Shimmy Bang Sparkle(19)

“Let me watch you,” he said. “Make yourself come. I’ll fuck you straight through it.” He moved my hair off to one side, gentle yet unpracticed, so that I felt the pinch of a hair or two getting pulled.

And that did it. That little bit of pain distracted me and got me out of my head far enough to surrender; I growled and started to fall down into it. I put my fingers to my clit and began doing exactly what I loved, exactly what I needed to do.

“Fuck yeah,” he said, his eyes locked on what I was doing, followed by a slow, nearly silent whistle. “How’d you get so goddamned sexy?”

I knew nothing about hotness right then. I was just a girl on the edge of . . . “Nick. You’re going to make me . . .”

“Fucking do it.”

“Loud, I’m . . . llll . . .” Oh God, it was starting to happen. The trapdoor had sprung open, and I was on my way down.

“Roar for me, beautiful. Make the neighbors hate us. Do it.”

The pleasure made me start to lose track of time, of everything, except him and me together. And his eyes. And his hands. And how much I wanted to give myself to him. “I’m going to . . .”

“Now?” he asked. “Right now?”

“Yes . . . Right . . .” It was like falling into the ocean off a dock.

His thrusts changed. The rhythm intensified, and the shudders of pleasure seemed to shift inside me, from front to back, to everywhere. I knew then, this wasn’t going to be the sort of orgasm I gave myself with my Magic Wand and my subscription to Lucie Blush. This was going to be . . .

His grip tightened. His face got serious and aggressive. His grunts changed to deep guttural growls. Animalistic. Relentless. “Look me in the fucking eye, and come with me, Stella. Come. With. Me.”

Oh.

My.

God.



We fell asleep in a sweaty, warm heap. The last thing I remember was his lips pressed to the side of my head and him saying, “Holy, holy shit,” as I drifted off to a lovely happy place with his arms around me, his body behind me, and Irish Spring all around.

But when I woke, he was gone. I patted the bed where he’d been lying and squinted against the light of the lamp. It was dark out and it felt late, but Nick was nowhere to be seen.

I sat up with the sheet over my boobs like I was doing a love scene for a soap opera. This wasn’t exactly how I’d planned on this ending—Ubering home from a guy’s house in the dark of night. A midnight skedaddle of shame. There were no icky feelings associated with that at all.

I got control of my wake-up thoughts and carefully scanned the room. His boots were still there, in a pile with his pants, my jeans, my T-shirt, and all the rest of our stuff tangled up together. And now there he was too, standing in the doorway. Buck naked and smiling. Gulp. Hello.

“There she is,” he said, coming into the bedroom. In one hand, he held the bags with our caramel apples.

Helllloooooo.

In the other hand he had two wineglasses upside down, the stems between his fingers, and he carried a bottle of wine under his arm. He set it all down on the bedside table, and I couldn’t help but admire the way his abs curled as he bent over. He belonged on a two-story billboard, not in bed with me.

Turning to me, he handed me the bottle and a corkscrew. Admittedly, not the suavest thing, but I was all for division of labor. Equal rights and all, maybe? Still, though, it was a bit odd. “Full-service operation you’re running here,” I said as I began to strip the foil with the end of the corkscrew.

He leveled me with a fake glare. Or maybe it was a real glare. “That’s so you know I haven’t slipped you a mickey.”

I wasn’t the kind of girl who needed protecting. But a little part of me kind of . . . loved it. “Well, that’s very nice of you.”

He winked, clicked his tongue, and gave my thigh a little squeeze. “Just want you to know you’re safe with me, sweetie.”





10

NICK

She fell asleep on my chest, with a smudge of caramel on her lip. I touched her bangs gently, halfway hoping it would wake her up, because honest to God, I was having so much fun talking to her in bed, I didn’t want the night to end. But instead of her eyes fluttering open when I touched her and softly said her name, she started snoring, a small honk from one nostril.

Such a cutie.

Very carefully, I took her half-finished glass of wine from her hand and placed it on the nightstand. I wet my thumb in my mouth and cleaned the caramel off her lip to make sure it didn’t get her hair sticky, and then I made sure the pillow was under her head. Once I had slipped out of bed, I pulled the blanket up on her side to keep her warm. I gathered up the glasses, the apples, and the wine and headed for the kitchen, lit only by the small bulb under the microwave. I made it exactly two steps before I stubbed the living shit out of my toe on something.

Somehow I managed to stop myself from roaring, “Motherfuck it!” at the top of my lungs and instead managed to whisper-yell it at the microwave. Once I was reasonably sure I wasn’t going to pass out from the pain, I set down everything on the counter as carefully as I could and tried to figure out what the hell I’d run into.

It was her purse.

When I went to put it back where it had been before I jammed my toes into it, I found the bag wasn’t just full. It wasn’t just heavy. It was unbelievable. Picking it up by the shoulder strap, I gauged its weight like I was curling a dumbbell. The thing had to weigh fifteen pounds. I gave it a shake, expecting to hear I-didn’t-even-know-what . . . clanging bottles from a full six-pack or something. A whole shitload of lead shot rolling around. But nope. Nothing more than some soft rattles, like maybe lipstick, and the sound of some keys. Again, I did a biceps curl with it. Maybe twenty pounds. Jesus. It fascinated me. It was like an optical illusion. I had no idea at all how something so small, and made out of white leather, could weigh so much . . . It was like a hundred-pound chicken or some shit. Fucking boggled my mind.