**

Right in that moment, the door opens and we both jolt, pulling away.
“Hello?”.
There is this middle-aged woman staring at us curiously .
“Oh!”, Carmen flashes her the most irresistible of her smiles, “I was just leaving a note”.
The woman beams politely.
“How kind. Please, won’t you come in?”, she says quietly.
As we enter the house, shrugging, Carmen slightly elbows me.
I pretend not to notice it, thinking that maybe, after all, I’ve already lost my five bucks.
“I don’t believe we’ve met”, the middle-aged lady is saying.
Carmen shakes her hand.
“Carmen Morales McCutcheon… And this is my wife, Shane”, she says, politely.
The woman raises her eyebrows and smiles.
“I see…”, she replies, slowly nodding her head in understanding.
“I’m Maureen”.
She sighs, narrowing her eyes.
“I don’t remember Mother mentioning you, but she had so many friends…”, she murmurs, looking down.
Carmen’s emphatic eyes cloud a bit.
“Oh! Oh, I am very sorry”.
Maureen ducks her head.
“Thank you. She went peacefully”.
Then, she waves her hands in the air.
“What am I going to do with this old place? I just can’t bear to put it up for sale and have a bunch of strangers tromping through it…”, she mutters to herself.
Carmen elbows me, again. Imperceptibly.
“If I could just find someone who would love it as much as Mom did…”, Maureen continues, “…That’s more important to me than whatever money we get for it”.
She looks at us, the expression on her face is a bit lost.
“If you know anybody who might be interested…”.
The sentence remains suspended in the air.
Carmen smiles.

End Flashback

At this point of the story, I guess you already know that Carmen is not the kind of girl who lets the opportunity slip.
Right?
Right.
And then, there was the bet.
Shane is a competitive son of a bitch, but Carmen is even worse.
Not for the money, of course not.
It was just five bucks, after all.
It was for the victory itself.
Just like with that statuette, do you remember?
I know you do.
Well, guess what?
Carmen wanted that house.
Shane liked the idea, too.
Carmen’s smile, good manners and empathy did the rest.

Flashback – Carmen

Shane drags the last heavy bag inside the hall.
She puffs, drying her forehead as she takes a look around.
She smiles.
“Can we go up and pick our room?”, she asks, uncertain.
I laugh, kissing her lips.
“Babe, we can do whatever we want. It’s our house”, I reply.
She shrugs, wrapping her arms around my waist.
“I just feel kind of strange…”, she murmurs, “…I mean, this house is so beautiful… and we live here”.
I duck my head and smile, stroking her cheek.
“Yes… Step by step, we’re achieving all we wanted to achieve…”.
She blinks, tracing the outline of my jaw with her fingertips.
“I already have what I wanted the most…”.
I kiss her, deeply and for a long time.
“Same here…”, I whisper.
Shane glances around the huge, enormous hall.
“This is who we are? This is us?”, she asks, sincerely.
I brush her chin.
“No. We aren’t this house. We aren’t our job. We aren’t anything we own. We are just who we are…”. I kiss her again. “…We are who we love…”, I whisper, “…And I am totally, amazingly, incredibly in love with you…”.
Shane kisses me back, her hands grasping the small of my back.
Then, she takes my hands, and starts walking backward.
“Come with me?”, she asks, seductively.
I smile.
“Where?”.
“I want to inaugurate our brand new king size bed…”, she says huskily.
“Aaaw…”, I act surprised.
She just nods, starting to climb up the stairs.
“What do you wanna do?”, I ask, rhetorically, biting my bottom lip.
She just shrugs.
“Uhm… I have got a great idea…”.
I giggle.
“I bet it’s the same idea that crossed your mind the first day we met…”.
“Well, I have an amazingly sexy wife, a beautiful house and a huge bed… What should I do?”, she jokes, pushing me slowly in the bedroom.
The sun is invading the whole room.
Everything is already clean and neat.
The bed is perfectly made.
Shane stops in front of me and slowly starts undressing me, not breaking eye-contact with me.
“Undress me…”, she whispers huskily.
She doesn’t need to say it twice.
Our fingers move skillfully on each other’s body until there’s not a single piece of cloth left.
Shane steps back and watches me attentively, squarely.
“You’re beautiful, Shane”, I murmur.
She doesn’t reply.
She just cups my face with both her hands and kisses me, her tongue gently caressing my lips, silently asking for more, more, more.
I wrap my arms around her neck and we kiss like two teenagers would do.
And when we pull apart, our breath is already uneven.
I take Shane’s hand, gently guiding her towards the bed.
We slip under the sheets, entwining our legs, exploring each other’s body with our fingers and lips.
There’s nothing primal in our lovemaking, now.
It’s sweet, passionate but time-consuming, and gentle.
And when Shane is on top on me, grinding slowly against my center, resting on her elbows and staring at me transfixed, the only thing I can do is watching her.
The only thing I can do is matching her breath, matching her movements, matching her pleasure.
A perfectly synchronized panting, a perfectly synchronized moaning, a perfectly synchronized orgasm that dries up the oceans and melts the rocks.

End Flashback