"I'm not living here. Just staying for a few days. I had a couple days between jobs in L.A. and Papá asked me to come in for a family meeting."
"That something you do often?"
"No. Just updating us on the financials of the gym, our shares, all that. We haven't had one since after..."
"Yeah. I can imagine the business wasn't top on everyone's list."
My heart wrenched. Ethan's mom died. She was dead, and she'd been gone from his life for years when I met him, and I never knew. If I had, would I have called him after my own mother died? I’d wanted people to call me, when I was at the bottom of the pit of the deepest grief I'd ever experience in my life. Nobody had – probably because my number had changed. A couple people, including my friend Liz who lived here in Philly, had checked in on Facebook, something I only discovered weeks after the fact. I hardly ever logged on.
"No, it wasn't," I said quietly. "But The Knockout Brothers is a family business. So here I am."
I unlocked the door to the narrow stairway that led up to the hotel. One wall was entirely glass panes, large squares separated by leaded cames. There was a large floor lamp just inside the door, but I rarely needed it. Natural light lit up the single room during the day, and at night, the fantastic view of Philly lent numerous street and building lights to the space. It was simple, but breathtaking.
Right now, especially, it felt wrong to turn it on. These few days had been a whirlwind, and the breathless giddiness of seeing Ethan again felt like stepping into the eye of a storm. The first time I'd met him, life had been easy and predictable, filled with lazy pleasure. In fact, orgasms from Ethan Anderson were one of the only things that had ever been able to distract me from my wanderlust for any length of time. The ten days I'd spent with him had felt like some sort of record of almost-commitment. When we’d been together, I hadn’t fantasized about where I’d travel, or what insane things I’d do, next. I’d only fantasized about more of him.
Maybe that was why I'd been so desperate to take off, all those months ago.
Right now, I felt desperate for something completely different. Thank God, so did Ethan. He spun me around with one hand and pushed the other one through my hair again. Whether he remembered how much I loved that particular mood or he really did love my hair that much, it didn't matter. His long, strong fingers tugging so gently on my thick strands sent a jolt of pleasure straight down to my belly, and the echo of it even lower. I choked on a gasp, and before he could lean down to kiss me again, I pushed up on my toes to kiss him. My hands fell to his waist, fisting his crisp white button down with both hands, untucking it from his pants as I did. My thumbs brushed his belly, feeling the fine hairs that I knew collected there in a path, leading straight down to the very best part of him. He jerked, and the movement made his teeth scrape against my bottom lip. I pulled away and licked it, tasting the faintest trace of blood.
"Still ticklish," I teased in a whisper.
"Yeah," Ethan said, gulping in a breath while he leaned his forehead against mine. "Just try and see if that stops me."
"God, I hope it won't," I managed before he swooped down for another kiss. This time was slower, deeper. Like he was tasting me, recording my flavor and feel for posterity.
"Tali, what - what are we doing?"
"I'm here in Philly for 24 more hours. So right now, we're kissing and groping each other in the dark, but I hope before that 24 hours is up you're going to give me what I really want from you."
Ethan peered down at me. God, was he actually giving this consideration? How did he not remember how good we'd been together? My self-discipline was nearly flawless, but even so, at this moment I was about to jump on him and tackle him onto the hotel's fluffy white bedding.
But within seconds, a wicked grin pulled at his lips. "Natalia Ortiz, I thought you'd never ask."
Within a single breath, he bent down, scooped me into his arms, and dropped me onto the bed. My grin cracked wide open as I bounced on the mattress, then watched appreciatively as Ethan unbuttoned his shirt, then stepped out of his pants, laying them neatly over an arm of the single brown leather armchair that sat in the corner of the apartment. He really was beautiful. Dark hair covered a big, muscular chest, trailed lightly down his abdomen, and collected again at the top of his boxers. That was one of the reasons I loved his thick beard so much - it reminded me of what I'd discovered under his clothes.
In seconds, Ethan hovered over me, undressed except for boxers. He kissed me again, so slowly and carefully that I barely noticed that he was tugging my shirt up as he did.
God, I'd forgotten how this man had been able to make me forget myself. The difference between the last time we'd done this and tonight was that now, just for this one night, I really, really, really wanted to forget. Not only myself - the business, the way my life was in a constant state of limbo, the nagging feeling that free spirited could turn to aimless at any moment. The grief over Mamá that sometimes felt just as sharp as it had the day after she died. I didn't want to think about any of that right now. And with Ethan's mouth sucking at my neck and my collarbone, with his thumb already flicking my left nipple into a hard peak, I didn't have any choice in the matter. I couldn't think at all.
Chapter 4
Ethan
Even though I didn't even want to admit to myself how desperately I'd wanted to see Natalia, to be with her, again, the feeling hit me right then, hard and powerful. This was unreal, the embodiment of every daytime fantasy and white-hot dream I'd had about the two of us together again.
The first time we were together, only ten days, was magical. Perfect. I'd tried to tell myself to appreciate for what it was, to move on. It hadn't worked.
I snaked my arm underneath Natalia and flicked the clasp of her bra open, thrilling at the muscled heat of her skin. She sighed, and I wanted to taste her sweet breath, so I did, gulping as much of her as I could.
Twenty-four hours. She said she was here for just a day, and that tomorrow she had a meeting, and that meant that all we had was tonight...
I growled at my own maudlin tendencies. I couldn't slip into depression over this. Yes, Natalia was one of a kind. Yes, I only had her for this one night, then maybe never again. I still had to enjoy it, to make it a night we both would remember, instead of spending it moping.
She'd shrugged out of her bra, and now, dear Lord, she was arching her back so that her tits pushed up toward my face. Exactly where I always imagined them, high and round and big and perfect. A nipple brushed my chin and I growled, feeling a beast inside rattling at its cage.
"Go ahead, Ethan," Natalia ground out. It sounded more like a plea than an invitation. She pushed my boxers down and dug her short nails into my ass. I answered her with a growl of my own, then dipped my head and sucked a nipple into my mouth, hard and fast. It took her breath away, and as she gasped, she ground her pelvis against mine.
She craned her neck up and bit my shoulder, and I groaned, sliding my hand under the blessedly stretchy waistband. She never wore any panties, or kept any hair on that sweet little pussy. "Jesus, Natalia. Promise me that you'll never wear anything except yoga pants."
She answered with a breathy laugh. "I wasn't planning on it."
“I don’t think you could manage to put panties on around me if you tried,” I whispered into her skin.
“There’s that cocky guy who always drove me crazy.” Even her breath smelled sweet.
For weeks after the last time we'd slept together, I swore I could remember her scent. I hadn't been wrong. It was exactly as I remembered it. She was earthy and delicious and begging me to lick her until she couldn't stand it anymore.
So that's exactly what I did.
She was wet when I bent down to flick her clit with my tongue, hard and fast, and oh God, this really wasn’t a daydream because I hadn't forgotten the sound of her tiny shocked moans when I did this, either. I opened my mouth and pushed two fingers inside, thrusting and curling until she screamed.
"Please tell me you have a condom," she panted as I wiped my beard on the edge of the sheet. I'd considered shaving it these last several months, but I couldn't do it. I never shook the memory of Natalia cooing that she loved the way it felt rubbing against the inside of her thighs when I ate her.
My heart stuttered. "Fuck," I said. Did I have one? I'd only gone out with three or four women since Natalia left town, and only one of those had actually resulted in sex. It had sucked. I hadn't even stayed all night.
I sat up bolt upright, then scrambled to get off the bed and into my pants pocket. Natalia laughed. Natalia only ever laughed, deep throated and full. No giggles, no titters. She was all or nothing, in that and everything else.
I managed to wiggle my wallet out of the back pocket, and let out a long, slow sigh of relief. I'd stuffed three in there last time, and there were still two left. I strutted back over to the bed which only took three long paces, and Natalia waggled her eyebrows at me. "Thank God," she said. She was still laid out, her flawless caramel skin drawing a curved outline of the most perfect body I'd ever seen on the stark white sheets. She was art, pure and simple. And she was mine for tonight.
If I was a religious man, I would have said a prayer.
"Come here," she purred, and I obeyed. There were times for teasing, for drawing out pleasure, for touching and tasting and sucking love-bites on skin for hours on end. This was not one of those times. This was a taste of the salvation I thought I'd lost forever. Natalia was back in my life, for however short a time, and I was going to spend at least some of that time inside her.
I nuzzled my face in her neck, scraping my teeth against the tendon there, while my hand wandered down to her sweet spot. "You're so wet," I moaned in her ear, in the most unoriginal line of dirty talk any guy had ever said. I didn't care, and neither did she, because she tilted her hips up, making my cock drag through her slick folds.
"Please, Ethan. Please."
Okay, I guess neither of us got any points for originality. This was still hot as hell.
Quickly, I rolled the condom on, then lined myself up as she nibbled at my neck. With one thrust, I was deep inside her. Inside heaven.
I hadn't slept with an insane number of women, but it had been enough that I knew that one cock and one pussy did not a perfect fit make. Sometimes, the magic just didn't happen, no matter how attractive or experienced both of us were. Other times, it was awkward, but we managed to find a rhythm and have a good time.
But sex with Natalia was above and beyond all of that. She fit perfectly around me, her muscles fluttering at exactly the right place and time. She writhed and moaned and grabbed and bit in the exact perfect combination to make me feel more pleasure than I ever thought I could during sex. She matched me thrust for thrust, no matter the pace we set. Every time Natalia and I had sex - sixteen times, before this - was more mind-blowing than the last. It was like every time I was inside her, she learned to read my mind a little more.
This was the best one yet. I drove into her, slow and hard, my pace unflagging, grinding my pelvis against her clit every time I bottomed out. The sound she made when I did that was transcendent - a sharp, shocked gasp. Each and every time.
It wasn't long before she breathlessly started to warn me. I fucking loved that - she would announce her orgasm every time. "Ethan, I'm - oh God, I'm going to - holy shit. Ethan. I'm coming!"
The sweetest sound on the planet. Only to be upstaged by the sweetest feeling on the planet - Natalia Ortiz's perfect pussy clenching around my cock. I was lost. My vision went white and I held on to her strong shoulders for dear life, losing my drive seconds later. I collapsed on top of her with an exhausted huff, which earned another full-throated laugh from her.
Another incredible thing about Natalia - even though she was smaller than me, there was no way I would ever worry about hurting her or crushing her. I was a big guy - big hands, broad shoulders, thighs I sometimes had trouble fitting into standard trousers - but she was one hundred percent pure, powerful muscle. Yeah, she had curves, but right underneath her full breasts and beautiful round ass were layers of strength she'd built up over years of training for every conceivable athletic endeavor.
I had a love-hate relationship with her tight, strong body. On the one hand, she was durable as hell in the sack and could hold her own in any other situation besides. On the other hand, her dedication to building that athleticism and using it for any new experience she could was what had broken us up in the first place.
Not that we were ever really together. But when she insisted that running with the bulls in Pamplona was a totally reasonable thing for her to be doing, and that I was the one who was being ridiculous to worry about her getting hurt, I couldn't take it. Couldn't go with her, couldn't watch. Couldn't even wait by my phone for word that she'd made it out unscathed. Life was too fragile, and I couldn't let myself get attached to someone who acted like it wasn't.
Not after what had happened to Mom.
I slumped to the side, tugging her with me so that we faced each other on the bed. Deftly, I reached down and dealt with the condom, then craned my neck to deliver an open-mouthed kiss to the underside of her jaw. She hummed happily. "Thank you," she murmured, turning her head so that it was halfway buried in the pillow. "I still can't believe I ran into you. Especially like that."
Ah, there it was. The elephant in the room. The reason she was back in Philly in the first place. Suddenly, I felt sick.
"You could have told me about your mom, you know. I would have come to the funeral. I could have helped with... something." When my mother had died, I was a freshman. My brand-new friends and professors had danced around me, mumbling "sorrys," and letting me off easy on social engagements and homework assignments alike. Seven weeks later, a new semester had started, and it was like everyone expected me to have used that time to hit the "reset" button. It was one of the reasons I started going to the grief support group. It was the one place I could talk about Mom, about how I lost her, where people would listen. Where they would understand.
The fact that I hadn't been there for Natalia to do just that made me physically ache.
She shrugged. "I didn't know. Where we stood, you know? Pamplona made you really upset."
"You know I was just afraid of you getting hurt. I didn't want to think about that."
"So you would have been okay seeing me through days of weeping, a funeral, and weeks of depression, but not stitches on a torn bellybutton?"
My eyes flared wide. "Natalia. You didn't."
"Yep," she smiled. She stretched out onto her back and raised her arms over her head, making her breasts wiggle a little as they resettled. I only watched them for a moment, though, because I was zeroed in on her navel, which now slanted slightly down and to the right, tugged there by an angry dark-pink scar, only slightly shorter than my middle finger. "The lamest thing was that it wasn't even a bull. Some asshole shoved me against the wall and it caught on one of those pointy iron fence posts," she chuckled.
I sucked in a breath, then bent over to press my lips to it. "Does it hurt?" I mumbled against her skin.
"Not at all, compared to losing my mom."
I drew back to look at her, and caught her dark eyes shining in the moonlight. "Oh, babe," I said, my heart melting. Suddenly it didn’t matter that we were both naked, with not even a sheet covering us, and that my cock was already half-hard again. I tugged her into my arms and cradled her head in the crook of my neck, understanding her deep, long sigh. She couldn't do anything about this pain except try her best to get through it. I couldn’t do anything but be there for her.
In this still, soft moment, it felt like enough.
"Thank you," she murmured against my skin. "I'm so glad I found you again. Even if it was just for one night."
As I held her even tighter, my heart threatened to break all over again. It didn't matter. Natalia was worth it.
Chapter 5
Natalia
Some of my earliest memories wer
e set in the lounge of The Knockout Brothers gym. This pilled brown couch had been here since I was little. I remembered the day my teenaged brothers hauled it in off the street, remembered the way Mamá's eyebrows pulled together as she searched it, inch by inch, for bed bugs and mold. That was after she yelled at my brothers for bringing in furniture from an unknown family off the street. Afterward, when she sat on it and sighed into the cushiness of the couch, she grabbed their heads and kissed them. She didn’t say another word about that couch, but from then on, she and my father sat there, side by side, to deliver all the important family news - the expansion of the gym into the neighboring building, Sebastian's baby with his high school girlfriend on the way, his second baby with his new wife Sarah on the way ten years later, Rodrigo and Amalia getting married. Papá giving Mamá a diamond ring on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.
Now we were back here again, my four brothers, Amalia, my other sister-in-law Sarah, my brother Christian’s boyfriend Daniel, and Papá. And me.
My brother Alejandro had told me they were getting Mallorcas for breakfast from Freddy and Tony’s in honor of me being home. I was the last one to arrive, and I stopped in my tracks at the doorway, seeing everyone, including my nieces, gathered in the break room. As promised, a white box of the pale swirled pastries sat on the coffee table. My mouth watered.
Papá had added two vending machines and a foosball table for the gym’s employees, but there was still the same tube TV in the corner I'd grown up with. Papá sat on that same old couch. His eyes were deeply wrinkled now, but his eyebrows were bushy as ever. In the three months since Mamá's funeral, his thick hair had tripled its gray.
I let out a slow breath. He was getting older. So was I. My brothers definitely were.
Even though Mamá was missing, home was still the same.
Just Let Go Page 2
