Emotions swirled in my head at breakneck speed. Mateo glared at me, the little vein in his temple pulsing with each second of my silence. A tremor ran through me as I closed my eyes, blocking out his accusing stare. It didn’t matter, though. I could stare at the inside of my own eyelids as much as I wanted—it wouldn’t stop the sound of his voice from echoing in my head.

She’d always wait for me.

But I didn’t. We’d abandoned one another, choosing to believe the other had committed the ultimate betrayal because it was easier than accepting a darker truth. If we never spoke the words out loud, we wouldn’t have to face that deep down, we both knew the other hid behind secrets, scars, and lies.

When their backs were against the wall, lovers made the best actors, reciting rehearsed lines and playing their emotions in a well-orchestrated symphony like the maestro they’d trained to become.

It was all smoke and mirrors. Just like us.

“Say something, Star.”

Every time he called me that name, I died a little inside.

“I had no idea. I thought...”

He curved his palm around my jaw, the pressure balancing the delicate line between touch and force. “You thought I’d just walk away? That after everything we said, I’d break my promise?” His grip tightened, his thumb digging into my chin and pulling me forward. “Or is that just a luxury reserved for little rich girls?”

“I’m sorry for what you went through. I’m sorry I didn’t know you were arrested and sent to prison, but how is that my fault?” I meant to stay calm, but he pushed my trigger button dead center.

He’d grown a dark exterior that made me shiver. I recognized the feeling from fighting with Luis. Mateo wanted my anger. He wanted me to react and force vile words out of me, so he could justify turning me over to Valentin Carrera and clear whatever conscience he had left.

“How is it not your fault?” he growled.

Like I said, I meant to stay calm. Unfortunately, a bleak outlook and a racing heart shot my blood pressure through the roof and defiance out of my mouth.

A swift strike of my forearm knocked his wrist off my cheek. “Fuck you!”

“Did you even look for me, Star?” he demanded, anger thickening his accent. “Did you try to find out why I didn’t show up, or did you just decide you’d slummed it long enough?”

“You’re way out of line!” My palms flew from my sides and slammed into his chest. I might as well have tried to move a tree truck for as much as he budged. I muffled a cry of frustration as bitter tears clouded my eyes again.

“Am I?” he asked, ignoring my hold on him, his campfire eyes igniting into burning flames of accusation. “How long, Star? How long did you wait around?”

“My name is Leighton!” I couldn’t touch him anymore. Pushing off his chest, I somehow managed to knock him back a step or two, just enough for me to slide off the island and find stable footing.

This conversation was getting us nowhere, and I needed to get away. Unfortunately, the floodgates had opened and words I’d waited forever to say came rushing out in a riptide of blame.

“I waited three weeks for you to show up. I went to our spot every day—every fucking day, Matty, but you never showed. What was I supposed to think? You never told me you were a criminal. Why the hell would I assume you were in jail?”

“Well, Leighton, my apologies.” He smirked, blocking my exit again. “See, I’m just finding out that missing piece of information. You conveniently left it out. While we’re on the subject, you can call me Mateo. You know, the guy who shot a guy’s kneecap off, for Christ’s sake.”

I knew he wasn’t good, but I was drawn to him. He swept in like a dark knight on a black cloud, his danger calling to me on a level I didn’t understand. I craved it—needed it more than my next breath. I didn’t know who he was, but something inside me knew what he was.

That, it itself, made him all the more tempting.

I lifted my chin. “You never told me anything about yourself.”

“You never asked. So I guess that makes us even.” A hint of anger flashed across his bronzed features.

“Even?” I laughed. “Go to jail twenty more times. Maybe then you’ll be halfway there.”

“What did you say?”

“You heard me. You think being behind bars makes us even? Don’t patronize me, Mateo. I’ve listened to your excuse, and I’ve apologized for yelling at you, but if you think I’m going to put up with your sanctimonious bullshit, you can go fuck yourself.”

“Stop it.” His words were sharp.

“Stop what, telling the truth?”

He shook his head. “Acting out. You forget how well I know you.”

“Is that a fact?” Once again, I pushed past him, and once again, he blocked me.

“Yes, that’s a fact. You’re trying to provoke me because you’re scared. You want to fight me because you’re in too deep and don’t know which way to turn. You’re mad because you thought you had us all wrapped up in a bow to hand over to the DEA, but I showed up and fucked up your plan. Does that sound about right?”

I snorted, rolling my eyes so hard they hurt. “Not even close.”

“You say you hate me, but you won’t turn me in any more than you will Brody,” he pushed. “Do you want to know why?”

“Not particularly.”

“Because regardless of what this says...” He pressed the tip of his finger against the corner of my mouth and drew a line all the way across my bottom lip. “...this says something completely different.” Lowering the same finger, he traced an invisible line down my throat and hovered it over my left breast before opening his palm and pressing it over my heart.

His touch felt magnetic, as if the tips of his fingers were the positive charge to the dead negative I’d carried around for so long. Skin to skin, he ignited a spark, breathing life into the hole left inside me when I walked away from Houston.

“Matty...” I hated how needy and weak I sounded. I wasn’t either of those things. I’d survived so much in the last four years on my own, and I didn’t need anyone—least of all a member of the cartel I planned to destroy. However, today had been one crushing blow after another, and his comfort was a confusing solace.

His eyes met mine. “I won’t be your out this time, Star. Deal with having me around and get over it until this is finished.”

Finished.

Curling my lip into a sneer, I knocked his hand off my chest. “What are you going to do, turn me over to your boss?”

He answered my sneer with one of his own. “I could. One phone call from me is all it would take to snap this pretty little neck. No DEA agent, police officer, or even a brother on the inside could save you.”

There it was—the proclamation I knew had danced on the tip of his tongue, waiting to be set free. Running my fingers through my hair, I pulled at the roots and squeezed my eyes shut. “God, you’re no better than them. The DEA, Luis...you’re all alike. All of you can go to hell for all I—”

The rest of my tirade became lost in a flurry of motion. Mateo growled low in his throat, and before I could open my eyes, he had me pinned against the island again. This time, he gripped my hip with one calloused hand while digging the other into my hair and winding his fingers around the strands. He pressed our mouths together, the closeness wreaking havoc on my equilibrium. Our lips barely touched, but I felt naked as if he’d already possessed me.

Stillness hummed between us, yet he made no move to speak. I wanted to fight, but the need to give into my craving was too strong. His threats of brutality should’ve scared me, but instead, I was seduced.

“Mateo—” I tried one last time to reach him. Or maybe I was reaching for myself—the one I’d left in a bloodstained apartment in San Marcos.

My breath, voice, and thoughts were cut off the instant his tongue invaded my mouth, probing with insistent strokes until I could do nothing but respond. Mateo’s nails dug into my hip and scalp, and his groin pressed against me, forcing my fingers to curl around the edge of the island to keep from grabbing him. Our mouths could tell a thousand lies, but our bodies betrayed them all. Heat surged between my legs with every frantic kiss, and each accidental moan I made hardened his cock even more against my stomach.

I thought I heard him groan my name, but with lust rushing through my veins and roaring in my ears, I couldn’t be sure. All I knew was that one minute I was standing, and the next, I was lying flat against the cold marble with Mateo on top of me. When his hand slid from my hip and cupped my breast, I cried out his name, the sound garbled by his scorching kisses.

Breaking for air, he trailed his full lips across my chin and kissed a path down my neck before settling them into the hollow of my throat. Sucking my skin into the heat of his mouth, he reached for the rim of my tank top. I knew what he wanted and why he paused. I could’ve stopped him, but I didn’t.

My silence gave him all the encouragement he needed. With a hard jerk of his wrist, he yanked the stretchy fabric of my tank top and bra under my breast, leaving it exposed like a prize. Sliding his hand farther into my hair, he twisted it with a hard pull, causing me to arch my back and gasp. It wasn’t accidental. The move situated me perfectly, my nipple less than an inch from his lips. With my head thrown back, I couldn’t see anything, but I felt the moment he wrapped his lips around the hardened peak and sucked.

I saw stars. Not the kind we’d search for in the night sky, but the kind that blinded me, leaving me gasping for air and numb with desire. Rolling his deadly tongue over the peak, he captured it between his teeth, and heat bloomed in every crevice of my body.

I couldn’t take it anymore. Wrapping my legs around his waist, I reached for him and dug my fingers into his hair. Whimpering, I moved against him, needing more.

“More?” he rasped, letting my nipple slide slowly between his teeth.

Shit, did I say that out loud?

“I...I...”

His hand danced a heated path down my stomach, and I groaned as he trailed a finger across the denim between my legs.

“You have to tell me what you want, Star,” he commanded, his voice raspy. “If you want me to touch you, you have to ask nicely.”

“Yes,” I whispered.

Mateo drew his hand back up my shorts and popped the button. Holding my stare, he pulled down the zipper and dipped his hand inside. “Yes, what?”

“Yes, please?”

His tongue invaded my belly button, sending my hips arching off the marble. “Not good enough. I want to hear you say my name—my real name.”

I ground out every syllable. “Yes, please, Mateo.”

Immediately, a switch turned off, and the man who’d been devouring me like his last meal became a block of ice, removing his mouth from my skin as if it were poison.

“That’s right,” he said, his words harsh and cold. “Mateo. Me. Mateo. Not Luis. We’re not all alike, and I am better than that motherfucker. See, here’s the difference between him and me, Leighton. He had no morals...no self-control. This is self-control.” Slowly, he made a show of pulling his hand out of my shorts and then braced both of them on either side of my face.

I gazed at him in shock, simultaneously furious and mildly impressed at how well I’d just been played.

Leaning down, he hovered his swollen lips over my ear, his smile evident in his voice. “Don’t ever compare me to him again.”