“Not those stars,” he said huskily, leaning forward. His lips were wet and slightly open. “Your stars. Why I call you Estrella.”
I swallowed hard, my pulse burning. I turned around in my chair so my back was to him and lifted up my hair, gathering it on top of my head.
His chair scraped loudly on the ground as he got up, a sound that struck a new kind of fear in me.
No. Not fear.
Anticipation.
I heard him stop right behind me. I held my breath, wondering what he was going to do.
One rough finger pressed down against the back of my neck, right on the spine where the tattoo began. I closed my eyes to the feeling, the currents it caused, traveling all the way down, making me wet. Jesus, I needed to get a hold of myself.
“What star is this?” he asked, sounding like silk. I could wrap myself in his voice.
“Alpheratz,” I whispered, as if I was letting him in on a secret. Maybe I was.
His finger slid diagonally down, a trail of fire across the Pegasus line. “And this one?”
“Markab.”
“Why Pegasus?”
I paused, the truth on my lips. Fuck it. We’d been nothing but honest with each other. “Because I want to fly free. And there’s no place higher than the stars.”
He didn’t say anything for a few beats. I was tempted to turn around, to look at him, but I didn’t want him to take his finger off my neck. I was leaving in three days. He was going back to his family. This was all I had, his skin on my stars.
He leaned in, his hot breath at my neck. “Are you afraid that love will clip your wings?”
His words sank into me, making my blood buzz. Love. This was too hazardous a subject to discuss with him. Not now. Not ever. With my breath shaking, I inched my neck away from his mouth and turned to face him.
“No,” I said, looking him straight in the eye. “I’m afraid that losing love will.”
His expression softened. He looked at my lips, his beautifully long eyelashes casting shadows on his tawny skin.
“Then that makes two of us,” he whispered softly, and for a long second I thought he was going to get it over with and finally kiss me, to put an end to this strain between us, the yearning that made me ache inside. But he straightened up, his gaze avoiding mine, and went to retrieve his beer from the table.
I watched him take a long sip and put the bottle back down. He started for the restaurant.
“You know, I can’t pretend any longer,” I blurted out, surprising myself.
I had reached my limit.
He had stopped, standing absolutely still, his back to me. He was either going to start walking again or he was going to turn around. I held in my breath.
With his back to me he said, “No. We can’t. I have one last question for you.”
That wasn’t what I expected. Questions were getting dangerous.
“What?” I asked softly.
He slowly turned around. “What is love? In English.”
I raised my brows. “Love, in English, is love?”
“What is it in Spanish?”
I was so enthralled by his hypnotic eyes, I could barely remember. “Amore?”
He shook his head ever so slightly. “No. Love in Spanish is you.”
Then he turned around, heading back.
This was bullshit.
I got out of my chair and ran for him. I grabbed him by the arm and pulled on him hard, turning him around so that he was facing me. I kept my fingers buried in his jacket sleeve and stared up at him.
“That’s it?” I cried out, my voice breaking with anger. “You tell me that I am love in your language? And then you leave me?!’
He gazed down at me like he was in a trance. “What would you rather I do?” he whispered.
I felt as if I were about to cry. My face contorted in pain and confusion. “I don’t know! Not that.”
“What about this,” he said huskily. He put one hand into my hair, his fingers moving through my strands, trailing along my scalp. My skin erupted in goosebumps. “Or this.” He took his other hand and did the same, until both were in my hair, holding the back of my head, his fingers pressing into me with a delicious amount of pressure.
Thoughts began to leave my head. They were replaced by emotions. Wants. Needs. All of them swirling around me like a galaxy.
He took a step so that he was right up against me, his firm stomach against mine, and what seemed to be an erection pressing into my hip. I felt like I couldn’t get any air at all. He tilted my head back so that I was looking up at his eyes, his lips just inches from mine.
“You can tell me stop,” he whispered. “And I will stop. But please, don’t tell me to stop.”
At that moment, I didn’t even know what the word meant.
I watched in slow motion as he brought his mouth down to mine. The minute our lips connected, my eyes closed, all my senses being redirected to the pleasure I was beginning to drown in. His kiss was sweet at first. Soft. Warm lips, wet mouth. Almost restrained, even with the way his lower lip cupped mine and held me, my mouth to his. It lit me up like a fucking firecracker, exploding in bombs along my limbs, until all of me was on fire, wanting, needing, craving more.
And he gave that to me. The pressure on my head increased, his fingers wrapping tighter in my hair while our kiss deepened. His tongue teased mine, soft as silk. It stirred the need for more inside of me, like I was just realizing how hungry I was. I wanted so much of him, all of him, every part of him. I wanted him to keep kissing me because it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever experienced. It was also the hottest thing I’d ever experienced, and this was coming from a girl that had a threesome with two underwear models. Mateo’s kiss blew my whole life out of the water.
I put my hands on his waist, feeling the silk of his clothes, the tautness of his stomach. The heat inside of me was growing to dangerous levels; every swirl of his tongue made me squirm, made me wet, made me want so much more than I could get right here.
“There you two are.”
The grating sound of Jerry’s voice broke us apart.
Mateo and I stared at each other, chests heaving from being breathless, his mouth open, eyes glazed with passion, trying to make sense of what had just happened, what line we had just crossed.
Then, together, we looked to Jerry. He was eyeing us down in exaggerated annoyance. “There is plenty of time for that back at the resort,” Jerry scolded. “You’re missing the awards ceremony. Vera, there may or may not be an award for you. But you won’t know unless you come downstairs. Come on guys, it’ll be good craic.”
And with a gesture of his hand, he turned and left down the stairs. As if what he had just witnessed wasn’t a catastrophic event, my life’s version of the big bang.
My eyes trained on the door, too afraid now to look back at Mateo. What had we just done?
I cleared my throat and smoothed my hair down. “We better go back inside.”
“Wait,” Mateo said, grabbing my arm and pulling me close to him. I felt the world slip away at his touch and I was lost once again in the gleaming depths of his eyes. “That cannot be it.”
“I don’t think it can be anything else,” I whispered. My heart was being put through a meat grinder.
“Yes, it can,” he said. His voice was flinty with determination, brows knitted close together.
“You’re married,” I said helplessly, the words almost escaping as a sob.
“It is over.”
I shook my head. “No. No, it’s not. It’s not over. Not for you. It was just a kiss, you can recover from this. You can tell yourself I came on to you. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I want you,” he said, his grip becoming firmer. “I wanted you from the very beginning, I just never thought it would be possible.”
“Because it’s not possible!” I cried out, pounding a fist on his chest.
“You don’t know that,” he hissed.
“You’re married!” I yel
led. “I cannot be the other woman!”
“You already are the other woman!” he yelled right back. His words smashed into me, blowing me to smithereens. He cupped my face in his hands. “You already are, whether you want to be or not. You’ve bewitched me, Vera. You’ve blinded me. You’ve made me forget my vows. And all you had to do was shine.” He swallowed hard, his eyes piercing into me. “Do you not know how I feel about you?”
I had to go. I couldn’t let him tell me any more.
I turned on my heel and ran to the door, taking a moment once I was inside to compose myself. The alternative would have been to scale the brick wall and run all the way back to Las Palabras, but I had a feeling I’d probably injure myself doing that. I had to go downstairs, to the crowd, to where everyone was waiting for us.
My heart was beating so rapidly I was certain I was going to pass out and roll down the stairs. But somehow I made it down there, the chill of the cellar coasting over my bare skin. I expected to see everyone staring at me for the intrusion, but instead they were all looking at the center of the room where Jerry was standing, handing a piece of paper to Angel for “Most Improved English.”
While everyone was applauding and shouting words of congratulations, I snuck back into my seat. Becca looked at me and I gave her a nervous smile.
“What was that all about?” she asked quietly.
My head ticked back and forth, my lips shut together. I couldn’t talk. If I did, I would start…I don’t know what. But it would have been bad.
Moments later I felt Mateo’s presence behind me and he pulled out his chair. I swear, my lungs gave up and my heart decided to follow along. Just him sitting beside me was too much, especially after knowing what he tasted like. I could still feel his lips on mine, his body beneath my hands.
I could still hear, “You already are the other woman,” playing over and over in my head.
It was too much. Perhaps I needed to vomit.
“And the award for best laugh goes to, Vera Miles!”
The vomit went back down. What the fuck? I looked up from where I’d been blindly staring at my empty dessert dish to see Jerry holding up a piece of paper and waving me over.
Best laugh? How could I win for best laugh? I felt like I’d never laughed a single day in my life.
“You’ve won,” Mateo murmured in my ear as he clapped, the feel of his breath freezing me in place. “Go up there.”
I don’t know how, but I did as he said. I got out of my chair and made my way around the table to the middle of the room where Jerry quickly pulled me into a hug. He handed the paper to me and made me smile with him at Manuel who had started taking pictures. I think I smiled anyway. I couldn’t even focus on the fact that my laugh, which I had been told was infectious, had gotten me an award.
I should have gotten an award for being a villain instead.
Chapter 15
“Get up, sleepyhead.”
I groaned and opened one eye. The bedroom was filled with light. I slowly rolled over, hair in my face, to see Claudia sitting on the edge of the bed. I hadn’t even heard her come in.
“What time is it?” I asked, my throat raw as I reached for a glass of water from my bedside. My mouth tasted sour.
“It’s ten minutes before you are late for breakfast,” she said.
“Ugh,” I said after I drained the glass. “Can’t I just sleep all day? They know I’m sick.”
She gave me a look. “No, you can’t. It’s our second to last day. You felt fine when you went to bed.”
That was true. Seconds after I received the award for “best laugh” from Jerry, I was struck again by the need to vomit. I didn’t know if it was my nerves, the fear, or the food, but suddenly I was running for the bathroom and throwing up in the stall. After that, I wasn’t in the mood to hang around and party with everyone, and I really wasn’t in the mood to face Mateo, so Claudia took me home in Peter the Everything Man’s van. I went right to bed with a heart full of turmoil, tossing and turning for most of the night.
All I could think about was how hard I tried not to be the other woman. I couldn’t pretend anymore that I cared about Isabel’s well-being, because the honest bitchy truth was that I didn’t. I didn’t know her—all I knew was that she was wrong for him and he didn’t love her. But I did know what my parents’ divorce did to me, and I had no wish to do that to Chloe Ann.
But, as Mateo said, I didn’t seem to have a choice in it. My heart had fluttered when I thought about his words. That I had bewitched him. That I shone.
That I made him forget his vows.
How could such a thing make me both sick to my stomach and so extraordinarily blissful at the same time?
“Are you going to get up or do I need to get another glass of water and pour it on your head?” Claudia said, smacking my leg.
“Wow, you got mean,” I said. I slowly sat up and exhaled like I hadn’t let out a breath all night.
“How are you really feeling?” she asked me. She hadn’t said a word about Mateo last night, which I appreciated.
I shook my head sadly. “I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel.”
“What happened on the patio? I was dying for a cigarette but I didn’t want to interrupt.”
I crossed my legs under me and looked down at my hands pressed together. “He kissed me.”
I shot her a quick look to gauge her reaction. She was smiling broadly.
“Don’t smile,” I admonished her. “It’s not a good thing.”
“Not a good thing? Vera, what is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me?” Lord, where did I begin with that?
“Was it a bad kiss?”
“No,” I said, body trembling at the memory, my lips tingling with electricity. I lightly touched them with my fingertips. “It was the best kiss I ever had.”
“Then there is something wrong with you.”
“He’s married.”
“Is he?” she mocked, mouth open. “I had no idea. It’s like you never talk about that.”
I glared at her. “It doesn’t bother you?”
Her eyes roamed the room in thought. Finally she said, “No. Because I see you together and I know that there is something special there. It’s not silly or…what is the word…frivolous? It is real.”
“He said I made him forget his vows, that I’m already the other woman.”
Her eyes bugged out. “He said that? Wow. Mateo…he is really opening up.”
“Yeah, well, that’s why I don’t know how I feel. I just want to stay in my room here all day.”
“Away from him?”
“It would be safer.”
She smiled softly. “There is no safe anymore, Vera. You know that.”
“Then what do you propose I do?” I hated that she was right. The walls wouldn’t protect me, not the ones in this room, not the ones I had carefully built around my heart.
“You want my advice?” she asked. I nodded. She got off the bed and stared down at me. “I say, fuck it. Go for it. The damage is done. You’re leaving in a few days. You might as well spend the little time you have left together. Don’t regret anything. Go be with him. Soon, he will only be a memory.”
My eyes started to water at that. I nodded and exhaled loudly. The damage was already done. I could hide from him, leave him, leave Spain feeling that I never quite touched the stars. Or I could go for it, risk the cold of deep space for a chance to feel alive. If he was going to be nothing but a memory to me, if he was going to go on with his life and I was to go on with mine, I wanted a memory that would change me, make me born anew.
I looked at her, feeling stripped again. “Is it wrong that it makes me so happy to think a man like him could ever want a girl like me?”
“I told you that the heart has no regard for time,” she said, walking to the door. “The heart has no regard for what’s right or what’s wrong.” She paused in the doorway. “Forget Jerry’s table seating. I’m saving a seat for you so you b
etter hurry up!”
She left the room, shutting the door. The walls crumbled around me.
At breakfast, everyone looked hung over. I tried to make eye contact with Mateo but he was sitting with Wayne, Eduardo, and Polly. I guess the whole seating rules went out the window and everyone was sitting with their friends.
True to her word, Claudia saved me a seat, and I sat with her, Ricardo, and Becca. Becca showed me pictures on her phone that explained why everyone looked so rough. After I left, the drinking and partying went on for a long time. A part of me was sad that I missed that, but I knew I made the right choice in leaving. I could have ended up like Sammy who, in one picture, was making out with Froggy Carlos, and in the next, she was making out with the mannequin outside of the restaurant, the sign now hanging around Froggy’s neck.
I barely ate anything at breakfast, which was all due to nerves this time. My skin felt like it was vibrating and my knee kept bouncing beneath the table. From time to time I glanced over at Mateo, hoping to make eye contact but Wayne’s big fat head was always in the way.
As soon as Jerry updated the schedule for the day, I was over there, looking it over in hopes that I had a session with Mateo.
I did. A business session after lunch, much like our first session together.
The siesta.
A shiver rolled down my back at the thought.
The next few hours ticked by like molasses, not to say I wasn’t enjoying myself. I had one-on-ones with Sara, Manuel, and Paco, which went fine. With Sara we talked about her job, with Manuel we talked about music, with Paco we talked about immigration issues in Spain. It was an amazing improvement when you thought back to how they were at the start of the month. Now we were all able to converse fluently, and like old friends.
I didn’t get to see Mateo at lunch either. He had come in late and taken the table closest to the door, unfortunately having to sit with Lauren. After a while I started to think that maybe he was ignoring me. Maybe he regretted what we did last night and decided he didn’t want anything to do with me. I wouldn’t have been surprised, considering the situation he was in, but I had to say the thought was slowly ripping me apart.
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