“DID YOU ALWAYS KNOW you wanted to take pictures for a living?”
“What? Where did that come from?” Simon laughed, sitting back in his chair and looking at me over the rim of his coffee cup.
We were enjoying a lazy breakfast on my last day in Spain. Dark coffee, tiny little lemon cakes, freshly cut berries and cream, and a side of sunny coastline. Clad in Simon’s shirt and a smile, I was in heaven. Nerves seemed very far away this morning.
“I mean it,” I insisted. “Did you always want to do this? You seem, well, you’re very intense when you’re working. You seem like you really love it.”
“I do love it. I mean, it’s a job so it has its tedious moments, but yeah, I love it. It wasn’t something I always planned, though. In fact, there was a different plan altogether,” he replied, a dark look passing over his face.
“What does that mean?”
“For a long time I planned on following my father into his business.” He sighed, a rueful smile slipping into place.
My hand was in his before I even realized I’d offered it. He squeezed, and then took another sip of his coffee.
“Did you know Benjamin worked for my father?” he asked. “Dad hired him right out of school, mentored him, taught him everything. When Benjamin wanted to go out on his own, you’d think Dad would’ve been pissed, but he was so proud of him.”
“He’s the best.” I grinned.
“Don’t think I don’t know about the crush you girls have on him. I’m aware.” He gave me a stern look.
“I’d hope so. We’re not exactly subtle in our admiration.”
“Parker Financial Services was getting big, really big, and Dad wanted me to come onboard as soon as I was done with college. I honestly never thought I’d leave Philadelphia. It would have been a great life: working with my dad, country club, big house in the ’burbs. Who wouldn’t want that?”
“Well…” I murmured. It was an idyllic life, for sure, but I couldn’t picture Simon there.
“I worked on our high school newspaper, taking pictures. I took the class as an easy A. You know, good for my transcript? But even though I got assignments like covering the women’s field hockey tryouts, I really liked it. Like, really liked it. I just figured it would always be a nice hobby. Never really thought about it as a career. My parents supported me, though, and my mom even got me a camera for Christmas that year—the year that…well…” He paused, clearing his throat a bit.
“Anyway, after everything happened with Mom and Dad, Benjamin came out to Philadelphia for the, um, for the funeral. He stayed for a while, got things in order, you know. He was the executor of my parents’ will. And since he was living out on the West Coast, well, the idea of staying behind in Philadelphia didn’t sound so great. So, long story short, Stanford accepted me, I started studying photojournalism, I got really lucky with some internships, and then right-place-right-time, and bam! That’s how I got into this gig,” he finished, dunking his cake and taking a bite.
“And you love it.” I smiled.
“And I love it,” he agreed.
“So what happened to your dad’s company? Parker Financial?” I asked, spooning up a bite of berries.
“Benjamin took over some of the clients for a while, and over time he quietly closed up shop. The assets were transferred to me, per the will, and he manages it for me.”
“Assets?”
“Yep. Didn’t I tell you that, Caroline? I’m loaded.” He winced, looking out to sea.
“I knew there was a reason I was hanging out with you.” I topped off his coffee.
“Seriously. Loaded.”
“Okay, now you’re just being an ass,” I said, trying to lift the tension that had settled over the table.
“Well, people get weird about money. You never know,” he said.
“When we get home you’re buying our building and installing a hot tub on the landing, that’s all,” I joked, which earned me a small smile.
We sat and looked at each other, deep in our own thoughts. He’d done so much alone. No wonder he always seemed a little lost to me. Living out of a suitcase, not allowing himself to be tethered to anyone, no real sense of belonging—could it really be that simple? Wallbanger had haremed because he couldn’t stand to lose anyone else? Paging Dr. Freud…
Freudian or no, it made sense. He was attracted to me, had been attracted to me since the beginning. But what was different this time? Clearly he’d been attracted to all the other women as well. Wow, no pressure at all…With a toss of my head, I tried to change the subject.
“I can’t believe I’m leaving tomorrow. I feel like we just got here.” I leaned forward on my elbows. He smiled, likely noticing my not-so-subtle way of changing the subject. But he seemed grateful.
“So stay. Stay with me. We can spend a few more days here, and then who knows? Where else do you want to go?”
“Pfft. You’ll recall that I’m leaving before you because it’s the only flight I could get. Besides, I have to be back at work, organized, and in the right time zone on Monday. You know how many jobs Jillian has lined up for me?”
“She’ll understand. She’s a sucker for a good romance. Come on. Stay with me. I’ll stash you in the overhead bin for the flight home.” His eyes twinkled over his coffee mug.
“Overhead bin, my foot. And is this what this is? A romance? Shouldn’t you be embracing me on the beach? And ripping my bodice?” I placed my bare legs in his lap, and he took full advantage of this, massaging between his warm hands.
“Lucky for you, I’m a bodice-ripper from way back. I could probably even throw together a pirate costume, if that’s what you’re into,” he replied, the sapphires beginning to smoke.
“It has been quite a romantic tale, hasn’t it? If someone would’ve told me this story, I doubt I’d have believed it,” I mused, groaning as I finished my last bite.
“Why not? It’s not that strange how we met, is it?”
“How many women do you know who would voluntarily go to Europe with a man who’d been banging the plaster right off her walls for weeks?”
“True, but you could also spin me as the guy who played you all those great records through the wall, and the guy who gave you, and I quote, ‘the best meatball ever’?”
“I suppose you did begin to wear me down with the Glen Miller. That got me.” I sunk into my chair as his hands did delicious things to the bottoms of my socked feet. Socks I had also appropriated from his side of the room.
“I got you, huh?” He smirked, leaning closer.
“Oh, shut it, you.” I pushed his face away, smiling big as I contemplated what he said. Did he have me? Yeah. He totally had me. And would have me, sometime later that night.
At that thought, a whoosh of nerves hit my tummy, and I felt my smile falter a bit. Nerves had set up shop big time, and no matter where Brain went, eventually Nerves invaded every thought, every idea I had about where the night would go. I was ready, Lord knows I was ready, but I was damn nervous. O would come back, right? I knew she would. Did I mention I was nervous?
“So, are you almost done with your work? Do you still have a lot to do tomorrow?” I asked, changing the subject once again. As was always the case when he talked about his work, Simon’s eyes lit up. He described the shots he still needed of the Roman-style aqueduct in town.
“I wish we had time to go scuba diving. I hate that we ran out of time.” I frowned.
“Again, something that would be solved if you stayed here with me.” He frowned back, making a big deal of mimicking my eyebrows.
“Again, some of us have nine-to-five jobs. I have to get home!”
“Home, right. You know there’s gonna be a firing squad to face when we get home. Everyone is going to want to know what happened here between us,” he said seriously.
“I know. We’ll handle it.” I cringed at the grilling I’d receive from the girls, to say nothing of Jillian. I wonder if a kitchen blowjob was what she had in mind when she said take care of him in Spain.
“We?”
“What? We what?” I asked.
“I could we with you.” He smiled.
“Aren’t we already we-ing?”
“Yeah, we’re we-ing on vacation. It’s quite a different thing to be we-ing back home, in the real world. I travel all the time, and that takes its toll on the we unit,” he said, his brow knit together.
It took all my power, all of it, not to make a joke about the we(e) unit.
“Simon, chill. I know you travel. I’m well aware. Keep bringing me pretty things from faraway places, and this girl has no problem with your we, okay?” I patted his hand.
“Pretty things I can do. Guaranteed.”
“Speaking of, where are you off to next?”
“I’ll be home for a few weeks, and then I’m headed down south for a bit.”
“Down south? As in LA?”
“No, a bit more south.”
“San Diego?”
“Souther.”
“Stanford educated, right? Where are you going?”
“Promise you won’t be mad?”
“Spit it out, Simon.”
“Peru. The Andes. More specifically, Machu Picchu.”
“What? Oh, man, that’s it. I officially hate you. I’ll be in San Francisco, planning rich people’s Christmas trees, and you get to go there?”
“I’ll send you a postcard?” He looked like a kid trying to get out of trouble. “Besides, I don’t know what you’re so pissy about. You love your job, Caroline. Don’t even try to tell me you don’t.”
“Yeah, I love my job, but right now I wish I was headed south.” I huffed, snatching my feet away.
“Well, if you want to head south, I can think of something—”
I placed my hand in front of his mouth. “No way, buddy. I’m not machuuing your pichu now. Huh-uh,” I stated firmly, not wavering one bit when he began pressing open mouth kisses against my palm. Not one little bit…
“Caroline,” he whispered against my hand.
“Yes?”
“One day,” he began, removing my hand and leaving tiny kisses up the inside of my arm. “One day…” Kiss. “I promise…” Kiss kiss. “To bring you…” Kiss. “And my woo…” Kiss kiss. “To Peru,” he finished, now kneeling in front of me and dragging his mouth across my shoulder, peeling the fabric away to linger along my collarbone, his lips making me hot and shivery.
“You wanna woo me in Peru?” I asked, my voice high and stupid and not fooling him for a second. He knew exactly how he was affecting me.
“True.” His fingers tangled in my hair and brought my mouth to his. I tried for a second to come up with something that rhymed with true, but I gave up and kissed him back with all I had. And so, I let him make out with me on the terrace, overlooking the ocean. Which was…blue. Ahem.
All week long, we’d been seeing signs of a festival coming together around town. It started tonight, as if celebrating my departure, and we were headed out to dinner, to somewhere considerably more fancy than the places we’d been eating all week. I’d discovered Simon and I were very similar in many of our tastes. I was all for getting dressed up from time to time, but I much preferred smaller, casual places, as did he. So tonight, getting dressed up and going out someplace a little fancy, and then maybe hitting the festival, had a special feel to it. I was definitely looking forward to this evening, in more ways than one.
They say when a soldier loses a leg in battle, sometimes, late at night, he can still feel twinges of that leg—phantom pain, they call it. I lost my O in battle, the battle of Cory Weinstein—that machine-gun fucker—and I was still feeling the aftershocks. And by aftershocks I mean nothing at all. But there was an end in sight. I’d been feeling twinges of the phantom O all week long, and I was very much looking forward to her return later this evening. The Return of the O. Of course I would see it as a title of some kind of action film in my head—but truly, if she was returning, I would capitalize anything. Any Thing.
Because tonight, sports fans, I was gonna get me some. Not to put too fine a point on it, I was ready for some serious Simon Wang.
I ran my fingers through my hair once more, noticing how the strong sun had brought out the natural honey tones. I smoothed the front of my dress, white linen with a little swing to the skirt. I paired it with some turquoise jewelry I’d bought in town and little snakeskin sandals. I was the most dressed up I’d been all week, and—undercurrent of nerves aside—feeling pretty good. I took one last look at myself in the mirror, noticing that my cheeks were pretty pink, and I hadn’t even added blush tonight.
I went to the kitchen to pour myself a quick glass of wine and wait for Simon. As I poured the Cava, I saw him on the terrace, facing the ocean. I smirked when I saw he was wearing a white linen shirt. We’d be quite matchy-matchy tonight. Khakis completed his look, and he turned just as I was walking out to meet him. My heels clicked across the stone as I sipped my bubbly wine, and he leaned back on his arms across the wrought iron railing. As a photographer, he was innately aware of the kind of imagery he was creating, I felt certain. Anytime he leaned, he oozed sex. I just hoped I didn’t fall in my heels…sex ooze could be slippery.
I offered my wine to him, and he let me bring the glass to his lips. Slowly, he sipped, his eyes on mine. When I removed the glass, he quickly wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me to him, kissing me deeply, the taste of wine heavy on his tongue.
“You look…good,” he breathed, pulling away from my lips to press his mouth against the skin just below my ear, his scruff tickling me in the most fantastic way.
“Good?” I asked, tilting my head back to encourage everything he was doing.
“Good. Good enough to eat,” he whispered, grazing my neck with his teeth, just enough to make me aware of them.
“Wow,” was all I could manage as I wrapped my arms around his neck and sank into his embrace.
The sun was beginning to set, casting a warm glow all around, making the terra cotta blaze red and orange, coating us in fire. My eyes were drawn to the cool blue of the sea crashing against the rocks below, the salt in the air actually present on my tongue. I clung to him, letting myself feel and experience everything. His body, hard and warm against my own, the feel of his shaggy hair against my cheek, the heat of the railing against my hip, the rush of every cell in my body curling toward this man and the pleasure he would surely bring me.
“You ready?” he asked, his voice gruff in my ear.
“So ready,” I moaned, my eyes rolling back in my head at the nearness of him, the feel of him.
And then Simon took me to town.
After Simon had driven me to the brink with his kissing on the terrace, he’d literally driven me to the brink. We were now at a restaurant overlooking the water, which was easy to do in a coastal town. But where the little hole-in-the-wall places we’d been frequenting this week had their cozy charm, this was a romantic restaurant with an emphasis on romance. Romance was served on a platter here. It was in the wine, the pictures on the walls, the floor beneath our feet, and in case you missed the romance, it was also being piped in through the air. If I squinted, I could see the word romance floating through the air on the sea breeze…I had to really squint, but it was there, I tell you.
Floor-to-ceiling window panels had been rolled back to let in the briny coastal air, and hundreds of tiny tealights sparkled in hurricane glasses. Each table was dressed in white, with low tumblers spilling over with dahlia blooms in rich shades of crimson, pomegranate, and lusty fuchsia. Tiny white Christmas lights twisted into the wooden beams overhead cast a magical sepia tone over the entire scene. In this restaurant, there were no children, no tables of four or six. No, this restaurant was filled with lovers, old and new.
Now we sat, pressed closely together at an epic mahogany bar, slowly sipping wine and awaiting our own tiny table. Simon’s hand settled against the small of my back, claiming me quietly and succinctly.
The bartender placed a tray of oysters on the bar in front of us. Twisted and craggy, they glistened, with slices of lemon nestled here and there. Simon raised an eyebrow, and I nodded as he squeezed the lemon, his strong and elegant fingers making short, erotic work of the oysters. He pried one from its home and brought it to my mouth on a tiny fork.
“Open up, Nightie Girl,” he instructed, and I surely did as I was told.
Cold, crisp, like a burst of seawater in my mouth, I moaned around the fork as he slipped the tines back out. He grasped his own oyster and tossed it back like a man, licking his lips as I watched this little bit of food pornography play out. He winked at me as I looked away, trying not to let on how desperately turned on I was. The entire day had been like one giant, controlled ball of sexual tension, a slow burn that was now igniting into a wildfire. He slurped two more in quick succession, and as I watched his tongue dart out to lick his lips, I felt the sudden urge to help him. With no shame or sense of social propriety, I closed the distance between us and kissed him, hard.
He grinned in surprise, but kissed me back with equal intensity. The sweetness and tenderness that had been marinating between us all week now quickly deteriorated into full-on touch-me-touch-me-now, and I was all for it. My entire body turned toward him, my legs nestling in between his as his fingers found my skin—the skin just above the hem of my dress. We were kissing, kissing all-out Hollywood style. Slow, sloppy, wet, and wonderful. My head tilted so I could kiss him more deeply, my tongue sliding against his, leading and then letting him lead. He tasted like sweet and salt and lemons, and it was all I could do not to grab him by his pretty linen shirt and have my way with him on top of the bar—but in a very ladylike way, mind you.
I heard someone clearing their throat, and I opened my eyes to see my sexy sapphires, then an embarrassed host.
“Excuse me, señor, your table is ready?” he asked, carefully averting his eyes from our display in his very romantic, but still very public, restaurant.
I might have moaned a little as Simon removed his hands from my legs and turned my chair so I could stand. Taking my hands and pulling me, he smirked as I wobbled on my feet a bit. He grinned at the bartender.
“Oysters, man, oysters.” Simon laughed a little as we shuffled off to our table. I was ready to let out an indignant huff until I saw him discreetly adjust himself. I was not the only one feeling the slow burn…
I stuffed my huff and smiled serenely, lowering my eyes just enough so he knew I knew. As we arrived at our table, Simon pulled out my chair for me. As he scooted me in, I let my hand drift back just enough to accidentally-on-purpose graze him, feeling how worked up he was. I heard him hiss, and I smiled inwardly. Just as I went in for graze number two, he grasped my hand tightly in his own, pressing himself against me. My breath caught in my throat as I felt him harden further under our hands.
“Do I need to change your name to Naughty Girl?” he murmured, low and thick in my ear. I closed my eyes and tried to get control as he sat across from me, grinning in a devilish way. As our waiter busied himself around us, straightening the linens and presenting menus, I only had eyes for Simon, cocksure and beautiful, across the table from me. This meal was going to take forever.
The meal did take forever, but as much as I was aching to get Simon alone again, I also never wanted this night to end. We were served a beautiful paella, coastal style with chunks of prawns and spiny lobster, chorizo, and peas. Made in the traditional way, almost impossible to recreate, the simple shallow dish it had been cooked in allowed the saffron rice on the bottom to become crunchy and nutty—delicious in every sense of the word. We’d finished a lovely bottle of rosé and were now lazily sipping tiny glasses of Ponche Caballero, a Spanish brandy with hints of orange and cinnamon.
The liquor was spicy as I rolled it around in my mouth. I was pleasantly warm and more pleasantly tipsy. Not drunk, just heady enough that I was hyperaware of my surroundings and found anything and everything sensual: the way the smooth brandy slipped down my throat, the feel of Simon’s leg against my own under the table, the way my body had begun to hum. The entire population, it seemed, was out and about tonight and in a celebratory mood for the festival kicking off in the center of town. The energy was raw and a little wild. I sat back in my chair, teasing Simon with my big toe, a silly smile on my face as he stared at me hard.
“I ate your paella once,” he said suddenly.
“Pardon me?” I sputtered, catching the drop of brandy on my lip before it rolled off onto my dress.
“In Tahoe, remember? You made us all paella.”
“Right, right, I did. Not like we had tonight, but it was pretty good.” I smiled, thinking of that night. “As I recall, we polished off quite a bit of wine as well.”
“Yes, we ate paella and drank wine, got the others together, and then you kissed me.”
“We did, and yes, I did.” I blushed.
“And then I acted like an ass,” he replied, his blush present now as well.
“You did,” I agreed with a smile.
“You know why, right? I mean, you have to know that I, well, that I wanted you. You do know that, right?”
“It was pressed against my leg, Simon. I was aware.” I laughed, trying to play it off, but still thinking of how I’d felt when I ran away from him in that hot tub.
“Caroline, come on now,” he chided, his eyes serious.
“Come on now, yourself. It really was pressed against my leg.” I laughed again, a little weaker this time.
“That night? Jesus, it would have been so easy, you know? At that moment even I wasn’t totally sure why I stopped us. I think I just knew that…”
“You knew that?” I prompted.
“I knew with you, it would be an all or nothing kind of thing.”
“All?” I squeaked.
“All, Caroline. I need all of you. That night? Would have been great, but too soon.” He leaned across the table and took my hand. “Now, we’re here,” he said, raising my hand to his mouth. He laid kisses across the back then opened my palm and pressed a wet kiss at its center. “Where I can take my time with you,” he said, kissing my hand once more as I stared back at him.
“Simon?”
“Yes?”
“I’m really glad we waited.”
“Me too.”
“But I really don’t think I can wait any longer.”
“Thank God.” He smiled and signaled the waiter.
We laughed like teenagers as we paid the bill and began our trek up the hill to the car. The festival was in full force now, and we passed through part of it on our way back. Lanterns lit up the sky overhead as a heavy drum beat pulsed, and we saw people dancing in the streets. That energy was back, that sense of abandon in the air, and the brandy and that very energy knocked Nerves back down, way down to my gut, where LC and Wang threatened to beat her within an inch of her life. LC and Wang, it sounded like a rap duo…
As we reached the car, I went to grab the door handle when I was whirled suddenly by a very intense Mr. Parker. His eyes burned into mine as he pressed me against the car, his hips strong and his hands frantic in my hair and on my skin. His hand slid down my leg, grasping my thigh and hitching it around his hip as I moaned and groaned at the strength I was about to let run wild across my body and soul.
But I slowed him down, my hands pulling at his hair, making him moan in turn. “Take me home, Simon,” I whispered, pressing one more kiss against his sweet lips. “And please drive fast.”
Even Heart seemed pleased, floating around above. She was still singing, but a song that was infinitely more dirty.
