18. Jeanie
18 /
jeanie
Capri-Sun Ass
I’m not sure if my butt has been reshaped by my fanny facial, but it is smoother and smells like a fruity box drink which is nice in an elementary school lunch kind of way.
When I return to my hotel room, I’m relieved to find Nathan is out. I need time to build a list of cohabitation rules. I also need to focus on wrecking a wedding, and not on the way Nathan makes me feel when he acts like he wants to possess me body and soul.
Still relaxed from the spa pampering, I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. All the rules I formulate amount to one overreaching theme: no touching behind closed doors. If I keep my distance, I can get through this. This settled, I close my eyes.
The next thing I know, there’s a waterfall of drool leaking from the corner of my mouth. Slowly waking from a nap, I wipe my chin and silently yawn.
From under my pillow cave and through blurry vision, I spot Nathan across the room. He tosses his earbuds and keycard on the dresser.
He’s a sweaty mess in a pair of shorts and a tank. Damp waves stick to his forehead like he just returned from a workout.
When he grasps the hem of his shirt and tugs it over his head, I stop breathing. Piece by piece, clothing drops to the floor as he undresses.
He curls forward to unlace his shoes and when he does, all the corded muscles on his back twist and ripple. He kicks off each shoe at the heel, flexing perfectly formed calf muscles. Glistening abs contract when he balances on one foot to remove one sock and then the other.
I never knew removing sweaty clothes could be so sexy and utterly engaging. So much so, I can’t even blink.
In the bathroom, he doesn’t close the door, and I don’t understand why. There’s no way he didn’t see me here, a massive lump under the covers. And with my mouth so dry, there’s a good chance I was snoring like a beached walrus when he arrived.
He drops his running shorts, and it’s all I can do to make myself look away. I manage to close my eyes for a split second before opening them again. I can’t help it. My curiosity wins out. Part of me wants to compare the everyday version of him to the sexy, bachelorette stripper version.
The sleepiness in my eyes magically clears to a laser focus. In my crosshairs, this perfect specimen of a man shapes his scruff at the bathroom mirror. Thankfully, he’s wearing gray boxer jocks. And thankfully, they leave nothing to the imagination. His large package bulges in what I suspect is sleep mode. God help the woman who chooses to face it in its waking state. My core ignites at the thought of the challenge.
I’ve only ever seen a body like his in men’s underwear or fitness advertisements. Stocky Roman rocked the dad-bod even when he was young. In any form, Roman’s always been hot to me, but this? This is new and different.
Long ago, I concluded I had seen my first and last naked man. There would never be anyone else but Roman. Yet here I am, years later, ogling mostly naked man number two.
I clutch the comforter.
Nathan towels off his face and leans into the mirror. I’m waiting for him to shut the door and cut me off from his peep show. Instead, he begins to drag off his boxer jocks.
Too loudly, I suck in a breath. This time, I do close my eyes. Tight. The tightest tight they can possibly close. What I’m doing is wrong. Very wrong.
“I know you’re awake,” Nathan says from the bathroom.
I pretend to snore.
“Nice try.” He throws something soft in my direction. “You stopped breathing when I took off my shirt.”
When his voice nears, I sit upright, revealing myself from beneath the mounds of pillows. My hands completely cover my beet-red face .
“It’s not my fault you stripped in front of me,” I say into my cupped palms.
“I told you earlier I’d show you my T&A to make us even.”
I remain unmoved, my eyes hidden. Did he lure me?
“You can look. I’m ready,” he says.
My hands fall away, and I’m prepared to scold him for messing with me, but then I stop mid-word because he lied.
It is not safe.
Or did he say I’m ready ? I can’t remember. Regardless, nothing about this interaction is safe. If he were closer, I would immediately break the one and only rule I made for myself.
No touching.
In a beam of sunlight, Nathan reveals the sun, the moon, and his entire universe of godlike qualities. They’re unlike anything I’ve ever imagined. His hands latch on his hips as he stands at the foot of the bed—gloriously naked except for one very important part. And right now, that erect part is acting as a hanger for a hand towel embroidered with the hotel’s name.
I blink. Then blink again.
I try to speak but neither my brain nor my mouth can form words. I try hand gestures, but by all accounts, they signal nothing. Perhaps I should add no looking to my list of cohabitation rules?
True to form, Nathan uses the time to turn in a circle, his arms spread wide. He’s completely confident. My head retracts as my eyes widen at his profile. His member angles like a flagpole proudly flying his Adonis flag.
He pivots to reveal his bare and perfect ass.
“So, you’ve done the fanny facial a few times?” I angle my head and stare.
Nathan has muscles I didn’t know existed. Chiseled indents look like an artist molded them. Michelangelo’s David has nothing on him. In fact, if his ass were a book, some misguided soul might try to ban and then burn it. It’s that threatening.
“I need to look good for my job.” He makes his butt bounce one energetic cheek at a time.
I yelp with laughter and cover my mouth.
“Mission accomplished.” I nod into the shield of my hand while giving him a thumbs-up.
He turns to the front again, and my gaze drops to my twiddling thumbs.
“You’re a man of your word. Thank you for sharing. Though, I don’t think it was an even trade. You got this.” I gesture toward myself in sleepy mode with a wrinkled nose. “I got that.” I glance at his package with my eyes squinted and make a wax-on, wax-off gesture with my hand. “Nope. Not the same. Not even on the same continent.”
“Jeanie, in all seriousness, if you saw what I’m looking at right now, you’d know it was me who got the better deal.”
I look up in shock and find him strutting into the bathroom. He steps into the glass shower and turns on the water. I tilt my head with bewilderment.
Did he really say that ?
Curiosity pulls me like a cord from the bed, and I stop at the mirror to see what he saw. Glowing and rested is what I hope for. Instead, I’m mortified at the nest of tangled hair on top of my head and a rainbow smear of makeup. It’s left over from a test-run meeting with the wedding makeup artist. I harrumph.
He says nice things with such honesty, but how could this be anything else but getting life-coached? But let’s be real. At this point, I’m pretty sure he’s not changing his career path to make people’s lives better, at least not in the life-coaching way. Still, I’ve played along because I enjoy conspiring and hanging with him.
I like him. A lot. Too much.
I wash my face in the sink with freezing water and then forcefully brush my hair. Unsure what to do next, I awkwardly sit on the vanity, facing him. The glass inside the shower fogs up, allowing me to look in Nathan’s direction without feeling like a creeper.
“In this life-coach company you want to start, will you be,” I pause, looking for the right words, “this hands-on?”
“This is a bit of a special situation.” He faces me, soaping his Hercules-sized chest and grins.
“How so?” I test his commitment to his so-called life-changing career. How long will he pretend? Trying to act nonchalant, I pick a piece of lint from my top.
“I think what you need is a friend, not a coach. Isn’t that what friends do when someone they care about needs help?”
He cares about me? We’re friends?
Scoffing, I look his way. “Someone like you must have lots of friends and girlfriends, for that matter. Why bother with some random lady in Miami Beach?”
“The truth is, I don’t have a lot of close friends, and there hasn’t been a girlfriend for a long time.”
He holds his face under the stream of water and runs his hands through his drenched hair, slicking it back. The water flips off, and the door slides open.
I stare at the ceiling while he dries off his body and wraps his lower half in a fresh white towel.
“You’re not online very often, are you?” He passes me to stand in front of his suitcase, searching through his clothes.
I follow. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“It sounds conceited when I talk about this with someone.” He speaks cryptically as he swipes a deodorant stick under his sculpted armpit. Even his armpit is sexy.
“I don’t understand. You always sound conceited.”
“Confidence is different. I’m confident.”
I roll my hand as if to say get to the point .
He huffs. “I have a little bit of a following, okay?” He shrugs into a faded T-shirt.
“Are you trying to tell me you’re a famous stripper?”
“Exactly.” He faces the mirror above the dresser and rakes his hand through his hair. It settles in a beautiful anarchy of wet waves.
“Like, how famous?” I sink into the mattress and stare.
“A few million followers across my social media platforms, a substantial fan club, a website with paid content, a merchandise shop, an upcoming centerfold in Q Magazine , a few cameo appearances on cable shows, and if I’m lucky, the lead in an upcoming reality show. Nothing major.”
“A reality show?” I sit up straighter.
“It would be life-changing.” He stops primping to stare into space like he’s seeing his career skyrocket in his mind. “I’d tell you more, but it’s all hush-hush for now.”
“How do you go from that to life coaching?”
“Are we going to pretend you haven’t figured me out?” He gives me a look.
I’m busted. Or he’s busted. Or we’re both busted.
“Or you could say, ‘Hey, Jeanie, I love my stripper fame but it’s not my passion. I want to help people. I want to use the platform I’ve built to segue into my new business.’” I punch the air with fake moxie.
“We both know I would be the most crooked life coach in the history of life coaching.”
“You’ve helped me .” I grin.
“So, we continue the charade?”
I ignore his question and put myself in his shoes. My brain susses out the reason he might fib. An obvious answer presents itself.
“I get it. You’re a big deal in certain circles and you didn’t want me to go all woo-hoo, I’m in a room with someone famous on you.” I twinkle my fingers in the air. “So, you made up something. I’m not mad. I might have done it too.”
“Sure, let’s go with that.” He gives me a look like I’m overlooking the obvious answer.
“But what I don’t understand is why you’re being so blasé about your accomplishments now I know the truth, when you’re so smug about everything else? You’ve clearly done well for yourself. It’s impressive.”
“It’s complicated.” He turns away to dig out underwear and a pair of shorts from his bag.
“Do you think you suck at your job or something? Secretly, you have demons that make you dance for money. Your family will never accept your scalawag ways,” I tease.
“Definitely yes, to all of it. Especially my brother Dean. He’s a priest and doesn’t approve. But here’s the good news. I have a show downtown tonight. Why don’t you come with me, and I’ll show you how I dance with my demons.”
He drops his towel. A foot away, his bare cock sits at my eye level. I swallow, my mind blanking.
Nathan steps into a pair of boxer briefs. They’re a special pair for my enjoyment, or embarrassment, depending on how you look at it. His briefs are printed with a sparkly and frothy mango milkshake that covers his junk.