He’d been open and honest about letting things get out of hand and being too stubborn to put the brakes on it. Knowing him the way I did, I knew that hadn’t been easy for him to admit. It had made me wonder if I had been too stubborn in my own way too. I’d stopped trying to get him to hear what I needed to say. I’d put my own hopes and dreams aside. Not because he had asked me to either. He’d urged me to go back to school, but I had enjoyed working with Amaris.
I hadn’t been particularly close to my own family, but his had welcomed me in with open arms and made me one of their own. I hadn’t wanted to lose the daily interactions with Amaris and the twins.
“What are we doing?” I asked out loud as I watched him grab our things from the beds in the shared room area.
After we pulled away from our kiss, he had rested his forehead on mine and held me close. I’d been in a Vince bubble, and before I knew it, was agreeing to share a private room with him.
“Getting our own room,” he muttered, and I shook my head.
“No. I mean, us… together.” He stopped what he was doing and came right over to me. Something about that sweet simple gesture made me relax against him.
“You’re giving me a chance.”
“Am I now?” My lips twitched, and he smoothed my hair down.
“Please.”
“I didn’t think that word was in your vocabulary.”
“I’ve been kinda bossy lately, huh?” he asked like he was actually realizing it for the first time. “I’m so damn sorry about that.” His apology was real, and it made me lose my mind a little. I went to the tips of my toes and kissed him. It was obvious I had taken him by surprise, but he quickly recovered and wrapped his arms around my waist.
“One chance,” I whispered against his mouth after pulling away.
“A do-over,” he said, and I smiled. We were crazy. Together for seventeen years, married for fifteen, and almost divorced for a week, we were starting a do-over. Definitely on the nutty side.
“I like that. But just so you know, the receptionist is going to think we are certifiable with all this room flip-flopping.” He kissed the tip of my nose and reached for our luggage.
“Who the fuck cares?” He winked over his shoulder, and for the first time in a long time, I laughed.
Once he had tossed our things in the private room, he hurried us through the door. As crazy stupid as it made me for even considering a do-over, it felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
Hand in hand, we explored the shops around the hotel. Before I knew it, the day had passed by and we were making our way down towards the beach with a bag of tacos and a couple of bottles of ice-cold Cokes in our hands.
We sat down on a towel he had bought at a store down the road. The white sand beach was pretty empty, probably because it was a Monday evening and tourists were slim. I kicked off my sandals, sighing at the warmth of the delicate sand, wiggling my toes. I sat down, and before I knew it, Vince settled his strong body right behind mine.
We were close.
Really close.
I turned to tell him that it felt like too much too soon, but the words tapered down when I realized he was looking at me, my carnitas tacos in his hand, ready to hand them over.
“Thanks,” I said softly, taking the foil-covered goodness from his hand. There was something about that gesture that made me remember how he used to be so long ago. Attentive. Sweet. Overly protective about taking care of me and my needs.
“You’re welcome.” He gave me a toothy grin, and I smiled, turning to face the shore.
The longer I watched the shore, the deeper inside my head I went. Realizing the countless times and ways he always made sure to take care of me. Silent ways that showed he cared. Even towards the end before our huge fight, hell, even after. Small things I took for granted.
Wave after wave hit. One after another. Most calm and steady. Some hit harder and higher than others. The turquoise water only added to the beauty of the sight in front of us.
“Were the tacos not good?” he asked. His lips by my ear made my skin feel hot and overly sensitized.
“They’re great.” I turned to meet his gaze. “I never stopped loving you,” I confessed. It was probably stupid, but how long had I been keeping quiet about so much?
“Tash, we don’t have to—
“We do. If we keep putting things off, then are we any better off than when we imploded?” I asked, and his body slumped, tucking me in closer. Settling me into him.
“You’re right,” his deep voice said, surprising the hell out of me as his words bloomed hope in my heart. “Okay... let’s talk.”
Vince
“Okay… let’s talk.” The words slipped from my mouth, and I swear it was so unlike me, against my nature, I instantly wanted to take the words back. Kiss her quiet until we forgot how the hell we got there. But that wouldn’t solve anything. As against my nature as it was to talk things out, I couldn’t imagine spending any more of my life without Tasha.
“How do we start?” she asked, her head resting on my chest, and I wrapped my arms around her, holding her hands in mine.
“With love and respect,” I answered. “I’m probably oversimplifying, but—”
“I don’t think you are. I like that. Love and respect.” She repeated the words velvety soft off her tongue. “When you asked for a divorce, Vince, you threw me for a loop,” she admitted, and I held her closer to me. “You had been my everything for so long. My person.” Her voice drifted off, then she started up again, “When you asked for that, it felt like you were suddenly like everyone else in my life who felt I was replaceable.”
“I don’t even know why I said it,” I admitted. “The words came out, and I didn’t know how to take them back. We were…”
“Flailing?”
“Yes.” My lips touched her temple. “It felt like we were together but not, you know? Like we were walking around on eggshells with one another. I didn’t know how or when we got there, but… I hated it.” Her hands crossed, bringing mine along with her.
“I know. I hated it too.” She sighed. “Do you really think we can fix this? That we can, I don’t know, get back to where we were?”
“No,” I said sternly. She looked over her shoulder just as the sky started to fill with pinks and oranges.
“No?” she repeated, questions filling her gaze.
“I don’t want us back where we were, Tasha. I want us to get through it and come out stronger. Closer.” I saw the worry fade away and love fill her eyes.
“I want that too.” She smiled, and I leaned in giving her a small kiss on her lips. “How do we do that though?”
“One day at a time? I mean, we didn’t get to the point we did overnight, right?”
“Right.”
“So, as much as we might want to, we can’t fix us overnight. But as long as both of us give one hundred percent effort into making this work, we will get there.”
“One day at a time?” she whispered, and fuck me, if that’s how we would get through this, I would tattoo it onto my body.
“One day at a time,” I repeated confidently, feeling her head drop on my shoulder. “Unless you have any other ideas of how to make sure our do-over sticks?”
“One day at a time it is,” she agreed, and I held on to her closer, far after the sun finished setting and the dark sky filled with bright stars.
Chapter Five
Tasha
“YOU ARE NOT wearing that!” he clipped, and I laughed. I couldn’t help it because if I didn’t laugh, I was going to murder him. I wasn’t sure, but I was pretty positive Mexican jails wouldn’t be a pleasant place to spend ten to fifteen.
“I am wearing this.” I rested my hands on my hips, and the lines that had formed on his forehead deepened along with his scowl.
“No. You are not.” His nose flared. I hated how sexy it made him look.
“Are we done with this asinine conversation?” I asked, trying to bite away my sm
ile so he wouldn’t get even more annoyed than he already was.
After our talk, we had returned to our room and cuddled, falling asleep in one another’s arms. He hadn’t tried anything, and I hadn’t either. It was like we both knew we weren’t ready to go there even if our bodies were dying to.
Waking up before the sun rose with an energy I hadn’t felt in years, we’d kissed and quietly, still slightly sleepy, made plans for our day.
“Tash.”
“Vince.” I mocked his tone but wasn’t going to back down. Not on this. After making our plans, we had gotten ready. He had been dressed in a red Billabong tee and black swim trunks when I had slipped out of our private bathroom dressed for the day in short denim shorts with my black bikini underneath. I still had to throw a tank top on, not that he had let me. He had taken one look at me and started with this changing crap.
“Tash,” he repeated his warning, and I rolled my eyes, cocking my hip.
It was a standoff that he wasn’t going to win. So, I wasn’t going to indulge him.
I turned and grabbed my backpack, throwing in sunscreen, a water bottle, extra shorts and towel into it along with my wallet. I heard him sigh and come up behind me.
He wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling my back flush against his front. I didn’t miss the hardness poking my lower back.
“I’m sorry.” He sighed.
“It’s just a bikini. It’s not like I’m going topless.”
“Fuck,” he groaned. His voice vibrated against the sensitive skin on my neck, and my eyes fluttered shut. “You drive me crazy. Can you feel how hard you make me, Tasha?”
“You’re no fair, Vince.”
“I never said I would be, baby.” He kissed my neck. A soft sound escaped from my lips. “I hate the idea of anyone looking at you.” I had no idea why that was so hot. How long ago had he said anything like that? Had he shown this possessive side of him?
“I’m going to wear a tank top.”
“I know, but I’ll see this sexy strap peek out and know,” he mumbled against my flesh, “that only a tiny little scrap of fabric is covering you up.” His hands dropped from my waist and moved up my torso. I gasped. The tips of his fingers lightly touched the underside of my boobs. “Covering the most exquisite breasts that ever existed,” he rasped, and I squirmed slightly, clenching my thighs together as dampness hit the gusset of my bikini bottoms.
“Vince,” I sighed, melting in his arms, faster than an ice cream cone in the middle of August.
“Anyone who sees this strap”—I felt his tongue lick the strings holding the top together at my neck—“is going to be curious. Is going to want to know about what’s mine.”
“Babe.” I tilted my head, giving him more space on the other side, and he repeated his motions there. It was like he was leaving his scent on me with his tongue.
“You’re not wearing my ring anymore.” His teeth scraped, and he made a guttural sound that sounded like a feral animal. Primal and dangerous. “There’s no mark you belong to me,” he growled, and I shivered.
I was so tempted to toss caution to the wind and toss him against the bed, but that was the last thing we needed. Sex had never been a problem at the beginning of our relationship but toward the end, it had been non-existent. Anytime I tried to initaiate it he would turn me down to the point I stopped trying. With that in mind, I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He rested his forehead on my shoulder and groaned.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, kissing my shoulder before taking a step back. I turned to look up at him. “We have bikes to rent.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to.”
“I know. I just… you…” He pointed up and down at me, his eyes appreciating every curve in a way that made me feel beautiful and sexy. Seen in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. “You’re just too damn sexy, Tasha.”
“Shut up.” I patted his chest and rolled my eyes. “Soon,” I whispered, having to toss that in because I wanted him to know he wasn’t the only one affected. I wanted him just as much as he wanted me.
“Soon.” He swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed, and I licked my lips. His eyes dropped to my mouth, and his hand moved to the back of my neck. His touch was familiar but exhilarating as he pulled me in close. Kissing me with so much promise and love I never wanted him to stop.
Thankfully, this time, he was the one to pull away, and once we gathered everything we would need, we went out to explore the city.
The morning flew by in a blur.
From renting bicycles to eating breakfast to checking out the main strip of Tulum, along with the Tulum Art Club, it had been a great day.
“Let’s go off the strip a little,” Vince suggested on a whim. I loved seeing this side of him.
“On bikes?” I asked with a laugh and wide eyes. My thighs were already killing me. I loved being adventurous, but I wanted to be able to walk the next day.
“Let’s return these and rent a scooter.”
“A scooter? Do you know how to drive one?”
“Of course, I do,” he scoffed, and I laughed.
“Like you knew how to drive a stick?” I teased. The memory of the rough grinding and screeching of my car when he had driven it the first time back in high school was clear as day, like it had just happened. He’d been adamant he knew how to drive a manual transmission, and when I’d let him take my beautiful Betty Red, a restored Mustang, the truth had come out.
“Hey! I know how to drive stick,” he said seriously. I couldn’t stop my laughter.
“No, you don’t,” I cackled, and he pulled me in his arms, both of us laughing as he leaned in and kissed the tip of my nose.
“You’re fucking cute, Natasha Cruz.” My smile faltered slightly. I tried to regain it, but he caught it. “What?” he asked cautiously. “What did I say?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head and pulled away from his embrace, but Vince’s hand gently grabbed my wrist.
“Talk to me,” he urged. I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry.
“I’m not a Cruz anymore.” My nose stung, and the sight of him became blurry.
Not that it mattered because he quickly pulled me into his chest and wrapped me up in his arms. I breathed in, the scent of sunblock and his cologne amazing and soothing.
“Fuck, Tash,” he muttered at the top of my head. “You are, baby. You always will be.”
“We signed the papers and sold everything,” I reminded with a stutter as tears started to roll down my cheeks. “We even closed our joint checking account.” I cried into his soft red tee. It was so stupid to cry over something so small, but there it was. Everything that made us us, was gone.
“Shh…” he soothed, stroking the ends of my ponytail. “Breathe, Tash.”
“I am,” I mumbled, taking a deep, staggered breath. His masculine scent enveloping me, calming the frayed edges.
“We can get all that back.”
“No, we can’t,” I pouted.
“Babe.” He pulled away and smiled at me. “We can.” His dark eyes were boring into my soul. “I wasn’t kidding, Tasha. Royce didn’t file shit. Technically, w’re still married.”
“But everything else—“
“We don’t need,” he cut me off, and I blinked, soaking in his words. “We’re here, right? This is what you want?”
“Vince.” I took a moment to find the right way to word what I needed to say, and fear struck in my heart because I finally got it. He was here because he did love me, but what if this wasn’t what he wanted out of life? “Life can’t just be about what I want though.” I stepped back, and his jaw clenched.
“I know that.”
“I might want to open a bed and breakfast, but—“
“We will open.” He emphasized the ‘we’, and my heart was going to burst from my chest. “This was our dream. Or did you forget all those late nights talking about everything? Every detail of the place we wanted to open. Did you forget how we found Tulum?” he asked
with emotion, his own eyes slightly glassy.
“No.” I moved in closer. My hand fell on his chest over his furiously beating heart. “I just want to make sure we’re on the same page.”
“We are.” He sighed, pulling me in, his hand on my lower back. “Marry me again.”
“What?” I looked up at him trying to read him. “I thought you said we were still technically married.”
“We are, but fuck the technicality,” he said, resting his forehead on mine. “I’ll call Royce to file shit so we can get married again. Here. Just you and me.”
“Elope?” My eyes felt like they were going to pop out of their sockets.
“Like you wanted to the first time around,” he reminded me, and as crazy as it sounded, I liked the idea. No. I loved it.
“A real do-over?” I whispered.
“A very fucking real do-over, Tasha,” he whispered back with promise in his voice. I bit my lower lip. Did I want this? Want him?
Yes. My heart whispered what my mind already knew, and I sniffled.
“Okay.” I nodded. “Let’s get officially divorced.” I laughed, and he picked me up, spinning me around while I held on to the back of his neck.
Right in the middle of downtown Tulum. We had probably made a spectacle of ourselves, but I didn’t care. Somehow, in the middle of the street of the most beautiful beach city I had ever seen, we had found our way back to one another.
Vince
Any thoughts of exploring and renting a scooter rushed away.
We hurried back to our hotel and locked up our bikes before rushing to our room. The sight of the cenote a temptation, I stopped her. I wanted to make a fantasy come true. Knowing she was wearing that sexy-as-fuck bikini underneath, I wanted her wet. Dripping wet.
“Strip,” I ordered and dropped my hand from hers. I reached behind me with one hand and pulled my shirt over my head and stuffed it into my backpack. When I was done, I caught her eyes wide with surprise and lust as she drank me in.
“What?” her voice rasped, and I gave her a cocky grin. The one I had learned over the years she couldn’t resist.
“Strip.”
The Do-Over Page 4
