The Night She Got Lucky

She squinted up at him. “So it means ‘fuck’?”

  “Fuck, yes, it does.”

  The instant she put her mouth back on him, the vibration of her laughter was almost too much for him to take. It had been many months since a woman’s mouth had been on him, and even then, it was nothing like this. Everything Genevieve did was acutely satisfying, perfectly suited to his needs—her wit, her eagerness, her loving nature.

  Her lips. They pushed down his sheath, taking his fully exposed organ into her mouth. She began to suck on him.

  That was it. He could not wait another second. He would make sure she had every opportunity to explore his organ with her mouth at some other time, but at that moment, Lucio had to have her. He had to be up inside her, all the way.

  With one hand, he gathered a fistful of her hair and gently pulled, getting her attention. Simultaneously, his other hand flailed around on the bedside table, rooting for the condom he’d placed there. It proved too much for him to handle in his agitated state, and he ended up knocking the foil square to the floor.

  “I’ll get it,” Genevieve said, pushing herself up from his loins. She pivoted on all fours and, in profile, reached down over the side of the bed. The position revealed everything to his view. She was the juiciest piece of female he’d ever seen in his life. He wanted to take her in just that way, from behind. He didn’t care if it was the least intimate position. There would be time for intimacy. Right now, it was all about taking her. He prayed she wouldn’t mind.

  “Got it,” Ginger said, pushing herself up and extending her arm toward him, the condom trapped between two fingertips. The instant her eyes met his, she froze. “Oh,” she said.

  The details of his wicked plan must have shown on his face.

  “Stay right where you are, my wild woman of the vineyards,” he said.

  She giggled.

  With impatient hands, Lucio managed to unwrap the condom and unroll it into place. He would have to warn his lovely Genevieve that she shouldn’t get her hopes up. At this level of arousal, he would last about a nanosecond once he was inside her.

  “Fuck me, Lucio,” she whispered, looking over her shoulder. “This pussy belongs to you.”

  Lucio hung his head. He looked up after a moment of silence. “You are going to kill me, pelirroja. ”

  She grinned at him and opened her legs slightly, exposing more of the most achingly perfect pussy he had ever seen, anywhere on the globe.

  “I will not last. You are too much for me,” he said, moving behind her. Lucio caressed her ass and her back and her hips, then used his hands to spread her thighs even more. “I promise that I will not always be in such a hurry.”

  He grabbed her, pressing the big head of his cock into her impossibly small-looking opening. The Host! She was tight!

  He flexed his hips, held her steady, and tried to get more of himself inside her. It was then that the sad thought occurred to him—what if he could not fit into the pussy that belonged to him? What if he could not fit into the only woman he’d ever wanted to make promises to?

  Suddenly, Genevieve’s body received him. Lucio slid deep into her, a journey made possible because she was so wet. But he still had a ways to go.

  “Oh, oh, oh,” she panted. “Don’t stop. Please. Oh God, this is the most … God! More. Give it all to me, Lucio. Please! ”

  Of course he would. He would never deny her anything. He knew that now. Lucio lowered himself closer to her arching body, supported her belly with one hand as he grasped her shoulder with the other. He thrust into her in a long, slow drive. With his very life force he willed himself to hold off on his orgasm. Genevieve began coming so hard that he felt her body contract in waves. The sound she was making was one slow, continuous moan. Her juices had already coated the front of his thighs.

  “That’s what I wanted from you tonight,” he whispered into her ear as he moved in and out of her. “I wanted to see you take your pleasure. Do not stop, mi amor. Take all your pleasure. Take it all from me.”

  Her body jolted. She screamed out, alternating her pleas for mercy between God and Lucio. He felt her twitch and spasm, which marked the beginning of the end for him, too. Lucio came so hard that the earth seemed to tilt on its axis. The heavens rained down and nature itself roared and rumbled as he emptied his passion into her.

  After a few quiet moments, his body jerked involuntarily. Lucio groaned, resting his cheek on Genevieve’s damp back, holding on to her tightly. He could feel her heart pound under his palm.

  With a great exhalation, Genevieve hung her head, auburn hair spreading out onto the sheets before them.

  “Bonita?”

  “Hmm?”

  He caught his breath. “Are … you…?”

  She had mercy on him, not requiring him to finish his sentence. “Yes,” she said. “Are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jesus, Lucio.”

  He made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

  “That was…”

  “Intense,” he offered.

  “Unreal,” she said.

  “Like nothing I have ever known, mi amor.” Lucio began to straighten his body, pulling her with him. He wanted to remain inside her somehow. His plan was to bring them both to their sides, where he could stay inside her while they spooned. His plans changed the instant the bed began to shake. It occurred to him that for several seconds now, HeatherLynn’s sharp little bark had been cutting through the night, and car alarms had been going off. Somewhere, glass crackled and rained down. Then the phone rang.

  Genevieve stretched out her arm to answer it, pulling away enough that Lucio’s cock slid from her body.

  “Are you guys okay? Thank God. Yes, I’m feeling it. What? This is an aftershock? But I didn’t even…” Genevieve spun around to look at Lucio, a smile breaking across her face. “I think we just made the earth move,” she whispered.

  Lucio smiled back. Their first time together had been an earth-shattering experience—literally—but they’d been so wrapped up in each other that they hadn’t even noticed.

  The bed rocked again, harder this time but only for a second. He saw a slight twinge of worry pass across Genevieve’s face. “It’ll be okay,” she mouthed to him.

  He nodded, trying to remain calm. There was probably worry in his eyes, too, but it had nothing to do with the moderate earthquake they’d just experienced. He’d just noticed the condom had broken.

  Genevieve said good night to her sons and hung up the phone. She grinned at Lucio with pure delight, but when she saw he wasn’t in the same jovial mood, she frowned. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Ah, my love,” Lucio said. “I’m afraid the earth wasn’t the only thing that broke apart tonight.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “I always do my best creative work in the middle of the night,” Lucio said with a wink, flipping another pancake.

  “Tell me about it,” Ginger said, holding the coffee mug to her lips and leaning back into the kitchen chair. The moment was surreal. It wasn’t quite five in the morning. A sexy, shirtless Spaniard was flitting about her kitchen, making enough food for several families, chatting away about his plans for his pet photography business. It was all very creative, indeed.

  But her answer had been in reference to the imaginative nature of their six-hour sex-a-thon, which took place in her bed, on the floor, in the shower, and against the wall of the upstairs hallway.

  Ginger was supposed to meet Bea, Roxie, and Josie at Dolores Park the next morning, as usual. But she might have to cancel. Because she might not be able to walk.

  “How many of these do you think you can eat?” Lucio said, gesturing to the griddle full of blueberry pancakes.

  She laughed. “Just a couple,” she said, smiling, thinking it was a shame the boys weren’t there. Lucio would have an excuse to make as many pancakes as his heart desired.

  “We still need a catchy name for the company,” Lucio said, heading across the kitchen toward Ginger, coffeepot in
hand. “Do you need a little more cream, love?” he asked, taking her cup and refilling it.

  “I’m good,” Ginger said, watching his strikingly handsome face as he concentrated on pouring the hot liquid. She just couldn’t stop smiling. She was being spoiled. Absolutely rotten. She glanced down at her little bichon, curled in her lap, and thought, So this must be what it feels like to be HeatherLynn.

  “Sugar?”

  “No, thanks. But I wouldn’t mind another kiss.”

  Lucio leaned down, planting a sweet kiss on her lips as he caressed the side of her face. “You are exhausted, I know.”

  “Exhausted and happy,” she said, straining her neck for another touch of his lips. Lucio seemed pleased to oblige. Before he returned to his duties at the griddle, he kissed HeatherLynn on the top of her head, too.

  Lucio had been wonderful about the condom mishap. He gently encouraged Ginger to freak out if she needed to, then asked her to tell him everything. Where was she in her cycle? Did she want to get a morning-after pill? Why did she think she was going through menopause? Could she be sure she was no longer fertile?

  Ginger wasn’t certain about anything. In the last couple of years her periods had been more irregular than usual, which the doctor had told her was normal for her age. She’d never been a twenty-eight-day girl, but lately, it had been all over the map: a tiny spot one month and a heavy flow the next, coming whenever it felt like it.

  So she told Lucio she wasn’t too concerned and assured him he shouldn’t be, either. Then she asked him if they could do it again. And for the next several hours he proceeded to show her everything she’d been missing out on for her entire adult life, careful not to break any more condoms in the process.

  “We should think about how we’ll stage your sitting,” Lucio said from the griddle. “We will end up using your pose as an example of the kind of custom photography we offer, if it is all right with you.”

  Ginger grinned. She liked the way he’d been talking about his business as a “we” proposition. He’d included her in all his brainstorming. She was happy to help him get it off the ground. She was unemployed, after all. And the idea of spending lots of time at Lucio’s side had a certain appeal.

  “Do you have any preference?” Ginger asked Lucio. “What do you think would suit us? You’re the expert.”

  He thought about that while he finished stacking the pancakes on a plate, which he then placed in the oven to keep warm. He ladled out a second batch. Who would eat them, Ginger had no idea. She could always freeze them, she supposed.

  “You and your little fluffy dog are both very feminine,” he said, waving the spatula around for emphasis. Ginger loved the way he used his hands when he talked, almost as much as she loved watching the muscles of his torso ripple as he moved. “I see you both in a … the word … lánguido?”

  “Languid?” Ginger offered, laughing. “A languid pose?”

  “Yes! Perfect. You are reclining. Something luxurious, yes?”

  “Luxury always works for us,” she said, raising her coffee cup in approval.

  Lucio chuckled. “What are your thoughts, bonita? All those years as an editor have made you a visual artist in your own right, yes? So what do you see? How do you envision it?”

  Ginger took a sip of coffee and cast her eyes downward for a moment. It was startling how Lucio so effortlessly described the essence of her work. Yes, she was a visual artist in addition to being a journalist—she had spent years designing pages and special sections, making words and images fit together in a way that would draw in the reader. What amazed her the most about Lucio’s observation was that she’d known him for just weeks, yet he understood more about her job than Larry had in seventeen years of marriage. Ginger stroked HeatherLynn’s poofy hair, thinking she liked having a boyfriend who was an artist, someone who could create something from nothing, the way she did.

  She looked up. Lucio had been studying her.

  “I am sorry, but I love looking at you,” he said with a shrug. “I find I cannot take my eyes from you.”

  “What do you see when you look at me?”

  “I see a beauti—”

  “I know you think I’m beautiful, Lucio,” Ginger interrupted, her voice soft. “And I can’t tell you how much that means to me, because I’ve been struggling with getting older.”

  “I know, mi amor. ” His smile was gentle.

  “But what else do you see?” Ginger sat up straighter in preparation for his answer. “Can you tell me what else you see in me?”

  Lucio flipped the pancakes even as he studied her.

  “I see a mother who is raising two sons without any real help,” he said. “A mother who can handle a crisis and juggle seven other things at the same time.”

  Ginger took in a breath of surprise. She was expecting him to mention something along the lines of her fashion sense or the way she styled her hair—not who she was at her very core.

  “I see a strong and brave woman who did not fall apart when her husband left her. Nor did she fear that same man when he came back yesterday, angry and drunk and stupid as a rock.”

  Ginger’s mouth curled into a smile.

  “I see a tender heart, bonita, ” he continued, touching a hand to his bare chest. “I see insecurity at times. I see a woman who does not truly understand how wonderful she is.”

  Ginger nodded, a huge lump in her throat.

  “I see a flower in the peak of bloom.” Lucio gave her one of his huge, bright smiles. “A rare and beautiful flower.”

  She was speechless. She sat very still in the kitchen chair, in awe of this man who seemed to have dropped down from the skies and landed smack in the middle of her life, already knowing her.

  “I hope I do not offend you,” Lucio said, stacking up another leaning tower of pancakes. He opened the oven door and tossed them onto the warming plate.

  “Uh, no. You don’t offend me,” Ginger whispered, suddenly a little self-conscious. “You are very sweet to me.”

  Lucio tossed the spatula to the kitchen counter and laughed. Within seconds, he was in a squat in front of her. He gently gripped her thighs. “If Lucky Montevez sees it, it is there, my love. I am not being sweet when I tell you what I see, yes?”

  Ginger frowned. Then she tapped her forehead to smooth the wrinkles. Then she immediately stopped tapping her forehead and just allowed herself to frown’to hell with it.

  Lucio did not miss her little dance of anxiety and he shook his head, smiling. “You think I am only flattering you?”

  “No. I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Lucio patted her knee. “Do you know that every editor I’ve ever worked with has told me I had the best eye in the business?”

  “Really?”

  “This is true. I am known for being able to see what others cannot. I will tell you a secret—” He leaned closer. HeatherLynn’s head popped up as Lucio came near her. She wagged her tail. “I sometimes suspect that I can see things an instant before they actually happen—you know, the lightning before it cracks open the sky, the very last sliver of a moon before it disappears, a single perfect snowflake before it falls in front of my lens.”

  Ginger nodded. “It’s your gift.”

  He grinned. “Oh, yes.”

  “Is that why they call you ‘Lucky?’”

  Lucio laughed. “Ah, well, no. I got that name because I tend to survive dangerous situations. I’ve had the name since childhood, did I not tell you this?”

  She smiled. “No, Lucio. I’ve got as much to learn about you as you do me.”

  “True.” His eyes sparkled.

  “Tell me some of the dangers you escaped.”

  He winced, sucking in air through his teeth. “Are you sure you want to know?”

  She nodded, even as she acknowledged to herself that she might not like what he told her.

  Lucio shrugged. “I fell off a roof when I was about seven. It was a game, you know, to jump from house to house while on the red tile roofs i
n my village. Two stories up, but I did not receive a scratch!”

  Ginger’s eyes widened, imagining how freaked out she’d be if she found out that was how Jason and Josh were spending their summer afternoons.

  “Then, when I was twelve, I was pulled from the wreckage of a small European car after it had been hit by a logging truck. It was a narrow mountain road with many turns, yes? But I was not injured.”

  Ginger gasped. “Oh, my God, Lucio. Who was driving? Was anyone hurt?”

  “My mother,” he said, the sadness eclipsing his handsome face. She had never seen him sad, and it was shocking how it sucked the life out of his eyes. “My mother died,” he said. “It was a hard time for me.”

  Ginger’s hand flew to her mouth, hiding her moan of horror. She willed herself not to burst into tears, but the idea that Lucio had lost his mother so young—and in that way—was unimaginable. “I am so very sorry.” Ginger reached out and stroked his hair. He leaned into her touch.

  “Thank you.”

  “It must have been so painful.”

  Lucio nodded softly. “Yes.” He took Ginger’s hand from his face and kissed her palm, then set it down on her lap. “I do not mean to make you sad by going through my ‘lucky’ stories one by one.”

  “There are more?”

  “Oh, yes. My first year with Geographica I got trapped in an avalanche in the Himalayas of northern India. I was the only person who lived.”

  “Holy hell!” Ginger’s mouth hung open.

  “And then, a few years later, I was on a barge in the Suez Canal when it exploded. I lost most of my equipment, but I had … the word…?” He shook his head, annoyed that he couldn’t find the English he needed.

  “A lifeboat?”

  “No—insurance! That’s the word.” He smiled. “You’ll have to forgive me but sometimes I go blank on the English.”

  “Your English is phenomenal.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Well, that explains the nickname,” Ginger said.

  “But that is just the beginning. I’ve also survived a typhoon in Borneo and a bus crash in Cambodia and a few other things, but I won’t go into the details.”