Chapter Ten - Maddie & Tyler
MADDIE
“What?” Tyler asks. He’s looking over at me in the passenger seat. There’s a little bit of traffic, so he’s keeping one eye on the road, but the other one keeps drifting back to me. And I know I’m staring. But I can’t stop. It’s one thing to have known that it’s Tyler I’m with. It’s another thing to see him. The guy I knew before.
For the most part, anyway.
“Nothing. You just...” But I run out of words and instead lean across the front seat of the Tesla, grab his face, and kiss him on the mouth. He kisses me hard back and then there’s some honking as the car swerves and Tyler jerks the wheel. I sit back in my seat but leave my hand on his leg. Right next to the erection he now has going. “Does that ever not happen?” I ask.
“What?” he responds. I gesture down at his crotch with a nod of my head. “Oh. Uh, with you? No. Not so far as I can tell. Why? Does it bug you?”
“God, no. No. I just... wondered.”
“I mean, you can’t kill it, but you can feed it what it needs, and it’ll be satisfied for a while,” he says on a grin.
“And so, in this metaphor, your dick is a...?”
“I dunno. Unkillable python?”
I smirk, pat his leg, and lie back in my seat again.
“Oh,” he says. “That did it. You made him sleepy. He’s going away. Night-night, buddy. We’ll miss you.”
Dork.
“Hey,” he says. “I’m an asshole. I didn’t ask. How was it this morning?”
“What? With Raven?”
“Yeah.”
“OK. We had tea and cookies.” I know what he’s asking about, but he’s not the only one who can be a smartass.
“Uh-huh. Super. And do you have your life all figured out now via tea and cookies with a stripper?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Maybe.”
He sits up a little straighter. “Really? Fuck, I was just fuckin’ around. Do tell.”
“Dunno. I mean, I don’t have all the answers or whatever, but it did cause me to pivot my focus.”
“How do you mean?”
I shrug. “Just, y’know, I was already on my way here, but... the stuff we talked about with not being a victim anymore, or not blaming the past. I think... I think what I really crystallized for myself this morning is that I just need to embrace everything I’ve done that seemed like a fucking terrible mistake, rather than turn my back on it. Does that make sense?”
He nods his head a couple of times and then glances over at me. “Intellectually,” he says.
“Yeah. Harder to put into practice, I know, but shit, man... look at everything we’ve both been through. Hell, look what we went through just this fuckin’ week! Neither one of us should be here, so, I mean, the fact that we are? We should look at ourselves as worthy. Because now, what I believe is...” I pause to consider what it is that I do believe. “I guess now what I’m thinking is... the biggest obstacle to doing something? Is not really and honestly believing in your heart that you can.”
He’s quiet for a second, then he says, “Musta been some cookie.”
“It was pretty good.” Then I say, “And look, it’s not like I think you become an Olympic athlete by just believing in yourself—”
“Really? ’Cause I’m thinking of going for the shotput.”
I ignore him. “But I am saying that people like you and me? People who have the opportunity? For people like us not to offer our hands...well, that’s just a waste.”
“‘Us playing small does not serve the world,’ as Nelson Mandela said?”
“Mandela didn’t say that.”
“What? Whatayou mean? He totally said it. He also said, uh, something like, ‘Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure,’ or something.”
“No.” I sigh. “He didn’t. Marianne Williamson said it in a book called A Return To Love.”
“Really?”
I nod.
“Then why do people think Mandela said it?”
“I dunno. The internet?”
“How do you know he didn’t?”
“The internet.”
There’s a moment and then he says, “Ain’t that a bitch?”
“My point is,” I say, trying to get this train back on the tracks, “that I think, on some level, the reason I’ve had such a hard time getting anywhere is because I was”—this part is hard to say out loud—“I was just thinking about me. And that’s all well and good, but I’m not sure that’s who I am. Or at least, it’s not who I want to be. I don’t want to be the person who thinks about Maddie—”
“I’ll take that job.”
“—I want to be the person who thinks about how Maddie can think outside of herself.” I pause to consider how much I’m probably not making sense. “I dunno. I can’t put it into words exactly. It’s just more of a feeling I’m having.”
“Well,” he says. “Ask me, and—”
“I didn’t.”
“I know, but I don’t care. Ask me, and I’d say that the feeling is the most important part. Because it means that the idea that was here”—he reaches over and touches me on my head—“is now something you feel here.” He points at my stomach. “And that’s where the urge to action comes from. You know, like when you’re in battle. You’re not thinking about how you’re going to survive, you just survive. There’s a reason it’s called ‘gut instinct.’ The thinking part can come later.”
For all his jokes and wisecracks, he can be a deeply soulful guy. It’s always been that way. Which is why I’ve always loved him. He is, no question, the most complicated person I’ve ever met.
He points at my stomach again. “Or maybe it’s just the cookies. How many did you have?”
Annnnnnd he’s back.
Goddamn. He’s so fucking handsome. It’s a testament to how sexy he is that he could overcome how much the beard obscured how handsome he is. And now I get what he’s talking about with his cock being at full mast all the time. Because I can feel myself starting to get wet just by looking at him. Holy shit.
And so I put my hand on his crotch and say, “No more talking about cookies. There’s something else I’d rather have inside me.”
TYLER
Oh, Christ, I so do not wanna crash this Tesla.
But she’s making it hard. I mean that both ways!
“Um,” I manage. “There’s... Where...? Traffic,” I think I might say.
“I dunno,” she purrs out. “There’s probably an alley somewhere.” OK, so now she’s fucking with me too? Who is this person? Devil woman! “Unless,” she says, “you know, your ribs are too banged up still.” And she pulls her hand off my already aching dick and runs it up under my shirt where she tickles at my ribs. Shit, I’m definitely gonna wreck this goddamn car.
And then, looking out the window, I realize where I am.
“Fuck it,” I say, and jerk the car off Las Vegas Boulevard onto Aria Place.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
I don’t say shit, just zip the Tesla down the ramp that leads to the valet stand of the Mandarin Oriental hotel parking, just below the Strip. I’m jumping out of the car before it even rolls to a stop. I think. Since it’s all electric, I can’t hear an engine revving down. But my foot is dragging along the pavement. All good.
I throw it into park, hop out, and hand the key to Reggie, my favorite valet, saying, “Thanks, Reg.” He clearly doesn’t recognize me now, and must just assume I’m some rich dickhead who’s getting familiar from having read his nametag. After the fire and everything, it’s probably for the best that he doesn’t know it’s me. And I am a rich dickhead, so he wouldn’t be all wrong.
“What are we—?” Maddie starts to ask, as I grab her hand and whip her inside through the revolving doors. I pull her with me over to the elevator that takes us up to the twenty-third-floor sky lobby and press the button repeatedly like pressing it more than once will make the elevator get here any faster. “What are we doing?” She gets the whole question out this time.
“It’s a hotel. We’re getting a room.”
“Are you serious?”
“Serious as my cock is hard, sugar.” And I wink. I probably look like a douchebag, but I hope it comes off as charming.
I also hope that when I get to the desk and give them my name and credit card it doesn’t set off some kind of alarm in the system that sends a bunch of big, muscle-bound guys chasing after us. Mostly because with my ribs still a little tender, I dunno if I could take more than two at once. We’ll find out shortly, I guess.
The elevator doors open, and I hustle us both inside, my hands on her ass and my tongue in her mouth the whole way up. There’s nobody else in the car, but there are security cameras, and again, I’m going with the assumption that literal new-look Tyler isn’t recognizable to anyone who may be watching.
The doors open and we step out into the sky-lobby. Looking to my left, I see that there’s not too much of a line at reception, thankfully, so I scurry us over and a reception desk guy whose nametag says “Bryce” waves us to him with a, “May I help you?”
“Yeah, hi,” I say, approaching my man Bryce. “Need a room. Please.”
He looks at me with a half-confused expression. “OK. And the name on the reservation?”
“Uh, I don’t have a reservation. I just need a room.”
“Oh, um, I see,” Bryce retorts as he starts tapping at his keyboard. “Well, um, it is the holidays, and New Year’s is...” He goes on like that mumbling to himself.
“Yeah, I know. Bro, I just need a room.” I smile at Maddie. She smiles back, coyly. And now I really need a room.
“Y’know, honestly,” my main bro, Bryce, says. “We’re pretty much fully committed.” Which I know is bullshit. They always hold out a block of rooms for VIPs and shit.
“Are ya?” I ask. “Ya are? Even the Emperor Suite? How’s that looking?”
Yeah. That grabs Bryce by the short and hairies, all right.
“Um.” More typing. “Well... It is technically available. But it would be at our holiday premium rate.”
“Cool,” I say, pulling out my jumbled mess of loose bills, my one American Express Green card, and my license. “How much?” I slap the AmEx on the counter.
Bryce stares at me and says, “Ten thousand five hundred for the night.”
“Sweet. Probably won’t be here all night, but all good. Go ahead and run that bad boy,” I tell him as I push the card his direction. I look back at Maddie with one finger raised in a “just bear with me, we’re almost there” gesture.
After another blank look from Bryce and a “come on, my dude, let’s get this show on the road” look from me, he says, “Can I have you fill this out?” and pushes a guest registration card my way as he swipes the AmEx.
I stare at the registration card for a moment, still pondering over how fucked I am if I put down that it’s me, Tyler Morgan, the Mandarin Oriental Pyromaniac, checking in. I decide to just assume that he won’t pay attention to the fact that the name on the credit card and the name on the registration don’t match and I write Tyler Hudson. My middle name. Mom’s maiden name.
And then I just make up a bullshit address. Whatever.
When Bryce pulls the receipt from the credit card machine for me to sign, he looks a little surprised, like homeboy can’t believe shit went through. Believe it, Bryce! He slides it my way, saying, “You’ve stayed with us before?”
“Nah,” I say as I sign, “just heard good things.” I smile and wink as he hands me the key card in its little key card jacket.
He asks, “Can I have your bags brought—?” But I’m already on my way to the bank of elevators that will whisk us upstairs, Maddie’s hand in mine.
We’re not as lucky this time with nobody else being around. There’s, like, a bevy of women, pretty solidly day-drunk, all gathered around, talking loudly. One of them goes, “No! YOU fucked him first!” And then they laugh. I like ’em. They seem fun.
But then they turn and see us, and I guess Maddie decides they’re not as fun, because the look in her eyes changes suddenly and she steps in front of me and faces them down. One of them (the one who fucked him first, I suppose) shouts in Maddie’s direction, “Yeah, girl, you better hold onto that!” And they all laugh again. (OK, yeah, I can see how they’re not all that fun.) And then when the elevator dings, and the doors open, Maddie doesn’t move as they all step on.
A different one holds the door for a second, and Maddie says, “No. We’ll wait,” with a sharp, confrontational tone in her voice. And, once again, they all laugh as the doors close. I can see Maddie’s back kind of rising and falling now, the unexpected flash of anger she just showed toward these broads resting on her shoulders. And I can only think one thing about her protective and somewhat jealous display...
I can’t wait to fuck each other’s brains out in about five minutes.
MADDIE
It strikes me suddenly that I’m not the only one who will notice how fucking good Tyler looks now that he’s all clean-shaven and you can really see that ridiculously fortunate bone structure he has. And I’m a little embarrassed about the fact that I just got all possessive and shit. I’m about to say something to that effect, either make a joke or play it off, but before I can, Tyler grabs me around the waist, pulls me to him and whispers, “That was so fucking hot,” just as the doors to another elevator pop open.
He walks me backwards into the car and frantically pushes the “door close” button before anyone else can step in. He’s got me pressed against the mirrored glass and his hands are between my denim-covered thighs, cupping my pussy. He kisses my neck and the feel of his lips, without any rough hair to brush and scratch against mine, feels so good that I can barely stand it. I didn’t realize his kiss was so soft. The skin of his mouth feels new. Like, I was just starting to get accustomed to the way his kisses felt, and suddenly it’s a whole new experience. New, but familiar. The same way it was when I met him.
It’s how this whole moment feels. Back in the Mandarin where we were on Halloween when we found out who we are. A concept which, I realize in this moment, might be true in more ways than one. It’s been barely two months since we turned each other’s lives upside down. Except that’s not quite fair. Or accurate. Our lives were already upside down. We’ve turned them back right side up. Yeah, we disrupted each other’s worlds, but we did so in the most magnificent way. And it’s starting to feel like that disruption is going to result in a life that actually feels... settled.
I realize that life with Tyler Morgan will never be boring. That much seems incredibly evident. But life is unpredictable no matter what we do to try to put rules in place to keep it from feeling that way. At least with Tyler the unpredictability doesn’t seem scary. With him, as much as is possible, the unpredictability feels safe.
The doors to the elevator open and he backs out, pulling me with him. Not watching where we’re going, we smack into the panel of buttons, lighting most of them up, and the doors start to close again. He throws his arm out to keep them from shutting and taking us to another floor and I start giggling. He does too. He nips at my lip with his teeth and when the doors spring open again, I bound past him, grabbing the key card from his hand, and run down the hall.
When I get to the end of the corridor, I realize that I don’t know where I’m going and when I turn back, I see him standing at the other end of the hallway with his arms crossed. He clears his throat and thumbs at the door to his right, and I take off to where he’s standing, throwing myself into him, wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing him on the mouth like I’m trying to break through him entirely.
We kiss for a few long moments, my hands running through his newly cut hair and down the sides of his newly shaved cheeks, and then he pulls the key card from me, spins me around, presses his hard cock against my ass, opens the door with the card, and propels us both inside. The second the door shuts behind us, he pulls off my shirt, walking me forward into the bedroom of this unbelievable suite. I see the whole of the Las Vegas Strip laid out at our feet. And an odd feeling lands on me. I don’t feel special or spectacular. I don’t feel fabulous or like it’s a fantasy. And I don’t even feel undeserving, unworthy, or guilty, which is something that I’ve definitely grown accustomed to in the past. I just feel... grateful.
I kick my shoes off as he pulls my pants and underwear down at the same time. I go to take my bra off, but he stops me, places my arms down by my sides, and snaps open the clasp himself. He slides the straps down my arms and it falls to the floor. As it does, I shiver a tiny bit. A small jolt of current runs through me.
“You cold?” he asks.
“No,” I tell him on a whisper over my shoulder.
As I’m glancing back, I see him pulling off his own shirt and taking down his pants. I start to turn and face him, but he steps to me, flattening his cock between his belly and my ass, and holds my chin in his hand, nipping hard at my jawline with his mouth. I lift my hand up around the side of his head and press his cheek to mine. I rub my face back and forth along his. “You feel. So. Fucking. Good.” I say.
“Yeah?” he hums back, his other hand cradling and massaging my ass.
“Yeah,” I say. “Smooth. Soft. It feels so good.”
“Well, then you’re gonna love this,” he says as he picks me up around the waist and literally tosses me face forward onto the massive bed. I shriek a little in surprise and delight and before I can say a word, he’s behind me again, pulling me onto my hands and knees at the edge of the mattress. He drops down onto his knees on the floor behind me, puts both hands on my ass, spreads me open, and the next thing I know, his tongue is in my asshole. And all I can think is...
The razor may be my favorite invention of all time.
TYLER
Just like the beard was keeping me at a distance from the people I would see walking down the street, it was keeping me at a distance from her when we were alone together. It was an unrealized blockade impeding my ability to be as close to her as I want to be. There is no such impediment now, and I am engulfing myself inside her.
The feel of my cheeks nuzzled in between hers makes this moment seem so...sweet. It’s nice. I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s just kind of...pure. That’s how I feel. That’s what I think.
I also feel like one good rimming deserves another.
So, moving my head in tiny circles around her ass, just like she did to me a couple of days ago, I get off on the whining noises she makes, and I work two fingers inside her pussy to help everybody along. With my other hand I begin fisting my cock. I’m trying to go slowly so that I don’t fucking come right here all over the Mandarin’s nice carpet. I already burned down one of their condos, I don’t want to fuck up one of their suites too. New-look Tyler is considerate like that. But as slowly as I’m trying to go, she’s making it tough because of the way she’s rotating her ass and hips around.
And suddenly, I don’t want to be behind her. I mean, I love the view from here and I love the way she tastes, but I want to see her. I want to look at her face and have her look at mine. Yeah. I want her to look at me. I want her to see me.
So I pull away, flop down on my back on the bed beside her, and summon to her with my index finger to come over. She does, smiling as she mounts me. She takes my two fingers that were just inside her and puts them in her mouth. And I remember the first time I saw her do that. I told her, “You’re going to fucking kill me.” But she didn’t. She didn’t. It was exactly the opposite. She fucking saved me. And so now, with her astride me, I sit up, take her face in my hands, look her square in the eyes, and tell her, “I fucking love you.”
She closes her own eyes with a shy smile and whispers, “I fucking love you.”
And as she wraps her legs completely around the back of me, locking her ankles into place and grinding back and forth while I thrust up and into her, I keep looking into her eyes and feel only one thing... gratitude.
Well, that and the slightly numbing pain that rolls up and down my side as her body contracts against mine in orgasm and my muscles tense and spasm as, at the same time, I erupt inside her, come pouring out of me, commingling with her release quicker than if I was a goddamn thirteen-year-old. Ecstasy and agony competing for dominance with the threat of happiness looming in the background.
And once again, I find myself... here. Just here. Present, and quiet, and still. And I think that I could get used to this feeling. And I am so, so, so grateful.
As my dick pulses and clenches inside her, expelling the last bits of my orgasm, I feel emotion that I can’t manage welling up inside. “Thank you,” I sigh out.
“You’re welcome,” she says on a tiny smile, her body still quivering and gyrating as she slows down from our shared explosion. “Thank you.”
“No,” I say, stilling her with my hands on her face again. She looks at me quizzically. “I’m not just saying it. What I mean is—”
She takes my face in her hands now, presses her forehead against mine and, so quietly I can barely hear, she whispers, “I know.”
She smiles. I smile. And then she says, “Sorry that was so quick.”
“I was just gonna say the same thing,” I tell her. “But you...”
She grins a shy little smile. And that gets my engine revving one more time.
“You wanna go again?” I ask her.
“Are you serious?” she says with wide-eyed glee.
“Unkillable python is still hungry.”
“It is? Oh, no! And me without my snake charmer’s flute.”
“Baby, you are a fucking snake charmer’s flute,” I tell her.
And bless her heart, she has the decency to laugh at my stupid, cheesy joke as she commences grinding her sweet, sweet melody into my cock.
And as she swerves against me, playing her seductive song, the unkillable python resurrects itself to prove once more that its reputation is well-deserved.