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 yelled. “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.”