Page 65 of XOXO, Valentina

My heart thundered in my chest, and my mind tripped down a forbidden path of what it might be like to share a life with this beautiful man. Waking up to the feel of his scruffy beard on my cheek, falling asleep in his arms, laughing at his jokes, and shattering to pieces under his talented tongue… The tightness in my chest made me ache for a something I hadn’t wanted in a very long time.

“Are you going to share it?” I asked, keeping my voice light as if this were a game and not my heart on the line.

“Maybe,” Joey said with a wink. He stopped and pulled me into his arms. “Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?”

My head was spinning so fast, I couldn’t think straight. This man was hitting all my buttons, making me long for things I couldn’t want, making me crave a life that wasn’t for me. “No.” The word ripped from my throat, too raw to be the answer to his simple question.

“You are always so beautiful.”

I knew he was a world class charmer, but God help me, when he said things like that and looked at me with those melted-chocolate eyes, I felt like the most loved woman in history.

There was that word again! The one that started with L and ended with heartbreak. I blinked up at him, snapping a lid on the fantasy in my mind before it took root and blossomed.

“Thank you,” I said when I found the courage to push words past the lump in my throat.

He kissed me. Soft and sweet. The touch of his lips on mine erased everything but him. It was way too easy to get lost in this man. Lost in his taste, his smell, and his touch, I became the purest version of myself. A woman only. Not a mother, sister, friend, daughter, or leader.

My needs boiled down to one thing: him. Joey was everything.

His tongue swept into my mouth. I swear, no one needed to tell Joey the secret to keeping a woman happy. He’d been born knowing it.

He rubbed his thumb across my lips, and a wave of desire pulsed between us, so palpable it hummed in the humid air. No wonder the tuk-tuk driver had thought we were newlyweds. We were acting like a couple in love. I suddenly wanted to be that couple in love, to live in a fantasy world, to feel what it was like to be half of another person’s whole, even if it was for just three days.

A strange lightness radiated through me, bouncing around inside my chest and bursting through all my carefully constructed walls. I might have a whopping happiness hangover when I got back to Mossy Oak, but it seemed like a small price to pay.

“You are the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.” I swallowed roughly. “I hope you don’t mind being called beautiful.” I backtracked, feeling as if my insides were showing, bleeding out. “You’re really handsome.” I was fumbling, not nearly as charming as Joey. “From the first time I saw you, I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

Joey laughed, and I exhaled quickly, letting my tension go. Hearing his laugh filled me with satisfaction.

“Hot for teacher?”

“A little.”

He bent to kiss me again and ended it way too soon to wrap his arm around my waist and lead me along the stone path to an open-air, beach-front restaurant with lights strung through the trees.

My jaw dropped as I swept my gaze around the tables nestled under a grove of trees. The sounds of laughter and soft jazz music filled the air. “It’s magical,” I said, unable to come up with a better word.

“Wait until you taste the food.”

The food was fresh from the sea. The menu was delivered from the server’s mouth in a rolling lilt of Spanish I didn’t have a prayer of understanding, but thankfully, Joey ordered for both of us.

The food came out on small plates, one dish at a time, and we devoured everything. The food was excellent and the ambiance divine, but the conversation stole the show. It was the kind of soul-searching adult conversation I craved. We talked about everything from childhood memories to favorite colors to our most embarrassing moments.

For dessert, we ordered passion fruit gelato and talked about love. It may have been the starry sky overhead, or the bottle of wine we shared, or the cool press of Joey’s lips on mine after a bite of ice cream, but my tongue loosened, and I confessed things I never thought I would.

“I love how love makes you feel invincible,” I said.

Joey spooned a bite of gelato into his mouth and cocked his head at me. “I love how it makes you feel vulnerable.” His eyes softened, peering at something in the distance. “That raw feeling in your gut… like you’re being ripped apart.”

My belly twisted. I knew the feeling all too well. “Like you’re getting ready to jump off a cliff,” I said, shivering a little when a salty breeze blew in from the ocean.

Joey slipped his arm around my shoulder. “And trusting someone will be there to catch your fall.”

Our eyes met and held. Tension sizzled between us. My heart squeezed, feeling too big for my chest. I couldn’t look away from him, but if I didn’t, I might fall right off that cliff. I’d had plenty of love in my life, but romantic love was different. I hadn’t felt it in years. The rush of love I felt for Joey couldn’t be real. I’d thought I’d had my shot at true love and I wouldn’t get another, but maybe I’d been wrong.

Joey cupped my shoulder, his fingers like hot little pads branding my bare skin. “Tell me about him,” he said.

I didn’t pretend to not know he was talking about Montel. “We fell hard,” I said. “I was so young that I didn’t think any of the bad stuff could happen to me.”

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