I sigh, sinking to my knees onto the overstuffed cushion and tucking my legs as delicately as possible underneath me. My skin is warm and tingly. The gas fire behind me throws off a surprising amount of heat.

Rafa returns after what seems like an eternity with an open bottle of wine and an oversized plate. He sets both on the table and drops to his knees on the pillow next to me.

“Only one wine glass? Only one plate?” I ask.

“We’re sharing. Abre tu boca.”

I open my mouth, and he pops a chorizo-stuffed date wrapped in bacon onto my tongue. I roll my eyes in pleasure as I chew and swallow.

We eat in silence for a few minutes, and then he flashes me a grin. “Let’s talk about our arrangement.”

I greedily snatch an empanada off the plate and take a bite. “Oh God, it’s ground beef. Where did you get these?” I grunt a little while chewing and mention a Cuban restaurant in town. “Their food usually isn’t this good.”

“I sent a plane to pick up food from Puerto Sagua.”

I blink several times. “You sent a plane all the way to South Beach to pick up Cuban food?”

He grins. “You loved Puerto Sagua.”

I pick up a croqueta. “That’s not very environmentally friendly.”

He pushes out an exaggerated sigh. “I know. But I wanted you to have your favorite. Figured you hadn’t in a while.”

I’m too busy stuffing my face with the delicious Cuban food to do anything but moan in pleasure. “Fried plantains,” I murmur. He spears one and feeds me the caramelized fruit, and I hum.

After several minutes of eating—with him mostly watching me, an amused and tender look on his face—I wipe my mouth on the napkin. “Um. So. Our arrangement. Are we going to have a written contract?”

He grins, shakes his head, and sips from the wine glass.

“No. The details are private. Between us. I do trust you to a certain degree, Justine. You wouldn’t tell anyone or leak this to the press, I’m sure of that. I know you’re like me, guarded with your own reputation, and I admire that.”

I nod. My stomach feels heavy, possibly from all the food. He lifts a shrimp and dangles it in front of my mouth. I tease it with my tongue and bite it sensually while looking him in the eye.

“Fine. And as far as the paper, we can do a story on Monday about the deal. I want to be as transparent as possible with the readers. I don’t want local bloggers finding out about this before my employees.”

“As you like. Are there any other conditions you’d like to go over?”

He feeds me another shrimp, and we stare warily at each other in silence as I chew.

“Yes. I want to remain publisher.”

“Absolutely. Although we might have to revisit that in the future if the paper’s not making money in a year or two.”

I pour more wine into the empty glass. God knows I need a bit of liquid courage to get through this conversation. Will he fire me if the paper doesn’t make a profit?

“What else, Justine? Any…personal conditions or rules?”

I sip the wine and pause to consider his question. “No ménage.”

Rafa rolls his eyes. “Coño. Of course not. You know how I feel about that. I don’t share myself or you. Especially not you.”

That’s one thing I’d always been grateful for. Despite his ravenous sensual appetite and our mutual love of sex, he’d never once suggested a threesome. I’m glad that hasn’t changed. I have nothing against people who want threesomes and moresomes, but the thought of Rafa touching anyone else still makes me physically ill.

“Okay. Good. So this is for a month? What if we want more?”

His gaze turns firm, businesslike. “A month. That’s all. Only sex.”

My heart sinks. Exactly as I thought.

“Let’s not crush each other’s hearts, okay?” I glance toward the fire, away from his suddenly sad eyes.

“Way too late for that.” His voice is low.

I straighten, and my voice takes on a clipped tone. “Right. What if I don’t feel like having sex one night?”

“Justine, I’m not going to force you. I’m not going to make you do anything that’s repellent. I won’t ask you to do anything that we haven’t done a thousand times before. Or have you forgotten the things we used to do?”

I shoot him a sharp look, and he laughs.

“I didn’t think so. I want us to enjoy each other like we used to. I think you’re going to be very happy at the end of the month.”

I arch an eyebrow.

“Muñeca. What are you afraid of? You’re getting exactly what you want. Anyway, I’ll probably have to travel a few nights. You’ll get a break from me.”

“Why? Are you planning on going back to Miami to screw a model or two? I find it difficult to believe you don’t have a girlfriend.” I gulp the wine.

“I told you. I’m single. And to answer your question, I might have to go out of town on business. I have a trip to Europe coming up in a month, and I have things to take care of beforehand. Coño, don’t think the worst of me. I’m not going to screw anyone else over the next thirty days. And I am asking you not to, as well.”

I open my mouth to ask him a question, and Rafa grins and stands up. He looks too damned sexy in in his jeans, simple T-shirt, and bare feet. “Hold that thought.”

I stare into the fire as I wait for him to return. His words are so businesslike and cold, yet his eyes sizzle with desire. Truthfully, he still captivates me as much as he used to. Maybe more, because he seems so much more complex.

“I made your favorite,” he calls out, padding into the room.

“Flan? You did not make the flan.”

“I did. It’s the one thing I made myself.”

With a proud smile, he sits and carves off a spoonful of the creamy, milky dessert. Seriously, this man might be the death of me.

“Abre tu boca, muñeca.”

I open my mouth obediently. He slides the cool, sweet substance in, and I hum, chew, and swallow. “You are so good.”

“I’m hoping you’ll be saying that all night long for all sorts of reasons.”

I join him in laughing. “You are also so arrogant.”

“I thought you said I was good?”

I take the spoon from his hand. Scooping flan from the plate, I offer it to him, pausing a few inches from his waiting, open mouth. He grins as we lock eyes. Slowly, Rafa licks the side of his mouth, the tip of his tongue curling upward.

My breath catches in my throat.

I slide the flan into his mouth. A drop of sugar-brown caramel remains on his bottom lip, and I brush it off with my index finger as he swallows.

He takes my finger in, swirling his tongue around the tip. The sensation sends an ache between my legs, and I squeeze my thighs together and stare at his beautiful mouth. In a few hours, or hopefully a few moments, he’ll use that tongue on many other parts of my body. The thought makes me want to rub myself on him like a cat.

I extract my finger from his mouth and sit up straight. “Good at too many things.”

He smirks. “Too bad you didn’t care about all of those good things back when we were together.”

I sigh. Way to kill the mood. “If I remember, you didn’t give me a second thought after I stepped on that plane to Managua.”

Rafa sneers, and I realize that his anger over how we ended still simmers below the surface. His voice explodes as he takes his hand away from my leg.

“That’s bullshit. I read every article you wrote and couldn’t sleep, thinking about you covering earthquakes and hurricanes and God knows what else. If only you had stayed where you belonged…”

“Stop. Right there. Right now,” I hiss. “I went to Central America because I wanted to write important stories and you didn’t seem to care about me at the worst time of my life. I also don’t recall you trying to stop me.”

He looks at me pointedly. “I didn’t care about you? I didn’t try to stop you? Well, that’s news to me.”

I hold up my hand. “Whatever. Usually people liberally use the L-word if they’ve been with someone for four years. I don’t recall hearing that from you in the final months of our relationship when I really needed it. Do I need to remind you what happened back then? Have you forgotten?”

“I have a perfect memory for painful events. And funny, the only L-word I recall was…leave. And it came from you, when you wanted to further your journalism career. That worked out well, didn’t it?”

We glare at each other.

“I’m going to ignore that jab.” I take a deep inhale. “And if this crazy-assed idea of ours is going to work, you’re not going to order me around. Not like you used to.”

Rafa chuckles and runs his hand over my bare thigh, his finger exploring my skin underneath my dress. “I can’t order you around in bed like I used to? That’s one of the reasons I want to do this. I’ve never trusted any other woman with that side of me.”

Waves of shivers go through me. “You know what I mean. Outside of bed.”

“Okay, okay.” He holds up his hands in a mock surrender. “Oh, and I have one request of you.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“Mark, the café guy, wants to take you to dinner. I’m asking politely for you to decline, at least until I’ve left town.”

“Fine.” When had he had the time to find all that out from Mark? And I can only imagine what Caroline told him about me. And Diana. He probably knows everything, including that my sex life with Jared had been tame and safe, like warm milk. Jesus.

“Also, are you on birth control? I can provide you a copy of my recent health tests. I’m completely clean. Was just tested before I came here.”

“Oh, so you did anticipate sleeping with me before you came here.”

“I wanted to be prepared, yes.”

I shift my legs away from him, uncomfortable in my dress and burning from the heat of the fire. Or maybe I’m aflame from his proximity. He dips his finger into the caramel of the flan and offers it to me.

I open my mouth, and he touches my tongue lightly with his fingertip. The custard is cool, his fingers hot. Just like our conversation.

Wrapping my fingers around his wrist, I slide his finger from my mouth. “I went to the doctor two months ago for my annual check-up. I’ll give you the records from that.”

He straightens his back, addressing me as if we’re discussing contracts in a boardroom. I half-expect him to send me an email summarizing our conversation.

“I don’t want to talk about who you’ve been with in the past decade and a half. I’m going to trust that you’re clean, but if you’re not, now’s the time to tell me. I don’t want to be exposed to anything. I’m not trying to be crass, but I don’t know where you’ve been over the years.”

I flash him a black glare as he skims another dollop of caramel off the flan and licks his own finger.

“Do you want to know where I’ve been and who I’ve been with, Rafa?”

“I don’t need to know about your past. I don’t want to know. I know enough, anyway. That you dated some anchorman.” He sounds offended.

“Ask me. Ask me when I last had sex.”

“Stop it.” His voice has an edge.

I know I’m pushing, but don’t care.

“I think you’ll be interested in the answer.”

He lets out a harsh Spanish expletive and shakes his head.

I whisper-shout my answer. “Rafa, I haven’t had sex in more than a year. Since Jared moved to LA. Since before that, actually.”

The words hang in the air, and my eyes bore into his. My arms cross reflexively over my breasts.

Rafael extends his hand, and his fingers touch the underside of my chin and tilt my face upward.

He moves toward me, threading his hand through my hair and pressing his lips to my cheek. “Want to hear about my sex life, Justine?”

I don’t, and my throat feels unusually thick. “Lay it on me. It can’t be any more shocking than anything else that’s happened so far with us.”

He chuckles. “I also haven’t been with anyone. For two years.”

I make a pfft sound. “What? You haven’t sex in two years? Come on. I don’t believe that. Are we having some sort of celibacy contest that I wasn’t aware of?”

“It’s true. I haven’t had sex in a long time,” he says quickly, then chuckles.

“Why? Why haven’t you been with anyone? That’s strange. And trust me, the bar for strange is pretty high this week.”

“It’s not important, and I don’t feel like talking about it.” Rafa sits back and takes his hands out of my hair. “Tell me about your ex.”

I shake my head. “Jared was a mistake, an honest one. We should have just stayed friends. He was smart and funny, and yet we didn’t have that…”

“Connection?” Rafa tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, and I nod once.

Somehow, by having mediocre sex with only a scant couple of boyfriends since Rafael, I’d remained, in my own way, true to him.

Stupid, illogical reasoning, I knew.

I sniffle a little as Rafael stands and carefully picks up the little table with his strong arms, moving it to the side of the room with everything still on it. He flicks off the floor lamp so that the only illumination comes from the fire.

He fiddles with his phone and Cuban jazz wafts softly out of a speaker on a nearby bookshelf.

My stomach tightens. This is what I’d wished for during a thousand lonely nights. So why am I wondering if this is a huge mistake? Rafa’s eyes are full of intensity as he steps toward me.

There’s no chance of backing out now. My body won’t let me.