Except right now, I’m more worried about what Leo would do if he knew.
I readjust my dick in my jeans. It’s lost all interest in sex now, but my balls ache like a motherfucker. The second I step through the doorway, I curse. Celeste’s purse is resting on the floor of the dance studio just inside the door, not three feet from where Leo stands on the other side of the wall. He pokes his head through, eyebrows lifted.
“What the hell are you doing in there? Decided to take up dance to go with that pretty singing voice you’ve got?”
I’m working on feeding him some line about my toilet having issues when his gaze drops to the floor. My heart freezes up and a sick feeling churns in my gut.
But Leo just grins and laughs. He claps his hands together once. “You dog, you! Was she a client? I can come back later if you need a little more time.” He points back out the door.
“Nah, we can get started. Just give me a few minutes to say goodbye.” I fish into my pocket for my keys and toss them to him. “Head upstairs and chill for a few. There’s beer in my fridge.”
“Good on you, man. Never leave a girl feeling like she’s not appreciated.”
He disappears down the back hallway, but it isn’t until I hear the clank and hum of the service elevator motor that I’m able to relax.
I retrieve Celeste’s purse and the shoes she left by the mirror, then head back into the bathroom, where I find her standing in front of a sink with a wad of wet paper towels clutched in her fist. She’s staring at herself in the mirror, and her eyes cut to me when I appear behind her reflection.
“I think you’re clear. He’s upstairs. I grabbed your stuff.”
She offers me a shaky smile when she reaches for her purse, then fishes into it and pulls out a hairbrush and proceeds to attack her hair as if it’s offended her. After a torturous moment of watching her internal struggle to hold her shit together, I can’t take it anymore. I step close and grab her hand, forcing her to drop the brush, then spin her around and pull her close.
“It’s going to be all right. Nobody saw us. Nobody will know. I’m not going to tell a fucking soul. Besides, I’m a big boy now. I think I can stand up to your father’s matóns, Gustavo included.”
She shakes her head and pulls away, putting distance between us that feels like more than just the few feet it is. Her gaze is hard, her jaw set. “It isn’t just Papá. I can’t afford to be that weak. To let my emotions get the better of me. It was a stupid risk for me to take.”
Her assumption of the blame pisses me off and I grit my teeth. “It wasn’t just you, Celeste. In case you missed it, I’m the one who just had my tongue buried in your cunt. I made that decision knowing what the consequences could be.”
She doesn’t even flinch at my choice of words. She just narrows her eyes, and for a split second I see her resemblance to the man who ordered my beatdown all those years ago. An icy chill slices down my spine at the change in her.
“You don’t understand. I’m a grown woman. I’m not that little eight-year-old girl who cried on your shoulder when her mama died, or the fifteen-year-old who was too stupid to realize what her father would do to any boy who touched her. I’m a Flores, Maddox. Do you know what that means in this city? I have a responsibility to my father’s legacy. To my future if I ever want to take his place. I didn’t work this hard to throw that away for kicks.”
“And I didn’t endure a fucking war to come back and listen to this. It’s bullshit, Celeste. Your father brainwashed you to think love doesn’t matter. It’s everything.” I regret the words as soon as they leave my lips. They sound like a confession, and they sure as fuck reveal more than I ever intended her to know. But touching her again for the first time in so long has dredged up all those old feelings I never shared with her before we were ripped apart.
The burden hasn’t eased though. If anything, I feel more weighed down for having effectively told her I still love her.
“Don’t,” she says, her voice laced with warning. “Getting close to me is bad for your health. I need to go.”
She hoists her purse onto her shoulder and pushes past me, eyes clenched tight as if she’s afraid to even look at me. But I see her clearly. I see the rigid control she has and the armor she’s wrapped herself in since I’ve been gone. It’s impossible not to recognize, and I can’t help but wonder if breaking through that barrier today is a blessing or a curse.
8
Maddox
When I get to my apartment upstairs, I head straight to the fridge and grab a beer. I pop the cap and take a long swallow to cleanse my mouth of Celeste, then wash my hands and face in the kitchen sink. She’s still stuck in my head. I will never forget the taste of her, the softness of her slick flesh against my tongue, and the way she came apart beneath my mouth. But I need to clear my head. Otherwise, it would feel like a betrayal to spend the afternoon with Leo while still covered in remnants of a woman he’s just as wrecked over as I am. I have half a mind to hop in the shower, but it’d be hard to play that off casually.
My studio apartment takes up the entire second floor of the building, so it isn’t small, but it isn’t finished either. There are no interior walls other than the walls surrounding
