“What happened? How mad is he?” Cindy asks.
It takes me a few minutes of staring at the phone in my hand before I can answer her.
“Um, I think my dad just hung up on me for a lap dance,” I mutter.
Cindy throws her hands up in the air and shouts with excitement.
“See?! What did I tell you? No man can resist the power of a lap dance! This calls for a celebration!”
An hour later, I realize I misunderstood what Cindy meant when she said the word celebration. I assumed we would both be reveling in this momentous occasion, but as I enthusiastically dry hump the chair in the middle of the living room with a glass of bourbon in my hand and the half-empty bottle sitting on the coffee table, I realize I’m the only one enjoying the moment.
And honestly, I don’t even care. I’m happy my dad finally called me, even if it makes me want to throw up a little in my mouth knowing what might be happening over at his house right now. But that could be all the alcohol sloshing around in my stomach.
Or how hard I’m swinging my hair all around.
Or how really, really good I’m getting at straddling this chair and riding it like a horse in the Kentucky Derby.
“What the fuck?”
The sexy music Cindy was playing comes to a screeching stop at the sound of Vincent’s deep voice. Or maybe the screeching is just in my head, considering the music was coming from her phone and not a jukebox playing a record.
Bourbon is yummy!
Still straddling the chair, holding on to the back of it with one hand and holding my glass of bourbon in the other, I lean back as far as I can go, until I’m bent backwards and looking upside down at Vincent standing by the door.
“Honey! You’re home!” I shout with a giggle as some of the bourbon sloshes out of my glass.
“You. Out. Now,” he mutters, pointing at Cindy.
I continue watching everything from this upside-down position as Cindy races around the room, quickly scooping up her purse and her jacket and rushing over to the door.
“I’ll just come back another time and grab the chair. Keep up the good work!” she shouts to me as I watch her walk on the ceiling.
Or is she still on the floor? Oooooh, I wonder if I could strip on the ceiling!
“Good day to you, sir,” Cindy mutters to Vincent awkwardly, giving him a wide birth as he holds the door open for her and she leaves.
He slams the door closed and stalks across the room to me, standing right before me with his arms crossed in front of him.
“Are you on the ceiling? How did you do that?” I ask in wonder.
With a sigh, he leans forward, puts his hands under my back and lifts me upright.
The room spins a little and I sway in the chair as he takes the glass from my hand and sets it down next to the bottle on the coffee table with a clink.
With a groan, I push myself up from the chair and turn to face him, doing it as slowly as possible so I don’t tip over. After a few seconds of catching my bearings, I point at him and then the chair.
“You. Sit. Now.”
He raises an eyebrow at me, and I shiver with excitement.
“You’re not the only one who can order people around. Hurry up, before this buzz wears off and I lose my courage. I’m gonna give you the best lap dance of your life, buddy.”
Chapter 22: We Can Have Sex Now?
I’ve almost chewed my thumbnail completely off when twenty minutes have gone by and Vincent is still in the shower. Instead of immediately complying with my request to sit in the chair so I could get on his lap, he told me he needed to wash off from work first, and I almost started crying.
But then he told me not to move and he’d be back out soon. That man and I have seriously differing concepts of time. The good news about standing here next to the chair waiting for him is that I’ve had some time to sober up, thanks to the nerves eating away at all that alcohol in my bloodstream.
The bad news—I’ve had time to sober up and the nerves have eaten away almost all of my liquid courage.
Before I can contemplate locking myself in my room and pretending like I’ve passed out, I hear the bathroom door open and watch as Vincent emerges from the hallway.
Sweet mother of God . . .
Of course he had to change out of his jeans and T-shirt and put on my favorite pair of grey sweat pants and a clean shirt. His hair is still damp from the shower, and as his bare feet pad across the hardwood floor, my nerves start to switch over to desire.
I stare at him moving towards me like he’s a glass of water and I’m stranded in the desert. I even lick my lips and let out a soft moan when he gets to me and the smell of his soap overwhelms me.
“We can have sex now?” I ask him hungrily as I stare up into his eyes.
Oh, my God, Belle. You sound like that stupid meme of the cat with the cheeseburger. Why didn’t you just say “I can haz sex now” to solidify the fact that you’re an idiot?
“There’s a half-empty bottle of bourbon on my coffee table, and Cindy looked pretty sober when she left. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
He dips his head down, sliding his cheek against mine until his lips are right by my ear.
“I’d like you to actually remember what I do to you,” he says softly, his warm breath tickling my ear and lighting up every nerve ending in my body.
All of a sudden, he takes a step away from me, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He punches some buttons, and a few seconds later, the strains of a soft, romantic song fill the room.
“Dance for me,” he orders, setting the phone down on the arm of the couch.
“Uh, what?” I ask nervously.
“I saw what you did to that chair,” he says with a twitch of his mouth, pointing to the chair behind him. “Now I want to see what you can do without it. Pretty simple.”
Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God . . . THIS is what he considers simple?!
“Is this another lesson?” I whisper.
“Nope. This one’s for me.”
His words excite me more than I thought possible. This gorgeous man standing in front of me actually wants to watch me dance for him. And considering he so kindly gave me an orgasm in the library without getting anything in return, I do sort of owe him.
I nervously brush my hair out of my eyes and run my palms down the skirt of my dress.
“Okay. Dance. I can do this.” I speak the words softly, more to myself than to Vincent.
Nodding my head to the slow beat of the music, I start moving. First, my arms go out in front of me, one at a time. Then, I smack them down on each shoulder, one at a time. Next, each hand goes behind my head, and then down to my hips, which I proceed to shimmy and shake.
“What the hell is that?” he asks, causing me to abruptly stop moving.
“It’s the Macarena. Heeeeey Macarena!” I sing. “It’s the only dance I know without using the chair. You totally broke my concentration. Now I’m going to have to start over.”
“Christ,” he mutters under his breath.
With a sigh, I start nodding my head to the beat again. Right when I throw one arm out in front of me, Vincent grabs it and yanks my body towards him, until I’m pressed against him from chest to thigh. In a flash, he sits down on the chair, grabbing my hips and easily picking me up and depositing me on his lap, my thighs straddling his.
I think I should have stretched before this. Good God almighty, does he have big thighs.
He leans forward in the chair, pressing his chest against mine and putting his lips right by my ear again.
“Close your eyes and just feel the music,” he whispers, his warm breath making my skin break out in goosebumps. “Do what you probably did earlier when Cindy was here. Pretend like I’m not here and you’re all alone.”
“Actually, when Cindy was here, I pretended like you were sitting right here, where you are now,” I inform him.
He pulls his head back from mine and looks at me, his eyes darkening as his hands
clutch tighter to my hips. My eyes dart down to his throat and I see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows thickly, and a thrill of excitement courses through me.
Vincent’s hands move from my hips, sliding down the outside of my thighs while he continues staring at me. When he gets to the hem of my dress, his hands slip under it and I feel his warm, bare palms against my skin as they slide right back up, over my hips and grip my butt. He yanks me closer to him, and as I wrap my arms around his shoulders, I suddenly realize another reason why I like these sweatpants so much.
Or should I say, I suddenly feel why I like these things so much. His thighs, chest, and arms aren’t the only big things on this man, and I’m honestly surprised he hasn’t ripped through the crotch of these things yet, like the Hulk tearing off one of his shirts.
Don’t think about his penis ripping through his sweatpants! Now is not the time to giggle!
There is nothing separating us right now but a thin piece of cotton material and my black, lacy thong. I didn’t think anything would feel better than his jeans rubbing against me in the library that night, but this is heaven. I can feel every inch of him against me and an ache starts to form that I need relief from immediately.
Removing one of my arms from around him, I quickly dip my hand down into the front of my dress, pulling out the notecards I stuck in there when he was in the shower.
“Feel the music. Close your eyes if you need to. Make eye contact and—”
The notecards are suddenly wrenched from my hands, and Vincent tosses them to the side. I bite my bottom lip as I watch them flutter to the floor.
He squeezes my butt tighter, pulling me harder against him until I can’t stop the soft moan that flies out of my mouth.
“How drunk are you right now?” he suddenly asks.
“The room is no longer spinning and I’m ninety-nine percent confident the need to throw up is long gone.”
“Good,” he mumbles, one of his hands letting go of my butt.
He brings it up to the back of my head, clutching a handful of my hair in his fist, leaning forward as he yanks me towards him, crashing our mouths together.
Sliding my arms up his hard chest, I wrap them around his neck, holding on for dear life as he punishes me with his mouth, tangling his tongue with mine. My hips jerk on his lap, rubbing against every glorious inch of him and he abruptly ends the kiss, pulling his head back just far enough to look into my eyes.
“Don’t think. Just move. Do whatever feels good to you.”
I’m too busy thinking about how much I want this man now to worry about whether or not I’m going to make a fool of myself. I do what he says as the soft strains of a piano echo around the room. I swivel my hips to the sexy beat of the music, sliding against him, over and over until I’ve forgotten everything, including my own name.
“Christ, you don’t even know how hot you are right now,” he mutters, using his hand that’s still on my butt to help me move harder against him.
He jerks his hand that’s still holding the hair at the back of my neck, forcing my head back. I let out a gasp of pleasure when he dips his head down to the side of my neck, nipping my skin and then gently sucking it into his mouth.
“Tell me what you want,” he whispers against the skin of my neck, in between soft nibbles and licks.
“Keep doing that. Holy hell, keep doing that.”
I start rocking my hips against him faster as he continues to suck on my neck.
“Women ranked the side of the neck above the breasts and nipples as an erogenous zone, according to a recent study, and that’s probably because of the high density nerves there and . . . oh, my God,” I mutter loudly when he bites down harder on my neck.
My hips have a mind of their own at this point as I rock and swivel and move against him, never wanting this moment to end. It feels like all of the blood in my body has converged between my legs, pulsing and tingling and driving me crazy with want and need.
My thighs tighten on either side of his as I push down harder on him, moaning loudly when he thrusts himself up against me. With his mouth still attached to my neck, devouring every single nerve ending there, we move together in perfect sync, me grinding against him and Vincent lifting up to meet me, until my orgasm is rushing through me so quickly that I wouldn’t be able to stop it if I tried. And there is no freaking way I want anything but a relief from the ache Vincent has given me.
Both of his arms suddenly band around me, holding me tightly against him as I come, squeezing my eyes closed with my head still tipped back as I shout his name so loudly I’m thankful he doesn’t have neighbors.
I slowly open my eyes and lift my head up, panting heavily as I look down at him.
“These sweatpants of yours are magical. You should always wear them, and only them,” I inform him.
“Really? Just the sweatpants?” he growls, shifting himself beneath me.
He’s still really hard, and I’m still tingling from my release, and the movement makes me purr like a damn kitten.
“Fine. Not just the sweatpants. Everybody likes a piece of ass, nobody likes a smart-ass,” I retort. “Speaking of a piece of ass . . .”
I trail off, lifting my eyebrows up and down suggestively.
He chuckles softly, running his hands up and down my spine.
“Nope. Not yet. Not until you’re ready. This was just for you.”
My heart instantly cracks wide open. I have to bite down on my lips to stop myself from making a comment about him being better than any prince I’ve ever read about. He’d just deny it anyway.
“Fine. How about you just send me a text and let me know when I’m ready.”
I’m trying really hard not to be frustrated, especially since he’s now given me two orgasms and gotten nothing in return.
I’m such an awful person without sex. Who knew?
“What was that you just said about nobody liking a smart-ass?” he counters, lifting me off his lap and setting me on my feet.
“Just for that, I’m going to make you sit in the library with me and read until I get sleepy,” I tell him haughtily, grabbing his hand, pulling him up from the chair, and dragging him down the hallway.
Chapter 23: Vincent’s Got Himself a Girlfriend
The sound of a cell phone vibrating has me setting down my coffee on the small kitchenette table in the corner nook of Vincent’s kitchen and digging around inside my purse. Although I’ve left three messages, my dad hasn’t called me back since his hysterical strippergram phone call the other day that ended with him hanging up on me. When I finally find my phone at the very bottom of my bag, it doesn’t show any missed calls, and I try not to be too upset that he hasn’t returned my calls.
I hear the buzzing noise again and look up from my purse, spotting Vincent’s cell phone on the corner of the kitchen island, and I realize he forgot it when he rushed out the door. He had to go into work early this afternoon because he got a call from PJ that someone called in sick and they needed help unloading a shipment of alcohol.
Walking over to the phone, I glance down at the display and see that it says Mom and Dad calling. I continue staring at the phone until it stops bouncing on the counter. I start chewing on my thumbnail when a notification pops up saying he’s missed twelve calls from them.
That can’t be good, right? I mean, he told me he talks to his parents all the time, and I’ve actually seen him excuse himself from the room to take a call from them several times in the last few weeks. If they’re calling this many times in a row, something must be wrong.
Don’t pick up the phone, Belle. It’s none of your business.
When the phone lies there quietly for five minutes, I let out a relieved breath and start to walk away.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I stop and slowly turn back around. Leaning over the counter I see that, sure enough, it’s his parents calling again.
What if his dad fell off a ladder and broke his neck? What if his mom got hit by a car?
If I don’t pick up the phone, Vincent won’t know what’s going on until well after one in the morning, and by then, it could be too late to get a flight to Paris to give his mother the kidney she needs to save her life after she was hit by a bus crossing the street at Galerie Vivienne!
Before I can change my mind, I grab the phone and answer it.
“Um . . . Vincent’s phone, this is Isabelle.”
“Vincent?!” a woman shouts.
“No, I’m sorry, ma’am, this is Isabelle. Um, I’m a . . . friend of Vincent’s.”
“Harold! Get in here! Vincent’s got himself a girlfriend!” she yells.
“No, no, no! I’m not his girlfriend. I’m just a friend from . . . uh, work. We met a few months ago and he was kind of rude and standoffish but I told him off and now our friends are in love and my dad kicked me out of the house and I had nowhere else to go and he was doing this creepy stalker thing where he kept coming up to the library where I work every night but he was just making sure I was okay and safe and he found out I was living there and now he’s letting me stay here with him.”
Oh, my God. What have I done?!
“I’m putting you on speakerphone, honey!” his mother says happily. “Say hi, Harold.”
“Hi, Harold!” his dad suddenly speaks with a laugh.
I can’t help but giggle, even though I want to crawl into a hole and die after the oversharing I just did.
“You have no idea how happy this makes me that Vincent finally found someone after all he’s been through,” his mother says with a sigh. “Have you set a date for the wedding yet?”
“Diane, leave the poor girl alone,” Harold mutters before addressing me. “You don’t have to answer that, dear.”
“So, you work in a library? That’s so exciting! Vincent loves books and reading, but he just hasn’t been in the right frame of mind in the last few years and forgot all about his passion, what with that gold digging hussy breaking his heart and all,” Diane complains.
“Christ, woman, give it a rest. You’re going to scare the girl away,” Harold scolds her.