The Dimple Strikes Back (12 page)

I stood, the better to yell at him. “A couple of days ago, you said you loved me too much to be noble. Or was that a lie? Or, are you too noble to lie, and that’s why you’re dumping me, because you used to be a liar? Ugh!” I kicked the metal railing, but I didn’t have any shoes on, and my toe screamed in pain. I fell back onto my chair and held my foot. At least I could be dignified when my world was crumbling. “Fuck everything! I just want to be a normal couple who watches TV in Snuggies and has weekday sex and argues about who has to clean the litter box! Which should be you, because you’re obviously related to poop.”

He laughed. I said a bad word and stomped inside the room to repack my overnight bag. Dump me? Doesn’t he know who I am? I’m a middling actress who’s dieting all the time! And why the fuck can’t I get Pizza Rolls in Belgium? Stupid jackass!

Sam tiptoed in from the balcony. I threw a pillow at him. He ducked, but not fast enough, and it bounced off his ugly, fart face head. “I’m doing this for you,” he explained feebly. “I’m trying to do the right damn thing for once. We’ve got so lucky, ducking my enemies. But this has to be the last time. I can’t put you in danger anymore. Besides—why are you even mad if you thought you’d dumped me?”

“Because I love you! I was content with lorvst and casual sex, but then you crept in my brain and made me want things I can’t have!” My face overheated, like a car sitting in the Florida sun. “You gave me a cat, you bastard.”

“Samantha, I’m sorry—”

“No! Don’t you dare mush out on me. I wanna fight. I want to be mad! I want to be angry at you and your asshole thief buddies. I want to be furious at—at—everything! So call me a name or shut the fuck up!”

His face crumpled piteously. “I don’t—”

“Gaaaaaaahh!” I threw my bag to the floor and slammed my hands on my hips. “I put on cute underwear for this rescue. I had plans for us! Do you see?” I stretched out the neck of my black T-shirt to show him a lacy red bra. “I was hopeful. I leapt into the fray for you, in pretty lingerie, and I demand that you drool over this underwear.” Suddenly, I desperately needed a screw. A breakup screw.

“Baby—”

“Now. And don’t you ‘baby’ me.
I
have been
dumped
by the
criminal
.” I said ‘I’, ‘dumped’ and ‘criminal’ with such outrage I actually spat them. Was it backwards day? I wiped the spittle off my chin.

“
The criminal
? Nice. I’ve always been on the lower rung of this relationship, haven’t I?”

“Oh, what a marvellous martyr you are.” I scanned the room for anything I’d forgotten. “I don’t want any tender bullshit from you anyway. What’s the fucking point?” I would not cry.

I would
not
cry.

I shrugged and said, in a delightfully mild tone, “Fine. I’ll just go back to London and bang the first movie star I see.”

That made him mad. The parts of his face that weren’t beaten up turned red. “This is mean. You’re being so mean.” His voice broke, and he suddenly sounded like a little kid.

I steeled my heart. “Then it’s good you’re getting rid of me.”

I finished shoving my stuff into my bag and began stomping around to find my purse. His voice was pathetic and small when he said, “I didn’t want to part badly.”

My turn to guffaw. “How else was this going to end? Jesus, and I thought I was the one living in fantasy land.” I plopped ten Euros on the nightstand for the maid service. “You know what I won’t miss? That stupid dimple. You only have one—what is that? You’re lopsided!”

He growled, actually growled, and returned, “I won’t miss your temper. I won’t miss your compunction for hitting me.”

Good. Now we were really fighting. I wanted a cage. I wanted a net and a trident,
Star Trek
-style, with dramatic violins shrieking my heartbreak, because it couldn’t just be over because we said so in a no-name hotel on a beautiful day. At least we were in Europe. Breakups in LA happened over vegan fro-yo, which is wrong on so many levels.

I took a step towards him. “I won’t miss your being pissy in the morning. Like this morning. I bet Daniel Zhang is pleasant first thing in the morning—he’s such a gentleman. Maybe I’ll find out.”

He didn’t take the bait, but stayed where he was. God, what did a girl have to do to get some breakup nookie? My desperation for one last bite of him nearly yanked a scream of frustration from my bowels. I clenched my teeth to rein it in.

He snapped, “I won’t miss your friend bad-mouthing me at every turn.”

“Aw, did mean old Ellen hurt you in your fee-fees?”

He kicked the pillow I’d launched at him and crossed towards me, steam practically coming out his ears. “Do you think this is easy for me?”

“I don’t care! Why did you even bother with me? This could have been a fling that hurt no one!”

“No, it couldn’t!” He swept into the last few inches between us. “You stomped on my heart the minute I met you.”

“The minute you manipulated me to steal that Godforsaken Picasso, you mean.”

“Stop putting words in my mouth!”

“You’re a fake and a phony, and I wish I’d never laid eyes on you!”

His lips flapped for a moment, outrage momentarily freezing his vocal chords. “That’s a line from
Grease
!” He shoved a finger in my face. “Which I only know because I watched Olivia Newton-John movies with you because I was a good boyfriend.”

“Oh, yeah. The two days a month we spent together were some real quality time. I saw the McDonald’s drive-thru more often than I saw you.”

“If I were a Big Mac, you’d never dump me.”

“You. Dumped. Me!” I turned to leave the room, and he caught my arm. And finally, finally he kissed me. I held on so tight I probably hurt him, but then I wanted to, and I didn’t. I just needed to feel his lips and never stop. To taste his sweet breath consuming mine. We were practically snarling at each other, biting and kissing, tossing away clothes and shoving aside the covers on the bed.

He crawled backward across the bed, challenge in his gaze, which splintered into olive green shards, ready to destroy me. When I began to climb on top, he hauled me the rest of the way across his chest. He buried his hands in my hair and kissed me with such fervour, it was almost as if he didn’t want to take in air that wasn’t mixed with mine. I had no need for foreign air. I’d get a lifetime of that when he left me.

I got on my knees to the side of him and took his cock in my hand. He groaned and sagged back, his eyes squeezed shut. His flesh was hot, and he pumped his hips, using me as leverage. My heart swelled with pain at his lovely body—the subtle swells of his chest, the cords of his neck, his hand clutching at my thigh. I’d never known a lover who’d filled my heart with such beauty, who’d made me feel so beautiful. Perhaps it was the combination of us that perfected us.

“Don’t you do that,” he said, sitting up. He lunged across me, and I fell onto the mattress as he covered me. “Don’t turn soft now, or I won’t give you what you want.” His hand snaked up to hold my breast, then down to trace my waist, cup my ass and flick between my legs. He swatted my thighs away from one another and settled his fingers in my pussy, playing there, in, out, tracing every millimetre of me. The soft, wet caresses were maddening. I held his hand there so he wouldn’t stop.

While he teased me, mercilessly, delightfully, he worshipped my breasts. He danced across each nipple, seducing each one with licks, whispers, making me arch up for more…then switching to the other one. Frustration twisted my hips and tossed my head. He seemed to enjoy my suffering, a damnable, evil smile adorning his face—the dimple commanding one final performance to punish me.

“Do it,” I begged him. He pushed a finger inside me, maybe two, for he stretched my flesh, and the pressure…the maddening slide, oh, God, this man. I would have agreed to anything then, and I pressed my lips together to the point of pain to stop myself from begging him for the table scraps of his time, no matter how dangerous. I actually laughed, I was so pathetic, my need for his skin and his cock beyond all pride. I fucked his fingers, pushing them in deeper. This seemed to rip the resolve to torture me from him, because he only thrust his fingers once or twice more before he replaced them with his rock-hard dick.

He moved into me, until he could go no farther, and stopped there, his breath held and his mouth falling open to moan. The breathy little sex sound was too much for me—him moaning because of me always broke my good sense. I arched up to meet that dirty, open mouth with my own and kissed him. I traced the inside of his lips with my tongue and he made the sound again. The delicious smell of his flesh consumed my senses, and I bucked against his hips.

With slow, lingering thrusts he made love to me. I lost sense of time while we drank in each other’s bodies like an illicit drug. I traced every inch of him I could reach—I needed my hands to remember him. The mole on his right hip. The silk of the hair on his thighs. The pressure built and built in me, but when I was close to climax, he’d pull back, stop, plant kisses on my temple and laugh in my ear.

Oh, he gave me what I asked for, all right. On and on, until I couldn’t have recited my name if asked. The room warmed with the coming of the day, and made us even more fevered.

I rolled us over so I could look at him while I rode him. His hair rumpled everywhere—I’d done that. He smiled up at me with a face so full of love I couldn’t take it anymore. I lowered myself on him, and he held me close, hand across my back and cupping my ass when I came in an explosion that short-circuited my entire body.

He turned me over and stayed close to me for the delicious minutes he continued moving inside me until he, too, succumbed. He looked so beautiful in his ecstasy, I had to close my eyes.

I held his head, and his back, and his shoulders. He smelt of sex and man, and I never wanted to move away. I hated him just then, because I loved him so much. You dream of love from the time you understand what it is, not knowing what it is to have your heart ripped out whole when it’s gone.

Blinking the tears away, I gently moved him, got up and put my clothes back on. I couldn’t look at him.

God, I really had been mean to him. He wouldn’t miss my nasty streak.

He didn’t stir on the bed at all while I got my stuff together. At the door, I said, “Bye, Sam.” He sat up, but I couldn’t meet his eyes. I walked out the door and closed it behind me.

My emotions were threatening a full-scale revolt, but I couldn’t remember what room Ellen and Nicolette were in. With shaking hands, I dialled Ellen’s number from my cell. The moment she heard me, she told me her room number, and I ran there on stumbling feet. I made it to the hall outside their door before I fell on the carpet and sobbed. My best friend opened the door, and I heard Nicolette call from inside, “Did she dump him?”

Ha. Nope. He’d done the right thing for the both of us, the rotten, no-good bastard.

* * * *

Nurse Ellen knows how to treat any illness of mine. She whisked me and Nicolette to the town’s picturesque Market Square, where an outside café supplied us with coffee and waffles. Belgian waffles, naturally, and eaten traditionally without syrup. The delicacy was so buttery and rich and perfect that I almost forgot about Sam’s perfect, if not buttery, skin. The jaunty sunlight reflecting off the medieval splendour shone a harsh light on the dark state of my soul. Would that it were raining on my head, the way it rained in my heart. I told Ellen this, and she took my waffle away from me until I promised to be less Taylor Swift-y.

I recounted the story of how he’d been noble and let me go. How we’d had a dignified discussion, like adults, then I’d packed my bag and sailed out of the room, head held high, dignity intact. Grace-Kelly-like, actually, except with hair a fiery red not found in nature.

“You mean,” Ellen said, “after you banged him.”

I swallowed the last of my waffle and searched for the waiter. Circumstances called for a second waffle, and for the cute waiter who supplied such. “After…I banged him. How did you know?”

“You have sex hair.”

My hand flew to the knotted mass at the back of my head. Between my slept-in clothes, streaked makeup and matted hair, I appeared to be stuck in the ‘before’ part of a romantic comedy. But there’d be no LOL-worthy ‘after’, because my hero had kicked me to the Belgian kerb to wallow in my own dejection. And
after
I’d rescued his sorry ass! My neck still hurt from head-butting that giant blond guy. How do you explain that to the doctor?

“Why did you even want to have sex after he dumped you?” Nicolette asked.

“Sometimes a girl just needs the D, okay?” I swiped a fresh tear away and looked from one to the other of them. “Or the V. I mean, don’t you ever think to yourself, in times of trouble, like, wow, I really need some succulent lady flower right now?”

Nicolette quirked an eyebrow. “No. Literally no one in the world has ever thought those words to themselves.”

Ellen put her hand over her mouth, but her shaking shoulders gave away her laughing.

I burst out laughing, too, and more tears plopped onto my plate even as I chuckled. “Y’all don’t call them ‘lady flowers’?”

Nicolette broke down and smiled at me. “I prefer ‘magic beaver’, myself.”