Seth and the random girl Ashleigh had picked for him rolled around on the big four-poster bed a few feet away. The girl—what was her name? Alondra?—was already down to her underwear, and she’d stripped off his shirt and started kissing his abdominal muscles.
The girl really was incredibly hot, Ashleigh thought. She was almost as pretty as Ashleigh’s last body had been, and nicely tanned, too. Ashleigh was more than sick of thumping around in Darcy’s pregnant hippo body. Why couldn’t she take this girl’s form instead?
Darcy’s cell phone, with its stupid cartoon-kitten stickers, sang out a chime. New voice mail from Jenny. Though Ashleigh hadn’t answered the calls, she had eagerly listened to each voice mail as they came in. Jenny was even helpful enough to tell how far she was from Charleston in each voice mail, so there had been no reason for Ashleigh to call her back.
“Darcy, Jenny again,” the recording said. “I’m about forty miles from there. I really, really need you to call back and tell me where to meet you, or what hotel you’re at, or something. Please. Thanks.”
Ashleigh decided to let Jenny stew a little longer.
On the bed, the blond girl—Alissa?—was eagerly grappling with Seth’s belt. She pulled it off him and ripped open his jeans. Seth unhooked her bra.
“Slow down, guys,” Ashleigh said. “You don’t want to blow your wad.”
The girl paused long enough to fling her bra aside, and it hooked over a lamp. She whipped Seth’s jeans off and threw them to the carpet.
“I said slow down, damn it!” Ashleigh shouted.
She heaved herself to her feet, got a head rush, struggled with her balance. The baby woke up and kicked in an annoying way against the wall of her womb, three times, then a fourth, then a fifth. “Stop it!” Ashleigh made a fist and punched the baby as hard as she could, and the little bastard quit kicking.
Ashleigh staggered toward the bed. Seth flung the girl onto her back, and she laughed and wrapped her legs around his hips.
“Wait!” Ashleigh put her hands on both of them, taking control of the situation. “Stop. Cool down.”
“But I don’t want to stop,” the girl whined. She clutched Seth tighter between her thighs.
“This is going too fast,” Ashleigh said. “Look. We should play a game. I know the perfect thing.”
“That sounds fun,” Seth said. “Would that make you happy, Allegra?”
“But I want to fuck,” Allegra whined.
“Check this out.” Ashleigh reached under the bed and pulled out a length of rope with a noose at each end. Ashleigh had tied them herself, upstairs in Tommy and Esmeralda’s room on the fifth floor, while Seth was out with his Grayson friends the previous night. Ashleigh Goodling had been a highly decorated Girl Scout in her time, and had brought in a small fortune for her troop pushing those Thin Mints and Tagalongs, even though she overcharged for the cookies and took a cut off the top for herself.
“What are we doing?” Seth asked.
“Just watch,” Ashleigh said. She looped one rope around the base of a headboard poster, and then handed both ends of it to Allegra.
“What do I do?” Allegra asked.
Ashleigh put a hand on the back of Allegra’s neck. “You want to tie him up. It’s always been your fantasy.”
“Yeah, I guess it has. Give me your hands, Seth.”
“I don’t know.” Seth looked a little puzzled. Ashleigh quickly took his arm.
“You love this idea,” Ashleigh said.
“I love this idea.” A giddy smile broke across Seth’s face. “I really, really love this idea.”
“Anything to make you happy, Seth.” Allegra slipped the nooses over Seth’s wrists and pulled them tight.
She’d spent more than an hour on those knots. They were masterpieces, little bunches of knots coiled within knots. Once they pulled tight and small, it would be nearly impossible for Seth to untie them. Seth was no Boy Scout.
Ashleigh grabbed some of the bed’s excessive supply of pillows. She placed them over and around Seth’s roped hands.
Ashleigh walked to the door of the room and turned back to look, as if she’d just stepped in on them. There was no visible sign that Seth was restrained at all. Perfect.
The girl began to tug Seth’s boxer shorts down.
“Honey, no, wait,” Ashleigh said. She placed a hand on the back of the girl’s neck. “Slow down. Once you get him going, you’ve only got a couple minutes. Go real slow, like I told you.”
The girl sighed. She lay down on top of Seth and kissed him slowly, all over the face.
Ashleigh walked out on the balcony and closed the doors behind her. The last thing she needed was Seth’s voice in the background. Out here, there were the sounds of music and lots of people, exactly what she needed.