Chapter 12 Felicity
Felicity
You know what? As much as I pushed back on staying in this hideous honeymoon suite, the—what did Cupid call them?—digs are pretty nice. It’s bigger than my one-bedroom apartment, and way fancier. I’m even starting to get used to the ugly carpeting…but that could be the champagne talking.
While unpacking my bags, Cupid noticed that I was, quite literally, shaking with nerves.
I couldn’t hold in the anxiety any longer—tomorrow I have to stand in front of a room of my peers and talk about my work.
Even though I know it by heart and I’m confident in my work and experience, it doesn’t make the stage fright any easier.
I know it’ll be even more taxing because I’ll be one of just a few women in the room.
I personally know plenty of badass women software engineers in San Francisco who build brilliant products—but this world is still a boys’ club.
I have to know my shit backwards and forwards, no mistakes, or risk some asshat immediately discounting my expertise and calling my experience into question. So, yeah. I’m a little tense.
Usually, when I’m alone and stressing out, I grab my yoga mat and lose myself in a flow. But here, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to get into downward-facing dog in front of Cupid. And I don’t know if that’s because of how I think he’ll react…or because it might give me ideas.
Instead, I rambled, and Cupid listened intently to my word vomit, nodding along and making sympathetic hmms and ahhhs in all the right places. Then he popped the complimentary bottle of champagne and handed me a full glass.
Since then, we have spent the rest of the evening splayed out on the bed covers with our room service order (because I’m too high-strung to be around the general public), plus another bottle of champagne: “On the house for the newlyweds”.
We talk about nothing and everything. It’s the perfect distraction.
I feel light. Giggly and easy-going—so unlike my usual self. This day that started so weird has ended up being pretty wonderful. I know, begrudgingly, this is thanks to Cupid’s company.
After eating dinner and polishing off not one, but two, bottles of bubbly, my nerves have all but dissipated.
In their place, I feel a buzz—more than the alcohol or the flutter of butterflies low in my belly.
A crackling undercurrent runs just beneath the surface of my skin.
I wonder again: is this the arrow, finally taking over?
For a moment, I think of asking Cupid. But I lose my nerve, afraid it could burst the comfortable bubble we’ve created here.
We face each other on the bed, heads propped on hands. Casual, comfortable. Cupid just told a joke that almost made me do a spit-take, and his cheeks are pink from laughter, and the crinkles around his eyes accentuate his smile.
I spent most of the day trying not to notice how beautiful he is; now I can’t do anything but notice.
His handsome face, the line of his body, the warmth of him draw me in.
Slowly throughout the evening, we have drawn closer on the bed: two magnets of opposite poles, pulled together by an invisible force. An inevitable attraction.
With him so close, and with me so serene in his presence, I trick myself into believing I can reveal anything. I’m safe in this pocket just outside of reality.
And, of course, there’s the arrow.
More than an inconvenience in this moment, the knowledge of the arrow is a balm. Because it’s an excuse for what I’m about to do. My get out of jail free card: functioning under the influence of Cupid’s arrow.
So with that flimsy justification locked and loaded, I leap feet-first.
“Don’t you want to know what I was dreaming about?” My eyelids flutter as I speak the words aloud, not daring to land on Cupid until they’ve fully escaped by mouth. “Earlier, in the car?”
Cupid’s throat works, and my eyes follow the bob of his Adam’s apple. “I didn’t think it was any of my business,” he says in a low voice.
“Really?” I ask.
He nods once.
“Would it change things if I told you that you were in the dream?”
Cupid blinks at me. “I suppose,” he rolls over onto his back and tucks his arms behind his head, “in that case, it would be my business.” He keeps his line of sight trained on the ceiling.
“So…” I copy his movements, settling back onto the soft mattress, looking up rather than directly at him. “Would you like to know?”
Once again, he gives a single nod—an action I catch only in the corner of my eye.
“I dreamed I was asleep in the passenger seat…and you woke me up—” I swallow before continuing. “You woke me up with your hand on my thigh, like this.”
I glance at Cupid. His head is turned toward me, eyes glued to my hand gliding up my leg. The rest of him is stock-still—even his chest doesn’t move, as if he’s holding his breath.
“And this.” My hand travels to the outside of my thigh, following the curve of my hip and stopping at the crease where hip meets thigh. “Then you let your fingers play at the edge of my panties—”
I undo the zipper on my pants and wiggle them down, revealing the soft, lacy fabric underneath. “Just like this.”
My fingers dance across the lace, dipping beneath the elastic and brushing lightly against my clit. I hover there for a moment, nearly forgetting myself as I trace mindless circles where I’m most sensitive.
When I hear Cupid’s soft intake of breath, I let my legs fall open wider.
Breathily, I go on: “But it wasn’t enough.” My hips tilt to get a better angle. “So you slid a finger in, like this.” And I slip a finger into my entrance, arching into the action.
I’m vaguely aware of the rustle of fabric and squeak of the bed frame, but I’m too absorbed in my fantasy to give it any thought—until I feel the mattress sink beside me.
My eyes flicker open. Cupid is kneeling by my left hip, gaze drinking me in as I slowly fuck myself. His eyes are molten lava; my skin burns beneath him.
“Like this?” he rasps, slipping a hand under the delicate fabric, pressing it firmly against my own. Cupid’s touch forces me to apply a new level of pressure, and I moan at the increased sensation.
“Almost,” I whisper, placing my other hand on top of his. “But more like this—” And then I’m slipping my own finger out of my wet cunt and guiding his to my entrance. He presses his other hand lightly to my lower belly, holding me there as he pumps his fingers in and out at a leisurely pace.
I lightly grip his wrist, not fully ready to give up control of this moment. Cupid follows my lead. My eyes flutter closed as I fade into the sensations and let myself lose the last of my inhibitions.
After several moments, the mattress shifts again, and I feel hot breath against my ear. “Tell me, Love—” Cupid whispers, “did I make you come in your dream?”
“No,” I rasp. “I woke up first.”
He hums low in his throat. “Well, that’s absolutely my business. It’s a personal policy to never leave someone unsatisfied.”
At this, his thumb begins circling my clit.
My body responds to the added pleasure by tilting my hips further.
My hand falls away from his wrist completely.
I reach behind my head, trying to grip a pillow, the sheets, the headboard, anything to find purchase.
And then he’s abandoning his thumb for the heel of his hand, wrist curled and palm grinding against me.
I’m sensitive; so sensitive. Part of me needs the friction, needs the orgasm that’s quickly building—but another part of me is trying to retreat, some hidden instinct that doesn’t know what to do with this much pleasure.
“No you don’t,” Cupid grunts, barring his forearm against my hips to keep me in place. “Finish what you started.”
“Okay,” I say. “Okay.”
My fingers flex, head rolling to the side, pressing my mouth into the soft flesh of my inner arm. Grounding myself as I arch my back and take what Cupid’s giving me—letting him fuck me with his fingers, and fucking his fingers in equal measure.
And then, with an urgency I couldn’t stop if I tried, my orgasm spasms through me, skin stinging as I bite my arm to stifle the groan.
Slowly, tenderly, Cupid removes his hand, cupping my pussy and lingering for several seconds.
With half-lidded eyes, I peer down my body and watch.
My eyes follow his hand as he lifts it from between my thighs and holds it up in front of his face.
I can see, vaguely, my wetness shining in the low light of the hotel.
He shifts his hand back and forth, studying them, before taking them in his mouth and sucking them clean.
It’s at this point that I realize he’s still fully clothed, and so I am—if you count pants peeled to mid-thigh as being dressed.
I reach for him, loose-limbed, and run my fingers over the fly of his jeans. There’s a question on my face: You, too?
He looks at me with half-upturned lips. “Too late,” he says, guiding my hand an inch lower, where I feel traces of sticky warmth on the fabric. “You should have seen yourself. You would have come in your pants, too.”
The statement catches me off guard and rouses a laugh out of me. Once again, Cupid knows just what to say to ease the tension.
“I see myself all the time,” I say as I lift myself onto my elbows.
“Not like I do,” he responds.
And I don’t know what to say to that. So I do what I do best: run away.
I shimmy awkwardly back into my pants, slither off the bed, and pad to the bathroom. Inside, I lock the door behind me and press my back to the cool wood as I regain my senses.
That was bad. Bad, bad, bad.
I mean, it was good. Not just good. Great.
But the intimacy of it, the vulnerability—that was bad. I let my guard down.
This has to be the last time, arrow excuse be damned. Only two days and some change to go before I win this bet, and my life can go back to its deity-free normal.
I twist the shower faucet to near-scalding temperatures and stand under the stream of water until the air in the bathroom is as foggy and waterlogged as my brain.
When I finally leave the hazy fortress I’ve created—away from Cupid, away from temptation, away from my own embarrassment—the room is dark and quiet.
I tiptoe across the plush carpet and slip under the covers, as close to the edge of the bed as I can get, and lie on my side so only my back is facing him.
I feel the weight of the bed shift, and I hold my breath. Please don’t make me confront this. Please, not right now.
Instead, I hear Cupid shuffle around the huge four-poster.
I’m still holding my breath when his touch ghosts lightly across the spot where my legs are curled up under the covers.
Without a word, he makes his way to the bathroom.
I watch him—hair messy and clothes rumpled—as he shuts the door, taking the light with him. My eyes squeeze shut as I exhale.
If I play my cards right, I can avoid Cupid for the next however many hours. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do. It’s Vegas after all.
Isn’t it a rule of thumb that you’re not supposed to show your cards?