Chapter 5
MARCO
I hoped I’d given Selena half of what she was giving me. Pretty Girl wasn’t shy when it came to taking care of me. She made me feel like she wanted to give me everything. To pleasure me exactly how I wanted. Needed. I was going to finish before I was ready if she wasn’t careful.
It wasn’t just her mouth making me quickly lose myself in her. It was everything about her. Her honey and cream scent. How fresh and addictive she tasted. Her equal fervor to touch me everywhere. The shape of her body. Holy shit, the shape of her body.
I hadn’t gotten my fill of looking at her. Exploring those curves and sinking into her softness. I would. Before this night was out, I’d make sure I didn’t miss a thing.
But even as I thought it, I knew one night wouldn’t be enough to know every secret corner of this woman. I would barely have time to explore the surface.
Grunting with frustration, I tugged on her hair. “Come up here, pretty. I need more of you.”
With a naughty light in her eyes, she crawled over my body and pressed her plush curves against me. She grazed her fingers over my jaw and traced my bottom lip.
“I want you,”
she whispered, sure and clear.
“I don’t know if I’ll live if I don’t have you.”
From the visceral need I had to draw her into me and keep her there, I believed it in that moment. There had never been anything like this for me before. This connection, this deep, deep desire.
She was right there with me. We moved together as I slid into her. Her eyes on mine, my hands on her face, her hips, her legs. Kissing, so much fucking kissing. Lips like dreams. Hopes like feathers floating over our joined bodies.
Hoping for what, I couldn’t say. Not yet.
My mind was on her. On my pretty girl, who writhed beneath me and saturated my senses. We were two rolling waves, crashing into each other again and again.
Until we broke, clawing and panting. Her legs wrapped around me, my fingers tangled in her hair, our mouths fused.
And then we fell, still wound around each other. Blinking, disbelieving what just happened. Two people who weren’t even aware of each other’s existence forty-eight hours ago, experiencing something soul shaking.
“You felt that, didn’t you, mama?”
She nodded, her eyes wide. “W-w-what is it?”
“Don’t know.”
I stroked her hair off her damp forehead. “Never had it. Didn’t know to look for it.”
“I—me neither.”
She ran her hand over my head and sighed. “Are you h-h-hungry? Thirsty?”
“What a good little hostess you are. You gave me the best sex of my life, now you want to feed me?”
She nodded, giggling softly. “Best of mine, too.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Her brow rose. “Y-y-you do?”
“Yeah, Selena, I know. There’s no way possible you’ve had anything better than that with someone else. That was chemical, my body reacting to yours. That’s solely between you and me.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Maybe.”
I gave her ass a gentle smack. “Admit it.”
Squealing, she rolled away from me, but I followed, clamping down on her shoulder like the rabid dog she’d turned me into.
“Fine, fine,”
she cried. “I admit it!”
“Mmm.”
I kissed the spot I’d bitten and rubbed my lips against it. “That’s right. Now feed me, mama. I need my energy because I’m nowhere near done with you.”
I didn’t get a good look at Selena’s pad until I wandered out to the kitchen after her. It wasn’t at all what I would have expected if I’d spent time thinking about it.
She had a wall of windows and a balcony with a view beyond it. The ceilings were tall, the space airy. Walls were a sleek gray, furniture stylish and lush.
This wasn’t some boho studio. Nah, this place was legit. I would have crashed here if I lived on this coast, and I was the type of man who was accustomed to the finer things in life.
While she whipped up something to eat in nothing but her tank and underwear, I pulled out my phone to look her up. It gave me pause that I didn’t know her last name, but I didn’t let that stop me. Typing in Selena plus songwriter was enough to get hits.
A lot of hits.
Selena Cruz had many fucking credits to her name and gleaming gold awards to go along with them. She’d written songs for most of the popular musicians out there, not just The Seasons Change.
The luxurious apartment made sense now.
The woman I was spending time with was a powerhouse. A success in her industry by anyone’s standards.
And yet she was a dichotomy of shy and confident. Maybe equal parts both, and when I thought about it, I liked both sides of her. I’d definitely never met another woman like her.
I leaned against the kitchen entry, taking her in. Her back was to me, so I let my gaze linger on her round cheeks peeking out of the bottom of her underwear before drifting up to her silky hair, tangled in a nest at her crown. That shot a pleased thrill to my belly, knowing I’d been the cause of that mess. Yeah, I liked that.
“How old are you, Selena Cruz?”
She peered at me over her shoulder as she cooked something on the stove. “Twenty-six,”
she mouthed, not saying the words aloud. “You?”
“I’ll be thirty in a couple months.”
“S-s-still twenty-nine, though.”
“Mm-hmm.”
I approached her, leaning a hip on the counter beside her. “I like your optimistic look on things. I’m over here prematurely kissing my twenties goodbye.”
She smiled and pointed her spatula at the pan. “Eggs?”
I frowned at what she was cooking. “That looks like a whole lot more than just eggs.”
I slid my hand around her waist. “Whatcha cooking, mama?”
Lips rubbing together, she hesitated, and I felt her gathering herself. “It’s a quick Spanish tortilla. My abuela gave me her secret shortcut.”
Her stutter was there, but I wanted her to keep talking. To feel comfortable enough with me not to let anything stop her from expressing herself.
I kissed her shoulder. “Honored you’re making your abuela’s recipe for me. She alive?”
She shook her head. “Died a few years ago.”
“Sorry about that, but I’m glad you have her recipe.”
Turning, she rubbed her nose along my jaw. “A lot of them.”
Using her spatula, she pointed at a small wooden box. “They’re in there.”
“You trust me to look?”
She arched a brow. “Are you going to steal them?”
I chuckled. “Nah. I wouldn’t know what to do with them. I’m not what you’d call a chef. But I’m going to look at them because I love this kind of thing. Generation after generation, passing down secrets.”
I thumbed through her recipes, warmth permeating my chest at her abuela’s handwriting and the splashes of food on the well-worn cards. This was history here.
By the time I’d gotten through looking at all of them, our midnight breakfast was done, and Selena was dishing up slices of tortilla on plates.
We sat at her kitchen bar, my hand on her bare thigh, her shoulder bumping mine.
I took a bite of my tortilla and chewed, savoring the salty eggs and potatoes. “This is legit, Selena. Abuela knew what she was doing.”
Her giggle was sweet as sugar. “She did.”
I speared another bite, then another, enjoying every single thing about these stolen minutes. It bothered me more than it should have that that’s all they were. Moments that were mine, but only until I was forced to give them back.
“I looked you up,”
I told her. “You’re a big fucking deal, huh?”
A flush rose on her cheeks, so pretty I wanted to scoop her up and take her back to bed. But not more than I wanted her words.
“I don’t know about that.”
“You are. I feel pretty foolish for not knowing exactly who you are. Iris said you write music for her, but she didn’t say you’ve written for a lot of other people, too.”
Her shoulder lifted, and I had to suppress a groan. I’d thought we were past the shrugging stage.
I grabbed the underside of her stool and swiveled her to face me. She yelped, her brown eyes going wide with surprise.
“Marco!”
I took her face in my hand, stroking her silky smooth cheek with my index finger. “You’ve made me curious, Selena. And the thing about me is when I’m curious, I don’t stop until my mind is sated. Talk to me, tell me everything.”
Her mouth fell open. “I?—”
I kissed her parted lips. “Let’s start small. Tell me the story of how you met Iris Adler.”
“Online.”
“Go on.”
I was on the edge of my seat with no plans of sitting back until I knew everything about this girl.