“You don’t know the half of it,” Stephanie says. “The moment I started to get ready, Amanda lost it. We practically had to run out of there and promise that we were bringing back half of Disneyland.”
“How are you going to manage that?” Theo asks.
Gary chuckles. “We’re hoping she’s forgotten by morning, but if not, we’ll figure something out.”
“She’ll never trust you again,” I laugh.
“That reminds me,” Lisa says. “The resort we’re staying at for the wedding has babysitting if you need it for when your kids get too tired at the reception,” she informs Paige and Stephanie.
“Really? That’s great,” Paige replies. “Thanks.”
“We’re leaving Adam at home with my mum and stepdad. But Gracie will probably get too tired to make it through the night,” Elliot adds.
“You should have been an event planner instead of a muso,” I say to Lisa, giving her a little nudge in the side.
“Sorry. It’s probably a bit of the control freak in me left over from my days organising advertising campaigns. I’m not trying to take over.”
“It’s fine. I’m more than happy for your help. If I forget to say it later, you’ve been amazing. Thank you.”
We meet each others gaze for a moment and give each other an understanding smile. We may not be sisters by blood. But we’ve certainly become sisters through friendship. I can’t imagine my world without Lisa in it anymore.
“Alright you two. Stop having a little moment. Tonight is a party,” Marcus says, handing both Theo and I a glass of champagne. “Now, I think it’s time to make a toast to the happy couple. So raise your glasses.” Everyone does. “To Naomi and Theo, may you live a long and happy life together but tonight, I hope that you both get shitfaced drunk and do very stupid things.”
“Cheers,” everyone choruses on a laugh, clinking our glasses together and sipping at the champagne inside.
Lowering my glass, I take a breath to ask the question that’s been nagging at me all day. “Speaking of getting shitfaced - exactly where are we going tonight?”
Twelve
“Bad Boys Afloat!?” I say, staring up at the boat in disbelief. “Isn’t that a stripper cruise?”
“Yep,” Stephanie giggles. “Don’t pretend like you don’t want to see it. I know you Naomi Prendergast. You’re going to love the spectacle,” she assures me as she races ahead of everyone and stops to talk to the shirtless guy who’s standing at the gangway to check off all the names on our booking.
“I told her you didn’t want strippers,” Lisa tells me quietly.
“It’s OK. I had a feeling she’d go and do this. She went on it once before and said it was great fun. I don’t know…” I say, feeling slightly disappointed in my friend. I know she’s just trying to get me to experience something that she considers fun, but I’d hoped we could have gone clubbing and dancing for the night instead of watching a bunch of guys run around with their shirts off.
“She insisted that this is a rite of passage,” Paige adds, linking arms with me as we follow the group of nearly fifty women onto the boat.
“I’m pretty sure the guys will have gotten strippers for Theo too,” Lisa adds, like it’s supposed to even things out. But it doesn’t. I just gives me a jealous pang in my chest as I remember what he said to me as we were leaving. I’m going to be hard all night thinking about you. Great. I’ve just sent him to a strip show with a hard-on.
Noticing the look on my face, Paige nudges me lightly. “Hey, relax. He loves you. He won’t even be looking at the strippers. Elliot doesn’t like strippers either. It’s just something you sit through with these things – you know, like a tradition.”
“Well, did you both have strippers at your bucks and hens night?” I ask.
She grins with half her mouth and shakes her head. “We didn’t even have the bucks and hens night. There wasn’t anything too traditional about our wedding.”
“You know what. It’s fine. The strippers. Everything. It’s all fine. It’s about hanging out with friends and having a good time, and a lot of the girls look really excited. This is going to be fun,” I state, although as we climb the gangway and I’m adorned with a bright pink veil with flashing fairy lights all over it, I’m not even sure I believe myself.
* * *
“Oh no. Hell no!” I laugh, pulling back on the arms that are reaching out and dragging me to the middle of the stage. I catch the eye of Katrina who’s just as drunk as the rest of us and laughing her head off. I squat down and refuse to walk, as Amy and Erica gang up on me and try to get me to the chair that is waiting for me centre stage for my ‘private show’. “Help me, damn you! Use those muscles of yours for good instead of evil!”
Katrina shakes her head. “It’s all for fun, Nomes. Here, give him some cash from me.”
She reaches forward and stuffs a roll of five-dollar notes into the strap of my dress. “You brought stripper bills?!” I laugh, feeling fairly drunk after way too much champagne.
Bouncing her shoulders twice to the music, she lets out a deep laugh that only serves to give me a fit of the giggles. I don’t even know why I’m laughing. I just know that I’m about to be sitting in the middle of a room full of yelling women, while some guy called ‘Ash’, is supposed to come out and dance for me.
Once Erica and Amy have me in the chair, they drunkenly giggle as well and tell me to ‘stay’ while they make their way back to their seats. All of a sudden, that Nelly song, ‘It’s hot in here’ begins playing over the sound system and a very tall, very broad man enters the stage wearing a fireman’s uniform.
He dances toward me as women holler out the lyrics to the song, yelling at him to take his clothes off.
I start laughing. I can’t seem to stop and as he gets closer. I cover my face, watching only through the thin slits between my fingers. I can’t believe Stephanie did this to me. Even though this is insanely embarrassing, I have to begrudgingly admit that I’ve had a good time watching all of the women on the ship go crazy over topless men. It’s like they’re taking a moment to behave like they’re all men on building sites, even though they’re all very ‘normal’ women in their every day life.
Ash, the firefighting stripper moves closer to me and takes my hands in his as he straddles me where I sit. He places my hands on his smooth and incredibly muscular chest as he continues to gyrate to the music.
I squeal through my laughter and ball my hands up so it’s just my fists touching him. “I hate you Stephanie!” I yell out through my laughter.
“No you don’t. You love me! You’re having a good time. Admit it! Admit it!” she slurs, laughing her head off when she flicks her hand and wine sloshes out of her glass and spills on her arm.
I didn’t think it was possible, but suddenly, I’m laughing harder. Then even more when Ash strips off his pants and is standing over me in nothing but a bright red g-string and a belt with a prop axe in it. He flips his hips back and forth so the axe swings at me.
I wave my hands in front of my face. “Stop, stop! I can’t laugh anymore. It’s hurting my stomach.” It’s then that I remember the money Katrina stuffed in my strap. I grab it and hold it out. “Here. I’ll pay you. Go and dance with that woman over there,” I say, pointing directly at Stephanie who is dancing about waving money above her head.
“Song’s not over yet, pretty lady,” he says, continuing to dance around me.
Blissfully, the track changes soon after that and he holds his hand out to me to help me to stand.
“You’re Naomi from Matiari, right?” he says in my ear. “I’ve seen you play. You’re bloody awesome. There’s karaoke after this until we dock. I hope you’ll treat us all to a song or two.”
Once again, I laugh. Something about a man standing in a g-string and telling me he’s a fan of the band seems hysterical to me.
“I’ll see what I can do, Ash the fireman,” I tell him, patting my hand on his big bicep as I step down into the crowd.
Stephanie reaches up and immediately shoves some money in the waist band of his g-string as Paige, the most sober person here, steadies me so I don’t lose my balance coming off the stairs.
“Ash the firefighter is a fan of my band,” I tell her, the words coming out slowly as my drunken mouth tries to work around them.
She laughs at me. “I think it’s time to get a few coffees into you, or you’re going to be falling off this boat in an hours time.”
Leading me to a table, she waves over one of the topless waiters and asks for a bottle of water and two coffees.
“How come you’re so sober?” I ask, suddenly feeling very mesmerised by the light amber colour of her eyes. “You have really awesome eyes.”
Grinning, she thanks me for the compliment. “I’ve never been a big drinker. It works well for Elliot because he can drink and I can do the driving,” she explains.
“Don’t you like it?” I ask.
“I had a drug problem a really long time ago. So I try to steer clear of mind altering substances.”
“Wow,” I say, slightly taken aback. “How did I not know this about you?”
“It’s not something I share around, Nomes.”
My mouth forms an ‘o’ shape. “I won’t tell anyone,” I promise her as the waiter returns with our coffees and a water for me.
“I know you won’t,” she tells me with a wink before she lifts her coffee to her lips and watches as women dance with the waiters a few feet away from us with an amused grin on her face. “If men acted like this with female strippers they’d get thrown out of the clubs,” she comments.
“Really?” I ask.
“Yep. Most clubs let men look but they can’t touch. It’s a very different scene.”
“You must have been to a few clubs before. I never been to one,” I admit. “They never interested me.”
Paige carefully places her coffee cup back on the table. “They’re not that exciting. Why don’t you drink your coffee and make a start on that water? It looks like you’re about to be dragged off to dance with topless men.”
I look over my shoulder to where Stephanie is dancing with Katrina and a few girls I’ve met through the band. She beckons me over but I shake my head and hold up my cup of coffee.
Currently, the lead singer of an all girl indie punk band I know is crooning away with the karaoke machine by putting her own flair on a Pink song. “She’s good. Would I know her band if I heard it?” asks Paige, looking up at the stage.
“They call themselves ‘Kapow’. We met them when we played The Big Day Out.”
“She’s cool.”
I wink at her. “Like all my friends.”
Finishing my coffee, I unscrew the lid from my water and take a long drink. “I feel better already. Thank you for looking out for me.”
“Anytime. I’m glad you’re having fun.”
“Surprisingly, I am. Stephanie was right, this is definitely something you have to do at least once in your life. Even if it’s just to laugh at everyone else.”
* * *
When the party is over, the boat docks outside Star City Casino at 11pm. Drunken, laughing women, holding heels that were hurting their feet, teeter their way down the gangplank and start to discuss whether they want the party to continue or just go and get cabs home.
I shake my head. “No, no, no. No more partying for me. I want to find my Theo and I want to – ”
“Want to what?” I hear a deep rumbly voice asking from behind me.
Spinning around, I instantly jump into Theo’s arms, wrapping my arms and legs around him as I shower him with kisses.
“You came to meet me! I missed you,” I tell him between kisses.
Laughing, he asks. “Did you have a good time?”
“It would have been better if you were there.”
“Good answer,” he says with a smile as he lowers me to the ground and takes me by the hand. “Wanna get out of here?”
Nodding, I turn to say thank you and goodbye to everyone who attended tonight, smiling as I see couples reconnecting. Both Stephanie and Gary seem to be as drunk as each other and Elliot is looking very happy as he reunites with the sober Paige. Lisa and Marcus are also happily talking quietly to each other.
Theo and I quickly make the rounds and say goodbye to everyone, confirming that we’ll be seeing them all at the airport in a week’s time when we all fly up to Queensland. So far it looks like the weather is still going to hold up, and once I get Theo into our hotel room – things are going to get even better.
Thirteen
“How was your night?” I ask Theo as we wait to check in to our hotel room.
“It was OK,” he replies. “It would have been ten times better if I was with you. The other guy’s seemed to enjoy it though.”
“Strippers?”
“Yeah. They got you strippers too, right?”
“Yeah,” I laugh. “I covered my eyes if that helps.”
He returns my laughter with a soft chuckle. “Yeah, it does. I closed mine too.” He meets my eyes, an amused grin on his face and a sparkle in his eyes. “Aren’t we are pair?”
I nod. “We are. A perfect pair.” We stare into each other’s eyes, the air crackling between us with a tension that has been building up over the past couple of busy weeks.
“Can I help you?” the desk clerk asks, interrupting our moment.
“Yeah. We have a reservation,” Theo says, pulling out his phone and showing her the reservation number I’d texted him earlier.
She gets us to sign some paperwork and hands over the key card, and like a couple of school kids, we rush up to our room, hand in hand, eager to be alone.
The moment the door closes, we’re on each other. “Get this ridiculously tight dress off,” Theo growls. “Like all wrapping paper, it belongs on the floor.” His hands slide up my thighs and underneath the hem of my dress, his fingers biting into the flesh at my hips as he pushes my dress up to my waist.
Reaching down, I drag it up over my head, and drop it on the floor before I place my hands on Theo’s chest and push him up against the door. Sinking to my knees, I look up at him as I undo his belt.
“I hope you stayed hard for me, baby,” I murmur, sliding my hand into his pants to feel for his hard rod. I gasp. “You did,” I grin.
Chuckling, he runs his fingers, gently, over my hair and leans back, moaning as I take him into my mouth. Using my hand and my tongue as I suck and swirl, tasting his arousal while my own pulses between my legs.
“Stop, stop, stop,” Theo says in a rush, reaching down to lift me up so I’m standing. He pulls his suspender straps off his arms, letting his open pants fall while he reefs his shirt over his head then drops it all on the floor with my dress before he steps slowly toward me. I move to kick my heels off but he stops me.
“Leave them on,” he growls, pulling me into his arms, pressing our bodies against each other. “I have been torturing myself, all night, thinking about all the things I want to do to you in this room. And they don’t involve you on your knees. I want you naked, shoes only, on your back, pulling on my hair, your thighs wrapping around my head while I make you scream.”
A bolt of arousal shoots between my legs, causing me to shudder in anticipation.
“Turn around,” he murmurs, guiding me with his hands as I do as he says. His hands, rough and manly from his guitar work, skim over the surface of my skin, causing delicious shivers to quiver their way through me as he makes his way toward the clasp of my bra.
Leaning down to kiss me on the shoulder, he pops the clasp and lets the silk and lace slide down my arms and to the floor. His kisses trail across my back as he sweeps my hair over my other shoulder and places another kiss behind my ear.
I shudder beneath his touch, turning my head in my desire to have his mouth on mine. I exhale slowly as his hands move around my body and find my breasts. His lips press against the curve of my neck and along my jawline, and I let out a gasp as he expertly pl
ays with my nipples with one hand and uses the other to slide down my belly and tease the edge of my panties.
I inhale slowly, my breath quivering along with my body as the sounds of the city are blocked out by the quiet of the room. All I hear is breathing in air thick with arousal.
His hand slides down over my tidy curls to cup my mound. He’s teasing me, making my insides ache for his touch. I press my body against him, his erection, now tucked inside his cotton boxes, presses firmly against the small of my back and I roll my hips against him.
A low sound escapes his throat as his finger slips between my folds, sliding its way up and down, distributing my juices.
“You feel like silk,” he moans as he slowly removes his hand and turns me to face him. He inserts his finger into his mouth and sucks off my juice. “And you taste like heaven.”
Moving fast, I grab a hold of his face and crash my mouth into his, my desire taking over as I wrap my limbs around him and slide my tongue into the warm wet of his mouth.
He carries me over to the bed and lowers us both down so he’s on top of me. I whimper as he breaks our kiss and works his way down my body, pausing to suck my nipple into his mouth before he continues down, past my belly button and down to my core.
Hooking his fingers in the waist of my panties, he drags them down my legs, pressing a kiss to the tops of my high-heeled feet as he discards my underwear like more unwanted wrapping paper.
He moves his hands up my calves, keeping a constant connection with his hands and my skin, as he gently pushes my knees up and apart so I’m open and exposed for him. His hands continue up my thighs as he slides his body down the bed to settle himself between my thighs.
Beautiful Boxset: Beautiful Series, books 1-4 Page 147
