Page 30 of Inez

"I haven't been with anyone since Consuela, and that was nearly five years ago."

She frowns at me. "So you haven't…"

"I have not touched a woman in that way since Consuela. I tried to. I…well, I hired a girl, to be blunt about it. But I couldn’t…perform. I couldn't so much as kiss her. So I paid her for the full hour and left after about ten minutes.”

"And what about your…needs?"

It's funny—she's a warrior. She can drop a man with a bullet to the face without blinking. She can stab a man and watch the life drain from his eyes. But she can't speak of sex in direct terms.

I shrug. "I have a hand." I meet her eyes. "And some very vivid memories."

"Lorenzo!" She hisses. "You don't mean—"

"I do."

“No!”

"Yes."

She looks away from me, and now I can see that she is indeed blushing, hard. "You—you think ofme…whenyou—"

I turn her palm and kiss the center of it, holding her gaze. "Sophia, my love. Listen to me. I am not ashamedor embarrassed, and you should not be either. We shared something special and incredible, and those memories have sustained me throughout my life."

"Stop," she whispers.

"No, I will not." I bring her palm to my cheek and nuzzle it. "I am going to go take a shower now. I’m going to take my clothes off and get in the water, and once I'm clean, I'm going to close my eyes and remember. I'm going to remember you and me together in that hayloft. I'm going to remember you taking your dress off for me, taking that bra off, and your panties. The way you looked, naked and perfect and all for me. I'm going to remember kissing you. The way your skin felt the first time I got to touch your breasts. The way your hand felt wrapped around my cock."

She whimpers softly. "Ren, stop. Stop. Please. I can't—I can't. I can't."

I nuzzle her hand again, whispering. "I'm going to remember that night, and I'm going to touch myself while I do. I'm going to come, thinking about you. How beautiful you were—how beautiful youare." I drag the pad of my index finger from her kneecap to the towel's edge at her upper thigh—goosebumps pebble her skin. "I'm going to fantasize about you as you are now, Sophia. Picture you, as you are now. Naked. Perfect. Scarred and stretch-marked and tattooed and powerful and perfect. And mine, Sophia. You aremine. You have alwaysbeenmine. You will alwaysbemine. I will never ask you to do anything you are not ready for. But I will think of you, and in that way, you still give me what I need and want, and that will be enough, even if that's all of you I ever get."

I rise from the couch and sink to my knees in front of her. She presses her knees together, stiff and tense. Staring at me, eyes wet and wide and black. searching. Searing. I cup her face in my hands, lean in ever so slowly.

"Ren," she breathes.

"Trust me," comes my answering breath.

"I do."

I touch my lips to hers in a delicate ghost of a kiss. Barely a touch. "I love you, Sophia." I do it again, another whisper of a kiss. "I love you, Inez." Again. "No matter your name, I love you. Iseeyou. Iknowyou. That will never change. It cannot. It is…imutável.I can't think of the word in English for some stupid reason."

"Immutable," she murmurs.

"Yes, exactly." I brush her cheeks with my thumbs. "Like the sun and the moon and the stars."

"But stars die."

I laugh. "Everything dies. Don't be obtuse. You know what I mean."

"You know the English for 'obtuse' but not 'immutable?’” she says, with a wry grin.

"You scramble my brains with your eternal beauty." I stand up, reluctantly. "I'm not asking anything of you except that you let me in, Sophia."

"I am trying," she whispers.

"Then that's all I need."

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