Chapter 7
chapter seven
Natalia
14 months ago
Our fingers were lazily intertwined as I unlocked the beige door to my apartment, shouldering the latch that often stuck in the humidity. I’d left the ceiling fan turning and a waft of cold air hit us. I breathed out a sigh of relief but my pulse hammered in my ears. I hadn’t brought a man into my apartment in months, and even then I was just scratching an itch. This was scratching an itch—a very irritated, persistent, violently growing itch named Mateo Duran, because if I went to bed tonight without knowing what his mouth felt like on my body I might never sleep.
The brassy bulb hanging over the table buzzed to life as I flipped the light switch and dropped my keys on the kitchen island. Mateo shrugged off his jacket and draped it over the arm of the couch while I tried to discreetly swipe a pile of mail into the corner of the counter, as if he cared. As if we could think about anything other than the massive weight of the elephant in the room. I quite literally invited him upstairs to have sex, but now I was so nervous I couldn’t even look him in the eye. It hurt to swallow, and I knew a patch of red was starting to form right at the base of my collarbone like it always did when I couldn’t rope my emotions.
“Do you want a drink?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I think that liter of soda at the roller rink was enough.” For the first time I glanced up and though his words were light-hearted, his hazel eyes had darkened to coal. He had both hands in his pockets, studying me as he stepped closer. His tongue swept across his lips.
My back hit the counter and I braced my hands on it. He was so close now I could see the threads weaving over one another on his black shirt, and the subtle tease of his cologne invaded my space. I wanted to run my nose across the vein on his neck and breathe it in. Every nerve low in my belly was tying itself in a knot in anticipation. But this is what I did— sex . Sex was second nature to me. I knew how to entice a man, intrigue him, put on a show, exude confidence. I did it regularly. But for some reason, with Mateo standing in front of me, I forgot everything. I wanted him so badly it froze me in place.
Mateo’s eyes fell to my mouth and he spoke slowly, sending a flutter straight through me. “Tell me again, what happens if I kiss you right now?” His sweet voice was low and deep. There was something cutting about how naturally he went from playful to dominant.
“I think I might kiss you back.” I was as breathy as he was heady.
His lip twitched and our thighs brushed. “Then I might get a little handsy, fair warning. Because I have been dying to touch you in a way we won’t come back from.”
Chills pebbled up my arms and my core tightened. I tilted my chin up and he braced one of his arms against the counter, his much larger hand landing beside mine and partially caging me in.
“As long as I have your permission, Tally.”
I let my eyes close and my lips part, his nose brushed against my cheek so briefly, and then soft lips fell over mine. He kissed me like I might fall apart if he wasn’t careful. Like he might scare me away but needed to do it anyway, and I momentarily forgot my promise to kiss him back because I was so lost in that pillowy caress, how our lips moved perfectly against one another and how the hair on his lip brushed me so sensually that I sighed.
He pulled away timidly, waiting. Honeyed eyes flitting back and forth between my glazed ones. Mateo wanted me to take the lead, and I tasted what little wetness he had left on my mouth like it was water in a drought and slid my fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, tugging him back to me.
That was like opening a gate. Suddenly, we weren’t moving slowly or cautiously anymore. Mateo’s lips crashed into mine and our tongues lashed against one another in a way that confirmed the sexual frustration wasn’t one-sided. My entire body reacted in a wave of tingling shocks, from my head down my spine, gathering at my core in a flood of heat and desperation that I welcomed. Mateo wrapped his arms around my lower back, pulling me to him, his large warm hands sliding up and down. I felt fragile in his strong hold and without thinking, I lifted my hips, pushing up slightly onto my toes. Immediately, both of his hands slid under my ass and lifted my legs to latch around his waist.
My head fell back and he kissed my exposed neck, tasting me as he worked his way up and sunk his teeth into the lobe of my ear. The noise that came out of me made him huff out a short, deep laugh.
“I want more where that came from,” he said. “Tell me what I have to do to hear you like that in my ear for the rest of the night.”
Mateo took a step forward and planted me on the counter, pressing his entire body between my legs at the perfect height to feel that hard resistance between us at the zipper of his pants. I pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it to the floor. At the center of his chest was a tattoo of a family crest that spread over tight muscle and dark hair. His happy trail ran in a line down his torso, patching over his belly button and tucking itself into the waistline of his jeans. I traced my fingers over fine lines, touching everywhere there was ink. Mateo’s breathing toppled over itself, every swallow cording his throat as if my timid graze were too much. Goosebumps fanned across his arms and chest.
“Do you have any tattoos I should know about?” he asked.
His erection had grown impossible to ignore and I didn’t try to hide the fact that I was looking, my gaze filling in the blanks. Very large, veiny blanks that I prayed my optimism wasn’t overcompensating for. “If you can find them, you can see them,” I said.
Mateo ran a hand up my thigh, to the hem of my shirt, and lifted it swiftly over my head. He didn’t pause before closing the distance and winding his hands behind my back to unclip my lacy black bralette. It dropped onto my lap and the cool air puckered my already sensitive nipples.
Mateo’s eyes dropped, hooding almost entirely before clamping shut. He bit down on his knuckle in glorious, welcomed agony. “Fuck. Fuck. ”
I dragged his rough hands to my breasts to coach him into squeezing and playing with me. To my satisfaction and on his own accord, Mateo dipped down to take one in his mouth, sucking on my nipple. My eyes lulled into the back of my head.
“Bedroom,” I called out. “Second door on the right.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Thank God I’d thrown my entire life in my closet before our date. I was so predictable, I couldn’t even fool myself. I slid to the carpeted floor, kicking out of my shoes. Mateo’s hands went to the button on my jeans, and mine flung to his in the same pattern—through the hole, zipper down, my fingers breaching his waistband and pulling it off until he stood in only tight black boxer briefs.
I let him wrench my jeans by the belt loops toward the floor, and my stomach flipped in figure eights when he dropped to his knees to help me step out of them. His gentleness was something I never expected, and I couldn’t ignore the way having such a masculine, rough-edged man kneeling before me set me on fire.
His fingers wrapped around my knees and his mouth met my thigh, kissing, licking, moving upward as my legs threatened to give out. He lifted one, hooking it over his shoulder and putting my entire sex inches from his face. I steadied myself with my hands in his long hair, gripping hard enough to unfurl a noise from deep in his chest. The vibration of it sent a pulse straight to my clit. “I told you I liked the view from down here.”
“The view from up here is monumentally underrated.” I tossed my head back at the first feeling of his warm mouth over the thin material of my panties. I was wet and writhing, canting myself toward his lips to feel it again. He hummed, licking me over my thong and taking the strip of material between his teeth to drag it to the side, exposing me.
“I’m going to eat your pussy, Tally. Until your knees give out and you’re nothing but a puddle for me to carry to that bed.”
“Please.” My knees nearly buckled then and there. His head got lost between my thighs and his tongue parted my core in one aggressive lap that I swore I’d remember the feeling of for the rest of my life. Pass after pass it became harder to breathe or stay quiet; I lost myself in the pleasure of Mateo going down on me. He was thorough and practiced, a quality I might raise an eyebrow at if I were in a stable state of mind, but in the throes of it I was silently thanking all the women who may have come before me to train this man well.
His tongue circled my clit languidly, rotating between flicking and sucking, making it impossible to tell where the slick of his spit ended and my drenched arousal began. A very familiar feeling I’d only ever replicated with a vibrating toy started in my pelvis, spreading like warm water to my thighs. My body keeled in on itself, limbs going numb and worthless and I dug my nails into the back of his neck to keep myself upright.
“Fuck, you’re good,” I managed.
“If the taste of you gets me this fucking hard I’m a goner when you let me inside.”
He licked a spot that made my eyes flutter shut and I pressed his head harder against it, moving him where I needed the friction. My hips met his mouth and I bucked on his tongue until my legs started shaking and his promise came to fruition. A broken, begging noise squeaked out of me and his fingers tightened around my thighs.
“Ride my face until you come on it,” he groaned. “Please. I need it, Tal, I need you to.”
He needed me to.
Nothing pipelined an orgasm like a desperate man pleading for it. My stomach tightened, pleasure reaching a peak as my jaw went slack. He curled one thick finger inside of me, taking me by surprise, and the rush of my climax slammed violently to a brink in three short strokes. I came so hard my vision blurred and my brain and body seemingly disconnected at the wire because when I reentered a stable plane of existence, I realized I had soaked him. My thighs, his cheeks—the shining evidence of my earth-shattering orgasm was even dripping down his neck. I went from boiling over the edge to ice queen in seconds.
“Oh my god,” I panicked, slipping my knee off his shoulder.
“Oh…my god,” Mateo repeated.
His breath was coming in uneven bursts, eyes blown wide and dark as fucking obsidian. He licked his lips and I started wiping his face with my hands which did nothing but coat us both more. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry?” He tugged my hand away from his face and pulled me closer. “You’re seriously apologizing for that? God, what kind of morons have you been with? That was the hottest fucking thing that’s ever happened to me, Natalia.”
A nervous laugh bubbled from my throat; it was the only reaction I could find beyond utter disbelief. Looking down, his cock was pitching his briefs so aggressively I could see the entire outline of it. “Are you serious? I just…”
“Squirted on my face. And I want you to do it again.” He stood, taking me with him to the bed. I fell flush against the sheets and he pushed his briefs down his legs, his erection springing free and full. “And again,” he said, moving to my panties and ushering them off. “And again.” He spread my knees apart, folding his body into the space left open and settling his shaft against the apex of my thighs.
Mateo’s mouth and his strong, warm body slid against mine. His pulse drummed against my chest more fiercely with every lock of our lips, and every tangle of our tongues brought me closer and closer to another peak. I thought that this type of undeniable, devastating chemistry only existed in my dreams. It was more than lust—we meshed . We enjoyed one another, connected on a personal level that made it easy to be here doing this with him after one measly date. Everything between the two of us clicked like a latch into place.
I reached to my bedside drawer blindly, rustling around for a tiny box and a foiled condom then pressed it into the palm of his hand.
Mateo paused.
“I haven’t had to use those in months,” I rushed out. “I haven’t been with anyone. I’m clean.”
He shook his head, rubbing the head of his cock more deliberately against my already soft and begging entrance. “You’re my hero right now.”
“I am?”
“I didn’t have one. I thought I was fucked.”
“Not fucked,” I said sarcastically.
He laughed. “Not fucked.”
I took the condom from him, opening it without ever breaking his eye contact. The room blurred around us and the air became thicker, like everything except the two of us was dripping in a melting pot. My fingers curled around his shaft and I pumped, smoothing a bead of precum over the tip with my thumb. Mateo started kissing me again as I rolled the condom down and guided him back between my legs.
“How do you want me?” he asked tersely. My brows furrowed; I didn't think that would be an option. It was new territory to have a partner who didn’t think he knew what I wanted without working for it.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that question,” I said honestly. My pussy was thrumming for him, every cursory graze of his tip driving me crazy.
“Well that’s not how it’s going to go with me.” He grabbed his cock, stroking it. “I don’t see the point in playing guessing games, Tally. I want to make you come. I want to make it hard to shake me once I leave here in the morning. I want you crawling back for more, blowing up my phone, zoning out in the middle of the day at the bank replaying the way I fuck you. So tell me exactly how you like it.”
If I didn’t know any better I would swear I was burning alive. He was making damn sure I’d be touching myself to the thought of him for the foreseeable future with his words alone.
I rolled us over, pushing his shoulders into the mattress and straddling his hips. “In the morning, huh? You’re very confident.”
“Don’t act like you aren’t dripping for me,” he dished back. His fingers dug into my hips on either side and he rocked me harder back and forth. My nerves multiplied, the coarse hair at his base rubbing my clit until I was climbing to a peak again in no time at all. “Talk to me, angel. Tell me what I’m doing right.”
Praise. Mateo was a praise guy. Of course he was. He worked so hard for it, too. My teeth sunk into my lip and a hum of pleasure rattled my chest as he jerked his hips upward and poked at my budding nerves. “Your tongue is incredible,” I said. “I’ve never come that fast in my life.”
“Let me do it with my cock.”
In a swift motion I seated his tip at my entrance and slid down until the stretch of his shaft stole the breath from my lungs. I had to stop and adjust to it. My stomach tightened all the way through my core and my walls gripped around him. Mateo threw his head back, the glorious veins in his neck straining against his tan skin. His groan of satisfaction spurred me on and I brought my hips up and back down, swallowing him fully.
“Christ, you’re a tight fucking fit,” he swore. “Open up for me, baby.”
A strangled moan rushed out of me and I bounced in his lap, using his chest as an anchor to hold me up. His hands flew to my ass and the blunt tips of his fingers dug into my soft skin so hard I knew I would be finding the marks in the mirror later that night. “Keep talking.”
Something wicked flashed in his dark eyes. “Is that what you like, Tally? Someone in your ear talking you through it?”
“Fuck.” I nodded. “Yes.”
His chest rumbled, and he sighed through gritted teeth watching the place where our bodies connected through the heavy lids of his eyes. I wished I could lick his sounds right out of his mouth. I didn’t want him to talk me through it, I wanted him to goad me with it. I wanted to be taunted to the edge of degradation until I was a flush, heaping mess and then brought back to life at the precipice of an orgasm. I’d never been confident enough to say that.
Mateo pulled me down to his chest and slid his mouth over the shell of my ear. His hips pistoned upward, spearing into me and making me whiny and breathless. “You look so pretty getting fucked. So perfect with your tight little cunt wrapped around a cock like mine.”
Heat flamed up the side of my neck. “I was desperate for it,” I murmured.
A hoarse chuckle sifted out of him and his thrusts came faster. His chest was hot with sweat underneath mine and I dug my hands into the pillow on either side of his head, fisting it tightly. “Desperation suits you, baby. You take me so fucking well.”
Each snap of his hips made it harder to breathe, let alone speak, but I needed to. “I like it rough,” I stammered. “I like to be a plaything in bed. I want to be yours.”
Mateo groaned deeply, muffling his sigh of pleasure against my skin. “You’re saying you want me to use you, Tally?” His lips opened around the pulse in my neck and kissed languidly. “You want to be treated like a princess, and fucked like a slut?”
That’s all I wanted. Fuck, how was this man so perfect? I nodded frantically, sliding my hips back and forth and creating a friction that made it impossible to focus on anything but the foreboding rapture between my legs. A wanton sigh slipped out of me. “Please, Matty.”
Mateo planted his feet and hugged me to his body, jerking his hips upward. The room filled with a cacophony of slaps and grunts of satisfaction and he shoved my hips down against his, meeting me with each thrust, until I was crying out in ecstasy and holding onto the hair at the nape of his neck, coming apart right alongside him. I could listen to him losing himself until the world crashed down around us. He was completely unafraid, unabashed, unashamed. I threw all caution to the wind as the pulse of my climax burst through me, claiming every last sound from my throat. Mateo tensed and shook with a final thrust before emptying himself in spasms until his body went slack and mine went limp on top of him.
It took several minutes to recover. His gentle fingers brushed up my sides and down my spine, and I lifted onto my forearms to rest on his chest. The most perfect sweat-coiled strand of hair had fallen over his forehead. He was still inside of me.
“Wow,” he finally said.
A grin blossomed across my face and more warmth stained my cheeks. “Wow.”
Mateo swept a lock of hair behind my ear and left his large palm there against my face. I could have fallen asleep just like that. “The slut thing,” he mentioned. “Is there more to that?”
I rushed out a laugh. “Yeah, sorry. I was really in the moment, and it kind of just came out. Little tense for a first date.”
“I told you I didn’t want to waste any time.” His thumb traced my temple. “It turned me on, too. For what it’s worth.”
Talking about sex after the act was awkward and embarrassing. I was two completely different people in and out of the bedroom and some of the things I was capable of when I was horny were shocking, even to me. Like telling Mateo to use me like a plaything while riding him into the sun.
“I have some particular tastes, I guess. Degradation, for one. Which I know takes a lot out of a partner, so I totally understand if you never want to do that again.” I paused, kicking myself. “Not that I’m assuming having sex with you will become a regular thing.”
“You know I’m yours now, right?” His wandering fingers stopped at my ass and took a handful. He twitched inside me. “I’m claimed.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a virgin.”
“You marked your territory like a dog when you squirted on me, and now I’m yours, Tally. I don’t make the rules.”
“It sounds exactly like you’re the one making the rules.” I laughed, aimlessly tracing the lines of his lips. They were swollen and kissed to hell and I leaned down and kissed him again. “I wasn’t expecting this.”
“I’m glad you called me.”
I steered clear of relationships because of my line of work. It was always easier to hook up with men when the need got too pressing and then move along. Less of a mess, less prying, no fear of disappointing someone or being judged.
I didn’t need a companion.
I had Ophelia, or my family, or my clients if desperation ran deep, but I never let myself believe I might be lonely without someone else. I was perfectly fine alone.
But for some reason being alone with Mateo was what I found myself wanting. I wasn’t done with him, no matter how much I knew I should be. No matter how selfish it was to keep seeing him and pushing this hope along. But it was just sex, fun, and a date. We weren’t committing to each other for life here. I didn’t owe him anything unless there was the possibility of something more .
More felt like a rock sinking to the bottom of my stomach the longer I lay there on his perfectly hard chest, staring into his golden-brown eyes.
I fell to his side, stretching my limbs while Mateo sat up and tugged the condom off, tying it and tossing it into the garbage can beside my nightstand.
“I think there’s three left,” I said enthusiastically.
A bright smile crested across his face and he dropped back onto the pillow beside me. The lights were on, and we were fully naked and relaxed like two people who’d been together a decade already. I felt like I’d know this man just as long in not only my heart but my soul.
“You don’t have any tattoos,” Mateo said matter-of-factly. There was a graft of amusement in his gravelly voice.
I tugged my lip between my teeth. “No, I don’t.”