“Pack?” A flurry of black hair flies around her face when she pops up, holding the covers to her chest. “For where? You’re not going to Australia again so soon are you?”
I fight my grin, but one side of my mouth loses. “Nah. As appealing as that flight is, I’m hopping a puddle jumper up north. We’ve got a quick shoot up there, and I have to corral my minions.”
She flops onto her belly, her bare ass on display behind her. My eyes are drawn to it, but I continue to button up my shirt. First. Then, when I finish, I lunge and sink my teeth into her left cheek.
“Oh my God, stop!” she squeals. “You freak, do not bite my ass! Jesus.”
I’d believe her, but she’s laughing at the same time. She wiggles around and out of my grip until she’s splayed underneath me. This is the opposite of my intention. I really do need to take care of some shit today.
“Why do you tempt me like this?”
“You started it,” she chastises. “I was asking a simple question, to be clear.”
My eyes track all around her face, each plane, each curve. The tiny freckle near the corner of her right eye, the barely visible scar on the very bottom of her chin. I wonder where it came from as I drink her in.
I feel her watching me watch her, so I meet her eyes: curiosity, mirth, affection.
This is my Beauty.
9
THE BEAST
NORA
DOC LEAVES ME with a panty-burner of a kiss—only I wasn’t wearing any in the first place. Even then I can’t convince him to stay for a morning round. Must have missed my chance when I didn’t hop on the morning wood. I guess turnabout is fair play.
Except that I hate not having the upper hand, so I send him a text with a picture of my bare hip exposed and my hand under the sheet just covering my lady business. I add the comment:
So you know, I just gave myself the orgasm you should’ve left me with.
Do you want more? I’m still parked outside.
Fuck. I was lying, but if you’re serious, COME back in.
Stay naked. Count down from 10.
After an hour and a paltry two orgasms on my part—I’m being sarcastic, relax—he has to search for his clothes again. I watch the smaller muscles in his thighs contract and jump as he looks for the opening to slip his T-shirt over his head. Taking him in, my eyes catch on his expression of concentration. He blinks his eyes hard, like his vision is blurry and he’s trying to clear it. It’s so cute, so human, and it tugs at the corners of my mouth. A pang in my side makes me want to keep him here. I realize I’m going to miss him, even though he’ll only be gone for a couple days.
“You know there’s a huge spa resort down the road from where we’re shooting,” he tells me. “They’re supposed to have hot springs and saltwater infinity pools. Maybe we could go up there for a weekend sometime?”
A flutter in my chest sends warmth skittering over my skin. My mouth, however, has other ideas because it has stronger connections to my brain than my heart.
“That sounds serious,” I say, and immediately want to kick myself. Even I know that was shitty to say considering how tenuous our… um, this, is. Oh, but I’m not done. “I thought we were keeping this casual?”
I see the disappointment on his face and feel the leash I have on myself relax just a little. Too late, though; he takes it back.
“Never mind. I just thought massages, secret outdoor sex in the hot springs, or flat-out never leaving the room might work,” he mumbles. “The only thing serious being the level of relaxation we manage in between fucking like it’s a job. And by job, I mean we’re elite leaders of the field.”
I chuckle. The urge to budge my boundaries forces a deep breath. “I… That sounds amazing. Maybe we could do that sometime.”
His eyes sparkle, and his grin sends shivers across my skin. “I’ll swing by and look at what kind of lead time they need for reservations.”
When he crawls up the bed to kiss me before he finally leaves, I stop him with my hands and hold his face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sour the suggestion with—” His lips interrupt and make me wish he could spend all day in bed with me.
Christ, how does this man make me so insatiable? He makes me want more of him, to be more for him. It makes me doubt my own mind.
“It’s okay,” he says. His voice is soft and warm, telling me more than his words do. “I want you for you—not you being who you think I want. Just so you know. Okay?”
My eyes lock on his, and I can’t move. I feel everything he said as though he’d tattooed it on my body with kisses while reaching into my head to plant it in my every thought. I struggle to find something snarky to say, something to brush off the feeling—and the compliment—with any kind of ease.
“Okay,” I say, unable to summon anything else to respond with. I sigh and force my shoulders away from my ears. “Text me when you land?”
He tosses a smirk at me as he pushes backward off the bed and stands up. “Of course, Beauty. In the meantime, feel free to send pictures like the one you sent earlier. I don’t mind.”
“I do not send naked pictures.” The burn of a blush on my cheeks is like betrayal. Though I’ve only betrayed myself.
“Whatever you considered it, it was hot,” he says.
My eyes are drawn to his hand on his crotch.
“By the way, do not ever send me a dick pic, or so help me, you’ll see it on a billboard over the 405.”
He continues to adjust himself. I point to the glorious member I’ve taken to calling “Beast” based on the massacre my ladygarden took last night and this morning. “Seriously? We literally just had sex.”
“So? Then I thought of that picture and—do you not realize how easily you affect me?”
I think I see a flash of “Oh, shit. I should not have said that out loud” on his face. I blink and shake my head. The look is gone.
“One time with you was enough for my body to crave every inch of you, always,” he adds.
Goddammit, he is good. I’m not sure how to respond to the compliment without sounding stupid, so I decide to tease. “What about my mind?”
“You’re all rotten up top,” he deadpans, tapping his temple. “I’ll pass on that part.”
I throw a pillow at him, and he guffaws. He leans forward onto the bed.
“When I call you Beauty, Nora,” he says, “I’m not just referring to your body.”
His heated gaze has every hair on my body standing on end. A nuclear-hot flash rushes through me, stinging my skin. I feel like I’m trying to blush everywhere at once, or maybe just burst into flames. I have to put a steel-toed boot on my own brake, because everything inside is trying to well up and perform a professional fireworks display. I pull up the sheet and wave him off before I lose control and beg him to stay with me.
“Get out of here. You have a plane to catch. Go play with your monkeys.”
He sighs, but I can hear the curve of his lips along with the backward shuffle of his feet. “Until later, then.”
A minute panic surges my system and flings me out of bed, where I take two steps and jump him. Thank God he catches me, my bare ass in his hands. I kiss him like I’m trying to eat him alive.
“What about my monkeys?” he mumbles between our lips, not the least bit worried about them, I’d wager.
“They can have you when I’m done,” I say. “Don’t get undressed; just fuck me quick, okay? I need you one more time.” As my back hits the bed, I unfasten his jeans, and he digs for a condom. Before he can even manage to find it, I touch a palm to his face ever so lightly, and it stops him. His eyes question me.
“I crave you, too, Declan,” I confess softly.
I feel every muscle in his body twitch, and for a moment, I can’t read him. My heart is in my stomach until he smiles slowly, the expression bleeding into his face like color on pure white fabric.
He kisses me so gently, my chest aches. “Then maybe we let the craving build until I see you again in two d
ays?”
“You evil bastard.”
He smirks. “Only for you.”
I narrow my eyes, but my heart is pounding at the implication. Does he want more than he admits to? I clamp down the idea and kick it away. I can’t deal with that right now.
He rushes to straighten himself up, as though taking his time would sabotage his restraint. That thought makes me smile, which garners me one more consuming kiss before he walks toward the door. He stops turns around and looks into Fitzwilliam’s house.
“Later, Fitz.”
I snort-laugh as I notice the little hedgie staring back at him through the cage.
After he legitimately leaves—like, I watch his tank-wagon roll away, and God forgive me for actually calling it that, even in my head—I throw on some clothes and pad out to the kitchen to make a gourmet bowl of Cheerios.
Cameron sits in the living room looking through binders. She doesn’t look up.
“No, you were not quiet, in case you were wondering,” she calls from the sofa. “I pride myself on my smarts, so I put my earplugs in. You’re welcome.”
I attempt to will away the crimson tone my skin is turning and clear my throat. I pour my cereal and milk and step into the room where she sits. “Sorry.”
“Are you?” she asks with a perfectly sculpted eyebrow lifted sky high.
This bitch has better eyebrows than I do. Christ, I need lessons. Or her aesthetician’s number.
Smothering my answer by trying to bite my lips shut is futile. “No,” I say finally.
“I wouldn’t be either if I was having that many orgasms in a twenty-four-hour period. Are you chafed?” She pauses to shake her head and breathe. “I mean, honest to God, that was a lot of fucking.”
I cackle and sit down next to her so I can shovel in my breakfast, which is damn near lunch at this point. At the very best, elevensies.
“Don’t be jealous.” I can’t deny it, so I’ll go with it.
“Bitch.”
“Twat.”
“No, because I can’t afford that yet.”
I pretty much choke on my food. Cam barely bats an eyelash—must be all those years in comedy. It takes a minute to recover.
“Are you planning to get the full reassignment surgery eventually?”
“Not sure enough for my therapist to give the all clear, but even if I were, it’s moot. My health plan is sketchy about how much they’ll cover because it’s technically elective—though I like to think of it as corrective or perhaps reconstructive surgery for the body I should have had in the first place. Sadly, the insurance industry does not concur. Regardless, for me to afford it, they’d have to cover ninety-nine percent.” She punctuates the statement with a snort. “I wonder if I moved to Canada—would their healthcare system cover it?”
“Well, I can tell you Ireland’s wouldn’t. And according to my mother, Korea doesn’t even have gay people.” I roll my eyes, thinking about the last conversation I had with her. It’s been over five years.
Cameron titters. “Oh my God, really?”
I level a look at her. “Stop. My mother is an idiot and probably a massive homophobe. Who knows? Maybe she’s a closet lesbian,” I muse, gagging when all sorts of wrong images flood my mind.
She keeps laughing. “Why haven’t I met her?”
“For good reason,” I insist. “She and I never got on. We’ve not kept in touch much since she went back to her family’s town outside of Seoul.” When Cam seems to blank on how to respond, I roll right past. “So, have we chosen a pair of tay-tahs yet?”
She makes a groaning noise. “I keep thinking when I see the right pair, I’ll know.”
The noise I make is relatively honk-like, but at least I avoid blocking my airway again. “Love at first sight, it ain’t. Personally, I think you should get stuck with a pair like the rest of us do. Just close your eyes, point, and go for wherever your finger lands.”
“Tried that before—all it got me was a rash.”
“Eww.” I twist away to the far end of the couch. When I look back, she’s giggling. “Not cool. Have you seen any you like? Maybe think about your mom’s or your sister’s and go similar. Ya know, pretend to have the family tits.”
“You’re not at all helpful. In no way would I ever in my life like to think of how my mother’s boobs look. The problem is I just can’t decide if I want cute little boobies that would be okay to go braless?” She weighs the thought like a question to me, her arms bent and raised in the air like a tipping scale of Libra. She tips the scale the other way. “Or maybe big sexy ones?”
“They don’t gotta be big to be sexy. Ask any man,” I say, which makes me think of Doc. Which, in turn, brings his mother to mind at the parallel. One woman loses her breasts to cancer, and another is receiving a brand new pair, so to speak. I snicker, thinking of Mrs. Wellesley’s joy at never having to wear a bra again after her double mastectomy. I refocus to see Cam staring at me, no doubt wondering where I just went mentally. I shrug and continue. “You don’t want to be too small necessarily, but damn, not having to wear a bra is every woman’s dream.”
“Sold.”
10
THE IN-BETWEEN TIMES
NORA
LANDED IN OAKLAND. U in bed?
Funny guy.
Just wishful thinking.
Nice try. I’m at work.
Damn. Was hoping for another pic b4 I go to sleep.
Good luck with that.
Doc’s last text is a string of laughter, capped with “dirty Xs and naked Os.”
Because he made me smile, I snap a quick picture of down my shirt—mostly just cleavage, but a nip may have peeked—and send it to him.
Naughty minxxx. Call me when u get home.
I don’t think he’s serious, which is why I wake up the next morning to two texts telling me how evil I am and a voicemail that growls, “Why aren’t you answering? I thought I was clear we were having the phone sex? How dare you.” He goes on to describe what he does to himself to get over it. I miss him next to me, but it’s stronger than that. Not to mention, between the sound of his voice—low, teasing, and clearly lying in bed—and his words, I am instantly awake enough that I have to start my day with my fingers between my legs and this man’s name on my lips.
Sweet Lord, I feel worse than a teenage boy.
Once I’m finally up and around, I text Sophie to see if she’s home. When she replies I’m a mother now. I will never have a life again LOLsob, I figure it’s safe to visit. Possibly necessary. An hour or so later I arrive and walk directly out back, as I’m positive she’s on the deck with Henry and probably Flower, too. There’s also a cat, named Cat, no less—this is all Fox, I guarantee—somewhere in this house. Sophie says they tried letting him hang on the back deck with them, but he wanders too much, and coyotes tend to snack on wandering cats.
“Hey, mama,” I say when I spot her sprawled on a lounge chair with the H-nugget tucked into her tank top over her chest. “I don’t think that’s a stable way to hold a baby. I’m no expert, but ya know, just callin’ it like I see it.”
She chuckles. “He violated three onesies in a row in various ways, so I gave up. Then we got out here and the breeze was a little chilly, so I’m just keeping him warm.”
I shrug and smile at her. “I’ll leave it to you.”
“Sooo,” she says, drawing out the word into an entire paragraph. I know what she’s looking for: details on Doc. We talked last night, but being stuck at home a lot must make her starving for some sort of gossip to sink her teeth into—even if it is just stupid conjecture about me and my kind-of, sort-of, is-he? boyfriend.
Okay, that’s not fair. I can tell she’s frustrated by my lack of transparency when it comes to him. Maybe I’m just too afraid of her telling me what I don’t want to hear. If I really open up, the floods will surge and there will be no stopping it.
“What?” I hedge. “Is there something on my face? Do you need a towel? Some juice? Maybe a banana?”
>
“Don’t tease me about sex,” she says, but immediately nixes the warning. “Kidding. We got back on the hobby horse last week.”
“Doc finally cleared you?” Our eyes simultaneously go wide. “The doctor.” Regardless of the clarification, a brief crack-up warms my cheeks. “Well? Was it good?”
Sophie drops her head back and closes her eyes. “Nobody told me how awkward it was going to be. I thought for sure my vagina was ruined,” she says.
It forces me to imagine shoving something that big out of my own.
“I thought you called it a sausage garage?”
Fox and I sometimes tag-team tease our girl over her mad pussy nicknames, but I think he secretly loves it. Every guy nicknames his junk, so why should women be left out?
Sophie sighs. “After I popped this guy out,” she points to the baby-sized lump on her chest, “it felt more like a freeway underpass.”
“Blew out your vajayjay, huh?”
“You horrid bitch,” she hisses, then laughs. “You know I had to get stitches. But for a little while, it seemed like such a fucking mess down there, I was afraid to even get naked in front of Fox when we got the OK for sex. I put caution tape around my thighs before I met him in the bedroom.”
I can’t look at her. I’m laughing too hard. “You did not,” I say finally.
“I legit did. Fox laughed even harder than I did. He loved it.”
“Oh my God,” I say, trying not to laugh any more. “Once you’re totally healed up, it shouldn’t be that bad, though, right? I mean, they’re built to accommodate a variety of sizes—that goes for penises as well as their role as baby chutes.”
“Baby chute? Oh, man, I’m stealing that one.”
“You mean you didn’t come up with it?”
“It’s possible, I suppose,” she muses. “Pregnancy kills your memory, dude. I’m telling you, it’s so damn unfair. I’m still waiting for the brain to be back at seventy-five percent at least. It’s not happening quickly enough. Fox ends up looking smarter than me, and it’s shameful.”
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