Suite 269 Part 1

Suite 269.

Christine Zolendz.

Author's Note.

This wasn't supposed to become a book. This started as an exercise on how to write better s.e.x scenes and I have no clue how it changed from that, but it did. I surveyed a bunch of readers on Facebook and asked them (anonymously) what their favorite fantasies were-the things they wished they could tell their significant others but were too afraid too. I hope it makes you blush a little and wiggle around in your seat. I hope you enjoy it.

If you like this book, there are a bunch of great ways to help support authors like me-recommend the book to a friend, write a review, or share about your reading experience on Facebook and other social media. Make sure to sign up for my Newsletter so you'll be the first to know about my new releases and contests.

As always, thank you-thank you for all your support!

Come friend me on Facebook or visit my Facebook Author Page and stop by my Website to see more about me or just hang out! I'm also on Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest too!

XOXO.

~Chris.

This one is dedicated to Caramel Lattes.

Blushing.

First kisses.

And.

Tripping heart first into love.

1.

Lexa.

"I'm getting drunk, where you at?" @Kavon #SeeingDouble.

d.a.m.n it! My pink p.e.n.i.s-shaped water gun was almost out of water. Tossing it over to Mandy, she fumbled for it, and of course, missed the giant rubbery monster. It wobbled through the air, landed hard, bounced twice, and skidded across the dance floor. Everyone howled in drunken laughter. "You gotta fill up the b.a.l.l.s for me," I screamed in a fit of giggles. "It's all out of juice."

I couldn't believe those words came out of my mouth. I couldn't even believe I was there. It was all too surreal. Because right at that particular moment, it was closing in on midnight and an extremely hard, mostly naked stranger was humping my backside in hard, quick thrusts. A s.e.xy song thumped through the speakers, his quick movements matching the rhythm of the ba.s.s. A low, white, smoky mist rolled out across the floor; it tickled my throat, and sent icy chills up my arms. Okay, okay-maybe it wasn't from the mist, maybe it was from Mr. Jack P. Hammer.

Ordinarily, I'm not the kind of woman who gets herself into these sorts of predicaments. No, not me, I'm pretty much an easily embarra.s.sed, one-man, only-in-a-bed, lights off, average kind of girl. I may talk the talk, but I'm too d.a.m.ned chicken to walk the walk. However, this night was a bride-to-be's rite of pa.s.sage, and it definitely called for a stripper. Pardon me, strippers; there was a definite need for more than one.

Luckily, we were surrounded.

Let's see. There was the cowboy, gangster, soldier, cop, and superman. Oh, and the guy trying to jackhammer his screwdriver into me was a construction worker.

So, there I was in the middle of them wearing the obligatory bride's tiara with glow in the dark rubber p.e.n.i.ses jutting out of my head like a pair of horns. Literally, I was in the middle of them, getting shoved into a chair decorated like a throne with the entire club of salivating woman watching. Women, from all lifestyles, grabbing hungrily at the dancers, while money flew up to the overhead rainbow-colored disco lights. The music kicked up faster and the MC was announcing yet another dancer; some other poor bride-to-be was going to be getting dry humped alongside me. A handful of desperate middle-aged women shrieked in the corner, wads of singles in their hands, as Thor the G.o.d of Thunderf.u.c.ks came out dancing.

Then Mandy was back, dancing across the floor, waving my p.e.n.i.s above her head and thrusting it into my chest. She flopped past my stripper and giggled. "Here you go, can never have enough c.o.c.ks if you ask me," and pinned a corsage of rubbery, bouncing p.e.n.i.ses to my shirt. A shirt that was all wrinkled because Jack Hammer was half octopus, hands all over as if he owned me. I shot my p.e.n.i.s water gun at him but he kept on humping. I guess that only worked on dogs.

Behind the bar, bartenders dressed like s.e.x slaves, all leathered, laced, collared, and spiked, mixed drinks. They whirled and danced, pouring without missing a gla.s.s; it was mesmerizing, hypnotic. Everything seemed shiny and dreamlike and the volume of alcohol I drank made everything look as if it were melting; the colored strobe lights bled into the crowds of people, blanketing them with strange dancing shadows. The temperature of the room rose higher, thicker, and humid. My dancer-the one sliding his groin all across the back of my pants-was hotter than h.e.l.l and slick with sweat. Oh yes, a perfect male specimen: tall, chiseled body, blond hair, who-cares-what-color-eyes, and arms full of tattoos. As he grinded to the music, I wiggled a hand free and wiped the drool off the corner of my mouth. I covered my face from embarra.s.sment, cheeks scorched with flames.

Someone yanked my hands away. "Shhhtop blocking your face, how am I sssuppposed to take incriminating pictures?" Mandy squealed in laughter. Son of a b.i.t.c.h! Beads of sweat burst out across my upper lip and chest, a gush of fiery waves tumbled and rolled low in my stomach. My pulse raced, heart thudding in my chest. Oh, my G.o.d, I would just die if anyone saw pictures of this.

The music pounded faster. Confetti-like neon lights drew out a strange, erotic, almost primal feeling along my skin. Jack P. Hammer spun around me, hands grasping my shoulders, squeezing, kneading, and looked into my eyes. Brown...his eyes were brown. s.e.xy brown eyes that slowly crawled up and down my body unapologetically. One of those indecent looks that made you feel like you were the only woman in the room...a wolf and his prey. I melted into a wet puddle of stripper goo. That's probably the reason why strip club floors feel so sticky; the women melt from the heat, just liquefy from the s.e.xiness and end up stuck under a stranger's heels. It doesn't seem like the worst way to go, actually.

Arching one eyebrow, he c.o.c.ked his head to the side and slid his lips along my jaw, my neck. Oh, my G.o.d, were strippers supposed to do that? Where the heck were all my bridesmaids? My hands squeezed down hard on the arms of the chair. The band of my engagement ring clinked against the wood as I tried to gulp in air. It felt as if I was stealing a deep breath, someone else's, and I ended up coughing out a bunch of nervous giggles. Around us, the crowd went wild. I was completely flushed, drunker than I'd ever been, and there was a gorgeous man licking my face. And neck. And, oh G.o.d, he can't do that, can he?

Mandy's flushed face was next to mine instantly. "This guy is soooooo hawt. Do you see him?" He's freaking slathering his man stuff all over me, how could I not see him? Drunk as h.e.l.l, she couldn't focus on my eyes and her forehead knocked hard against mine. Suddenly, a loud slap erupted from behind her, causing her eyes to bulge out in shock...giant brown and white ringed saucers. Her lips burst into a perfectly shaped O. "Ohmyfreakingword! He just shhhhpanked me."

We slid off the chair in a heap of giggles, Mr. Hammer crawling on top of us, mock humping our laughing faces. This was all Mandy's fault. I blame everything on Mandy-taking me to a shabby little strip club and getting a face full of humping junk all night.

Mandy was a wild one.

If anything ever happens, everyone just looks to Mandy; she's always the one guilty of something. Everyone has one crazy friend like her; the one you really shouldn't take out in public, because when you do, someone is getting arrested. Although, at that particular moment, it was me thrusting a fistful of sticky dollar bills in a strange man's G-string thingy. This morning I would have never said my night would end like this.

The women in the crowded bar, all of them my friends, began screaming and clapping when the stripper grabbed onto my hand with its fistful of money and started grinding into it. Oh Lord, I didn't know they came in that size! My stomach muscles ached from giggling so much. Even my cheeks hurt from the constant laughter. My bones felt rubbery and numb.

All this insanity was because I was supposed to get married in three weeks. The thought made me smile and giggle more.

"Do you want a private dance?" the stripper's deep voice whispered into my ear, his lips warm and wet. Two strong hands slid up the back of my neck, the rest of his body gliding all around me so fast my drunken brain couldn't keep up with it. "Come to the VIP room with me, baby girl," he groaned, thrusting against me, "I got what you need."

This just got weird.

I laughed nervously, my voice struggling with my brain. Okay then, I think it's time to head on outta here, back to the hotel.

"Yessssh!" Mandy squealed, pointing a drunken, crooked finger at me. "He's got what you need," her eyes blinked spastically and her eyebrows arched up high. She completed the look with duck-shaped lips. "You get yourself in that Very Important People room and ride yourself a Hammer. Ish on me." She stumbled back, laughing.

"Nope. Not me. Not going to happen. No way."

"Yessshhh. You have to go and get the Hammer; it's all good. Go. Now. Shoo, shoo," Mandy slurred, shoving me towards the back rooms. Mr. Hammer grabbed onto my hand and pulled, leading me through the crowd and into a dark corner with a red glowing hallway attached to it. It looked like the gates of h.e.l.l.

The room spun around me, the thump-thump-thump of the music vibrating through the floor. I leaned back and yanked my hands away from him. It was easy to slide through the sweaty grip. "Um, no thank you," I yelped, breaking into a fit of nervous giggles. I couldn't do it. I couldn't go in a back room with a strange man three weeks before I was supposed to get married. Was he crazy? I backed away carefully onto the middle of the dance floor, my stilettos wobbly stilts underneath me. Disappointment flashed across Mr. Hammer's face.

I just couldn't do it.

Then I was airborne, hanging upside down, hair dangling towards the dirty floor while two new strippers mock-pose my body in various s.e.xual positions so far from anything I had ever remotely imagined could be s.e.xual positions.

From there, I watched as the Hammer pounded against another bride-to-be, who within the first five minutes, happily skipped towards the back VIP room with him. Wow.

Just wow. That took guts and probably a c.r.a.p load of douche. And, probably a medicine cabinet of antibiotics and creams a few days from now, but who was I to judge.

An hour later, the limo my bridesmaids rented for me dropped me off in front of my apartment, completely forgetting the plan was to go back to our hotel room at the Marriott downtown. I tumbled out of the car, sprawled out on the gra.s.s, my Buy me a shot, I'm tying the knot! T-shirt wrapped around my head, a white cotton bra out for all my neighbors to see. Not that anyone would look, because at the same moment, Mandy was completely topless, her full bare torso jutting out of the sunroof of the limo. And she was bouncing.

Laughing, I crawled across my wet lawn and fell against my front door. My fingers fumbled with the keys as I waved goodbye to the back of the limo as it sped down the street.

I might have fallen asleep for a few moments, but when I finally remembered how to use a lock mechanism correctly with my questionable slippery key (when in doubt, slowly get on your knees, give it a little blow, and firmly push it in), I walked (okay crawled) inside to all the lights in my apartment on.

Every single luminescent bulb in the apartment: on.

So even though I was in the most inebriated state I'd ever been in my life, I clearly saw one of the top contributors for InTrend Magazine, Sophia Willington, having s.e.x with Trager the Mailroom Guy, smack dab in the middle of my living room. s.e.x being a questionable word for the act I stumbled upon. She was riding him like a racehorse. My drunken brain could not wrap itself around the fact that thee Sophia Willington was in my apartment with Trager the Mailroom Guy. That's what we called him too-everybody who worked at the d.a.m.n magazine-Trager the Mailroom Guy.

Who incidentally, was supposed to be marrying me in three f.u.c.king weeks.

2.

Lexa.

"You won't ever have to regret your mistakes if you don't choose to make 'em." @Kavon #Whoops Eleven a.m. ripped into my temples like a jackhammer; unfortunately, it was not of the stripper variety. It was of the hangover kind, with shards of gla.s.s exploding like fireworks behind my eyes. My dry throat scorched with fire and heartbreak. Tears blurred out the world.

My fingers reached up and over to my bedside table, grabbing my alarm clock. Squinting through one eye, I set it for three o'clock that afternoon. I needed to sleep off the rest of the horrible night then jump on a five-fifteen plane to downtown Chicago for a three-day conference for the magazine. My hand b.u.mped into a tall gla.s.s of water and bottle of aspirin that someone thoughtfully left on the nightstand for me. Nice. I wonder if Trager left it after he finished s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g Sophia. Maybe Sophia left it after she finished riding him. I shoved the blankets over my face, refusing to drink anything either of them might have left for me. The sheets still smelled of him, of us, and I dry heaved over the side of the bed.

Sleep played a nasty game of hide-and-seek with me, finding me every few minutes, only to fill my head with visions of the night before. I lay awake then drifted off, clutched at my sheets in a groggy struggle with reality, and fell asleep again, repeatedly. The cycle was maddening.

At five that afternoon, I was running through terminal five in JFK airport, my carryon swinging wildly behind me. I must have looked the part of a murderous, jilted woman because I was stopped by security three different times; at one point completely patted down and buzzed for explosive residue. I mentally kicked myself for not remembering the load of dynamite I usually take on airplanes. When I jokingly said this aloud to the TSA agents, I won a full body scan. Yay me.

Very few people get my humor. It's a shame how much they miss out by having poles up their bottoms.

They ended up delaying the plane ten minutes due to my unappreciated sarcastic wit. An ancient dinosaur of a flight attendant pursed her lips at me when I was finally allowed to board, "You should be apologizing to each and every pa.s.senger on this plane." Yeah, I'll get right on that, lady.

The two-hour flight had me leaning against the small, rectangular window watching the sky slowly darken. The weight of everything that happened the night before pressed heavily on my shoulders-which only added to the stress of a three-day work conference with all the cheating parties involved.

I tried to mask my anxiety from the rest of the pa.s.sengers by flipping through the conference's itinerary. A mother holding a small child sat next to me, softly humming a lullaby. The gentle scent of lavender and baby formula tingled at the bridge of my nose. My eyes watered. My heart ached. Trager and I had planned to try for kids right away. Stupid cheating a.s.s.

Tears. Lots of them. They fell. Practically drenching my shirt with sorrow.

Ignoring the baby's precious little snores, I wiped roughly at my eyes and tried to focus on my paperwork. My eyes traveled across the papers, yet the only thing I could concentrate on was the InTrend logo splashed across the top of the pages. InTrend Magazine was the premier account of the biggest publishing group around, Holt Media. It is published every two weeks, focusing on everything from politics to popular culture, and boasted the largest readership of any other magazine ever printed. It's best known for its musical coverage and bi-monthly controversial columns. Quite boringly, the position I was acknowledged for, even though I've accomplished much more, was a fact checker.

That was my humble t.i.tle. Lexa Novak: Fact Checker.

My team worked in the dungeon, deep in the bas.e.m.e.nt of one of New York City's famous skysc.r.a.pers. My job was pretty self-explanatory. We check the accuracy of facts by researching. We're the ones that make sure names are spelled correctly, places written about actually exist, and reality matches the words of some of the jerks that write for us.

It wasn't the job I set out to get when I first interviewed with Holt Media. Heck no, I wanted to be something more; a contributor, an editor, something with guts. I was interviewed directly by the Editor in Chief and Owner of Holt Media, Mr. Remington Holt. However, not listening to the weather forecast that day left me sopping wet and dripping monsoon-like rainwater all over his office.

My shirt was white.

White shirt plus rain equals my idol, Mr. Remington Holt, mistakenly calling me Nipples. It wasn't just one time either; he just kept repeating it during the entire interview. "Well, Nipples, here at InTrend we treat each other like a family and share our nipples." And even though I had the brains, the education, and the personality, Mr. Holt senior deemed me a future prodigy in the exciting field of freaking fact checking. "So you'll always find the right weather forecast. We're glad to have you aboard, Nipples." Yeah, that happened. So, my job was to make sure we only printed the truth.

But the only truth I could concentrate on that very moment was Trager and what he did. I felt so pathetic. Our wedding was in three weeks, with a total of one hundred and fifty-six guests. He was supposed to be the one. I knew deep inside my ideas on love were unrealistic. They thumped around in my idealistic brain from my obsession of romance novels and cheesy made for TV movies. I secretly believed in happily-ever-after and fairytales, underdogs rising above their challengers, and being truly madly in love.

Now? I believed it all sucked. Stupid lying romance authors making me want things that just weren't real. Disney Princesses everywhere should stand up and fight back. I laughed bitterly in my seat, waking the sleeping baby, who started to wail like a banshee.

My first step into spinsterhood: making innocent children cry. Next up, adopting a dozen cats, buying a big vibrator, and learning the etiquette of prissy repressiveness. G.o.d, the bitterness and anger were overwhelming.

After the plane landed, through thirty minutes of the Symphony of the Uncontrollable Baby Sob, I jumped on a Blue Line train packed with a late shift of rush hour business people. A forty-minute jerky ride took me to the Jackson Street Station, from which I trudged all the way to the hotel. Downtown Chicago streets were littered with tourists and college students walking about. I wanted to scream to each and every one of them how much of a loser Trager was. I wanted to start a revolt, have everyone on my side, and attack the stupid little cheater. I finally understood what it meant when people expressed their want to scream from the rooftops. Oh, if I only could. The things I would say.

After checking in to my room, my first stop was the bar.

That's right. I'd been sober enough for the day. Long enough to realize the next three weeks of my life were going to suck big time. It seemed like a justified thing to do. I walked the corridors of the lobby looking around for Trager the Mailroom Guy. His flight was scheduled earlier than mine; conveniently made plans when you're s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g someone at work. I guess he was going for a rendezvous before I got there. He didn't even need to be at this conference...he was the mailroom guy. But he'd said he just couldn't be away from me. Yeah, right. I straightened my shoulders and moved through the crowds of visitors. People sneered at me as I tried to dart in and out of their way. I didn't care about the looks though, I just had my heart ripped out of my chest and I needed a bottle full of liquid oblivion.

I ducked through a pair of deep crimson curtains that decorated the entrance into the hotel bar. Scanning the area quickly, my shoulders relaxed when I recognized no one from work and I let myself appreciate my surroundings. Dark cherry wood tables furnished the room, tastefully dressed with plum covered linens and topped with creamy white burning candles. The lights were dim, some kind of jazzy music was floating through the room, and the scent of the pine logs burning in the huge fireplace filled the air.

If I weren't feeling so murderous, I'd think it was romantic.

Winding through the tables, I made my way to the bar and introduced myself to the bartender as his new best friend. Then with the brazenness of tongue that someone like me could only accomplish through enormous amounts of alcohol, I told the bartender and most of the people in listening distance, my c.r.a.ppy bachelorette story.

Preston, the bartender (possibly lying about his name) kept the drinks coming. Smart man.

An obnoxious amount of alcohol later I was still chewing off Preston's ear, when I glanced up at him to make sure I still had his undivided attention. I of course, didn't-story of my life.

Preston's eyes held this certain glazed-over l.u.s.tful look as he stared at something, someone, far behind me. My shoulders immediately tensed as I swiveled around my stool, curious as to what caused the expression. Mr. Jameson Holt (Remington 'Nipples' Holt's son), and Sophia Willington had just walked in. Mr. Holt's eyes swept the bar and pa.s.sed right over me with no recognition at all, but that's a given since he's the managing editor and I've never actually worked with him. But Sophia? Sophia turned in my direction; her eyes held mine, and the witch smirked. A surge of pure hate roared through my veins. "You find that attractive?" I slurred in Preston's direction.

"Who wouldn't," Preston answered.

"I'm revoking best friend status," I snapped. "She's the one I caught sleeping with my fiance."

"I wasn't looking at the girl, darling," he smiled.

I stared at him blankly, "Kay. You're my new best friend again."

Conversations stumbled around us as the two walked through the bar; all eyes watching the newcomers saunter in like they were on a runway. I would definitely admit to the fact that they were quite a stunning sight to behold. I hated them both. People should just not look that good. It's unfair, really.

"Why couldn't she go for a single guy like Holt? Why'd she have to pick what was mine?" It was a serious question. And I demanded an answer from poor Preston. I even pounded my fist along the bar top.

"I don't know what your Trager looks like, but I wouldn't kick that man," he chuckled and pointed to the table they sat in, "out of my bed."

"Right? Because, I mean just look at him. Jameson Holt is so d.a.m.ned attractive; it literally hurts to look at him." I sighed loudly. "He makes your girl parts ache."