Twenty-Four

ARIANNA slowly woke up.
She opened her eyes and, for a puzzled moment, she just stared at the slowly rotating fan on the ceiling.
When everything came back to her, she sat on the bed, then had to close her eyes because the rush made her feel heady.
It was still light outside, thank goodness! It was late morning when they came here, she remembered. How could she fall asleep so early?
She felt like she'd slept for hours!
Where were her clothes? She had to go home before Tommy could get ahead of her.
*Mama!* She would be worried about why she still hadn't come back!
She looked out the window, hoping it wasn't lunchtime yet even though she could see that the sun wasn’t directly above the sky now.
Holding the blanket over her breasts, she slid down the enormous bed and picked up the pieces of her clothes on the floor.
Her face was blushing at the memory of how they got there as she dressed quickly.
She had just gotten out of the bathroom where she had been washing her flushed face when a robed Señorito Enrique entered the bedroom holding a wireless phone.
He stopped abruptly upon seeing her.
And, of course, Arianna froze like a doe caught in headlights.
He sighed, then smiled very carefully. "Ahm, you're dressed. I suppose you'd want to go home?"
She hesitated before nodding.
"We’ll eat first. Wait for me. I'll just get dressed. "
"N-oh, there's no need, Señorito. I can—"
Suddenly, he was in front of her, frowning. "What did you say?"
"I-I haven’t… I didn’t mean—"
"Not that, Arianna. What do you call me? "
She stared at him. Señorito. What’s wrong with it? What did he want her to call him?
As it seemed she was not going to answer, he shook his head. "Call me Enrique. Or Eric... that is much better. But I don't want to hear that Señorito anymore."
Because it sounded like a command of the tallest order, she nodded automatically, then worried at the next moment how she would be able to get away with doing that.
Everybody called him Señorito. She couldn't even understand why he'd wanted her to stop.
"I cooked something so we can have a late lunch, and I will take you home."
"No—" She stopped again because of the look on his face.
Then she thought she heard him say late lunch, and her face fell.
Oh no, so his mother had already had lunch. She frantically began thinking of what excuse she could give her.
She knew Yna was going to the mansion to bring the vegetables. She could just say she chatted with her high school friends who lived in the hacienda village center near there, where her family used to live, too, before her father died.
She’d just tell Zoren, Chinchin, and Giselle to cover for her next time they visited.
Why did she forget to bring her phone? It was just a keypad phone that she could use to text her mother. She forgot to take it from the pocket of the jeans she was wearing this morning because she was too focused on what happened on the side of the road.
On the other hand, if she had her phone she wouldn’t be able to answer her mother’s text messages because she’d been busy.
That would have made her mother more worried than if she didn’t know why she took her own sweet time coming back home, something Arianna very rarely did.
Her mind oscillated between one end of the spectrum to the other end, until he spoke.
She jumped, forgetting somehow he was still standing there, actually waiting for her reply.
"Just wait for me."
"Y-Yes-ss..." she replied, with a tail, because she was going to say Señorito again, but she caught herself in time.
His eyes remained focused on her. Why did he watch her like that? It’s so weird.
Then there was a small smile that was gone too quickly.
Okay, he found her weird. Why was she still standing there?
She was frowning while she waited for him as he'd instructed. Everything about his behavior confused her.
How did she even know how the wealthy think or act?
The only important thing to her was he didn't think she was a sex worker anymore.
His reaction to her distress was enough for her to believe he had stopped believing she was for a while now.
Something might have happened to him since, but he didn't think so now.
She blinked.
But he wanted her still?
Her heart raced at the memory of what happened on that bed this morning.
Of his passion, his gasps and moans, and his furious possession of her body.
And of her total lack of self-respect.
*I can't deny I want him. What kind of a woman am I?*
He was everything she could only dream of in a man.
But there are a lot of people who had dreams they couldn't even have. She'd had hers.
Twice.
*So how is that for self-respect?*
Her confused musing stopped when he emerged from his closet dressed in a gray t-shirt and ripped jeans, his feet still bare.
She almost stared. Why did he have to be so tragically handsome and just so deliciously formed?
Why was his presence so strong and magnetic that right now, upon seeing him, she felt a tingling sensation from her breasts going down to the middle of her thighs?
This wasn’t even about self-respect anymore. She felt possessed.
She was grateful when he came and opened the door for her and gestured for her to come out of the bedroom.
She gawked at the food that was set on the dining table when they got there.
He had breaded fried chicken there, a whole delicious-looking pizza, a roll of cake that was stuffed with strawberries and cream, a bowl of grapes, slices of ham and cheese and bananas, a bottle of… wine? She even spied rice and veggies rolled into something paper-thin and edible, and she believed it was Thai food. And other dishes, delicious smelling and looking mouth-watery.
That table was filled to the core.
“Where did all these come from?” she asked.
“From the fridge,” he replied as if that was very obvious.
But she was already looking around for other people, ready to bolt any moment she spied one. There was no one.
“What are you doing?”
She looked back at him and gulped. Being found out here with him scared the shit out of her. Well, it seemed like this was how the wealthy eat. She wondered how he was maintaining such a manly physique.
“There’s no one else here,” he finally said, as if he’d guessed what she was thinking. “I got over-excited because you must be hungry and I was thinking about what you might want to eat, so I brought out whatever you might like. Fried chicken is always a winner, so I fried these for you.”
He pointed at the big bowl that had about ten chicken thighs.
Really.
“I’ll just get the gravy from the pan and the mashed potato. Wait a sec. Please sit wherever you want.”
He turned and went to his kitchen.
She gaped at all the food again and, thinking about eating had her tongue darting out to wet suddenly dry lips.
She was hungry when she woke up. He was right.
Now, she was hungrier but, Hesukristo, how big was his fridge? Was it a whole house?
It was a circular table, and she sighed and combed her hair with her fingers, took the scrunchy bunched inside her jeans back pocket, and tied her hair in a bun at the top of her head. Then she pulled up a seat and sank on its plush cushion.
And she sighed again.
Okay, she had to get through all these torture until she could get home. She might as well start to finish quickly.
He was coming back with the gravy in a delicate-looking glass bowl and the mashed potato in a bigger one as she was putting one of those huge chicken thighs on her plate. A big table with lots of food, and there was no rice but that Thai roll, and she also took one of them because its platter was near her.
Then she stilled as she felt his lips at the back of her neck.
“Sorry. Delectable, I couldn’t help myself,” he murmured, and the vibration of his low, sexy baritone as he continued to rain tiny kisses on the side of her neck now had her stifling a pleasurable shiver.
Instead, she closed her eyes and gave him more access by bowing her head, and raising a hand to caress his chee—
Her eyes popped open and she pulled away to turn an accusing stare at him.
*Every single time!*
He smiled at her and stole another kiss, this time on her lips, before he straightened up and pulled the seat beside hers, still grinning happily.
It’s not an arrogant grin or a gotcha grin. He looked as happy as a child about to get the biggest serving of ice cream.
And he smelled really good.
She watched him, thinking he was the biggest confusion in this equation.
But he was putting a slice of pizza with dripping cheese on the side of her plate that still had space. She smelled the roasted pineapple bits and peppers, and she sighed again.
Her tummy rumbled for attention.
And Yna gave it that.