Page 32 of Cara

When Enrique lunges, I aim for the spots that can weaken a man while my husband’s voice guides me.

The throat. The eyes. The back of the knees. The groin.

To continue hearing him, I push my decreasing momentum despite how weak I’ve become, but I’m not as capable as I once was. My body never fully recovered from those months I wasted away. I haven’t tried to heal it, haven’t cared enough.

My back slams into the mat, my withered calves seizing from the unusual exercise. Once, I could have scrambled up, continued, but I can’t move. Enrique gazes down at me as our audience disperses. Pressing my hand over my pounding heart, I close my eyes.

I’ve waited so long to feel something,anythingother than defeat.

This is what I’d been waiting for.

In the summer, the heat in Madrid is suffocating.

Even with the patio door open, the apartment is airless, filled with the stench of sweat as I pound a hanging bag with both fists. Jazz music seeps through the thin walls while chatter from the café below drifts through the windows.

Another summer.

Another year.

A life of putting one foot in front of the other, living minute to minute. I can't think back. I can't think forward, stuck in a never-ending relapse.

Mere movement from the window, and my hand is already gripping a gun, prepared to do my worst. The shuffling is just a couple on a small balcony of the four-bedroom hotel next door. Leaving my place at the bag, I watch them sway together to the music drifting from the café. The man brings a strand of her hair to his face, inhaling deeply. Her arms instinctively surround him tighter.

I'm frozen, admiring their intimacy, an envious intruder to their life.

And just as quickly as the warm remembrance of love finds me, an ominous veil consumes that respite. Shooting across the bedroom on unsteady legs, I slam the shutters shut, securing them with finality.

Collapsing onto the mattress, glancing at the side that has never been unturned, reserved for a ghost of my past, I close my eyes, struck by something painful.

Loneliness. Isolation. Deprivation.

My hands hesitate as I make the decision to lay them onmy body, sliding them underneath my damp clothes. Trying to awaken my senses, evokewantthrough my fingertips, I imagine him. His calloused hands wandering so softly. His wet mouth settling between my legs. His labored breath warming the tender skin between my thighs.

The beating force in my chest begins to tick… tick…tick… a hesitant spur of life on its last embers. It could be the beginning. It could be the end. That’s normally how this goes.

Him. Think ofhim.

His lips sweeping roughly across the crooks of my thighs. His tongue dipping into the curve of my back, tracing a delicate line along my spine. His fingers grinding my hips into a soft mattress.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Boom. Boom.Boom.

More.

Trembling fingers lacing against a groaning headboard, his powerful chest settling onto my back, merging to my skin like night succumbs to day.

My mouth hangs, imagining his fingers guiding mine, spurring me towards a release he knows I need. A release he knows might save me. Yes…Yes.

A hundred pricks of his mouth against my skin, anywhere he can reach…

A pocket knife…

Pinned to my throat…

Teeth…

Shredding my skin, tearing my mouth open…

My hand freezes underneath my clothes.