Chapter 9 Dustin
DUSTIN
Six hours and thirteen minutes into marriage.
I blinked my eyes open on the bed as light sneaked in through the curtains.
Of the shower.
Because I had fallen asleep in the tub.
Made sense. This was Vegas, after all.
Thirsty was the first word that crossed my mind as I came to consciousness. I wasn’t a stranger to a solid hangover, but this morning, even my aches ached. After taking a few deep breaths, I propped myself up on my elbows in the bathtub.
How did I get here?
And why was I naked?
I wasn’t the first guy to ask these questions after a night in Las Vegas, and I wouldn’t be the last. But that thought didn’t do much to comfort me at the moment. I cleared my throat, and I thought I probably sounded more like a bear than a human.
As I opened the door, I froze at what I saw.
There was a beautiful brunette with olive skin pacing the penthouse. As she came into focus, my stomach knotted and I flexed my jaw. My head pounded, but the night came flooding back to me as the ring on my left hand came into focus.
Dear God, please send the brain cells I lost last night to some poor kid who needs them. Amen.
“Morning,” I said, and the word vibrated in my throat sounding like I was some blues singer with a freakishly deep voice. “I fell asleep in the tub at some point last night,” I pointed out.
Because you’re my wife and we tell each other everything.
“Oh,” she replied, holding her arm in front of her nipples to shield her breasts from me.
I tilted my head in surprise. “Are you . . . covering your tits?”
Her eyes darted away from me. “Yes. I can’t find my bra. Have you seen it?”
“Wow. I thought you’d at least be less of a prude as a wife. I guess Sober You is not a reflection of Drunk You.”
Her jaw fell open, and I saw her half-naked body quiver. “Did you just say ‘as a wife?’”
“Yep. Until till death do us part . . . or something like that. I’m not sure the exact vows we exchanged last night.”
Holy shit does she not remember what happened last night?
Slowly, she raised her left hand to her eye level.
I stepped toward her and gripped her hand. “Is it big enough for you?” I asked.
“Is what big enough?” she came back with, which surprised me.
“The ring, silly. What else would you be think . . . oh.” I shook my head. “I see.”
She tore her hand away and stepped back. “This . . . did we really get hitched?”
“You seriously don’t remember?” I asked, genuinely curious.
She shook her head. “It’s coming back to me, now. Or I don’t want to believe it’s true. Some combination of those two.”
I chuckled. “Yes, our marriage is real. Are you ready for the happily ever after?”
“Dear God, what have I done?” she asked. “You don’t even remember my name.”
I smiled. “Yes, I do. It’s something . . . something with a D. Dulce, maybe?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I am, actually. Doctor Vidal. How could I forget you are my special little KCB—Kit Cat Bar? Besides, we’re not even a one night stand. We’re a two-night stand.”
“Somehow, that’s not comforting. And you are not shortening me to an acronym.”
There was something pretty cute about how she was still covering her breasts like we were in the Garden of Eden. “You seem really shaken up. Do you want to get an annulment?”
She visibly tensed, not making eye contact with me, still glancing around for her clothes.
“My Irish Catholic grandmother is sick in her grave right now. First a shotgun wedding, then an annulment in less than twenty-four hours.”
I cringed. A marriage was one tick in my favor for not being traded. A divorce was not. My master plan was underway, but we needed to stick to it.
“But,” I reasoned, “She is pretty happy with us that we waited until marriage to have sex, I bet.”
She didn’t seem amused.
I smiled. Anything to stay on the team. I realized this plan was a little crazy.
But in my experience, for a plan to work it had to be a little out there.
Or else your enemies would see it coming.
The world, which seemed to be aligning against me, would not see it coming that I married a sweet, caring doctor. Plus, I would help her out, too.
Reaching to my nightstand, I plugged in my phone, which had died last night.
Then my eyes caught a piece of clothing under one of the pillows. I pulled it out. It was a bra.
“Looking for this?” I asked, waving it in the air.
She nodded and walked over to me, ready to take it.
I held it away from her, teasing her. “Though I’m not sure what you have to be ashamed about.”
Her cheeks flushed red. “I’m not ashamed of anything. But I have to give a speech today, meet with people, and I don’t want to give the wrong—braless—impression to my coworkers.”
I took a deep breath and stared at her. God, she was gorgeous. I’d known her less than forty-eight hours and I knew what she tasted like. I already knew what her ass felt like pressed against my hips and what her lips felt like on my lips.
So, in other words, we had a great base with all the ingredients for a wonderful, longevous marriage. Of six months or so.
My grandfather had once told me that those things weren’t important—that a man should make sure he found a woman with compatible values. Staring at Cat right now, I wondered if maybe my grandfather had it all wrong.
“Cut it out, Dustin,” she said between breaths. She leaned forward, trying to reach across the bed to grab her bra, and she found herself, naked, on top of my own naked body.
When her hot flesh touched mine, I was instantly turned on. The response was Pavlovian. She recovered to straddle me, trying to grab the bra.
“This isn’t funny, Dustin,” she said, grabbing my forearm and trying to pry my fingers open. I smiled. This was just too easy. “Let go,” she breathed, softer now.
My cock could feel the heat emanating from between her legs. “This isn’t . . .” She lost her train of thought at the end of the phrase, and I saw her expression change from angry to pouty to sultry. She licked her lips and grabbed the base of my cock.
“This isn’t fair,” she muttered.
“What’s not fair, sweetheart?”
“Don’t call me sweetheart.”
“Would you rather I called you my little plaything, KCB?”
“Just. . . oh wow.”
It was as if there was a battle going on in her head.
We were sober now. Well, sober-er. But we were still married. And neither of us could deny the insane chemistry we had together, marriage or no marriage.
I reached up and wrapped my hand around the left side of her head, massaging her cheek with my thumb.
“I’m pretty sure it’s fine for a wife to admit she enjoys fucking her husband.”
She swallowed and shook her head. “Such a dick.”
I smirked. “What did you say? I couldn’t hear you. Did you just comment I have such a good dick? By the way, condoms are over there,” I pointed.
“I’m on the pill,” she said.
“You trust me now?”
“It’s the weirdest thing. Yes. I do.”
“Fuck me that’s hot.”
“And I said, you’re a dick,” she moaned, and I felt my spine tingle.
She tried to throw in another snide comment, but she finished positioning herself on the head of my now rock-hard cock, and whatever was on the tip of her tongue evaporated as she slid onto me.
I watched her lips and her half-lidded eyes as she came down on me again and again.
I felt the heat pool between my legs as she got ready to straddle me.
She rubbed against me and put up a fake struggle like she wanted to stay on top, but as soon as she was on her back, she pushed her hands into the head of the bed so that I wouldn’t thrust her head into the wall.
We rocked together, and this time was different.
Making love in the morning was always different from the nighttime.
I usually didn’t like it in the daytime, to be honest. But as she wrapped her legs around my thighs and I looked into her eyes, I liked this.
A lot. I felt her clench and moan as she came, and I pulled out and shuddered as I came all over her chest. As we sat there, chests heaving, she stared at me.
“Is this just going to be . . . all the time, like this?” she asked.
I shrugged, wiping the sweat from my brow. “Like what?”
“This is just like, a lot of sex.”
“You can’t handle it?”
She rolled her eyes. “Also, why’d you come on my chest?” she asked.
I shrugged, wiping the sweat from my brow.
“You don’t like tit? I mean, it?”
She rolled her eyes, then grabbed her bra that was hanging on the back of the bed frame.
“My husband comes inside me,” she said. Getting up, she went and jumped in the shower.
I pressed and held the button to turn my phone on, and it buzzed with what seemed like a hundred messages. My eyes bulged out of my head.
Crazy video last night! #legendary
My grandmother had even called me.
Fuck.
That’s when I remembered: Catarina and I had snapchatted last night. But she only had a few dozen followers. And I was pretty sure she only sent people direct video messages and didn’t put things on her story.
I clicked a link that one of my teammates showed me. It was a video from inside Freddie’s Walk-In Chapel.
My insides curled.
“Hey Cat!” I yelled. She came out of the shower with her hair up in a towel. “I think you’re going to want to see this.”
A towel wrapped around her midsection, she padded over to me on the bed.
I held up the phone so she could see.
She gasped and put a hand over her mouth. “Is that . . . ?”
“TMZ dot com! Freddie’s somehow leaked the video. Already.”
She sat down next to me on the bed, and I noticed she smelled like some sort of fresh fruit. I sniffed her. “Is that pineapple?”
“It’s kiwi. Quite a selection you had in there.
” she said, not taking her eyes off the screen as she scrolled through the article.
She read aloud. “Catarina and Dustin, according to the information from one TMZ insider, have known each other for ten years. They met in college. Neither could be reached for comment.”
“When did we make up that story about meeting in college?”
“Maybe last night when we were at the casino?”