Page 183 of Raspados & Regret

My shoulders.

My face.

My throat.

He touches me like he is checking that I’m real.

I am. I’m more real than I’ve ever been.

I slide one hand between us and wrap my fingers around him; he gasps.

“Eso muñeco,” I whisper, and his eyes flutter closed. “Vente para tu esposo.”

“Fabián.”

“Come for me, mi amor,” I groan, pounding into him, letting the door frame rattle. “Show me how pretty you look when you come wrapped around me.”

His whole body locks, and he comes in my hand, shaking hard against the door, legs tightening around my waist, mouth open against mine. I swallow every sound he gives me and hold him through all of it, and the feeling of him coming around me drags me to the edge.

“Elías—”

His eyes shoot open. “Come inside me,” he whispers. “Lléname todo.”

My control tears, and I thrust deep once, twice, and come with his name in my mouth, spilling into him while he holds my face and watches me fall apart. When the high is gone, I stay there, forehead to his, both of us breathing too hard, the door solid behind him, the apartment quiet around us.

His yellow shorts are still around one ankle.

“I’m throwing those away.”

Elías laughs weakly. “You just asked me to marry you and start a family with you, and now you’re threatening my shorts?”

“Yes.”

He kisses me softly, so softly it nearly hurts. Then he whispers, “Take me to bed, future husband.”

My knees almost give out. “Don’t call me that unless you want me to get hard again.”

He glances down between us.

“Again?”

I huff a laugh and carefully pull back.

We both hiss.

“You good?”

“I’m good,” he says, then kisses my cheek. “Very good.”

I adjust and carry him to the bedroom, but we don’t make it back to bed right away. First, there is the very slow, very careful process of getting out of the rest of our clothes without either of us falling over. Then there’s the shower we both desperately need, which is supposed to be practical and turns into Elías pressed against the tile, laughing into my shoulder while I wash his hair and he accuses me of using too much shampoo.

“You’re scrubbing like I committed a crime,” he says.

“You wore the shorts.” I bite his shoulder.

He laughs again, and the sound echoes off the tile, settling somewhere deep inside me.

After the shower, we end up in the kitchen, damp and tired, both of us wearing clean boxers and nothing else. The leftovers from my tía are reheated on the stove, and we eat standing because neither of us has the energy to pretend we’re civilized.