by Leylah Attar
I’m doing this for Sierra, I reminded myself, as I took his hand. She deserves parents who can be civil around each other.
I followed Damian inside and froze.
“Skye.” Rafael tipped his head.
The man who had been ready to kill me at one time. Then again, I could say the same for Damian.
“My apologies for intruding. I thought I’d surprise Damian. I didn’t realize you and Sierra would be here,” he said.
“I told Rafael he was welcome to stay for dinner.” Damian didn’t ask. His house, his rules. The three people he cared for were all under one roof.
Suck it up and make nice.
It didn’t take me long to warm up to Rafael. I understood it had never been personal. He had simply been looking out for his friend.
We ate a simple meal in the courtyard: seashell pasta with ground beef and cotija, a crumbly cheese that Sierra loved. I smiled when she reached for seconds. My culinary skills hadn’t improved much. She never complained, but she obviously preferred Damian’s cooking.
“I actually stopped by to give you this.” Rafael handed Damian a metallic envelope with embossed initials.
“You’re getting married?” said Damian as he read the card inside. “Holy hell!”
They followed through with hearty thumps on the back.
“You’re all invited,” said Rafael, looking at Sierra and me. “The ceremony is at the church of San Miguel Arcangel, and the reception is at Camila’s.” He was about to elaborate when his phone rang. “Sorry.” He excused himself. “I have to take this.” From the smile on his face, it was obviously his bride-to-be.
“So, when do I get to meet her?” asked Damian, when Rafael returned.
“She gets in tomorrow. We’re staying at a hotel in Paza del Mar. I came in early to give you a heads up.”
“You finally bit the bullet?”
“I sure did.” Rafael put his phone down and picked up his glass. “To old friends,” he said.
“To old friends.” We raised a toast.
My heart and your heart are old, old friends, Damian’s eyes said to me.
I was glad when he got up and the moment passed. Sierra roped Rafael into playing a video game with her, while Damian and I cleaned up.
“I don’t know if that’s a suitable game for her to play with Rafael,” said Damian.
“She seems to be handling it fine.”
“It’s not her I’m worried about.”
Our eyes met as Rafael winced on the couch. Sierra was taking maximum advantage of his reaction to the sound of gunfire.
“Spawn of Satan,” said Rafael.
Sierra giggled.
Damian’s lips twitched, and I had to look away to keep from laughing.
We found Sierra in my old bedroom after Rafael left. She was curled up on the bed, hugging a pillow in her sleep. Damian sat at the foot of the bed, looking at her.
“I’ve never seen her sleep, up close.”
It was a simple observation, made more to himself than me, but it gripped my heart. He had missed out on all the moments I took for granted.
“She’s half MaMaLu, half Adriana,” he said.
Sierra had none of my coloring—not the blond hair or the gray eyes. When we walked down the street, her darker hand in mind, people assumed I was her nanny. She had my mother’s aristocratic presence and MaMaLu’s earthiness; her eyes were Adriana, her smile was MaMaLu.
“Let’s not wake her,” I said. “It’s probably best if she sleeps over.” I didn’t want to deny Damian the simple pleasure of watching over his daughter as she slept.
“If I close my eyes, it’s as if nothing’s changed,” he said, his voice so low I could barely make out the words. “There’s a little girl in this room and she’s stolen my heart. For the second time.”
I was glad he kept his eyes on Sierra. It was overwhelming being back in my room with him, but having him remind me of all the ways he’d adored me when we were children was almost too much to bear.
Damian peeled off Sierra’s socks, careful not to wake her. He kissed her soles gently before pulling the covers over her.
“Thank you,” he said. “For letting her stay.”
I nodded because I couldn’t speak, because it hurt like hell to leave her there. I couldn’t remember spending a single night away from her.
“Why don’t you stay?”
The man could read me so well. Too well. But there was no way I was accepting his invitation. It would be the equivalent of stepping into the lion’s cave.
“You can sleep with her. It’s her first night here. She might wake up disoriented.”
I wavered. I was dead tired. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed, and he had a point. Sierra wasn’t used to waking up in a different place.
Damian didn’t wait for an answer. “There’s a spare toothbrush and extra towels in the bathroom. Do you need anything else?”
Yes. I need things to be right again so I can be with you, so we don’t have to say good night.
“Good night, Damian”
“Good night, Skye.” He shut the door behind him.
I let out my breath and crashed beside Sierra.
The room wasn’t as girly anymore. The pink and cream decor had been replaced with bright, bold pops of color against a soft, neutral backdrop. One wall was covered in chalkboard paint and had a grid of tic-tac-toe games. Damian’s X’s and Sierra’s O’s. The built-in shelves were still the same, but Damian had given them a fresh coat of paint. My eyes lingered on the paper swans that were lined up on them, a comical progression of Sierra’s clumsy attempts, and I realized just how close Damian and Sierra had grown in a short space of time. The room looked like something that Sierra had helped put together. It was brimming with her personality.
I got up and was about to step out of my pants when I looked out the window. Damian was walking down the path that led to the staff wing. He disappeared behind the trees. After a while, a light came on in one of the rooms. MaMaLu’s room. I wondered what he was doing there as I brushed my teeth. When I came back, it was still on. I debated for a moment before putting my shoes on. I wanted to see MaMaLu’s room. She had never let me accompany her there, insisting it wasn’t proper for me to hang around her quarters. Well, tonight was my chance to finally see it.
The door was open when I got there. “Damian?” I peered inside. He wasn’t there, so I let myself in.
The room was small and sparsely furnished. A bare bulb was screwed in to the ceiling. The bed was made up, but the pillow was propped and Damian’s clothes were flung on it. I reached for the Lucky Strike tin that was sitting at the edge of a worn dresser. He had held on to it, his last physical link to MaMaLu.
I knew now why she had not wanted me to visit. I could not imagine the two of them living in this small, tight space while rooms and rooms lay empty in Casa Paloma. I had not understood the distinctions then, but Damian had. He had experienced the other side of wealth and power. It was the reason he wasn’t allowed to attend my birthday parties, the reason why I had private lessons while he hid in the hutch. I would have hated living in the shadow of our big mansion, watching the food other people got to eat, the shiny cars they drove, the parties with music and bright lights. I would have hated my mother being taken away from me, to look after someone else, but Damian had looked past all of that. He had grown to love me. He had never complained or compared, only accepted, and he had gone on accepting until everything was ripped away from him.
Standing in the room he had shared with MaMaLu, I felt like I was wearing his skin. I could see them being torn apart in the middle of the night, the last time he had seen her. Had he seen her? Or had it been too dark? At what point had his faith in the world been broken, the one that every child is born with? Stifling a sob, I turned to leave, the same moment that Damian stepped inside.
He was wiping his face with a towel, and stopped short when he saw me.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
<
br /> I shook my head. I should have listened to MaMaLu. I should never have come.
“Skye.”
The way he said it damn near broke me. Damian might be all steel on the outside, but his emotions ran deep. He never did anything halfway. When he hated, he hated with every cell in his body, and when he loved . . . God, when he loved, he said your name like that—like a sigh from his soul, wrapped around his tongue.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I sleep here.”
“You sleep . . . here?” I looked around. It explained the clothes on the bed and why he was wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. The warmth emanating from his skin was like a heater in the small space.
“Why would you sleep . . . ?” I stopped. It suddenly hit me why Damian would forego the luxury of Casa Paloma for the staff wing. He didn’t think he belonged there. He didn’t think he was good enough. He might have bought it and restored it, but he would rather be here, where he had last felt loved, where the guilt of what he had done didn’t eat him up. Casa Paloma was mine. Damian had been trying to restore all the things he thought he had taken away from me.
Whether you say yes or no, you will always be my forever.
My eyes welled up. I stared at my feet, trying to stem the rush of emotions that clamored to my throat, words that got clogged because there were so many of them, all fighting to get out.
“Come.” I held out my hand. “Home.” The only two words that managed to escape. I couldn’t fight it anymore. Loving Damian might destroy me, but not loving him was killing me.
I didn’t wait for an answer. I took his hand, turned off the light, and led him to the mansion.
“Wait,” he said at the door. “I don’t—”
“I love you, Damian. Always you. Only you. This is where you belong. With me and Sierra.”
“But you said—”
“I know. I said a lot of things. To you, to myself. Then I remembered what you said. ‘Love don’t die.’ It’s true, Damian. I have never stopped loving you, from the time I was a little girl up in that room. When I follow my heart, it always leads me back to you.”
For a moment, Damian just looked at me. He had what he’d always wanted, but he faced an unexpected hurdle, a final battle. With himself. Was he worthy of redemption? Of love? Of forgiveness? That was something only he could decide for himself.
He leaned his forehead against mine and closed his eyes. “I am so tired, güerita. Tired of pretending I can go on without you when all the while it’s breaking my heart. Tell me this is it. Tell me this is forever. You, me, and Sierra.”
I told him what he wanted to hear with a kiss, a whisper soft promise against his lips. All of the muscles in his body relaxed as if he’d finally let go of some heavy burden.
“I want to remember this,” he said, pulling me into his arms. “If I die tonight, I want to die remembering what it was like to hold the whole world in my hands.”
We climbed up the stairs to the master bedroom. When Damian shut the door, my legs started to quake. I never knew what to expect with him. He played my body like a maestro, at times to the rhythm of a harsh, primal beat, at times like a finely tuned rhapsody.
“Take off your pants and get in bed,” he said.
I did as he told me, jittery with nerves and anticipation. I hadn’t been with anyone in eight years. My body had changed after Sierra. I shimmied out of my bra, but kept my top on.
The bed shifted when he slipped in beside me. One arm slid around my shoulder, cradling me to his chest. His skin was warm and smooth under my cheek. God, I’d missed the way he felt, his scent, his touch, the steady beat of his heart.
“Sleep.” He kissed the top of my forehead, stroking my hair like it was made of the finest gold.
I must have registered surprise because he chuckled. I had been expecting a fiery reunion.
“Just this,” he said. “This feels so, so good.”
The last time we’d been together, when Sierra interrupted us, he had been like a raging bull coming out of the pen, and although I could feel his undeniable arousal, I could also feel something else. Damian was content. For the first time, no one was closing in on us, no one was tearing us apart. We had found our way back to each other. We were finally free to be. It was a feeling Damian wanted to savor, something that surpassed lust and desire and carnal pleasure. It was a sense of belonging that blurs the lines between two people, when you find your ankle wrapped around someone else’s, or your fingers intertwined, and it’s so natural, so automatic, that you have no conscious thought of it happening. When I think of God, I think of all these magical, inexplicable things, multiplied by infinity.
“Was it hard? Sierra’s birth?” Damian was still stroking my hair.
“Yes.” I wasn’t going to lie. “But it had more to do with my heart than my body.”
We lay quietly for a while, knowing we would do it all over again, for the little miracle that slept in the next room.
“You named her after the mountains in MaMaLu’s lullaby.”
“I did.” I smiled. “Did she tell you her middle name?”
He shook his head.
“Mariana.”
“For MaMaLu and Adriana.” Damian shifted so we were lying side to side on the bed. “Her feet are just like yours.”
“They’re not.”
“I saw them when I tucked her in tonight. The big toe doesn’t want anything to do with the rest of them. There’s a huge space in-between.”
“My feet aren’t like that.”
“Oh no?” Damian flung the covers aside and knelt by my foot. “See this?” He held out my big toe. “I can fit my entire nose between this and the next toe.” He proceeded to try to prove his point.
I started laughing because it tickled, but then I caught a glimpse of something and my breath hitched. Esteban was back.
“What?” asked Damian, sliding next to me.
“Nothing.” I pushed the hair away from his forehead and kissed him on the nose. “I love you.”
“I love you too, güerita.” He held my pinky finger to his chest, next to his heart. “And now I’m going to kiss you until you feel it in the tip of your anti-social toe.”
And he did. His tongue parted my mouth, one hand gripped the back of my neck, the other pulling me so close that every inch of my body came in hot, electric contact with every inch of his. My back arched as he pulled my leg over his, bending my knee around his hip, and grinding himself into me. A throaty moan escaped me as we fell into a frantic rhythm, his hands on my ass, squeezing and releasing.
“It’s been so long, Skye, I’m not going to last.” His voice was muffled by my neck, his face tangled in my hair.
“I don’t think I will either.” I was spiraling out of control, so ready for his possession that I couldn’t focus on anything else.
“Not yet.” He pulled away when I reached for his boxers. “I want to taste you. Do you know how many times I’ve thought of this?”
I expected him to go down on me, but he rolled us over so I was on top. “Straddle my face, Skye. That’s it. God, yes.”
All my inhibitions went out the window when Damian pushed my panties aside. His tongue parted my folds, all the way up to my clit. He licked. My thighs clenched. His lips closed around the tight, little button and he sucked, in short, sweet bursts. When it got too intense, he switched to licking, alternating between the two.
“Damian.” I was close. So close. My fingers curled around his hair.
“Let me look at you.” He tugged my panties down and I shimmied out of them. One long finger slid inside. “So fucking wet.”
I threw my head back as his thumb circled my clit.
“Ride my face, Skye. Come for me. I want your juices all over me.”
“No.” It came out breathless. “You and me together.” I slid my hand under his boxers and squeezed. My touch inflamed him. His cock surged for more.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he growled, t
ossing me on my back. “Because now, I have to do this.” He filled me in one hard, powerful thrust. My body protested, but I was so lubed up, so hungry for him, that the pain gave way to a hot, aching fullness.
“There’s been no one here.” He knew. He fucking knew. He picked up the tempo, carrying me with him. “I’ve missed this. I’ve missed you. So fucking much.” His breath was hot and labored.
It started at the base of my spine, electric tendrils reaching out from my pelvis, building, building, to a white-hot explosion that buzzed through me in waves of sharp ecstasy. I clutched Damian as it rolled through me and felt him stiffen as it hit him. Our bodies were momentarily fused, the same current flowing through both of us. I held on as Damian convulsed into me.
We came down slowly. First our hearts, then our breath.
“I don’t want to let go.” Damian stayed inside me, sated but loathe to withdraw.
“Then don’t.” I wrapped my legs around him. “And the answer is yes.”
“What’s the question?”
“You asked if I would marry you. The answer is yes.”
“That was when you had a choice. Try getting away from me now.”
“How am I supposed to do that when your dick is still inside of me?”
“Get used to it. I’m moving in. Next time, I might even stop long enough to remove your top.”
I laughed, but it faded quickly. “What is it?”
He knew every single detail of my face, but he was looking at me as if it was all new. His hand brushed my hair to the side, exposing my neck. “Just making sure this is real.” He dropped a soft kiss before withdrawing and tucking me in the crook of his arm. “You think there’s such a thing as too much happiness?” he asked. “Because right now, I feel like I can’t contain it and the universe is going to step in to restore the balance.”
“The universe is stepping in. To right all the wrongs, Damian. Not the other way round.”
His chest rose and fell with a long exhale. When the world has always taken from you, when it’s constantly tilted and shifted under your feet, it’s hard to attach permanence to the things it gives.
He held on to me like I was the most precious thing in the world. I felt like every cell was saturated with joy, full and swollen. I felt like ice cream and seashells and towering red-soled heels.