by Sand, A. J.
“More! More! More!” Drew pounds her palms enthusiastically on top of the bar, and Miguel cheers before he signals the bartender again. I mutter a curse a few minutes later when he pushes twelve shot glasses between us. The two of them sling back three more and look at me with questioning stares when mine stay untouched.
“I don’t really drink anymore…” I admit.
“Bueno. More for them,” Miguel says with a nod to the same group of women he checked out earlier. I don’t know how he does it, but he gathers nearly all the remaining shots and walks toward the ladies. Soon he’s pointing at me and punching the air slightly with his fists.
“Why don’t you drink? Your princess’s rules?” Drew jokes as she lifts her last shot to her lips.
I shake my head. “No…remember I quit?”
Drew lowers the glass like it’s suddenly full of poison, her expression freezing in embarrassment. “Oh, wow, and you still don’t? Jess, I’m sorry. I feel like I just pushed you off the wagon.”
“Not like that. Once I really got my shit together, it was one of those things that seemed better left apart, you know? But that was back then. I’m not a stiff.” I give her a reassuring smile and take down her shot to prove my point.
She keeps wary eyes on me, as if she’s expecting me to keel over. “Okay, if you say so.” Drew touches my wrist and smiles, but I can tell she still feels bad. “You wanna dance?” she asks.
We cut across the floor, dodging swaying hips, turns, kicks and dips, and I realize quickly we’re way out of our league here. Ignoring the buzz of arousal that rides down my stomach, I put my hands on her waist and her arms come up around my neck. My lips skim her shoulder as I pull her close enough to smell her skin. With the fragrance of the hotel body wash fading, it’s just her bare, natural scent left. I always loved that the most.
The music is going at a fiery pace, and Drew and I stick to what we swear are merengue steps. Definitely a Dominican dance, but it’s the only thing we know how to do without looking like dumbasses in this crowd. “Have you talked to Buck? I bet he’s excited to have you back home soon,” I say. My own words nick my heart.
“Yeah…yeah…” she says, gulping down, not meeting my eyes for a moment. “We’re actually supposed to move when I get back. We’re gonna be renting from the Stetsons.” Drew once told me that whenever she got engaged, her parents were going to gift her the house they live in. She loves that place, so the fact that she and Buck are moving somewhere else means the rift with her parents is solidly irreparable.
“Do you and Lydia have a house?” she asks.
“We aren’t there yet…” We might not be anywhere right now. “Tiny apartment not too far from where her parents live, but we’re settling in for a while. We paid four months’ rent when we signed the lease.”
“God, eighteen seems like forever ago, doesn’t it? Our lives have changed so much.” With a sigh, she drops her gaze to the floor. “Still changing…and it feels like we’re never going to see each other again.” My heavy heart starts to sink, and I fight off the wistful ache in my throat with a soft smile. It does feel that way so I can’t tell her anything different. But I have other words, words I need to say before I chicken out. I cup her chin and lift her head until we make eye contact, but keeping my smile is challenging.
“You’re one of the most amazing people I’ve ever had the honor of knowing, Spark. You’re brave and smart and kind and loving. You’re also beautiful and…I can see why he fell for you. I know why he fell for you. I wish every happiness in the world for you, Drew Hallisay. Both of you. You deserve it.” Bringing her hand to my mouth, I kiss it and her eyes are fastened to my lips. Drew starts to speak but a woman with a friendly smile approaches us.
“I’m Camila, and I was watching you from over there. Would you like to learn....” She swivels her body from side to side so that we know she means dancing. I was wrong earlier; we look like dumbasses. “They are easy steps. Nothing traditional. More sensual. More for the young people.” Oh. This may be the one time a sexy Latin dance is exactly what we don’t want, but I let her adjust my hand on Drew, sliding it around to the small of her back. Her whole body seems to pulse from my touch. I react, too, with a deep breath, as a rush of desire floods me. The oppressive heat in this club has nothing on what the beautiful woman in front of me can do. “Your hand is supposed to be higher…but I like here better,” Camila says. I like it better there, too. She places Drew’s hand on my shoulder in the correct position next.
She demonstrates the steps she wants us to mimic, shows us a basic spin, and then walks around us as we repeat them. “I like it closer, too…” Camila and I are definitely on the same page with all this. When she pushes Drew and me together, I can’t take my eyes off the slight sway of Drew’s hips. She was never stick-thin, and I liked that about her, but she has gotten shapelier, more like an hourglass. The memory of her body beneath mine at the park shoves itself into my head. I let my mind alter it so that we’re naked, and this time my hands don’t stay on her wrists. In my head, my palms follow my mouth down her breasts and her stomach, and she moans when I flick my tongue just below her bellybutton. My dick throbs, slicing through the fantasy, and warning me that if I keep this up I’ll be in blue balls hell tonight.
And it will be worth it.
Camila clutches my waist from behind and guides my movements. “You are in control of the dance, young man. You will lead.”
“You clearly haven’t met Drew Hallisay,” I mumble so only Drew hears, and she mouths shut up before smiling. Damn. It’s her mouth that’s really going to be my undoing. She’s wearing a shade of red lipstick that reminds me of the cherries that always spilled out of Lilly Armor’s pie slices so, of course, I want to kiss her again, and in a way I couldn’t at Alameda Central.
Camila walks around to Drew, making us hold our positions for an eight-count of music. “But, bella,” she says to her, “when you really move these hips, all eyes will be on you. Remember, though, you are dancing for him.” Camila touches my chest. “Only for him.”
My gaze presses into Drew’s, and it’s like when two wires touch and a golden spark blazes between them. I feel that flash speed down my spine, and there’s a gleam in Drew’s eyes, the brown seeming to glow with something I can’t read.
But it’s something I want.
Camila taps us like she has just cast a spell, and suddenly Drew and I are falling into the fast-paced rhythm with the people around us. With her eyes pinned to mine, Drew pivots her hips to the beat, adding a bit of American style, her body swinging whichever direction I take her. We’re so lost in the music, I don’t even know when Camila walks away exactly, but I mumble a thank you and we keep moving. When the song ends, I spin Drew out then pull her against me, her back to my chest.
We’re quitters, so we do what we’re comfortable with: good ole ass to crotch dancing as the next song starts. Her exposed shoulder being so close to my mouth is torture, and I give in with ease. My lips brush her skin, skimming up her neck. When she exhales deeply, it rumbles down my chest. “Did I tell you how beautiful you look tonight?” I say, running my hand across her stomach and grabbing at the tight fabric there.
I groan when Drew’s fingers skate up the back of my neck and she tugs my head forward. “Did I tell you it’s crazy that your voice can still make me wet…” She whirls around, keeping her dance steps, slaps a hand over the O-shape of her mouth, and stifles her giggles. There’s not even a hint of embarrassment in her eyes. She’s faking coy.
Your voice can still make me wet. I don’t know if she’s saying it again or if my brain is just replaying it perfectly, but my dick hardens to steel between us. Goose bumps spread over my arms—hot ass club be damned—and I clutch her at her sides to draw her closer to me. Temptation curls through my veins and beats at my temples with burning urgency. All I want to do is find out for myself, knuckles deep, and then get her knees on my shoulders. Before I can speak a word about any of that, my chest cl
enches, and guilt eclipses my desire. Shit. Shit. Shit. What am I doing? What is she doing? “Feeling the Cuervo, huh?”
Her hands hook together behind my neck. Drew’s smiling but her eyes narrow in sultry defiance, and it’s this look that strengthens everything I’m fighting against. “Don’t do that. Don’t blame alcohol. Maybe I’m saying it out loud because I’m drunk, but I’m still saying it because I want you. You want me, too. You were staring at me when I was in the shower…”
Guilty as fuckin’ charged. “How do you know?”
“‘Cause I was staring at you,” she says.
“I wanted to get in,” I admit.
She grins. “Is that the Cuervo?”
“Hell no.”
Drew shifts her weight between her feet before she leans forward. She gently tows her lips along my jawline, from my earlobe to my chin. “Then…why didn’t you?”
The sudden change in my blood flow makes me feverish and impatient. All my breaths are coming out short as I cup her face with both hands. When she tilts her head up, I drag my thumb across her lips, and wanting, like a thirst, rips through me. “You called what happened between us a thing, Drew…and then you said it was a mistake.” I can’t believe my answer isn’t, Because we’re seeing other people, or the just as valid, You’re getting married.
Her stare digs into mine, and her eyes burn with a mix of determination and torment. “You really want me to give a name to how I kissed my ex in the middle of a public park? How I wouldn’t have stopped that day if you hadn’t? How every time you touch me…” She pulls herself closer to me and puts her mouth against my ear. Warmth skitters across my skin when she closes her teeth around my earlobe. “How every time you touch me I wonder if it’ll be the time when you ask…so I can say yes.”
My resistance dissolves to fumes. I hold her as close as we can get with our clothes on, and I know she can feel how hard I am. What the hell are we doing? The question pings in a tiny corner of my mind, but the words filling the rest of my head are the ones that actually come out. “Will you say yes now?”
Her lips hum across my cheek and stop at the corner of my mouth. “I’m saying it.”
So I kiss her, and we surrender to desire we both know is reckless and forbidden. But it’s also hungry and unstoppable. Between ragged breaths, my tongue strokes hers, and her fingers dig into my back as mine get caught in her hair. I feel her touch inside as much as I do out. I’m shaking when my teeth graze her neck. My lips trace the line of her jaw, and the sounds that come out of her only stoke the desperate fever in my bones. Again, a woman moaning is the hottest thing ever. Especially this one.
Drew, breathless, steps back, her fingers still clawing me. “What else are you asking, Jess?”
“What else do you want, Drew?” I whisper, but her lips just fall on mine again. We collapse against each other, and the friction of our bodies is overwhelming. I drown in the heightened pleasure of her touch as her needy fingers press into my neck and her breasts mash against my chest. We kiss with even more abandon than before, sinking into every ounce of raw, naked lust we’ve both been suppressing. We’re just lips and teeth and tongues and moans. All the stuff rabid sexual tension is made out of. The rough way our lips move makes mine feel bruised, and I don’t care because the taste of her mouth is that damn intoxicating.
The thing about lines? They stop being dangerous the moment you cross them; they stop mattering then, too. And instead of admitting that, you just set another limit, raise the stakes, draw another boundary for your sins, and find a way to justify your actions. Like how I tell myself Drew and I are just kissing. It’s the mix of alcohol and old feelings in a hot nightclub. Nothing a little morning sunlight won’t fix. I tell myself at least we’re not sleeping together. But the truth is, I would. Right here if she let me.
Fuck.
Nothing this bad should ever feel so good.
Drew breaks away first. “You want to fuck me, Jess?” Biting her lip, she waits in nervous anticipation as I process her words.
Who the hell would say no? “Until you can’t take it,” I say.
“You still remember what I like?”
“Yup.” She gasps when I lean in and flick my tongue very slowly over her earlobe over and over again. “And I still like eating pussy. I’m better at it, too.”
“Damn…” she whispers. Drew buries a shudder under giddy laughter and the verbal foreplay loses its appeal. I grab her hand and we head for the exit.
“I’m gonna tell Miguel we’re going,” she says, once we’re outside. There are plenty of cabs waiting across the street, and I signal a driver as Drew types away on her cell phone. “He’s not responding. I don’t want to just leave without seeing what he wants to do. Who knows when he’ll read the text,” she continues. “You wanna check the men’s room and the first floor, and I’ll run to the second floor?”
Way to cockblock unintentionally, Miguel. “Yeah,” I say as we walk back into the club’s choppy strobe light darkness. “Text me if you find him. Meet back here in ten?” Nodding, Drew hurries for the staircase as I go toward the restroom. I find Miguel near the bar laughing with a different group of women and he signals for me to come closer.
“We were just looking for you. What’s up with your phone, dude?”
He lifts his chin at two of the girls, who are snapping duckface selfies on his cell. “Ladies,” Miguel says, with a squeeze to my shoulder, “meet El Americano!” I’m wary of the publicity but I shake all their hands as they pepper me with questions I don’t understand. “They were at the fight. They were watching you dance, too. How’d you like Camila? She’s good, right?”
“You sent her over?”
“I told you, I’m here to make you look good. Get people talking. Where’s Drew?”
“Upstairs, I think. We were gonna head out.” I fake-yawn before he can figure out what we are really up to. Even though I suspect that he probably saw us.
“Let’s wait for her to come back down. I need to tell you something, anyway.” Miguel says goodbye/flirts with the women one last time before we walk to the staircase. “I found out something for you. So, that guy you fought, José, I kept thinking about what he said to you…” His voice trails off like he suddenly feels guilty for bringing it up. In truth, I wish he hadn’t, but I nod for him to continue because now I’m curious. “I asked Sandrine to find out for me. He’s a low-level cartel fighter. Very low-level. He was being literal. He couldn’t stop fighting you. He probably would’ve been killed. Probably happened anyway, since he lost. Cartel puts money into him for training, housing, all that stuff, and he has to pay it back, with interest. Losses…aren’t good.”
Is this what Henry meant by sponsorship? Is this what he was trying to get me involved in five years ago? My father is a fucking money-hungry idiot. My muscles contract in a wave of boiling rage as I remember the way he painted what Francisco Acevedo did for fighters. Mansions. Money. Girls. And a way to bond with him. Irresistible bait to a seventeen-year-old boy, especially one starving for daddy’s affection.
“That’s crazy. Is that normal?” I ask, but Miguel’s attention is turned to whatever he’s frowning at above us. I turn around and Drew smacks right into me at the bottom step. I catch her, literally, mid-run, and I see relief force out the slight look of fear on her face. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“Oh, thank God. There was a guy, um…he was grabbing me…uh…I just swung.”
“Slow down,” I say, holding her against me. “Did someone hurt you?”
She nods. “A guy upstairs. I was walking around looking for Miguel. He came over and said someone wanted to meet me. I refused and he said no wasn’t an option. Then he tried to drag me up to another floor, so I punched him and ran.” Drew is composed but my anger hits me so hard I back up. “It happened so quickly.”
I glance up at the shadowed figures above us. “Which guy?” I say with clenched teeth, and adrenaline courses through me with vicious heat.
; “He’s wearing a bright red tie. He has spiky hair,” Drew explains. There’s already some swelling around her knuckles.
“Does it really hurt?” Miguel asks.
“It looks worse than it feels. Promise,” she says.
“Okay, good. I’m gonna go have a word with him.” I take the stairs two at a time, and Miguel’s right on my tail.
“You’re really just going to talk to him?” he asks with an amused look of doubt, but I nod because that’s actually Plan A. Whether we get to Plan B is wholly dependent on Grabby.
“That’s him!” Drew points as she sidles up between us. His bright red tie stands out against his black on black suit, sweat bonds his dark curly hair to his forehead while the back is still spiked up. He’s all ego and shit-eating grins, and he’s already hassling another woman at the bar. The sight of his hand clamped around her upper arm sends me to a level of fury I didn’t think I was capable of reaching anymore.
Miguel and I storm up, and after I tear his hand off the scared shitless woman, we both shove him backward. Bottles from the bar top shatter to the floor, and the guy even knocks down a chair as he tries to grab for anything that will slow the forced momentum. A chorus of excited chatter rises once I have him collared against the wall, and I sense a crowd gathering behind us.
The man holds up his hands, his expression filling with terror and bewilderment. “What? It’s not fun when it’s not someone you can just manhandle?” I say.
“Qué? What are you talking about?” he asks in heavily accented English. Up close there’s a fresh bruise on his jaw, courtesy of Drew.
Without knowing if she is behind me, I point. “My friend. You tried to take her somewhere against her will. Maybe I should take you somewhere. Down that flight of stairs, face first.”
“No, not necessary.” An insincere smile breaks through his frightened look. “I did not know she was with you, my friend. I understand now. Lo siento. I’m very sorry, okay?”