Starfire (Erotic Romance) (Peaches Monroe) (32 page)

Me:
Maybe.

Mitchell:
I’m going to cry like a hooker at your wedding.

Me:
Like a hooker?

Mitchell:
Like a hooker in church on Christmas morning.

Me:…

I couldn’t respond, because Dalton tried again to take my phone from me again.

“Who the hell is making you giggle like that?” he demanded.

“Calm down, it’s just Mitchell. Jealous much?”

His chest puffed up. “I don’t get jealous.”

Right
, I thought. So, I just
imagined
all those times he got jealous about me being with other guys.

I opened my mouth to respond, but then decided I would let him believe what he wanted to believe. He’d had a rough day, but we were enjoying a romantic evening. I don’t allow other people to shush me, but, from time to time, I’m capable of shushing myself.

We grabbed some towels from the bathroom to take to the steam room and hot tub, and ventured out of our room for more excitement.

CHAPTER 30

Sunday morning.

How had the window gotten on the wrong side of the room? Who was that snoring? Why was I in bed wearing my one-piece swimsuit and a flip-flop on one foot?

It dawned on me that I wasn’t at home in my own bed.

I opened my eyes and took in the unfamiliar but not unpleasant surroundings of the winery resort’s second-best room. My parents were down the hall in the luxury suite. Sleeping next to me was TV’s Drake Cheshire.

Hmm.

No, this wasn’t my usual Sunday morning.

My bladder had a mission for me, though, so I bravely swung my legs out from under the covers. My bare foot landed on something warm and soft. I recoiled and huddled back on the bed.

There on the carpet, spread-eagle on his back, was Dalton’s father, Jake “Big Dick” Blake. I covered my mouth to keep from screaming.

Jake wasn’t naked, exactly. He was technically in a pair of boxers, but not
all of him
was in his boxers.

The boxers were the kind with a loose split down the front. A very loose split.

That’s right.

The porn star’s one-eyed trouser snake was wide awake and catching a little morning sun.

Keeping my eyes carefully averted, I shimmied over to the foot of the bed and slowly climbed off. I slipped off the one flip-flop, which I didn’t recognize as my own, and went into the bathroom.

I locked the door, turned on the shower and fan for privacy, and sat down with my face in my hands as flashes of the previous evening came back to me.

Putting the pieces together took some time.

I got into the shower in a daze.

As I finished my shower and got dried off, I had most of the events sorted out.

We’d gone to the hot tub the night before, where we had the steamy room to ourselves. We’d been sitting in the hot tub for about five minutes’ worth of kissing when Dalton’s father came into the room. He had a woman on either arm and a bottle of liquor in one hand.

Although I knew better than to drink in a hot tub, I figured a few shots* wouldn’t kill me, but would help with the tension in the steamy, cedar-paneled room.

Dalton and his father had barely seen each other over the past eight years, but they both seemed to want to mend their relationship.

The two men made uneasy small talk, trying to out-grin each other. The two women climbed into the hot tub with me, and started chatting like my new best friends.

*Public service announcement: hot tubs make you sweat, and booze makes you stupid. The result is extreme dehydration, heart failure, and worse. By worse, I mean when you’re drinking with a bunch of dudes and realize there’s one guy who doesn’t bother getting out to empty his bladder. End of PSA.

Jake climbed into the hot tub and started passing around the bottle. Pretty soon, the five of us were all singing
We Are Family
by Sister Sledge. Acapella.

Long story short, after the staff kicked us out at midnight to lock up, Jake walked us back to our room to make sure we got in safely. He sampled some items from the mini-bar, then passed out on the floor, wearing the same boxer shorts he’d been using as his swimming trunks* at the hot tub.

*The boxer shorts were in violation of posted hotel policies, which also included strict rules against drinking in the hot tub.

Refreshed from my shower and several glasses of water, I came out of the bathroom with a fluffy robe wrapped tightly around me.

The guys were both awake now, and Jake appeared to be wearing a pair of Dalton’s jeans, which fit perfectly. They both sat shirtless at the small table, laughing over the events of the previous night.

“Why aren’t you in your room with your new girlfriends?” Dalton asked his father.

“I called the room and told them to get started without me. Sharon’s going to motorboat Karen for a while.”

“What’s the motorboat again?”

“Just my general term for everything you can do without a dick.”

Did they not see me, standing right there? Apparently not.

They both laughed about motorboating, and for an instant, I wanted to return to a more innocent time, when the idea of seeing his father caused Dalton to have panic attacks.

Jake launched into a graphic description of giving oral sex to two women at once. “The trick is stacking them right,” he said. “Front to front. Never back to back, or you’ve got too far to go, unless you like ass-munching, which is—”

I didn’t hear the rest, because I’d grabbed some nearby clothes and snuck out of the room.

Now I was in the hallway wearing nothing but a robe, my clothes in one hand.

You know that expression, about how when one door closes, another opens? The door directly in front of me swung open, as though someone else had been expecting me.

A man stepped through the doorway and startled when he saw me.

CHAPTER 31

“Connor!” I said.

Standing in front of me was the other sexy actor from
One Vamp to Love
. For those of you who aren’t fans, Connor is the angsty, brooding, do-gooder vampire brother to Drake Cheshire. While Drake goes around bedding hotties and biting them on the inner thighs, Connor is always finding new potions and elixirs to lessen their vampire powers, because he feels they are abominations of nature and blah-blah self-loathing boring crap.

“It’s really you, Connor.”

“Nice to meet you,” Connor said, extending his hand. “I’m Connor Adair, the actor, not Connor Cheshire, the vampire. I won’t bite.”

“And what brings you to this winery? Are you here on some mission to give your brother an elixir to slow him down? I’m afraid you’re a bit late for that.” I let a nervous laugh escape my dry mouth. I’d gotten used to staring at Drake/Dalton’s face, but seeing Connor in the flesh was a whole new level of surreal. Was I still drunk from the previous night?

“He’s my cousin,” Connor said. “In real life, by real human blood. Didn’t my uncle Jake tell you?”

“Derr.” (Yes, I actually said that, as I looked down at my toes.)

My toes didn’t have any answers, so I looked up to see Connor nodding, a troubled expression on his handsome face. He did have similar features to Dalton, which I’d always assumed was good casting. His dark hair was cut shorter than Dalton’s, and his nose was thinner and longer, giving him a look I associated with sophistication. His eyes weren’t green, but a bright blue, also rimmed with thick, dark lashes.

“You really are his cousin,” I said, astonished that I hadn’t known sooner.

“If you didn’t know that, I’m guessing he doesn’t, either. I only found out on Friday, when my mother told me. She hadn’t told Dalton yet, because she wanted to speak to his father first.”

“Jake? I’m so confused. Why didn’t he tell Dalton?”

“He didn’t know. My mother works under her married name, and it was a long time ago that her family, meaning my family, disowned Aunt Lyra.”

I just couldn’t stop staring at Connor’s face, noticing the similarities. “Wow. You’re cousins.”

“I just hope he can forgive his aunt for not telling him.”

I waved to the door behind me. “Get in there and join the reunion. I’ll warn you, though. It’s a shirts-optional family gathering, and you can only talk about sex.”

Connor wrinkled his nose with distaste, which was a common expression of his character on the show. Shayla and I called it the who-tooted face.

“I’d rather meet them at breakfast, as planned. Maybe you’d like to put some of those clothes on and come down with me to the dining room?”

I agreed to the plan, and he let me into his room to get dressed while he waited out in the hall. I’d managed to grab a not-bad outfit in my haste: a plum-colored dress with a paisley tie belt, and pink ballet flat shoes. I left the robe in Connor’s room and joined him to walk to the dining room.

We sat in the breakfast lounge, which was by an east-facing window looking out over the vineyard. The morning sun was bright, but made bearable by roll-down screens that reduced the light without blocking the view.

I ordered my mocha, and Connor got a matcha latte, saying he was addicted to the strong green tea ever since his first trip to Japan. He explained that it’s normally served as a ceremonial tea, and not in a giant mug with foamed milk.

“Jake is your uncle? How does Dalton not know about this?” I asked.

“We’re related through our mothers. They’re twin sisters. I mean, they
were
twin sisters.”

“Identical?” My mind raced off, jumping to conclusions. If you have an identical twin who starts making adult films, and showing all of herself… doing things… that would mean…

“No,” Connor said, shutting it down. “They’re not identical.”

“Okay. I guess if they’d been identical, Dalton might have noticed your mom looked just like his. Wow, that would be a good twist on your show. But why didn’t he know that you’re his cousin?”

“My family disowned Dalton’s mother,” Connor explained. “I knew my mother had been born with a sister, but the way they all talked about her, I assumed she’d died.”

“And what does your mother do? Is she also in acting?”

“She’s Jamie Adair. The executive producer of the show.”

Hmm.

Connor Adair.

Jamie Adair.

I had seen her name in the credits, but I wasn’t the show’s number one fan or anything.

So, they didn’t know Dalton, their relative, yet he ended up on the same show.

I narrowed my eyes at Connor. Sure, it was early in the morning and I was hung over, but the whole story had a wrongness to it.

I said, “It seems like an awfully big coincidence that your estranged cousin ended up on the same TV show as you.” I swirled my mocha, looking into the foamed milk for answers. “Then again, you guys look so similar. And you were both raised mostly in LA, so becoming an actor isn’t that crazy, but…”

“It wasn’t a coincidence,” he said. “My mother kept tabs on her nephew all those years. She secretly created
One Vamp to Love
for both of us, only she never told anyone. I had to audition, just like everyone else, and she put out an open call for the part of Drake.” He chuckled. “You know, when a man runs a hardware store and hires his son to take over one day, nobody bats an eye. But when you give a prime acting role to your son, you get in a lot of flack for Hollywood nepotism. Let alone casting both your son and nephew.”

“You never knew?”

“I’ve always felt close to Dalton. We fight like brothers, but… I love the guy.” He grinned down at his pale green drink. “Even though he gets twice the fan mail as I do, you gotta love Dalton. He’s like a force of nature.” He looked up at me, his blue eyes as calm and clear as the sky behind him. “But why am I telling you? You’re getting married to the guy.”

“Apparently.”

“What’s the deal with the wedding, anyway? Is it for publicity, or is it for real?”

I glanced around the still-empty dining room. Could I trust Connor? He didn’t seem to know about the arrangement, but wouldn’t it be just like his annoying character to do something to mess up Drake’s plans?
I mean Dalton’s plans.
Damn. This whole thing was so confusing.

He continued, “You guys are a really cute couple.”

“We’re very much in love,” I said, smiling sweetly. “I can’t wait to get married to that man of mine, and be his wife.”

Connor winked. “He’s a lucky guy.”

“Everything’s moving so quickly, but when you’re as deeply in love as we are, why wait?”

“True. So, are you two going to commute back and forth between LA and that crazy cabin he’s renovating? What’s your schedule going to be like?”

I had to admit to Connor that I had no idea.

He didn’t find this unusual at all, saying that most actors live with a suitcase packed at all times, their lives arranged around intense shooting schedules and appearances. Since I was marrying into that lifestyle, it was good that I seemed ready for anything.

The next hour passed quickly, with Connor telling me about their production schedule for the show and some of the plans he had on the back burner.

My life seemed rather small and simple in comparison, but he insisted he was interested in hearing about all my family members who were part of town history, as well as my current job at the bookstore.

We were so engrossed in conversation, I didn’t notice my parents had arrived until my mother tapped me on the shoulder. They were both frowning at Connor, looking worried.

My mother leaned down and whispered in my ear, “He looks different from what I remembered.”

They hadn’t seen Dalton since my cousin Marita’s wedding, and were understandably confused by me dining with this other man, who looked so similar.

I quickly explained that Connor was the other main actor on Dalton’s show. My parents took the news in stride and joined us at the table.

We were just looking at menus when Dalton and his father joined us, both wearing shirts this time.

Dalton spotted Connor and greeted him with a complicated handshake, then introduced him to his father before asking why he was at the resort.