On Every Street (The Artists Trilogy #0)

After we finished up the food and Miguel and I drank the remaining Tecates over a few rowdy games of Crazy Eights, we headed back to the marina. The sun was sinking low in the sky as we tied up at the dock, and Miguel, Raul, and Alex hopped off the boat, Javier holding me back.

“You sure you don’t mind if we spend the night here?” Javier asked Raul.

He shook his head like it annoyed him to move. “No, how would you know if you want it if you don’t test all of it out?”

“The boat is like a lady,” Miguel teased. “You need to spend some time in all her tight spaces.”

I grinned while Javier squeezed me to him. “No one can compete with the one I have here.”

As expected, Raul and Alex were stony faced at that comment, but Miguel responded with a cheeky little grin. They waved goodbye and walked off, a mysterious trio if I ever saw one.

I looked up at Javier, his eyes glinting gold in the late sun. “Are we really staying overnight?”

He eyed me with amusement. “Of course, my angel. Raul is right. How will we know the boat is for us if we don’t spend time sleeping with her? I hope you won’t mind a threesome.”

I pinched his side at that comment, all the while grinning over the fact that he had said the boat was “for us,” as if I really mattered in his decisions. And as the evening fell, my worries went away with the sun. After a fresh fish dinner, he set Dire Straits to play from the cockpit speakers. Then he jumped off the boat and onto the dock, the waves rocking black liquid under the moon-filled sky.

He held out his hand for me after the opening notes of “On Every Street” began playing. “Care to dance?”

“On the dock?’ I asked. “Right now?”

He cocked his head. “Come, my angel. Dance with me.”

I made my way off the boat and joined him at his side. A breeze had picked up and the marina filled up with the sound of halyards clanging against the masts as if Dire Straits had a whole new rhythm section. Down the rows of docks, the boats glowed with lights. This place made a surprisingly romantic dance floor.

I let Javier slip his arms around me, one at the bottom of my spine, his fingers trailing onto my ass, the other holding my hand up by our faces. Being so self-conscious of my leg and my occasional limp, I was never one for dancing. But Javier was so sure and so smooth he made our moves effortless as we glided past the boat. The emotions of the song washed over me, making my eyes close.

“What can I tell you as I’m standing next to you,” he sung quietly in my ear, “she threw herself under my wheels.”

I buried my head in his neck, inhaling his scent that used to be musk and tea but now was just him mingling with the salty air. It soothed me, coating my heart, making me forget everything I knew. Yes, I was drowning again, but this time for the right reasons. There was no better reason than love.

“You know,” he began, voice low and full, “if you were to ever leave me, I’d come looking for you, on every street.”

“You promise?”

“Always.” And I knew he kept his promises.

Later, we brought our blankets and sleeping bags up to the top deck. Though the night was already sweltering enough, the breeze just enough to cool our skin, we generated our own heat anyway. I straddled Javier as he sat behind the wheel, not caring if someone was on a nearby boat and getting a peep show, my breasts glowing under the twinkling lights. I was throwing everything to the wind, all caution, all my ghosts. I came, trying to keep my cries from carrying over the water but failing miserably.

Javier quickly pulled out and pressed me down into the seat, standing above me. He finished himself off with long, fast strokes and came onto my stomach, his body tensing, his head thrown back, face to the moon. I watched him, his body framed by my breasts, as he came back to earth. The desire in his eyes was still there, not tamed by his release. He went to his knees beside me and started slowly, softly rubbing his seed into my stomach and up onto my chest.

I watched him, my heart in my throat. I’d never seen such intensity from him after sex and it was here now in full force, burning out of his gaze.

I wanted to ask what he was doing, but I didn’t need to.

“I want to come on every inch of your body,” he whispered, and somehow it didn’t sound dirty at all. It sounded clean, pure, like rainwater. “I want to rub it in you, like this, until it’s a part of your skin. I want to stain you, Eden. I want myself embedded in your skin, in your heart, in your soul.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I sat up and put my hands on either side of his neck and kissed him as sweetly as I could. “You’ve stained me, Javier.”

I expected him to grin in response, to look happy or relieved. But the fire never burned out. It remained, watching me like he’d never see me again. It stayed like that as we fell asleep in the blankets, locked in each other’s arms, watching the wind instrument spin like the galaxies hidden behind it.

I woke up as dawn was spreading in the east, the sky a smoky purple swept with pelicans. Javier was already awake, sitting in front of me, hugging his knees to his chest. I slowly sat up, holding the blanket to me, and gingerly touched his back.

He didn’t flinch. He kept his eyes focused on the sky, on the birds as they dipped and twirled in their early morning dance.

“Javier?”

I waited, biting my lip anxiously. The strange look in his eyes hadn’t passed during the night and it was only then that I was recognizing it for what it was. I must have looked like that for the past few months I’d been with him. It was the look of guilt. It was the look of fear. I realized I’d never seen Javier look afraid before. An extremely unsettling feeling sunk in my chest.

“Javier?” I whispered, trying again, my palm flattened on his smooth, tawny skin. I stroked it down the lines of his cross tattoo. “Talk to me.”

He stayed silent. Somewhere a seagull cried, haunting and plaintive.

I lay my head down on his back, hearing his heart beating beneath, slow and methodic, unfazed and steady.

He cleared his throat. “I’m in a hole I can’t get out of.”

His voice almost melted into the air, it was so liquid soft.

I turned my head and placed my lips to his skin, to let him know I was listening.

He continued, “I don’t know if you and I can go on.”

It took a few beats for those words to sink in, but my heart felt it first before the rest of me did. It felt like it stopped and decided not to beat on. This was it. What was the point? Why beat on through this pain that was slicing into my bones, descending so suddenly and holding me hostage.

I hadn’t realized I was gasping, getting to my feet with my hand at my chest, as if to will my heart to go on. I looked down at Javier in a daze, expecting him to explain, to continue, to keep going, to end this or start this or do something. But he kept staring at the sky, that fearful look in his eyes.

“Eden,” he finally said, after I felt like I’d died a million times on my feet. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

I swallowed the ball of pain. My words finally found their way off my tongue. “Okay. I get it. I’m just one of your many women…”

I didn’t even know what the hell I was saying. But I didn’t know what to believe, what conclusion I’d have to draw. My lips opened and closed, wanting to say more, to scream and cry and ask what the fuck was happening. But the pain in my chest kept taking my breath away.

He brought his eyes to mine, staring up at me in confusion. “One of many women? No, my angel. You don’t get it at all. You’re my only woman. And that’s the problem.”

The fear on his face spread. “I’ve fallen in love with you. And I’m lying to you.”

Half of his words were like a balm. The other half ripped the wound open again. “You love me?”

He nodded solemnly. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. More than I thought I was capable of. Eden, you’ve taken my heart by surprise from the day I first saw you. It hasn’t been my heart since.”

I didn’t understand. I was elated, violently happy, so why wasn’t he? Why was this so bad, so difficult? What was happening?

“Then why do you look so afraid?” I blurted out.

“Because I’m afraid to tell you the truth about me,” he said quietly. “And I haven’t been afraid in a very long time.”

“You love me,” I said again, needing to hear it, even from my own mouth.

“Yes, I love you, Eden White,” he said. My fake name didn’t even make me flinch. He loved Eden White. I was Eden White now. He loved me as I loved him.

I came over to him and sat back behind him, my arms wrapping around him, holding him close to me. “I love you too. With all my heart. With everything I have. You’ve stained me, Javier. I’m yours to the core.”

I felt him swallow hard, his muscles tensing. “I’m not a consultant, you know. But I guess you’ve already figured that.”

Here it was. The confession. And it didn’t even matter anymore.

“I know you’re not,” I said slowly. “But I don’t care what your job is. I just want to be with you.”

“What I do isn’t exactly legal.”

“Just because something is legal doesn’t make it a virtue.” And now I was starting to tread on dangerous ground. I was justifying everything and too much of it, more than innocent Eden White ever should. But I didn’t care. He loved me and I loved him, and there was nothing else in this world left to care about anymore. Everything else was at the bottom of the sea.

“I’m involved with some bad men and I run in some bad circles. Angel,” he paused, breathing hard, “I’m not a good person.”

“Neither am I,” I whispered, willfully ignoring him.

“Don’t say that. Don’t try and compare yourself to me.” His voice grew sharper.

I shook my head. “Who is good and who is bad? Life isn’t black and white, Javier. You and I, we’re just trying to live in all the grey. Isn’t that what you’ve done? Isn’t that what you want? To live?”

“You’re making excuses for something you shouldn’t.”

He may have been right about that. But the second I threw away the bottle, I gave up my ghost.

“No, I’m not. I’m letting you know that I don’t care about what you have to do to live, the things you have done to survive. I’m in love with you, whether you’re good or bad.”

“I work for a cartel,” he spit out in anger, shame washing over him. “A fucking drug cartel.”

I straightened up and took my arms off him. I knew this, it didn’t surprise me, but his emotions did. I could feel them coming off of him, rising in the air.

He turned his head to the side, his eyes flashing beneath a furrowed brow. “I’ve killed as many people as I’ve fucked. I’ve stolen and I’ve lied and I’ve shown no mercy to people who may have deserved some. I’ve done deplorable things in the name of money. I’ve ruined lives for someone else’s pleasure. I’m a very bad man who has done too many bad things to deserve a pardon. I shouldn’t be walking this earth as I do, I shouldn’t have the money I have, I shouldn’t have the love of a woman who is so far above me she should have wings.” He twisted himself around and looked me dead on. “I don’t deserve your love, Eden. You have my heart, but yours should remain in your chest. Save it for a better man. Save it for someone who’s worth it.” His eyes shimmered as tears threatened to spill over. “You need to leave me.”