Chapter 26 Octavia
Twenty-Six
Octavia
New York City is a bustling beauty that deserves exploring.
Too bad we’d spent most of the day stuck in traffic, trying to make it to our hotel. We’d stumbled into three wrecks before finally making it. By the time we did, it was nearing five in the evening and everyone was starving.
We made our way up to our reserved penthouse suites first to drop the bags off. The two rooms Javier had booked were right next to each other, and each suite had two bedrooms.
“Are you sure you do not want this room to yourself?” Javier asked as I dropped my bag on the floor of one of the rooms.
“Javier, come on. Look at this bed.” I gestured to the enormous king-size mattress. “Aleesa won’t take up even half of that.”
“She can always sleep with me if you want your own space,” he offered.
“It’s all right, I promise.”
“Okay, okay.” He looked at me, eyes going up and down. Not only were they curious, but I noticed a hint of desire too.
I tried not to react to his heated stare.
Things had been a bit tense on the plane.
First, with Paola giving me the stink eye and being way colder to me than she had been at Aleesa’s birthday party, then with Javier sitting across from me during the flight.
I’d felt him looking at me a few times and tried my best to ignore it.
I wasn’t sure what to say to him, so instead of speaking, I dug into my suitcase to pull out my toiletry bag. “I’m gonna freshen up before we eat.”
“Sure.” He nodded and started to turn, shoulders slumping again.
No. This couldn’t be it. We couldn’t keep going like this. It was going to kill me.
“Javier?” I called.
He paused, glancing at me.
“You promised things wouldn’t be weird between us.”
He started to frown, but instead his face softened. With a gut-deep sigh, he walked deeper into the room.
“It is not weird,” he murmured. “I just . . . well, I am not sure what you want from me, Octavia. I do not know how far to take things with you.”
I pursed my lips. Those seemed like such loaded statements.
“Do you even know what you want?” His eyes were gentle but mildly confused. “I just do not want to overstep. That is all. You said you did not want us to get too serious, so I am giving you some space. Plus, you are the one who has been avoiding me and creating this weirdness.”
“I haven’t been avoiding you,” I countered quickly.
He gave me a sarcastic look that said, Really?
Okay. Maybe I had been avoiding him a little. After that conversation with Davina, it had really struck me that there was something more I was feeling for Javier. It wasn’t just lust. We’d only had sex twice—and yes, those two times were incredible—but even before that, I’d felt something.
This something had been deeper and much more intricate, and I think sleeping with him had solidified that somehow. Add onto that the fact that he was so quick to defend and protect me from Luther, and yes . . . I was feeling things for this man that I didn’t want to explore again.
A part of what made me hesitant was that I wasn’t sure I could trust another man after Luther had shown his true colors. How could I like—or even love—another person when I was such a terrible judge of character?
I had been so blinded by love and all its audacity with Luther.
How could I let someone else in when the idea of falling for them was so terrifying?
What if Javier lost interest in me? Or he noticed more of my flaws and pointed them out like Luther had?
What if he decided I wasn’t worth wanting more with?
My feelings were caught up in this difficult web, and I didn’t know how to free them. That was a little nerve-racking to realize—knowing my feelings could be dictated by someone else’s again. Knowing my emotions were no longer just . . . mine.
I cared about Javier. I cared too much, when all this could come crashing down around me at any given moment. So, to me, keeping a distance felt like the smart thing to do. Distance was best for clarity’s sake . . .
However, my sister was right. Trying to avoid what I really felt was making me miserable. I missed him and found it so damned hard to accept that.
“Okay, fine.” I wrapped my arms around myself. “I’m sorry if it feels like I’ve been avoiding you.”
“You have,” he replied. Then he smiled and lifted a hand to stroke my chin. “But it is okay. Let’s just start over.”
“Davina says I should just let this thing between us take its course . . .”
His hand stopped mid–chin stroke. “You told Davina about us? That we have slept together?”
“Yes,” I responded warily. “She’s my sister. I trust her with my life. Is that a bad thing?”
“Well, no . . . but now I know for a fact that Deke knows and he’s going to rub it in my face the next time I see him. Ay Dios.”
I huffed a laugh. “Oh, you can count on that.”
He smiled, running the pad of his thumb across my bottom lip.
“How about this . . .” He curled that same hand around the back of my neck.
“We start fresh. We go about this with little-to-no expectations. In fact, we do not ever have to talk about what we expect again. As you said, we can just let this take its course. See where it goes. Okay?”
I nodded, relieved to hear that. “Okay.”
“And tonight, we will eat dinner, I will take you and Aleesa to the nearest bookstore, and we will hang out in the hotel the rest of the night. When she falls asleep, you and I can watch a movie, or play a card game, or whatever you want to do to make yourself comfortable.”
“Okay, now I know you’re just trying to get laid again,” I teased. “What woman wouldn’t love the sound of that?”
His lips curved into a smile. He studied me intently, as if he were searching for all the answers to his problems and hoping to find them within me.
“I do not want you to be afraid of being honest with me, Octavia.” His voice was deep and soft. “I do not know all of what that hijo-de-puta ex of yours did to you, but I am not him. Okay? I will never hurt you.”
Every single part of me warmed up to his words. I wanted so badly to cry. He had no idea how much that meant to me to hear.
“It’s hard for me to be honest with people these days,” I admitted. “And I don’t know if I can actually trust this.” I used my hand to gesture between us.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because all of this can come to an end, Javier. Do you really think we’re going to be able to do this forever? Sleep around? Pretend what we’re doing is no big deal? Eventually, Aleesa will go to school and she won’t need me as much anymore.”
“But I will.” His voice was sure, confident—as if he didn’t need to think about it. As if it had always been right there, on the tip of his tongue. My heart thumped quickly again.
Listen, I’d developed a lack of trust in people—especially men—but Javier was slowly restoring my faith. I wanted to fall to my knees for this man.
“I do not want you to go anywhere anytime soon,” he told me. “I want you here. I want to be around you for as long as I can, and if that sounds selfish, I do not care. So do not worry about the future. Focus on what is happening for us right now. Yeah?”
I swallowed all my emotions down, refusing to ruin this tender moment with my tears.
His words were so powerful, though.
So sweet.
So beautiful.
I wished they were real and tangible so I could catch them, hug them, and then tuck them into my pocket to hold on to forever.
“So we’ll really just have fun with it?” I raised a curious brow. “No expectations?”
“Yes. Just don’t get weird on me again.”
I laughed. “I promise I won’t.”
“Good.” He laid a kiss on my lips, and I sighed behind it.
Damn, I missed his lips. It’d been a solid week since I’d last felt them. Perfectly supple and full. He was a damn good kisser too. I laced my arms around the back of his neck, deepening the kiss.
“Oh, and also,” I said when our lips separated. “I think your mom might hate me.”
“She does not hate you. She is just protective.”
“But you noticed that on the plane, right? She didn’t act that way toward me at Aleesa’s party.”
“No, she did not. She tends to get hostile when she thinks my nannies are seeking more. Many in the past have tried it—wanting to get closer to me, clearly all for one thing.”
“You don’t think that about me, do you?”
“Absolutely not. You have been the most genuine of all of them.”
“Did you do anything with any of them?” I couldn’t help but ask. It was going to kill me not to know.
“Hell, no.”
“Swear.”
“I swear. You are the only one I have ever felt anything for. But even if our circumstances were different, I am certain we would have connected in some other way.”
“Aw. That’s a sweet way of looking at it.”
“Daddy!” Aleesa squealed from the living room. “iPad is dead!”
He let out a weary chuckle. “Let me get to her.” He placed another kiss on my lips, one that was so deep and passionate my toes curled in my sneakers. “You go ahead and freshen up. I will get her ready.”
“Okay.” I drew my bottom lip in, sinking my teeth into it.
I watched him make his way toward the door but was surprised when he stopped, twisted around again, and came back to me. He gathered my face in his large hands and brought his mouth down to kiss me one more time.
I melted in that moment like butter in a skillet. I gave in and kissed him back, laughing behind it.
“You’re much more romantic than I expected, Valdez,” I murmured when he let me go.
His thumb skimmed my bottom lip, and he wore a smirk that was too sexy for his own good. “There are a lot of things about me that are unexpected, amor. You just have to stick around long enough to see what they are.”