“It must be all this wedding pressure,” I thought she mumbled.
Daniel, who I had completely forgotten about, said something under his breath and reached for the bottle of sidra. It was empty, so he placed it back on the table and bolted in the direction of the bar.
“Ven aquí, tonta.” Gonzalo pulled my sister into his arms, tucking her head under his chin. Then, he mouthed over her head, More alcohol.
Yep. Only that would save the night if the bride was weeping.
Especially when it was over a story that wasn’t true.
Because it couldn’t be.
It was all a lie. A deception.
Aaron had played with the truth. Just how I had asked him to do. He had adorned it, altered it so it fit this charade we were staring. It was nothing more than that. We were still the same Aaron and Lina who had left New York.
And on that note, Aaron would still be promoted to my boss.
Did you hear that, stupid and delusional heart? No more weird business.
Where Aaron Blackford was concerned, it was all an act.
* * *
By the timewe rolled into the next spot, the club—and calling that to the modest and scrubby bar that doubled as a club at midnight was a stretch—I was ninety nine percent sure I might have crossed the tipsy border and walked right into drunkland.
The remaining one percent was divided. With all that sidra pumping through my veins, it was hard to discern if the way I felt had everything to do with the alcohol or if it was partly due to the man who had been watching over me like a hawk.
Aaron had stopped drinking at some point between Isabel’s waterfalls show and the arrival of the rest of the bachelorette and bachelor party to the sidrería. Which I wasn’t sure was a good thing. He was completely sober, and that meant, tomorrow, he’d recall every single detail of the night. And that wasn’t good. Not when every time he touched me, my body came openly alive, and then I proceeded to melt to the floor. And definitely not when every time he dipped his head to ask me if I was doing okay or if I was having fun, my heart decided that my chest wasn’t roomy enough and plunged itself to the pit of my stomach.
As for the rest? Well, I was mostly preoccupied with the way the loud music was filling my ears and spreading all the way to my hips and feet as we navigated the crowded and dark place.
Moving forward into the sea of bodies with the rest of the party in tow—or not because chances were, we had lost them—I was unexpectedly shoved back a couple of staggering steps. Aaron, who had been walking very close behind, intercepted me. His arm came around my waist, and his palm landed on my hip.
In one swift motion, he had me secured against him.
Just like I had experienced about a hundred twenty times that night, all my nerve endings were instantly charged with electricity the moment my back came into contact with his front. Every inch of my skin that was flushed against him heated. Even through the thin fabric of my blouse and his button-down.
His long and strong fingers squeezed my hip.
Turning my head to look up at his face, I didn’t care that my lips had parted and that my eyes probably looked hazy and a little clouded. Just how I felt. But then again, it wasn’t like I could conceal it. For whatever reason—the alcohol in my system or Aaron’s closeness—I simply couldn’t hide it.
So, instead, for the first time, I let myself enjoy it. Let my whole focus be on him. On all the points where our bodies touched and on the way he looked down at me. I focused on Aaron and on the way he was holding me against him as we blocked the way further inside the bar.
Keeping our gazes locked over my shoulder, I allowed my back to relax into him. And something danced in the blue of his eyes. I thought he was going to smile, but his mouth pressed in a serious line.
“You got me,” I said over the blaring music. “My savior. Always coming to my rescue, Mr. Kent.”
A part of me knew that was mostly the alcohol talking. But Aaron didn’t answer. His lips remained sealed as I watched his throat work. Someone behind him called us. Or perhaps it had come from the opposite side of the overcrowded bar. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. I was going to tell Aaron to ignore it, but then he somehow tugged me under his side. Wrapping a large hand around mine at the same time.
I liked that. Far too much. So I didn’t complain.
Aaron guided me through the place as if he were the one who had spent countless nights here when he was younger. The bar was every bit as gloomy and packed with swirling bodies as I remembered. The music still boomed too loudly, and the floors were sticky with spilled drinks.
I loved it.
And I loved that Aaron was here with me tonight too. I loved that he protected me from those who accidentally—or drunkenly—pushed and shoved.
I loved many, many things right then. And I had the need to tell him.
Stopping, I turned around and went on my tiptoes, hopefully going somewhere near Aaron’s ear and not his armpit or something because that would be really embarrassing. “Don’t you love this place? I do. It’s nothing like New York’s fancy-schmancy clubs, huh?”
Aaron leaned down, his lips hovering over the shell of my ear. “It’s very … authentic.” He paused but didn’t retrieve his mouth from that spot. A shiver crawled down my back. “At first, I was a little wary. I’m not gonna lie.”
I felt the corners of my lips tugging up. Yeah, the place was definitely not Aaron’s style.
“But now …” he continued, and his lips brushed the sensitive area below my ear, making me melt and come to life, all at once. “Now, I think I could stay here until the sun comes up. Maybe even a little longer.”
My lips parted, but as I was ready to speak, someone pushed me, and the words were ripped off my tongue. I was shoved further into Aaron’s body, this time front to front. And I immediately felt against me all the hard planes and lean muscles I had witnessed shining under the sun that morning.
Something beneath my skin quickened, almost like a zap.
My body urged me to obliterate the last inch of space between us. It was crazy how much I wanted to do that. I felt the urgency in my blood. As if my heart were pumping pure madness across my body. Making me reckless. So much so that my arms lifted of their own accord, my hands linking behind Aaron’s neck. I watched his eyes widen for just a heartbeat, and then something simmered and flared in his gaze. That blue blaze wiped clean the surprise, replacing it with something that looked a lot like hunger.
Everybody else around us was dancing to a beat that my hazy mind seemed to remember from something. It was Latin; it was decadent and fun and what summer nights in Spain were usually made of. Without really knowing how, my hips started moving. Aaron’s hands shifted to my waist. And we were dancing. The memory of doing that with him not so long ago blindsided me for an instant. How ironic it was that we’d found ourselves in the same situation so soon after and that we seemed like completely different people.
It didn’t make sense.
But I didn’t care. Not tonight.