“How did you convince me to do this?” Esteban breathes out a laugh.

“Simple.” I shrug. “You like me.”

“That I do.” His lips stretch to accommodate the bright smile that reaches his eyes, the same one that sparks explosions of warmth in my chest. No one has ever looked at me the way he does, like I’m the only thing that matters in his world. It feels even more special because I know how much he has going for himself. I know I’m the luckiest woman alive to have captured his attention.

No matter how I got here, I’m glad I did.

It’s a late summer evening in the town I’ve fallen in love with, and I convinced Esteban to go on one of those ghost tours I saw on the night we met.

We’re walking with our tour group, my arm wound through his, and despite the playful banter between us, we’ve been trying to listen to the stories our tour guide is telling.

For example, I didn’t know prior to the tour that there’s quite a few ghosts around Old Town. One is The Lady in Black, who haunts the Chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe. According to the guide, she’s one of the scariest ghosts in Albuquerque. She appears in the chapel and sits on the bench, praying or meditating…sometimes sobbing.

We aren’t given much of a backstory on The Lady in Black, and I can’t help but think about what kind of loss she must have experienced in her past life.

“What do you think happened to The Lady in Black for her to keep lingering in our world?”

Esteban shrugs. “Maybe her family was murdered. Or maybe she killed her husband or children, like La Llorona.” He sees the confused look on my face and elaborates. “She drowned her children in the river, but then regretted it and started wandering around the banks of the river looking for them.”

I purse my lips, and a shiver runs through me. Esteban feels the goose bumps on my skin and starts laughing at my expense. He disentangles himself from my hold, so he can place his hand on my back and caresses my skin, still covered in goose bumps.

“There, there. Where’s my fearless girl now?”

“Never said I was fearless,” I mutter. “More like too curious for my own good.”

“Are you going to be able to sleep tonight?” he asks in a tone full of humor.

From the corner of my eye, I see him smiling, amused, while I shake my head.

“I might need some company,” I mutter. “And maybe a shot of vodka to take the edge off.”

He laughs, then leans closer and whispers in my ear in his deepest, sexiest tone,

“I’ll be visiting you tonight. I’ll be the ghost between your legs making you come over and over again.”

My mouth goes dry and my eyes widen. I turn to him and meet his hunter-like gaze, promising a night of amazing, very naughty things. Yes, please.

He runs his fingers down my arm and I shiver again, then he takes my hand in his and turns to our tour guide, pretending he hasn’t missed a minute of what he’s saying.

We stop in front of La Fuente Hotel, which is just a few blocks away from Lupe’s store and my apartment.

“People familiar with Albuquerque’s history claim that the ghost of a judge continues to walk the hotel’s halls to this day. Then there’s the ghost of a disheartened salesman who jumped into the well after losing his company’s money.  The hotel’s dining room is located directly over the old well and hotel staff and guests alike have reported seeing a ghostly figure walking into the center of the room and disappearing into the floor.”

A chorus of “oohs” and “aahs” emerge from the people in front of us.

A while later, we stop in front of my favorite café. Esteban squeezes my hand and gives me a look.

“Nu-huh,” I say in shock. “No one has told me this place was haunted.”

“You didn’t know?”

“You knew?” I ask him, baffled.

“I might have heard something.” He tilts his head, and runs a hand through his hair nonchalantly.

“I come here all the time! Why haven’t you said anything?”

“I didn’t know if you cared to know or what. Have you met her?”

“Whom?”

“The original owner of the house, Sara Ruiz?”

“No, I haven’t. Wait…the old owner is haunting the restaurant?”

“Apparently they had to get in touch with her and call a truce because she kept interfering with the renovations when the new owner turned the house into a café.”

“And they’re on good terms now?”

“Sort of, I think…let’s see what the tour guide tells us.” Esteban raises his hand and asks our guide about the ghost of Sara Ruiz and what happened when the new owner turned her parents’ hacienda into a restaurant.

The tour guide tells us she can still be seen in the restaurant from time to time.

“Great. Next time I’ll be looking at every corner of the place to see if I can spot her.”

“You don’t sound excited at all,” Esteban teases. “I thought you were fascinated by ghosts.”

I shake my head. “Fascinated is a big word. More than anything I wanted to do this to tease you, since you were laughing it off on the night we met. I thought it would scare you. I’m curious about spirits and their reasons for lingering behind, but I also never had a supernatural experience, and I imagine it can sometimes be more terrifying than fascinating.”

Esteban places his hands on both of my arms, as if he’s trying to hold me in place.

“How about this? I’ll defend you from all of my hometown’s ghosts, should they decide to start bugging you. Does it sound good?”

I shrug and make a face, but in the end, I can’t help but smile at him. I blame it on him looking entirely too cute in the peach button-down with airplanes all over it. Who looks cute in a peach-colored shirt? Only him. Plus, no matter how tired he is or what kind of problem he has to deal with, he’s always in a good mood. Even when I can read on his face that he hasn’t had the greatest of days, he’s never curt and has the best disposition. It’s a refreshing change from my last partner.

“You know what I think? Ghosts are just like people after all. They usually linger on this earth because their soul wasn’t at peace when they died. They just need to be shown some respect,” he says.

“You’re right,” I tell him, and he kisses me on top of my head before taking my hand as we resume the tour.

 

 

Later that night, when we’re tangled up in my bed, we revisit some of the stories we heard, and Esteban starts talking about the one we heard about a woman who was murdered by her husband, because he believed she was cheating on him. The tour guide told us that the woman turned out to be innocent, and the man was placed in a psychiatric hold shortly after her death.

It was the last story we heard before the tour was over and it had, of course, made quite the impression on me. More than once since we were done with the tour I’ve seen Esteban glance in my direction, almost as if to check I was okay.

Finally, he decides to break the silence. “There’s something that’s been bothering me for weeks and I have to ask...”

“What is it?”

“Was it always like that between you two? Between you and Brad?”

“No.” I sigh. “It wasn’t always like that, which made it harder to find the resolve to leave. We never fought like that the first few years of marriage. Things weren’t perfect at first, but I thought it was just because we were still in that phase where we had to get used to being around each other all the time. We only lived together for a couple of months before we got married.”

“It didn’t get better over time,” Esteban says softly.

“No. And as years went by, he got moodier…crankier. It was just so hard keeping him happy. Sometimes there was no way to escape a fight. Sometimes I felt that if he was in a bad mood, he’d use whatever I’d say against me just to argue.”

“Was it because of his job?”

“Partly, I think? But with him, you’d never know. We could go months without fighting, and then there were days we couldn’t get by without an argument, I couldn’t get away from him being pissed about something. Some days, everything irritated him, and I felt I was walking on eggshells. And when a simple disagreement would turn into a violent argument...” I trail off.

“Did he hit you?” he asks, and I shake my head no, jaw clenched. He must read something in my eyes, because he runs his hand up and down my arm comfortingly, and after a moment he adds, “You know you can tell me the truth. I’m sorry you had to go through this.”

“He never did, but who knows…maybe if I stayed we would’ve eventually gotten to that point? I don’t know, Esteban. It was so hard for me to reconcile that the person I loved and married had so little respect for me so often.”

We’re quiet for a few moments, and when I lock eyes with him again, he’s wary, his fingers gently stroking my arm up and down. “He didn’t hit me, Esteban, but he berated me enough to made me feel little and insignificant too many times, and I hate that he made me think less of myself. I wondered if it was my fault so many times. Sometimes I’d tell myself I was the one who said the wrong thing, said the wrong words, underestimated how much pressure he was under. At times, I was in complete denial.”

“You made excuses for him.”

“In a way, I suppose.” I shrug. A lot of times. Too many times.

“You know it wasn’t your fault, right?”

“I do. I’ve known for a while I wasn’t the problem, but I didn’t think it was bad enough that I had to get away from him. You know, it’s funny. Of course, I’d thought about divorcing him before, but it was never more than a fleeting thought. I never felt ready to go through with it until we kept fighting during our trip.” In my heart, I’d sometimes hoped that things would change between us, get better. Other times, I’d just wanted to be done with him, and I’d dream I would eventually find someone who loved me as much as I deserved.

As I gaze into Esteban’s eyes, I wonder if he’s my future. In such a short time, he’s become so important to me. I hate even the thought of parting from him, almost as if there was a red string of fate connecting us, like the Chinese believe. I wonder if he feels the same way about me. When he stares at me so intensely with such mix of protectiveness and desire that makes his bright green eyes look like dark pools, I like to think he does.

“I’m still so pissed about the whole thing when I think about it, Ines. You have no idea how much I wanted to kick his ass.”

“I could tell,” I let out with a laugh.

“I mean, part of me almost feels thankful, in a way. If he hadn’t been such an ass to you, you wouldn’t have left him, and you wouldn’t be here with me now,” he says, caressing my arm up and down. “Maybe you would have left without me even catching your name,” he tells me with such tenderness that my heart starts drumming louder in my chest, and warm blood rushes through my body, making me feel alive like never before. It happens every single time Esteban says something sweet to me. I guess I’m still not used to his gentle ways, because they always seem to take me by surprise. I hope to God I never get used to it. When I’m in his arms, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.

The heat in my chest travels all the way down to my belly, stirring the most delicious of needs. Something he promised me earlier tonight comes to my mind, and I lick my lips in anticipation. He quirks an eyebrow, and his hand coasts along my waist, my hip, grabbing on the flesh of my thigh.

“What is it, LA woman?” he asks, and I let out an amused laugh, catching on his The Doors reference. Esteban’s eyes sparkle, brimming with delight. The grin stretching across his face tells me he knows what I’m thinking.

“Nothing, I just thought about something you said earlier…during the ghost tour.” Heat rushes to my cheeks and the grin stretches even wider across his face, bright and victorious.

“Do you want me between your legs, sweetheart?” His voice is smooth like velvet, and I can’t wait to feel the caress of his tongue on me.

“I do.” That’s all I can manage to say, as my throat clenches and desire almost consumes me.

He hooks an arm around my leg, spreading it wider, and my body arches in anticipation. He’s still hovering over me, his mouth a couple of inches away from mine. I thirst for his tongue, but he withholds his kisses when I try to reach forward.

“Fucking tease,” I mutter.

His eyes light up, and the smirk grows bigger once more. “So quick to judge,” he replies with a low growl, before his full lips land on mine. His tongue imprisons mine with slow, maddening strokes, before breaking the kiss, leaving me to gasp for air, as he starts trailing kisses down my neck, between my breasts, down to the slight slope of my belly. His nose brushes against the sensitive skin of my navel, making me shiver.

Wetness drips between my thighs as he teases the patch of hair on my mound, building the tension growing in my lower belly. Esteban’s mouth is my drug and I could never get enough. Whenever his lips touch my skin, he sets it ablaze. He plays me with expert fingers, already so attuned to my body, and when he spreads my lips and his tongue sucks on my swollen, trembling center, it doesn’t take long before I see stars dance before my eyes.