by Ann Denton
I turn back to the stairs to look up at Alec, but he’s already disappeared back into the plane. Dammit. I’ll have to hunt him down later to talk revenge tactics.
The men and I start down a path lined with palm trees and bird of paradise flowers.
I walk over to the twins as the men march off toward the gorgeous, uber-modern white villas that dot the island and surround a central pool.
“Hi, there,” I extend my hand to shake the twins’. The huge, hulking men stop to shake and it’s like arm wrestling with bears. They are that big and ripped, both slightly tan, with downturned hazel eyes and big pouty lips. I swallow hard. They’re super-hot. Like, not my type hot—I’m totally intimidated and appreciative, but there’s no chemistry (unlike the vinegar and baking soda volcano Kenneth or Alec or even Danny make in my stomach)—but the twins could definitely put those muscles to use modeling underwear or something. “I’m so sorry but I don’t remember selecting twins and I selected each of the men to come down here.”
The twins exchange a look and then smile back at me.
Twin One speaks, his voice deep and edged with the slightest Russian accent, “I’m Rubin and this is my brother Reval. And we do everything together.”
“Everything? I’m pretty sure that …”
Rubin winks.
I press my lips together. I’m pretty fucking sure that if I send one of these guys home Heather will have a fit. I haven’t heard that twin sex is on her bucket list, but I’m sure once she sees these two, it’s gonna get added. But an extra guy? That’s gonna throw a wrench in all my plans. “I don’t have any more rooms.”
“We can share. We love sharing. Everything.”
I gloss over the innuendo there because I have more important things to think about. Like goddamned tuxes and the special revenge-on-Heather slideshow for tonight and—I take a deep calming breath. Thank goodness I’m a planner.
Heather and I were in Girl Scouts one year and our group mom was a super over-planner. “Two is one and one is none.” Thank frickin’ goodness I worshiped that woman and her ability to help us make tissue paper and pipe cleaner flowers. Because that motto is now gonna let Heather consider whether or not she wants to cream in the middle of a twin sandwich. I chuckle at my own naughty pun and the twins look at me curiously.
“You both are lucky that I ordered some extra tuxes in case something was wrong with one. Follow me.” I lead the twins toward my villa, which is currently less of a gorgeous home and more of a warehouse, as full as I had the staff pack it with boxes of supplies. I weave through the box-maze and grab an extra tux from the hall closet. Then I tell the twins, “Now, I’m making an exception for you guys, here, so prove me right.”
“Yes, ma’am.” They hurry off to their cabin.
I go to check that Heather’s slipped into the Moulin Rouge-worthy red gown she picked for tonight. I wait with her and give her the lowdown on the men—everything I know from the two-minute walk here plus a firmness evaluation of their asses—as she does her makeup. She looks, of course, gorgeous in the dress. It has a sweetheart neckline and super-clingy sparkling silk that showcase her curves. And her hair is in this beautiful spiraling braid. Besides being blinded by her own sequins, she seems ready to go. “I’m nervous. Excited. Nervous-excited!” she squeals.
Makeup takes her at least another half hour. I’m hoping that’s enough time for the guys.
Just as Heather’s getting ready antsy about heading out, I get a buzz on my phone from one of the waitstaff. The men have arrived. Perfect. I escort Heather to the main dining hall.
I peer through the window. Heather, of course, can’t wait and does, too. “Oh my God. I can’t believe this is actually happening.” She squeezes my hand.
I smile at her. “It’s actually happening. And it’s going to be amazing!”
She tears up a bit. “I know this is kinda crazy, Katie. But, thank you for doing this.”
I pull her into a hug. “Don’t you dare cry and ruin that makeup before we start!” I scold. But I hold her close for a minute. “I love you, H.”
“Love you, too.”
I hear a sniffle. “I said no crying!”
“I can’t help it!”
“Yes, you can. There’s a motherfuckin’ set of twins in there who sound like they’re experts at threesomes. So get it together!”
Her jaw drops. Her fists clench. She squeals. “For reals?”
I nod.
She lamaze breathes for a moment, then nods at me. I head over to a side door where the DJ is located and awaiting my signal.
The guys are already seated, glasses of champagne in hand, and I see that an extra chair has been added to accommodate the new twin. Low mood music plays, some kind of classical classy shit. I give the DJ a head nod and he drops the music. A spotlight goes up on the main door, which two servers dramatically open to showcase Heather.
The DJ gives me a smirk and says the line Heather insisted on. “Guys, let’s raise our glasses to Heather. She fell from heaven so she could be here tonight and raise some hell.”
Yup, that’s my girl.
Three drinks later, my girl has sat on the laps of three different guys, failed to eat a single course, and is drunkenly giggling over something Twin One said.
She starts telling a story about the time she was cutting a guy’s hair only to realize he was jerking off underneath the cape.
“What’d you do?” the guy across from her, whose profile I memorized as Peter the mechanic, asks. He’s cute, in an understated way, kinda like Channing Tatum would be if he weren’t stacked with muscle. Unfortunately for Peter the mechanic, he’s not crazy ripped like some of the other guys here.
Heather repeats the epic throwdown she gave to Mr. Boner. “I told him, I know you love petting man’s best friend there, but let me tell you, if you don’t leash the beast, my scissors will snip him.”
Laughter erupts around the table.
Down at the end of the table, a lanky Hispanic guy says, “That’s nothing. At my warehouse, two guys got caught fucking.”
Everyone does one of those head turns where they look silently at the person speaking because his timing sucks.
“Yeah, what happened?” Heather asks.
“They got fired!” the guy responds.
Right. Okay dude. That’s not a punchline. Awkward laughs ensue.
Heather’s response is, “That sucks balls—probably not as much as they did, though.” She winks and the laughs resume.
She tosses me a look and I give a nod. Hispanic dude, I think his name is Gilbert, just got a strike. Three and he’s out.
I toss a note in my phone and as everyone at the table goes back to chatting, I tune the conversation out and start thinking—I need to double check the room for the next event, I need to set up my projector soon, then I scheme ways to get the twins to wear identification bracelets so I can tell who’s who. I’m deep in thought and don’t notice as Kenneth comes in through a side door and sidles up to me, until he practically whisper-shouts in my ear.
“Why the fuck does someone order a dinner party and then not eat? If she wanted this evening to be just drunken fucking, they could have done that back in the villas.”
My eyes widen. One of the guys at the table—I think it might be the doctor I was hoping would catch Heather’s eye—turns to look at us.
“What?” I whisper.
Kenneth jabs an accusatory finger at Heather. “She’s sent every plate back. Untouched.”
He’s very dramatic about that ‘untouched’ bit. He’s looking very dramatic in general. His brown eyes glitter intensely in the blue mood lighting the DJ has set. His chef’s outfit almost glows, it’s so white and pristine, even after cooking a five-course meal. His jaw clenches and he crosses his arms as he eyes Heather. He looks fit to be tied. In another guy, anger might scare me. But Kenneth’s literally pouting because someone isn’t eating his food. It’s kind of cute.
I don’t tell him that. But I do hav
e to fight a smile.
“Why did I bother making a dessert? No one’s going to touch it.” Kenneth gets a little louder and another of the guys looks over.
Alright. Pouting has lost its cuteness. Now, he’s an employee making a scene. I give the guys a fake smile, grab Kenneth’s arm, and say, “Can we chat, please?” If I was my mother, my tone would be acidic face-melting bitch. But, because I’m me, this came out sounding like I’m begging. I swallow my annoyance at myself and slide my hand down Kenneth’s thick, corded forearm.
His eyes dilate as my fingers trace down his palm. I can’t tell if it’s anger or attraction that makes his expression change. But the intensity he’s radiating ratchets up, and suddenly my heart is racing. My thoughts go fuzzy. Shit. Something about Kenneth sets me off. He looks so disarming. So cuddly. Even when he’s pissed as all get out. But then when he gets close, it’s like a flip switches off in my brain. My thoughts are disconnected. And a whole different circuit lights up. Down there. I have to remind myself what I’m doing. I’m trying to diffuse his anger and get him out of here. I swallow hard. I nearly link fingers with him but stop myself at the last second. That would be totally unprofessional. Not cool of me. I pull him by the wrist instead, marching out into the hall.
He follows along so closely that when I stop, he bumps into me. He doesn’t back up immediately, so I step away and turn to face him.
“Chef, your job is to cook—”
“Create. I don’t cook. I create. Cooking is for those who follow recipes,” Kenneth sneers.
Did I just think his pouting was cute? I must have been light-headed. I must be dehydrated and delusional. Because it’s not cute. He’s an arrogant shit. But I have to shut him up without him spitting in or spoiling our food for the next three weeks. “Well, Kenneth, your creations are amazing, but
“You didn’t even try a bite.”
I gesture back at the dining room. “I’m working.”
“You don’t need to be in there. You’re standing around like a wallflower.”
Wallflower is a horrible choice of words. It immediately hits me where it hurts. I try to rationalize with myself that he didn’t mean I am a wallflower. But the old wound rips open and feelings that I’ve tried to suppress spill out. I mean, yeah, I’m the quiet one. Always have been. Heather’s always gotten all the attention. Good or bad—from my experience watching her, mostly bad attention. But… it doesn’t mean that sometimes I don’t wish things were different. It doesn’t mean I want to be called out on being bland, boring, plain, dull, quiet in comparison to technicolor Heather. Or anyone. I take a breath and shove those stupid feelings where they belong—into the abyss. I glare at him. “There’s no need to sink to insults.”
Kenneth—like every man on the planet—seems oblivious about what he just said. He’s too wrapped up in himself to notice, “I spent six hours on that—”
“You spent six hours doing your job.”
“If I wanted a job cooking then I’d work at Lonny’s Diner back in my hometown. This isn’t a job. This is art. Haven’t you ever heard the quote, ‘Food is symbolic of love when words are inadequate?’ —Wolfelt.”
I shake my head, “Nope.” That’s obviously the wrong answer. I will never tell him that my childhood idea of gourmet was burgers and my adult idea of gourmet is the chain restaurant Mongolian barbeque deal down the road.
“Why hire a chef if all you want is fucking hot Cheetos?” he snarls.
Fuck! He’s too loud. He’s furious and aggressive and his stupid anger is echoing in the hallway. I walk toward the kitchen, hoping he’ll follow.
Luckily, he does. He’s not done raging at me.
I push open the door a little harder than I need to and stop short when I see tiramisu. Yum. My mouth waters just thinking about it. I haven’t had dinner and my stomach grumbles. “Well, she’ll eat dessert, I can promise you that. If it was me, I’d eat only that dessert.”
Kenneth crosses his arms over his chest. I don’t think he believes me. “You like tiramisu?”
“Love anything coffee-flavored. Coffee cake, chocolate-covered coffee beans…” I shrug. I don’t mention that the Mongolian barbeque place back home, with it’s completely authentic menu, serves little tiny pieces of tiramisu for dessert.
For whatever reason, my admission calms Kenneth and he crosses over to a plate and picks it up. He grabs a spoon and walks toward me. “Prove it.” He scoops a bite of the decadent treat onto the spoon and holds it up to my mouth. I reach for the spoon handle, but he jerks it away. “No.”
I protest, “I can feed myself.”
“Not in my kitchen.”
“That’s a stupid rule.”
“No, it’s not,” he says as he steps even closer. “I never let beautiful women feed themselves in here. If I did, I wouldn’t get to stand this close and watch their faces as they swallow what I’ve made,” his voice gets breathy.
My stomach flutters at the fact that he calls me beautiful. But then I realize he just lumped me in with other women—probably lots of supermodels or plastic trophy wives. And I cringe a little when I think about what he might have ‘fed’ them. “You do mean food, right? Because otherwise, I’m sending a cleaning crew in here to re-bleach this room.”
He laughs softly. “Ah, so there is a little fire hidden in you.”
“A little,” I admit. He waves the spoon in front of me and I open my mouth. He slides in the most decadent dessert I’ve ever tasted. I can’t help the moan that escapes. It’s so good, rich and creamy and thick …
“Describe it,” Kenneth’s thigh slides between my legs as he scoops another bite onto a spoon. He teases me with it. “You did a great job earlier with the candy. If you tell me … I’ll let you have more.” He takes that bite for himself, using the spoon he just fed me with, dragging it down over his lips. My eyes end up locked on his lips as his tongue darts out and licks away the remaining cream on the spoon. His very pointed, quite flexible tongue, swirls around on the spoon, gathering up the last of the tiramisu. “Mmm. Don’t you want more?” he asks.
I’m engulfed by a tropical heatwave—the sexy kind. The humidity in my pussy is like one hundred and ten percent. I want more. I do. The very feral cat-in-heat inside me wants way more than tiramisu. That part of me is whispering about all the things his tongue could do to me. I lean closer and closer to Kenneth’s spoon.
But the timer on my watch buzzes and I look at it to see a notification. “Shit. It’s almost time for Naked Friendships. Oops, nope that’s tomorrow night. I mean interviews.”
Kenneth’s eyes crinkle at the edges as he smiles. “Naked Friendships? Is that what they call it in Oklahoma?”
I glance up and smile at him, eyes gleaming. “Depends on what you mean by it.”
“Well, now I’m curious.”
“Stop by the pool tomorrow if you want to find out.” I wink and then dart out of the kitchen waving and calling out, “Thanks for the tiramisu! It tasted like a naughty dream!” Crap. I scold myself as I round the corner. I shouldn’t play around with the staff like that. Dammit. But there’s something about Kenneth and his weird obsession with food. He kind of reminds me of this guitar player I once knew, who’d strum the same chords over and over, obsessing over a song, sniping at everyone else who made the slightest noise around him. He was serious. He was an ‘artist.’
Well, based on those candies and that tiramisu and his attitude, Kenneth is definitely an artist. The problem with artists? They’re half-genius and half-crazy. And you never know which side the coin’s gonna land on. Even as hot and bothered as I’m feeling, it’s better to stay far, far away.
Chapter Ten
After dinner that first night, each of the guys gets a chance to speak privately with Heather in a room adjoining the dining room. I go double check the set up before she comes in. There’s a chaise lounge in red, a few open bottles of champagne, a pitcher of water, and a lot of glasses. I take a deep breath.
Dinner was easy.
Now, I get to wait outside the door and listen for Heather’s safety sentence. Not just a safety word, since who knows what might come up in conversation. If any of the guys turns out to be a nut job, he can just jet back home. We decided on, “Well, aren’t you cute as a button?” It’s one of my mom’s favorite derogatory sayings—at least when she’s addressing us.
Heather clasps my hand right before she goes in. “Dinner was awesome! I can’t believe this is actually happening!”
“Me either,” I whisper. “You ready?”
She nods and gives a tiny squeal, then heads in.
I go collect the first guy. I enter the dining room and every male head turns to look at me. “Just me gentlemen. Coming to collect you. For those of you who are stuck waiting,” I hit a button and a screen descends from the ceiling, “I have a compilation of some of Heather’s greatest hits here. She’s gonna ask you some questions to get to know you tonight. So, I thought it only fair you get to know her, too.”
I press play. Up come the photos I have of Heather from elementary school. Her parents only saved a few. But I scanned a gem of her screaming at the school photographer. It’s been the background on my phone for ages. The guys chuckle when they see it.
I move on to my list. I call the first name. “Peter Brown.”
A man stands and follows me. He’s the Channing Tatum lookalike I picked because Heather used to have a major crush. So, hopefully, he works out because I saw her eye him a couple times during dinner. He gives me a smile before he strides in and accepts a glass of champagne from Heather. I shut the doors behind them and stand in the hallway, feeling like a dope. Or maybe one of those British soldiers with the black cotton-ball looking hats. I wonder if they feel like dopes, standing outside rooms all day. Maybe. Of course, the rooms they stand outside aren’t likely to have conversations within that focus on the question: “Why do you want to be part of a harem?”
Peter’s interview seems to go well. I watch the clock to keep it to ten minutes … gotta be fair to everyone. I lean in with my ear to the crack at the door just in time to hear, “Well, I like ass sex. And most girls don’t. But I figure someone who’s up for sex with multiple guys …” he trails off.
