Chloe Ann gets up and heads for the door, throwing her mini Louis Vuitton over her shoulder, a Christmas present from her father. “I’m going to go get a coffee.”
“Be right back,” Mateo tells her as she opens the door.
She gives him a dry glance over her shoulder. “Where else would I go? I’m your prisoner for the weekend.”
She leaves and shuts the door and I have to hold back a smile.
Mateo shakes his head in disappointment. “The attitude, Vera, the attitude. Where does she get it from?” He walks over to me, peering down. “Sometimes I think you’re rubbing off on her a little too much, because there’s no way she inherited an attitude from me.”
I grin up at him, a rush of butterflies coming through my chest. That’s the funny thing about being married for seven years, if the marriage is good, you never forget why you married them in the first place. Mateo has a way of making my heart skip two beats every single day, nearly every time he looks at me, touches me. I still see the strong, handsome, charming, utterly romantic man I first fell in love with.
“Are you sure?” I ask him. “I recall you being a grump every now and then.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m happy all the time. Like the movie Footloose and Free.”
I frown. “Footloose and Free? You mean Footloose? With Kevin Bacon?”
“Yes, I think so.”
More frowning.
“It is a saying, Vera,” he explains patiently, like I’m an idiot. “You are Footloose and Free like Kevin Bacon.”
A smile spreads across my lips. “Are you trying to say that you’re footloose and fancy-free?”
He shrugs. “Yes, that’s what I said.”
I shake my head, letting out a laugh. My god, he is still so fucking adorable sometimes. I grab his hands and pull him down on the couch beside me, then I put my palms against his cheeks, grabbing his face.
“You’re adorable, you know that?” I ask, my eyes searching the dark depths of his.
“Not exactly what a forty-six-year-old man wants to hear,” he says.
“Too bad,” I tell him. “It’s not like I like to hear that I’m trouble.”
He grins at me, dimples showing in his scruffy, salt-and-pepper beard. “But you are trouble. In the most delicious way.”
He leans in and kisses me. It’s the kind of kiss that starts off slow, just his lips gently brushing against mine, a soft, teasing kiss. Then his mouth opens, coaxing mine to do the same, his tongue hot and wet, running along the rim of my lower lip.
Fuck. I know what that kiss means.
These are the kisses that gets us in the bedroom.
The kiss that signals to my body to get all hands on deck and get ready for some fucking, and my body obeys. I get wet in a second, my skin covered with goosebumps, the deep heated need surging inside me.
I place my hand on his crotch, knowing he’s already hard, because this kiss does the same thing for him as it does for me.
“Fuck,” he says through a husky groan, my fingers gripping him through his pants. The word shoots through my ear, down my spine, lighting more firecrackers.
He pulls back, his eyes now glittering with intensity and heat. “How much time do we have before she comes back?” he asks.
I give his cock another squeeze, making his eyes pinch shut, his mouth fall open.
There is nothing sexier than this sight.
Nothing more of a turn-on than knowing you have your husband literally in the palm of your hand.
Alas, I think we both know it’s not in the cards. Not worth the risk if she can come back at any second. We don’t want to traumatize the poor girl, especially at her age.
“We have no time,” I tell him. “But I do enjoy teasing you.”
He hisses as I grip him harder and then pulls back, glaring at me. “You are a fucking tease, you know that.”
“Guess you’ll just have to punish me later,” I say, getting to my feet and giving him a sassy smile. I stick my ass out in his face, anticipating the hard slap.
Whap!
And there it is.
I grin at him over my shoulder, wagging my brows, inviting him to do it again.
Whap!
Another hard slap across my ass.
It’s definitely getting Mateo more turned on. I better stop torturing him like this.
“Well, I’m going to go start packing since we have to leave tomorrow,” I tell him, heading off the bedroom. I give him a warning look with my eyes. “You stay put and think unsexy thoughts.”
“That is easier said than done around you, my dear,” he says with a frustrated groan, adjusting his erection in his pants.
I laugh and then stop once I get in the bedroom and look around.
Shit, a wedding? What the hell am I even going to wear?
“Wait, how long is this thing and what’s the dress code?” I yell at Mateo.
“It’s two nights,” he says. “Tomorrow are the rooster and chicken parties and then the next night is the wedding.”
“I’m sorry, the what? The rooster and chicken?”
“Yes, yes. I know what I’m saying is right this time.”
He must mean a hen and stag night.
“And how hot is it down there?”
“It’s fucking hot,” he says. “My advice to you is to wear as little as possible.”
I smile to myself, shaking my head. Of course he would say that.
I fling open my closet, search for the most suitable dresses, and start packing.
Mateo
“Papá?” Chloe Ann asks me.
“Yes, my angel?”
“How do you know when you’ve fallen in love?”
I look up from my in-flight magazine and turn to my daughter. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you said yesterday that you knew you loved Vera in an instant. How did you know?”
I glance over at Vera on the other side of Chloe Ann, in the window seat. She’s deep asleep with her head against the window, almost drooling, noise-cancelling headphones on
