by Ivy Smoak
“So he was British?”
“Don’t insult the British like that. What’s taking so long? I better go check to see if Santiago fell asleep back there.” He got up and walked over to the kitchen.
I tried to think over what I’d just said that agitated Tanner enough to excuse himself from the table. His father was part of the royal guard. But not the British one? I was so confused. What other royal guard was there? Maybe he was just saying his dad was a dick. In which case…what did his dad do to piss him off so much? Maybe he was the one who turned Tanner into a vampire…
Speaking of which, this was the perfect opportunity to text Chastity and tell her where I was. That way they’d at least find my body to give me a proper burial if Tanner decided to suck my blood.
Me: Tanner took me to Santiago’s! I think you might be right about him being a vampire. Please call the police if I’m not home by midnight.
Chastity: Did he try to bite you?!
I was about to text her back when Tanner reemerged from the kitchen.
He cleared his throat and sat down next to me. “Santiago will be out in just a moment.”
“Can I get one more question?”
He pulled his eyebrows together. “That depends on what you’re going to ask.”
I smiled. He really didn’t like when I asked him personal questions. “Doesn’t that kinda defeat the purpose?”
“Fair point.” He rubbed the side of his jaw as he stared at me. “Hit me with one more.”
I needed to word this one better. And there were even more options now. Why do you hate your dad? Was he British or not? What other royal guard was there? Are you a vampire? Screw all the rest of it. The vampire thing was the most important question and I’d flubbed it last time. This time I’d just get proof. “Show me your teeth.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me, buddy. Let’s see those chompers.”
He laughed. “That’s not a question, Ash.”
“Just do it.”
He stared at me like I’d lost my mind. “You are probably the weirdest person I’ve met in my entire life.” He said it like it was a compliment. But the actual words weren’t that complimentary.
“You’re weird.” Smooth.
He smiled. “I know.”
Okay. Why was he smiling at me like that? “Calling someone weird isn’t exactly a nice thing.”
“But we’re both weird,” he said. “We can be ourselves around each other. Isn’t that refreshing?”
I was literally sitting here drenched in champagne. And he was staring at me like he always did. Like I was the most beautiful girl in the room. Ignoring the fact that I was literally the only woman in this room, it was sweet. “Honestly? Yeah. Who wants to be normal anyway?”
His smile grew. “You’re a breath of fresh air, Ash. Truly.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it again. I didn’t know what to say to that. If he liked being weird with me, if he thought I was a breath of fresh air…why wouldn’t he date me? “Can I ask you one more question?”
“Hold that thought,” Tanner said as Santiago walked out of the kitchen doors holding a tray of cakes.
Santiago placed down the tray and described the cakes we’d be tasting. They weren’t the same flavors from my dream, but I could still picture Tanner licking icing off my nipples perfectly. I crossed my legs under the table and tried my best to pay attention. Santiago excused himself and Tanner turned to me.
He was about to grab the blindfold, but I reached out and snatched it before he could. “Close your eyes and pucker up, big boy.”
Tanner laughed.
“I mean like…open your mouth so I can put stuff in it.” Yeah, he was right. I was a total weirdo. And he just rolled with it.
“Don’t you love this place? I want you to have the full experience.” He moved so quickly that I barely even saw him steal the blindfold before my eyes were covered.
Freaking vampire.
Before I could figure out how to trick him into wearing it instead, he was putting cake into my mouth. Not his rock-hard dick. Just delicious cake. Bite after bite. And I was groaning just like in my dream.
Tanner laughed. “I haven’t had something this good in years. Marie Antoinette’s baker used to make something just like this last one. It’s heaven. This brings back so many memories.”
Marie Antoinette? What the what? But before I could ask him about it, he put a forkful of cake into my mouth. Mmmm. It was to die for. I could literally die eating this cake and I’d be happy. When I finally finished moaning around that perfect bite, I threw another question at him. “Have you read a lot about Marie Antoinette?”
“Hm?”
“You said her baker made something just like this.”
“Yeah…” his voice trailed off. “I must have heard it in a documentary or something.”
But he said it brought back memories. Maybe he used to watch Marie Antoinette documentaries with one of his many hookups before he sucked their blood?
He cleared his throat. “You have a little icing on your chin.”
No. Noooo. Food on my face? Kill me now! I reached up to wipe it away.
“A little to the left,” he said.
God, it’s everywhere?! I moved my hand to the left. This was one of the worst moments of my life. “Did I get it?” I started wiping frantically. Please for the love of God.
“Let me,” he said. He lightly brushed his thumb beneath my lip.
And all my worries about food on my face and Tanner’s vampiric tendencies disappeared. Because it felt like I was back in my dream.
He ran his thumb slowly along my skin. And like the weird person he knew that I was, I licked the pad of his thumb.
For a second, there wasn’t a sound in the whole restaurant except for my heart pounding. Why did I lick his thumb? He’s going to think I’m a lunatic. But I couldn’t think of a single thing to do to fix it. And his thumb was still just paused on my lip. So my brain short-circuited and I licked his finger again.
He groaned and shoved his thumb into my mouth.
If this was what being weird together meant, I wanted more of it. I closed my lips around his thumb and sucked hard.
“Fuck,” he hissed.
“What’s the verdict?” Santiago said.
I jumped and Tanner laughed. Although, I don’t know why he was laughing, because I could have easily bit him. He was lucky to still have that finger.
Tanner lowered the blindfold from my face. “What do you say? Which one was your favorite?” He kept his hand on my cheek and stared into my eyes.
All the cakes were astounding. But I knew which one Tanner preferred. “The Marie Antoinette one.”
He smiled and turned to Santiago. “Cake #4.”
“Perfecto. They shall be delivered to the yacht tomorrow afternoon. It was wonderful meeting you, Ash. I will work on that handshake.” He winked at me and then hurried back into the kitchen.
“So that’s a wrap.” Tanner dropped his hand from my face. “Your work on this party is officially done.”
“Kind of. Except for everything tomorrow before the actual party.”
Tanner waved off my comment. “Not necessary. You’ve already done so much. You should just take the weekend off.”
What? But… “I can still come to the party though, right?”
“Did you get an invitation?”
“No. Do I need one?”
“Of course.”
I stared at him in disbelief. Was he seriously disinviting me to the party that I’d planned?! God, he was doing that thing again. Running because I’d made things sexual. I’d licked his finger one time and now he wanted to avoid me again? It wasn’t even his dick. If he knew what he’d done to me in my dreams he’d be in Montana by now.
He stood up. And for a second, I thought he was just going to walk away. But then he put his hand out for me. “Luckily for you, I have a plus one. Would you like to be my date?”
�
�Your date?”
“If you’ll do me the honor.” He bowed slightly like he was asking me to dance with him circa 1850.
He always surprised me. “Why, yes, sir. I’d love to accompany you to the ball.” I placed my hand in his.
He laughed and helped me out of my chair. “There are two conditions though.”
Anything. I just nodded.
“No more of this Rule #8 nonsense. I’ve never been good at sharing.”
It was somehow like my dream but also the opposite. I nodded again.
“And promise me you won’t go to Club Onyx again without me. It’s something we should really be experiencing together.”
I nodded. But…then I started freaking out. His note told me to go to Club Onyx. But it also said not to open it unless he disappeared. Damn it. I started to sweat. I needed to tell him everything. I started to hold my breath because I didn’t know what else to do.
“Good.”
“Good,” I said. But then I shook my head. “Wait. Did you just ask me to be your plus one to the party? Or did you just ask me to be your girlfriend?” Because those conditions made it seem like it was more than a one-date kind of thing.
“I’ve been running from my past for a really long time. I’m so tired of not having roots anywhere.”
I was pretty sure he was very well known in NYC. And he had Nigel and his best friend Matt who definitely wasn’t Matthew Caldwell…
“I don’t want to run anymore. My past is complicated to say the least. And when I thought you were DODO…” he shook his head. “My paranoia has gotten the best of me over the years. I thought I was out of time. And I just kept thinking about…you. Really I think about you constantly.”
My heart was racing so fast that it actually hurt.
“I don’t want to waste any more of what little time we have together.”
Little time? I didn’t dwell on it, because I was pretty sure he was asking me something huge. “So that means…”
He smiled. “I have to warn you, I’m not very good at this. I haven’t dated in a really long time. But I think we should give it a go. Normally I’d talk to your father about the courting process…but since I’ve never met the man…let’s just go crazy and do it the modern way.”
“You mean dating?” Because he’d said a lot of weird shit and I really needed to know this answer.
He reached out and tucked a strand of my matted hair behind my ear. “Be my girlfriend.”
It wasn’t really a question. More of a statement. A declaration I’d been dying to hear. I squealed and threw my arms around his neck. I was un-wifey-zoned! I’d freaking done it!
“Your skin is so sticky,” he said with a laugh.
For a second I thought about the cum all over my face in my dream. But then remembered I’d had champagne thrown in my face. And cake smeared around my mouth. None of that mattered though. We could be weird and sticky together. I kissed him. And then kept kissing him as he carried me out to the limo.
But as soon as he set me down in the limo, I pulled back. I couldn’t start a relationship without getting something off my chest. “I have a confession.”
“Okay…”
“I do promise I won’t go to Club Onyx again without you. But I only wanted to go to Club Onyx in the first place because I was bad and opened your note that I wasn’t supposed to open unless you disappeared. But it’s too late now, because it’s already done. And it said to go to Club Onyx to find what I was looking for. And I was looking for your secrets. That’s the only reason I went early. But I promise not to go again now. Please don’t break up with me already.” I waited for him to curse me out.
Instead he just laughed. “I should have guessed you’d open it right away. Ash, it doesn’t matter. And I’m not going to break up with you. Or disappear. I’m not the one going anywhere.” He looked sad for a second and I had no idea why. I wasn’t going anywhere either.
“You promise?” I asked.
He pulled me onto his lap as the limo sped off. “I promise.” And then he kissed me again. And again. He kissed me the whole way back to my apartment.
I stared up at him as he opened up the door to my apartment complex. I didn’t want tonight to end. And yet…here we were. I stared up at…my boyfriend. I tried not to squeal.
“Until tomorrow.”
I felt like I was floating. “Until tomorrow.”
He lifted my hand and placed a kiss on my knuckles before walking back to his limo. But before he climbed in, he turned around. “Oh, and Ash?”
“Yes?” My voice came out breathy and weird. This wasn’t real life. How had I gone from stalking him to dating him? I mean…him stalking me.
“There’s a surprise for you upstairs.”
A surprise? I looked over my shoulder expecting to see a FedEx man leaving the building. But of course there was no one there. I turned back around and Nigel was already driving Tanner away. How did he keep getting into my apartment?
Dumb question. It didn’t matter. I wanted to go see what my freaking boyfriend was about to surprise me with now.
Chapter 63 - The Spaceboy Collection
Thursday
This was the best night of my life. I hurried up the stairs to my apartment. Literally nothing could ruin my mood. Not the fact that I was running in heels. Or that I was still sticky from champagne. I couldn’t wait to see what Tanner’s surprise was.
But when I turned out of the stairwell, my heart sank.
Oh no.
There were seven big boxes stacked by my apartment. And Homeless Rutherford was next to them.
“Hey!” I yelled. “What are you doing? Those are mine!”
He dropped something and then looked over and gave me a saucy little wave. Then he sashayed away down the hall. I’d seen him happy before, but never like this. It was like he was at a pizza buffet and had just gone to town on the whole spread. Except it hadn’t been a pizza buffet. It had been my presents from Tanner.
“You better not have licked anything!” I yelled to him. But I knew in my heart that he had.
I scanned the boxes to try to identify what he’d licked. An opened letter sat on top of one of the boxes. That must have been what he’d dropped when I caught him. I wanted so badly to read it, but I had to take proper precautions. So I opened up my apartment to get my rubber gloves.
“Hey,” said someone as I walked into my apartment.
“Ah! Rape!” I threw my keys at the rapist.
Chastity just barely dodged them. “It’s just me! Calm down!”
“Sweet lord, woman. Why would you scare me like that?”
“Why would I scare you? You’re the one who texted me that Tanner was a vampire and that I needed to call the police if you weren’t home by midnight.”
“Did I do that?”
“Yes!”
“Well in my defense, I just had the best night ever, and…”
“And is he a vampire or not?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Honestly I didn’t even care. If he was a vampire, he hadn’t tried to kill me yet. And he was amazing and perfect and beautiful. I couldn’t walk away now. I was in too deep.
Someone knocked on my open door. My next-door neighbor. “You okay?” she asked. “I thought I heard you scream something about rape…”
“Yeah,” I said. “But it was just Chastity.”
She gave Chastity a weird look. “So you’re good? Rutherford didn’t try to rape you?”
“No. But I think he licked my boxes.”
My neighbor laughed. “I don’t know why he always licks your stuff. See you later.” She walked back toward her apartment.
I frowned and turned to Chastity. “Did she just say Homeless Rutherford only ever licks my stuff? What the actual hell? I assumed he licked everyone’s everything. Why did he single me out?”
“Maybe he likes you,” Chastity said.
“Gross. And speaking of licking things…why didn’t you bring those boxes in?”
&nb
sp; “What boxes?” asked Chastity.
“All the ones outside my apartment.”
“They must have just been delivered. Oooh. What’s inside?”
“I don’t know yet, but I know they’re from Tanner. I need my rubber gloves.”
“More Odegaards?!” Chastity was over by the door in a flash. Apparently she didn’t care that the boxes might be contaminated, because she lifted up the certainly-licked letter.
I read over her shoulder:
Ash,
I had Odegaard design a special Spaceboy themed collection for the launch party tomorrow. I can’t wait to see which outfit you choose.
See you at the pier at 8 pm.
-Tanner
P.S. Chastity can take her pick as well, but I have a feeling I know which outfit she’ll want…
“Tanner is officially the most amazing man ever,” said Chastity. “He’s definitely going to ask you out tomorrow at the party.”
“I’m 100% sure that he won’t.” I tried to act casual. But I was definitely beaming.
“Why? Did something happen at the cake tasting?”
“Not really. Just the usual… Had a wild sex dream on the way there. And then we tried some cake. And then he asked me to be HIS FREAKING GIRLFRIEND!”
“WHAT?! Are you serious?!”
I nodded.
“Ahhh!” She tossed the note aside, bear-hugged me, and then started jumping up and down with me. “We did it!”
“I have to admit, I didn’t think that your crazy advice would work. But it totally did. He was so freaking jealous about what happened at Club Onyx that he couldn’t even help himself.”
“I told you it would work!”
I nodded. “I owe you one.”
“I’ll be more than happy to take half of these clothes as my payment. But before we get to that, I need to know… Did you two bang it out on the way home? I bet that limo ride was fire emoji fire emoji fire emoji.” She fanned herself with her hand. “Oh! And how big is his penis? Eight inches?” She stared at me. “Nine inches? A FOOT?!”
I laughed. “We didn’t bang. Just lots of making out.”
“For real?”
“Yes.”
“Weird.”
