Fall From Grace: The Dance Thriller, Part 2

I Choose To Be Quietly Discreet

Paradise Valley, Arizona
Wednesday, July 2, 1997
(7:00 pm)
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"My God, angel, how on earth can you possibly be getting even more beautiful?"

Lindsey was lying sideways at the foot of the bed, rubbing his pregnant fiancé's feet and admiring the perfect, tiny toes that she'd just had pedicured before they'd left California so the nails were painted a pale pink. Think pink! had become Stevie's motto as the spring had turned to summer, willing the universe - and everyone in their universe - to wish for a baby girl. They had an appointment for amniocentesis when they returned home after Jess' birthday and the Fourth Of July, due to Stevie's advanced maternal age. which would not only test for chromosomal abnormalities but also reveal the sex of the baby. She'd been calling the baby Robin either way, and it had caught on around the Nicks house since they'd arrived last week for a family reunion and many barbecues manned by Christopher.

"Beautiful? Baby...I've gained like twelve pounds already!" Stevie scrambled up from where she'd been lying against the pillows, but Lindsey eased her backwards again with his fingertips to her baby bump.

"Twelve pounds of beautiful baby girl," he said. "Now lay back and enjoy the pregnancy foot rubs, silly. Barbara is going to call up here any minute to go sing to Jess with the cake."

Dinner had been steaks grilled by Christopher with baked potatoes and the asparagus Stevie had insisted tasted better when grilled in vinaigrette dressing, but it was Jess' birthday, and Barbara had warned them before Lindsey had followed Stevie upstairs to rest that a chocolate cake was coming out as soon as Lori made the coffee.

"Okay, okay," Stevie relented with a sigh of mock hardship. "But listen to me, pal...when we come back up here tonight, I am holding you to your promise."

After Stevie had spent most of June nauseous and exhausted, she had emerged in her third month of pregnancy feeling better, and with an insatiable sexual appetite. She had gone from falling asleep in front of the television in Lindsey's lap at nine o'clock every night to waking him up early in the morning by climbing on top of him and covering him with kisses and telling him she couldn't take just lying beside him, that she needed him. Earlier this evening, Lindsey had pulled her aside in the yard and whispered into her ear in great detail exactly where he intended to put his mouth, how he intended to use it until she was begging for him, and exactly how it would feel once he gave in to her pleading and he was inside of her. After abstaining from sex for a month while Stevie was under the weather and the doctor monitored her high-risk pregnancy, his sexual appetite matched hers, and they had been off and running all week.

"Oh don't you worry, sweet girl," he said as he crawled up to face her, hovering over her, their lips just inches apart. "I intend to keep my promise, alright...I might even have to cover your mouth with my hand tonight if you can't keep it down with everyone around here...if you're going to be my dirty girl."

Stevie sucked in a breath when she heard him say that. Dirty girl. It had been decades since she'd first heard that name, invented one night on their mattress on the floor in their room in Los Angeles when they were first together, usually involving his hand across her mouth to keep quiet, various stages of teasing, and the most intense pleasure either of them could imagine. Lindsey sealed his promise with a kiss, just a brush of his lips with hers, a tease of things to come.

"Baby..." She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. "Let me be your dirty girl now...just a little, just until the cake...please, baby."

"Mmmm...just the kind of begging I thought I would hear from you, Stephanie." His voice took on a low, seductive tone. "Do you think you can be my dirty girl in time for cake?" he challenged, and Stevie nodded vehemently.

"Seriously, it's going to take, like, under a minute," Stevie confessed. "Hurry, baby...I need to be your dirty girl."

"Challenge accepted, dirty girl." Lindsey grinned wickedly and began to suckle at her neck, his fingers creeping slowly down the length of her body until he found just the spot that made her gasp to the touch. She wore a long, simple white sundress, and she opened her legs for him just enough for him to begin working magic with his fingers, causing her to let out a whimper.

"Ah, there's my dirty girl," he said, and he covered her hand with his mouth. "You just can't stay quiet when I touch you there, can you, Stephanie?" She shook her head, looking up into his eyes desperately. "That means you get the hand, you know...but you already know that...dirty girls know." He was using his other hand to move his fingers expertly along the small creases of her, finding just the spot in the middle that made her let out a sharp cry that landed as a small muffled sound in his palm.

Stevie remembered a conversation she'd had with Robin after the first time she and Lindsey had been intimate. Robin had grilled her for details when she'd returned to their apartment in San Jose from Los Angeles and she'd been full of wisecracks about guitar players knowing how to please a woman because they knew how to use their fingers. Stevie had blushed a bit when informing her best friend that she was right. He was proving it again that evening, upstairs in her bedroom at her Arizona home, and she was beginning to squirm beneath him, her whimpers lost in the grip of his hand.

"Mmmm...you're dripping, dirty girl...tell me, is that all for me? Are you this wet just for me, Stephanie?" He watched her nod before gripping the pillow behind her, straining up against his hand. "You're going to come, aren't you?" Another nod. "Dirty girls make noise when they come...Can I trust you to take my hand away?" She shook her head, and Lindsey grunted in approval. "That's my dirty girl...come for me, Stephanie...you can come for me now."

His permission was all she needed. She let out a scream that fell silently into his hand as she came, writhing beneath his touch, and he only uncovered her mouth - and withdrew his other hand - when she stopped.

"My God..." Stevie tossed her arm up behind her head against the pillow, and when they looked at each other they both dissolved into giggles. "I told you it wouldn't take long!"

"That's got to be a world record, angel." He smiled as he leaned in to kiss her.

"And now we get cake!" she announced grandly, and they laughed again. Lindsey held her hands in his to help her sit up, and together they went into the bathroom to get ready to go downstairs for Jess' birthday cake and coffee with their family.

In these moments, when he was alone with Stevie and everything was peaceful and warm, Lindsey could almost forget about what was going on in his life.

He could almost forget that Kristen was pregnant with his child.

He could almost forget he had agreed to meet her one morning while Stevie was sleeping off her morning sickness to demand a paternity test which had made her angry.

He could almost forget the results.

The sound of Barbara's voice in the hallway broke into his thoughts as he dried his hands, watching Stevie brush her long blonde hair and thinking of how much she reminded him of "Wonderful Tonight" by Eric Clapton when she did that.

"Coffee's on, lovebirds! Time to sing Happy Birthday to an old man!"

"Coming in a minute, Barbara," Lindsey shouted back through the open door. He watched Stevie set the hairbrush down and lean over to kiss him.

"Don't think that's all I get," she teased him with a wink. "I am not done with you tonight, Lindsey Buckingham."

"Perish the thought!" he teased back, and together, hand in hand, they descended the stairs.

Lindsey had never felt like such a fraud in his life.

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