I wore nothing except my heels and my pearls. The heels, I kicked off. And the pearls I took off too. But I didn’t toss them aside.
Instead, I dragged them down his bare chest, letting them glide over his muscles. I slid them back them over his lips, and he opened his mouth. The pearls clicked against his teeth, and he wound his tongue around them. With my other hand I worked his cock, being rougher than I had been before. I gripped him tighter; I played with the head more aggressively. But then I let go of his cock and arranged the pearls in a pile on his chest.
From my bag, I grabbed the bottle of lube that we’d gotten at Walmart. Standing beside him, I unscrewed it, removed the foil with my teeth, and let the little silvery circle flutter to the bed. I didn’t put the top on but instead drizzled a whole palmful into my hand and put the uncapped bottle on the bedside table.
“Fuck, Stella,” he said, eyeing the bottle, now only three-quarters full. “That is a lot of lube.”
I added a little more just to be safe. “You’re gonna need it.” I drizzled it down all over his hardness. And then I ran my necklace across my slippery palm too.
He growled as he watched me, and I didn’t take my eyes off him. I put my knees on the mattress and positioned myself beside him, my heels tucked up against my tush. I gathered the necklace up in my hands, all thirty inches, all 150 fake pearls in my palms. The strand slowly fell from between my fingers, and the pearls pooled in a shiny, shimmery mound on his balls. He hissed when the beads touched him, like he was surprised even though he was watching my every move. I let the beads stay on him to warm up as I kissed a line down his chest, stopping off just briefly by his left nipple to give it a bite. His hand gripped my thigh, and he dug his fingers into my flesh.
I took the necklace in my hands again, winding the strand around both of my first fingers. Very slowly, very delicately, I ran the beads along the base of his cock. “They say this is the world’s oldest sex toy,” I whispered as I threaded the pearls underneath his balls and pulled the beads through. His hips rolled, and he pressed his cheek against the mattress. “Jesus Christ,” he growled into his biceps, closing his eyes as I slid the strand along him, bead by tantalizing bead.
I lengthened the row of beads between my fingers, and with the slack in the middle, I made a single loop around his cock. Keeping my eyes on him all the time so I could make sure I was doing exactly what he liked, I slowly slid them along his shaft, keeping a balance between tension and slack. I widened the separation of the loop by lifting my right hand higher than my left, then narrowed the gap as I slid them along him again and again. His entire body reacted. His abs contracted, and he ground his teeth. He made a fist of the sheets in his palms.
“What does it feel like?” I asked as I changed direction and increased the tension.
“Like being inside you when you . . .” I added another loop, so the pearls spiraled up his erection. “Holy shit, Stella.”
“When I what . . .” I went the other direction and added a stream of my saliva to the slipperiness all over him.
“When you . . .” He tightened his ass cheeks and drove his head back into the mattress, so the thick muscular column of his neck caught the moonlight. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
I made another loop around his cock, so that the beads were tripled up. Using my fingertips, I aligned the strand around him. As I brought the pearls down closer to where the shaft met his balls, he actually shuddered. The power I had over him was utterly intoxicating. I lowered my mouth to him and continued to work the beads back and forth, back and forth, each pearl rippling along his shaft. I slid my tongue between the beads and took the ends of the necklace in one hand as I cupped his balls. Then I twisted the necklace to tighten its hold on him, and he roared a deep, “Fuck,” at the ceiling. On and on I went, only easing up when I tasted his precum spill into my mouth.
36
NICK
Those pearls. Holy fuck, those pearls. The feeling was unbelievable. It also made me think about a pearl necklace of a totally different kind—my cum all over her gorgeous skin—and that idea got me so goddamned close to exploding in her mouth that I had to stop her. “Fuck, Stella. Easy, easy.”
Her eyes flashed in the dim light, satisfied and a little devilish. “I love making you lose control.”
Control. In her hands, I had none at all. Not then. She looked up the length of my body, wide-eyed. Sinful. She had all the power, and I fucking loved that she knew it.
“I want to fuck you speechless and senseless,” I told her, pulling the wig off and tossing it aside. “But I also want to pamper the hell out of you.”
She slid her tongue back down my cock and loosened the pearls. It made me grip her hair tighter, that sudden rush of blood to the head.
There was a time for messy, sweaty, aggressive fucking. There was a time for screwing so hard we broke the bed. There was a time for daring her to come harder, come longer, come more . . .
And I knew this wasn’t it. Because for as hard as I wanted to fuck her, for as loud as I wanted to make her scream, for all the terrible things I wanted to do to her, I also had a bone-deep need to be tender, soft, and kind. All the things I never knew I needed to be.
So that’s exactly what I did. I pulled her up toward me and kissed her until her hands moved up to my face to hang on tight. When I had her like I wanted her, I slipped my hand behind her, rolled her onto her back, and got on top of her, the pearls still tangled up between us.
“My turn,” I said, coming up onto my knees and taking the necklace in my hands. I helped her scoot back so her head was on the pillows. I opened her legs to the moonlight. Screw the North Star; as far as I was concerned, nothing was more valuable than her perfect pussy or the wetness spilling out of it. I parted her lips with my fingers and let the pearls fill the gap between her ass and her clit. I cupped my hand over her to keep the beads up against her, then pulled them slowly, one by one, along her slit. As each bead pressed into her, she gasped, and gasped again. The longer I did it, the wetter she got, until a damp pool had gathered between her legs on the sheets. When I couldn’t handle being outside of her for one more second, I balled up the pearls in my hand and dropped them on the floor. One of her legs I left straight between mine. The other I bent at the knee and anchored against my shoulder.
She gripped my forearm with one hand and the edge of the headboard with the other. Mixed up with the dark, warm scent of her pussy, I smelled the sweet, delicate smell that was her and her alone. “I never want this to end,” I told her as I pressed into her. Letting her knee slide down, I pushed her legs apart and took her old-school missionary. Traditions die hard for a reason.
She looped her hands over my shoulders as I drove into her, and she put a kiss to my cheek. She inhaled as she did it, like she was taking me in, same as I was doing with her. “I know.”
“Never, Stella, you get that? Never.” I gave her a good solid thrust that made her growl into my shoulder, but then I eased up again.
“I know. I don’t either.”
Until that moment, sex with her been a lot of things. It had been fun. It had been good. It had been hot—fuck knows, it had been hot. It had been spontaneous. But it had never just been sweet. “I want to be good to you. I want to give you everything you want.”
She slid her fingers through my hair, her pinkie trailing along the back of my neck, as light as a feather. “You already are.”
There were so many things I thought about then. Her name tattooed on my chest. My ring on her finger. But the longer I took her and the sweeter I let myself be, the more and more one single idea stayed on a loop. The simplest thought. The most basic thought. The thing I wanted from her—with her. The thing I’d never imagined before. I envisioned her tight pink pussy full of my cum and just exactly what that meant. I rode the idea like a fucking rocket toward orgasm. As I drove into her and loved her and let my heart feel, really burst against her, I realized that more than anything—more than any heist, more than any job
, more even than the motherfucking North Star itself—I wanted her. And my baby inside her. I didn’t want to just fuck her for now. I wanted to fuck her for keeps.
I exploded into her, powering my cum into her pussy. She sank her teeth into my bare shoulder as I roared out a long, “Fuuuuuuuuuck,” from between gritted teeth. But even as I was still coming, I knew there was something else that I had to give her right then and right fucking there. I felt it, and she needed to know it. Still pulsing into her, I gave her one final ball-busting thrust and stayed buried inside her as I growled out the thing I never planned to say to anybody, until her. “I love you. I love you so fucking much.”
She just pulled me close to her, wrapping her arms around my back and her legs around my waist. Our pants were damn near in unison, and I’d never felt as close to anybody as I did to her then. “I love you too,” she said. “And I never want to say goodbye to you.”
Fuck. My heart. My mind. My reality. “You’ll never have to,” I said, deep and dark and dead fucking serious, as I throbbed inside her. “Never.”
She fell asleep in my arms, and it took every ounce of willpower I had to shift her off me and roll out of bed. She was so beautiful there, with a streak of moonlight making a sliver stripe across her body, that for the second time since I’d met her, I wished I knew how to sketch, how to photograph, how to do anything to make that kind of beauty indelible. I didn’t, though, and all I could do was soak it in. Once I’d gotten enough to last me a few minutes, I pulled the comforter up around her so she didn’t get chilly with the sea breeze. I put on my boxers, my pants, and a T-shirt. I slipped the room key in my pocket, put on a pair of sandals, and headed down the empty, quiet hallway. Rather than the elevator, I took the stairs, which were just like any back staircase in any hotel, full of echoes and too bright, with flame-retardant foam all over the I-beams.
I came out into the lobby, quiet too except for the trickle of the fountain. I knocked softly on the window of the dog nursery and took Priscilla from the sleepy dog sitter’s arms. Up the elevator Priscilla and I went, her lying on her back in the cradle I’d made for her in the crook of my elbow.
Without turning on the lights, I nestled Priscilla into the luxurious bed with Stella. Again, I stood there, soaking it all in. When the moonlight had moved off the two of them, I turned and quietly opened the minibar. I grabbed a travel bottle of whiskey and opened the fridge to get a can of club soda. As I grabbed the soda, I saw it.
Stella had said anything would do to drop on the guard’s head. Honey, she’d said. Shampoo. But if the guy had an issue with bird shit, I thought it was best to get as close to bird shit as possible. And there it was—a container of plain Greek yogurt. I took it out of the fridge and put it on the shelf with the nuts.
Again, not exactly Mission: Impossible. But room-temperature yogurt would definitely do the trick.
I headed out to the balcony with my whiskey and soda in hand. Tomorrow, things would change for us. But not more than they’d changed already. Because I’d experienced some kick-ass shit and some terrible shit. I’d been up and I’d been down.
But this time tomorrow, we’d both be out of the game. We’d have a bright new future. And that future, with her, would make all my old mistakes and all the old bullshit absolutely worth it.
37
STELLA
After we ate a leisurely breakfast in bed, we rolled the room service cart into the hallway, locked the door . . . and got busy rearranging all the furniture.
Using a lamp as a stand-in for the potted palm and one of the damask-upholstered chairs in place of the bench, we re-created the walkway that went from the lobby out to the pool. We had a good view of it from our balcony, and we were able to duplicate the layout precisely. When all the furniture was in place, we armed Priscilla with our secret weapon—a twenty-foot hot-pink retractable leash that still had the sale sticker from Marshalls attached. I’d bought it the same day I’d gotten her water bowl. On the side it said PROPERTY OF THE QUEEN, which I had decorated in rhinestones.
Nick pretended to be the guard, walking back and forth across the room lengthwise. I stood in front of the bureau that held the TV and tried to get her to dart across and snare him. But we couldn’t get it to work. Her frog didn’t cut it and neither did one of her treats. Every time, she ignored whatever I’d thrown and ran right to Nick. Getting her to cross his path without stopping for a kiss and a wiggle was impossible. Nick crouched down and gave her tummy a little scratch. His muscular legs made the fabric of his boxers pull tight over his ass.
“Can’t say I blame her,” I said. “You’re very hard to resist.”
Nick laughed. “Good to know I’m more attractive than a liver treat. But what are we going to do about this, little one?” He scratched Priscilla’s belly, and she flopped over onto her back. “What . . . are . . . we . . . gonna . . . do?” he cooed at her, poking her belly lightly with each word. In response, she wriggled against the carpet, shoulders and hips scrunching. It was so adorable, so lovely, that it made my knees a little weak, and so I took advantage of the bed behind me and had a seat.
Nick looked up at me, still scratching Priscilla’s belly. We stayed there in a thinking silence, eyes locked. Then he raised one finger. “Hang on. Hang on. Last night when I was grabbing a drink . . .” He headed for the minibar and crouched down again. Priscilla ran over to help and put her paws on his leg and her head under his arm. From the shelf above the fridge he produced a black plastic bag with white-and-red writing and a see-through window in the front.
Beef jerky. Teriyaki flavor. “Between the yogurt and the jerky, you’re a regular minibar MacGyver.”
Nick ripped the top off the bag off with his teeth and opened it. Priscilla jammed her face inside and inhaled so hard that it took the shape of her snout.
“Bingo!” I said.
“All right. Get in position,” Nick said, and I reattached Priscilla to her leash and took our place by the bureau.
He pointed toward the bathroom. Very softly, he confirmed the plan. “Sheikh is way down there.” Then he pointed to the ceiling, which was standing in for the balcony, “And I’m up there. Ready?”
I nodded and crinkled the bag for Priscilla. Nick began walking toward me. Just about one foot before he crossed my path, I tossed a tiny piece of jerky across the room. Priscilla bolted after it at full speed. The leash unwound, filling the air with a sound like an unspooling fishing line, and pulled tight in front of Nick.
He stopped before he got himself tangled, with the nylon rope just pressing into his shin. “We’re in business.”
Yes, indeed. We definitely were.
It was almost showtime. I was so nervous I could barely think straight. I felt like I was four double espressos in, and yet the strongest thing I’d had to drink that day was a glass of iced tea with our room service lunch. In the shower, I found my hands were shaking so hard I couldn’t even unscrew the lid on the little bottle of complimentary shower gel. It always happened to me before a job—the nerves. But this was different. Everything about this felt different. It was the end of my time as a thief. And it was the beginning of my time with Nick.
In my head, I heard him saying it again and again. I’d been hearing it all day. I love you, Stella. And I always will. The sound of the toilet seat being raised broke my daydream, and I cleared a gap in the steam on the shower door.
He paused with his pants halfway undone. “You OK?”
“Sort of,” I said. I slid open the door an inch and handed over the shower gel. “I can’t get that open.”
It was hardly a jar of pickles, but he didn’t give me a hard time about it. It took him half a second to get it undone. As he handed it back to me, his expression softened, that secret unspoken language that I think maybe we’d been speaking all along. “Don’t worry.”
The water splashed at my feet, but I didn’t step back into the stream. “I know.”
“I’ll look after you like I’m Ruth and Roxie all wrap
ped up in one.”
As if it would anchor me, I ran my finger along the seal between the shower frame and the glass panel. “Nick. We haven’t talked about what happens if . . .”
His focus got laser sharp, and he shook his head. “Don’t you dare. You say those words, and you give them power. We will be fine. We’ve got this. You know we do.”
I swallowed hard and drizzled the flowery smelling gel into my palm. “OK. Promise?”
“Let’s get one thing straight,” he said, reaching into the shower, touching my wet cheek. “Whatever I say to you, whatever it is, it’s a promise. We clear?”
As if he’d thrown a warm blanket over me, I stopped shivering. All the uncertainty, for one blissful instant, disappeared. And all I knew, all I had to know, was him. And his confidence. It was contagious and wildly addictive. Working with him was different than with Roxie and Ruth; not better, just different. Because with him, I didn’t feel like the only one with a plan. I felt like a partner, an equal. Not the point of a triangle, but one half of a whole. “OK,” I said, and I shut the door and found myself alone in a little world of swirling steam.
But as I lathered up with shower gel and shampooed my hair, my shower thoughts unwound in their usual chaotic directions. The best-case scenario wasn’t hard to imagine. We get in. We get out. We drive east all night and all day and are back in Albuquerque in time for breakfast burritos. I cleave the diamond down the middle and rough out as many decent-size stones as possible. We move the raw stones. We divide the proceeds four ways and hide the cash. Within a few months, I’m out on the Big Wide Open with Nick. Mr. Bozeman is living it up at a retirement community outside Flagstaff. Back in the 505, Roxie is making macaroni and cheese for her son three times a week in a little adobe house with a carport. Ruth is in a sparsely and elegantly decorated yoga studio, saying “Ohmmmmmmmmm . . .” with a roomful of pregnant ladies and their dogs as they all get into triangle pose and look at the ceiling.
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