**

Day five in Barcelona and Alejandro and I haven't spoken since "that night" outside of my bedroom.

It isn't animosity, but merely me being cautious on how I approach him. He knows what I'm doing and has decided to play along. Whenever I would go out into the courtyard to read, I would sometimes see him there talking on the phone. He would stop his conversation and just smile and wave at me. Not a nice smile and wave, but the "keep playing this little game with me" smile-wave combo.

"Give it a little more time," Lupita advised me while we went shopping a couple of days ago. "He wants you to give in first. Let him be the one to give up first."

Lupita seemed confident in her advice, so I continued to follow it. Yesterday, a day after her words of wisdom, I caught Alejandro while I got back from sight-seeing. Like the klutz I am, I ended up dropping my bag on accident in the foyer.

"Shit," I mumbled before bending down to pick everything up. Someone began helping me sort my items, and I thanked them before looking up and seeing who it was.

"You're carrying too many things on your own," Alejandro pointed out. Truthfully, I was—I had a couple of books and souvenirs that I got while I was out.

I picked up my bag, "I can manage," I said to him. Intentionally, I looked away. I couldn't stand looking into those deep brown eyes and remembering what we did; what we didn't finish.

We stood and just stared at each other for an extended period of time. He was very dressed down—loose shirt and jeans. His hair wasn't slicked back, either; I liked it better that way, unruly and curling by his eyes.

"Okay," he finally said. I nodded once and pivoted to leave, but suddenly his hand lightly grabbed a hold of my arm. My heart jumped; is he giving in?

"What's the matter?" I asked when I faced him again.

He laughed a bit. "Are you ignoring me, Leslie?"

Yes.

"No." I shook my head. "Why would you think that?"

"Ever since I took you out several days ago, you've been ignoring me."

"It's not that. It's just...you're always busy or out doing something."

"But when I'm not busy or out doing something, you're ignoring me. Sí o no?"

I really didn't know how to answer that question. He would see through my lie, but telling him the truth would mean explaining myself, and I didn't want him to know my intentions just yet; not until I knew his.

Alejandro opened his mouth to say something else, but Paisa rounded the corner and met up with him before he could say it.

"Leslie!" Paisa exclaimed. "I hear Alejandro taught you how to dance Salsa, yes?"

Thank God Paisa always succeeded at making things less awkward, but even then, I could tell that Alejandro was becoming quite restless with me. Paisa took my hand and practiced some dance steps with me, but Alejandro wasn't amused; he looked confused and tangled in a web of thought. After that, I didn't see him again that day. I sat on my bed and decided to call Beth and Paul and tell them what happened. Despite the time difference (it was night in California when I called) they were still invested.

"Why didn't you sleep with him!?" Was the first thing that Paul asked when I detailed the events that occurred outside my bedroom door.

"I don't know." I sighed. "I mean, I like him. A lot. He's sweet and funny and romantic. Sexy, too; it's alluring, being around him. But he's also really mysterious. And after that night at the club, I wonder if he's just trying to finish what he started with me. I don't want to go through something like that again; he probably tries this act with women all the time."

"That's a big 'probably,'" Beth said. "From what I'm hearing, I think he really likes you. And so what if you don't know his intentions? None of us know their intentions until we suck it up and ask them ourselves. He may be lying, he may be telling the truth. That's for you to decide."

"His cousin told me to lead him on a little longer to see."

"Until he gets frustrated?" Paul asked.

"It already looks like he is. It's just that he won't say anything."

"And neither will you," Beth pointed out. I hated how right she was, but I'm also tired of gaining feelings for a man only to have them crushed.

"Just tell him," Beth continued. "I think that's what I would do. Hell, as a matter of fact, why don't I take your place in Spain at that quadruple-trillion-dollar-mansion on the beach with a hot Colombian man on my arm? I'll be on the first flight out?"

I laughed until I teared up. "I think I'm enjoying it here quite fine. But thank you for volunteering. You're so brave."

Beth began fake crying. "Anything for you, Leslie."

**
Today, everyone in the villa decided to spend the day by the pool. I joined them after being unable to refuse their kind invitation.

The kids splash around in the pool while the adults lounge around by the cabanas, maids, and servers tending to our every need. I sit by Lupita and Yitzel while Alejandro sits close to Salvador on the other side of the pool. Even while I'm staring at the bubbles in my drink, I feel Alejandro's eyes on me.

"Why is Lobo looking over here so much?" Yitzel asks Lupita, squinting her soft-set eyes at him.

"He's probably tired of Papa talking for five minutes straight," Lupita jokes, but she knows why he keeps looking over here. Everyone's laughter subsides a bit as Lupita leans in.

"Alejandro hasn't been able to keep his eyes off of you," Lupita whispers.

"Really?" I reply with a flat tone. "I haven't looked up to notice."

Right when I bring my eyes up, I see Salvador snap his fingers in front of Alejandro's eyes, breaking the gaze he had glued on me. His attention is on Salvador now. I look away.

"I think he's mad at me," I confess to Lupita.

"What? Why?"

"He asked me why I've been ignoring him, and I claimed that I wasn't."

"And what did he say?"

I shrug. "Nothing, really. He just looked...kind of upset. Confused. He almost said something to be but Paisa cut him off."

Lupita pouts her lips and thinks a moment. Mouth agape, then closed again, she struggles to find words.

"Huh," is what she settles for.

"Huh? What does that mean?"

"It means...I...I don't know. I didn't expect Alejandro to react that way. That's strange."

"How do you think he'd usually react?"

Lupita ponders on my question. "He'd flirt until you cave in, drown you in honeyed words, maybe play with your head by making you admit that you're teasing him. That, or he'd just get over it."

"So, this means something else?"

"Probably. By the way he looks, he seems pretty strung up about it. This is really weird."

I look over in Alejandro's direction again. Salvador is still talking but he isn't listening. Suddenly, he and I make eye contact. Instead of acting in strife, he salutes me with his beer bottle, smiling at me lazily. I gnaw on my lip to keep from smiling back. It doesn't work too well, though.

After five minutes of Alejandro and I speaking to each other with our eyes, Esmeralda complains that she left her sunscreen in the house on the kitchen island.

"I can get it for you?" I ask her (my Spanish is improving well, I'll say).

She shakes her head and declines politely in broken English, but I insist on it. Finally, she gives in and makes sure to describe the labeling (I doubt anyone else left sunscreen in the kitchen, so a description wasn't vital). I get up and walk past the pool chairs and damp cement until I'm inside the house. The villa is quiet; peaceful. Besides the occasional chatter from Salvador's employees walking through the halls, the house is silent.

I see Esmeralda's sunscreen on the counter by the fruit bowl. Right when I pick it up, I feel someone looming behind me.

"Relax," Alejandro laughs when I jump at his presence. "I just came in to get an apple."

"An apple?" I roll my eyes. "Really?"

"Mhm." He takes the bright crimson fruit from the bowl and tosses it into the air several times. "For Lupita."

Dammit. I should have known Lupita would do something like this.

I play with the cap of the sunscreen, opening and closing it until the snapping sound is beyond familiar. "Well, I hope she enjoys it."

God, stop talking, Leslie!

Alejandro cocks a brow at my choice of words. When I panic, I do the opposite of what I intended to do before, so I rush over to the sink and start washing my hands. Why? I have no idea. But now I'm even farther from the exit than before.

Fuck.

Alejandro inches closer to me while I scrub the hell out of my fingers. "Are you going to tell me why you've been avoiding me, now?" he asks.

"I haven't been avoiding you, Alejandro," I tell him sternly. The tone in my voice rubs him the wrong way as he frowns in frustration and impatience. He reaches over and tries to turn the sink off, but I instinctively fight to keep it on my lunging my hand forward, blocking the faucet and splashing water all over his face and the collar of his shirt. His eyes are shut tight, lips pursed as water drips from his chin and nose, even the end of his hair.

I gasp before turning the tap off.

"I'm so sorry! Oh God, I'm so, so sorry!"

"Leslie it's fine," he asserts, but hearing how angry he is at the entirety of the situation puts me under the impression that it is not fine.

I rush to find paper towels and take them off the holder when I do. Hopefully Alejandro sees this as a kind sentiment, but I doubt he will after I spent several days ignoring him. God, how could I be so stupid?

When I turn to go back to the sink, I stop in my tracks when I see that Alejandro is perfectly capable of drying himself off without paper towels. No, instead, he uses the bottom of his shirt to dry the water on his face. He can't see me and I'm glad; I'm staring at his exposed stomach—the first time I've ever seen his body. My eyes follow the defined muscles on his abdomen until they stop at the tattoo he has curved right at the end of his stomach; his pants are low enough for me to see it—cursive letters in Spanish or Latin, I can't tell too well from where I'm standing. He has even more tattoos on his body, some on the side of his waist and others on his back that I can't decipher. There's one on his chest as well, but his shirt isn't high enough for me to see it. What makes me even more curious are the scars he has; there are a lot of them, each probably with their own stories. I grit my teeth, wanting to see every part of him but knowing I can't.

Alejandro uncovers his face and briefly sees me staring at him. I suck in a sharp breath and approach him with the paper towels. He takes them from me but doesn't use them.

"Leslie—"

"I'm sorry for ignoring you," I blurt out. Surprisingly, he laughs.

"So you have been ignoring me," he says. "Why?"

I can't answer; guilt is a powerful thing. He sighs and bends down a little so his face is closer to mine.

"Leslie, I had a great time with you when we went out," he tells me. "A really good time—"

"And so did I."

"Then why the hell have you been avoiding me?"

"Because I thought that you just wanted...I thought that you were interested in one thing."

He furrows his brows until he understands my concept. I see that I've offended him; I've never seen him look this way.

"Is that what you thought?"

"Yes, that exactly what I thought. I was under that impression."

He tilts his head at me, giving me a condescendingly confused expression. "Really? Because if I remember correctly, you pushed your ass into my dick in that hallway."

"I was in the moment!" I yell, embarrassed.

"So, is that what you want? Just sex? If that's all that you want, I can definitely give that to you and then some."

My face is hot, burning like a sauna. "T-that's not what I meant, Alejandro."

"Then what are you getting at? Because I'm confused. You think that I see you as just a hot piece of ass, yet at the same time, you wanted me to fuck you? Doesn't that make us both bad people?"

"I never said you were a bad person, I just didn't understand your intentions!"

"Leslie, I took you out on a date because I like you!" He admits, frustration lacing his voice. "I didn't take you out because I just wanted to have sex with you. If I'm being honest, I'm a little crazy about you—you're beautiful, funny, smart, fun to be around; I can't get enough of you." He rubs the back of his neck; I'm certain he didn't plan on telling me this today. "So when you agreed to go on a date with me then avoided me like the plague, I'm not gonna lie, it made me feel some kind of way. I was trying to figure out what the fuck I did wrong, but now it's because you thought I just wanted to fuck and be done with it?"

I don't know if I should thank Lupita or scream at her—thank her for the advice that got Alejandro to admit his feelings, or scream at her for giving me advice that ultimately hurt his feelings.

At this point, I'm trying to clean up broken glass shards with a pair of tweezers.

"I'm...I'm sorry, I just assumed...I mean, Lupita told me—"

"Lupita?" he annunciates like he can't believe it. When I nod, he curses in Spanish before rubbing his eyes.

"What did she tell you?"

God, here we go.

"Nothing." My heart is beating so fast I can hear it. "She just...she said that you get bored easily; that you move on after getting what you want unless you're serious about it. She told me to lead you on to see if your intentions were good."

"And you believed her?"

He's making me sound like an idiot. It's not like I'm not an idiot, though; I'm not creating a good name for myself.

"Well, I didn't know what else to do, Alejandro. You're the biggest enigma I have ever met and believe me, I've come across some complicated people. On one end, I found myself overwhelmed because I knew I had feelings for you and that I was undoubtedly, insanely attracted to you. But the other end wondered if you even wanted anything more from me? If I should even waste my time?"

My mouth turns sour when I realize that I just told Alejandro that I like him. He isn't too fazed, but he seems relieved that I said something.

"Leslie, Lupita isn't wrong...but she's about ten years late."

"E-excuse me?"

"I was an asshole when I was in my early twenties, like a lot of guys out there," Alejandro explains gravely. "I did move from girl to girl and I didn't like getting attached. And somehow, Lupita believes that I'm still that twenty-four-year-old boy fucking girls for fun and jumping from place to place out of boredom. And she's partially right; I do get bored, but only with women who aren't serious. As I got older, I wanted more. But the women I involved myself with didn't want more; they loved to play around. I didn't like that, so I moved on when I felt like I needed to. That's why Lupita thinks I get bored, but really, I'm bored with women who still think I'm that same twenty-something-year-old boy; I know what I want."

I don't know what to say. For starters, I feel like a complete fool for teasing him like a schoolgirl when really, that's exactly what he doesn't want. I guess it's hard to get used to being with a man who has intentions of being serious from beginning to end; Alejandro's maturity is something I'm not used to seeing.

"And if we're being completely honest," he says, "I don't want to get involved if you and Sebastian are still an on and off thing. That wouldn't be right."

When I hear Sebastian's name, I'm flooded with more emotions than one. More importantly, I'm hellbent on the fact that Alejandro thinks that Sebastian and I are somehow synonymous; that he's somehow a barrier despite the fact that it's well known that he is not my boyfriend.

"What? N-no, no. Sebastian and I...we're far from what you're implying."

I remember where Sebastian and I left off before I came here—his words and his paranoia, scared I would sleep with Alejandro and willing to ruin my trip so that wouldn't happen. Alejandro sees the apparent shift in my mood.

"Leslie, I know that you still care about him in some way," Alejandro tells me. "And I can see that you're still hurt about what he did. But I've dealt with many men that have the same qualities that he does, so I know for a fact that what Sebastian did was possessive; it was immature and controlling. Please don't waste your time hurting over someone who believes that you belong to them like you're their property and their responsibility. That isn't healt—"

And that's when I kiss him. I had thought about kissing him ever since I saw him grab that fucking apple, but now it was just building up so much in me that I had to expel that urge. I know that I like him; I'm attracted to him and how he makes me feel, giving me this sense of hope and confidence that I never thought I had. He talks to me like I'm a human being, not a work machine or a piece of ass or a child that needs to be protected from the world all of the time. He makes me feel human; something that I, figuratively, haven't felt in a while.

He kisses me in return and snakes his hand around my back, pressing his body against mine; I have to stand on my toes in order to reach him until we're so close that I'm almost off the ground. His mouth tastes like beer and something very sweet, and I can't get enough of it. We're making out so heavily that we're gasping for air and frantic to touch each other more than we're touching now. And the moment my fingers run through his soft, damp tresses, he moves his hands to my ass and effortlessly lifts me up, holding me at his hips. I break away from him and look at him deeply, a little scared but mostly ecstatic and raging with emotions that hit me all at once. For a moment, we just look at each other until we start laughing, and as I keep laughing into his neck like an elated madwoman who's high on life, I suppose.

And as he carries me through the back hallway, I realize that I forgot to give Esmeralda her sunscreen.

**

The, erm, 'rest' of this chapter will be posted in "After Dark" (the black book with the yellow cat eyes on my profile) tomorrow for those of you who just love some smut.