“You should have gotten a lap dance,” Maggie teases me, and I shake my head as I pour another glass of champagne and take the penis cupcake offered to me, gingerly taking a bite out of the tip.
“I was perfectly happy to watch,” I tell her with a laugh, leaving out the part where I couldn’t bring myself to want a stripper’s hands all over me when in the past few weeks, I’ve hadtwomen eager to touch me in ways that have made me feel things I never knew I could.
At some point, we all end up in the master bedroom of the suite, piled into the huge king sized bed while we watch silly rom-coms on HBO and tear through the cupcakes and champagne. By the time everyone is falling asleep, we’re all more than tipsy, and I stumble into the bathroom to pee, stopping to look at myself in the mirror when I’m finished.
I look like myself, but not like myself at the same time. A happier, freer version of myself maybe, like the girl who went to Connor’s warehouse and rode back with him on his bike. The pink dress highlights how flushed I am with champagne and laughter, my eyes wider than usual from my faux eyelashes, my lips stained pink from the lipstick and my hair ruffled. I look free, sexy, youthful, and I have a sudden urge to take a picture. I reach tipsily for my phone, taking one in the mirror and then flipping it to selfie mode, tossing my hair back as I smile sexily for the camera.
I’ve never taken photos like that before, especially not the one angled downwards slightly so the viewer can see not just my wide eyes, but a good view of my full, pouting lips and cleavage in the tight dress, but tonight is about letting loose, about having fun. It’s the only time for a long time, if ever, that I’ll get to have a night like this, and I push any feelings of embarrassment or silliness away as I take pictures, turning this way and that, posing for the camera and myself without anyone to see.
When I flick through them after, I pause over one or two, ones where I look especially alluring and happy. I select them, swiping up to send them to someone in my contacts, and my finger hovers over Connor’s name.
I could do it.It would break our promise to keep anything even slightly sexual between us to the duties of marriage and creating a family, but I could do it. He’d never let me live it down, but for just a moment, I could be the kind of daring, reckless girl who sends selfies to her fiancé. Selfies that aren’t eventhatsexual, for fuck’s sake—it’s just my lips and my cleavage, not topless pictures or nudes.
But I already know what Connor’s reaction would be. I can hear his remonstrative voice now, reminding me that it’s a business arrangement, that we shouldn’t be flirting with each other, that we had fun in London and in Dublin but we’d made a pact, and anything outside of that is just flirting with danger.
My finger scrolls down, lands on Niall’s contact.
Don’t do it.
I click on his name. No context, no message other than the two pictures. My finger hovers over the little blue arrow.
You’ve lost your mind. What are you thinking, Saoirse? You’renotthinking.
I hit the arrow.
The message sends.
10
SAOIRSE
Instantly, my heart leaps into my throat, and I feel almost nauseous.I can’t believe I just did that.I’d told Niall that nothing could happen between us right now, put him off again and again, and now I’m sending him suggestive, drunken texts in the middle of the night.
He probably won’t respond,I reassure myself.He won’t even see them until morning. He’s probably asleep. You can make up an excuse later, you sent it to the wrong person—
A message notification pops up.
Niall.
Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!
My heart is pounding a million beats a second as I stare down at it, or at least it feels that way. My finger hovers over the screen for a second before I get up the nerve to click on it, and when I do, I swallow hard as my pulse leaps into my throat.
Enjoying your bachelorette party, I see? ;)
I’m sorry,I type back furiously.I’m a little tipsy. I shouldn’t have sent those. Please just delete them.
A moment passes. And then—
If you really want me to, I will. I just wish you’d let me enjoy them first…
An instant image pops into my head of Niall laying back in his bed, shirtless, his jeans open as he strokes his cock with one hand and looks at the picture of my cleavage with the other. An image that I try to banish as quickly as possible, as I feel a pulse of heat between my thighs.
That’s ridiculous,I type.I know you need more than a photo that tame to “enjoy.”
The reply is almost instant.
I promise you, Saoirse, I could get off to a much “tamer” photo of you, just by imagining removing that dress.