Chapter 22 Barcelona, Spain #2
My hands slide up and down the firm, smooth length of her as far as I can reach, and I’m hopelessly ensnared in the electric copper of her eyes.
I catch the back of her head and coax her to my mouth, brushing her lower lip with mine.
“We are. But on one condition.” My free hand spreads at her lower back and gently presses her close against me.
“I want the right to kiss you whilst we make love. Not just before or after.”
Her eyes go a bit wide. She drops her forehead against my shoulder. “Is that what we’re doing—making love?” she asks, muffled against my collarbone.
“I’ve been. All along,” I tell her quietly. “Even the first night when you had me in those ridiculous pink plastic handcuffs and were essentially hate-fucking me.”
She wriggles up a few inches to whisper in my ear, “I had a total thing for you already.”
“Is that so?”
She pulls back, smiling as she paints one finger along my lower lip. “Yeah.”
After what looks like a thinking pause—a small wrinkle of something almost worried crossing her brow—she angles over my mouth, kissing me hard.
The warm darts of her nipples are firm against my chest, her chiseled body is perfection beneath my eagerly roaming hands, and her hair falls down to enclose us in a seafoam-tinted curtain illuminated by the bedside lamp.
I’m drunk on her, lost in her scent, her touch, the warm taste of her mouth, the small groaning sighs and whimpers she emits as I stroke her back and cup her firm cheeks.
My once-hesitant cock is like granite now, and Sage shifts to push my boxers down just enough to impale herself on me, still pressed close against my chest, our mouths locked in hot combat.
Her hips undulate, fucking me with enough slow subtlety to drive me mad when I want to pound into her hard.
But God… I love her control over me in this moment, the way she chooses our pace.
It reminds me of that racing quote that says one should drive “just fast enough to win.” Sage is going at it with a perfect balance of urgency and leisure, sinking again and again onto my cock merely by tilting her hips.
I can feel how she’s rubbing her swollen clit against me, and see the results in the taut ecstasy on her face any time we pause in our fevered kisses.
With her knees on either side of my thighs, she speeds up, thrusting shamelessly against me, nails dug into my shoulders.
Her upper body has enough clearance from my chest that she can rub her nipples on my skin as she nears her peak.
Her eyes squeeze shut and her neck arches, and there it is, that telltale shocked hitch in her breathing before she comes with a scream, bearing down against me hard, crushing us together.
The feeling of her sweet arse tensing as she grinds rhythmically is possibly the hottest thing I’ve ever felt.
I didn’t even know how close I was myself—I was so lost in watching her take her pleasure—but the sensation of her muscles clenching under my palms catapults me into a climax so devastating that it hits me like a plunge into water, both suffocating and exhilarating.
Her sweat-damp head droops down to rest on the crook of my shoulder. As we pant against each other, catching our breath, I move one leg and realize Sage has gushed all over me and we’re both soaked.
She hums a tired laugh. “Probably shoulda put down a towel.”
I give her a pat on the bum and turn my head to kiss her hair. “I’ll buy our host a new bed. Let’s go ahead and ruin this one.”
Sage nestles into me like I’m a soft pile of leaves in a small animal’s den.
“I’ve never kissed someone while I was fucking them before,” she confesses in a sleepy voice.
“It’s actually pretty rad.” As I’m trying to determine how to reply to this revelation—my heart swelling in a pleasantly painful way—she adds, “I don’t think I’d do it with anyone else though. It’s just a you thing, Sandy.”
Whatever was still intact of my heart breaks beautifully. I can barely get the words out when I gruffly reply, “I’m… beyond flattered. Thank you, love.”
For several minutes, I pet Sage in long strokes, feeling her body gradually relax against me.
One of her hands twitches, accompanied by a cute little snort sound, and I realize she’s actually drifted off lying on top of me.
I wait a few more minutes to make sure she’s fully asleep, then edge onto my side, depositing her on the bed and stretching to pull the duvet diagonally over her as far as it’ll reach.
I sit up and shut off the lamp, then roll Sage’s way, watching her face in the light from the balcony doors, which are still open.
Hopefully the neighbors didn’t get too much of a theatrical soundtrack, but to be honest, I’m beyond caring.
Looking at this lovely creature, serene and unglamorously real in sleep, is everything I could want.
I move a curl of hair off her face and lean in to kiss her right eyebrow. “I fuckin’ love you, Salvi,” I say just above a whisper to her unconscious self.
As I’m reaching for my pillow, I’m stunned when she replies in a drowsy mumble, “I love you too.”
I freeze, propped on an elbow, one hand clutching the pillow, and watch her. Did she say it in her sleep? I can’t tell. And if so, does that make it invalid? Or does it mean she’s revealed something of her secret, guarded heart?
Sinking onto the pillow, I decide that whichever it is… I’ll still take it.
“Oh, fuck. We probably really did wreck this woman’s bed,” Sage says, laughing.
I struggle up from an unexpectedly deep sleep to find Sage on her knees, scowling down at the sheets in the wan pre-sunrise light.
She stands on the futon and hops down, then heads across the room in full, gloriously naked view of the windows and ducks into the small bathroom.
I hear her habitual sequence: shower water, screech, laugh.
I get up and pull on my boxers, then follow her in. The little room is outfitted in retro décor, right down to the walls tiled in 1970s mirror squares marbled in gold. My bladder is insistent, but I’m gripped by a wave of self-consciousness and lean on the counter, waiting.
Sage soaps herself in the most bewitching way, and the only thing preventing me from joining her in the glass shower cubicle is the fact that I have to piss rather miserably.
I think she senses it, because she waves a hand at the loo.
“Are you, uh… Should I turn around so you can pee? You look nervous.”
I didn’t expect to be uneasy about such a simple thing, but as it comes to it, I’ve never had a degree of familiarity with any woman that extends to this issue. “It’s ridiculous, I know.”
She smiles indulgently before turning away and continuing her enthusiastic lathering. “Guess it’s on-brand for you though. You’re not uptight about sex—thank God—but, like… I noticed you don’t have social media, aside from the blog itself. You seem private about some things.”
“The blog is still inactive.” I shuck my boxers and step up to relieve myself. “I wanted to talk with you about that, in fact. I’d love to do an article on you, a complimentary one, to make up for… well, all the complete shite I posted before.”
“Huh. Maybe?” She sidesteps into the shower spray, and I’m touched at the way she’s giving me privacy rather than mocking me as I half expected.
“But I dunno, Sand. I think I like just being, uh, whatever this is with us. More than being ‘interviewer and subject’ or whatever. I always feel kinda guarded with journalists. I don’t want to be like that with you. ”
My heart does a small skip at her reveal—that she specifically wants to nurture trust with me.
I do my best to keep a casual tone when I say, “That’s fair.
” I push down the flush handle and it apparently depletes the cold water instantly, based on Sage’s shriek.
“Oh bugger, I’m sorry,” I tell her, stepping into the shower with her.
“Here, misery loves company. I’ll take it.
” I duck into the scorching spray, and Sage passes the soap to me.
As I work up handfuls of suds, the water returns to a bearable temperature.
We swap places, and I wash while Sage rinses off.
“So yeah, why don’t you have any accounts?” she asks. “Or do you, but they’re all secret?”
I can’t help my smile. “You checked?”
“Yeah, obviously. I wanted to see, like, your normal life. Friends and stuff. Do you have pics?” A flicker of alarm passes her face. “Wait, do you have friends?”
I chuckle. “I do. And plenty of photos on my mobile. But I don’t post them anywhere.
” We switch places again. “This may sound dramatic, but I was kidnapped briefly as a child, and I’ve been leery of social media since.
The type that announces where you are, what you’re doing, and with whom. I don’t—”
“Whoa whoa whoa,” Sage interrupts with a laugh, holding up one hand. “You can’t just drop an ‘I got kidnapped once.’ What the fuck? How old were you?”
I wet my hair, then examine the shampoo options.
“Nine years old. We were traveling—my family. It was surprisingly untraumatic. It was obvious my parents had money, I was wandering unsupervised, three men herded me into a van, my parents were informed, money was exchanged. I was back before supper, entirely unharmed.” I squeeze a dollop of something coconut-scented into my palm and wash my hair.
“I wasn’t even frightened after the first five minutes.
They gave me candy and a stack of comic books to pass the time.
But I’m cautious now about pointlessly announcing my whereabouts or publicly volunteering who my friends are. ”
“Wow. That’s… not what I expected. I figured you don’t have social media so you can avoid women you’ve fucked.”
I rinse my hair and wipe the sudsy water from my eyes, then give Sage a wink. “Just a fringe benefit, pet.”