I think Diego’s teasing me.

Ever since that night on the beach, he hasn’t kissed me.

And it’s been two long weeks.

He hasn’t touched me.

And he's driving me insane.

Sure, he’s been flirtatious, kind, attentive. At first, I thought his interest in me had evaporated, and I’d worried that he was looking for dates online. But after a couple of days, it became apparent that he wasn’t. He hangs around me all the time when I’m at the house, and when I’m not, he’s texting and calling and Face Timing. The other night we stayed up talking over video chat until three in the morning. We were each in our own beds, and it felt a little like high school again because we talked until our voices were hoarse and until our eyes grew heavy. I thought our conversation would turn sexy, but to my surprise, it didn’t. And that was better, actually. We talked about adult things like politics and news and stuff we read online.

“We have a lot in common,” I said sleepily, at the end of our conversation.

“I never doubted that. Sweet dreams, baby girl,” he said in a low voice that made me melt.

Still, it’s troubling that he hasn’t made a move. He is a guy, and I know for a fact he has a huge sexual appetite. And at this point, I do, too. It’s now exactly fifteen days since our incredible kiss on the beach.

I haven’t stopped thinking about that night and the way his hands felt on me. Although I’m trying to concentrate on my new job, all I can fantasize about is us, in various sexual poses and situations. It’s distracting, and frankly, becoming a bit annoying.

Of course, I’m also playing out all the other conceivable options. Like the possibility that Diego wants me, but doesn’t want a relationship. And after my little outburst of tears on his lap, while were making out on the beach, I wonder if he’s hesitant. Maybe he knows that I can’t handle something casual, and that’s why he’s not trying anything more.

Him wanting something casual is my biggest fear.

It’s Thursday morning, and I’m at his house. I stopped to get my favorite lavender latte coffee – thanks to this job I can now afford such luxuries – and I turn on my computer to check my email. I have a Google Alert set up for Gamerhouse, for each of the guys’ names and for me. A stab of dread goes through my stomach when I see a headline from an online tech site.

“Former NewsNow Writer Is Gamerhouse Social Media Manager”

With anxiety coursing through my body, I look around. I haven’t yet seen Diego this morning, and assume he’s in the gym. Part of me wants him around, as a soothing presence, when I open this email. I consider whether to wait to open the email, but then I click. I can’t be a baby about this. Just because I was fired doesn’t mean I have anything to be ashamed about. It wasn’t my fault that the congressman sent me unsolicited photos of his dick. Or that the editor told me to write that story.

My eyes scan the story and my muscles instantly relax. It’s not a bad write-up. It’s kind, even. Factual. I release all the air that I’ve been holding in my lungs and lean back. Close my eyes.

“Good morning. You okay?” Diego’s voice rumbles through me.

I open my eyes to look at him. He’s sweaty, panting and shirtless. I grin. God, he's beautiful.

“I’m great.” My eyes travel down his chest, which ripples with muscles.

“Nice tattoo.” I point to the black tribal pattern that covers his muscular right shoulder. My heart speeds up just looking at it. I held my breath as I stared at his half-naked body.

His skin is smooth except for a little trail of black hair near his bellybutton. Then I spot something dangling from his neck: a dog tag chain and a pendant. I rise and walk over to him, then take the silver disc in between my fingers and inspect it. A lump forms in my throat, and I want to speak but am afraid I’ll cry.

I gave him the silver pendant that long-ago summer, back before the scandal.

There’s something written on the pendant:

01001100

01001111

01010110

01000101

It’s binary code for I love you.

“Are you wearing this because I’m here?”

He shakes his head bites his lip. His eyes meet mine, and they’re sad, hesitant.

“I’ve worn it every day since you left.”

Standing on my tiptoes, I brush my lips over his. I can't control myself anymore. I want to wrap myself around him and never let go but hear someone, probably Sawyer or Liam, walking up the stairs.

“Go shower, sweet boy,” I tell him. “We need to talk about some ideas for the blog.”

He starts to walk away, then turns to look at me.

“Cata.”

“Yeah?”

He smiles. “It’s awesome to hear you call me that again.”

* * *

It's a couple of days later, the weekend’s coming up. I know that Diego’s asked Jake, uh, Ghost, to fill in for him Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and I’m dying to know why. From what Liam and Sawyer told me this afternoon, Diego never takes Fridays off.

I’m at my desk, editing some video clips I shot of Sawyer. I’m creating an homage to a 1980s music video, and I dressed him in clothes from that decade. Sawyer has the potential to be quite the heartthrob and has already gotten some notice online, so I’m going to promote this on that side and see if I can boost his presence among preteen girls. I laugh as I watch the finished product.

“What’s so funny?” Diego’s in the office, sitting across the room from my desk on a black leather sofa, typing away on his laptop. He’s freshly showered, and his hair is rumpled and damp. An unmistakable citrus-caramel scent hits my senses and my mind’s returned to its dirty fantasies. He looks so sexy and casual in his thin, black cotton track pants and his white t-shirt and I imagine sitting in his lap.

Like every other room in the house, there’s a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall tuned to our online gaming channel. There’s always a running soundtrack of gamer talk, explosions, gunfire. It doesn’t bother me in the least.

We’ve got a little while before Diego’s shift begins, and Sawyer is deep into a World of Warcraft raid. I email the video to my phone, then walk over to Diego and sit next to him. He rests his laptop on an end table.

“This,” I say, tapping the little triangle in the middle of the screen, holding the phone so he can see. Diego slips his arm around me, which gives me all the incentive I need to get closer. I sling my leg over his so I’m practically in his lap. I can almost feel the waves of need surge through my body, and I wonder if he can feel them, too.

Not even twenty seconds into the video, Diego’s looking at me and not the screen. My heart speeds up when he works his hand that’s around my shoulders into my hair. Without taking his eyes off me, he takes my phone and sets it on the armrest of the sofa, then cups my face.

This is exactly what I’ve wanted for days. He leans into me, and I fall back on the sofa. His body is on top of mine, and it’s heavy and perfect.

“Please, may I kiss you?” he asks in a husky voice.

“You’re teasing me, aren’t you? You can kiss me wherever you want, whenever you want."

He does, on my mouth, his lips pliable and sensual. I break away. “You’re the best kisser in the entire world,” I blurt.

He responds by pressing his lips to my forehead and laughing.

We kiss and kiss, and I want to put my hands everywhere. In his messy hair, on his face, wrapped around his biceps.

He pushes himself up on one forearm and gazes at me with blazing, dark eyes. The feel of his thumb tracing my bottom lip makes me impossibly wet, and I open my mouth to suck on his thumb while staring at him. He shifts so that his knee is between my legs and he presses against me. I thrust, and he presses. I thrust and I throb, feeling myself getting wetter by the second. He takes his thumb out of my mouth and watches me as I arch and rub myself on him. A little cry escapes my mouth when I find the right spot of friction and my eyes fly to his. I swear his darken and flutter when he sees how turned on I am.

“So … fucking … perfect,” he groans.

He claims my mouth again, and I maneuver my legs so I can wrap them around his waist. His erection presses hard into me, and I suck in a breath. I’m coiled tight, and all I want is him. Now.

“Well, this escalated quickly, didn’t it?” My voice comes out in a purr. He laughs and grinds into me, and I open my mouth, my breath coming in shallow waves. I’m wearing a green cotton dress, which by this time has traveled up my thighs with the help of Diego’s hand that’s skimming up my bare leg. His other hand is sprawled on my face, and his thumb is back in my mouth.

He flutters kisses over my jaw, down my neck and onto the tops of my breasts, leaving a scorching trail in his wake. When his lips brush over my clothed nipple, I whimper.

“I’ve wanted you for weeks,” I murmur.

He lifts his head and shifts his weight onto his knees. Grinning, he slides his hand up my thigh, gently spreading my leg open. My breathing turns fast when he spans his hand at my bikini line. I look down to see his hand at the edge of my thigh, near my white cotton panties. With a slow motion of his thumb, he strokes the damp fabric. I’m glad I’m lying down, because I feel dizzy, blazing hot, from his touch.

“I’ve wanted you for years,” he says softly, then he says something in Spanish that I don’t understand.

He repeats one word in Spanish, and I recognize it as something he said in our past: “mojada.”

Wet.

I feel like I’m dissolving into the sofa. He toys with the elastic at the edges of my panties, then strokes the wet fabric again. What I want is a release, but it’s hard for me to articulate that in my fuzzy state of mind. “Diego, please,” is all I can muster.

What is it that I want? His touch, I guess. An end to the throbbing need I have that’s centered around my clitoris. As he strokes the skin of my bikini line with a gossamer touch, the need widens, like a bull's eye, encompassing my entire body. But I want more than an orgasm. I want us to finally submit to each other, and allow me to discover if our desire for each other is as explosive as I think it is. I want to know if this thing between us is real.

“Now? You want me now? How about this first?” he murmurs, pressing his thumb firmly on my clit and rubbing in circles. The fabric between his thumb and my skin heightens the almost painful desire I have for him.

“How about you take off my panties?” I whisper.

He nods, seriously. I close my legs and shiver as I feel him slip the lace down my legs.

Instead of immediately diving back in with his hand, he leans forward and kisses me while keeping the weight of his body off me. Somehow it’s even more carnal now that I don’t have underwear on. His hand goes in between my legs, and I spread.

“This isn’t what you wanted, is it?” he whispers in a wicked and teasing tone.

I gasp when I feel his finger brush lightly over my clit. “Yes, it’s exactly what I wanted.”

I allow my eyes to close and sigh with pleasure. His fingers stroke my outer labia lightly and a fresh wave of wetness appears. Unlike when Diego and I were first together, I’m familiar with my body’s rhythms. When I’d left Palmira, I wanted to embrace my sexuality and no longer be ashamed of my body after the photo debacle. So I taught myself to orgasm. Bought e-books on the female body and studied hard. Most guys, I’ve found, don’t know how to get a woman off, so I figured I’d at least learn to take care of myself.

Which is why I know exactly how turned on I am; usually, it takes me a while to get wet.

Not today.

I know when I’m on the road to Orgasmville. Right now, I’m in the express lane — and it would take about a minute if Diego knew exactly where to touch me. Part of me wants him to explore and seduce and ratchet the tension, but another part wants to come rightnow.

I’m impatient today, after these weeks of being around him.

Opening my legs wider, I hope he’ll be able to magically find my perfect spot. His fingers stroke and circle, but they’re a tease, not a promise. I look down and watch his hand stroking me.

“Crazy sexy, right?” he asks.

“God yes.” His middle finger is now buried deep inside of me, and I gasp. I can’t wait to have him inside me. He slowly tantalizes me by pulling his finger out and rubbing my clit with a back and forth motion. His fingers are obviously wet.

I need to come.

“I’ve changed a little bit since we were together,” I say, covering his hand between my legs with my own, following him as he rubs me.

“In what way? You still feel exactly the same, which is wet and tight and perfect.”

I grin. “Remember how I couldn’t orgasm? Well, I’ve learned.” I see a brief flash in Diego’s eyes, something pained, and I follow up quickly.

“I taught myself.”

Diego stops playing with me, and I tilt my hips an inch, trying to make contact between my spot and his fingers. His eyes grow wide in an I-can’t-believe-this-I’m-the-luckiest-guy-in-the-world way. I giggle.

“Want me to show you where I’m turned on the most?”

“Yeah, of course. But can I be the one to make you come?” He grins. “I mean, I’m down with watching, too, but you know it was always a personal mission of mine to see you orgasm.”

“Oh, you can check this off your bucket list. I’ll show you my perfect spot.”

He groans and sits up to watch as I spread my labia open.

“I think you have a lot of perfect spots, Cata. Oh fuck. Look at you.”

“So, you remembered where my clit was,” I tease, circling the nub.

Diego presses the heel of his hand into his crotch, where there’s a bulge of an erection. “Yeah,” he says, roughly.

“And you remembered that I like it when you put your finger in here,” I say, dipping one finger inside me.

“I’d haven't forgotten that.”

“And so here’s what I discovered during a lot of trial and error.” I adjust my body, and I’m totally open for him. I smile as I watch his hand dip down his pants. He grins bashfully.

“Sorry. Adjusting. Tell me what you discovered. Wait. Want to tell me what you thought about during that self-discovery period?”

I laugh low and throaty. “A lot of it involved what you were doing with your hand.”

Diego growls, and his eyes go between my legs.

“So, I’ve learned that if I touch the side of my clit right here,” my index finger, which is shiny with my own juices and deep blue nail polish, grazes my sensitive skin, “that I will come in minutes. The pressure has to be light and the pace slow.”

A flush appears at the top of Diego’s chiseled cheekbones as he watches me. He’s breathing hard and his lips part.

“Can I try?” Diego says in a husky voice.

I nod. “Come lay next to me.”

He does, stretching out on his side. His finger replaces mine.

“A little lighter,” I whisper.

“Like this?” he asks.

“Oh God,” I pant.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

I nod. His finger, because it’s bigger, is able to make more contact with my skin. Combined with the slow flicker, my body bursts into action. I let out a long sigh, and then my orgasm hits me, hard.

I gasp sharply and cry out. Diego stops for a beat. “No, I mean, yes, keep going,” I beg. He does, and I pant some more until I close my legs and roll into his body. He wraps an arm around me.

“Wow. You really did learn to orgasm.” He murmurs. “I hope that was as incredible for me as it was for you.”

I laugh, hard. “It was, and you know why?”

He shakes his head.

“You’re the first man who’s ever given me an orgasm.”

“What?”

“Yeah. I just lost my orgasm virginity to you.”

“But you’ve had sex…” his voice trails off.

“Yeah. But they’ve never taken the time to make me come. They didn’t really care if I came. You cared. You did back then, and you still do. So I feel relaxed around you. And that, combined with your discovery of my special spot…” I snuggle into his chest and grin.

Diego growls again, and my hand goes between his legs. “Your turn,” I whisper.

He flips on his back, and I straddle him. My hand goes under his shirt, and I roam his smooth skin, biting my lip as I watch his face form a half-smile-half snarl. Fuck, he is so rawly sexy.

My hands go to his waistband and I’m both easing his pants off his hips and debating whether to immediately take him in my mouth or stroke him for a bit when I hear Sawyer’s voice coming from the television.

“Aaaaand I’m waiting for Apathetic Fire to take over. Paging AF…Please pick up the white courtesy telephone…”

I gasp and stop undressing him. “Diego! You’re supposed to be on right now.”

His eyes, which were drowsy and half focused on me, widen. The lust filled grin is replaced with a startled grimace. “Shit. I’ve gotta go. I got carried away. I’m sorry.”

When he sits up, I sigh and hoist my body into an upright position. “Trust me, no one’s more disappointed than me.”

Diego chuckles, the easy, sexy sound reverberating through my body. He leans over to kiss me with soft, pliable lips and his smell washes over me. I want to submerge myself in his scent, the delicious citrus, and caramel fragrance.

“You wanted this?” He leans in and kisses me while taking my hand and putting it over his erection.

“Mm-hmm. For a long time.” We kiss furiously, then he breaks away, running a hand through his black hair and blowing out a breath.

“I’ll see you later, Cata.”

“Wait,” I say, pressing my body against his as he’s trying to button his shirt.

He groans when my mouth hovers at his ear.

“I’m going to have to go home to help my mom pack. Will you come over later?”

My question is met with an affirmative grunt and a kiss.

“What do you want to do with me later?” I whisper.

He grabs a fistful of my hair and growls into my ear. “Get my fingers and my tongue and something else inside of you.”

Now it’s my turn to groan.