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FAULTY LOCKS AND POST-O SHOCKS

SHILOH

F ulton Cazzarelli just tongue-fucked my brains out.

That had to have been, hands down, the best orgasm I ever had. I barely had to direct him—he just…he just understood my body and knew what I needed. There was no awkwardness or discomfort. It was like he was a completely different person, no longer ruled by his inexperience or self-doubt. And if that’s the way he ravages me on the second night of our pseudo vacation, then I fear for the sake of my poor pussy. Girl hasn’t seen this much action in years.

Fulton lets me use the shower before him so he can clean up his mess, and I thank the Lord that the ceramic wall is sturdy enough to hold up my weak, feverish, half-liquefied body. My cunt’s sore, my thighs are embellished with rosettes of mauve hickeys, and my head throbs with a mixture of dehydration, overexertion, and salacious thoughts that would probably put me on some sort of watch list.

I lather shampoo in my tangled tresses, feeling the soap froth between my fingers. The cascade of water batters against my chest, and the plink of the pressurized stream against the tiles lulls me into a euphoric, half-awake state .

Droplets sluice down my body, washing away the evidence of arousal that had congealed over my inner thighs. With steam rapidly enveloping the bathroom, I watch through muddied vision as a dome of bubbles disappears into the floor. I run my hands over my curves—over the areas that Fulton marked—and a sense of unflappable pride materializes in my belly, undeterred by trivial work obligations or the delusional narrative that I don’t deserve to find love.

Even though I’ve only been in here for ten minutes, my separation anxiety is at an all-time high, and my heart is one temperamental bitch that needs to barnacle itself to Fulton’s side. But the longer I’m with him, the harder it is for me to keep this a strict Cabo-only relationship.

I don’t want this fairytale to end, but I have to be realistic. Where does Fulton fit into my world, and more importantly, where do I fit into his ? He’s the one percent, and I’m the lady at the grocery store who was holding up the line the other week because of the endless heaps of coupons I’d been hoarding.

After a thorough clean and a rather violent head shake to dispose of my depressing thoughts, I step out of the shower smelling freshly of grapefruit. When I venture outside, a pall of warm air precedes me, and Fulton’s chucking crumpled tissues into the garbage can. His back is facing me, and the sinew underneath his skin ripples when he twists to pick something up. God, he’s like a wet dream come to life. I also notice a hatching of nail marks on his right shoulder, but I keep my mouth shut.

Before I’m conscious enough to voice my presence, he turns around with a look that freezes my entire body—one that unfortunately starts with my nipples.

He plows a hand through his disheveled hair, groaning. “Jesus, Shi. How do you look good wearing just a towel?”

My cheeks flame. “I don’t have any makeup on.”

“You don’t need it. ”

Fulton abandons his spot cleaning and begins to stalk closer to me, which isn’t going to end well for my abused vagina or the state of this towel. He’s brawn and bulk rolled into one delicious package—a towering giant with a gravitational pull so strong that I’m about to be sucked into his orbit for the foreseeable future. His body didn’t sustain as much damage as mine did in… Windowgate …but there are areas of his skin dappled with redness from where I either used him as a foothold or carved my proverbial name into his flesh.

And not that I was looking there or anything, but his dick is… huge . Girthy, long, impressively manicured. He's not even hard! He’s just naturally packing heat down there, and the thought of letting his pocket rocket invade my garden of Eden has me cringing with phantom pain.

Before he can breach the lip zone, my chest hitches. “You’re not wearing any clothes.”

A fully cocked grin tilts the corners of his lips up, and he hypnotizes me with the bottomless brown of his eyes, still managing to inch closer without realizing the total world destruction he’s about to impose. “Am I distracting you?” he drawls.

My first instinct is to deny, deny, deny, but my traitorous stare drops almost immediately to his dick, and now my integrity is as flimsy as my jelly-like legs. Lust tramples me, drying the saliva in my mouth while the butterflies return with a vengeance.

The darkened glare in his eyes is loaded with desire, the twitch of his arm indicating that both of our nakedness seems to be an unresolvable problem.

Hesitancy colors my tone. “I…”

Fulton brushes his thumb over my cheek. “There’re no words to describe what you do to me, Sunshine. None. It doesn’t matter if you’re wearing clothes or not. You don’t just distract me—you’re under my fucking skin, okay? ”

Disbelief or an untimely joke perches on the tip of my tongue, but it never takes flight. There’s a knock at the door, followed by a deep voice that announces room service, and it redirects the interrogation lamp that was previously boring a hole into my skull.

Fulton lights up. “Oh, the food’s here. I ordered a little bit of everything while you were in the bathroom. Can you grab it? I’ll be in and out of the shower, and then we can eat together.”

I’m about to nod before Fulton darts forward to plant a kiss on my cheek, then races his bare ass into the bathroom with a holler of gratitude. With my brain half-melted from whatever sexy staring contest we were having, I walk over to the partition and glance out the peephole, making sure the coast is clear.

I wrench open the door to grant a small unloading space, then I start dragging the numerous dishes and trays stacked in the hallway into our room. Jesus. Fulton must’ve ordered the entire dinner menu.

As I begin stockpiling the goods, a thirst-quenching bottle of champagne sits just out of my reach, and I struggle to grab it without exposing myself to any of our floormates. Hand on my tits, a nice draft fluttering beneath the towel, I’m just out of the door’s radius.

“Stupid drink,” I mutter under my breath, launching myself further before making contact with the neck of the bottle, and I’m about to revel in my ah-ha moment when the unmistakable sound of a slam echoes behind me.

When I look back, the bottom of my towel’s been caught in the partition, and a squeal bursts out of me. No, no, no! Oh, no. Please. Not me. Not like this.

My cotton defense falls to the ground humiliatingly, baring my naked body for the entire world to see, and the fact that I’m on my hands and knees right now doesn’t make this look any better. Hyperventilating, I yank fruitlessly on one end of the towel while simultaneously keeping my lady bits hidden .

Oh my God. Am I going to get arrested for indecent exposure? I’ve never gone to jail before. I’m a good person! Do you know what they do to people like me in jail? I’m going to get shanked, and I have an irrational fear of getting stabbed!

The floor is unoccupied, but who knows when someone’s bound to step out of the elevator. I don’t have my phone with me, so I can’t call for help. I decide to try banging on the door to get Fulton’s attention, but the more incessant my hits become, the greater the chance of garnering unwanted attention. After the eighth desperate knock, I realize the possibility of Fulton hearing me over the running water and coming to my rescue is slim to none.

I’m naked and afraid.

I should’ve left the stupid champagne bottle. I should’ve put clothes on before going outside like a normal person. I’m going to kill myself. I’m going to swan dive off this floor in nothing but my birthday suit.

And then…it happens. The elevator dings.

AHHH!

I desert my towel, army-crawl toward the nearest piece of furniture that can serve as a shield, and pray that whoever is coming down the hall walks straight by my hiding place none the wiser.

I can’t believe this. I just had the best orgasm of my life, and now I’m squeezing myself behind an old, disgusting vending machine so I don’t accidentally flash someone. This is all Fulton’s fault. If I get out of this without traumatizing an innocent child, I’m going to strangle him. And not in the sexy way!

A medley of voices and the acoustics of footfalls grow louder from around the corner, and I’m covering my chest and privates like these strangers are going to use their superhuman X-ray vision to see through my grease-stained sanctuary.

Quivering from the cold and the imminent exposure, anxiety curdles in my stomach as I weather the eye of the storm that Fulton left me in. With bated breath, I wait until the conversation passes me and trails down the hall before sailing out of my hearing range completely.

Thank God .

Fulton can’t take that long of a shower, right? I’m sure he’ll be done soon, notice I’m missing, and come looking for me. I’ll be fine. All I have to do is just…stay here. And hope that the security cameras on this floor don’t work anymore.

So I overestimate Fulton’s shower tolerance, wait an embarrassingly long time with my knees glued to my chest, and try to conserve as much heat as possible while freezing my literal ass off.

“I shouldn’t have— hic —had that fifth martini,” a girl hiccups, the stumble of her gait as loud as landmines while she lumbers down the hallway.

“You just need to sleep it off,” a second female voice interjects, her inflection matching that of an exhausted parent trying to compromise with a rambunctious toddler.

“No, I need…ooh, I need that !”

A cold sweat breaks out over my nape, the thudding of her footsteps striking a chord of panic within me, and it’s not long before I feel the vending machine shake in response to the too-drunk-to-function beast trying to uproot it. I cringe, shrinking further into myself, bargaining with whatever omnipotent powers are watching over me to let her pass without uncovering my feeble body.

“Chocolate. I want…a lot of it,” she slurs, banging her fists a few times on the glass for good measure.

While I suffer in silence—trying to decide if I should bequeath this good Samaritan with a quest to get me back inside—my humiliation mutates into bone-deep relief when I hear those glorious, magic words.

“I have to bring something back for Hayes. He likes the— hic —Cool Ranch Doritos. ”

Hayes…as in Hayes Hollings? As in, Aeris’ fiancé?

Am I saved?

Unpurgeable trepidation constricts around my trachea, but since I’m hell-bent on making it back to the hotel room to kill Fulton, the words somehow waver out of me. “Aeris?” I ask timidly.

“Who said that? Are you talking to me through a camera in the vending machine? I’m not doing anything illegal, I swear!”

I palm my forehead, glancing down at the incriminating state of my nude body. My skin purses with goose bumps, and it doesn’t help that the still-wet strands of my hair produce a constant drip of water down my spine. “No, it’s Shiloh. I’m, uh, behind the vending machine. I need your help.”

“Shiloh?”

I’m expecting to see Aeris’ alcohol-flushed face peek around the corner, but instead, I’m greeted with Josie’s head of voluminous ringlets, her lips agape and eyes wide as she takes in my pathetic appearance. “Shiloh? Oh my God. Are you okay? What happened?”

When I harness the courage to show my face, a slew of giggles threatens my dignity and the waking state of the other inhabitants. Aeris gasps for air with tears in her eyes, even going as far as bending at the midsection to catch her breath.

I deadpan, “Yes. Let’s laugh at the girl who’s currently naked and hiding behind a vending machine because her roommate takes thirty-minute-long showers.”

She wheezes, grabs at her stomach, and flicks a tear off her waterline in an exaggerated fashion. “I’m sorry, I just—you…your coochie is out. Does the breeze feel good? Should I start going commando?”

Josie clucks her tongue, gunning her inebriated partner in crime down with a glare that could freeze hell over. “You have to excuse Aeris. Her cutoff was supposed to be three drinks.”

Swaying on her feet—in arguably worse condition than I am—Aeris shushes Josie with a finger to her lips, holding back what I hope is a swallow and not a gag. “I can drink as many have as I want! I can want as many drinks as I have!”

Josie recoils from Aeris, digs in her pocket for a handful of crumpled bills, and slaps them into the drunk girl’s palm as some sort of peace offering. “Aeris, you can get whatever you want, okay? I’m going to help Shiloh back to her room,” she says.

Aeris dissolves into a fit of happy squeals as she begins her tireless journey to buy every chocolate-coated thing in the vending machine. Meanwhile, Josie catalogs the embarrassment written on my face, and she averts her eyes while I break down our next plan of action.

“It’s the door with the champagne bottle in front of it,” I tell her, bearing a brutal gust of air-conditioning that grazes me like a bullet against tender flesh. I’m running out of extremities to cover up the necessary areas. If I contract an airborne STD from this hotel, I’m suing.

Aeris is on her fourth attempt trying to shove a wrinkled bill into the metal slot, and she kicks or hits the vending machine whenever it rejects her money with an ear-splitting screech. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she’s one hangry tantrum away from putting her hand through the glass and orphaning a bunch of helpless candy bars.

Josie, thankfully, understands the gravity of the situation because she’s quick to assault the hotel door with fists and non-PG insults. “Fulton Cazzarelli, open this door right now or I’ll shove my stiletto so far up your squeaky-clean ass that you’ll be able to taste it!”

The pounding never halts—each rap is closer to demolishing the partition, sure to intrigue some morbidly curious bystanders to the boisterous commotion on the third floor.

With leaden nerves settling in my belly—and dragging my center of gravity down to the earth’s molten core—I’m about to call for a ceasefire when Fulton finally opens the door, a towel slung low on his hips.

“Wha—”

I beeline for the room in a blurry streak, yelling an unintelligible “thanks” over my shoulder before slamming the door shut. Once I pick up my abandoned towel, I hurriedly cover myself, and then I let Fulton have it.

“You”—huff—“locked”—huff—“me”—huff—“out!” I scream, curling my knuckles into fists, the confusion infused in his features kickstarting a direct line of rage to the center of my heart. If he wasn’t so cute, his obliviousness would pluck the fraying threads of my patience.

“You were locked outside?”

“Yes, you prick! You were too busy lathering your man goods to hear me knocking and calling for help. I was”—I lower my voice to a hushed whisper, shame a bitter note on my tongue—“naked.”

“Naked?”

“Stuck to fend for myself behind a vending machine! It was humiliating.”

I’m expecting Fulton to drop to his knees and grovel for my forgiveness—maybe even kiss my feet—but he doesn’t do that. No, he chooses the idiot’s way out and chuckles at my partial meltdown, those megawatt dimples of his making it harder for me to stand my ground. It also doesn’t help that I can see the start of his V-line soar over the hem of his towel, leading up to that grid of stomach muscle that has my pussy forgetting all about his betrayal. Water droplets ribbon down his skin, coalescing into one rivulet that travels downward in a vertical line.

His lower lip is victim to a bite—whether it’s to stifle a laugh, I don’t know. “I’m sorry, Sunshine, I am. But you just…”

I cross my arms over my chest, but I probably look as intimidating as a kitten. “I just what ? ”

Fulton eats the distance between us, his large, hard-ridged, hulking frame dwarfing my small one, so close to me that my sex-fueled brain is considering taking my frustration out on him in a very different way. His heady gaze lingers on the triangle of my throat, and I get the overwhelming urge to kiss him with raw abandon, shed both of our towels, and engage in round two of the Orgasm Olympics.

“You just look too good right now,” he groans exasperatedly, adjusting his hips as discreetly as he can.

Resist, Shiloh, resist! You’re a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need a man to satisfy her needs, even though that man is nothing short of a hunk. Remember how he banished you to the vending machine with not even the clothes on your back? Make him pay. Make him beg. Give him the cold shoulder.

“I’m mad at you,” I growl, though with little vehemence.

I don’t think Fulton views me as a threat for a single second. All he does is snare me in his arms, pull my body flush against his front, and bend down slightly to brush the tips of our noses together.

“Can you at least be mad at me while I kiss you?”