by A. B. Wilson
Heaven. I was in fucking heaven inside her mouth, but I couldn’t resist the beautiful sight of her ass and pussy so near my face. I wrapped my arms around her hips and pulled her toward me. God, she tasted so good, a perfect balance of sweetness and musk, and so Alina.
She moaned brokenly, her hips straining back to ride my face as she leaned forward and swallowed my cock when my hips inadvertently thrust against her mouth. I spiraled off the planet for a moment as we both chased our orgasms, and came to with her lying next to me, gasping. I was pretty sure I’d seen God. And she had given me a big thumbs up. Eventually I reached out a trembling hand to touch her hip. “Are you okay?”
“I have no fucking idea,” she answered hoarsely. “I think I’ve been fucked into a new dimension. And you didn’t even put your dick in me.”
“Unless you’re trying to tell me oral doesn’t count, I definitely did. Shit, I’ve never gotten that carried away. Did I hurt you?” My heart rate was still uneven, and I barely got the words out.
“I’m okay.” She swallowed audibly and shifted her jaw left to right. “I will definitely be feeling it tomorrow, though. Jesus. Sex has never been like this before. This consuming.”
I nodded as I caught my breath and stroked her jaw. “That was so fucking amazing. Thank you,” I murmured.
“You’re not so bad yourself. Thank you.” Then she booped my nose and snuggled back down into my arms. She was snoring within thirty seconds.
I could forget whatever I’d said about not wanting to put labels on shit or being casual. I knew I was going to marry this girl.
* * * *
It felt like no time had passed before the attendants were back, knocking on our cabin door. “Mr. Shellenberg, we’re starting our final approach into Berlin.”
“Uh-huh, I mean, yes, we’re up. We’ll be ready for landing,” I managed to croak.
I turned to Alina, who was slowly waking up, and gasped as I pulled the covers off her. Both of us were marked up. Tiny scrapes from her fingernails stung my shoulders and she’d left a decent set of love bites on my chest. We’d made messes of each other.
“What?” she asked sleepily, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “Where did you throw my clothes, you animal?”
I pointed at her underwear and T-shirt in the corner, then cleared my throat. “Alina, hold up. Look at yourself. Look at me.”
She glanced down and gasped, looking up at me with humor in her eyes. “Well, you know what they say. ‘Go to bed with a vixen.’”
I laughed, glad that she seemed unbothered by the whole thing. Secretly, I loved being marked by her, and the memory of my own fingers digging into her hips as she moved above me made me fiercely proud in a strange, caveman way. She owned me, that was all there was to it, and I didn’t care who else knew it. By the time the plane taxied to the gate, we were seated and had the door cracked for the flight attendants.
“Have fun, you two? You’re the most adorable couple we’ve seen in a while.” They looked at us and smiled while we flushed and muttered something complimentary as we moved toward the exit.
Neither of us were paying any attention to the murmurs behind us as we strolled into the airport, both still caught up in each other. By the time we cleared customs and got to baggage claim, though, the attention was unmistakable. Alina kept dropping my hand to wipe her sweaty palms on her jeans.
“Listen, I know this is bizarre for you. Ignore everyone. We’ll be fine—our car should be waiting for us,” I answered as I took a step toward the baggage carousel to pull off our luggage.
She paused, a notification on her phone distracting her momentarily. Suddenly both of our phones were clanging like winning slot machines. “Oh shit,” she whispered as her hand flew to her mouth.
I looked at her phone. “Shit,” I echoed, realizing that the flash and click I had thought I’d imagined had been one of the flight attendants sneaking in and taking our picture while we slept.
The quilt covered everything important, and it was clear that Alina had a shirt on, but we had been captured in an obviously intimate embrace. They had snapped the picture and posted it on social media with the comment, “They couldn’t keep their hands off of each other. Clearly in love and didn’t care who knew it.” A bunch of heart emojis followed, and my name was hashtagged. TMZ had then picked it up and embellished it with a bunch of other photos taken by people at the airports. The headline “Shellenberg finds a replacement?” made me furious. Those attendants were going to be fired by the next day if Roger had anything to do about it.
I risked a look at Alina and asked quietly, “Not great, but at least we’re covered. You okay?”
She looked at me for a long time, and I couldn’t read her. Then she blew out a strained breath, an exhausted look in her eyes. “Let’s find our driver.”
“Of course, but this is still only the beginning.” I kept my voice low as we joined the flow of traffic toward the entry hall. “Can you handle this? I’ll be right here with you, but this is what it will be like—at least at first.” I’d thought she was aware of the risks and likely events that would happen if we started going out more publicly, but the look she gave me frightened me a bit. Is she already over this?
“Yeah, I know. Don’t be ridiculous, Markus. We’re casual, right? But are we going to come out officially as a couple? How do we play this?” She was fretting again, staring up at me while she crossed her arms tightly across her chest.
“Look, we don’t need to do anything that you don’t feel comfortable with, okay? Did you interview any agents yet?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I picked Vinny Esposito—should I have him call Will and they can coordinate?”
“Good choice, I think you’ll like him a lot. Yeah, have him call Will. I’ll text you his number and you can forward it on. If they want to do a conference call, we can do that at my apartment, or you can tell him to get it shut down and tell all of the outlets to fuck off.” I grinned at her and was relieved to see a similar smile. It’s going to be okay.
We made it to the last door into the last waiting hall. The final bottleneck was a metal detector people could only go through one at a time. We put our bags on the belt and stepped through into the crowded hall, following signs to the pick-up area where a young, incredibly fit guy with a buzz cut stood at attention holding a tablet reading “Collins/Ferrous.”
Alina looked back and forth between me and the driver. “Collins?”
“Yeah, Phil. The maestro.”
“Oh my god. You’re such a geek. How am I hanging out with you?” she nearly howled as she shoved me. I quickly sidestepped her, laughing at her embarrassed-for-me face.
We hopped into the car and she curled up in her seat immediately. “God, I’m still so tired.”
“Sleep. We’ve got an hour or so till we get to the apartment.”
“Mmmhmm. Thanks, Markus.” Her eyes fluttered shut as I brushed a hand across cheek.
When I looked down at the phone on my thigh, one last notification caught my attention. A text from Michael.
Congrats on your newly minted relationship! Wanna let me know what the fuck is going on with you two? Going rogue?
Immediately, I fired back an eyeroll emoji to Michael’s congratulatory text and kept scrolling through the stories. I couldn’t get enough of the photos, especially the slightly blurry ones taken by cell phones at the airports. Us holding hands. Me with my arm around her, pulling her in. Her laughing up at me. Me kissing the top of her head. We looked happy. Fuck that, we are happy and we will get through this.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Alina
I woke up to Markus gently rocking my shoulder. We had pulled up to what looked like an abandoned factory, with the lower floors covered in brightly colored, incomprehensible graffiti. He took one look at me blinking at him like a mole emerging from her burrow and laughed.
“We’re here,” he said somewhat unnecessarily as he unbuckled both of our seatbelts then helped me
out of the car. The driver ran around and pulled out our bags before dragging each one up the steps to the camouflaged door.
“Can I help bring these up?” he asked with a sharp jerk of his head toward the stairs that were revealed as Markus unlocked and opened the building doors.
“Please,” Markus answered and led the way, the driver and me trotting along behind him.
We stopped at the only door in the entire hallway on the top floor of the building. I was embarrassingly out of breath from hauling my duffle and overstuffed tote up the four flights of creaky stairs. Our gym rat driver was barely breathing hard as he dropped the remainder of our bags on the ground. He held out his hand for Markus to shake, nodded perfunctorily and banged back down the stairs to the car.
“Remind me to get them to put in an elevator and switch to a keypad or something,” he grumbled as he struggled with the lock in the dimly lit hallway.
The door suddenly opened and we stumbled into the most unexpected apartment. From the overly graffitied outside, I’d expected a total dump. I was wrong. Markus’ place seemed to take up the entire top level of the building, which he’d told me was an old shoe factory that had been converted to apartments back in the late 1990s. The light that poured through the original casement windows reflected back on brand-new, top-of-the-line appliances off to the left in the open kitchen, and the white walls glowed softly in the early-morning sunlight.
An enormous rug covered a huge amount of the cavernous space. Muted reds, oranges and grays complemented the camel leather mid-century couch and club chairs. Floor lamps with eggshell shades and bronze stands made the entire place feel warm and cozy, while a few abstract canvases in complementary colors drew the right amount of attention to the fact that this was the home of a man clearly comfortable with himself and his own impeccable taste.
I liked how assured the space was and how he seemed to grow in confidence as he showed me around. This was home to him, and seeing him here in his own environment let me in further.
“Markus, this is gorgeous!” I exclaimed as I slid a finger over the buttery-soft leather of a couch and wandered over to the window.
“You like it? Like I said, I think this is my favorite place in the world. Come on. Let me show you the rest of it.” He seemed shyly excited by my approval, like this was his tree house with a big ‘Keep Out’ sign that he’d taken down for my benefit.
“This way first,” he said as he beckoned me down a short hallway to the right of the main living space. A bathroom and two extra bedrooms opened off the hall, one for guests and one that seemed to be a small office. I tried to stall in the office, where a huge chaise and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed the space completely, making it nearly impossible to move around.
I started to read the well-worn spines, mostly speculative fiction and memoirs. The stories hidden within people’s bookshelves were almost more telling than the ones inside a medicine cabinet. Markus was reflective, almost too self-aware, and deeply attracted to possibilities over reality. I was more grounded, needed the practical around me—order instead of ambiguity. Together we balanced each other out. Whether that would be enough when push came to shove was a different story.
“I need to check these out!” I protested as he turned off the lights and headed back into the hallway.
“Plenty of time for that later. Do you not want to see where the magic happens?” He winked at me. We re-crossed the open living space toward the kitchen, to a second hallway that I hadn’t noticed.
“What is this, MTV Cribs?” I joked as he continued to lead the way down the hall lined with high-contrast, black-and-white photographs of what I assumed were cities he’d visited.
He paused in front of the single door at the very end, did a drumroll on the doorframe and swung it open with a flourish.
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
We were, indeed, where the magic happened. Those same original windows from the living room continued into the bedroom, throwing shadows from the grids in the casements onto the scarred wooden floors. A massive platform bed was pushed into the corner and it looked like the hooks on each corner of the frame were linked to a rope system that led to a single hook in the ceiling, suspending the bed about a foot above the floor.
“Markus, is your bed set up for bondage or—”
He snorted. “It’s a rocker, Alina. Although I haven’t tested out the bondage potential with it. My decorator thought the movement would be soothing. Or maybe he was hinting at something? Either way, I’m the only one who’s slept in it. Alone.”
“Phew,” I muttered, a bit overwhelmed by the dirty thoughts that immediately flooded my mind.
He completely misread my stunned musings and directed me hastily into the attached bathroom, which did nothing to tamp down the ridiculous fantasies. The room was black marble with stark white fixtures and brushed stainless-steel finishing. A huge modern tub with a curve like a burlesque dancer’s waist posed in front of a glass block window that let in muted sunlight, and a walk-in shower with jets up and down two sides took up most of one wall.
“Nice, right?”
“I don’t want to leave.”
“Well, we can certainly spend some time in here later, if you want.”
“Oh, I want. Like, really, really want.” I attempted sultry but stopped as he laughed at my obvious eagerness.
“Later, I promise.” He winked and smiled at me. “Now come on, let me make you some coffee.”
I twirled around one more time with a silent, mournful goodbye to that beautiful tub and followed him to the kitchen.
“So, today,” Markus said as he passed me a tiny cup of espresso. “What do you feel like doing? Still interested in biking around?”
I shook my head and buried my nose in the cup before answering. I’d done some research and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. After swallowing, I took a deep breath and asked, “Can we be complete tourists? Or is that privacy suicide?”
He looked at me without saying a word, measuring my intensity.
“Maybe it’s ridiculous, but I really, really—like, more than anything—want to go to the Neues Museum and see Nefertiti.”
He burst out laughing. “Seriously? We could do anything, and you want to go to one of the most crowded tourist attractions in Berlin?”
“Closet history geek here. Can we go?”
“Okay my, little nerd, let me call a couple of security guys.”
My enthusiasm suddenly waned. I’d known that it was a likely possibility, but I’d also kind of hoped we could get lost in a crowd and be normal for a day.
He tried to let me down gently. “It’s like going to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa.”
I shrugged and agreed, then went to shower and change while he coordinated with his security team. By the time I got out, he was wearing new clothes and waiting by the door, playing with his phone. As he looked up, that same awestruck look from the Premiere played over his face. “I don’t know how you do it, but I swear you get more beautiful every time I see you.”
“That’s a tad excessive. I’m clean and wearing a top and short pants that are obnoxiously wide.” The top in question was boxy and cropped to sit right at the top of my paper-bag-waisted, wide-legged pants. I grabbed my sunhat and sunglasses then dumped my wallet and phone into my smaller tote before sweeping his stuff up and dropping it in as well. “So?”
“Did you take my wallet?” he asked as his eyebrows rose up to his hairline.
“Yeah, isn’t that okay?”
“That is easily the most couple-y thing ever.”
“Shit.” I yanked out his phone and wallet and threw them at him. His wallet smacked his chest and he narrowly caught his phone before it clattered to the floor.
He laughed and pulled on the strap so the tote gaped open and dropped them back in. “Now we’re worried about looking like a couple? Please, take them. I like it.”
I smiled up at him as he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and kissed me lightly
on the forehead.
* * * *
We were on our way back to the car after the museum when a small group of people with professional cameras descended, shouting questions in rapid-fire German and English. The security team bulldozed a way back to the car for us and Markus clutched my hand tightly, muttering angrily. Suddenly he stopped and whispered in my ear, “They say they’ll go away if we give them a photo. No need for a comment.”
I nodded. What other options did we have?
He stopped the security team and shouted, “Hey, guys! Guys! This is a little much, yeah? You’re getting a little close. Back off a bit, we’ll give you a photo, then we all go on our merry way.”
A clamor of voices asking more questions answered him.
“No! I said that we’ll stop. You can take your pictures, then go. Please, respect that.”
He was right—they did move back and gave us some space. Some started fiddling with cameras, but the guys with phones kept them out, still trying to ask questions.
Markus looked at me, big questions in his eyes, and I nodded quickly. I stepped closer, tilted my head so I could look up at him and tipped my sunglasses down to peer over them. He grinned faintly and, without turning away from me, instructed the guys that they could photograph us locked in this fake half-embrace.
It was so contrived, though, that I couldn’t help digging my elbow into his ribs, so he shrieked and flailed around before landing on his ass on the pavement. I extended a hand and pulled him up.
“I’m so sorry,” I heaved out in between giggles. “I really didn’t expect you to fall over!”
He stood, turned to the laughing photographers, and bowed sheepishly. “Ladies, gentlemen, show’s over. Run along, please.”
He brushed himself off and clambered into the back seat of the Audi A8L without much of his usual grace. “Shit, I’ve got a bruised ass. If you’ve ruined my chances to be the next Batman, I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you.”