“I’m yours, sweetheart, always. I could never want you to share me, and I sure as hell could never share you,” I growl in her ear. “I’ll go nice and slow and see if you like how it feels.” I gather some of the slickness from where we’re joined to coat my finger before I lightly massage the entrance to get it to relax. Once I work it enough, I coat my finger again to make sure it is nice and lubricated before I lightly press just the tip of my finger in. She clenches immediately, so I run a soothing hand down herback to get her to relax again. My cock is still in her, but I’m not moving so that she’s not too overstimulated at once. Once my touch calms her down enough, I keep gently working the finger in until I’m knuckle deep.
“How does that feel?” I ask her.
“Strange and new, in a very good way,” she replies, her voice strained with getting acclimated to the new sensation. I keep massaging and gently opening up the entrance until my whole finger is in. Then I slowly move my finger in and out to get her used to that feeling.
“Still doing ok? Do you like it?”
“Yes,” she moans, beginning to push back on my finger. It makes me start to move so that I drive into her pussy at the same time my finger dips into her ass. She screams deliciously. This is easily the most erotic experience of my life, with the warm water sluicing down her every curve and steaming up the shower, creating a little world of our own.
“Oh holy fucking shit, I’ve never been so full,” she cries out. “It’s so much but I never want it to end.”
“You can have this whenever you want,” I murmur to her. My pace stays steady until I feel her convulsing enough to make a vice around me. That starts to make me pulse and see stars as my hips stutter. She detonates with a scream of my name, and I’m right behind her. When we’ve come down, I have to hold her up because of how boneless she is. I turn off the water once we rinse off all of the mess and wrap her up snuggly in a towel. Once I get one wrapped around my waist, I haul her into my arms to carry her to bed.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell her when I gently lay her down, kissing her forehead. Going down to the kitchen, I get a glass of water to bring up for her. She’s sprawled on the bed, barely awake when I walk in, but props herself up when she sees me.
“That was the most incredible experience of my life,” she slurs sleepily. I crawl into bed next to her and bring her into my side to snuggle her close.
“For me too. Here, drink some water. Between the drinks tonight and what we did in the shower you need to hydrate.” She takes the glass with a soft thanks and drinks up, leaning into me to stay upright. I honestly don’t know how either of us still have an ounce of energy, and I have a feeling we are about to crash hard. When she’s done drinking, I put the glass on the bedside table and lie us both down with me spooning her. We’re out instantly and sleep for about 10 hours.
We wake up refreshed and less jet lagged in the morning. Since we only have two more full days here, we want to try and make the most of them. The bed gets delivered early enough, thank goodness. We quickly make it up to have it ready for tonight. Then back to Barcelona on the train it is, to see more of the city and get a little more shopping done for the house. For breakfast we go to the famous Boqueria and sit at the breakfast bar called Quim. To no one’s surprise, my shrimp loving woman immediately orders their eggs fried in olive oil with garlicky prawns. I decide on the same fried eggs with squid. It’s absolutely incredible, with perfect cups of coffee to wash it all down. We wander around the rest of the market more, looking at the vendor stands and getting some pastries to snack on. Tania finds a couple of more pretty pieces to add to the house, and we also pick out some little trinkets to bring home to my family. Then it’s time to be complete tourists and check out the Sagrada Familia with Gaudi’s incredible architecture on full display, even though it’s the largest unfinished Catholic church in the world. We marvel at all of the stained glass and how the spires seem to pierce the clouds.
The entire city is so alive with a buzzing energy that I love. Music is everywhere, people sit outside to truly enjoy their meals, vendors talk animatedly about what they’re selling, and the smell of delicious food permeates every particle of air. After a full day of exploring, we hop on the train back to Alella and quickly find ourselves walking the beach again near the house. It’s pretty deserted, except for a small family of parents with two small children. The mom is chasing the kids and laughing while the dad looks on proudly, snapping a whole bunch of pictures and videos.
“That’s something we haven’t discussed with all of our talk of growing old together,” I murmur softly to Tania. She follows my sightline and sucks in a breath.
“You want to be a dad,” she says like it’s a foregone conclusion.
“I want to talk about our stances on having kids,” I correct her.
She watches the family, a small smile playing on her lips.
“I haven’t been around them enough to know whether I’d be a good mom. You may think I’m weird, but I do know pregnancy and babies scare me a lot. There are so many complications with pregnancy that I’d be a wreck the entire 9 months. Babies are adorable, of course. The thought of how fragile they are, how newborns need to be fed all through the night, and how they can’t tell you what they need is terrifying, though. I’d be completely lost. I’ve seen women I’m connected to on social media talk about almost dying from preeclampsia, having severe postpartum depression, or collapsing from exhaustion. It’s so daunting. The world is also pretty scary. I don’t know how I feel about adding to the population.” I nod in understanding, encouraging her to go on.
“I think I’d like to be a mom, when it comes down to it. A foster mom who helps kids that find themselves in the system, like me and Celeste were. I’d like to pay it forward and make a loving home for older kids who need it. We could adopt, maybe?” She looks to me for my reaction, almost wincing with worry about whether I think less of her or whatever. I hug her fiercely.
“I absolutely love that idea,” I say into her hair. “See, once again we’re on the same page.” My love for her just amped up even more with her stance. It’s thoughtful and honest and so completely her, without either of us having to compromise what we want out of life. She pulls back to search my face.
“Really? You’d be ok with not having biological children?” Her voice is so uncertain, so I give her a reassuring smile and a kiss to her temple.
“Of course. As long as I get to be a dad with the best dad jokes, I’m good. I will make any future children of ours groan in embarrassment, that’s a promise. Opening our home to kids who need it is a stellar idea, sweetheart.” She shakes her head, giggles escaping her, her eyes so warm and full of amusement.
“You are going to be the corniest, most adorable dad,” she declares, wrapping her arms around my neck.
“You’ll be a great mom, I know that in my bones just from how you are about the furballs,” I tell her, leaning down to kiss her. We eventually sit closely snuggled together on the beach to watch the sunset. I pull my sketchbook out of the messenger bag I’m carrying and try to capture the way the sun plays off of the water, and the way the waves kiss the shore. Gulls are diving all over the place, and I can’t move my pencil fast enough. The rest of the trip goes by in a blur of wine at local vineyards, fun with Yolanda and her family, exploring Alella, and makingthe villa feel more and more like our second home. It seems too soon, but we find ourselves promising Yolanda to keep in touch, and that we’ll see her and her family in about a year. Arriving back in the states, we walk into the apartment to love on the cats, and think about our future together.
Chapter 25
TANIA
Tension vibrates through every muscle in my body as Carlo and I make our way back into the courthouse. We seat ourselves in the front of the gallery, right behind the table where Damian is already sitting and looking through his papers. He is a miracle worker who managed to get a new judge and retrial on the calendar for today after presenting solid evidence on why the first trial had a weak defense. Celeste had barely been able to speak the first time, the previous judge had clear ties to the prosecution side, and he gathered more information after tracking down a couple of people who were working that night and might have seen things. The evidence led the prosecution to accept a new trial that seeks to lower the charge and sentence.
It was a few hours of back and forth this morning, with Damian painting an effective picture of a woman who had a hard life and was being harassed by an entitled man. Celeste bravely took the stand to tell her side of what really happened, refusing to be silenced again. She spoke clearlyand firmly about how she rebuffed him multiple times, and he kept touching her.
Now it’s time for closing arguments after everyone took a break for lunch. The prosecution is all seated and ready when the officer brings in Celeste to sit by Damian. I give her a reassuring smile when her eyes meet mine, and I see Carlo do the same in my periphery. Damian leans in to speak to her in a low voice that I can’t make out, and she nods. We all rise for the judge when she comes in. I love that it’s a female judge this time, I think Damian has been able to appeal to her sense of justice for women. She calls for the prosecution to make their closing argument first. They try to paint Celeste as a hellion who is a menace and beats up innocent men, but I can see on the jurors’ faces that they’re not necessarily buying it. Then Damian gets up. His air is completely authoritative as he adjusts his glasses while consulting his notes one last time. His dark brown hair is streaked with gray at the temples and styled smartly with a side part, and his sharp brown eyes make contact around the room as he begins to speak. He reminds me of Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. I’ll never forget watching that movie in school after we covered the book.
“Your honor, people of the jury, I’ve talked a lot about how the first trial for my client Celeste Martino was handled poorly. She was not given adequate defense against a well connected man who assaulted her, which is a blight against our judicial system. Unfortunately, this is something I see too often, which is why I specialize in taking cases like these on behalf of women who have been silenced. Now, there is no disputing the fact that Miss Martino beat up a man, and badly. However, I have also presented evidence that this man had been harassing her, and touching herwithout consent several times, no matter how many times she rejected him. He then proceeded to make himself out to be the sole victim, and stated under oath that she beat him up because he rejected her. I’ll remind you that I did call up a witness who attests that when she delivered a drink to my client, he had been touching her and she was forcefully saying no. So I would argue that he lied under oath to get this young woman the punishment he felt was warranted for rejecting him, not the justice she deserved. It’s clear that this is a case of a man with privilege wielding his power to ruin the life of a woman who had the audacity to say no. With all of that in mind, I would ask you to consider the provocation my client endured before the assault occurred. I ask for you to reduce the charge from a felony aggravated assault, to the misdemeanor charge of simple assault, with a commensurate reduced sentence. Thank you very much.”
The courtroom goes quiet as Damian returns to his seat, giving Celeste a quick reassuring touch to her shoulder. They confer over a few things that I can’t hear, before she looks back at me with hope in her face. The jury leaves to deliberate once the Judge checks that the prosecution has no rebuttal to Damian’s statement, and she gives the jurors their instructions. It’s anticipated that the deliberation won’t be long, so we all sit and wait, a low murmur of chatter filling up the courtroom. Damian turns to us and looks pleased. I reach to shake his hand, as does Carlo.
