Cover Model

by Devon Hartford

  Chapter 5

  ELECTRA

  While I sit waiting in the crowd near the front of the stage, I check my phone.

  Damn. Several texts over the last hour from Austin Thayer, the photographer from Trending Magazine.

  11:57am: In the lobby.

  12:34pm: Where are you?

  12:47pm: Going to convention hall. Meet u there.

  1:43pm: Show’s about to start. Are u here?

  I realize now that like always, I turned off my ringer before starting Connor’s interview.

  I fire off a text to Austin: I’m in the front row.

  I send it and twist around in my seat, looking for him. Everybody behind me watches me. I ignore them. After scanning the crowd, I see Austin standing at the back of the seating area. I wave vigorously.

  He trots up the aisle between the rows of seats, hunching down to be less conspicuous until he squats beside me. “Hey, Electra.”

  “I’m so sorry, Austin. I totally spaced. I had my phone off during my interview. I was—”

  He grins, “No worries. I kept myself busy taking a bunch of shots of the attendees and the authors. There’s a lot of famous writers here, from what the fans are telling me. But I don’t recognize them.”

  I grin, “What, don’t you read romance novels?”

  He grins sarcastically, “Do you?”

  “No,” I whisper guiltily.

  I’ve always liked Austin. We’ve worked on assignments like this before. He’s very cute in that clean-shaven surfer-next-door sort of way, but he definitely fills out his tight O’Neill surf T-shirt nicely. He has one of those long swimmer’s bodies with just the right amount of muscle to be manly, and wavy sun-bleached blond hair from actually surfing. His tan legs flex noticeably beneath his khaki shorts when he shifts positions. His forearm muscles dance when he fiddles with his camera. He holds it up to show me the view screen on the back. The photo shows a middle-aged brunette woman surrounded by two dozen grinning women of all ages. “Check it out.”

  “Who’s that?” I ask.

  “E.L. James. She wrote Fifty Shades of Grey.”

  “She’s here? I’ve heard of her.”

  “I guess Rom Com Con is a pretty big deal.”

  “Wait, I thought you don’t read romance. How do you know who she is?”

  “Because there’s a giant sign behind her that says her name?”

  “Oh, right,” I giggle, leaning against his shoulder for a second.

  When we met two years ago, Austin had a girlfriend, otherwise we might’ve ended up dating. As far as I know, they’re still together. Ever since I found out, I’ve kept our conversations purely platonic.

  “Do you want to sit?” I offer.

  “No, thanks. As soon as this thing starts, I’ll be moving around to get good photos.”

  “Got it.”

  The stage in front of us is currently empty. Women in red STAFF shirts have stuck their heads out now and again, but the only thing to look at is the huge projection screen hanging from the back of the stage. A slideshow of book cover images has been playing on it since I sat down. I don’t recognize any of the covers except Stepbrother Obsessed, which Romeo showed me this morning. But I do recognize Connor’s body in all of them.

  As nice as the photos are, they don’t do justice to what it feels like to be standing inches away from the real thing.

  Or to be kissing the real thing.

  Heat flushes through my body as I remember our kiss.

  I have never been kissed like that.

  It was like Connor was fucking me with his tongue. Even now, the sense memory makes me shiver.

  “You okay?” Austin mutters.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” I knot my hands in my lap and shift on the cushioned chair. I’m suddenly very aware of my feminine folds. I wish I’d had time to go to the restroom before the show because I realize I’m still quite wet.

  I submerge into memories of Connor’s hard body and his hard cock pressing up against me through my skirt. My desire to feel him inside me sweeps through my entire body in a hot wave. What I wouldn’t do right now to rewind back to that moment. Too bad Romeo showed up when he did. Who knows what might have happened if he hadn’t.

  “Who’s ready to meet Connor!!” The voice blares from the PA speakers hanging above the stage.

  The crowd of fans erupts in high pitched squeals of approval. I resist the urge to plug my ears. I never realized a room full of grown women could be so incredibly loud. If it was a bunch of twelve year olds at a Katy Perry concert, I would understand. But these women range in age from sixteen to sixty.

  The announcer on stage stands to the side of the stage with a mic in hand. I have no idea who she is, but she’s wearing slacks and a blazer over a red Rom Com Con polo shirt. She says, “You all know him from the countless covers he’s done in the past five years.” She looks up at the projection screen to watch more Connor Covers flash by. “What do you think ladies? Is Connor hot or what?!”

  The crowd cheers approval.

  “I bet you’re all dying to see Connor in the flesh!!”

  More cheers.

  “Do you ladies think the rumors are true? Is THE Connor heinous? Or is he handsome?”

  An immediate roar of disagreement from the crowd.

  “No!!”

  “He’s gorgeous!!”

  “Handsome!!”

  Some of these women are getting red in the face from shouting so loud. I can’t believe how invested they are in what amounts to no more than a fantasy. It boggles my mind.

  “I won’t keep you ladies waiting any longer. You’ve waited five years for this moment! Without further ado, here he is! The REAL Connor Hughes!!”

  Thumping dance music pumps through the PA speakers. The stage lights flicker and flash all over the place. Smoke billows out from both sides of the stage. The projection screen fades to a blue glow, revealing a fifteen foot tall muscled silhouette behind it.

  The crowd shouts with bold desire.

  The screen raises and a spotlight trains on Connor, who is a mere six-foot-whatever, but the screen lights up with larger-than-life video of him. He saunters through smoke to the middle of the stage. He’s wearing the baseball cap, aviator glasses, T-shirt, jeans, and boots. He starts to writhe in time to the dance beat pumping from the PA.

  The women go wild.

  Austin crouches and duck-walks up to the foot of the low stage and starts shooting photos.

  Connor is quite the dancer. After a few moves, he grabs the brim of his ball cap and frisbees it into the audience. A group of women suddenly jump up to catch it. They fight for it desperately. They all want a piece of The Connor Hughes.

  Random women scream from the crowd:

  “I want your baby!”

  “No, let me be your baby mama, Connor!”

  “Come home with me, Connor!”

  “I’m getting a divorce!”

  I can hardly blame them.

  Based on how well he’s dancing, Connor either has training as a male stripper or he’s a natural dancer. I’m not sure which. He gyrates his hips hypnotically. He really can move.

  As he waves his body up and down, he grabs the collar of his T-shirt and slowly tears it open, revealing his incredible chest and abs. The big projection screen shows a gigantic image of his writhing muscles.

  A surge of desire spasms in my core. I was pressed up against that mythical body only a few minutes ago.

  I squeeze my knees together and gasp audibly. If it wasn’t for the chaos of all the screaming women, I’d be embarrassed. But nobody can hear me in this noise. I’m cocooned in my own world of high definition arousal. What would it be like to have Connor’s hard writhing body between my legs? To have that thick cock of his filling me up, pounding me to orgasm? Oh god, I’m going to come in my panties right here just thinking about it. My entire body shivers as pleasure blooms in my stomach. At this rate, I’m going to soak right through my fitted skirt. I need to get a grip.


  Connor wads his tattered T-shirt into a ball and throws it to the other side of the crowd. Another wave of women rise up to fight for it.

  This is insanity.

  Connor starts taking off his sunglasses. He does it with the same languorous slowness I imagine he’d use when removing my panties. The crowd gasps with electric anticipation. Oh gawd, I’m melting into my seat. I swear I’m about to come from all the excitement.

  Nothing prepares me for what happens when Connor finally removes his sunglasses. The women go absolutely crazy. The sound of the desperate screams is deafening. It’s worse than Biebermania or Beatlemania or whatever kind of mania you can imagine. Some of the women surrounding me are literally hysterical. Others are merely in awe of Connor Hughes.

  He throws his sunglasses into the crowd and continues to dance, making his way toward the front of center stage. He continues to twist and swivel his hips with seductive finesse.

  All of the energy pouring off the women surrounding me combined with Connor’s dancing is having a strange effect on me. Not twenty minutes ago, this man who is melting the minds of all these women, wanted me.

  Not them.

  Me.

  Little Electra Warmoth.

  Does it make me shallow that I care what everyone else thinks of Connor, that them wanting him makes me want him that much more?

  I don’t know.

  But I do know that Connor is looking right at me.

  Me.

  He has that same stupid cocky grin I know so well and he’s pointing it straight at me while all these women wish he was looking at them. Some of them are literally begging for his attention.

  “Connor! Over here!”

  “Please, Connor!” another woman screams desperately, on the verge of sobbing.

  “Connor!!!!”

  But he’s only looking at me.

  Connor is doing all of this for me…

  <<<<<<<>>>>>>>

  CONNOR

  Between the PA and the women, it’s louder than a Metallica concert in here. But I don’t notice any of it. I’m 100% focused on Electra.

  She’s all I’m thinking about.

  I’m dancing for her.

  Lord knows I’ve tried every other fuckin trick in the book to get her to lower her defenses. I’ve never tried so damn hard to get a woman to fuck me. Usually they’re the ones doing all the work to get on my cock. But when all else fails, do a striptease in front of a thousand other drooling women. If this doesn’t show her the light, nothing will.

  Based on the way her luscious lips are opened in a pouty O, I think it might be working. Fuckin finally. My dick stirs in my pants. Those fuckin lips…

  Something flies at me from the crowd.

  I catch it easily.

  A black thong. I have no idea who threw it. I wish it was Electra, but we all know it wasn’t hers. Remembering I’m here to do a job, I stretch the underwear over my head and wear it like a choker.

  The women go wild.

  I keep dancing.

  There’s two more minutes left in the song. I’m already sweaty. All the stage lights are hot as fuck. A bunch of photographers at the foot of the stage are snapping away. I think it’s safe to say I’m going to get a lot of press out of this. My face is going to be all over the internet in less than an hour.

  All these fuckin women are screaming their heads off. It’s fuckin ridic—

  —screamscream—

  A flash of pain spikes through my brain.

  I gotta focus on dancing. I don’t want to lose my shit right in the middle of

  —scream-scream-scream-scream—

  I grit my teeth, trying to focus on my moves.

  —why did you—

  The stage tilts, nearly knocking me down.

  The crowd gasps.

  I recover by falling backward and rolling into a handstand. Then I do two slow handstand pushups like it’s nothing. It takes all my strength, but I do it smooth. On the bottom of the second one, I let my legs scissor out into splits. I hold the handstand for several seconds, my arms shaking slightly. I push up slowly, point my legs back up at the ceiling, then kick out of the hand stand, landing on my feet.

  The crowd goes crazy.

  Right then, the song ends on a crescendo.

  I hadn’t planned on ending the song this way, but whatever works.

  Confetti bombs go off and I take a bow. A rainbow rain of confetti flutters down all around me as the lights strobe like lightning. The smoke machines fog the stage and I exit stage left.

  If that doesn’t get me into Electra’s pants, I don’t know what will.

  <<<<<<<>>>>>>>

  ELECTRA

  The stage lights go dark.

  “The one and only Connor Hughes, ladies!!” The announcer says over the PA. “He will be signing autographs and anything else you want him to sign over in Autograph Alley in thirty minutes.”

  “I wasn’t expecting that,” I mutter to Austin

  “Yeah,” he says absently, kneeling beside me and wheeling through the photos he just shot.

  “How’d they turn out?”

  He holds up the camera so I can see the screen.

  “Nice action shots, Austin. You really have an eye. The angles are incredible.”

  “Thanks,” he grins.

  “Should we head over to Autograph Alley?”

  “I need to get to a wifi hotspot and upload these photos to Vince ASAP. There’s wifi in the hotel. Wanna come with? You can finish up your article. I know Vince is waiting for it.”

  Oh shit.

  Is he kidding?

  After the trouble I’ve had with Connor? I barely have anything. What am I gonna do? I’ll just have to fake my way through my article. I don’t have any other choice.

  “Come on,” Austin says.

  We worm our way through the glue of all the giddy fans. It’s going to take forever to get back to the hotel at this rate.

  “This way,” I say. “It’s faster.”

  Austin follows me out the back of the building and we stride toward the hotel, past the tennis courts, the pool, into the spa, and finally the lobby, which is no longer packed with people. There are Rom Com Con attendees milling about, but nothing like earlier. Everyone’s inside the convention hall.

  Austin and I find two stools at the hotel bar. He pulls a MacBook Air out of his bag and starts transferring files from his camera to the laptop. I pull out my Microsoft Surface and unfold the keyboard. We both order sandwiches from the bartender and get to work.

  Austin pages through his photos and starts editing his selects in Photoshop.

  Me?

  You know that feeling when you’re starting your term paper minutes before class on the day that it’s due, the one you put off for weeks and weeks? This is that times a thousand. But I’m not in danger of getting an F. I’m in danger of pissing off my best client and not getting paid. This is a disaster.

  Am I surprised that anything involving Connor Hughes is anything less?

  Nope.

  The first thing I do is open a web browser to TMZ and check their latest headlines. Nothing on Connor yet. Why would there be? He’s not famous. Yet. But after what I saw on the convention hall stage? Forget it. If I’d known about the dance routine, I would’ve told Vince we needed a camera crew. No time to worry about it now.

  I open writing software and bang out ideas, throwing down catchy headlines and anything else I can think of. This article is going to be nothing but bullshit.

  Austin sits back from his computer and takes a bite from his sandwich.

  “Are you finished?” I ask, distressed.

  “Yup. Uploading now.”

  “Crap.”

  I hunch my shoulders and go to work. If I don’t email something to Vince in the next ten minutes, I’m going to hear from him.

  Ten minutes later, Austin is finishing his sandwich. I haven’t touched mine. But I do have 500 catchy words and a punchy headline that I send off to Vince’s email
.

  MYSTERIOUS MODEL CONNOR HUGHES HAS GOT THE GROOVES

  I may have rushed through it, but I think it’s pretty good considering how little time I had. I refresh the TMZ page one last time, scanning for anything Connor related. Nothing.

  I breathe a sigh of relief.

  Finally, I pick up my sandwich and take a bite.

  My phone rings five minutes later while I’m chewing on a fresh bite of turkey and cheese.

  It’s Vince Pitts.

  I hold the phone up to my ear, prepared for the worst. “Yeah?”

  “This is shit, Warmoth!” Vince shouts on the other end of the line “You call this a story? It’s useless fluff! I could shred it and fill my cat box with it and my cat still wouldn’t piss on it!”

  I didn’t think it was that bad. Sounding sarcastic, I say, “You have a cat?” I can’t believe Vince Pitts has a cat.

  “No! You’re missing the point! Where is my story? That’s the point! Your article is a few boring facts and too much filler. I need meat! Something readers can sink their teeth into! Nobody likes to take a bite out of shit, Warmoth.”

  At that thought, I set my sandwich down and wipe my fingers on my napkin. Although Vince’s string of gross metaphors are vintage Vince, they’re also appropriate. I know the article was rushed. Sure, it’s not terrible, but it’s far from my best work, and it’s definitely not a revealing exposé. It’s just color.

  Austin gives me a sympathetic smile. He knows how annoying Vince can be.

  I take a deep breath. “Vince, I’ve been under a bit of a time crunch. I didn’t have much to work with.”

  “Whose fault is that, Warmoth? Who decided to walk out of the interview before it started? You lost almost two hours because of that stunt!”

  “I’ll fix it, Vince. Is that what you want to hear? I’ll get you something good.”

  “You better, because as it stands, your story isn’t worth printing. TMZ already posted a piece on their website.”

  “No they didn’t! I just checked.”

  “Check again.”

  I refresh the TMZ webpage. Shit. They did.