by Julia Kent
“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.
Was that the point? Trevor’s lips circled around my left nipple and I gasped as he stroked below while suckling ab
ove, making my pussy walls clamp hard around his finger. Fingers. Now there were two and his free hand cupped my ass and played lightly with the puckered pink skin of my anus, the thrill of the zing! making me want more.
Where Trevor was tall and broad and golden, Joe was olive-toned and tight, compact and dark, with brooding eyes focused solely on me. Turning me around, Trevor splayed my hands against the shower wall and leaned against my back, two-thirds of my body blanketed by the wall of his front, and he whispered, “No tie-dye sessions in here.”
My brain registered the tease as he slipped in me, my muscled walls clenching with the giggle, the whoop of a gasp from surprise choking my throat as I found the pulse of the shower spray, my wet hair, his hot mouth on my neck and thick cock in me all too much.
And then.
Joe appeared beneath me, slick and wet like a swimmer, his hands parting my legs, mouth seeking my clit. What? This wasn’t really happening, right? But oh—oh, that mouth confirmed that this was very much true as he teased my clit with tight, light strokes that lapped at my need, my building climax at the ready as Trevor impaled me with long, deep strokes from behind, one hand pinching a nipple with just the right calibrated perfection to make my entire body shimmer and shake.
They knew me soooo well.
“Oh, God, you’re so hot,” I murmured, Trevor’s front slamming against my ass as his breathing shifted, and Joe’s tongue became more insistent, moving in wide circles punctuated by a hummingbird touch right on the center of my clit, each layer bringing me closer and closer.
Trevor’s body went taut and he leaned down to bite my earlobe, the pressure and pain maddening, making me fuse and clamp instantly, bucking and screaming with the pleasure of a thousand climaxes. He pumped hard three or four more times and went tight, his own orgasm pouring into me, as Joe pulled back and used his fingers to stroke me to a second wave that made my legs go weak, sliding down the shower wall into a loose pile of Darla, half covering a panting Joe, with Trevor removing the magic condom he always seemed to make materialize and returning in seconds.
We curled up into a little ball of perfect on the shower floor and let the water wash over us.
It was like a kind of baptism.
In Eden.
Joe
There is no problem that can’t be solved with shower sex.
None. If I could fuck all the professors who give me Bs and have a shower sex session I’m sure I’d make law review editor.
I just…Darla. Trevor. Us. The three of us, here on Eden, in this freaky automated, antiquated building being paid gobs of money to—
Have shower sex.
See? Perfection.
But I don’t believe in perfection. Perfection is what you get when you over-plan. Overanalyze. Over-function. It’s a feature of being ambitious and on top of every detail. Perfection doesn’t just happen.
It’s a result. Not a state.
So my radar was way, way on high about this place, even now, sitting in the bottom of a shower that looked like something from a sheik’s mistress’s cottage in Abu Dhabi.
Perfect situations have to be orchestrated by someone. So who was the someone who thought that inviting the band, and Darla and Amy, to perform here was a good idea?
And then there was Suzy.
That was a big fucking wrench to throw in the works. Pardon me if my hackles were up, even as our asses were indented by the shower tiles as water flowed through faucets that looked like pure gold and we rested like something out of…
Eden.
Okay. I get it. The island is some sort of haven from real life. But real life is nice and pragmatic. You get surprises but there’s a baseline of a game, a finite game, that you can play if you’re smart enough to figure out the rules.
What were the rules here?
Darla peeled her nice, full breasts off my thigh. I missed her heat, her softness, and as she stood she yawned, giving a display of Rubenesque beauty that made my cock twitch to life. It had only been a few hours since the airplane sex, so what the fuck?
I was in rare form.
“I’m going to get us something to drink,” she announced, padding out, her hips swishing in that go-to way that didn’t need five-inch heels, didn’t need a well-trained runway walk. She had the gait of someone who knew herself and who greeted real life with passion and—
Goddammit.
Why hadn’t she said “I love you” back? At the gate, before we boarded the plane? Suzy had distracted the fuck out of me until this point, when the thought bombarded me. Her nasty crack about sex and Trevor hadn’t rolled off me like I’d pretended. Faking my emotions was my default, so I’d been able to see she was scared and brushed it off.
But now? I sat up and put my head between my knees, letting the hot water pour over the back of my neck. Something welled up in me, not quite tears—fuck that noise, I don’t cry—but a feeling that hurt.
She didn’t feel it back. Darla would have said it if she did. That was her way.
Instead, she left me hanging, and that was what hurt so much. The not knowing had been bad enough, the months of torture where I tried to figure out who I was in this bizarre little club we’d created, and then the slow unraveling of my feelings.
And I’d taken that shot. Gone for it. Let it come out, and maybe I had lousy timing, but it still counted.
It still fucking counted.
She came back with three bottles of sparkling water and handed them off, one eyebrow turning down as she caught my eye. Darla could read me. I didn’t want to talk. Didn’t want to think. We’d just had a fantastic, amazing, fucking awesome sexual experience, and now I was a little wimp sitting here nursing my feewings.
Because I’d let myself have some for her. And, worse, told her.
That little tendril of hope that I’d nursed all these months against my better judgment turned out to be a rope.
And I’d just hung myself with it.
Fuck.
Chapter Eight
Trevor
Day two on the island was turning out to be about as boring as any gig. I’d spent most of the morning with Joe, Sam, and Liam doing nothing but staring at the un-windowed walls of the recording studio/practice room in my suite, nailing down sound equipment, rhythms, new songs, and getting our instruments used to the Caribbean ocean air.
Which we weren’t experiencing ourselves, being trapped in the dimly lit room while our girlfriends wandered the island, probably on the beach in their bikinis (or—drool—in the clothing-optional section) drinking something sweet and intoxicating.
Like the taste of Darla.
Work was work, though. We weren’t being paid ten grand each to fuck women and get drunk.
That was a gig we could all get behind, though.
A parade of assistants came through our suite, asking questions about our lineup, explaining our audience, and giving us the basics on how this would all work. One ninety-minute set. Outdoors. At about 10 p.m., so the crowd would be liquored up. Dance floor around a pool, so we could play a few faster-paced songs that would get people on their feet.
Other than that, a perfectly normal gig.
With one exception.
A lot of audience members might be in costume.
“Costume?” I’d asked one of the assistants, a man who seemed to be my dad’s age, but who looked more like he could be Joe’s dad. Dark and swarthy, with thick soccer legs and bushy eyebrows. Like Chris Pine’s dad, Greek style.
“Costume, yes.” A polite smile. “We ask that you not comment on any of the forms of dress, nor on the activities that take place on the island. Our guests are here expressly for freedom of movement and activity.”
Liam cocked an eyebrow and lowered it quickly, his face a careful mask. “You mean like dressing up at a ComiCon?” The way he asked the question told me Liam knew exactly what the guy meant, and it wasn’t a damn gamer’s convention.
“I mean that we have a sex-positive attitude on Eden, and you may see p
eople exhibiting behaviors that would not be considered within the range of acceptability in other settings.”
Oh, he was smooth. In other words: this was a sex resort. I was right! Damn. Too bad I hadn’t said anything to the guys when I did my research and had my suspicions. Then again, if I had, would everyone had taken the gig?
Of course we would have.
Joe opened his mouth to say something, then shut it fast, like a nutcracker popping a walnut.
The assistant—Stavros? I think that was his name—gave us each a long, searching look meant to communicate without words. And then his smile was broad and wide. “As you know, the contract you signed included a non-disclosure agreement. The master of the island selected Random Acts of Crazy for your…ability to fit in seamlessly here at Eden.”
Huh?
“Seamlessly?” Liam’s laughter was so close—his voice held back very little. I kicked his ankle, hard, and he stumbled back, grimacing. Good. Pain was better than fucking this gig up.
Stavros’s eyes went hard. “You’re here to entertain, but you are also here to participate and learn what you can about yourselves and others. That is what we do here. An invitation to Eden is an honor, and one that is rarely extended.” His eyes softened. “Your group caught the attention of someone who deemed you worthy of the master’s inclusion. It is for you to take full advantage of all that this means.”
And then he walked out without another word.
Joe turned slowly toward me, eyes narrowed. Sam looked like a fish on the beach, dying, his mouth moving up and down. Liam rubbed his ankle and swore under his breath, shooting me daggers with his eyes.
“What. The. Hell. Was. That?” Joe asked.
“I think we’ve just been schooled,” I said, sighing. “This is a sex resort. A pretty…interesting one.”
Sam began to laugh, hands on his hips, his chest heaving with the chuckling. “We…I’m…I brought my girlfriend…oh, God. Sex resort.” He couldn’t stop, bending over with a fit of the giggles.
Everyone had gone to bed early last night and had room service, so we hadn’t wandered much. Left that to Amy and Darla, actually. I checked my phone. 11:16 a.m. They’d been gone for about two hours.