by Mimi Strong
“That’s what acting is like. You can’t avoid the darkness. You have to embrace it to deliver a believable appearance. If you aren’t suffering, the audience won’t connect.”
“Can’t you just say the words and pretend?”
“That’s pretty much all you can do. Sounds simple enough, except there’s a part of your brain that doesn’t know it’s pretend. Your ears hear the words in your voice, and you believe it. Your soul believes it.”
I frowned and played around with the silverware before me.
“You seem to be having fun, though. As Drake, the vampire. You’re always grinning and having a blast.”
“True. But this movie I’m doing is different. It wears on me.”
I glanced up, catching his gaze. “Sucky.”
He blinked, and then his mouth turned up at the corners. “Sucky!” He sat up straight, looking more vital than ever. “I love how you put things in perspective. You have a real gift for stating the obvious, exactly when I need to hear it. You’re right. Embracing a dark role is sucky. But it’s also a challenge, and it’s what I desperately wanted, so why the fuck am I complaining?”
I shrugged, returning his smile. “I don’t know why you’re so miserable. It’s like all those carbohydrates sent you over the edge into a shame spiral.”
“Blame it on the pasta,” he said.
“Evil, evil pasta. Can you imagine if we’d ordered the deep-fried ravioli starters? They come with a sour cream dip. The mayor threatened to outlaw them.”
“The horror!” He jumped up from his chair. “You wait here. I’ll be back in a sec.”
I sat alone at the table, carefully folding my cloth napkin into a swan shape. It’s just something I like to do, whether the napkin was originally a swan or not. I find a comfort in folding napkins that doesn’t translate to paper origami, though I don’t know why. Perhaps a fear of paper cuts?
Dalton returned, a white box in his hand. “I got dessert to go.” He stood behind my chair, leaned down, and murmured in my ear. “Actually, this is second dessert, for after the first dessert, which is—”
I twisted around and pressed my finger to his lips. “Don’t say peaches.”
“Are you shushing me?”
Remembering our first fight on my lawn, I yanked my hand back quickly.
“That wasn’t a shush,” I said, backpedaling. “I didn’t say the word shush, so it wasn’t one.”
Some of the other people dining in the thinning-out restaurant were staring in our direction, with all the fuss we were making.
Dalton grabbed my hand and hauled me out of there.
Outside, I barely got one breath of cool night air before he seized me and gave me a kiss to take that breath away.
CHAPTER 12
I moaned into his lips, curving my body to nestle with his as my legs turned to something boneless, like Chicken McNuggets.
He pulled back and stared down into my eyes. “You don’t want to go to my trailer,” he stated.
“I don’t? Is it really messy?”
He moved me, pressing my back and butt against the brick wall of DeNirro’s. The brick was still radiating the day’s sunshine, even though we were in darkness, lit only by streetlamps and the headlights of passing cars.
He traced a line down my cheek and the side of my neck.
“I don’t think you’re a big fan of the Airstream.”
“Are you kidding? It combines the best parts of being abducted by aliens with the best parts of being a pioneer, taking the wagon train west and getting dysentery.”
“Something tells me you don’t like camping.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been.”
“How about hotels?” He handed me the dessert box so he could fish something out of his pocket. He dangled a key between us.
I gasped. “Is that for the No-Tell Motel?”
He looked puzzled. “It’s for the Nut Hill Motel.” Pause. “Oh, okay. I hear it now. Anyway, I have a room there. With a bed. And a few dozen tiny little bottles of booze.”
“We can drink from our fists and pretend we’re giants.”
“That's exactly how I usually drink!” He led me to the long black car with the tinted windows. I went for the back door, but he nodded for me to join him up at the front. “Vern’s got the night off. He found some book club thing he wanted to go to, so that means I’m driving.”
“If you’re driving me, does that make you my butler?”
We both slid into the leather seats at the front of the car.
“That depends,” he said. “Does your butler do this?”
He leaned over and kissed me while cupping one of my breasts in his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.
Even his joking gropes were sexier than other guys’ concentrated foreplay efforts. Dalton had such a casual ease, like there were no wrong moves, and I wondered if the confidence came from his hotness or the other way around. Either way, my runway was wet and ready for him to land his big plane. Woohoo, down here, Mr. Pilot! Get ready for splashdown!
As he pulled away, I whispered, “What if I’d said no to dinner when you phoned? I’m trying to be charming, and that means I have to say no sometimes.”
“You wouldn’t let me down like that.”
“What am I to you? Just stress relief from a busy day?”
He settled back in the driver’s seat and turned the key to start the car. “I think you cause me more stress than you relieve.”
That made me smile. I don’t know why, but it did.
We drove up to Nut Hill and parked in the half-full parking lot of the motel. Dalton pulled a small overnight bag from the trunk of the car, then we held hands as we walked up the steps to the upper level and found our room.
“Woah,” he said, stopping with the door open only an inch. “Deja Vu. I feel like we’ve done this before.”
I glanced around nervously, worried about running into someone I knew.
“I’ve never done this before,” I said, and it was true. I’d never been inside one of the units.
“Must have been in a previous life,” he said, with a smile so charming, I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not.
I remembered the things he said to me the night we met and said, “Right. Previous life. Because we’re made of stardust from the same star, and we’re just being reunited again now.”
“So you feel it, too. I should have never left.”
He pushed the door open, then ran in and leaped on the first bed like a flying squirrel. He patted the spot next to him and waggled his eyebrows. The bedspread matched the motel room in that it was mottled, brown, and at least thirty years old.
I kept going, making my way to the bathroom.
I did a sexy striptease as I walked, dropping my clothes on the carpet, with my panties being the final item off before I reached the bathroom door.
A moment later, I was in the shower, hot water spraying down on me from a nozzle that was unlike your typical hotel shower head. I’d never been camping with my family, but we did go on many road trips, always staying in hotels and motels. One of my mother’s favorite things was to write a funny review of every room’s shower. She would have liked this silver beauty, because it actually found that middle ground between soft spittle and tearing your flesh off.
You’d think that a wealthy actor would stay only in the poshest of hotels, with abundant gift baskets and marble surfaces, and I’m sure Dalton Deangelo would have rented such a place if it existed, but Beaverdale was not Paris. Not Paris at all.
He tapped on the door and I invited him into the bathroom.
“Don’t look,” he said. A few seconds later the toilet flushed, momentarily causing a bracing cold spray from the shower head to turn my nipples into Skittles.
“Ah, so you do pee,” I said through the shower curtain, which was mostly white. “You don’t have your butler do that for you.”
“Not yet, but I’m hoping for some advances in technology.” A belt bu
ckle dropped to the floor. “Is there room in that shower for one more?”
I hugged my soapy arms around myself, grinning madly. “Come on in. I could use someone to wash my back.”
His toes entered around the edge of the shower curtain. He had adorable toes, with a few dark hairs on the knuckle of his big toe, and the nails were rounded and smooth as though pedicured.
The rest of the leg followed, and I quickly looked up to his face, so as not to make him feel like a sexy piece of meat. Poor fellow. He was so cute, girls probably objectified him all the time.
“Wash your back, hmm,” he said. “I’m more interested in the front, but maybe if you show me the back, so I can make an informed decision?”
I turned around slowly, hoping the low lighting and streaming water camouflaged the cellulite situation.
I didn’t expect him to grab me in one arm and pull me tight to his body, but that’s what he did, my back squished to his front. He growled in my ear as his free hand roamed down my side, over my hip, across my butt cheek, and then between my cheeks.
With his lips near my ear, he murmured, “Like this?”
The back of me had never felt so good as it did pressed up against the front of Dalton’s hard body.
He ran his fingers up and down, moving farther with each stroke, all the way down my coin slot and into my piggy bank.
“Mercy!” I grabbed onto the metal hand rail that had been installed for situations like this.
With hot, soapy, slippery fingers, he continued to explore my body, back and front, top to bottom. Soaking wet had never felt so good, never felt so right.
I turned to face him, and instead of kissing his awaiting lips, I stuck my tongue out and licked along his jaw, from his chin to his beautiful ear. I pulled him close and sucked on his earlobe, drinking warm shower water from his body as divine nourishment.
He gently took my hand and wrapped it around the base of his candy stick, which was upright and sandwiched between us like a third party. A very eager third party.
“Oh, you sweet thing,” he said. “Your hand feels so good. I can’t wait to feel your pussy. And you don’t need to worry about a thing, because the drawer next to the bed is loaded with supplies.”
I stroked the length of his long, thick candy stick, tugging gently on the head and swirling my wet palm across the tip before sliding my fingers back down. “Mamma will take good care of you.”
What? Did I really just refer to myself as Mamma?
And was it just my imagination, or did his dick harden like twenty percent more?
“You’re taking all the hot water,” he said, his eyes closed. “I’m very upset right now, and shivering.” He had a big grin on his face, but he also did have goosebumps visible across his chest and on his arms.
We switched spots and he tipped his head back, washing his hair under the water, his hands up and all his muscles flexing and looking majestic, like a sexy shampoo commercial.
I kept tugging and simply stared in awe as the shower water dribbled down his chiseled face and his perfect chest.
And what a manhood it was, standing at attention like a fence post, and nearly as big. How had I gotten my mouth around it the night before?
(Oh, that’s right. I have a big mouth.)
“I’m objectifying you,” I said.
He wiped the water from his eyes and stared at me with those mesmerizing emeralds.
“Fair’s fair,” he said. “I’ve been objectifying you since the moment you fell into my arms.”
I crossed my arms under my breasts, pointing the nipples up. I had fallen into his arms. And he’d acted like I weighed about half of what I did. Even though…
I bit my lip.
“And you were standing on that stool,” he said, laughing.
“They wouldn’t let me ride the pony,” I blurted out.
“What?”
“In fourth grade. Shayla had a birthday party and all the girls were there, even Chantalle, and Golden, too. The pony’s name was Lionheart, but I couldn’t ride him because I was too big. The man who brought Lionheart was wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots, and he said if I got on the pony, even just for a minute, it could break his back.”
Dalton pulled me to his chest, his arms tight around my shoulders and keeping me up. “That’s fucking awful,” he said. “This cowboy, let’s go find him and make him eat his teeth.”
I sniffed, my nose congested. Was I crying? I couldn’t tell with the shower water spraying down all around us. My eyes felt hot, and my chest was both light and heavy at the same time.
“He died,” I said, sniffing. “The cowboy, not the pony. I guess he was pretty old. The next year at Shayla’s birthday, Lionheart came again, but with the guy’s daughter. She said I could sit on him, even though I was a year older and bigger, but I didn’t trust her. I knew that if I got on that pony, I’d hear something crack and I’d never forgive myself.”
Dalton pulled his hips away from me slightly, allowing some space between us. “I’m sorry to hear that. And I’m doubly sorry to be poking my boner into your belly button while you’re telling me this very personal story.” He frowned down at the fencepost-region. “Not cool, bro.”
I wiped the water from my eyes and smiled up at his face, which was not just aesthetically perfect, but also kind and wise. “I’m embarrassed I told you that story. I don’t know why I did. I’m the one who’s not cool.”
He held his hands on either side of my cheeks and tilted my face up. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. It’s all totally clear. I’m Lionheart.”
“You’re a little Shetland pony with black spots?”
“I’m the beast you’re worried you’ll break.”
I shook my head, disagreeing, but he pulled me closer and kissed me so tenderly. I melted against him, meshing my body with his.
His hands cupped my buttocks as he tongued my mouth. I felt the heat growing in my shower-soaked pussy, and I wanted him inside me.
He reached back and turned the water handle, accidentally spraying us with ice water before getting it turned off. Still, we didn’t stop kissing. I couldn’t let his lips go, not when he wrapped a big towel around the both of us, and not as he walked backward out the bathroom door and toward the bed.
I finally let go of him long enough to give my hair a quick towel dry so it wouldn’t drip and make me shiver. His near-black hair shone like a raven’s wing with the dampness. The two lamps with their brown shades were on, dim, and the room looked more romantic now.
I tossed the towel onto a chair, pulled down the bedcovers, and climbed in. On my back, I tilted my head to one side and peered at him through my eyelashes.
He opened the drawer next to the bed and rolled a condom on quickly. Then he was kneeling between my legs, two fingers dipping into my honey.
I opened my mouth to say something, but only a sigh came out. Now was not the time for talking. Now was for fucking.
His eyes took on a dark cast, lit only by the two lamps on either side of the bed. He grasped one of my legs and folded it up at the knee, opening my pussy to him. He glanced down briefly, then shifted his body up and fell into me, his face alongside my neck and his thickness inside me.
I gasped at the sensation of him filling me, and he heard this as encouragement, pushing further and further, thrusting until his hips ground against my body, hardness on softness.
He found a rhythm, supporting his upper body on bent arms popping with muscles. I kissed one bicep and then the other.
He eased down a ways, withdrawing partially to curl down and lick my nipple. He flicked the firm knob of flesh with his tongue, while at the same time he teased my honey out with the tip of his cock.
Sensation radiated from my breast, and I writhed on the bed, my whole body a sensitive, jiggling embodiment of desire.
He mouthed my breast hungrily, as though trying valiantly to fit the entire mound in his mouth, and then he turned his attention to the other.
&n
bsp; His fingers crept down the hollows between us and sought my pink nub, deep within its pillowy folds. He stroked me up and down with his fingers, and as I arched my back, he thrust into me, sending ripples of pleasure all the way to my ears, burning with heat.
“Why don’t you get on top?” he murmured.
“I like where I am.” I grabbed my knee with one hand and helped pull my leg up, allowing him deeper penetration.
He groaned and closed his eyes. The moisture on his forehead wasn’t from the shower, but new—sweat. His cock was rigid, like a kinked hose under pressure, and the muscles along the side of his neck were tense and visible.
“Fill me up,” I said, and he started moving again.
The thrusting was slow at first, then built up with the pressure inside me. His fingers were on my clit, adding pressure to the friction of my skin pulled taut from the girth of him.
He rocked into me steadily, and again he implored me to roll with him and go on top for a bit. I declined, insisting he do all the work, since he was so good at it.
The movement of his fingers began distracting me rather than pleasuring me, so I pulled his hand away.
“Is that it for you?” he asked.
I nodded. “Go ahead.”
He withdrew suddenly, and I instantly felt terrible, so disappointed in myself.
But he wasn’t done with me.
He grabbed my legs and yanked me down on the bed, so my hips were at the foot of the bed and my feet on the carpet.
Then he balanced himself on his fists, on either side of my face, and thrust into me, high and hard. The way his cock rubbed against me sent new shivers of pleasure through my body. This was new. A pressure grew.
He looked me in the eyes, his forehead shining and expression intense.
He was bigger than anyone I’d been with, and I had no idea what it would feel like to have a man touch me so deep inside. As he moved through undiscovered territory, I shuddered with a pleasure that seemed to come from my tailbone. It was a different sensation than his gorgeous lips and tongue on my clit. Even more personal.
Hard and fast, gliding easily on my body’s reaction, he sought me out. I had nowhere to hide, and when I closed my eyes, I saw his face. Opening. I was opening to him, and that scared me.
