CHAPTER 14 #3
“I’m so happy it is us, together,” he murmurs to me, tightening his grip. “It feels right.”
“You beat the number one player in the world.” I shake my head in wonder. “That’s a big deal, Aurelio.” I remember the way his expression darkened whenever someone mentioned Charles Allard. Today, he beat his own demons.
Aurelio’s arms tighten around me. “Coming from the woman who is the number one player in the world! I am just trying to get on your level, mia dolce.”
I smile down at him, happily. I didn’t realize that people could make you happier.
I thought you were born with it. You just woke up and saw the good in life.
The rest of us weren’t that way. But Fernanda, Aurelio, Vince—they weren’t born happy.
I was wrong. Instead, they were just born lucky.
Lucky to have a family that loved them, or a confidence in their ability, or a passion that was unmatched.
They recognized that luck and worked hard to hold onto it.
They cherished and took care of it. The good news for a girl like me is that luck can find me, too.
I think it already has.
I lean in to kiss him, wanting him near me, wanting him with me, always.
Kissing Aurelio is like stepping outside and feeling the sun’s rays for the first time in hours.
It’s like remembering that after being so, so cold, there’s something to warm you back up.
I can just feel the soft scrape of his stubble on my cheek, taste a hint of red Gatorade on his lips.
My heartbeat gallops in my ear, faster than during my match earlier today.
Aurelio spins us again, heading back towards the bed.
I agree wholeheartedly with his assessment, my fingers twining through the golden curls at the base of his neck.
He gently drops me on the bed, breaking our kiss to look down at me.
“Is this okay?” he asks, gently skimming a thumb over my swollen lower lip.
A tremor travels through my body.
“Is this okay?” I give him a look. “You’re fucking torturing me, Aurelio.
” He chuckles, low and dangerous. His curious fingers play with my tank top strap.
Visions of us truly together start to melt my brain.
My skin feels like it’s on fire. “Aurelio,” I say, a warning. “Don’t make me wait any longer.”
He leans back down, kissing me gently on the jaw, the nose, underneath my ear. “Mia dolce,” Aurelio murmurs to me. “I do not want this moment to end, do you?”
End? What does he mean? This night? Our relationship?
I shake my head.
My hands lay at my sides, clenched. I want desperately to pull him to me, to roll him underneath me, to end the agony. That’s the way I like it. Hazy, fast, all adrenaline in the dark.
I try to focus on what Aurelio is saying. He shoots me a look like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. “So, let’s not end it before it’s barely begun.”
I can’t help but rise to the challenge. “I won’t be the problem.” I raise an eyebrow at his sweatpants, which hardly hide how much he wants me.
“Maybe not,” he says solemnly. His eyes twinkle. “But we must try hard.”
Aurelio doesn’t even catch his own innuendo, but I start giggling. “Yes, you must try your hardest.”
It takes him a second to catch on. He leans back, groaning. “Amy! I’m trying to seduce you!”
I’m still laughing. “Yes, I know, you’re trying very hard—”
His kiss cuts me off. I find that the laughter took away some of my nerves, some of that strange, itchy feeling to get it over with.
I sink back into the kiss with enthusiasm, fully pulling his weight onto me.
My hands are greedy, finally having more to work with.
I reach them under Aurelio’s shirt, eagerly skimming over his muscled back.
Aurelio winces a little. “You’re cold,” he murmurs against my mouth.
I want to argue that he’s always warm, like the Italian sun, but I become distracted when his hands circle back to my tank top strap.
He gently kisses down my jaw, neck, shoulder, moving the straps politely aside to have more access to me.
I want more access to him, too. I pull my hands out of his shirt, instead reaching for the hem.
It’s tricky to pull it off when he’s kissing my neck, so he pauses for a moment to help, ripping off the t-shirt and throwing it aside.
He’s pretty tan this far into the season, just like me, and has a light layer of golden hair across his broad chest. Aurelio pulls off my tank top next, tossing it into the same pile as his t-shirt.
It has a built-in bra, so I’m completely bare to him, too.
I tremble under the darkness of his gaze.
I’m not used to being looked at, in the light.
I feel the strange urge to cover up. Instead, so gently, Aurelio reaches up and pulls my hair from its tight bun.
It falls in damp waves over my shoulder.
“Mi bella Amy.” He smiles at me. “My very beautiful Amy.”
My heart is pounding, but I manage to whisper back, hoarse, “You’re beautiful, too, Aurelio. Every part of you.”
We come back together, slower, as though we’ve agreed to it.
He gently pulls off my socks, then his own.
I untie his sweatpants with trembling fingers.
He tosses them to the side, left in athletic-looking white briefs to match his Wimbledon kit.
Leaning back on the bed, I silently pull off my tennis skirt, left in the plain blue underwear that match my shirt.
I was clearly delirious when I came over here, or I would have worn something nicer.
Aurelio doesn’t take notice of the clothes, just me.
He kisses every part of my body. He starts back at the top, gentle and sweet with my mouth, my cheek, my neck. His mouth burns more and more the lower he goes. He kisses the side of my breasts, in between them, over my heart. I can feel the length of him against my hip.
I try to reach for him, to touch him, but he gently pushes me down. “Not yet.”
His curious, long fingers reach for me again. This time, it’s at my entrance, and I nearly jump out of my skin. His free hand pushes down on my hip. “Here, mia dolce?” he asks, eyes so dark they look like they’ll swallow me whole.
I nod, trying to hold still for him. He gently peels off my underwear.
It starts with one finger, hesitant to see if I’m ready for him. I am, of course. I’ve been ready for weeks, for months, certainly since that moment when he left me in the bathtub. I want Aurelio in all the ways you can want a person, and I certainly want him in my bed.
Or me in his.
The second finger curls in more resolutely, pressing right where I want him. An involuntary gasp leaves my lips. He takes up a rhythm, moving just as dutifully as he would on the court. I watch him work, lip between his teeth, trying to bring me to the brink. To break me in all the best ways.
The pleasure grows and grows, as do my whimpers. “Aurelio,” I grit out. “Please.”
“Soon,” he promises.
“No,” I argue, even though it hurts to stop him. “No, please, I want you with me this first time.”
He wants to disagree, I can sense it, because he’s generous, and kind, and focused entirely on me. But when he looks at my face, he must see the truth. I need this to be us, together. It’s never been that way before. When I look back on this moment, I want it to be Aurelio and me. Both of us.
The emptiness when his fingers leave me almost has me regretting my ridiculous, romantic brain. He disappears for thirty seconds to get protection, and it’s an eternity of cold. But then he takes off his briefs, puts his delicious weight back on me fully, I feel more ready for him than ever.
When he pushes inside me, I see stars. The beautiful stars that are so important to Aurelio, to all that he is.
Aurelio softens the moment with the lightest kiss on my cheekbone.
It feels like a feather. We start slow, building momentum.
I grip his back, willing him closer to me and closer to me and closer to me.
Our kisses become more like prolonged breaths between us, gasps and sighs.
We communicate with each other in a silent dance, prodding, and encouraging, and grasping, and hoping.
He feels wonderful, he feels right, he feels like mine in a way no man ever has.
I want him more, faster and fuller, and so I tilt my hips up, hook a leg around his lower back.
He buries his face in my neck, hands tangled in my hair and the bedspread.
Everything feels like it’s sparking, like if you struck a match down my skin, it would light.
He kisses me once more on the mouth, searingly, a promise that I feel through every cell of my body.
Thanks to his careful ministrations earlier, we fall over the cliff together.
The pleasure punches through us, tumbling through our muscles, ribboning through our ribs.
I think I say his name, and I know he says mine.
His weight on me is a new pleasure, even as our climax ends.
Our chests are sticky, our hair wild, our limbs intertwined.
I love the sameness. I love that when I look at him, he’s just as undone as I am.
Aurelio shudders above me, and I soothingly stroke a hand down his arm. It brings him back to me, my gentle touch. “Amy,” he says wonderingly.
I smile softly. “Aurelio.” He kisses me one more time.
He carefully pulls away from me, cleaning himself.
I wander past him to the bathroom, feeling like I just played three hours of tennis.
My muscles are weak, and my steps wobble.
I stop in front of the bathroom mirror, pausing to look at my reflection.
I don’t look like myself. Certainly nothing like Amy the tennis player.
She’s missing her bun, her spandex, the hives on her neck that are a sure sign she’s close to breaking.