Page 3 of Fixed Up Ever After
Javi was not a one-night stand sort of man. He was not sure what kind of man he was, but it was not this. Maybe teenage Javi, but that had changed after Estella. Then changed again once Estella died. He was an anomaly.
A fucking horny anomaly.
The hotel looked like something he’d only ever seen in spy movies, where the millionaire criminals hid amongst the unsuspecting wealthy. The building had to be at least twenty stories high, and from that vantage point, probably overlooked the entire city. He always wanted to see what downtown San Francisco looked like from a bird’s-eye view. At night it would be lit up, twinkling beneath him like millions of tiny stars.
Javi knew this place was fancy when a literal doorman greeted him on the way. His job was rather unnecessary considering the doors were automatic, but he smiled at the man nonetheless.
“Where is the bar?” Javi asked, stepping inside.
The blond man smiled and pointed his finger to the right. “If you see the restaurant, you’ve gone too far.”
“Thank you.” Javi made his way through the lobby and off to the right like the man indicated. Nerves began to set in, but so did an undercurrent of excitement. He was about to taste a forbidden fruit. He shouldn’t indulge, but why pass up the fruit when both parties consented and wanted to feel good for one night?
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out to see a message from Dolores. He clicked on the notification, quickly scanning the message.
At the bar. I’m in pink.
Another text popped up, but this time from his sister who was watching Camilia. It was a photo of Camilia and her two-year-old cousin Arturo wrapped up in aPaw Patrolblanket. The corners of Javi’s lips pulled up into a smile and he saved the photo before pocketing his phone.
The bar was hard to miss. A giant horse fountain indicated he had found their arranged meeting spot.
Not many people occupied the stools: an elderly couple sipping champagne, a man in a full tuxedo with his tie askew, a middle-aged woman with twin boys running around her feet, and finally his eyes landed on the woman dead center.
She wore a blush-pink eyelet dress that went down to her mid-thighs. He only knew the term “eyelet” because his mother had been into sewing and mended plenty of clothes. The woman’s beautiful golden-brown skin shined under the chandelier. She was giving him a sneak peek at her legs, and Javi couldn't tear his gaze away from her thighs. He drifted closer to get a better look.
After what was probably an inappropriate amount of time staring, his gaze slowly traveled up the dress, to where the thin fabric strained against her hips and chest. When he finally reached her face, she was staring back at him. Her muddy-brown eyes challenged him as if to say, “Can you handle me?”
God, he hoped so.
If she wanted to honor him by suffocating him between her thighs or working him past his breaking point, then Javi would say he’d experienced a life well lived. He couldn’t envision a better way to go than with this goddess sitting on his face.
“Have you decided if you are staying or leaving yet?” a sultry voice spoke, going through him like molten-hot lava as it settled in his core. She said the words so carelessly, but her searching gaze told him she wasn’t nearly as confident or relaxed as she pretended to be.
Because he was an idiot, he still didn’t respond nor made any attempts at moving forward.Good fucking job, Javi. She’s going to think you’re a virgin who is about to see tits for the first time.
Her gaze darkened as she took another sip of her cocktail. “You’re Javier, right?” she asked.
When his voice decided to come back to him, he nodded once. “Javi. Are you Dolores?” She obviously was, but his brain decided now was the time to do a full system reboot.
“Lola,” she corrected, “I just go by Lola.” She gestured to the spot next to her, repeating the question from earlier. “Now that you’ve seen me, are you staying or leaving?”
His brow furrowed. What did she mean by that? He saw her in her photos and she caught his attention on a purely superficial level. He read her bio and she seemed like an amazing woman, but he knew this arrangement was only for tonight. He didn’t want to invest in a woman he would no longer see.
She was so fucking beautiful. His treacherous body was already reacting to her. “Why would I leave?” He took the spot next to her and called the bartender over to order himself a whiskey. He needed some liquid courage to give him the confidence he was lacking when faced with a sexy woman.
Dolores—no, Lola—looked surprised by his answer, but shrugged. “No reason,” she said and took another long sip of her cocktail. It was already half gone; he would need to drink his own quickly because he didn’t want to keep her waiting.
A long moment of awkward silence stretched out between them. When he found his voice, Lola opened her mouth to speak and Javi’s words turned into a weird, whistled groan. Lola at least had the decency to pretend that she didn’t notice his nerves. “So, you should probably know that I don’t normally do things like this.”
The tension in his shoulder subsided and he sighed in relief. Of course, he would not judge her if she hooked up with strangers often, but it felt like solidarity to know he was not alone in this. “Neither do I.”
“And I’m not going to ask you the reason you agreed to…”
She made a weird gesture with her hands that made Javi raise a brow. “Sex?” he supplied.
The faintest blush heated her cheeks, but was gone a second later. “Yes, sex. So I think we should set some ground rules before I take you back to my hotel room.”
The conversation came to a natural pause as the bartender placed Javi’s drink in front of him. He picked it up, just as a flash from a camera went off. Lola unabashedly had her phone out and was pointing it right at him.
