Haven sat on the park bench, and slapped the card she held against the palm of her hand. She didn’t need to read the words on the card again to know what it said. As it was, she had probably read it one too many times already.
March 10th, noon. Be at the place where I first found you. —A.M.
She didn’t need clarification about where that was. And as much as she wanted to rip that note off her front door when she first found it, Haven hadn’t been able to do that, either. She took the note as a fucking sign, maybe. This was her last chance to say goodbye, and make it count. To really get Andino to understand whatever game he was trying to play with her was over now.
Maybe.
Nothing was ever that simple, though.
She heard footsteps approaching on the trail, but didn’t need to look up to know it was him. She had always been able to feel his eyes on her long before he ever spoke to her. Despite everything, that was one thing that hadn’t changed. Even if she wished it would.
“Right on time,” Haven said, glancing up from her hands in her lap.
Snaps stood close to Andino’s side with a stick in his mouth the size of a human arm. His dark eyes stared at Haven, waiting for her to greet him. She couldn’t help but put her hand out to the dog who then dropped his stick, and came forward all at once to get his love from her.
Short, yet soft, fur met Haven’s fingertips as she took her time greeting the pup. Snaps sat like the good boy he was, and accepted her silent hello with a wiggling tail against the cold ground.
Andino, on the other hand, had yet to say a word. Not that Haven was very surprised about that. She focused on Snaps for the moment. It was easier. The dog was far less complicated than the man he was always walking beside.
Or, that’s what she found.
Finally, Andino spoke. And even then, Haven chose to keep her attention on Snaps. “I wasn’t even sure if you were going to come today.”
“I shouldn’t have,” she replied.
Andino made a noise in the back of his throat. “That’s fair. But here you are, so that’s what matters, isn’t it?”
Was that what he thought?
Haven had news for him.
“You seem to be under some kind of impression that just because you make a demand, Andino, I must always follow it,” Haven said, glancing up at him. Unsurprisingly, he was staring right at her, entirely unashamed. In some cases, that made it easier for her to see what he was truly feeling when he made such a great effort to hide it, but not today. Now, he was a blank slate, and she hated that more than anything else. “I’m my own person, Andino, and I have my own life. I came today because I wanted to, and nothing more.”
Andino cocked his head to the side a bit, and his brow dipped. “Why did you want to come, then?”
“Maybe to tell you enough is enough. Or to ask my own questions. There’s a lot of reasons, Andino. And I doubt that even one of those reasons will match up to yours.”
He gave her one of his crooked smiles. A look she thought could do wonders for a woman’s body without meaning to at all. She was no fucking exception to that rule, even if it did make her weak to admit it.
She could hide it, though.
Therein lied the difference.
“But you didn’t have to come today to say anything to me or ask me a question if that’s what you needed or wanted to do,” he countered. “You have my phone number—though you barely use it anymore—and you know I’ll answer for you. If all you wanted to do was get something off your chest, and make sure to stay the hell away from me, you easily could have made a phone call. You didn’t need to come all the way out here in the cold to meet me on jogging trails, Haven.”
Did he want a pat on the back for figuring that out?
A congrats of some sort?
She was all out.
“You’re right,” she murmured, “I didn’t.”
“Then, again, why did you come?”
“Because I wanted to look at you.” Haven stood up from the bench, and Snaps was quick to get up on all fours, and move next to Andino again. She stared right at Andino, and refused to drop his gaze even when his face barely cracked with an expression or emotion. “Because I wanted to see your face when I asked you why you keep doing this to me. Why?”
Andino blinked. “What do I do to you, Haven?”
How could he not know? How did he act so blind?
She let out a bitter laugh, and waved a hand between them. “This. This right here, Andino! I thought I made it clear more than once that this was done—we’re finished. And yet, you keep inserting yourself into my life time and time again. Flowers on my doorstep, and notes on my door when I get home.”
Andino’s gaze drifted over her face in that slow way of his that made her feel like he was taking all of her in, and appreciating her at the same time. It served no purpose, really, other than to heat up her body and make her insane.
“Yet, you don’t actually tell me to stop doing those things,” he murmured.
Haven stiffened. “I have—”
“You have not. Like this, you rant and rave. But I think that’s more for yourself, than it is for me. It makes you feel better and not so fucking confused about why you smile every time you do find flowers, or a note. But you don’t call—you don’t send the flowers back.”
Haven gave him a look she hoped burned. “I shouldn’t have to do those things. My feelings should be clear.”
“They’re not. They’re far from clear.”
“A lot like yours, then, I guess.”
Andino nodded, and glanced down the trail. “Walk with us?”
Haven thought to refuse, but two things stopped her from doing exactly that. One, the way Snaps was looking at her in his expectant, happy way. And two, the way she felt inside. Exactly as Andino had said. He was good for that … calling her out when she didn’t want to face something.
Despite wanting to be done … they weren’t.
They were so far from fucking done.
“Walk with us?” he asked again.
Haven sighed. “Fine.”
• • •
“Your house hasn’t sold yet?”
Andino’s quiet question drew Haven’s attention away from Snaps who had found a spot along the side of the trail to dig. “How did you know—”
“My man mentioned seeing the sign.”
Oh.
“No, it hasn’t sold yet,” she replied. “The club is in the process of a sale, though.”
Andino raised a brow high. “The club, too?”
“I can’t run it from Florida, can I?” Haven shrugged. “At least, not hands-on like I would if I was here. That’s a problem for me, so I would rather just liquidate what I can, and use that money to help my mother pay for her cancer treatments and whatever other bills might come up. They don’t have a very big safety net.”
Andino cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize she was sick again.”
No, she supposed he wouldn’t. She hadn’t told him.
“I didn’t know either,” she admitted. “They hid it from me when I went to visit, and … well, I think they didn’t want me to worry or uproot my life to go and help her. Not that it mattered in the end.”
“Because that was the first thing you chose to do,” Andino said.
“Yep.”
How could she not?
“Besides,” Haven added in a sigh as she looked back at him, “it’s not like I have very much in New York to keep me here. Nothing is tying me down. Maybe a fresh start is exactly what I need.”
His green eyes blazed, but he said nothing other than, “What about your friend? Valeria, and her child?”
“Gone.”
Andino blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Val is gone—took off one night. She didn’t say goodbye, and didn’t leave me a note to explain where she went, or why. She warned me once that she might do exactly that if she felt she had to. She wasn’t legal, if you get my drift. It was still a surprise, and it hurt, but she did warn me. I have to give her that.”
The two continued walking on the trail side by side in silence. He was so close to her that she could feel the heat radiating from his body. And still, he didn’t try once to reach out and touch her or do anything more than just walk with her.
Haven appreciated that.
She also wanted everything else, too.
Fuck.
Why was she such a mess?
Why did this man make her this way?
“If the club sells, will you go even if the house hasn’t sold?” he asked quietly.
Haven nodded. “I will. The house can stay on the market for months, for all I give a damn. I won’t really be losing out when the mortgage is already paid, you know? It’s just a waiting game to sell a starter home in the current market.”
“I’m surprised the club hasn’t sold already. Businesses like that—proven ones—tend to fly off the market.”
“That’s what my realtor said, too.”
“And yet, yours is still there.”
Haven scowled. “I have a buyer. He—or she, who fucking knows since their lawyer is doing everything for them—is just dragging their ass through the process. But the offer was far better than the other two I was given, so it would have been stupid to refuse.”
Andino said nothing.
Haven was fine with that.
She went to take another step on the trail, but Andino was quick to stop her. It was only his hand snaking tight around her wrist and then tugging hard to spin her around that shocked Haven the most. She hadn’t been expecting him to do that when throughout their walk, he’d not once tried to touch her.
His kiss, however, didn’t surprise her at all.
That was most familiar.
He pulled her into his arms, fisted the loose strands of her hair, and closed the distance between them with a burning, searing kiss. His lips were haunting to her, she thought. Each graze, and stroke they made over hers. Soft, at first, and oh, so slow. And then faster, but harder, too. His tongue struck out to lap against the seam of her lips, testing the waters before she parted her mouth and let him inside.
That was all he needed, really.
What could have been an innocent kiss burned far hotter when he had an all access pass to love her mouth exactly how he wanted to.
The way she loved his kiss the most.
Deep, and aching, and true.
The taste of him on her tongue.
Salt, and man, and musk.
Those fingers of his tightened in her hair, and kept her close. Like this, though, there was very little chance she was going to push him away. This was predictable between them. Haven was not very good at refusing him—or herself—when they were this close, and he was kissing her.
It was the last thing she wanted to do.
That kiss of his slowed until he pulled away altogether. Still, even as she spoke, they were close enough for their lips to touch. His nose grazed hers, and their foreheads pressed together.
“I will be going soon,” she whispered. “When the club sells, and the ink dries. I have to go, Andino. I need you to let me do that, okay?”
There.
She said it.
Haven couldn’t be clearer.
Andino nodded. “Then, you will go.”
“And you’ll let me go.”
It was more than letting her leave.
More than knowing she would be gone.
It would be the end.
Of them.
An official end of whatever they were, and whatever they might have been. There would be no coming back from that because once she was gone, Haven wouldn’t be turning around.
Ever.
“I will let you go,” he murmured.
She still wasn’t sure she believed him. Or maybe that was just her heart wishing for things that could never be. Not now, anyway.
• • •
“You didn’t have to walk me to the house, but thank you,” Haven said over her shoulder.
Andino stayed at the bottom of the steps leading up to Haven’s house. Snaps had fallen asleep in the back of the car, and barely even moved when Andino got out to walk Haven to the door.
“Didn’t I?” he asked. “Who else is making sure you get home safely?”
She had the door unlocked, and the knob turning under her hand. She should have left his words alone, and just went inside the fucking house like a smart woman. She shouldn’t have turned around to look at him—for just one more peek—because then she wouldn’t have seen the darkness clouding his features. As if the jealousy coloring his tone wasn’t enough … no, she had to see that, too.
Goddammit.
Weak.
She was so weak.
Haven was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. Yet, when it came to this man, that’s exactly what she turned into. A stupid woman with little morals, and no real control over herself, or her wants. He took all of that away, and more.
“No one is walking me home,” she whispered, “or anything else for that matter.”
“But someone will eventually,” he countered, “and that someone won’t be me. That’s what kills me.”
Fuck him.
Fuck him for doing that to her.
For saying that.
Fuck her, too, for being this weak.
Without thought, she spun away from the door, and moved down the steps. Andino didn’t move until she was right in front of him, and leaning in close. Only then did he reach out to grab her, but she was already making her next choice.
The next fucking mistake.
It could only be a mistake, after all.
With the way they were going?
How they would end?
Of course, it was a mistake.
In one second, she was kissing Andino on the bottom of her steps. And in the next breath, the two of them were inside the house, and one of them had slammed the door. It was hard to think when his lips were on hers. It was impossible to make good choices when his hands were snaking under her clothes, and those rough palms of his were touching her in all the right places.
One hand tugging at her jeans harshly. The other, palming her breast after pushing her lace bra away. It was his fingertips tweaking her hardened nipple into a firm peak that made her pull away from their kiss just long enough to gasp.
He didn’t seem to mind.
His mouth went to her neck instead.
“Fuck,” he breathed against her skin. “Can’t fucking get enough of you.”
His hand had gotten her pants undone, although how, she wasn’t fucking sure. All she knew was that his hand was in her pants, and stroking her overtop her lace panties in the best way. He knew how to work her body with the least amount of goddamn effort to get her crazy, and ready to beg. She never understood how he did that.
“Wet already, Haven.” His tongue struck out against the hollow of her throat as his fingers slipped under the gusset of her panties. “You want my fingers, baby? My fingers, and my mouth, and then my cock? How do you want me?”
Wasn’t it obvious?
“Oh, my God,” she whined. “All of it.”
Was a flat surface close?
Fucking anywhere?
Andino’s hand ripped away from her body at the same time his mouth did. Haven didn’t get the chance to voice her disapproval over his loss because in the next breath, she was in his arms. He moved through her house like he’d done it a million times before. He climbed the stairs with fast steps all the while kissing her when she threaded her fingers through his hair, and pulled him in for another.
She wanted more of him.
More of his taste.
And then his kiss was gone, too.
Haven felt the way her body dropped through the air when he let her go. A brief moment in time when she felt suspended before her back hit the bed. Andino didn’t even give her time to realize what had happened entirely before he was on her. Those hands of his tugging and grabbing and pulling. Dragging her to the very edge of the bed before yanking her pants down fast and hard enough to make her muscles ache.
He didn’t need to spread her wide. Not when she did it for him.
She pulled her shirt up over her head, and discarded it somewhere behind her. She had to take her eyes off him for a single second to do it, which was a fucking shame. She didn’t want to miss the sight of him looking like he did right then.
All wild, green eyes trained on her. Coming for her. A muscled, firm body leaning over hers as he loosened his tie, tugged his shirt open, and she got a good eyeful of his chest and the path of lickable abs leading down to the hard-cut V of his groin. He discarded that shirt and tie on the bed, and popped open his pants with a flick of his hand against the button.
And even if just the look of him wasn’t enough for her … it was how he looked at her. How he took her in with a slow gaze, and the grace of a predator. Like he’d found exactly what was his, and he was coming to get it whether she was ready for him to or not.
He was perfect.
And fucking terrible.
Everything she wanted.
And nothing she could have.
There was no escaping it.
She knew it.
Andino let out another one of those hard groans of his that could make her wet from the sound alone when he peeled her panties down her legs. She was soaked—he didn’t need to confirm it for her to feel her arousal dampening her thighs.
Leaning between her spread open thighs, he was quite a sight. His broad shoulders filled the space, and his gaze was trained on her pussy. His tongue peeked out to swipe over his bottom lip, and that only served to make Haven shiver.
“Let me hear all of it,” he murmured. “I want it all. It’s mine.”
Like this, it was.
She could give him that much.
The second his mouth connected with her pussy, Haven’s body reacted on its own. Her back arched hard off the bed, and her hands flew out to find anything for stability. That just happened to be his shoulders.
Not that he seemed to care.
Andino was too busy eating her pussy like it was the last meal he was ever going to have to notice how hard her fingernails dragged across his skin. Every strike of his tongue against her clit accompanied one of those husky, approving groans of his.
Nothing made Haven hotter than that.
Just by his noise, she knew he loved the taste of her cunt on his mouth. It was only made better by his hands pressing hard against her thighs to open her up more, and the way he buried his face even firmer between her thighs.
He went back and forth between working her clit, to tunneling that tongue of his inside her slit. Licking and lapping up every bit of her juices, and keeping her thighs open for him all the while. Even when her gasps turned into high cries, he didn’t let up.
He only drifted away from her pussy just long enough to say, “Fucking shake for me, Haven. Scream for me.”
Those delicious sparks were back to light up her skin when his mouth was on her cunt again. They made her hot, and took away her breath. It didn’t matter how much air she tried to suck into her lungs, it wasn’t enough.
Every inhale burned.
Every exhale ached.
Heat shot through her body like a raging inferno.
She came so hard. Shouting his name just like he wanted, and entirely spun. Unable to catch her breath, and with her thoughts a jumbled mess.
Haven barely even registered being flipped over, and it was only when Andino’s substantial weight pressed into her from behind that her vision started to clear.
“Deep breath,” she heard him say. “And trust me.”
She did.
It was all she could manage to do.
Silk wrapped around her throat in two tight loops. Haven didn’t even have to ask what it was—his tie. A twist of his hand at the back of her neck, and the tie tightened more. Not to a painful point, but enough that her breaths were measured, and her body felt like hot lava.
“There’s my good girl,” he murmured along the back of her neck. “You look good like this, Haven. Ass high for me, thighs wet with your cum, and bound up in my tie. Fuck, too good, really. Do you want my cock now?”
Even her words had to be measured.
She chose the right one.
“Please,” she breathed.
“And you’ll lick me clean just the way I like when I’m done, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
Hell, she would beg to do it.
If that’s what he wanted.
There was nothing quite like the taste of her on his dick after he’d been fucking her.
“That’s what I want to hear,” Andino said.
It only took one flex of his hips, and a hard tug of her body into his, and he buried his cock into her aching pussy. Slick enough to take him, Haven relished in the way her body was stretched open for every inch of his cock, and the way he held her tight to his cock once he was balls-deep. That first thrust was accompanied by his palm slapping her ass.
With the next thrust, another slap.
And then another.
“Jesus Christ,” Haven whined.
She thought her voice was too high—too lost.
And yet, she didn’t care at all.
Not when he was fucking her like he was.
Deep, hard thrusts that shook her bed, and had her body aching for more. The tie around her throat kept her hyperaware of every single move he made. From the movement of his hips driving into her from behind, to the way his cock glided along her G-spot with every thrust. It only added to the bite of pain from his hand cracking against her ass with every other thrust, and she was so hot that it almost felt unbearable.
Except it wasn’t.
It wasn’t even close to enough.
Her cries became a catacomb of noise to her own ears—sounds that melded and mixed with the slap of skin on skin, and his rough words in her ear.
Who else is going to fuck you like this?
Who else owns you like this, Haven?
Who owns your body?
“You,” she choked out through the second orgasm that ravaged her senses. “You do.”
That was the terrible part of all this.
She was never going to escape him.
Not entirely.