Chapter 29
Jade
The train to Seville leaves at noon, which gives us the morning.
We don’t talk about last night—not directly. But it’s there in the way Carlos makes me coffee without asking how I take it. It’s in the way I lean against the counter in his kitchen wearing his shirt from yesterday. In the small smile he gives me when I catch him staring.
“We should pack,” he says eventually.
“We should,” I agree.
Neither of us moves.
Finally, Izan barks, impatient for his breakfast, and the spell breaks. I sigh. “Fine. I’ll go home and pack.”
Carlos smiles, pleased I’m reluctant to go. “I’ll meet you at Atocha,” he says, giving me a long, slow kiss before I leave.
I go back to my apartment to shower and change. When I arrive at the new train terminal, Carlos is waiting for me, bag at his side.
“Ready?” he asks.
This is it—the last presentation. “Ready.”
On the train, we sit across from each other by the window. The Spanish countryside blurs past—olive groves and white villages and endless blue sky. Carlos works on his tablet, brow wrinkled in concentration.
I should be reviewing my notes or listening to that podcast—the suspect was just released on bail—but instead I’m watching him.
The way he frowns slightly when he’s concentrating. The silver at his temples catching the light. The elegant way his fingers move across the screen.
I reach into my bag. The Polaroid camera has been there all morning, loaded with fresh film. I’ve been waiting for a moment worth keeping.
This is it.
I raise the camera. He’s still looking at his tablet, unaware. Silver temples, slight frown, the Spanish countryside blurred gold behind him.
Click.
He looks up, sees the camera, and smiles at me.
I lower the camera. “This is our last one.”
His expression softens. “I know.”
“We’ve gotten good at this. The presentations, I mean.”
“We have.” He reaches across the table, takes my hand. “You’ve gotten good at this.”
“We both have.”
The train conductor passes through and Carlos releases my hand, but the warmth lingers.
In Seville, the venue is smaller than some of the others—maybe two hundred seats in a historic building with soaring ceilings and beautiful tile work. The late afternoon sun streams through tall windows, painting everything gold.
We set up in comfortable silence. I connect my laptop while Carlos arranges the brochures. When I need the clicker, he hands it to me before I ask. When he needs the backup slide deck, I’ve already pulled it up.
We’ve done this so many times now. We know each other’s rhythms.
People start filtering in—pharmaceutical reps, medical professionals, patients, and families.
“Nervous?” Carlos asks, appearing at my elbow.
“No,” I say, and realize I mean it. “Excited.”
“Good.” He adjusts his tie, a small tell that he’s feeling something too. “This is the one to go out on.”
“No pressure.”
He smiles. “None at all.”
At exactly four o’clock, we take the stage together.
The hotel is nice—nicer than some of the others. Our rooms are on the same floor, side by side. We part ways at the elevator with an awkward “see you at dinner?” that feels wrong after last night.
In my room, I shower off the day and change into a sundress. It’s warm in Seville, even in the early evening. I’m debating whether to text Carlos when there’s a knock at my door.
I open it to find him standing there, still in his presentation clothes—dark slacks, white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, tie loosened. His hair is slightly mussed, like he’s been running his hands through it.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi.” He looks uncertain. “I know we said dinner, but I thought—can I come in?”
I step aside and he enters, the door clicking shut behind him.
For a moment, we just look at each other. The air feels charged, heavy with everything we’re not saying.
“Jade,” he starts. “Today was—”
“Yeah.”
“And last night—”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re leaving—”
“I know.” I take a step toward him. “I know all of it. But right now, can we just—”
He closes the distance between us and kisses me. Hard. Desperate. Like he’s trying to say everything he can’t put into words.
I kiss him back with the same urgency, my hands fisting in his shirt, pulling him closer. He walks me backward until my legs hit the bed and we tumble onto it together.
Everything is hot and fast. The late afternoon sun streaming through the window makes Carlos’s skin glow, and soon we’re both in our underwear, panting and grinding against each other.
Carlos’s hips move fast and hard, his erection right where I need it. His hand is on my breast, and when we’re breathing too hard to kiss anymore, his breath is hot on my forehead.
The moment I have the realization that I could come like this, Carlos pulls back with a curse. His fingers hook my black lace panties and yank them down my legs. He shoves his way between my legs, tossing my thigh over his shoulder and plunging his fingers inside me.
I jolt, groaning his name.
“I want to taste it this time,” he says, before putting his hot mouth on my pussy.
My hips rise off the bed, but Carlos presses back, firm and relentless. His fingers have found the exact right spot, and he sucks my clit, hard. It doesn’t take long at all before I’m coming and grinding against his face while his hands pump, pump, pump.
He eases off carefully and I wipe sweat off my brow, panting, while he crawls up to me.
“Well.” I swallow. “You didn’t need instructions for that one.”
Carlos presses his lips together, smirking, pleased. “I did some research.”
“Oh you did? When? We’ve barely been apart today.”
“On the train.”
I lift my head. “You were looking at porn on the train?”
“Research,” he insists.
I laugh, falling back on the bed. My heart rate is finally slowing down to normal, but then Carlos ramps it back up again.
“I also looked into how to use a riding crop.” His eyes are so serious, watching me.
“Damnit. I didn’t bring it.”
“Next time,” he says, and presses a kiss to my temple.
I turn to face him, curling my hands up below my chin. “Did you research that because you know I like it, or because it interests you?”
He mirrors me. His eyes are dark brown, framed by heavy, beautiful lashes. “I have never tried it. But I have thought about it since that day.”
“If you didn’t know how to do it until you researched it, how did you imagine it happening?” I ask.
He closes his eyes, and I can tell he’s thinking about it, not shutting me out, in the way he hums and looks pensive. “I thought about the anticipation of it. You wanting something, and waiting for it, and knowing that it was me who was going to give it to you.”
I squeeze my thighs together.
“We can do that in other ways,” I tell him. “There are other things I like.”
“Like what?”
In answer, I push him gently backward until he’s lying on the bed. I straddle his hips, his erection straining through the fabric of his boxer-briefs and nestling between my legs.
“We can take turns,” I say. “I can show you what I like. You can show me what you want to try.”
His hands come up to grip my hips. “I don’t know what I want.”
“Then we’ll figure it out together.” I lean down, kiss him slowly. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes.”
“Then let me try something.” I sit back up, run my hands down his chest. “If you don’t like it, say stop. Okay?”
“Okay.”
I pull the band out of my hair and let it fall over my shoulder. “Remember when you pulled my hair?” I ask. “Outside my hotel room in Vienna?”
Carlos sits up, and I take his hand and, with my fingers over his, slide it against my scalp, feeling the strands between our fingers.
“I liked that, but there’s a technique to it. You don’t want to pull my head back on my neck, you want to pull against my scalp.”
His fingers curl automatically into my hair. I show him how to pull, the tug against my roots making heat bloom. “Yes.” He says it like a curse, low and raspy.
“Harder,” I whisper. “Pull my hair.”
He does—tentatively at first, then with more confidence when I gasp and arch into it. The pull sends sparks down my spine, making heat bloom across my skin.
“Like that?” he asks, voice rough.
“Harder.”
He tightens his grip, tugs sharply, and my head tilts back with a moan I can’t suppress.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “You like this.”
“I really like this.”
His other hand comes up to my hip, holding me in place while he controls the angle of my head with the grip in my hair. He pulls me down into a kiss that’s all heat and dominance and I’m already squirming against him, desperate for friction.
When he releases my hair, I’m breathing hard.
“Your turn,” I say.
“My turn for what?”
“What do you want to try?” I ask.
“I cannot think of anything else right now.” His hand tightens, and he says it like he means there’s nothing I want more instead of there’s nothing else I want to try.
Momentarily, I think, we’ll never have the chance to try if we don’t do it now.
Instead, I gently pull his wrist away from my hair and he lets go immediately.
He watches me, eyes wide, while I get on my hands and knees next to him.
I lower my chest, my nipples brushing against the sheets, my back arching, and Carlos’s eyes darken.
I expect him to rush, to scramble, but instead he’s slow, painfully slow while he gets off the bed.
I turn my head to watch him strip off his underwear and then climb back onto the bed behind me. He kisses up my spine, and I feel his cockhead, warm and damp, against my inner thigh.
Then his hand is in my hair, pulling and turning my head to the side to meet his lips in a brutal kiss.
Fingers slip through my pussy, guiding him in, and from this angle he hits so deep. His grip tightens as he thrusts over and over again.
“God,” he groans. “You feel—”
The combination of sensations—the fullness, the hair pulling, the weight of him over me—pushes me right to the edge.
“Touch yourself,” he says against my cheek. “I want to feel you come.”
I slide my hand down, find my clit, and it only takes a few minutes before I’m gone. The orgasm crashes over me and I feel him follow seconds later, his grip in my hair tightening almost to the point of pain before releasing.
We collapse together, sweaty and breathless and tangled up.
“That was—” I start.
“Yeah.”
“Did you like it?”
He lifts his head to look at me. “Yes.”
I kiss him softly. “See? No props needed. Just communication and trust.”
“And an excellent teacher.”
I laugh. “You’re a quick study.”
We lie there for a while, catching our breath. Eventually, Carlos shifts to pull out and we rearrange ourselves on the bed properly.
He traces patterns on my shoulder. “Jade, about tomorrow—”
“I fly to Monaco. And then we talk. We agreed.” I turn to face him. “But Carlos? Whatever we decide, I don’t regret this. Any of it.”
“Neither do I.” He pulls me closer. “What if you stayed?”
Wild horses could not get me to move. “I was planning on it. My limbs are Jell-O so it would be very rude to kick me out of bed right now,” I say with a laugh.
“No, I mean—stay in Seville. Tomorrow. Skip Monaco.”
I go very still. “Carlos—”
“I know. Your friends are expecting you.” He pulls away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“No, I’m glad you said it.” I cup his face. “But I can’t skip Monaco. That’s our last weekend together before I go back to Texas. It’s our goodbye.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry for wanting me to stay.” I kiss him. “It means you care.”
“I do care, Jade.”
The weight of what he’s not saying sits heavy between us.
We fall asleep like that, wrapped around each other, both of us trying not to think about tomorrow when I’ll get on a plane to Monaco and he’ll go back to Madrid alone.
Trying not to think about how many hours we have left.
But for tonight, we have this. And maybe, for tonight, that’s enough.