Lightning cracks the night right open with a vein of dazzling electricity. Darkness sucks my vision away again, but I can still see that white line searing everything I look at. Thunder quakes so loud it sounds like a cruise ship being bent in half.
Dead ahead of us another tentacle of lightning descends from the sky, connecting with a tall, thick coconut palm. It lights up like a torch, then bursts into orange flames trailing hot black ash. My pain is gone, replaced with adrenaline.
“We need to find shelter!” I shout breathlessly.
My voice sounds thinner than I feel, something separate from myself that melts uselessly into the squall. Diego’s scanning the horizon with a hand shielding his eyes.
“Look!” he bellows.
An acrid scent like greasy auto garage is all I detect. I don’t know how he can see with the rain lashing sideways.
“Where?”
“Come on, follow the light!” he shouts down at me, his brow dripping, his white shirt soaked. I sure hope this jungle James Bond knows what he’s doing.
My hand is taken and he pulls me along with him, striding ahead. Like a couple of runaways we clamber across a narrow red pedestrian bridge and into the shadows beyond it. A dark shape comes into focus behind the streetlight that may as well be the star of Bethlehem.
It’s a small, simple house on a large plot of land with a stunning view of the hillside.
“Come on, this way,” he whispers harshly.
We creep up the driveway, past the front stoop, and sidle up to an open window, ducking down below. Peering over the sill into the dim interior, I see a man in his sixties sitting fast asleep in front of a flickering TV, face bluish from the screen. The rain pounds too hard to hear what’s on, or to notice a couple of lost, sopping-wet wedding guests skulking just outside.
Quietly, we move away from the window. I motion for Diego to bend his ear to my lips.
“Should we knock on the door?” I whisper.
“I don’t know. Probably it will pass in a few minutes. We can wait it out for now.”
We tread softly to the back of the house, where a stone path leads to a large garden shed with a metal overhang. A small orchard of coffee trees decorates the yard. The air smells wet, smoky, and perfumed all at once. Flowers and fire. Despite the danger, I’m driven to watch the storm.
Once we cross the yard and cut around the far side of the shed, I can take a proper breath, leaning back against the pale blue siding. No more headache, no more human lightning rod. Beyond the trees the downpour is thick and violent. Gutters spew churning rainwater into a barrel running over. The sound the water makes rushing down from the sky and smashing into everything is liberating. Time loses itself to nature’s momentum. Nothing to be done but wait it out, grateful for your life if you’ve got any mind at all.
My once-new dress is now a wet excuse for clothing. It’s glazed to my body and bleeding royal blue dye like I’m Mystique (Rebecca Romijn or Jennifer Lawrence – you can’t lose).
Diego moves in my peripheral vision without making a sound. Everything’s drowned by the rain. He crosses in front of me and stands silhouetted against the deluge.
“Lia, I have to ask you something.”
His eyes are slivers of light against his bronze skin. A solid pool of silver floats on his back molar when he opens his mouth to speak. Secrets right down to the lining of his enamel. This shit is heavier than anyone prepares you for. Every moment is so loaded with possibility. Bad news has a nose like a bloodhound, tracking me down wherever I go.
We stare at each other so that it might all be drunk in. He slicks the water off his face and rakes his hair back. Don’t remind me how his motions have become familiar to me over time; it won’t do me any good.
“Are you getting involved with him again?”
My blood cools a few degrees. Birdsong pierces the moment, heaven-sweet against his accusation.
“Excuse me?”
“You can be honest. It’s better we talk about it.”
He looks away like anything else could be more pressing, but his hand is over his heart, and that’s Diego for truth.
“You went through my phone?”
I don’t want this to be happening. Valverde pride and disbelief contort his expression.
“No. Of course not. Yesterday, before breakfast, I left you a note right when he texted you. But…”
Somewhere between apologetic and indignant, he searches for the right words, struggling to express himself.
“Listen, if you don’t think it’s my business… If you want to rediscover the past, maybe it’ll make things easier for me, even. But I don’t like it. There’s something between us, Emilia Noble. I’m drawn to you more than ever. What do you think I was talking about with Jack for so long? You, honey. But I don’t want to mix with that asshole abusive shit. You’ll have to tell me to leave you alone, if that’s what you want.”
“But I don’t want you to leave me alone.”
“I don’t want to share you with him. He doesn’t deserve you.”
“Diego, I know this. We’re not in contact. He did track me down, but I haven’t responded.”
“Is that true?”
“Sí, Diego. Actually, he sent a second text. It’s festering in my unread messages. Unless you read it already and changed the settings?” I ask suspiciously.
“No. Trust me, I wish I hadn’t seen the first one. I don’t go through your phone, you have to believe me. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to know what’s happening. I think I have a right to know.”
“The text? It’s all yours. Haven’t read it. Don’t want to.” I throw my hands up. “Carter picked this weekend to hassle me, I didn’t. I don’t know why it happened like this, but I don’t feel anything for him, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s nothing but a stepping stone to a vastly improved life. The whole night I’ve been avoiding him, trying to connect with you.”
“And I fucked off with Jack.” He shakes his head, rubbing his eyes with both hands, frustrated and weary.
“Well, it’s his wedding. You’ve known him longer than me.”
“Yeah, but you’re wrong if you think he means more than…” He hesitates, watching me carefully.
“Say it.”
“I’m beginning to think a girl like you doesn’t come along very often.”
I could live inside the connection between us when it’s flowing, hang potted plants in the windows and roll rugs out on the floors. I’d like to loiter on the sidewalk of this moment. Is that love?
He stoops and kisses me softly, just our lips touching. Closing my eyes makes me dizzy very suddenly, and the exhilaration doesn’t help. His blazer is soaked, and when he pulls it off it lands heavily on the ground, emphasizing the reveal of his naturally broad shoulders. Gulp. I thought those came with the jacket.
It takes a moment of drunk-sober confusion to understand. With his head bowed, not unlike a cemetery angel, he unbuttons the wet, white shirt and peels the translucent fabric off of his body. He drops it like it’s less than nothing, watching me like I’m the star, the beautiful goddess in a seashell rising out of the ocean.
From the resolve in his expression my gaze heads southward to his bulletproof chest and tight stomach, to the lines that plunge below his waistline, deep into his groin.
“The only thing I’m sure about is how I feel about you.”
Can he see my pupils dilating, my self-control dissolving? ’Cause they are and it is.
I’m just out of reach and it looks like it hurts him, an expression he’s worn before. Slays me. He pulls roughly at his belt, and it slips out of the loops easily. Just as my outfit’s rain-painted on, so are his formal pants waterlogged and wrapped around his thighs. Not for long, I hope.
He stares at me, eyes hard but smiling a little. His breath coming fast through his mouth. Abdominals curving, thighs wide and strong under the wet silk so it looks like he’s wearing superhero spandex. What’s the word for when you kn
ow you’re gonna score?
All the space that’s kept us apart in the past couple weeks packs itself between us. When he moves, it’s quick. In two steps he’s got me against the wall, hands on my thighs, pulling my dress away from my skin. I surrender, I surrender.
In an instant we’re pressed together like it’s our last kiss before the apocalypse. He’s touching me in goddess worship, like my body is velvet, or a Lamborghini. I’m the fucking Eiffel Tower and he wants to climb all the way to the top. Twice.
“Take your dress off,” he says evenly.
“Here?”
“Okay, I’ll do it.”
I grin. “What if he sees us?”
He pins my wrists over my head, firm but not hurting.
“What if he doesn’t?” he murmurs.
Mercy.
His other hand drifts down my chest and then up my leg, inside my dress. The look on his face when he realizes I haven’t been wearing underwear is impassioned disbelief and then lustful admiration. He shuts his eyes, absorbing the moment just for a second.
“Como la seda.”
Like silk, he says.
Brushing his fingers against me where I’m wet, paging through me to get to the centerfold. I feel this in showers of color and light that burst and then pulse in and out, in and out. He kisses me hard without getting messy, on the edge of control.
“I could touch you forever,” he admits, pausing to elaborate so I swoon out loud. He glides the pads of his fingers in broader sweeps, opening me up carefree but steady, so good I could lose my mind. Diego feels his way around the jewel of my clitoris, and iridescent waves of satisfaction lick at me again and again.
“Yes … I … yes.”
If you want to reduce a woman to monosyllables, get her off in the rain.
He’s forward, unstoppable but respectful, a spellbinding holy trinity.
“Good god.” He breaks the kiss to watch himself touch me like there’s two of him, the actor and the voyeur. His other hand slides up the back of my leg, over my ass, grasping my bare skin. “You melt in my hands.”
I’m too breathless to answer and he knows it, enjoying my pleasure nearly as much as I am. He relishes the experience, watching my eyes, my lips, my celestial gaze.
Inspired by Mitsuko’s limitless range of experience, I unsnap, unzip, and wrench his pants down. Not sure I’d call myself her protégée, but something tells me she’d be proud. His copper thighs and pronounced erection distend the seams of his black cotton Calvins. They slide down easily when I pull.
There it is, the best view north of the Panama Canal. It’s almost too much to grasp but I manage it. All the power shifts to me and the circle I make around his cock, holding him where all his blood, heat, and energy points up like an arrow. But suddenly I’m lifted up against the wall with my legs spread apart. So we both have a power complex. I can work with that. He slides the shaft along but not inside me, lubricating himself, giving my knees something to be weak about.
All my weight’s supported in his arms and he can still keep his dick an inch from entering me again, holding back until we absolutely can’t take it. This is why athletes are such a good bet.
“Okay,” he whispers. “I’m really gonna fuck you now.”
Again I can’t answer, but I manage a nod so he knows I’m good to go.
Diego enters me, filling all the space inside me. Thick, swollen cock.
“Yes” is the only word. Yes, do it. Yes, don’t stop. Yes, tonight I’m having the time of my fucking life.
“I thought I remembered,” he breathes heavily, drawing out slowly. “But it’s better.”
Every time we go a little further, deeper and stronger, riding the exhilaration of our first time without latex, sharing the mutual excitement of same-touch. Small movements escape in shuddering breath and exclamation.
“Tú eres todo lo que quiero,” he mutters twice in a row. You’re all I want.
Hands rough from labor measure my body by touch. I reach for his shoulders, rake my nails down his back so he staggers and pulls away to look at me, a deeper arousal awakened.
“I won’t be able to do this just once, gringa.”
“Once is bullshit.”
He laughs and gazes at me with a new appreciation. My cheek falls against the cool siding, no use talking. When my lips fall open, I taste the wetness in the air and Diego’s mouth sweet as the rain. When he’s looking sharp in modern clothes, it’s easy to forget he’s the boy who grew up in the water and the forest. Now he’s fully revealed.
He carries me lightly away from the house without pulling out and lays me down in the grass on my back. I want him so much I could devour him. All I can do is bite down on his shoulder and he groans, eyes rolling up into his head.
“Harder, Diego, harder,” I beg him, pulling his ass as close as I can get. He moans and pulls my lip with his teeth, then grazes them down my chin and the side of my neck. Dipping down, he licks up the rainwater pooling between my breasts. With his cock pounding and his warm tongue licking raindrops off my neck, I know I’m going to climax. The outside world fades to black when he arches his back and looks down at me, his body so hot it’s enough to trigger a rare full-release orgasm. He strikes lightning inside me.
“It’s– I’m–”
With loose hands on my hips he guides me into a steady pace that I can get on top of and take over. I rock faster, and he grabs my rain-wet breasts with both hands. Leaning back on his thighs, I let the sex goddess in me take over for the finish. Delicious pleasure’s barely sizzling when a second orgasm rocks through me. I can only call his name as the pleasure mounts, each mention of him making me come harder. The sounds from my throat are guttural and strange, but he’s watching with aroused fascination. I’m laughing and I think maybe even crying, but I’m so drenched from the rain you’d never know.
“Fuck!” Diego yells carnally, and he thrusts deeply twice more. He pulls out just in time. Thick bursts of cum shoot onto my inner thighs, shiny white like cupcake frosting.
His cheeks are ruddy and flushed, his chest heaving like a marathoner coming down. He gazes up at me straddling him like he’s a branded mustang. I can’t quite believe it either.
“That was…”
“Electric.”
I fall into the mist on my back, my shoulder against his. Our naked shiny bodies lie in the coffee orchard like seeds in a garden. My knees have clumps of mud and grass clinging to them, and I wear them like jewels.
CHAPTER 10
Lia
When I roll my head over to look at Diego, he mirrors my action and we laugh giddily. My ears are rushing.
“How much time has passed?”
“No sé.”
“I … that was a whole other level.”
“I know, verdad?”
“You started it.”
“Because I blacked out of the entire world except for you.”
“I think we became pure energy at one point.”
“And it burned off like fuel. I’m going to need a full meal muy pronto.” He pats his stomach.
“Yeah, muy pronto.”
“Some fuckin’ protein … and, like, B vitamins.” He shuts his eyes.
Think I may have knocked his brains out.
Above us the coffee leaves are vibrant green, the cherries so red and wet. Life imitates life.
“I wanna fuck you all night every night, obviously.”
“I’m in,” I confirm, head spinning.
“And I want to cook you breakfast in the morning,” he continues, rolling over on his side and leaning on his elbow, studying me. “And bring you coffee in bed.”
“Don’t tease me.”
“I’m serious. I want to hear the shower on and find you in it when I come home dirty from work…”
“Sounds hot.”
“You’re hot.”
We’ve both got moondust eyes, glazed, slow, enamored with the universe.
“Pacifica seems so far away. A million year
s ago,” he says quietly, settling onto his back again.
“I think it is.”
“That’s okay with me.”
Silence follows, the kind where you both might be about to say something but neither of you does. This is a new level of intimacy for me. I don’t want or need anything else. Not for a while.
“Let’s get the fuck home,” Diego suggests, and I agree.
We dress quickly and quietly under the sky that glows with the potential of morning. The night is about to become yesterday. Tomorrow ticks forward into the here and now.
“Have you seen my belt?”
“Beside the rain barrel. Have you seen my purse?”
“Over there.”
Fighting a pre-hangover headache, I stumble to fetch it in the grass where the zipper’s glinting. It’s flickering pink, blue, pink, blue.
I know that sequence, that color combination. Policía. Peering beyond the shed I catch the reflection of cruiser lights bouncing off puddles in the road. I wonder what happened.
“See that?” I whisper back to Diego harshly.
He peers over my shoulder, then shrugs. “The tree that caught fire…”
Right, someone might have been hurt. Jeez. I don’t remember hearing fire trucks, but I wasn’t exactly paying attention. My guts turn to think how close we may have been to getting toasted.
Diego wraps his arms around my waist and kisses the back of my neck gently. I feel myself smile involuntarily and forget the storm.
“Let’s get out of here, gringa. We’ll cut through the orchard.”
The words have only just floated from his lips when the back porch floods with light, soaking us in it. We both shield our eyes instinctively.
“Allí están!” shouts a raspy voice angrily.
Shit.
“Detener! Policía!” commands another, dutiful. You can hear the badge in his voice.
“Mierda,” Diego mutters under his breath.
An officer steps into the light.
“Entrar sin derecho. Desnudez.”
Trespassing, public indecency. He lists our crimes tiredly, his eyelids drooping along with the rest of him. You can tell he’s been out in the rain all night. Behind him on the porch stands an old man with one big eyebrow frowning at us. His wife watches through the window in her nightgown. When I look at her, she steps into the shadows. I don’t know why. I’m the one who should feel like hiding. Not sure why I don’t.
Caramel Beach (Lessons in Pure Life Book 2) Page 7
