Barbie & The Beast (11 page)

“Do not rebel, my lovely Barbie,” Darin urged with the singsong of a Shakespearean sonnet. “It’s for your own good that I’m
making this stand.”

What? He was making a stand? Without asking her? Wasn’t the woman supposed to decide whether or not to halt a perfectly good
mauling? What right did the man have to do so, chivalrous intentions or not?

“But you want to, don’t you?” Barbie said.

“You have no idea how much.” Darin shook his head. “There is no rush. This feeling won’t go away. It’s just that now is not
the best time to
—
”

He carried Barbie to the bedroom, leaving his unfinished sentence in the hall. He had no difficulty finding his way, as there
were only four rooms in the entire apartment. So there they were, in near-complete darkness, in her apartment, in her boudoir.
On date one. This should have been scary. Instead,
the night felt to Barbie like a howling success. Graveyard Guy had swept her off her feet
—
again.

Uncivilized? Hooray for uncivilized.

For reasons best left unexplored at the moment, she simply couldn’t resist this guy. One kiss wasn’t enough. Tucking wouldn’t
be enough. After glasses and glasses of wine, she’d had some sort of breakthrough.

“If you’re leaving, why are you carrying me?” she asked. “More particularly, why are you carrying me into my bedroom?”

“I didn’t say I was leaving,” he replied.

What might have been a clap of thunder was in actuality the turnover of Barbie’s heart in her throat. Then again, it could
have been the building collapsing. She wasn’t sure.

“You’re not leaving?” Was that her voice, up an octave?

“Not yet.”

“But we aren’t going to
—
”

“Plenty of other things to do, if one has time and imagination.”

Other things? A peal of thunder crashed down low in Barbie’s body, somewhere near her baby blue lace thong.

“Unless you object,” Darin said.

Object? Was he kidding? “Well, I. . .”
Come on girl, finish a darned thought.
They were closing in on the mattress.

“I won’t hurt you, Barbie,” Darin whispered to her. “Ever.”

The fact that a lot of guys with women in their snares had no doubt uttered this very same sentiment while trying to get into
lacy pan ties was not lost on Barbie. But
ever
was the word he had used. This man had used the E-word.

He carefully laid Barbie down on her pink satin comforter so that her head rested on familiar, lavender-scented pillows. Distant
illumination from a tiny night-light in the hall cast a faint shadow over the bedroom rug. The dial on
Barbie’s retro pink princess phone radiated with a mild fluorescent glow. Otherwise, the room lay in total darkness.

Darin’s hands squished the pillows on either side of Barbie’s head. He was standing, leaning over her. His breath, as he sighed,
reached her cheek.

“Bedroom,” Barbie said, wondering if he would kiss her again, this man, this Braveheart, this stallion who didn’t really seem
so out of place here in the dark. All that maleness in her ten-by-twelve-foot pink boudoir. All his energy contained.

“Yes. Bedroom,” Darin said.

No kiss came. What seemed like eons passed before Barbie again encountered his touch, and then it was his fingers, not his
mouth. They skimmed the front of her body, truly like a Braille reading, hesitating on the buttons of her blue silk jacket.

Fearing to move, Barbie held her breath. As she pondered what “not going all the way” might mean, in light of him having his
hands on her buttons, she heard in the distance the muffled strains of her cell phone.

Darin started to unbutton her jacket. They were very small buttons. Bach was chortling out a tune in the living room. Old
Bachster was ruining the moment.
Bad timing, Angie! Damn the rescue call!

Darin was at button number two, over her breasts, but who was counting?

Barbie turned her head from side to side on the pillows. Unable to see Darin, she could only feel what he was doing, and she
thought she might go mad with it all.

Darin had reached button three.

The moment was over-the-top erotic. She had wanted this all along. She had forsaken the rules and willed Darin into this.
Now, her lungs burned from withheld breath. Her breasts strained toward his hands. Her mind reeled from wine, excitement,
and a lack of necessary oxygen.

And Darin was at button four. Out of six.

But that darned Bach was a per sis tent so-and-so. This was so not a Bach moment. Not an Angie moment. So
not
.

Button five. Button six. Darin had mastered the jacket. He slowly separated the silk from her skin, pressing the fabric open.
The air in the room felt cool on her chest in comparison to Darin’s volcanic heat. Oh sweet heavens! There was nothing left
for him to deal with now, at least on her torso, except the thinnest of camisoles, the faintest of barriers. What would he
do? What would he touch?

Tomorrow, Barbie vowed, her mind swirling, chest heaving, as she waited for what was to come. Tomorrow, she’d change that
damned cell phone ringtone to something more appropriate. Something in honor of Darin.

“Disco Inferno.”

Burn, baby, burn!
She was a Barbie doll going up in flames. The flames of anticipation. Was that plastic she smelled?

What ever Darin was doing, it should have been illegal. His hands were gliding down the front of her lace-trimmed black cami,
exploring, mapping, touching. Lightly, barely, almost, not quite. There was nothing about this in the rules.

Barbie’s feeling was one of frivolity. Otherwordliness. Powerlessness. Plea sure slipped in and out of focus as she labored
to think. Was she enjoying this? Yes, absolutely.
Should
she be enjoying this?

Darin slipped her arms from the jacket. Deftly. Carefully. His lips, so warm and utterly fascinating, rested not on her mouth
but on her right wrist. Like a moth across a watery surface, his long hair flitted over the naked flesh of her forearm. The
tickle of his hair followed the slow upward drag of his lips.

Zing! Crash! Bam!

The glow inside of Barbie was raging fast and furious now, spurred on by the movement of Darin’s mouth, her hyperactive nerve
endings, and plain old curiosity. It was probably a good thing her mind had taken a holiday. She thought she might be glowing.

Darin’s magnificent mouth brushed across her right biceps, never actually landing. Barbie undulated all over. Oh, she knew
her anatomy and physiology all right, enough to know with certainty that he was a long distance from where “all the way” began
and ended. Yet each touch in the dark reminded her of what all the way might feel like. The sheer ecstasy of a good tucking
was, seemingly, a universe unto itself.

Who was breathing so loudly? Her? Darin? Why did her chest rise and fall with effort now, as though the Angel of First Date
Tucking might be sitting on it?

Lips! On her shoulder! Soft. Caressing. Moving on, Darin took a detour with a sensual, slow, drawn-out trail of his mouth,
alternating with little kisses across her collarbone to where her satiny camisole strap lay loosely against her skin.

A brief kiss to the strap, then the tip of Darin’s tongue drew a circular pattern at the crown of her shoulder, almost like
a plane coming in for a landing. He took some skin between his lips and sucked lightly, then he bit down gently with his teeth.
He repeated this process on a downward angle. Lips, teeth, tongue, suck.

“God,” Barbie groaned, reaching for him. This was absolutely too much to bear. Could she have interpreted Darin incorrectly?
Could all the way have meant marriage instead of sex? Because this was sex. Really good sex. They were starting it, or her
initials weren’t
BB
.

He caught her hands before they touched him, raking her again with his nails as he held them both in one of his, against the
bed. Being ravished without being able to participate was the pits.

“You are
gooood
,” Barbie sputtered.

“Yes, well, your four glasses of wine helped,” Darin teased, his voice as dark as chocolate chunk.

“You were counting?” Barbie asked.

“Nope.”

“I’m drunk now? I could be dreaming in a drunken stupor?”

“I prefer to think you’re under my spell.”

“Love spells are not acceptable on first dates. Definitely no love spells,” she muttered.

“What about more kissing?”

“Will tongues be involved?”

“Is there any other kind?”

He had her there. Barbie was pretty sure there was no other kind. No other kind that she wanted with him, at least. In for
a penny, in for a pound.

“Kissing leads to other things,” she noted breathlessly.

“Yes. Maybe even second dates,” Darin agreed.

“Sometimes not,” Barbie pointed out.

“I don’t think that’ll be the case here, do you?” This was said with his hair tickling her neck.

“No?” she replied faintly, her body pulsing on the comforter, chills zooming in all directions, most of them heading south.

Darin’s mouth came to rest on her collarbone. Though Barbie couldn’t see his face, she imagined those dangerous eyes looking
at her. Those double-ringed, two-colored, animalistic eyes. She wanted to purr in response.

“You like this?” Darin’s voice was barely recognizable, raw with what must have been submerged passion. Or maybe it was just
muffled with a mouthful of her quivering self? He must have tilted his head; more of his hair teased her cheek.

“I. . .Tongues. No. First date.” She barely got that out, lost as she was in pleasure.

Darin’s face came close to hers. After several seconds of hesitation, he laid a kiss on her chin, followed by a kiss to her
nose. Then he hovered, Barbie knew, above her parted
lips. Even in nearly total darkness, without the use of sight or her hands, she felt his predatory looming.

“No love spells. No tongues? What do you allow?” Darin asked, his mouth resting on hers for a couple of seconds. But then
he backed off. The bed vibrated—swear to God, like one of the beds in those old movies, in old motels where you put in a quarter
and rode the wild sheets.

Was her body making all this commotion? Barbie wondered. Was his? She couldn’t seem to stay still. She could hear his labored
breathing.

“Talk. . .to me,” Darin requested. “Please.”

Talk? She could do that.

“I allow dinner, movies, shopping,” she said, twisting her hands still held in his easy grip, needing to wrap her arms around
his shoulders, do some feeling around of her own. But, no. Darin held her back.

“I like guys who aren’t afraid to shop,” she added, all in one long stream of air.

Darin cleared his throat and maintained a bit of distance. “Have you ever found any guys who like to shop?”

“Do you see a wedding ring on my finger? Because that would be a guy worth keeping.”

Shoot. Nothing like a little mention of the M-word to spoil the mood, Barbie thought right after.

Darin said, “That’s a test you give guys who want to date you? Dinner, a movie, and shopping?”

“Sure. Shows who has relationship potential.”

“We had dinner,” Darin said.

“I beg to differ. We ate pretty much nothing. You plied me with wine.”

Barbie made a direct prayer to the sex gods. Would Darin for Pete’s sake nibble her some more, please? Turned out those gods
must have been busy elsewhere. No nibbles came.
A few heartbeats of silence passed, and then the tickle and tease of Darin’s hair returned to drag silkily downward, pausing,
Barbie felt, just above her nipples.

He planted a kiss dead center on her sternum, equidistant from both breasts, and it might as well have been her G-spot. Skin
exploding with heat and surprise, Barbie sprang from the pillows uttering a yip. Her entire body was quivering.

“Do you mean to say that to night doesn’t even count as a first date, since we didn’t get to finish dinner?” Darin asked,
allowing her to slowly settle back to the pillows.

Barbie nodded halfheartedly. A seismic pulse shot down through her thighs as she tried hard to restrain herself from flopping
all over the bed in anticipation of his next move. A funny feeling had risen deep inside—a new feeling, not really so funny
at all, more like a submerged promise. A bigger something was about to happen. She rode out the rising new sensation with
her eyes closed.

“It’s no first date,” he clarified, “even though I was gentlemanly enough to bring you home, to forego taking advantage of
you in your rather sozzled state? No credit for that?”

Unsure how to answer, since he was in her bedroom with his hair and hands all over her, and given the fact that she was quivering
with expectation, Barbie withheld comment. None of this really mattered, after all. In this particular game there could be
no loser. If this were to be a one-night stand, so be it. Patterns like lifelong periods without sex or Gypsies were eventually
meant to be broken. Virgins weren’t supposed to remain virgins. Right?

“Well,” Darin said, voice deep, serious, and deliriously sexy, “we’ll have to fix everything with the next date, won’t we?”

Barbie squeezed her eyes tighter, said, “There will be another one?”

“Is there any doubt?”

Fortified, she changed tack. “Second dates involve movies.” Man. She was pushing things a bit, but she decided to play on,
see what happened. Give herself time to get her breath back.

“What about tongues?” Darin asked.

“I’m not sure about French kisses on a second date,” she admitted.

His voice was firm. “Your only option for tongues, sweet Barbie, is the first or second. You decide.”

“Okay. Second. Maybe.” Hadn’t they done tongues already? If not, God almighty, what else could he do with his?

A possible answer to this question brought her upright, gasping. A thrumming had started in that deep place inside, unignorable.

“Do you always postpone the inevitable?” Darin asked.

“I’ve never been confronted with an inevitable quite like this,” Barbie
replied. It was true, too. No man had ever made her feel this way, all lusty and discombobulated. Certainly not Liar Bill,
with whom she’d allowed no tongues or anything else. But then, Bill’s tongue had been forked. A man had to earn tongue time,
and then know what to do with it.

Also, no other man had set foot inside her apartment, let alone her bedroom. Her
bedroom
, as in her sanctuary, the room with her bed in it, had always been a place reserved for “the one.”

After to night, she’d never be able to say that again. After all, it was her body, her bedroom, her dream date, and her decision
whether or not to abide by the silly set of rules she’d had heaped upon her by her parents. Guilt and rule books be damned—French
kissing was very nice indeed. Sex, she was fairly certain, would be even nicer.

She wondered if her mom, Brenda Bradley, had abided by these same dating guidelines. Maybe even after one
milkshake too many at the soda fountain, her mother had indeed left her father at the front door. Then again, they were Boomers.
There was no explaining this cultural phenomenon. And though Barbie knew her mother had the temperament for fending off suitors,
she doubted very much that her father would have put up with such antics for long. He was a so-called man’s man whose idea
of a hero was James Bond. Adventure Barbie had to have gotten those genes from somewhere, even if only in minuscule amounts.
Most likely they were from good old Dad.

When you came right down to it, the whole idea of dating rules was to protect a woman’s virtue. A woman who wanted her virtue
protected, that is. She’d taken heed of the fact that there had been no Easy Barbies on the toy store shelves. Nor were there
Unvirtuous Barbies.

Come to think of it, Mattel didn’t have a Wedding Barbie, either. Not one. It had always been
Dream
Wedding Barbie. The white gowns, bridal veils, and tiaras had all been
dreamed
by Snoozing Barbie. By Bridesmaid Barbie. No, there was no wedded bliss for Barbie and Ken, because everyone, especially
little girls who knew no better until puberty, and sometimes not even then, figured the fun was in the chase.

Or maybe it was because neither toy Barbie nor toy Ken actually had the sexual parts, aka genitalia, with which to fulfill
a wedding-night consummation.

Well, boy,
this
Barbie sure had the right parts. All those parts were humming and shimmying with thoughts of Darin. They were wondering what
a really good orgasm might feel like, and assuming Darin could help them find out.

Yet. . .

Now that Darin’s incredible hands and mesmerizing lips were again motionless, some of her mother’s comments, the old thoughts
and values, fought for elbow room. Most notably,
The fun is in the chase
. The chase. As in close, but no
cigar. As in fool around, but don’t
be
a fool if you want a man to stay interested.

Barbie’s eyes fluttered open. Cripes! Could this be true? If it were, was she making a mistake? Would Darin turn out to have
staying power? Would he be an exception to the old saying? If she rolled with this, gave in to what she was feeling inside,
would he spend the night
after
? Would he call her tomorrow to say how good it was for him? To ask her which jeweler she preferred? Surely
all
the fun wasn’t in the chase.

Her brain suddenly hurt. The roiling internal sensations of lust dimmed, still unexplored and untapped. Barbie wanted to scream,
shout, whimper. The lull between Darin’s touches was akin to sabotage. Trying to stop thoughts of virtue and strategy once
they’d zigzagged into the mind took a concentration she didn’t possess at the moment. It could be that she had never possessed
such concentration.

The spigot, once open, opened farther. Questions arose.
How much money does a graveyard-keeper make? How can he afford that Porsche? What about being a part-time consultant for the
Miami PD? Is that job dangerous? Does Darin have his own apartment? Does he ever wear jeans with a hole in one knee? Does
a graveyard keeper have to spend a lot of time with dead people?

All this mental jumble was a prime example of Barbie Bradley, overintellectualizer. Barbie Bradley, twenty-something and never
been pursued properly. Barbie Bradley, with nary an orgasm in sight, since
tucking
actually started with a
T
. Thoughts. Thoughts. Bridesmaid Barbie. Bridesmaid Barbie. It was enough to make a girl insane!

And damn, she’d lost track of Darin again. Was he waiting for the go-ahead? The green light? Permission to go in for the kill?

Heck, she wanted those unmentionable things he might do with her,
to
her. The bed was still shaking. Her body was atwitter with hopefulness. She liked the licking stuff—his
tongue on her bare skin, his mouth dragging over her teasingly. She liked it a lot. And while this would be a problem for
a girl with rules governing her behavior, girls who listened to their mothers. . .Her own mother would say that there could
be only one acceptable word for girls who took a licking and kept on ticking:
engaged
. Thank heavens her mother wasn’t there!