“Where’d you learn that?” I shout back, turning off the road to what looks like a good spot, with a wide spread of uninterrupted sand and the stars so bright that they’re nearly a light source.
“Don’t worry about it,” she fires back teasingly as I park the bike. “Seriously though—this is way out here.”
There’s a nervous quaver to her voice again, and I twist around, looking at her. She looks a tiny bit pale in the dim moonlight, and I reach down to grasp her hand. “I promise this isn’t a trick, Gabriela, or something bad. Look in the saddlebag, there.”
She turns, unsnapping the bag. “Oh,” she says softly as she pulls out a folded blanket and a bottle of wine. “A midnight picnic?”
The delight in her voice tells me this was the right decision. I’d been worried it was a bad idea, that she’d panic and think I was kidnapping her, or find something approaching a date too strange for what our relationship is supposed to be. But instead, when she looks back at me, her eyes are glowing with excitement.
“I think this is the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me,” Gabriela says softly, swinging her leg over the bike. I catch a glimpse of her soft thighs beneath the dress, a hint of black silk between them, and my cock twitches in my jeans.
She’s beautiful every time I see her, but something about her tonight seems particularly so. I don’t know if it’s the realization that all this might be coming to an end very soon, or the velvet box containing the necklace in my jacket, or the way she slides her hand into my elbow as I take the bottle from her and she holds onto the blanket, but being here with her makes me wish that the night could go on forever.
“I hope you don’t mind being out in the desert at night.” I glance at her. “I know it might be a little dangerous—snakes and all—but I hear if we shuffle our feet in the sand—”
“I’m pretty sure that’s a myth,” Gabriela says with a laugh. “But I don’t live in the city. I’m used to it. The desert doesn’t scare me.”
“Oh?” I glance at her curiously. “I assumed you had an apartment in the city.”
“No.” Her hand tightens on my elbow as we walk up the dune. “A little bit outside of it. I still live with my family. They’re—old-fashioned.”
“So they wouldn’t like you being out here with me tonight?” I tease. “A motorcycle-riding Irishman from the States, come to seduce their daughter on his vacation?”
“Oh, so that’s the accent,” she says softly. “I’d wondered. Irish?”
“Aye.” I thicken it a little for her benefit, leaning into the word, and I feel the small shiver that goes through her as she bites her lip and looks up at me sideways.
“I bet you do that to all the girls.”
“Not recently.” As we get to a good spot just beneath the moon, I spread out the blanket, taking her hand to help her down onto it. “I had a bit of a dry spell before you. Bad breakup, I suppose you could say.”
“Oh?” Gabriela looks at me with interest. “Who broke up with who?”
“Do you really want to hear this?” I glance at her. Saoirse wasn’t a topic I’d planned on bringing up tonight. “Most girls don’t like to hear about old lovers. Not that we ever were really—”
“So you were together, but you didn’t—” Gabriela’s brow creases. “Now I am curious.”
“Like I said, it’s complicated.” I reach for the bottle of wine, uncorking it as I hand her one of the two stemless glasses I’d packed in the saddlebag. “She wasn’t my lover, or my girlfriend, not really. She was married, and we—”
“You had an affair?” Gabriela purses her lips. “You didn’t strike me as the type.”
“I’m not,” I tell her honestly. “I’ve never cheated on a woman, and I’ve never dated one who wasn’t single too, before Saoirse.”
“Saoirse.” She shapes the odd syllables on her tongue, the name sounding strange in her accent. “What kind of name is that?”
“An Irish one. Her father arranged a marriage for her she didn’t want—rich people things.” I don’t dare mention the Kings or anything about the mafia to her; I don’t want her to run screaming. It’s not an easy concept for someone outside our world to wrap their head around, and it’s not the last impression I want Gabriela to have of me, either.
She doesn’t look as shocked by what I’ve said as I expected her to, though. “So she wanted to have you on the side? Without her husband knowing?”
“With his permission, actually,” I say with a bitter laugh. “Well, he wasn’t too fond of me being the one. But they had an arrangement for an open marriage, I guess you’d call it.” I take a sip of my wine, recorking the bottle and setting it aside. It’s dark and red, dry on my tongue, and I glance over at Gabriela. “What do you think? Of the wine, I mean.”
“It’s good. I like red wine.” She dips her head to take another sip, looking up at me over the rim. “So things didn’t work out?”
“Like I said, it was—”
“Complicated,” Gabriela finishes. “But how?”
I grunt, taking another sip of the alcohol, feeling mildly irritated that this was the direction the conversation had taken. I wanted a night of romance with Gabriela, just one, something to round out our fling and give her one more type of night she’d never forget—not talk about my ex. But something about the curiosity in her eyes tells me she’s not going to forget about it, and I might as well just explain.