Summerstone Stories - Monaco Pt. 03

Evening

"So where were you going again?"

It was early evening, the sun still stood in but was just ever so slightly itching it's way down towards the horizon. The sun setting over the Mediterranean was always a sight to behold, and from the cliffside villa, they had a full view of that blood orange crescent over the harbor bay. Erik was standing by the kitchen island, a small pairing knife in hand and a two bowls in front of him. In one, the one to the left, was a larger pile of sugar snap peas. In the one to the right lay the green sheets that he had already peeled. As he worked from left to right, he looked up and continued.

"Was this that Spanish woman we met? Real talkative husband?"

Julie sat at the foot of the stairs, looking up at her husband working. He was only wearing a simple, white t-shirt but the way it hugged his chest and arms as he worked with his hands made her eyes linger for a second before she answered him.

"Yeah, Elena. Her husband's not coming though, it's girls only."

Julie winked up at him before turning back to strapping up her heels. She wore a pair of sleek, black heels with strappings running up her ankles. They were beautiful but took a moment or two to get on properly. After she fastened the last strap, clipping in a small brass clasp with her slender digits, she stood up and walked over to the kitchen island. She wore a black dress to match, it was knee length with a slits going up her thigh.

The fabric hugged her hips as she walked, singed her waist and raised up to cup her full breasts. The front of it was less tight fitting, hanging in soft, velvet folds and hung across her shoulders in slender spaghetti straps. It was not extravagant, but the way she wore it in a kind of effortless elegance made her radiate femininity. Her hair was freshly washed and lay in soft, flowing waves over her shoulders.

Her face was just perfectly made up in that incredibly demanding, effortless no-make-up look. She radiated a kind of freshly fucked radiance, as she sat by one of the bar stools on the other side of the kitchen island. She had a certain buoyancy to her step and a smirk on her lips as she leaned over the counter to snag one of the green legumes.

"So apparently she's basically native, she's got a penthouse down in the city and she comes here every few months and stays for weeks."

Julie had bit down on the vegetable with a satisfying crunch and spoke through her chewing. Waving the other half of the snap pea for emphasis, she continued.

"I think she works in the art scene in Barcelona, or somewhere around there, and she does all these gallery openings and auctions. She's taking some of us girl out to dinner I guess to network or like, trick us into buying all this art."

She raised her eyebrows in this knowing look towards Erik, the universal look of scepsis. Erik slowly nodded as he listened, he remembered the woman well. They had met at a wine event a few weeks back, where her husband had taken a keen disregard towards the idea of spitting the wine and instead had a rich, old guy buzz going at two in the afternoon.

Now, this would not be any kind of outlier, to see an older gentleman enjoying his life's earnings, if not Erik had had to walk past him throughout the whole tour of the vineyard and listen to his incessant ramblings and never-ending talk. He had been an inherently happy man, eager to tell everyone and anyone stories of his life, and the more wine he tasted the more colourful the retellings would become. While Erik was stuck with the old Spaniard, Julie had walked arm in arm with a tall, beautiful Latin woman.

Elena was a little bit older than them both, but still younger than her husband. He remembered her carrying herself with this strength and direction of an older woman, he was not at all surprised to hear about her doing so well in the art hustle.

"I think she feels lonely, her husband doesn't come around too much I hear... Or maybe she just likes going out to find waiters to fuck, who knows?"

Erik laughed out loud as Julie looked up at him with her shoulders raised, a cheeky smile on her lips. Erik put the small knife down, he had been absent mindedly working as he listened to his wife talk, but now focused his attention on her instead. Leaning across the counter, resting on his forearms, he caught his wife's eyes with his.

"She's going to have a hard time with you there, baby. You look really nice."

Julie's smile softened and she turned her head and upper body first to one side, then the other as she flaunted her outfit. She blushed just slightly before leaning down to meet him in a warm, drawn-out kiss. They held the moment, savoring each other's lips, the taste of Julie's lip balm mixing between the two. Finally, Erik pulled himself away only to raise his hand to her chin, holding it between his thumb and index finger knuckle.

He looked her over with an affectionate warmth in his ocean gray eyes, stroking her chin softly as he admired her beauty. Erik was only wearing his shirt and a pair of track pants and the difference in style in between them was humbling to say the least. He would have come out with her but as he had repeatedly learnt, it was girl's night.

"Say hi from me, and don't buy any expensive art... or at least nothing expensive and ugly."

Erik winked at her and was going to continue as they both heard a car pull up the gravelled driveway. Elena had insisted on sending drivers to pick her guests up and as she was summoned, Julie hopped down from the bar stool and blew a kiss towards her husband. Hurrying to the hallway, she picks up her purse off the stairs on the way and before heading out the door, she turns to him with a smile.

"I promise nothing!"

The door shut behind her and Erik was suddenly alone in the empty house. He kissed his teeth in a hesitant tsk, the worry of waking up to a charge for some new piece of unknown origin, quality, or artist suddenly a very real possibility. He chuckled to himself, and then continued his work. Erik finished in not too long, working in silence and for himself, enjoying the meditative process of the meticulous prep. He had picked the peas from some vines growing in a corner of the yard earlier that day and wanted to make a simple pasta for himself. Lemon, anchovies, peas, and linguine.

With Julie out of the house, Erik decided to take an hour to himself to work up a sweat before his dinner. To the side of the back yard stood a smaller guest house, something meant for visiting family or friends. However, the owner of the house had decided to instead install a smaller home gym to attract more people to rent it and Erik could only confirm that it had worked.

They had used the space a few times already, but not as stringently as they would in their everyday life. Julie liked her runs and Erik much preferred playing around with weights, so they enjoyed each of their different activities when they could. Erik walked past the sun beds by the pool and was reminded of the cardio he had already done that day, with a smirk and a warm tightening in his scrotum, he continued across the patio and down a few stone steps, a small path and then up the stairs to the guest house turned gym.

The small building was in a similar, minimalist but natural style. The walls were in a sleek, warm gray concrete and much of the detailing was in darker wood. There were some larger plants taking up space in the corners but most of the room was sectioned off by some sparse gym equipment. The set up was a bare bones, 'only the essentials' kind of gym but it had anything that Erik could think of needing at this time.

There was a squat rack against the one wall and a rack of free weights along the other. There was a row machine standing against the wall in one of the corners and an assortment of weight plates hanging off a rack next to it. Erik pulled a padded bench towards the barbell rack and began setting up for some chest exercises. Going through his different exercises, Erik tired himself out thoroughly. He did regular and incline bench presses for his chest until he felt the blood physically pumping though his pectorals.

After that, he hit his shoulders, followed by arms. After just over an hour, Erik had droplets of sweat running down his forehead and along his neck. He had taken his shirt off long ago but the evening heat still had him burning up. Through gritted teeth, Erik finished his set of dumbbell curls before placing the heavy weights back in their racks. They fall deftly into place and finally, he exhales.

Taking a moment to breath in through his nose and out through his mouth, Erik collects himself and recovers any missing oxygen to his burning muscles. Rolling his shoulders back, he stretches his upper body, looking himself up and down in the floor length mirror. He can feel the pump surge through him and before picking up and heading back inside, he flexes for himself in the mirror. His chest and shoulders had always been naturally broader but moving steadily up to heavier and heavier weights have only accentuated this feature.

His arms matched the rest of his muscular build and just now, right after his work out, they bulged as if about to burst. The veins down his forearms stood out in vascular lines, pumping warm blood filled with endorphins and electrifying adrenaline. Erik picked up his t-shirt from where it hung. He had thrown it over one of the weight racks in between sets. He closed behind him and went back to the house.

Shedding his workout gear, Erik got into the shower as soon as he came in and upstairs.

He let the warm streams of water massage his neck and shoulders for much longer than he usually showered. He hadn't spent a lot of evenings by himself throughout this vacation and while first he had felt like the house was too large for only himself, he had started to enjoy the feeling of only going by his own clock and following his own needs. After his shower, Erik put on a pair of darker trousers and a white linen shirt. The summer evenings were at least somewhat cooler than the days which suited Erik well.

By this point, the sun had started to set properly and as Mr. Stone walked down the stairs to the living room, he paused in the middle of the large room and looked out through the large windows. He simply took in the radiant red that filled the sky, bleeding into hues of pinkish purples where the sun gave way to the night sky. Below the stairs, hidden away in an alcove, stood a stereo system. It was an older LP player that connected to a more contemporary set up.

After flipping through the available records, Erik picked out a record by an artist he recognised from one of the walls of a local restaurant. Moments after the nail hits the spinning record, the large living room is filled with a soft mix of jazz and Mediterranean beats. Strumming guitars mix with brass and all of it flows together to support the longing tones of the bearded man on the cover, at least Erik assumed that was him.

The man sings in French and while Erik can't understand the words he's speaking, the longing and love is clear in his voice alone. He makes a mental note: love songs from the south of France. After renaming the record, he lets it play while he gets to work with dinner.

The meal is simple and light and doesn't take much time to cook. He heats up some olive oil in a wide skillet and add a few fillets of anchovies, letting it melt into the oil over a low heat until they are dissolved. He adds garlic to the pan, then he takes the prepped sugar snap peas and lets them sauté in the aromatics, cranking the heat up just before he does so. Adding pasta water and the squeeze of a lemon to build the sauce, Erik then adds the pasta and tosses it all together.

The dish is simple, homely and filling without leaving him bloated. Erik eats by the kitchen counter, leaned over the bowl and looking out over the large room. For a moment he's transported somewhere else, lost in his thoughts as he blankly stares out the large floor to ceiling windows and looks out over the darkening evening sky.

During the day, the city below them is a mix of yellowish sandstone buildings, lush green foliage and the azure water of the bay harbour, however, as night falls and the water darkens into a deep navy and the surrounding mountains cast their long shadows over the city, it is as if the entire area is wrapped in a blanket of dark blue velvet. Little lights start lighting up all throughout town and soon the night scape is a dotted scene of golden sparkles against the dark navy backdrop.

As the casinos and restaurants come alive, another side of Monte Carlo wakes up as the sun goes down. After dinner, Erik puts on some music, opens a bottle of red wine and makes himself comfortable in one of the large leather couches. For a few days now he's been toying with the idea of surprising his wife with a day trip, something romantic and secluded, something just for them. He knew that quality time was something she cherished, and he wanted to give that to her, he just hadn't had the time to plan it yet.

As much as he loved spending most of his waking hours together with his wife, it did make it hard to plan secrets. There were some rental services for boats nearby, a large part of the local community had transitioned their own boating into businesses catering to tourists. Erik scrolled through the different options, everything from larger yachts to smaller sail boats. There were day trips and week-long tours, boats with a crew and without.

After about an hour of looking through the different options and slowly working himself through his second glass of wine, Erik settled on a smaller motorboat. It wouldn't need a crew and it was small enough for Erik to feel comfortable steering it himself. There were some regulations around who could drive what boat, but after doing his research and reading up on it, he understood that there seemed to be no problem that couldn't be fixed with enough convincing.

He read the accounts of someone in a similar situation who described how the regulatory paperwork that would have taken weeks to process, was made into a non-issue by the addition of a 'administrative fee' to his final bill. Now, money was not the issue in this situation and Erik had driven a lot of boats before, so side stepping the bureaucratic red tape seemed like the most attractive option. He wanted a smaller boat that wouldn't run too deep because of a smaller beach cove that he had heard about along the coast.

During their first week there, Erik had fallen into a conversation with one of the local fishermen as he was shopping for dinner that night and the older man had told him about a smaller, secluded beach that lay just south along the cliffside coast. He had mentioned how it was essentially inaccessible from the top of the cliffs and only really accessible by some boats, making it basically deserted most of the time.

Erik bookmarked the page, making a mental note of going into town the day after and finishing up the booking in person. Then, just as he started going over the row of tabs, closing down one after the other, he heard the unmistakable sound of a car pull up the driveway, followed by the clickety-clack of heels on stone paving. He looked up from the computer just as he heard the door open to see Julie walk into the hallway, a tipsy smoothness to her walk.

"Hey there gorgeous, welcome back.."

Erik spoke but was immediately interrupted by the entrance of a younger woman behind his wife. The girl looked to be in her mid to later twenties and walked in with the cautious amazement of someone who rarely spent much time in luxury. The girl was shorter, petite and somewhat tom boyish. She had her hair tied back in a tighter ponytail and wore a pair of baggier jeans and a crop top under a bomber jacket.

While Julie came up behind the girl and pulled her jacket off her slender shoulders, she kept her white sneakers on as she stepped into the larger room with a sense of hesitancy. Erik took a sip from his glass and then licked his lips before standing from the couch and heading over towards the two women. Julie positioned herself behind the girl, a large smile spreading across her face as Erik approached.

"You brought a guest, huh?"

Erik smiled at his wife before turning to the other woman. Reaching his hand out, he took hers in his and shook it softly.

"Nice meeting you, what's your name?"

"This.. is Noemi!"

Julie spoke for her excitedly, looking down at the girl while squeezing her shoulders. The young woman had a pleasant face, less feminine than Julie's full lips and soft features, but with a sort of wide, blue eyed innocence to it. She blushed slightly as she darted a look up at Julie, still holding on to Erik's hand, squeezing it back softly.

"It's nice meeting you too. This is a really nice house..."

She had an unmistakable accent, speaking with a French undertone to her English, but without losing any understandability. While a lot of the locals struggled with English or making themselves understood through their accents, it seemed like a lot of the younger locals spoke much better English, especially the ones working in tourism or hospitality.

Erik chuckled at the comment and her well mannered compliment. It was a nice house. Reaching out his hand, he focuses back on his wife and strokes her cheek affectionately.

"So you've been making friends, is that right? Did you have a good night?"

Julie rests her head into his palm before letting go of the younger woman and heading towards the kitchen with a spring in her steps. Grabbing the half full wine bottle in one hand, she fishes out two wine glasses from one of the cabinets and then turns back to the two awkwardly left behind. She smiles and nods her head towards Noemi, gesturing towards the stairs leading up to the second floor.

"Yess, Noemi was so nice to us tonight, she did such a good job..."

Julie laughs as she steps up next to Erik, resting her arm over his shoulder, giving him a half embrace.

"Those women were all so old and boring so it was nice to have someone fun around..."

Julie catches the eyes of the young woman and they both laugh in a soft giggle, as if sharing an internal joke. Julie continues after turning back to her husband.

"Aand I just know that she would look so good in this dress that I have, so I wanted her to have it. We're going to have a little make over, girls only. No peeking."

Julie laughed again, a flushed excitement across her face that bled through in her giggle. She winked at Erik and then shifted her focus to the blonde. Repeating the head nod, she led Noemi in front of her, only turning back once to send a look of anticipatory excitement over her shoulder towards Erik. They walked up the stairs and all Erik could do was to watch the two sets of legs and asses take a step at a time, side to side.

Julie was the definite main attraction, her tight black dress highlighting each of her curves perfectly, her firm, rounded ass swaying from side to side. Erik wondered if she knew he was looking or if she was too focused on the girl walking up ahead of her. Noemi had a plainer frame, her crop top had done very little to hide her flat chest, but as she walked up the stairs, Erik could see her jeans filling out nicely, a tight, round little butt by the end of her slender back.

Walking up the stairs to the second floor, Julie led the girl through the house through a little corridor and then into the larger bedroom. One of the windows still stood just slightly ajar and Julie went up to close it quickly, while Noemi stood in the middle of the floor looking around somewhat sheepishly.

She had been so confident in her element, at the dinner they had been at, the blonde had been filled with sparkling energy, charming the entire table with her bubbly charm, but now and here, she stood silent, twisting one hand in the other. She smiled at Julie as the just slightly taller woman turned back towards her and closed the gap in between them.