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“So then what? This is all some charade to make you feel better about yourself? Show a little kindness to the girl you’re keeping here against her will to clear your conscience? In proving to me you’re not a monster you’ll somehow prove it to yourself? Is that it? Is that what the kiss was about? Some fucked up way to make up for hitting me? A pity-filled act of compassion?”
Anger flairs behind his eyes but his voice remains eerily calm as he responds. “I didn’t kiss you out of pity.”
“Then why did you kiss me?” It’s the one question that has consumed my every waking moment since it happened.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s a copout and you know it. Why did you kiss me?” I stand, demanding answers that I feel like I deserve, whether he agrees with me or not.
“Why does it matter so much to you?” He stands too, squaring his shoulders as the boat gently rocks beneath our feet.
“Tell me why you kissed me?” I demand, this time through clenched teeth.
We’re like two people standing on opposite sides of the battlefield, preparing for a fight I’m not sure either of us has the ability to win.
“Because I wanted to!” The confession explodes from his mouth. “Is that what you want to hear? I kissed you because when I look at you, I lose my fucking mind. And god help me, since I’ve tasted you, all I want to do is kiss you again. But I know I can’t.”
“Why?” I shouldn’t have asked the question but it’s out before I could think about it.
“Because if I kiss you again, little bird, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.”
We stand, suspended in time, each of us challenging the other to concede. And even though it’s the last thing I should do, I can’t stop my body from moving toward him. One step. Then another. My hands reach up to cup his cheeks when I’m close enough. I pull his face down to me and on a whisper, say words I know with complete certainty I’ll never be able to take back.
“Then don’t stop.”
Like a bolt of lightning he strikes without warning, his lips finding mine in an instant, singeing every inch of my skin as the heat of his inferno swallows me whole. I’m powerless to stop it. Hell, I’m not sure I want to stop it. Because even though every fiber of my being is screaming that this is wrong, I like the way he makes me feel.
Alive.
His kiss is rough and punishing, yet there’s a softness to it at the same time, obliterating what little shred of self-control I was still clinging to.
I press myself further into his arms, reveling in the way his hard, muscular frame feels against me. In the way my pulse spikes when his hands slide down my back. In the way my breathing hitches when he tugs me upward, my legs going around his waist.
In the moment I’m blind to everything around me. All I see is him. All I taste is him. All I feel is him. And I’m utterly consumed by the sheer power of it.
No one has ever made me feel the way Mateo Rivera does. It’s like touching a live wire. My senses are scorched by his assault.
I barely register the movement before my dress slides up. I don’t have time to think before he unlatches my bra. I can’t pull away from his touch as he turns and lowers me onto the bench, removing my panties in one quick tug before he settles between my legs, still fully dressed.
I’m exposed. Vulnerable in a way I have never felt before, yet I feel no fear.
Mateo’s mouth continues to move against mine with skillful precision, swallowing every moan and whimper that slides past my lips before it has a chance to break the surface of sound.
And right when I feel like I might drown in the depths of him, he pulls back. Eyes dark. Breathing labored. His hair falling into his eyes. And my god, is he a sight to behold.
“I don’t know how to be gentle, little bird,” he purrs against my mouth.
“Then don’t be.”
He hitches an arm around the small of my back and pulls me up, positioning me on top of him, my small frame straddling his much larger one as I press down on the evidence of his arousal.
“Teach me.”
I nearly come undone at his words.
Slowly, I tug his shirt over his head, taking a moment to admire the ripple and dip of every defined muscle and drop of ink that paints his perfect skin. It’s like he was sculpted by god himself. Every inch of him is nothing short of perfection.
My hands shake nervously as I reach between us, working the button open on his jeans. Sensing my uncertainty, he places his fingers over mine and together, we slowly tug open the zipper, each pop of the metal causing my heartrate to accelerate higher.
