STELLA
We sat side by side on super nice folding lawn chairs that the outdoor theater provided for everybody. Between us was a six-pack of beer, so cold and frosty in the Indian-summer heat that the paper labels were already wrinkled. To top it all off, sitting in each of our laps, on waxy paper bags, were my last-meal-on-earth favorite treats: caramel apples.
The caramel on mine was crusted in a thick layer of teeny chocolate chips. He’d opted for pecans. To get them, we’d had to drive all the way to the mall, and he hadn’t minded one bit. What a sweetheart.
As the sun went down, a breeze kicked up, and I instinctively put my hands to my arms. Nick didn’t miss a beat and put his jacket over my shoulders. A hush fell over the crowd, and the movie started to roll. At first, it was that splotchy old-fashioned thing that happens at the beginning of old filmstrips. And then came the opening frame.
A huge, glorious diamond, as big as an egg, with gleaming facets that caught the light.
I froze with my apple stuck in my mouth. Uh-oh.
The camera zoomed in on the jewel. The screen went pink . . . and the Pink Panther appeared, wiggling his little tush in time with the good old Pink Panther theme. The title popped up on the screen. Double uh-oh. It wasn’t the first film. It was the second one.
The one with a female thief.
In my head, I heard Alanis Morissette singing a previously unreleased lyric to “Isn’t It Ironic?” or whatever it was called: “It’s a heist movie right before your biggest heist.”
Oh God. I bit off an enormous chunk of apple, so big I could barely chew. Next to me, Nick leaned forward and gave my leg a rub to get my attention. “This OK?”
I nodded about ten times in quick, panicked succession. I hiccupped, I coughed. I pressed my hand to my mouth. “Yes!” I squeaked around the apple. “Sure!” Chewing furiously, I watched the animated panther tap-dance along the screen, with a cane and a top hat. “Wonderful!”
Very, very rarely in my life had I ever thought, I can’t do this! I was a can-do kind of girl! Change my own oil? Can do! Make fake gems? Can do! Do my own taxes without alerting the government to my secret income? Can do! Whip up some homemade cannoli? Can do! Make fake IDs with functioning magnetic strips? Can do!
But just then, right there, thinking about watching a movie about a notorious female thief stealing a notorious jewel . . . Everybody had a limit. And apparently, this was mine. I felt like an astronaut trying to sit through Apollo 13 the night before a launch.
Houston! Abort mission! Cannot do! Repeat, cannot do!
But then Nick pulled my chair closer to his and put his arm around me. He was warm and alluring and so very masculine. He gave my side a little squeeze and turned his attention to the movie. He didn’t stop smiling, not once. And his grip got a little tighter.
I tried desperately to center myself and my swirling thoughts. I didn’t have to focus on the finer points of a massive, nonviolent, incredibly gutsy jewel heist. I could focus on him. On his pecs. On his woodsy cologne. On the way his forearms rippled when he gripped his apple stick.
Can do!
What felt to me like an eternity later, the lady thief was negotiating the laser security system that made a web around the Pink Panther. She bobbled the diamond in her metal pincers, and Nick said, “Stella.”
“Yes,” I gasped, without turning away from the screen. I’d been so swept up in the heist, I had forgotten to blink. My eyes felt like they were in dire need of some moisturizing drops—stuck open and stinging. Yet still, I couldn’t tear myself away from the movie. The crystal dome that was meant to protect the diamond swung perilously on the makeshift zip line system she’d rigged across the display area.
“I think you might be breaking the bones in my hand.”
I looked down at my fingers, enmeshed with his. His knuckles were white, and his fingers were slightly swollen. The spoon ring I wore on my thumb had put an indentation in the back of his hand that reminded me of a couch leg on carpeting.
“Sorry!” I let go of his hand, realizing as I did that my palm had been sweating profusely the entire time. I was nothing if not elegant. I wiped my palm off on my jeans, trying to be as subtle as I could about it, and trying to disguise the wet smudges now appearing on my knee. “I’m so sorry. Are you OK? Need more Advil?”
He shook his hand in the air violently, like he’d pinched his finger in a doorjamb. “No worries. I’m left-handed. I hardly need this one at all.”
I grimaced. “Want me to find some ice? Go buy you a snow cone?”
“I’m good, beautiful. Promise.” He made a fist and then released it, and repeated that a few times, like he was trying to bring circulation back into his fingertips or wake them up from a dead sleep. He slid the six-pack over with his boot and grabbed two more beers. With expert precision, and even using his surely numb hand, he popped off the tops using the metal edge of the chair as a bottle opener.
“I shouldn’t,” I said as he handed me mine.
“Why’s that?” he asked, taking a swig of his. “What happens after three beers?”
A few rows over someone shushed us, but he just smiled into his bottle and waited for me to answer.
Normally, the answer would be, nothing much at all. It wasn’t like I had three beers, ripped off all my clothes, and began dancing on tables like some Zumba version of Coyote Ugly. But this felt different. Maybe it was the beers I’d had already, maybe it was the heist on screen, or maybe, just maybe, it was him. Whatever it was, I had a feeling I just . . . shouldn’t. This man was so alluring, I couldn’t be accountable for my actions. My heart was already pounding from him and the movie together. The warmish Indian beer at the Crown Prince plus two IPAs were only going to make me do something I’d regret. He ran his hand down his jawline, and his stubble made a gritty scratching noise.
Or maybe . . . not regret at all.
I didn’t say any of that. I just stared into his gorgeous eyes. The shadows were long, and the streetlamps had started to come on, bringing out new colors in the light-brown centers of his irises. He leaned into me, taking my cheek in one hand. The tips of his fingers pressed gently into my jaw. The closer he got, the more the noises around us faded away, like someone was slowly shutting a door, leaving us alone in a room together. The security doors that had been intended to protect the Pink Panther dropped, and the Lady Phantom rolled out of the way in the nick of time. But that felt so very, very far away; all that I was aware of was his hand on my cheek and the pressure of his forehead as he tipped his head into mine. “I gotta kiss you, Stella.”
I slid down into my chair, and it creaked under me. “OK,” I whispered back.
“I just have to.”
The way he said it was like I was the most irresistible thing on the planet, like I was all the potato chips, and all the Nerds, and all the Laffy Taffy, and all the curry, and all the caramel apples rolled into one.
And then it happened. His lips met mine, and his tongue pushed mine aside. No open-mouth awkward nonsense, no hesitation. He inhaled deeply, like he was trying to learn my perfume or the scent of my shampoo. The kiss went from passionate to downright dirty in two seconds flat.
There was French-kissing, and then there was . . .
Oui.
Oui.
Oui, oui, oui, oui, oui.
The theft of the Pink Panther might as well have been happening on some other planet. His warm breath warmed my already-hot cheeks, and he growled into my mouth as he leaned into me. His hand was so big that his fingers cradled the back of my neck. Mercy. His hand moved up my body, the tips of his fingers trailing along my bare stomach, then leaving me briefly, before gripping something behind me. The back of my chair came forward slightly as he pulled on it, then the whole thing, the whole plastic and woven nylon lawn chair, began to recline. The leg rest swung out, lifting my legs with it, and he stood bent beside my chair. My body became horizontal, and he bent low over me. We went down, down, down together . . . and I wrapped my arms around him like we were slipping into a pool.
I snickered into the kiss, and I felt his mouth tighten as he smiled, but he wasn’t smiling for long. I hooked my legs around him, ankles locked. There were no words and no whispers—we were down to pants and groans and moans. It was growls and nods and everything inside me saying more, more, more. I ran my fingertip along the spot where his boxers met his body, that rippling elastic next to his solid muscles. He growled and inhaled hard. And then pulled away. I tried to follow him, but he had my head pinned back, one hand to my cheek, his thumb against my jaw. I was utterly at his mercy.
He gave me a slow, sultry Eskimo kiss. He pressed his hips into my stomach, and I felt him hard against me, right through my jeans and his pants. I want this man. I need this man. “I think we should get the fuck out of here, Stella.” His voice was gruff and gravelly, dripping with desire and dominance and I know exactly what I’m going to do to you next. He raised his face from mine an inch. “I’m gonna take you back to my place and rock your fucking world.”
I made a little muffled squeak. He was pure testosterone. One hundred percent manly confidence. My moans were not my own with him so close. But then he got even closer. And closer, and closer. His stubble scratched my cheek and made a faint noise like sandpaper touching a soft piece of pine. Gently, he traced the edge of my ear with his tongue, making me shiver. Making me quiver. Making me absolutely helpless, because there was a lot I could resist, but a man who looked like him, doing my favorite thing to my ear? “Yesssssss.”
“You get the apples. I’ll get the beer,” he said.
I ran my hands in a V down his back, which was when I remembered: the shop door, the oxygen compressor, the Advil. “You’re sure your back’s not hurting?”
He growled again and tugged on my earlobe with his teeth. “The only thing I’m hurting to do right now is you.”
We hustled to the parking lot hand in hand, ducking below the projector’s beam. When we got to his bike, he yanked me into him so our bodies collided and a breath left my lungs with a whoosh.
“This is how it’s gonna be,” he said, zipping up his too-big motorcycle jacket on me and sliding his hands into my back pockets to pull my hips into his body. “I’m gonna drive you back to my place. I’m gonna take you like you deserve to be taken. Every second from now until you fall asleep in my arms is going to be me, doing my thing to you, and making your eyes roll back in your head again and again.”
Dear God: It’s me, Stella. Thank you. So, so much.
He slipped the helmet over my head. I flipped up the visor so I didn’t miss even a half-second glimpse of him. He slung his leg over the bike and looked back over his shoulder, waiting for me. I did the same, pressing my knees into him like I did before. Only now I really meant it. Now I wanted him in a way that I hadn’t planned on at all, or that I’d been much too shy to show him earlier. Now I was pretty sure my panties were already soaked, and we hadn’t done anything more than kiss.
The inside of the helmet smelled like him, rich and manly. Soap and cologne and musk.
He reached back and gripped my tush tight. “You on?”
Swoon. “Yep,” I said, and linked my arms over his chest. The engine shuddered to life underneath us, as loud as a lawn mower, only much deeper and more aggressive. He did something with the handlebars, and the engine roared. The movement made his triceps flex, illuminated by the streetlamp. Way down deep in my body was a desire so intense that it felt like a chill. I slid my right hand down his stomach. I’d always thought the idea of washboard abs was ridiculous. But not anymore.
At first, I kept my fingers on the outside of his jeans, pressing into his belt. In the side mirror, I saw him smile—a greedy aww yeah kind of a smile that he didn’t know I could see. Studying his expression, I moved my fingers an inch, placing them against the skin of his lower abdomen and his boxers. The look in his eyes went from aww yeah to hell yes in an instant, and together we sped down the empty streets under the clear desert sky, the whinny of the engine making a long, wonderful squeal that sounded a lot like Ouuuuuuuuuiiiiiii.