Chapter 11
Three hours later, the presents were wrapped, dinner was eaten and, roly-poly with good food, Amy and Carlos had settled onto the couch to watch an action adventure movie.
Growing up, Amy had been passed around from lap to lap. She’d spent the vast majority of her childhood being cuddled by her mom, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. And while it had always made her feel safe, it was nothing like this.
She lay tucked against Carlos. He was spread out on the couch, his back against the arm. Her back lay against his chest, her thin legs spread out in front of her, surrounded on both sides by his long, muscular ones. His strong arms wrapped around her waist. Almost every part of her touched a part of him. It was comforting and electrifying all at once.
They’d been lying like that for a while, letting dinner sit. Amy’s hand lazily kneaded Carlos’ thigh at her side. Carlos drew circles on her upper arm with one long finger. His other hand wound through her hair and alternated between threading it between his fingers and touching her ear, neck, and shoulder.
At some point, he gently tilted her head with his hand and pressed his lips to her neck. Amy’s grip on his thigh slid higher and she pressed her back against the bulge in his shorts.
One of Carlos’ hands made its way under her shirt and up over her bra. They’d danced this way in two previous make-out sessions and Amy had come to love the feel of his hands on her breasts. But she wanted more. Arching up she gave him access to the back of her bra. He didn’t hesitate to unsnap it.
When she pushed back against his chest his hand looped around and she found that flesh on flesh was even better than she’d imagined. She moaned softly and his body quivered beneath her.
Desperate to kiss him, Amy turned in his arms and attacked his mouth. They were in the same position now they’d been in twice before when Carlos had his leg between hers and made her come.
But this time Carlos gently pushed her back, swinging her legs around until she was sitting upright on the couch and he was kneeling in front of her on the floor. He did all this without breaking the feverish mating of their mouths. He pulled back, however, in order to pull her sweater off and slide the bra from her shoulders. Then he sat on his heels and looked at her. His eyes roamed her breasts and stomach. His tongue traveled slowly over his lower lip as he took her in.
She felt his gaze on her like a caress. It made her vibrate with the need to touch and be touched. Then, without warning, Carlos leaned forward and took her nipple into his mouth.
Amy cried out loudly. With absolutely no control over her reaction, she couldn’t stop the sounds that left her. “Oh! Oh! Oh God! Oh Carlos!”
Her uninhibited shouts seemed to only encourage him. He licked and sucked at her, making nerve endings fire. His hand kneaded her other breast. And when he switched sides it all started again, the sensations traveling straight from her nipples to the very core of her.
When he pulled away, she finally stopped her constant litany of noise and he let out a low growl before taking her mouth with his again. Carlos’ hands traveled to the button on Amy’s jeans. At the same time, she pulled impatiently at his T-shirt. He paused in his ministrations long enough to pull it off, giving her unencumbered access to his marvelous chest.
Once his shirt had been discarded carelessly on the floor, he turned his attention back to her jeans. He leaned her back on the couch and popped the snap. The zipper was quickly pulled, and without much further delay, Carlos shimmied the jeans and her fuzzy socks right off, leaving her in only a pair of silk bikini panties.
“Red,” he breathed.
Amy needed to get closer to him. She tried to pull him onto the couch with her. But he wasn’t having it. He gently moved her so she lay down, her head where his had been earlier, her feet reaching toward the other arm of the couch.
Still on his knees, he leaned forward and kissed her. His hand was flat on her belly, and it moved slowly down. Amy pulled away from his kiss so she could lean her head up and see its progress.
Carlos turned his lips to her earlobe as his arm, its brown skin lined with deep veins and stark muscles, travelled down until his hand disappeared into the silk cocoon of her panties. Then any thought of watching him disappeared as she arched her back, her head flying back into the couch cushions, her voice rising as she spoke in tongues again.
Vaguely, she was aware that Carlos watched her every move as she writhed, moaned, and climbed toward her orgasm at his hands. It was so different from touching herself, from rubbing on his jeans, from anything ever. And it was so much better. His expert hand pushed and pulled and circled and squeezed at that little nub that seemed to control every sensation in her entire body.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” he said, his voice just barely audible over her cries. “Come for me, baby. Come hard.”
Unable to do anything but obey his command, Amy flew over the edge with a long keening cry.
****
Carlos had never in his life seen anything as beautiful as Amy in the throes of an orgasm. Her head was thrown back, her pink lips, swollen from his kisses, were parted in ecstasy.
When she came down from her high, her breathing evening out, her eyes opening, her legs stretching, she gazed at him. He leaned over and gave her a sweet kiss, pulling her bottom lip between his.
She reached for him and he deepened the kiss. His knees were getting sore, but he would sacrifice them if it meant worshiping her a little longer.
“I want to touch you,” she whispered.
Carlos stood and pulled her by her hands so she sat up on the couch. He took off his shorts and underwear while she watched closely, her eyes wide. Then he sat beside her and pulled them both down so he lay beneath her, naked and exposed.
He was letting her do as she pleased with him. He was putting his body at her disposal to explore. And she didn’t hesitate to take advantage of that. She sat up on his thighs and ran her hands from his neck to his chest and down his stomach.
“These.” She ran her hands slowly over his abs, the bump, bump of her fingers flooding over the individual muscles that rippled across his stomach. “Are amazing. Do you work out?”
He nodded, trying to find his voice. “Three times a week…with Everett.”
“Hmmmm. I like.”
“Thank God,” he moaned as those hands went lower still.
She reached for him so slowly he thought death would find him before she got there. When she did get her hands on him, she completely lost her inhibitions about touching. Her soft little hands were insatiable. She explored every centimeter of him. Her eyes soaked him up nearly as deeply as her fingers.
He knew his stomach was involuntarily spasming and he was occasionally letting out a deep groan. But aside from that, he stayed absolutely still.
“How do I make you come?” she asked.
He wasn’t sure if he could form words, so it took a moment, causing her to look up into his eyes and her head to tilt to the side in that adorable way she did when she was curious.
“Um…lubricant.”
She hesitated for a moment. “Where?”
He smiled. “I’ll get it.” He started to get up.
Amy put a hand on his chest, stopping him. “Let me.”
“Bathroom drawer. Right hand side, second one down,” he huffed out.
Amy moved through the condo as if she’d lived there every day of her life, retrieved the little bottle and ran back to the couch. It was nearly empty and Amy squeezed out all the remaining clear oil onto her palm. Then, without stopping to think about it, she ran her palm around him, slicking him up.
He let out a whimper. “Now, grip me.” Even as he gave the instruction, she did it. He sucked in a deep breath. “And just…stroke up and down.”
“Like this?” She asked, doing an absolutely killer job for anyone, let alone a virgin.
“God, yes.”
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth as she concentrated on her task. And somehow this neophyte, working so hard to make him come, straddling his thighs in only her panties, her creamy breasts dangling in front of him, was all he needed to explode in an incredible, and embarrassingly quick, orgasm.
Her eyes were wide with wonder as he came all over her hand, calling out, “Jesus, baby! Jesus!”
When he’d come down, she collapsed on him, ignoring the mess he’d made and kissed him hard. “That was freaking amazing!”
Carlos might not survive this woman. But he would die very, very happy. “Stay here,” he said, his breath heavy.
“All night?” she asked.
He squeezed his arms around her. “Please.”
“Can we do that some more?”
“Fuck, yes.”
“Okay. I’ll stay.”
****
A chorus of exultant female voices blended together into one long, loud, “Oooohhhh!” as Marilyn stepped out of the dressing room in what was either the thirteenth or fourteenth dress. Amy was losing count. Each dress had been accompanied by the same level of enthusiasm. At this rate, Amy had no idea how Marilyn was going to choose which dress to wear on her wedding day.
When Amy had agreed to fly home for this weekend of wedding prep with her mom, cousins, and aunts, she hadn’t realized it would be hard on her libido.
She’d had a good week with Carlos. They had explored each other, and thoroughly covered second base. Amy had even bought and then smuggled multiple bottles of fancy lubricant in her purse. Carlos had been surprised when she’d presented them to him and explained that it been part of Marcel’s excellent sex advice. Armed with those bottles of lube, Amy had perfected the art of the hand job. And just when she was ready to move on in her sexual education, Carlos had to leave town for a weeklong conference in New York.
They’d actually met up at the airport as she was flying out to San Diego for the weekend and he was flying back from the conference. A stolen moment in a crowded airport had only made her long for him more. Now it would be three days before she saw Carlos again, and it was nearly killing her.
“Amy. What do you think of the dress?” her mother asked.
Amy gestured to the newest combination of silk and lace that hung from Marilyn’s substantial shoulders. “This one is my favorite.”
“Mine too!” Marilyn cried.
With the dress chosen, the gaggle of Trinkus and soon-to-be Trinkus women went out to a late lunch. And that’s where the conversation took a dangerous turn, away from the upcoming nuptials and onto Amy’s love life.
“Have you met Amy’s guy, YaYa?” Aunt Beth asked.
YaYa shook her head. She lived in San Francisco, a half-hour drive from Amy’s home in Richmond. And while they made a point to get together fairly often, Amy had been keeping Carlos to herself.
“He’s been busy. I’ve been busy,” Amy said. “I haven’t had enough time with him lately. But I’ll bring him home soon.” She just hoped she wouldn’t regret making that vow.
“Well, what’s he like?” her mother asked.
“He’s the Vice President of the finance department.”
“We know that!” YaYa threw her arms up in exasperation. “But what’s he like?”
Amy shrugged.
“Okay.” YaYa leaned over and pointed her fork at Amy. “Let’s try this: What does he look like?”
“He’s very handsome.” Amy smiled to herself thinking of Carlos’ strong jaw and the way it looked with a day’s worth of stubble covering it.
“Ugh!” YaYa exclaimed. “Handsome? What does that mean? That is not helpful.”
“Here,” Marilyn said, handing YaYa her phone.
YaYa gazed at the screen. “Oh. Oh!”
Amy leaned over to peek at the phone. She sat beside her cousin at the long rectangular table in the corner of the busy restaurant and they were pushed close together enough for Amy to easily see the picture of Carlos Marilyn had fished off the company website.
“Let me see!” Aunt Trish said.
YaYa passed Marilyn’s phone around and everyone, even Marilyn’s mostly disinterested mother, discussed Carlos’ rugged good looks. Amy experienced a strange mix of pride and jealousy as the women fawned over his strong features and natural hotness.
“What is he like?” her mother asked. “He looks very serious.”
“He is. At work,” Amy said. “But with me, he’s…different. And with his family, too.”
That had been a mistake. The women immediately took offense to the fact that Amy had met Carlos’ family but they hadn’t met him. No amount of excuses, or the very logical explanation that Carlos’ family all lived in the Bay Area, helped her cause.
After that explosion, they asked a million more questions about his family and his upbringing. It wasn’t until lunch was gobbled up and they were lingering over cheesecake that YaYa got super inappropriate. “So, have you had sex with him, yet?”
“YaYa!” Amy exclaimed. “I can’t believe you!” She swiveled her head around in hopes of finding allies who were also appalled at the question. She found none.
“I think we’d all like to know,” Aunt Beth said.
“Seriously? I can’t believe this. It’s none of your business. I don’t ask you all about your sex life.”
“It’s different,” her mother said. Her own mother!
“Yeah,” YaYa interjected. “You went thirty years with no love life, Amy. We are trying to look out for you.”
Of course they were. That’s what they always did. Protect her. Smother her. “I ardently believe that this is none of your business. But, to get you off my back, no, I haven’t slept with him, yet.”
“Yet,” her mother repeated, softly.
“Here’s the thing,” YaYa said. “We think you should hold off.”
“What?” Amy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. After all these years she’d found the sex drive her family had so desperately wished for her and now they wanted her to hold off?
“Look,” her mother said, leaning over the table toward her, which caused her to smash her cheesecake into her chest. “You don’t want to just jump into bed with the first man you’re interested in. You should play the field.”
Amy was speechless. She turned to YaYa, focusing on her as she went on, picking up where her mother left off. “You told me you were into other men now, too. You said you noticed them. So, maybe there’s someone else who will catch your attention.”
“I don’t want someone else. I want Carlos,” Amy insisted.
“He’s just the first one to catch your eye, Amy. You can’t just jump in bed with the first guy!” Marilyn said.
“Let us help you find a nice man,” Aunt Beth told her.
She looked from one woman to the next. “You planned this, didn’t you?”
It was Marilyn’s mother, who had just come for the dress shopping and was clearly bored with this whole conversation, who confirmed it with a sharp nod.
“Unbelievable!” Amy wanted to slam her napkin on the table and storm out, walking away from them all. But she couldn’t ever do that. That wasn’t an option for her. They’d freak out, they’d probably call the police and have an APB put out on her. Amy never got to walk out in anger like everyone else on the planet. The best she could do was move from Southern California to Northern California.
****
Amy had flown in on Thursday night. She’d wasted an annual leave day doing wedding stuff and listening to the women in her family tell her she should play the field on Friday. She’d spent Saturday with her uncles, which had been significantly more pleasant, even if she did hate bowling. She still had to get through Saturday night dinner with the whole family, Sunday morning church, and lunch before she could head to the airport and back to Richmond and Carlos.
Dinner should have been the simplest. It was just her and her mom plus Uncle Clint, Aunt Beth, YaYa, Tim, and Marilyn. The subject of the dress they’d purchased the day before was off limits because Tim was present, but otherwise, it should have been an easy evening.
That was until she was asked by her mother to make an extra place setting at the table. The red flags went up. But, perhaps YaYa was bringing a date. It wouldn’t be the first time. Or maybe Marilyn’s mother was joining them.
Aunt Beth’s exuberance, accompanied by Uncle Clint’s pursed lips should have served as further warning, and by the time YaYa arrived with a thirty-something bank teller whose mother was in the same book club as Aunt Beth, Amy smelled a rat.
The poor man, Blaine, was placed next to Amy at the table. He seemed to know from the beginning that he was being set up with her. He was kind and talkative. He asked a million questions about her while the rest of the family stayed basically silent.
They were most of the way through the meal, Amy gritting her teeth and answering in the shortest possible grunts to each of Blaine’s questions when she’d finally had enough.
“Blaine just got promoted at the bank, didn’t you, dear?” Aunt Beth said.
“Yes, and he’s quite the traveller. Aren’t you, Blaine?” Amy’s mother said. “Why, he told me when I ran into him at the bank yesterday that he loves traveling to San Francisco.”
Amy just bet her mother “ran into” Blaine. This whole thing was a set-up.
“I do love the Bay Area the clueless man said. “And my bank has several branches there.”
Amy threw her white cloth napkin, a set of which her mother reserved for special occasions, onto her plate. “Blaine, I’m sorry.” She stood, causing her chair to make a cacophonous squeal as it slid back on the hardwood floor. “I don’t understand you,” she said to her family. “You were all so happy that I started dating Carlos, and now you can’t seem to accept it.”
“Oh, they accept that you date now, honey,” Uncle Clint said. “They just want to pick out who you date.” He patted his belly casually. Aunt Beth swatted him on the arm.
Poor Blaine’s face fell. “You’re dating someone?”
“Yes, I am. His name is Carlos and he’s wonderful. And I picked him out myself.” She poked herself in the chest with her forefinger so hard it stung a little. “And I don’t appreciate you all sabotaging what I have with Carlos like this.”
“Honey, you’ve just barely started seeing the man,” Amy’s mother said.
“And you haven’t slept with him yet,” YaYa said.
Uncle Clint turned a deep shade of green. Blaine, on the other hand, was bright red. And Amy got the hell out of there. She ran, as far as her bedroom at least. Though she wanted to run all the way to Richmond, all the way home.