Hooked Up: Book 2 (30 page)

I’d completely forgotten about that electric-blue skirt.

I got out of the tub, took another towel and dried my feet. My tablet was on the floor and I took it back to the bedroom and plugged it in. My cell was sitting on the bed. I picked it up and called.

“I just wanted to hear your voice,” I told my husband-to-be, but it was just his voicemail.
Where can he be?
I flopped on the bed, slipped under the down comforter, and before I knew it I’d lapsed into a profound sleep.

I WAS LEANING against the jukebox, lapping up everybody’s stares. All eyes were on me and my sexy dance moves. I’d lost count of how many shots of tequila I’d had. I licked the salt seductively off my lips, then tilted my head back to empty yet another glass. The blond guy–what was his name?—he had his hand up my electric-blue mini; the other was fisting my hair. The music was loud: Snoop Doggy Dog singing intensely about something intense. The football player shouted in my ear, “Fuck, you’re hotter than a bitch in heat,” and then murmured to his friend, “we all need to get out of here.”

I was suddenly transported to a lavender field, and Alexandre was smiling at me. “Don’t worry, baby, you’re with me now. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“But it already
has
happened,” I said. “It’s too late.”

I woke up with a start and felt the small of my back drenched with sweat. The bottom sheet was soaked. I peeled off my silk nighty, tossed it aside, and shifted my naked body over to a fresh, cool part of the bed. Blurry-eyed, I looked at my watch. Two twenty-five a.m. I swiveled it around; it was a Reverso (another extravagant gift from Alexandre), and the other face, the London-time side, said seven twenty-five. Five hours ahead. Perhaps Alexandre was having breakfast; like a true Parisian, drinking a strong dark espresso.
Should I call? And say what? My dreams are keeping me awake but I can’t tell you what they are.

As if he could smell my angst, Rex came wagging into the room. His basket was next to the kitchen but he came to say good morning every day. Today he was five hours early. He nuzzled his nose next to my hand, which was dangling over the mattress.
Dogs know when things aren’t right—they
know.

“Alright, Rex, but don’t tell Daddy—come on up.”

He gazed up at me with his almond-shaped eyes as if to say, “Really? Truly?”

I’ll get in trouble for this, I thought. Rex wasn’t allowed on the bed but I was sad and lonely so who cared. I patted the mattress, and he jumped up excitedly, his windmill tail in motion, digging his paws into the comforter, not believing his luck. Tomorrow, I’d change the sheets so there’d be no evidence. He crawled almost on top of me, and I put my arms around his solid black body and squeezed him tight. “Just this once Rex, as a special treat—I could really use a hug right now,” and I kissed his soft, silky ears. I needed him close to get through the night. He was my bodyguard to chase away the bad dreams.

I fell fast asleep with my doggie-love in my arms.

“AH, HA! CAUGHT YOU, you naughty boy!”

I roused from my sleep and there was a big commotion going on around me, Rex padding about the bed, wild with happiness. Alexandre had tried to sneak into the bedroom without waking me, but got more than he bargained for.

I looked at my watch: seven a.m. “You’re back early,” I mumbled into my pillow, my eyes half closed.

“I wanted to surprise you,” he replied, planting a soft kiss on my lips, “but it looks as if you got there first—while the cat’s away . . . ”

“I couldn’t sleep—I needed a French lover by my side. You were gone so Rex offered himself up.”

Just then I heard the elevator door open, and Rex leapt off the bed and into the hallway. Sally must have arrived to take him on his morning walk. I roused from my sleepiness and stretched my arms languidly in the air. “I’ve missed you, Alexandre.”

He threw his raincoat on a chair. “Next time I go, you’re coming with me. I don’t like us being separated.” He moved toward me, his eyes flashing with passion. He stroked my head and then folded me in his strong arms, pressing his face to my throat and breathing me in as if his life depended on it.

“I felt empty without you,” I whispered. I relaxed into him, his natural scent was intoxicating, and my heart beat with anxiety at the thought of being away from him again. Ridiculous; it had been less than two days. I buried my head in his wide, warm chest. He lifted my chin with his hand for a kiss, but I slipped away from his clutch. “I’ll be back, hang on a sec,” I told him, sidling underneath his embrace.

“Meanwhile, I’m getting straight into bed,” he said.

I went to the bathroom to pee, freshen up and brush my teeth. When Alexandre had just tried to kiss me, I closed my mouth tightly . . . lips sealed . . . morning breath, the horror of it. My mind pattered,
Why is it I always want to be perfect for him? I want to be his princess – faultless, blameless and flawless. I want to reach unattainable heights. Yet at the very same time, I yearn for him to love me just the way I am and for all my faults, even my wrong doings. A paradox. I’m asking for the impossible.

When my teeth were squeaky clean and I’d washed my private parts in the wonderful bidet that Alexandre had specially installed, I felt ready to come back to bed. I stood at the bathroom door and just surveyed the scene around me, realizing that my luck was a chance in a million. I thought,
How many people get to love someone? I mean, really fall in love, not because of habit, or convenience or security, but for passion . . . get to experience a real romance?
I observed him lying in bed and imagined there must have been angels fluttering about me that day when I bumped into him at the coffee shop, four months ago. Was Cupid there, himself, with his bow and arrow? What were the odds of that? Was Puck from
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
sprinkling love dust in Alexandre’s eyes?

Because what were the chances that a ravishing, twenty-five-year-old Frenchman with the world at his feet would fall in love with a run-of-the-mill, forty year-old American woman?

“What are you staring at?” he asked with a grin.

“You.”

“You’re so beautiful, Pearl. Even when you’re all ruffled up and half asleep—especially when you’re ruffled up. You’re like a fluffy chick, all sweet and innocent. Come here, I need to hold you.”

I scurried over and slipped under the comforter. Nestling myself next to him, I wondered where he got these notions that I was so unblemished. If he knew otherwise, would he do a one hundred and eighty degree turn?

He took me in his arms again and stroked my hair. “You’re my jewel, my angel—your hair’s like spun gold in this morning light.”

I ran my fingers underneath his T-shirt; I needed to feel him, to own his flesh and blood, press my fingers against his heartbeat to make sure this was all real. He lifted up his arms, and I eased the T-shirt over his strong shoulders and fixed my eyes on the rise and fall of his pecs moving with the rhythm of his breath. I touched his smooth skin and marveled at the fact that this gorgeous man before me was going to be my husband.

He gazed at me for a moment, his green eyes tender and warm, and then rested his defined lips on mine, softly at first. Then his tongue began to tease me, running quietly along my upper lip. I let my mouth open and closed my eyes in response. My tongue met his and the tips tantalized each other in little flutters, like wings of a humming bird above a flower full of nectar; quivering, flickering. I moaned and gripped my arms tightly around his shoulders—I couldn’t get near enough to him—close enough—this was beyond desire; it was an aching need for Alexandre to own me, to possess me. I abandoned myself to him completely. Tilted my head back and melted into him; relaxed like a rag doll as his lips devoured me, wet and all-consuming into a deep, insatiable kiss . . . our mouths as one, our tongues tangled in love and want for each other. I pulled back for a beat to catch my breath, then nipped his bottom lip playfully and opened my eyes to observe his all-male beauty.

“I love you, Pearl. I need you.” He pulled me into him and cupped his hand under my butt, forcing me even nearer. I felt his solid erection up against my belly and a bolt of desire shot between my legs, making me moan again. He licked my tongue with fiery lashes, the passion growing as if this kiss were alive—a being with a heart and soul all of its own. “You’re mine, Pearl,” he growled like an untamed panther. “Only mine. You have never belonged to anyone else—you were made for me, God created you just for
me
.”

I pulled myself up a little higher so that his erection was poised at my entrance. “I’ve been waiting for you my whole life, even when I didn’t know it,” I breathed through the kiss. “All my unhappiness, my loneliness before I met you was so I’d know what it was to really feel loved. You can’t appreciate true love until you’ve been in a desert, looked Despair in the eyes. I don’t want to be like that ever again.”

“I’ll never let you go, I promise.”

A hot tear trickled down my cheek, and Alexandre licked it before it fell. We were now lying side by side, and I felt him enter me slowly. I gasped. I was throbbing, my nipples hard and rosy. He thrust himself into me, and I cried out at the surprise.

His eyes fluttered, half closed in ecstatic reverie, and he murmured, “Jesus, you’re so tight but so warm and juicy . . . coupled with that kiss . . . I think I’m gonna come.” He held his hips still. I felt the pulse of his cock flexing inside me, stretching me, blood pumping through his taut veins, filling my walls. But he didn’t come, he had too much self-control. “I don’t want to fuck you,” he whispered, “I want us to make love.” I sensed myself shudder at the deliciousness of his lips grazing against my ear, sending shivers all through my body.

He may have had self-control, but I didn’t. The shaft of his penis was rubbing delicately against my clit and I started to make little circles, tilting upward with my pelvis, my arms hooked around his neck. I could feel it building—the double pleasure of his huge girth inside me pressing all the right places—still motionless—and my clit rubbing against the thick base of his penis, pushing me to my limits.

Then Alexandre started licking my tongue again, in slow swipes, and under my tongue, too, at its sensitive root . . . faster now . . . little flicks as if he was fucking me with it. The sensation was exquisite. My clit was tingling like a thousand little bells, as if there was a golden thread linking it to my nipples and tongue. Never had a kiss been so sensual. He then pressed his thumb on that little space just behind the base of my entrance, and I climaxed in a shudder, riding myself up and down his huge cock, the only movement made by my own friction—he was still motionless. I was moaning. He clasped both of his large hands around my buttocks and pulled me on top of him in one smooth movement.

“That’s right baby, ride that orgasm all the way—ride my big, hard, throbbing cock.” I was still climaxing around him when he lunged at me from his position underneath. “Pearl—”

“Alexandre,” I moaned. I could feel the zealous spurt of him shoot inside me, squirting into my depths in a hot fountain of desire. Both of us were as one—an extension of that kiss melded into an orgasmic zenith of emotion.

Fucking was great, but making love was even better. And that was what I felt emanating from Alexandre’s psyche and his soul: the force and power of pure Love with a capital L.

We stayed like this for a long time. He was still hard inside me but relaxed as miniscule ripples faded little by little, contracting deep inside me. His breath was on mine; he was still looking into my eyes—the orgasm spent but the love surrounding us like a halo of light. No words were needed for how we both felt. I could behold it in his gaze, and my core was flashing with a radiant energy from within. I was alive. If I were to die right now I would have tasted Heaven on Earth. My gentle smile crept into a grin, paired with my teary eyes. My emotions were raw, and so were his. Like me, he was vulnerable. He too had misty eyes, but a smile was also dancing on his lips.

We were united in every way.

The essence of true love.

B
Y THE TIME I was on my way back home to New York very early the next morning, after the Laura fiasco, my dick had calmed down and my grin had changed from inane to sober, my jaw still aching from all the laughing, though, and my mind active on how I would need to keep this whole crazy episode with my ex girlfriend quiet.

Very quiet.

The last thing I wanted was for Pearl to find out I’d been bound and drugged, especially by Laura of all people.

For one thing, it did little for my manhood. A black belt in Taekwondo being nearly overtaken by a skinny blonde with a handful of drugs? It made me look like a real pussy.

Not to mention the fact that Pearl wouldn’t believe me for a bloody second. Even my own sister doubted me when I told her the story. There was no way Pearl would be convinced. And why hurt her and make her feel insecure? Better, I decided, to sweep it under the carpet and pretend it never happened.

This winter wedding business was threatening to undo me. It was still only October. The sooner Pearl and I were married, the sooner all this backlog of ex-nutters would be off my case, out of my life and leave me in peace.