by Cecy Robson
I wasn’t sure if he meant it as a compliment. But that’s how I took it. My hand curled around his knee. “When did you start checking me out?”
He tucked a strand of my loose hair behind my ear. “You really want to know?” I nodded. “When you first walked in and asked Sam for a job.”
My mouth fell open. “Are you serious?”
He laughed. “Why do you look so shocked, Evie? Every guy there couldn’t fucking tear their eyes away.”
My face reddened. “No, it wasn’t like that. It was during the day―you weren’t even there!”
Mateo laughed again. “Yeah, I was. But you didn’t notice me.”
“I don’t believe you.” I stood and started cleaning up the mess. Mateo followed me into the kitchen and dumped our garbage. I turned on the faucet to wash my hands.
He leaned his chest against my back, whispering low and tight. “The club was just finishing up the remodeling. I was interviewing a new set of bouncers while Sam dealt with the new waitresses. You strutted in wearing a sweet black suit and killer pumps. Your hair was down and bouncing behind you with how fast you worked those hips.”
I averted my gaze down to my shoulder, embarrassed. “I wasn’t working anything. I was just nervous.”
Mateo nibbled behind my ear. “I liked the way you moved. You crossed the floor to where Sam waited at the opposite bar. You had no experience. And you’d just turned twenty-one. But you told Sam you were a fast learner, a hard worker, and that he needed to hire you.”
“You were there,” I said almost silently. I recalled seeing a cluster of behemoth men, but their sheer size and number scared me so much, I didn’t bother looking at their faces and glanced quickly away. If I had, I definitely would’ve remembered Mateo. His sexy face, those sweet lips, and damn, that hard body now pressed firmly against mine.
I reached for his hands and pulled them under the warm water, wondering if he’d seen the fear in my eyes that day or realized how badly I needed a job that paid.
My fingers slipped through his, lathering them with soap. He dropped a kiss to my shoulder. “I was standing by the side door with Ant and a shitload of men who stopped listening to me just to check you out. I watched you walk in. I watched you walk out.” He chuckled. “And you never looked at me once.”
“I remember the crowd of really big guys.” I made a face. “A huge blond guy followed me to the door afterward and offered to walk me to my car.”
Mateo scowled. “Yeah. I didn’t hire that dipshit. But I was hoping Sam would give you a shot, even though I didn’t think I stood a chance in hell with you.”
“Why?” I asked before I remembered how afraid I became of Mateo when I learned about his past. God, that seemed so long ago now.
“You know why.” He shook out his hands and reached for a clean dish towel, covering my hands with it and simultaneously drying us both. “You were one of those good girls who should stay far away from someone like me.”
He tossed the towel on the counter, allowing me to turn and wrap my arms around his waist. My head fell against his chest, and I could hear his heart pounding softly as his hands swept over my back. “When you say ‘someone like you,’ do you mean someone who’s strong and brave and kind?” I stood on my toes and kissed his chin.
His hands moved further down. “I mean someone’s who’s been to prison. That shit’s a separate world, and a hell all to itself. It makes you hard. If you’re smart, you realize it’s not someplace you ever want to see again.”
His heartbeat continued to thud against my ear. Mine sped up as I thought about him in a cell and what he must have endured. “How was it for you when you were there?”
He waited before answering. It seemed I’d caught him off guard by asking. “The first few weeks all I did was fight. Every day, sometimes a few times a day. I had to be brutal, and I couldn’t show mercy. I had to prove I wouldn’t be beaten down, but because of it, I messed a lot of men up, probably for life.” His voice dropped as if remembering. “The rest of the time, I fought on and off. By the time I got out, only the really stupid tried to start shit with me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Me too.” His hands pressed against me. “I know I hit you with a lot just now. It’s not something I usually talk about. Just…don’t let it scare you, okay? You’re not someone I could ever hurt.”
I gave him a squeeze. “I know.” Ex-cons were trouble. But Mateo had proven he was the exception to that rule. His tenderness, patience, and affection, coupled with his memory of the first time he saw me, showed me who he truly was, and not who he had to be to survive in prison.
I pulled him with me into the living room and sat him on the couch, watching him while I slipped out of my shirt, my initial shyness now nowhere in sight.
He smiled and drew me to him, relieved, it seemed, that I wasn’t afraid to be with him, even after everything he’d told me. He nipped at the spot between my breasts. “Have I told you how crazy you make me when I touch you?” he breathed against my skin.
“No. But maybe you should show me.” I grasped his hand and slipped it between my legs.
Mateo groaned against my ear. “Oh, so it’s like that.”
I reached into his shorts and began to rub, my back arching. “Yeah. Just like that.”
Chapter Thirteen
Although it was dark when Mateo walked me out to the garage, I still had time to shower and rest before our Saturday night shift started. “If you want to stay over tonight, I can pick you up on my way to the club,” he told me.
“I can’t, sweetie. Since I didn’t do any schoolwork today, I have a pile to dive into tomorrow.” I said it, but as I locked eyes with him, it was hard to mean it. We hadn’t had sex, but he made me so crazy when he touched me, I’d almost asked him for more. In the end, though, my mind wouldn’t allow me to give in.
“You callin’ me a distraction?” His lips passed over my neck.
I grinned. “Ah¸ yeah, maybe just a little.”
He pulled away. “What if you bring your books back here?”
I almost said yes. “It’s more than that, Teo. I need to sleep tonight, too.” I bit my bottom lip. “Maybe you didn’t notice but we don’t sleep much here.”
His gaze smoked. “Yeah, I might have noticed that.”
I tried to ignore the tingles his attention caused and cleared my throat. “If I can get ahead on my reading and studying, I won’t have to keep telling you no when you ask me to stay.”
“All right,” he finally said with a smile that could have scorched the asphalt.
He tapped the keypad. The garage opened all the way, but then he stopped me when I tried to move toward my car. “Wait a sec, Ev.” He jogged up the back stairs and returned with his keys. “Take mine. This way I can take a look at your beast tomorrow and you’re not without wheels.”
I glanced between his nice car and my hideous monster. “What about you? I’ll feel bad if you get stuck.”
“I’ll make it work. I don’t have to be anywhere until tomorrow night, and Ant’s driving.”
“Where are you…?” I didn’t have to catch his steely gaze to know. “You have another fight?”
“Yeah.”
“That was fast,” I said like a moron.
“I need the cash.”
He hadn’t told me how much he made at the last fight, but I knew it had to be a lot. I also knew Ant had put money down on his behalf. He’d told me at the party. “What do you need so much for?”
He rubbed his jaw as if debating whether to tell me. “Carlos doesn’t give my family money. He never really did. I help support my mother and Sofia. The rest they make cleaning offices.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize.” No wonder Mateo worked as hard as he did and risked so much in the ring. I reached into my purse. “Here, let me give you money for dinner.”
He covered my hand. “Don’t. You’re my girl. I take care of my girls.”
My eyes traveled up his arm to his
face. “I really hope you mean me and your sisters. Otherwise, you’re going to seriously drop in sexy points.”
He laughed and pulled me to him. “You know I do.” His hand cupped my face and he stroked my cheek with his thumb. “You won’t come watch me fight again, will you?”
My mind wrestled with whether I should attend Mateo’s fight. If I didn’t, it would be at least a week before we were alone again. I lowered my head. There were only two reasons to go―to make sure he walked out of the ring in one piece, and so that other girls kept their distance. I didn’t want to play the psycho girlfriend. I needed to trust him if we stood a chance. But the biggest issue was what happened inside the Octagon. I couldn’t handle watching him get pounded. Hadn’t he already had enough at the hands of his father?
“Mateo, it’s really hard for me to watch you get hurt. But I’ll go if you want me there.”
I squeezed him harder when he kissed my forehead. “You’re something else, you know that?” he said.
I smiled up at him. “I hope you mean that in a good way.”
“Yeah, I do.” He adjusted his hold. “I won’t make you go. Just get your work done so I can see you more, okay?”
“All right. But please be careful, Teo.”
He kissed me before I climbed into his Explorer. This time it was a much different kiss, making it clear he didn’t want me to leave. “Text me when you get home, Evie.”
Between his kiss and that steamy stare Mateo held me with, it was really hard to crank the engine. “Okay, I promise.”
I pulled out of Elaine’s driveway with a car that purred softly. Mateo’s large body slowly disappeared from my rearview mirror. And I missed him the moment I couldn’t see him anymore.
My thoughts remained on Mateo as I walked into the foyer of my apartment. I locked the door, then paused at the bottom of the steps and sent him a text.
Hey. I made it home.
I waited for a response. When nothing came, I started up the steps. I was halfway up when Mateo responded.
Good. But I wish you were here instead.
I sat on the steps and typed.
I kinda wish that, too.
He texted back.
Kinda?
I laughed.
Okay, maybe more than kinda.
He replied, It’s cold in my bed without you.
I groaned, picturing his words spilling from those full lips.
I texted, You need your sleep before work.
He answered, Don’t really care about sleep right now. Rather be with you.
I didn’t really care about a lot of things just then either. Except maybe running back to him. Instead of spilling TMI, my response was simpler.
Yeah. Me too.
His next response was a little more neutral: Are you going to do work?
I could hear Lourdes upstairs.
Probably not. Then I gathered some courage and added, I’m too busy thinking about you, and how you kept me warm today.
Good. Keep thinking that way was his response.
I grinned and finished my climb up our stairs.
It had been Lourdes’s turn to grocery shop, and I found her in the kitchen putting things away. “Hey, nena.”
I didn’t like her grin and reached for a bag to help her. “Hey, Lourdes.” I examined the box of cereal like the winning lottery ticket waited at the bottom. Like a dork, I even shook the stupid thing before putting it away. Anything was better than facing my BFF.
“How was your night, nena?”
Her tone made it clear she wanted the deets and wanted them now. “Fine.” I reached for the fruit and placed it in our plastic fruit bowl. “Mmm. The apples look good.”
She threw a container of chicken into the fridge and slammed the door. “No. Mateo looks good.” She rounded on me. “You’ve been gone the whole day, Evelyn. With a hot guy with big muscles and an ass capable of snapping chicken necks.”
“Chicken necks?”
She waved me off. “It’s a Puerto Rican thing. But don’t try to change the subject. Tell me everything.”
“We went back to his place after work and slept.”
“You slept.”
Jesus, I couldn’t lie. Neither could my flaming cheeks. “Well, we were tired from, you know, the shift at the club. You wouldn’t believe how crazy some of those losers behaved.” I tossed a head of lettuce into our tiny crisper.
“That’s all you’re going to say to me?” Her evil grin returned when she saw my reddening face. “Did you get naked?”
“Lourdes!”
“You did.” She pointed at me. “I knew you were going to do it.”
“We didn’t do it.”
Her smile froze. Kind of like the Joker’s from Batman. “Eh?”
“I didn’t have sex with him.” Well, at least not in the biblical sense.
She ripped a bag of carrots out of my hands. “You’re telling me you went back to Mateo’s place―Mateo’s―and you didn’t bang him like a pair of maracas?”
“Maracas?”
“Shut up, Evelyn. Mateo is hot!”
I tried to reclaim my hold of the carrots. “I know.”
She held on tight. “Hot, Evelyn. H―hell yeah I want to lick him. O―oh, God, do me harder. T―tie me up.”
We wrestled for the bag of carrots, laughing. “Your ability to spell is amazing,” I said. “Does your mama know you can spell like that?”
Lourdes tried to hip-check me. “Evelyn. I’m the biggest lesbian on the planet―and even I want to have Mateo’s baby!”
I grunted, trying to yank the carrots away. Shit, she was strong. “If you were, why did you have to crawl out of a fire escape to run from the puto?”
She ripped the bag, spilling the carrots. “That’s different. Lisa had just dumped my ass and I was vulnerable.” I cracked up and helped her pick up the carrots. “But forget the puto,” she continued. “Why didn’t you do it? I know you like him. And hell, I saw the way you were both looking at each other.”
“I just wasn’t ready.” We dumped the carrots into the bin, the fun from our tussle slowly fading. “Things are moving kind of fast, you know? I went from being afraid of him to kissing him to getting naked with him in like two weeks.”
Lourdes just stared at me. “You got naked with Mateo and his baby-makin’ hips?”
I thought I’d burn the place down with how hot I suddenly felt. Lourdes didn’t wait for me to answer. Instead she passed me a small container of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey from the freezer and then snagged a Chocolate Therapy for herself. She snatched two spoons and shoved me into our living room.
“Talk. Now,” she said when we sat.
I dipped my spoon, knowing there was no escape. “We messed around. A lot.”
“Did he get naked, too?”
I thought of him spread across the bed and me kneeling below. I licked my spoon. “Yup.”
“And he was cool with not doing it.” She waited with her spoon in hand for me to answer.
“He wanted to.”
She laughed. “Obviously.”
“But yes. He didn’t pressure me and let me make that call.”
She swallowed her ice cream. “You realize that makes him that much hotter.”
“Oh, yeah. I do.”
“But you still…didn’t.”
“I just couldn’t, Lourdes.” I dug into my ice cream, thinking things through. “It was hard not to. Especially after what he did to me.”
“After what he did to you! Oh, ho-ho-ho. Evelyn, did you finally cumakazi?”
I chewed on my bottom lip and turned my head. “Yeah, like a lot.”
“Holy. Shit.”
My hand clasped over my eyes. “I know. I didn’t think it could be like that.”
“He went downtown, didn’t he?”
“Lourdes!”
“I knew it.” She laughed. “Did you at least return the favor?”
I scraped a little ice cream from the sides of the tiny round cart
on. “Let’s just say I satisfied him a few times.”
“A few?”
I continued to spoon my ice cream like my life depended on it. “Yeah.”
“Were you safe about it?”
“We used condoms since, ah, I didn’t feel right going down without one until I know it’s safe.”
Lourdes angled her chin so the edges of her bob curled against her round face. “So you both went to town. Just not all the way into Sexville?”
I stopped smiling then. “No. I couldn’t.”
“Why not, nena? You already did a lot with him.”
“It’s hard, mostly since there hasn’t been anyone since Donovan.”
She knitted her thin brows. “That little bitch really messed with your head, didn’t he?”
“He did. But it wasn’t entirely his fault.” I leaned back into the sofa. “My life’s different than it was supposed to be. You know that.”
“I know, but none of that shit was real, Evelyn.” She swore when a lump of her ice cream landed on her jeans. “If it was, the ball-less prick wouldn’t have dumped you and left you all alone.” She wiped her lap. “Everyone in your life was gone. He knew that, and so did his bitch-ass parents, and your loser friends. You weren’t a stranger to those assholes. It shouldn’t have taken my piss-poor grandmother to save you.”
“I know. And you’re right. But it took me a long time to accept that this was my new reality.” My stare fell upon my half-empty container. “I met Donovan when I was six at prep school after our parents introduced us. We both came from old money and legendary bloodlines. Our parents also shared the same political views and were associated with high-ranking officials in government. They joked about us going to prom and getting married from the start. So you can imagine how they lost their minds when we started dating as freshmen.”
Lourdes quieted as she listened. She was probably the truest friend I’d ever had, and ever would have, and yet she knew very little about me. I tried to smile, but I didn’t really mean it. “We both fell into the trap, too, you know? We started talking about going to college together, getting married, and making babies that would continue our esteemed heritage.” I stopped eating and placed my container on the side table. “It became more than just something our families expected. It turned into something we both believed would happen. I gave him my virginity. And I’m sure his parents knew that.” I faced her then. “But I didn’t become a whore in their eyes until my dad embezzled and lost everything―disgracing the Preston name and going out like a coward by killing himself.”