If this were anyone else, I would’ve probably let my dick call the shots. But I knew the level of stubborn asshole I was dealing with. So I was going to keep my pants on until this man told me everything I’d been waiting to hear. What I now knew he probably kept bottled in for a decade.
“No, Yariel. I’m not going to give you a chance to get in your head this time. Once whatever is about to happen is done, I need you to be ready for the next thing, and the next thing won’t work with you going all ‘La Piedra’ on me.”
His eyes widened, the naked fear there making my heart ache. But I needed him to step up, come to the table and do this with me.
“I don’t want to be the reason your family disowns you, Hatuey.Never.”
I groaned in frustration because I knew Yariel would find something to martyr himself over. I also knew this wasn’t an act or an excuse. He was in agony about this for good reasons, so I went with what I knew he couldn’t deny.
“That is not up to you. And this is too big, Yari. Don’t you feel it?” I asked, still blown away by the certainty I felt. That I wanted him not matter what it cost. Every single one of the questions about my life I never had the right answer for seemed clear now. And I needed to tell him so.
“Everything makes sense now.Everything.This is why nothing ever lasts with me,” I said softly, needing him to calm down enough to really hear me. “Because you’re mine. You’ve been mine since the moment I laid eyes on you, and I don’t know how I’ve been so fucking stupid to not see what’s been right in front of my face. Yari, don’tyousee?”
The agony on his face almost broke me. But if we didn’t get all this out now, we’d be stuck on this loop of fucking—or almost fucking—and then Yariel freaking out forever. So I kept myself just out of his arm’s reach, and spoke.
“I left this island going after you.” I lifted a hand, pointing in the direction of the Atlantic Ocean, which was somewhere in the blackness beyond the window. “And you’ve been loving me this whole time. Whenever I cried over a breakup, whenever I said I’d never find anyone, you were there, loving me, letting me figure it out. Holding back. Not telling me it was you I needed.” I spluttered as a watery laugh came out of my throat. “You’re so much stronger than I am, because now that I’ve let myself see it, I can’t imagine not having you completely.”
He shook his head hard, his mouth twisted like he’d been mortally wounded. “Don’t say stuff like that. You’ve been all I see for almost half my life, and if you decide later that you don’t want me…” He gasped, like he was in pain, and I shook like a leaf in the wind from the need to reach for him. “If this is too complicated, I don’t know what I’ll do.” He screwed his eyes shut then, hands in fists by his sides, as if the next part he had to say was coming from the deepest recesses of his soul. “But you’ve got to know there is nothing in me right now that wouldn’t die for you.”
There were a million things I could’ve said in that moment. That he didn’t have to die for me, that we could and would be happy. That he was being dramatic, but I understood why he said it because I was right there with him. I loved him in every way I knew how to love. I was overwhelmed by how much. Every ounce of who I was boiled down to that, and it was terrifying.
“What’s our song, Yariel?” My voice broke on his name, and that’s when it finally happened.
Sometimes you read things in books like “I knew the exact moment I fell for him” or “I could see into his soul,” and they sound farfetched, melodramatic. And I can’t really say I can pinpoint the moment I fell for Yariel—it was probably the moment I met him. But Icansay I knew the exact moment he finally believed I was his.
He closed the space between us until his heat seared my skin. And his eyes, they were burning. It was all there, I could see it. Fuck, I couldfeelit. Ten years of wanting and not taking. It had been days for me and I was practically coming out of my skin from needing more. To touch him as much as I wanted. To tell whoever I saw that he was mine.
I pushed up for a kiss, and he whispered it against my lips. “‘Sin Voluntad.’”
Our song.Of course it would be “Sin Voluntad” by Gilberto Santa Rosa, my favorite.
I tightened my arms around his neck as he swayed us together, his raspy baritone in my ears singing about a love that makes you helpless. Love that calms and agitates. Love that changes everything. Love you’re not willing to walk away from. We could’ve floated away, my feet lifted right off the ground as he sang all the things he hadn’t been able to say for so long.
“Do you believe me now?” I asked as we moved, our bodies fitting perfectly together. I wanted to put my head on his shoulder and let him take me away, but I was waiting for him to answer, my face tipped up to look in his eyes.
I saw his throat work, his expression spooked but determined, and hope soared in my chest. “I want to.” He said it strongly, as his hand slid from my waist to my ass and gripped me hard.
“I love you,” I told him with my gaze still holding his. “And I want you more right now than I’ve ever wanted anything.”
The rumble that came out of his chest was predatory, and made everything in me tighten with want. I could already feel his hands and mouth on me
“You know what I can’t wait to feel again?” I asked as he swallowed hard, eyes like hot embers, practically glowing. “Your teeth grazing my back and neck. I get hard just from touching the bruise you left right here.” I brought a finger to the spot he’d sucked on between my neck and shoulders.
His nostrils flared, body taut, ready to unleash all that power on me. I knew I had him, but I pushed a bit more just in case. “I jerked off thinking about you—”
“Hatuey.” That was the last agonized word he uttered until he’d carried me to the master suite, his mouth hot on mine, tongue sliding in and shutting off all thinking and all conversation for the near future, and I was totally fine with that.
Chapter 10
Yariel
I tried to do the right thing, but I wasn’treallymade of fucking stone. Not with Hatuey telling me he wanted everything I’d craved. And now I had him in my bed, and my entire life was going to have to be rearranged. I would do whatever it took to keep him there forever.
“How do you want me?” he asked frantically as he worked on skinning out of every inch of clothing he was wearing while I tried to count backwards from twenty, just to keep from pawing at him like a fucking animal.
I gripped my hands together in front of my chest, still fully dressed as I watched him writhe and twist on my bed. “Slow down.” Normal speech was beyond me now, and I thanked god Hatuey knew me like he did. With my size and the way I was feeling right now, I had to be scary. But it seemed Caveman Yariel was Hatuey’s kink, because he was flushed red and panting, just from those two words. “Take your undershirt off…slowly.”
“Bossy,” he crowed obviously into it, hands pausing in the middle of pulling it off. Then—because he never fucking listened me—went for tight black briefs instead.
