Lessons in Gravity (Study Abroad #2) (20 page)

It takes me a few heartbeats to gather the courage to slide my hands onto his waist. I mean, I’m touching him now. Really
touching
, my fingers slipping underneath his leather jacket. With intent, with unabashed curiosity.

I pull him closer, the warm press of our bodies a delicious counterpoint to the frigid air.

Feeling the fleshy of warmth of his body beneath my fingers—the strident pull of his hardened muscles against over me—oh, God help me.
 

This boy can
kiss
. He moves with feeling. Equal parts salty and sweet. Add to that the slow, soft grind of his groin as he works a thigh between my legs, and I am on.freaking.fire.

 
He tugs my bottom lip between his teeth, running his tongue along the swollen inside of that same lip. My body feels warm. Cherished, as stupid as that sounds.

His hands move into my hair, move to my throat. His touch is delicious, kind and possessive and confident all at once. I love the feel of his hands on me, my body coming alive from this smallest of touches. Currents of electricity move through me from the five contact points of his fingertips, his thumb toying with my earlobe, his fingers finding purchase in the nape of my neck.

I kiss him with rising passion, our breaths becoming labored, noisy gusts through our noses, the beat between my legs too loud and too needy to ignore. He kisses me deeply, long strokes of tongue and lips, the kind of kiss you only see in the movies.

The kind of kiss you dream of when you’re thirteen, wondering what frenching
really
feels like while practicing on your pillow.

We’re really putting on a show now; if little kids passed by they’d probably be scarred for life by our very passionate, and very public, make out sesh.

We have to stop. This—whatever
this
is—it can’t go any further than this kiss.
 

But oh, I could kiss Javier like this for hours, days. Weeks. And still I’d want more.

I want so much more. But I don’t think I deserve it. My dad sunk his dagger deep, and I’m still figuring out what the damage is, and how to triage it.
Did
I cause my parents’ divorce? Am I dumb, ugly inside and out, unlovable? Am I missing some essential thing that everyone else has—something that makes them worthy of respect, of love?

And then of course there’s the fact that Javier wants someone else. Yeah, he’s kissing me after a couple glasses of wine. But he made it sound like he was kind of in love with Carmen. He wants forever with her, and I want one night stands with anonymous Europeans. Maybe Javier just wants another one-night stand with me.

Javier and I have to stop. Stop before we do something we’ll regret. Before someone gets hurt.

I never go back for seconds, remember?

I break the kiss, keeping my eyes closed as I struggle to catch my breath. I hate this, I don’t want to stop. I want Javier.

But he was never mine to have.

He rests his forehead against mine.

“Maddie,” he says. “I like you. I like you very much.”

I meet his eyes, our lashes tangling in the tiny space between us.

I don’t do this. I don’t do
like
. The squishy, romantic kind of like.
 

What in the world was I thinking?

“I can’t.” I step back. “
You
can’t.”

“Maddie,” he says, reaching for me.

“Don’t,” I say. “Please, Javier, don’t.”

Javier looks at me. Looks away, spearing a hand through his hair as he lets out a long, hot breath. His hipster wave is mussed now. I resist the temptation to reach out, smooth it back with my fingers.

“You can’t kiss me like that,” I say.

His head snaps back, gaze searing. “Why not?”

“A lot of reasons,” I say. “Starting with Carmen.”

He steps toward me, erasing the space I put between us. Jesus he’s handsome. Huge. I sway on my feet. If I don’t get out of here soon I’m going to motherfucking
swoon
.

He sees me moving. He reaches out again but stops himself.
 

“I’m okay,” I say, waving him back.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He looks at me, his brown eyes burning amber in the light of the street lamp. “As for Carmen—I’m interested in you, Maddie. I have been all along. Carmen is…she’s a lovely girl. But I’m realizing she isn’t the girl for me.”

My pulse flutters. “You told me you were looking to put down roots with her. You said that’s why you came back to Madrid,” I say.

Javier runs his tongue along his bottom lip. That delicious, slightly swollen lip.

“It’s a long story,” he says. “A story I’ll tell you when we’re not freezing our asses off. But I want you, Maddie. Carmen is my past. And you…”

I look away, swallowing hard. “There is no future for us, Javier. Not the kind you’re looking for. I’m leaving in a month, remember?”

“I do. I do remember, Maddie, of course I do, it’s just—Christ.” He runs his hand through his hair again. “Would you believe me if I told you that Carmen doesn’t like the real me? But you—I think you do, Maddie. You don’t care about what I did or who I toured with. And you’re so passionate about everything you—”

We both look up at the sound of familiar voices.

Vivian and Rafa are strolling hand in hand down the sidewalk toward us, smiling like idiots. Her eyes catch on mine and she slows her pace. Her approach is cautious, like Javier and I are standing in the middle of a crime scene.

“Hey guys,” she says. Her eyes dart from me to Javier and back again. “Everything all right here?”

I step toward them, away from Javier. “You two look like you had a lovely evening. Did you go out to dinner?”

“We did.” Rafa gives his uncle a funny look. “What about you chicos?”

The heat of Javier’s gaze spreads across my back, making me shiver. Even though I can’t see him I’m acutely aware of his presence behind me. My heart races.

He is not yours to have.

I’m just torturing myself, wanting him like this. Kissing him back. We’re torturing each other.

“Just working on some thesis stuff,” I say. I nod at the door. “Ready to go up, Viv?”

She blinks. “Um. I guess so, yeah.”

I turn my head, meeting Javier’s gaze. His face is dark with anger, anger and arousal, and he’s breathing hard through his nose. “Thanks for today, Javier.”

He doesn’t say anything. He shoots me one last pained look before he turns and stalks into the darkness.

Chapter 15

Javier

The Next Day

I pace the length of my living room, my shuffled footfalls muted on the rough pile of an antique Oushak rug. It was a gift from my father, the rug, given to me years ago, before he died. Along with my watch, it’s one of the few items he passed down to me; priceless treasures that connect me to my past.

That connect me to my family.

Only the rug wasn’t making me feel any less lost this morning. I kept waiting for some sign, some ghostly voice to rise from the wool, telling me what to do. I thought I knew what I wanted. I wanted María Carmen. I wanted to make a home with her.

Then a one night stand with a passionate American changed everything.

I want Maddie.

Only she doesn’t want me. Or maybe she does, but she’s way too scared to ever give me a chance.

I can’t stop thinking about her.

I’ve been pacing all morning. When my father’s ghost failed to materialize, I had to fall back on plan B. Which is why Leo is currently parked on my sofa, a guitar in one hand and a bocadillo, or Spanish-style sandwich, the size of his head in another.

I thought she was into it
, I tell him, my jeans swishing as I move.
I mean, I’m not going to give you all the details, but I’m pretty sure she was having a good time.

“In the English please,” he replies around a mouthful of bocadillo
.
“I am in the practice, he remembers?”

“Right. Your terrible English. Can’t we work on that another time?” I curl a hand through my hair, stopping to cup the nape of my neck.

He shakes his head, spewing crumbs across his lap and onto the sofa. “No. What if Maddie has the friends? Friends want me. I need to speak to them to tell them I am in love.”

“I think you’d have a better chance if you told them that in Spanish.”

“Maybe.” He shrugs. “Maybe not. I do not take a risk so big. Now you must tell me more of a fight you did with your woman.”

“She’s not my woman.”

“Not already.”

“I think you mean
not yet
. And it wasn’t a fight. I don’t know what it was, to be honest. I like this girl, Leo, and I think—I think she likes me, too. I mean. We have the most insane chemistry.”

Leo quirks a brow. “Chemistry?”

“You know, like—attraction. Good energy. We get along really well. And we kiss even better.”

“Ah, the kiss. It does not lie.”

“Exactly!” I pass in front of the first of two windows, my black shirt prickling beneath the warmth of a pale morning sun. “The kiss, Leo—the kiss was perfect. I would’ve kissed her all night if she’d let me.”

“Just the kissing? None more of the…” Leo’s hips buck off the couch.

“Jesus, mate, put that away,” I say. “And no, no more sex. Just kissing. But this kiss, it was…more intense, somehow, than sex. I wanted to go slow with her this time. Make it feel less like a hook-up, more like a date.”

“So
you
want the dates,” Leo says. “What does Maddie want?”

I shrug, letting out a sigh of defeat. “That’s just it. I have no clue. One minute she was hot, and the next? Totally cold. She would hardly even look at me. I mean, did I do something? Do I smell?”

Leo holds up his arm and sniffs. “No smell. I give me a shower today.”

“Part of me thinks I should just let it go. She’s an exchange student, for Christ’s sake. She’s leaving Madrid in a month. Chances are I’ll never see her again, even if she does come back for her graduate studies. And her parents are going through this really terrible divorce, a divorce Maddie feels responsible for, even though it’s definitely not her fault. But it’s made her terrified of relationships. And you know that’s what I’m looking for, Leo. A relationship. I have no business getting involved with someone who’s leaving—someone who
isn’t
looking for forever.”

“But?”

I meet Leo’s eyes. “But she’s awesome. She’s smart, and she’s got this lovely sense of humor, and her passion—Leo, you’ve never met anyone as passionate as Maddie. It’s exciting, being around her. She loves Madrid and our new band as much as I do. I find myself thinking about her when I’m walking, when I’m in the car. I see a museum, or a restaurant, or an old church, and I want to take her there because I know she’d love it. I want to experience those things with her. I definitely want to see her again. But she thinks I’m still stuck on María Carmen—”

“Are you?” Leo asks.

I put my hands on my hips and let out a sigh of frustration. “No. I don’t think so. I mean, if I hadn’t met Maddie, I can’t say whether or not I’d still be into Carmen. But seeing how much Maddie liked me for me—you know, she wasn’t all that interested in the celebrity stuff—I guess it made me realize how much Carmen
is
into that bullshit.”

“I see.” Leo nods his head. “Carmen is feeling the love for the rock star, not the man.”

“Yes,” I say. “Exactly. And that’s not who I am. Maddie knows who I am, and she likes me. At least I think she does. She makes me feel more at home in my own skin than I’ve ever felt before.”

Leo scarfs the last of his bocadillo
.
“But Maddie, she is leaving very soon.”

“Yeah,” I say. “She leaves, and she moves five thousand miles away. Leo, what the hell do I do?”

It takes Leo a minute to process what I’m getting at. Eventually he begins to nod, holding a finger thoughtfully to his chin.

“A very confused problem it you have,” he says. “How do you say…shit. Too much for the English I think me.”

I stare at him. “What? You’re killing me here, Leo.”

Here’s what I think
, he says in Spanish.
You were gone for so long on tour, not belonging to anyone or anything, and now you’re looking for your true belonging. Beyond Juan Ramos, beyond being the rock star. I believe what you’re looking for is a girl to make you feel at home wherever you are. It sounds like you may have found that girl in Maddie. She’s great, Javi, I’m not saying she isn’t. But she
is
leaving Madrid. And it’s hard to find a belonging with someone when you live oceans apart. She’s young. She’s still at university, focusing on her studies. I’m not sure she knows what she wants yet. I like her. I think she’s really cool. But honestly? I think it’s not meant to be. Your lives will be separated by an ocean. Which wouldn’t be the biggest deal if you and Maddie wanted the same things—but you don’t.

I drop my gaze to my feet. I knew Leo was going to say something along those lines. For as much of a goob as he is, he can be surprisingly insightful.