He meant it so much that a smile broke through the frustration lacing my blood.
A smile that made him frown. “Don’t laugh at me.”
“I’m not.” I still held his face. Still straddled his fucking lap, balancing on my knees on the rocky floor of the cave.Fuck it. I let my weight sink down, revelling in the tension that flooded him. The loudness of it. The clashing and burning. The struggle I couldn’t let him win. “Kiss me... please?”
Mateo groaned, and for a timeless moment, I thought I’d lost him. Then he slid a hand up my spine and pushed me against him—against his waiting mouth—and kissed me as he had that night. Gentle, strong, but like he’d die if it didn’t happen.
I knew that feeling. And for the first time, it was all there was. How I wanted him—how Ineededhim. My heart thundered and my skin tingled, but it wasn’t the devil bearing down on me.
It was Mateo.
I kissed him back, years-old desire for him overtaking the gritty panic a man’s touch usually provoked. My legs clenched around his and we drew so close his chest pressed to mine, solid and warm, his body heat nothing like the things I was afraid of.
It was so good. So fuckingsweet. My eyes fluttered shut and I fell headlong into every tiny sensation. Every snatched breath and soft sound. He didn’t move his hands from my hip and spine, and I kept mine on his face, but god, I felt his kiss everywhere.
Being hard around Mateo wasn’t new. I woke up like it sometimes, knowing he was beside me, on his stomach, watching over me. When those moments became dreams, I reached for him in the dark, kissed him until his wide-eyed stare softened and the tension bled from his muscles. Tugged him over me and let every part of him consume me.
I let him fuck me.
But even in my wildest, dirtiest dreams, it rarely got that far. Mostly, I woke up sweating and gasping for breath, and he was already rolling away, tumbling off my bed to get away from me with no clue that he was theonlything in the world that soothed the open wound I’d carried since I was six years old.
Tell him. But that meant breaking us apart and I wasn’t ready to do that. Not while his hot lips burned me up and the gentle sweep of his tongue left me dizzy.
I was wearing the clothes I’d rocked up to church in. Mateo was more sensible than me, less reckless with the one body he’d been given. A riding jacket covered his torso.
It had to go.
I pushed it away, over his shoulders and down his arms, revealing the intricate tattoo sleeves that covered both of his arms and even crept up his neck. Horses, mainly, wild Galician mountain beasts with stocky bodies and fancy manes, intermingled with skulls, knives, andfairies, of all things. Just like him, the ink was as macabre as it was beautiful. And beneath his clothes, his skin was like sun-baked stone.
We were still kissing, no deeper than before, but heavier, hovering on the edge of something wicked.
Something dangerous.
Perspective finally returned to me. I wanted to kiss him forever. Fuck, I wanted so much more than that. But I had work to do first, on myself, and maybe even on him.
I eased back, fighting the protest that screamed in every fibre of my body. I was breathless and spinning, but Mateo grounded me, bending his legs for me to lean on while he brought his hands back to my hips.
His dick was rock hard, straining to escape from his jeans. I traced the bulging denim with my fingertip, just once. “This has really never happened for anyone else?”
“It’s happened for lots of people.”
“I meant dudes.”
“I know.”
“Answer the question then.” I ghosted the length of him again.
Mateo shivered, catching my hand in his. “You know the answer. It was just women for me until I saw you.”
“Lots of women?”
He shrugged, a non-answer Saint would’ve been proud of. But it was an answer I didn’t need. The diehard bisexual in me found the notion of Mateo banging women hotter than sin. But let’s be honest, I was jealous of him fucking his hand.
We were still so wrapped up in each other it was hard to think. I rubbed the back of my head. “I don’t know what this means.”
This. Us. Whatever it was.
Mateo’s gaze darkened, dread shadowing his amber gaze before he blanked it out, smoothing his rough edges just for me. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
