Chapter 11
chapter eleven
priscilla
No matter what lies I told myself all week, I knew this is where we’d end up.
In a quiet corner tangled up in each other.
I wracked my brain for a reason not to do this, but the way Juan Pablo was looking at me, how he was letting me take this where I wanted, it was burning me up inside.
It was always like this with him—I could take charge or let go as I needed to without ever having to explain.
That’s why I always came back; because with J I never had to explain and always got what I wanted, what I needed.
Without breaking eye contact, I placed the little bottle of bubbly on the table by the chaise and then pushed forward until his lips were right against mine.
I could feel his arms stiffening, as if he wanted to touch me or pull me closer, but was waiting for me to make the next move. Letting me set the tone. But his tongue still darted out slowly, and he ran it over the seam of my lips, making me gasp. “Tell me what you need.”
I slid a hand over his arm, my pointy nails digging into the skin. “I miss your mouth and your hands.” I didn’t even need to say where, it didn’t really matter.
When he kissed me again and I pushed against him, he finally let himself touch. His hands ran over my thighs, then my calves, agonizingly slow, until finally, he slipped them under my dress.
“Touch me, J.” I usually chased my orgasms with single-minded determination, but with J, I let his touch set the tone and he almost always wanted to explore.
He was thorough, and not by going hard and fast. He always took his time, slowly undoing every knot, unfurling every nerve ending until I was a panting, sweaty mess.
He could always wreck me.
He laughed in that filthy way he did when he was getting me so revved up I lost the ability to talk.
I wanted to move. Spread my thighs for him, raise my knees, so that he’d touch me like he knew he could.
But he would not be rushed. It felt illicit to be doing this out here, the breeze of the ocean lifting the flaps of the cabana as J made his way over every inch of my skin.
I felt liquid and wild under Juan Pablo’s hands. He could always do that. With his eyes locked with mine, he moved so he was kneeling between my legs and ran his hands—rough from years of gripping baseball bats—on the inside of my thighs.
He crawled up on his knees as my thighs widened, adjusting for him. As if he could not hold himself back any longer, he pushed my dress up. I threw my own arms over my head, feeling languid and wanting to enjoy the familiar buzzing under my skin.
“You’re soaking through this, Nena.” He leaned in to kiss me as he palmed my sex over the wet lacy fabric.
I gasped as he gripped my thigh hard and circled his thumb over my clit.
“Juan Pablo.” I wasn’t sure if I was laughing or screaming, but he was touching me so I’d beg. I felt myself tighten and my hips started moving without my bidding, needing more.
“You know I go a little crazy when you get like this, Priscilla. Imma have to put my mouth on you.” He sucked his teeth, neck muscles tight from holding back until I told him he could.
“Tú no eres fácil, Juan Pablo.” It was more of a gasp than a statement, as our gazes were locked tight and I exhaled with a laugh.
“You only say that when you’re taunting me to turn you out,” he said, as he flashed me a filthy grin, and with the same thumb he’d been driving me out of my mind with, he slipped my underwear off.
He balled the lacy bit of fabric in his hand and pressed it to his nose, closing his eyes in apparent ecstasy. He spoke, eyes still shut tightly, as I laid there vibrating.
“You know what I miss?” he asked, but it wasn’t a question.
Before I had a chance to say anything, he lowered himself to kiss me, his hands roaming over my belly.
Fingers tracing the edge of my dress until he got my nipple out.
My skin buzzed, anticipating what it would feel like to have his mouth on me.
“I miss this.” He traced a finger over the dark brown areola, and without a word brought his head down to lick at it. His tongue tracing the edges and lapping at the tip.
I hissed at the sensation and pressed the back of my head to the chaise, the ache between my legs getting more and more intense.
He took mouthfuls of me, tongue sliding over my nipple as two fingers took turns moving over my clit and dipping into me, looking for the place he always seemed to find so effortlessly.
I had both my hands on his head, keeping his attention on my breasts as I breathed choppily, just on the cusp of coming apart.
“Don’t fucking stop, J,” I begged through gritted teeth, already feeling the waves coming. He grunted, redoubling his assault on my senses and soon I was lost, body pulsing in an orgasm that left me weak.
When I opened my eyes, the way Juan Pablo was looking at me made my belly molten again. The want there, gut deep and all-encompassing like my own. When he was like this, it was so easy to forget all the ways things seemed to fall apart for us.
He ran the back of his hand over his mouth, eyes still roaming over me.
I probably looked a mess, but from how he was breathing, I knew we were both on the exact same page.
No stopping. We’d just keep going at this, kissing, touching until we’d had enough.
We’d always been good at pushing off catastrophe as long as we focused on what we could make each other feel.
I ran a hand over his hardness, focusing on him. “Can I have this now?” I sounded a lot more in control than I was, my mouth practically watering for him.
He jerked his head, already making his way down my body. “Not yet.”
I could feel the tingling before his mouth was on me, and when he closed his lips around my clit and pulled, all I could do was fall into the soft deep cushions of the chaise and feel. My hands fisted at my sides, trying to relax into the sensation.
He took turns between sucking hard and circling the hard tip of this tongue to that little nub.
The crackle of electricity worked itself up my limbs and gut, until I was vibrating, so close to coming again.
Juan Pablo could always get me off in record time.
Fleetingly, I thought that nothing ever felt this comforting and hot at once.
Soon the tingling in my limbs increased to waves of pleasure and I was coming with a long lazy moan. “Fuuuuuuck that’s so good.”
I lay there panting as J softly ran his hands over my thighs, which he knew was one of the only spots where I didn’t feel hypersensitive after an orgasm. Finally, he pushed up again and searched for my mouth. While we kissed, I reached for his cock, but it was soft.
I grinned and pulled back. “Did you jerk it while you were down there?”
I could feel the smile on his lips as he kissed his way down my neck. “I’m good at multi-tasking and need to get these pants dry-cleaned anyway.”
“Gross.” I did not sound disgusted. I wasn’t. I felt satisfied and understood in this little cocoon by the ocean J and I had made.
After we’d each had some more sips on less than optimally cold but still quite delicious bubbly, we laid there next to each other, in comfortable silence, and before he opened his mouth, I could feel J getting ready to trample right into my post-coital bliss.
“If things don’t get better, would you consider leaving the force?”
My initial reaction was to bristle. Over the years, J and I had more than one blowout over my job and his constant worry that I’d get hurt. So this line of questioning made me defensive, even when I’d been asking myself the same thing. A lot.
I didn’t turn around to look at him, but I made myself come out with it.
“I’ve thought about it.” He didn’t say anything and I knew he wouldn’t until I’d said whatever was on my mind. “But I’m not sure I can, not yet. The multi-disciplinary team is pretty good and I want to keep working in it.”
J would not let me hide the truth from myself. A lot of times that didn’t work out well, but I could always rely on him to hear what was on my mind and tell me what I needed to hear.
“Is that the same kind of group you were in in Ithaca, with the CPS people and the prosecutors?”
I smiled and turned to look at him, not really surprised, but still touched that he recalled the details of a job I’d left years ago.
“Yeah, pretty much the same. Of course, the team is a little bigger, and we work with the FBI, too, but the same idea. I can’t believe you remember that.
I was a baby cop when I was on that Ithaca team. ”
He gave me a pointed look, “When have I ever forgotten about something that made you happy, Priscilla?”
Never. But that road was not one I was going down right now.
“You have a good memory.” That elicited a scoff, but whatever it came with, he kept to himself.
Again I veered us off the lane that would put us on the path to talk about our feelings.
“Anyway the work is goodish, and some of the guys are assholes, and problematic, but I can mostly deal with it. I also love the forensic social worker from the child advocacy center that sits in on the meetings. Bri.”
There was a shift and I could feel he was refraining from asking more about Bri.
“He’s in a very committed relationship to a man, so you can unclench your jaw. Not that your ass needs to be pressed about men I like.”
“Says you.” That was a verbal pout if I’d ever heard one.
I would not find his whining cute. “We were talking about my dissatisfaction with my job, Juan Pablo.”
He gave me a serious look, almost as if to gauge if I really wanted to hear his full opinion on things. “So are you feeling like things are as good as they’ll get?”
It’s what I’d been avoiding feeling.
Before I could censor myself or change the real answer, I said it out loud. “I just wonder if this is what I want to do forever.”
Another grunt. “You don’t have to. I mean, look at Papi. I think he’s happier running that center than he ever was being a cop, and that man bled blue. You can reinvent yourself, Pris.”
I felt a flash of resentfulness, because that was easy for Juan Pablo to say—he had the dream job with the Yankees making six figures.
Meanwhile, my dream job involved coaching people on how to masturbate better and peddling vibrators.
Which didn’t exactly come with benefits and I was still not sure I could ever even tell my parents about it.
No. I was going nowhere.
I sighed, the easy feeling from before dulled by the conversation. “I think I’ll sit tight in the NYPD. I love my side hustle and that’s good enough for now.”
It was dark, so I couldn’t see his face, but I could tell he was trying to figure out what I wasn’t saying, but when he finally opened his mouth, I almost fell over. “Your blog is good and so is your podcast. I honestly think people would pay for what you have to say.”
“You listen to my podcast?” I asked, floored, because I wasn’t exactly advertising among friends and family.
“Milo turned me on to it, since somebody didn’t let me know about it.” He sounded a little hurt and my dumb “never going to learn its lesson” heart skipped a beat. “It’s good. You’re talking some next level woke shit on there. Sex, blackness, queer issues, feminism. It’s dope.”
Before I knew what I was doing, my hand—probably by instinct—searched out his. I squeezed and pressed a kiss to his lips. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“You know I think you’re the smartest woman on the planet,” he griped. “No matter what mess is going on between us, I will always cape for you.”
This was true; even when we could barely stand to be in the same room, if anyone dared say anything to me about Juan Pablo, they were getting their ass handed to them and I knew for sure it was the same for him.
“What do you think?”
I realized that in my musings about all the ways we were inexorably tangled for better or worse, I’d missed something he’d said. “Sure,” I said, and he laughed.
“You have no idea what I just asked, do you?”
I snorted and sat up. It was getting mad late and the sex and bubbly had me a little woozy. “Tell me again.”
“I asked if you’ve given any more thought to doing one of your workshops at the center. Papi is happy to lend you the space.”
I was glad for the darkness because I knew my face had to be slack from surprise. “You asked your dad already?”
He scoffed again and found my hand. “Your stuff is needed. My dad’s been trying to find more ways to work with LGBT+ adults Uptown.”
I tried to dissect the last few minutes for any kind of hidden agenda or if this was just J’s way of keeping the lines of communications open now that we’d hooked up.
But I was either too moved by the offer, or too addled by the sex to catch it.
“I do have this workshop I do with Bri about pleasure for Trans and black bodies. We’ve been trying to find a spot to do it.
I also have the one about pleasure after sixty. ”
“Papi will be down for both of those, and I’m there a lot during the off-season. We can make it work. So can I hit you up when we’re back in the city?”
I was tempted, so tempted to say yes, to just let the things I was feeling make my mind up for me and accept the olive branch J was extending.
The offer to be back in each other’s lives.
Still, I wasn’t sure I could open that door just yet.
What had happened just now felt too good, safe.
And I wasn’t sure I could handle losing it again.
So I leaned in and kissed him long and hard, like we usually did. Then I got up, and grabbed my sandals from the sand.
“I’ll let you know. Take care, J.”