Diego and I are giddy when we step off the elevator and onto the tenth floor of the Tides Hotel. An hours-long lunch meeting with the company’s CEO and his vice president in the hotel’s luxurious restaurant overlooking the ocean went better than either of us dreamed. We presented the reports, talked up the company and listened as Sergei, the CEO, praised Diego for his incredible streaming game idea.

I’ve never been prouder of anyone than Diego.

“It was all you,” I said, squeezing his hand. “Sergei loves you. This is a sure thing.”

“No, it was you,” Diego said, stopping in the middle of the hallway to grab me around the waist and twirl me around. Down a corridor, a maid stops next to her cart and stares at us. We don’t care. She breaks out into a grin. I’ve been noticing that people look at us, as if we’re shooting off invisible sparks.

Maybe we are.

“You saved my ass because of those reports and statistics you drew up last night. I’m a gamer. I had no idea they’d want to see our social media metrics.” He kisses my nose.

“Whatever. You would have sealed this deal without me. Sergei said it himself – you’ve created a revolution with the streaming game concept, by merging it with reality TV.”

Diego’s smile fades, and he looks at me, seriously.

“It’s all for you,” he says, quietly. “I wanted to be successful for you.”

He dips his head and brushes his lips against mine. I wrap my arms around his neck and make a cooing noise. I need more. I need him. Between his words and that tantalizing kiss, I’m willing to do whatever he wants right in the lobby of this five-star hotel.

Diego breaks from the kiss. “Beautiful,” he growls.

Grabbing me by one wrist, he pulls me to the door of the suite. We didn’t have time earlier in the day to actually check out the room before our meeting, only to register with the hotel and drop off our bags. The valet promised our stuff would be there later. But right now I don’t care if our luggage ended up in the ocean. I kiss Diego’s neck and earlobe, and because I’m wearing four-inch heels, it’s not a stretch to lean into him and tease his soft, sensitive skin. He fumbles the key and groans again while squeezing my ass with his free hand.

“Stop,” he laughs. “You’re making it hard to multitask.”

He finally gets the door open, and I gasp out loud when my eyes scan the room.

It’s the most gorgeous place I’ve ever seen. It’s all done up in white furniture and gold accents, and the huge windows overlook the electric aqua water of South Beach. There’s a long, white leather sofa on one end of the room, a desk topped with white marble with gold veins and a kitchenette. I fling open the minibar to find it stocked with top-shelf liquor and snacks.

“Oh my god, there’s Belgian chocolate, lots of liquor and…” I pull out a full sized bottle of champagne. “Moet.”

Diego walks up, slaps me lightly on the ass and takes the bottle from my hands. I float away to explore more, giddy.

The bathroom is even more luxurious, with a huge soaking tub that has a view of the ocean. I peek into the bedroom, which is all white. Mirrors of different shapes hang on the walls, reflecting the blue ocean outside. This must cost a fortune, and frankly, I’m stunned. We’re kids from an island, not multi-millionaires who stay in hotel suites. Then it dawns on me: Diego’s about to become a very, very rich man if this deal goes through.

“You like it?” Diego grins.

“Are you joking? I love it!”

Like a zombie that’s being seduced by a particularly tempting brain, I walk slowly to a door and open it. A wall of humidity and sunshine assaults me, and I feel overdressed in my dark gray sheath dress and black patent heels.

“Look at this terrace,” I say out loud, mesmerized at the wide space decorated with rattan furniture and lounging pillows on the marble tile deck. I step into a patch of white-hot sunshine and inhale the salt air. It’s late in the day, and people below are sunbathing and swimming. Even though we’re ten floors up, I can smell the sunscreen on the people below, as if the very air of Miami is perfumed with the essence of coconut and vanilla and sunshine.

My breath hitches when a dark thought goes through my mind. Has Diego been here before? How would he know this place existed? It’s not like he grew up with luxury. Was it because Sergei wanted to come here? Or maybe Diego had brought other girls here. He seemed so casual when we walked in and when he tipped the valet. Like he belonged here.

“Diego, have you….”

I turn, and he’s standing in the doorway watching me, wearing a smile and holding two glasses of champagne in his hands. He’s taken off his jacket, rolled up the sleeves of his white, button down shirt and looks like a young executive. My heart pounds. I'm giddy. And yet, I’m scared. Scared of him changing, of the future, of our past.

I’m being stupid. Maybe I’m exhausted since I didn’t get much sleep.

I figure now’s not the time to ask whether he’s been to the hotel before because he looks so incredibly happy. Walking slowly toward him, I reach for the champagne and pull his sleeve, tugging him to the terrace.

“Here’s to video game geeks,” he says to me, tipping his glass to mine.

We sip, and the bubbles tickle my nose. I've only had champagne once before, in New York, and I didn't much like it. I assume this is an expensive bottle, given our surroundings. It feels so sophisticated to drink the icy, fizzy liquid in the middle of the day as we celebrate together. But secretly, I don’t like the taste. Maybe it’s an acquired thing, and I focus on Diego’s eyes, which are rich brown in the bright sunshine, ringed with black.

“Here’s to you, my brilliant, incredible, handsome …”

“Boyfriend?”

We’d been finishing each other’s sentences all day during the meeting. I laugh. So does Diego.

“Yes. Exactly what I was going to say. Boyfriend.” I actually had hesitated to say it, because I wasn’t sure if that’s what he wanted me to call him. I trace his jaw with my finger and kiss him. My tongue explores his bottom lip, and he sucks in a breath. He tastes of fizz, and his tongue has hints of the chocolate cake we had for dessert.

“You’re delicious, Diego.”

“You taste pretty good, yourself.” He grins and bites his lip, then takes another sip of champagne. I watch a grimace flash across his face.

“Sorry, it’s my first time drinking this stuff,” he says, looking at the glass and tilting it. “I’m not sure-”

“If you like it?”

He shrugs.

I lean into his ear. “I’m not sold on it, either.”

We laugh, and he takes my glass and sets it next to his on a nearby table. Then he gathers me in his arms, and my heart soars. “I thought it was an excellent thing to do, have champagne with you, here. It was a dream of mine.”

Relief floods my mind. “I thought you’d had lots of champagne with lots of women. I wondered if you’d brought someone here before. Since you seemed so at ease.”

Shaking his head, a sheepish smile crosses his face. “I’m making this up as I go along. I’m a poor geek from New York-Puerto Rico-Florida.”

“And that’s exactly the guy I fell in love with,” I whisper.

He cups my face in his hands and kisses me. It feels different than all of the kisses that have come before. It’s urgent and slow and so very intense. Everything from my brain to my feet liquefies. From somewhere inside the hotel room, his cell phone rings and I groan.

“I’m ignoring that,” he murmurs. “Do you want to go inside?”

I nod. “Are you sure you don’t want to get the phone? It could be important. One of the guys in the house.”

He leads me into the hotel room and shuts the door behind me. The bright sunshine is now filtered through gauzy curtains. His eyes bore into mine, then sweep down my body. Liquid heat pools in between my legs and I can’t move I’m so nervous.

“You’re my only priority right now, Catalina.”

As he claims my mouth with a punishing, hard kiss, the phone continues to ring. The sound of the phone fades, and only Diego’s spicy caramel scent, his chocolate taste, and his beautiful mouth, remain.

He pulls back, and we look at each other, the air between us is thick with the weight of our past. Somehow this seems so much more serious now, as if we’re about to take a huge leap. Together. He strokes my jaw, then my throat, with his fingertip. I brace myself for a practiced seduction from someone who’s hooked up with lots of women.

But his touch is more reverent, almost hesitant, as if I’m a fragile piece of porcelain.

I look at his face. Something about the combination of the chiseled cheekbones, the flashing, near-black eyes, and his sensual mouth startle me. He was always my type, even as a geeky teenager. But now, he’s as gorgeous as any model. Or perhaps he's more beautiful because I love him.

My eyes are focused on his lips, and they come toward mine. He kisses me again, and I surrender. I can’t help but moan because we’re finally alone and he feels incredible.

His arms wrap around my body, and they haul me toward his broad chest. If he were to let go, I’d probably fall, because the nearness of him is too good, too masculine, for me to focus on such mundane things as standing up. His hands span my back and slide downward, grabbing my ass in full and pressing me into his ample erection.

A low moan emerges from my throat, and I give him my tongue, then hook my arms around his neck.

“Your legs,” he rasps. “I’m going to lift you up. Put your legs around me.”

In a movement that I thought happened only in the movies, he hoists me as I simultaneously wrap myself around him. I giggle a little, nuzzle his neck as he walks us over to the bed. He lays me gently down on the soft, white cotton duvet cover, and he stands over me, breathing hard.

“You’re incredible,” he whispers, his hands going to his shirt buttons. From my prone position, I scramble to my knees, not caring that my dress has hiked up and is showing my black silk panties, not caring that my hair has come undone from its ponytail and is flying all over the place.

“Let me,” I say, taking over the unbuttoning of his shirt. I pause to kiss him, realizing that I’m unable to both kiss and unbutton at the same time.

Diego nudges me back down on the bed, his shirt still half buttoned. His sinewy chest is exposed, and I run my hands over the ridges of his muscles. He’s half on top of me now, and we’re devouring each other’s mouths.

Clothes don’t seem to be an obstacle, because he’s spreading my legs apart. Stroking between my legs with his fingers. Making me even wetter. He growls and sits up.

“Lift your hips.”

I comply, and he swiftly takes off my panties. My shoes are still on. So are his. His hand goes back between my legs, and my clit is like a magnet for his fingers. I gasp at his touch. There. At first, his fingers lightly brush my wetness, then he develops a teasing rhythm. Slow and circular and designed to drive me over the edge of sanity.

“Diego, God,” I say, louder than intended.

A flash of panic crosses his face and his hand stills. “Do you not want this?”

“Of course I want this,” I respond fiercely. “Can’t you feel how much I want you?”

He strokes my clit faster and puts his mouth to my ear. “I can, Cata. I want to feel you come. Over and over and over. I’ve waited so long for this.”

I gasp again, and intense waves of pleasure build.

“You’re close, aren’t you?” he murmurs. “You’re ready. Let me see you come.”

His voice shoots tingling sensations through my body. I nod, unable to speak. I lean forward, searching for his mouth, and he presses his lips against mine as he continues to stroke my slippery folds. I feel my orgasm building, and I tilt my head back and cry out. He kisses my neck as I come, sending velvet waves of pleasure through my body.

“So beautiful. So sexy. Fuck, Cata.”

My need for him is now primal, beyond words, beyond thought. I want him inside of me. Now.

Fumbling for his belt, I manage to unbuckle it and unbutton his pants. We’re both grinning and kissing, and I’m reaching for his erection, and when I finally get to his cock, he sighs with pleasure.

I do, too.

“Are you on the pill?” he whispers.

I nod.

“I’m clean and have been tested but am going to get a condom in my bag –” He starts to get off the bed, but I grasp the sides of his open shirt and yank him back to me.

“No.” My answer is probably stupid, but that’s how hot I am for him. I don’t want to pause to take off clothes or put on condoms. I need him.

“Please, Diego. I want you inside of me now.”

In one swift motion, he’s on top of me. We’re both still fully clothed, but everything we’re wearing is rumpled, smelling like my wetness, disheveled. We don’t care. I hook my legs around his, and his pants slide down his ass.

He pushes into me with one hard stroke. I cry out again. Our need for each other is raw, and I feel like I’m going to burst from pleasure. “I can’t believe how amazing you feel. I can’t believe we’re finally doing this.”

“I can. I’ve thought about it and wished for it, Catalina.”

My nails dig into his back through his shirt, which is sliding down the straining muscles of his shoulders. I bite his neck, hard, as he drives into me. I need him so badly that I could weep, and I realize that it is a crime that I’ve lived six years without this man. I’ve lived without his mind, his humor and his love.

His love. Both emotional and physical.

In many ways, he’s the same as he was six years ago: urgent, attentive, fully present in the moment. Intent on pleasing me. And yet there’s a finesse about his movements that weren’t there previously, a certain confidence that’s both astonishing and so fucking exquisite. It’s in the way he grips one of my wrists with one of his strong hands. The way he fans his other hand around my neck and jaw, roughly moving my head to the side to rake his teeth over my neck. The way he buries his cock in me and twists his hips, making me moan while he looks in my eyes.

My geeky, nerdy, first boyfriend has turned into a sex god.

“I love the way you fuck me,” I whisper in his ear.

He groans as he thrusts, slow. “I’m sorry, Cata, I can’t control myself when you talk like that. I can’t go slow right now. Is that okay?”

“Baby,” I whisper in his ear. “Anything you do to me is okay.”

He cages me with his arms, thrusting his pelvis, his cock sliding in and out of me with long, forceful strokes. Joy surges through me as another orgasm builds from the friction of our bodies and I grin, no, laugh, at how incredible it all is.

“Perfect,” he whispers. “You’re perfect, Cata.”

“No, you. You’re perfect,” I murmur back.

He kisses me again, hard and urgent, and I wrap my legs around his waist. The backs of my heels press into his bare ass, and I try to be careful not to stab him with the stilettos. He growls again, then buries his face in my neck.

“Now, now,” he says, and I feel another orgasm roll through me. I’m helpless to control my body around him, and I think he knows it.

By the raggedness of his breath, and the way he arches his body against mine, I know he’s close, too. I put one hand on his lower back and my other on his head, drawing him closer into the hollow where my neck meets my shoulder.

He whispers something fast in Spanish, then chants my name, over and over. I can tell he’s coming. I’m overcome with a sense of falling, tumbling, into a vast chasm, replaced with a peaceful sense of bliss. We cling to each other, gasping. He slides both arms around me, and I hold on to him tight.

As we lay there trembling, I wonder what kind of inferno we’ve ignited.