Jesus. I close my laptop and say, “What do you have in mind?”
“Hmmmm,” he moans, letting his hands explore my body. They leave my shoulders and grab my breasts. I’m already naked because it’s a kitchen work day. “I want the whole neighborhood to hear us,” he whispers. “Everyone. I want to fuck you in the front yard.”
“Oh, no,” I say. I don’t tell him no often, but no. “I’m not having sex in your front yard.” I might be sitting naked in his kitchen, but I have to draw the line somewhere. Plus, the blinds are closed and it’s late. So no one is looking in here.
“No?” he says, taking my hand and pulling me up from my seat.
“No,” I say, but I’m already smiling because he’s sucking on my nipple and there’s no chance he’s not getting his way. I might say no, but it never works. Mateo always gets his way.
“I want everyone to know, Shannon,” he says, taking his kisses up to my shoulder again. “I’m tired of hiding you in here.”
“We’re not hiding.” Not really. We stopped hiding after Hawaii. But there’s nothing to hide anyway. I finished my last trig test two weeks ago and Mateo turned in my grade. Even Mr. Bowman couldn’t stop us now.
“I want to flaunt you. Make you come so hard, everyone within two blocks hears you scream my name. But I want to do it my way.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a yellow silk scarf.
“Really?” I ask. “I mean, I get the whole blindfold thing, but yellow? It’s probably see-through.”
“Let me put it on you and find out.”
I throw up my hands, unimpressed. Mateo’s ten years on me have not gone unnoticed. He’s got a lot more experience than I do in the sexual imagination department. “Give it your best shot, cowboy.”
He chuckles as he places the soft silk over my eyes and ties it tight at the back of my head. “Now follow me.”
“Wait, we’re not going outside.”
“Define outside.”
“Mateo—”
“Shannon—”
“I don’t want to fuck in the front yard.”
“You do,” he whispers, biting my ear again. “Trust me.”
When he says trust me he really means it. It’s not a flippant joke or something casual. He’s serious. He’s asked me to trust him a lot over the past few months. “Fine.” I give in. I always give in.
He takes my hand again and leads me forward, flipping out all the lights in the house as we pass through rooms. The scarf is see-through, but only when the lights are on. So by the time we make our way to the front of the house, I can’t see shit. It’s got to be past eleven at night right now, and the porch light isn’t on when we cross over the threshold, him giving me a little warning about the lip of wood trim that separates the house from the porch.
“Does this excite you?” I ask. “Fucking me on the porch in the dark?”
“Should I turn the lights on?”
“No.” I laugh.
“Then don’t jump to conclusions about what we’re doing.”
I bite my lip, nervous. What did I agree to this time?
“Stand right here.”
I take a deep breath and let it out as I listen to the creak of the screen door on the porch. “Mateo?”
“Don’t move,” he orders me. But he’s not on the porch, he’s out in the yard. And the screen door is still open because I never heard it slam shut.
“What are you doing?” I whisper. But he’s either ignoring me or he’s not close enough to hear.
His footsteps get louder as he comes back up the stairs and passes me, his hands on my shoulders as he gently moves me aside and then flips a switch.
The front yard lights up. “Oh, my God, what the hell are you doing?”
“Quiet,” he says. “I want you absolutely quiet until you can’t stop yourself from screaming my name.”
“That’s never gonna happen.”
“So you say now. And don’t worry, I might want to fuck in public, but the whole point is to never let anyone see you but me. The lights are on the flower bed, not the porch.”
He’s right, I realize. I’m not lit up, I’m in the shadows. In fact there’s just enough light to—“Hey.” I squint my eyes at the dark shadow of his body as he walks down towards the street. “Where are you going?” I call. What the fuck? I want to take this blindfold off and see what the hell he’s up to, but I don’t want to spoil the game just yet.
A few seconds later his shadow jogs back towards me.
“Where did you go?”
“I was checking something across the street.” He closes the front door to the house and pushes me up against it. “A tripod, Shannon. I put a camera across the street zooming in on you.”
Fuck.
There’s plenty of cars going by on Broadway, so if anyone was looking real hard, they could probably see me. But it’s late, so not many people.