunt
Still, he was someone she never wanted to get to know in school. And as irony would have it, she knows plenty about him now.
She hopes she remembers everything.
No one she knows is at the hotel lobby to greet them. Not her sister, not her mother. That’s a good thing, she consoles herself. At least she wouldn’t be bombarded with awkward questions right off the bat.
Lori had been majorly curious over the phone when she asked to include three more guests.
“Oh my God,” she had gushed. “He got back from Tokyo in time?”
“Tokyo?”
“Yes. You said he was jetting to Tokyo for the weekend.”
“Ah yes,” Sam replies hastily, “Tokyo was a washout. All that rain and cherry blossoms scattering around. And so he cancelled.”
“How come you never told me about him, Sam? How come you’ve never mentioned him to Mom?” Lori’s tone turns a tad suspicious.
“Oh well, you know, we hardly see each other and everything.” Sam manages a casual laugh. “Anyway, you never know when these things might end, so – ”
“I get it. You don’t want to jinx it.” Lori pauses sympathetically. “It must be so awful to be you, Sam. I mean, you’re my older sister and everything, but you have the damndest luck when it comes to boyfriends. So I perfectly understand why you might feel embarrassed about introducing one of them to us . . . just in case, you know, he doesn’t last out the week.”
Damn right if he doesn’t, Sam thinks. But still, Lori doesn’t have to be such a bitch about it.
The reception is one of those quiet little areas you find in boutique hotels – with teak paneling and cozy armchairs and mirrored marble floors and oil paintings of the hotel’s mustachioed founders, who just all happen to be women.
“Wow,” Cassie says to Sam, “I take it Mr. Lance Buchner is paying for all this.”
“More like Papa and Mama Lance Buchner. I hear they are filthy rich. Believe it or not, I’m her sister and I’ve never even met Lance.”
Cassie raises her eyebrows. “Wow. You two sisters are tight. You must have been inseparable in grade school.”
“Only when Mom strapped the two of us together onto the child seats.”
The four of them go up to the reception desk. The receptionist is a young, attractive bottle blonde who immediately makes a beeline for Brian. Sam grimaces.
“And you are?” The receptionist flashes Brian her most winning smile.
He smiles winningly back.
Sam replies, “Samantha Fox and Brian Morton. Caleb Carr and Cassandra Harris. We should have reservations made for all four of us.”
The receptionist checks the screen on her desk. “Well yes, we do. A double room for Samantha Fox and Brian Morton. And two single rooms each for Caleb Carr and Cassandra Harris.”
It was at the back of Sam’s mind throughout the entire journey, but it hasn’t struck her fully until now. Of course. She would have to share a room . . . and a bed . . . with Brian. Lori assumes they are a regular couple and she would have arranged nothing less.
Sharing a bed with Brian Morton.
Ugh!
Brian senses her misgivings. He leans over to the receptionist. “And would that be a double bed in the double room?” he asks in a silky voice.
The receptionist appears charmed. Typical, Sam fumes.
“Of course. Your rooms are equipped with a king-sized bed, Wi-fi, refrigerator and a shower stall as well as a long bath.”
“Interesting.” Brian flickers a sidelong glance at Sam. “Because you know, she’s the sister of the bride-to-be, and I’m her new boyfriend. Being newly devoted to each other in a most loving and committed relationship, we expect to be making love to each other . . . all night. I hope your rooms are soundproofed.”
Heat climbs into Sam’s cheeks. Even the receptionist flushes slightly.
“Of course, Mr. Morton. You are free to, uh, be as uninhibited as you wish.”
Sam feels like crawling into her suitcase and locking herself up in there.
Cassie grins and nudges her.
“No worries,” she whispers, “slavery has its perks, remember?”
*
Sam doesn’t feel remotely like a mistress to her purported slave when they take the elevator up to their room. Her double room is on the third floor, east wing, while Cassie’s and Caleb’s are on the second.
She’s now alone with Brian Morton. Her betraying cheeks are still flushed.
Brian inserts the key into the lock. It’s one of those old-fashioned brass keys which she would find quaint if the situation were any different.
Gawd! How did she ever think she could pull this off? She – who can’t even lie effectively to Mr. Hughes when she was caught smoking a joint in twelfth grade.
Brian says, “Would you like me to carry you over the threshold and throw you onto the bed?”
Why is everything he says tinged with a layer of obvious sarcasm?
“No thanks. But you can carry my bags, lover boy.”
OK, that didn’t come out right. If Cassie had said that, it would have been polished and quippy and zesty, kind of like lemon punch. Out of Sam’s mouth, it just seems rehearsed and trite, as if she’s a not particularly good stage actress who hasn’t mastered her lines.
“After you then, darling,” Brian says with a grin.
She squeezes past him to enter the room. His body heat radiates from underneath the designer leather jacket he wears. Why does he have to stand so close to her and why does he have to be so damned smug?
The room possesses a king-sized bed with white sheets and four fluffy white pillows. The thread count here apparently goes into the thousands. There are two black-and-white striped armchairs and a glass table, but no couch. The ceiling-to-floor windows proffer a view of the gardens. The whole ensemble is very rustic, very nineteenth century.
Brian throws the suitcases on the floor. He wrenches off his leather jacket.
“I stink. I’m going to take a shower.”
She has yet to talk to him about their sleeping arrangements. Naturally, he would be taking the floor.
He throws the jacket onto the bed and starts unbuttoning his black shirt, which is so well-cut as to emphasize his torso. She can’t help staring. He has a very nice body. Scratch that. He has an amazing body, with a smooth sculptured chest, broad shoulders and flat abs. She can see and count every muscle. Even the snaking veins on his arms.
It doesn’t occur to her that he will stop there until he unzips his jeans.
“What are you doing?” she says, taken aback.
“What does it look like? I’m taking a shower.” He doesn’t wear anything under his jeans. A tuft of black pubic hair springs out. He is brimming with raw sexuality – a well-toned predator on the Serengeti, sleekly muscled and boiling with energy.
Oh my God.
Her face inflamed, she turns to face the window. His cock. She doesn’t want to see his cock.
Who is she kidding? It will be magnificent.
He’s doing this to infuriate her. She can see (or try not to see) right through him. He doesn’t think he will tantalize her in any sexual manner, but he senses that deep down she’s a prude, and he’s making sure he pushes all her alarm buttons in every way possible.
“You can damned well take your clothes off in the bathroom,” she hisses.
“But we are lovers,” he says in a singsong voice. He places a caustic emphasis on the word. “Lovers are supposed to see each other naked all the time. I have nothing to hide.”
She’s aware of that double entrende. She still has her back turned on him.
“Believe me, I’ve seen nothing on you that remotely interests me,” she says in a tone that is meant to sting.
“That makes two of us, sweetheart.”
She hears him sauntering off to the bathroom and she half-turns to steal a look. His incredible bare buttocks roll as he disappears. A moment later, and the sound of a shower hits the tiles. He hasn�
��t even bothered to shut the bathroom door.
If she’s supposed to be the mistress and he her willing slave, he certainly has got the tables turned.
How is she ever going to get through sleeping in the same bedroom with him tonight?
7
Tonight, there’s a reception at the Grand Ballroom of the hotel.
“Remember, it’s a snazzy affair, so you’ll have to dress up,” Sam reminds him.
She’s anxiously fussing over her own hairdo. She’s frizzing it up with some sort of spray, which accounts for the massive suitcase she made him carry all the way from Chicago. She combs each strand and musses it up again with gel, as if she’s trying to shape it into some sort of bizarre corkscrew pattern.
He doesn’t see the point, since she’s got great hair. Not that he would ever tell her that in a million years, of course.
He knows why she is so worked up about appearing good for her sister. At least, he thinks he knows. If she is any extension of what she was during middle grade, then she would have had a hard time coming out of her sister’s shadow. A sister, from all accounts, who is prettier, more glamorous and more successful in landing big fish than she is.
He says, “I don’t know why you bother. Your hair never going to resemble anything other a bird’s nest.”
As soon as it’s out, he regrets it. Why do you always have to be such a goddamned asshole?
He sees the hurt blossom in her eyes. He curses himself. But he has an unapologetic veneer to maintain, and so he spreads his mouth into a cynical grin instead.
“And yours will never be anything but a total bedhead,” she shoots back.
Ouch. He takes great pride in his hair. But he gives a lot, so he’s equally good at taking it.
“So why are you so hung up about what your sister thinks?”
“Huh?”
“The hair. Me. The fact that I’m here on this sordidly deceptive weekend. Or should I say . . . deceptively sordid weekend?”
“Oh, that.”
She locks eyes with him in the mirror. His breath catches. Her eyes will always be her best feature. He can well imagine those eyes being smoky with desire, gazing adoringly up at him from a horizontal position as she writhes sexily under his heaving body.
His dormant cock begins to stir. He shifts on one leg.
Careful.
He watches as a plethora of complex emotions flit on her face.
She sighs. “You wouldn’t understand. It’s complicated. Anyway, you don’t give a damn what anyone thinks or feels, so why do you care?”
He splays his hands. “Hey, I’m just askin’. No need to bite my head off.”
“Not that you’d ever understand what it feels like to be a dork.”
You’re not a dork, he thinks.
He says, “Some people just have dork genes, I guess. So which side of the family did yours come from?”
Her features turn apoplectic.
“Oh,” she splutters, “just go and do whatever . . . Cassie will be here any minute.”
“What? To play dress up Barbie?”
‘Get out.”
“Touchy.”
He waltzes out of the door.
“But don’t do anything to embarrass me,” she throws at him.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“No picking anyone up either. This is a small town and word gets around.” She glares at him.
“Not when I’m a total stranger.”
“For all you know, the whole town might be invited tonight. And you promised. It’s part of the deal.”
“Yeah, so sue me.”
He slams the door behind him. He hasn’t had his daily, emotionally meaningless sexual fix yet, thanks to Ms. Uptight and Prissy.
Now what is he going to do for sex?
*
Hartford is a small, small town. Apparently, the Buchners own half of it. They also own the hotel, the mill, the lumber factory and the bakery. Talk about diversification.
There’s a cafe called ‘Figero’s’ right next to the bakery. And a strip joint. Brian waltzes into the strip joint. With his luck, the Buchners probably own it too. With video surveillance.
Inside, a few tired strippers are dancing around metallic poles. They look up as he enters. It’s five in the evening. A few older men are guzzling beers and smoking cigarettes. Brian goes to the bar and plonks himself down on a barstool.
“Is this place always this zombified or is this just the graveyard shift?” he quips.
The bartender is cleaning a beer mug.
“What’ll it be?” he says gruffly.
“Stella.”
“She ain’t working tonight.”
“I meant the beer.”
The bartender fills Stella Artois into a chilled mug. Brian lights a cigarette.
A stripper sidles up to him. She wears a bright yellow thong and two equally bright yellow pasties on her nipples. The pasties are in the shapes of stars.
Elegant.
“Hey, stranger,” she purrs, digging her fingers into his hair. “Never seen you around here.”
“That’s original.”
“I can give you a lap dance if you want.”
Tempting, but she smells of someone else’s cheap cologne. Probably the last guy she wanked off. Anyway, he rarely paid for anything.
“Say, you wouldn’t happen to be invited to an engagement party by the Buchners tonight, would you?”
“Hell, no.”
“In that case . . . ”
He lets her kiss his mouth in an extremely provocative way. And then his chin. And his neck. Meanwhile, her hands roam all over his body, prodding his muscles and sliding down his abs to his expanding crotch.
There’s something he has to remember before his brain gets too fuzzy.
He says to the bartender, “Say, you wouldn’t happen to be invited to an engagement party tonight by the Buchners, would you?”
“Fuck the Buchners. They’ve been monopolizing this town for too long.”
“Good to hear.”
The stripper rubs her hand against his straining bulge. “I’ll monopolize this.” She turns to the bartender. “Frank . . . what the fuck is ‘monopolize’?”
There’s yet another something else he definitely has to remember. Averting his head from her pink mouth, Brian scans the strip joint again.
He turns back to the bartender. “Are any of these people going to the Buchners’ tonight?”
“Damned if I know. What’s your obsession with the Buchners anyway? You fuckin’ any of them?”
OK. So this isn’t going to work out in public. The stripper nuzzles his ear with her quicksilver tongue – an exquisitely erotic gesture that sends his groin into an extreme heat zone.
He whispers in her ear, “You have a back room?”
“Why, you are a naughty boy. Follow me, sugar.”
The bartender ignores them as she leads him by the hand to a small, dark room behind the bar. There’s no one in there and she immediately pounces on him again. She kisses him with sound and fury and passion and moist interlocking lips and her hands roam here, there, everywhere up and down his body, especially focusing on his crotch.
He responds in kind. He gropes her large breasts and feels for the erotic points of her nipples beneath the pasties. Her body is young and firm and hot beneath his large hands. He dives for her thong. She’s already soaking wet as his fingers wrench the little yellow string away to reveal her pussy lips. He burrows and wriggles into her sweet little hole, which unfortunately isn’t as tight as he wants it to be, and she rips his shirt open and seizes his nipples.
She lowers her mouth to his pointed tips. Her tongue leaves a rotund trail around his areolas. He has always been amused when a woman sucks his nipples.
He’s extremely aroused by the time she slides her wet tongue down his belly – down, down the line of soft downy, barely visible hair that traverses his midline, right down to his pubis. She seizes his belt. A clack of metal agai
nst metal, and she has unbuckled it. She unzips his jeans. He doesn’t wear underwear and so his penis springs out from its moorings – a lever released.
“Wow,” she says. “You’re hung.”
“Glad you like it.”
“I more than like it. I – ” The rest of her words are drowned as she takes him in her mouth and sucks.
He leans against the wall and closes his eyes. She has a very clever mouth. Her tongue makes butterfly wing movements over and across his turgid flesh, especially concentrating on the crown and the little slit at the tip of his cock. Her cheek muscles pull at his column. His breathing quickens. He clasps her head.
“Take it slow,” he says.
He wonders how much he has to pay her at the end of this.
Sam’s words echo in his head. No picking anyone up either. This is a small town and word gets around.
How small is this town exactly?
And you promised. It’s part of the deal.
The stripper’s mouth is like an anemone – all moist and intense suction. He finds himself tripping over the edge. Guilt riddles his conscience.
Damn.
He’s not the type of person to renege on promises. Even if he thinks it’s a stupid promise and a stupid bet. Which of course he lost fair and square in trying to do his friend a good deed.
He says, “Um, maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all.”
He gently pushes the stripper’s head away. His cock is still as hard as a wooden block. It glistens with her saliva.
“What’s the matter?” she says, disappointed.
“I made a promise not to fuck anyone this weekend.”
“I can still give you a blow job.”
“No . . . fucking, sucking . . . I think they all go together in one time space continuum. I’ll take a rain check, OK?”
He fishes out his wallet from his jeans pocket and extracts five hundred dollars from it.
“Here, buy yourself something nice to wear.”
The stripper’s eyes bulge at the largesse. “Wow, you’re definitely not from around here.”
He zips up his pants after ascertaining that he can contain his erection. When he walks out of the strip joint, he feels a lot lighter, and he’s not talking about his wallet.