I nod.
Macy climbs into her car with Jess. Isabel and Dean take his truck. And I slide into Mateo’s passenger seat, grateful to not be alone.
The engine rumbles to life. He backs out of the space, following the others toward the main road. For a few minutes, we drive in silence. The headlights cut through the darkness, and the tension from the confrontation slowly starts to ease from my shoulders.
“So.” His voice is casual, but there’s amusement in it. “What’s in chapter fourteen?”
I choke on nothing. “What?”
“Chapter fourteen.” He glances at me, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Jess said she masturbated to it. Multiple times. I’m curious.”
“Mateo—“ My face burns.
“I’m just saying, if it’s that good, maybe I should read it.”
“You are not reading my book.”
“Why not?” He’s grinning now, fully grinning, and it’s doing things to my pulse that can’t calm down. “I like to read. You know that. You’ve sold me plenty of books over the years.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“Because—“ I flounder. “Because it’s mine. And you’re—you’re you.”
“What does that mean?”
It means I wrote a hero who watches the heroine with steady, dark eyes and makes her feel safe, wanted, and seen. A hero who is patient and protective and impossibly, devastatingly kind.
A hero I might have based a little too much on the man sitting next to me.
“It just does,” I mutter.
He laughs—a real laugh, warm and genuine—and some of the tension that’s been coiled in my chest since we left the winery finally loosens.
“Okay,tesoro. I won’t read it.“ He pauses. “Unless you want me to.”
“I don’t.”
“Liar.”
I am lying. I absolutely am. Part of me wants him to read it just to see if he’d recognize himself. If he’d see what I see when I look at him. And maybe see if we could recreate chapter fourteen.
But the rest of me is terrified of exactly that.
The road stretches out ahead of us, dark except for our headlights and the taillights of Dean’s truck and Macy’s car ahead.
We’re pulling toward the town square with Macy’s car just ahead of us. I can see her gesturing animatedly in the driver’s seat, Jess laughing beside her.
Then her brake lights flare red. Her car stops dead in the middle of the street.
Mateo slows, pulling up behind her.
“No.” The word leaves me before I can stop it.
Mateo’s knuckles go white on the steering wheel.
“Carajo.”
