Strawberry Kisses

by Phavy Prieto

  That report contained a lot of data about Damian's mother. I didn't know Ingrid could be that good at collecting information. Damian’s mother participated in charities and donated to different causes. She was a horse race lover, never missed any important show at the theater and was also passionate about musicals, but her main passion was art. She spoke three languages, and her family was of Greek origin.

  "Jeez! No wonder Damian is an Adonis," I sighed.

  Then I resumed reading the report. She had three children, Miranda, Amelia and Damian, the latter being the youngest. She had been married twice. She was widowed at a very young age after her first husband died in a plane crash. All her children were the fruit of her second marriage to Mr. Devoir.

  As expected, her favorite cuisine was Greek and her favorite dish was moussaka, a sort of lasagna made of layers of vegetables. She loved tulips and was fond of Persian cats. Passionate about fashion and a big fan of Prada, Loro Piana and Ermanno Scervino brands. She had major equity interests in publicly traded companies in the auditing and digital marketing fields, and she was the owner of various smaller companies: a legal consulting firm, a ballet school, and a theater company.

  A ballet school? That was curious. Owning a law firm also seemed unusual to me, perhaps she needed it to take care of her own business. The theater company could represent her personal way of doing charity considering her passion for musicals.

  The rest of the information concerned her family of origin, that was of high social status, and her studies: she majored in Art History. I imagined that her passion for art came from there, though there was no information about her favorite form of art.

  I decided to keep that report in the only drawer that could be locked, because, with the luck I had, Damian would surely discover it. I could put it in my briefcase but it was still in my car. As soon as I closed the drawer, the door of my office opened to let in the person who had monopolized all my thoughts: Adonis in whose veins flowed real Greek blood and whose olive complexion was also the genetic inheritance of his ancestors.

  "Ready to go out, honey?" he asked closing the door and walking calmly towards my desk. "I can wait as long as you want."

  "Would you wait for eternity?" I asked just to provoke him. I was impatient to know what he would answer.

  "If the reward is you, of course yes," he said so convinced that I thought he was sincere.

  If he can do it, I can do it as well, I said to myself looking for a passionate answer, typical of someone who was in love.

  "Don't wait then," I said getting up without taking my eyes off him. "I'm yours," I added hoping that he'd make some gesture or movement that would give me the green light to throw myself into his arms.

  He moved so fast that I didn't even realize how, in an instant, he had imprisoned me in his embrace. His mouth eagerly devoured mine as my hands grabbed his neck so that he didn’t let me go. I didn't want him to stop. It was probably one of the most exciting moments of my life.

  At the office, with a sexy boss, with a chance that someone could open the door at any moment. Who hadn't had an erotic dream like that? Whoever denied it, lied blatantly.

  I felt his fingers work their way down my back to my hips, then he squeezed my buttocks to get me closer and make me feel the hardness of his erection. I sat on the desk opening slightly my legs and drew him towards me pulling his gray tie, so that he didn’t stop kissing me.

  "We should get going. Aren't you hungry?" He asked the moment my lips moved away from his lips to go and lick his neck and then to his earlobe.

  "I have another kind of hunger right now," I whispered before biting him and hearing him moan.

  "Are you sure? Here?" he asked as if he didn't believe I was capable of it.

  "Here and now," I stated, pulling his shirt so hard that, despite its high quality, most of the buttons popped out, leaving that huge pecs in plain sight.

  I bit his chest as my fingers gently traced down his stomach. I unfastened his belt and unzipped his pants. I slipped in one hand to caress his warm penis.

  "Fuck," he moaned. I pushed him to make him take a step back and got on my knees and, to his astonishment, I lowered his pants and boxers to reveal his erect penis .

  I slowly caressed his penis as I gradually put it in my mouth under his attentive gaze. The fact that he kept looking at me with desire encouraged me to continue. I started with a gentle rhythm until I accelerated the movement with my hand. I heard him moan with pleasure as I savoured his flesh with lust.

  I was aroused, eager to give myself as I had never been before, probably because someone could open that door at any moment and we could be caught red-handed.

  "Come here!" he exclaimed, grabbing my hair to make me stand up. He pushed me against the desk to make me lie down. He knelt and lifted my dress. Luckily I was wearing stockings so I didn't have to rip them to take off my lace panties. I shuddered when I felt his warm breath between my legs. Then he sank his mouth deeper and I fell backwards completely surrendered, regardless of the PC keyboard, pens and even the stapler getting stuck in my back. That feeling surpassed any other I felt before. When he stuck his fingers into me, I yelled.

  "Shush, don't yell!," he said in a low voice while his tongue kept playing with my clitoris. I bit my fist so as not to yell out of pure pleasure.

  "I can't take it anymore," I panted, feeling that I was about to reach the climax and go straight to paradise at any moment. It was then that he moved away. I looked up and saw how, with a quick gesture and a single movement, he penetrated me so deeply that made me moan loudly.

  "Fuck, don't stop!" I panted looking at him pulling it out and then sinking it in again. His thrusts went on and on until I finally couldn't stand it anymore and I screamed, I fucking screamed, not caring if the entire building could hear me. I was experiencing the best fucking orgasm in the universe!

  When I came to my senses, I didn't remember the part in which Damian had put on a condom. It was then that my sexual fantasy vanished.

  "Maria, come back to the present," my inner voice said. That present in which I still had Damian's lips glued to mine and Adonis’s shirt was perfectly intact, just a little wrinkled for the way I clung onto it.

  "We should get going. Aren't you hungry?"

  Fuck, fuck, fuck! Was that a déjà vu or something? I thought as I moved away to observe him.

  Perhaps the Maria with sexual fantasies was much bolder than the real one. The very idea that Ingrid could be around and enter my office or some colleague could stealthily watch us terrified me.

  "Very hungry," I replied, not precisely thinking about food.

  Damian smiled at me and pulled my hand to make me fall into his arms. I felt safe when he welcomed me that way, so much that I was afraid of the moment when I would no longer have him so close.

  "I propose myself as a dessert after dinner," he whispered, giving me a little kiss on the nose before wrapping his arm around my waist and pushing me to leave the office with him.

  On the way home he called an Italian restaurant to have the lunch delivered. We didn’t have time to stop and eat in a restaurant since I had to arrange all my clothes in the wardrobe, familiarize with the apartment, and pay enough attention to the chef who was going to come in a couple of hours to cook dinner that night.

  To say that I was nervous because I was about to meet my supposed in-laws was to say the least. To release my tension a little, I thought that I could behave like a special friend of their son and not like the future daughter-in-law who tried to be nice to them at all costs.

  I hadn't memorized all the hobbies and tastes of Damian's mother, but I knew four fundamental things: Greek cuisine, musicals, works of art and tulips. I knew nothing about any of them, but I thought it would be enough just to mention them so that she starts talking about them. I was very good at listening to people, especially because special things that were worth talking about rarely happened to me.

  "Relax! I'm sure my mother will like you very m
uch," said Damian, as I devoured a mini calzone stuffed with ham and cheese, trying to calm my anxiety.

  "Of course, it's your mother! What else could you say?" I said ironically. "I bet you wouldn't be so calm if it was the other way around. I just want everything to go well and that they don’t realize that... that... well, you understand!"

  "They won’t notice anything because there is nothing to be noticed," he replied calmly. I looked at him raising my eyebrow. "It's all true and real, okay?" he added.

  I understood that he referred to our two-week deal during which we would let ourselves go and enjoy our time in peace. I didn't know how the hell he managed to behave so naturally, since to me it was so hard to fully get into the role. I was aware that if I gave myself up to it completely, I would never want to let him go, and that would be a point of no return.

  "Okay," I said, taking another calzone, "it’s all real," I conceded as I dropped into my chair. He got up to stand behind me.

  "This is the girl I'm going to marry," he reassured me before leaning over to kiss me on the nose again. "I need to make a couple of business calls and a video conference. I will be in my office. I have left you some free space in the wardrobe and a chest of drawers to arrange your things. You can put your suitcases in the closet in the corridor. When the intercom rings, please open the door. It’s Amelie, the chef who’s coming to prepare the dinner."

  After those words he headed towards the hall and I lost sight of his perfect ass.

  It took me two hours to arrange all my things. Luckily, I didn’t bring more stuff in my two suitcases. I was so tired that I threw myself on the bed to rest my back.

  Damian's bedroom was enormous, and with a gigantic bed, infinitely more comfortable than mine. To be able to sleep there over the next two weeks felt like a dream, something that probably happened only in movies. But now it was all real: I was living in my own film and could decide the plot myself.

  As the intercom rang, I ran to store the suitcases in the closet as Damian had said. A young girl appeared on the intercom screen.

  "Yes?" I answered politely instead of opening directly.

  "Mr. Devoir? It’s Amelie," she replied with a French accent.

  I opened and waited patiently until Amelie came out of the elevator dragging a cart with the food to be prepared.

  According to Damian's requests, she had organized a less elaborate menu that did not reveal the culinary art of a great chef. The menu consisted of a selection of cheeses, pâté and vegetable rolls as appetizers, stuffed chicken with aromatic herbs and potatoes in pepper sauce as a main course, and orange cake with chocolate sauce for dessert. According to the chef, the final result was going to be perfect for the occasion, while I was just hoping that the chicken would not burn or the cake did not turn sour because of me, in case that woman had asked me to help her cook.

  In the end I just limited myself to peeling potatoes, to respect the cooking times and, above all, to arrange the food into plates so that it really looked like it was prepared by me.

  Once the cake was ready and the chicken baked, I asked Amelie for her phone number to possibly give me express cooking classes in case I needed to impress more diners. That woman was exceptional! In just an hour and a half she prepared everything. She was worth her weight in gold.

  "Is everything ready? It smells good!" Damian exclaimed.

  "That orange cake must be spectacular!" I said as my mouth watered only at the thought of how long I had to wait before tasting it. Damian's parents were going to come in half an hour, and I still had to have a shower and get ready.

  "You are spectacular!" he reassured me, giving a fleeting kiss on my lips. "Luckily, I'll have you all to myself in that bed tonight."

  "Do you have any sinister plan, Mr. Devoir?" I asked, mesmerized by those eyes full of passion.

  "Maybe I have some handcuffs somewhere," he said coming closer as I took steps backwards without knowing exactly whether or not I would bump into any piece of furniture in the house, "although my plans, far from being sinister, are more inclined to be very pleasant," he added with a vague smile that made me melt. "It's pretty late so I'll take a shower first. Although I'd love to drag you into the shower with me, honey."

  That sentence only made one thing clear to me: sooner or later I would share that shower with Adonis.

  Chapter XVII

  I began to meticulously set the table with the finest porcelain I found in the kitchen cabinets: elegant and beautiful with gray decorations on the edges. Even though I had never been an expert in the field, the memories of some interior design magazines helped me to set up a beautiful table complete with candles and decorations. It was my only satisfaction in organizing that dinner.

  I took a quick shower, unfortunately by myself. I had already put my clothes aside for that evening while Damian was getting ready: something sober and elegant without looking like I wanted to impress. I put on cute panties, stockings, a tight light blue midi dress, and a pair of comfortable skin-tone stilettos. After a quick touch-up of my make-up I headed to the living room from where I could hear the voices of my in-laws already.

  At that moment I remembered that I hadn't put on any perfume or deodorant and that my intention to make a good impression was going to die there.

  I'm a disaster.

  "You didn't tell me she was so pretty!" was the first thing I heard before I looked up, because I was focused on controlling myself so as not to hyperventilate and sweat, although I knew my body would react in some other way to create new embarrassing situations.

  I had no experience in meeting in-laws, because I had never met any of them. I was more lost than a shrimp in a desert. It would have been more likely for me to bake a delicious orange cake, rather than be nice to a mother-in-law who was afraid I could take her child away.

  You’re going to be a daughter-in-law for only two weeks, Maria. So grit your teeth and move on.

  "Hi," I said not knowing what I was supposed to say.

  "Come, honey," said my saviour, handsome in his sky-blue and white striped shirt. He held out his hand to get me closer to them and wrapped his arm around my waist, "This is my mother, Elisabeth, and this is my father, Ismael."

  "Nice to meet you," I said, holding out my hand to Damian's mother. "I'm…"

  "Maria!" she exclaimed, approaching affectionately to give me two kisses.

  So the bad reputation of mothers-in-law is an urban legend, and it turns out they are caring and lovely women?

  "You must forgive my wife. She is extremely happy that our son is finally getting married. Nice to meet you, Maria. I have heard a lot of good things about you in the company. Your resume is impressive," said Damian's father, making me blush.

  "Have you already investigated her, dad? I thought you would wait at least until tomorrow," Damian said ironically.

  "Relax, son. I found it curious that Maria worked in our company and for this reason I asked for some information. I think that's normal, considering she'll be part of the family, right? I beg your pardon if this may have offended you. It seems that I don’t do anything good lately."

  "Don't worry, you didn't offend me at all," I replied smiling because I found this little family squabble cute and adorable.

  I thought of my parents who never argued or scolded me. Probably because I had always been such a well-behaved girl that I never did anything for them to punish me.

  "I'm going to get the appetizers. In the meantime, please make yourselves comfortable," I said, feeling as if I were the lady of the house where I had spent only five hours.

  "Tell me, how long have you been living together? Last time I was here she hadn't moved in yet, right?" Since the question seemed to be addressed to Damian, I simply remained silent.

  "A little more than a week, mom, when I managed to convince her to leave her apartment and move in with me," he added as he uncorked a bottle of wine.

  "And when did you think to tell your mother? Two days before the wedding? A lifetime spen
t educating your children and this is the result!" the lady exclaimed, taking her wine glass in her hand.

  "I already told you that I wanted to break the news when you met her, not earlier. I regret that in the end my plans got screwed up and that you found it out from Michael," Damian replied with such ease that he would deserve a gold medal for that excellent performance of the best liar in history.

  During the dinner I learned that Miranda was Damian's older sister, she was a lawyer and had her own law firm. She was so busy that she didn't even have time to breathe. The middle child named Amelia was a dancer in a ballet company and apparently travelled all over the world. At that moment I remembered the two companies that appeared in the report on Damian's mother: a law firm and a ballet company. Without a doubt she was the benefactor of her daughters and probably helped them to forge their future, although I was surprised that they didn’t work in the company, especially Miranda being a lawyer. Perhaps the family business already had its own legal department.

  "We should organize a lunch when Amelia is back in town. I think she’ll be here next month. It would be the perfect occasion to introduce Maria to Amelia and Miranda," said Elisabeth enthusiastically. "I'm sure you'll get along very well with my daughters. They too are hard-working girls."

  "Yes, they kill themselves with work," confirmed Damian's father ironically.

  "Oh, stop it!" Elisabeth exclaimed, patting him on the arm. "They just want to live their life, which I certainly admire and share."

  From those words I understood that they didn’t want to have anything to do with the family business, and all the weight fell on Damian’s shoulders, his father and the group of investment partners.

  "I'll be happy to meet them," I smiled like a good child and glanced at Damian who took the opportunity to caress my cheek affectionately, while he looked me in the eye.