Chapter 28
Carlos
The word hangs between us. Jade is still half-sitting, twisted to look down at me with those wide eyes, her hair falling over one shoulder. I can see her mind working.
She lies back down, and I brush her hair off her shoulder. She looks up at me and says with curiosity, “Were you celibate on purpose? Was it a vow or—”
“No vow.” I run a hand through my hair. This is embarrassing.
“Marisol and I—sometimes. Before she told me—before she told herself, probably—that she only liked women. But not toward the end, when we were able to talk about it and she was living more openly. After Marisol died, I just . . . didn’t.
There were a few opportunities over the years.
Fernando tried to set me up more times than I can count. But it never felt right.”
“Until now?”
I meet her eyes. “Until you.”
She’s quiet for a moment, processing. Then: “No pressure or anything.”
Despite everything, I laugh. “Jade. If anything, the pressure is on me.”
She grins. “Fifteen years is a lot of buildup. It’s not like riding a bike. What if you’ve forgotten how it works or can’t—”
I kiss her to stop, which isn’t very effective since we’re both laughing. When I pull back, she’s smiling.
“I’m sure you’re going to be very good in bed, Carlos. After all this time,” she says, and it’s teasing. Then, quieter: “Are you sure you want to . . . ?”
In answer, I cup her face and kiss her again. Slower this time. Deeper. When I pull away, we’re both breathing harder.
“I’m sure,” I say. “If you are.”
Jade’s hand slides up my chest, fingers curling into my shirt. “I’m sure. I just—” She hesitates. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to because we kissed or because I’m leaving soon or—”
“Jade.” I catch her hand, press it against my heart. “I want this. I want you. I have wanted you for weeks, maybe months. I’ve just been too much of a coward to admit it.”
Something shifts in her expression. That vulnerability I saw when she showed me her childhood photo, but mixed with heat now. Want.
Jade wriggles out from under me. She stands, holds out her hand. “Come on.”
I let her pull me up, and we’re leaving my living room, Izan snoring peacefully in the corner, and this woman I’ve been fighting my feelings for is looking at me like I’m the answer to something as she leads me into my bedroom, our hands tangled together.
I have no idea what time it is. It’s dark and quiet, the sound of a city at peace. We don’t turn lights on, but my eyes adjust to the little light there is coming in from the window and the open door. Our free hands find each other and the smell of citrus in her hair wafts under my nose.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi.” There’s a pause, and for a moment I get self-conscious again. Jade’s openness, her confidence, can be intimidating. “We can—”
But then she’s pulling me down, searching for me in the darkness, and our lips meet. Relief floods through me, and this time I don’t stop. My hands find her waist, slide up her back, into her hair. She makes a small sound and presses closer, her fingers working at the buttons of my shirt.
“Too many clothes,” she mutters against my mouth.
“Agreed.”
We break apart long enough to shed layers, the dim light a tease. My shirt. Her blouse. When she reaches for the hem of her tank top, I cover her hands with mine.
“Can I?”
She nods, arms up, and I pull the fabric over her head. My hands follow the same path down, feeling her warm skin and the soft, simple cotton bra. Nothing fancy, but my throat goes dry anyway.
I trace my fingers along the strap, down to the edge of the cup, feeling goosebumps rise on her skin. When I look up, her eyes are dark with want.
“Carlos,” she says, and my name sounds like permission.
I kiss her collarbone, her shoulder, the swell of her breast above the fabric. She gasps, hands coming up to tangle in my hair, and I remember suddenly—vividly—what it felt like to have control over her like this. To make her gasp and arch and forget everything but what I was doing to her.
“Bed,” she says breathlessly. “Now.”
We tumble onto it together, a tangle of limbs and half-shed clothing. Her hands are everywhere—my chest, my back, my shoulders—mapping me like she’s memorizing coordinates.
“Is this okay?” I ask, pulling back to look at her.
“More than okay.” She hooks her leg around mine, pulling me closer. “Stop asking and just—”
I kiss her hard enough to swallow whatever she was going to say. Her hips tilt up to meet mine and I groan, the friction almost too much after so long.
“Wait,” I manage. “I need—” I pull back, breathing hard. “It’s been so long. I need to . . . slow down.”
She’s flushed, her lips kiss-swollen, her hair a mess. “We can go slow.”
“Can we?”
“Well.” She grins up at me. “We can try.”
What follows is slow and fumbling and perfect.
There’s laughter when I can’t figure out the clasp of her bra (apparently bras have evolved).
There’s tenderness when she helps me out of my pants, kissing my hip bone as she does.
There’s heat when I finally—finally—slide my hand between her thighs and touch her where she’s slippery and warm.
“Carlos,” she gasps. “Please.”
“Please what?” I’m up on one elbow, looking down at her, spread out in front of me. My other hand goes to her breast, fitting perfectly around it. Her nipple is hard and puckered against my skin.
“Make me come.”
I rest my forehead on her stomach, and she runs her fingers through my hair, stopping right at my hairline. She raises her knee, inviting, and I slowly slide two fingers inside of her.
What next? Insecurity hits me hard. All those years, and I’ve barely thought of moments like this. What am I even doing?
I kiss her soft stomach, which twitches. “Help me, carino.”
“Deeper,” she says immediately. “Curl up. Right . . .”
She reaches down and adjusts me, resting my thumb on her mons and pressing the heel of my hand on her clit.
I press into her, feeling her body shift beneath me. I kiss my way over to her hip bone and her hands tighten in my hair.
“That’s—” She cuts herself off with a moan. “Right there.”
I focus all my attention on keeping that exact stroke. I want to make her moan just like that a thousand times.
And then she says, “God, Carlos,” and no, that’s what I want to hear a thousand times.
Her second hand joins the first in my hair, and I’m pressing her down as she writhes; my hand rolling her nipple, my forehead on her stomach, and my other hand, plunging deep inside her.
I’m achingly hard.
And then Jade snaps. Her body curls, flexes, and her cunt squeezes my fingers, pulsing. She’s saying my name over and over again: Carlos, Carlos, Carlos . . .
Once she relaxes back on the bed, I slip my fingers carefully out and stretch out next to her, propping my head up on my hand. We lie quietly for a moment, catching our breaths, until she looks over at me.
“Fifteen years, huh?”
I waggle my hand. “More or less. It’ll be better next time. I can research—”
“It was good,” Jade says. “I know what I like, and I’m not afraid to teach you.
” Then she laughs and looks up at the ceiling.
“I once said I didn’t want to date younger men anymore because you had to teach them what to do.
” Her hand comes up, threading into my hair again and tugging me down for a kiss. “Suddenly I don’t mind that.”
I kiss her gently, softly. I resolve to devote myself to learning more so she doesn’t have to teach me everything. For the first time in my life, I actually want to absorb myself in sex.
“But for now,” Jade says. “I want you inside me.”
Of course this was coming, I knew that. But it hits me that I have a big problem. “Joder, Jade. I don’t have any condoms.”
Jade chuckles. “Don’t want to become a dad again?”
“At fifty-six? Not even funny.” But I am smiling.
Jade turns to her side, lining our hips up and throwing a leg over mine. I shift mine between hers so we’re tangled up, and Jade runs a finger through my chest hair. “I can’t get pregnant.”
My hand pauses in the run up from her hips to her back. “Is this because of your treatment?”
She nods, her hair brushing my chest. “I’m not sad about it. I like being cool aunt Jade to my friends’ kids.”
“I bet you are a very cool aunt. I have not been tested, though, in a long time.”
“You also haven’t been active. I’ve been tested since my last partner.” She shifts to rest her chin on my chest and looks up at me. “I want to.”
Jade closes her eyes as I bend down and press my lips to her forehead. I brush her hair back, smoothing it away as I roll her onto her back.
I settle between her thighs, and the feel of her—warm and soft and wanting—makes my head spin.
“Okay?” I ask one more time.
“So okay.” She lifts her hips, and I slide inside. It feels . . .
I close my eyes tight, holding. Fuck.
“Carlos. Please move.”
I do.
This is . . . everything. Fifteen years of nothing and then this—heat and pressure and Jade gasping my name like a prayer. I freeze, overwhelmed.
“Hey,” she says softly, hands on my face. “Look at me.”
I do. Her eyes are dark and warm and full of something I’m afraid to name.
“You’re okay,” she says. “We’re okay. Just move.”
So I do. Slow at first, learning her rhythm, listening to the sounds she makes. When I hit a spot that makes her cry out, I do it again. And again.
“There,” she gasps. “Right there, don’t stop—”
I couldn’t stop if I wanted to. The feeling of her around me, under me, the little gasps and moans, the way she’s saying my name—it’s too much. I’m not going to last.
“Jade, I’m—”
“Me too,” she pants.
She shatters. I feel it—the clench and pulse and the way she arches up with a cry that she muffles against my shoulder. It’s enough to send me over too, and I follow her into it, years of loneliness ending in this perfect, devastating moment.
We collapse together, breathing hard. I’m still inside her, not ready to move yet, to break this connection.
“That was . . .” she starts.
“Yeah.”
“You still remember how it works.”
I laugh, pressing my face into her neck. “I have a good partner.”
“You had a very enthusiastic partner.” She runs her fingers through my hair. “Carlos?”
“Mmm?”
“Can we do that again?”
I lift my head to look at her. She’s smiling, flushed, beautiful.
“Not immediately,” I say. “I’m fifty-six, not twenty-six. But yes. Absolutely yes.”
“Good.” She kisses me softly. “Because we have fifteen years of missed orgasms to make up for.”
“That’s not how it works,” I say with a chuckle.
“Isn’t it though?” Her smile is mischievous.
We stay like that for a while, tangled together, until the discomfort of the position makes us move. Jade uses the bathroom, I take my turn, and we resettle with her tucked against my side.
There’s the click-clack of dog nails on the floor. I see Izan’s shadow in the doorway, then he sighs heavily and flops down next to his bed.
“Your dog is judging us,” Jade says.
“He’s judging me. He’s very protective of his routine.” I kiss the top of her head. “Worth it, though.”
Jade’s quiet, tracing patterns on my chest. She feels so good against me. I’m trying to remind myself that this contentment, this heart-racing feeling of satisfaction and giddiness, is simply because it’s been so long for me.
I can’t help but wonder, though . . .
“Jade? What happens next?”
There’s a beat where Jade’s finger pauses, and then it resumes. “We have Seville tomorrow,” she says. “Our last presentation.”
“Right.”
“And then I leave for Monaco.”
“Right.”
“And then I fly back to Austin.”
“Right.” I squeeze her and her hand stills. “So this was . . . what? One night?”
“I have two weeks before I leave.”
Before she goes home.
I don’t want to push. I don’t want our last presentation to be overshadowed by the fact that she’s leaving. If she’s giving me two weeks, I’ll take two weeks.
“Okay.”
She tilts her head up and kisses me softly. We settle back down, her head on my chest, my arm around her shoulders. Outside, the Madrid night is quiet. Inside, Izan is snoring again.
“Jade?” I press a kiss into her shoulder.
“Mmm?” Jade says sleepily
“That was worth the wait.”
I wake to sunlight streaming through the windows and Jade’s hair tickling my nose. We’re on our sides, my arms wrapped around her.
I don’t move.
She’s still sleeping, her breath even and slow. In the morning light, I can see the faint freckles across her nose, the way her lashes cast shadows on her cheeks. She looks younger like this. Peaceful.
I could get used to waking up like this.
The thought should terrify me. Instead, it just feels . . . right.
Jade stirs, her eyes fluttering open. For a moment, she looks confused—where is she?—and then her eyes focus on me and she smiles.
“Hi,” she says, her voice rough with sleep.
“Hi.”
Izan whines hello from his spot on the floor and I sigh.
“I need to take him out,” I say.
Jade’s smile shifts from sleepy to playful and she relaxes back into my bed, a teasing smile on her face. “I’ll be waiting.”
I dress quickly, and as if Izan senses my haste, he bounces on his front paws at the door. We walk the block and when we turn toward home, Izan is excited for breakfast, and I’m excited to get back to Jade.
Two weeks, I think.