Sweet Filthy Boy (6 page)

“Ugh,” Harlow says. “I knew we should have been classier.”

“I’m going to blame the seven hundred shots we had,” Lola says.

“I’m going to blame Finn’s impressive cock.” Harlow takes a sip from a bottle of water as Lola and I groan. “No, I’m serious,” Harlow says. “And son is into some stuff, let me tell you. He’s a bossy little shit.”

“Annulment,” Lola reminds her. “You can still bang him when you’re single.”

Harlow rubs her face. “Right.”

“What happened with Ansel?” Lola asks.

“Apparently a lot.” Instinctively, I rub my finger over my bottom lip. “I’m not sure we actually slept. I’m disappointed I don’t remember it all, but I’m pretty sure we did everything.”

“Anal?” Harlow asks in a reverent whisper.

“No!
God
. Put ten dollars in the Whore Jar,” I tell her. “You’re such a troll.”

“I bet the French guy could get it,” Harlow says. “You look like you were pounded.”

Memories rise like smoke in front of me, just tiny wisps in the air.

His shoulders moving over me, fists curled around the pillowcase beside my head.

The sharp snap of his teeth when I licked across the head of his cock.

My hand splayed across the giant mirror, feeling the heat of his breath on the back of my neck just before he pushed inside.

His voice whispering,
Laisse-toi aller, pour moi.
Come for me.

I press the heel of my hands to my eyes, trying to pull myself back into the present. “What happened with you and Oliver?” I ask Lola, redirecting.

She shrugs. “Honestly, by the time we were leaving the chapel, we both started to sober up. Harlow was in their suite making all kinds of noises. You and Ansel were in ours.”

“Erp, sorry,” I mumble.

“We just walked around the Strip the entire night, talking.”

“Really?” Harlow asks, surprised. “But he’s so hot. And he has that whole Aussie thing going on. I’d love to hear him say, ‘Lick my cock.’”

“Five more in the Whore Jar,” Lola says.

“How did you understand a word he said?” I ask, laughing.

“Yeah, he got worse when he was hammered,” she admits, and then leans her head back against her enormous chair. “He’s pretty great. It’s weird, you guys. Did you know he’s opening a comic book store? Out of the three of us, I’m the one who should be hitting that with the fist of God. I mean, he’s hot and tall and ridiculously derpy, which you know is totally my kryptonite. But we were already coordinating the annulment while we waited for the limo to pick us up after the ceremony.”

This all feels a little surreal. I was expecting a weekend of sunbathing, drinks, dancing, and best friend bonding. I was
not
expecting to have the best sex of my life and wake up married. I twist the ring on my finger and then look around, realizing I’m the only one actually wearing one.

Harlow notices it, too. “We’re meeting the guys at one to head to the chapel for the
annulments
.” Her voice has weight, bite, as if she already knows my situation has the added layer of feelings in the mix.

“Okay,” I say.

I catch Lola watching me. “That doesn’t sound like ‘okay,’” she says.

“What was Ansel saying to you in the hall?” Harlow asks. Her judgment is like another person sitting in the circle of chairs with us, glaring darkly at me with arms crossed over its chest. “He kissed you. He’s not supposed to kiss you
today
. We’re all supposed to be mildly horrified and then start constructing the funny details about that-one-time-we-all-got-married-in-Vegas that we’ll share for the next thirty years. There’s no sweetness or kissing, Mia. Only hangovers and regret.”

“Um . . . ?” I say, scratching my temple. I know Harlow will put her foot down at the mention of feelings in a situation like this, but I have them. I like him.

I also like the way he looks at me, and having my mouth full of his. I want to remember how he sounds when he’s fucking me hard, and whether he swears in French or English when he comes. I want to sit on the couches in the bar again and let
him
talk this time.

In a weird way, I think if we hadn’t gotten married last night, we’d have a better chance of being able to explore this, just a little.

“Jesus, Mia,” Harlow says under her breath. “I love you, but you’re killing me here.”

I ignore her pressure to reply aloud. I have no idea how Lola will react to my indecision. She’s far more live-and-let-live than Harlow is and falls somewhere on the spectrum between Harlow and me in terms of comfort with casual sex. Because of this, and because none of us has ever had a spontaneous wedding to a man from another country—this really has to be funny someday—Lola is likely to be more measured in her responses, so I direct my answer to her.

“He says we could . . . stay married.” There. That seems a decent way to try it on.

Silence reverberates back to me.

“I
knew
it,” Harlow whispers.

Lola remains noticeably quiet.

“I wrote myself a letter before we did it,” I explain, wanting to tread carefully. Of anyone in the world, these two women want only what is good for me. But I don’t know whether it will hurt their feelings to learn how oddly safe I feel with Ansel.

“And?” Harlow prompts. “Mia, this is huge. You couldn’t have told us this
first
?”

“I know, I know,” I say, sinking back into my chair. “And I guess I told him, like, my entire life story.” They both know the significance of this and so they don’t comment, just wait for me to finish. “And I talked for what must have been hours. I didn’t stutter, I didn’t filter.”

“You did talk for a really long time.” Lola looks impressed.

Harlow’s eyes narrow. “You’re not seriously considering staying married,” she says, “to a stranger you met last night in Vegas and who lives over five thousand miles away.”

“Well, how can it not sound shady when you say it like that?”

“How would you like me to say it, Mia?” she shouts. “Have you completely lost your mind?”

Have I? Yes, absolutely. “I think I just need more time,” I tell her instead.

Harlow stands abruptly, looking around as if there is someone else in the lobby who can help convince her best friend that she’s lost the plot. Across from me, Lola simply studies my face, eyes narrowed. “Are you sure about this?” she asks.

I cough out a laugh. “I’m not sure about any of it.”

“But you know you don’t want to annul it right now?”

“He says he won’t annul it today anyway, that he promised me he wouldn’t.”

Her eyebrows disappear beneath her bangs and she leans back into her chair, surprised. “He
promised
you?”

“That’s what he said. He said I made him swear.”

“This is the most ridicul—” Harlow starts, but Lola interrupts her.

“Well, the guy just won some points with me, then.” She blinks away, and reaches to put a calming hand on Harlow’s forearm. “Let’s go, sweets. Mia, we’ll be back in a little bit to pack up and head home, okay?”

“Are you kidding me? We—” Harlow starts, but Lola levels her with a look. “Fine.”

In the distance and through a set of glass doors, I see Oliver and Finn, waiting for them near the taxi stand. Ansel is nowhere in sight.

“Okay, good luck getting unmarried,” I say with a little smile.

“You’re lucky I love you,” Harlow calls over her shoulder, chestnut hair flying around her as Lola drags her away. “Otherwise I would murder you.”

THE LOBBY SEEMS
too quiet in their wake, and I look around, wondering if Ansel is watching from some dark corner, seeing that I haven’t gone along. But he isn’t in the lobby. I have no idea where he is. He’s the only reason I stayed back. Even if I had his number, I don’t have my phone. Even if I had my phone, I have no idea where I left my charger. Drunk me definitely needs to keep better track of things.

So I do the only thing I can think of: I head upstairs to the hotel room, to shower again and pack, to try to make some sense out of this mess.

One step inside and flashes of the night before seem to invade the room. I close my eyes to dig deeper, hungry for more details.

His hands on my ass, my breasts, my hips. The thick drag of him along my inner thigh. His mouth fastened to my neck, sucking a bruise into the skin.

My thoughts are interrupted by a quiet knock on the door.

Of course it’s him, looking freshly showered and just as conflicted as I feel. He moves past me, into the room, and sits at the edge of the bed.

He rests his elbows on his knees and looks up at me through hair that has fallen into his eyes. Even partly filtered, they’re so expressive I feel gooseflesh break out along my arms.

Without preamble or warm-up, he says, “I think you should come to France for the summer.”

There are a thousand things I can say to address the absurdity of what he’s offering. For one, I don’t know him. Also, I don’t speak French. Tickets are ungodly expensive, and where would I live? What would I do all summer living with a stranger in France?

“I’m moving to Boston in a few weeks.”

But he’s already shaking his head. “You don’t need to move until the beginning of August.”

I feel my brows inch up. Apparently I told him
every single detail
of my life. I’m not sure whether I should feel impressed that he remembers it all, or guilty that I made him sit through so much. I tilt my head, waiting. Most girls would say something here. A gorgeous man is offering something pretty amazing, and I’m just waiting to see what else he wants to say.

Licking his lips, he seems comfortable with the knowledge that he hasn’t given me something I need to respond to yet. “Just hear me out. You could stay at my flat. I have a good job, I can afford to feed and shelter you for a summer. I work really long hours, it’s true. But you could just . . .” He looks away, down at the floor. “You could enjoy the city. Paris is the most beautiful city,
Cerise
. There are endless things to do. You’ve had a really hard few years and maybe would be happy just having a mellow summer in France.” Looking back up at me, he adds quietly, “With me.”

I move over to the bed and sit down, leaving plenty of distance between us. Housekeeping has already changed the linens, straightened the chaos we created; it makes it easier to pretend last night was someone else’s life.

“We don’t really know each other, it’s true,” he concedes. “But I see your indecision about Boston. You’ll move there to get away from your dad. You’ll move there to keep marching forward. Maybe you need to just hit pause, and
breathe
. Have you done that even once in the four years since your accident?”

I want him to keep speaking because I’ve decided that even if I don’t know him well enough to be in love with him, I love his voice. I love the rich mahogany timbre, the curling vowels and seductive consonants. His voice dances. Nothing could ever sound rough or sharp in that voice.

But as soon as I have the thought, I know it’s wrong. I remember how he sounded when he was perfectly demanding last night:

Put your hands on the wall.

I can’t wait much longer for you to get there,
Cerise
.

Show me how much you love to feel me on your tongue.

I don’t have an answer for his offer, so I don’t give one. I only crawl up to the pillow and lie on my back, exhausted. He joins me, lying shoulder to shoulder until I curl into him, sliding my hands up his chest and into his hair. The shape of him triggers a muscle memory: how far I have to reach to wrap my arms around him, how he feels against my palms. I press my nose into the rope of muscle between his neck and shoulder, breathe in the clean smell of him: hotel soap and the hint of ocean that pushes through.

Ansel rolls to face me, kissing my neck, my jaw, my lips just once but he lingers, eyes open. His hands slide down my back, over the curve of my ass to my thigh and lower, to the back of my knee, where he pulls it over his hip, fitting me to him. Between my legs, I can feel how much I want him. I can feel him, too, lengthening and pressing. But instead of taking it anywhere, we fall asleep.

When I wake up, there’s a piece of paper on the empty pillow. He’s left his number and his promise to be there the moment I need him, but he’s gone.

I WONDER HOW
many thousands of drives from Vegas to California have been like this: hot wind whipping through a beater car, hungover women, regret hanging in the air like a single flat chord played the entire drive.

“I need something greasy to eat,” Harlow groans, and Lola pulls off the freeway and into a Denny’s parking lot.

Over grilled cheese and fries, Harlow says, “I don’t get why you didn’t just start the annulment process while we were there.” She pokes a fry into ketchup and then drops it on her plate, looking queasy. “Now you’re going to have to go back there, or go through this complicated process out of state. Tell me every detail so I can stop wanting to slap you.”

Objectively Ansel is amazing, and the sex was clearly ridiculous, but she knows I’m not such a swooner that good sex is enough for me to make such a rash decision. So it comes down to the letter, really. I never kept a diary. I barely write letters to Harlow when she’s overseas visiting her father on set. But I read that other, post-accident letter so many times the paper became as delicate as a dried petal, the ink nearly invisible. Letter writing for me is seen as this weird, sacred occurrence, and even though I’m not sure it’s the right idea, I’m giving it the weight I think I intended when I wrote it.

“What are you going to do?” Lola asks when I’ve finished telling them every sordid little detail I can remember about the night.

I shrug. “Spend from now until September trying to understand why I wanted to marry this person. Then probably get an annulment.”

Chapter
FIVE

L
OLA DROPS ME
at home. I find my little brothers in the family room playing Xbox, and Dad hands me a glass of wine as soon as I step out onto the veranda.

“To our brilliant daughter,” he says, holding his own glass aloft. He smiles indulgently at me before pulling Mom close to his side, and the sunset behind them creates a beautifully backlit silhouette I’m sure he would be thrilled to see in a framed photograph. “I trust that your last wild weekend was perfect, and, as your father, I don’t want to hear a single thing about it.” He smiles at this little joke, and I would probably find it funny were our history not so perilous. “Here’s to hoping your future from here on out is nothing but focus and success.”

I clink my glass to his halfheartedly and watch his face as he looks me over. I’ve showered twice but still look like death warmed over in my black T-shirt and torn jeans. His eyes move across my mouth, down to my neck, where I’ve tried to cover the bite marks and red splotches with a gray jersey scarf. Dad’s smile turns quickly into a look of disgust, but he doesn’t seem to have noticed my wedding ring. Carefully, I slide my left hand into my pocket to keep it that way.

He places his glass on the outdoor bar and steps away from Mom. “Women who are successful in business are
ladies
,” he says through clenched teeth, and I feel an odd trickle of satisfaction, knowing how much he’s enjoying this moment. I’ve been nothing but responsible and ambitious over the last four years, making it nearly impossible for him to be constantly critical. But he’s in his element now; my father is much more comfortable delivering insults than praise.

“We went to Vegas to celebrate graduation, Dad. We didn’t become hookers.”
No, Mia, you just got married to a stranger.

“You have a lot of growing up to do before you deserve your admission to BU. As much as I disliked the idea of you being a dancer for the rest of your life, at least I admired your ambition. Now, as soon as you graduate from college, you come home looking like you’ve been . . .” He shakes his head. “I don’t even know what you’ve been doing. No man will ever want to work for a tramp who comes to work with bruised lips and hickeys, smelling like days-old booze. Clean up your act, Mia.”

Mom gasps in a shocked breath, and looks up at him as if she’ll object to this absurd tirade. But her energy dissipates as he meets her eyes in challenge. He storms back inside, his mimosa forgotten. Mom stays behind, saying only, “Oh, sweetheart.”

“Don’t, Mom. I’m fine.”

I don’t want her to have to take my side. I’m leaving soon, and life is so much easier for her when she’s squarely Team David. She throws me a conflicted glance before she follows Dad back into the house.

The sliding glass door closes too hard, and I can still hear my dad.
Will she ever learn? She’ll throw this opportunity away over my dead body.

I look out over my mom’s perfect yard—immaculate lawn, lush flower beds, pristine white fence—and feel like an unsightly weed in the middle of it. I’ve always felt just a little out of place here. I feel like a complete outsider now.

THE DISCOVERY OUTPOST
at the San Diego Zoo is never the biggest draw for the crowds. But behind the Reptile House and past the Wegeforth Bowl there’s a set of exhibits that remain virtually silent even when the zoo is overrun with tourists. It’s always been my favorite metaphor—find the quiet in the chaos—and the place I do my best thinking.

Early Tuesday afternoon, I slip past tourists and families with green plastic zoo-issued strollers at the zoo entrance and turn left past the flamingo exhibit, heading to my secret spot. I need to think about what I’ll pack for Boston, and whether I can organize everything so I can move next week instead of three weeks from now.

I need to think about what kind of job I’d like to get: Waitress. Bakery. Retail. Some sort of business assistant. Maybe a nightclub dancer, just to birdflip my father from across the country. My mind pushes forcibly away from the immediate thought of working as a dance instructor. I turn down the bend and head toward my favorite bench, sitting down and exhaling a long, heavy breath.

I most definitely do not
need
to think about how at any point today, Ansel could be flying back to Paris.

“You’re right,” a deep, familiar voice says from just a little farther down the path. “This part of the zoo is deserted.”

I don’t believe my ears. I open my eyes to see Ansel walking up the paved walkway. He lowers himself on the bench and stretches his arm across the back, letting it rest behind me. The fingers of his right hand spread across my shoulder.

I’m speechless.

It’s a familiar sensation but for completely unfamiliar reasons. I’m speechless from shock, rather than restraint.

“H-h-” I start, squeezing my eyes shut.

He waits, patiently, fingertips sliding warm and smooth over my skin.

“What are you doing here? How did you know—”

“You told me you come here to think. You said you love this part of the zoo, and I’ll admit,” he says, looking around, “I don’t understand it at all. It’s mostly concrete and sleeping lizards. But I got here maybe an hour ago?” He tilts his head, smiling warmly as if he’s not a terrifying stalker. “And I’m here because I can’t be away from you, Mia. You’re my wife.”

My eyes must go wide in horror because he bursts out laughing, retrieving his arm so he can bend over and rest his elbows on his thighs. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t very nice. I’m in San Diego because I’m flying out of the airport here tonight. Oliver is meeting with the architect remodeling his store, and it’s the last time we’ll see each other for a while. We drove down together last night, and today I came here, hoping it was true that you come here to think all the time. And maybe to do a little thinking myself,” he adds, looking over at me and smiling sweetly. “I promise I was kidding.”

“You still came here looking for me,” I remind him, inching away slightly.

He digs into his back pocket and hands me a sheet of folded paper. I open it and realize it’s a copy of our marriage license. “You didn’t have a copy. You didn’t even know how to spell my last name, I don’t think. I would have called you, but even though I was smart enough to leave you my number, I realized I don’t have yours.”

I feel like a complete asshole. He’s really gone out of his way to make sure I have this, and I couldn’t even text him my number.

“Thanks,” I say quietly.

“Of course.”

I move closer again, putting my hand on his arm, and as the adrenaline in my blood slows to a steady hum, I realize how ridiculously giddy I am to see him. “So, wait, Oliver is opening a store in San Diego?” I absolutely don’t think Lola knew his store was going to be in our
hometown
.

He nods as he lifts my hand, kisses it. “He’s moving here in a few weeks. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you had that before you moved.” He nods to the paper I have clenched in my hand, and then stands. “I didn’t want to mail it to your house and have your dad open it.” I swallow heavily, stunned at how thoughtful he’s been. “I’m going to head back to the hotel and relax for a bit. I have a long flight ahead of me.”

“What time do you fly out?”

He blinks away, brows pulled together as he thinks. “Around eleven?”

He pushes his hands into his pockets before I can see if he’s still wearing his ring. He looks at my hands and sees that I am. “My email is just my first and last name together at XMail,” he tells me. “We can coordinate everything in September.”

“Okay,” I say, nodding.

He leans down, kisses the top of my head, and then whispers, “I’ll be at the Hilton Bayfront until around eight. I bought an open, round-trip ticket for you to Paris.” Standing up, he shrugs and lets a huge smile spread across his face as my jaw hits the sidewalk. “What can I say, I’m an optimist. Or insane. Depends on who you ask.”

He may be insane, but that ass looks mighty fine as he walks away.

Sitting in my lizard and concrete shelter for a while, I contemplate going home and immediately discard the thought. I contemplate going to Lola’s and hanging out with her and Greg for dinner, but I’m sure she’s giving her dad the full rundown of our insanity over the weekend. No doubt he’s laughing his ass off, and I don’t really want to be the killjoy who got sentimental. I contemplate heading over to Harlow’s place in La Jolla, but even though some brainless beach time sounds amazing, the genuine love and intense focus of the entire Vega clan would provide too stark a contrast to my own family’s weirdness.

So I drive downtown.

ANSEL PULLS THE
door open and breaks into an enormous smile, which slowly fades as he sees I’ve come empty-handed, no suitcase. Nothing but my tiny cross-body bag slung over my chest.

“I can’t come to France with you,” I start, looking up at him with wide eyes. My pulse feels like a heavy drum in my throat. “But I didn’t want to go home, either.”

He steps to the side to let me in and I drop my bag on the floor and turn to watch him. There’s really only one reason I’m here, in this hotel room, and I think we both know it. It’s easy to pretend to be the lover in a movie, coming to the hotel for one last night together. I don’t have to work to be brave when it’s safe like this: he’s leaving. It becomes almost like a game. A play. A role.

I don’t know which Mia is taking over my body, but I’m shutting out everything but how it feels to be so close to this boy. I only have to take one step closer and he meets me halfway, sliding both hands into my hair and covering my mouth with his. Ocean and green and still the lingering scent of me on his clothes.

His taste,
oh
. I want to feel so full of him that every other thought dissolves under the heat of it. I want his mouth everywhere, sucking at me like he does. I love how he loves my lips, how—after only one night together—his hands already know my skin.

He walks me back to the bed, lips and tongue and teeth all over my cheeks and mouth and jaw. I fall backward when my knees hit the bed.

He pulls at the hem of my dress and unsheathes me in a single determined tug, then reaches behind me, ridding me of my bra with a tiny slip of his fingers. He makes me feel like I’m something to reveal, something in which to revel. I’m the reward at the end of his magic trick, exposed beneath the velvet cape. His eyes rake across my skin and I can see his own impatience: shirt flung across the room, fingers tugging at his belt, tongue flicking at the air, searching for the taste of me.

Ansel gives up on undressing, instead kneeling on the floor between my thighs, spreading me, kissing me through the fabric of my underwear. He nibbles and tugs, sucking and licking impatiently before he slides my last remaining article of clothing down my legs.

I gasp when he leans forward, covering my most sensitive skin in a long, slow lick. His breath feels like tiny bursts of fire where he kisses my clit, my pubic bone, my hip. I push up, leaning back on my hands to watch him.

“Tell me what you need,” he says, his voice raspy against my hip.

With this, I remember weakly that he made me come with his hands and body, but not his mouth. I can sense the need to conquer this, and wonder how long he tried before I grew impatient, pulling him up and into me.

The truth is I’m not sure what I need. Oral sex has always been a stop on the way to somewhere else. A way to get me wet, to make the circuit of my body. Never something done until I shook and sweated and swore.

“S-suck,” I say, guessing.

He opens his mouth, sucking perfectly for a breath of time and then too much. “Not so hard.” I close my eyes, finding the bravery to tell him, “Like you suck on my lip.”

It’s exactly the direction he needed and I fall back against the mattress without thinking, my legs spreading wider, and with this he grows wild. Palms firmly planted on my inner thighs to keep my legs open, sounds pressed into me, vibrating through me.

One of his hands leaves me and I can feel him moving, can sense the shifting of his arm. Propping myself on an elbow I look down and realize he’s touching himself, eyes on me, fevered.

“Let me,” I tell him. “I want to taste you, too.”

I don’t know where these words are coming from; I’m not myself right now. Maybe I’m never myself with him. He nods but doesn’t stop moving his hand. I love it. I love that it’s not weird or taboo. He’s lost in me, he’s hard, he’s giving in to the need for his own pleasure while he gives me mine.

As he kisses and sucks and licks with such uninhibited hunger, I’m afraid I won’t be able to come and his enthusiasm and effort will be wasted. But then I feel the tight pull, the edge of something that grows bigger and bigger with every breath across my skin. I thread my hands in his hair, rock up into him.

“Oh, God.”

He groans, mouth eager, eyes on me wide and thrilled.

I relish the tight swell of my tendons, my muscles, the blood rushing so heated and urgent in my veins. I can feel it build, spread out, and race through my limbs, exploding between my legs. I’m gasping, hoarse and senseless, offering no words, just sharp sounds. The echo of my orgasm rings around us as I fall back onto the pillow.

I feel drugged, and with effort I push him away from where his lips press to my thigh so I can sit up. He stumbles to his feet, pants undone and slung low over his hips. I look up at him, and from the light coming out of the bathroom I can see how wet his mouth is, from me—as if he was hunting, as if I was caught and devoured.

He wipes a forearm across his entire face, and steps closer to the bed just as I lean forward and take him in my mouth.

He cries out, desperate. “Already close.”

It’s a warning. I can feel it in the jutting thrusts of his hips, the tense swelling of the head of his cock, the way he grips my head like he wants to pull back, make this last longer, but can’t. He fucks my mouth, seeming to know already that it’s okay, and after only six sharp jabs across my tongue and teeth and lips, he’s holding steady, deep inside and coming with a low, rasping groan.