29. Erika
ERIKA
His hands were in her hair, tilting her head back as his mouth traced a pulse point below her ear.
“?Aquí?” A murmur against her skin, barely a question. His fingers skimmed down her ribs, her hip, the inside of her thigh. The tile was cool against her back—the pool? No, his shower, water streaming over both of them.
Now his hand was between her thighs, two fingers sliding inside her, and she was gasping his name as he curled them in a way that made her hips buck—
“You’re soaked, Princesa. And not from the shower.” His breath hot against her ear, a smirk pressed into her skin. “Tell me what you need. Use your words.”
“I want—”
He slowed his fingers, thumb circling just shy of where she needed it. “You want what? Be specific. I want to hear every filthy thing running through that beautiful head.”
She arched, frustrated and desperate. “I want you inside me. I want you so deep I forget where I end and you start. I want you to fuck me against this wall until my legs give out and I’m ruined for anyone else.”
“Dios mío.” His voice dropped. “You have no idea what that mouth does to me.” He replaced his fingers with one hard thrust, burying deep enough to steal the air from her lungs. “Hold on to me, corazón. I’m not stopping until the neighbors know my name.”
Erika’s eyes snapped open.
Sheets tangled around her ankles, tank top twisted beneath her breasts, and between her thighs—a pulse that had no business existing at 2:53 in the morning.
She grabbed her phone. Her last message to Anneliese still hadn't sent. Just a little red exclamation point, mocking her. She dropped it. The responsible thing would be to close her eyes. Go back to sleep.
The ache between her thighs disagreed.
I’ve never done anything just because I wanted to.
She’d meant it. And then she’d let him walk out the door anyway.
She was on her feet before the thought finished. Shorts yanked up, tank top still twisted, no bra. The villa door clicked shut behind her, and the night air hit her skin.
She picked her way along the stones, bare feet cool against damp concrete. The pool came into view first, moonlight fracturing. She’d expected wreckage, but it was pristine.
Then she saw him. Chest-deep in the water, his back to her, perfectly still. Moonlight traced the line of his spine, and for a moment she was back on that beach, hiding while he emerged from the surf. She wasn’t hiding now.
“You cleaned the pool,” she said.
He didn’t startle, didn’t even turn around. “Seemed more productive than lying in bed thinking about you.”
Her stomach flipped. “That’s disarmingly honest for a man standing in a pool at three a.m.”
“It’s three in the morning. I’m too tired to be charming.” Now he turned, water rippling outward, and his eyes moved over her face. Reading her the way he always did. “Let me guess. Couldn’t sleep either?”
“I had space. Several hours of it.” She crossed her arms, realized that only pushed her breasts up, and uncrossed them. “It was terrible.”
Something warm bled through his voice. “You showed up at my pool in the middle of the night to tell me your space was terrible. This is the best thing that’s happened to me all week.”
“It’s the resort pool. It’s communal.”
“It’s twenty feet from my villa.”
“Geography is not the point.” She opened her mouth. Closed it. “I didn’t really think this through.”
His expression softened. “Yeah. I know the feeling.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke, the water lapping softly against the tile.
She pulled her tank top over her head and tossed it aside. She watched his throat work, his hands stalling mid-motion in the water, his gaze dropping to her chest before snapping back to her face.
She stepped into the pool. The water was cool against her skin, enough to make her gasp. She waded in until it lapped at her ribs.
She risked a glance at him and found that soft, knowing smile that made her want to kiss him. “I hate that you do that. See through me.”
“Is that really what you hate?”
The question landed somewhere she wasn’t ready. She took a step closer, the water swirling between them.
“No,” she admitted. “I hate that I like it.”
His hand lifted from the water—reaching for her—then fell back, his breath catching. “You’re standing there looking at me like that, and I’m supposed to just—” He laughed, short. “My Tita would be very disappointed in my self-control right now.”
She took another step. Close enough to see his knuckles white against the tile, close enough to watch him lose the fight to look unaffected.
“I keep thinking about what you said. About wanting things. About deserving it.” She swallowed. “I don’t know if I believe that yet. But I want to try. With you.”
He went still. The teasing, the deflecting, all of it fell away.
“You matter to me.” The words came out raw. “This matters. And I’m terrified you’re going to come to your senses and realize you can do a lot better than an actor with a bad reputation and a worse filmography.”
“Stefan—”
He lifted her—effortlessly—and set her on the tile ledge, stepping onto the submerged first step so the water dropped to his waist. Cool against her thighs, a sharp contrast to the warmth spreading up her legs.
“I told myself I’d be patient.” He pressed a kiss to the inside of her knee.
“Respectful.” Another kiss, higher, on her inner thigh.
His teeth grazed the sensitive skin there and she jolted.
“I’ve spent weeks thinking about this. Wondering what you’d taste like.
What sounds you’d make when I finally got my mouth on you. ”
“Then stop wondering and find out.”
His mouth found her through the thin fabric of her underwear, and her brain dissolved.
“Paciencia, corazón.” His smile curved against her. “I’ve waited weeks. I’m going to take my time with you, slowly, until you’re shaking and begging me to let you come on my tongue.”
“I didn’t come out here at three a.m. for patience, Stefan.”
He pulled the fabric aside and dragged his tongue slowly up her center, and whatever she’d been about to say disappeared into a moan that echoed across the pool.
“Joder.” His fingers tightened on her thighs, spreading her wider.
“I’ve jerked off to this exact image—your legs over my shoulders, moonlight on your skin, this pretty pussy dripping for me.
” His tongue circled her clit, slow and deliberate.
“Every night in that villa. Picturing exactly this. Burying my face between your thighs until the only name you could scream was mine.”
Her head fell back, spine arching. His mouth worked her, alternating between soft licks and firm pressure, learning what made her gasp, what made her dig her nails into his scalp.
He paused, mouth hovering over her, and looked up to meet her eyes in the moonlight. “Eyes on me.” His voice dropped. “I want you watching while I do this. I want you to see how hard it makes me knowing I’m the one making you this wet.”
Something cracked open in her chest. She held his gaze.
“Así me gusta.” He held her eyes as his tongue found her clit again. “Look at you. Spread open in the moonlight, legs shaking, hips grinding against my face like you can’t get enough.”
“I can’t get enough.” She fisted her hand in his hair and pulled him closer. “So stop pulling away and make me come.”
His groan vibrated through her. “I could live between your thighs, Erika. Podría vivir aquí.”
Watching him watch her pushed her to an edge she hadn’t known existed.
“I can’t—I’m going to—”
“Not yet.” He pulled back as she crested, and she made a sound embarrassingly close to a whimper. His fingers replaced his mouth, sliding through her wetness, and when he pushed two inside her, she cried out loud enough to startle something in the nearby trees.
“You’re a sadist,” she gasped. “A beautiful, infuriating—oh god right there—sadist.”
“Así, mi amor. Just like that.” He curled his fingers, finding the spot that made her vision blur. “Squeeze me. Apriétame. I want to feel this tight pussy pulse while you fall apart on my hand—I want to feel how you milk my fingers when you can’t hold back anymore.”
She was close again, thighs trembling against his shoulders. She looked down and saw his other hand pressed against himself underwater, stroking slowly.
“Let me see.” Her voice came out steadier than she felt. “Let me watch how hard you are.”
He groaned like she’d punched him. His hand fell away, and even with the water lapping at his waist, she could see the outline of him straining against his shorts, thick and desperate.
“You see what you do to me? I’m stroking myself to the sounds you’re making—your moans, the way you whimper when I curl my fingers, how you clench every time I talk like this.
” He groaned. “Dios, I want to be inside you so bad.
Want to feel how perfectly you'd take me while I tell you how much I need this, need you. I could come just from the taste of you, from how you squeeze me when I talk like this.”
The idea—that she could do that to him—made her clench around his fingers.
His mouth returned to her clit, sucking firmly while his fingers maintained their relentless rhythm, and the pressure built, building—
“Córrete para mí, Princesa.” He met her eyes, chin wet, gaze black. “Come on my fingers. I want to taste how hard you come for me, how you flood my hand because you can’t hold back anymore.”
The orgasm crashed through her, and she cried his name as her whole body convulsed. He didn’t stop—kept stroking, kept murmuring against her skin—“eso es, mi vida, eso es—give it all to me, every fucking tremor, let me have all of it”—until she was oversensitive, pushing at his shoulders.
He gentled immediately, pressing soft kisses to her inner thighs as she came down.
She pulled him up, needing his mouth on hers, needing him close in a way that had nothing to do with orgasms.
“Perfecta.” His voice was rough against her. “Eres tan jodidamente perfecta para mí.”
He was still hard against her thigh, aching, and she reached for him underwater.
His hand caught her wrist. “Wait.”
“I want to touch you. I want to feel how hard you are because of me.”
“And I want that so badly I can’t see straight.
” He brought her hand up and pressed a kiss to her palm.
“But if you wrap your hand around me right now, I’ll come in seconds, and that’s not how this goes.
” His forehead dropped against hers. “I want our first time in bed. I want to pin you down and slide inside you so slow you feel every inch. I want to watch your face when I bottom out and you realize how deep I am. I want to fuck you until you’re hoarse from saying my name, and then I want to stretch you open again and do it all over. ”
“That’s a very specific plan.”
“I’ve had weeks to think about it.”
“Then remember this.” She kissed him slowly, deliberately, until his breath went ragged. “Remember that when you’re lying alone tonight without me.”
“Dios mío.” His voice cracked. “You’re trying to destroy me.”
“Just making sure you don’t sleep either.” She kissed him. “You said you wanted our first time in bed. I’m holding you to that.”
He caught her chin and tilted her face up. “I’m trying to be the man my Tita raised me to be, which is very difficult when you’re wet and naked and looking at me like you want to swallow me whole.”
He lifted her off the ledge, carrying her toward his villa.
“Stefan, I have functioning legs.”
“I’m aware. I’ve thought about them extensively.” He pressed a kiss to her hair. “Wrapped around my waist, specifically. Let me have this.”
He gave her one of his shirts, and she crawled into his bed while he toweled off.
When he slid in beside her and pulled her back against his chest, her breath slowed, her guard lowered. The heat from the pool was still humming under their skin, a promise deferred. He was holding her like he had all the time in the world, and that was the most dangerous thing of all.