It takes another glass of wine, some halting conversation, and two more empanadas for me to calm down. I move to the bedroom because I want to unpack. Rafa follows me, smiling.

He’s stretched naked on the bed, staring at my legs, watching my every move. It’s been a couple of hours since our squabble downstairs.

I flit around the bedroom, unpacking my huge suitcase. I rip the price tag off a short, cotton baby-doll nightie and stalk into the bathroom to take off the oversized robe that he’d given me to wear. I haven’t worn cute lingerie for anyone in years, and I suck in my stomach as I look in the mirror. I’m a little fleshier than I was in college. On the plus side, I think I have better hair. I had the most ridiculous styles when I was younger—crazy colors and post-punk. Now it’s longer, softer, my natural chestnut color. I run my fingers through it and make a duck face in the mirror. I take my contacts out and put my glasses on. My lips look puffy and red from all the kissing. I squeeze some clear gloss on in hopes they won’t get chapped.

I yank the door open and return to the enormous bedroom, where Rafa is relaxing on a giant, four-poster Spanish Mission-style bed.

“Do you approve?” I ask, twirling around.

“It’ll do, at least until I rip it off you.”

I smirk in his direction and return to my suitcase. I bend over, and an electric thrill washes over me because I’m not wearing underwear.

I haven’t been this provocative in a long time. After the first couple of years with Jared, he’d ignored my seduction attempts. I’d somehow assumed that all men were like Rafael—hot and hard and hungry all the time—and that I’d inspire that in Jared.

I was wrong.

I pull a few books out of my bag and look up at Rafael. He’s still naked and staring at me with his head tilted. I watch as he cups his balls and gives them a gentle tug, then slides his hand to his shaft.

Fighting back a smile, I turn to the bureau to arrange my mini-library. I glance back, and his hand is still on his cock, moving up and down. Which is now fully erect.

“You’re so bad. I’m just about finished, can’t you wait?” I ask with mock-annoyance. I kneel at my suitcase to pick up some shirts. I hear the bedsprings creak and, out of the corner of my eye, see Rafa get up and walk to the other bureau. He pulls out a belt from a drawer.

He stands in front of me, belt in hand. “Justine. Stay on your knees, but turn around and face me.”

I obey, then look up and grin. I’d always loved playing the part of a submissive for him.

“You like what you see, don’t you, muñeca?”

I nod.

“Tell me what you need.”

I grin. “Your cock. In my mouth.”

He chuckles, and I love hearing the sound. A searing heat pools low in my belly as he winds the belt in his hands and kneels. He threads the tail end of the belt through the buckle, then again so it forms a figure-eight. My heart speeds up, and I bow my head and touch my hands together behind my back. Rafa’s laugh washes over me in a low rumble.

“That’s my girl. You know what to do.”

He winds the belt into the two circle shapes, wraps his arms around me, slipping the makeshift handcuffs over my wrists, tightening the slack with the tail of the belt.

My skin prickles when he gathers my hair in both of his hands and gently drapes it over my back. Then he slides his hands around to my front and pinches my nipples with his thumb and forefinger, just enough to make me whimper. My nipples poke into the fabric of my nightgown.

“So fucking gorgeous.”

He stands, and I gaze up through my glasses and take a few hard breaths through my mouth.

“You can look at me, Justine. But don’t speak.”

I slowly lick my lips when I see a droplet of fluid on the tip of his cock.

“You know what to do.”

With his hand, he angles himself to my mouth, tapping my bottom lip a few times gently with the tip. I open. He places his head on my tongue, and I notice that he closes his eyes and groans as I wrap my lips around his sensitive skin.

“Si, si, si,” he whispers, sliding slowly into my mouth.

I take him all the way in. My wrists tug against the leather belt restraining me, and I moan deep in my throat. I haven’t been restrained in years, not since before everything went to hell with us, and I’m weak with desire. But not too weak to rake my mouth over his shaft and drive Rafa crazy, though.

“Justine, now. Now.” He cradles the back of my head with his hand. “Swallow.”

I do.

* * *

I wake to Rafa’s groans. And not the good kind.

This sounds like someone’s strangling him, almost like he wants to scream but can’t. The noise startles me out of sleep, and I gasp and sit up in bed. A half-moon glinting through a window gives off just enough light for me to see Rafael. He’s beside me, lying on his back, his eyes screwed shut. He’s kicked the sheets off, and his fists are clenched at his side.

Oh shit. He still has the nightmares? I clap my hand over my mouth, hesitating. Hoping he’ll settle and go back to sleep.

“No, no,” he whispers, then follows with a long string of Spanish.

I shake his arm. “Oh God, Rafa, you’re having a nightmare. A dream.”

Before, he never liked to call them nightmares. Said that because they were always of the same, real event—how he came from Cuba to Florida by boat as a boy—that I shouldn’t call them by such a negative name. They were reality, not nightmares, he’d say.

But I knew otherwise.

“Baby.” I squeeze his bicep. I turn on the nightstand light, frowning with worry.

He’s covered in sweat, and his eyes fly open.

“You still have them?”

Rafa nods. I can tell he’s trying to regulate his breathing. “Not as often. Only when I’m really stressed or stay in a new place.”

“The same dream?”

He struggles to sit up, propping a pillow behind him. “If you mean, the same dream about my mother abandoning me, being afraid of sharks circling a boat in the Gulf of Mexico, and my stomach burning from hunger, then yes. I do. It’s kind of difficult to forget those things.”

His voice has taken on a bitter, resigned tone. I nod. “Do you still wake up with the headaches?”

“Si, I do,” he says through a clenched jaw.

I swallow. He moves as if he wants to get out of bed. I stroke his forearm. “Stay here. Please?”

Kissing his forehead, I touch my palm to his sweaty cheek. There are tears in my eyes as I head for the bathroom. He hasn’t gotten better, not after all these years. He’s still angry with his mother and the way he’d come to the US as a child.

First I fill a glass of water. Then I run a washcloth under cold water and wring it out.

Dammit, Rafael. You have all the money in the world. Why haven’t you gotten help?

I sigh when I can’t find aspirin in my cosmetics bag, then I spot his leather dopp kit on the counter. I open that, not caring about his privacy. To my surprise, I find what I’m looking for and return to bed.

Rubbing his hands together fast, he presses his palms to his face, passing them over his skin as if to wipe away the nightmare.

He glances at me. “You found the lavender oil in my bag.”

I hand him a glass of water and two aspirin. “I’m surprised you still use it. You were so skeptical of herbs and oils when I first gave it to you.”

“I don’t travel without it now.”

Rafa gulps the water all in one shot, and I’m awash in memories. After one of his nightmares during our senior year in school, I’d asked him why he drank fast like that, when he was usually so controlled with everything he did.

Because it tastes the same as it did when I was six, the day the boat landed on Miami Beach and a lifeguard spotted us and handed us a bottle of water. Like promise and freedom, Justi.

Now, Rafa looks younger and vulnerable, and my heart thumps hard. He flops back on the pillow.

“I still hate for you to see me like this.”

I sit on the edge of the bed, naked. I lick my lips and gently wipe his forehead and cheeks with the washcloth.

“Just like you used to.” His voice is tender, and I swallow more tears.

I drape the washcloth over his forehead and open the little bottle of lavender oil. I carefully rub a few drops between my fingers.

“Shhh,” I say.

I drop the washcloth on the nightstand, then massage the oil into his temples. He closes his eyes.

“Justine…”

“Shhh.”

My long hair brushes over his chest. Softly skimming the cool cloth over his shoulders and his arms, I lean forward and press my lips against his.

He scoots down and lies flat on the bed. I extinguish the light. Stretching onto my side, I wrap myself around his torso. He slips an arm underneath my shoulders and draws me closer. I kiss his chest and he sighs. While I blink away tears in the darkness, his breathing grows long. He’s asleep now, but it will take me a while to get over the past few minutes.

When I was younger, I accepted his dreams as something that was a part of him. He had his own emotional baggage from the past—being a Cuban exile—just like I had my own issues with my mom’s and brother’s deaths.

And when I left him, I hadn’t thought about his nightmares or his past. I could only think of saving my fragile self. A rush of guilt, mixed with an ache of longing for what could have been, tugs at a space inside my chest.

Now that I’m older and back in his arms, I wonder if either one of us has ever truly forgotten the past. And whether a month will be enough for either of us.