My legs give out from beneath me and, if not for Enrique’s arm around my waist, I’d faceplant against these brick streets.
“Whoa, I think we should call it a night for you,” he says as he easily picks me up to carry in his arms.
As if I needed any more fuel added to the fire burning inside of me.
My arms go around his neck, and I stare at his face through the wine goggles my eyes have turned into. The passing lanterns that light our way highlight the sharp features of his jawline, brow, and nose.
“You’re so good looking,” I mutter.
Amusement touches those features and brings a sparkle to his eye. “You’re not so bad yourself, Leira.”
“No, seriously,” I say, bringing one hand up to trace his straight nose, right down to that slight indentation in the tip. He’s the purest sin, walking and talking temptation of the worst kind. And I’m a mere human with free will to be corrupted. “If you wanted to…tonight? I would allow it, Enrique.”
All traces of amusement in his face evaporate in a flash as he stares down at me, but his voice is soft when he replies. “No.”
The disappointment seeps in, but I’m not sure if it’s the rejection or the unfulfilled yearning in my body. My mind is too unfocused to make a distinction. Instead, I lean in, resting my head in that warm spot between his jaw and his shoulder.
As my eyes lower, leading me into that hazy period just before sleep, I hear his final words.
“Not tonight, Leira. But you will be mine.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Enrique
I’m the first to wake the next morning.
Lying in bed, I enjoy the calm after the turmoil that overtook my body last night. Leira’s words still taunt my senses, causing a stir in my groin. It doesn’t help that I’m already suffering a morning erection; I certainly don’t need any more blood rushing from my brain.
I draw the covers away from me and quietly slide out of bed to relieve myself. Leira is still asleep, and I glimpse the sliver of warm skin that’s revealed as her bare back faces me. When she wakes, I’m sure there will be a fiery storm aimed at me when she realizes I undressed her down to nothing but her underwear before putting her to bed. Never mind the fact that we both slept under the covers together, me once again in nothing but my briefs.
Then again, based on what happened last night, maybe her Catholic virtue is fading.
I adjust myself, trying to temper my body’s reaction to that as I head to the toilet closet. When I come out, she’s still sound asleep. I decide to use the time to take a quick shower before she wakes.
The room is too dark to figure out the shower, so I open one of the shutters blocking the window. It lets in just enough light to see what I’m doing without disturbing Leira.
I chose this hotel because, once upon a time, a one-night stand vacationing in the city invited me back for the night, and I liked the vibe of the place at the time.
Now, I remember why.
It’s an odd set-up. The shower has a one-eighty degree glass barrier surrounding it, and seems to be deliberately positioned in front of the windows. The only thing shielding a view of me from the bed is a curtain of strings similar to that which hangs outside the front door of the room.
When the water is warm enough, I step in. I stand under the spray of water, letting it douse my head and the impure thoughts dancing around within. A smile curls my lips as I remember carrying Leira into the hotel. The poor woman at the front desk nearly had a panic attack until I explained that it was nothing more than too much wine.
With the momentary alone time, I decide I might as well get rid of the erection, which has yet to ease away on its own, the old-fashioned way. With Leira, there are so many mental images to choose from, it’s almost obscene, especially considering what she claimed to be when I first met her. Corrupting a nun. Something about the challenge of it layered with the utter wrongness has me rapidly working my hand along my shaft, especially when I pull up the image of her when she was first dressed in that postulant’s clothing.
I come so hard, I go momentarily numb in the aftermath. It’s explosive enough for that long-dormant Catholic part of me to mutter a truncated version of an Act of Contrition, even though there’s no priest around to hear it, and I’m certainly not going to sully the ears of one with my impure acts.
I do a thorough job soaping myself and rinsing it all away, being that I’ve really only had one shower for a good three days or so. When I’m done, I grab one of the towels to dry off and wrap around my waist. Chic & Basic is cool as hell, but not the sort of place that does fluffy hotel robes.
I walk over to the one unobstructed window and open it to look out on the street below from the railing beyond it. The city is already awake, and two girls who are looking at their phone below me briefly look up and smile suggestively when they see how minimally I’m dressed. They wave up at me. I grin and wink, then disappear back into the room.
When I make my way around to where the bed is, Leira is up and sitting back against the headboard, the covers up around her chest.
“You’re up,” I say, my brow rising.
“With a raging headache, and practically naked,” she notes, only one of her brows rising.
“I didn’t want you to wrinkle your dress,” I say with a grin.
“How gentlemanly of you,” she sasses, before wincing in pain and pinching her forehead.
I laugh and walk over to grab my jeans. I’ll just go commando until we can buy some new clothes. It isn’t just my body that’s feeling the filth of the last few days.
“What…happened last night?” she asks.
I raise my eyes to find her scanning my body. The expression on her face is a mixture of desire and wariness, no doubt wondering what I did with this body while she was out of it last night. It sends another unfortunate surge of blood further south.
“Well, you did beg me, just as I predicted. As such, I had no choice but to accommodate.”
“Stop,” she says, her voice dripping with disdain. “I know we didn’t do that. I wasn’t that far out of it. But I don’t exactly remember you getting me out of my dress.”
“It isn’t as though I haven’t already seen everything, Leira.” I laugh and pull up my jeans underneath the towel. After zipping up and buttoning my fly, I let the towel drop.
For some reason, that has her eyelashes fluttering. “Never mind.”
I tilt my head to consider her. “Do you remember anything you said?”
I expect her face to grow darker, or for her to avert her gaze in embarrassment. Instead, she looks me straight in the eye.
“I do.”
I stare back, absorbing how certain she seems of herself right now. “Do you regret it?”
“I don’t,” she says, after only the briefest pause.
A slow, appreciative smile spreads my lips. “Good.”
“You said something when you were carrying me. I only vaguely remember it.”
The smile turns into a grin that completely overtakes my face. I lean down, placing my hands on the bed as I draw in closer to her.
“I did. And if you don’t remember what it was, trust me, I’ll be reminding you soon enough.”
She twists her lips and rolls her eyes away, but I see the brief look of pleasure color her features.
“I’m going to take a shower as well,” she says, sliding her body to the other edge of the bed. After twisting to place her feet on the floor, she throws off the covers so I see nothing but her bare back, long curly hair, and white panties. It’s too reminiscent of her on the beach that first day, looking like some sea goddess.
When she stands up to walk over to the shower, I get only a fleeting glimpse of her front side, breasts softly bouncing with each step. Something about that quick flash does more for me than a full-on peep show would.
Leira disappears into the shower, and I realize just how little those small white strings obscure her. She must have seen everything whil
e I was in there. I smirk and shrug it off.
Better she finds out now just how human I really am.
I pull on my shirt and jump onto the bed. Leaning against the headboard, I watch her half-visible body as she washes. No detour into masturbatory territory, sadly. But this is enough to get my juices flowing.
When she’s done, I watch her use the towel to dry her hair and body, then wrap around herself.
“Maybe we can find a place to get some pain killers. My head is throbbing, and I think I might hurl, to put it graphically,” she says as she comes back around to the bed.
“I have a better idea. Huevoes y cervezas.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Leira
We’re at one of the many outdoor cafes in this city, enjoying our hangover cure. This morning’s conversation, not to mention last night’s verbal vomit, is still weighing on my mind. Mostly because of the implications.
I didn’t exactly beg Enrique, but I did pretty much throw myself at him. This morning when he pressed me, I doubled down.
With absolutely no regrets.
Maybe it’s because he didn’t take advantage, which he so easily could have. Odd, considering the various ways he’s taken full advantage of me since he first kidnapped me from that lagoon.
But that period seems like a lifetime ago. So much has happened since then, and has yet to happen in the near future.
And we’re in this together.
“I can’t believe they serve alcohol this early,” I say, taking a hesitant sip of my beer. I don’t quite have the same taste for it as I do sangria and wine, which is probably a good thing. Still, the combination of what’s in the bottle and the eggs before me has had a surprising effect on dulling my nausea and headache.
“Welcome to Barcelona,” Enrique says.
“Is that really how it’s pronounced?” I ask. “With that ‘th’ sound in place of the ‘c’?”
“It is if you’re a Spaniard,” he says with a smirk. “Speaking of names, I’ve been meaning to ask about yours. How in the world did your parents come up with Leira? And what’s with all your sisters’ names starting with L?”
I laugh and take another sip of cerveza before answering. “My mother’s name starts with an L. She chose Lorraine for her first because she liked it. It kind of started a trend, and when each baby popped out as a girl, they went with it.
“As for my name, my dad says it came to my mother in a dream while she was pregnant with me. They had been debating names. All my other sisters were a varying mix of Spanish and…not so Spanish. Then came me. He said that she was just so certain of it; that I couldn’t have any other name. So I was Leira.”
“It’s pretty,” Enrique admits.
“Not when you have to go to school with it. Being mixed, I was already an oddity. Having such a weird name didn’t help.”
“I thought America was the melting pot?”
I laugh. “A pot set to boiling temperature, especially in Los Angeles. My parents are an extremely rare pairing there.”
He nods with understanding and takes a sip of his beer.
“What about here in Spain?” I ask, the idle tone in my voice masking my wary curiosity.
He sets his bottle down. “To put it bluntly, Spain is not a melting pot. All you have to do is attend a football game, soccer to Americans, to see that much. You probably shouldn’t google it.”
“Is it bad?” I ask, feeling my body go tense.
“Sports are the worst of it, really. But Europeans, in general, are very…emotional about their football. And Spaniards are a passionate people.”
I match the smirk on Enrique’s face with one of my own. So far, I haven’t experienced anything negative while here in Barcelona. In fact, I’m slowly falling in love with the place.
“So, what is the plan for our last week of freedom?” I ask, realizing only after the fact how morbid that sounds.
“I suppose we should be free, verdad?” he replies, lifting his bottle of beer in the air.
I laugh and lift my own. “And what is your interpretation of free?”
“We could explore the city. There is a nude beach here,” he says, wriggling his eyebrows.
I roll my eyes. “I think I’ve scandalized enough of Spain for a while. But I do want to see the city,” I add eagerly.
“Está bien,” he says, finishing off his beer. “But first, we need clothes for the week. These are getting a bit ripe.”
“Very,” I say. This dress is lovely, but at this rate, it won’t stay white for long.
The symbolism of that idea is not even remotely lost on me.
* * *
“It’s odd how certain things about this city remind me so much of Los Angeles,” I say, running my fingers along the mosaic tile wall of the Parc Güell.
We’ve spent the morning shopping for new clothes, and hopping from one attraction to another. Now we’re in the sprawling, seemingly endless maze of mosaic-covered surfaces of Gaudí’s surrealist park.
“In one of my art classes at college, we took a trip to see the Watts Towers,” I say. “Parts of it are like this, colorful broken tile decorating surfaces. The towers themselves remind me of the Basilica we saw earlier. I suppose art is universal.”
“That’s awfully profound,” Enrique teases.
I elbow him in the side. “Just because I’m only twenty doesn’t mean I don’t have some smarts.”
“Twenty?” he repeats, with one eyebrow raised. “Well, that’s a relief. I realized I never even asked your age before now.”
I laugh and shoot him a wicked grin. “All this time, you could have been robbing the cradle.”
“And a nun to boot,” he says, shooting me an even more devilish grin.
We both laugh.
A part of me knows I shouldn’t but that age-old conundrum that haunts many a faithful soul eats at me. How could something that feels so good be wrong?
“This is so amazing,” I sigh, looking out at the city below us. The park is elevated above most of Barcelona so I can see all the way to the azure waters of the Mediterranean. “I don’t want it to end.”
Enrique comes in closer, putting his arm around my waist. “And you haven’t even had the best of what the city has to offer.”
I laugh softly. “What is that?”
“Paella.”
* * *
“Ohh,” I moan, feeling positively orgasmic. “Ohhh…that is too good.”
Enrique stops chewing, eyeing me as I continue to groan with pleasure. “It’s the best paella in Barcelona, but it’s not that good, Leira.”
I smirk and use my fork to twist another mussel from its shell to pair with a spoonful of flavorful rice. “That’s only because you haven’t had it for the first time.”
“This is your first paella?” he asks in surprise.
“This is my first of a lot of things,” I reply before filling my mouth.
Enrique smirks and breathes a silent laugh through his nose.
I narrow my eyes at the low hanging fruit he’s so easily snatched.
“Consider yourself lucky that you get to lounge around Barcelona, doing whatever you please. Cervezas in the morning? Heading down to the beach to swim naked in the Mediterranean? Exploring the fascinating Gaudí architecture? Eating paella and tapas, while drinking sangria? How is that not the life?”
“There’s more to life than simple pleasures,” he says with a surprisingly thoughtful expression on his face.
“Are you thinking about your mother?”
“In part.”
A thought occurs to me. “Was she from Spain?”
“Good guess.”
“How else would she know about the Santa María convent? It’s a great place to hide but coming all the way from New York to that specific location? I can only assume she knows about it because she grew up in Spain.”
“Her cousin, Sister Clara, is a nun there.”
“Sister Clara?” I smile as I repeat the familiar name. Mos
t of the nuns were neutral toward me, but she was especially helpful and understanding when I first arrived. She went out of her way to make my transition easier. “She’s your mother’s cousin?”
Enrique nods with a smile of his own. “One of the few ties I have to my mother.”
“Did your mother come from Barcelona?”
He shakes his head. “Further inland, just outside of Logroño.”
“Have you been back to visit?”
“A few times. It’s a wine region.”
“Wine?” I repeat, one eyebrow raised.
Enrique laughs. “Is that your way of saying you’d like to visit?”
“Can we squeeze it into this week?”
“We can squeeze it into this day.”
Chapter Forty
Leira
It was about five and a half hours to drive in from Barcelona, but the scenery made it worthwhile. Enrique rented a convertible for the trip, which made the ride that much more enjoyable.
There’s something to be said for coastal living, but seeing the diversity that land has to offer, I’m beginning to think it has its own benefits.
Enrique pulls to the side of the road at one point. We’re at the crest of a hill, looking down at the valley below the mountains further on.
“What are we doing?”
“This is the best spot to view it,” he says, turning off the engine. “I always like stopping here to enjoy it before going into town.”
I open my car door to follow him to the edge of the dirt. He’s right; it is a worthwhile spot to look out at the land. As far as the eye can see, there are vineyards, the closest only about a few yards away. It’s summer, so everything is still lush and green, even as the sun hangs low in the sky.
Spanish Pirate: A BWWM International Legacies Romance Page 17