Chapter 9 #5
They spent the better part of an hour jetting around the Mediterranean, stopping here and there long enough for June to take her pictures and catch up on her giggling.
She’s really enjoying herself, huh? It was rare for a woman to not enjoy this – unless they were terrified, Miquela supposed – but something about June’s mirth made her happy, too.
For a woman who probably had her pick of boating enthusiasts over the years, she was acting like this was a brand-new adventure.
She has never been to this part of the world before.
No, that wasn’t it. There was something else in that laugh and in that smile. Like she was comfortable with her.
That was it. Until now, Miquela had never been with a woman who was this comfortable with her.
They were either putting on a show, trying to seduce, or using her for some other end.
Whether she paid them to be there or not…
didn’t matter. If she paid them, then it was another job.
If she didn’t, then they were trying to get her money in other ways.
June was being paid to be there… and seemed to genuinely enjoy her company.
Their excursion came to an end after Miquela veered back to the port and pulled up alongside the Cornelia by Northwest. By then, other boats were returning to the dock as well, including a speedboat occupied by no other than Regina Richards, an English multi-millionaire whom Miquela had been tenuous friends with since school in London.
“Bolivar! Long time no see, amiga!” The woman stood up in her boat, nearly tipping it over with her lovely, buxom blond companion inside. Great day to take your date out boating, I guess. “You back in Monaco for long? I just got here myself.”
“Going back to America tomorrow!” Miquela called back. “Who’s that with you?”
“You don’t know my girlfriend, Carmen Santiago? She’s from Valencia, too!”
Not going to correct her. “Pleasure, Ms. Santiago.”
She looked up with her freakishly white teeth and tanned cheeks. “Bonjour!” she greeted with a thick Spanish accent. After Regina leaned in to whisper something, she corrected, “Hola!”
“Who is that gorgeous creature with you?” Regina asked, leaning back to get a better look at June. “She must be American. I’m not being rude!”
“This is June! My girlfriend!”
“You sly dog! Excuse us, but we have to get going!”
Miquela nodded and waved goodbye.
“Your girlfriend, huh?” June crossed her legs… away from Miquela. “That was presumptuous of you.”
“What should I have said, mi amour? That you’re the most beautiful escort in the world?”
“It would’ve been the truth.” She smiled.
“Be that as it may, I have to think of my image as well.” Miquela hopped onto the dock and extended her hand to help June out. “I wish I could tell the whole world that you’re my beautiful girlfriend.”
Hand clasped in hers, June took two long strides through the boat and landed gracefully on the dock. She remained halfway in Miquela’s embrace. “If all my clients found out that I was your girlfriend… hm, it’s not great for business.”
Miquela quickly changed the subject. “So, where to now?”
Her tone changed as well. “What do you think? I want to go to Monte Carlo and see what all the fuss is about!”
Miquela knew she would say that. She didn’t have the heart to tell her that any dreams she had of them strolling through dressed like the most beautiful couple in the world, blowing on dice, and blowing hundreds of thousands of Miquela’s money weren’t coming true.
“What do you mean you can’t go inside?” June stared at the throng of tourists lining up like they were going to an upscale club.
Bouncers were telling them whether they could go in, based on how they were dressed.
Yes, my lovely, we would have to go back to my apartment and dress for the occasion. That wasn’t the problem, though.
“No, citizens are not allowed into the gambling rooms. We can go everywhere else on the premises, but we’re not allowed to gamble.”
“What the fuck!”
“You could go, if you want. That restriction wouldn’t apply to you.” Miquela grinned. “We would have to pretty you up first, though. By their standards, that is.”
“I don’t want to go by myself.” Was that a real pout, or June playing up her skills? “It’s no fun if I’m not with you.”
“Then let’s go somewhere else.”
“Wait.” June popped out of the car and took a picture. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Chuckling, Miquela pulled back out onto the road. “What are all the pictures for?”
“I want pictures in case I never come back again.” Before Miquela could protest that line of thinking, she explained, “I take pictures of all the new places I go. Just in case, you know? I know you have good intentions, but what if I die before I have the chance to come back? I could die of pneumonia or get in a car crash or something.”
Miquela, stopped at a light, eyed the surrounding automobiles and motorcycles with suspicion. “That’s… depressing. Let’s get out of here.”
They ate at Miquela’s favorite Monegasque restaurant for dinner.
The place was on top of a building, an open-air abode with plenty of flora growing from relocated earth and looking as if they were under a rainforest canopy.
There were plenty of openings to see the sea and twinkling stars as they emerged.
The temperature remained balmy, meaning June never had to cover up those beautiful arms or legs.
Nor did Miquela bother with a jacket, even though she had one.
They ate. They drank. They told off-color jokes and debated the current gold standard.
The great thing about June was that she knew how to have fun and was intelligent in the areas Miquela lived and breathed every day.
She had opinions on Quentin Tarantino movies like she had opinions on the latest named CEO of this company and the rising stock prices of that company.
Most of the latter she had learned from her clients over the past few years, but a lot of it was also self-study, so she could be the perfect conversationalist. Miquela commended her on her abilities.
“The thing most of you clients don’t understand,” June began, on her third glass of wine, “is that I am as hardworking and clever as you lot who make billions playing a round of golf. I may not be a millionaire, but I have the skills to become one over the long term. I’m not talking about the sex, although that’s the major draw.
Once I have you ensnared, I keep you by being witty, charming, and always surprising you.
” She tossed her bushy hair behind her shoulder.
“Come for the thrill, stay for the emotional turmoil I bring to your heart.”
Is she wrong? Miquela managed to smile, but inside, she realized how much of a sucker she was. “I admit, it worked on me.”
“Of course it did! You’re one of the best clients from the beginning. You knew exactly what was up and what we were doing. You didn’t even pick me. My boss picked me for you, based on you saying what you wanted.”
“I only really told her one thing…”
June was still grinning. “Was she wrong?”
“No way. Although I’m glad there is so much more to you than that. Regardless of how I meet a woman, I rarely want to spend this much time with her.”
“The first since your Nigerian model girlfriend?”
“Perhaps.” I was thinking more like… since Rosa. She would never admit that, though. “I’m not the most social woman.”
June looked at her in disbelief. Or, at least, Miquela was pretty sure it was disbelief. It could’ve been the three glasses of wine.
They walked back to her apartment, having walked to the restaurant in the first place.
That was the nice thing about a country the size of Monaco.
She could walk anywhere in her tipsy, not fit to drive state.
She wasn’t drunk, but she was also pretty sure driving was a bad idea, no matter how good she usually was.
Instead, Miquela slung her arm around June and lumbered down the sidewalk with her, singing a common French children’s song – badly.
“Wait, how does that last part go again?” June asked as they entered the foyer of the apartment building. “It sounded dirty.”
Miquela had intended to keep things cleaner until later that night, but from the moment they entered her apartment, June was on her, stroking her chest, her hips, as if she couldn’t wait to get in bed. Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she truly wanted her as much as Miquela wanted her.
With wine in her, it was certainly easy to believe that.
June hopped up on her tiptoes, hands cradling Miquela’s face. Miquela held her tight against her chest, fighting back the endless urge to kiss her. It was more pertinent to get her to bed. “Do you believe me?” she asked, lost in June’s color-changing eyes. “That I love you?”
“Dunno. How many languages can you say it in?”
“I love you.”
“That’s one.” They were in the bedroom, the door barging open.
“Je t’aime.”
“Two.” They stopped at the bed.
“Te amo.”
June landed with a heavy thump on the bed. “Three. Give me one more.”
Was there anything better than surrounding such a beautiful woman in one’s own bed? Miquela could bury her face in her breasts if she wanted. “I’m trilingual, mi amour. What do you want from me?”
“Surprise me.” June’s fingers did the dirty work for her.
Miquela scrambled her brain into a huge mess trying to think of any other language she was familiar enough with. Italian? Too safe. Portuguese? Would she even know that one? How the hell did one say “I love you” in German? I should know that one!
“Wo ai ni.”
June stifled an ugly noise. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how you speak Mandarin.”
“So sue me.” Miquela placed a careful kiss on June’s forehead, her body heating up, her heart thumping so loudly that it was almost deafening. “I’m rich. I can afford a lawsuit.”
“You can make up for your lack of linguistics by making me forget my own name.”
That was all the permission Miquela needed. She covered June’s mouth with heavy kisses and pulled her close, letting instinct and emotion guide the rest.
Please say you love me, too. Miquela gave lovemaking her all.
All her passion. All her desire. All her hopes for the future and the regrets of the past. She had loved and lost before.
It seemed so far away and irrelevant now.
Women loved. Women lost. They grew older and wiser.
Miquela was at an age where it made sense to pick a woman who made her laugh, love, and live the hardest. Don’t you love me too?
It wasn’t dignified to ask that out loud. Nor to beg. Nor to imply that she was somehow less without June’s affections. It didn’t stop her from thinking it, however. A woman could help how she acted and what she said. She could not help the tumultuous emotions in her heart.
The only way she had to communicate was through her actions. So she showed June how deeply she could care, pouring everything she felt into every touch, every breath, every whispered word against her skin.
When you love that hard, there is no reason.
No rules. No forces of nature too strong to make you see reality.
Who cared that June had a job that prevented traditional monogamy?
That wasn’t why Miquela had fallen in love with her.
June was a woman of free will, and she exerted it with such power that Miquela couldn’t help but be in awe of her.
It was a miracle that no other had come along and swept her off her feet yet. Why couldn’t it be Miquela?
It felt so right to hold June in her arms, beneath her, on top of her, in whatever direction they naturally fell.
The sheets twisted beneath them from how fiercely they held each other.
June cried out more than once that Miquela was one of the strongest women she had ever been with.
Miquela knew what she meant and had no reason to disbelieve her.
When the intensity crested, Miquela held her close, breathing her in like she was oxygen.
She is mine. You are mine, June. Do you feel that?
It’s me, wrapped around you, like you are wrapped around me in so many ways.
Was it animal, or was it human? That sensation of pure pride she felt when she was as close as she could be, when June’s voice broke in the dark.
The most beautiful sound Miquela had ever heard as she came down from it all.
It was official. No other woman could feel this right or fit this perfectly against her. Perhaps she was foolish. Perhaps she was committing a crime against their nature. It. Didn’t. Matter. One way or another, Miquela Bolivar would find a way to make June Kingsley hers.
Money wasn’t an issue. There were stronger forces at play. Forces that could not be solved with money.
Maybe, though, they could be solved with some blasted love.
June fell asleep in her arms not long after their intensity faded. Miquela held her as close as she dared, afraid to suffocate her.
“I love you, June,” she whispered, her mind and mouth so divorced that she didn’t know what language she uttered it in. “Do you know what a big deal that is for me to say? I will do anything to make you mine. Say what you want, and I will give it to you.”
She sighed against Miquela’s bare chest. No words. No sign that she had heard her.
Miquela would have to find a way to tell June in her dreams.