The Younger Man: A Novel

by Halle, Karina

My god he’s got amazing hair.

  It’s thick and silky and strong, the kind you want to pull and tug at all night long.

  I make a fist in it as he slides a finger under the hem of my bottoms, pulling it to the side until I’m naked and exposed.

  There’s a moment, a pause, where everything slows down and my heart beats so rapidly that I wonder if the steam room is a good idea, and then he nudges his face in and covers my sensitive skin in a long, slow lick.

  I cry out in a ragged moan, my body so starved for this, for him. We could quit right now and it would still be worth it, just for me to know that I’m still a living, breathing sensual woman with needs, a woman that could make a young man like this worship me with his tongue.

  But god, I hope this keeps going.

  I don’t ever want him to stop.

  With one hand pushing the fabric to the side, he pushes a finger inside me, while the other hand moves back to my hip, holding me in place as he assaults me with lips and teeth and tongue.

  Holy shit, holy shit.

  I’m going to come so fast, it’s pathetic.

  God, this is too. Fucking. Good.

  He seems to know how to play me just right, almost hitting all the perfect spots, alternating between rough and soft, not afraid to cause a little pain, knowing how to make me grow wetter and thicker and needier. He just needs a little more guidance, and I have no problem stating what I need.

  “Harder,” I whisper to him, my words rough. “Lick me harder.”

  He’s eager to learn, I’ll give him that much. He responds in an instant, and I pull his face further between my thighs until there’s nowhere else to go, until I’m possibly drowning him.

  “Yes, yes. Right there,” I cry out. “God, yes, Alejo, keep going.”

  He lets out a low groan that vibrates through my body like electric currents, and he plunges three fingers inside me, sucking my clit into his mouth in one long draw.

  “Yes! Oh god.” I don’t care if I’m vocal. My legs spread wider and he eats me out like he’s in a frenzy, messy and wet and hungry.

  My orgasm sneaks up on me like a hunter on his prey.

  One second I’m growing tighter and tighter, and the next it’s as if I’m shot straight up through the ceiling and into the sky. My body quakes violently, and I let go of his hair to grasp the edges of the bench, holding on while my hips thrust, making nonsensical noises.

  “Oh god,” I say, the words falling from my mouth in a breathless prayer as my brain feels completely jumbled. I’m senseless and thoughtless and something very, very raw and real.

  When I open my eyes, all I see is steam, all I feel is everything. He’s drugged me with his tongue.

  I straighten up, my muscles cramping from the way I was positioned, but before I can really get my bearings, Alejo steps up onto the lower bench between my thighs, his head nearly touching the ceiling, and he dips down, cupping my face in his hands.

  His mouth is wet from me, his face covered in sweat. I’m sweating too, and when he kisses me, I taste the sweetness of my own desire and the salt of his exertion.

  “How was that?” he murmurs into my mouth, taking the time to run his tongue along the rim of my bottom lip before sucking it with a moan. “Did I please you?”

  I laugh, pulling away an inch to gaze into his eyes, his beautiful eyes that are so heavy-lidded and drunk with need. “Yes, you pleased me.”

  He kisses me again, long and hard and drawn out and then brushes my damp hair off my face, gazing at me with a mix of carnality and tenderness. “Can I please you again?”

  His voice is hoarse, just a little rough, just a bit of a hint of what he has in mind.

  “Sí,” I tell him, and he grins at me, sliding his fingers back in through my hair and covering my mouth with his, kissing me even deeper than before, his lips opening and closing against mine, wet, wanting, his tongue stoking the flames inside.

  While he ravages my mouth, his hands move down to my bikini top, pulling down the straps and the sides until my breasts are spilling free. His palms spread against both breasts, gently squeezing, feeling.

  “Oh,” he moans and then says something in Spanish that sounds so decadent, my body gets goosebumps.

  “What?” I manage to say as he pulls away and lowers his head to my breast.

  “You have perfect breasts,” he remarks before he places his lips over one of my nipples, slowly bringing his tongue around it in measured, pressing circles. With a sharp nip he takes it between his teeth and gives it a tug, bringing that low, aching need back between my legs.

  As if I didn’t just come, as if I’ll never be satisfied.

  “I can teach you more Spanish now, if you’d like,” he murmurs, focusing his attention on my other breast as he cups the both of them. “Tus senos son más grandes que mis manos. Y tengo manos grandes.”

  With a lick he sends my eyes back into my head.

  “What does that mean?” I gasp, my hands moving up to his shoulders where I dig my nails in.

  “Your breasts are larger than my hands and I have big hands. I wonder what it would feel like to fuck them,” he says. “But first I need to fuck you properly.”

  My eyes widen at his bluntness, and before I know what’s happening, he’s pulling off my bikini bottoms and then lifting me off from the top bench and onto the bottom one. The air down here is cooler, and my brain is struggling to catch up with what’s happening. He sits down and pulls me down on top of him, so I’m straddling him. I grab the upper bench for leverage while he grabs his cock and positions it in place beneath me.

  He stares into my eyes like a man possessed, the kind of intensity that makes my stomach flip over and over.

  Slowly, so slowly, I lower myself down on him, doing exactly what I was fantasizing over in the pool. He’s still watching me with a serious, focused expression, the kind that cuts far inside me, like this is the most important moment of his life.

  “Fuck,” he says through gritted teeth, his jaw tense as he slowly sinks into me.

  And fuck is right.

  My eyes close, my body widening to accommodate him. He’s big, I knew he was, and I’m wet as sin. And yet each movement downwards is taking my breath away, making it hitch in my throat.

  Inch-by-inch I slide over his cock until I’m at the hilt and we both let out a long, shuddering breath. I open my eyes to see him gazing at me, and I’m captured by the determination on his face, torn open by the vulnerability. I’m a close-your eyes-and-come kind of girl when it comes to sex, but with Alejo, he wants the eye contact, he wants to look at me and I can’t help but do the same to him.

  It brings the experience to another level, one that makes me hunger for him so acutely that I can’t physically bear it.

  Impatiently, I use my upper body strength to lift myself up along his shaft before coming back down, but he cries out softly. “Despacito,” he says through hushed words. “Con calma. Do not rush. Let me feel you slowly. I have been waiting too long for this to be rushed.”

  He places his hands over my hips and starts to control the tempo. “Easy,” he murmurs, bringing his mouth to my neck. “Just like this. I need to fuck you just like this.”

  I close my eyes to his touch, to his lips, to the torturous way he’s making me slide up and down over his length, stretching over his girth, the tip of his cock hitting the sensitive bundle of nerves inside me.

  I gasp lightly, my nails digging into the wood of the bench, the sweat trickling off me and onto him. There’s pressure inside me that wasn’t there before, a knot being pulled tighter and tighter, making my body start to shake with anticipation.

  Alejo runs his tongue up along my neck, starts nibbling at my jaw. One hand lets go of my hip and slides along my clit. I’m so drenched, from him, from me, from sweat, that I’m hair-trigger sensitive.

  “Córrete para mí,” he says through a grunt as his pace gets faster. “Come for me.”

  There’s strength and determination and control all
over his gorgeous face, and he’s the master of restraint right now because I know how badly he’s holding back.

  I want to see him let go.

  I start fucking him harder, up and down, his cock sinking in deeper and deeper as his fingers play with me, pushing me past the point of no return.

  “I’m coming,” I cry out, my back arching, my hair spilling back like a waterfall. “Oh, Oh.” My eyes pinch shut and my grip on the bench grows vice tight as I ride him like a fucking cowgirl, and then…

  The world is splintered into a million shiny pieces.

  “Oh god,” I groan, voice broken and delirious, and I’m coming hard on his cock, squeezing his length as he pumps his hips up into me.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  My thoughts are rabid and my body is twisted on itself with pleasure, like I might not ever untangle.

  Then I’m falling.

  I want to fall forever.

  “Now we don’t take it slow,” he says, pressing his lips against mine in a hurried kiss, my chest still aching for breath and I’m climbing off of him in a daze.

  He’s flipping me around so that I’m bent over, my back arched, ass in the air. I grab the edge of the bench again and he grabs my hips, pulling me back.

  He enters me with one hard, stiff thrust, and the air is expelled from my lungs. His rhythm immediately grows punishing, with the hard slap of his hips against my ass echoing in the steamy room.

  “Yes, just like this,” he says through a groan. “Yes, Thalia. This is it. Right here.”

  He trails off and his grip on my hips turn mean with a bruising kind of strength, and I’m drunk on the way he’s fucking me, so rough, so fast, like he’s finally letting himself loose.

  He’s turning into the animal I knew he was.

  Rough, eager grunts fill my ears until his breaths become shorter and shorter, like he’s planning on fucking me right through this wall, and his hand is over my breasts, pinching my nipples, trailing down to my clit.

  His sounds are enough to make me come again, let alone his deft and confident touch, but this time I’m holding back, waiting for him.

  “Fuck, fuck.” The words seem to fall from his mouth. Sweat drips onto my back. His cock drives in so hard I almost lose my grip. “You feel like the sun. El hermoso sol.”

  Then his fingers press into my skin so hard it makes me cry out, and the mix of pleasure and pain melds with his low, growling noises, and I’m coming, my body quaking with pleasure.

  He’s coming now, too.

  “Thalia,” he cries out with rasping breath and then I feel the warmth of his cum as it spills inside me. “Thalia, Thalia.” His grip on my flesh loosens, his pace beginning to slow.

  I’ve never been fucked so much and so thoroughly in my life. Three damn orgasms in a row and Alejo seems like he can go all night. I suppose that’s an advantage to by being fucked by someone younger.

  The thought wants to turn into something more. It wants me to think about it.

  Think about what I’ve done.

  What just happened.

  But the haze of the orgasm has slowed my brain and my limbs feel like jelly, while my soul is soaring elsewhere, higher and higher.

  Holy. Shit.

  Alejo slowly pulls out and I feel his seed run down my legs.

  My body feels empty without him.

  My heart is pounding from him.

  And the awareness of the situation, the reality of what just happened, is knocking at the door of my conscience, trying to get in.

  I can’t believe he just fucked me in the steam room.

  He places his hand on my lower back since I’m still bent over. “Are you okay?”

  I get up. Too fast. The steam, the heat…everything is making me feel dizzy.

  “Yes,” I say, my hand to my head, closing my eyes briefly. “I’m fine. I think…I think I need to get out of here.”

  “Of course,” he says, handing me my bikini bottoms. “Do you want help?”

  I shake my head and try to get them on, holding onto his arm for balance.

  I glance at his cock, half-spent and yet looking like it could go again.

  What the hell? Is he a machine?

  “Where did you put your swimsuit?” I ask.

  “It’s out there.”

  “Okay, I think I should go first, then you follow me.”

  “I might just stay in here for a few more minutes,” he says.

  I nod. “Okay.”

  I make a move to go but he reaches out and grabs my arm, pulling me up to him and kissing me. “Tell me you’re not running away,” he says as we break apart, his eyes searching mine.

  I swallow, feeling spent and thirsty. “I’m not running away. I just need to go outside and get fresh air.”

  I’m not sure he believes me.

  I’m not sure I believe myself.

  Chapter 13

  Thalia

  I have a dreamless sleep.

  If I even sleep at all.

  I should have passed out. My body is absolutely aching everywhere Alejo touched me, memories of his fingerprints feeling like little bruises. I’m sore between my legs, sensitive on the neck and jaw where he nipped at me, my lips and nipples tender from his tongue and teeth. My hips are slightly purple. He fucked me like the world was ending and maybe it kind of was, just for us, just in that moment, the steam swallowing us whole.

  But as exhausted as my body was from all of that, my mind would not shut down.

  I wasn’t even having coherent thoughts; it was just the images of me and Alejo over and over in my head, mixed in with a million feelings.

  I felt wanted.

  I felt dangerous.

  I felt stupid.

  Ashamed.

  Confused.

  Horny.

  Obsessed and broken and empowered.

  I felt all of those things wrap around me all night, pulling me into an internal battle, and now that I’m lying here and staring at the faint grey morning light that’s coming in the window, I’m more torn and confused than ever.

  It didn’t help that the moment it was over between us and we left the steam room, I went straight home to shower. I wasn’t needed at Valdebebas anymore but still, my first instinct was to run, so I came here and drank a lot of wine and watched a lot of stupid shows on Netflix, trying to forget that it happened.

  But that was impossible.

  Now, I’m trying to conjure the power to get out of bed and get ready for work. There’s a game tomorrow; I’m needed as a therapist, not just to Alejo but to everyone else. I need to go in there with my can-do attitude and focus on my job.

  I just don’t know how the hell I’m going to do that now.

  Alejo touched me all over.

  I called out his name, dug my nails into his skin.

  He came inside me.

  Thank god I have an IUD, but I still should have been more careful.

  Fuck, maybe we should have not done that at all, if we’re looking at all the should haves.

  But it happened.

  And I need to make peace with it before I fuck up bigtime.

  We won’t be so lucky next time.

  There is no next time, I remind myself. Stop thinking like that. You did it, you got him out of your system. It’s over.

  It’s over.

  I manage to shower and get dressed and go to work as if I’m in a dream.

  As usual, tensions are high, but I’m so locked in my head that I barely even notice. I go through the motions, working on some of the players with wrapping their ankles or massaging their upper thighs. It isn’t until Luciano calls me over to him that I snap out of it.

  “What seems to be the problem?” I ask as I go over to him where he’s sitting on the table.

  “Luciano?” Mateo says to him from the door of the warm-up room. “Time to go.”

  “I’m going to get Thalia to look at my shoulder,” he says, to which Mateo just nods and walks off.

  “Your shoulder?
Is it bothering you?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says, bringing it up and wincing. “Anytime I hold it back here, I get this pain.” He winces and reaches over, pressing down between his neck and his shoulder blade. “Right here.”

  “Have you tried not holding your arm back like that?” I joke.

  “Ha ha,” he says. “I just don’t want it to get worse at the wrong moment.”

  “Of course. I saw Eduardo working on you. That didn’t do anything?”

  “A little, but now it’s like I have a numb knot back there. I heard you can do that thing with the needles.”

  “Dry needling? Sure.”

  I go and grab my kit and glance over his bare upper body.

  Like Alejo, he’s perfectly ripped, even at his age.

  Which is more or less my age.

  Funny how of all the people on this team to get involved with, I mean if I had to, Luciano would have made the most sense. He’s handsome, he’s charming, he’s funny, he’s got a great body, and he’s the freaking captain of the team, as well as the captain of the Portuguese national team. We’re close in age. He’s single. He’s got a good way about him. It would have made sense.

  And yet that didn’t happen. If Luciano got injured and I had been rehabbing him in such a way every day for weeks on end, would we have ended up the same as Alejo and me? Something tells me no. I think Alejo was after me from the moment we laid eyes on each other. His injury only brought us closer together and made more opportunities arise.

  It was always going to be Alejo.

  It’s like I knew from the very start.

  “Everything okay?” Luciano asks.

  I realize I’m just staring into space.

  “Yes, yes, sí,” I tell him, quickly feeling for the knot he’s talking about.

  “You almost sounded like a Spaniard,” he jokes.

  “Well, Alejo is helping me with my Spanish.”

  His brow raises. “Is he now?”

  “Sí,” I say emphatically, not liking that look in his eyes as I’m swabbing down his shoulder.

  “You guys have gotten awfully close,” he comments after a moment.

  I pause with the swabbing before clearing my throat and slipping on the latex gloves.