by Strong, Mimi
With the appropriate preparations in place, I climbed on top, straddling him on my knees with my hands on his chest, and we fucked until I came again, and he did, too.
When we were finished, we cuddled together on the bed and bickered over which one of us was going to get out of bed, cross the room, and turn off the standing lamp.
The last thing I remembered before I fell asleep was him combing his fingers through my hair and saying it was the most beautiful hair in the world. “You should wear it twirled up in a twisty thing for the wedding,” he said.
“A bun? A chignon?”
“Twisty thing,” he repeated sleepily, and he rubbed his fingertips against my scalp. “Such pretty, pretty hair.”
CHAPTER 20
I woke up to the sound of Dalton talking to another man in the adjoining room.
The fancy hotel suite was similar to an apartment, with the bed in its own room with double doors, and the hallway door opening to a living space with sofas and tables. The double doors were only open a crack, but once I was awake, I could hear them clearly.
The man thanked Dalton, then the suite’s door opened and closed. Dishes clinked. The double doors to the bedroom opened and a rolling tray entered. I could smell both bacon and coffee, though everything was covered in gleaming, metal domes.
Dalton wore a pair of blue jeans, and no shirt. His usually-bare chest had the stubble of some hairs I hadn’t noticed before. Sometimes you have to see someone a bunch of times before you see everything.
“I got your mocha,” he said. “They didn’t have Pop Tarts, though, so will blueberry pancakes be nearly as good?”
I sat up, holding the sheet across my breasts for modesty in the bright morning light. He’d opened the curtains and the room was gleaming with the promise of a mostly sunny day, with just a touch of the famous San Francisco fog over the harbor.
“How did you know about my Pop Tarts?”
“The first night you were staying at my house in LA, you gave me heck for not having Normal People Food.”
“Right.” I climbed out of bed just long enough to grab a T-shirt and panties from my suitcase and slip them on before climbing back into bed. “Your house is really great, by the way. I was impressed. Especially when I came over to get my computer, and you turned on those crazy fans. You were acting so weird.”
“Me?” He lifted the domes off the food. “You were fucking my look-alike. How was that not supposed to make me crazy? And you brought Carter Crow into my house.”
“Keith Raven.”
Scowling, he stood near the foot of the bed, picking at the fruit tray. “That guy wasn’t right for you.”
My stomach pitched uneasily, and I regretted bringing up Keith, especially mentioning his name.
“He’s out of my life now,” I said.
“Was it just physical?”
I held my hands out. “Duh.”
He got a smug look I didn’t like at all, with a twisted grin. “Fair’s fair.”
“What do you mean? Did you hook up with someone, too?”
“Would you have a problem if I did?”
“No, but you might.”
He raised his eyebrow at me, but kept on eating strawberries, standing near the foot of the bed and looking like the devil himself.
I took a deep breath and let out an audible sigh. “I’m a hypocrite. Whatever or whomever you did, so long as it’s in the past and nobody I know, it’s fine.”
He didn’t say anything.
My insides started to hurt. I narrowed my eyes at him, squinting like I had a superpower for reading his mind, and maybe I did, because I knew, without a doubt, that he’d fucked someone we both knew.
“Who?” I asked.
“It was just physical,” he said.
I grabbed a pillow from beside me and hugged it to my chest. “Who? Just tell me and get it over with. Alexis?”
He stuck his tongue out in disgust. “Ew, no. She’s like a sister to me.”
“Golden?” As I asked, I imagined the two of them fucking in the back of his car after getting milkshakes, and I was filled with murderous rage.
“Of course not. She’s dating your other boyfriend, remember?”
“Yeah.”
“Plus she’s not my type.”
“I know!” I exclaimed, feeling better instantly. “Brooke Summer, that copper-haired reporter skank. You totally boned her. Hah! I hope you broke her heart.”
“Brooke? No, not exactly. By which I mean not at all.” He waggled a finger at me. “Interesting reaction on your part, though.”
He began to pace the room, still shirtless. As I looked at his body and face in motion, I felt a buzz of excitement from Miss Kitty. I didn’t care so much about where he’d been, but about where he was going to be… in the next five minutes.
Maybe he hadn’t fucked anyone I knew, and this was just one of his games.
“Stop teasing and get in this bed,” I said.
He paused, then walked over and sat down next to me.
I grabbed the button of his jeans and started unfastening it.
“I took Justine out for drinks a few times,” he said.
“Who?”
“She was your stand-in for the TV commercial. Pretty girl. Curvy. Blonde.”
I finished unbuttoning his jeans and pulled my hands away.
Whispering, I said, “You fucked her to get back at me.”
“And I broke her heart.”
“Are you going to break mine?”
“Probably,” he said.
Without thinking, I reached up and slapped his face.
He rubbed his cheek, but didn’t take his eyes off me as he reached down and removed his jeans and underwear.
“Is that what a real woman does?” he asked. “Slap a guy when he tells her the truth?”
I hauled off and slapped the other cheek.
“Get on your knees,” he said.
“You motherfucking vampire sociopath.”
He kept staring at me, his green eyes intense. My pussy was buzzing like an angry hornet’s nest.
“Roll over,” he said slowly. “Get on your knees and yank your panties down.”
Trembling and buzzing, I did as he ordered. I got on my hands and knees on the bed, and I tugged my panties down.
He moved in behind me and plunged two fingers into my aching pussy, wetting them quickly. Next, I felt the head of his cock between my cheeks, up high, the door above the one where babies get made. He rubbed his fingers along my pussy, in and out, then drew the slickness onto his cock.
I gasped as he plunged in, filling me. My pussy was hot and clinching as he slid in and out of my ass, tight around his hard dick. His hands gripped and held on tight to my hips as I moaned in pleasure and angled to receive him deeper and deeper.
I bucked against him, urging him on, harder and faster. His body slapped against my flesh, and he pounded my ass like the man of my dreams, made real.
My hand was damp with sweat, and so was his as I guided his arm around and down to my clit. He scarcely grazed the nub, and I started to come, getting banged from front and back, moaning like a whore.
With a few more thrusts, I exploded in a wet, gushing orgasm, running down my leg. He grunted a few swear words, then pulled out and spurted hot come across my back.
I slowly reached for a pillow and held it to my chest as I eased back down to the bed, lying on my stomach. He couldn’t see my face, but I mouthed a word: wow.
He cleared his throat, but didn’t say anything.
And what do you say, exactly, after something like that?
He got off the bed and grabbed a handful of tissues, then cleaned up my back.
“There’s some in your hair,” he said softly.
“I guess I’ll take a shower.”
He cleared his throat again. “I’ll go run the water.”
He left for the bathroom, and I grabbed some more tissues to get the fluid from between my legs. By now, my little gush h
ad happened enough that it wasn’t such a shock anymore. Sex is messy, and what’s wrong with a little extra juice? Dalton didn’t seem to have noticed.
I walked into the bathroom and joined him in the spacious shower. “Our breakfast is getting cold,” I said.
He nodded and stepped aside so I could have a turn under the largest sprayer in the multi-spray shower.
“We’ll have a bite, then flower shopping,” he said.
“Flower shopping? So, we’re not going to talk about the nasty things we said to each other a few minutes ago?”
“I think we both got a lot off our chests.” At the mention of chests, his gaze went to my breasts, and he began to lather them up with the soap in his hands.
“Did you pull that little trick with Justine? Telling her to get on her knees and yank down her panties?”
“Why don’t you tell me what you did with Keith? Did you suck his cock and tell him he was so big, he was choking you?”
“Please. Too big for this mouth?”
He backed me up against the marble wall of the shower and kissed me hard, our teeth clinking. He was already getting hard again, pressing against my stomach.
“That mouth of yours,” he murmured. “I want it wrapped around my dick.”
“Stop saying dick, and it might happen.”
“Dick,” he repeated, thrusting it against my body.
“Shut up.” I wrapped my hands around his neck and pulled him down to kiss me.
We kissed for a few minutes, his cock growing more demanding and hard.
I got down on my knees under the warm water, and I gazed up at him, from his muscular abs and chest to his gorgeous, famous face.
What was going on with us? The night before, I had encouraged him to break me, and now, it seemed to be happening. There’s something so scary about getting exactly what you ask for.
I grabbed hold of his cock, and I didn’t just suck it. I fucking worshipped it.
~
After the shower, we steered the food trolley over to the round dining table in the front room, and quietly ate the now-cool breakfast. Dalton offered to order up more food, or take me out, but cold food was better than waiting.
My mocha tasted like a regular coffee, then I found all the syrup at the bottom, in one surprising slurp. (Ah, the unmixed beverage. The bane of the mocha drinker.)
Dalton did a funny thing before he got dressed. He took five pairs of pants out of his suitcase (why he’d brought five pairs for a weekend stay was anyone’s guess) and he smoothed them all out flat on the bed. He took out five shirts and did the same with them, pairing them up with the jeans, then mixing and matching.
I stepped out onto the balcony for a minute in my robe to check the weather. It was sunnier than the previous day—short-sleeves weather, but not too hot—a perfect day for sightseeing.
I came back into the bedroom to find him with his fist held to his lower lip, still studying the mix-and-match outfits.
“Are we still trying to look like tourists today?” I asked.
“Right!” He grabbed the fanny pack from the previous day and started trying it on top of the flat clothes.
I left him to his big decision of the day and got myself dressed in the spacious bathroom. I chose a short denim skirt, with a pair of pale gray footless leggings underneath. The weather was warm enough for bare legs, but my inner thighs chafe like crazy if my skin gets damp, and I had a feeling Dalton would be saying and doing things to make my temperature rise.
I put on ankle socks and lace-up sneakers, and wore a loose blue tunic on top with a green belt. The green belt had a carved wooden closure, but it also had a tendency to suddenly spring open without provocation, so I had to use a hair elastic to keep it fastened. The things we do for fashion!
Dalton was putting on his shirt when I walked back into the bedroom. He’d chosen dark gray pants and a black T-shirt with a graffiti print, sun-bleach lines, and a dozen tiny holes in it—the kind of shirt a charity shop would just garbage directly from the donation bin.
“Dalton, tell me the truth. Did you get that shirt from a designer shop, or off the back of a hobo?”
“I’ll never tell.”
I struck a pose at the doorway. My blond hair was swept back in two pigtails, like a little girl.
“What do you think of my outfit? Do I look like Chelsea?” I asked.
“Who?” He blinked a few times.
“Chelsea. The girl who lived next door.”
“Right. Ha ha. No, you look like an adult, which is a good thing.”
Something felt off, so I decided against the pigtails and quickly pulled out the elastic bands.
We gathered our things from the room and headed out to the elevator. I wore my brand-new watch and kept admiring it every time it caught my eye.
“Wow, it’s noon already,” Dalton said. “We completely missed our cake appointment. I’ll tell them it’s all your fault.” He gave me a devilish grin.
My mind wasn’t on what he was saying, because I was still thinking about the pigtails, and Chelsea.
We got down to the lobby, where I found out he’d rented a scooter for the day, and Vern wouldn’t be joining us until later.
A scooter? I wasn’t thrilled, but decided to politely give it a chance.
Even as we donned our helmets and climbed onto the scooter, I kept troubling my mind over what he’d told me about Chelsea.
Could I ever trust anything that came out of the smooth-talking actor’s mouth? Or his motivations?
The big fight that broke us up initially was over his indie movie—specifically, the fact he’d started dating me as acting research into dating a bigger girl.
This new story of his, about having his first love be a chubby neighbor… well, it seemed awfully convenient. Why hadn’t he mentioned her earlier?
Also, his story about the family next door had been rather detailed, as though constructed. My heart sunk. He’d probably made the whole thing up to win me over. Why else would he have not known who I was talking about when I said Chelsea’s name? It’s not that common of a name.
And let’s not forget about the wardrobe. Was it normal for a man to spend so much time on his appearance?
Sitting on the back of the scooter, trying not to feel self-conscious about the view of my roundness ballooning out the sides, I wrapped my arms tighter around Dalton’s lean torso. I could hold on to him as tight as I could, but he was liable to slip away in the light, like San Francisco’s fog.
I had to ask myself those questions—the ones so many women in LA must ask themselves daily.
Can you ever truly know an actor? Can you ever trust him?
~
We did miss our appointment with the bakery, but we got to the florist right on time.
This visit was different from the dress shop. The people knew who Dalton was and fawned over him, but they weren’t friends.
I was annoyed by how uptight everyone at the florist seemed—as if it was their duty to educate me about why certain flowers I liked the look of weren’t appropriate. They wanted to do orchids, no doubt because they would be more expensive.
“Absolutely not,” I said after they pushed the third orchid package on me. “My mother would be appalled. She’s a member of the Beaverdale Orchid and Dandelion Wine Society.” I suppressed a smirk, amused at myself for haughtily name-dropping a club nobody outside of Beaverdale would have heard of.
“Then of course she would love orchids,” the man said.
“Do you like puppies?” I asked.
He nodded.
I explained, “If you went to a wedding and they had the chopped-off heads of puppies, would you be happy?”
The man gasped.
Dalton, who’d been smirking, stood abruptly and grabbed my arm to help me up.
“Thank you so much for everything,” Dalton said to the agitated florists. “My fiancée has been under too much pressure from me to get everything arranged on such short notice. I must apologiz
e. It’s my fault that I can’t wait to marry this gorgeous woman, and enjoy her marvelous sense of humor forever.” He grinned at me, his eyes flashing additional messages. “Very funny joke about the puppies,” he said.
“Yes, it was a joke,” I said slowly.
“We’ll come back after my fiancée has had a rest,” he said.
I frowned at him, sending a wordless message into his brain: Not here! I hate these people.
His eyes widened: Of course not here. Let’s get out without making a scene, because I am a famous actor, and I do not need more bad publicity thanks to you.
Me: I want to throw something at someone.
Him: Calm the fuck down.
(At least that’s what I thought he meant by the eye flashes and tense expression.)
Squeezing my hand firmly, he led me out of the florist amidst a flurry of apologizing and ass-kissing by the staff.
I stepped out of the door. People jumped at us. I shrieked while what seemed like a hit squad of people surrounded us, cameras flashing.
CHAPTER 21
Someone at the florist shop must have tipped off the media, and here were this city’s paparazzi. They weren’t as insane as the ones in LA, but they did shout their demands:
“Show us the ring!”
“Peaches, are you going to wear white?”
“Nice watch, but where’s the ring!”
“Kiss for us! Come on, just one kiss! You look so beautiful together.”
“Kiss for your fans who love you both!”
Dalton grabbed my shoulder and steered me around to face him.
“Shall we make it official?” he asked.
“Kissing for the paparazzi makes our engagement official?”
“Do I really need to answer that?” He dialed up his grin to full-vampire-smirk.
I tilted up my chin in response. The flash frequency increased, and he leaned down to kiss me in full view of everyone. This kiss was different from his usual ones. Our lips barely touched. It was a very cinematic kiss, and not the good face-mashing kind, which probably wouldn’t photograph as well.