The Rain in Spain by Amy Jo Cousins

beneath her ass, tugging her closer to him until the rough scrub of his pubic hair and the semi-hard length of his cock pressed against her inner thigh. “I’m sorry I’ve let you worry like this, by yourself. I should’ve pushed you harder. But I wanted to give you space. To let you come to me.”
    She’d learned enough about herself tonight to know the answer to that one.
    “I think I have too much space sometimes. You can hold me tighter.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead like a blessing. “I love you.”
    He lifted his face to hers, repeated the words back to her. “I love you.” She rolled to her side and then her back, tugging at Javi until he let himself be pulled on top of her. Her arms were steel bars across his back as she lifted her hips and wrapped her legs around him, needing this man so much she’d feared it would break her. Tears spilled hot over her temples, wetting her hair, and she closed her eyes as he surged into her, knowing only the feel of him hard between her thighs and heavy in her heart. “I love you.”
    And he was there, with her, in the sticky honey of the moment, muscles tensing, fingers digging into shoulders, into hips, the clean salt of his sweat in her mouth as she pressed her teeth to his arm. The cliff was at her feet, the edge crumbling beneath her toes. She flung herself over and the fall was long, long and sweet, and she hoped Javi would catch her.
    He never let her down. Forever steadfast.
    Heart thumping still, a beat that pulsed in her fingertips, in the thin skin of her lips, Magda let the world take form around her again. Javi settled against her side and she let herself relax into the feel of his slick skin over hard muscle against her softness. This man would always want to lie tangled up with her whenever he had her close.
    His voice roused her. The words came slowly, but she heard the weight behind them and listened closely.
    “I’ve missed so much in my life. It’s why I was in Goa. Traveling like I never did when I was a kid. But I hated it. Nothing needed doing. A bunch of bums hanging out on beaches and talking about the tourists ruining it all. I was a tourist. Assholes.” She laughed silently against his chest, hearing the rue in his voice. Idleness would never suit Javi. “I thought I’d missed so much. Turned out I didn’t like any of that shit anyways. But you do. And I don’t want you to have to miss anything. It’s why I plan so much, even though I know it drives you crazy. But they’re just plans.”
    She picked her way through the words like a soldier in a minefield. Getting it right had never been so important.
    “I want you to be able to make plans with me.” She tested his skin with her tongue. Salt and musk and home. “Even if it’s just to go see your mom and learn how to make her tamales. For now.” She stretched her arm across his chest, draped her thigh across his hips. The urge to roll away would always be there. Too much of her life had been spent alone, surrounded by strangers. She would try to remember to hold him while she could. “You know, I never feel alone when I’m away from you, because I always know that you’re waiting for me to come home.”
    “I am. I promise.”
    She believed him. Which made it easy to be brave. “And when I’m gone, I can try harder to make you feel less far away.”
    “Okay.” The relief in his voice swept over her like a riptide, pulling her out to sea in his arms, knowing she’d find her way to shore again, calm in the face of a struggle that might sometimes seem long. It would be worth it. “And I promise to push you harder if I think you’re worried about something, okay?”
    Easiest promise ever. “Yes.” The pressure in her sinuses eased, and she swallowed, weak with the ebb of tension and adrenalin after the longest day.
    Javi would have his plans. She would disregard a plan in a heartbeat to follow an interesting story. They would meet, somewhere in the middle, whenever they