Chapter 12 Cecilia #3
Mateo’s hand wrapped around my wrist as he pulled me up to a stand, leading me to the dance floor that had been created for tonight’s purpose only.
A few more tequilas went by, the loud bass of the music reverberating through my body, freeing my movements.
It was the closest thing to freedom I’d felt in as long as I could remember.
and I was starting to feel their influence on me to the point where the loud bass of the music was encouraging me to move freely.
Mateo stayed close behind me with a hand on my hip, swaying to the heavy beat of some pop song on full blast together. Every so often he’d let his hands wander around the curve of my ass or slide up to cup a breast with a soft squeeze.
I reached my arm back and draped it across his neck, bringing him in closer to me as we danced.
My eyes drifted to where Santos still stood, my next drink in hand as he leaned back against the bar.
His eyes were fixed on me, but there was something different about the way he was watching me tonight.
Mateo’s fingers danced around the slit of my dress, his touch light, but electrifying. With purposeful intent, he slipped his fingers through the slit, his warm hands grabbing at the flesh of my thighs. Santos’ eyebrows furrowed in the middle, his stare a pointed spear thrown from across the room.
“That’s the look of a man who wishes he was in my place right now.” Mateo breathed into my ear, his words throwing me off completely.
I shook my head in disagreement, but even I was having a rough time believing myself.
Yeah, Santos was looking at me like I was lembas bread, and he was Frodo on his way to deliver the rings, but I knew it was just the dress.
Santos would never cross that line, though these days I wished he would, even if it was just to piss off Ronan.
Just to piss off Ronan?
Get it together.
Mateo pressed into me from behind as if to pull my straying thoughts back into the moment.
I choked down a gasp at the feel of his hands still exploring my body like we were completely alone and not on a crowded dance floor.
We danced another song or two, grinding against each other, never escaping the scrutiny of Santos’ gaze.
“I need some air,” I told him.
Mateo pointed to the balcony door, where outside, a few people stood in groups, mostly smoking cigarettes in circles.
I looked back at him, wondering if this was a trick. Was he really going to let me go out there?
As if hearing my thoughts, he answered, “What are you gonna do? Jump? We’re fifteen floors up.”
The balcony was covered in hanging lights high above, a fire pit was built into the middle and there were chairs scattered all around.
I crossed to the emptier side, away from people, leaning my elbows on the railing as I looked down below, letting the cool breeze dry the sheen of sweat still coating my skin.
“And whose prize are you tonight, gorgeous?” An older, well-dressed man spoke from a chair to my side.
The hair on both his head and face were fully silver, letting me know he was likely old enough to be my father.
“I’m no one’s prize. I’m the curse that slowly drains the life of those who come too close,” I said to him in a warning, lifting my eyebrow up when he dared to stand and move to my side.
“A pretty thing like you?” I couldn’t tell his motives here but every alarm in my head was going off at this creep’s vibes.
I was pretty socially inept at this point, and most people put me off.
Overtly forward men, specifically.
“I have fangs, and trust me, my venom is worse than my bite. Sir,” The bite in my tone made no difference, he still inched closer into my personal space.
He stroked his mustache, unphased by my warnings, “A black widow then? Interesting.”
“I haven’t left a trail of my ex-lovers’ bodies just yet, but I get the feeling that would have excited you just the same.”
Who did this guy think he was? Maybe I looked like one of the many escorts they’d sprinkled around this party for the purpose of their men getting their needs fulfilled, but I felt like I was being pretty clear.
“Dezmond Archer,” he introduced himself, the familiarity of his name itching at the back of my mind. “the first.” He clarified as he extended his hand in introduction.
“Well Dezmond, it was a pleasure, but I am afraid that’s as far as your pleasure will get with me tonight. I am not for sale.” He retracted his hand back with a frown when I refused to take it.
The man’s gaze drifted nervously back to inside the apartment, where I found Mateo staring daggers into Dezmond Archer the fucking first. By the time I broke from Mateo’s gaze, the older man was already long gone into the crowd.
I let my shoulders drop, relief settling in as I enjoyed my moment of peace once again and peered out into the depths of the streets below us.
“Hope you’re not getting any ideas." His husky voice growled from behind me.
“I used to think I was too brave to off myself, too defiant, too hard-headed. That it was for the weak, and I was anything but weak. I think I’m ready to admit that I’m actually just scared of what might come after.
Maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe it’s the ones who jump, the ones who pull the trigger that are strong.
” I confessed my darkness a little too casually without turning around to look at him.
It was like that with Santos. Easy to get tangled up in each other’s darkness.
“Was he bothering you?” He asked, his focus only on the direction he’d disappeared to.
I shook my head, “Nothing I couldn’t handle myself.”
He brushed my hair off of my back, sweeping it over my left shoulder to expose the ink now starting to fade there. His fingers touched the words tattooed over my shoulder blade. The only thing I ever bothered to memorialize on my skin.
“Todos tenemos un poco.” He read it out loud. “What do we all have?” He asked me, roughly translating the words inked on my skin as he ran his fingers over the letters gently.
“‘De músico, poeta, y loco, todos tenemos un poco.’ Just a l reminder, that we’re all a little bit crazy. Your Spanish really is shit huh?” I asked him, finally turning around to look at him.
“Yeah,” he shrugged, “I don’t think it was always that way, but once I learned English in school, my parents didn’t bother making the Spanish stick.” He said with a kind of sadness I understood.
The loss of culture was like cutting a limb off and watching it slowly rot in your freezer like a self-perpetuated hex, phantom pains somehow still itching throughout the process.
“It’s hard when you don’t feel like you’re from anywhere. Nowhere that’s really yours anymore. Nowhere you can call home.” I kept my head hung as I stared back out into the busy street.
“You called us home once.” He stood next to me, dropping his elbows to the railing.
With a heavy sigh, I accepted for the first time that my mistakes and decisions hurt Santos just as much as they hurt Ronan.
“I did.” I looked up to see he had now turned to face me. Staring into his greenish-caramel eyes, I spoke each word clearly, so he was sure to not miss them. “Now he locks me in a box and brings my ghosts out to haunt me.” I pressed my hand to his chest and my lips flattened into a line.
“You have to know; I have no part in that. You know that right?” Santos held me by the shoulders with both hands, shaking me as if desperate for my answer.
I brought my hand up to his cheek, softly placing it there. “But you don’t stop him. None of you do.” Santos expression broke.
I knew it wasn’t fair for me to push my hatred and anger towards Ronan onto Santos. “It’s okay.” I added once my regret turned to guilt, coming to the tips of my toes and pressing a kiss to the corner of his lip.
As much as I wanted to hold resentment towards Santos, I couldn’t.
He was the little bit of good I had here, I couldn’t mess that up.
I knew if I pushed too hard, he would just wallow in his own misery instead, and I needed his light in the darkness that was starting to swallow me whole.
He cleared his throat uncomfortably, his voice almost a whisper. “We should get you back inside, Ronan should be here soon, and he won’t like seeing you out here.” He warned.
Though I wasn’t sure if he meant out here, or out here with him. Entwining my fingers into his, I let him lead us back into the party and the now-crowded dance floor.
Santos guided me to the couch where the other blondes were already seated and waiting. Mateo sat across from me in the large white leather accent chair, and Santos turned back to the bar area before giving me one last longing look.
If it was hot before, the penthouse was now a sauna.
Heat rolled out of the elevator and without turning my head I already knew it was him.
Ronan Zerkos stepped out in a black button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and matching suit pants.
My mouth dried at the sight of him. How it was possible to hate someone with every fiber of my being and yet still feel betrayed by my own body’s response anytime he walked into the room, was beyond me.
I wanted to rip him open and bathe in his blood.
I wanted him under me and on top of me making me scream until I couldn’t breathe anymore. I wanted to carve him to pieces, until all that was left was the man I once knew. We had gotten so far from who we had once been.We had gone past the point of no return, the point of fixing things.
There was no way we could ever make it back to each other again.
I wondered if he felt the same way; sorrow laced with the weight of regrets from all of the things left unspoken between us.
Only he didn’t so much as look at me as he cut his way through the room, turning his lips up in a smile when his eyes landed on the blondes seated on the couch.
My blood fervored at the thought of him actually being interested in any of them.
Santos appeared again with another double shot of tequila, and I turned it over hoping it would help me fake my way through the night like I had been asked.
I didn’t want to spend another minute of my life in that coffin ever again.
I could hear Carolina’s screams in the background of all the bullets and even though I knew it was a construct of my own imagination, it haunted me louder than anything else that box reminded me of.