I broke away from Mateo, focusing instead on his bottle of Aguila and the condensation that ran down the sides, looking blissfully cool in the sticky night air. Through all the weeks of joking, talking, the innocent physical contact, now I was astutely nervous about being alone with him. It wasn’t so much that I was afraid of him—I was afraid of me. Especially since that remark at dinner, I’d been afraid of what I’d do to him, how I’d break that moral code I promised for myself.

He’s married, he’s married, he’s married, I told myself, watching a drop of water race down the beer to the table. His wife is beautiful and lovely, his daughter is sweet, and you aren’t either of those things.

But I could only tell myself that so many times.

“Vera,” he said thickly. “Vera, look at me.” His voice was commanding, reaching a depth I hadn’t heard before.

My eyes slowly slid over to him. I tried to speak but could only suck in my lip, probably taking all my lipstick off.

“Show me the stars again,” he said. His eyes speared me like nothing else, his face becoming dangerously handsome.

I looked up to the clear sky to see the stars, but he came over to me, reached out, and grabbed my hand. His touch was hot, like his fingers were searing into my skin, that feeling of entering a hot tub on a cold night. I couldn’t help the shiver that ran gently down my spine.

“Not those stars,” he said huskily, leaning forward. His lips were wet and slightly open. “Your stars. Why I call you Estrella.”

I swallowed hard, my pulse burning. I turned around in my chair so my back was to him and lifted up my hair, gathering it on top of my head.

His chair scraped loudly on the ground as he got up, a sound that struck a new kind of fear in me.

No. Not fear.

Anticipation.

I heard him stop right behind me. I held my breath, wondering what he was going to do.

One rough finger pressed down against the back of my neck, right on the spine where the tattoo began. I closed my eyes to the feeling, the currents it caused, traveling all the way down, making me wet. Jesus, I needed to get a hold of myself.

“What star is this?” he asked, sounding like silk. I could wrap myself in his voice.

“Alpheratz,” I whispered, as if I was letting him in on a secret. Maybe I was.

His finger slid diagonally down, a trail of fire across the Pegasus line. “And this one?”

“Markab.”

“Why Pegasus?”

I paused, the truth on my lips. Fuck it. We’d been nothing but honest with each other. “Because I want to fly free. And there’s no place higher than the stars.”

He didn’t say anything for a few beats. I was tempted to turn around, to look at him, but I didn’t want him to take his finger off my neck. I was leaving in three days. He was going back to his family. This was all I had, his skin on my stars.

He leaned in, his hot breath at my neck. “Are you afraid that love will clip your wings?”

His words sank into me, making my blood buzz. Love. This was too hazardous a subject to discuss with him. Not now. Not ever. With my breath shaking, I inched my neck away from his mouth and turned to face him.

“No,” I said, looking him straight in the eye. “I’m afraid that losing love will.”

His expression softened. He looked at my lips, his beautifully long eyelashes casting shadows on his tawny skin.

“Then that makes two of us,” he whispered softly, and for a long second I thought he was going to get it over with and finally kiss me, to put an end to this strain between us, the yearning that made me ache inside. But he straightened up, his gaze avoiding mine, and went to retrieve his beer from the table.

I watched him take a long sip and put the bottle back down. He started for the restaurant.

“You know, I can’t pretend any longer,” I blurted out, surprising myself.

I had reached my limit.

He had stopped, standing absolutely still, his back to me. He was either going to start walking again or he was going to turn around. I held in my breath.

With his back to me he said, “No. We can’t. I have one last question for you.”

That wasn’t what I expected. Questions were getting dangerous.

“What?” I asked softly.

He slowly turned around. “What is love? In English.”

I raised my brows. “Love, in English, is love?”

“What is it in Spanish?”

I was so enthralled by his hypnotic eyes, I could barely remember. “Amore?”

He shook his head ever so slightly. “No. Love in Spanish is you.”

Then he turned around, heading back.

This was bullshit.

I got out of my chair and ran for him. I grabbed him by the arm and pulled on him hard, turning him around so that he was facing me. I kept my fingers buried in his jacket sleeve and stared up at him.

“That’s it?” I cried out, my voice breaking with anger. “You tell me that I am love in your language? And then you leave me?!’

He gazed down at me like he was in a trance. “What would you rather I do?” he whispered.

I felt as if I were about to cry. My face contorted in pain and confusion. “I don’t know! Not that.”

“What about this,” he said huskily. He put one hand into my hair, his fingers moving through my strands, trailing along my scalp. My skin erupted in goosebumps. “Or this.” He took his other hand and did the same, until both were in my hair, holding the back of my head, his fingers pressing into me with a delicious amount of pressure.

Thoughts began to leave my head. They were replaced by emotions. Wants. Needs. All of them swirling around me like a galaxy.

He took a step so that he was right up against me, his firm stomach against mine, and what seemed to be an erection pressing into my hip. I felt like I couldn’t get any air at all. He tilted my head back so that I was looking up at his eyes, his lips just inches from mine.

“You can tell me stop,” he whispered. “And I will stop. But please, don’t tell me to stop.”

At that moment, I didn’t even know what the word meant.

I watched in slow motion as he brought his mouth down to mine. The minute our lips connected, my eyes closed, all my senses being redirected to the pleasure I was beginning to drown in. His kiss was sweet at first. Soft. Warm lips, wet mouth. Almost restrained, even with the way his lower lip cupped mine and held me, my mouth to his. It lit me up like a fucking firecracker, exploding in bombs along my limbs, until all of me was on fire, wanting, needing, craving more.

And he gave that to me. The pressure on my head increased, his fingers wrapping tighter in my hair while our kiss deepened. His tongue teased mine, soft as silk. It stirred the need for more inside of me, like I was just realizing how hungry I was. I wanted so much of him, all of him, every part of him. I wanted him to keep kissing me because it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever experienced. It was also the hottest thing I’d ever experienced, and this was coming from a girl that had a threesome with two underwear models. Mateo’s kiss blew my whole life out of the water.

I put my hands on his waist, feeling the silk of his clothes, the tautness of his stomach. The heat inside of me was growing to dangerous levels; every swirl of his tongue made me squirm, made me wet, made me want so much more than I could get right here.

“There you two are.”

The grating sound of Jerry’s voice broke us apart.

Mateo and I stared at each other, chests heaving from being breathless, his mouth open, eyes glazed with passion, trying to make sense of what had just happened, what line we had just crossed.

Then, together, we looked to Jerry. He was eyeing us down in exaggerated annoyance. “There is plenty of time for that back at the resort,” Jerry scolded. “You’re missing the awards ceremony. Vera, there may or may not be an award for you. But you won’t know unless you come downstairs. Come on guys, it’ll be good craic.”