Dusk Until Dawn

by ANDIE J. CHRISTOPHER

  “That’s so fucking hot.” His words came out soft, like they had to be quiet, as if someone was listening in the hall. “I locked the door. Get out of that dress and I can eat that pussy. Let me.”

  She shook her head. There was something illicit about doing this half-clothed that drove the intensity of the stolen moment sky-high. It was always intense with Javi, but this made her feel brand new. Like a virgin who didn’t want to go all the way, but she was so horny that she had to see him go off.

  His hand moved faster, and so did hers. She couldn’t stand it for very long and she leaned in, licked over the head of his cock and tasted him leaking.

  “Keep touching yourself baby. Don’t you want to watch me finish for you?” His voice was hoarse and strained.

  She released him for a second and took the base of him in her hand. “I don’t want to explain a spunk-stain on your sheets to your mother.”

  When he laughed, she took him so deep that he choked. He balanced her shoulders with both hands so she could fist his cock and touch herself at the same time. He wouldn’t let her fall.

  His grip on her shoulders made her clit swell even more. His taste in her mouth and the feel of him in her hand made her lose control. She held him in her mouth and moved her fingers faster and faster, needing to get off before she sucked him dry.

  He was on board because he said, “Oh, fuck. This is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. Squeeze it so I don’t come all over those hot tits of yours.”

  His approving, guttural declarations pushed her over the edge. She followed his instructions and bit into his thigh so her cries wouldn’t be heard all over the house and out the window. Everything inside her burst and she came so hard and so fast that it would have knocked her on her ass but for him holding her.

  He grabbed the hand she’d been touching herself with and dragged her up onto the bed. Somehow, she got the strength to crawl up over him and suck him back in when he took her fingers in her mouth and cleaned her off. She sucked him no more than ten times before he jerked and flooded her mouth.

  When he’d finished, she laid her head on his thigh. “Does your penis feel approved of?”

  He sounded wrung out when he laughed, and a curl of satisfaction spread through her whole body, her whole being.

  Chapter 15

  Two days after the engagement party where Maya had sucked his soul out through the head of his cock, he sat in his office, squinting at a spreadsheet. Maya had woken him up that morning with eggs and bacon and a hand job in the shower.

  His life was fucking amazing right now. He had never been happier.

  He was thinking about debauched things to do to Maya when a bike messenger knocked on his door and handed him an envelope. Usually, they left the mail at the front desk. Only process servers had to hand the mail directly to him. He’d learned that when he’d tried to serve divorce papers on Karrie, and she’d refused to answer the door to his fucking house.

  So, the back of his neck tingled when the guy asked, “Are you Javier Luis Hernandez?”

  He nodded, feeling like he was about to get hit by a sledgehammer and didn’t have time to duck out of the way.

  “You’ve been served.”

  Fuck.

  He took the envelope, but let it sit on his desk for a few minutes. He didn’t know what he was so afraid of. The divorce had been final for most of a year.

  Alana poked her head in his office while he was still staring at the envelope.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Javi. Who was the bike messenger? Did the receptionist take a long lunch again? I don’t want to have to fire her, but she needs to stay at her post.”

  “No. It was a process server.”

  Alana came in his office and closed the door. She dropped into the chair across from his desk and grabbed the envelope.

  “Be careful with that.” He didn’t know why he said that. It wasn’t like Karrie would send him ricin through her lawyers. His sister rolled her eyes and tore open the envelope. She pulled out a sheath of papers, embossed fancy legal papers, like the kind his divorce decree was on. He’d thought that this was over, but the sick feeling in his stomach that he’d lived with for months, while he was waiting for a judge to say his marriage was over, returned to his stomach.

  Alana scrunched up her face as she read the first page and then threw the papers across the desk. “She wants to amend the final divorce decree because of a change in circumstances.”

  “The fuck? She has half of everything. What more could she want?”

  Alana shrugged. “We’re doing really well. Maybe she saw the article in the Miami Herald about our recent success and she wants more of the pie.”

  He clenched his fist and pounded one on the desk so hard that his pens moved. Alana jumped. “Can she do this?”

  “I don’t know.” His sister looked nonplussed and he was furious. He took a few seconds look over the top sheet and the back.

  “You’re a lawyer. You should know.”

  She stood up. “I’m not a divorce lawyer. Speaking of which, you need to call yours.”

  Javi planted his face on the top of his desk, considered pounding it until he forgot that Karrie ever existed. “She’s never going to leave me alone, is she?”

  Alana shrugged again. “I mean, you shouldn’t have married her. Even though you’re divorced, you’re always going to have a tie to her. You fucked up. Relationships are hard enough when you’re bat-shit crazy in love.”

  He looked at his sister, scanning her face for any signs of distress. “Is Cole treating you right? I know I was an asshole for punching before, but I’ll fuck him up again if I have to.”

  She shook her head. “No. Everything’s great. He does annoying shit like leaving his socks on the floor so the cleaning lady spends all her time tidying up instead of doing a deep clean. But I love him and I like getting naked with him too much to care.” Javi didn’t want to hear that, but knew that if he said anything, she’d make a point of talking about her sex life with Cole even more. “But, when you don’t really love someone, when you just kind of like them, that kind of shit will break you. If I didn’t love Cole, I would see his dirty socks as an act of war. I don’t know how you got that far with Karrie. Not after seeing you with Maya.”

  “You’re right. I messed up. What do I do? How do I fix this?” Asking his sister for advice, he knew that his divorce and getting with Maya had changed him. Before he’d blown his life up, he’d thought he was the expert on everything. Now, he didn’t know what to do, and it was almost a relief. He didn’t have to know everything. He had his sisters. He hoped he had Maya.

  Alana sighed. “You’re not going to want to hear this, but you have to tell Daddy. He needs to call in the really expensive lawyers so she doesn’t get a cut of the business this time.” She turned to walk out of his office, then turned back. “And, I know you don’t want to do this, but you have to talk to her. Try to explain how you feel. Maybe if you give her some closure, she’ll back off of the money thing.”

  Both of those to-do list items made him want to hurl things through the window, but he found it in him to sit still and let his sister’s words sink in. He nodded. “You’re right.”

  Alana let loose with a wry laugh. “You will never know how much I love hearing that from you.”

  He picked up his phone and dialed the number he’d never thought he’d use again.

  * * * *

  Maya had made herself comfortable in Javi’s kitchen. After the engagement party, she’d pretty much moved in. It wasn’t her decision; Javi had gone into her room at Felix’s house and thrown her stuff in a bag that night. She’d been so tired and felt so agreeable due to the orgasms that she’d gone along with it.

  She still had her supplies in Felix’s garage, so she’d gone back there to paint today when he left for work.

  Alone, in his home, while he was at work was the first time she had any doubts. They were moving s
o fast that she felt like something about this had to be dumb. She was going to end up getting hurt by this. It had to all fall down.

  As she chopped vegetables, she imagined Karrie coming back, a changed woman, and begging Javi to take her back. Her mind twisted the old nightmare she used to have about seeing Karrie and Javi together, Maya plump with his child this time. When she laid down for a nap this afternoon, she’d awoken after a dream where she was pregnant with Javi’s baby, but he’d still left her to go back to his wife. A part of her still didn’t trust that Javi was for real, and she was terrified.

  She knew where all of this came from. Her parents had the most dysfunctional relationship in history. Maya didn’t know what to do when things were good because when things were good between her parents was when she had to worry. That usually meant they were due for a fight—a fight after which the police showed up and she and Felix usually had to evade a social worker until their workload forced them to leave the Pascual siblings to their own devices.

  She wasn’t used to being taken care of. Growing up the way they had made being in a happy relationship ill-fitting and frightening. Cooking was a good place to put her muddled thoughts. She wasn’t as good a cook as her mother or brother was, but she could hold her own. This was one way she could take care of Javi, even though the rest of being in a relationship was a mystery.

  He walked through the door, and his energy was heavy. His shoulders were uncharacteristically slumped, and he looked older than he had when he’d left that morning.

  “What’s wrong?” She didn’t give herself a chance to censor herself and make small talk.

  He dropped his briefcase and keys; the domesticity of the whole thing felt so weird. By the time he made it to the kitchen, he’d schooled his features into something impassive, neutral. “Nothing. Not now that I’m with you.” He kissed her on the cheek, and the heat that was always there when he touched her gave her comfort. “You didn’t have to cook.”

  Maya shrugged. “I know that. I just wanted to.”

  “I like that.” His smile was genuine, so she decided to let it go for now. She didn’t want to spoil their new relationship, but her mind kept inventing problems. It probably would forever.

  “My mom used to make this for Felix and me.”

  “She was a good cook?” He sat at one of the stools and watched her. They might be doing the whole small talk thing, but there was something almost wolfish in the way he watched her.

  Maya nodded. “She could make any traditional Puerto Rican dish, and most anything else. When she had to work, when my dad disappeared, she worked in kitchens. Some of them were fancy and she brought the skills home.”

  “Did she ever think about culinary school?” The question reeked of privilege. This would always be an issue between the two of them. Javi would never understand that growing up had been about survival for her mom. She’d pushed her and Felix to go to college, but she’d never entertained the possibility for herself. It never would have occurred to her that she deserved more than scraps and the back of her man’s hand.

  Maya would usually throw out a shitty, sarcastic reply, but Javi was worth explaining all of this to. “No. She pushed Felix to do it. He was more interested in cooking growing up than me. But she was too worried about survival.”

  “I get that.”

  “No, you don’t.” The words came out sharp, and she hadn’t intended them to. “But, that’s okay. We’re different.”

  She deglazed the pan with wine and added the chicken and cooked vegetables back. The dish would be okay to simmer for a while. She put the lid on and moved around the island towards Javi.

  He smelled a little bit sweaty, but she didn’t give a damn. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail, which made his sharp features stand out even more. She traced the lines of his face with her index fingers, feeling the muscles relax at her touch.

  He breathed deep and pulled her close, so that their bodies melted together. “I missed you today.”

  She laughed. “We can’t spend all our time in bed. You have to work. I have to paint.”

  He growled at her, and it hit her in the center. “How long can dinner simmer?”

  “I’ll turn it all the way down and meet you in the bedroom. It’ll be better if the flavors marry.”

  She turned to go back to the stove, but he pulled her back in for a deep kiss, nipping her bottom lip with his teeth before letting her go.

  * * * *

  After the day he’d had, walking into his condo to find Maya cooking and swaying to soft music was about the best thing that could happen. He didn’t know how to tell her that he was going to have to deal with Karrie again. He wanted to put his ex-wife out of his head completely, but he couldn’t help comparing the two women today.

  When he got to his bedroom, he took off his clothes, throwing them in the laundry pile. He wanted a shower with his girl, and he had plans for the detachable shower head.

  Maya might seem like the harder, more cynical of the two women if you looked at the surface. But all the no-bullshit attitude she projected was really a front. She knew that he was upset about something when he walked in, so she softened completely. She rolled over and showed him her soft underbelly; something he doubted she did with anyone else. He doubted that she talked about her family with anyone other than her brother. He felt honored that she’d shared that with him. And he wanted more of her and he would do whatever he had to in order to keep her emotions and secrets safe.

  On the way into the bathroom, he grabbed a condom and put it on the counter so he could reach it from the shower. There’s no way that they would get naked and not fuck. Not with how she looked in his house, how good that made him feel.

  Karrie had never let him in. To this day, he wasn’t sure why he’d married her. Their marriage hadn’t been intimate because he hadn’t known her. He was partially to blame for that. He hadn’t asked the questions he should have.

  And now, he was the one who wasn’t sharing what was really bothering him. He wanted to, but things with Maya were too new. He’d grown up with sisters, so he knew that something that didn’t have to be a big deal could become a big deal because of subtleties and emotions that he couldn’t account for. Right now, in this moment, he wanted to soak in the goodness of being her with her. With a woman he was really in love with.

  He turned on the water, both heads. Maya followed him into the bathroom, and he spied her taking off her easy little dress in the mirror. He loved her body. Her lean curves and sexy-ass tattoos made him hard just to think about. Seeing it in person, being able to touch her whenever he wanted to made it so much better.

  She took down her masses of wavy hair, and she looked like a sea goddess. He got under the water, and she gave him a hooded look under her lashes while she took off her bra and panties.

  When she stepped into the spray, he grabbed her and kissed her mouth. This time he was more forceful with her, pushed her against the shower wall. She squealed at the cold concrete and he stilled. “Okay?”

  “Better than okay.” She grabbed his ass, and pulled him to her.

  He winced when his hard cock got stuck between them. She wrapped her legs around him so his dick rested just beneath the lips of her pussy. The hot water made steam rise and washed away the sweat that rose on their skin.

  She clutched at his shoulders and showered his face with kisses. “I’m not going to let you fuck me until you tell me what’s wrong.”

  He rubbed his dick against her entrance. “If I tell you, you won’t want to fuck me anymore.”

  She drew back and combed her fingers through his hair, considering him so long his arms started to fatigue. “One of those models gave you a dick-rotting disease? Are you about to tell me that it’s going to fall off, and I’ll have to learn to enjoy you without the dick?”

  He barked a laugh and bounced her up. She pulled his hair. “No. I’m disease free. I hadn’t done anything with anyone for a while bef
ore you came to town.”

  She bit the end of his nose, then nuzzled his ear. His dick jumped against her wet flesh. He had to convince her to fuck him without telling her about the petition. “I don’t have anything either. Except an IUD.” She scratched his scalp as if she was trying to lull a kitten into sleep. “Which means that you can have me without that condom as soon as you tell me the truth.”

  He smiled against her wet hair. Some of it stuck to his mouth, but he didn’t give a shit. He wanted to be entwined with her. He didn’t precisely like bargaining with her over sex, but maybe she would still let him fuck her if he told her as part of a game. “Promise?”

  “Promise.” To seal the deal, she rolled her hips over him, slicking him with how wet she was.

  “She wants more money.” He couldn’t bring himself to say her name.

  “Is that all?”

  Relief flooded him. “You’re not mad?”

  “As long as she doesn’t want you back, I don’t care what she asks for.” She reached down and put him at her entrance. “I don’t care about your money, Javi.” She sank down onto him. “All I want is you. And all I want right now is that big cock inside me.”

  He moved, and neither of them said anything else. Every time he pressed inside her, he ground his pelvic bone against her clit. She was so slick and so wet everywhere for him. He had to hold her tight, but their sex was still sloppy, clumsy, and so fucking perfect.

  Their movements became chaotic, and they lost rhythm. She put one foot on the shower bench, which gave them better leverage until she seized around him and came with a scream. Her pleasure, echoing off the walls of the shower made him come so hard that he nearly dropped her, but he didn’t.

  Finally, he turned to the shower head so that they could really clean up. She wrapped her arms around him from behind and kissed him between his shoulder blades. A sense of rightness settled over them as they caught their breath.