by Lush, Tamara
How’s this?
OMG. Beyond gorgeous. Can you stay like that until I get to your house?
My hand skims my stomach and slips beneath the waistband of my underwear. I’m wet and creamy between my legs. Had been since I had heard Diego’s voice. I fantasize about him lying in bed, me on top, riding him. Putting my thumb to his lips and watching his exquisite mouth open and his eyes flutter shut. The tangle of his tongue, the sensation of his chest underneath my hand, the way his eyes would flutter shut as he grew more turned on.
Tossing my hair while he cups my breasts with enough force that I whimper.
“Catalina,” he’d gasp, his Spanish accent more pronounced with every stroke. Back when we were teens, we’d kiss for hours, and he’d whisper my full name and some dirty Spanish words in rapid-fire syllables into my ear, and it made me melt.
Te quiero, he’d said, over and over.
In Spanish, that means both I want you and I love you. I guess I never knew which one he meant. I was too young and stupid to ask, too caught up in my own version of love. I shove aside thoughts of shame and think about his lips, his fingers, his teeth on my neck.
But here’s the thing: even though I’d been crazy for him, and crazy-wet every time I was with him, even though he made me feel all melty and turned on, I never had an orgasm with him. Not when he touched me and not when he licked me. Maybe I’d been too young. Too inexperienced. Too nervous. I’d never even really masturbated at that point in my life, and when I was with Diego, I was focused on his pleasure and his orgasms.
You okay with this? he’d ask, worried, as he’d stroke between my legs with those thick fingers of his.
Yes. And I’m sorry I haven’t come, I’d say, not really knowing why I was apologizing. Part of me felt bad about not giving it up to Diego, even though he never demanded it, not like I’d heard of other guys and girls around school.
I need more time with you. To get used to this. Us. Sex. It’s all new, and I’m scared.
Don’t apologize, Cata. Just relax. You feel so good. Perfect. We have all the time in the world together. We don’t need to rush anything, he’d whisper in my ear.
But we didn’t have all the time in the world, because of my stupid photos. We'd been waiting for the right moment to do it, but that moment never came. And I ended up losing my virginity to some guy at college I didn’t even like all that much.
So now that I’m older and wiser and have learned a few things about sex, I want a do-over with Diego. I want to show him that I can handle myself, and him. And us. Together.
I shut my eyes and make myself come.
Chapter Seven
DIEGO
I do this often, run on the beach in the dark.
It’s my time away from glowing screens and chats, a break from bits and pixels and business problems. I run, hard, my feet pounding the sand and my ears absorbing the sounds of the surf. It’s nearly midnight, and the Florida summer air is something close to cool. At least it feels that way as I sprint. I want my heart to beat even faster than it did when I saw Cata an hour ago.
There’s a sliver of a moon, and I think about the times we kissed on this beach. The times we swam as kids, searched for shells, held hands when we finally became a couple after graduating from high school.
I’ve loved her since we met. We were twelve and even then, she took my breath away. I didn’t even like girls until I met Cata. Her brother brought me home for dinner, and she stared at me all through the meal with those huge blue eyes.
I slow to a walk, panting, and make my way through the sand toward my house.
I laugh out loud, the sound evaporating against the waves of the Gulf. I’m thinking of the first time we got totally naked. We were in her room, and I remember how she smiled seductively at me.
Wanna play Zelda? I asked. I was so fucking nervous.
No, she had said. I want this. I want you. She shut out the light.
She sat in my lap, and I tried to be all suave by sliding her t-shirt over her head. But somehow I got her arm stuck and tangled because I couldn’t see in the dark. She laughed hard until I kissed her. Then I couldn’t figure out how to unhook her bra. God, I was pitiful back then. Her parents were gone that night, and we still didn’t have sex. I remember how I trembled as she stroked my bare stomach, and how we talked until dawn about everything from our favorite games (Warcraft, of course) to the craziest animals (sloths, of course).
Wiping my face with my sleeve, I go inside and take three stairs two at a time until I get to my home gym. Material things don’t mean much to me, but after growing up poor, I grin every time I walk into my gym and see the iron weights on the rack, the sleek mats, the mirrors that the housekeeper wipes down twice a week.
This is here because of me. My brain. My ambition.
I drop to the mat to stretch. I hate actual gyms, I’m too much of an introvert to truly enjoy them. Liam and Sawyer are all the company I can handle, and even then, I need my space.
But I never tired of being around Cata. Instead of exhausting me like other people did, I always felt calmer in her presence. Rejuvenated. It wasn’t like that with the other two girls I dated. They seemed more impressed by the house or whether I’d take them to a club in Tampa or a weekend in Miami.
I power through a circuit of ab work, grunting as I do several punishing sets. Sweating, I move to a bench and pick up my phone. Should I text Scott and ask for Cata’s number? Scott and I have forged a tentative, hesitant relationship again. I don’t know how he’ll react if I ask for his sister’s number.
I’m staring at the screen when Liam walks in.
“Dude. What was that about, downstairs? Who was she?”
I shrug. I’ve asked the guys not to interrupt me when I workout. Usually they don’t, which must mean they’re really curious about Cata.
“Old friend.”
Liam smiles. “Girlfriend?”
“Something like that.”
He grins. “Never knew you had one. I thought you were always the hit-it-and-quit-it type.”
“Yeah, right,” I say sarcastically.
That’s my reputation, I guess. It’s unfounded since I really don’t go out with a lot of girls. I did use Tinder to hook up a couple of times, and Sawyer and Liam joked about it online a few months back. Then that online gamer magazine named the three of us on a list of the world’s sexiest gamer geek guys. Since that article, everyone thinks of me as a player. Even though I’m not, I’ve cultivated that kind of image anyway. Anything to entertain.
“Well, the guys online really want to know. They thought she was cute. And so did Sawyer.”
Neither Liam or Sawyer went to high school with Cata and me, and they don’t know anything about our relationship or what destroyed it. Liam picks up a 20-pound free weight and idly does a few curls.
“She’s off limits. And she’s not Sawyer’s type.” My tone is a little harsher than intended, and Liam’s eyes widen. He sets the weight back in the rack and heads for the door.
Liam grins and nods. “I get it, bro. She seems cool.”
He closes the door, and I exhale. I wished I’d asked for her number, but I was so nervous when she was here that I didn’t. Sometimes I’m so fucking stupid. Like I was all those years ago.
When Cata’s photos popped up on every phone on Palmira that summer, she was so pissed at me. I figured we needed to cool off for a while, then we’d get back together.
I thought I was doing the right thing by telling her to go to New York a few weeks early, before school started. I told her to forget about me.
I assumed she’d move on anyway, being in New York. I figured she wouldn’t have wanted a guy like me, working retail at a game store on a Florida island and going to community college? Back then, she was headed to Columbia University, poised to get the best internships, make new friends. Date guys who were the opposite of me: extroverted and rich.
I let her down because I thought I was doing the right thing. I thou
ght I knew what was best. Stupid move on my part. Turns out I had no clue about anything, and I pushed her away.
Like I said, sometimes I’m so fucking stupid. But maybe, just maybe, she’ll give me another chance.
Chapter Eight
CATALINA
I’m making coffee in the kitchen when I hear an insistent banging at the door. I open my mouth to yell for my mom to get it, but in my half-asleep morning daze, I remember that she was gone. She’d popped her head into my room and woke me up an hour before, telling me that she was leaving to work on taxes or something. I immediately fell back asleep for a while because I’d had a sleepless night, thinking of Diego.
“One second,” I holler. Crap. The knocking comes again, sharp and loud.
“Hold on!” I run to the front door and fling it open.
Crap. The reason why I didn’t get much sleep is standing there, looking seriously stunning in a pair of jeans and a tight red T-shirt that shows off his bronze skin. He’s wearing those blue and white sandals I hate, though, and I try to concentrate on those instead of his sexy, warm brown eyes.
“Diego.” I step back, half behind the door because I’m wearing a thin, long-sleeved cotton shirt that’s white and practically see through, and pink pajama pants.
With black cartoon sheep.
He grins and walks inside. “Cute pants.”
“Come on in. Make yourself at home,” I say, crossly.
“Is that coffee? Smells great.” He saunters toward the kitchen.
I roll my eyes and try not to grin as I shut the door. Diego can be totally oblivious to social cues sometimes. Or he’s trying to tease me. I’m going with the former, though. The latter is too complicated to consider this early in the morning.
“I’m on my way to the mainland and thought I’d stop by,” he says, hovering by the coffee pot.
I blink a few times at him. “Oh. Just in the neighborhood, hmm?”
He laughs. “Yeah.”
I drum my fingers on the counter. “Maybe I’ve forgotten my Florida geography, but isn’t my house on the west end of the island, and you need to go east to get off the island?”
“You always were better at directions than me,” he murmurs.
I sigh. “So, what are you doing—”
He interrupts. “Listen. I couldn’t get you out of my mind last night. I wanted to come by and say hi.”
I’m not sure how to take this. Part of me is doing cartwheels. The other part wonders if he’s only looking to get laid. Wait. Maybe there are no bad options here. I turn to the cupboard and take out two mugs.
“Do you still take your coffee light and sweet?”
He laughs. It was a joke with us. Light and sweet, just like you, he’d say.
I nod and open a cabinet. Then another.
“Since my dad died, my mother’s changed where everything is. The sugar used to be in here…” I move some bottles and cups around reach for the sugar bowl on the second shelf. It’s empty. I look again and see a big bag of sugar on the top shelf.
I’m stretching on my tiptoes to reach it when I feel the warmth of Diego’s body behind me. I freeze.
“Let me, shorty."
His front is pressing against my back, and then he shifts, so he’s totally behind me. I ease myself on to my heels, brushing against him slowly. He reaches up and I catch a whiff of his soap, which reminds me of sun and beaches and kisses. My heart slams around my chest.
With a fluid move, he sets the sugar on the counter. But he's not stepping away, and we stay like that for a few tantalizing seconds. Slowly, he puts one palm flat on the granite counter, then the other, caging me with his arms. Without thinking, I reach out, tracing his index finger with my own. My other hand finds his and covers it. We interlace our fingers, and I can feel his cheek against my head.
“Do you want me to leave? Just say you do and I will.”
I shake my head no. I don’t want him to leave. Or move. I want to stay like this all day, trapped between his body and the counter, feeling the familiar heat from his body on mine. Can I really sense his heartbeat vibrating from his chest to my back? Or is that me?
I don’t have much room, but I wriggle around to face him and rest the heels of my hands on the counter. I’m too tempted to rip his clothes off, so I need to hold on to something, anything, else.
We lock eyes, and I’m scared of what’s coming next.
“Do you want to leave?” I whisper.
He licks his lips and scowls a little. “God, no.”
I tilt my head up, seeking his lips and feeling his breath on my face. He smells like mint and soap and being so close to him slams my senses with a bittersweet lust.
He dips his head to kiss me, and I don’t protest. Can’t. His lips are too familiar and too full, and my entire body sparkles from the feel of his mouth. As he softly devours my kiss, his hands slide to my waist and squeeze hard enough that a charge shoots through my body. There’s no point in denying that he’s what I want.
When he pulls back, I shudder in a breath and lower my head, unable to look into his giant brown eyes. My nipples are poking through my white shirt, and I watch his hand rake up my body, then I gasp as his thumb brushes my breast. Slowly circling the hard nub of my nipple with his thumb, I notice that his chest is rising and falling fast, too.
My body’s coming alive for what seems like the first time in so long.
I frown because I’m not sure whether to cry out of pleasure or confusion. This, us, is complicated. And now we’re making out in my kitchen like we used to in high school only now we have the perspective of six years of being apart.
With his other hand, he tilts my chin up, then kisses me again. I’m still frowning as he kisses me, frowning and whimpering because it feels so incredible.
Now his hand is cupping my breast, and his other is splayed on my neck and jaw, angling my face to his. His grip is commanding, possessive, while his mouth is all liquid softness and I dissolve into him. I pull back to catch my breath. He seems way more confident in how he’s touching me, and I wonder if he’s been with a lot of girls since me.
The thought makes me want to sob.
“I came over just for that,” he whispers. His voice is low and only a little rough, like fine sand. “To kiss you.”
I spread my hands on his chest and run them slowly upward, over his collarbone, up his neck, until I cradle his face. “Again. Do it again.”
He does, and now there’s no softness. There's only our tongues and our need. Our teeth even strike each other’s awkwardly because we’re kissing so hard. Like when we first got together. But then it was because of inexperience. Now it’s because of pure, impatient, craving.
His hand is resting on my collarbone – why do his hands feel so big – and it’s slipping my shirt aside, so one shoulder is exposed. He clasps my ponytail and tugs my head hard, exposing my neck. He stops kissing me.
“I’ve always loved this part of your body,” he murmurs. I know what’s coming next: the feel of his mouth on my neck, starting below my ear. His teeth raking on my skin. The sting of the bites, followed by the soft, soothing kisses.
“And your platinum hair.”
I moan his name when he undoes my ponytail.
Tugging his head roughly back toward mine, I wrap my arms around his neck, and we’re tight together, and I’m thinking about whether we’re going to do it here in the kitchen or if we’ll actually make it to my bedroom when I hear the front door slam shut.
“Crap,” I mutter, wriggling out of Diego’s arms, trying to sweep my hair up and tie it in a knot, so it’s not so obvious I’m getting it on in my mother’s kitchen with my high school boyfriend.
“Mom? Scott?” I call out.
“Hi, sweetheart.” My mom’s tired voice echoes through the house. I run my fingers over my lips as if I can wipe away the kiss-stung redness. This is going to be really awkward. My mom hasn’t seen or talked to Diego in years. She had been so disappointed in him – in us �
�� when we took the photos. My whole body tenses as I hear her footsteps on the hard wood floor of our house.
“Cat, I stopped by the store and bought you…oh!” Mom’s in the kitchen now, and she sets a reusable grocery bag filled with stuff on the kitchen table. “Diego. Hello.”
Diego walks over to her and gives her a hug. I’m leaning against the counter, watching them, and for a second, it seems like six years hasn’t passed. They’re totally comfortable with each other.
Hold on. Why are they so comfortable with each other?
“Diego, I meant to thank you again for calling that plumber last month. I’ve been so in my own world that I haven’t been myself. Grief does that, y’know.”
I narrow my eyes. What’s going on here?
“No worries, Mrs. Richardson. Call me anytime you need anything like that, okay?” Diego looks sheepish, then turns quickly to me. “Cata, I need to get going to Fort Myers. Can I, um, get your number? I’ll text you later. I’d like to, uh, talk to you about something.”
I’m gaping at him. I seem to be doing a lot of that in his presence. I look to my mom as if to get some kind of disapproval or some warning. She smiles beatifically.
“Um, sure.” I rattle off my number and Diego taps on his phone.
“We'll get coffee another time.” He steps toward me and gives me a kiss on the cheek. I can’t seem to move any part of my body except for my eyes, which look left, then right, then left again, as if they’re searching for someone to clue me in about what’s happening.
I watch Diego squeeze my mom’s shoulder and stride out of the kitchen. I stare at my mom hard until I hear the front door shut.
“Okay. What’s going on here? I feel like you haven’t told me something. Something about Diego.”
My mom takes a jug of milk out of the shopping bag and sighs. “Diego’s been helping me out financially. Helping us out, actually.”