The Other Fish in the Sea (38 page)

It got even harder to breathe when Pete came to me.

“And happy New Ye—oh…no kiss for you, high-five?” He asked jovially. I answered by raising my hand and laughing my ass off at him. Then Pete set his sights on Tristan. “Come here, big guy, your wait is finally at an end…”

Tristan stopped laughing to gasp “
oh shit
” and immediately took flight. Hysterically, Pete gave chase for a few minutes, saying stuff about biting Tristan on the scruff of the neck, until Tristan was able to procure the key to the guest house in which he locked himself while waiting for Pete to give up. Tristan was watching through the window, but before Pete left him alone, he went up and kissed the glass right in front of where Tristan was laughing inside. Everyone, including Jillian who’d recovered fairly quickly from her unexpected kiss, was practically crying and I think Jeff was in danger of drowning because he was laughing
so
freaking hard at the spectacle the two of them made, that he kept slipping down in the water only to have to push himself upright again.

Shortly thereafter, Jeff and Kate stumbled into the guest house and passed out together. Tristan and I joined them a couple hours later, but,
we
didn’t pass out.

I was sober…

19.

Champagne Kisses & Tattoo Dreams

I was starting to turn into a prune so Tristan went into the guest house to fetch me a towel and thus having been wrapped up all snug, but being pretty much done with group celebrating, he and I adjourned to our room. I was very pleasantly surprised when I found that while he was retrieving a blanket sized piece of cushy terry cloth for me, he’d turned the fireplace on, so not only was the room nice and warm, but it was also highly conducive to quality togetherness. Not that either of us are thinking tonight’s
the
night, seeing as how he’s consumed a moderate amount of alcohol and everything, but the idea of making-out in front of a fireplace is pretty damned exciting to me.

“They’re totally gon— Baby, what are you doing?” Tristan asked, seeing me struggling with the bottle in my lap.

He’d just come back from checking on Jeff and Kate and I was sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace with my towel still wrapped around me while
trying
to open my bottle of champagne that I never got to drink at midnight. After the novelty of Pete chasing Tristan around wore off, everyone except me popped their corks. I was all set to, but I suddenly remembered the last time I drank champagne in Pete’s hot tub and thought better of it. But damn it, I wanna know what one hundred-some-odd dollar champagne tastes like!

“I’m trying to open this damned bottle…” I grumbled, still trying to push the cork up with my thumbs.

“Oh, here…I’ll do it.” He took the bottle from me but right before he uncorked it, he actually looked at it and that’s when it dawned on him. “Baby, this is the bottle Pete gave you.”

“Yeah, I know. I didn’t wanna drink it in the Jacuzzi because, well…you remember the last time I drank in a Jacuzzi, I puked on that poor dog and had that horrific hangover…I just didn’t wanna risk it again.”

He looked at the bottle and then at me for a moment, and then it clicked. “
You’re sober?”

“Stone cold,” I told him, trying to keep from giggling at the incredulousness in Tristan’s tone and expression. I mean really, it’s not like he’s never been around me when I haven’t been drinking and he knows I’m not a lush, so his surprise is amusing to me.

“Then I’m not fuckin’ opening this,” he informed me like he thought I was insane for wanting it and plunked the bottle down on the dresser.

“Wh—why not? It’s mine and I wanna drink it! I
didn’t
get a New Year’s kiss and I
didn’t
get New Year’s champagne, so I want it now, damn it!” I told him, getting a kind of steamed at his refusal of letting me have what I want. Yeah I know, I’m being a whiney brat again, but this time I don’t have alcohol to bla—OH.
 

Even with only the firelight to see, I could tell his eyes were already deep, dark pools of arousal that instantly incited a different kind of fire to spark around us, and as he made his way over to me, I was wondering if this is what it feels like to spontaneously combust.

“Baby, I’m
really…
very sorry…about you…missing out…on all that…but…I’ll make it…up to you…if you’ll stay…sober…for a little bit…longer…” Tristan promised me through a veritable onslaught of incandescent kisses, leaving me breathless and no longer able to remember what it was I’d missed out on.

Some time later, and I’m not sure what I did or said, I think I might’ve gone still, but whatever it was, he stopped short of removing my bikini bottoms and continued kissing my body when he sort of asked for permission to get me one hundred percent naked.

“Do you want me to stop?”

My mind was racing for more than one reason but realizing what he was, in fact, intending, I answered honestly, “I’m not gonna reciprocate.”

“Baby, I’m not asking you to.”

“And I don’t think I’m
quite
ready for you to round thir—”

“Camie, I’m drunk, but I’m still sober enough to stay on base, so, your call…do you want me to stop?”

“No.”

I heard and felt his low chuckle before he said in a voice so intensely steeped in desire that it had me thinking his eyes must be so dark they might even look black, “Happy New Year, Baby.”
 

I lost all thought completely when I felt his hot breath and his lips whisper over the inside of my thighs as he let loose the pyromaniac that simmers just below the surface of his otherwise composed and self-possessed mien, igniting my entire body in an ardently fervent blaze.

Um, I’m not gonna go into any more detail here, but let me just say OH OH
OH
MYGOD!!! That’s all I’m sayin’…
 

As conscious thought began to make itself known to me again and Exile’s “I Want To Kiss You All Over” finished playing in my mind, I was thinking about how much
I
enjoy Tristan doing things he’s good at when it occurred to me that he was almost panting and using my stomach as a pillow for his forehead, and I had my fingernails practically embedded in his biceps.

“In my next life, I wanna come back as a pig,” I managed to say, barely audible, but I managed all the same, and I let go of the death-grip I had on him.

He barked out a distinctly strained laugh and said, “I’d be all for that, but Baby, I don’t think I’d survive it…Jesus Christ, you’re uh…
spirited
.”

I was sort of contemplating speech again (truthfully, making words come out of my mouth right now
is
taking a lot of effort) when Tristan started to get up, which really disturbed me for some reason and provoked my desperate whispered plea and me to hold onto his arms again.
 

“Don’t go.
Please
.”

He let out a sigh that sounded like he was irritated and said, “I have to.”

“
Why?
Are you mad or—”

“Oh God, Camie, no, I’m not even
remotely
mad,” he told me softly while hovering over me on his hands and knees so that I could see his face which more than confirmed his words.

“Then wh—”

“Because I am going to ex-
plode,
so I’m gonna go take a quick shower. Unless…you um, wanna give me a hand and help me out…”
 

This time I know I became still.
 

See, the thing is, in all the seriously hot make-out sessions we’ve had, I’ve never touched him. Oh and for the sake of aesthetics, that’s how I’m going to refer to his penis. I have no problem saying the word whatsoever, but it’s just not a very dulcet or mellifluous one. Anyway, the closest I ever got was that time at Mike’s when
he
took my hand with the intention of having me touch him and that was when I mentally freaked and threw us into another volley of arguing. And even though he’s never brought it up or done anything like that again, I know it bothers him more than a little bit that I don’t go there. So that’s why it was very easy to pick up on his heavily veiled disheartenment when I turned into a piece of petrified rock.

With the release of a quiet breath that I think he’d been holding and eyes that wouldn’t meet mine, Tristan gave me a swift kiss on the cheek and in a more upbeat manner than I knew he felt, he said, “I’ll be back in like two minutes.” And then he got up and left me laying alone in front of the fire.

I spent the very short period of time while he was gone trying to understand what it is about touching him that freaks me out so much. All I came up with is that it’s more of me not knowing what to do and being afraid of looking like an idiot. Also, I think I’d prefer to learn how to have actual sex before I learn how to give a hand job, or any other kind of job for that matter, but that’s just me.

“You melting yet?” Tristan asked, lying back down next me.

“Mmm…melting?” I asked in response, thinking his voice sounded a little distant. Distant physically, not emotionally.

“You’re a melter, Camie…I had a feeling you were when you sounded drunk before. It’s what I call it when it feels like you’re melting or sinking into whatever you’re laying on like you’re actually becoming part of it,” he answered, giving me a pretty damned decent description of how I was feeling at the time.

“Mm-hm…yeah, I’m melting…I’d throw in being boneless too, just for good measure,” I told him as he gathered me close and gave me a sweet kiss on my temple. Actually, I’m hearing “Comfortably Numb” by Pink Floyd in my head. Simply due to the title of course, because the song itself has absolutely
nothing
to do with having an orgasm.

“That works too…oh, I almost forgot…” He let go of me and got up again only to return seconds later with my pricey bottle of bubbly. “Now you can have it.”

“I can wait.” I really don’t feel like exerting the energy to sit up and drink anything right now, but I am curious about something he’d said before. “What did you mean when you said you don’t think you’d survive me coming back as a pig?”

Tristan started chuckling again and almost cheerfully hugging me to him, he tried to explain. “Seriously, Camie, I practically came when you did…completely shocked the hell outta me too. I’ve never
literally
gotten off from getting a girl off like that, but fuck, you’re
really
responsive and not that that’s a bad thing, it’s not, it’s a really,
really
great thing, but if you keep diggin’ into me like that, I’m gonna have to think about wearing some kind of padding to avoid scarring,” he answered with what was clearly a gratified grin in his voice while pointing out the little crescent shaped wounds on one of his arms.

“Holy shit…I’m
so
sorry!” I apologized as profusely as my
still
boneless state would allow. I can’t believe I actually drew blood. Not a lot, but still…that’s just
not
okay.

“Honestly, Baby, I uh…” he started to say before trailing off and running a hand through his hair.

“You what?” I’m really hoping he’s not terribly upset with me for that because I wasn’t even in my right mind when I did it. Hell, I don’t really even
remember
doing it.
 

He blew out a resigned breath but what he said was
not
what I was expecting. “Aw shit, I might as well just say it out loud even though it’s
completely
fuckin’ sick, but uh…I liked it. A lot. In fact, I think it was feeling your nails break my skin that pushed me to the edge,” then he sighed a little again and started laughing. “What the fuck is
wrong
with us, Camie?”

I couldn’t help laughing too. “How am I supposed to know?! I’ve never done any of this stuff before!”

“Well
I
have and here I thought we were being sadomasochistic with the licorice and bungee cords that night, but
this
? Oh God, we’re just wrong…” he said, shaking his head to emphasize his laughing decree on our moral depravity.

We laid there laughing and snuggling for a little while and then he did actually open the much celebrated bottle of sparkling wine for me and we sort of shared it. Tristan decided to use me as a champagne glass after our success in the desert of replacing his negative memory of when Pete used me as a shot glass worked so well, only this time he didn’t tie me up. Though he
did
hold my wrists fairly tightly to my sides to avoid getting more puncture wounds when the effervescent body shots proceeded south. I’m still not gonna go into any more detail on that, although I will say this; the Dom
was
pretty tasty and a
titanic
amount of fun (Yeah, I know. That was a bad pun, but I really couldn’t resist.), however, I don’t think I’d spend a hundred and thirty bucks on it, but again, that’s just me.

*****

Can I just mention here how a tad bit unnerving it is to wake up naked next to a guy who isn’t, but who would love to be and totally would’ve been had he been given a different answer to a “business proposal,” not to mention a guy who spent a good majority of the previous night getting intimately and explicitly acquainted with
your
nakedness? Yeah, well, it’s kinda weird. I’m sort of thinking that if Pete were handing out awards, I would totally nominate myself for the awkward morning being better than a boring night award without a second thought. Last night was absofreakinglutely amazing. This morning? Well, I just don’t know what to say, so I was semi-relieved when I didn’t really have to say anything.

Tristan was, as per usual when we’re fortunate enough to get to sleep together, snuggling me, but when his phone started playing a song by The Who (later I found out the song is called “Tattoo”), he rolled away from me to answer it. It was actually a live call and not a text, so that was interesting, but while his attention was, albeit momentarily diverted from me, I slipped out of bed and grabbed up the forgotten towel on the ground so I could more modestly scurry into the bathroom.

While in there I took stock. I don’t look different, I don’t think, but, there is definitely something different about how I feel. It’s almost like I’ve been let in on this huge secret but I don’t really know what to do with the information yet, if that makes any sense whatsoever. I’m not embarrassed or anything, but umm, I’m just not sure how to be. You know, like do I pretend nothing happened last night or do I say something like, “Hey, thanks for last night, you were great”? Ugh. To make matters worse, I jumped and squeaked a little when Tristan knocked on the door. He didn’t open it though; he was just trying to get my attention. Like how could he
not
have it? Good lord…