I think about what that might be like. “A.J. would be bald and weigh four hundred pounds.”
Nico laughs. “Yeah. And Brody’d be as gristly and wrinkled as Jagger.”
Fingers crossed. I smile at a mental image of Brody at eighty, rickety and frail, preening over the last five hairs he has left on his head. Then I frown, realizing the prick is probably going to look just as stylish and boyishly handsome then as he does now.
“Chris and Ethan will have matching wheelchairs.”
“And titanium hips.”
“And girlfriends.”
“Ha!” Nico snorts. “Wonder if the Krugermann twins will still be around?”
“Jesus. You remember that crazy night in Munich?”
“Which one?”
We share a laugh, because he has a good point. There have been too many wild nights in faraway places to count.
“Ah, man,” he says, growing somber. In the glowing orange light of the setting sun, his famously cobalt blue eyes are filled with sadness. “It’s not gonna be the same without you. No joke.”
“You’ll manage.”
He studies me for a moment. “Got a question. Don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to.”
I cock an eyebrow, waiting.
“How much of your decision to move on has to do with Grace and Brody bein’ together?”
I’m not surprised by that. Nico knows me too well. I’m also not upset by the question, because it’s a fair one. Like always, I’m honest with him.
“I’m not saying I love that particular outcome, but at the end of the day, I’m happy for them. Yeah, there were some feelings there, and I thought maybe…well. Wasn’t in the cards. Main thing is, I know he’ll do right by her. It was just time for a change.” Even to my own ears, my sigh sounds wistful.
Nico’s quiet for a while, then he shakes his head, exhaling a hard breath.
“What?”
“Nothin’. It’s just…” He meets my gaze. “Someday somebody’s gonna come along who’s gonna scale those fortress walls of yours, brother.”
I mutter, “For fuck’s sake. You sound like a love song.”
He purses his lips. “Yeah, that’s a good line. I’m gonna use it.”
I roll my eyes.
“But the point remains.”
Now I’m getting irritated. “What fucking point?”
“That if you’re not careful, you will wind up that old geezer Clint Eastwood character who spends his life protectin’ other people’s families instead of makin’ one for himself. You don’t wanna wake up one day at seventy, incontinent and alone.”
Without an ounce of sarcasm, I say, “Thank you for that inspiring speech. I’ll take it under advisement. Can I please enjoy my party now, Debbie Downer?”
He makes a face. “Stubborn dick.”
“Mother hen. You taking estrogen, old lady? ’Cause you’re starting to sound like my grandma.”
“Bet your grandma was a smart old bat, though.”
I laugh, because she was. Then my cell phone rings. I check the number, and it’s my new boss calling from New York. He’s not the type for small talk, so I know it’s important. I hold up the phone and look at Nico. “Gotta take this.”
He claps me on the shoulder and smiles. “Okay, but don’t fuckin’ sneak out without sayin’ goodbye. Yeah?”
“I wouldn’t leave without getting a hug and a kiss from that gorgeous wife of yours, so you’ll see me before I go.”
He flips me off, I blow him a kiss, then he’s ambling away, shaking his head and smiling.
I hit Answer on my cell. “Mr. Hughes.”
“I told you to call me Connor,” says a deep, rumbling baritone. “You disobeying orders already?”
“No, sir. Connor. Sir.”
“Jesus H Christ on a crutch,” he mutters.
“Sorry. Reflex.”
“I hope that reflex is leftover from your time in the corps and not outta some half-cocked idea about respecting your elders or some such nonsense. Got my wife givin’ me enough shit about me bein’ old. Don’t need my new recruit doin’ it, too.”
When we met at my interview, I’d estimated his age somewhere in the neighborhood of forty, give or take a few years, which makes us contemporaries. His wife—a stunning redhead with a firecracker personality and a catastrophically ugly wardrobe—is probably a decade younger. In addition to a proclivity for pigtails, piercings, and Hello Kitty clothing, she’s got tattoos all over.
I liked her right away.
Her husband, on the other hand, is as intimidating as hell. Built like a mountain, he’s got a glower that could melt steel. If his size or stare don’t scare you, the weapons strapped to his waist will. And I happen to know from the research I conducted before accepting the job that the man is as lethal as they come. He could just as easily blow my head off with a single shot from his rifle from a mile away as he could kill me bare handed without breaking a sweat.
So calling him “Mr.” and “sir” is less of a respect thing and more like a self-preservation thing.
I have a hunch anyone who gets on the bad side of Connor Hughes doesn’t live long enough to do anything else.
“Affirmative,” I say, sticking a finger in my ear because the music’s making it hard to hear him. I turn and walk away over the grass toward the casita at the far end of the yard. I’ll go inside to get some privacy if this conversation continues long enough.
“Sounds like you’re at a party. Sorry to interrupt.”
“No worries.”
“I’ll make this quick. Since we don’t have much time before you deploy, I’d like you to review the information for the op and familiarize yourself with the players before we get you in the field. Any questions you got, we’ll go over ’em when you get here. I’m emailing you a link to our secure server. The passcode is the motto on the picture on the wall behind my desk. Hope you noticed it, ’cause you’re not gettin’ another.”
Why that should make me grin, I have no idea. I guess I just like a good challenge. “Copy that.”
He grunts, which I interpret as he’s pleased. “We’ll have a car waiting for you at JFK.”
“Great. I’ll text you if my flight is delayed.”
He chuckles. “Not necessary. We’ll know.”
Right. He’s got eyes and ears everywhere. There’s a full-time staff at Metrix who do nothing but scour satellite transmissions and decode encrypted communications. And his wife freelances for the National Security Administration. They probably know what color underwear Vladimir Putin is wearing.
“Oh, and Nasir?”
“Yeah?”
“The code changes in twelve hours.”
When the line goes dead, I laugh out loud. Apparently Connor Hughes isn’t one for goodbyes, either.
I’m already halfway to the casita, so I decide to take a piss before heading back to the party. The structure is as modern as the house, all glass, concrete, and straight lines, with an incredible view of Los Angeles all the way to the Pacific.
The front door—a huge slab of glass that showcases an empty living room—is locked. No problem, I’ll just go around back and have a whiz outta sight of the crowd. I make my way around the side of the guest house, then step into the shade of the covered patio in the backyard.
Then I stop in my tracks, arrested by the sound of a long, low moan.
What the fuck was that?
I wait a moment, but don’t hear anything except the pulse of the music and muffled laughter from the party.
Then the moan comes again, accompanied this time by what sounds distinctly like the crack of flesh hitting flesh.
Someone’s getting beaten up.
I act purely on instinct and move forward silently, adrenaline spiking, a surge of anger heating my blood. I’ll be damned if I’ll let someone get hurt on my watch, on duty or not.
I see that the sliding glass patio door is wide open and quickly cross to it. I slip inside, noting the empty room.
There are no signs of people in the kitchen, either. The main living area is one large, open space, so the only other place to look is in the two bedrooms down at the end of a short hallway.
The first bedroom is empty. The second is not, which I discover as soon as I come close enough to see through the gap in the door, which has been left ajar.
Three people are on the king-sized bed. The two men are on their knees facing each other, the woman is on all fours between them.
It’s Chris, Ethan, and Heather. They’re all naked.
I freeze.
It occurs to me in a flash that it’s obviously been too long since I’ve had sex if I’m mistaking a moan of pleasure for one of pain. Then I stop thinking and just stand there and stare, unable to move even if I wanted to.
“Suck his cock, baby,” murmurs Chris, nudging the head of his own erect dick between Heather’s spread thighs. “You know how he likes it.”
She complies, wrapping one hand around Ethan’s erection. She slips the crown between her full lips. She begins to suckle the head while stroking the shaft, balancing on her other hand, her generous breasts gently swinging with her movements.
Behind her, with one hand on her hip and the other lazily stroking her labia, Chris smiles.
Ethan sucks in a breath. “Fuck, that’s good.” He pushes Heather’s long dark hair off her face so he has an unobstructed view of her sucking him off. The motion is tender, and so is his gaze as he stares down at her, his lips parted, his eyelids drooping low.
“Good girl,” whispers Chris, and slides a finger inside Heather’s pussy.
She makes a mewling noise in the back of her throat and flexes her hips.
At about this time, I realize I, too, have an erection. A huge, painful one, as a matter of fact, which doesn’t seem to harbor any feelings of guilt at spying on my friends while they have sex with their girlfriend. I, however, am not nearly as complacent about the situation, and suffer an extraordinary mix of contradictory feelings including shame, excitement, terror of discovery, and more shame.
Followed by more excitement. My heart is beating so hard I feel like I’ve mainlined cocaine. I’m sweating, and I’ve only been standing here for like ten seconds.
It’s not as if I’ve never seen this. Not exactly this, but suffice it to say all the members of Bad Habit have what any doctor would deem voracious sexual appetites. Before Kat, Chloe, and Grace came along, their boys were hoes, no two ways about it, and Chris and Ethan kept up with them. I’ve walked in on so many groupies with their legs in the air you wouldn’t believe me if I could calculate the actual number. That’s just life on the road with a bunch of rock stars.
But this seems different. Simply by the way they’re all looking at each other, I can tell there’s genuine caring, genuine trust. This isn’t just two rambunctious young men sticking their dicks in some random holes, excuse the vulgarity.
This seems intimate.
Which makes me feel like even more of a perv for watching.
I’m about to turn on my heel and find some cold water to splash on my face when something stops me.
With a fluidity of motion that can only come from practice, the trio changes into a new position. Without speaking or otherwise signaling a desire to move, Ethan lies on his back on the mattress and Heather straddles his face, facing his feet. Chris, meanwhile, stays on his knees behind Heather, his legs on either side of Ethan’s shoulders.
Now Heather is facing the door.
She grasps Ethan’s jutting cock, lowers her hips to his face, and sucks his dick into her mouth. Her cheeks hollow. She takes him all the way to the base, moaning softly around him, then glances up and looks right at me.
Caught, I stop breathing.
Holding my gaze, she slowly, slowly draws her mouth up the length of Ethan’s erection, then furls her tongue around the crown and licks her lips.
Then she smiles at me.
Starting at my neck, heat floods my face.
Her eyes flutter when Ethan starts to lick her pussy, but she doesn’t take her gaze off me as she takes him down her throat again, fondling his balls and starting to flex her hips to the strokes of his tongue.
Trapped in my briefs, my cock throbs and twitches, aching to be set free.
“You’re already so wet, baby,” croons Chris, staring down between her spread legs as he strokes the head of his cock up and down her exposed flesh. “I think your sweet little cunt needs to get fucked.”
“Yes,” she says in a throaty whisper, still staring right at me. “Fuck me. Please fuck me deep.”
I think I’m gonna come in my pants.
Chris is too focused on Heather to notice anything else. Like, for instance, me standing in the hallway watching through the crack in the door as he sinks his cock inside her, grunting in pleasure and wrapping his hands around the flare of her hips. Ethan reaches down and fondles one of her breasts, pinching a taut nipple between his fingers and making her squirm.
Then the three of them are moving as one, making small, helpless noises and breathing erratically. This is a well-coordinated dance, with an apparent goal of bringing Heather to orgasm first.
She wails her way through it, throwing her head back as Ethan works her with his tongue. Chris fucks her with firm, even strokes, fisting a hand in her hair and slapping her ass.
Sweat pours down my temples. Somehow my erection found its way into my hand. I squeeze it through my jeans, desperately trying to catch my breath.
Then they’re changing position again.
Heather swings around so she’s facing Ethan. She straddles him, lowering herself onto his cock. As he slides inside her, they groan together. Ethan reaches up and caresses her breasts as she begins to ride him. Chris, moved around to one side of Ethan’s shoulders, takes her face gently in his hands and guides her mouth to his dick, jutting out from the cage of his fist.
“Yeah, suck that cock, baby. God, your mouth is so fucking sweet.” He pants, his hips jerking. “Our sweet beautiful girl. You belong to us, don’t you, baby?”
She whimpers, which we all know is a yes.
“I’m close, brother,” says Ethan raggedly, his fingers now sunk deep into the creamy flesh of Heather’s hips.
“Not yet,” whispers Chris, closing his eyes. “Almost there. Almost—” He cuts off with a fractured cry when Heather slides her lovely tapered fingers under his balls and up between his legs.
Judging by the way Chris’s entire body stiffens and the shout he directs toward the ceiling, Heather is doing something to his prostate that he very much enjoys.
Ethan starts to fuck her harder, thrusting his hips up until her breasts are bouncing and so is her ass, but she keeps right on sucking Chris, right through his loud, jerking orgasm, right through Ethan’s orgasm, too, the two men shuddering and moaning and cursing, until finally her back stiffens and she sucks in a hard breath through her nose, and I know she went over the edge with them.
Drenched in sweat, barely able to breathe, I turn away and run down the hall to the bathroom, where I lock the door, rip open the fly of my jeans, lean over the sink, and jerk myself to the fastest, hardest climax of my life.
Catching sight of my sweaty red face in the mirror, I hoarsely laugh.
Maybe this party isn’t so bad after all.
4
At midnight, the fireworks start.
By that I’m referring to both the incredible display of pyrotechnics Nico commissioned to light up the night sky over the house and the brawl involving six drunk talent agents from CAA over who’s gonna sign Tom Cruise.
Apparently the megastar parted ways with his last agent, and the sharks are going nuts over the smell of blood in the water.
“You know those fucking yahoos?”
Standing beside me on a balcony on the second floor that overlooks the pool, Marcus—a talent agent with CAA himself—chuckles. “I’m embarrassed to admit I do.” He chuckles again. “If you think this is bad, you should see ’em at the comp
any holiday parties. Every year those same six douchebags are such a mess security throws ’em out. Year before last, they set the tree on fire. Knocked it over, shorted out the electrical. Next thing you know, the ballroom at the Century Plaza was filled with smoke and everyone was screaming.”
“Why the hell don’t they get banned? Or fired?”
“Because those half dozen morons represent all the biggest names in the industry. Beyoncé, De Niro, Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg…collectively they’ve got billions of dollars of assets under management. If they get fired, they’ll take their roster to a competitor, maybe ICA or Gersh, set up shop with some awesome new bennies and be no worse for the wear.”
I crinkle my brow, watching six grown men in expensive suits act like a bunch of dopey frat boys. They throw sloppy punches, shove and swear at each other, crash into an ice sculpture bar. It topples it over and smashes into pieces as startled party guests yelp and jump out of the way.
“I woulda thought they’d have iron-clad non-compete agreements.”
“You rep that much money, you write your own ticket.”
“Sounds like a pretty great gig.”
“The agency’s always looking for hustlers, if you’re interested. I could put in a word if your new position doesn’t pan out.”
That gives me a good laugh. “No thanks. Seen enough of Hollywood to last me a lifetime. I’m looking forward to getting out of L.A.”
Marcus appraises me with an eyebrow lifted. “Done with the people here, that it?”
His tone is casual, but I sense he’s probing. I know he and Grace were an item before she got together with Brody. I wonder if they still talk. Then I wonder if Grace thinks I’m leaving because of her, the way Nico did.
Christ, I really hope I’m not the subject of gossip. The idea of people talking about me behind my back makes my skin crawl.
I say evenly, “Just time for a change of scenery.”
If Marcus doesn’t believe me, he doesn’t let on. He simply nods and says, “Yeah. I hear you. I’m a born and bred Cali boy, but this town has a way of screwing up a man’s priorities. It’s not exactly real life, if you know what I mean.”
Hot As Sin: A Bad Habit Novella (Bad Habit Book 4) Page 3