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This book is for sale to ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

All sexually active human characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover Design: D.B. Story

Abandoned Property © July 2010 D.B. Story

eXcessica publishing

A Smashwords Edition

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Abandoned Property

By D.B. Story

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A special thanks to Mulligan, VW, Gorgo, and Deryk Bramwell for their excellent and much appreciated proofreading.

You don't have to be a rich and famous person to live like one occasionally. You just have to be on the lookout and take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves.

My luxury in life is a platinum charge card. Yeah, it costs more than a regular card—by a goodly amount! But it gets me airline miles every time I use it, and it puts me in a demographic that fancy places like to get into their customer base. In short, it makes me look like other rich folks and I get included in the pile of offers that get sent to them. It also makes a good impression on dates when I pull it out to pay for dinner, as well as leaving hotel desk clerks believing I'm a better class of customer. As you might guess from that last statement, yes I am still single and usually the one doing the paying.

Even the best resorts in the world have their high and low seasons, times when the prices and availability vary dramatically. Add to that the special promotions that come along occasionally, plus how my other spending pays for my plane tickets with airline miles—coach class or excursion fares, but everyone on the plane arrives at the same time—and I end up staying in some pretty nice places along the way. Alone usually, but having more fun than paying for entertaining someone else who mostly came along because she wanted an all-expenses paid trip to a nice place while still not being ready for us to sleep together quite yet. Ever had a relationship like that? I've had too many.

So I'm headed off to the South Pacific this time, where French is the lingua franca and the really exclusive resorts come with their own islands. In short, a place I could only dream about normally. As for the people who ask me how I keep managing to take these trips every year or so, I tell them it's not a lack of money that stops most people from doing what I do—but rather a lack of imagination.

With an unexpected tailwind, and bumpy air as we crossed the equator in the early morning hours—in my experience there's always bumpy air while crossing the equator—I actually arrived on the main island nearly two hours ahead of schedule. And for once my baggage was first off the jumbo jet. The sun was barely up as I cleared customs and immigration ahead of the crowd.

This is a good thing. There are only two flights a day, by small seaplane, to my chosen resort island. I was told I'd miss the morning one and have to bum around until evening. While that's hardly the worst thing that can happen when you're in an exotic land already populated by some of the friendliest and most beautiful people on Earth, it's less fun when you've just spent the night trying to sleep in your seat, have no real place to leave your luggage and catch a shower, and would rather be spending every possible minute at the resort which is still expensive even under these circumstances.

Airline reservations clerks are some of the most amazing people on the planet. They seem to be able to solve travel problems as naturally as breathing. It's a resource every traveler should know to make use of, and all one really has to do is ask politely.

Before the first vendor of the morning could try to sell me my first overpriced souvenir I was in the last available seat of the morning flight—and even watched them safely load my luggage into the hatch below my seat window. Ninety minutes later we landed in an astonishingly azure blue tropical lagoon with the clearest water I have ever seen as we taxied to the dock.

* * * *

There is one unwritten rule that always exists at every five-star hotel and restaurant: There will never be a problem for the customer. Count on it.

I'd arrived early, which I like to do because sometimes you can get a better room by having the first choice of the day and asking to switch if the first one they give you isn't up to par. I wasted no time sightseeing; instead I got myself to the hotel's reception area. At the front desk I gave them my reservation information, and then with a pleasant smile let on how tired I was and how nice a shower would be—yet that I would wait for a better room if that could possibly be arranged. I also dropped how lucky I'd been to catch the early flight for once.

I could tell that this front desk clerk was in a quandary. It was well before their stated check-in time, meaning that some guests departing for this evening's flight wouldn't have left their rooms yet, but I was here now. I finally asked her gently what the situation was.

She told me they weren't fully booked for tonight and that I could have one of their very best rooms. However, it hadn't been cleaned yet and wouldn't be for at least another three hours. A less desirable room could be had right now.

I have no trouble making up my mind in these situations. I told her I'd really like the nice room—and if I could just drop my bags off there now, I would be more than happy to stay out of the way until they could have it cleaned properly. I did my best acting job of convincing her that this was such a small inconvenience for me to bear for the sake of getting a more desirable room that I would never hold it against them for not already having it prepared for my arrival.

It only took her a moment to realize that this would really make me much happier than any alternative, which was the whole point, and she gave me the keys. I left happy that I'd most likely scored a much finer room for the week than they would have normally given me. And that such a hotel as fine as this one would never ask a guest to pick up and move once they'd settled in. It was a small price to pay.