We don’t even make it back to the car.

After exiting to the cobblestone street below Dani’s apartment, Tavo grips me by the hand and pulls me to an alcove at the entrance of a now-darkened shoe shop. We’re escaping to the shadows where no one can find us.

Tiny Euro cars park along the sidewalk of the deserted street. A single street lamp burns at each end of the block, but here in the middle we’re obscured. Television noises and laughter and music sound from wrought-iron balconies above us. We’re hidden.

But even in the murky blackness, I can see the fire in his eyes, a fire I’ve seen before. When he sang. When he walked me in the orchard. When he first met me. Although it’s even more intense now, I’m not scared. I’m thrilled and so turned on.

He backs me to the wall and leans in. At first, we’re fumbling in the dark until his soft lips find mine.

And we split the night with our kiss.

I kiss him because I want to. Because I don’t want to listen to anyone telling me I can’t. Because I need him. He is the missing piece to my puzzle, the final clue to my mystery. As I kiss him, I shut out my obligations. I shut out my duty. I shut out my family.

We’ve kissed before, but this one is different. This one, after our talk in the Alcazar, is more open to each other. A communion. We’re breaking free from the faces we’ve shown to each other and are now connecting even deeper. We know too much about each other. He’s exploring my lips like he can’t get enough. My face like it’s his to own.

My hands? In his hair. My body? As close to him as I can get. My breath? On his, and his on mine. My tongue dances flamenco with his. Sevillanas, tango, cha-cha. A dance of devotion, which becomes frenzied. I kiss him back like no one knows I’m kissing him.

No one does. It’s my little secret.

His hand, his rough, work-worn hand cradles my ass over my skirt like it’s a rare fruit, something that needs to be treated delicately. He hikes up my skirt and slides down into my panties. I’m so lost in him I don’t even care that we’re in public. I’m swollen with blood and lust and longing. I welcome his fingers inside me greedily. I want him in me. I want him doing what he’s doing. I want him making me whimper.

He captures my whimper with more kissing. I cant my hips toward him, as he circles my clit with his thumb and does a come hither motion inside me with his middle and ring fingers, rubbing the rough part inside. I’m running fast into the wind. I’m jumping off a cliff in the dark.

My world shrinks down to one thing—the way Tavo feels against and inside and next to my body. To Tavo. All solid man and wanton carnality. I’m straining against his fingers. I’ve been so wound up for him for so long, I’m gone now. I don’t know where I go, but I come. Hard. Wetter than I’ve ever been, faster than I’ve ever come before, I release. His hands hold me up as I wail in his mouth, and my body quakes like I’m possessed.

This is the holy orgasm I needed when I first got here. Finally.

He brings me down gently. His fingers still move in me, letting the waves crest and calm on his fingers.

“Next time I do that to you, I do it with my tongue, amor,” he growls.

I should be sated, but I’m not. I’m crazed. I run my hand inside his shirt and feel his satiny skin—his muscular, lean, insanely strong back that can do more grueling work in a day than most humans. And he’s tense. While his ramrod cock strains in his jeans and butts against my bare leg, his veins pop on his neck and forearms. I slip my hand down the back of his pants and pinch his butt cheek.

In response, he locks eyes on me and sucks his finger, the one that was just in my panties. With satisfaction, he closes his eyes.

“Dios, Kim. You taste amazing.”

We’re looking both ways to see if anyone comes by. No one does. But it’s like making out in Grand Central Station—someone could stroll by at any time of night, even though we’re off in an alcove. We need to go before someone finds us.

But I’m not letting him go before he gets some too.

“Kim,” he whispers, “we need to—”

I fall to my knees, undoing his solid, Spanish leather belt. He grunts as I unzip him and feel his cock over his underwear. It must be perfect. Not porn star huge, but plenty big. My interior muscles clench and want more.

As I slide my hand inside his waistband and pull down, I see something metal on his crown.

He’s pierced.

There is a stainless steel barbell going through his dick at the tip.

O-M-G.

I stumble back. How much did that hurt? And it’s fucking awesome.

The scorching heat he throws down on me doubles my resolve. I lean closer and begin stroking him with my hand—jacking him off—being careful of his piercing. He tries to pull me up. “Amor, I want you in my bed.”

“And I want you now,” I murmur, and close my mouth around him before he can protest more. The round metal ends of his piercing brace against my tongue and the roof of my mouth and click on my teeth. He’s hard, he’s silky, he’s pierced, he’s fucking—

“Joder,” he bursts out.

I love it when he starts swearing in Spanish. It’s different than the few foreign curse words I heard in the United States, because I guess those are from Latin America. But he’s letting out a low stream of dirty Castilian Spanish. I don’t know all that he’s saying, but it’s so musical and beautiful and glorious and obscene in a different language, which makes it translate to glory in mine.

He’s too big for me to take down my throat, so I pump him with one hand and suck in rhythm, every once in a while swirling around his tip with my tongue, which makes him gasp.

I run my tongue around the stud and gently tug, enjoying the piercing, letting it roll around my tongue. He hisses in response.

And I know. I know this strong emotion I feel for him. And he feels for me. I want to feel it again and again and again. I want him to be all mine.

“I need you to come,” I say.

“Vale, vale.” His dick becomes impossibly straight. His balls pull into his body. There’s a pause. And he starts pumping into my mouth. Warm spurts of glorious pleasure. Salty but sweet. Tasting like Tavo.

And fuck, that’s the most erotic thing I’ve ever done. Enough for me to drop some F-bombs. That felt so good. He tasted earthy and human and sexy, and I’d do it again and again. I look up to him with satisfaction, and he runs his fingers gently along my face with tears of happiness in his eyes.

After hurriedly getting Tavo’s pants straightened and dusting off my knees, we run to the car but keep stopping to kiss on the way. I taste a little like him. He tastes a little like me, and it doesn’t matter. I want everything to do with him. Anything at all.

Normally, when he drives, he’s in no hurry.

Tonight, he speeds.

As we drive, I think about what we just did. I’ve only given a few blow jobs in my life, and they weren’t totally appreciated. While I don’t want to be thinking of Shane at a time like this, I can’t help myself. We’ve already broken up, I just need to confirm it. To hear him agree. Because this is what I deserve. A man who is fully in the moment, experiencing life with me, not someone planning for a future one that never comes.

Tavo reaches over and pushes back my hair. “The rainbow colors suit you.”

“You like it?” Even if he’s an effusive Spaniard, my soul is greedy for his compliments, and I let them soak in.

“I do.” He grins. “You like the Príncipe Alberto?”

“The what?”

“My piercing?”

“I do.” Oh, I do. It’s painful and sexy and erotic.

“I want you to feel how good it is.”

“I can’t wait,” I murmur.

When we get back, we park by his house and tread softly into his casita, not turning on the overhead lights. I stand in the middle of the room while Tavo turns on a light in the bathroom, then lights some candles. I catch a glimpse of my face in the mirror.

Wild, crazy-colored hair. Kiss-stung lips. Makeup blurred.

It looks like I’ve been fucked passionately, and I’m feeling that heat right now. I’ve been feeling that frenzy since I arrive in Spain. I can’t stay away from Tavo. I can’t stop thinking about him. I’m finally doing something for me.

I felt this way when I made the decision to go to Spain, but I came here with fetters. Now I’m on my own, deciding my next course of action.

And I know just what I want to do. Even if what I’m doing is wrong, I want to experience the wrongness. I want to stop being so afraid of making a mistake or offending someone else that I never live.

If I’m fucking up, I’m going to do it feeling awesome.

The low light of Tavo’s house is warm and comforting, and it smells like him—clean and manly. When he strides toward me, I rush into his enveloping arms.

“Kim, are you okay? We don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to. I’ll never push you. Are you sure?”

For a moment, I think about his question. I’m overcome with the enormity of our entire day. We’ve spent the day being a couple, trying new things, hanging out with new friends. We gave into desires and I took what I wanted. I even allowed myself to be wanton with him back in that alley.

And now, I hope, we’re going to be doing something even more overwhelming, hedonistic, and deliciously forbidden.

I don’t care about anyone else’s opinion. All I care about is this man. I want him to explore the shadowy recesses of me, the parts I didn’t know existed.

“I want to be with you, Tavo,” I whisper. “I want you so badly.”

His dark, soulful eyes gleam. “Tell me that again.” I shiver under the power of his gentle command.

“I want you.” This time I say it bolder, with my back straighter, staring into his eyes.

“How much?” The words pass his lips not as a test or a tease, but as simple curiosity stated almost as a command.

I tell him the absolute truth. “I want nothing else. No one else. Just you.”

I barely finish the words before his mouth is on mine, his tongue demanding entrance. He breaks away with a growl. “Amor. Mi amor. I want no one but you.”

Our lips meet, and we fuse. As he kisses me, he steps toward the bed, guiding me to it, one dance step at a time. My zealous hands slide up his back, into his hair, and pull him to me from the back of his neck, meeting his waist with mine. His hardness is insistent against my body. My skin zings and pings. He kisses his way all over my face, open-mouthed, messy kisses, like he can’t bear to stay away from me, like he’s feasting on my taste. He bites my earlobe and licks the back of my ear. I shiver, and my nipples harden. My body releases wetness into my panties. I’m so turned on.

He’s a whirl of assured hands and licks and kisses. He unbuttons my shirt, and I let it fall down my shoulders, then he takes off his thermal and stands before me. He stretches, lifting up his arms and showing me his six pack. This is a problem. When he’s not wearing a shirt, I lose things.

Like my mind.

“I’ve wanted you since the day I got here,” I pant. “You turn me on like no other. I can’t stay away from you. You make my blood run faster.”

“I feel the same.”

“When I’m with you, I feel free to be me. Is that selfish?”

“If it is, I don’t care. I’m being selfish right now, and I want all of you for myself.” He pulls my skirt down, and now I’m standing before him in my underwear. Then he’s kneeling before me, taking my panties off with his teeth.

He stands and kisses me as if I were a life-giving force, then picks me up with his hands under my ass and throws me on the bed. I lie naked and waiting for him.

My brain turns off, and I’m not thinking. I’m feeling. I’m in the moment, this moment, and I’m alive. He’s alive, and he’s with me, and we’re together. Finally.

He’s studying me naked on his bed in the low light, stroking himself over his pants, lost looking at me. It’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. I want him rubbing me. I love that he’s giving me this. He’s open to me. He has all this affection and devotion inside him, and he needs to get it out.

But he stops rubbing himself and comes to the bed and hovers over me. With an incorrigible grin, he parts my legs, looks up at me with that beautiful face. Those powerful shoulders. That messy hair. His warmth.

And he sticks his tongue in my belly button and runs it slowly down my torso to the apex of my thighs. He throws one of my legs over his shoulders and pushes the other one so that I’m more open, and he starts kissing, licking, inserting a finger inside me doing one thing while his tongue does another.

I’m looking down at the top of his head, his devotion, his attention. I’m starting to shake. My body is stuttering. I’m so wrapped up in the decadent pleasure of Tavo licking my clit that little bursts of light begin to flash behind my eyes. His fingers rub and tease and coax, and I’m shuddering. My whole body is in on this. My whole body is waiting in anticipation for the moment that is coming like a force of nature.

With his nose on my mound and his fingers in me and his tongue on my clit, I come so hard I scream. Light explodes behind my eyelids. I’m sure a sea somewhere parted. I’m not going to recover.

He waits until the waves of my orgasm settle and I'm ready for him. Then he drops his pants and lets me see the whole of what I felt and saw in the dark before.

A glorious, astounding cock, pointed up to the sky. Powerful thighs. A narrow waist. He is divine in every sense of the word.

“That didn’t hurt?” I ask, gently reaching for his piercing as he again hovers over me.

“It hurt very much, but it was worth it. I wanted it for your pleasure.” I pull his waist toward me, but he holds himself away.

“Come to me.”

A variety of emotions pass over his face. “I’m torn between not wanting to wait another second and knowing you deserve me taking my time.”

“Tavo. It’s okay to let go.”

His eyes lock on mine. He nods. “You are so beautiful, Kim. So beautiful.” And with a thrust, he is in me, and I am one with him. We are joined. We are together, and we are one.

Outside, the wind stirs up, causing peaceful, musical wind chimes to peal softly. Inside, in the half-dark of his room, on an olive farm in southern Spain, I am being fucked by a Spaniard with soft skin and hearty eyes. With dark hair that tumbles as he thrusts. With a face that gets even more beautiful and abs that become more defined as he moves.

“Kim,” he grunts. “You are so much more than I ever dreamed. And I’ve of you dreamed a lot.”

I run my fingers up his biceps. He leans down low, his chest close to me, and starts doing this little uptick. I grind down on him, start meeting him with my hips coming up. I open my mouth to talk but can’t say anything. I’m taken on this ride, and I’m overwhelmed in the best way.

We’re dancing in harmony. In unity. We are connected, and it’s glorious and furious.

“This is what I’ve wanted, Tavo. I’ve wanted it so bad. I’ve wanted this moment with you, so bad.”

“And I with you.”

With him, I’m so open and free, so insanely relaxed. I’m going to come again, I know it. The bar rubs my insides just right, and it’s almost too much to bear. I love his cock in me. I love how he feels. I love the way the ring rubs against me. He was built for a woman’s pleasure, for my pleasure, for my body. He’s so wonderful to look at, to feel, to be with. To feel inside me. Warm, pulsing, strong, confident, caring. And he keeps going and thrusting and somehow it makes my body come even more alive. I can feel the atoms move. I can feel the electrons swirling around.

I lose sense of my body. I am deconstructed. I don’t care about anything but this moment and being with Tavo now, right now while he fucks the hell out of me. I cannot handle this. I almost scramble so he’s more into me. I wrap my arms and legs around him so tight, wanting him to swallow me whole. To make me part of him.

“I’ve never felt more alive,” I whisper.

“Me neither.” My kind, passionate Spaniard knows what he wants and takes it. He is for me. He is the one for me.

And as my boobs shake, I feel the quickening again, how my body reacts to him, how he’s giving me the pleasure and taking it for himself, how his base rubs my clit just right. How I’m about to—

Come.

I’m falling with no parachute. I’m flying. I’m clutching to him for safety, and he’s holding on to me, looking me deep in the eyes like he’s trying to get inside me. “Amor,” he grunts out, and comes. So deep. So lost. A release of worlds into me.

I’m going to be deliciously sore in the morning. But it’s so worth it. It’s so worth it to be with him.

His soft skin moves over his defined muscles as he breathes. I like watching him breathe. I like watching the way the tiny downy hairs point up when he’s sensing something. I like tracing the veins of his forearms and the prominent one down his bicep.

I stretch out on his bed. He’s resting his head on my belly, and I’m playing with his hair. My legs bark with aches, but that’s a small price to pay for what I’ve just experienced with Tavo. A warm bathtub will soothe my legs, but I don’t need to soothe anything else.

I’ve never felt so spent. He’s wrung me out like a wet cloth, and I’m now limp and needing to gather up my power so we can connect again.

Because hell yes I want to do this again. I want to do this for the rest of my life. I want nothing but Tavo for the rest of my life.

He lifts his head and moves, positioning me on my side so he can cradle me from behind, strong arms holding me to him.

“Amor,” he murmurs into my neck.

I didn’t notice when, but at some point tonight he stopped calling me “guapa” and started calling me “amor.”

Love.

Is this Spanish overstatement again? I don’t care. I know it feels wonderful hearing it in his seductive voice, and I’m so seduced. He can seduce me any time he wants.

Turning over so that we’re nose to nose, I muse, “I had no idea a piercing felt like that.”

I get a mischievous grin in response.

I tuck my head under his chin and keep talking, quietly musing to myself, but letting him in on the thoughts in my head. “You oozed pheromones, though. I couldn’t even deal with one car ride with you.”

“Pheromones? What is that?”

God, I love his accent.

My fingers trip up his arm. “You ooze man.”

“Man?” I can feel his grin on the top of my head.

“Man.”

I play with his bicep. “This is man.”

He gives me a low, husky, sexy laugh. “Es verdad.”

“I know it’s true.” I continue down his torso. “This is man.” I poke his belly button.

“Es verdad, también.”

“This is man.” I stroke his cock, and it wiggles.

“Basta ya,” he says, and grabs my wrist with his hand.

“Are you ticklish?” I ask.

His eyelids fly open, and his nostrils flare. “No.”

“You are, aren’t you?” I flip him over and straddle him.

He lets me do it and gazes up at me. “No.”

Leaning down, I get in his face. My hair drops down onto him. “Liar.”

“Well, just a little bit.” He shrugs.

I reach out and tickle him, feeling the striations of his muscles on his side. He tickles me back, and somehow I end up on the bottom with both of us panting, our foreheads pressed together. Then he flips us again so I’m on top, and I collapse on him, purring into his chest as he strokes my hair. I’m feeling safe and drooling a little. As usual.

But can you blame me?

“We’re two butterflies in a comfortable cocoon. I don’t ever want to leave,” I say.

His dark eyes flick to mine. “You don’t have to. You’re meant for me. When I saw you the first time at the aeropuerto, everything else dropped away. I only see you. No one else. You are what I desire.”

I run my finger down his arm as he palms my ass. “I feel the same. But more. Noises outside are clearer. Colors are brighter. I pay more attention to my senses. And I’m living right now. Right. Now. I’m enjoying the feel of you. The smell of you. The taste of you. You.”

He nods. “And I as well.”

A tear forms in my eye. “So this is what an orgasm feels like, given by someone else.”

He squeezes me. “You haven’t—”

“No.” I wipe my eye. “Never by someone else. You’re my first. I normally have to give them to myself.”

“Kim,” he whispers.

And I realize by the tone of his voice that this connection between us is intense and life-altering.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he says simply. “And now I’ve found you.” He takes my hand and looks at my ringless finger for a moment. Then he smiles and kisses the place where my ring used to be.