by Iona Rose
As I start to peel it up my body, the apartment door opens.
“Hey bro. Oh shit, I didn’t know you had company,” a voice says.
I jump to my feet, pulling my dress down and then smoothing down my hair.
The fact that Matt’s brother has caught us about to have sex doesn’t seem to faze him in the slightest. “I’m Sebastian…”
I turn to face him, feeling my face turning red.
He grins at me. “… the handsome one.”
Something about his grin is infectious and I can’t help but return it. He looks similar to Matt, but they’re not identical. Sebastian’s hair is lighter, his eyes blue. He has the same twinkle in his eye though.
“Callie,” I say. “The one you’ve never heard of.”
“Oh, don’t be so sure about that,” Sebastian says. “I —”
“Seb what are you doing here?” Matt demands, cutting him off.
I glance back at Matt.
He’s back on his feet, but he hasn’t bothered to button his shirt back up. “We’re kind of in the middle of something here.”
“So I see.” Sebastian smirks, looking pointedly at Matt’s open shirt. He looks back at me with a wink. “I just thought I’d drop in, share a bit of brotherly love. And now I see my services are needed. I need to take this gorgeous creature and tell her all of the embarrassing things you did when you were younger.”
I feel myself blush again as Sebastian describes me as a gorgeous creature. It’s silly really, he’s only being polite. A bit flirty sure, but nothing more.
Matt doesn’t seem to think the same thing. “Just stay away from Callie, Seb. I mean it.”
“She can speak for herself, you know. You don’t want me to stay away from you, do you Callie?” Seb asks.
I don’t even know how to answer that.
“Look now you’ve embarrassed her,” Seb replies to Matt. Then to me, “Please excuse my brother. His social skills are pretty bad. Don’t worry though, I’m available for weddings, christenings, Bar Mitzvahs. Anywhere you need someone charming really.”
“Do me a favor Seb and close the door on your way out,” Matt says.
“See what I mean? Appalling social skills.” Seb winks at me. He heads for the door laughing. He looks back over his shoulder. “Seriously Matt, we do need to talk, but it’s nothing that can’t wait until the morning. Have a good night you two. And Callie? Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Not that that rules much out.”
With a final chuckle, the door closes and he’s gone.
“Sorry about that,” Matt says. “Seb’s a bit much.”
“He seems fun,” I say.
“That’s one word for it,” Matt agrees. He steps closer to me. “Now. Where were we?”
It would be easy to remind Matt exactly where we were, but Sebastian’s entrance has given me a chance to get my senses back, and to think logically about this. I sit down on the couch.
Matt seems to understand that we’re not going to jump right back in where we left off. He sits down beside me.
“I — I’m still a bit overwhelmed by all of this,” I say. “But I understand now. I’m still pissed that you didn’t tell me all of this sooner, but I get it. The thing is, I feel as though I don’t know you anymore. And as much as everything in me wants to pick up where we left off, I just — I can’t have sex with you tonight, Matt.”
“So I guess that leaves just one question. Are you willing to get to know me all over again and give us a chance?” he asks quietly.
That is the question isn’t it? But what choice do I have? It might not work with Matt and me. I might realize that this lifestyle, the money, everything that comes with it, is all too much for me. But I know I feel something for Matt. Something I’ve never felt for anyone. And if I walk away now without giving us a chance, I know I’ll always regret it. “Yes,” I say.
I see Matt’s shoulders sag with relief and he smiles at me.
It’s a shy smile that makes my heart soar. I think I’ve made the right decision. I hope I have.
Matt gets up and offers me his hand.
I take it, allowing him to pull me to my feet.
“Let’s take this into the bedroom,” he says.
“Matt I’m serious, I—”
He laughs and I stop talking when I realize he was joking.
“I’m just messing with you Callie. Come on. I want to show you something.”
I let him lead me across his apartment and back to the window. He moves along to the end of the room and reaches out for a subtle handle I hadn’t noticed. He pulls it and a panel of the glass moves to one side. I smile in delight as I step out onto a wide balcony. I move to stand with my elbows on the top of the glass barrier.
Matt stands beside me and points. “See that place there? The little restaurant?” he asks.
I look where he’s pointing. Down the road from the apartment block is a small restaurant with a canopy outside and a few tables. I nod.
“When I was sixteen, I got a girlfriend. I went to my dad and asked him how I could get a raise on my allowance so I could take her on dates and stuff. You know what he told me? He said if I wanted money, I would have to get a job. I spent every Saturday and Sunday afternoon and Tuesday and Wednesday evenings washing dishes in that place.”
“Really?” I ask. “It doesn’t look like one of your places.”
“It’s not… that was another one of my dad’s life lessons. He told me I had to find a job based on what I could do, not on what he could do for me.”
“He sounds very wise,” I say.
“Yeah. He taught me a lot about myself, about how the world works. About how anything worth having is ever easy to get, even if it looks that way from the outside. At the time, I thought he was awful. I couldn’t figure out how we could have all of this money, and I had to work for a couple of dollars an hour. But now, I’m glad he stood his ground and taught me the real value of earning rather than being given.”
I’m surprised once more to learn that maybe we’re not all that different. I learned those same lessons as a teenager. And maybe I learned them out of necessity, where Matt learned them simply because his father didn’t want him to grow up to be an entitled brat, but either way, we both knew what it was like to start at the bottom of the ladder. Maybe in some ways that was harder for Matt than me, because I knew I had no choice. He knew he had a choice, but his family wasn’t ready to make his life easy.
“Four years ago, the restaurant almost went out of business. It’s a little family run place. A husband and wife team, and now their two daughters. The wife got cancer, and as you can imagine, the business became less of a priority to the family. By the time she went into remission, they were so far in the red, they were on the verge of losing their home. They put that place on the market. I got wind of it and went to view it with the intention of buying it. I talked to my dad and told him I wasn’t going to change a thing about it. I was going to leave the family to run it their way. I explained this to the owners. I expected them to be happy, but they refused to accept my offer. Giuseppe, the owner, told me that’s not how he wanted to live his life. He wanted to support his family, but he would never be happy being answerable to anyone else. He taught me another valuable lesson. The one about working for myself instead of someone else. I’m close with my family. My brothers and I work very closely together, but I knew I needed something that was all mine, not handed down to me.”
When he paused I waited as I could not take my eyes off of him.
Matt goes on to tell me the rest of it, “I bought my first restaurant after that out of money I had saved over time from my wages. It was La Trattoria. That’s why this whole Marco thing felt so personal to me. It’s part of the family business officially, because it’s easier that way, but I have never felt so proud as I did the day I opened that front door and knew that place was mine, paid for with money I had earned. The same day, I did something else. I expected my dad to be proud of me for buying th
e restaurant and absolutely livid with me for the other thing. He was nonchalant about the restaurant and gave me a little lecture about how I better make it work and all that…” He trails off and looks into the distance for a moment.
Just when I think he’s not going to elaborate any further he turns back and smiles at me.
“But the other thing? The thing I thought he’d drag me over the coals for? That made him proud. He told me then he knew he had raised me right.”
“What did you do?” I ask.
He smiles. “I went back to Giuseppe. I told him I had learned everything I knew about working in a restaurant at his place. It was true. Until I took that job, I knew I liked cooking, but I had no idea I would fall in love with the restaurant business. I told him I’d bought a restaurant and that it was all down to him. And then I gave him an envelope with a check inside and told him it was a thank you. It took a lot for me to convince him to accept it, but eventually, he did. He saved his business and his family was happy again.”
“That’s an amazing thing to do,” I say. “I can see why your father was proud of you in that moment.”
“I’m not telling you this to blow my own trumpet Callie. I’m telling you this because I want you to know that money doesn’t have to be bad. Having money doesn’t have to make someone greedy and ruthless. And I hope you can see I’m not like that. And in time, I hope you come to see that my family isn’t like that either. We’re pretty normal really, boring I guess you might say.”
“I think you’re anything but boring.” I smile.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Matt
I look out over the city as I tell Callie more about me. She said she feels like she doesn’t know me anymore, but she’s willing to get to know me, so I have to open up to her. I have to tell her everything about me so she can see I am the person she’s known from the start, just with a little more money and a little more power.
When I finish telling her about Giuseppe, I tell her I have some champagne in the fridge and I ask if she’d like some. She nods and I go to grab it.
I feel lighter now since I’ve told Callie the truth. All of it. Even the scary part. The part where I admitted that I’m in love with her. The part where she could have laughed in my face and walked away from me, taking my heart with her.
I don’t just feel lucky; I feel like the luckiest man on the earth. And I meant it when I told Callie I would spend every day showing her how much I love her and who I really am. I will never, ever lie to her again, and if she’ll let me, I’ll hold her close to me until the day I die. I don’t care how slow we have to take things. As long as she’s willing to try, I’m all in.
I open the champagne and fill two glasses and then I put the bottle in an ice bucket and fill it up with ice. I’m whistling to myself as I head back to the balcony. The whistle dies in my throat when I see Callie.
She’s standing where I left her, bent forward resting on the balcony wall on her elbows. Her panties are beside her on the ground, her dress around her hips and her legs spread, exposing her glistening wet pussy. My cock is hard as a rock the second I lock eyes on her. I try to speak but the words freeze in my throat and I stand in the doorway, the glasses in my hands, just drinking in the sight of this amazing woman. Finally, I find my voice. “I thought you wanted to take it slow,” I say, my voice low and husky, flooded with lust.
“I changed my mind,” she says. She looks back over her shoulder and grins at me. “Are you going to stand there all day, or are you going to come over here and make love to me?”
“Out here?” I ask.
“Out here,” she says.
I don’t need telling twice. I put the glasses down on the ground and go to her, fumbling my jeans open as I go. I slip inside of her, taking hold of her hips, moaning as I feel her wet pussy encircling my cock. I begin to thrust into her, slowly at first, wanting to make this last. The heat of her pussy makes it hard to hold myself back and I find myself moving faster within her as my desire for her takes over my brain.
I reach around to the front of her body and massage her clit, loving the way she gasps in a breath as I work her. Her hands move on the wall, gripping the top of it, her knuckles going white as I fill her with pleasure. I press down on her clit, putting more pressure, making her breath come in short gasps as her orgasm spreads through her body. I feel her pussy clench around my cock as she comes. She makes a strangled noise, holding back the scream that plays over her lips, aware that we’re not exactly in the most private of places.
I grin to myself as I up my pace, slamming into her, pushing her closer to another orgasm. I wrap one hand in her hair and pull her upright. She gasps sharply, coming up with my hand, leaning back against my body, groaning with pleasure as I tug her hair again. I release it and push my hands beneath her dress, caressing her skin as I run my tongue over her neck.
I know I can’t hold myself back much longer, her pussy is so fucking tight, and each thrust sends a rush of pleasure through me. I push my face against Callie’s neck as a long low moan escapes me. I feel the shiver go through her body as she comes again. She throws her head back, pressing it against my shoulder, her face twisting as her orgasm seizes her. My own climax follows and I moan her name, unable to stop myself as my orgasm slams through my body, taking me and consuming me. I pull out of Callie.
She pulls her dress down and turns in my arms. She leans against me and I hold her as we get our breath back. “You are fucking amazing,” I whisper into her ear. I pull my head back and find her mouth, kissing her tenderly on her lips.
She kisses me back, eager and hungry for more, her body pressed against mine, her hands beneath my shirt, caressing my back. She pulls her head back and looks into my eyes. I can see the lust in them. Her lips are slightly parted, red and swollen from the kissing. “So how about showing me your bedroom after all,” she says.
I’m not about to argue with that. “Right this way ma’am.” I grin as I lead Callie across the balcony, pausing long enough to grab the glasses of champagne. I hand one to Callie and raise my own. “To the balcony, the bedroom and beyond,” I say.
“I’ll drink to that.” She laughs.
We drink and I watch Callie’s throat move as she swallows. I watch her cheeks turn slightly pinker as she smiles at me. I return her smile and then I lead her through the living room area and down the hall to my bedroom door.
I push the door open and step back to let her enter first. I see her taking it all in. The nicely made bed with the black silk sheets and the black duvet cover are her main focus and I’m so relieved I changed the bed sheets just in case this happened. I don’t know whether I thought it would or not really. I know the chemistry between Callie and me is strong. It always has been, but I didn’t know if she’d hear me out and then walk away from me. Sometimes, I can read her like an open book, and other times, I have no idea what she’s thinking.
She moves to the bed and sits on the edge of it, smiling at me. “What are you waiting for?”
“Nothing. I was just admiring the view,” I say.
She blushes slightly.
I smile to myself as I close the door and cross the room to her. She sips her champagne and watches me coming towards her. Her eyes roam over my body. Her chest is rising and falling quickly, and I can see the pink flush of the skin there. I know that’s not from the champagne. That’s the blood rushing to the surface of her skin because she’s so turned on. As turned on as I am. I wonder if she can see how hard I am for her. I bet she can. I’m making an effort to hide it from her.
She stands up as I reach her. I take her glass from her and set it down on my bedside cabinet next to my own. I pull her into my arms and she comes willingly, wrapping her arms around my waist, our lips meeting in a slow, tender kiss that fast becomes something more.
Callie’s tongue is in my mouth and her hands are all over me. She tastes of champagne and I kiss her deeply, inhaling her scent, tasting her mouth, like I want to consume her. Withi
n minutes, we’ve pulled each other’s clothes off and I can feel Callie’s skin against mine, her stomach pressing against my hard cock. God, I want this woman in every way imaginable. She drives me crazy in all the right ways.
I want to fill her up, to claim her as mine, to kiss and lick every inch of her body. I want to feel her legs around my waist, her pussy around my cock. I want to feel her sweet kisses and wrap my hands in her hair. To hold her close and never let her go. I need her to be mine.
She pulls her lips back from mine and instantly I miss the feel of her lips, the taste of her mouth.
“Sit,” she commands.
I do as I’m told, giving her an amused smile. Who am I to argue?
Callie picks up her glass of champagne and brings it over to me. She kneels down in front of me and takes a big mouthful of the drink then she puts the glass on the floor beside her. She grabs the base of my cock and leans forward. She pushes her lips over my cock, taking me into her mouth.
I am instantly hers, like she has cast a spell over me. Her mouth is filled with champagne and the coldness takes my breath away for a second. The champagne fizzes against my skin, the bubbles causing a tickling feeling along my length as Callie bobs her head slowly, sucking me and swirling the bubbles around me with her tongue.
She swallows and the warmth of her mouth envelopes me. She moves her head faster, sucking me like she wants me as much as I want her. She moves her mouth to my tip and flicks her tongue back and forth across it. She takes another mouthful of champagne and I gasp as the temperature of her mouth plummets once more and again, I feel the delicious bubbling sensation prickling at my skin, tantalizing me, teasing me, throwing me through so many pleasurable waves at once. It’s almost too much, yet at the same time, it’s not enough. I need to feel her pussy wrapped around me, squeezing me, but I don’t want to leave the warm wetness of her mouth.
I am close to the edge now, so close I am afraid I will go over too quickly and ruin what we’re doing. I can’t let myself come until I’m in her pussy, until I’ve taken her to Heaven and brought her back again.
