María José laughed.
Not the nervous, breathless kind of laugh one might give when faced with an unhinged man confessing his love in the early noon.
No.
She burst out laughing.
Dios, it was the most infuriatingly beautiful sound I had ever heard. A full-bodied, uninhibited laugh that shook her tiny fra, made her head tilt back, and made her hands clutch her stomach as if I had just told the funniest joke in the world.
I frowned. "What’s so funny?"
She gasped between laughs, shaking her head. "You—you..." Another peal of laughter escaped her, making her shoulders tremble. "Do you even have an idea what love is?"
Love. What is love?
How do I tell her I didn’t give a batshit whatever it was but my mouth knew to articulate what I felt in the depth of my heart as love?
I settled for scowling and saying, "No. But neither do you."
That caught her off guard. Her laughter died in her throat, and she blinked at , the afternoon sun illuminating the puzzled furrow in her brow.
Fuck, she looked like a sprig of Lily in the beam of the light.
I took a step closer, my fingers brushing a stray strand from her cheek. "That’s why we should discover it together."
I had no idea what I was saying, but I was saying it.
My voice was low, velvety, and wrapping around her like a whisper of temptation... because it was.
Oh, it was.
"We should explore each other’s feelings."
She sucked in a sharp breath, her lips parting slightly. Dios, she had no idea what she did to when she looked at like that.
So wide-eyed, so unguarded. So ’Kiss , oh, Big Bad Daddy Luis. Claim ’
Then, just as quickly, she snapped out of it, shaking her head. "How can you say you love ? This is the second ti we’ve even seen each other."
Who bloody cares how many tis we’ve t?!
I let out a soft chuckle, tilting my head. "Cariño... I loved you before I even saw you."
Her eyes widened.
I moved in closer, trapping her between and the rough stone wall. One hand braced beside her head, the other tilting her chin up to et my gaze.
"I loved you the mont I saw you up ahead, standing there in the pigsty like so lost little thing that didn’t belong in this world. And yet, you belong more than anyone."
Her throat bobbed and her breathing began to rise.
I traced my knuckles along her jaw, my voice dropping to a whisper. "You think love needs ti? That it has to be logical?"
I smirked, my lips ghosting over her ear and licking the soft skin surrounding it. "I don’t need ti to know that I would kill for you." My fingers trailed down her neck, brushing the curve of her throat, and feeling her pulse race beneath my touch.
Her hands trembled at her sides. She was listening. Latching onto every word.
"From the mont I saw you," I murmured, my lips barely an inch from hers, "I knew I’d belong to you, whether you wanted or not."
She let out a shaky nasal breath. Dios. No one had ever spoken to her like this before. No one had ever wanted her like this. I could see it in her wide, stunned eyes.
For a mont, she was completely still, lost in whatever spell I had woven around her.
I inclined closer...
...Almost there...
And then, out of the blue, her hands shot up, shoving backward with surprising force.
"Back off!"
I staggered, barely catching myself in ti.
She was breathing hard, her arms wrapped around herself as if she needed to physically hold herself together. "I—I get it. I understand your feelings."
I narrowed my eyes. That wasn’t the reaction I wanted.
"But..." Her voice cracked, and suddenly, the fire was gone.
In its place was sothing much worse. Sothing soft.
Pity.
No, no, no, María, don’t you dare pity !
The pity belonged to to feel. I was the man. She was the broken porcelain. She was the one who needed fixing. It was who needed to fix her.
I should hold the control, not her. My fingers started to twitch. This wasn’t going the right way.
She lowered her gaze, her fingers curling into the fabric of her dress. "I don’t know how you could love soone like . A helpless girl who can’t even stand up for herself."
My stomach twisted.
She gave the smallest saddest smile. "You shouldn’t waste your love on ."
The words hit like a knife to the gut.
I felt a jolt in my breath, a searing pain taking hold of my chest.
I knew what heartbreak was. I had seen it. Hell, I had caused it.
But I had never felt it. I had felt grief, felt sadness, but nothing like this.
Not until now.
She wasn’t done. "If you truly didn’t kill the pigs..." She took a deep breath as if forcing herself to get through this. "Then I wouldn’t mind being friends with you."
Friends?
I swayed on my feet.
Friends.
The word sent a searing pain through my ribs as if sothing inside had just burst in half.
"I..." My throat closed up. I was going to be sick. I was going to collapse.
Then she said it. The words that broke .
"But I’m in love with soone else."
The world tilted. My eyes spun.
No.
No.
I physically felt my heart shatter inside my chest.
I couldn’t breathe. The air around felt suffocating, too thick, and oh, too heavy.
Her voice was soft, hesitant, and completely unaware of the destruction she had just caused inside of . "I’m sorry, Mateo."
I staggered back and my vision began to swim.
My legs nearly gave out. I gripped my chest, my nails digging into my shirt as if I could physically hold myself together.
The pain—it was unbearable. Like sothing was tearing apart from the inside.
María José, look what you’ve done to .
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