by Nikki Wild
“And they think you’re some filthy British rockstar who knocked up a slutty bimbo,” she replied coldly. “Is it so hard to believe maybe I just wanted to let loose for once in my life? You were supposed to stay in Las Vegas damnit! Isn’t that how it works?”
She flattened her lips into a thin line and bowed her head, blinking rapidly. I grabbed her hand and gave it a little squeeze. That’s when the lyrics to one of my songs came to mind.
“I confess, I’m a mess
Saying ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t clean it up
You’re like chess in a dress—
I don’t know the moves, and I’m completely fucked…”
Liz laughed a little as I quietly sang, looking up at me through her lashes. I grinned and took her other hand in mine as well. Her laugh was the perfect complement to my song.
“Everything’s gonna be all right. You’ll see. We’ll make this work.”
“And you think it’s going to be that easy? Just play nice and everything is lollipops and gumdrops?” she asked.
“I’m running up a tab, hoping and dreaming
You’ll burn just like whiskey when you finally ask me,
‘Why don’t you just drop dead?’ ”
It was one of the songs that Tessa had convinced me to write way back when. She’d wanted pathos and heartache, the story of a man pining after a relationship gone wrong.
“What’s that one called?” she asked, and now her voice sounded just a little steadier than it had before.
“Ah.” I rubbed my thumbs over her knuckles. “That’d be the classic hit, If I Had Three Wishes I’d Waste Two On You and One On the Booze.”
Liz laughed again, surreptitiously wiping at her eyes. “What’s the deal with the long name?”
“It’s a matter of artistic integrity,” I answered. “Can’t be a real pop-punk-emo-rock-star without it.”
For the first time, the silence that fell over Liz and I was a comfortable one, broken only by her occasional sniffle. She still hadn’t let go of my hand, and I’d be damned if I was going to make her. It felt good to comfort her, to affect some change in her life that wasn’t horrific. For the first time, I felt like I was actually helping. And maybe not just as it pertained to her—but maybe for the first time in my whole life.
“I suppose you’re about to have some more material,” she said. “What kind of run-on title do you give to a song about a marriage and a pregnancy born from a drunken stupor?”
“I’ll have to think on that one,” I said with faux pensivity. I eyed her. “Does that mean that you’ll give this a try?”
“For now,” Liz agreed at length, and after another moment of silence.
“For now,” I nodded back, smiling as food finally arrived at our table.
“So what do we do next?” she asked quietly.
“I think we eat, and see where things go. No pressure, no expectations. For now it’s a sham marriage, but maybe it doesn’t have to stay that way.”
I leaned back and away from the table, but still she did not take her hand from mine. This was progress, even if it meant I had to eat with my left hand. It wasn’t long before I noticed a quick flash or two coming from one of the windows. They’d caught us holding hands, and I already knew that photo would be all over the damn news tomorrow. It really couldn’t have gone better if I’d planned it.
And yet I felt a little sad that the paparazzi had finally arrived. This moment should have been mine and Liz’s alone. To her credit, she put on a smile and pretended not to notice. That was good, because every time she smiled I wasn’t sure when I was going to see that expression again.
“You know, this is almost nice.”
“Did you expect anything less? You don’t seem like the kind of girl who’d marry an asshole,” I replied, laughing.
Swallowing one last bite, Liz lifted her eyes again to settle her gaze on my face. I held her stare. “Maybe I was being a little crazy, but I think I saw the actual Julian Bastille the night we met. And he’s a man I think I could like… Tequila did the rest.”
I let out a breath. Like me? Well, that was a start, even disregarding the tequila. Women threw themselves at me and men wanted to be me, but I couldn’t exactly count them as friends… or more than friends…
“I just wish I could remember more about the honeymoon suite,” she said, giving me a little smile.
“I must have done something right, or we wouldn’t be in this little predicament…”
“Maybe you did,” Liz replied. “God, this whole situation is just so… fucked. I slept with the hottest guy in Britain and all I have to show for it is a hangover, a Vegas wedding, and a baby. I mean, I’ve just pissed off an entire island of women, and I don’t even get to brag about what it was like.”
A waiter closed the blinds on yet another window as Liz finished off the food on her plate, blocking us from view from the growing crowd outside.
“Do you want to find out?”
“Do I want to find out what?” she replied, laughing nervously.
“What it was like?” I answered slowly, the words rolling off almost like a lyric to a new song.
The ride back to my hotel room took way too fucking long, and the elevator ride seemed even slower. We’d stayed close the whole way, the building tension between us almost unbearable. It was everything I could do not to pin her up against the wall of this elevator and fuck her senseless.
“So how much do you remember?” I finally asked her as the doors slipped open, walking her down the hall toward my room.
“More than you, I think. But I don’t know if you were any good…”
“You could always make something up and spare me my dignity,” I offered. “I take great care in being the kind of lay you can at least reflect upon with some modicum of pride.”
Liz looked me up and down as I swiped the hotel card and swept her up off the floor to carry her into the room. I got the impression she was sizing me up. I puffed out my chest and she laughed as I closed the door behind us and tossed her onto the king sized bed.
“I might have had too much tequila, but I’m pretty sure not all of the rumors are true.”
“Well, I suppose that depends, doesn’t it?” I said thoughtfully, joining her on the bed and leaning back on my elbows.
She turned over her shoulder to look at me. “On what?”
“On just what they say.”
Again, she rolled her eyes. “What they say borders on the absurd. I’m sure I’d have remembered if that stuff was true.”
“Oh?” I peaked my brows. “Do they say I’ve got a foot-long and an insatiable lust for post-coital cuddling with a pint of brownie ice cream? If so, then I’m afraid that you’ll be disappointed on one of those fronts.”
Her eyes sparkled with a kind of mischief I hadn’t seen in her before. “So you’re not a cuddler, then?”
I grinned. “Lactose intolerant, love. I can cuddle for days… Come on. Tell me what they say about me.” Playfully, I smacked my knee into hers. “Stroke my ego a bit, after how thoroughly you demolished it the other day.”
“Well…” Liz said, eyes sliding skyward as she thought. “They say you’ve got a reputation for… stamina. Pretty sure I remember that being true.”
I grinned even wider. “What else?”
“And I know that you’ve got quite the tongue,” she said, her skin blushing red.
“Is that it?”
“No.” She didn’t continue.
I bumped my knee into hers again. “Well?”
“Well… maybe you haven’t got a ‘foot-long,’ but…” She actually did the air quotes, and it made me laugh. “I remember you’re blessed… Maybe…”
I howled. “Blessed! Is that the word for it?”
Liz threw up her hands. “What did you want me to say? ‘Well-hung’?”
“Only if you think it’s true.”
“Like so much else about that night, I don’t know. Maybe my own drunken brain was exaggerating.
If it were so big, wouldn’t I remember it a bit better?”
“You were as hammered as I was! At any rate, how do I know you weren’t awful and I was the amazing one?”
“Oh please. You wanted in my pants so bad you married me! And besides, if you were as good as all that, I would have remembered.”
“And by your own logic, if you were as good as all that, I would remember.”
Liz regarded me for a moment, lips pursed. After a time, she conceded the point with a muttered, “Touché.”
Oh, I liked this side of her. As irksome as it was, it was also exciting.
“I guess there’s only one way to settle this,” I ventured. I wasn’t sure if I was really hitting on her, or just trying to get a rise out of her again. I suspected it might be a bit of both. As expected, she laughed, giving me a bit of a push.
“Is that how it is? You expect me to hop into bed with you just like that?”
“You did follow me home… What’s the harm in having another go?”
She arched a brow at me.
“I’m your husband,” I reminded her. That gave her pause, one I took a bit more pleasure than intended in. “That’s who I am—the man you decided you wanted so damn badly that you just had to tie me down. Besides, don’t pretend you haven’t been thinking about this ever since you ran out on me that morning…”
Liz shook her head at me. Her smile had softened a little. “You’re the worst,” she teased. And that was the thing—I could tell it was a tease this time. She didn’t actually mean it. And that meant the world.
“I could be,” I admitted, completely subverting the intention of what she’d said. “But there’s only one way to find out.”
Tentatively, instead of pushing her with my leg this time, I laid mine against hers. I felt her tense, but she didn’t move away. She merely looked down, a grin on her face as she said, “This is a terrible idea. You know that, right?”
“Those are the best kinds,” I countered, grazing my thigh past hers. She tensed again, but I swore she moved against me a little, pressing nearer. I felt like a schoolboy all over again, butterflies in my stomach and jitters in my hands. “You always end up with the most interesting stories afterwards.”
“We tried this once,” she protested weakly. “It didn’t exactly work out.”
“You don’t know that, and neither do I. Didn’t you say you wished you could remember?”
“I…” she bit her lip. “Well, yes, but…”
“So…” I leaned a bit closer to her, slowly allowing my gaze to slip from her eyes to her mouth. “Why don’t you let me have a go at jogging that memory of yours?”
Liz swallowed hard. I could see the flutter of her pulse in her neck and watched as it quickened. Lifting my hand, I brought my fingertips to her cheek and softly traced from the hollow of her cheek to just under her jaw. Her pupils dilated and a sharp intake of breath followed as I brushed my palm down over her collar bone.
“Do you remember anything?” I asked her.
Slowly, she shook her head. “No. Not yet…”
One after the other, I let loose the buttons of her blouse. Her stomach trembled when I caressed a trail up to her breasts with my knuckles. “Now?”
Liz made a small noise I took to be an answer in the negative. Smirking, I bowed my head and pressed my lips to the dip in her throat, eliciting another sound. I parted my lips, the tip of my tongue laying flat against her skin to savor the taste of her.
She squirmed. “That feels…”
“Familiar?” I asked, kissing her sternum now, just above the twin swells of her breasts.
Liz’s pulse quickened again. “No. It feels… good.” When I nipped at the top of one breast, she gasped. “So good…”
Taking her ribs in my hands, I laid her on her back upon the bed, my affections drawing a line that led down past her navel. The temperature of her flesh flared beneath my ministrations, burning my mouth. She lifted her knees to make room for my body between them and I groaned at her acquiescence, hardening against the mattress.
It was hard to believe there was a life inside her right this moment, just a few inches below where I was kissing her. When she arched for me, I looked up to see she’d tossed her head back, pretty hair fanning over the pillow behind her. I smirked. Perhaps there was one way in which I could tell Liz was pregnant—she certainly did have a glow about her.
“You’re not playing fair,” she whined, looking down at me as I began to unzip her skirt. I tugged it down from her hips, dragging my nails very lightly over the backs of her knees in the process, then threw the offending fabric to the floor.
“All’s fair in love and war,” I told her, lowering myself even further to feather my attentions along the center seam of her panties. When I reached the expanse of cloth shielding her slit from me, I took a nice, deep breath of her and blew it back out across the dampness there. Liz moaned.
“Oh, Jesus.” The sheen of her lust had reached her inner thighs, glistening in the dim light of the room. I chuckled low, letting the vibrations of it tease her.
“Remember anything yet, love?”
Liz bit her lip and looked down at me, threading her fingers through my hair. I leaned into her touch, savoring the tingling sting of her nails in my scalp. “No, goddamn you.”
I laughed again, lightly pulling aside her panties to slip my fingers inside them. With all the lightness I could muster, I brought my finger down from the apex of her cleft to the bottom of it, testing her center. I found her hot and soaking. “Relax. It’s no fun unless you actually let go a little bit.”
“Easy for you to say,” she breathed, moaning as I teased open her inner folds. “You’re not worried about the consequences.”
For just a moment, I stopped touching her and looked up the line of her body, raising my brows. “Just what is there to lose, love? Worried I’ll get you more pregnant than you already are? I know I’m quite the virile male, but I don’t think I’m that virile.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sakes,” Liz groaned. “Shut up, Julian.” And then she grabbed the back of my head, pushing my face between her thighs.
I offered no complaints. This was exactly where I wanted to be. Though I was a bit surprised by her forwardness. I wasn’t sure she’d had it in her, until now.
Easily I found her clit, pushing her panties all the way to the side so I could flick my tongue against it in earnest. Liz arched, toes curling as I plundered the most sensitive parts of her, coaxing from between her lips the rasping moans I’d been looking for. Wantonly, she bucked against my mouth, and I hummed with appreciation for the flavor of her desire. Seemed as though once Liz got going, she transformed into quite the wildcat. Spreading her wider with my fingers, I doubled down on the pleasure I applied to her sweet little bundle of nerves.
“That feels so good,” she said, running her tongue over her lips. “I remember this…”
“And you had your doubts,” I murmured, withdrawing from her soaked pussy and undressing myself in short order. Liz’s eyes went right to my tattoos, admiring them in a way I hadn’t really experienced before. There was a sort of reverence in her gaze, a real appreciation for the art rather than just a pretty young thing getting visual confirmation she was about to have her bad boy fantasy fulfilled. She reached out, stroking along the outside edge of my abs where the gigantic koi curved toward my hip.
Using her feet, she slid my boxers down. My dick throbbed eagerly as the fabric slid over it, and Liz gasped when she saw it.
“You… you have a piercing?”
I laughed at the wide-eyed look she was giving me. “I guess you really don’t remember, huh?”
She blushed fiercely. “If I said ‘yes,’ would you still finish trying to remind me?”
As I removed my boxers completely, I worked next on getting Liz’s panties onto the floor. “Hmm. I suppose I could.”
Sitting partway up, she reached for me, one bra strap falling down her shoulder as she did. “Then I remembe
r a few things, I think. Like this…” And she oh-so-lightly ran her fingertips from the base of my shaft to just below the tip, ghosting her touch across the stainless steel ring there in a way that made my cock throb in anticipation.
“Oh, hell,” I groaned, hissing in a gulp of air through my teeth. “Now who’s not being fair?”
“I thought you said all was fair in love and war?” she replied me, making the same motion with much the same result. The low, aching pulse she inspired was so intense it resonated in my balls. I sank my teeth into my lower lip as I ranged over her, using one hand to pull the cups of her bra down and expose her perfect tits.
“It is,” I told her, “but only when I have the advantage.” She wrapped her fingers around me completely, stroking my length, and I bowed my head to take one of her nipples between my teeth and gingerly pull.
I thought perhaps I was starting to remember, too—that being so intimate with Liz again had finally activated my sensory recall. Vague images of her fingers twined with mine, her ankles locked high around my back, and those gorgeous breasts heaving as I thrust into her flashed through my mind’s eye. The sound of her breathless panting echoed in my head. I knew with absolute certainty that we’d been here before.
That made this experience entirely new to me, but in a different way. I wasn’t the sort of man who slept with a girl more than once. It just seemed easier for everyone that way—we parted ways with smiles on our faces, not nursing broken hearts. Liz would be the first woman in many, many years I’d taken pleasure in ravishing a second time. Then again, she was the first woman in many, many years I actually wanted to.
“What’s wrong?” she asked me as I hovered above her, hesitating. I raised my gaze to meet hers and found a heady mix of both lust and concern there. “Julian?”
I shook my head, putting on a smile for her. “Not a damn thing, love. You’re just bloody perfect. That’s all.”