“Thanks. I was wondering if… uh… I could get a shower.”
“Sure.” She realized the downstairs bathroom only had a tub and he was going to have to bring him up to her master bath, which meant walking him through her bedroom. “You have to go upstairs. Is that okay?”
“I’ll go anywhere right about now to get clean.” He grinned and she felt it in every cell of her body.
***
She was halfway out of the room, having shown him to her shower, when he called after her, “Come in with me, Ali.”
Her heart caught in her throat and she stopped dead in her tracks. Alejandro leaned in the doorway of her bathroom, the towel slung dangerously low on his hips. Her eyes followed the trail of dark hair from his stomach to where it joined a larger patch barely visible above the towel. His intent was clear, and the realization made her mouth dry.
“You should—” She took a deep breath to steady herself. “You’re hurt. I shouldn’t.”
“I’m fine. But since you’re so concerned, what if I’m overcome by the steam and I faint?” he teased. “You better be there to catch me.”
She must’ve looked worried, because he chuckled and shook his head. “I’m kidding. But not about getting in this shower with me. Come on, you need one too. And after the past twenty-four hours I’ve had you’d be doing me a favor.”
He straightened and she saw it then. An open ribcage, tattooed on his golden skin with gruesome reality, thorny vines twining and escaping through the bars of bone. The artistry was so precise it made her woozy to stare at what looked to be a giant hole in Alejandro’s chest, crowded with dying roses, the vines growing aggressively, as if they wanted nothing more than to choke his heart. A few wilted petals drifted gracefully down his side, and a few more fluttered into the hollow of his lean hips. She stared at it, unable to process exactly what she was seeing. It was both grotesque and beautiful, stunningly realistic.
“What is that?” she asked quietly.
“Come here and I’ll tell you.”
She crossed the room in seconds and he captured her face in his hands, holding her just inches away, his hands gentle on her. He brushed his lips across mouth and she sighed softly.
“It’s a reminder, Ali,” he breathed against her, untying the sash of her robe and slipping it off her shoulders. His lips burned a trail down her jaw to the little space below her ear, and his tongue flicked against the pulse point. At the junction of her thighs she was molten, a keening urge tightening around itself deep within her.
“What does it mean?” she whispered.
He took her fingers in his calloused grasp and pressed her hand flat over his heart. “I tried to forget… but you grew roots around my ribcage… and sprouted flowers just below my collarbones…”
She tried to remember where she knew those words from. Finally she figured it out. Oh, God, the poem. It all came back to her: senior English class, the term spent studying and memorizing poetry. Pablo Neruda. Alejandro’s heart galloped under her palm, and when she looked at his face his dark eyes blazed with need.
Alejandro’s mouth hovered mere inches from hers. Fighting back the groan that built in her, Ali closed her eyes and waited for his inevitable kiss.
“All day I pluck their petals…” he breathed against her lips, and her veins sizzled with the need to devour his mouth. He was playing her like an instrument only he knew how to use, and all she wanted to do was let him.
“…but I have not yet ascertained…” Now he held her arms so that she could only wriggle against him, a whimper escaping her as his lips brushed back and forth across her mouth.
“…whether you love me…” He sucked at her lower lip and she choked back a sob of frustration. “…or not.” Finally he held her at arms’ length, studying her face. His eyes gleamed triumphantly but his mouth remained serious.
“So tell me, Ali,” he growled. “Tell me if you ever loved me or if it was just a summer fling.”
“The tattoo… It’s the poem…” she gasped. Her body betrayed her with its combustion, and she shuddered as the shock of it ripped through her.
“Yes, it’s the poem.” He tipped her chin and met the seam of her mouth with the tip of his tongue. She groaned as he slipped inside so easily, loosening his grip on her arms so he could wrap his hands around her waist.
“Tell me, Baby…” He kissed a trail to her throat, breathing her in as he nuzzled and nipped his way down the pulsing artery. He traced her collarbone with his tongue and she whimpered and stopped thinking altogether. She was electrified, the sensations he was building in her almost too strong to take. Alejandro, I loved you, I love you still, she heard herself whispering wildly, but the words never slipped from her tongue.
Instead she sighed in ecstasy as Alejandro traced inside the neckline of her tank top, over the swell of her unfettered breast. He scraped his finger over the cotton-covered nipple so that it stiffened below the surface, and she moaned softly.
With a strangled cry she pulled his face to hers and devoured his mouth, thrusting her tongue against his until she felt him shudder. She seized his bottom lip with her teeth and he moaned, “Fuck, Ali…” Through the towel she could feel his erection twitching, straining wildly toward the heat between her thighs. And then Alejandro loosened the towel and let it drop.
***
“Oh, God,” she breathed. “Touch me, Alejandro, please.”
“You haven’t said yet.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Won’t,” he corrected her, and released his grip on her. He stepped into the shower and turned on the spray, adjusting it until it was perfect and then letting the water run over him.
Ali stood reeling and breathless. It would be so easy to just tell him. She’d almost told him on the Ridge. She’d wanted to tell him in the garage. And the night before, when he lay in her guest bed, she’d fought the urge to crawl into the bed beside him and whisper everything she’d ever felt into his ear.
She stepped in with him and he turned to face her.
“It wasn’t a fling,” she sobbed against his mouth. “I loved you before you kissed me at graduation. I loved you all that summer. I loved you after you left, for years and years. I don’t think I ever stopped. Maybe I love you now. I don’t know anymore.” The spray blinded her and he pulled her into his embrace, skin to skin.
“We have this. Right now. That’s all that matters,” he murmured, stroking the slick skin of her back. She felt his erection twitch against her stomach and reached between them to grasp it.
He gritted his teeth as her fingers wrapped around him. She slicked her hands with soap and bathed him—all of him—lovingly, lathering every inch of him, thorough in her ministrations. Alejandro leaned his head back against the tiles and groaned in pleasure as she tugged him slow and steady, her soapy fist wrapped tightly around his pulsing flesh.
Then he unwrapped her fingers from him. He took the soap and washed her, starting with her breasts and arms. Soon his soapy fingers were between her thighs, slipping back and forth until her clit plumped beneath his touch. Her hips bucked at him of their own accord and he seized her mouth with his, plundering her mouth in rhythm with his strokes. “I love you, Ali. I love you, I love you, I love you.” he murmured between her sighs of pleasure.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ali lay spread before him on her bed, her skin still moist, drops of water glistening in the soft golden nest between her thighs. Alejandro’s groin tightened as he realized she wasn’t going to say no again, not today. Her gray eyes simmered, and when he kneeled on the bed in front of her he could see that her heart was pounding as hard as his was. Drawing one foot up to his chest he spread her other leg wide, brushing his thumb across the damp curls and loving the way she arched to meet his touch. He slipped his thumb between the folds, rubbing the little nub until it stiffened and then plunging into her slick opening, coating it with her juices.
He held it to Ali’s lips. “Taste yourself,�
� he growled, and Ali sucked the thumb he offered, her eyes never leaving his. She was no longer the shy girl who’d been nervous about undressing in front of him ten summers ago. Her tongue swirled hungrily around his thumb and she smiled up at him, her eyes wicked and heated.
“See what you do to me?” she asked. “I wanted to come so badly the last time you touched me. I was so close.”
“Jesus, Ali.” His cock jumped to hear those words coming out of her mouth. She traced lazy circles around her nipple with her fingertips and he enjoyed the sight, content to watch until the little peak stiffened and beckoned him. Then he seized it between his teeth and sucked until she whimpered.
“Let me taste you,” she begged, wrapping her hand around him as tightly as she had in the shower. He didn’t even try to refuse. Having Ali on her knees for him had been a particular fantasy of his for a long, long time. His head buzzed with excitement as she pulled him down on the bed and climbed between his thighs.
He tried to close his eyes and enjoy it, but he couldn’t resist watching her. Ali’s creamy ass was thrust high in the air and her hair spilled around her as she grasped him and lapped at the pre-come oozing from the sensitive tip of his cock. He gathered her hair in his fist and held it so he could see her mouth as she worked him in and out. She took him deep, swallowing him down and then working the head with her tongue, alternating corkscrew strokes and dainty flicks of her tongue until his balls tightened and he gripped her hair.
“Ali, wait,” he urged, but she merely looked up at him, her eyes dancing, and increased her movements and suction. Finally he stopped resisting and pumped his hips at her, clutching the sheets with his free hand and groaning a string of barely coherent curses. He hissed as he emptied into her. In a million years he would never forget the look of satisfaction on Ali’s face as she swallowed him down. Afterward she lovingly cleaned him with her tongue until the sensitivity was too much to bear.
Alejandro tugged at her until she lay cradled against his chest. He kissed her hair, her eyelids, and finally, her mouth. “I’ve dreamed of this, Ali,” he said. “I know it shouldn’t happen. I know our worlds are too different. But you were always the one.”
She tipped her face up to his. “Then why did you push me away?”
“Because, Ali. Some things just can’t be. You’re meant for a different life than the one I can give you.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Ali sat up in bed and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m sick and tired of everyone deciding what’s best for Ali. Bobby. My mother. Cecile fucking Dawson. How about I be the judge of what I need for once in my life?”
“You don’t need my life. I’m telling you. This isn’t about what dress to wear to dinner, Ali. This is life or death shit.”
“Did you say the other guys have wives and girlfriends?”
“Yes, but—”
“Am I so fucking precious that I can’t handle what they can handle?”
“Maybe you are!” he thundered, sitting up beside her and cupping the back of her head with his broad palm. “Maybe you’re better than this life, mi angél.”
“I’m not an angel, Alejandro. Not a saint. Not a damn princess either. I’m just Ali. I love you and I want to be with you. Can we just see what we can give each other without you trying to protect me?” She traced his bottom lip with her elegant fingers and he kissed the tips. “Let me love you,” she pleaded. “Please, for me, let me try.”
His breathing grew shallow at what her eyes promised, but still he tried to discourage her. “You don’t know what you’re asking, mija.”
“I know exactly what I’m asking,” Ali whispered, slipping her fingers into his close-cropped beard and scooting closer. “I’m yours,” she breathed against his mouth.
He had her pinned to the bed by both wrists in an instant. Her eyes said she wanted it that way and she nipped at him as he nudged her thighs apart with his knee. “Mine,” he growled before claiming her mouth with his own, his lips rough on her soft ones. But Ali gave as good as she got. She bucked against him to make her intent perfectly clear, transmitting the depth of her need directly on his hardness.
He strained through clenched teeth. “I’m not some pretty boy who’s gonna check his hair in the mirror between strokes, Ali. I’m gonna fuck you till you beg me to stop. I’m gonna make sure you don’t forget who made you come harder than you ever have in your life.”
“Then do it.” Her eyes glistened and her chest heaved. She licked her lips hungrily. “I’m yours. Make me come for you. Make me scream your name. Take me, use me, fuck me till I cry. I don’t care. But don't you fucking dare make me a promise and break it again.”
When he reached between her thighs she was dripping. Ah, she likes a bit of dirty talk, he thought. My beautiful, dirty angel. That was new, as was the way she wrapped her thighs around him as he lowered himself inside her. Her knees clutched his sides like she was riding her horse and she clawed his shoulders, his back, and his ass as he thrust inside her.
She was exquisite. Burying himself inside her was as amazing as it had been when he’d done it years ago. Her eyes fluttered shut and her breath quickened with pleasure. Before long she was gasping, quivering, clenching her teeth as he plundered her. He threaded his fingers through hers and pinned her hands to the bed and she gave herself over to him completely, writhing and whimpering until he pounded into her with furious strokes and she broke. It went on and on; he could feel her spasm around his cock and she just kept coming, her orgasm drawn out by his continued thrusting. Her face was flushed and her mouth hung open in her climax, but he didn’t stop pumping until he felt his own orgasm building from the base of his spine. It ripped free and thundered out of him and he collapsed in her arms, burrowing his face into her neck.
“That’s just the beginning,” he mumbled against her skin a few moments later.
She laughed at his muffled voice. “I can take whatever you’ve got, big boy,” she teased, stroking his damp back and kissing his hair.
***
They spent the morning in bed, promising each other nothing more than the few days they might have together. Ali was insatiable, drawing him back to her again and again. It was as if she’d never been with another man, like no one but Alejandro could fulfill the ache inside her. When he passed out from sheer exhaustion, she watched him sleeping, traced her fingers across every inch of his skin.
Another dead-end, she warned herself. You’re right back where you were ten years ago. You can’t live his life any more than you can live Bobby’s. Don’t be stupid.
But somehow Alejandro’s life seemed the better of the two options. It was dangerous and illegal, but he had what she’d never experienced: sweet, glorious freedom.
He wasn’t asking, but if he did, she didn’t know how she’d refuse him.
She didn’t think she could let him walk away again, not after so many false stops and starts.
She couldn’t give up the sweet ecstasy of his lips on hers, his body coaxing every last ounce of pleasure from her, his hands stoking the rising fire in her veins.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Two days later, Ali was in the barn feeding Tip when she heard Alejandro’s voice behind her.
“I was wrong,” he said. “I thought I was taking you away from your society friends, the lifestyle of privilege, but what I’d really be taking you away from is this.”
The lump in her throat burned. She tried and failed to swallow it down.
“And that’s where Bobby fucked up, isn’t it? He didn’t see how much this place is in your bones.” It was as if he was thinking aloud.
Ali didn’t reply. She didn’t know if she could even speak.
“I can’t ask you to give this up. And I can’t put you in harm’s way. So where do we go from here, Ali?” His dark eyes bored into her. “I’m not losing you again. I won’t push you away and I sure as hell won’t let you push me away, not now.”
She set the bucket down carefully and wiped her hands
on her jeans.
“It’s impossible, mi corazón.”
“I don’t think it’s impossible,” she said quietly.
“No?” He cocked his head and walked toward her. “How so?”
“San Antonio isn’t so far away.” She licked her lips. “Close enough when we need each other. At least for now, while it’s still new.”
“And then?”
“And then…” She slid her arms around his neck and murmured against his mouth, “We re-evaluate.”
He chuckled. “You’ve thought of everything.”
“Almost,” she whispered, nuzzling his neck. “I still don’t know how I can live without this every day.” Her hand trailed down the front of his shirt, feeling the crinkle of the dark hairs underneath. Her fingers edged along the front of his jeans, which were already tented by his arousal, and cupped the bulge they found there.
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