Letters to the Baumgarters

Chapter Two

Dear Carrie and Doc,

You’re not going to believe

Remember how I said I wasn’t interested in

Carnavale turned out to be a lot more interesting than I expected…

“Carnavale.” He whispered the word into my ear. The city was laid out before us like brightly colored jewels on velvet. The lights of the parade and shows going on below in the Piazza lit up all of Venice. Each costumed dancer glittered like a piece of shiny candy we could have plucked up and eaten. I watched, enthralled, feeling Nico’s warm breath against my cheek. Even in my desperate attempt to avoid the festivities, I couldn’t help but be a part of them. Italy had a way of drawing you in, whether you liked it or not.

It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“This is your place?” I asked, hugging myself as I looked down through the little window of the attic room.

“Yes.” He peered over my shoulder and I felt him pressed against me, long and lean. “This way, I can have my own space, but also be near my family.”

“You’re close with them?”

He shrugged. “They’re my family. I take care of them since my mother, she can’t work anymore.”

“She was a seamstress?” I remembered her talking about it.

“Her arthritis is too bad now for her to work.”

“Thank you for showing me this.” I turned slightly to look at him, his eyes gleaming silver in the darkness. “Thank you for inviting me today. About what happened… I’m sorry…”

“Come. Sit.” He led me over to his bed and we perched on the edge, side by side. If I hadn’t known he was gay, and if I hadn’t had so much wine to drink, I wouldn’t have followed him. I would have been on my guard and tense when he put his arm around me and held me close. But I felt safe with him, safer than I had with a single man in a long time, so I let him comfort me, settling in as we reclined on his bed, tucking my head under his chin.

“Do you want to talk about it, bella?”

Bella. He was just using a common Italian endearment, the word for beautiful. He couldn’t have known the memories it triggered for me.

“No.” I shook my head and held on, closing my eyes. “Can we just… not talk.”

“Si.” His lips brushed my forehead and I sighed in relief. If I’d had to explain, I would have broken down completely, shattered into a million little pieces that poor Nico would have had to pick up and somehow put back together before we went down to face his family.

Instead we held each other, the music of Carnavale playing below like the soundtrack of a distant dream. It was probably the wine coursing through me, making me far too warm in the chilly attic room. I hadn’t had that much to drink in a long time, and even all the food we’d consumed hadn’t dampened the buzzing in my head.

It was the wine-that’s what I told myself when Nico began stroking my hair, sending little shivers through me. I reminded myself that this was impossible, that he was simply comforting a crazy woman he’d had the misfortune to invite into his home. That I was lucky he hadn’t kicked me out at the first sign of insanity. And maybe we were both a little drunk and lonely and looking for comfort that night.

“Your family,” I reminded him after a while, although I didn’t want to move. I was sleepy and it felt so good to be held in a man’s arms again, even if nothing was going to come of it. Maybe because nothing was going to come of it.

“Shhh.” He kissed my forehead, tightening his arms around me. “Don’t remind me.”

I smiled. “We can’t stay here forever.”

“What happened to not talking?”

“But-”

I gasped in surprise when he silenced me with a kiss-and not a brotherly little kiss either, this was a full, hard sort of kiss that deepened the longer it went on. I felt faint when we broke apart, my limbs trembling.

“I’m sorry,” he panted. “It was the best way I could think of to keep you quiet.”

“It worked,” I whispered, looking at him in the darkness, incredulous. This couldn’t be happening. For all sorts of reasons.

He kissed me again, this time slower, exploring, his hand running down my side, over my hip, pulling my pelvis in against his. I moaned in response, shifting toward him, sliding my leg up over his.

I don’t know how it happened. I told myself we were drunk, crazy with the sights of Carnavale. Like the masked revelers in the streets, we were anonymous, just heat and friction together in the darkness. I forgot about everything in his arms, giving in to pure sensation, letting instinct and desire alone guide me.

I think I tried to protest once, questioning his motives-and my own-but he drowned me with kisses, the weight of his body on mine a welcome relief from thought. His mouth slanted across mine and he wedged his thigh between my legs, rocking us on the bed to the faint beat of a distant drum. I clung to him, just as hungry as he was.

“Is this okay?” he gasped, kissing his way down my neck, opening the V of my blouse.

“Yes,” I urged, daring to reach down and cup his crotch in response, sighing happily at the bulge found there. The heat of him through his jeans was incredible. I wrapped my legs around him, arching to give him better access as he fumbled with the front hook on my bra, the buttons of my blouse already undone to my waist. “Wait, did you lock the door?”

“Of course.” His mouth moved over my breasts, leaving hot trails of saliva. I didn’t even have time to register that he might have been planning this all along-or was it just an opportunity we both took? I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around what I’d assumed-that he was definitely gay and not interested in me sexually-with what was happening now.

I thought about saying something, asking, clarifying-but I didn’t want to break the mood.

It had been far too long since I’d let a man touch me, and with his hands and mouth roaming and the feel of his hard cock pressed against my hip, the word “no” seemed to have vanished from my vocabulary. Besides, Nico was not only attractive, he was clearly skilled. His tongue made hot circles around my nipple while he unzipped my jeans, sliding a hand inside to find the soft, hairless swell of my labia with his fingers.

“Smooth,” he murmured, his eyes widening in surprise. I hadn’t gone native, still keeping up with the American trend of shaving my pussy completely. “Oh bella, she’s so soft…”

I squirmed as he began exploring, working my jeans down my hips, wanting to give him more. He helped me, tossing them aside as he settled himself between my thighs, my panties still on, the crotch already soaking wet. Nico brushed his cheek against the silk, breathing me in, and I ran a hand through his hair, my nails digging into his shoulders when his tongue found me through the material.

I hooked my thumbs in the elastic of my panties and peeled them down. Nico took them the rest of the way, splaying his big palms on my thighs and spreading me wider for his plunging tongue. I let him take what he wanted, my limbs quivering with an overload of sensation, my hips rocking in rhythm.

He paused only a moment to murmur, “You taste like heaven,” diving back in again with stunning ability coupled with a ferocious enthusiasm that had me at the edge of orgasm in moments.

“Nico!” I gasped a warning, gripping his hair, my pelvis undulating, belly quaking, poised at the brink. His fingers sent me over, dipping deep into my pussy, drawing me out, his tongue punishing my clit with sensation, drowning me with pleasure. I tried to be quiet, too mindful of where we were, who might come knocking on the door, but I couldn’t help crying out with my climax, my body quaking as if the earth had moved beneath me.

“Beautiful,” he whispered, kissing his way up my quivering belly, cupping his whole hand over my mound as we kissed, making me whimper and melt against him. He was fully clothed still, his belt buckle nibbling at my hip, and I moved to rectify that situation, pulling his shirt off, exploring muscle and sinew and flesh in the dark.

He was just as eager as I was, helping me with his belt and zipper, shoving his jeans down his hips. His cock sprang free when I pulled his boxers down, first into my hand and then into my greedy mouth. Nico reclined on the bed, letting me suck him. It had been so long since I’d had a cock in my mouth, since I’d tasted the peppery promise of cum accumulating in clear, sticky droplets at the tip. I was dizzy with desire.

“Here.” He guided me, a fist in my hair, nice and easy, up and down his delicious length. I tasted him in my throat, an easy burn, the promise of more roiling in the tightening scrotum I held cupped in my palm. “Oh god. Yes. Oh yes, bella, yes!”

I wanted to taste him, to feel the flood of his cum over my tongue, but Nico had other ideas. He stopped me, easing his cock out of my mouth and rubbing it over my lips and cheeks and tongue. Then he reached for me, pulling me into the circle of his arms and rolling me onto my back on the mattress, kissing me quiet.

His cock was heated steel between my legs, riding the rails, dipping into the valley of my pussy. The tip teased my sensitive clit, everything slippery wet, before sliding down and finding my entrance. He did this without looking, just feeling his way, hips shifting forward when he felt my flesh give, sliding into me.

“Oh my fucking god.” I said the words in English, surprising us both.

“Good?” He propped himself up on his arms to look down at me in the darkness, the only light coming from the window, a silvery haze.

“Si!” I assured him in Italian, sliding my hands up the muscled flesh of his arms, delighting in the mountains and valleys of his shoulders. “It’s been so long… so very long…”

“For me too.” He bent his head to my neck, beginning to move inside of me, his swollen length creating a delicious friction. “I might not last so long…”

“It’s okay,” I assured him, although part of me never wanted it to end. He felt far too good.

“I’ll try…” He panted in my ear. “Ahhhh god you’re so wet…”

I was. I slid my hand down to touch him, feeling his length where he went into me, the place where we were joined. My pussy was on fire, my clit aching for more, and I touched myself as he fucked me, closing my eyes with pleasure.

“Good girl,” he encouraged, forcing my thighs open further with his, changing the angle of penetration, making us both moan. “Oh fuck.”

“Yes!” I cried, rubbing faster, faster. “Oh please, yes, fuck me, Nico! Fuck me hard!”

He gave into it, not holding back anymore, and the force of him left me breathless, driving me into the soft press of his mattress again and again. I watched him in the faint light from the window, seeing his face change, his eyes squeezing closed, his lower lip drawn between his teeth. His cock was like granite, the heat between our legs a river of lava.

“Come for me,” I begged, squeezing him hard with the muscles of my pussy, his eyes flying open in surprise. “Oh god, yes, yes, Nico, come with me, come with me!”

My climax swallowed me up in one quivering mass, spitting me back out into reality, shivering and dizzy and gasping for air. I hung onto him as he came too, hiding the sound of my name in the soft, moist crook of my neck as he shuddered into me, the hot flood of his cum pulsing through us both.

It took me a long time to recover. He rolled to the side, pulling a sheet over us, and we breathed together in the darkness. At first I couldn’t focus, but when rational thought finally returned, I remembered where I was, who I was with, what we’d done. It wouldn’t be the first time in my life I’d had sex with a stranger, but it was the first time in a very long time.

“Well, I think this was indulgent enough for Fat Tuesday,” I murmured, feeling Nico stir beside me.

He chuckled. “We don’t call it ‘Fat Tuesday’ in Italy. Here, it’s Shrove Tuesday. Do you know what that means?”

I’d heard the term but had no idea what it meant. “No.”

“It means to confess. Have you ever been to confession?”

I smiled. “No.”

“It’s very freeing, to be absolved of all of your sins,” he assured me, tracing my navel with his finger. “Today we confess, and for Lent, we do penance.”

“You deny yourself?” I asked. “What will you give up?”

“We have to give up something we really love for it to be true penance,” he explained. “I considered giving up sex, but now… perhaps I’ll give up chocolate instead.”

“Good call.” I laughed.

“So what do you have to confess?” he asked, leaning over and kissing the side of my breast, his fingers tracing light patterns over my skin.

“Far too much for the time we have.” I slid my arm around his neck and kissed his cheek, grateful when a knock came on the door.

“Nico!” It was Mama Dorotea and the sound of her voice had us both scrambling for our clothes. “Why is the door locked? What are you doing? Your sister is leaving, you should come say goodbye!”

We fumbled with buttons and zippers, Nico making excuses the whole while, assuring his mother we’d be right down. Thankfully Giulia and Will and the baby were already gone and I didn’t have to make any explanations. When Nico offered to take me home, I refused, telling him I preferred to walk. I needed to clear my head, I said. That much was true.

But it was only about ten blocks, and I would have needed a far greater distance to accomplish that goal, I realized, as I approached the front steps of Cara Lucia’s. I saw the light on in her window up front, heard laughter inside. I felt as if I’d been part of a family again tonight for the first time in so long. I hadn’t felt a part of things that way since Carrie and Doc had practically adopted me, and it had woken something in me I had almost forgotten about.

“There you are!” Cara Lucia opened her door as I made my way down the hall. How she’d known I was there was beyond me. The woman seemed to have extrasensory perception. She stood only five-foot-two and her graying hair was pulled up and back, her aging face still quite beautiful. Her daughters looked just like her-all five of them. I could hear them laughing and talking inside. “Come to celebrate Carnavale?”

I felt guilty about not accepting her earlier invitation. I didn’t see any of her other boarders-most of them foreign exchange students-sitting at the dining room table. Had she invited them as well? Or just me, I wondered? I’d had lunch with her almost every week at that table, talking about her husband and daughters, my studies, my life-before. She was probably the closest thing I had to a friend in Italy.

But I still shook my head, smiling. “No, I’m sorry, I’ve had enough celebrating today, I think.”

“I have something for you, wait.” She held up one finger, leaving the door open a crack.

“No, that’s-”

She had disappeared already, so I waited, sure she was bringing me a care package, more food to add to the calorie-laden meal I’d eaten today. I smiled, remembering Nico’s family. Remembering Nico. Just thinking about him made my head swim. What had I gotten myself into?

Cara Lucia reappeared, something small in her palm. Definitely not the care package I’d expected. She held it out, smiling, gesturing for me to take it. “For you.”

The necklace was beautiful, a gold ellipse with a green stone set in the center. “Oh, no, I can’t possibly accept this.”

“It is the emerald eye of Beatrice.” She was already folding it into my hand. “I thought of you and your work with Dante Alighieri and knew you must have it.”

She knew that I was doing my thesis on The Inferno.

“That is so sweet of you.” Of course, now I felt doubly guilty for not taking her up on attending her Carnavale celebration. “Thank you, Cara Lucia.” I leaned over to kiss her cheek.

She beamed. “Perhaps your Dante will return to his Beatrice.”

“You mean Mason?” I blinked, looking down at the charm in my hand. It had never occurred to me that my ex-husband might be my Dante-the doomed love of my life, a relationship destined to end in tragedy, at least on the worldly plane of existence.

“He redeemed himself in the end, you know,” Cara Lucia reminded me with a wink.

“And Beatrice might have been better off if she’d just let him go,” I countered, turning the charm over in my hand. I had to admit, I was thinking of Nico.

When I looked up at Cara Lucia, I saw the speculative look in her eyes. I’d told her a great deal-probably too much-about my relationship with my ex and everything that had happened when it all fell apart. “Anyway, thank you. It’s beautiful.”

“L'esperienza di questa dolce vita,” she murmured, squeezing my hand. It was a quote from Dante- the experience of this sweet life. “It is yours, Cara,” she told me, using the endearment her own man had given her years ago. Cara meant ‘beloved’ and she had been called Cara Lucia her whole life because her husband couldn’t speak her name without putting his love for her first. “It is all of ours.”

I thanked her again for the charm, promising to come by next week some time for lunch, going upstairs and down the hallway to my own room. Jezebel was waiting, mewing impatiently for her own Carnavale feast. So we sat on my little bed and listened to Venice celebrating and I hand-fed her the bread and cheese I had been expecting to eat for my own dinner.

So many things had happened that I hadn’t been expecting today. What else did the experience of this life have in store? I wondered, looking at the charm. So far, aside from a few bright moments, life hadn’t been very sweet to me. But maybe I was just being ungrateful. I put the necklace on and found myself thinking of Nico with a little spark of hope.

I had come to Italy for so many things, including the great food, of course, but sometimes I just wanted a good old American cheeseburger. The Mood Cafe had the best cheeseburgers around, and that’s where I told Nico I’d meet him for lunch. He was late, and I was already eating, drinking a vanilla Coke and dipping my fries in hot mustard, when I saw him walking up the cobblestone street.

The day was bright, a little chilly, but I’d decided to sit outside anyway. Italians were oblivious to the weather. In America, life was about comfort. In Italy, it was about experience. If it was cold, you were cold. If it was hot, you were hot. If it was raining, they didn’t care. In the summer, there was no air conditioning anywhere, and it was hot as hell-but no one cared. Those weren’t problems to be fixed, but rather things to be experienced.

I smiled as he approached, seeing his eyes light up when he saw me. I couldn’t help my body’s instant response when he bent to kiss my cheek, remembering his lips, his mouth, his hands. It still felt like a dream, like something that had happened to someone else and not to me.

“Thank you for waiting, bella,” he murmured against my ear.

“Last minute gondola customer?” I guessed, smiling at the waiter as he refilled my water glass and took Nico’s order-cheeseburger, fries and cherry Coke.

“My mother.” He sipped his own glass of water. “She asked me to come home to help her move a table.”

I blinked. “And you left work for that?”

“I didn’t have any customers.” He shrugged. “Carnavale is over and the tourists have all gone home.”

“But you had a lunch date with me,” I reminded him.

“And here I am.” He spread his hands, taa-daa, and smiled.

“Yes, here you are.” Late, I thought, but didn’t say it. “So tell me something…”

“Anything.” He reached over and snagged one of my fries, crunching happily and grinning at me. There was something about him that made me want to smack him and kiss him at the same time. He reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on who.

“How do you become a gondolier exactly?”

“Do you have career ambitions?” He raised an eyebrow and then laughed. “The training is actually quite extensive. You have to go through a year-long apprenticeship and take several tests.”

“Really?” I moved my plate out of his reach when he went for another fry. “I had no idea it was so involved.”

“The association actually caps the number of gondoliers they’ll allow to work in the city.” His gaze wandered to the people passing on the street and I noticed a pretty blonde-and noticed him noticing her.

“So it’s kind of an exclusive club.” I offered him a fry, a distraction. I didn’t blame him for looking-the woman was stunning-but I also didn’t feel like competing.

“I suppose it is.” He took my peace offering. “My father was a gondolier and my father before him.”

“Wow. So it’s a legacy. Sounds like you were destined to do it.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” He smiled thinly as the waiter appeared with his cheeseburger. Nico dug in immediately, wolfish, talking with his mouth half full. “So what are you going to do with your degree?”

“Probably find a job in the states doing translation. Spending lots of time traveling back to Italy for business.” I watched him swallow a huge bite of cheeseburger, washed down with a swig of cherry Coke. “At least, I hope.”

He paused, chewing his last bite thoughtfully before swallowing. “Why don’t you stay here, work here… live here?”

“I’ve thought about it,” I admitted, seeing the hopeful look on his face and deciding to change the subject. “I have to tell you something.”

“Oh?”

The blonde was coming back this way and I saw his gaze shift again as she passed.

“I’m embarrassed to admit it.”

He smiled, looking back at me. “Confession is good for the soul, remember?”

“Okay… the truth is…” I cleared my throat, glancing first at the disappearing shape of the blonde and then over to the waiter, as if someone might overhear. “Before yesterday, I was under the impression that you were gay.”

He laughed. “Why would you think so?”

“When you dropped me off at the post office, you were talking to a man,” I explained. “Well, not just talking…”

“Ohhh!” His eyes brightened with understanding. “Well, then I guess I have a confession to make as well.”

“You really are gay and I was just a fling?”

“No.” He smiled. “I’m bisexual.”

Well that explained everything, didn’t it?

“Does that bother you?” he asked.

“Actually, no.” I sat back in my chair, making yet another confession. “So am I.”

He looked surprised. “You have been with both men and women?”

I nodded. “My last committed relationship was with both a man and a woman.”

“Interesting.” He went back to working on his cheeseburger, already halfway through, chewing thoughtfully. “I’ve been with men-and women-but never both together.”

“You should.” I grinned. “I highly recommend it.”

“So how did this happen?”

I considered not telling him-I’d kept my relationship with the Baumgartners a secret, not something I was ashamed of, but more like something precious that might be spoiled by sharing it-but he looked so curious and interested and open that I confessed that too.

“I met Carrie and Doc about a year before I left for Italy.”

“Tell me about them.”

And so I did. I told him about meeting Carrie and Doc, about their slow seduction and my ending up in love with them both. It had been an amazing year of my life, something I’d fallen into while my marriage to Mason fell apart. They weren’t the cause of the end of my relationship with my ex, but they were both there to pick up the messy pieces, and I would always be grateful to them for that.

“Both of them? You loved them both?” Nico cocked his head at me.

I nodded. “I did. I do.”

“But they are married?”

“Yes, and very much committed to each other,” I explained. “They loved me and included me, but it was always clear that theirs was the primary relationship. And I was okay with that.”

“Fascinating.”

Of course, I left out the part about being in the middle of a messy divorce from Mason at the time. That didn’t seem relevant. Or maybe I was just kidding myself.

“You are a mystery, bella.” He was done with his meal, leaving a few fries on his plate, an afterthought, and he leaned over to take my hand.

“Nico…” I looked down our hands twined together on the table, remembering the way our bodies melded, dissolved, becoming one. “I can’t help feeling like we’ve opened Pandora’s Box.”

“Yes, perhaps we have,” he agreed, rubbing his thumb against the crease in my palm. “But the thing is, you can’t close it once it’s been opened.”

“Do you want to?”

“Me?” He grinned. “Hell no.”

We both sat back as the waiter appeared, refilling water glasses and asking if we needed anything. We dismissed him as quickly as we could, wanting to keep our focus on each other. I could feel the energy between us, hotter than any sun, and I couldn’t help but turn my face toward it.

“Do you have to go back to class this afternoon?” Nico inquired, leaning in again.

“No.” I met his eyes, full of wanting. “Do you have to go back to work?”

“I should.” He shrugged. “But I don’t want to.”

I bit my lip, tracing the wet rim of my water glass. “What if I asked you to come back to my room?”

Nico half stood, waving at the waiter. “Check!”

“Shhh!” I begged him to be quiet. Cara Lucia was home and while she was, thankfully, hard of hearing, she wasn’t completely deaf. I’d had to sneak him in, up the back stairway, which happened to be right next to my room. Lucky me. The other students weren’t so fortunate-two of them had been caught already this year sneaking paramours into their rooms and one had actually been asked to leave. He couldn’t seem to stop inviting women to his room. I definitely didn’t want to be kicked out-real estate was at a premium and rooms were hard to find for students.

“Sorry,” he apologized, catching me in his arms as I shut the door. “I can’t keep my hands off you.”

“Do you want some coffee?” I headed for my little kitchenette, petting Jezebel on the way. She had come out to investigate the intruder, sniffing at Nico’s pant leg as he followed me. Cara Lucia’s rooms were designed for exchange students. We had our own bath and shower in each, but just a kitchenette-no stove but a small refrigerator, hot plate, a little table and two chairs.

“I have tea. Some juice?”

“I don’t want anything but you.” Nico sat on one of the chairs, scratching Jezebel behind the ears. “Come here.”

I did and he slid his hands around my waist and pulled me close, nuzzling my belly as Jezebel twined around our legs.

Nico sighed dreamily. “I think I’m addicted to you.”

I relented, following the slope of his shoulders, feeling the muscles there, as he looked up at me, smiling. “So your mother and sisters seemed surprised you brought a woman home.”

He shrugged. “I don’t do it often.”

“Why me?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head, his eyes bright with humor. “Are you a witch?”

“Sometimes.” I grinned. “And here I thought I’d converted you.”

“No.” He chuckled. “But a woman like you could definitely convert a gay man.”

“You like what you see?”

His gaze moved over my breasts, outlined by the tight fit of my sweater. “Very much.”

“It’s different in the day time.” We had seen so little of each other in his room. The experience had been just flesh and heat and sensation.

“Yes,” he agreed.

He kissed me, his mouth soft and open, drawing me in. I let him explore with his tongue, let his hands roam over the soft material of my sweater, even let him rub the seam of my jeans between my legs.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said, lifting my sweater to feather kisses around my navel. I pulled my sweater off over my head, revealing a pale, pink bra underneath. He smiled and teased my dark nipples through the sheer material, making them harden. I bit my lip as he slid his hands up to my waist and pulled me closer, his tongue lapping at my nipples through my bra, making wet spots.

“I want to see all of you.”

I let him undress me, my jeans joining my sweater on the floor. The panties matched the bra-I had put them on with the forethought that he might end up seeing them today-and he licked along the top edge of the elastic, making me shiver with anticipation.

“Let’s go to bed,” I suggested, taking his hand and leading him. He was still fully dressed, but I wasn’t having any more of that. I sat on the edge of my bed and he let me undress him, unbuttoning his shirt, opening it to reveal the hard planes of his chest, the ridges of his belly. His jeans were next, his cock already nicely tenting his boxers. I knew the feel of it already, but the sight of it was spectacular, the way it curved up toward my mouth when I freed him so inviting I had to take his length between my lips.

“Oh yes,” he whispered, hands in my hair, urging me on. The thick, black nest of his pubic hair tickled my nose as took all of him into my mouth, watching his face change as I began to really suck him. “Oh that’s so good!”

His praise just made me work harder, taking him in my fist too, using both hand and mouth to pleasure him. He began to thrust his hips, easing his swollen length in and out between my lips, reaching down to cup my breast while I sucked him. It was easy to become eager, greedy. It had been so long for me, and having a cock in my mouth made me melt into a puddle of lust.

“Easy,” he urged, sliding his cock out of my mouth, rubbing it over my lips, my waiting tongue. “So hungry.”

“You have no idea.”

He smiled, pushing me back on the bed, the weight of him delightful as he kissed me. I wrapped my arms around his neck, feeling the hard press of his thigh between mine, the wet, shaved lips of my pussy like a hot suction cup against his leg. He groaned softly against my mouth as I began to ride him like that, using the length of his thigh to rub myself off.

His mouth moved down to my breasts, teasing one nipple and then the other, sending shockwaves through my body. I looked down at his dark, curly head in wonder-how had this happened? His hand was wrapped around the length of his cock, not stroking, just squeezing, the mushroom tip red and swollen. It made my mouth water and my pussy clench.

“I want to taste you.”

I didn’t object. He kissed his way down my belly, my breath held, making it concave. Parting my lips with one finger, he began to explore the soft, pink folds of flesh like a maze or a roadmap. I felt his breath on my thighs and spread them wider for him in encouragement. He smiled, kissing the top of my cleft, so near my clit but not quite touching it, making me whimper with anticipation.

“Beautiful,” was the last thing he said before covering my pussy with his mouth.

His tongue flicked gently at my clit, back and forth at first, then in easy circles. I lifted my hips when his fingers found the entrance of my pussy, probing, easing their way in. My flesh swallowed his fingers, eager for more, and he pumped them in and out as he licked me, driving me higher and higher.

“Oh yes!” I cried when he slid in a third, stretching me wide, his mouth fastened over my mound. “Fuck me like that! Harder!”

I heard him moan against my pussy, his fingers moving into me, deep and hard, the motion shaking my whole pelvis, making the bedsprings squeak and my hips rock up to meet his hand. I couldn’t help it. It felt so good I could hardly keep from screaming-and I’d been the one telling him to be quiet!

“Yes, yes, yes!” I twisted my hips, feeling his fingers turning inside of me, his tongue tracing delicious geometry all over the sensitive bud of my clit. “Oh fuck! You’re gonna make me come all over your face!”

And that’s just what I did, spreading my legs and thrusting up to meet his flickering tongue, his pounding fingers, my orgasm tearing through me like a whirlwind, leaving me shaking in its wake. I was still recovering when he kissed me, letting me taste the musky milk of my pussy on his tongue.

“Tastes good, no?”

I nodded, licking at his lips and chin, making my way down his chest, rolling him to his back. His nipples were hard and I flicked them with my tongue, making him shiver in response, his eyes half-closed, watching my descent.

“Your turn,” I teased, tracing circles around his navel with my fingernail, following the dark treasure trail leading down from belly button to pubic hair. His cock was wet with pre-cum.

“Don’t make me come,” he warned before I’d even taken him into my mouth. “I want your pussy.”

“And she wants you,” I purred, skipping his cock altogether and heading straight for his balls. They were heavy in my hands and I rolled them gently, grazing them with my fingernails. He moaned encouragement when I began to lick them, teasing his sac, watching pre-cum seep from the head of his cock in sticky, clear rivulets.

“Oh god!” He moaned when my fingers found their way down between the crack of his ass, pressing gently, teasing that dimpled recess. “Oh yes!”

Encouraged, I left my finger there when I took him into my mouth, watching his face twist with pleasure when I inserted it up to the first knuckle. I’d had plenty of men do this to me-but very few who would let me do it to them. It was a delightful, and very exciting, surprise.

“You need to stop,” he murmured as I began to pump my finger in and out, the same rhythm I was using with my mouth on his cock. “Before I come in your mouth.”

“I don’t mind,” I gasped, taking him out of my mouth only long enough to say the words.

“I do.” He pulled me off again, biting his lip as I slowly slid my finger out of his ass. “Come here.”

He settled me on top of him, his cock rising toward my navel, making an exclamation point between us. His hands roamed easily over my body, belly, breasts, hips, thighs, as if he could discover my flesh like a blind man reads Braille. I reached down to press the wet head of his cock against my belly, rubbing it gently in circles with my palm, seeing his eyes half-close at the sensation.

“I want to be inside of you.”

He didn’t need to ask me twice.

I went up to my knees, squeezing his cock as I aimed it, his gaze focused between my legs as I slid down his length. He parted my wet flesh easily, his hands moving to my hips, guiding me, in control, even with me on top of him. I slid my palms along his chest, letting the dark hair there curl around my fingers, teasing his nipples, grazing them lightly with my fingernails.

“You’re naughty,” he murmured as I rocked, a nice, slow ride. My nipples were so hard they ached, and he thumbed them, making me moan in response.

“Here,” I said, guiding his hand down to my pussy, whimpering when his fingers found my clit. “Yes. Oh god yes, like that.”

I felt his cock swell inside of me as I began to rock faster, matching his rhythm against my clit. Our breath came faster, our bodies starting to sheen with sweat. Sex in the light of day gave us both a new perspective, and I found myself looking into his eyes as we fucked, seeing far too much emotion there and wondering if he saw the same in mine.

“Fuck me from behind,” I said, loathe to take him out of me, but not knowing if I could stand seeing the hungry look in his eyes anymore.

“Like a dog?” He chuckled as I got to my hands and knees on the bed, offering my ass up for the taking.

“Yes.” I closed my eyes, feeling his hands on my hips, his cock already seeking entrance. “Fuck me like a dog.”

I meant it, and I think he knew it. He shoved deep into me, the angle tighter now, better for us both. I reached under and rubbed my clit as he fucked me, the sound of us filling the room, two animals in heat, rutting together.

“Harder!” I hissed. “Deeper!”

He thrust again, again, grunting with the effort, giving me what I wanted, and I loved him for it. I was going to come like this with his cock buried so deep I could almost taste it, my pussy stretched with the glorious width of him.

“So tight,” he moaned, lost too, and I found him with my hand, feeling him driving into me, using the heel of my palm to rub myself off. “Oh god, I can’t… I can’t…”

“Come on!” I urged, lifting my ass higher to meet him. “Do it! Oh fuck! Fuck!”

And then we were coming together, quivering and trying to drown our cries so no one heard the sounds of our lust. My eager pussy convulsed around the pulsing length of his cock, milking him, draining him completely. Nico collapsed onto me, the hard, lean, sweaty length of his body so good against mine I thought I must be dreaming this, all of this.

I even asked him, “Am I dreaming?” as he rolled to the side and gathered me into his arms.

“If you are, then I’m dreaming too.”

I considered the possibility, touching the charm around my neck as we drifted in the hazy afternoon sunshine, wondering which would be better-dream or reality.