Page 82 of Café Diablo

“You can’t just give me the painting,” I say, leaning into the delicious pressure of her hands.

“Actually, I can,” she says, bopping my lip. “It’s my art. I can do whatever I want with it.”

“It’s worth too much,” I shake my head, not sure how to articulate what I mean by that. “I mean, you should be paid for your work.”

“And you don’t think the look on your face for the last ten minutes is enough?” she replies, lifting an eyebrow.

“I mean, you have to make a living.”

“Edwin!” She pushes me onto her artist stool, lowering me so she’s looking me straight in the face. She cups my jaw and her brown eyes are so earnest my lungs feel raw. “The look on your face when you fall in love with something is enough to make me want to give you everything I own.”

“Olivia—”

“And it’s even harder,” she interrupts, “when you turn that look on me. Because then I have to give you all of me too.” She brushes her thumb over my mouth and I think the whole world just dissolved and all there is, is this woman—jet black hair framing her freckled face—an absolute vision who owns my heart.

“I love you,” I whisper, but it doesn’t feel like enough to say it out loud. It feels weak and insufficient, but Olivia looks at me like she already knows. “I—” but, I don’t know what to follow that with, so I pull her onto my lap and kiss her instead. She curls into me, like a precious gem cupped in my hands, the two of us fitting together perfectly.

“I love you too,” she says back and that peek of gold on the painting is inside my chest. And all my fears and wounds and uncertainties open up, but it’s Olivia’s hands that are there, holding me, promising that they will be healed with gold and sun.

34

Olivia

Edwin sinks between my naked thighs and my mouth drops open.

“Ned!!” I gasp, as he slides inside me.

“Calling me Ned again?” he asks, his hips starting to move in wicked gyrations.

My arms and legs cling to his torso, the two of us naked in my loft bed that’s located above my studio. There’s barely room for a mattress up here and the pitch of the roof is so low that Edwin has to stay bent forward to keep from hitting his head on the angled rafters.

What can I say? It’s a tiny bed in a tiny house. Of course, that doesn’t mean he isn’t using the space he does have impeccably well.

Edwin’s hips swirl, angling his thickness against my clit and shooting bolts of electricity from my core to my extremities.

“Ned, please! Do that again!”

“Uh huh,” he growls, pushing deeper and managing to make me see stars as his body grinds. “So, Ned’s your dirty nickname for me when I’m inside you? Is that it?”

“Pretty much,” I concede, arching my back as his plunging strokes ignite my inner walls.

“You realize, calling me Ned when we’re in bed is going to make it awkward when anyone else calls me Ned from now on. It’s going to take on a completely new meaning.”

“Not true,” I argue, my fingers raking down his spine so I can grab his ass, my nails digging into his glutes and encouraging him to increase his pace. “Unless, of course, you tell them that calling you Ned makes you think about pounding your girlfriend with your massive cock! Then it might be weird.”

“I heard that,” he hisses.

“Which part?” I toss back, rolling my hips to meet his thrusts. “The part where I was speaking about your massive—?”

“The G-word, missy!” Edwin pulls back and pushes my knees up toward my ears. I stare at him, my eyes-glazed with pleasure. He yanks my hips back so I’m lower on the mattress, then hooks my knees over his shoulders so I’m bent beneath him.

“Oh my!” I worship as he repositions. “You’re definitely going to hit my G-spot at this angle, Ned!”

He thrusts into me and I’m not wrong. My head flings back as he hits a whole new length of pleasure inside my body.

“Girlfriend,” he growls out as he pumps me with long hot strokes, making my tightness ripple over his length.

“Ned!” I crow. “Oh god, you better slow down or your girlfriend is going to—! Oh! Don’t stop!”

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