by Anne Marsh
Jesus.
I come to a decision as I step out of the elevator and stride over to the valet parking podium. First, my hard-on’s reached ridiculous proportions and I’m in serious danger of snapping my dick in half if I move wrong. Second, the guys there either remember me or, more likely, my car. One of them darts off to retrieve my darling and I return my attention to my phone.
Maple hasn’t answered, but I totally think we should have sex. It’s practically a public service on my part. Sexless Friday nights should be illegal. While I wait for the valet to return, I make my pitch:
We could hook up.
Dirty sex.
Multiple orgasms.
Lots of fun.
Say yes.
I’m still waiting for Maple’s response when the valet hands me my keys. I slip him a twenty and slide into my Porsche. My music’s already pounding, the beat vibrating through my seat. I don’t flat out sing along or seat dance, but it’s tempting. I had a poster of this car on the wall of my bedroom growing up and now she’s mine. Of course, I also had a trio of sexy, naked ladies cohabiting in that same space. Hope springs eternal. I drive through the city while I wait for Maple to decide what she wants to say to me. Or, hopefully, do with me. I give her five more minutes to respond before I tell Siri to text her again:
Too blunt? I take feedback.
The highway here runs along the ocean. The road falls away from the shoulder in a steep, stony roll to the water. Waves break on larger rocks a few hundred feet from shore. I find a pullout and bring my Porsche in for a safe landing. I need both hands for this shit.
Ping. Two days ago, I decided that Maple required her own ringtone, so I assigned her the opening measure from “Flight of the Bumblebee.” She’d told me a story about trying to do fouetté turns to it as a five-year-old and I’d almost peed myself laughing.
My phone buzzes with her response: How do I know you’re not all talk? Prove it.
I’m Mr. Show, but clearly she’s mistaken me for Mr. Tell. I’m grinning like an idiot at my phone when she texts again.
Chicken.
The squawking, clucking bird emoji needs no interpretation on my part, although it looks more like an ostrich laying an egg to me. She’s on.
You want a menu? Am I a drive-through?
Her answering text is almost instant: Quit stalling.
Uh-huh. She thinks I’m bluffing.
If I give you a menu, you have to rank the options.
I don’t give her a chance to disagree. Instead, I start texting.
A. The gourmet foodie option. I’ll cook you a meal. Asparagus, oysters Rockefeller, licking your crème brûlée. A four-course meal on my table or my private yacht.
Not that I own a yacht, but I could. If that’s what Maple fantasizes about.
B. The trip to a strip club option. I can buy the club out so it’s our private place, or we can invite the whole world in. Lady’s choice. You dance for me and I’ll strip for you.
C. Blindfolded. You can imagine what’s coming next. I might even take orders.
D. Stairwell quickie. Your workplace, mine or whatever building you’ve fantasized about your boss in.
E. Can you be quiet? I’ll share my toys with you—and I have a great remote-controlled one. You know where it goes. You wear it and a pretty dress, I take you out to one of those fancy crystal-and-china places, and then I see how many times I can make you come before dessert.
F. Sex in a hotel room with the curtains open and you up against the glass. First floor, fortieth, four hundredth. How many people do you want watching?
G. Get your Fabio on. We’ll have sex in a meadow. I’ll pretend to be the big, bad duke. You can be the milkmaid, the misbehaving duchess in need of a spanking or the Queen of England.
That last one’s a little over-the-top but I’m all in if that’s how she likes to play. My phone slips in my hand as I wait for her to respond. To choose one. I try not to imagine Maple over my knee while I turn her butt hot pink. Spanking’s never been my kink but I’m willing to broaden my horizons for her.
I tap my phone.
Nada.
No texting bubbles, no message, no naked selfies.
Usually, I make an offer and then I’m out. I don’t have to beg and I certainly know how to take no for an answer. I’m not San Francisco’s biggest manwhore but I love sex and I love taking care of my temporary lady. Something about Maple makes me want to push, however. I can’t let this—her—go. Before I can overthink it, I call her.
“Hey.” Her voice is husky when she answers, or possibly she’s ever-so-slightly breathless. Or I’m indulging in wishful thinking—stranger things have happened.
“At least tell me what you’re wearing.”
“You saw. I’ve added pants.”
“Pants are overrated,” I murmur.
She pauses. “I’m headed home. Pants seemed prudent.”
“Alone?”
“Are you up for a ménage à trois?”
I drop my phone and have to retrieve it from the passenger-side seat. “Jesus, Maple. Play fair.”
“You’ve never had a threesome?” Laughter fills her voice. “Because it’s very, very popular on Kinkster. Don’t tell me no one’s offered.”
“They’ve offered,” I say mock gravely. “But I’m not a fan of eating family-style. I don’t want just a taste—I want the whole thing.”
“Wow.” She takes a moment, possibly to process what I just said. I didn’t think she was shockable, so she’s probably working on the perfect comeback. Sirens wail in the background, followed by a string of car alarms. She’s walking on a San Francisco street somewhere.
“So you’re selfish?”
“Focused,” I counter. “I prefer to give my undivided attention.”
She hums a bar from a jaunty tune. “Please. I bet you’ve fantasized about two women together.”
“I have,” I admit, “but I’m watching them. I’m learning what they like, how they make each other feel. If I got in that bed with them, then I’d be thinking about my dick, too, because he’s a selfish git and he likes having his turn. And then I’d also need to keep track of who I’d touched last. Or licked. Or finger-banged.”
“Wow.” Maple sounds breathless. Score.
“I’m not sure I’d have enough coordination to keep both my ladies happy without some serious one-on-one practice,” I say thoughtfully. “Which is why I’m calling you to follow up on that menu.”
“Oh?” She’s definitely laughing now.
“We had a deal,” I point out. “I give you a list of choices and you rank them from ‘omg yes let’s do that now’ to ‘only if it’s my last chance ever to have sex.’”
“What’s your favorite?”
I don’t have to think. “You.”
“I’m going into a tunnel. I’m losing you.” Laughter threads through her voice. She’s lying, she’s teasing. We both know it.
“There are only eleven tunnels in San Francisco. Is this a wormhole?”
She’s laughing when she hangs up on me.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Max
I EARNED MY first billion dollars with a dating app: Billionaire Bachelors. It’s a digital shopping list for all you out there who prefer Prince Charming with a generous side of cash. You punch in your zip code and then the app gives you the down low on all the Prince Charmings who meet your criteria. Billionaires are one of our most popular options, although you can pick your future mate based on other important qualities like good looks and favorite winery.
I whipped it up in the Santa Cruz dorm room I shared with Dev and Jack, spending every second we weren’t surfing with my head down in my code. I launched the app the day we graduated and I haven’t looked back since. Both Jack and Dev have bitched repeatedly about being two of Billionaire Bachelor
s’ leading men, but they weren’t willing to bankrupt themselves to lose their starring roles, so screw them.
My second app is Kinkster, and it’s equally popular (and unpopular with Dev and Jack who are adamantly vanilla in bed). One of the downsides, however, is that my PR team wants me to host a series of glamorous, sexy parties that sell the brand. Glamorous pool parties scream fantasy hookup, so tonight we’ve invited hundreds of celebrities, influencers and pretty people to my Santa Cruz pad to dance and get drunk on my dime. The music pounds away, drowning out the ocean and the buzz of dozens of conversations as my team puts the final touches on the event.
My fingers itch to text Maple and invite her over. It’s not that I think this party is her scene, but I’d like to see her again. I’d like to hear her laugh and just...hang out with her. Even if we don’t ever hook up, she’s fun. When we first started texting, our messages were purely functional. She said thank you for the roses. And then she asked something, or I did, but we fell into a rhythm. Question and answer. Rinse and repeat. Yesterday, though, when I gave her a menu of kinky sex options to pick from, I wasn’t joking. Not really. Something’s changed between us as we text. I stare at my phone, willing it to show me a clue. A sign. A multistep, results-guaranteed plan. I think I went wrong when I sent the menu.
I removed myself from the friend zone and went—
Somewhere.
Limbo sucks. I stare at my phone, willing it to buzz with an incoming text from Maple. Since it’s Saturday night, I don’t think she’s working.
Outside, the PR team continues birthing a party. Everyone’s focused on the infinity pool that spills over into the ocean, adding the little details that will make tonight one Instagrammable moment after another. Citrus trees in terracotta pots sourced from Italy. A pop-up bar with themed cocktails. White lights. White lotus flowers floating on the surface of the pool. The only thing missing is the kinky sex—but that will come later, after my guests have had time to settle in.
Those guests arrive thicker and faster as the night progresses. I watch from upstairs as they come. They’re allowed to roam downstairs, but the second floor is my haven and it’s off-limits. Two hours after the party officially begins, I’ve made a grand appearance and the music is so loud that I feel rather than hear my phone buzz in my pocket.
I step behind a particularly impressive citrus specimen and pull it out. Maple’s texted me a picture of take-out Chinese on a floral melamine plate balanced on the edge of a small tub, but it’s her words that have a smile tugging at my mouth.
Fancy a swim?
I do a quick volume calculation. You’d have to sit on my lap and even then there’d be no room for water. Immediate displacement. Need to know if downstairs neighbor has flood insurance?
My phone buzzes again, Maple’s picture flashing across my screen. Before I can overthink things, I answer.
“Hey, Maple.”
She launches into rapid-fire speech the way she does everything: bold and certain. “Do you like Chinese? Do you want to come over for dinner? We could watch a movie.”
“What kind of movie?”
She tells me all about the romantic comedy she’s Netflixing and the unlimited potential for happy endings. I mean, who doesn’t like getting his happy ending? I’m seriously considering ditching my party when a deafening series of shrill screams erupts from my pool. Water hits my back and I instinctively hunch to protect my phone. It’s water-resistant but that’s a lot of water. I’m enjoying our conversation and I don’t want to have to stop it in order to retrieve my backup phone.
“Are you killing someone?” She sounds cheerful but...
“Would that make you more or less likely to come over?”
“Less,” she says eventually. I like that she stopped to think about it.
“Then I’m hosting a pool party.” I lean against a convenient palm tree and eye the tangle of girls being fished out of the pool. From the size of the guy they crash-landed on, I suspect the football team I invited has shown up.
“Do I have to wear a swimsuit?”
I smile at my phone. “You should always feel free to swim naked in my pool.”
“Be serious.” Water sloshes on her end of the line. Is she in the tub?
More important: is she naked?
“You can do whatever you want, Maple. Wear a swimsuit. Don’t. Yoga leggings work fine, too. It’s a party, not rocket science. I’d just like you here.”
“So your pool isn’t full of bikini-wearing hot girls?”
“Truthfully, no.” I snap a picture of my pool and send it to her. “You’d be the hottest person here anyhow, especially if you showed up naked. You owe me a picture of your pool party for one now.”
That makes her laugh. My phone buzzes a second later and I fumble it. Jesus. There are a whole lot of white bubbles above the soft, sweet curve of...
“Did you just send me a boob shot? I thought you had a no-bathroom-selfies rule.”
She snorts. “I thought you lived for naked boob pictures.”
“I like them,” I say solemnly. “But I’m not sure I can commit to them being my favorite body part. I’d need to see all the parts first so I could make a fair assessment.”
Maple hums a bar of something. It’s a church hymn, which is kind of weird, but she says it’s just autopilot because she did a lot of zoning out in church as a kid (her dad was a minister) and that’s what she associates with tuning out the world. It’s her thinking noise, though, so I hope she’s making me a list of candidates for Max’s Favorite Body Part.
“Come over,” I say.
“Why?”
Because as much fun as playing word games with her is, I want to see her?
“We can play twenty questions in my pool.” I don’t know why I want her here, just that I do. “I’ll send a car.”
CHAPTER NINE
Maple
#glamlife #datenightgoals #ideas
THE RIDE TO Santa Cruz isn’t short and it’s tempting to nap on the posh leather seats because I’ve been burning the candle at both ends, but Max’s car is too amazing to waste time on sleeping. Not only is there real French champagne on ice (and not the kind they sell at Target, either), but there’s a box of chocolates and a cashmere throw. I spent the first two blocks pretending I was the queen of England and then another four after that pretending I was a film star.
Now I’m just me, but that works, too. The ocean at night looks painfully, promisingly perfect. When I roll the window down, salty, fresh air fills the car. It smells amazing. If I could, I’d live on a beach. We glide past dramatic seaside cliffs and creamy strips of beach until the dark, white-tipped ocean gives way to a charming jungle of houses and bougainvillea. What’s not to like about Santa Cruz? It’s peaceful and serene until we get close to our destination.
I hear Max’s party before I see it. When the town car turns into a narrow street, the music bursts over us, pounding through the delicious, luxurious silence of the BMW’s expensive leather interior until I swear my butt is vibrating. I have no idea how he got permission to hold a party like this, but I assume money was involved. Lots and lots of money.
Max’s house isn’t quite what I expected. Sure, it’s big and it’s oceanfront, and it’s undeniably expensive—but it’s also pink. With bonus turrets. Frankly, it’s more suited to Cinderella than a hot geek billionaire. It’s also lit up like an airport landing strip, an honest-to-God red carpet stretching from the sidewalk to the front door. Valet parkers wait to whisk cars away to who knows where because Santa Cruz is very much lacking in elbow room and all these people had to get here somehow.
Wow. The people. I try to get out of the car nonchalantly, as if I attend launch events all the time, but I’m seriously underdressed. Or overdressed, depending on how you look at things. Max hadn’t mentioned a dress code—when we said goodbye, he was still making a case fo
r arriving au naturel—so I’d opted for a blue, thigh-length Spell & the Gypsy Collective dress. The gauzy embroidery floats around my thighs in deference to the summer heat. I’m even wearing a pair of thong sandals with pink and white seashells on them because I was going to a beach party, so I assumed there would be sand. The red carpet is unexpected. Plus, it’s Santa Cruz, which is a beach town, so I didn’t expect people to be dressing as if it were Oscar night.
Mistake.
Big mistake.
Two waiflike women, one in pink sequins and the other in white, twine around each other, pouting and posing on Max’s stupid red carpet. I make a mental note to give him shit. Most people go for petunias in a hanging basket or maybe an urn if they’re feeling pretentious, but he’s decided to re-create the Oscars. Photographers snap away, calling the waifs’ names and demanding they “look this way.” I’ve walked a few red carpets for press events for the San Francisco ballet, but this is in another league. It feels ridiculous. As soon as the path is clear, I sprint for the door.
The ground floor of Max’s house is stuffed full of people, although he’s still decidedly lacking in the furniture department, but I recognize the huge L-shaped sofa we picked out together. There’s no Max, though.
I fish my phone out and type: Marco.
A waiter in black tie wanders by, offering champagne. Clearly, I’m out of my league. When my phone buzzes with a set of GPS coordinates and POLO, I’m almost relieved. This is just my goofy, number-loving friend Max who’s frequently more engineer than bad boy.
I plug his numbers into my phone and start hunting for him. Two Marcos later, I step outside and find myself at the top of a staircase that’s perfect for losing a glass slipper on. It glides and swirls its way down to the garden and that magical pool. Someone’s twined white roses and jasmine through the railings and for just a moment I flash back to dancing in Swan Lake, surrounded by dozens of downy, be-tulled swans. That must be why my heart is pumping.
