Chapter 23 Barcelona, Spain
BARCELONA, SPAIN
SAGE
When I come through the door, Alexander is there, barefoot and scrumptiously shirtless.
He sweeps me into his arms and spins me around before I have time to warn him not to, and it isn’t until he leans me against the wall and kisses me and I sort of hold my breath and whimper that he realizes I’m in pain.
“Salvi…” He deposits me gingerly on the floor, pulling back. “Are you all right?”
“Uh, not a hundred percent. More like… sixty?”
An old back muscle injury (from that crash in S?o Paulo) has chosen the worst possible time—with quali tomorrow and the grand prix the day after—to flare up.
I downplayed it to Dagna, got a massage and a little acupuncture from Himari, did a soak…
but there’s a spot in my back that’s still spasming, contracting like the legs of a dead spider.
“My back’s kinda fucky,” I explain as I shed my clothes and drop them on the floor en route to the bed, then sink down, flat on my stomach.
“Are you well enough to race?” Alexander asks.
I lift my head and glare at him, and the awkward position makes the tight spot in my back twinge hard. “Of course I can fucking race,” I snap. “Jesus, don’t even say that.”
He looks wounded, and I feel bad for being defensive.
But I am defensive on this issue. I’m the “engine” of my car as much as the literal engine is, and it doesn’t work right unless I’m in top form.
The driver’s body is the most complex piece of machinery in the car.
If I have so much as a fucking hangnail, all I can think is, Will this affect how my fingers feel in my gloves on race day? It’s a constant worry.
I soften my expression and hold out a hand for him. “Sorry, I just need to be careful. It’ll probs be fine tomorrow. C’mere…”
Alexander reclines carefully beside me, trying not to jostle the bed. “What can I do for you, love? Have you eaten?”
“Yeah, I’m good.” I breathe out a contented sigh as his palm settles warmly between my shoulder blades. “That’s nice. I like your hands on me.”
He trails a fingertip down my spine. “It’s a lucky thing you didn’t break my ‘soft little rich-boy fingers’ as you threatened during that first video call.”
I can’t resist a cackle of laughter, opening my eyes.
He’s smiling, and fuck, I drink in everything about the sight of him.
It seems crazy now that I wanted to kick his ass a few months ago.
A twist of his rust-dark hair tumbles over the freckles on his forehead; the muscles in the arm he’s leaning on are sexily tense, showing off his nice ropy tendons and veins; and his thickly lashed gray eyes are tender and all mine and dammit… I’m actually in love.
I must be, because I’m perpetually in a half-witted state where my brain convinces me that every element of his existence is a newly minted thing, never before seen on a human.
Like Greek gods sat around doling out Alexander’s Alexanderness.
Yes, other mortals may look cute when they sleep, Zeus would say, but behold!
I bring you cuteness unsurpassed. You shall swoon at the power of his wink, tremble at the aural sorcery of his voice.
Even the shape of his toes will seem faultless, wondrous…
The strip of sore muscle twitches as Alexander’s hand glides over it, and I suck in my breath.
“Okay, so I have an idea,” I tell him. “In the inside pocket of my duffel bag is a vibrator. Could you put it on my back? It’ll be like those ladies back in the day, y’know, the ads for ‘facial massagers’ with some perky housewife rubbing a dildo against her cheek, as if she wasn’t gonna buzz one out with the thing. ”
He laughs, his hand gliding down to my bare ass and giving me a gentle pat. “Is this a test of my ability to stay on task and not make it into something lewd?”
He gets up and crosses to my bag, where I hear him rummaging around, and I have to think for a few panicked seconds whether there’s anything in there I don’t want him to see.
But at this point I’m past the secretive phase.
My universe has changed from 2D to 3D in the space of a month.
There’s just so much more of everything.
I can move, emotionally, in every direction, and I wonder how I ever lived without this.
I’m caught in a paradox, wanting time to freeze so we can spend longer together and wanting it to be years from now so I can see if it lasted, whether this is the real thing.
I hear the hum of the vibrator turning on, then off. “Isn’t this charming,” he says, coming back and lying down beside me. “Like a little pink egg.”
He turns it on again and rolls it along the middle left side of my back, and I’m impressed by how he pays attention.
I haven’t specifically pointed out where my back is fucked, but he still zeroed in on it exactly.
I sink into the futon, boneless. He leans down and presses small kisses along my spine, and reflexively I part my legs.
“None of that, minx,” Alexander mock-scolds. “Much as I’m tempted. You need to heal.”
“Orgasm is very healing,” I mumble with amusement, my face smushed against the pillows.
He chuckles. “In that case, I’m applying this to the wrong area.”
I roll carefully onto my back. “Looks like you’d best get to work, then.”
“For my sins,” he teases, the scarred eyebrow lifting.
Setting the little plastic egg aside, he kisses me, deep and slow and intoxicating, one hand roaming featherlight over my body—gliding down my neck and shoulder, teasing a nipple, trailing a knuckle down to my belly button. When he dips lower, I tilt my hips up in encouragement.
He pulls back from my lips with a wicked smile, then puts two fingers into my mouth. “Suck.”
I work his beautiful fingers, nibbling, sucking, and sweeping my tongue around them.
When he pulls them out, he holds my gaze as his hand moves, fingertips wet and warm, between my legs.
I open wider. He kneels beside my thighs and caresses the furrows at both sides of my clit with two slippery fingers.
We’ve learned so much about each other’s bodies; I love the fact that he’s responded to my sometimes painfully high level of clitoral sensitivity by finding dozens of indirect ways to touch me.
For years I’ve been used to getting off fast, but he’s made it an art to slow me down, so when I do come it’s an all-encompassing storm that I practically feel to the tips of my hair.
The way he teases me, his instinct for pulling back and building me up higher until I’m losing my mind…
fuck, it’s wrecked me for life. How could it be this good with anyone else?
For long, delectable minutes, his fingers explore, drifting, sinking inside my aching pussy to extract my slickness and spread it everywhere with his masterful touch as I moan encouragement, my hips churning slowly.
“Sandy, please,” I breathe. “I want you inside me. Very seriously needing your dick right now.”
He withdraws his hand and I groan in frustration. When I open my eyes, he’s looking at my pussy so lovingly that I almost feel teary.
He drags one finger lightly over my clit. I’m close enough to the edge that I think if I brought my legs together and tensed my thighs, I’d come. “Fuckin’ beautiful, that,” he murmurs. “Like a little red strawberry.”
“Please?” I whisper.
He places a hand over mine on my belly and stretches out beside me, coming up to kiss my lips. “We oughtn’t risk it.” Another kiss, deeper. “But if I weren’t afraid of breaking your gorgeous self, I’d nail you to the bed with my cock.”
I lift my head to meet his next kiss, but he pulls back with a sly half-smile, watching me, then leisurely closing in again.
“I could fill your lovely cunt so many times,” he says near my lips, his voice a quiet growl, “that your eyes would fog up like steam on a fuckin’ mirror.” He gives my lower lip a bite.
I can feel him hard against my hip, and I slide a hand from beneath his to touch him. “You want it too.”
He moves his head to my breast and licks my right nipple. “Mmm-hmm. Alas.”
“Sandyyyyyy,” I plead. “Look, I’ve got an idea…” I turn perpendicular to him on the bed and drape my legs over his hip as he’s on his side facing me, scooting closer until I can feel him against my soaked pussy. “This way? I promise, I’ll hardly move.”
“I’d say, ‘You win,’ but…” He aligns himself with me and stretches me nicely as he goes in deep with a satisfied groan like he’s waited for this his whole life. “Fuck—we both do.”
My breath shudders out. I’m so happy and relieved, I don’t even care that our angle makes a weird squashing sound because I’m so wet.
His hips start to roll, sweet and easy, and I focus on the feeling of him stroking me inside, watching the slow rapture of his expression.
I’m both scared and excited that he’s studying my face just as attentively.
We’re too far away to kiss in this position, and to my surprise I find that I miss it. I sprawl an arm toward him, and he takes my hand and kisses the palm, his eyes closing briefly. Releasing me, he reaches for the vibrator and flicks it on.
“No no no,” I manage, a little breathless. “It’s too much right now.”
“I know—I want to try something…”
He sets the vibrating egg on my mons, just above my clit, and I spread my legs a bit, giving him access. Holding the toy between his two middle fingers, he settles the pad of his palm over me so I can feel the vibration through his hand.
“Close your eyes, beautiful,” he tells me. “Don’t think about anything but this. Relax completely. Let it take you.”
Usually during sex I’m moving in some way, even if I’m just getting oral.
My muscles will be taut, I’ll thrust my hips, grab the sheets, play with my nipples…
something. But this time, I try the same technique I use when I do my sleep exercises, thinking my way down my body, letting every muscle go slack, consciously releasing tension.