His for the Summer: 50 Loving States, Florida (8 page)

Pause. Then:
“Close.”

“How close?”
she asked, frowning up at the camera.

“Why don’t you tell me how most of your dinner dates go?”

Okay if that was the way he wanted to play it, fine. She took a sip of the Riesling Hank had poured before leaving.

“Usually they start out fine. I ask a bunch of questions, because I like getting to know people. But then they try to ask me about myself, and it gets kind of awkward.”

“Because you don’t like to talk about your family or your past.”

“Yeah, exactly,”
she typed back.
“Do you like to talk about your family?”

“Now I do. I’ve got a half-brother, and we’ve gone into business together.”

“Parents?”

“Gone.”

“Both of them?”

“Yeah, my dad died when I was a kid, and my mom bounced almost as soon as I was born. Abandoned my older half-brother, too. I guess she was just built that way.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me, too. But you know, shit happens.”

“Is that why you picked me? Because I have a messed up family, too?”

One of those pensive dot-dot-dot’s, then:
“No.”

“Then why?”

“Can I ask you something now that may make things awkward?”

Man, this guy was good at avoiding personal questions, she thought to herself. But nonetheless, she answered,
“Sure, ask away.”

“Why haven’t you deposited the check for August?”

“Because I’m still trying to make sure you’re not a figment of my imagination?”
Cera joked, hoping that quip would serve as a good enough answer.

But less than a second later, he typed,
“You know I’m not.”

So she sighed and told him the truth
. “I’m trying to decide how long I can do this. Two months is one thing. But three, I don’t know.”

Another long pause.

“Having sex with me was that difficult for you?”

“No, not difficult at all!”
she found herself rushing to type.
“In fact it was too easy. It kind of scared me. It was just one night and it was so messed up. But…”
she bit her lip as she typed:
“I can’t stop thinking about you.”

Yet another long pause. Then six words appeared on her screen:
“Now you know how I feel.”

Cera shook her head at the screen, finding it hard to believe he’d been just as consumed by thoughts of their one night together as she had.

“But you stayed away for two weeks.”

“I didn’t stay away. I was in another state on business.”

“But…”
she started to type, only to have a second text message pop up before she could finish the thought.

“And you should know, I was supposed to be there for all of June. But I flew back today. For you. Believe me, you’re not the only one feeling crazy right now.”

“I…”
Cera typed that one letter but then stopped, not knowing what to say. Or how to ask why he would have paid her $15,000 for what amounted to one hour of her time on the first day of June.

However, before she could figure out how to ask her question, four more words appeared on her screen:

“Put on the blindfold.”

12

He thought he’d handle it better this time. After two whole weeks away he should have handled it better.

But when he came into the white bedroom and found her bent over and naked on top of the bed, he knew it would be even harder for him this time. Looking at her in this position made it easy to believe she’d been here ever since he ran out on her two weeks ago. Just waiting for him to take her again.

And fuck did he want to take her again.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,”
she’d typed.

But that was an understatement as far as his situation was concerned. She’d occupied his every waking minute since he’d seen her last. All he had thought about for the last sixteen days was her. Was
this
.

He put the mirror in place and set the timer on her phone for an hour. But that was all. He didn’t even bother to get undressed this time. Just unzipped his trousers and palmed on a condom. Then he pushed two fingers into her, hoping to God she was at least a little wet…

He let out a hoarse groan. Her pussy was completely slick as if the mere act of waiting for him to get here had turned her on. She sucked in her breath when he pushed in, then whimpered under his exploring fingers, her drenched folds pushing back on his hand.

This girl.

He flipped her onto her back, pinning her arms above her head, so she couldn’t accidentally find his scar again. But not even that could have kept him from taking her at this point.

He was so hard. It felt like his dick would break off if he didn’t get inside her. He entered her with single thrust, groaning with relief as he sank into her hot space.

“Yes!” she seemed to be saying for both of them. “Yes, I’ve been waiting for this…”

He pushed into her even further, stretching her pussy to the limit. Then he began his second claim with slow, grinding circles. All the desire he’d kept pent up flowing out of him as he watched them move together in mirror. Savoring each other like they’d separately savored Hank’s gumbo earlier that evening.

Her hot sex gripped him so tight, it felt like it was pulling him down, down, all the way down. Forcing him to cover her body with his like a blanket, so they were as close as they could possibly get. Soft breasts sliding up and down on his hard chest, as his big body completely dominated hers.

Then she kissed him, her full lips raising up to capture his, joining them above as they were joined below.
How had he denied himself this for so long?
he asked himself with true wonder. It felt like they’d been apart two years as opposed to two weeks. And now, all he wanted to do was stay buried inside her, kissing her like this forever.

Unfortunately, he was so busy luxuriating in her kiss, he forgot to regulate her orgasm. Before he was ready, her face squeezed tight, a climax overtaking her.

“Benny!” she called out with a strangled cry.

That broke the spell. Before he could stop himself, his balls constricted and his entire body seized up as he jetted everything he’d kept pent up for the last two weeks into the condom.

Ragged breathing. Lots of it. Like they’d just walked away from their own hurricane. Eventually, Gus somehow found the strength to roll off of her, falling onto the bed beside her.

They lay there, side by side like that. How long? Too long, Gus discovered when the timer he set went off, the sound of crickets filling up the room.

Cursing, he sat up. He had to leave the room before she took off the blindfold. But before he could get out of the bed, two hands found his arm and squeezed it tight.

“Please don’t go,” she said, her voice soft as her luscious body. “I promise I won’t remove the blindfold. Or try to look at you. Or touch you in any way you don’t like. But please don’t run off again.”

Gus watched her plead with him, naked except for the blindfold. He struggled with himself not to answer out loud.

But in end, he controlled himself. He removed her hands from his arm, one at a time. An effective but silent reminder:
I touch you. You don’t touch me.

One she seemed to get despite his lack of words.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, lowering her head. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

No, she shouldn’t have,
he thought.
And I shouldn’t want to stay here as badly as I do.

Reminding himself of the plane that was waiting at the private landing strip in Miami-Dade County, he turned off the crickets on her phone. Then he made himself get out of the bed and peel back the covers.

“What are you doing?” she asked, when he lifted her in his arms, curving an arm under her legs. “I’m too heavy to lift like this.”

Now Gus really had to fight hard not to answer out loud. Not to tell her how much he liked her generous weight in his arms. That she was soft and bountiful, everything any red-blooded man could ever want in a woman. How he missed her warm body as soon as he set her back down on the bed, this time in the empty space he’d created.

Not what she’d asked for, but she took it in stride, curling up into a sleep position as he covered her with the blanket.

“I won’t take off the blindfold until I hear the door click,” Gus heard her say as he disposed of the condom in the nearby wastebasket. “I know I kept you here longer than you wanted. Thank you for dinner.”

Her words made him wonder who was more surprised when he took off his clothes and brought them to the closet before returning to the bed and lifting up the white covers. Who was more shocked when he climbed into the other side of the bed and lay down beside her. Her or him?

Him, definitely him, he decided as he settled himself against her back, wrapping his arms around her.

Because as he wondered what the hell he was doing, she happily sighed as if he were finally where she’d known he belonged all along.

“Thank you,” she murmured, kissing the forearm he wrapped around her torso. Soon after, her soft breathing filled the silence in the room, telling him she’d fallen fast asleep.

But he lay awake for a long time, wondering what spell this woman had cast over him.

And if he’d ever be able to break it.

13

Cera woke up the next morning in total darkness. Warm, toasty, and very, very turned on.

The reason for all the sensations were soon explained when she felt a head move between her legs, rough whiskers once again scraping against the soft underside of her thighs as a tongue lazily explored her most intimate depths.

“Benny,” she said sleepily, and her hands drifted down to tangle in his thick hair.

He was Latino, she decided then. Not just because of the music he’d played while giving her a massage earlier in the month, but also because of his hair. She couldn’t really explain it, but it felt dark, like inky waves captured between her fingers.

Benny took a long, sweet time eating her out that morning, as if he had no other place he’d rather be, and no breakfast he’d rather be having than her.

Too sleepy to do much more than lie there, Cera let him do whatever he wanted between her legs. The truth was, she was just stupid grateful that he was still here. And that for once in her lonely adult life, she hadn’t woken up alone. She loved the feeling of wake up like this. Waking up to him.

And the new and lovely sensations building up in her soon became too much. She fell over the waterfall’s edge, coming under the insistent tug of his mouth like honey oozing out of a jar.

Then as if waking her up like that wasn’t enough, he actually came up to kiss her mouth above as slowly as he kissed her mouth below. A kiss that made her feel like she was melting into him, her heart growing a tender new skin.

“Good morning,” she finally said with a sleepy smile, when he finished canoodling the heck out of her.

Of course, he didn’t answer. But he did pull her into his arms and settle back against the pillows, which was good enough for Cera.

At least she thought it was good enough.

But then she heard herself asking him, “Are you disfigured in some way you don’t want to talk about?”

He went still, and she could have sworn his heart actually skipped a beat beneath her ear.

“If you are, I just want you to know I wouldn’t care. So if that’s why you’re making me wear this blindfold…” She trailed off, all the emotions he’d made her feel since his return piling up in the back of her throat. “I just want you to know you don’t have to worry about that, because I don’t care what you look like. Only how you make me feel.”

The silence stretched on for so long, she had to restrain herself from saying anything else. From throwing more words into it and making the tension even worse. But then his much larger hand wrapped around her right one and brought it to…

His face, she realized, squinting behind the blindfold. He was running her hand over his face. A smooth forehead, one slightly wide nose with a sharp bridge, two eyes with long feathery lashes, and a wide mouth. Everything she touched felt absolutely perfect and cool to the touch, like a sculpture.

She didn’t have to be trained in reading faces by touch to suss out that he wasn’t disfigured. At all. In fact, the only not perfectly smooth details she could find on his face were his rough five o’clock shadow and two indents in his cheeks that could only be a set of dimples.

From what she could tell, Benny was extremely symmetrical. Handsome, maybe even pretty like—

She cut herself off before she let herself form a mental picture of that pretty boy from long ago. The one who’d watched her behind a wicked gaze, like he was waiting for her to tell him a joke.

That boy had no business knocking on her mind’s door this morning. He was in her past. And Benny was in her now.

“So you’re not disfigured,” she said to her now.

The smile changed underneath her hand and she had to wonder if he was smirking now.

“Why the blindfold then?”

Again he didn’t answer. Just took her hand and put it back down by her side where he found it.

“You’re good looking, aren’t you?” she asked. “Like, so good looking, you want me to know. Like, so good looking, you’d rather I be totally confused by your motivation here than think you weren’t totally hot. Even for a second.”

Again he went still.

Good
, she thought. Serves him right to get called out like this. He might be the only one who could see in this arrangement, but she found she liked the feeling of being the only would who could talk. It made her feel more in control, even though she realized she was totally kidding herself on that front. She could choose to feel however she wanted, but she really, really wasn’t in control of anything as far as this situation with Benny went.