by Tamara Lush
He chuckles, and I love hearing the sound. A searing heat pools low in my belly as he winds the belt in his hands and kneels. He threads the tail end of the belt through the buckle, then again so it forms a figure-eight. My heart speeds up, and I bow my head and touch my hands together behind my back. Rafa’s laugh washes over me in a low rumble.
“That’s my girl. You know what to do.”
He winds the belt into the two circle shapes, wraps his arms around me, slipping the makeshift handcuffs over my wrists, tightening the slack with the tail of the belt.
My skin prickles when he gathers my hair in both of his hands and gently drapes it over my back. Then he slides his hands around to my front and pinches my nipples with his thumb and forefinger, just enough to make me whimper. My nipples poke into the fabric of my nightgown.
“So fucking gorgeous.”
He stands, and I gaze up through my glasses and take a few hard breaths through my mouth.
“You can look at me, Justine. But don’t speak.”
I slowly lick my lips when I see a droplet of fluid on the tip of his cock.
“You know what to do.”
With his hand, he angles himself to my mouth, tapping my bottom lip a few times gently with the tip. I open. He places his head on my tongue, and I notice that he closes his eyes and groans as I wrap my lips around his sensitive skin.
“Si, si, si,” he whispers, sliding slowly into my mouth.
I take him all the way in. My wrists tug against the leather belt restraining me, and I moan deep in my throat. I haven’t been restrained in years, not since before everything went to hell with us, and I’m weak with desire. But not too weak to rake my mouth over his shaft and drive Rafa crazy, though.
“Justine, now. Now.” He cradles the back of my head with his hand. “Swallow.”
I do.
I wake to Rafa’s groans. And not the good kind.
This sounds like someone’s strangling him, almost like he wants to scream but can’t. The noise startles me out of sleep, and I gasp and sit up in bed. A half-moon glinting through a window gives off just enough light for me to see Rafael. He’s beside me, lying on his back, his eyes screwed shut. He’s kicked the sheets off, and his fists are clenched at his side.
Oh shit. He still has the nightmares? I clap my hand over my mouth, hesitating. Hoping he’ll settle and go back to sleep.
“No, no,” he whispers, then follows with a long string of Spanish.
I shake his arm. “Oh God, Rafa, you’re having a nightmare. A dream.”
Before, he never liked to call them nightmares. Said that because they were always of the same, real event—how he came from Cuba to Florida by boat as a boy—that I shouldn’t call them by such a negative name. They were reality, not nightmares, he’d say.
But I knew otherwise.
“Baby.” I squeeze his bicep. I turn on the nightstand light, frowning with worry.
He’s covered in sweat, and his eyes fly open.
“You still have them?”
Rafa nods. I can tell he’s trying to regulate his breathing. “Not as often. Only when I’m really stressed or stay in a new place.”
“The same dream?”
He struggles to sit up, propping a pillow behind him. “If you mean, the same dream about my mother abandoning me, being afraid of sharks circling a boat in the Gulf of Mexico, and my stomach burning from hunger, then yes. I do. It’s kind of difficult to forget those things.”
His voice has taken on a bitter, resigned tone. I nod. “Do you still wake up with the headaches?”
“Si, I do,” he says through a clenched jaw.
I swallow. He moves as if he wants to get out of bed. I stroke his forearm. “Stay here. Please?”
Kissing his forehead, I touch my palm to his sweaty cheek. There are tears in my eyes as I head for the bathroom. He hasn’t gotten better, not after all these years. He’s still angry with his mother and the way he’d come to the US as a child.
First I fill a glass of water. Then I run a washcloth under cold water and wring it out.
Dammit, Rafael. You have all the money in the world. Why haven’t you gotten help?
I sigh when I can’t find aspirin in my cosmetics bag, then I spot his leather dopp kit on the counter. I open that, not caring about his privacy. To my surprise, I find what I’m looking for and return to bed.
Rubbing his hands together fast, he presses his palms to his face, passing them over his skin as if to wipe away the nightmare.
He glances at me. “You found the lavender oil in my bag.”
I hand him a glass of water and two aspirin. “I’m surprised you still use it. You were so skeptical of herbs and oils when I first gave it to you.”
“I don’t travel without it now.”
Rafa gulps the water all in one shot, and I’m awash in memories. After one of his nightmares during our senior year in school, I’d asked him why he drank fast like that, when he was usually so controlled with everything he did.
Because it tastes the same as it did when I was six, the day the boat landed on Miami Beach and a lifeguard spotted us and handed us a bottle of water. Like promise and freedom, Justi.
Now, Rafa looks younger and vulnerable, and my heart thumps hard. He flops back on the pillow.
“I still hate for you to see me like this.”
I sit on the edge of the bed, naked. I lick my lips and gently wipe his forehead and cheeks with the washcloth.
“Just like you used to.” His voice is tender, and I swallow more tears.
I drape the washcloth over his forehead and open the little bottle of lavender oil. I carefully rub a few drops between my fingers.
“Shhh,” I say.
I drop the washcloth on the nightstand, then massage the oil into his temples. He closes his eyes.
“Justine…”
“Shhh.”
My long hair brushes over his chest. Softly skimming the cool cloth over his shoulders and his arms, I lean forward and press my lips against his.
He scoots down and lies flat on the bed. I extinguish the light. Stretching onto my side, I wrap myself around his torso. He slips an arm underneath my shoulders and draws me closer. I kiss his chest and he sighs. While I blink away tears in the darkness, his breathing grows long. He’s asleep now, but it will take me a while to get over the past few minutes.
When I was younger, I accepted his dreams as something that was a part of him. He had his own emotional baggage from the past—being a Cuban exile—just like I had my own issues with my mom’s and brother’s deaths.
And when I left him, I hadn’t thought about his nightmares or his past. I could only think of saving my fragile self. A rush of guilt, mixed with an ache of longing for what could have been, tugs at a space inside my chest.
Now that I’m older and back in his arms, I wonder if either one of us has ever truly forgotten the past. And whether a month will be enough for either of us.
22
Playing House
Reaching to the nightstand for my phone, I’m startled to find it’s ten in the morning. Later than I’ve slept in years. My eyes adjust to the wan light filtering through the gauzy curtains of the huge bedroom.
Where’s Rafa? I look around.
I sniff deep. Ahh. He must be downstairs, judging by the bacon smell. I smile and stretch. He still loves bacon. I climb out of bed and scratch my scalp, wondering if I should pull it back in a ponytail or go long and wild. It will have to be long and wild, because my hair ties are somewhere in my purse, which is probably downstairs where I left it. Really, my hair’s the last thing that matters, because I’m achy and groggy and sex-sated. My hand feels around at the back of my head and tugs a giant, matted tangle.
My stomach rumbles like a thunderstorm, and I take another big whiff of the bacon.
My eyes go to one of Rafa’s T-shirts that sits on the bureau, the one he wore last night. I pick it up and sniff his unique, familiar scent. It makes me swoon a little
. I slip it on and open a drawer, searching for his boxers. There they are, in the bureau, on the top right. I laugh out loud. He’s so predictable.
In many ways, things haven’t changed.
Last night, it felt normal to sleep in his arms. Too normal. And the nightmare. A pit of heaviness forms in my stomach when I think of it. I’d assumed he wouldn’t have the bad dreams anymore, that having lots of money would have somehow reassured him, quelled his fears, soothed his soul.
Rafa had never talked much about the nightmares. It was as if he was incapable of sharing his inner self with anyone. He held everything inside. Sex had been his way of communicating with me, and now that we’re older, he’s no different.
Take this morning. Sometime before the sun came up, we’d been spooning and dozing. I’d wrapped his arm around my chest and folded his hand over my breast. Rafa had responded with an erection nestled near the small of my back, and we’d ended an hour later, with me on top, panting and sweating, and him gripping my hips and grinding me closer. After, we’d cuddled for thirty seconds, then he’d shot out of bed, muttering something about checking emails. I’d collapsed back to sleep.
I can’t expect him to be the tender boy I once knew. That’s ridiculous after everything he’s been through. Everything he’s accomplished. And I’m no longer the young woman exploring her sexuality. I know what I need, and I’m going to take it over the next month.
Then move on.
Taking a deep breath, I find my way to the kitchen, getting lost only once in the huge house and finding myself in the laundry room. I’m barefoot and in his too-big clothes. I look a wreck but don’t care. He’s seen me at my worst, and today is far from that. Trying to act nonchalant, I step into the kitchen.
Rafael is sipping his coffee near the stove. He takes one look at me and laughs so hard that a tiny bit of liquid leaks out of his nose. Gasping, he leans over the sink and wipes his face with a paper towel.
I dissolve into giggles and drape my body over the counter.
“Your hair,” he gasps. “Didn’t you brush it?”
“Nope. Do you care? Are you going to enact morning grooming standards for me as part of our deal?”
“No. But only because I know you got that messy hair because of me.” He kisses the top of my head.
I move to the kitchen table and sit, grinning.
“Are you going to serve me breakfast or do I have to get my own food?”
“I would be honored to serve my beautiful, crazy-haired girl.” With an exaggerated flourish, he sets a plate of eggs and bacon in front of me. “Scrambled. As you like them, Señorita Lavoie.”
“You remember my egg preference, Señor Menendez. I’m impressed.”
If he’s trying to charm me, it’s almost working. Food always puts me in a good mood, and he knows it. And he’s remembering all the little details, like how I prefer my eggs well-scrambled. I need to stay strong and not succumb to his spell. He’s leaving in a month.
I pick up a piece of perfectly cooked bacon and take a huge bite. I can’t forget that this is only temporary. Only sex. Really, really amazing sex.
And bacon. That man is great with bacon.
Many hours later, after I’d gone to the market for groceries—Rafa says he wants me to cook my signature Southern dishes—I’m humming as I move around the big kitchen. I’ve decided to do a honey-bourbon ham for dinner, something I haven’t cooked in years, not since I was trying to impress Jared in the early days of our relationship. It’s an ambitious recipe, but I’m wired and excited to cook.
Rafa is in the dining room, sitting before two laptops and bunch of papers at the long table. The calm bliss of the domestic scene isn’t lost on me.
This is how we were supposed to be.
I won’t tell him, but I’m suddenly wildly happy in this moment, happier than I’ve been in a long while.
As I walk barefoot to the dining room to ask which wine he prefers with our meal, I can hear him talking on the phone. Something tells me to pause before I enter the room, and I stand in the hall, hidden from view.
“Yeah, it’s okay here. A little boring. Not like Miami. But it’s cool. I’m enjoying myself.”
My stomach flip-flops. St. Augustine isn’t Miami, that’s for sure. We’re five hours and worlds apart. But why does he have say it in that tone of voice?
Or does he mean me? Am I boring?
“Okay, thanks. Give a big, big kiss to Sarita, okay? I would liked to have spent time with her. But oh well. I’m stuck here. I’ll see you Monday. You have the address for the paper?”
I turn and shuffle back into the kitchen, shaking. Stuck? And who the hell is Sarita? Whatever transpired between me and Rafa overnight obviously hasn’t affected him the way it has me.
Maybe I should leave. Just slip out the back door and walk home. It’s not too far.
Just then, Rafa strolls in, smiling. “God, I love ham. Smells delicious, querida.”
I open and close several drawers with explosive bangs, hunting for a corkscrew. When I find one, I hand it and a bottle of Rioja to Rafael. I clear my throat.
“I heard you say that you were bored in St. Augustine.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Listening to my phone calls. Charming.”
“Whatever. You said it.”
“I said it was small and boring compared to Miami. It is. That’s not bad, it’s just a fact.”
I make a snorting noise with my nose. “I also heard you send kisses to a woman. Girlfriend?”
He eases the cork out of the wine, and it whispers a pop. “For the third time, I’m single. I was telling my vice president to say hello to his sister for me. She’s given a lot of money and time to my charity in Miami. He’s coming here on Monday to go through the financials of the paper. You should be grateful.”
I take two wine glasses out of a cabinet. “Why are you doing this, Rafael?”
He rakes his thumb across his beautiful bottom lip. “What do you mean by ‘this’?”
“You. Me. Now.”
He doesn’t answer.
I step closer to him and shake my head. “You have an edge to you that you didn’t have when we were in college. Sometimes when you look at me, you seem to be consumed with anger. You never used to be that way. Where did you go? Where’s the sweet guy who used to beg me to whisper poetry in his ear? Where’s the guy who thought I was interesting and not boring?”
“He disappeared a long time ago, Justine.” Rafa bites his lip and pours wine into the glasses. I know he’s nervous because he’s avoiding my gaze. “And I never said you were boring. You’re far from boring.”
“Whatever. Why do you want to punish me for what happened between us? Why did you say that last night?”
Again, silence. I rub the back of my neck, then undo my ponytail and retie my hair again. It’s one of my nervous tics.
“If you’re here for revenge or for anything other than to help me and the paper, stop. Go back to Miami. I don’t need your drama.”
He raises the wine glass to his nose and inhales. “This is good wine. Have a sip.”
I groan. “Don’t change the fucking subject. You should go back home to Miami.”
He shakes his head and smiles a little, which only pisses me off more. “I can’t do that, Justine.”
“Why? We haven’t made any announcements in the paper yet. Our deal isn’t public. You can leave today or tomorrow, and we can resume our lives. I think I’d rather have the paper fail than be with you for a month.”
He appears more amused and snarky as I continue to talk. Jerk. Then he smiles. “Would you? I think you want to save your newspaper and will go to any lengths to do so.”
I narrow my eyes and feel the blood surging through my body. “You know that money means nothing to me and that if I wasn’t in an impossible situation, I would have never called any private equity group, much less yours.”
He laughs, and my chest tightens because the sound is so evil. He’s a different man than
the one I knew. What the hell is going on here?
“I can’t leave now. Not after I’ve kissed you and touched you and slept next to you. I need to do this, for me.”
I soften my tense shoulders as I stand in front of him, resting my hands on his crossed arms. “For you? Or for us?”
He shakes his head. “For me. I need to have my fill of you. I need to exorcise you from my memory.”
“Exorcise. Like you’re possessed by me? Like I’m a demon?”
He pauses, licking his bottom lip. “Actually, yes. That’s a good way of putting it. You are a demon, Justine.”
“Don’t be melodramatic. I think you still love me.” I take a long sip of my wine. Inside I’m shaking out of sadness and fear.
He doesn’t say anything, just stands there and looks tormented. Lost, even.
“You do,” I breathe. “I know you’re hiding your emotions because that’s what you do. I felt your love in the way you held me last night, all night. You wouldn’t let me go. You asked me where I was going when I went to the bathroom. I felt your love when you entered me and fucked me and when you kissed me on my forehead this morning.”
He sets his wine down and throws his hands in the air. “Even if I do, how could I allow myself to love you again? How will I know that you wouldn’t walk out on me and break my heart all over?”
We drink in silence, and my voice cuts through the uncomfortable tension.
“How many women have you loved since we broke up, Rafael?”
23
Love Will Tear Us Apart
His glare makes me want to cry. I’ve never seen him look so angry. Not since he’s come to St. Augustine and not before.
“Why are you torturing me with these questions? How many do you think?” he spits.
“None. I don’t think you’ve ever loved anyone but me.”
“Your thinking is correct. Unfortunately.” He heaves a sigh.
“Rafael, if we spend a month together, it’s going to destroy us. Your anger will destroy us.”
