Chapter 53

53

W hen she finally remembered to disable Airplane Mode on her cell phone the following morning, she found a couple of voicemails from Luke highlighting his signature gruffness and inviting her to a party at his place that evening.

She also got a text message from someone she had managed to put out of her mind for days.

The Boring One: I was woken up this morning at 5 a.m. by your moving company! They took all your stuff but made me pay for the service myself!

Sol smiled. She was sure it had been Laia's doing. Her friend knew Sol still had some things that she hadn't been able to retrieve after the divorce from David—mainly books but also some decorating objects and furniture.

The Boring One: They took stuff that's mine!

Sol doubted it. She was sure Laia had given them precise information about what to take and what to leave, the same precise information Sol had compiled three years earlier while trying to get some of that stuff back. Even if taking revenge on David herself directly could have been more satisfactory, Sol was perfectly happy. If there was something she'd learned how to do well as she aged, it was embracing her friends' constant offers of support.

The Boring One: I demand an explanation and compensation! Call me urgently

She texted him one bit of information: the telephone number of Victoria Sifuentes. She hadn't liked her divorce lawyer, but she loved how Victoria was dealing with the whole Voyeur situation. The story about Sol's involvement in the Meshflixx case would be removed from their website after they publicly admitted to it being unfounded, and they were negotiating an agreement where Sol would get financial compensation. Victoria was ironing the deal, but it looked like it would be enough for Sol not to worry about flying economy anytime soon. And even if Victoria wasn't a divorce lawyer, Sol was sure she wouldn't mind dealing with David at her usual hourly rate.

After that, Sol blocked David's number from her phone once and for all.

The only remaining thing now would be to properly thank Laia for taking revenge on David for her and doing it in a fitting way. She'd get her an expensive Catalan wine or olive oil—or both—and Sol could let her borrow Luke for babysitting duties again if she wanted. She'd heard he'd done a semi-decent job the night before by reading Ada Twist, Scientist a record of twenty times and managing to make different voices almost every time.

···

Luke hadn't given her much information about the party other than it started at seven. If there was one occasion for which Sol never showed up on time it was parties, where she preferred to be a good twenty minutes late. She was trying to follow her usual guidelines that evening and yet she had the feeling she'd be the first to arrive—people in their thirties had better things to do than get anywhere early or even fashionably late. And for some reason, that knowledge made her oddly uncomfortable. She'd never been to Luke's place, and she'd get to meet a few of his friends that evening.

She was afraid she'd be the oldest—and uncoolest—person at the party, which was why she'd forgone one of her customary going-out little black dresses and was instead wearing her favorite pair of baggy, cropped trousers from Lurdes Bergada and an asymmetrical top that put half her midriff on display for what—she hoped—was a punk-rock look.

She brought a couple of bottles of wine from Montsant and hoped that this alone would help make people like her.

She made sure she was at the right address one last time and checked the time on the steps tracker at her wrist, which read 7:07. She cursed her inability to ever be late anywhere even if she tried, and knocked on Luke's door.

He opened almost immediately, a smile already on his lips, his waves in perfectly composed disorder, a lightweight sleeveless tank clinging to his chest, and plenty of sweaty skin on display.

"Are you just back from running?" she asked in disbelief.

"Afraid yes, but come on in," he said, showing her inside the tiny studio. "I assumed everyone would be here late, but I was counting on you being early."

"Were you?" She eyed his workout clothes and sweat one more time.

"Maybe not this early," he conceded, grinning. "I'm going to have a quick shower, but feel free to show yourself around. Although this is basically it. The moment you set foot in, you see it all. There's not much else I can show you other than the shower room and the Murphy bed."

"Right." She examined every single detail in Luke's small but sunlit place, from the gray IKEA KLIPPAN sofa she recognized, because she'd had the same minimalist model in her late twenties, to the framed poster of Moonlighting featuring Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis clad in a white T-shirt that read "Medicate Me."

"Heading to the shower," Luke said as if he wanted to make sure she agreed to be left there alone.

She eyed his bare arms and shoulders. "I'm actually joining. If you don't mind the company."

"I was hoping you'd want to join," he said with a smug grin. "I may have told everyone else the party started after eight…"

Sol closed the distance between them and kissed him. She didn't mind that he was sticky and wet or that his usual notes of hickory overpowered the lavender with some muskier scents.

"But you have no idea how small that shower room is," he warned.

She took his tank off while still urgently kissing him, first his lips, then his neck, collarbone, chest, nipples. He was saltier than she'd ever tasted him.

They tumbled into the shower room. She tried getting rid of his brief-lined running shorts, but they clung to Luke's sweaty skin and she demanded he do it for her with a frustrated grunt. She took off her own tank top and pants, leaving them on the floor to wrinkle. She almost couldn't recognize herself. She was needy.

She liked this new Sol, and Luke seemed to like her even more. He was looking at her flushed face, at her disheveled hair, at her body with the most ravenous eyes. He drew nearer, biting her earlobe.

"You look so hot right now," he told her in a growl that she felt between her legs.

She did feel hot wearing nothing but a black bralette and cheeky high-waisted panties. But even that seemed like too many clothes when she could touch Luke's erection hard against her hip. He trailed down her collarbone and neckline with his mouth. She helped him unclasp the bra, and he bit one of her nipples greedily.

She didn't know where all this urgency was coming from. Five minutes before, she was just a girl—no, not a girl—a woman arriving early to a party. Now she needed this bathroom sex to be quick and extremely pleasurable.

"Did you bring one of your toys?" he asked, as if he'd heard her thoughts. She was always so damned impatient.

He was still mercilessly playing with her earlobe and nipple when he'd asked her that, and Sol almost couldn't reply. She uttered a primal noise that meant she hadn't brought anything.

"We'll have to take it easier then," he murmured again in her ear, and she could hear the delight in his voice. "And rely on the smutty talk."

His lips descended on her body while he lifted her in the air and seated her over the edge of the small sink at the shower room.

"This may get a bit uncomfortable," he told her, trailing her stomach with his lips and kissing her bony hip. "Cramped." He took her panties off, parted her legs further. "And hot," he said, then brushed her clit with his tongue. "But tasty."

She arched her back instinctively, breathing heavily. He licked, kissed, drank her. If she'd been able to articulate any complete thought, Sol would have admitted that he was proceeding with the same level of proficiency as her suction vibrator. And she'd done lots of research before buying what she knew was the best in the market. That thing had caused a frenzy among people with clitoris—or was it clitorises?

Luke added two of his fingers then, diligently sliding them inside her, and she knew she wouldn't be able to take it much longer.

"Luc—" She wanted more of him but couldn't say anything else.

He unrelentingly used his mouth on her, his fingers inside her, until she spasmed in unwavering, severe, exquisite pleasure. One thing her favorite sex toy didn't have: the ability to surprise her.

He went back to facing her only once her ragged breath had steadied a bit. He touched his lips with hers once again and she tasted herself on his sea-flavored breath. She wanted to say something, to urge him to have mercy on her. She wanted him. No, she needed him, all of him. Ya.

"Inside," she demanded.

"I like it when you're bossy," he told her, the same smug grin on his lips that he'd had since she'd told him she'd join him in the shower.

"Now."

Acquiescing, he reached behind Sol and grabbed a few condoms from the armoire above the sink. She took them from his hand.

"Deixa'm," she ordered and unfoiled one of them. She was still dizzy from the orgasm.

She wrapped the condom around his cock, feeling him on her hand.

He lifted her again, her legs wrapped around his waist, and lowered both of them to the closed-lid toilet. He sat there with her straddled on top of him. She didn't even think and simply took him all in.

Their movements got rougher and more urgent then.

"You're getting me hooked," she confessed.

"To?"

"Fucking you," she told him, in pure sensuous agony.

"I'm addictive," he said, sounding as breathless as she was. Another nipple bite had her panting.

She felt the release starting to build again and chased it, pushing against Luke's body. She heard herself moaning, screaming with the notes of release, not a care clouding her pleasure.

"Fuck," she said, feeling his orgasm inside her. Her heart rate was almost uncontrollable.

"Fuck," he agreed, reaching to her face and pulling a lock of her hair behind her left ear. "And we haven't even made it to the shower yet."