Chapter 70 Celia
CELIA
Things were different between me and Santos now because we were different now. We no longer saw the need to keep putting on the mask we did with everyone else. We saw each other at our worst, we saw all of each other’s flaws. I knew exactly who he was inside, and he knew the same about me.
It was comforting in a way, to have someone you could be your truest self with.
It was like letting go of a breath you’d been holding your entire life.
When you wore a mask at all times, you kind of forgot what your real face looked like.
If I took too much time to think about it, it always sent me into a spiral of panic.
An identity crisis that never resolved itself.
I’d spent my entire life pretending to be whoever it took to get me through the next chapter, and I ended up forgetting who I was underneath the mask.
Santos saw through it now.
And he couldn’t hide from me either.
The problem was that at my core, I wasn’t sure who was behind the mask anymore.
I felt like an insecure little girl with no personality and a watered down version of her culture that’d been forgotten through years of Americanization.
Assimilate or die. It was a rough game, but by the time I realized what a good job I’d done blending into the crowd, it was too late.
I was a thirty year old orphan with a second-grade education level in the country I’d impulsively moved ‘home’ to.
Oh, fuck. It was happening again.
I lowered down to a squat on the ground, hovering my ass just an inch from the floor while my head dropped between my knees. I took deep breaths, but the room just closed in on me faster with each exhale, and all I could hear was the high-pitched electronic sound coming from the computers.
And then Ronan’s shoes appeared on the ground right in front of my face.
I lifted my gaze up to find him there, head tilted as he waited for my eyes to follow all the way up to his.
His hand extended out as he reached and caressed the side of my face, his Bleu de Chanel scent reminding me that it didn’t matter who I was because he’d find a way to love all those versions of me.
Maybe they all would.
“Let me leave the golden-doodle with you, flower. I’ll sleep better knowing you won’t be alone in that big house.” He smirked, navigating through my ego in a way that only he knew how to do in order to get me to acquiesce to his needs.
My heart slowed down with each stroke of his thumb against my cheek, and I used it as a guide to steady my breathing.
“You’ll take Santos with you, to keep you safe?” I asked and he huffed out a laugh.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll take álvarez to keep me safe.” Their eyes met, but neither one showed any expression.
They still weren’t seeing eye to eye, which was insane because at this point I thought we’d chalked everything up to water under the bridge. Maybe I was the only one standing on the bridge though. Poor Mateo wasn’t even aware there was water to go over, he was so faultless in everything.
“Then yes, I’ll keep the golden-doodle.” I smiled back at Ronan.
“Did we get a dog?” Mateo asked and finally Santos cracked a smile.
It was just going to be a couple days, but it also just felt like we’d just all gotten each other back.
How was I supposed to cope when they would be so far away?
Yeah, I would have told them all to go too, because I was a stubborn puta and every time I cut myself I ended up pouring salt in the wound, and then I followed it with tequila and lime.
Ronan and Santos got on a plane the next day and left for Cove City. César was tempted to follow, a threat to the Crows right now might as well have been a threat on the Diablos Locos compound. But he’d also told me about the trust he had in his VP and that he knew he could hold down the fort.
I wanted that kind of faith in my own men.
I was just getting to know them though; it would come with time. I needed to be patient. I was building an entire fucking empire from the cremated ashes of what once was. It was an impossible expectation to think I would have all my pieces on the board this soon.
I sighed. I would take borrowed soldiers until then.
“Why don’t you take a breather,” Mateo rasped into my ear right as I reached for my phone to shut off the alarm. “Just a day or two off from being the big bad queen of Mexico and let me work on unwinding you for forty-eight hours.” He pulled my back into his chest and dropped his nose to my neck.
“If I was a man, and you were a woman. I would have assumed you were conspiring against me, and I’d be awfully suspicious of you trying to distract me for so long.” I stretched my neck out, giving him the space he needed to pepper kisses down my throat.
I arched my back, pressing my ass to his morning wood.
It was only six in the morning. I could give him a few hours, maybe not the forty-eight he asked for, but I could give him some of me. His hand caressed down my ribs and trickled their way down.
“The guys…” I breathed out just as his fingers traveled down to the waistband of my pajama shorts.
“They’re in Cove City. I can promise you I can make it so good you won’t even remember they aren’t here,” he said seductively, his fingers dancing over my underwear and giving me the softest friction.
Just enough to drive me crazy.
“That’s not what I meant. It’s just. It’s…” I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“It’s what, sunshine?” he asked, like he didn’t understand.
But his hands were moving with a mind of their own, and though my brain was struggling to figure it out, my body said, cállate idiota!
“It feels like cheating if they aren’t here. I don’t know, we got to this place where it felt like there was understanding, but with both of them gone. I don’t know. It just feels off.”
He hummed into my ear like he was thinking about it, his fingers sliding inside my panties through the side and with zero hesitation he plunged them in. Finding me already soaked for him.
“I can fix that.” I could hear the amusement in his voice, like he was really proud of his problem-solving abilities.
I gasped as he pulled out and used my arousal to coat my clit. He rubbed back and forth with the gentlest touch, like he already knew it wasn’t about how fast or hard he did it in just the few times we’d been together.
This one took notes.
He was a good boy.
He moved in circles, my head spinning with his fingers and just as I closed my eyes to relish in the moment, I heard the loud dialing of his phone blasting on speaker.
“What?” Ronan answered.
My entire body temperature skyrocketed.
“What are you doing?” I hissed, trying to turn.
“Our girl needs to get off,” Mateo said bluntly, and Ronan made a grunting sound on the phone.
“So why are you calling me?” Ronan said in his classic annoyed tone.
Mateo was unphased, plunging his fingers back inside of me and forcing a moan straight out of the depths of my chest.
“She’s concerned about the ethics of it all,” he said, pulling his fingers from inside me in order to assist me in fully removing my clothing.
“Get out,” Ronan barked over the phone.
“He’s busy. He’s with people,” I yelled at Mateo, who only chuckled.
“He’s never too busy for you, sunshine. Tell her you’re never too busy for her Zerkos.”
“The dog’s right, flower. I’m never too busy for you. Now turn on the camera and show me my girl,” he growled out.
Mateo barked out a laugh, hitting a button on his phone as he propped himself up on the bed, running it over my body like he was showing Ronan everything he was missing out on.
“Where’s álvarez?” Mateo asked.
“He’s here. Maybe if you make her scream, I’ll let him come watch.”
“Oh fuck,” I gasped, the torment of his words building a heat inside of me from just the thought of the two of them watching while Mateo had his way with me.
It was so incredibly wrong.
So why did it feel so fucking right?