This time is sweet and slow. It takes longer for both of us, my body is exhausted, and his is wrung out with pleasure and orgasms. At one point, he threads his fingers through mine, raising my hands above my head and holding me there as he fucks me in long, slow strokes that seem to touch every inch of my inner body with the thickness of his cock, setting me alight with pleasure.
When the orgasm comes, it ripples through me, my back arching as I feel Niall drive deeply into me once more, filling me with that pleasurable heat. He rocks against me, clinging to me, only to let go of my hands so that I can wrap my arms around his neck the way my legs are clasped around his hips, fingers brushing the nape of his neck as I kiss him again and again.
I don’t know what time it is, but I know I must be dangerously close to leaving too late. If I miss my window when the guards at the gate change, I’m likely to be caught, and all my careful planning and sneaking off the past week will be for nothing.
Niall slips out of me, and I feel a small, rebellious hope that one of the times he came in me tonight stuck—that I’ll have a secret part of him forever, a secret fuck-you to the man who will control my whole life from the moment he slips a ring on my finger.
I lay there a little while longer until Niall falls asleep next to me. I don’t want to say goodbye, or I’m afraid I’ll slip up, that I’ll tell him how much he really meant to me. I don’t want to cry in front of him. I want his last memory of me to be how we just were together, and as I quickly slip back into my clothes, I look for a piece of paper and a pen. I can’t bring myself to say it aloud, but I don’t want to leave him with nothing, either.
Niall,I write, scribbling quickly as I glance nervously out the window.
The few nights I’ve spent with you have been the best of my entire life. I’m sorry I have to say goodbye, but I do. We can’t see each other again after tonight. Please don’t look for me. Let’s leave this the way it’s been—perfect. I hope you make it home safely, and I hope that for the rest of your life, you’re as happy as you’ve made me.
Love,
I hesitate, wanting with every fiber of my being to sign it,Isabella.It seems cruel that he’ll always remember me by a name that’s not mine—but I can’t give him my real name. He’ll know I lied, then—and anyway, wasn’t I a different person with him, in a way? Wasn’t I Gabriela, instead of the cartel princess whose entire life hinges on one responsibility?
I sign it Gabriela, tears filling my eyes and sliding down my cheeks as I do, and then I reach for my purse. I look back once more at Niall, sleeping atop the duvet, and I want to go to him more than anything. I want to stay.
But I don’t. Ican’t.
When I’m safely back in my own room, the door shut behind me as José’s footsteps echo down the hall, I let the tears come for real. I look at my closet, at the red evening gown chosen for the gala hanging there, and I think of Niall in the hotel room miles down the road and the note he’ll wake to.
It’s over. My brief taste of freedom is finished.
One week from now, I’ll find out who my father has chosen for me to marry.
And I’ll never see Niall again.
21
NIALL
When I wake, I don’t expect to find Gabriela there. I had a feeling last night would be our last—something in the way she wanted everything she could have from me, the way she clung to me as if she didn’t want to let go—but the note that I find on the nightstand only confirms it.
I read it over twice, my heart clenching painfully in my chest. I can see where the ink is smeared, where tears must have fallen, and I know she didn’t want to say goodbye. Neither did I. But what other choice was there? Once the Santiago gala is over, I’ll be heading home, hopefully with good news for Liam and Connor. I’ll move into a new role with the Kings, and after that—
I don’t know what the future holds. But I know there’s no place in it for a girl that was never meant to be more than a one-night stand.
Fuck.I fight the urge to crumple the note in frustration, slipping it into my wallet instead. I glance back at the bed, the still-rumpled duvet where we’d fucked over and over last night, and let out a long breath.
I hadn’t thought fucking a girl in the ass could ever be romantic. I’ve done it a few times before, always in the context of dirty, rough sex, the kind you’re a little embarrassed to remember in the morning. Girls I never saw again, who just wanted my cock while I growled in their ear about what a dirty girl they were in my Irish accent, and who then bailed once we’d both gotten ours. But with Gabriela—
It had felt like the complete opposite. Like taking a gift handed to me, her utter trust, her submission, her pleasure in what I was doing to her. She’d opened herself up to me, given me everything over the course of a few days—and now she’s gone.
But what was the alternative?
She said in the note not to look for her, but my first instinct, before I rein it in, is to do exactly that. I sink down onto the edge of the bed, rubbing a hand over my mouth.
Fuck, Flanagan, get it together,I tell myself roughly. The sex with Gabriela was exquisite, the best I’ve ever had, and it accomplished exactly what I needed. For the first time since leaving for Mexico, I feel like I can go home without fucking pining for Saoirse as soon as I step foot back in Boston. I can start fresh, not feel like my fucking heart is getting ripped out every time I see her, pregnant and madly in love with Connor McGregor,damn his soul.I can go back to my life, the way it used to be, the way I liked it.
And the best part is that I don’t even have to feel fucking guilty about it. Just like Gabriela said that first night when I’d cautioned her not to use the wordneed, there was something we’d both needed from each other. I’d needed to wipe my slate clean, and she’d needed someone she could trust enough to give her virginity to without making a big deal about it. Both of those things are done—so why am I still fucking sitting here, pining like a lovesick boy?
Going after Gabriela, and pursuing these feelings, might mean a couple of things. It could mean marring the perfection of what we had with her rejection if she truly didn’t want more. If she’s really done. Do I want that?Fuck no.The entire fucking purpose of this exercise was to get over Saoirse’s rejection, not add another one to the mix. And if she did want more? If she feels the same way?
I’d have to open myself up again. Give her the same kind of love I wanted to give Saoirse, risk my heart again. Risk that feeling of being crushed, clawed up from the inside, right when I feel like I’m finally starting to fucking heal.
What I need is to finish my business here. Meet with Ricardo, call Liam and Connor and fill them in, go to the gala, and fly home. Leave my memories of Gabriela where they belong, tucked away in case I need them.