Javi paced up and down the floor of his loft. Maya was late. Maybe she wasn’t coming, and she’d only agreed to this in order to show him how much he’d hurt her. Turnabout. Fair play. That kind of thing. Regret laced its way around his chest.
He really hoped that she would still show up. Something about Maya coming back now was destined, as if he’d finally mended fences with his family—or started to—and now she was back so that he could fix what was broken between them.
And he wanted to fix their friendship almost as much as he wanted to fuck her. Almost, but not quite.
His dick felt like steel rebar hanging between his legs, and his brain wouldn’t stop thinking of reasons that she wouldn’t come.
Maybe she didn’t want him anymore. Maybe she changed her mind because of Graciela’s bullshit. Maybe this was how she would punish him.
It might be better if she didn’t show up at all. He hadn’t even been inside her and she had busted through his psyche with a few kisses and far too fleeting touches. Once they’d fucked, he might be catatonic. He couldn’t wait to find out, and she was torturing him by being late.
By not showing up, she would be punishing them both, because she’d kissed him back. And she was true to her word.
Just when he thought about picking up the phone and demanding her ETA, threatening to comb the entire city to find her, someone knocked on his door.
When he looked through his peephole, she was wringing her hands and shifting on her feet. Nervous. Like this meant something to her. As if she wasn’t trying to punish him with a taste of something he now needed more than anything.
He yanked the door open, and pulled her inside the loft. As soon as the door slammed shut, he pressed her body against it with his own. He couldn’t stand any more air between them.
When he took her mouth, she bit into his bottom lip, which heated him even more. He wanted nothing more than to devour her, but that wouldn’t do. He needed to seduce her out of this “one night” bullshit. And, if he still knew anything about his erstwhile friend, he wouldn’t be able to do with lust that bordered on barbarism.
So, he stepped back enough to read the look on her face, but not enough to let her go. Her body jerked when he did so, and she almost slid down the wall until he pinned her there with his hands on her shoulders.
The look in her eyes said that she was as affected by this thing between them—a thing that had taken on a life of its own and threatened to consume them. If he couldn’t get her out of his system, she would destroy him forever. Not like the divorce had. He’d had a bit of a temper tantrum about that. Having Maya living in his veins for much longer would make him into a different man entirely.
She was salvation and destruction, all in one package.
* * * *
Maya was so fucked, so fucked, and not in the fun way. The way that she’d been anticipating since the last time she saw him. No, she was fucked in the same way that her mom had been the instant she’d fallen under her father’s spell. There was nothing she could do to stop it. She could only manage it and put it in its place.
One night.
When she recovered from the kiss—no, the full-frontal assault—Javi had laid down on her as soon as she walked through the door, she jerked against his hold on her. She couldn’t let him hold her down, get under her skin. If she did that, she’d be fucked and lost at the same time. She’d be a goner, like her mother. She’d belong to him to use and abuse and discard faster than she would care to admit.
No. She had to steer the boat back to someplace that she could control.
“Move.” It came out harsher than she’d intended, but they had the right effect. Javi backed up as if she was a wild animal. His whole demeanor changed from the conqueror to the conquered.
That change should have thrilled her, but it didn’t. Still, she wasn’t ready for the kind of rampage that Javi’s kiss wanted to run, through the walls that she had to keep up with him, especially with him.
“Take off your pants.” She made a motion toward the wool slacks that showed every inch of his hard on. It made her mouth water, but she wouldn’t be putting him in her mouth until he’d spent a good long time on his knees. For now, she wanted to take a good look at what she’d bought and paid for with one night—and a piece of her soul.
“You first.”
She shook her head. “That’s not how this is going to go. Not until I say. Now. Take. Off. Your. Pants.”
His mouth kicked up in a wicked grin that made her skin flush and her panties soak even more. Her very expensive panties that made her feel too vulnerable for his eyes just yet. He paused, but then he obeyed.
“Your wish.” He pulled off his shirt with one hand, over the back. Fucked.
“If my wish was my command, your pants would be off and you would be on your fucking knees thanking me for showing up here.” Her voiced cracked a little on the edges, and she hoped that he wouldn’t notice.
“You like it like that? Should I call you ‘mistress?’”
No. She did not like it like that. At least, not always. She knew that if she let him give her what she liked, how she liked it, she would never ever escape him. She would camp out in his bedroom and he wouldn’t be able to make her leave.
That was unacceptable. They both knew that she would never be the kind of girl he could take to charity events; she could never be a proper mother to his children. She would never fit in with his sisters, and his parents would never accept him being with a dark brown Boricua from the actual ghetto with a murderous con man for a father.
It wouldn’t happen. She wasn’t his type. The way he looked at her told her that he found her crazy sexy.
He unbuckled his pants and pushed them to the floor. She made no move to take off the silk dress she’d pulled on. The one that she was sure betrayed her diamond-hard nipples.
No one who sat at a desk all day had thighs like that. He must still run and lift like he did in grad school. He looked like a classical statue, except for the hair. He was hairy everywhere. She took her time looking him up and down. And, to his credit, he stood there and took her scrutiny—a man utterly sure of his appeal and willing to wait for her.
Her gaze caught on the bulge in his black boxer briefs. Of course it did, how would it not? She must have looked there for almost thirty seconds. He cupped his hand over his cock and squeezed. Her core squeezed at the same time, and she her knees almost gave out.
“You make me so holy shit hard that I couldn’t walk toward you and rip that dress off if I tried.” His voice was scary-desperate. Something she’d never heard on him before.
“Good. I want you to stay put.” She decided to punish him by making him wait. She took a stroll around the perimeter of his condo, staying out of his reach. It fit him. Spare, industrial, but everything top-of-line luxurious. She dropped her purse on the couch and ran her hand across the fabric. No leather for Javier. He would want something soft against his skin that wouldn’t stick to sex-damp body parts.
That was the problem. She knew this man too well. That’s why having him seemed like the most important thing ever. That’s why this felt like some sort of wedding night and not a one-night stand.
“Leave your boxers on.” She had her back to him. She didn’t look at him as she pulled her dress over her head and placed it, carefully, on her bag. She heard his sharp intake of breath and a grumbled curse that almost made her laugh out loud.
A surge of power charged up her spine. She could tell him exactly what she wanted him to do, and he would do it. That power made some of her anxiety over the fallout from tonight dissipate.
She walked toward his kitchen; she’d been so keyed up after that kiss that she hadn’t noticed the take-out bags on the kitchen counter. She passed him from behind and brushed a hand against his cotton-covered behind.
“You were going to feed me?”
“Of course. I’ll take care of you however you want.”
She liked that, too much. Him taking care of her made her chest ache for this to be real.
“I don’t want food. I can get food all on my lonesome.” She didn’t need him to take care of her. She needed his head between her thighs, tasting her. She needed him not to forget that she had the power now. The power to give in to their chemistry and the strength to walk away once it was over, unshaken and unbruised.
She didn’t want to punish him, precisely; she wanted him to know that he didn’t control her just by existing in the same air space anymore. She needed the mystique to be gone. She needed the real, sweaty, awkward sex thing to supplant all the fantasies she’d built up over the years.
She sat up on his cold concrete counter top. Javi had followed her into the kitchen and caged her in with both hands at her hips. “Cold? Let me get you a blanket.” As soon as he started to shift back towards the couch, she grabbed his wrist. Any cold she felt was instantly gone.
She looked at their skin together. Her fingers weren’t that much darker than his. A person couldn’t tell that they were so far apart in social status and everything that came with it from looking at their skin together. But that wasn’t what mattered.
“I don’t need this to be comfortable, Javi.” She wasn’t a pain slut or anything, but she wanted to feel everything with Javi. Not in her heart, she couldn’t give him that. But she wanted scraped knees and his fingerprints in her thighs.
She wanted evidence that she could beat him at his own game. And she wanted to forget him in time with the fading marks.
He jerked against her when she leaned in and nipped at his jaw. He’d shaved down to the stubble; he looked younger. The same one she’d loved from a distance. She wished she hated that face, but she didn’t.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.
“Too fucking late.”
His jaw set at her harsh tone, and his abdomen rippled under her fingers, as she ran one paint-stained fingertip over each defined muscle.
He leaned in and his lips touched the skin behind her ear. The shock of having him touch her intimately, somewhere he never would touch just a friend made her fingers flex involuntarily. He notice and laughed.
“I did hurt you, and I’m sorry, mi cielo.” He licked a trail down the side of her neck, until he got to the strap of her bra. “But you wouldn’t wear something like this for me if you didn’t want this to be good.” He snapped the strap—just slightly—by pulling with his teeth and releasing it.
She let go of his wrist and leaned back until she could look him in the eye. “You don’t know what will be good for me, Javi. You might call me ‘your heaven,’ but you put me through hell.”
His eyes turned from grass green almost to black. Like he was angry. Was he mad at her for saying it? For admitting he’d hurt her? For saying out loud that loving him had sucked? It had been painful, and she didn’t want to go there again.
He lowered his lips to her breast bone and lingered there. Her heart tried to escape her chest. She wanted to touch his face. Instead, she gripped his hair and pulled his mouth up to hers. She didn’t want to talk about the past anymore. She wanted him inside her as soon as possible.
“Fuck me. That’s how you can make it up to me. Don’t make love to me. Quit with the endearments. Fuck me until I forget you’re an asshole.”
He closed the distance and kissed her. Any illusion that she had total control over this beast of a man shattered as he fucked her mouth with his tongue. She could feel her lips swelling under his and her pussy aching for him. Before he’d treated her like she was the skittish animal, and now they were both clawing and rubbing and devouring each other.
She felt it creeping across her skin, wherever he touched—madness. She was out of control, and she loved it.
She wasn’t sure how she ended up naked and wrapped around an equally naked Javi as he carried her over to the couch and didn’t much care. She wanted as much of her skin touching his as possible.
When he put her down on the couch, he stood up and she almost came from the look on his face. His mouth was red from where she’d been biting at him. Welts from her nails digging into his shoulders. And his cock tapped his belly; sweet Lord.
He bent over the coffee table, where he’d placed a box of condoms. Large ones. There was a box of twelve, and she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to try to use all of them that night. The idea of him using them with some of his supermodel super-friends made her want to use teeth when she finally got his cock in her mouth. But her vagina wanted to cry at the idea of having sex with him that many times in one night, so she’d have to stop caring about the rest of those condoms. And she still wasn’t coming back for more.
He pulled one off a strip and put it back down. Organized, efficient, so he wouldn’t have to fumble around for it later. That was one of the things she’d always liked about him. He gave the appearance of laziness, but it was really extreme efficiency.
She drew her knees up and nodded toward the condom. “Are you going to go down on me, or are you going to cheat and let Mr. Big Dick do the work for you?”
He laughed. “Are you going to joke around all night, or are you going to open your legs so I can get to work?”
He didn’t wait for her reply; he peeled open her legs and perched her feet on his shoulders in one, smooth motion. His hands bracketed her pussy, and he didn’t hesitate. He didn’t tease her. No, he took advantage of the fact that she’d drawn things out early, the fact that she wasn’t sure if she hated him or loved him, and drove her up so fast and hard with his mouth that she let out an unintelligible moan/scream that echoed against the cement walls.
That sound just fueled the fire, and he sucked her clit into his mouth. Her legs seized up, pulling him closer. She dug her fingers into his hair so hard that she would likely come away with clumps of it if he didn’t make her come soon.
He worked two of his blunt fingers into her and rubbed her g-spot. He found it like a goddamned champion. Her body writhed and fought to take him in deeper, and he kept sucking harder. She should probably have checked to see if he was breathing, but until he gave her an orgasm, she wasn’t entirely sure she cared.
Her orgasm started small, like a tiny leak in a dam. But it grew fast and out of control. When she finally had her release, it rushed through her, flooding everything. The pressure grew too much, too fast. Her moans became full-on screams, but she had the presence of mind to bite back the tears that threatened.
He hadn’t touched her emotions, not really. He was that good at eating pussy.
And he knew exactly when to stop. When she opened her eyes, he was sitting back on his knees. Her feet were still propped up on his shoulders. His dick was still hard, but his face was slack and satisfied.
Both of them were sweaty. She was so fucked.
* * * *
Javi wanted to beat his chest and strut around his apartment naked, but that wouldn’t get the job done. He licked his lips before he wiped off his stubble with his palm. With the other hand, he stroked Maya’s inner thigh. Her skin was so soft. And she tasted every bit as good as he’d imagined.
It was a good thing that he’d gotten her off so fast, or he would have come all over his couch. He needed to get her to make that sound again. That desperate keening was like discordant, Nordic music that shouldn’t work, but did.
Her eyes were heavy-lidded, and her skin was sweaty, and his dick needed to be inside her in the next ten seconds.
Fuck me until I forget you’re an asshole.
He ripped open the condom wrapper; she sat up and looked while he rolled it on. Her feet hit the floor and her breasts swayed into his face. He couldn’t resist taking one nipple into his mouth and sucking until her body jerked.
Her involuntary sounds and movements, the ones she couldn’t hide behind her walls—the anger, the impulsive outbursts, the posturing—made him happy. The real Maya was wide open to him.
He crawled on top of her, grabbed her ass, and rolled them over to the chaise part of the sectional couch. She might think he was a snob, but he was glad he had a couch big enough for a Roman orgy. So he could spread her long limbs and gorge her in total comfort.
After getting a taste of her, he certainly wasn’t about to let her go. She wouldn’t give him a chance to make this real. And he wasn’t worth it. Maybe he had been at some point, but not now. He would only hurt her if this turned into something real. But he could still make her feel good.
He hiked her legs up over his hips with his thighs and sunk inside her a little bit. Her moan was breathy and lacked the intensity from before. But it still came out like it had surprised her.
He rocked into her a little bit deeper and her fingernails made new grooves in his shoulder muscles. If she wanted to bloody him, she could go for it. This was both his confession and his absolution. He’d do his penance in orgasms if he had to, holding off on his own pleasure.
“Harder. I’m not glass.” She punctuated her words with her feet flexing against the back of his thighs. He’d always thought his dick was the most important erogenous zone, but everywhere Maya touched set him on fire as if she had a direct line to his balls from anyplace on his body.
He did her bidding and picked up his pace, their bodies snapping together faster and faster. Her lithe body was so agile that she didn’t even need leverage to meet his rhythm. Like she was made for him. Because she was. And he was a stupid, miserable prick who would only get to have this once.
As he plunged inside her, his balls tightened and something in his chest caught. Actually being inside this woman brought the gravity of his mistake home. He’d done this. He’d cost them both this for years. He could have been fucking this woman all along.
He knew what he was about in bed. He loved fucking, and made sure his partners did, too. But this was more. It was as if his life was on the line with every stroke, every groan, every drop of sweat. He was on the edge of his control when he bit into the tendon in her neck, which set her off.
She spasmed around him. He continued fucking her to the beat of her release until his own caught him almost by surprise. It came up his spine and rocked his whole body. He might have gone blind for a split second, but for the fact that he couldn’t stop looking at Maya underneath him.
Perfect.
Even as he pulled out to take care of the condom, he lowered his lips to hers. He tossed the used prophylactic on the floor; he’d take care of it later. Right now, he needed more skin-to-skin contact. It was weird. He wasn’t a cuddler. Karrie hadn’t been a cuddler either. Nor had she been into hot, sweaty sex. At least not with him.
Sometimes, he wondered if she’d been punishing him for not loving her enough, if she’d suspected that he was holding something back, so she’d held back even more.
Javi had held back nothing with Maya, and he didn’t know if he could pull himself away from her now. But he couldn’t say that. She’d be out of his apartment and his life so fast, he wouldn’t be able to get another word out.
Before he could say anything stupid, she shoved at his shoulder and said, “You’re still an asshole, but I need food before you get another crack.”