“Actually we did talk about it beforehand, and I assured him I was fine with it.” She cocked her head to the side, unsure of what I meant. “His attraction to me.”
“That’s it! You wanted the attention for yourself!”
“Amada, let’s just calm down.” We were staring at each other now, shouting and getting way off track. “Are we talking about my little white lie or the fact that he might have wanted me and not you? I think you can’t admit to me that I was right, that you were looking forward to being the object of desire of two men. Fuck, it’s not that complicated! I just thought it would be exciting for you!”
“Exciting? Really?” Her voice began to rise again. “I just wanted a sensual painting of us, that’s it. If I were after a thrill, I’d go visit the pyramids or Hong Kong or Rio, not strut around naked in front of a stranger. Rafa, it’s hard to understand how you’re so young, yet so old-fashioned. It has to be because of where you grew up.” She paused a moment, and rather than jump in, I let the awkward silence hang between us until I thought I could explain.
“It’s true, I’ve been isolated most of my life, but in Cuba men and women are completely equal, and sex is far from taboo. The government pays for birth control and there’s sex education from a young age, where boys are taught to always respect women and their choices. I believe in all those things.” I glanced at her over my shoulder. “But even though the revolution changed a lot, that’s politics. We’re also very emotional, and that side of us is never dormant for long, which is why as a country we’ve suffered so much. Did you know that the government discourages Cuban parents from using pacifiers, Amada, because they’re considered too selfish? We should have known that passionate people like us could never do well under Leninism or Marxism, ideologies that come from cold people in cold places. I’ll never be able to turn off that side of myself Amada, in the interest of business, or for any other reason, and I’m just not going to just stand by quietly while you do something stupid, even if you have the right to.”
“I understand, and that passion is why you’re more exciting to me than anything else in the world,” said Amada, “but I can’t believe you lied to me, even just a little. Once you told me that deep down you’re arrogant, and I didn’t believe you, but now I do. It just makes me wonder what else you would keep from me if you thought it was for a greater good.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry, mamita. I swear I’ll never keep anything from you ever again, for any reason.” Now I was the one who felt like an idiot. Of course she didn’t need some cheap sexual thrill when she could call a private jet and go to Egypt or China or Brazil at the drop of a hat. My heart sank at the realization that I had deceived her, and even though it was something small and I’d only meant to be playful, I’d done it without a second thought. I came over to her by the bed, where she’d kicked off her shoes and now sat cross legged on the comforter. Embarrassed and put in my place, I couldn’t think of much to say.
“I’ve told you that you shouldn’t sit on the bed in—”
“Street clothes, I know. Rafa—” She narrowed her eyes at me. I’d hoped it was over, but she still wasn’t finished. “You know, you’re a little controlling. Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that you’re a bit antiquated in your thinking? Do you not know this about yourself? You said you feel like you have an irrational need to protect me, that I’m vulnerable. Rafa, a barbarian is not going to kidnap me if he catches a glimpse of my ankle. I’m americana, remember?”
“Wait a minute. You may be americana,” I said, “but I’m not americano, and it’s lovely how it civilized it is here, but you’ve only ever been outside the country at a Four Seasons. Your life has been quite different from mine, and you’ve not yet learned that most of the world doesn’t give a shit about your rights. That tends to happen when people are poor, sick, and hungry, and in some places, it would be very likely for you to be kidnapped or worse. I hate to say it, but you would be eaten alive, and family, not money, is your greatest protection. In fact, your level of wealth puts you in even greater danger. Granted, it’s not that way here in Miami, but unfortunately, you’re with a man who sees everything in those terms. When you innocently put yourself on display or flirt with a thug, all I can think about is what I’m going to have to do to make him understand you’re mine and that no means no.”
“You have a tribal mentality, Rafa, and frankly it’s not necessary in the First World. We have laws and police and guaranteed freedoms. You sound a little mafia-ish.”
I paced to the bathroom and then back toward her, trying to gather my thoughts and not say the wrong thing. She really didn’t get it. It was on the tip of my tongue to call her naive and give her rape and kidnapping statistics, to tell her about all the things I’d seen done to women during my time in South America and Africa, but I couldn’t do it. Amada simply had no frame of reference.
“Look, you’re right about me keeping something from you, and no matter how small, it’s wrong, so again, I’m sorry. And it’s true, deep down I am arrogant. However, I’m not old fashioned and no one is more controlling than you, Amada. If you could handcuff me to yourself, you would. Swallowing my pride and guilt over living a lifestyle that would put Marie Antoinette to shame is the opposite of controlling. Deferring to you on almost everything is anything but antiquated, and excuse me, but I think cooking for you is quite modern, thank you. Yes, I draw the line when it comes to your physical safety, but otherwise, you carry my balls in your pocket, and we both know it.”
Amada’s eyes opened wide, a look of triumph on her pretty face. “Finally it comes out. Secretly you hate that I can’t cook, or you wouldn’t bring it up. Lidia and Raquel told me so. They said Cuban men are big babies who need to be taken care of, and they’re ñoño, they said. They warned me that if I don’t step up pretty soon some—I can’t say the word they said—some girl would start bringing you homemade food at work and you’d fall in love with her and leave me. They’re going to give me cooking lessons.”
I roared with laughter imagining the scenario, those two well-meaning but nosy instigators trying to scare the hell out of Amada, and her believing it. My god, how could such an intelligent woman fall for that horseshit?
“Ha! I know the word they used, and they might be talking about their own husbands, but that’s not me. You’re a pampered, spoiled princess and I’ve known it from the beginning. If I wanted an obedient housewife to stay home and wait on me hand and foot, I’d have had one a long time ago. No one is going to seduce me at work with a bowl of black beans. Can’t you hear how ridiculous those words sound coming out of your mouth?”
“How long before you want it, Rafa? Before you want someone more dependent and less complicated? Someone who lets you take the lead.”
I rolled up my sleeves, sat down on the bed in front of her and made her look at me. “Never. I adore your spirit. I love how sophisticated and intelligent you are, and that we can teach each other so many different things. If by independence you mean you have enough money not to be bound to anyone or anything, then yes, your money is to me what other women are to you: an abstract threat. I know you hate how women tend to make themselves available to me, but my deepest fear is that one day you could just get bored and take off at the drop of a hat, and I’d never have the resources to find you. Even after we’re married, you could disappear on me forever and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. But ultimately, they’re just deep insecurities we have to keep in check. We’re together because we love each other, not because we don’t have other opportunities, and that’s exactly how it should be.” For the first time, in those terms, I could see that she finally understood, and it felt wonderful.
“It would have been so much easier if you’d been born rich,” she whispered. “We could have been spoiled brats together.”
“No way. Come here.” I leaned in close as if to share a secret. “My theory is that rich men don’t know how to fuck.”
“Is that so?” she asked, smiling.
“Why?”
“Too idle.” I grabbed her by the hips and yanked her toward me, licking my lips as I took her in from top to bottom, trying to decide which part of her I was going to take a bite out of first. As difficult as she could be, something about us together could not be denied. Our relationship was like the steering of a luxury vessel, always in need of attention and correction, but like any truly extravagant indulgence, she was well worth the cost.
CHAPTER FOUR
There is no woman on Earth in her right mind who could look at Rafael De Leon and not lose all sense of reason. What were these kinds of men called? Heartbreakers? Ladies’ men? Adonises? We know them when we see them, the man in the room who is in all likelihood a complete narcissist, yet, if given the opportunity, every woman in the place would jump right into bed with him anyway, no questions asked. Rafa was this kind of man. Actually, in a room full of Adonises, everyone would still be watching Rafa. But even though he was aware of this power and had used it from time to time, he was not defined by it. In fact, he was the most principled human being imaginable, deeply concerned with showing fairness and kindness toward every person who had the good fortune of crossing his path. It was for this simple reason that I adored, no worshipped him in a way that I liked to think was more cerebral. I knew him, his goodness, the beautiful story that lay beneath the skin and muscle and bone structure that made him so attractive on the outside. Yet for all my sophistication and genuine appreciation of this heady combination of elements, it ultimately came down to one thing, his deep desire for me and the fearlessness with which he used my body to show it.
What had I been saying? Something about independence or . . . I couldn’t remember a thing with his hands all over me, undressing me, pulling me to the floor, his mouth open and warm. This was how it was between us. I kept waiting for the day when he would hold me tenderly and profess his love with a tear in his eye, but with him it would never be. Rafa’s romantic soul was at its essence a carnal beast, his deepest emotions best expressed through his mouth, his fingers, his pelvis. He had me underneath him in an instant, my legs an open invitation.
“Amada,” he sighed between kisses and bites all over my neck and chest, “hate me if you want, but we could never do without this.”
The empty space deep inside me screamed for him. It was Rafa’s spot, the place where he reigned, but as was his custom, he made me wait. He liked to see me out of my mind, to make me beg, my acute desperation deeply satisfying to him.
“I could never hate you,” I gasped.
“I don’t know. You’re pretty mad. I’ve got to be careful. One wrong move, and I’m in trouble again.” He grinned and licked just underneath my chin, lifting my skirt up to my waist as he blew on the wet spot on my neck. I felt my legs erupt in goosebumps under his fingers, prompting him to grind deeper into my hips with his own.
“What would the wrong move be?” I traced his lips with my fingers, lingering on the slight stubble just above his lip. I’d never seen him trim it, yet it was always perfect.
“You really want to know?” he asked, smiling down at me. Without warning, he bit my breast through my shirt, not so rough as to leave a mark, but far from gentle. The pain combined with the taunting, smug glint in his eye was too much, and just as he predicted, it only made me angrier, almost to the point of wanting to smack him.
“Ow!” I yelped, covering my breast with my hand.
“I’ve done it before, even harder, and you loved it. In the Mercedes, when Sandro was in the supermarket, remember?” He watched me rub my nipple, spellbound. “You bit me on the neck, too. I bled everywhere.”
“That’s right.” We were like animals, fucking in plain view of every car that passed us on the overlook. Delfina had died that night, and we’d said I love you for the first time.
“But you’re not in that kind of mood right now. Tonight you’re upset. You need comfort.” Rafa moved my hand aside, then unbuttoned my silk blouse to expose the nipple he’d bitten and licked it ever so gently, eyes fixed on me. “Better?”
“Yes,” I sighed. “It’s perfect. You know it is.” I lost myself in the sensations of his mouth on me. “Stop doing things you know I won’t like.”
“I’ll try, mamita.” Rafa thrust his hips into me, so hard and ready he didn’t need his hands to find his way to my core. Instead of resting his weight on his arms as he usually did, he wrapped himself around me and hugged me, using the heavy weight of his body to communicate everything we hadn’t been able to say. I was breathless, pinned beneath him, writhing, and then I felt him dive into me, through or around my clothes, I wasn’t sure. This was Rafa’s declaration of love, his body inside mine.
Using steady, precise strokes, his thrusts became harder and deeper until they melted into one another and formed a bridge of pleasure, each movement now indistinguishable from the last. Rafa was an object in motion, exponentially picking up momentum to wake the tsunami inside me as only he could do, and true to form he sensed the beginning of my climax and decided to stop everything. With a groan of frustration, he slipped out of me and buried his face in between my legs.
“No, come back.” I pulled on his hair and tried to guide him back inside me where he’d been, but his only response was to disentangle my hand from his hair and hold it in his, intertwining his fingers lovingly with mine.
I felt Rafa’s tongue on my sex, dipping, tasting and lapping as he liked to do. The way he used his tongue was more like a liquid invasion than a caress, molten and silvery, flooding into me from the outside. My Rafa, so aware of my deepest unspoken desires. I’d never asked for it, but he knew.
“More,” I begged. I grimaced at the pleasure, wishing him further inside even though it was impossible.
“I can give you more if you let me,” he said from somewhere down below I couldn’t see. His hands fixed on my hips. “Do you trust that I know what you like?”
“I do,” I panted. I was high on him, rendered inarticulate and stupid, flying above the clouds.
Rafa took one last, deep drink, then brought my legs together like the covers of a book. Now on my side, I waited as he shifted behind me and in a moment felt the same jolt of electricity from earlier in the only place he hadn’t made love to me yet. Even though he was just using his hand, it didn’t seem possible that only one caress could feel so good.
“Rafa!” I tensed up and squeezed the hand he’d placed on my hip.
“Yes?” He stopped and peppered kisses along my ribs and the curve of my hip, giving me a chance to think. I didn’t know what to say.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to kiss you here, too.” Rafa touched me again, patiently waiting for my consent. “Is that alright?”
“Why?” I closed my eyes and licked my lips, trying to imagine what could possibly be his motivation for wanting me like this.
“Because I’m very turned on.” His voice was low, deep, affected.
“What dire offence from am’rous causes springs?” I asked him in English.
“Oh, is that another one of your poems?” He took a nip of my ass cheek, the absurdity of discussing eighteenth century English poetry with his face in my netherest of regions not lost upon either of us. “You know, you do that when you’re anxious, and you shouldn’t be. It’s not an offense, sweetheart.” No es una ofensa, mi vida. “You don’t have to do anything but enjoy it,” he said, resting his head on my thigh. “I know I will.”
“Is it safe?” I asked.
“Yes.” He answered with a moan, then went back to kissing and licking me everywhere but there. “Let me worry about that. Turn over,” he said, giving my ass a gentle push. “I’ll be right back.”
Rafa went to the bed and returned with two pillows, one for my head and the other for my hips, and then went to work, leading me to a kind of ecstasy I never could have imagined. His intimate caresses were that of a master storyteller, a living, breathing guide through a paradise I’d only read about in books, and through his machi
nations we descended into a mystical underworld together, going low not high, my own guide across the river Styx. As we traveled toward the unknown, I marveled at how it was Rafa and his wild, sinful mouth who made me confuse heaven and hell, questioning how the purity of true love could also be reduced to something so base and sordid, one in the same.
“Stop thinking,” he murmured against my skin.
I did as he asked and arched my spine and relaxed my limbs, prompting him to release a groan of contentment. His hand came around the front of my body, pinching, pulling and scratching at my every peak and valley until he found his destination. He flicked my clitoris with the same tempo he used to lick me from behind, eating and strumming me all at once until I was a pool of quicksilver, the same toxic liquid mercury he’d once warned me never to touch. I shimmered and changed forms at his behest, broken down to my barest elements until he chose to put me back together. My body became a million mirrored beads, dancing and pulsing in tune with my beloved Rafa, the keeper of both sides of my soul, until I heard myself utter a sound I didn’t recognize.
“I’m coming,” I cried. Rafa plunged his tongue inside me, probably far less than I imagined, but still a sensation without equal, and as I reached my climax he again knew what I needed before I did and offered me his hand. Clutching it with my own, I bit down into his flesh and gave him everything he’d ever asked of me, from that moment forward no one in the universe existing but him. My body convulsed and shook, stilling only after the grounding relief of his weight came to rest upon me, head to toe, my heart calmed by his lips at my ear and his essence on my skin as he murmured, “Como te amo.”
***
Rafa and I spent the next week making plans about everything, discussing issues as important as potential wedding locations all the way down to minutiae like what color to paint his new office across the hall from my own.
“Whatever color you want, mamita,” he said over his reading glasses, while opening some mail. “I don’t care.”
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