Head-Tripped: A Sexy Rock Star Romance (Ad Agency Series Book 2)

by Nicole Archer

  “Did I ask you, woman?”

  “He has to wear high heels to kiss you,” she said.

  “Maybe he can borrow those hideous boots Gail made Effie wear,” Missy said.

  “Those are long gone,” Griffin said.

  Elias chuckled.

  Everyone quieted down and stared at him.

  “Effie still asleep?” Hal asked. “We’ve got to get a move on soon.”

  Elias scratched his chin, inhaled, exhaled, sucked in another breath, then blurted out, “Effie and I are together.”

  Cato stopped peeling his banana, but otherwise no one seemed fazed by the news.

  LeStrange looked at his watch. “Thirty minutes, we go.”

  “Did you hear me?” he said a little louder. “Effie’s my girlfriend.”

  “No shit,” Griffin said.

  Missy brushed the crumbs off her lap and stood.

  “It doesn’t bother anyone, that I’m breaking The Rules?”

  “Nobody cares about your stupid rules,” Annie said.

  He rubbed his forehead. “How long have all of you known?”

  Missy rolled her eyes. “Since you invited her to play with us.”

  “Not me,” Cato said. “I found out at Disneyland. But my straightdar is broke to shit.”

  Was he suddenly living in an alternate universe? “So none of you are pissed?”

  “Oh, I’m pissed,” Cato said. “When I find the right man, you better believe he’ll be riding the Disco Bus.”

  He turned to his drummer. “What about you and Melody?”

  Griffin dropped his gaze to his plate.

  Elias prodded him again. “Ralph?”

  “We’re on a break.”

  “No, you on a break,” Cato said. “She done.”

  “Leave him alone,” Missy said.

  For a brief second, Griffin’s angry expression collapsed into a lost, hollow stare. Then he shot out of his seat and stormed off.

  “You’re an asshole,” Missy told Cato.

  “No, he’s an asshole. Fucking everything in sight. No wonder she dumped him.”

  Missy chucked a wadded-up napkin at Cato’s head. “He didn’t cheat on her before she broke up with him.”

  “Time to go,” LeStrange said.

  Everyone rose from the table and went to pack their things.

  Elias stared down at his coffee. This whole time everyone knew and said nothing. He felt like a fucking idiot.

  Hal sat next to him and folded his arms across his massive chest. “Let me give you a piece of advice, lover boy,” he said. “You better start treating Effie like a girlfriend soon, or she’s gonna dump your ass.” He held up a finger where a white line had replaced his wedding ring. “Trust me. Wise up and start romancing her.” Hal scooted out his chair. “Buy her some candles or something. Women eat that shit up.”

  A big, bald, divorced bodyguard had just given him relationship advice—Elias really was living in an alternate universe.

  41

  Crescendo

  Lisbon, Portugal

  “The sun was shining on the sea, shining with all his might. He did his very best to make the billows smooth and bright. And this was odd, because it was the middle of the night.”

  Soundtrack “Nem as Paredes Confesso,” Amália Rodrigues

  Soundtrack “Se Ao Menos Houvesse Um Dia,” Camane

  Bob Ross would have loved Lisbon. With its bright red roofs and smiling, happy people, and tiny winding streets, the city looked just like a PBS painting.

  The air smelled like caramel corn and salt water, and the stage looked like a sandcastle. Onstage that night, it almost felt like she was high, especially at the end of the concert.

  Urban’s fans placed El Love on a pedestal, as if he were a god and not a man who battled stage fright. His inability to interact with the crowd came across as cockiness, like he was too good for mere mortals. His onstage persona was nothing like the real man though.

  But the real man came out that night. After the last song, he gripped the microphone with a shaky hand, stammered for a second, then licked his lips and spoke softly to the crowd. “This song is for Effie. It’s called ‘Eurphoria.’”

  Then with his coppery eyes anchored to hers, he sang to her and announced to the world they were together.

  Happy tears flowed down her face as she floated over the cliffs of Lisbon in a bubble of love, feeling euphoric.

  And after the show, her handsome lover whisked her off in a limo to spend the night in a tree house.

  Lit candles flickered inside the cozy room and the ocean breeze blew fluffed out the mosquito netting around like gauzy sails.

  Portuguese music played softly in the background, accompanied by the ocean waves, and the crickets, and the sound of her heart, drumming a crescendo beat.

  They took off their clothes and stretched out in bed. “I’m in heaven,” she said.

  “You are my heaven.” He kissed her. “I love you, F-bomb.”

  A runaway tear slid down her cheek. “I love you, too, Elvis.”

  He drew circles around her nipples, then explored the rest of her body, plucking and playing and probing his way down between her thighs.

  His stubble grazed her skin as he feasted on her. She shifted so they could feed on one another. Slurping and moaning and sucking—they made their own sexual symphony.

  “I need to be inside you.” He rolled on one of her French tickler condoms, fighting a grin. “Sit on me and wrap your legs around me.”

  She should have known he wasn’t a missionary man. Elias Lovaro was too passionate for ordinary sex.

  She let out a breathy laugh as she slid down his length. With him inside her, she’d finally been put back together. Elias was the missing piece.

  He moved inside her just like he danced—slow, sensual, and staccato.

  She cried out for more, and for him to fuck her harder and deeper and faster.

  He flipped her over on her back and lifted her leg over his shoulder. His hips slapped against hers in a slow circle.

  They kept their gazes sealed together, and the energy between them could have ignited a missile.

  He smiled and kissed her. “Te amo, Effie.” Their tongues met and danced to the same rhythm as their bodies.

  She squeezed him tightly inside her.

  He growled and bit her neck, then backed up to his knees and rubbed her clit while he slid in and out.

  She thrashed and cried out like a wild animal.

  “I feel you clenching around me.” He grunted and rooted deeper.

  She arched into him and sang out like an opera star when the climax hit.

  A second later, his abs flexed, and his head dropped back, and he gritted his teeth, and groaned a bunch of Spanish dirty words, then pulled out, tore off the condom, and spilled his seed on her skin.

  Watching him come triggered another electric spasm inside her.

  Afterwards, he collapsed on top of her and murmured, “Te amo,” between kisses.

  “I love you, too,” she said.

  She closed her eyes and memorized every glorious detail—their slick skin melded together, the erotic scent of hot sex, their winded breaths, the waves outside, her heartbeat, his heartbeat, the beard burn on her chin, and the pain in her cheeks from smiling so much. It was a forever memory, one she could unpack in the future, to cheer her up on a gloomy day.

  “I’m not a virgin anymore!” she shouted. “You popped my good-sex cherry.”

  He laughed. “You’re welcome.”

  “De nada.” She winked.

  They giggled and kissed and hugged and tangled their legs and wiggled their toes. She felt like a kid again. An older kid. One old enough to have sex. Okay, maybe not a kid.

  She lifted her wet hair off her shoulders. “Whew! It’s hot.”

  “Let’s go for a swim,” he said.

  “Yay!”

  They dashed down to the ocean, completely nude, howling like children, and acting like they’d j
ust pulled off the ultimate prank.

  They floated on their backs, holding hands and staring up at the moon and stars, not saying anything, but feeling absolutely everything.

  “This looks like a Bob Ross painting,” he said.

  “No worries. No cares,” she quoted Bob. “Just floating and waiting for the wind to blow you around.”

  He chuckled. “Tell me another one.”

  “We don’t need to set the sky on fire. A little glow will do just fine.”

  “Guy’s a prophet.”

  “Totally.”

  42

  Allegro

  Sierra Nevadas, Spain

  “‘It sounds like a horse,’ Alice thought to herself. And an extremely small voice, close to her ear, said, ‘You might make a joke on that—something about ‘horse’ and ‘hoarse,’ you know.’”

  Soundtrack “Road to Nowhere,” Talking Heads

  “Not good,” LeStrange said before they left the next day. “Zere is a strike and zee highways are blockaded. We must take zee back way to Cannes through L’Espagne. It will take much longer.”

  This fazed no one until the air conditioning crapped out midway there, and the bus heated to a blistering ninety degrees inside.

  Elias was still high off of making love with Effie and didn’t complain once. But everyone else whined and moaned and bitched endlessly.

  LeStrange stripped down to his bikini underwear, and not long after, everyone else in the band sported nothing but skivvies, including Hal and Annie.

  Cato raised a judgmental brow at Effie’s underwear. “Spiderman?”

  “Stop staring at her,” Elias snapped.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” Cato shot back.

  “Shut up,” Missy cried.

  “Yeah, shut-the-fuck-up,” Hal chimed in.

  Two seconds of silence passed, then Cato slapped his hand on his chest and screamed at the sky. “I’m dying. I’m being baked to death. Oh, lawd. Help me, Jesus. Save me!”

  “Shut-the-fuck-up!” everyone shouted at once.

  “We’ve got to pull over,” Cato whined, “before we kill each other.”

  Without warning, the bus blasted out black smoke then choked, squawked, and died—at the base of the Spanish Sierra Nevadas—in the mountains—in the middle of nowhere.

  “I didn’t mean stop here,” Cato shouted.

  LeStrange turned over the engine and pumped the gas. More black smoke poured out. The driver took off his captain’s hat and stood in the aisle. “How you say, ‘piece-of-sheet bus broke,’ in English?”

  “Think you got it, dude,” Griffin mumbled.

  LeStrange slapped his hat back on, slipped on his flip-flops, and flapped outside. “Putain de merde!” he shouted. “Qu’est ce que c’est bordel?” After a considerable amount of banging, he flapped back onboard, gripping a wiggling hose in his hand like a snake. “Eh, ban, slight problem. Le bus is baisée.”

  “The bus is fucked?” Missy said.

  LeStrange pointed at her and nodded. “Exactamente.”

  “You have another one, right?” Griffin asked.

  “Negative. But I make a call.”

  Ten minutes later, after shouting in French on the phone, LeStrange crept up the aisle again. “Bad problem,” he said. “Zee mechanic truck is stuck on zee highway from zee strike.” He held up the hose. “But is easy repair with new hose, and Granada is only five kilometers from here.”

  “Speak English, motherfucker!” Cato yelled.

  “Three miles,” Hal said. “That’s not far.”

  “And how you gonna get three miles?” Cato asked.

  “Eh, ban, we walk,” LeStrange said.

  Cato threw his arms back dramatically. “What the —? Somebody translate for this motherfucker.”

  “I’ll go,” Effie said, slipping her sundress back on. “Better than roasting on the bus.”

  “I’m down,” Elias said.

  “We can all go,” she said. “It’ll be fun.”

  “We aren’t doing anything.” Cato waved. “Bye, have fun.”

  “Hell with it,” Hal said. “I’ll go too. I need the exercise anyway.”

  For some odd reason, no one else wanted to take part in a boiling 5K across a mountain desert.

  Cato snapped his fingers. “Chop, chop. Hurry up now, before I melt.”

  LeStrange flung the hose over his shoulder and they started off down the road.

  Above, the blue mountain range jutted up toward the sky, and below the brown-scorched earth sizzled under their feet.

  Nothing was alive out there. Even birds weren’t flying overhead.

  About a mile down the road, Effie tapped the driver’s shoulder. “Um, LeStrange?” She winced at his underwear. “Your pants.”

  The driver smacked his hat against his thigh. “Ah, sheet.”

  “Oh fuck. Great!” Hal threw up his hands. “Somebody’s going to shoot us out here.”

  “Dude, chill,” Elias said. “This isn’t the Gulf.”

  LeStrange cursed in French, then continued flapping down the road with his underwear creeping up his ass.

  After a while, Hal whistled a cheery tune.

  “Willie Nelson?” LeStrange guessed.

  “That’s right!” Hal chuckled. “‘On the Road Again.’ Ever heard of that game show Name that Tune? You could be a contestant.”

  “Chante une autre.”

  Hal whistled the Talking Heads.

  “Road to Nowhere,” LeStrange shouted.

  The bodyguard burst into song. “We’re on a road to nowhere!”

  LeStrange cracked an imaginary whip. “Ha! Ha!”

  “You’re a good singer, Hal.” Effie said.

  “My mother was an opera singer.”

  “No kidding?”

  And with no prodding necessary, the bodyguard sang the entire Act 1 of Rigoletto, which made the next mile feel like light years.

  Effie applauded wildly at the end and bounced a little faster down the road in her sundress. Even in the dusty, hot-as-fuck mountain desert, she looked like a goddess.

  “Isn’t she the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen?” Elias said.

  “Aw, that’s cute,” Hal said.

  She looked over her shoulder and blew him a kiss.

  A little further down the road Effie shouted, “Look, ponies!”

  Elias squinted one sweat-stung eye at the dozen horses grazing in a corral. On the shack next to it a sign read: Los Gitanos Horse Riding Adventures.

  “Isn’t riding a horse on your list?” Elias asked her.

  She clapped. “Yes!”

  LeStrange shook his head. “Mauvaise idée, les gars.”

  They ignored him and entered the paddock.

  Elias waved at two crusty old guys and greeted them in Spanish.

  In return, they glared at LeStrange’s balls.

  He asked them about the horses.

  They glared at LeStrange’s balls.

  Next, he let the money talk for him and handed over an obscene amount of cash.

  Suddenly, they understood every word.

  LeStrange whispered behind his hand. “No good. Gypsies. Gitanos. Thieves. Bad idea.”

  They could be serial killers for all he cared, as long as they had horses for his girl to ride. He asked them a few questions.

  The Gypsies shrugged and pointed to the horses.

  “Guess we just pick a horse and go,” Elias said.

  Effie skipped to a dappled gray mare with a white mop-like mane and petted its velvet nose. “This one’s mine.”

  Clueless as to the makeup of a good horse, Elias chose the one next to hers.

  “Dat guy.” Hal lumbered toward a huge black horse sequestered from the others. “A badass horse for a badass bodyguard. What’s your name, big fella?”

  It whinnied and snorted and pawed the ground.

  “No! No! No!” The Gypsies waved their arms frantically.

  Hal ignored them. “I’ll just call you Señor Badass.�
� He stuck a foot in the stirrup.

  The horse dragged him to the side by the foot.

  “Whoa, boy! Whoa.”

  The crusty Gypsies covered their mouths.

  Hal threw himself on the beast’s back as if he were scaling a wall during a military exercise.

  The horse reared.

  “Yeah!” he shouted. “Badass!”

  Effie perched in her saddle, whispering sweet things in the animal’s ear.

  After carefully watching the Gypsies, Elias mounted his steed. Once astride, he broadened his shoulders and sniffed the air. Powerful. That’s how he felt up there. Like a knight headed into battle. He should buy a horse and ride it frequently with his fair maiden.

  LeStrange jumped and jumped, then finally hoisted himself up on the horse and grabbed the reins. “Ride ‘em, cowboy,” he said in his silly French accent, grinning ear-to-ear.

  The Gypsies wanted nothing to do with LeStrange, so he was forced to lean over and untie his own horse.

  Soon after, they all clopped down the road.

  LeStrange cawed like a crow. “Mes couilles.”

  No translation needed—men only made sounds like that when their balls were being smashed.

  “Ask them when we can run,” Effie said.

  Before he even posed the question, she took off galloping down the road.

  The Gypsies shouted something unintelligible and thunder approached from behind. A woman screamed bloody murder. Or at least it sounded like a woman.

  It turned out to be Hal on a runaway horse. He clung to the horse’s neck, ricocheting side-to-side, wailing like a banshee.

  “Putain,” LeStrange mumbled.

  Slack-jawed and wide-eyed, Elias watched the scene unfold like a movie. “La puta madre.”

  Hal shrieked again.

  “Ay! La puta madre!” What should he do? He didn’t know how to ride a horse! He jabbed his heels in the horse’s side, and miraculously, the animal’s gear shifted to full-speed.

  With the hot wind blowing hair in his eyes and the cloud of dust they kicked up, he could barely make out the shape of their horses in the distance.

  Effie’s horse reared, and then her flowery dress floated like a sail in the breeze, and she fell to the ground with a thud.