Shimmy Bang Sparkle(66)
With the night sky twinkling behind him, and without ever breaking my stare, he undid my jeans and slipped his warm and strong hand down farther, groaning again when he felt the wetness that was spilling out of me. I relaxed into him, my neck supported by his leg, his lap a perfect pillow that I never wanted to leave. But the more he touched me, the more I needed to leave it. The more I needed him all over again. Carefully, he moved my head out of his lap and stood above me, peeling my jeans off as he did. He took off my shoes and my socks and tossed them to the side. As I pawed for his jeans, he undid his belt and dropped his pants as well as his boxers. He lowered himself down on top of me, and the heat of his skin cut the chill of the cool night air. The wind shifted, and a hush spilled through the apricot trees.
Without looking away, he pressed into me. He didn’t talk. He didn’t tease. Very slowly, with that unshakable confidence and clarity, he got to the place where I needed him to be. It felt so good that the once-clear stars became blurry and dim.
It was heaven. I drew him as close as I could, entwining myself with him so fully that each shift of his body drew mine off the warm plastic roof of the RV.
He pressed his forehead against mine and cradled my face in his hands. “I’m fucking falling for you, Stella,” he said, all gravelly and hoarse.
Hearing the words made my heart tighten, almost. Pinch. Contract. As if it had skipped a beat, or maybe two. I hung on even tighter; I didn’t want even the cool night breeze between us. I wanted to make him understand that he was safe with me, that he could be vulnerable with me. To fall for me, as I was falling for him. “I am too, my love. I am too.”
He kept me still with his arms under my body and his hands hooked over my shoulders. “I’m fucking falling for you,” he said again, this time from between gritted teeth. “I need to fall for you. I need this. I need you.”
I pressed my thumb to his lips. He kissed it at first, then took it more deeply into his mouth, biting down on my finger as he drove into me. The pain echoed back through the pleasure, and even the North Star itself grew fuzzy and distant. It was only him and me in the universe. Nothing else mattered. Not the future and not the past. All that mattered was him. And us, right there, in my favorite place in all the world.
Eventually we made our way back down the ladder, naked under the stars. My legs felt like they would go right out from under me, but halfway down he scooped me up and twirled me, placing my bare feet gently on the soft desert soil, still warm from the heat of the day. We found Priscilla sound asleep inside, still tuckered out in her bed. I slipped on my nightie and he put on fresh boxers, softer than the ones he wore during the day, and together we got ready for bed in the tiny bathroom, hardly bigger than an airplane’s.
The little things about him were the most adorable: how he let me use the faucet first, how he watched me as I brushed my teeth, how he smiled at me with a foamy mouth around his toothbrush.
“Hi,” I said, also foamy-mouthed.
And he gave me a little pat on the tush and added a wink.
I rinsed out my mouth and splashed water on my face, then took the temporary tattoo from my makeup bag. We’d gotten two, just to be safe, and I left the second one next to my blush. Nick noticed what I was doing, nodded, and spat out his toothpaste. “Yeah, let’s do it,” he said, and I turned the water from cold to hot. I double-checked the instructions on the back of the package and had him wash the spot with soap and water. Then I dried it with a fresh hand towel. Very carefully, I slid the pinup girl out of her plastic packaging. Nick sat down on the closed toilet, and I stood between his parted legs. He watched me like a hawk, and the intensity in his stare gave me tingles. “You ready?” I asked.
He tipped his head back to give me a good angle on his throat. Though he had swoon-worthy stubble, it didn’t go all the way down his throat. It made a perfect gap. “Go for it.”
I peeled the paper backing away and placed the tattoo on his skin. Using the dampened hand towel, I wetted the back of the transfer until it was soaked through and very carefully pulled off the paper.
It looked awful, of course. Like a sticker. Nick hissed and looked at it in the mirror. “Jesus. That’s not going to fool anybody.”
I wadded up the wrappers and tossed them in the tiny trash bin. “Hold on now. Cool your jets. Let me work my magic.” I unzipped a compartment of my makeup bag and got out the tattoo shine remover. We’d bought it from a fabulously gay makeup artist in LA who had patented it—Fabulous Richard was his name. He was certainly fabulous, but so too were the goodies he sold. I shook the bottle hard, then unscrewed the lid and squeezed a little bit onto my finger. Very gently, I made small circular motions all over my doppelganger pinup. Beneath my fingers, I felt the rhythm of his pulse. The shine disappeared, and it looked . . . totally real.
“There,” I said, and stepped away. “How about them temporary apples?”
“Holy shit,” Nick said, turning his head this way and that to check it out in the mirror. “That’s insane.” He stood up from the toilet and leaned over the sink. “Looks like I’ve always had it.”
It really did look totally real, totally believable. And incredibly naughty and sexy. I stepped out of myself to imagine what it would be like to see the two of us together—how a stranger would lock in on that tattoo, then look at me and think, “Oh my.”