Chapter Thirty-One
chapter thirty-one
MAY
“Sorry!” I apologize to the girl I bumped into on my way back to the bar. Marina’s is packed tonight.
I sneak around the bar to get refills for our table. The group of us have been here for a few hours, and it’s only gotten busier since. Marina can’t avoid looking over at the new bartender, Molly, for more than ten seconds. I see her glance over as I start mixing up margaritas.
“Molly?”
“Yeah?” she replies immediately from the other end of the bar.
“You good?”
“Honestly, Marina looking over here every five seconds is stressing me out more than the amount of customers.”
Molly is here for three months from London, and she’s already been working part time for Marina for the better part of a month.
I laugh. “You look like you’re doing fine. Don’t worry about her. Just give me a nod if you need help and I’ll come over.”
“Thank you,” she sighs. “Now go! Enjoy your night off for once.”
I smile at her and pick up the tray of drinks before I begin winding my way through the bar over to our regular booth in the corner .
As I make my way closer, I notice an extra person at our table. I nearly trip at the sight of Rafael’s big build taking up my spot in the booth. I thought the fact that he hadn’t shown up yet meant he wasn’t coming at all, and I was relieved. Because now that he’s here, all I can think of is our nights together at Olive&Vine.
I should never have opened up to Rafael, but once I opened the gates, it all came flooding through and I couldn’t stop it if I’d tried.
And then I left. I ran. Bolted. I pretty much jogged back to Rosemary Cottage, not giving myself time to even process what I’d just done. But after a cold shower and a hot chocolate, when I was all tucked up in bed, it started. The replay of those last two hours. Over and over again, it ran through my mind. The adrenaline that pumped through my body when I held that sledgehammer in my grip. The feeling that quickly turned to liberating and then changed into me letting go of all my frustration and anger and then…he opened up to me. Telling me about his family, trusting me with parts of himself he hasn’t given to anyone else. My resolve is quickly waning, and I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. Switching constantly between wanting to keep my guard up and wanting to fall into Rafael’s arms and let him hold all of me, including the broken parts.
“How’s Molly doing?” Marina asks before I even make it to the table.
I shake my head, trying to make these feelings disintegrate. “She’s fine. Your obvious staring is freaking her out.”
She gasps. “I just want to make sure she’s not going to mess up.”
“She’s been here for nearly a month, Marina. She’s not going to mess up.”
I start unloading my tray, avoiding all eye contact with the man sitting right beside me.
“Did I take your seat?” He asks, uncharacteristically quietly, drawing everyone’s attention towards the two of us.
I look up at him and the look in his eyes leaves me frozen. He’s looking at me differently. His eyes hold sympathy, not the fire that I’m used to. I don’t know what to do with that. Every time I’ve seen him lately, we’ve been peeling back each other's layers. Opening up to each other in a way I haven’t really done with any man, not in a long time. And in peeling back those layers, I learned that every single person in Rafael’s life, apart from those in this room, has either left him or let him down, and I don’t want to be one of those people. I don’t want him to have expectations of me that I can’t live up to.
I can’t commit to a long-term relationship. I’m not sure if that’s even what he wants out of this, but I refuse to be another person that hurts him. So I need to keep my cool. I need to stay unattached, even when he’s making it almost impossible to do so.
“That’s alright,” Leo says, breaking the silence. “You can sit on my lap. You’re small enough.” And then he pulls me right into his lap.
I look up and there’s no sympathy in Rafael’s eyes anymore. Oh no. Just fury, and it makes me settle right into place on Leo’s lap. He’s got one arm casually hooked around my waist, and Rafael’s eyes are fixed on it as the table returns to normal conversation.
“How about an escape room, but with strippers?” Leo suggests.
“What?” Rafael coughs.
“We are trying to come up with bachelor party ideas,” Heath says.
“Yeah, and that one is a no,” Caio chimes in.
Leo throws his hands up. “Why not? Dark room, we have to escape, strippers dressed up like cops, they handcuff us…” He looks around at the other guys looking for interest, but he doesn’t get any.
“Next idea,” Caio says.
Leo’s hand falls back into my lap. He’s not paying any attention to it, but it’s sitting really close to where it shouldn’t be, and Rafael is paying way too much attention to that .
“I don’t know,” I say. “Handcuffs could be fun.”
Leo scoffs. “See!”
But it’s not his reaction I was looking for. It’s the dark eyes that are boring into me from across the table. A smirk creeps up my face the more and more furious Rafael gets.
This is what I’m used to. Furious I can handle. Sympathy? I’ve never had that from Rafael. It doesn’t need to start now.
I shuffle my ass back on Leo’s lap and his hands grip my hips. “You better stop moving like that or this very well may be my last day on this earth,” he warns, quiet enough that only I can hear him.
My eyes don’t leave Rafael’s as I lean back and whisper, “Come on, Leo. I thought pissing Raf off was your favorite pastime? We can work as a team.”
“Usually, it is,” he whispers back. “But when you’re involved, it feels more like the guy actually might wrench my balls off just for fun.”
I laugh, my eyes finally breaking contact with the man across from me. Instead, I turn my head to face Leo. “All you have to do is tuck a piece of hair behind my ear. It’s easy.”
Leo chances a glance at the rest of our friends, but they’re all caught up in their own conversation about a rodeo party to pay any attention to what’s going on at this end of the table.
“You’re playing with fire, Whitley.” He grins before reaching up and tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear.
“Maybe I like to get burned.”
The table rattles and I jump to see Rafael glaring at me, his fist on the table where it just landed.
“Raf, you good?” Heath asks from beside him. But he doesn’t take notice. He just keeps his eyes locked on mine and the little butterflies are performing a gymnastics routine in my stomach at the heat in his eyes.
“Great,” he grits out. “March just has a stain on her dress.”
“I’ll get it later.”
“I think you should get it now. ”
I turn to Leo. “Do you see a stain?”
He doesn’t even get a chance to answer before I’m being pulled off his lap and thrown over a gigantic shoulder.
I don’t look up as I’m being hauled away. I don’t even want to think about what my friends are thinking right now, so I just stare at the ass right in my view.
Rafael turns a corner, and I know we are in the hallway that leads to the bathrooms, Marina’s office, and some storage rooms. I hear a door being yanked open and then I’m in a dark, small room where the door is shut before I’m let out of Rafael’s arms.
I get whiplash as I’m suddenly pushed up against a wall. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Rafael’s deep voice growls out.
“Right now? Feeling for a light switch.” It’s true, my hands are roaming the wall for any feel of a switch.
I hear two quiet clicks and the sound of a chain rattling as a dim light floods the room. We are in the supply closet.
I grin. “Well, this is ironic.”
Rafael’s hands hit the wall on either side of me, caging me in. “Don’t play with me, Whitley.”
I groan. “But it’s so fun.”
“Is this what we’re doing now, huh?” He leans down so we are face to face. “Pretending you still hate me? How long do you think you’re going to be able to keep that up?”
“You talk like it’s an act.” I push my shoulders back against the wall, making myself big, like I’m in the presence of a predator.
He lets out a low laugh. “We both know that’s exactly what this is—an act. One that you’ll put on in front of them out there, in front of anyone else, but one that I see right through. One that you can’t hold up when it’s just you and me.” I’m breathing rapidly now, and I don’t know why.
“One that I refuse to believe, considering the way you screamed my name when my face was buried between your thighs. Considering the way you’ve opened up to me more than I think you intended to.” I let out a shuddering breath and close my eyes, squeezing them shut against the sight of him.
“Exactly,” he says, like that's the exact reaction he was looking for. “Stop pretending, May.” His voice sounds far away, and when I open my eyes, he’s kneeling in front of me. “You’re bad at it.”
He reaches a hand up under the skirt of my dress, his fingers tickling the skin of my inner thighs. “If I was to pull these panties to the side, what would I find, hm? Would I feel how much you hate me? Or would I feel just how much you enjoyed being thrown over my shoulder just now?”
“Who says it’s just you? You know I’ve been in supply closets be—” I’m cut off as Rafael lifts me up from my waist, my skirt bunching as he pulls my legs over his shoulders, his body weight pinning me to the wall.
“You’re a brat.”
“You love it.”
He yanks my panties to the side. “You’re lucky I love it.” And then he buries his face in my pussy. He flattens his tongue against me, pulling it from my entrance all the way up before flicking it over my clit.
“Oh god,” I moan as I thread my fingers through his hair, giving me leverage to grind against his face.
His hands grip my ass, his fingers digging into the soft flesh as he sucks on my clit. My body pulses with need for him, and I continue pushing my hips further into his touch as he continues taking his fill of me. He sucks and licks and teases me, leaving me writhing with need.
He leans back, looking up at me—a panting mess above him—but I have no shame, not even when I beg for more.
“Please, Rafael, more.” I close my eyes as my need takes control of my senses. And then my body flinches as a cool moisture hits my throbbing center. My eyes flutter open as I look down and Rafael smirks up at me.
He just spat on me.
“Oh my god.” I grab his head and pull it back towards me, needing his tongue back on me before I explode. So much for keeping my cool.
I’ve never felt so hot during sex. No one has ever made me feel like I need them closer, need them inside my skin. No one except Rafael.
I look down and see his dark eyes sparkling up at me from between my legs. I’m instantly horrified that any other woman has ever had the same view that I have right now. The overwhelming feeling that I want to be the only woman he touches like this from now on surges through me.
His grip on my ass tightens as I grind my hips, his hands setting the pace, matching the stroke of his tongue against my hot core.
“Rafael,” I moan. My fingers are ripping at his hair as an orgasm rips through my body, burning every cell it passes by before it erupts in my core.
I cry out, forgetting we are in a public place, before the aftershocks roll through me. Rafael pulls away, running a finger through my center before he puts my panties back in place. I’m still puffing with exhaustion.
“Wait,” I grab his hand. “What are you doing?”
He lifts my legs off his shoulders, leaving me standing on weak knees as he stands up. “I don’t want to fuck you.”
I frown, looking down at the gigantic bulge in his jeans. “It sure looks like you do.”
He shakes his head. “I won’t fuck you again. Not until you ask me to.”
“I’m asking you to.”
He smirks. “Not like this.”
He grabs the hem of my skirt, pulling it back down and covering me up. “You need to want it, to want me to be the one to do it, and not because you’re riding the high of an orgasm.” I frown.
“You come to me when you’re ready to stop pretending like sex is the only thing between us, and I’ll fuck you for as long as you can take it. But until then,” he plants a kiss on my cheek, “that’s all you’re gonna get from me.”
He turns to open the door, and I scoff. “You know I could get that from anyone else?”
He smirks as he turns to face me. “Yeah, but you don’t want to, do you?”
And as he yanks on the chain and the light switches off above me, I realize just how much I truly hate him, because he’s right. I don’t want to.
I think that thread just snapped.