Anyone U Want Read online

  “Hello, can I help you?” A bored looking young woman asked from the front desk.

  “Oh!” Holly realized that despite her earlier determination, she’d just been standing there in the middle of the Anyone U Want lobby, nibbling her lower lip. “Yes,” she said, making herself approach the desk. “Yes, you can. I…I’ve come about my fantasy.”

  “And your name is?” The attendant snapped.

  “Uh…Holly. Holly Sparks. I was here earlier? I dropped off all my specifications and paid already.” Holly wanted to make that crystal clear. There was no way she could afford to pay the huge sum of money she’d put down for this fantasy again.

  “Oh yes…” The young woman scrolled through her listings on the midair screen in front of her and then shot Holly a strange look. “Sparks, you say?”

  “Yes. Is there something wrong?” The way the attendant was looking at her was giving Holly a nervous case of the butterflies.

  “No—not a thing.” For some reason the girl gave her a secretive smile. “Your fantasy is all ready, Holly. And I think you’re really, really going to enjoy it.” Then she actually winked.

  Holly bit her lip, feeling a blush rise hotly to her cheeks. Was it really necessary for the girl to tease her about her naughty fantasy? It seemed really rude to make such a personal comment—especially when Holly had paid so much for a private encounter.

  “Thank you,” she said stiffly. “Um, where should I go?”

  “We have the stage all set up for you—area twenty-five.” The girl pointed down a long corridor behind her desk. “Don’t worry—all areas are soundproofed so you can, ah, have as much fun as you like.”

  Holly’s face was so hot now she felt like her hair was going to catch on fire.

  “Fine,” she said woodenly.

  “Oh—and don’t forget, your fantasy won’t officially begin until you say the words ‘Start Fantasy.’ So even once your, uh, android enters the room, you can do whatever you want to him and he won’t do anything back until you say that.”

  Holly knew all this already—she’d read about it in the brochure.

  “All right.”

  “And if any time you feel uncomfortable, you only have to say, ‘Stop Scene’ and the, uh, android will stop.”

  Holly knew this too.

  “Thanks. And I assume I have an hour, as specified on the contract?”

  “Actually, you can have as much time as you want.” The girl smiled sweetly. “Don’t worry about it—it’s all taken care of.”

  All taken care of? What the hell does that mean?

  But Holly didn’t want to ask. She just wanted to get away from the smirking attendant and get to her fantasy before she completely lost her nerve.

  “All right,” she said again and rushed past the rude desk attendant down the long corridor, her heels clattering nervously on the bare concrete floor. She counted off the doors as she went, noticing that some “areas” seemed to take more space than others. At last, when she finally got to the small door marked Area 25 in faintly glowing holo-letters, she let herself breathe.

  She reached for the knob of the door…but her hand trembled and she hesitated. This was it—the moment she’d been waiting for and dreaming of for so long. The moment she’d paid so much money for she was going to be on a starvation diet for the next several months. The moment of no return.

  If I do this, will I ever be able to look Grant in the eyes again? Holly asked herself. Will I ever be able to take dictation or plan his schedule without remembering that I let an android that looked exactly like him do all the things I wish he would do to me?

  Then again, she would kick herself if she lost this opportunity. Especially since the money was already gone from her bank account.

  Taking a deep breath, Holly twisted the knob and let herself in. An exact replica of her boss’s office back home greeted her.

  “Wow,” she muttered, her heels sinking into the plush carpet as she stepped into the room. There was Mr. Harris’s polished wooden desk with its high-backed padded chair and there was her own, smaller chair to one side of it. There was a window—no doubt a holographic reproduction but very good all the same—that showed the same remote view of the city she looked out at every day. There were even stacks of paperwork and an iThink holo pad lying on the desk waiting for her to work on it.

  But where was the main attraction? Where was the android Grant Harris?

  As if answering her thoughts, the knob turned and the door opened to reveal her boss.

  “Hello, Ms. Sparks,” he said curtly, exactly as he always did every morning. Then he went to sit behind his desk and started looking through the papers stacked there.

  Holly couldn’t help but gape at him in astonishment. She’d seen the ads for Anyone U Want often enough to have them memorized but none of them had ever shown an android that looked this realistic. Most of the androids she’d seen had slightly plastic looking skin and glassy eyes. Holly had been prepared to ignore these slight flaws—as long as the android looked like a reasonable facsimile of her boss and was able to do everything she wanted, it was good enough for her.

  But this…this was amazing. She took a step closer to the android boss, still bent studiously over his paperwork. She wanted a closer look at the Grant android…and then she remembered she could actually have one.

  The fantasy doesn’t start until I say, she reminded herself. Until then, I can do anything I want.

  Including getting close to her boss in ways she’d always dreamed of but never dared.

  Holly knew she was safe but still, he looked so real it took a moment for her to gather her nerve. Only the knowledge that the clock was ticking got her moving. The real Mr. Harris would be certain to be suspicious if he came back from his meeting and found her gone.

  She came around the desk as she did every day. But this time instead of sitting down in her chair and going over the day’s schedule, Holly stepped boldly up to her boss. He was so much taller than her that they were almost an even height, even with her standing and him sitting.

  The android Grant took no notice of her so Holly began to feel brave. She took a closer look—yes, it was Grant Harris the Third, all right—right down to the dimple on his left cheek and the small touches of silver in his dark hair, right at the temples. He really was a mouthwatering man.

  Daring greatly, Holly did something she’d always wanted to do and ran a hand through his hair. For a moment, she almost thought she felt the android shudder, its big frame moving beneath her touch. But Grant continued to stare down at the paperwork and she concluded she must have been mistaken.

  Getting braver, Holly lifted his chin, relishing the slight scratch of his whiskers against her palm, and looked into his eyes. They didn’t look glassy or artificial at all. In fact, they were the exact same pale, icy-blue shade, fringed thickly with black lashes that she looked at every day.

  “Amazing,” Holly whispered to herself, stepping even closer, so that she was between the android’s spread legs. “It’s so real.”

  Still the Grant android said nothing. It only stared at her with an inscrutable gaze as Holly ran her fingers through its thick, dark hair as she had always longed to do with the real Grant. He even smelled real—the warm, spicy scent of his expensive cologne filled her senses, making her almost dizzy with desire.

  Then she did something else she’d always wanted to do. Cupping his strong jaw in her hand, she bent down and kissed the sensuous mouth.

  The android’s lips were pliant under hers and for a moment—just a bare moment—Holly thought she felt him kissing her back. But when she pulled back uncertainly, he stopped at once. Feeling reassured, Holly went back to her kiss. Grant’s mouth tasted of the spearmint candies he liked to suck between meetings—sweet and sharp and hot—so hot. How did they get an android to have such lifelike body temperature?

  Somehow she found herself sinking into his lap with her lips still locked with his