Hot Fix

by Tamara Lush

  “You’re tired,” I say, brushing my mouth over her forehead. “Go back to sleep. It’s still early.”

  As I climb out of bed, I feel her fingertips on my back.

  “Where are you going? I’m not sure I want to be in bed without you.” She looks at me with half-focused eyes.

  I turn around, kissing her on the mouth. Her hair is fanned out in blonde tangles over the white pillow, and my heart shatters at the sight because she’s so gorgeous.

  The fact that she wants me around is so reassuring. Makes me happy. Makes me feel less vulnerable. Maybe it’s because I had an absent mom and a shitty dad, but Cata’s need for me fills up a hollow space inside. Other than Cata – and her family – no one’s ever really wanted me around.

  “I’m going to check my email, shower and get us coffee. And I’m going to let you sleep for a while.”

  I kiss her again, and she makes a cute grumbling noise. I watch her nestle into the duvet and drift off. Quietly, I ease off the bed and grab my phone.

  On my way to the bathroom, I scroll through a shit ton of emails. Some are from the guys, teasing me about whether I’m having a good weekend. They sent me photos of Zelda in a camouflage dog vest, and I stifle a laugh.

  Leaning against the sink, I scroll more. Sergei thanked me in a second email for our meeting. And then my eyes come to one subject line, in all caps.

  SO YOU’VE FALLEN FOR A SLUT? I'll bet she can suck dick real nice.

  What the hell? I tap on the screen.

  There’s no words in the email. Only a single photo.

  It’s one of the pictures from high school, the one where she’s looking straight into the camera, cupping her breasts. Similar to what she did in bed earlier.

  I stop breathing. Who the fuck sent this to me? And why? My mind instantly goes to that politician in New York, and I make a mental note to check him out. Is he out for more revenge? He'd already gotten her fired. Wasn't that enough?

  My face gets hot, and I feel a white-hot rage build inside my body. My hand’s on the doorknob of the bathroom, and I’m ready to burst into the room to show Cata, then a chill goes through me.

  I can’t tell her about this.

  Not only will she freak out, she might blame me somehow. Might think that I had something to do with it, that I’ve been spreading her photos around. Or she will assume that I still have the photos somewhere and didn’t secure them properly.

  I need to fix this, must find out who sent this photo. I need to protect Cata from whoever is doing this. We need to get back to Gamerhouse.

  Tapping on the screen, I forward the email to Sawyer without the photo attachment. His hacking skills are pretty good, and what details he can’t figure out, he knows people in London who can. Even though he’s a gamer, he spent a couple of years working for a Wikileaks-like group that collected secret information from the Dark Web.

  “I want anything and everything connected with this email address. And don’t tell anyone,” I write. “We’ll be back …”

  I pause. If I tell Cata that we’re needed back at the house, she’ll wonder what’s going on. She’ll demand to know. No, we have to stick to the original itinerary. Stay another night on Miami Beach. I need to pretend that nothing’s wrong and let Sawyer collect information for me. But I hate lying.

  “We’ll be back Sunday night.” I include the politician's name and ask Sawyer to see if there's any link between him and the email address. I hit send.

  Anger surges through me. We had the best night of our lives. Restarted our relationship. Had incredible sex. Cata looks happier than I’d seen her since I first set eyes on her that night she delivered the pizzas.

  After everything she had been through, with the photos and her job and especially her father’s death, she deserves happiness. And I’m going to give it to her, here in Miami. We’re going to have an amazing weekend. I’ll deal with the consequences of this email when we got back home.

  In the large bathroom, I scroll through my email and double checking for anything else that's suspicious. Then it hits me: what if this person sent the same email to Cata? Or something worse?

  I need a plan, and fast.

  Chapter Twenty

  CATALINA

  “Diego, sweet boy, where’s my phone?”

  The white, fuzzy robe from the hotel cuddles my skin, and my wet hair is wrapped in a towel. The triple shower head in the suite’s uber-luxury bathroom was probably the best bathing experience of my life, although I can’t wait to try out the large soaking tub with Diego later.

  He’s lying on the bed, wearing jeans and no shirt, looking delicious. He looks up from flipping through a magazine, and his eyes light up when he sees me. I want to run my hands over his smooth chest, but I suspect that he’s waiting for me to get ready so we can go out and do something other than roll around in bed all afternoon.

  “I’m glad you got some sleep. You look well rested. Glowing. Gorgeous as usual.”

  I laugh and bound onto the bed. The front of the robe shifts, exposing my breast. “You didn’t have to let me sleep another four hours. I don’t want to waste the day.”

  He shrugs, then runs a finger down my neck and slips a hand into the robe and caresses me. “It’s not a waste. You looked peaceful. Even when you snored a little. And you’ve been working so hard, I wanted you to catch up on your sleep.”

  “I don’t snore.” His lips are so soft and I can't stop kissing him.

  “You do, but it’s okay. It was cute.”

  He really is the most caring man I’ve ever known, and it’s pretty of incredible that he’s mine. Or is he? I push the nagging questions out of my head. This doesn’t feel like a hookup. I refuse to believe that it is.

  Sitting up, I fold my robe over my half-naked chest. The towel comes off my hair and Diego takes it from my hands, letting it fall to the floor beside the bed.

  “I’ll first check my emails then get dressed so we can go out.” I look on the nightstand. “I thought I left my phone there, but I think all that sex did something to my brain. It’s like you’ve hypnotized me and I no longer have a memory. Did I leave it outside or something? Have you seen it? And where’s my iPad?”

  Laughing, Diego tugs on the sleeve of my robe. “Come here, sex zombie.”

  He leans up and puts his arm around me, sweeping me down onto the bed next to him.

  “I have an idea,” he says. “Let’s go without technology until we get back to the house tomorrow night. I’ve put our phones and iPads and computers in the safe box in the closet. And only I have the combo.”

  I stare at him, incredulous. “I … that’s … wow. Why?” I frown. “Why would we want to be without our phones?”

  He kisses my nose. “So we can concentrate on each other one hundred percent. I don’t want any distractions. At all.”

  His fingers scissor into my hair, combing through the damp strands away from my face. “I don’t want any distractions while we go shopping. I don’t want to worry about the phones getting stolen when we swim at the beach. And I don’t want to be interrupted at all when we’re in bed together.”

  Sitting up on his knees, he unties my robe and stares at my naked body. I shiver when he runs his hands over my breasts and my stomach. He presses his body into mine, and his jeans are rough against my thighs. My skin’s still warm and a little moist from the shower, and the skin on our chests sticks together.

  “But what if the guys try to text us?”

  “I don’t care.” He kisses me and bites my bottom lip with his teeth, then lets go. “They’re adults. They can handle everything.”

  “But what if there’s an emergency?”

  Diego lights a flaming trail of kisses down my neck and over my collarbone. He looks up. “Being with you this weekend is an emergency. Everything else can wait. Life can wait.”

  He kisses lower, pausing to take my nipple into his mouth. Feeling weak in the legs, I mount another protest. Mostly because there hasn’t been a day in rec
ent memory that I’ve been without my phone. The very idea makes me unsettled.

  “But how will we know what time it is? Where we are? How will we stay in touch if we somehow get separated?” I murmur weakly.

  After sucking hard on my nipple that sends electricity shooting through my body, he raises his head. “I don’t care what time it is or where we are. And I’m not letting you out of my sight. I might not let you out of this bed.”

  He kisses lower, and when his lips find their way below my bellybutton, he gently parts my legs with his hands, so that his fingers are spreading my thighs apart. Maybe the phone isn’t that important. Wait. I’m crazy to be thinking of a phone while a gorgeous man is in between my thighs ready to lick me until I’m breathless.

  “Are you sore here?” he murmurs, trailing gently around my clit.

  “Maybe a little.”

  “Not a surprise after last night. And this morning.” His face is right next to my entrance, and he gently parts my folds with his fingers. I feel a flood of wetness in my core at the whisper of his warm breath. “Maybe this will help.”

  He licks me softly, and I gasp. Oral sex always makes me feel exposed. I had let Diego lick me last night, but it was dark. Today, the sunshine is streaming through the windows, and I squirm. I want him to continue, but I’m self-conscious.

  “You don’t have to,” I protest.

  He tilts his head up to look at me and raises a sexy eyebrow. He licks his bottom lip as if he can’t get enough of my taste. “Cata, I don’t have to, but I want to. I love the way you taste. You know I could eat your pussy all day.”

  I open my mouth in mock horror. “You still have such a filthy mouth, Diego Rodriguez.”

  He laughs, low and sexy, and then dips his head to slowly lick the length of my sex. The tip of his tongue lingers on the place I’d showed him. The spot that drove me crazy.

  “This filthy mouth is about to give you the best orgasm you’ve ever had.”

  As he continues to lick and sip from me, I become wetter and melt into his tongue. I stop caring about how I look and relax. Open my legs wider. He’s bathing my clitoris with long, slow strokes and it feels fucking amazing. It’s making my heart to pound, and my skin ignites like a wildfire.

  There are no doubts left in my mind as Diego slides one finger inside of me and then circles my clit with his tongue. Phone? What’s a phone? Within moments, I’m trembling, gasping, begging for him to make me come.

  “Would you rather have your iPad?” he says, looking up while keeping me spread apart.

  “Fuck, Diego, no. Please? Don’t stop.”

  “Okay,” he laughs, then sucks my clit with those lips until I shatter.

  “You’ve become an excellent student of my body in the past twenty-four hours,” I murmur, raking my hand through his longish hair.

  I’m totally, madly, one-hundred-percent back in love with Diego Rodriguez.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course,” I say, as he flops next to me. He wipes my wetness from his lips with his thumb.

  “It’s kind of personal.”

  “Okay.” I shrug.

  “Why didn’t you come with those other guys?”

  I sigh and roll onto my back. “It’s complicated. After I moved to New York, after you, I dated. Not a lot, but. You sure you want to hear this?”

  “Yeah. I’m genuinely curious.”

  “Okay. When I was with other guys, it seemed like everything was for their pleasure. That the guy’s orgasm was the main event, and that I should be happy that I was sexually desirable. Then I realized how fucked up that was. And…” I hesitated.

  “And what?”

  “And I thought about how you always put my pleasure first. And no other guy was like that. So I figured that if I couldn’t have you, I’d learn to at least please myself.”

  Diego grins wide, then leans in to kiss my nose. “Cool. And now you have me. And it’s like you did lose your virginity to me after all. Your orgasm virginity.”

  “You’re so silly,” I whisper, secretly thrilled he’s so happy. We snuggle for a while, and it feels exactly how the best Sunday in the world should.

  “I’m going to need to shower again because I'm all sweaty,” I say. “Hey, are you going to call to check in on the guys? Have you told them about the meeting yesterday?”

  Diego shrugs. “I emailed them. They know it’s only good things in store for them. I’ll explain more when we get back.”

  He stretches wide and lets out a little roar-yawn. “I can’t wait to hear what all the fans online say. I wonder what their reaction will be. Good? Bad? What do you think?”

  “It could go either way.”

  “I think they’ll be cool with the news. I’ve actually been pretty surprised at how polite they’ve been to me online. You have some pretty mature fans. I know you keep apologizing for them, but they’ve been fairly respectful.”

  Diego twists his head to look at me and frowns. “Are you kidding? I was going to apologize again. I’m sorry that the guys online are annoying."

  “Annoying? You mean sexist pigs?"

  “Yeah. That."

  I shrugged. From my vantage point, all guys can be jerks online. Even Diego sometimes. Thank God he isn't that way in real life.

  “They seem to keep things to a minimum. I’ve heard of women being treated worse. It’s nothing I can’t handle. And, anyway, aren’t you kind of like that, though, when you’re gaming?"

  Now it’s Diego’s turn to shrug. He looks embarrassed.

  “I guess. I’m trying not to be that way. I slipped into the persona over the years. I’ve rethought how I talk online since you came back. I mean, I actually hate some of the things they say online. A lot of the things they say about women."

  “Like what?” I roll onto my side and trace his stomach muscles with my fingers.

  “I dunno. Like when they talk shit about sex. Like when they say things about their girlfriends, things like, ‘that pussy is mine.’ A lot of guys claim they say that in bed to their girlfriends. What the hell is that? Why would I ever say that to you? I mean, I love your pussy, and want to practically shout on the balcony about how gorgeous it is and how perfect it tastes, but is it mine? No."

  I snort out a laugh and bury my face into his side. “It does sound stupid when you say it like that."

  Diego chuckles. “Why would I want your pussy to be mine? I don’t get it. I know I’m sometimes a little slow to pick up on social cues, but, damn."

  This makes me crack up more. These were the kinds of conversations we used to have. Funny and deep and slightly nonsensical. Like we were both trying to make sense of a crazy world. “I think it’s a possessive show of masculinity. It’s a protective thing."

  He rolls his eyes. “I know. I get that. And I want to protect you and keep you safe from all evil in the world. Don’t get me wrong, I’d kill to protect you."

  I smirk. For all of his geekiness, Diego sometimes had as much machismo as any guy, which was why I hesitated to tell him about my orgasms with other men. But he surprises me with his maturity.

  “Do I really need protecting?"

  He squints at me and doesn’t speak for a few seconds. “I’m not saying I want to protect you because I’m a big, tough guy. I want to protect you because I care about you. And I expect you to protect me because you care about me. You do protect me. You look after me. Like when you put together those reports for the presentation. I hadn’t even thought to do that, and you saved my ass. I would have winged it."

  I grin and swirl my finger around his bellybutton. It’s true. I always felt somewhat responsible for Diego. Keeping him safe from the bullies in high school, from the kids who talked shit about how he’d draw all during class in his notebook. Once, a snarky football player made fun of Diego’s silence in class. I told him that he had more brains in his pinky than that jock did in his head. And that was before we had even hooked up.

  “But, Cata, that kind of tal
k, about possessing body parts, is stupid coming from a guy. I mean, would I say, this elbow is mine?”

  He takes my arm and sits up, biting my elbow gently, tugging the flesh in his teeth and growling. I giggle.

  “Or this knee. This knee is mine?” He leans to kiss my knee and cages me with his arms and legs. “It is a very sexy, knee, though. I don’t want to own it. I want to lick it."

  I yelp a laugh when he licks my kneecap, then when he starts to slowly, sensually, kiss up my thigh, I sigh. Waves of tingles go straight to the juncture of my legs and up to my nipples which instantly harden. I moan a little and run my fingers through his thick hair.

  “You know I am yours, though, right?” I whisper.

  He stops kissing my leg and moves up my body, so we’re eye to eye. “You are mine,” he says, his voice serious. “My equal. Actually, no. You’re better than my equal. That’s why I love you. You’re a better person than I am."

  “That’s not true.” Tears prick my eyes. This is how Diego always had treated me, with respect. It feels so good to hear it again since no man had said anything remotely that kind to me in years.

  “It is. And you’re more than a pussy or an elbow or a knee or a body part. You’re my kitty-with-the-blue-eyes, and you’re the whole package."

  Chapter Twenty-One

  DIEGO

  Normally I’m an introvert. I can handle living with Sawyer and Liam because technically, they don’t share space inside my house. I’m an only child and prefer online interaction to the real thing.

  Except when it comes to Cata.

  It’s Sunday afternoon, and I’m watching her pull on a black tank top dress. Swipe shiny lip stuff on her mouth while looking at herself in the full-length mirror. She’s now looking at her shoes. It’s a fascinating ritual to me, and I’m interested in it all. The other two women I’ve been with, I wasn’t with them long enough to watch them primp and get ready. I only had sex with them. They were nice enough women, but after we’d slept together, I felt awkward. Not fascinated, like I am with Cata.