“Stop fucking playing with me and tell me, Benni. Tell me you want me as badly as I”…thrust…“Want”…thrust…“You.” He thrusts a third time—as deep inside me as my feelings for him extend—and holds me down, his cock throbbing and pulsing against my walls. “Fucking tell me! Dimelo!”
I have to shake myself out of it, goose bumps pebbling every inch of my skin. He drilled it in, put the final nail in the coffin this morning. And yet, as I sit here in the sand, looking out into the Atlantic, I still can’t wrap my head around it all, to begin with.
It just seems so far-fetched, like I’m setting myself up for pure and utter failure.
You already have.
The lightest breeze rolls through, cutting through the humidity for the briefest moment. I breathe it in deeply, relishing the warm, comforting scent of the salt water not so far away. The sky is only slightly overcast, but it reminds me of his eyes no less.
Of him and the hurricane-force winds he’s brought right to my door.
Flipping my phone over, I take note of the time. With just ten minutes to five, I unlock the screen and tap into my recent calls, scrolling a short way down to find his contact. Before the first ring blares, I’m already setting it on speaker, holding the bottom of the phone up to my ear.
It rings and rings and rings some more until I hear, “Please leave your message for—”
I end the call, sighing out a heavy breath. I’m starting to get antsy as fuck, and my ass is going numb. Feels like I’ve been sitting here for hours. I’m tempted to kick off my Chucks and roll up the bottoms of my black jeans to dip my feet where the tide washes in, but then I’d have to deal with the lingering wet sand, and I just got my car washed on the way here.
I’m good on that.
Sounds of laughter draw my attention over to the pier on my left. A group of young kids, all of them probably about eighteen or so, sprint down its length in a carefree laughter to the parking lot. Only one straggles behind. He’s the biggest of the bunch, smashing down a taco in two beastly bites. That’s something my brother would do, bubbling a quiet laugh in my throat as I hop onto my feet.
I haven’t got much of an appetite right now, but I could go for a drink. Hell, with the conversation I’m about to have when Ángel gets here, I need one. Running back to my car, I pull my wallet free from my purse, then make my way up the pier’s ramp and into the restaurant, Quarterdeck.
In the eighteen years I’ve lived in Miami, I think I’ve been here maybe twice. It’s light and airy on the inside, the entire perimeter surrounded by windows and a variety of oceanic decor. There’s a decent crowd around the semi-circular bar, but it’s not overwhelmingly busy. I amble right over to it and lean on my elbows over the bar top. The bartender acknowledges me with a friendly wink, a silent signal he’ll be with me as soon as he’s filled the order before me.
Takes the man a while, but about twenty-ish minutes later, I’m slipping out of the restaurant and back down the pier with a cold beer in hand. That first welcome sip hits the damn spot, promising to fuel me with the courage I can never seem to find around Ángel unless it involves his dick. It’s then I realize he’s not responded to my text yet.
With a quick hand, I yank my phone from my back pocket and go about the motions of another outgoing call. It rings through to his voice mail just like the last time, prompting me to navigate through a couple screens to our text thread as police sirens blare in the near distance. I keep the message short, typing it out with only one thumb.
Me: Are we still meeting up?
I stand there in the middle of the ramp, my eyes boring into the screen, willing those three little dots to appear. All the while, people walk around me, some bump into me. I couldn’t care less. I’m more focused on the fact that nothing is happening, absolutely nothing. Where is he? Is he still wherever the fuck he is? Did he end up leaving earlier than planned?
Mind racing with a string of scenarios, I blow out another anxious breath and stuff the phone back into my pocket, heading down the ramp to the parking lot. The beer bottle sweats in my hand, dripping a cool trail beside me. I’m not sure what to do—if I should bother waiting anymore at this point—but I’m going to have to finish this beer before I can leave. I didn’t just waste twelve dollars on this thing.
Bringing the bottle to my lips, I tip my head back and start chugging, eyes watering through the burn. Idly, I grasp the warbled sound of those sirens growing closer, but I don’t stop, swallowing gulp after gulp of the hoppy goodness.
Until a series of tires squeal, snapping my head up to meet a cavalry of red and blue lights.
What the hell?
I scan the lot—everything and everyone around me. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. Everyone—including me—stands stock-still, waiting to see what the fuck is about to go down.
Two cruisers and three SUVs screech to a stop, not twenty feet away from me. Seconds later, there are at least ten pigs blowing out of the doors, each one drawing their pistol as their feet touch down on the sand-dusted asphalt, their aim in my general direction.
“Benita Adriana Villanueva?” one of them barks, shooting my heart up to my throat.
What the hell is fucking happening right now?
I’m by no means drunk, not even tipsy, but I can’t seem to make sense of it. I’m suddenly light-headed, my mind in a hazy fog from the beer I just chugged. “Yeahhh?” I drawl.
I barely blink, and a handful of them run up on me, including the one who just identified me. “Give me the bottle and put your hands behind your back,” he orders.
My grip tightens around the neck as I shuffle back a few steps. “What? Why?”
The pig offers a humorless laugh and pulls out his cuffs. “Because you’re under arrest; that’s why.”
“Under arrest? For what?” The stupidest question I could have possibly asked, considering there’s a long list of reasons why.
“You know why,” he answers, spinning me around just as the bottle’s ripped from my grip, completely disarming me.
No—this can’t be happening!
It just can’t! From my throat to the deepest pit of my stomach, my heart free falls, shattering into a million pieces. I’ve been under the radar for almost three years, keeping everything clean and organized. I followed Ángel’s suggested plan, too, adding my own personal touches here and there when necessary. There’s no way they could know what I’ve been up to.
None.
At least that’s what I’m trying to convince myself as they’re trying to cuff me.
Trying being the operative words because I’m blatantly refusing to let him put those cuffs around my wrists. Every wiggle and thrash of my body compresses his hold on me by the second. I know the whole lot is watching this go down, but I don’t care. I’m not going down for this. I can’t!
“You can’t do this!” I yell! “You can’t just roll up on me and arrest me without probable cause!”
“We do have probable cause, plenty of evidence from following you around!” the one who apprehended me yells back.
“Bullshit!”
“Stop resisting, Villanueva! You’re making it worse for yourself!”