I’m fairly sure for him this is two days’ allowance, while for me it’s a small fortune, but I can’t afford to turn it down. I don’t have much in savings, and it’s always good to have something set aside for emergencies.
As he walks by my chair, he pauses. Not wanting to be rude, I look up at him.
With a smile on his face, he reaches out and touches one of the hair clips holding a stray strand back from my glasses and says, “Looking forward to starting tomorrow. I can see you like hot chocolate. I’ll bring it.”
His footsteps fade into the distance, and only after twenty seconds do I turn back to my notebook.
I don’t even get through the first two lines before I hear a voice behind me. I find myself wondering how I didn’t feel him arrive earlier.
“When did you develop that talent for negotiation?” Silas’s voice makes me sit up straight.
I feel his breath at the base of my neck, and he braces his hands on the arms of my chair, framing me in.
His sleeves are pushed up to the elbow, anday Diosito,why would you put a man with hands like that anywhere near hormonal women? It should be illegal. It should be classified as a public hazard. My brain peels itself off the floor to form a response when I hear him continue.
“You’re not tutoring him, Amalia.”
Yep, that gets my brain working.
I turn sharply toward him, cross my arms, and answer.
“You can’t tell me what to do.”
His dark eyes promise a fight, but he has absolutely no right to be bothered by me helping another student.
Granted, I’m being paid for it, but what I do with my free time isn’t his concern.
“Watch me. I’ll make sure he fails regardless of whatever he does on that exam.”
My mind is too stunned by this side of him to respond immediately, but what he doesn’t understand is that I need that money.
Most of our bills are handled online, and even though my uncle doesn’t know it, I never tell him the real cost of things. He spent years fighting to give Lupe and me the best he could, so if I can contribute to the household, I will. Not to mention that I’ve been trying to replace my laptop for a year now, but between tuition and all the books and software subscriptions, I’ve run dry.
“What is your problem, Silas? I need that money. Not all of us have a full-time job, not all of us are mathematical geniuses who get sought out for external projects.”
His eyebrows lift in surprise. I don’t know if it’s because his name left my lips so easily, or because I made it clear that it’s obvious from the way he lives that a university salary isn’t his only income, but I can see the exact moment his mind goes blank.
“I told you not to let me get this close,” he murmurs, and my cheeks go instantly warm.
“You’re the one who got close, not me,” I whisper back, unable to pull my eyes from his mouth.
Because I want to kiss him. Just once. Just enough to know what it feels like to be consumed by someone like him before I die without ever finding out.
“What do you put in the air around you that not a single ounce of reason survives it?” he asks, and he sounds genuinely shocked by his own admission.
Maybe because I’m not the only one intoxicated by whatever is drifting between us right now, or maybe it’s the fact that I, Amalia, manage to chip away at that composed, serious presence he always carries, but I lean forward.
Too afraid to watch him take a step back and turn me down, I close my eyes and wait. I’m a millimeter from his lips, breathing in the scent of the books around us, the clean and fresh scent of him, but when I realize he’s not going to close the remaining distance, I start to pull back.
I don’t know if he reads the tension in my body or if my thoughts are somehow too loud, because in the next second his hands settle at the base of my neck and draw me toward him.
He tastes like tea and mint. Before I’ve registered it, my hands have moved over his.
I’ve never kissed anyone before, which leaves me slightly frozen. His lips are careful at first, almost questioning, like he’s giving me time to pull away. I don’t. There’s no formula anywhere for a first kiss, for the perfect kiss, but the moment he bites my lower lip gently and his tongue meets mine slowly, it’s as if he’s trying to figure out the secret too. He makes a sound low in his throat, barely a grunt, but I feel it everywhere.
My entire body is on fire, and I pull him closer, only to find we’re already as close as we can get. My brain goes completely silent. All I hear is my own heartbeat. All I feel is the warmth of his mouth, the lazy, thorough way his tongue plays with mine, his hands flexing at the sides of my neck like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he lets go.
It’s not a kiss like the ones in the telenovelas I used to watch withtíoFelipe — loud, sweeping, dramatic. It’s slow and exploratory, and unhurried in a way that makes it worse because I know this man ruined all other kisses for me.
