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- Herausgeber: Ediciones Pàmies
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
A wedding. Lots of shots. A Porsche parked on a dark street. The groom's best friend. The man I shouldn't have slept with. The one who wore an impeccable grey suit and a starched white shirt. The owner of a pair of green eyes that spoke miles more than his irresistible mouth. The youngest partner in his law firm. The man I went to bed with. Madness. The traces of my nails on the dashboard of his car as a proof. The best sex I've ever had. A huge problem. He was unattainable. I was broken.
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Seitenzahl: 606
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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© 2018 by Silvia Hernández Sancho
© 2020 translation: Ruxandra Constantinescu, 2020
© 2020, ediciones Pàmies, S. L.
18 Mesena Street
28033 Madrid (Spain)
ISBN: 978-84-18491-27-6
BIC: FRD
Cover design: CalderónSTUDIO®
Photograph: iStock.com/svetikd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
To Agustín, the love of my life.
Index
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Thereafter
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Extra content
Prologue
It was my father who once told me:
“Daniel, life is nothing more than a string of leaps. Some forwards, and others backwards, up to the very top and down till hitting rock bottom. You won’t even feel the smallest ones, but the other ones, the ones that matter, can take you straight up to success. Don’t be afraid of falling. Don’t let yourself dragged down by vertigo. Be brave and take a huge leap. And take that leap with your eyes closed.”
He closed his eyes shut shortly afterwards, and I kept this lesson as if it were a treasure, I turned it into a law to rule my steps.
It hadn’t always been easy – being his son, that is. Whereas all children see their fathers as heroes, mine was the superhero. He was the shining light of justice, widely honoured, with a long retinue of followers at his feet. Judge Dredd himself was nobody compared to him; maybe just in attendance during his master classes. He was a respected leader, who would settle conflicts and punish criminals. And I was the one who got to be the only offspring of such a superman. I guess you see why there was nothing left for me to do other than grow my own superpowers.
My dependability, my loyalty to my people, and my green eyes – I got them all from him. His teachings helped me be tenacious, never give up before a fight and take education and respect as a standard of living. My loquacity is of his own creation too, even though I know very well I’ll never get to be the excellent speaker he was. However, I rarely have as much as a grave or worried wince, I am well able to relax, if necessary and when my birds are singing, the sun is shining.
I mostly see myself as a pretty simple man, even if my personality and my tastes are not simple at all. If I were to choose my epitaph, it would be somewhere in the lines of: “here lies a man who managed to be happy.” I don’t want for more – nor less, of course. Nevertheless, many shades lie hidden underneath this temperance. I like that others can rely on me, but I don’t thrive to be anybody’s crutch. I try to be a good man, not a stupid one. I admire elegance and refinement, but I am mesmerized by simplicity. I am a proud man, but I can swallow my pride if the situation is worth it. I hate lies, but I make a living as a lawyer.
For many years now, I have been going to great lengths to keep my shades at bay of the prerogative of being the son of a superman. I worked hard, I made a name for myself and earned me a status that was very close to my aims. When I got named partner in my law firm, I bought myself a Porsche – just like that. When I had the keys in my hand, I knew that if you make an effort, dreams cease to be dreams and they just come true.
It may sound frivolous to raise a lifeless object to a fantasy level, but to me, that car was so much more than transportation. It was a symbol, and there are many signs of it in the room I still keep in my mother’s house: posters, magazine cuts, miniatures, scale copies… I spent the better part of my childhood gathering information about cars, learning statistics and unending lists of equipment, dreaming that one day I would drive one myself, just as somebody who dreams of going to the moon or becoming centre in the NBA. Very few people do it, and I was one of them.
I might as well have said that life had treated me well, that I had got to the top, if I had to draw the line: I was well off and had a promising future yet to come. I was at peace, despite the heroic legacy resting on my shoulders… until I hit my kryptonite.
It was one 24th of July I won’t easily forget now. I was in my office when I got a call from Asier, one of my best friends.
“Hey, man!” he said. “How is everything? Are you still in Madrid or are you off on holiday already?”
“I’m still here,” I answered reluctantly. I pushed aside the files that covered part of my desk and put my elbows up. “Why do you ask? Do you need anything?”
“Not this time. I was just calling because I felt like seeing you.”
“Are you going all romantic on me?”
“Shut up, you jerk,” he laughed. “You know what I mean. Ever since I came back, we didn’t get the chance to spend some together time because of…,” he cleared his throat.
“Because of your tendency to take everything so fucking intensely,” I finished the sentence for him.
Asier both a good and intense man. There was all black or white to him – for the better as well as for the worse.
“Okay, whatever you like to call it. The thing is, would you like to come to the mountains? We could just have some drinks or might as well get hammered – whatever we feel like doing. All’s fair up there, the place is amazing, believe you me. It’s a life changer.
“Okay… so what did you say the name was?”
“The campground’s called—”
“No, I meant her name.”
Asier laughed again.
“Her name’s Lara.”
“Did you just sigh?”
“Why don’t you just go fuck yourself?”
“Because I am still essentially straight. If someday I think about changing my mind, I’ll make sure to let you know.”
“Sure thing, man. For the right price, I’ll draw you up a personal page so you can come out. For a bit more, I can even manage your Grindr profile.”
I laughed out loud. That was my friend, and not the one I had last seen in his lawyer’s office. His legal troubles hauled out ever since he’d been in Osaka were the worst souvenir I could have got.
“So, are you coming or not?” he insisted.
I turned my chair around and looked out the huge window of my office. The road was overrun by cars, the sidewalk was full of hurried passers-by, the buildings gobbled down the landscape – Madrid was burning. It didn’t take me long to say yes.
I drove to the mountains only thinking of getting back together with my friend – and that was some thing to say. We had been inseparable for mor years than I cared to admit even then. We had even got to share a flat in senior year and not even our almost incompatible professional worlds had managed to separate us. But that exact time, we were further apart than ever. He had too much on his plate to deal with anything else, and I accepted that, just as I do when it comes to any decision of anybody I care about decision, even if I fail to understand them.
He was waiting for me at the campground’s entrance checkpoint and beside him was an angelic blonde, the same who’d become his wife a little bit over a year later. I wouldn’t have been surprised if anybody had warned me of it right back then. Whatever was going on between them was visible, tangible, as authentic as it was true.
I was madly jealous of them. Right there, they had what I missed to fill my life: true love, the one that turns lovers into accomplices. Asier and Lara were spilling it out with every gesture they had for one another, and they irritated me so much I just ignored them, focusing on the beauty who had welcomed me with a kiss that took long enough to stop tickling my lips. The same ones that made them spit and curse had made me tear with laughter. The woman with a hypnotizing ass, generous breasts and reptilian tongue. The inventor of shamelessness. The one in whose bed I took refuge, where I had enjoyed one of the best nights of my life. Natalie at her fullest. There were no words.
This is how she left me. Speechless with pleasure and so highly satisfied – lightyears away from just a simple fuck. Back there, in that cottage deep in the mountain, something unutterable was born. It was inexplicable and beyond repair. I was not the only one to feel that way. I know she felt it as intensely as I did: I saw it on her face, I heard it in her moans, and I touched it on every inch of her flesh. We just clicked. Big time. We forged a strange connection that seemed to have stayed in me only, when we woke up. She didn’t even want to give me her number.
I got mad, a bit more than I had the right to, considering we had just met a couple of hours back. I didn’t utter a word, but the way I looked at her told a whole different story. Natalie gave in a little and said I could come visit before the season was off, but that was no alleviating circumstance to me.
“I don’t plan on becoming a stud for call.”
“Don’t be mad,” she said with a sorry face. “It’s not you. It’ just how I… do things.”
“Well then, best of luck with the next one.”
I left without further ado. And I made a promise to myself: to keep looking for that conspiring connection, wherever necessary. I kept my promise, but thirteen months later, I met her again.
1
Candy Eyes
Once upon a time, there was a respectable and very hot lawyer who met a mad woman.
Whoa, what a crappy beginning. Let’s see, give me a minute please, I think I can do better.
Once upon a time, there was a mad woman who was introduced to a respectable and very hot lawyer who in turn became unavailable by mishaps of moody fate. At the beginning, of course that was no problem for the valiant damsel, but then it turned out it was, because the ill-fated spell that held her captive…
Well, you know what? I’d just better let it go. It’s useless to try and disguise this fairy tale. My virtu is already too corrupt to consider myself a maid, and the fairies always seemed to me like a bunch of stuck-ups. Our story is as real as… as… the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. Or was it the other was around? Same difference, cause everything I’m going to tell you from now on is as true as… as… my name is Natalie Díaz Prado and I can’t really make a comparison.
My friends just call me Nat.
To you, I am Ms. Díaz, since we don’t know each other that well.
Now that we’ve been introduced, I guess I just have to explain how all this fuck-up first started, right? I don’t know about you, but to me, this is the part I least like, so I’ll be brief.
It all started that first summer I worked at the campground. I had spent over three months in the Madrid mountains beyond the pines and I had enjoyed it so much without even thinking that Lara and Asier would give me the smitten virus.
For those of you who don’t know who Lara and Asier are… what world do you think you live in?
No, seriously now, let me explain it to you: they are my friends, I met them at the campsite I was telling you about. Lara used to work in reception and screw Asier, who was one of the tennis instructors, in the shack we shared. I must admit they spent most of their time out, but I did have to stand them a couple of times, and I still get cramps when I remember it.
Asier, who is a great guy, is Dany’s friend, the hot lawyer. He’s a nice lad who showed up one night at the campground and disappeared, some good hours later, with a sweet deal of what yours truly offered. Which was a lot and very good. Maybe even too good.
This is what I blame my spontaneous smitten state on: how good this first time was for both of us. It wasn’t normal at all. Months went by, life went on and its memory still torments me in my lone nights – that was also not normal at all.
For him, I would have even made an exception to my most sacred rule and I would have done it again and again, only he didn’t come back to the campsite, and then the idiot even got a girlfriend. She’s one of those hugely nice, decent, discreet little cutie, long legs, super cute… in few words, a nauseating chick. Her Instagram turned into my torture dungeon. I couldn’t even begin to wish to have a relationship, I really could not, but what I could also not do was not be curious as to how it would feel like to be in a relationship with a man like Dany.
He was the nemesis of all the guys I had intimately met. He was a distinguished gentleman who drove a Porsche. He was legal counsel to awesome businessmen, the kind that have shrunken arseholes. He was a hunk, he was a gentleman, and he was also a god in bed. Only 28 years old. A star and a pro, you listen to me.
When I met him again, he had already turned 29, and my god how he looked it.
Nature had blessed him with a face to worship, and time had chiselled and defined his jaw and his chin. He was thinner, his traits had hardened, but his eyes were just as affectionate. Candy eyes. All round and cute and emerald-green, eucalyptus candies, hot and sweet at the same time. He had a three-day beard that barely darkened his cheeks and h wore his hair shorter. Extremely conventional. A dark-haired full-grown man, who had managed to burn my panties to a crisp with an eyebrow movement by way of just saying hi.
I must say he wasn’t usually so curt when saying hello – it was me who gave him enough leeway. As soon as he caught me watching him, I hurried like running for my life over to one of the white tents installed in the camping area of the grounds.
I couldn’t even recognize myself, the one I used to be… When they introduced us the previous summer, I kissed him directly on the mouth. Hard. A little over a year later, I was praying with all my strength for the four horsemen of the Apocalypses to come get me. They seemed like a cool gang to me, kind of like one that had fun in a dive, where lawyers with super cute girlfriends never even set foot on.
“Would you stop picking off petals?”
Lara took the bunch of wild flowers off of my hands and put back on the tiara that matched her blond hair.
She looked awful, but I didn’t say so. She knew how horrified I was of white and weddings, but since it was her special day blablabla… I kept my mouth shut.
What I could nevertheless not keep quiet about was what I actually thought of her marrying that idiot Asier, just a few months after coming back and only just having turned 24.
“I should throw your bouquet in the bonfire, put you on the first car I see and drive until we reach the border. Have you really thought this through?”
“More than through.”
“But honey, you are… way too young. And if you just realize this later on…”
“Nat,” she said and looked me straight in the eye, full of hope. “It’s not that I am sure – I am more than sure. He’s the one,” she smiled. Bleah, love was coming out of her pupils. “Now please do me a favour and behave, blow me a kiss and take your seat. We are going to start right away.”
“Take my seat, you say?” I burst into laughter. “No way. I’ll be waiting for you at the bar, just as it’s being done at weddings since forever.”
“You are going to take your seat on the bride’s side, since you are my friend. End of discussion!”
“Oh, come on. What do you care? There must be people recording it all… you can show it to me later and that’s it, no fuss.”
Lara pushed her index and middle finger to my face and came closer:
“You’ve got two options: you either sit on my side or on Asier’s. Scratch that: maybe not on Asier’s, since Dany looks really handsome.” She kept her index out and pointed it straight at me. “Don’t even think of screwing him during my wedding, or I’ll cut your throat. Are we clear?”
“Couldn’t even if I wanted to,” I laughed. “I haven’t seen Barbie yet, but I don’t think she’s very far off.”
My friend smiled.
“You didn’t happen to check out his Insta lately, did you now?”
“No, why?”
“Sorry, girls,” Anita, Lara’s sister-in-law interrupted sticking her head inside the tent. “Are you ready, honey?”
Lara’s face lit up and then she nodded, took in a slow breath and went out to meet her father, who was waiting for her to walk her down the aisle. She could use an arm to get a hold of. I swear I saw her so happy for a moment I was afraid she’d fly out.
2
The wedding was… well… a wedding. People say stuff, some cry, then the bride and groom share a kiss and then everybody drinks their minds off at the godparents’ expense.
At the countryside party, the closest guests went on with the speeches. Dany apparently delivered a super emotional one, but I missed it: I was leaking three litres worth of beer. I hold my drink pretty well considering I am so small. It’s my secret trump card I use in all shot contests.
I danced with the bride and groom – that I did. I can also be super affectionate if I put my mind to it. I took them both when they least expected it when they started playing reggaeton and I just slid in between them. Asier’s grandmother crossed her heart a couple of times when she saw me twerking, but thanks to my performance the wedding video had a heap of success in YouTube.
It was almost dark when the happy couple left. Shame on them for eloping, taking advantage of my absence: I was in the storage room stealing booze to make more cocktails. I intended to go with them. I couldn’t care less it was their honeymoon. They had booked a flight to Fiji in the morning. Fiji, baby!! If I get lost at some point, you’d have to look for me on a beach somewhere. I’ll be the one at the bar, for sure.
Lara had no idea back then, but after Fiji, they were not going to come back to Madrid. Asier had prepared a surprise getaway to Francisco. They were so dull… they made seriously me sick.
I cursed them and raised my fists to the sky when I found out they had run away; I swore to God I would not be hungry again (I love Scarlett as you can see) and I went on partying. I am never going to admit it, not even if I’m blind drunk on absinthe, but I took the cocktails to silently toast the health of my friends’ union, to make it eternally true.
What came after is still a bit dizzy. I know I sang and danced on some table and the godfather… you know, regular stuff. I also remember Javi, the safeguard was somewhere close, as was Fabián from the mall and Gregorio the campsite’s manager. But I don’t remember much more. What I still remember are his candy eyes.
His candy eyes watched insolently me from the distance of the pines. I had to play dumb, which I do very well indeed, and fake wanting to go to the bathroom. But what I really did was stay at the corner of the canopy that hid the portable toilets to make sure that what I had seen in Barbie’s Instagram was for real and not a figment of my troubled imagination.
“Natalie, honey, are you not cold?” Lara’s mom asked when she was on her way to the toilet, squeezing in her thighs.
She reminded me of a penguin, so I smiled.
“Not at all, Inés. I turned my central heating on, ever since the last shot I had.”
“You should put on a coat. And why don’t you stop drinking for a bit?”
“That’s what I thought after that last Baileys, right?”
Inés smiled back at me and managed to get to the toilet without wetting herself, as she proudly confirmed when she got out. I praised hr bladder control and took leave of her without taking my eyes off of my phone’s screen.
Fuck that. It was for real. They had broken up. It was for real, like for real… Anyway, trust me it was and that was it. Couldn’t have been clearer in the text below the sunset picture: “Every beginning has its end, but the sun always comes back out,” #farewells #NewBeginnings #Free #SingleLady #Freedom #Blessed».
(whoa what a bum).
Below the text there were a bunch of comments like:
«Don’t worry, girl, you deserve more».
«OMG, babe. Whoa, girl. I am dead on my track, girl».
«That is because there is someone better out there, waiting for you, you’ll see. I Snoopy swear, girl».
Now, can you see how different she and I were? I have also been left before, but I never thought of divulging it via social networks. I actually only opened my Instagram account in order to spy on her and keep an eye on some porn stars. I ended up shutting it down. Xander Corvus’s was like a really hard, hard… drug. Hehehehe did you get that? Wink wink… okay, I’ll stop now.
So, where was I? Oh, okay. I was at the corner of the canopy, phone in hand, trying to talk me into believing Dany was back on the bachelors’ market. Okay, then. I checked the evidence that confirmed it one last time, put the phone back in my pocket and went back to the party, happily smiling.
Since I was there, I took a moment to go over my eye makeup, found it somewhere in between the thin line of smoky to scary, I smoothed the few dark hairs I had been left with after my last encounter with my hair stylist. When I get some time alone with her, she won’t feel like taking on the scissors like ever in her fucking life. I mean, I like to wear my hair short, but what I don’t like is to look like the boy in the striped pyjamas. I could keep pulling on my fringe for all I cared, and I still couldn’t make it cover half my forehead. Of course, I wasn’t looking for Trump’s toupee, but by god what I had was impossible to brush… I let it go. I arranged my boobs in push-up bra and I pulled on my little black lace dress. (Note to Lara: we are even now. I did it: I wore a nightgown in all your wedding photos whahaha!).
I went back to the party with only one purpose: find the candy-eyed man and not let him go until I fucked his eyes off someplace on the campsite. I didn’t do it. I had a really fucked-up karma.
After having looked for him for a long while, it turned out he had left. His Porsche was not in the parking place anymore, leaving nothing but lots of dust and tyres marks behind. Kind of like the ones I would’ve like to leave him with if you know what I mean… My God, I am such a perv…
I went back on my tracks to the tent area, dragging my feet in the gravel with my heart in the ground. What possessed me to spy on that posh gal’s Instagram? I had first known I finally had a green light! I was so disbelieving, it served me right to be left with no hunk.
I sighed theatrically and I wholeheartedly hit some stones. The first one hit back from a bush and the second one hit Javi the safeguard’s ankle.
“Every time I go out with you, I get bruised like a peach,” he protested, strongly rubbing his battered leg.
“Yeah, but it’s the time of your life, isn’t it?
“True that,” he said and lowered his trouser leg, straightening up. “Which ride are you on?
“I’ll be sleeping here today.”
“So you said. I mean right now.”
I screwed my eyes. Now? What did he mean, now?
“I don’t get it, Javi. English, please.”
“We are going out in the next village. Most of the guys have left already.”
“Oh, well. I couldn’t care less with whom I ride. Wherever there’s a seat.
“With Fabián and me then. It’s not exactly your friend’s Porsche, but then again, he was the first one to leave. The lord got bitten by mosquitoes,” he said laughing.
I took a spring at him, hit him in the shoulder and pointed at him.
“That’s “my lord,” to you. And please tell Fabián to hurry up! Right now!
3
Echo
Fabian and Javi left me at the door of the same pub where Asier had celebrated his 28th birthday and drove on towards the parking space. I was on high heels and a huge rush to locate the lawyer.
The place was one of those dens where fancy people get in fearing someone they know might spot them. Ochre plaster on the walls, sticky bar and inexistent HVAC. The drinks menu was as limited as the room in the toilets, and the audience used to be constituent of teenagers from the village and some lost student, almost surely majoring in literature. Smart people didn’t set foot in this type of shack.
I completely forgot my whole philosophy class after I got plastered with homemade moonshine, but as long as public health had not shut it down yet… there had to be a reason to that. Maybe because it was the end of the world… Seeing Dany there looked like a porcelain cup in a baby’s birthday: super cute, but impossible for his integrity to stay intact.
At least that was what I had my mind set on: to de-integritize him until there was not one drop left. Integrity drop, I mean. I didn’t have to dehydrate the poor boy now, did I?
While Sia was singing how much she liked cheap emotions, I made my way up to the bar, where he stylishly rested his elbow. Let’s see who was unto him… With a swift hip movement, I pushed aside the she-villager who was trying to come closer to him and I smiled a lot.
“So, are you going to invite me to a drink or not?” I asked, looking up to him. He was like 12 inches taller than me.
Dany tilted a little so as not to shout as yours truly was, and he answered, smiling with his whole mouth:
“Not.”
For starters, that’s seemed good enough to me. If it were for me, I would have taken him by his white shirt, pulled him down to my height and would have kissed him profusely on that appealing mouth of his… I would have then lowered my hands to his magnificent ass that was worthy of a plaster mould in its black clothespin pants to be exposed in Puerta del Sol! City Hall people have no idea what a blow that would be to tourism.
But instead of eating him up, stupid me went on with the chitchat. It must have been the nerves. That and my speaking like a mad hatter, too.
“Oh, come on, don’t be such a sting. Pull out your Versace wallet and let yourself in on a treat.”
“And why does it have to be Versace?” he kept smiling.
“Cause it goes with your Porsche,” I blurted out.
“It’s Tommy Hilfiger. What am I going to do?”
“Change your car, of course.”
It was stupid, but I made him laugh out loud for the first time. I felt amazing, it was delightful to see him laugh. His body relaxed, his traits became naughty and the sound that broke out of him was so free I felt its vibration in my insides. His laugh managed to echo corners of my body I had too long kept empty.
Oh, my God, I am so cheesy all of a sudden. I might never forgive myself for it.
I turned towards the var to ask the guy behind for a rum and sprite. Dany asked for a bottle of water, took out his Hilfiger wallet and paid for it, just as a gentleman was supposed to. I took a safe gulp and pushed myself closer to his hot body. I tried to make my intentions clear.
“So tell me, how would you like me to return the favor?” I asked, lowering my voice by a couple of octaves, looking at him as a seductress, with my mouth half open. I was this close to arch my eyebrows a couple of times and punch him with my elbow.
He rested his elbow on the bar again, because he was a brave one, and dampened his lips. So did I.
“I thought you were avoiding me.”
“I thought you still had a girlfriend.”
His big green eyes widened a bit more.
“That would have been my problem – not yours.”
“No, gorgeous. That would have been a huge screw-up for her. And baby: women power more than anything,” I said, and lifted up my fist, all gravity. He grinned and was this close to lose his teeth.
But then I turned gossipy all over again:
“When did you break up with her?”
Dany’s grin turned from annoying to interesting. He seemed extremely happy with himself.
“How do you know I broke up with her?”
“Because I am very smart,” I said without a blink.
“Right…,” he smiled and bent until his face was a couple of inches next to mine. His sweet and smoky smell reminded me of sandalwood oil and I turned all mellow. “Before we go on, I must let you know that I have a hard-on ever since this morning.” I opened my mouth to say something, but he covered it with his hand. “I was getting dressed and I had to stop for a couple of times and take a cold shower again. It was because of my black boxers, the Armanis. As soon as I took them out of the drawer, I remembered your teeth pinned in them.” He then slid his fingers over my lips and caressed my jaw, my neck and the back of my head. “It was torture to drive to the campground. It may seem like a line, but I swear I was just about to break my pants’ zipper. And then I saw you. And how you ran away from me. And for fuck’s sake, do you have any idea how difficult it’s been to give the speech? The only thing I could think of was following you to the bathroom and relieve myself between your thighs…,” His emerald eyes pupils grew bigger. “And now you show up here and hit on me, but the only thing you seem interested in is when I left Amelia. It’s still so hard I can’t even remember when that was. She posted a sunrise picture…”
“Actually, it was a sunset.”
“Right. Thank you. A sunset. Well, it must have been that day. You know where to look for the exact date.”
I stretched my eyes and he moved away, showing an arrogant smile.
Bloody blabbermouth. Such a smooth manipulator, the bastard. And this comes from me, with a PhD in manipulation.
“It’s a very lowly strategy to use your sexual bias to get information,” I accused.
“But highly effective.”
“You may think it to be effective…”
“I don’t think, I know it. And I stop to use it whenever I fucking want to.”
By God, I wanted to nibble him right there and then.
“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?
“Just you, with fewer clothes on.”
His sentence kept floating in the little air that separated us, heating the atmosphere with the memories it brought in. It made me remember the moist touch of the skin of his chest sliding down on my back, his swollen mouth caressing my shoulder blades, his relentless hips crashing down on my buttocks. I started to breathe faster, taking in every breath of his, fresh and placid. I closed my eyes to relish in what I had memorized of the taste of his kisses. I felt his right hand resting on the back of my head. His left hand quickly got to my waist, deviated to my back and stopped on my buttocks, with one smooth move. I swallowed my spit as I could.
“You’re touching my ass,” I whispered.
“For now. There’s my car. Shall we?”
4
Grumpy
I guess there’s no use in saying I agreed. At this point, I for sure think all of us realized – except for the purists – that yours truly was crazy about shaking up with the lawyer.
What you surely did not realize – I for one was absolutely not aware – was that was going to turn into a huge fuck-up. So what usually happens when you hook up with someone, he drives you crazy, becomes unattainable and then he comes down from his cloud and fucks your brains out porno style? Well, for sure, you’ve got complications, that’s what happens.
Now I do see it clearly. Back then, I only saw it as I wanted it to be: easy, moist and enjoyable.
Incredibly enjoyable, I swear to God.
I had slept with many men, but I had met few like Dany. He was just too able. He wrapped around you, absorbed you, played with you until you just forgot about anything that weren’t his eyes and the mad explosion that happened in your veins with each and every touch of his. He made you connect, and he did that with me in a single night without even talking much. But his body told me the whole story. And it was a good one.
I just couldn’t stop thinking about it as we were walking to his car. I started getting nervous. I was afraid to feeling it again, as intensely as before. I even thought it was a bad idea to go at it again, but then I looked at his ass and got over it. Had I any neurons left, I would have killed them all anyway. Cause of death: speeding. Grumpy, who lives in my head, was never the same as before that night.
“It’s two more streets over. Do your heels bother you?”
“Not at all. Well, yes, a bit… it’s okay, I can make it to the car. Come to think of it, I’d better take them off.” I took my shoes off and went on walking.
“You are just going to leave them there in the middle of the street?”
“Yeah, they’re older than time.” I looked behind me. “They can’t even sue me for abandonment with social services.”
Dany put his hand on his forehead and scrubbed it energetically. He saved my shoes from the pavement with the other hand.
“I should have had a whisky,” he whispered.
I stumbled at his comment, but I caught up in a minute and kept walking. He wasn’t the first one who’d needed high doses of alcohol to stand up with me.
I made out his black Porsche parked close to the garden wall of the local graveyard, just behind a used clothes container, lit only by a rickety streetlight that gave out intermittent beams. Anti-romance at work. I loved it.
In such an environment, I would have had an easier time controlling the pretty intense emotions and my nervous state they stirred up in me. It was going to be just a fuck and that was that. Cheap feelings – that was the only thing I wanted. I had learned by then that expensive feelings can be the death of one.
Dany took out his cool keys from his pocket; his car shut out a couple of white light bursts. I went before me, opened the door to shotgun and sat down. He only hit a button and his long legs found the space they needed.
I also got in the car, not before I rolled up my dress. I straddled him and closed the door. His lips got to my neck even before I took my hand off the handle.
I grabbed the back of his head and he got down to my cleavage. He licked it and started leaving small electric bites all over, growled with arousal and lifted his eyes. They declared they definitely wanted to consume me, they went through my retina and gave me the thrills. I tried to swallow, but I just couldn’t, my mouth was dry.
“Just as I remembered them,” he said, “soft, tight…, perfect.”
“Shh don’t speak, it’s disconcerting,” I lied.
He bit what spilled over the push-up for the liar I was. His left hand skilfully slid between us and his fingers grabbed the fabric of my cleavage and the bra’s cup and pulled down, freeing my breast. His dangerous mouth went straight on to my nipple, sucking, scratching it with his teeth… his hands greedily fondled my flesh. And he didn’t stop looking at me for a second.
I had to close my eyes shut, I was powerless in front of his, they just said things I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t afford the luxury to believe they were shining for me, they were different with me, they wanted me beyond sentiency. I just wanted to feel him on my skin, not have him under it. I pushed my hips forward, looking to speed into the moment. I had to keep my eyes on the prey: the epic orgasm I knew he could give me. Nothing else.
His right hand caught one of my buttocks and pulled on it, helping me, squeezing me. He breathed in deeply between my boobs and moved my body to place me exactly where it had to be.
“Fuck…” I said, and opened my eyes.
I could feel his hard-on, rubbing in the most sensitive spot, and all it length pinned in my groin.
“You’ve got me ripe for picking,” he said, licking my cleavage, my neck. He then turned to my ear: “Are you going to give me a kiss already?”
“You’ve still got work to do,” I answered, stopping a moan in my throat.
This no must have made him stop on his tracks from wakening non-sexual feelings in me, but it did just the opposite. He got even more motivated. He seemed to be poised to show me that even if we barely know each other, our bodies were able to recognize themselves. They reacted on their own, beyond any logic or my wishes, for that matter. They answered to one another lead by a type of instinct as old as time. They were able to get pleasure on their own already, but together, they managed to give a whole other dimension to the verb “feel.”
He handled me as if I were just another part of him, with the simplicity and safety of habit. He slid me over his hard-on when my sex needed more friction. He tortured my lobe and moaned hoarsely in my ear, guessing what few things still moved me. He stopped fondling my breasts and got down to my sex, feeling the brush was not enough. He pinched mu pubis and forced me to bite his jaw, the first thing at hand. My lips felt his short beard’s delicious roughness. What I felt in the apex of my legs was pure fire.
He fought back and bit the base of my neck, just where I loved it. He stayed back, his candy eyes more black than green, kissed my chin. He climbed up, trying to catch my mouth, but I stood back. I threw my head back and my hips in front.
“You’ve still got work to do,” I said again, pushing against his hand.
His fingers quickly slipped through my panties and an arrogant smile embellished his mouth. I felt like hitting him. I was extremely wet, that’s true, but it wasn’t as if he’d got a Nobel prize.
“Do you have any idea realize how much I enjoy this?” he caressed my creases up and down. He skilfully had fun, until he moaned and reached my insides. I had to bite my tongue not to beg for more. “No, you have no idea. Absolutely no idea. That’s it…,” he bent his fingers. “Fuck, that’s… too much,” he said, entering slowly and quickly getting back in. “It’s too good, you can’t imagine,” he did it again, a couple of times, speeding up, soaking me up. “You’re just like me,” he said, pushing his thumb on my spot and I arched completely. I threw my hands back and pinned my nails into the dashboard. “You’re just as defeated as I am, Nat,” he said, while his free hand took care of my breasts, pinching me, driving me mad. “And this just makes me so hard…”
I felt even more pressure in my insides as his thumb hurried and shot my hips. His eyes didn’t let go of mine, they shone way too much in the darkness around us. They talked to me in a language that made my mode confess to everything. My chest filled with yearning and throbbing and I just felt like crying his name out. I strong cramp shook my legs. The orgasm that threatened to split me in half started to shape up a few inches down my belly-button.
“Do you want it already?”
I nodded as best I could, feeling how me inside expanded, feeling the contractions, feeling the unstoppable tension. His hand got up to the back of my head, pulling me closer, involving me. I let go of the dashboard and grabbed his shoulders.
His swollen mouth was so close, his clever hand so ready, his eyes murky and proud… my legs bent and he smiled.
“Go ahead, take the leap. I’ll hold you.”
It was a perfect double spiral pike and dive. The jury awarded the highest mark.
My grumpy dwarf applauded enthusiastically, made up a pillow with Dany’s face printed in colours, lay down on it and smoked a cigarette.
5
And Then Some More
When I felt like resurfacing from the dip, I realized I was lying down on Dany, with my face lost between his neck and his shoulder, extremely wet and with little air left in my lungs.
His right hand had abandoned my lingerie and was lazily petting my inner thigh and my hip. His left hand was still gripping the head of my nape, holding me just as he had said he would… I felt awkward.
I couldn’t take in what his words really meant.
I don’t blame myself, because I seldom do, and because it wasn’t until much later that his words turned big. That night, it was just something to say, one of those golden mouth lawyer tricks. At least that’s what I forced myself to believe.
Dany squeezed the fingers that held my neck and took me apart from his shirt, smudged with makeup. The idiot hadn’t stopped smiling. It wasn’t that arrogant irritant face, but it still dripped pride.
“Did I earn it yet?” he said a bite away from my lips.
“Whew,” I swallowed. Damn nerves. “I tainted your shirt.”
“So what?”
“So, your pants too, for sure.”
He shook his head, deploying his smile and showing his teeth,
“What else?”
“I think I also scratched your dashboard.”
“No fucking way,” he pushed me aside with one move and touched the leather. “Holly fuck, Natalie.”
Yours truly was sticking the seat’s rail into the dark zone, but there were no complaints. I just didn’t have the balls to do it. I just wanted to shrink just like Alice in Wonderland and disappear down on some keyhole.
Dany emptied his pockets on the driver’s seat and put the keys in. The car lightened on the spot and indeed, ladies and gents, there were the traces of my nails, refurbishing the previously impeccable leather.
“Sorry,” I whispered. But I didn’t say anything about damages, as I love both my kidneys. It would have been impossible to decide which to give up.
He took the keys out; the car went back to the intermittent gloom and I took out the rail out of my ass – you can see how much I love this word.
When he turned to look at me, I was really scared to see him to grave and big… seriously.
“What do you have to say in your defence?”
“It was lust, Your Honour.”
His lips bent just a bit. I stepped in putting my elbows together, just in case the goods could help me lower my sentence.
“Then it’s clear you’re guilty. What do you have in mind by means of compensation?”
“I could just give you the kiss you’ve been begging for all night long”
“I must admit I really like your kisses, but that won’t be enough. Give it another try.”
“Eeny meeny miny moe,” I muttered. Dany tried to smile, but it was useless. “What would his lordship want? A box of cigars, some Bvlgari cuff links or a grey unicorn?”
“I’ll take the unicorn, I don’t smoke, nor do I use cuff links.”
“I’ll order it for you first thing tomorrow. Should I have it sent to you to work or…?”
“No, no. You deliver it.” He slid in his seat, grabbed my waist and placed me on him. “Just like that, riding it to my flat.”
“Impossible. I didn’t renew my unicorn driver’s licence. FedEx it is.”
“Should I give you my address?”
“I can surely find you in the book, don’t worry.”
“I don’t trust the book. Why don’t you give me your number and I’ll text you the location?”
I cackled dryly.
“Gotcha!” I said very happily. “And the answer is the same as last summer: no.”
I was nuts, but not as much as to give him my number. He’d use it, and then I’d have his. And that was not a good idea. It was a terrible idea, it was the apocalypse, if apocalypse were an idea. It would have been a turn. No, forget about it.
“You do know I can ask Asier, don’t you?” he said stroking my hips.
“You do that, if you want to leave him with no offspring.”
“Could you be any less interested in seeing me again?” his hands slid under my dress and played with the silk that covered my behind.
“I don’t need to give you my number for me to see you again.” I was thinking I could run into him someday I least thought. My karma could be that cruel.
“Really, now?” he insisted. “And how do I get in touch?”
“I’m on LinkedIn.”
“And off your rocker, too,” he laughed. “But I promise I’ll look for you.”
He said these words so self-assuredly I got tense. That was too much, there was no room for any type of commitment between us.”
“Save your promises to yourself,” I warned him.
“I don’t intent on saving anything with you.”
He tossed underneath mu legs and lifted his hands to my back. I had to rely on my forearms in the seat not to smash into his mouth.
“Are you making it so difficult because of something specific, or you’re just playing?” he asked over my lips.
“I’m playing, of course,” I lied.
“What if I said I’m tired of playing?”
“You kiss me then.”
“Nope. I want you to do it. And do it because you crave it just like I do.”
Fucking madman. Of course, I was dying to. His kisses were like the best of wines: soft at the beginning, made you close your eyes and moan when you felt the pleasure of tasting their complexity, and then they stayed in your mouth long after having taken them in. They were intoxicating and that was exactly why I didn’t kiss him.
“Has nobody ever told you you speak too much?” I asked, swinging on his crotch.
“Has nobody ever told you you’re too hot?” he kissed my neck.
“All the time,” I joked, to hide the shudder I felt with his kiss.
“Of course.” He lifted his hips, hitting my thighs and exposing my precautions. “Take off your panties, precious.”
“I don’t know if I like it when you call me precious,” I said while I was working on my lingerie.
“Of course you do, don’t lie. Careful with the ankle…,” I was dangerously menacing his balls. “Lift your leg… that’s it. Fuck, you can be so elastic, Natalie…”
“I used to pool dance,” I lowered my leg and put my panties in his shirt pocket. “I quit because of the bruises. And because I was way too tempted to make a living as a stripper.”
“You’d hit the jackpot,” he said and stroke my buttocks with full hands.
Mine were already busy with his white buttons.
“Maybe I’ll give it another thought. I am sick and tired of the shop.”
“You’re working as a seller now?”
“I nodded, pulled his shirt, he took off of his seat and helped me take it off.
Holy fuck, what a torso. Nothing over the moon, all well-defined and with the right amount of hair, natural, harmonious, smooth, barely tanned, overly appealing. I ran my hand all over his chest, his shoulders, then went back, to his abdomen, his waist, his ribs… I just couldn’t stop touching him. touching him was like a spell. I deeply bit my lower lip. That moan was not supposed to get out. Dany took my face with both his hands and pulled me to his mouth.
“You win,” he whispered just before freeing my lip with his thumb and catching it with his teeth,
He didn’t bite, just kept me to pet me with his tongue, slid his hands on my neck, very, very slowly, took in a deep breath and held me tightly to his hot skin. It was bliss. I had to close my eyes and shake my hips. I had to hurry along him. It was way too intense. I shouldn’t have enjoyed it so much.
Dany let go of my lip and tiled his head. He kissed me twice, softly, sweetly, imposing persuasion as basic rule of the game. The third time, I had to reply. I gave in to the need that cried out to calm down every cell in my body. I opened my mouth and… got lost. His fault. Because he kissed me with the urge of the moment and then some more. It was something deep, that tossed me wholly, I could feel it in my bones. His tongue was doing magic in my mouth, but I felt it much deeper, touching parts of me that were still raw. He made me shudder. He felt it and came closer to give me the heat I seemed to be needing, without stopping from kissing me with that urge… and then some more.
I forced my hands to focus on his fly. I couldn’t feel my fingers, I felt them tangling uselessly, trying to let go of the damn button. I let a growl slip out. That turned him on. Everything got faster…
Finally, for fuck’s sake.
Finally, we were all hands, mess, hurry. Fast, wet and pleasant. Latex, silence and closed eyes. At least mine were. I couldn’t open them, I just had enough with his tremendous erection inside me and trying to breathe at the same time.
I came before him. I didn’t even feel him getting close. I let myself go by my need to reach my objective and Dany did the rest. He pushed me to the victory with the skills of a leader. After that, I could only moan, ebullient, sending my cry out into the sky.
I heard him laugh, proud of his feast and I pounced on his body, forcing him to hold his back to the seat, shutting his fucking mouth with a kiss and the movement of my hips. Blessed twerking. I finished him of in a jiffy. The bad thing was how he took it. He hugged me wholly, making my body a refuge to his, and he whined my name to my ear.
That «Natalie» was left in an empty corner of me ever since.
6
One Wish
Seeing Natalie again was nothing I had ever expected, but that doesn’t mean much, since nothing is predictable with her.
I knew she was invited to the wedding, as I knew she was supposed to come without her plus one; I had been dedicated in confirming it all. What I had missed was that she had spent the year apart and disconnected to keep up to speed to my love habits.
I was surprised, so I got to ask her upfront how she had confirmed I had been the one to break it off… and she sassily backtalked.
It may seem crazy, but I liked these changes of moods very much. They were so Natalie, spilling arrogance and courage, making me swell up. That was where her confession speech ended up, along with a new trickster way to disarm the brown eyed warrior I wanted to see at my feet, no submissive dye whatsoever in my intentions. I just wanted it literally and obscenely. I wanted her to give me the gift of another night to remember and since we were there, to show her I was not just some nobody.
I don’t see myself more, nor less than anybody. But I sure as hell am not somebody who can be voluntarily ignored. Not if I can help it. That’s why I had set my mind in leaving that crystal clear. If she thought she was so smart, I was just going to show her a couple of new tricks. If she told on me, I would just present her with more evidence to charge her more. If she came on to me, I would get into her panties before she could blink twice.
I was just about to do it in that dirty pub. During the brief lapse of time Natalie kept her eyes closed to avoid my strokes, I had time to asses at least three spots where we could have had a good time. But I didn’t think the tiny bathroom, the nook that was the storage room entrance or the darkness that covered the end of the bar seemed like good places, and so I ended up putting my car out. The best I had at hand.
I kept watching her while we headed back to the graveyard and I noticed how she was getting ever more nervous, and how this anxiety rose her spontaneity up to levels that could get to be unsurmountable. A whisky would have been just what I needed. Some superficial fearlessness to replace the one that disappeared behind her steps.
Her hips moving made the skirt of her dress dance with such a style that I started to coward. It was just for a second, but even so, I thought maybe I wasn’t going to bear more than three sways on a row coming from those hips. She had me at my wits’ end. Turned on both by the challenge she was by herself and the reward her spectacular body was hiding.
As soon as we got into the car, I hit on her. I just wanted to dive inside her and get my prize, but she turned naughty. She shut me up, she denied me her mouth and she turned her eyes away every time I told her with mine how I enjoyed it.
Under the circumstances, rest assured it was way more pleasant to see her melt in my hands than get my own out of it. She gave in to what was running between us and I let one wish out, that I doubted I wanted fulfilled.
Being someone’s safety net is too big a responsibility to take on easily.
Even so, I kept holding Natalie… until she confessed she had scratched my dashboard. That’s where I let go of any restraint, being a gentleman and any trace of good manners. For fuck’s sake, that was my car. I had the right to drop one insult or two.
Then I checked the damages and I chillaxed. It was barely something. Besides, that was why I paid a load of money on insurance. But her reaction turned me on again. Instead of getting angry, she thought of negotiating, which offered me the perfect alibi to entangle her.
She caught me out on my ruse soon enough, and I got another no instead of her phone number. Please excuse my French, but it drove me so mad I yelled “fuck it all,” on the inside and went full on.
I ended up emptying completely inside her, passionately, saying her name, while she was still vibrating in my arms.
It was very special, just as any other moment with her, but not as much as what came after.
We started kissing. Profusely. With no thirst to get anywhere, just greedily, for fun, for the strict need to convey a message that can’t be sent any other way than through something so intimate.
