Holiday Home (A Harem Fantasy #5)

Chapter Sixteen

Rule Breaker

V ictoria dealt him a pair of queens, and Liam chose to ride with them to the end of it all. Not for one second did he consider swapping, not even as a pair of jacks appeared on the flop. He wasn’t worried. Two queens against two professors. Maybe that wasn’t as lopsided in the modern age as it might have been in the past, but he still liked his chances.

Avril, who’d finally been convinced by her best friend to put her underwear back on, and Anna had moved to one of the nearby lounge chairs, allowing their butts to remember that there was a reason humanity had started sleeping on cushioned surfaces. Anna had seized Avril’s smoothie, a gift for all the “trouble” tonight had brought. However, both watched with interest at how the rest of the game would go. No one wanted to depart early. Not until the game finished.

In this round, which saw them tightening their circle—now a triangle, really—Liam defeated Victoria. His queens saw him through to the end, and he was ready to reap the rewards. Starting with her journey. The gorgeous woman’s breasts briefly crowded his vision as she crawled over to him, then sat down on his right.

Yet, his eyes widened for a completely different reason than the onlookers expected.

“If you let me win the game, I won’t sleep with any clothes on tonight,” Victoria whispered, each word of her promise tumbling into his ear canal.

His gaze snapped to her, shocked that she , of all people, would be the one to suggest breaking the rules. “That’s not something you’re allowed to bet, remember?”

“Avril’s out of the game,” Victoria said. “It’s just you, me, and Tess. We can make a rule change or two.”

“Are you going to get Tess’s vote for this change?”

“If you agree, there’ll be a majority.”

Liam kept his eyes locked with Victoria’s. “I didn’t realize you were so devious.”

“Says the young man who put handprints on my colleague’s butt. Two professors, Liam? One wasn’t enough?”

He couldn’t really defend himself from that accusation, not after Victoria had seen the marks on Tess’s butt. So, instead, he went on the attack.

“Not when one of those professors is you.”

Victoria liked his reply. He saw it in the subtle shift in her posture, the slightly slower blink that followed his proclamation. He was getting better at detecting her subtle responses. He was also beginning to think that, rather than hurting his chances, it might be better that she knew about him and Tess. If he’d proven worthy of the affection of a woman she respected, maybe she was interested in the how.

“Do we have a deal?” Victoria asked.

“Only if you take off your top right now, acting like you wouldn’t accept whatever I offered. And if I win against you again before you have a chance to knock me out, we’re going to make out in front of everyone.”

“Deal,” the thawing queen of ice whispered. Almost immediately, in fact.

He finally got to see Victoria’s breasts. Not just most of them. Not with a hint of her nipple visible between two intentionally separated fingers. All of them. It was enough to make him tremble deliriously.

She didn’t play around, either. Standing up, she began to remove her sports bra while still next to him. Her breasts, heavenly large, so fuckable, so suckable, so in need of his hands all over them tomorrow morning, spilled out. Not even Anna’s could compare in size. They were utterly magnificent. Every centimeter—and there were a lot of centimeters—needed to be explored. From their edges to her pert nipples, which he hoped would be sensitive enough for them both to enjoy when his mouth eventually covered one, his fingers playing with the other in perfect tandem.

Victoria returned to her area, but not before leaving her bra behind. Liam jolted as she dropped it into his lap, then gaped at it as she headed back to her area. Weirdly, it almost felt too taboo for him to touch it, even though he’d made out with her colleague just a few minutes ago. However, he would overcome that feeling and place it directly beside him.

“The Four Horsewomen of Buxomness,” Avril commented from the peanut gallery. “Big, Bouncy, Beautiful, and… Busty.”

“Those are slightly redundant,” Tess noted.

The redhead shrugged. “We’ll workshop it later.”

Upon finishing shuffling, Liam dealt another honest hand. Perhaps he should have cheated here, too, to help Victoria win, but that felt like going too far. If Tess naturally lost in a round, then, once it was just the two of them left, he’d throw the game for Victoria. But only then.

However, someone else had a chance to knock him out first. Rocking up with a pair of fours, somehow Tess won the next round, even with him and Victoria both swapping to their mystery hands. Her high card of nine trumped his seven, which brought him under Tess’s mercy.

“Are my breasts still worth a little attention?” the gorgeous woman asked teasingly as he shifted into whispering range.

“I love them as much as I love you,” he instantly replied.

“Enough that you’d suck on them in front of the other apparent members of my apocalyptic group?”

“Without any hesitation at all.”

Tess smiled warmly, approving of his vigor. However, he learned she'd been formulating her own plan since it’d become just the three of them. One that aligned quite nicely with Victoria’s. Great minds thought alike, apparently.

“Now, if I were to exit the game and let you keep playing with Victoria in the finals the next time I lose a round, what would that earn me for the other days of our trip?”

Am I the only one still playing an honest game? Liam wondered.

“What exactly could I offer that you already couldn’t get from me with just a curl of your finger?” he said.

Tess’s smile grew. “The resort offers a private beach experience for couples. We’ll be isolated, we can dress up, enjoy some fine dining…”

“And then I can fuck you in the ass?” Liam asked humorously.

“Correct,” Tess whispered. She meant it.

“Consider it a deal,” he promised.

“Good. Now, give me a hickey.”

Liam did so gleefully. More than gleefully, thanks to Tess’s willingness to press her breasts, hard nipples rubbing against his skin, while he sucked passionately on her neck. She ran a hand up his back, eyes sparkling with desire. The other women watching saw it. Not one of them looked away.

Tess proved good to her word. When she lost to Victoria in the next round, after feigning negotiations for a short time, the woman with lighter hair shook her head. Standing up, looking around at her captive audience, she followed Avril and Anna and became the third naked woman Liam saw tonight. She tilted toward the latter’s decision afterward, redressing and moving over to sit with her students.

Liam met Victoria’s eyes. It was just the two of them. However, it wasn’t. Victoria had her path to victory, assuming she could deal herself a winning hand. If she couldn’t, he’d finally taste her lips.

Admittedly, he was slightly annoyed when Victoria turned over pocket kings, which became three of a kind thanks to the river’s king. Before then, holding a jack in his hand, with another sitting in the flop, he had liked his chances of getting to make out with not one but two professors in front of Avril and Anna. But it wasn’t to be. Not yet, anyway.

“I’ll have my win now,” Victoria said, letting everyone hear.

Liam got up. Four women held their breath. Even though three of them had already seen—and done plenty more than just look at—his cock, all four of his onlookers stared at the following act intently. The situation had amped up their investment, like links in an electrical current being connected. Their lust surged, shared between them all.

Liam sprang his cock free, then tossed his boxers, which had enough precum on their insides for him to intend to change into another pair before—wait, no. No, he didn’t. If Victoria were going to sleep naked, then so would he. Why the hell would he even think about putting clothes on tonight?

That was what he was thinking about. Based on the four hungry stares from four stunning women, they were on a completely different train track. Seeing how voracious their appetites looked, with even Victoria failing to hide the intensity of her stare, he wondered how things might have progressed if he had simply asked if anyone wanted to take a closer look.

Would only one of them take him up on the offer? Multiple? All four? How far could the lust hanging above them like a thick curtain of fog propel things? Would it smother even Anna’s inhibitions? Would a close look lead to a soft touch, then two, then three? Four?

His fantasizing caused his cock to twitch, and he saw multiple women inhale sharply. They looked entranced. Liam’s self-confidence reached an all-time high.

Don’t burn up in the upper atmosphere, Liam told himself. The stars are there, and you want to get to them.

It was too much, potentially. Too soon, at the very least. Anna had already admitted to a bit of fatigue, and he and Victoria hadn’t even done anything alone just yet. There were too many avenues for things to get a bit uncomfortable or unpleasant, and he didn’t want that at all—not for a single one of the beautiful women surveying him. He shouldn’t rush it. So he wouldn’t rush it. The current pace was already more than satisfactory, so long as it proved consistent throughout the week.

Someone began to clap, which snapped the other three women out of their trances. “Congratulations,” Avril said, looking at Victoria. “You’re the winner of the inaugural Fiji Strip Poker Tournament. As a prize, you can decide when the next one will be.”

Insufferably clever woman, Liam thought, seeing the glint in Avril’s eyes. He doubted she’d been holding that idea in her head the entire time. Probably around the time when she’d bowed out was when she’d come up with her next maverick gambit.

“What a prize,” Victoria said drolly, standing up. Heading over to Liam, he instinctively stiffened. Victoria met his eyes, then leaned forward, which arrested any movement from his body. Her left breast nearly bumped into his protruding cock as she picked up her bra, then began putting it back on.

If I had a heart problem, I wouldn’t make it back from this trip alive, he realized.

Eventually, everyone redressed. The smothering lust abated, and even though no one looked distressed or bothered with how far things had gone, they all felt some degree of mental and emotional exhaustion. Even Avril chilled out once she put her clothes back on.

Behind him, someone turned off the deck lights. As he turned around, the party responsible for doing so uttered only a single word.

“Look,” Tess said, pointing skyward.

Remembering that there was a whole universe out there, not just a single deck, eyes climbed toward the sky.

Seclusion. It meant many things. It meant no sounds of traffic or pedestrian crowds. It meant no sights of skyscrapers or suburbs. It meant no one could interrupt five libidinous tourists from their game of strip poker.

But it also meant no light pollution. Which meant the five of them could perceive a celestial spectacle that was nearly unmatched on all of planet Earth.

The myriad stars hung like shimmering jewels amid the vast, dark expanse of space, more than he could ever truly imagine counting. And it truly was dark. A void hung above, staggeringly impenetrable. It went beyond that, however. Liam didn’t feel as though he was looking up at the sky. Instead, it felt as if he were looking off the very planet, standing unsecured on a tall ledge, and that a single step might cast him into eternity. He’d be gone forever, among the stars but not visible to those he’d left behind.

Those stars were so radiant that there was hardly any need for the moon, which hung in pure silver, half visible but still stark and eager to be seen. An array of light like no other glistened around it, and the enormous silvery band that was the Milky Way, slicing diagonally through the tapestry of stars, shone more brightly than Liam could ever recall. It almost appeared like a river filled with shining rocks at its bottom traversed the sky. There was nothing hazy about it tonight. There probably never was.

Some people sat, others remained standing, and some laid themselves down on the towels, marveling at the sheer scope of a universe barely explored by mankind. Even now, they could only see a small slice of the nearly infinite cosmos. On a tiny island in the world’s largest ocean, they could only perceive something of what was out there. Yet, it was still so much more than what Liam had ever witnessed.

The racing hearts on the deck calmed. Together, they found something enthralling in what lay beyond. Sights that had traveled for billions of years to reach them. While staring upward, he remembered that it took the sun’s light about eight minutes to reach Earth. He knew better than to attempt any conversion between billions of years and eight minutes. It was a long, long distance. He knew that much.

The universe above them now wasn’t the universe as it was now. It was a snapshot of history, much of it so unfathomably ancient that there was no chance for Liam and the others to ever know what was happening in the universe right now. They could only marvel at what they saw and wonder what might be happening a galaxy away.