CHAPTER 9 #4
Serena smiles, taking my hand and shaking it enthusiastically. “Nice to meet you! I’m Oliver’s Serena.”
“She’s my stepmom,” Oliver corrects.
“Shush it, Ollie! You’re twenty-nine; calling me ‘mom’ makes me sound ancient.” She stretches her arms on the edge of the pool and turns to me. “Now, I need details.”
“Details?” I ask.
“Yeah! How did you two meet? Who made the first move? First kiss?”
“Oh God, Serena…” Oliver squirms, burning with embarrassment.
“What? I’m curious! You never bring anyone home.” She glares at him, then turns back at me. “Oliver has literally never brought a boy or a girl home. Like… ever.”
“I guess we have that in common, then,” I say, trailing circles on Oliver’s hip with my thumb. “I’ve never introduced anyone to my family either.”
“No offense, but I’m sooo happy I had a daughter,” Serena sighs dramatically. “Boys are so incredibly boring when it comes to gossip.”
“My mother says the same thing.”
“I like her already. So, how did you two meet?”
Even under the water, I feel Oliver instantly tense against my side.
Mierda…
We haven’t had the time, or privacy, to have this conversation, so we’ve never set up a fake meet-cute or gotten our cover stories straight. Which is exactly why I shouldn’t be here right now without an actual freaking plan.
Now, if I lie and make something up completely from scratch, Oliver won’t know how to follow my lead.
So, I decide to tell the truth… only a little embellished.
“For me, the first time I saw him was in a picture,” I admit.
Oliver stares at me, surprised. I smile, and I tell the next part of the story without looking away from him.
“Some time later, I saw him at a party. I was too nervous to talk to him, but when he finally came over to talk to me, you could say I had no option but to follow him.”
Oliver laughs, knowing that what I am saying is actually what happened.
“Well, I saw you at the party,” Oliver jumps in, breaking eye contact with me and facing Serena. “He was completely wet, and I knew I had to get to him before anyone else did.”
I laugh because anyone hearing that would imagine he was fighting others to win my attention instead of my neck.
“And how did Ollie get your attention?”
“Well, he dragged me to the bathroom and told me to kiss his neck.”
“Ollie, you did what?!”
Oliver glares at me, clearly telling me that I could’ve skipped that detail.
“What can I say? Once we were in that bathroom, I felt like I had to make him kiss me or else it would be too late for us.”
“Oliver! Who knew you were this romantic?!” She takes her drink and smiles at me. “And what do you do, Damián? Because you look like a Calvin Klein model, but Oliver mentioned something about paintings?”
“I’m an art dealer. I organize acquisitions, private auctions, and authentications. It pays the bills, but it’s honestly not nearly half as exciting as Oliver’s partying lifestyle.”
“Oh, trust me, the party-boy routine gets old,” Serena sighs, taking a sip of her drink.
“Well, it’s the price of success. But you seem to be handling it beautifully, Serena.”
“What a charmer. But hold that thought!” Serena sets her empty glass on the pool’s edge. “I need to run to the restroom. I’ll be right back; do not say anything scandalous without me!”
She climbs out of the pool and goes toward the main house, and as soon as she is out of earshot, Oliver immediately tenses between my arms.
“She is fun,” I say.
“She is a firecracker.”
“Ollie…” I call, but he moves his gaze away from mine.
Yeah… not gonna happen.
I step forward, completely caging him against the edge of the pool. I place a hand on the tile on either side of his hips, trapping him between my arms.
“Hola.”
“Hi,” Oliver whispers back, his eyes finally meeting mine.
I lean close, my lips brushing his ear. “Is there something you want to say to me?”
“No…”
“Six days of no contact,” I whisper, my lips now grazing his jaw. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” Oliver breathes, his fingers sliding through my wet hair. “Everything is okay. I have… I have the list with me.”
I slide my hands around his body, settling one hand on his lower back beneath the water, while the other grips the nape of his neck.
I’m completely surrounding him.
I bite softly at the sensitive skin of his neck, and he gasps. “Did you take all those days just to finish the list?”
“Yes.”
I drag my tongue up the column of his throat, right to the shell of his ear, and bite down gently on the lobe.
He shivers against me.
“Then why go totally dark? Why not contact me if you were only doing a list?”
Oliver’s entire body goes rigid. I pull back just enough to look him in the eyes, and the guilt is back, written all over his beautiful face.
“What else did you do, Oliver? Why couldn’t you text?”
Oliver bites his lower lip and looks down, avoiding my gaze completely.
Mierda… He was with someone else…
A hot, blinding wave of jealousy and anger rips through me. I don’t care about the guards. I don’t care if Serena is coming back or not. I grip his jaw, tilting his head up, and I kiss him.
This kiss is hard, intense, and almost punishing. I crush my mouth against his, my tongue sweeping inside his mouth, pouring every ounce of my frustration and unfiltered desire into the kiss.
It might be a bit too aggressive for an audience, but for days I’ve been losing my fucking mind, and it seems inside Oliver’s arms is the only place I can find it.
I break the kiss, leaving both of us panting.
“You are not going to tell me?”
Oliver turns away, his eyes tracking nervously toward the armed guards on the terrace. “Maybe… maybe another day.”
I kiss him again, pressing my body with his, trapping him completely against the concrete wall of the pool.
“I think,” I growl against his lips, “we skipped a very important point when we agreed to this.”
“What… what point?” Oliver stammers.
I trail my lips along his jawline, nibbling right below his ear. Slowly, deliberately, I slide my fingers under the waistband of his swim trunks, pressing against the bare skin of his hip.
“Boyfriends are exclusive, Oliver.”
I slide my hand down from his lower back, gripping his ass firmly underwater. I pull his hips hard against mine, pressing him into the wall, and I grind my hips forward. Slow… Hard… And deep…
I make sure he feels the aching length of my erection sliding against his stomach through the thin fabric of our trunks.
Oliver’s mouth falls open, and a broken moan slips out of his throat. He clings to my shoulders and shudders.
I stop instantly and hover millimeters from his lips, leaving him stranded on the edge, hungry and gasping.
“Let me get this completely straight,” I whisper, my eyes locking onto his. “I know you sleep around… I know your reputation. But when you are with me, no one touches your body but me. Are we in agreement?”
Oliver stares at me, his chest heaving, his pupils blown so wide his eyes look almost black.
“Yes,” he breathes. “But… but that goes back to you, too.”
A dark rush of satisfaction floods my veins, and I smirk, dragging my thumb across his swollen lower lip.
“That’s easy, nene.”
But before I can seal the agreement with another kiss, the sliding glass doors of the terrace glide open.
“Alright, boys!” Serena calls out, strutting back toward the pool with two big bottles in her hands. “I brought Dom Pérignon!”