She unbuckles her seatbelt and scoots closer to me. Her long curls are cascading down her back, over her shoulders, framing her face. I reach up and push the ringlets to the side, caressing the beauty mark in the middle of her left cheek, causing her eyes to flicker.
The first day I saw her, I was awestruck by her beauty, the small mole accentuating her olive skin. Last week before I kissed her, I told her how much I loved her beauty mark, and she squirmed, trying to hide that my pointing it out to her made her uncomfortable.
“You’re beautiful.” I lean in to kiss her but stop halfway and use both hands to remove the frames off of her face, placing them onto the dashboard. Her pouty lips are covered in lipstick, accentuating them. I cup her jawline in my hands and lick my lips before pressing mine to hers. She whimpers when I gently tug on her bottom lip and suck on it. My tongue darts out, delving into her mouth. She opens for me—our tongues meeting and stroking each other.
Lena separates from me and bites her bottom lip. She lifts her hand and rubs her fingers across my mouth. “Your lips are so soft,” she whispers. “And those canines…I liked feeling them with my tongue,” she says and licks her lips. The things I’d like her to do with that tongue—thoughts of her using it—make my dick twitch. “They give you character.”
“Character, huh?”
“Yeah, a little mischief and a whole lotta sexy!”
Lena extends her hand out and, with her thumb, removes lipstick from around my mouth, and says, “Now you don’t have lipstick on your face.” Her touch makes me hard, but I need to take it down a notch if we’re gonna get out. Otherwise, my hard-on will be bulging, and it’ll be uncomfortable to walk.
“Thank you.” I shift in my seat to ease the pressure between my legs.
“Come on, let’s go. I need to kick your ass in pool. Show you how it’s done,” she says and throws her head back in laughter. She grabs her glasses and puts them back on, and uses the visor mirror to remove the lipstick from the area around her mouth.
“Is that right? It’s on, let’s go.”
We climb the stairs up to the third-floor entrance and stop for the bouncer working the door, asking for our IDs. I reach for my wallet and hand the guy mine. Lena is digging through her pockabook, looking for hers. When she finds her wallet, she pulls her license out and gives it to him. He looks at it and hands it back, and I snatch it before Lena can grab it. The bouncer stamps both of our hands, and we enter.
“You probably make a mug shot look good,” I say.
“A mug shot?” she asks, raising one of her eyebrows in confusion.
“These license pictures are usually terrible. I call them mug shots. Yours is good though, but you’re not wearing your glasses in your picture.”
“Yeah, I didn’t really need them when I had that license issued, so I didn’t wear them.”
“Marialena Lopez. How come you go by Lena?”
“Because, like you, most people mispronounce my name. Been like that my whole life, so when I was young, I had everyone call me Lena. It stuck. It’s easier that way, and now it’s grown on me.” She shrugs, takes the license from my hand, and puts it back into her wallet.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Great, I’m already fucking it up!
“I’m not upset. I’m used to it.” She fidgets with her frames to adjust them on her nose.
“So, how do you pronounce your name?”
“You have to roll your R—Marialena.” I love the way it sounds rolling off her tongue.
“Beautiful, just like you, but I definitely can’t roll my Rs like that, so Lena it is.”
“Show me yours.” Lena extends her hand, palm facing up. I hand her my license, and she draws it close to her face. “You’re right; yours looks like a mug shot. Considering you’ll be thirty in a few months, not bad for an old man.” She chuckles, handing it back to me. I bring my hand up to my heart, feigning being hurt by her words, but can’t hold back my laughter.
“Old man! We’ll see about that.”
She winks at me and says, “I’m sure we will.” She’s flirting, and her sultry voice is such a turn-on. Fuck, I want to make her scream my name in that voice.
“Lopez, I like that name. Where are you from?”
“I was born here, but my mom is from Uruguay, and my dad is Puerto Rican. They lived in Puerto Rico after getting married and moved to Newton a couple of years before I was born. I’m the only one of my siblings born here. The rest were born in Puerto Rico.”
“Next in line, please,” the guy behind the counter calls.
“One table, please.” I hand him my license, which he puts into a slot behind him and then slides a pool ball tray across the counter.
“Table seventeen. It’s along the right side.”
“Thanks.” I pick up the tray, and we walk toward the back. Jillian’s is a large open space. There’s a round bar in the middle of the room surrounded by couches and tables. Video game and pinball machines flank each side of the bar, and several rows of pool tables are in front of us. There are large TV screens all around, all of them showing some sporting event.
The place isn’t busy tonight. The few people you see are in small groups, everyone casually dressed in jeans, baseball hats, and T-shirts or hoodies.
“This is us.” I point to the table and place the ball tray on it, turning to remove two pool cues from the rack on the wall. “Ready, Lopez?”
“I was born ready.”
“Confident, I like that.” I begin to rack the balls so we can start playing, but I want to know more about this woman. I’ve seen her every week for almost a year, but our conversations have always been nothing but small talk. We’ve never wandered into the personal, and I didn’t push because she had that boyfriend. But now, I want to be all sorts of personal with her.
“You said you have siblings. How many do you have?”
“There’s six of us. Three girls, three boys.”
“Oh, wow, that’s a big family.”
“Yeah, both of my parents come from big families too. My mother has nine brothers and sisters, and my father has twelve.”
“Whewww.” I whistle. “My parents each have big families too. Made for big family events with lots of food.”
“All the food is usually my favorite part.” She laughs. “Speaking of, are there menus around here? We should order something to eat before we start playing. I’m starving.” She wanders to one of the high-top tables behind me, drops her bag on the chair, and grabs two menus off the table.
I meander over and hover behind her to look at the same menu she is. Lena asks, “See anything you like?”
I inhale her unique scent before responding, “Yes.” Having her so close gives me goose bumps. I want to pull her hair and kiss her.
“I definitely want fries. Maybe I’ll just get a chicken sandwich,” she says. “What about you?”
She has no idea that I wasn’t talking about items on the menu. I’m so turned on by her right now, I need to step away, or I’m gonna have a hard-on all night. “I’ll just get a cheeseburger.” I take a few steps back toward the pool table.