Chapter 4
It’s two a.m., and I haven’t heard anything from Mateo. Gracias a Díos. Seated against a wall on the roof with moonlight spilling over us, I lean my head against Easton’s shoulder. I’ve gotten comfortable enough in the hours that we’ve been trapped that it doesn’t feel awkward at all. His heat radiates against my side as my cheek presses against his bulging deltoid.
I’m not even sure when we moved from sitting on the ledge to being up against the side of the building. I do know that we haven’t had a single moment of tense silence. We’ve talked like old friends. Or like little kids at a playground, not knowing each other, but simply clicking.
“It seemed so unfair,” I tell him after going into the whole disappointing exchange with my family at dinner. “My uncle promised me that if I got a degree in hotel management, I’d have a greater say in the hotel. It’s why I’ve worked my culo off getting a dual degree in fitness and hotel management while also working at this hotel.”
“All at the same time?” The shock in his voice makes me feel a burst of pride. “That must’ve been hard.”
“Sometimes, the only thing that got me through another day was energy drinks and stubbornness.”
“That kind of stubborn is what my aunt calls persistence.”
“I’m nothing if not persistently stubborn.”
He laughs, and I realize our hands have become intertwined. “My prima wants the resort to be a party haven with a few fitness classes here and there,” I say quietly as the sweep of his thumb tracing mine sends shivers racing up my arm. “She’s not interested in a wellness resort that people come back to again and again. Not just travelers, but islanders, too.”
“It’s a great idea. I really see it happening here. There’s no way you can convince them? Not even your brother?”
“That’s what bothered me the most. I’m used to everyone dismissing me, but Mateo? I never expected that from him. It hurts, you know?”
“Yeah,” he whispers. “But it’s not only the dismissal.”
I lift my head from his shoulder. Blue eyes, as endless and appealing as the ocean on a sunny day, stare down at me. A sober Easton is so pleasant to be around.
He brushes a curl from my forehead. “It’s that they don’t believe in you. They’ve made their fears for you more real than their faith in you. By doing that, they diminish you and your ideas. That’s what really hurts.”
I inhale sharply. “Sí. Yes. You get it.”
“Because I’ve been there. My father thinks my fascination with running a charity-based fitness franchise is as fanciful as a ten-year-old saying he wants to be president of the world.”
I nudge him with my shoulder. “You’d make a great world president.”
He snorts a laugh, leans down and whispers, “I’d make all the best laws. Starting with everyone getting a do-over for their biggest regrets.”
I shiver. And because he’s looking at me like he wants me to ask, I do. “What’s your biggest regret?”
He exhales warmth that brushes against my lips. “Stopping our kiss.”
I lick my lips.
He follows the movement with hungry eyes.
“Do-over granted.”
His blue eyes fill with a desire that feels like it’s engulfing me. There is a pause in time, a skip of my heart, a holding of my breath, as he lowers and presses his soft lips to mine.
“I can feel your pulse here,” he says, and his tongue glides along the seam of my lips.
I don’t doubt it. I can hear that pulse in my ears, frantic and loud.
“Mind if I kiss you now?” he says, grinning against my lips.
What? He is kissing me, right? “Please,” I say, and nearly startle at the word. That was my thirsty body talking because my brain had no involvement.
He sucks my bottom lip into his mouth and bites.
Startled, I open wide.
His kiss explodes, an eager exploration that is disarming and irresistible.
He cups the back of my head, angling his lips so he can deepen the kiss. Spellbound by the stark difference from when he’d gently touched my lips to this spinning rapture, I fist his shirt, anchoring myself to him as the world falls away.
His decadent tongue claims my thoughts so fully that it’s not until the demanding press of his hips shoots a pulse of pleasure through my core, that I realize he’s pushed me on top of the blanket.
A surge of restless want tugs at my belly. I arch hard against him, finding satisfaction from the thick length throbbing through his shorts. Writhing, I ride the friction, the heat, and sensation.
Easton backs off first, a dazed expression on his face as he looks down at me. His eyes are wild with want. I watch as he tries to regain control. His eyes drop to the swell of my breasts nearly popping out of my cami.
He groans, runs his finger along my skin, then tugs down cami and bra. Warm air brushes my tight nipples.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” His heavy-lidded gaze disappears to my sight as he drops his head and licks along my areola, then sucks me tightly into his hot and possessive mouth.
“Ay. Sí. That…” He does things with his tongue that leaves me murmuring nonsensically. Wet warmth saturates my panties. I am coming apart.
“Please, please,” I beg, groping for his shorts, for him to enter me and release the demanding pressure building between my legs.
And because we are both too far gone for games, he unzips his shorts. I am beyond grateful—so grateful I thank him over and over while my hands fly to him and slide down.
I’m delirious with the feel of all that silk and steel. I grasp him hard, losing my mind for want of him. “You need to hurry.”
He grunts something. I’m lost in the fever of him. Everything but the heat of him in my hands and the arch of my hips and the wetness that needs him inside is as a dream to me. Reality is my want.
“Condom,” he says again, and I realize his grunt was actual words.
My eyes shoot open.
“Pocket,” he says, and I have no idea how he manages to find and get his condom from shorts that are now down around his knees, but he does.
I give up control of his thick length as he rips the package with his teeth, then miraculously slides the condom on. The madness of desire sends my hands scratching at the skin along his muscled arms.
“Sí. Please. Hurry.”
His body shaking, his torso bare in the moonlight, his cock throbbing at my slit. He pushes into me and meets the resistance of my virginity.
Puzzled need creases his brow. Trembling, he fights to hold back all that power and strength. “Are you sure?” he asks, voice gruff.
“Sí means yes,” I gasp, latching onto his ass cheeks with my feet and pushing him farther inside.
A sharp pain radiates up from my center.
“Fuck,” he curses as he thrusts through that tender resistance.
I cry out with the pain and with my relief at having him inside me… and with the sudden and tingling pressure of an orgasm barely held back.
When he starts to move, it’s all over. My orgasm slams into me. I pump my hips, frantic and without rhythm, as the sensation floods my system, drowning me in a pleasure so intense it seems holy.
I moan into his mouth. The muscles in my stomach jump and tighten with the endless pounding release happening between my legs.
It doesn’t stop. He doesn’t stop, claiming all of me with the demands of his body. His breath, hot and loud. His movements, long and deep. His tongue, skilled and possessive.
He thrusts into me for long, delicious moments before losing his own rhythm. His body shudders and his guttural groan vibrates through my mouth, down my body, to my toes. “Yolanda, fuuuck, you feel so goodaround me.”
He falls atop my body, still buried inside me. His cheek rests against mine. His breath is loud and hot in my ear for long moments. He grows heavy atop me.
It shouldn’t be possible for me to know exactly what he’s thinking, but I do. Our moment together eased his pain, but it’s back now.
When he’d told me about his father, I’d thought of what Mami had once told me—that all parents love their children, but not all parents are able to show it.
It makes me unbearably sad that he’s never known that love. I place a hand against his cheek. “You deserve to be loved and cared for. You deserve to be cherished. I’m so very sorry for your pain.”
Easton makes a choked, pained sound. A single tear crawls down his cheek.
Without thought, I lick it away.
“Now your pain is my pain,” I say. “All of you is inside me.”
“I never want to leave.”