And good Lord, the sex had been so good it almost made her angry. They could have been fucking like that years ago if he’d told Henry to shove it. Well, no need to stay pissed. They had all week to make up for lost time.
The sound of running water in the bathroom stirred her from her reverie. Sounded like Ben was about to hop in the shower. Maybe she should surprise him….
Beatriz started to get out of bed but stopped when her phone buzzed.
She grinned at the text message from Claudia.
So…? it read.
She tried to think up a suitable reply to Claudia’s not-so-subtle message. Instead of typing anything back, she took a quick picture of the three ripped condom wrappers on the bedside table and sent it to her.
Claudia quickly wrote back.
Damn. TMI, she said, although Beatriz knew Claudia wanted all the details she could get.
I could have sent you the other pic we took, Beatriz texted back.
Claudia answered with a simple GROSS!
Laughing, Beatriz tucked her phone away. She had Ben to attend to.
She crawled out of bed, already pleasantly sore inside and out. It had been a while since she’d had that much sex. Back in Spain she’d had a lover, a widower in his forties who’d wanted nothing but no-commitment sex to serve as a distraction from his grief. They’d been friends and lovers and nothing more. But she’d moved back to the States over two months ago and hadn’t bothered pursuing anyone while she settled into her new apartment outside of Washington, D.C., and reconnected with friends. She’d forgotten how much she’d missed sex. Orgasms she had every day and while she enjoyed them, those solo satisfactions could never completely replace the pleasures to be found lying naked underneath a man like Ben, her thighs open to receive him into her, her body a gift given to him, his body a country to be endlessly explored.
While she was stretching her back, Ben peeked his head around the wall by the bathroom. He crooked his finger at her.
“What?” she whispered.
“Come here,” he whispered back.
“Why are we whispering?” she asked.
“I have no idea.”
She followed his beckoning finger into the bathroom where Ben had drawn a bath in the large Jacuzzi tub.
“Are you trying to get me wet?” she asked.
“Soaking wet,” he said and then with a heroic flourish swooped her up in his arms. Beatriz squealed with surprise as Ben feigned dropping her in the water. Instead he sat her gently in the tub and stepped in behind her.
With a blissful sigh, Beatriz lay back against his chest as Ben wrapped two strong wet arms around her.
“Bath. Good idea,” she said.
“Purely therapeutic,” Ben said. “I think I overworked an ass muscle during a figure-eight grinding maneuver.”
“I’ll put that warning in the review notes.”
“I can’t believe you’re going to write about us fucking for this blog.”
“Why not?” she asked. “I won’t put your name in it.”
“Your name’s in it.”
“I know. But I don’t care. It’s not like it’s some big secret that women masturbate and have sex.”
“You’d think it was the way people act about sex.”
“Someone has to talk about sex like it’s just any other normal human activity. If no one else wants to do it, I guess that means I have to,” she said.
“How did you get to be like this?” Ben asked as he scooped up handfuls of warm steaming water and poured them over her chest.
“Like what?”
“Like this sex goddess who writes about sex, studies sex, reviews sex toys…. I mean, how did you decide to go into that field?”
Beatriz laughed and sighed as Ben massaged her breasts with his soapy hands.
“Well, you know I was born in El Salvador. I lived there until I was ten.”
“I know. You told me about all the fighting and civil unrest.”
“After my parents died, my grandparents did everything they could, spent every penny they had to get me to the States. America is free, they said. You can do anything in America, be anything you want in America. In my country, a woman who was raped couldn’t get an abortion, even if the pregnancy would kill her.”
“That’s crazy.’
“It’s a beautiful country, so much to love. But hard to live there for a woman. And then I came to the United States, and I decided that I would use all the freedom my grandparents had worked so hard to give me. So my senior year in high school, it’s almost time for prom. And the school starts to freak out because the guidance counselor says they should have condoms at the prom. This counselor, Mr. Lear, was such a good guy. Not judgmental. He said teenagers would drink no matter what parents and teachers did so they should offer a prom-night taxi service. And teenagers would have sex no matter what parents and teachers said so the school should supply condoms.”
“What happened?”
“He was fired.”
Ben sighed. “No surprise there, I guess.”
“But I was a student so I knew they couldn’t fire me. I bought fifty boxes of condoms and put them on the tables at prom. I got in so much trouble for that.”
“You rebel.” Ben laughed so hard he made a wake in the bathwater.
“My foster parents fought for me, stood up for me. I got suspended but not expelled. Apparently they couldn’t find any school rules that said students couldn’t give other students condoms.”
“You’re my hero right now,” Ben said, running his hands over her thighs. She did love his hands.
“I’m no hero. I just couldn’t believe that people in this country were so afraid of sex. We have all this freedom in America—freedom people fought and died for—and we’re so afraid to exercise it. We’re afraid to talk about things that might offend other people, afraid to do what we want because someone might call us a ‘slut.’ Truth is, I get nothing but fan mail from women who thank me for talking about sex and helping them find ways of making their sex lives better. When I’m having good sex, I’m the happiest, least violent person on earth. If people had more and better sex and felt less guilty about it, we’d live in a much better world.”
“I am happy to help you in your quest to fuck for world peace.”
“I’ll take you up on that offer,” Beatriz said.
“I do think it’s amazing that you came by yourself to the U.S. when you were that young.”
“My grandparents knew Claudia’s father through his work. When you’re that young, it’s an adventure. It took me until I was sixteen to realize I wasn’t ever going back.”
“I’m sorry all that happened to you,” Ben said. “I wish you’d had an easier life. But I can’t say I’m not happy you ended up here. And by here, I mean naked in this bathtub with me.”
“I’m glad I’m here, too. And by ‘here’ I mean in the States. And naked in this bathtub with you.”
Ben cupped her breasts and kissed her neck.
“And I’m sorry it took me so long to do this.” He nipped softly at her shoulder and Beatriz only laughed.
“Más vale tarde que nunca,” she said.
Better late than never.
Beatriz turned around in the bathtub to face Ben on her hands and knees. She kissed him long and deep and his wet hands dug deep into her hair.
“I won’t make you fuck me again,” she said, smiling against his lips. “But I wanted to kiss this gorgeous face.”
“Make me fuck you again? Anything but that,” he said. “I have a better idea.”
He grabbed her around the waist and sat her on the edge of the tub. She leaned back as he pushed open her legs.
“Wait,” she said as he started to touch her.
“Wait?”
“We need the book.”
“I know how to go down on a woman. I don’t need a book to tell me.”
“Yes, but we’re doing this for the book review. We have to at least read the chapter on it
before we do it so I can use it in the article.”
Ben sighed and put his face in the water for a second. Beatriz grabbed him by the back of the hair and forced his face out of the water.
“You stay there,” she said to him. “I’ll get the book.”
She was gone and back in seconds. With the book in her hand she sat back on the widest edge of the tub and put her leg on the side.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s work. You understand.”
She laughed as he groaned. God, she did love torturing this sexy man. She flipped through the book and found the page on oral sex.
“Good stuff in here,” she said. “The first part is hygiene-related. We can skip that.”
“We’re doing this in a bathtub,” Ben said as he rubbed her inner thighs. “I don’t know how much more hygienic we can get.”
“Then it says to use the fingers first. The labia are sensitive,” she read. “For better or worse. Start slow by massaging the outer lips. As she grows more aroused, her labia will swell and bloom like flower petals.”
“It does not say that.”
“It does!” She flipped the book around and pointed at a sentence.
“So it does. Flower massage it is then.” Ben cupped her between her legs and she pushed into his hand. He moved in closer and knelt between her wide-open thighs. With both hands he massaged her vulva from the back of her thighs to her clitoris. Before she knew it, she had started to pant again.
“Okay, that does feel really good.”
“Are you blooming?” Ben asked.
“Spring has sprung.”
Through half-closed eyes, Beatriz watched Ben’s fingers stroking her skin.
“What else does the book say?”
She lifted the book again and read.
“It says, Spread the vaginal lips open with the fingertips. Lick the vagina from the base to the clitoris. Go slowly. Ask her to tell you what feels the best and focus most of your attention there.”
“Good advice,” Ben said as he used his thumbs to spread her wet folds open wide. He dipped his head between her legs and licked her as the book instructed. Beatriz moaned as his tongue slid across her, up and down and up again. “You taste amazing,” he said.
“You feel amazing.”
He pushed his tongue in deeper. She felt it burrowing into her, and all she wanted to do was throw her legs wider and wider to welcome him.
“What feels good?” Ben asked as his lips pressed a burning kiss into her entire clitoral region.
“That,” she gasped. “Right there.”
He ran his tongue around her clitoris in slow circles before sucking it between his lips. Beatriz searched for something to hold on to, something to grip to steady herself. She found nothing but Ben so she held on to him. Wrapping her hands around his wrists, she clung to him as his mouth did miraculous things to her. She wanted to beg for more, wanted to beg him to put his cock in her again, but she restrained herself. First of all, they were both slightly sore from all the sex. And second, she couldn’t believe how good he was at going down on her. She might have to put a note in her review that no matter how good a sex book was, it could never beat having a partner who knew what he was doing.
And damn, Ben knew what he was doing.
Ben slipped a hand between her legs and slid one finger inside her. He tickled her from the inside out and she squirmed with pleasure. He dug inside her until he found that one spot that always made her wince with ecstasy when touched.
“Don’t stop,” she begged. “Keep doing that.”
“Until my tongue falls off,” he said before kissing her again with renewed enthusiasm.
Everything inside Beatriz started to tighten. Tighter…tighter…the pleasure was so acute it almost hurt. She felt the pleasure building like water against a dam, pleasure and pressure building. She put her hands on the side of the tub and lifted herself a few inches up, her body wanting, needing, to rise as waves of need washed over her.
Finally the dam broke and with a loud cry she came hard in Ben’s mouth. The orgasm shook her whole body and dissipated slowly.
Ben sat up on his knees and licked his lips. Beatriz leaned in and kissed him, tasting herself on his mouth.
“I’ll return the favor whenever you want,” she said.
“Are you going to blow me while holding a book in your hand?” he teased.
“I don’t need the book for that.” She winked at him.
“So this isn’t just about work then?” he asked, the smile gone from his face.
The earnestness of the question and the look on his face caught her off guard. Now she had to answer. Was this about more than the book review? Or was this just a week of sex before parting ways again?
“Work,” she said. “I just meant…you know, I already read that chapter,” she lied.
“Oh,” Ben said. “Got it.” He lay back in the water and scrubbed his face and hair.
It was just work, right? Beatriz thought. This couldn’t go anywhere. They lived on opposite coasts. Just thinking about this being more than work was pointless. She put it out of her mind. This was sex. This was work.
Nothing more.
Chapter Seven
Ben woke up in a strange bed. But it was the wrong strange bed. At least it wasn’t the strange bed he’d been hoping to wake up in this morning. Last night after their bath he’d dallied in Beatriz’s room, talking until she started yawning in the hopes she’d invite him to sleep with her. He was on West Coast time so her midnight was only his nine o’clock. Still, he would have willed himself to sleep at such an ungodly early hour for the privilege of waking up next to Beatriz. After one last kiss she’d shooed him out of her room, claiming she’d never stop molesting him and get to sleep if he didn’t go, scoot and vamoose.
“This is supposed to convince me to leave?” he’d asked.
The pillow she threw at him convinced him to leave.
Now that morning had come and Ben lay alone in his hotel room bed he could do nothing but stare up at the ceiling. Stare and wonder…
“This is a bad idea,” he said aloud to the empty room. “Isn’t it?” he asked and waited for an answer. “She’s in D.C. now. I’m in L.A. That’s a good sign, right? That we both live in towns known by their initials?”
Ben exhaled heavily.
“I’m an idiot. And this is a terrible idea, Ben,” he told himself. He felt that by speaking the words out loud there might be a shot at him taking his own advice. “You didn’t want this, remember? You didn’t want to get serious with someone so soon. You have a great job and a great life. You’re not a broke college kid anymore. Things are good. Why complicate things with some kind of long-distance relationship?”
A good question. A great question. One Ben made the mistake of answering.
“Because Bea is beautiful, and she’s smart, and she’s sexy as hell and funny and amazing…And you’re not a broke college kid anymore. You have a real job now. You can afford a long-distance relationship. And complicated? What the fuck is complicated about being with an amazing woman like Bea? Nothing. You just did it. Right?” Ben asked himself.
Right.
Ben started to get up. He paused, looked at the clock and rolled back down again.
“She said it was just work,” he reminded himself. “Did she mean that or is she doing the ‘I don’t want to get hurt again by you,