Switched (8 page)

Doyle lay down next to me. “Beautiful night. Lots of stars,” he said.

“I love stars,” I said.

“Not a lot of stars from where you’re from, right?”

“Chicago? Not downtown, but otherwise yes, if it’s a clear night. Have you ever been there?”

“Never been to the States,” he said.

“Oh, you’re one of those kinds of English.”

“What kind is that? Sexy? Smart?”

“The anti-American kind,” I said.

Doyle chuckled. “There ain’t no other kind, love.”

“I’m feeling much better. It must be the fresh air,” I said and then turned and threw up. It was the projectile kind of vomiting; a long stream of tequila, beer, and dinner shot out a good two feet, luckily for Doyle in the opposite direction of where he was sitting.

“Here,” he said, handing me a bottle of water. “Rinse and spit.”

“I might not be done.”

“I’ll wait,” he said.

We lay like that on the beach under the stars for a good hour while I threw up two more times. I drank Doyle’s bottle of water, and he helped me up.

“That was a fun night out,” I said. Our eyes locked in the moonlight, and my body flooded in warmth. “Gosh, you’re handsome.”

“I know.” He put his arm around my waist and sort of hoisted me off the beach and onto the boardwalk. I leaned into him because my legs were being uncooperative and not moving when I wanted.

“Not conventionally handsome. I’m used to much more handsome,” I added.

“Like the guy who dumped you?”

“Yes, he was really handsome. But you have more muscles. You have muscles everywhere. Where did you get all those muscles?”

“Marks and Spencer,” he said. “You have no muscles at all. Don’t you work out?”

“God no. Blech. I don’t like to sweat.”

“Good to know,” he said.

He half-carried me back to the café, leaned me up against his left hip, and unlocked the front door. Inside it was dark and quiet. He locked the door behind us.

“I’m not going to make love with you,” I announced.

Doyle didn’t turn around. “Because you don’t like to sweat?”

“Well yes, and also because I’m inebriated and you wouldn’t want to take advantage of me. And besides, I’m off men.”

Doyle got into my personal space, standing with our chests almost touching. He looked down at me, and I could smell his breath: testosterone and beer. Yum. “Firstly, you can be off men because I like being on top,” he said. “Secondly, I would love to take advantage of you, inebriated and all.”

And then he was kissing me.

It was the kind of kiss where the world spins around and you’re transported to another space and time, just like in
Star Trek,
but with a throbbing lower half and curled toes. I would have swallowed my tongue if he hadn’t captured it with his.

The kiss started off soft and sweet and grew deeper, more possessive. Isn’t it just typical that the moment you’ve decided no man will possess you, you invite a big hunky man to possess you in the most intimate way possible?

I didn’t care. It felt good. He felt good. And sometimes that was good enough.

My mouth opened, and I let him take me, taste me. I had to open myself to him in order to have him. And I really wanted him.

His arms slipped around my back and pulled me close. He was hard all over, and I was soft, and we became one right there in the dark quiet of the café, standing by the bar.

The kiss went on and on, but it wasn’t enough, and neither of us had any intention of stopping there. He stepped back, breaking our connection, and studied me. I ran a hand over my forehead. I was feverish from passion and need.

He was breathing hard, and my gesture seemed to incite him. He peeled off his T-shirt and stripped off his shoes and shorts. He was gulp and gasp and uh-oh, all in one giant naked perfection that made my insides hum like a fine race car or an old-fashioned radio trying to find the station.

“This is going to be dirty, nasty sex, isn’t it?” I asked him.

“With any luck.”

“We’ll probably need a condom.”

“Or three.”

He could have taught Criss Angel a thing or two because he had my clothes off me in the blink of an eye without my seeing his hands move.

He looked me up and down. “Yes,” he said with more than a note of appreciation in his voice.

And then he was kissing me again, but this time our entire bodies got into the act. Rubbing and writhing against each other, touching and caressing. His fingers trailed down my side, past my ribs and hips, winding around to my lower belly and lower still until they were rubbing the slick heat between my legs.

“You’re so ready,” he said.

“I have news for you. I was ready twenty minutes ago.”

He lifted me onto the bar and pushed me back so I was lying down. He raised my knees up and ran gentle hands down the insides of my thighs. He leaned down and kissed me and licked me. What a clever tongue, I thought. Not clever. Genius.

He rested his left hand on my lower abdomen and took his time tasting me and bringing me to a slow rolling climax, which made me levitate off the bar in a spasm that left me limp as a rag doll.

“Right, then,” he muttered. From somewhere he took a condom packet. I could hear him rip it open and then without further preamble, entered me in one swift motion, filling me completely. Whereas he was slow and methodical before, he now let himself go, spearing me with wild abandon. Retracting completely before entering me again. Root to tip.

Our bodies slapped together with force. As rough as he was, I wanted it rougher. My hips reached up to meet him. Stroke by stroke, we came together harder and harder. Doyle groaned, making an animalistic sound. His head snapped back and he came inside me, jerking violently.

In the aftermath, small ripples of ecstasy traveled up and down my body. Doyle moved slightly, but I wrapped my legs around him and gripped him to me.

“No,” I said. “Not yet. Stay inside me.”

He half-collapsed on top of me, taking most of his weight with his hand on the bar. His eyes were closed, and he breathed slowly and deeply. He felt right inside me, correct, as if it was the most normal thing in the world for me to walk around day-to-day with Doyle Wellington’s penis inside me. When you come across something new that you know absolutely should have always been with you in your life, it’s hard to let it go.

And he turned me on. There was no denying our chemistry. My nerve endings were alive, on fire. My pelvis began to rock back and forth on its own.

“Hold on,” he said. “If we’re going to make this happen again, I have to do a quick change.”

His fingers fumbled with another packet, and he carefully withdrew and replaced the condom. A moment later he was back inside me, gently rocking. I cupped his face with my hands, and our eyes locked.

“Are you comfortable there on the bar?” he asked me, concerned.

“Yes. Your penis distracted me from the bowl of peanuts in my back.”

“Don’t mess with those peanuts,” he said. “They’re honey-roasted. Expensive.”

He continued to rock gently with my legs wrapped around his middle. He kissed me lightly on the lips and then grazed a trail down the side of my neck. I gasped as my body went rigid and then relaxed. Doyle’s eyes never left my face. He studied my reaction to him and seemingly content with what he saw, he came for the second time that night.

“The others will be back any moment,” he said and lifted me off the bar. “I don’t want them to get the wrong impression.”

“That I like to be screwed on top of a bar?” I asked. But I figured he was referring to something else entirely. Perhaps he was worried that they would get the wrong impression of what exactly was happening between him and me. Or perhaps get the wrong impression of what he wanted. I was just the temporary girl, but it was his bar.

We got dressed in silence. Doyle turned on the light in the stairway, and I followed him upstairs.

“You can shower first,” he said and headed to the fridge for another beer.

I let the water run over me forever. “Well, how do you feel, Debra?” I asked myself under the shower. “Did doing the big nasty make you feel better?”

I came to the conclusion that it did. I wasn’t fooling myself, though. There was no love lost between Doyle and me. After all, I didn’t even know the man. We had shared very little conversation, and I knew nothing about him.

“I so have to call Stacy,” I said to the mirror.

I left the bathroom thoroughly scrubbed and wearing the outfit from the evening because I didn’t have anything else to wear, and I felt weird stealing more from the invisible Felicity.

Maisey was just outside the bathroom, blotto and hanging on the arm of a chubby German man about thirty years old. “Oh, you look much better!” she said to me. “If I didn’t know better I would say you had a sweet night.” She raised an eyebrow and gave Doyle a pointed look.

Doyle sighed. “You had to bring a bloke?” he asked her.

“Look who’s a kettle tonight,” she said, winking at me. “He was just going anyhow. Right?”

Her date seemed to have other ideas but one look at Doyle convinced him to leave. Soon Juan Carlos and Gunnar returned, as well. With the whole café family at home, we decided to turn out the lights and call it a night. I took two Advils and drank a glass of water to try and prevent my inevitable hangover. Doyle made no move to kiss me good night, and I was relieved he didn’t. Orgasms were great, but complicated ones were a bitch. I was very happy to keep everything nice and simple.

So it surprised me when I couldn’t sleep. I rolled around the bed, unable to relax, and my Ambien was in my luggage, which was I didn’t know where. I tried to blame my insomnia on the time change, but if I were honest with myself—and I tried really hard not to be honest with myself—I was upset that Doyle could just go to his bed and go to sleep as if nothing had happened between us. How could he sleep when I was in the other room, half naked and still trembling from our sexual encounter?

I kicked off the duvet and put the pillow over my face. What had I done? I had done the two-headed mambo with a muscle-bound restaurateur, and now I was suffering from rejection yet again. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t want a relationship with the guy. I only wanted him to want to have a relationship with me.

I checked the clock. 4:30 A.M. I was about to give up and find something to eat when my bedroom door creaked open. Standing in the doorway, outlined in the glow from the kitchen light, was Doyle.

“Psst. You awake?” he whispered.

“Huh? Wha?” I said, pretending he had woken me out of a deep sleep.

“Sorry,” he said. “I just wanted to tell you that I really enjoyed shagging the shit out of you.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“Okay, then,” he whispered. “’Night.” He closed the door with a soft click, and I was alone again in Felicity’s room.

Five seconds later I was fast asleep.

The next week went pretty smoothly. I didn’t stab anybody, and I almost learned how to take orders. Besides a few sidelong glances, it was business as usual between Doyle and me. That is, I would drop a fork on his foot, and he would stare into the distance. I would unintentionally call a German diner an ape wiener, and Doyle would sucker punch him before he could throw his schnitzel at me.

It was a pretty smooth working relationship, and there was no hint that we had done the big nasty on the bar while I was swimming up to my eyeballs in alcohol. We were mature and relaxed, and the situation made me very frustrated.

“You know,” I told him on my third day of work when he was making coffee. “Your vagina was in my penis.”

“What?” he exclaimed and jumped back, accidentally flinging two espresso-filled cups across the room to the floor.

I tapped the side of my head. “No. Strike that. Reverse it. I got confused. I mean, your penis was in my vagina.”

“I’ve never seen a baseball game, but this is called left field, right?” he asked, standing with wet espresso spots all over his
Bono Is God
T-shirt.

“It’s just that you act as if you forgot all about my vagina,” I said.

An English tourist walked by on his way to the bathroom. “I wouldn’t forget your vagina,” he said.

“Fuck off!” Doyle yelled and threw a towel at him, sending him scattering. “I didn’t forget about your vagina,” he told me. “It’s a very nice memory.”

“My vagina is not nice,” I said maybe too loudly because the cutlery clanking outside increased exponentially. “I mean, it’s fabulous,” I added in a whisper.

“Well—” Doyle started but was interrupted. Nataniel—my onetime neighbor—appeared out of nowhere. He was so mild-mannered he was almost invisible and snuck up on us without us noticing.

“Miss Gregory, I have found you,” he said, the picture of concern and gentle handsomeness. I had forgotten about him, too busy for the past few days with learning how to carry three plates at once. Besides, I had Felicity’s wardrobe at my disposal.

“Nataniel, it’s so nice to see you.”

“I went to your hotel, but they tell me you are not staying there?” he said like a question.

“No, I’m actually staying here.”

Nataniel looked around. “In the café?”

I didn’t want Nataniel to know that my credit cards were maxed out and that I was a jilted bride who made poor choices.

“Would you like a coffee?” I offered.

We sat at a table outside. “I’ve been waitressing in exchange for a room upstairs,” I explained.

Nataniel’s eyebrows knit together. “The mice are gone.”

Uh-huh. Sure. “There were a lot of mice, Nataniel.”

“Gone,” he repeated. “You could enjoy your holiday. I can take you there now.”

“Here are your coffees,” Doyle said, putting two espressos down on our table.

“Really?” I asked. “You’re bringing me coffee?”

“Doyle,” he said by way of introduction, ignoring me and shaking Nataniel’s hand. “Mr. . . . ?”

“Nataniel. Nice to meet you.”

“So, how do you know our Debra?” Doyle asked, leaning over Nataniel. He was imposing, tall and muscled, and I could have sworn he was flexing his biceps.