Prince Charming (18 page)

Her lips tasted like cherry bubble gum lip-gloss, and she didn’t protest as mine kissed them. At first it was just a peck, a small brush. Then I grew bolder, and my lips lingered on hers a little longer. Then a little bit more. Then my tongue entwined with hers as I reached out and slid my hand around her warm neck. These were kisses I wanted to remember forever. These were kisses I had fantasized about. And these were kisses I needed to last indefinitely.

They almost did, but Laine pulled away after a few moments.

“What took you so long?”

“So long?” I murmured.

“You could have done this months ago.” She smiled into my mouth. “Maybe I wish you had.”

I swayed for a second, shocked.

“What about that day back in March, Geoff, when we were in the car? Why didn’t you?”

“You were dating Evan.” I frowned. “He was your boyfriend. I wasn’t going to mess with that.”

She sighed. “I know. But I wish...I just wish you’d acted on it.” A small smile tugged at her lips. “Or maybe I should have. Didn’t you want me to?” She pulled me a little closer. “You wanted me to.”

“Wow, Miss Confident.” My hands traveled down her back, and I shivered. I loved holding her. She was like something forbidden that only I could have. Oh God, I wanted her so much.

“Confidence will get you everywhere,” she said after a moment.

“I’m starting to find that out,” I whispered.

Laine grabbed hold of the buttons on my tuxedo shirt and bit her lip. “You wanted to, right?

“Now you don’t sound so sure of yourself.”

She grinned. “Well, I’m just checking.”

“Of course I did.” My arm snaked around her waist. Maybe that would steady me. Or maybe it just felt like heaven. Now if only I could keep my eyes from darting from her mouth to her breasts. Oh God, those breasts . . .

“I honestly never thought you would.” She placed a few kisses on my neck, close to my ear. “I thought maybe you were too scared because of Evan, or that you didn’t like me like that.”

“I’m glad we’ve got that out of the way.” I kissed her lips once more.

“Listen,” she said, sounding a little breathless. She linked her hand with mine. “I don’t want to go to the after prom. But I don’t want to go home, either. I can’t go home.”

“Can’t?”

“Not like this. I’m a total mess.” She shuddered. “And I don’t want my parents asking questions about Evan. They will. Trust me.”

“Where do you want to go?” I would have taken Laine anywhere she wanted, even if it meant driving all night, booking an airplane ticket, or finding a magic carpet.

“I’ve been thinking.” She arched her perfect left brow. “Some place fun that’s open late.”

“The bowling alley? I think they close at two.”

“No, silly. Not there.” She fished around in her purse again, and then pulled out two small, blank plastic cards. “I noticed I had these a few moments ago. Evan’s an idiot.”

I frowned, not following her.

“He got us a hotel room at The Cincinnatian,” she added. “Or, maybe his brother got it for us, I’m not sure. Anyway, we were supposed to go there after we went to After Prom for about an hour.”

“Whoa. The Cincinnatian’s expensive.”

“Evan thought if he took me to a fancy hotel that I’d forgive him for the way he’s been treating me.” She snickered, but I heard the disgust behind it. “The room has a Jacuzzi, though.”

“I don’t have my swimsuit.”

“Maybe you won’t need it,” she breathed, then stepped closer to me, and one slim leg pressed against mine. “What I’m saying, silly, is that I want to go there with you.”

I gulped. “You do?”

What did she mean by this? Was she saying she wanted to have sex? With me? Oh God, I hoped she was. I wouldn’t turn her down. Not Laine Phillips. Not after those kisses. Not on prom night.

No way.

“Sure.” She squeezed my hand. “We can order room service and charge it to their credit card. Revenge.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said, still hardly daring to believe this was happening. “I’ll get the car.”

I
drove the BMW like a crazed meth head.

The Cincinnatian Hotel was only about a seven-minute drive from The Syndicate, but the car couldn’t take us there fast enough. My hand shook on the steering wheel as we hit every single red light during the small trek from Newport to downtown. Laine just laughed and turned up the radio. Justin Timberlake screamed about being high on a pusher love girl. For once I knew what he meant, because Laine, her perfume, and the faint smell of salty grease in her hair made me feel high. She laughed every time we stopped at a light, and I held my breath on the ride until I saw the grand old hotel. Maybe she wouldn’t back out of this after all.

With a long sigh, I pulled the car up to the valet stand, got out, and tossed the keys at the barrel-chested old man wearing a red porter’s cap and brown jacket with gold buttons. I did my best to wear a stony, suave expression as I opened the passenger door, and ushered Laine into the lobby of the hotel. I didn’t want anyone asking what the hell we were doing there, even though I asked myself that about thousand times on the drive over.

I didn’t breathe again until the elevator doors closed.

“Nice moves.” She laughed. “I’ve actually never been to this hotel before.”

“Me either.”

All I knew was that Mom and David came here after their wedding. Gross. Not the mental image I needed to have right then.

Room 203 had a king-sized bed, a large flat screen TV on the wall, a small desk, mini-bar, and love seat. The lights on the nightstands clicked on when the door opened. The room also had the largest bathroom I’d ever seen in a hotel with two sinks, a wide Jacuzzi tub, and a separate shower made of glass.

My breath hitched when she closed the room door behind us. I was standing in a hotel room, all alone with Laine Phillips, and she wanted to be here with a sucker like me. This wasn’t happening.

Was it?

A thousand questions rumbled around in my head. Would I wake up any time soon? Would we fuck? Would she want me to make love to her? Did I know how to make love? What if I wasn’t any good? What if I came too early? What if she hated the way I looked naked? What the hell was someone like me doing with a girl like her? What if she didn’t want sex at all? What if she laughed at me once I took my clothes off?

“So, ugh—what do you want to do?” I staggered around in my head, trying to figure out what to say, and willing my dick to stay in line. I didn’t want to get prematurely hard. Well, I sort of didn’t, and I sort of did. My fucking hormones danced up and down my spine, and then they dueled in my stomach. I worried I might not be able to keep them in check, either.

She plopped down on the white bedspread, and the puffy crinoline skirt of her dress fanned out around her like a black sunflower. I didn’t know if I should sit down next to her, so I picked the love seat that faced her.

“So.”

“So,” I repeated. “Um. This is a nice room.”

She glanced around. “Yeah. It’s not bad. Evan has good taste sometimes.”

“So, what do you want to do?”

“I think SNL is on,” she said. She grabbed the large black remote off the table. “And I think it’s a new one.” She pressed a button, and the TV flipped on to WLWT, the local NBC station that was just finishing its newscast for the night. She tossed the remote on the bed and kicked of her tan snakeskin shoes. “Gosh, it feels good to get out of those.”

“Yeah, they don’t look comfortable,” I said, hoping I didn’t have stinky feet as I slipped off my own black dress shoes.

“Oh this is a new one,” she said, as the SNL opening sketch came on the TV. She patted the spot next to her. “Why don’t you join me? We can watch it together.”

Like anyone would turn that invitation down.

“Okay. Um. Do you want something to drink from the mini bar?”

“Sure. Make it good.”

“How good?”

“Surprise me.”

I opened up the fridge next to the love seat and found two cold cans of Diet Coke next to a couple of bottles of bourbon and vodka. While the monologue played, I dumped them together into two plastic cups. She laughed every few seconds at something the actors said, and each time I fell in love with her a tiny bit more. By the time the host stepped out on stage to warm up the audience, I wanted to marry her.

Okay, maybe not marry. Maybe get a tattoo with her name in cursive across my ankle. Something permanent, like that. Anything to make sure I would never forget her.

“Ohhhhhh, I love the SNL digital shorts,” she said, as I handed her a cup. “I hope they have one tonight.”

Laine stretched her legs out on the bed, and leaned her back against the headboard. I mimicked her, and we sat in silence for a while, watching the sketches and laughing, the fan from the air conditioner the only other sound in the room. As we sat there, I tried not to spit out the drink the few times I sipped it. It tasted like cough medicine. I shouldn’t have been so liberal with the bourbon.

“You like a strong drink, don’t you?” she said, during a commercial for Skyline Chili. “A really strong drink.”

“Hey, you said to make it good.”

“I know, but that’s really—it’s really, strong.” She set it on the bedside table, and turned to me. “Are you nervous, Geoff?”

“Nervous?”

“We’re alone in a hotel room. That would make some people nervous.”

“No.” I glanced down at my cup, and my hands shook. “Yes.”

“Okay. Me too.” She leaned over and took the cup from me, placing it next to hers. “Thanks for rescuing me, by the way.”

“I didn’t rescue you, Laine.”

“Well, you were the only one who checked on me out there.” She closed her eyes, and her head fell back against the headboard. “All my friends were there. All of them, and none of them noticed anything. God, some friends, huh?”

“Maybe they did notice,” I lied. “Maybe they didn’t know what to do.”

“Still. Some friends.”

I studied her as the lights from the TV fell on her face. It didn’t look like Evan’s hand had left a mark on her cheek, and only the barest bit of a mascara streak remained near her left eyelid. Even after a hard cry, her puffy face seemed angelic and vulnerable. She was like a broken but beautiful Christmas present, and she was with me. Me. Geoffrey Paul Miller.

Time to man up, and seize the moment.

I leaned in and brushed my lips against the dip underneath her left eye. When she responded, I planted a trail of kisses down her cheek, and to her lips. My lips softly pressed against hers, and I tasted that familiar bubble gum. It had an almost comforting scent, and my hand found its favorite place on the back of her neck, at the base of her up do.

“Don’t stop kissing me,” she said against my mouth. “You’re a good kisser.”

I grew bolder with her words. My kisses turned urgent, and my tongue cut a path into her mouth, where it twisted with hers. She held onto my shirt, and before I knew it, I was hard and desperate, but I didn’t know what to do about it. She must have sensed it, because she popped a few of the buttons on my shirt before she slid further down on to the bed.

“It’s okay, Geoff.” She sounded out of breath. “I want this.”

“You do?”

I held my head above hers, and our eyes locked. If we were going to stop this, we had to stop it right then. I held my breath for another beat. If she stopped this, it wouldn’t be the worst thing that ever happened to me. I might even laugh about it later. When I was fifty. And drunk. After about $50,000 worth of therapy.

Laine reached up and drew her finger down my jaw line, not taking her eyes off mine. “You have a nice jaw. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Nope.”

“You’re really kinda handsome.. I like your sandy hair.”

“My mom says I got it from my dad.”

Her other hand reached up and found the hidden zipper on the side of her dress. I heard the twist of metal as she slid it open, and, in that moment, there couldn’t have been a sweeter sound in the world. I knew I should take whatever happened next as slow as I could. I should, I should, I should . . .

“This is happening, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m glad it’s happening with you.”

I kissed Laine again, and she guided my hand to the opening of the dress. I shivered when my hand touched her side, curving into the flesh beneath her armpit, centimeters from her breast. I kissed her out of sheer terror, scared to death she would notice how fast my heart pounded, and feel the sweat I knew had formed on the back of my neck. I kissed her out of desperation. And I kissed her because I knew nothing after that night would ever be the same.

After a few moments, she resumed unbuttoning my shirt, and when she opened the last one I could take it no longer. Neither could she. We pulled apart from each other so I could slip out of my shirt, and she pulled off her dress, returning to me in a pair of black pasties and black underwear. She popped the button on my pants and I gasped, knowing this was the moment of no return. I reached a tentative hand out and cupped her now free breast, my hand caressing a mix of silicone pasty and warm, tender flesh.

This was better than anything I had ever imagined, all the times I’d looked at Internet porn late at night on the computer. Not just better. Intimate. More subtle. And live.