Let Him Cry Pt. 03

Long moments passed. Her hands tightened on my forearm. "We haven't—" She broke off. "Does dirty talk in a woman turn you off?"

"Not unless it's just gross."

She snuggled back tighter. "We haven't even fucked and you're already my favorite."

"That's romantic," I said, tickling her ribs so she knew I was teasing.

She squirmed and slapped at my hands. She grabbed them and pulled them up to hold against her breasts. "Then how about this? I'm lying here warm and snug watching snow fall outside the window, making everything soft and quiet. The little bit of wine I had earlier has given me a pleasant glow, and what you just did has my nerves still tingling. Most of all, I know that some moment soon, you're going to be inside me. And it's all making me very happy."

I kissed the top of her hair. "Me too. How do you say that in Spanish?"

"A mí también."

I dutifully repeated it. We lay there for a while, enjoying holding and being held. My nose was buried in her hair so that I could inhale the spicy scent. Eventually, the firm curves against my hips could not be ignored, and I felt a stirring. She felt it too and turned to look over her shoulder at me, a smile on her face. I leaned forward and kissed her jawline, moving the arm trapped under her enough that my hand could lie across one breast and cup the other, kneading the soft curve, rolling the tip between my fingers with just enough pressure to bring a sigh of pleasure from her.

I rolled a few degrees so we were spooning. "Like this okay?"

Her response was to draw her knees up slightly and wiggle to find the proper angle. When she felt the tip nudge the spot, she breathed, "There," and pushed back against me. I put my other hand against her hip for leverage and slid partway in, gathering some of her wetness onto me, drew out and then back again. The third time, I glided all the way in to the accompaniment of a long breath from both of us. We froze for a moment, delighting in the sensations.

Then she curled her head forward, clutched my hand on top of her breast, and said, "Now." I began to move inside her, and she to thrust back against me, taking me deeper. I moved my other hand from her hip to reach farther around, to find the sensitive spot and stroke it in rhythm.

She came first, uttering that cry again as she frantically drove back against me faster and faster, until halting once more in that trembling, frozen moment. My sheer pleasure at the eroticism, coupled with the tightness of her muscles clamping down on me, set me toward my own inevitable release. When she came back to life, it was my turn to move faster, thrusting into her until I felt that boiling, rushing sensation start and buried myself completely while the world went away for a few seconds.

I held her for a lingering while. Eventually, I whispered into the ear that was under my mouth, "That was amazing."

She nodded, whispering back, "And now that we have, you are definitely my favorite." She wriggled around so that she was facing me, her head on my shoulder, one leg thrown over my hip. "You don't," she said softly into my neck, "have to warn me, by the way. There's nothing about sex with you that I find disagreeable." After a moment, "... or should I say distasteful?" The giggle that I'd come to love followed.

Nestled against each other, we slept at the end of a long day.

It was still pitch black when I awoke. A glance at the clock on the nightstand showed me it was a little before six o'clock. I turned to ease the covers off without waking Bela and found her dark eyes staring at me.

"You're awake," I said inanely.

"I get up before this most days because of the shop." Her arm lifted the covers back, the light from the streetlamp coming through the window revealed pink-capped curves and a dark triangle below. The obvious appreciation in my eyes caused her to smile. "Ana will wake Rafi around seven. So, you have a little under an hour. Fast or slow, depending on whether you want a shower and breakfast. If you're still interested, that is."

I certainly was.

As I walked down the driveway, unshowered and unfed, I saw a light in the kitchen window. Looking in, I saw Bela's mother watching me, her face carefully expressionless. I gave her an awkward nod and climbed into my car.

I was still feeling warm inside from our parting. Climbing from under the covers, I'd turned to her. "And now, it's time to dash." I saw her eyes go wide and I grinned. "But I'm looking forward to coming back and helping Rafi with his math, and having you over to meet my friends, and building stuff beside you, and even meeting your father ... everything I would normally do with a girlfriend."

The eyes turned warm and liquid, almost as if a tear would fall. She reached up and pulled my head down for the tenderest of kisses. Leaning back, she replied, "And I want you to meet my friends, and to cook you pollo al chilindrón and then snuggle in front of some movie, and make my father wait forever to meet you ... just like I would normally do with a boyfriend."

Her eyelids dropped to halfway, her mouth pulled in a half-smile. She drew my head in again to whisper in my ear, "And to fuck you so often I have trouble walking." She nipped on my ear lobe, drawing a startled little yelp.

The humor broke out. "If we can figure out how to get around the little guy." She sprawled back, obviously amused as my eyes wandered from her face. "Soon, osito," she promised.

It was hit or miss on that promise. Occasionally, Ana would bail us out or Taty would take all three kids for a couple of hours in the late afternoon and we'd snatch some time, but I wanted more than just benefits, and that meant we'd use those occasions to go out for a meal or a movie, leaving very little time for adult activities.

One evening, we took all the kids to let Taty get out to see a friend. We were sitting on my couch with Sabrina — Hepburn not Ormond, of course — playing. If I chose carefully, I thought classic movies would become a thing with us. The Deer Hunter, no. "I don't like violent movies, Matt, and that scene ..." She'd shuddered. But romcoms generally met with approval.

"That's a nice picture of Olivia," she observed.

I hope I didn't tense up too much. "Does it bother you?"

"No. I'm glad you have it up."

"Why?"

She shook her head and burrowed into my shoulder. "Doesn't matter. I need to leave soon. Rafi needs to get to bed."

"Tomorrow?"

I could see the stress on her face when she told me, "Conference with Rafi's teacher after school."

Even though there were a lot of restless evenings alone in my bed, I was trying to be flexible. "Okay. Maybe dinner after? I could bring takeout."

For all practical purposes, that guaranteed a help-Rafi night. A six-year-old in a one-room apartment — furniture for the house was finally arriving next week — wasn't conducive to much beyond arithmetic and reading Frog and Toad Are Friends. Bela would look over at us from the business case she was building and smile, but the faint worry lines told me she wondered what I was thinking about the situation.

But even a takeout dinner wasn't going to fly. As I got coffee the next morning, she said, "Mom and Dad laid down the law. Thursday dinners or else, starting tomorrow."

I started to say something, stopped, turned it into a sip of macchiato. She wasn't fooled.

"Not yet. It's too early to bring you."

Frustrated, my tone was probably sharper than I intended. "Why?"

She looked at the line at the counter, then sighed and sat across from me at the table. At Ken's glance, she held up two fingers and he nodded. She looked back to find a not-best-pleased expression on my face. She addressed that first. "You're worth more than two minutes. I just don't have more than two minutes." She gestured vaguely toward the front.

"Fair enough," I conceded.

"The day I introduce you as my boyfriend, you already know you're going to get the third degree." She held up a hand to forestall my comment that I could cope. "And I'm going to start getting hassled."

"Hassled about what?"

She colored. "About when I'll be wearing a ring. There's—" She broke off. She looked up and saw the expression on my face and grimaced in sympathy.

I was flabbergasted by the thought that anyone would start harping about marriage at this point. Was this the 1800s? What are your intentions, young man? Are you trifling with my daughter's affections, sir?

I asked, "What were you going to say just now?"

She shook her head. "Never mind. It's not a two-minute story. Anyway, I'm kind of 'forgetting'" — air quotes came out — "to inform them that we're an item. Not because I feel that way, but because I need to clear the decks a little before I take on that too. Really, I'm not hiding you, I—"

I held up a hand. Instead of stopping, she got distraught. "No, seriously, very soon I—"

"Bela!" Now she stopped. "I believe you. But how are you explaining us not being an item when we're sleeping together?"

"What?" The picture of shock was kind of comical. "They don't know."

"Your mother saw me leave your place the morning after that first time."

"Ohmygod! Please tell me you're kidding." At my wince, she looked down and shook her head. "Tomorrow is going to be hell. She must not have told my dad yet, but you can bet she's gonna corner me at some point." With a sigh, she stood. "I have to go. I'll figure something out." I could hear the anxiety. She leaned down and kissed me lightly. It surprised me; it was the first time she'd done it in public. She met my smile with one of her own. "I don't wish it never happened."

That gave me a tingle of warmth, but it was another day of growing frustration on my part and, to judge by the harried look she sent me as I waved goodbye, stress for her.