“Have you considered not having a war?”
He looks at me flatly, mouth closed. I’m only a little sorry I brought it up.
“Open it.” He pushes the phone to me. The time is displayed on the top in green over black.
I open it the way I saw him do it. Another little screen lights up. The time again, but in white on a blue field. An envelope. A folder. A tiny map.
“What do I do with all these things on the screen?”
Dario comes behind my barstool and cups his hands under mine. “Nothing. The only things you need are these buttons. With the numbers.”
His chest presses against my back. I feel him breathing. His heartbeat is a faint rhythm between my shoulder blades. No phone will ever make me feel as safe as he does.
“I want you to memorize my number.”
“Okay.”
“Are you ready?”
He recites it, and with each digit, he kisses my neck, sucking away my brain’s energy so it can flow between my legs. I touch the numbers on the phone without pressing them, engraving the shape of the motion in my fingers, the way I did on the landlines at home.
“I can’t think when you’re doing that.”
“What’s the number?”
I imagine the shape and recite the numbers.
“How did you do that?”
“I remember which corners and sides, and they make lines between, in my head. It’s a pattern.”
“Do it again.”
Again. And again.
“Without looking,” he says.
He kisses me. I make the shape in my head and repeat the ten digits until the swirl of need in my core could heat the city. I open my legs and throw my head back against him, reciting the numbers correctly.
“Dario.”
“Again.”
“Take me first.”
He stops kissing my neck. I turn and wrap my legs around him, pulling him into me. He’s hard. Very hard.
“No.” Even as he refuses, he puts the contour of his erection between my legs.
“No?”
“No.” His hips grind, pushing his hardness against me. “First, we wait and make sure you know it.”
“I know it. I swear.”
Hands under my knees, he pulls them wider to get better access. “How do you call me?”
“I put in the number, then I don’t know.”
“Press the green button. Do it.”
“I can’t call you while you’re doing this to me.”
“Try me.” With a smile, he switches to a side-to-side motion that’s guaranteed to distract me.
I hit the wrong button and have to start over. “I think you’re enjoying this.”
“You have no idea.”
“There!”
“Green button.”
My screen says Calling… then Connecting…
His pocket buzzes.
“I told you I knew it.”
“I feel something against my balls,” he says. “I wonder what.”
“Pick it up. I want to talk to you.”
He takes the vibrating phone out of his pocket and looks at the screen. “Who’s this?”
“It’s me! Answer.”
“I’m not home.” He slides the phone between our bodies where it buzzes against the nerve center under my pants. “Hang up, if you want.”
“Oh my G—” The vibrations are lightning. The opposite of his teasing mouth. If I cut the call, I’ll cut the stimulation.
The sensation escalates. I lean into the short back of the stool.
Then it stops like a car at a red light.
He’s smirking and can go right to hell.
“Do you know how to leave a voice mail?” he asks.
“I know how to use a phone.” I hold it up so he can hear the disembodied woman describing how to talk after the beep. Even I know that. Massimo and Daddy’s phones had the same message. After the beep, I say, “Hi, Dario. Please take my pants off.”
I press the red button, make the shape of his number, then press the green. The vibrations resume. He lifts my shirt to expose my breasts, pushing the phone hard against me while thumbing my nipples. He exhales with his own arousal, then it stops again.
“Again. Call me until you come.”
It takes three more calls before I’m jerking with climax.
“Do you believe me now?” I ask, putting the phone on the counter. He keeps himself pushed against me.
“My plan was to send you out without a jacket.” He pulls away and lowers my shirt. “Make sure you can dial when your hands are shaking.”
“That’s a little extreme.” My legs drop.
“Smarter men than me have died underestimating the Colonia.”
“Have they had me at their side?” I stand and pocket the phone. “No, they have not.”
“You’re not ‘at my side.’ You’re my wife.”
“Yes, I am, and no, I am not.”
He raises an eyebrow and tightens his mouth. I can’t tell if he’s angry. All I can see is the massive bulge in his pants. He catches me looking and yanks his belt open.
“Get on your knees.”
I lower myself without thinking, kneeling like a supplicant at the altar.
“That mouth’s getting insubordinate, and it’s going to get you killed.” He exposes himself, hard and thick, throbbing from the vibrating phone. “Hands behind your back.”
He puts the head against my lips, leaving a trail of precum along my lower lip.
“I still know your number.”
“Open that smart mouth for my cock.”
I do it slowly, just to claim a little bit of control. He takes me by the back of the head and pushes in so fast my tongue doesn’t have time to get out of the way.
“Now open your throat so I can fuck the defiance out of you.” He gets out of the way long enough for me to breathe and press my tongue down, then he’s in my throat. “You need to do what I tell you.” He should pull out now, but he shoves himself deeper. “You suck when I tell you. You fuck when I tell you.” He pulls out a little, but not enough. “You breathe when I tell you. Now. Breathe.” He pulls out completely. I suck in air. He fists my hair and makes me look up at him in the distance, past his spit-coated dick. “I can’t teach you anything if you don’t do what I tell you. Breathe and open.”
I do what he tells me, and he feeds me his dick.
“When I’m out, breathe, then keep it open wide. Don’t close your lips around it. Don’t breathe again until I tell you.”
I nod around his shaft, and he pulls out. I breathe. Open.
“You mean everything to me,” he says. “And I’m in over my head. If I lose you…”
He doesn’t finish, deciding to fuck my open mouth instead. I don’t close my lips around him. I let him use my throat, holding my breath as he pumps against my face, holding my head still.
He stops. “Breathe.”
I do it, and he starts again, telling me to breathe one more time before holding me still, nose pressed against him, balls pulsing against my lower lip.
“Sweet girl,” he groans, unloading down my throat. “I knew you could breathe on your own.”