“This is supposed to be about you,” she told him.
“I’m happy when you’re happy,” he assured her. Then, he grasped his covered cock and swiftly entered Kira, thrusting up, and now it was her turn to anchor her feet to the bed.
Now it was totally his game. Kira grasped the hair on the nape of his neck, her free hand digging half-moons on his arm as Santi thrust upward. He gave her no room to set the pace, no patience for the water’s encouragement to slow down. And it felt. So. Perfect.
Kira had never been the kind to sleep around. Sex carried its stigmas with it, no matter how she tried to shake it off. There was always that tiny bit of fear in the back of her mind that her partner could hurt her, that people could talk.
But when she was with Santi, she could ignore that. She could fully surrender herself to the absolute pleasure of him filling her up so well, could make the noise she wanted, express her desires.
“Slower,” she could say, or, “Oh, not there,” and she would be heard.
With him, she could be brave.
Kira grasped Santi’s shoulder while he pressed a tender kiss on her cheek, and all she could hear was the sound of their gasps, the protestations from the bed, his occasional calling of her name.
And when he came, it was with a shout, his neck tense and his jaw tight, like she’d stolen his every breath.
“We should shower,” he told her, after they both came down from the rush, after he cleaned himself up and she did, too. She lay against him now, her head on his shoulder. How strange that she felt completely comfortable sitting like this. Like they just...fit. And there was nothing else but the two of them in that bed; the entire world seemed to quiet down for once.
What had her oracle card called it? That line fromPractical Magic. “A love that even time will lie down and be still for.”
“It’s sunny,” Kira noted, looking out the window. Rain fell in thin, silent sheets, even with the sun only just starting to set. “A tikbalang is getting married.”
“Oh no.”
“I wonder what kind of food they serve at tikbalang weddings?”
Santi groaned, leaning his head back. “This is the ‘centaurs wearing pants’ question all over again.”
“I just realized, they can have cake!” Kira gasped excitedly. “If they can drag race down C-5, they can eat cake.”
“Okay, they can have cake.” Santi shook his head. “Carrot cake. I admit defeat.”
“I think you just accepted the fact that I’m always right,” she told him.
“I’ve always known that,” he chuckled. “But really, we should shower.”
“You’re ruining the magic.” She tutted her lips at him, shaking her head. “Seven minutes.”
“Three.”
“Five,” she said, smiling.
“Okay,” Santi said softly, and she caught the tension under his voice, caught the moment he seemed to be deciding how to say whatever it was that was on his mind. She waited, content to let the water quiet his thoughts enough, temper his feelings to say what he needed to say. “I really do want to stay, you know.”
“I know,” Kira said softly. She turned so she could wrap her arms around him. She wished the fix was that easy. “I know.”
Chapter Thirteen
January 18
Hotel Villa
A note on white chocolate: some might argue that the lack of cacao in white chocolate disqualifies it from the name. Those people are wrong. White chocolate is made with cacao butter and is wonderful if you just give it a shot.
“Alert the media, your favorite brother has arrived,” Miro Edades V. Santillan announced as he walked into Hotel Villa for the first time.
Santi, who had been on his way somewhere else, stopped. He was stunned. In keeping with the great Santillan family tradition, Miro had never walked into Hotel Villa before. For him to walk in more than a week after the rest of his family, Santi couldn’t interpret it as anything other than a bad omen.
