Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

VALENTIN

Alondra took the floor from under me. It’s no surprise because she always does. From the day she confessed that she liked me for more than a friend and kissed me in the corner of the darkroom during photography class to this morning when she showed up looking New York fine. She transformed into the girl I knew with her big hair and megawatt smile. It was the image I saw before I lost consciousness in Afghanistan. That day, I thought I would die but instead lost Kyle. If I died, she would have been my last thought.

She took the fall for me.

For my stupidity, wanting to show my brother I wasn’t a punk.

I was hanging out with the wrong crowd, and everyone told me. I didn’t listen. When I realized they set me up that day, I thought I was going straight to adult jail. I was seventeen and dumb. I loved her, but I wanted to prove myself to my brother, who called me pendejo, a sucker, all the time.

I was shocked when the cops told me I could go without explanations, just telling me they’d keep an eye on me. I went looking for Alondra, and her father told me never to come around again. His daughter had a future, and someone who didn’t was not going to ruin her life. He went on to tell me she hated me and never wanted to hear my name again because I was nothing but a thug. She didn’t answer my calls. Her friends didn’t know where she had gone, and her cousin Maeven had also disappeared. My senior year was a blur; I enrolled in the Army right out of high school. I had to escape.

But this… Her words…

I push away from the table and head out after her. The waves rush the shore as the sun makes its way down. My gaze snaps around, looking for her, almost panicked that she disappeared again. She’s standing on the far end of the deck, leaning on the railing, gazing out.

I cross the distance between us and stop at arm’s length.

“Why did you do it?”

She shrugs with her back still to me. “I couldn’t let you go to jail. They did you dirty, and I had to get rid of the gun. I knew they couldn’t prove it.”

“That was an insane thing to do. You must have been so scared.”

She turns to me, flashing an enigmatic smile. “I knew they would point fingers at me but couldn’t prove it.”

“It could’ve gone so wrong for you, Alondra.”

“It did go wrong,” she whispers. “They sent me away.”

“You saved me.” I take a step toward her. “And broke my heart when you left.”

Tears glisten in her eyes. “I didn’t want to go. I cried and begged, but my dad didn’t care. Mom agreed with him.”

“I don’t blame them. You could’ve faced charges and ruined your future.”

She laughs. There’s no humor in it. “And here I am, full circle. My future looks murky as fuck right now.”

I pull her to me. “This can be fixed. You will prove that you are innocent.” I can’t stop staring into her face, her eyes. “I was never okay without you. You were the only one. When I almost died, I…”

I trail off, pushing my forehead against hers. I can’t tell her. I would sound crazy. She may think I’m obsessed or sick in the head.

“Vale,” she whispers my name softly.

I open my eyes to face her concern in the fading sunlight, but all I find is the same longing I feel reflected in her gaze. I do what I fantasized about since she stepped out of her car. I back her against the wooden railing and crush my mouth to hers, kissing her like I used to.

Except she’s a woman, and I’m a man. Kisses are not going to hold us anymore. I keep my eyes open, not wanting to miss a second. I want to see her expressions. The world goes dark around us. We break for air as the sensor lights come on.

She runs her fingers over her lips and squeezes her eyes shut.

My stomach churns because what if there is someone? She doesn’t owe me any truths. “Are you sure there’s no one waiting for you at home?”

She shakes her head.

“Then why do you look like you regret this?”

Her frown dissolves as she rolls her eyes. “Are you stupid? Did you not hear that I was so ridiculously in love that I almost ruined my life for you?”

She pushes past me, but I grab her wrist. “Then why do you look so uncomfortable?”

“Because, Valentin, I told myself this was a kid thing for all these years. Like a teenage girl, I overhyped you and your kisses in my head. There was no way my world shifted when you put your arms around me. But it still does, and your kisses feel the same, and I don’t fucking know what that means.”

I let go of her wrist to take her face in my hands. “It means we were real. We still are. Why else did you end up on my beach, at my place of all the places fate could take you?”

Her eyes are cloudy, and she shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

“I do. Trust me. I won’t let you down this time.”

I kiss her lips again, push myself against her, cupping her ass, pressing her against my cock. My tongue entangles with hers, and her arms bunch in the back of my T-shirt.

“Show me, Valentin. I’ve always wondered what we would be like together.”

I take her hand, and we walk to an outdoor sectional on the other side of the deck. I pull her sweatshirt over her head. Her breasts hang free, soft, and beautiful. Then I push down her shorts and find she’s not wearing panties either. I slide my fingers up her thighs and between her legs.

“You are ready.”

She rubs her pussy against my fingers. “Since I was fifteen.”

“I’ve been dying to taste you since.”

She takes a step back and takes my hand. “Then taste me. I think we’ve both waited long enough.”