It’s adorable. It’s endearing. And it’s making me think I could really love this man if I let my guard down enough.
“Why you filthy, filthy liar!” Eric suddenly shouts, pulling me out of my thoughts to find him holding up the magnet with a silver necklace dangling down from it. “My magnet says this isn’t silver. My magnet never lies!”
The poor elderly man sitting in a chair behind the table of the booth, next to a sign that advertises antique Victorian silver cameo necklaces from the 1800s, looks at Eric like he’s insane, and I can’t help but laugh.
“This man is a fraud! Do not buy his silver jewelry! It’s not really silver! THE MAGNET HAS SPOKEN!” Eric shouts, holding up the little magnet in his hand with the necklace swinging from it, turning around to show the crowd of people walking by who are also looking at him like he’s crazy.
“Put it on the chain,” I tell him, trying really hard to keep in my laughter.
“Sorry, I’m busy right now, Ariel. I’m ridding the world of a flea market fraud!”
Reaching up, I grab his arm and yank it down, pulling the magnet and necklace out of his hand.
“You have to use it on the chain,” I tell him again, turning around to the table and gently laying the necklace on top of it.
I press the magnet to the chain part of the necklace and it doesn’t stick. Then, I slide the magnet up until it gets to the clasp, and it jumps up from the table and attaches itself to the magnet.
“What kind of sorcery is this?” Eric whispers loudly, his body pressed right up against my back as he looks over my shoulder.
“You were using the magnet on the clasp, not the actual silver. Clasps are susceptible to corrosion and breakage, especially something like this, from so long ago. Dealers will usually have the clasp replaced so the necklace can still be worn, therefore making it worth more money,” I explain to him, shoving the magnet back into my purse.
“Well, this is awkward,” Eric mutters, looking at the man behind the table apologetically. “Sorry about that. I’m new at this. Also, I haven’t eaten since breakfast. I might be a little hangry.”
Moving away from the booth, we head over to the food section of the flea market, which is also another reason I love this place. The food area is nothing but row after row of food trucks, serving everything you could imagine.
We quickly agree on the taco truck, and when we get up to the counter and I ask for two, Eric tells the man running the truck I’ll have five, orders ten for himself, along with four orders of chips and salsa. If I were here with Sebastian right now, he would have told the man I’d have one and turned down the chips and salsa, listing the fat content while reminding me I’d need to go to the gym to work off that one taco.
I hate that I’m still comparing everything Eric does to Sebastian, but it’s hard not to. Especially since Sebastian has already sent me three texts so far today, two since I’ve been here.
“You’re amazing,” Eric tells me around a mouthful of taco when we’re seated across from each other at a picnic table by the food trucks.
“Because I just inhaled two tacos before you even finished one?”
He laughs, shoveling the rest of the taco into his mouth in one huge bite and then quickly tearing into another. He chews for a few seconds and then speaks again.
“Because you’re so passionate about all this stuff,” he replies, sweeping his arm out in the direction of the tents. “I don’t think I’ve ever been that passionate about anything in my entire life. Present company excluded.”
My stomach flops with excitement and my skin gets warm when he pauses to give me a heated look.
“And what you’ve done with the Naughty Princess Club. It’s amazing. You should be really proud of that. You girls worked your asses off, building something out of nothing that has completely taken off.”
I blush at his compliment and try to brush it off.
“We were broke and desperate and tricked into thinking we would be princesses at a little girl’s birthday party,” I remind him.
“But you realized your potential and changed gears. You didn’t give up. It’s truly amazing. I’ve never had to work for anything in my life. It was all just handed to me, and I’ve always taken it for granted. All I had to do was ask, and I got whatever I wanted. And then I met you, and the first words out of your mouth to me were fuck off,” he laughs.
“And yet here you are. Still not fucking off.”
“Nope. I took one look at you and I knew for the first time in my life that I’d have to work my fucking ass off. And it would be worth every mouthy moment from you.”
Jesus, this guy is good. I’m pretty sure my underwear just ripped itself off of my body.
“Your childhood must have made all the kids in your neighborhood hate you. I bet you were one of those kids who had themed birthday parties with bouncy houses and caterers and your own merry-go-round,” I muse.
“Actually, my birthday was usually spent with my nanny. My parents traveled a lot,” he says with a shrug, taking a bite out of his taco.
“Jesus, that’s depressing. I guess I just thought you were close to them, with the whole yacht business and everything.”
“I was close to my dad. He’s the one who started the yacht business. He died when I was ten, and my mom took over running everything, and, I don’t know, growing the business became the most important thing in the world to her. At least it’s always seemed that way, although if you ask her, she’ll tell you everything she’s done was for me and to secure my future.” He grabs a napkin, wipes off his mouth, and tosses it on the table.
“So, I know you said your family was Greek, but the name Sailor . . .” I trail off.
Eric laughs and nods. “Yeah, my dad’s family was actually the ones who were Greek. His last name was Moustakas. I think you’d probably love my mother. When they got married, she refused to change her name and made my dad take hers. It was very scandalous back then, but she didn’t give a shit. She refused to change anything about herself for a man, no matter how much she loved him, including her name. My dad adored her, so he did whatever she wanted. That’s why my last name is Sailor instead of Moustakas.”
We finish up our lunch and throw our garbage away, then spend the next few hours lazily strolling through the booths. When we get to the last one on the map, I laugh and point at an item on the table.
“Holy shit, that ceramic bust looks like you!”
Eric grabs the item off the table and we both inspect it. The painted bust is of a man with short dark hair and bright blue eyes, wearing what looks like it could be a uniform from sometime in the 1700s.
“That’s Captain Pavlos Kotzias,” the man behind the table tells us. “He originated from Greece around 1765. According to some history books, he was on an exploration mission when one night, while the rest of his crew was asleep, he heard singing. Some say the singing put him in a trance as he walked away from the ship’s wheel in search of the sound. According to the legend, her looked over the ship’s railing and saw the most beautiful creature in the world swimming alongside the boat—a mermaid. She tempted him so much with her voice that he dove overboard, never to be seen or heard from again, leaving the crew to get the ship safely back to shore. Some say he’s still living at the bottom of the ocean with her, the songs she sings to him so heartbreaking that they make him never want to leave her side.”
Eric and I are both staring wide-eyed at the guy as he finishes his story.
“Well, that wasn’t depressing at all,” I mutter as I watch Eric pull his wallet out of his back pocket. “What are you doing?”
“Are you kidding me? I have to buy this.”
He spends a few minutes haggling with the man on the price, and when he’s finally satisfied, Eric hands over several bills with a huge smile on his face.
When we’re walking away, he hands the ceramic bust to me.
“For you,” he tells me.
“What? Why? That was a horrible story about so
me guy killing himself for a woman who wasn’t even real.”
“It was romantic. And you need to start your antique collection over. What better way to do that than with a big, heavy ceramic bust of a dude who looks like me, that you can make out with when I’m not around?” he says with a dimpled smile.
“You’re ridiculous.” I laugh as I tuck the stupid thing under my arm and Eric grabs my hand.
He might be ridiculous, but I kind of like that he shoved the ceramic piece into my arms instead of going all caveman on me, insisting on carrying it himself and assuming the little woman couldn’t cart around something even remotely heavy.
“And you’re now the proud owner of a bust of my face.”
“You just bought this because you like saying the word bust,” I tell him with a shake of my head.
“Whatever. You don’t know me.”
He pauses for a few seconds and then giggles like a ten-year-old.
“Bust. Bust, bust, bust.”
He’s still laughing to himself as we head towards the parking lot.
It occurs to me as we get in his SUV that we just spent the day getting deeper with each other, and I didn’t turn to dust, and it didn’t kill me. It didn’t scare me away, it didn’t make me want to throw up, it just makes me want so much more with Eric. I want everything.
Goddamn it all to hell. I want the fucking fairy tale.
Chapter 18: Tiny House Angry
Coming to the realization that I have turned into the type of woman I spent the last two years of my life being completely annoyed with has suddenly made me nervous and maybe a touch hysterical.
“I’m actually a really good cook, I just don’t do it very often. Especially since money has been tight, and I’ve been living off of ramen noodles and Kraft mac and cheese for a while. There’s not very many creative things you can do with ramen and mac and cheese,” I ramble, carrying an armful of everything I could hold from the pantry and dumping it on the kitchen island. “I also haven’t gotten the hang of cooking for one down pat just yet. I don’t understand why it’s so fucking hard to measure out noodles for one. You add some noodles to the water, it never looks like enough, so you add a little bit more and it still doesn’t look like enough, and pretty soon you have enough noodles to feed a small country.”
I can see Eric leaning with his back against the fridge to my right with his arms crossed in front of him, watching me flit back and forth from the pantry to the island while I talk out of my ass about fucking noodles.
As soon as we got back to my boat, Eric left me alone for a few minutes to run over and check on Derrick. That was his first mistake. Leaving me alone with my thoughts and an entire pantry filled with carbs.
“I don’t know what you’re in the mood for, but I’m sure I can make something out of all this that will be delicious,” I tell him, refusing to look over at him as I quickly grab the closest item and rip it open a little too aggressively and the bag of salt-and-vinegar chips explodes all over the counter. I laugh nervously as I reach for something else. When I rip off the end of a box of angel hair pasta and half of it spills out on top of the chips, Eric finally decides to put me out of my misery. Or make things worse. It could really go either way right now.
He’s suddenly standing right behind me, his front pressed up against my back and his hands resting on the counter on either side of me, caging me in.
“I’m not really in the mood for food right now,” he speaks softly against my ear, dipping his head lower to place a soft kiss on the side of my neck.
“Um, okay. We could watch a movie. Or go get Derrick and force him to do a fashion show with all his new sweaters,” I reply nervously, my eyes fluttering closed when he continues pressing tiny, soft kisses against my neck, moving down to the skin of my shoulder.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” he asks in between kisses, as he reaches up and uses one finger to slowly lower the spaghetti strap of my sundress off my shoulder and press a kiss there.
“It’s a hot fucking mess all up in here. You don’t want to know,” I mutter when he slides his hands around my waist and holds me tightly against his body.
“Am I making you nervous?”
His palms are pressed against my stomach and he’s rubbing his thumbs back and forth, right against the underside of my breasts, and the only thing he’s making me right now is really, really needy.
“Nervous? Yeah right. Like you could make me nervous. You sure think very highly of yourself,” I scoff, my breath catching when one of his palms slides down my stomach, over my hip and down my thigh.
The tips of his fingers start drawing tiny, feather light circles against my skin, right where the hem of my dress stops, and all I can think about is grabbing his hand and pushing it up under my dress.
“You make me nervous, if it’s any consolation,” he whispers against my ear before gently pulling my earlobe between his teeth.
His words and the nibbling he’s doing on my ear makes my knees start to shake, and I smack my hands down on the counter in front of me to hold myself up.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I kind of like you,” he continues, his fingers still playing with the skin of my thigh as the circles he’s drawing start getting bigger and bigger, pulling the skirt of my dress up higher and higher each time he makes an upward arch.
“I kind of like you too. You’re not as . . . annoying as . . . I thought you . . . were.” I try to keep the stutter out of my voice, but it’s impossible when those finger circles have made it all the way up under my dress, and the tips of his fingers keep skimming over the lace edge of my thong.
“Your sarcasm and take-no-shit attitude makes me hard,” he says softly, stressing this point by bending his knees and pushing his hips until I can feel just how hard he is against my ass. “But your sweetness is like a kick right to the fucking gut, and it takes the air out of my goddamn lungs. I’m nervous because I don’t want to mess this up.”
Holy shit. . . .
I let out a small groan and my head falls back against his shoulder as his hand slides up under my dress, his palm resting on my lower stomach with his fingers dipping into the top edge of my thong.
“I think I’ve used up my sweet quota for the day. And if you tell anyone and ruin my street cred, I will murder you in your sleep,” I tell him as his fingers inch further inside my underwear until I want to scream at him to fucking touch me already.
He tightens his arm around my waist, holding me securely against him, his hand just barely under the front edge of my thong holding steady, like he’s waiting for me to say the word.
WORD, WORD, WORD, ALL THE FUCKING WORDS!
“Tell me what you want, Ariel. Sweet or hard?” he whispers, bending his head and grazing his teeth over that spot on my neck that makes the pulsing between my legs almost unbearable. I want to rub my thighs together for some relief.
“I don’t give a shit, just move your fucking hand!”
That came out a lot bitchier than I wanted it to, but Jesus God, man, a woman can only take so much.
Before I can take my next breath, his hand is diving fully under my thong and he plunges two fingers inside me.
“Holy shit,” I gasp, both of my hands flying off the counter to cling tightly to his forearm wrapped around my waist.
He holds his fingers deep, keeping them still as he teases my clit with the pad of his thumb, gentle strokes up and down, up and down, until I start whimpering and my hips start rocking against his hand.
“Goddamn, you feel so fucking good,” he murmurs against my neck, in between kisses and nibbles.
My nails dig into his forearm when he slowly drags his fingers out of me before thrusting them right back. I’m panting and moaning, and my hips are churning against his hand as he slowly pumps in and out of me, his thumb never stopping the gentle strokes against my clit.
With each push of his hand between my thighs I feel every ounce of nervousness and doubt being pushed further and furth
er back in my mind until I can’t even remember what I was so anxious about. He touches me like he’s been doing this forever. Like he can read my mind and knows exactly what I need. His thumb works against me with just the right amount of pressure, never stopping, never switching up the motion, just stroking me like a fucking expert on my vagina.
The throbbing in my pussy grows and grows as his fingers pump faster and harder inside of me, until my hips are jerking erratically and unintelligible noises are flying out of my mouth with each panting breath I take.
“Fuck. Don’t stop, oh God,” I mutter, as his thumb starts circling faster around my clit.
“That’s it, baby,” he croons against my ear. “Let go and let me feel you. I’ve got you.”
He’s definitely got me. His arm around my waist is like an anchor, holding me up as my thighs start to shake with my impending release. But I know he doesn’t mean it that way. I know he means he’s got me. And he’ll do whatever it takes to not mess this up.
I’ve never felt safer. I’ve never felt more desirable or wanted. I want to keep him forever so he can do this to me and say these things to me every single day and get rid of all the nervousness and doubt floating around in my head. That thought should scare the hell out of me but it doesn’t. It just makes everything hotter, knowing this won’t be the last time he makes me feel this way.
Eric’s hand between my thighs is a flurry of thrusting and pumping, sliding and swirling until my orgasm starts to uncoil low in my belly and I feel myself pulsing with the start of my release. My hips jerk harder against his hand, needing this more than I need air to breathe right now, every inch of my body tingling with anticipation.
I can feel his chest heaving against my back and feel him panting against the skin of my neck as he keeps telling me how good I feel, how wet I am, and how fucking hot it makes him to feel me come apart against his hand. It drives me crazy and makes my body burn, knowing that what he’s doing to me is turning him on just as much as it is me.