Fantasy

by Christine Feehan

  He hadn’t slept well last night. He figured he’d better try to get some sleep now so he could keep up tonight and not doze off in front of everyone. Insomnia had plagued him for some time, but he was determined to tough it out.

  Just before he drifted off to sleep, he wondered if this assignment he’d given himself was such a good idea after all. No article was worth thinking too much about the fantasy that was called relationships, and why he was never going to have a decent one….

  “Sharing a room?” Miranda said to the desk clerk. “Do I have to?”

  The slender clerk, his light blond hair slicked back off his head, nodded.

  “I’m afraid so. Mr. Levine is adamant about this. My understanding of this seminar is that there’s a considerable amount of homework outside the actual lecture time, and he insists each participant room with another participant so they can work on the homework together and discuss what they’ve learned so far. He called it”—he tapped a pencil against the countertop—“total immersion, or something like that.”

  “Great. Fine.” This was not good. Miranda had thought she’d have the privacy of her own room in order to undress and have a little downtime from being a guy. Now she’d have to keep the act up constantly. But while following other stories, she’d had to turn on a dime, change plans instantly, and this story was proving to be no exception.

  She could do it. It wouldn’t be that hard. Thank God her pajamas were unisex and not feminine at all. And she could dress in the bathroom, just claim she was modest.

  “You’re in room three hundred twelve,” the desk clerk said, and Miranda thanked him and took the key card.

  Cautiously, feeling like she was Goldilocks entering the three bears’ cottage, Miranda inserted the key card, slowly turned the doorknob, and stepped across the threshold.

  The hotel room was dark, the heavy curtains drawn. And totally silent.

  Taking a deep breath, she walked farther inside, then stopped just beyond the door as it gently swung shut. She placed her bag on the luggage stand.

  So far so good, she thought as her eyes adjusted to the dim light.

  Then she saw him.

  Gorgeous.

  It was the one word her brain seemed capable of forming.

  Gorgeous and exhausted.

  Two words. That’s good. But her brain seemed incapable of functioning further.

  She simply stared. The man fast asleep in the queen-sized bed on the far side of the room had kicked off most of his covers. Clad only in a pair of light blue boxer shorts, he afforded her an amazing view of his glorious body as he lay on his back, an arm thrown over his face, deep in sleep as that chest slowly rose and fell.

  She flashed on Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise, that sexy, seductive scene that had made her knees go weak when she’d first seen it. Sex. That body.

  This guy had that kind of body, that kind of presence—in his sleep!

  I am in so much trouble….

  Miranda stopped that line of thought, determined to tough this out. How much time would they actually spend in this room, except for sleeping? He’d think she was a guy. And she could handle him. She took a deep breath, gave herself a mental pep talk.

  Come on, you know men.

  Oh, she knew men. She was comfortable with them. With four older brothers, there was nothing a man could do to surprise her or gross her out that hadn’t already been tried, times four. But even though her brothers had delighted in shocking her and had walked around in the nude a great deal of the time, she’d never, even in all the time she’d been dating, seen a male body that had affected her the way this one did.

  Get your eyes back in your head….

  One arm was flung over his face so she couldn’t see it, and a muscled leg peeked out from beneath the sheet. She could see an incredibly sexy chest, with just the perfect amount of dark hair, arrowing down toward where the bedsheet was gathered at his waist….

  “Hey,” said a deep masculine voice, and she realized he was awake.

  Mortified, she yanked her gaze from his body up to his face and saw him. In a kind of sick, slow-motion response, almost as if she were in shock, Miranda recognized who her partner for this long weekend was.

  Jake Blackhall.

  The Jake Blackhall.

  The one man she’d thought would never have to take any sort of seminar on seduction. The man was simply testosterone on the hoof, one of Los Angeles’s most notorious bachelors, a guy who really got around.

  And she was his roommate for the entire weekend.

  2

  “We’re roommates,” she said, then realized how stupid that sounded. Like summer camp or something.

  “Yeah,” he said, swinging those long, muscled legs off the side of the bed, reaching for his jeans and pulling them on. The man was totally natural, totally unself-conscious, and seemed unaware of how good-looking he was.

  It only made him that much more appealing.

  He fastened his jeans, didn’t bother with a shirt, and approached her. She couldn’t seem to stop staring at him; the combination of dark hair and deep blue eyes was stunning on him. His hair was longish, it would brush the back of his shirt, but it suited him. And those eyes! Clear, intelligent, so penetrating—

  Suddenly Miranda felt a lot less secure with her disguise.

  “Jake Blackhall,” he said, holding out his hand, and she liked him even more because he didn’t just assume she—make that he—knew who he was. Even though he was famous, or more accurately, infamous. And in L.A., city of celebrity, that counted for something.

  She panicked as she reached for that large, masculine hand, self-conscious about how she was presenting herself. And remembering what Jim had told her while she’d gone through his closet during his crash course on “being a guy.”

  “A firm handshake, Miranda,” he’d said. “Otherwise they’ll be on to you.”

  She latched on to his hand and gave him a crushing handshake, vigorously pumping his arm up and down.

  He winced, then returned the handshake, his own pressure firm and assured, but considerably less. She pulled her hand away.

  “Randy. Randy Ward.”

  “Good to meet you, Randy.” Jake studied her as he massaged his hand, a slightly puzzled expression on his handsome face. Miranda glanced away.

  “I’ll take this other bed.”

  “Fine.” Jake glanced at the digital clock on the night-stand. “We have a few hours until the whole thing starts at six. What were you planning on doing?”

  “Uh—I don’t know. Maybe going over the information packet. Checking the schedule and how this whole thing is set up.”

  “Would you mind if I tried to sleep?”

  “Not at all. I can read in the bathroom if the light bothers you.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” he said quietly. “I’ve slept through worse.”

  And with that he walked back over to the bed, slid out of his jeans—she averted her eyes, then couldn’t help taking a quick look—and climbed beneath the covers. His back was turned toward her, and within minutes she heard his even breathing. She couldn’t be sure he was asleep, but he was certainly making an effort.

  She wondered why he was so tired—

  There she went, with the writer’s curse. Constantly wondering about other people’s lives. She had to stop. Especially when it came to this particular man.

  Miranda silently counted to ten, trying to relax and clear her mind. Here she was, in a hotel room with the man who had been voted “Los Angeles’s Sexiest Bachelor” on the cover of her magazine two years in a row! And not only that, he’d stripped down to his underwear! And they were alone in a hotel room, and would be for most of this weekend!

  How had she gotten herself into this situation?

  The article. The one you want to write. Keep your eye on the prize, she told herself firmly, then opened the information packet and pulled out the thick sheaf of material inside. It spilled over her bed, piles of single pages, various
worksheets, and a thick, spiral-bound workbook. She reached for the first thing that caught her attention, a glossy, professional, eight-by-ten, black-and-white photograph.

  Anton Levine, in all his glory.

  He was dressed in a pair of black leather pants and nothing else as he stared at the camera with an arrogant sneer, his lip curled. He’d obviously worked out and created that body; no man possessed stomach muscles like those without the requisite work.

  But the expression in those dark eyes as they stared defiantly into the camera left her cold. Chilled her. This guy was no Brad Pitt, and Thelma and Louise wouldn’t have wanted to get near him.

  He seemed to be going for some sort of Jim Morrison look, the whole bad boy rock and roll thing, with the tight leather pants and the long, curly dark hair. She wondered if the hair was all his own or extensions.

  Probably fake. Come to think of it, she wondered if he’d had pectoral implants.

  “The lizard king,” she said softly to herself, then glanced over as Jake rolled easily to his side and watched her.

  “Did I wake you?” she said, nervous.

  “Nah. I’m having trouble sleeping. What’ve you got there?”

  She handed him the picture and fought a smile as he started to laugh.

  “Oh, this is not a good sign,” Jake said, then tossed the picture back at her. “What’s the deadline on getting my money back?”

  She laughed, and realized that she liked him.

  He was an absolute riot to talk to. So smart. Funny. Articulate.

  She wondered what he’d be like on a date. She didn’t dare think about what he’d be like in bed. She already knew the answer. Devastating. And if those intense blue eyes were focused on you—well, a woman wouldn’t stand a chance. She knew she wouldn’t.

  Thank God she was a guy—sort of. For the weekend. Here in their hotel room, man to man as it were, she just enjoyed being with him.

  “So how did you decide to take this seminar?” Jake asked her. They’d ordered up sandwiches from room service and were now sprawled on their respective beds, eating.

  No girly salads for her, just manly man stuff—sandwich, fries, extra ketchup, and a piece of pie. Hell, she’d even ordered a beer, as had Jake.

  “Well, I haven’t had a whole lot of luck with relationships.” She hesitated, then belched. This guy stuff was a lot of fun—all she had to do was remember her brothers at their very worst.

  “What’s the problem?” Jake said.

  Miranda had the feeling that she’d just been taken under this man’s generous wing. He probably considered her to be nothing in the way of a threat or competition. Of course, there was always the possibility that he was just a nice guy.

  “I’m not sure. I’ve had two relationships, and they just never…caught fire, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do.”

  “And you—” The look he gave her caused the words to die in her throat. As if he wasn’t used to anyone throwing his own questions right back at him. Probably no one dared, especially women.

  But she was a man. Sort of. She could behave differently. Challenge him.

  Miranda forged on, determined. After all, they were going to be in close quarters for the next forty-eight hours. They had to get along.

  And she genuinely wanted to know what he was doing at this seminar. There it was again, that writer’s mind, that endless, boundless curiosity. Because if there was one man in the City of Angels who didn’t need to know how to seduce a woman swiftly, it was Jake Blackhall.

  What was he doing here?

  Miranda cleared her throat. “Mr. Blackhall, we can’t pretend—”

  “Jake. The name’s Jake.”

  “Okay. Jake.” She chose her words carefully, also making sure she consciously pitched her voice lower. She had to sound masculine. “We can’t pretend—or let me say that I can’t pretend—that I don’t know a great deal about your past. It was all over the place, in the news, in the tabloids—I mean, I couldn’t go to the market without seeing your face as I checked out.”

  He sighed, then ran a hand through his thick, dark hair, and she felt sorry for him. It had to have been a horrible experience.

  “Not that I believed any of it,” Miranda quickly added.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly. Those two words were so heartfelt that a part of her heart ached for this man, what he had to have gone through. A divorce was bad enough, but being devoured by the press at such a vulnerable time would have been agony.

  “So,” Miranda continued, “I really admire the fact that you’d come out to a weekend seminar like this one. I mean, it’s tantamount to admitting that you want to get back into the whole relationship thing again.”

  “Yeah,” he said, then hesitated. She sensed there was more, and waited.

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Hmmm,” she said. “I wish I’d known when I confided in you, trusted in you, that the gesture wasn’t going to be reciprocated.” Wait, that sounded too feminine. Get to the point, the way a guy does. Think practical! “And how are we going to do the homework assignments if we aren’t open and honest with each other?” She was getting the hang of this man thing, saying what she felt and not worrying about how the other person took it. Just being a little bolder than she usually was, and she was bold by nature.

  She wouldn’t have survived four brothers if she hadn’t been. They’d toughened her up.

  “All right,” he said. “Of course I’m interested in relationships. I just don’t have a whole lot of faith in the fact that I’ll ever choose to be in one again.”

  She mulled this over. Considering what she knew about this man’s past, she could see his point. His ex-wife had been out for blood.

  “I can understand that, with what you’ve been through.”

  He leaned back on the bed. “Now you sound like my sister.”

  His sister? This wasn’t good. Too feminine, you’re coming off way too feminine. She had to mix it up, make herself more masculine. Or make her feminine manner more understandable. Swiftly she thought of a few other pointers Jim had given her.

  “If you come off too feminine by accident,” he’d said, “say you have sisters. Men who have sisters get the whole women thing a lot better than men who don’t.”

  Great idea. Thanks, Jim.

  “Sisters,” she said. “Now that I understand! I have—four of them.” Silently she asked Mike, Mark, Mitchell, and Marty to forgive her for suddenly changing their gender.

  “Jesus, you were really outnumbered. Any brothers?”

  “No.”

  “Hmmm. Where are you in the birth order?”

  “I’m the youngest. How about you?”

  “One sister. A twin. I was born first, so I consider her my little sister.”

  “You must be very close.” This side of Jake Blackhall fascinated her.

  “We are.” He grinned. “She wasn’t that happy about my taking this seminar.”

  “I’ll bet. Neither were my sisters.”

  And they laughed, two men together, acting out against their sisters, defying the feminine.

  And bonded.

  As Jake pulled their hotel room door shut behind him and they headed down to the first evening of the seminar, he studied his new roommate, Randy Ward.

  Poor guy. Clearly overwhelmed by all that feminine energy. Four sisters and no brothers! No wonder the guy seemed slightly—feminine.

  His build certainly didn’t help. The guy was slender, almost delicate. Jake would bet money that Randy had probably been sickly as a child. Overprotected. And the only boy, a baby brother born into a family of four sisters? The baby boy they’d all been waiting for? He’d probably been spoiled and doted on. Coddled.

  That dark red hair and clear pale skin reminded Jake of an Irish altar boy. He’d even spotted a few freckles on those high cheekbones. He seemed younger than his thirties, but with that build and those freckles, Randy had probably always looked younger than he really was.<
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  And he obviously hadn’t had success with women, otherwise why would he be here? Jake had almost considered telling him to go downstairs and get his money back, as this seminar was not the way to a woman’s heart. But he’d learned long ago not to interfere with other people’s plans.

  He’d keep an eye out for him, make sure he didn’t get in any trouble. And if after tonight Randy decided that this weekend wasn’t for him, Jake would help him get a full refund. Jake kind of liked the idea of butting heads with Anton Levine, aka Jim Morrison the Lizard King.

  Jake decided he wouldn’t look for trouble. Randy seemed like a nice enough guy. And Jake was sure the two of them could get along throughout the next forty-eight hours. He’d get the information he needed for his article, and poor Randy here would—hopefully—get enough information so that his next relationship wouldn’t be as miserable. Perhaps it would even catch fire, if that was what he really wanted and needed.

  Hell, maybe there was hope for one of them.

  The lecture hall was packed, with easily six or seven hundred men milling around and settling themselves in the luxurious stadium seating, then adjusting the built-in desks that swung up and opened in front of each seat.

  Jake led the way, Miranda following his broad back. He cut a swath through the masculine crowd, and Miranda realized with a little thrill that other men were deferring to him. He was clearly, as an old sociobiology professor had taught her, the big monkey in this group.

  Thank God she was a man this weekend, or she might do something really stupid like let him know how attracted she was to him.

  She’d never dated a man like him, so self-assured and—smart. Together. Despite the hard times he’d endured after his messy divorce, she sensed this was a man who had rebuilt his life and would make it no matter what circumstances life threw in his way.