STELLA
The sheikh was insufferable. He was seated across the restaurant, with his back to us. He sent his steak back twice, sent his lobster back three times, then got behind the bar to show the bartender how to make a Moscow mule.
“Fucker’s lucky it’s not me behind the bar,” Nick muttered. “I’d coldcock him with that copper mug before he knew what hit him.”
The sheikh threw a cherry up in the air and tried to catch it. It ricocheted off his lip and landed in the olives.
But even in spite of his nonsense, we had a perfectly wonderful night. It was amazing to me. I was as comfortable with him drinking sangria out of plastic cups in my favorite spot in the world as I was across a white tablecloth from him, drinking wine from balloon glasses. I was as much myself with him in my element as I was out of it. He made me feel like as long as we were together, we were fine, no matter what. For an instant, as I watched him sign the bill, adding an eye-popping tip in cash, I thought about Ruth’s favorite saying. She had a journal, a poster, a hoodie, and three water bottles that said it: A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.
Until Nick came along, I’d agreed. But, I thought as I finished off the last of my sweet port, he made this fish really glad that there was a bicycle for her in the world.
He closed the small leather folder with the receipt and the cash and tucked it under his napkin and stood. I moved to stand as well, but he held out a finger in the air to stop me. “No you don’t,” he said, and came around to pull my chair back for me. “As long as you’re with me, you’ll never do that for yourself again.”
Maybe it was the champagne or the wine or the port or the intoxicating newness of being in a magical place with someone I was falling for, but in that moment I honestly didn’t mind if all our well-laid plans for tomorrow failed. I didn’t care if we went back to the Love Boat with the resin North Star instead of the real one. It wouldn’t be a failure, even then, because this was real. This was happening. This man was, minute by minute, inching his way into my heart. And making me feel more beautiful, special, and safe than I ever had before.
Hand in hand and barefoot, we walked the half mile down the beach back to the Ritz. The hissing waves kissed my toes, and I looked back to see our footprints, side by side. Back at the hotel, we made our way across the lobby, toward where the lady at Yappy Hour had told us Priscilla would be when we finished dinner. It was set up a little bit like a nursery, only with squeaky toys and dog beds scattered everywhere. In the middle of it all lay a huge white polar bear of a dog, as big as a person or a smallish cow. He was sprawled out on his side, sound asleep. His jowls pooled in droopy piles on the carpet, and his chest rose and fell dramatically as he breathed. Then I noticed that tucked in a tiny ball underneath his chin, rolled up like a furry little roly-poly, was Priscilla.
“Oh my goodness,” I said, taking out my phone to snap a few photos, while Nick’s grip on my free hand tightened.
“I really hope his name is Elvis,” Nick said, peering with me through the glass.
The lady who was supervising the dog nursery stood up from the couch and crept across the floor, careful not to disturb the sleeping bear-dog or Priscilla, who were the only two there.
“Hi!” she whispered as she came out into the corner of the lobby. As she closed the door, Priscilla was roused from her nap, but only briefly. When she snuggled back to sleep, she placed her face on the huge dog’s face, and I watched her little eyes slide shut.
“That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” I said. “And I’m a big fan of cute animal videos.”
The dog sitter laughed. “They played tug-of-war for like an hour. He let her win every time.”
“That’s my girl!” I said, and Nick snickered next to me.
“She’s out cold if you two want to go have a drink or walk the beach or something.”
I looked up at Nick, who now had a very naughty glint in his eye. All that desire sent a prickle right up my body. I pulled my eyes off him—it was agony—and made myself focus on the dog sitter again.
“Really?”
She nodded. “They had so much fun. So take your time.”
Nick and I agreed, with a silent glance between us, and the dog sitter clapped her hands. “Oh goodie. She’s really easy. I love looking after her. She’s got good parents!”
He gripped my hand a little tighter, and my toes curled inside my heels. Gaaaaaaaaah!
We agreed to come back in a few hours and turned around, hand in hand. I began to head for the beachfront, ready to kick off my shoes, but he stopped me and pulled me to him. “We’re not going for a walk on the beach, Stella.”
Gulp. “We aren’t?”
He shook his head and moved my bangs aside. His hand slid up the jeweled side of my dress, until his fingertips touched my bare back. He scooped me into him, making his hips press into my stomach and making it abundantly clear what he wanted right then. “We’re going upstairs to fuck. Just you and me. No dog. No interruptions.”
A shiver of pleasure zipped through me. The tension pinged back and forth between us, and all the world fell away once again. There was, in fact, something I had been thinking about doing to him since he’d first opened the puzzle box. Something I’d never done before but had always fantasized about doing. And so I very purposefully slid my pearls along my neck, teasing my cleavage with the knot at the end of the strand, and led him toward the elevators. There was one camera pointed at the row of doors, and as I pushed the up button, I yanked Nick toward me by his suspenders for a kiss . . . because I wanted his back to the camera. And because I just couldn’t resist.
He put out the DO NOT DISTURB sign and locked the door, and that’s when I took him by the shirt collar. I walked him backward through the suite and yanked his shirt tight to pull him in for a kiss. I laid a dirty one on him, and then I planted my hand on his chest and pushed him back onto the bed. The mattress answered his weight with a cushy squeak. I stepped into him, straddling one of his knees, so much taller in my heels than I usually was. I finally understood why Roxie had always been so obsessed with heels.
Rawwwwwwwr.
He moved one hand between my legs and slid his finger along my opening. I grasped his hand by the wrist and brought it to my lips, licking the two of us off him.
“Fuuuuuuck,” he growled.
Leaning over him, my hair catching the moonlight, I began undoing his belt. He tried to help me, but I moved his hand away. He slid two fingers inside me, making me freeze with his fly only halfway down, while my G-spot said, Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes.
“Jesus Christ, you are so fucking sexy,” he said, accentuating every syllable with gruff desire. “And so goddamned wet.”
Using his thumb, he touched my clit, and I groaned, steadying myself with my fingertips on his thigh. He played with just the edge, not the center, teasing me, tempting me, making spirals around the most sensitive part of me. I touched each hill and valley of his abs, over his pecs. I rolled my left shoulder, and the rhinestone strap slid away. Then I did the same on the other side, and the dress slipped off me, making a metallic clatter as it fell at my feet. I stepped out of it, still in my heels, unzipped his fly, and stripped him, until he was naked in the moonlight.
I wore nothing except my heels and my pearls. The heels, I kicked off. And the pearls I took off too. But I didn’t toss them aside.
Instead, I dragged them down his bare chest, letting them glide over his muscles. I slid them back them over his lips, and he opened his mouth. The pearls clicked against his teeth, and he wound his tongue around them. With my other hand I worked his cock, being rougher than I had been before. I gripped him tighter; I played with the head more aggressively. But then I let go of his cock and arranged the pearls in a pile on his chest.
From my bag, I grabbed the bottle of lube that we’d gotten at Walmart. Standing beside him, I unscrewed it, removed the foil with my teeth, and let the little silvery circle flutter to the bed. I didn’t put the top on but instead drizzled a whole palmful into my hand and put the uncapped bottle on the bedside table.
“Fuck, Stella,” he said, eyeing the bottle, now only three-quarters full. “That is a lot of lube.”
I added a little more just to be safe. “You’re gonna need it.” I drizzled it down all over his hardness. And then I ran my necklace across my slippery palm too.
He growled as he watched me, and I didn’t take my eyes off him. I put my knees on the mattress and positioned myself beside him, my heels tucked up against my tush. I gathered the necklace up in my hands, all thirty inches, all 150 fake pearls in my palms. The strand slowly fell from between my fingers, and the pearls pooled in a shiny, shimmery mound on his balls. He hissed when the beads touched him, like he was surprised even though he was watching my every move. I let the beads stay on him to warm up as I kissed a line down his chest, stopping off just briefly by his left nipple to give it a bite. His hand gripped my thigh, and he dug his fingers into my flesh.
I took the necklace in my hands again, winding the strand around both of my first fingers. Very slowly, very delicately, I ran the beads along the base of his cock. “They say this is the world’s oldest sex toy,” I whispered as I threaded the pearls underneath his balls and pulled the beads through. His hips rolled, and he pressed his cheek against the mattress. “Jesus Christ,” he growled into his biceps, closing his eyes as I slid the strand along him, bead by tantalizing bead.
I lengthened the row of beads between my fingers, and with the slack in the middle, I made a single loop around his cock. Keeping my eyes on him all the time so I could make sure I was doing exactly what he liked, I slowly slid them along his shaft, keeping a balance between tension and slack. I widened the separation of the loop by lifting my right hand higher than my left, then narrowed the gap as I slid them along him again and again. His entire body reacted. His abs contracted, and he ground his teeth. He made a fist of the sheets in his palms.
“What does it feel like?” I asked as I changed direction and increased the tension.
“Like being inside you when you . . .” I added another loop, so the pearls spiraled up his erection. “Holy shit, Stella.”
“When I what . . .” I went the other direction and added a stream of my saliva to the slipperiness all over him.
“When you . . .” He tightened his ass cheeks and drove his head back into the mattress, so the thick muscular column of his neck caught the moonlight. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
I made another loop around his cock, so that the beads were tripled up. Using my fingertips, I aligned the strand around him. As I brought the pearls down closer to where the shaft met his balls, he actually shuddered. The power I had over him was utterly intoxicating. I lowered my mouth to him and continued to work the beads back and forth, back and forth, each pearl rippling along his shaft. I slid my tongue between the beads and took the ends of the necklace in one hand as I cupped his balls. Then I twisted the necklace to tighten its hold on him, and he roared a deep, “Fuck,” at the ceiling. On and on I went, only easing up when I tasted his precum spill into my mouth.