The foolish, constricting organ in her chest jumped madly at his words, sinking deeper into him.
“Your sister told me that trouble often found you. But she didn’t know about your debt.” His fingers feathered along her collarbone. “What did your mother have to do with that?”
“Medical bills. So many. She was in and out of the hospital for years before she died. I had no money, no way to pay for her care. Doctors started refusing her, and I just… I couldn’t tell Tula. She made it out of Ciudad Hueca, escaped to America through hard work, brains, and legal means. If I told her about the bills, she would’ve forfeited the life she’d worked so hard to achieve. She would’ve come home. I couldn’t let her do that.”
“So you lied to her.” He held his chin tight to his chest, green eyes sparking beneath thick copper lashes.
“Don’t you dare judge me.”
“Judge you?” He half-laughed, half-groaned. “I’m insanely turned on. It’s all I can do to not throw you on the ground and have my way with you. Your ferocity, selflessness, courage, outrageous beauty… I’m fucking beside myself with admiration. I won’t even apologize for it, because you know exactly what you’re doing to me.”
“No, I….” A pulse burst in her temples, and her mouth went dry. Desire. It tore through her belly, low, deep, and ill-timed. Focus. “I want to hear about Martin and Ricky.”
“They’re two of my closest friends. I told you their histories with Van. They’re also bi-sexual, openly now, with Tula. The three of them are in a polyamorous relationship.”
“You’re kidding.” She couldn’t imagine it. “My sister… In a threesome?”
“From what I saw just a few days ago, she’s happily, ridiculously in love.”
“Wow. How do you feel about that?”
“I don’t swing that way, despite what I went through in Van’s attic. I’m not the sort of man who shares women, not even with my best friend. But if they’re happy, I’m happy for them.” He leaned in, eyes glowing. “Ask me how I feel about you.”
Heady warmth spread through her stomach and radiated to her thighs. He was so obscenely handsome and sexy, and that heady warmth gathered into a delicious ache. “How do you feel about me?”
“I’m here to free Vera Gomez by any means possible.” He lowered his lips, settling his mouth upon hers, soft, barely touching, yet certain. “The task felt impossible because I didn’t want to help the woman who pretended to be you. I wanted to kill her. Still do. Especially now, knowing the part she played in making your life a living hell.”
His voice was a deep caress with an edge of vindictive fury as he kissed her face, her neck, nuzzling and touching her everywhere. The yearning he stirred in her was frightening, scrambling her concentration.
“I want the real Vera Gomez. Madly.” He started to remove her clothes.
“Luke.” Torn between lust and needing answers, she twined her fingers through his hair and dragged his mouth against hers, the flavor of mint clinging to her lips. “I have so many questions, and you make it damn hard to think.”
“Multitask.” He rubbed his thumb over her nipple through the shirt and slipped his tongue in her mouth. “I’m listening.”
“I didn’t know Tula’s father was Hector until Marco told me.” She groaned, letting him kiss her for a long moment, soaring in a decadent fusion of lips and tongues. “My mother took the identities of both our fathers to the grave. I’m still trying to get used to the idea that my sister is La Rocha by blood.”
“I can tell you what I know.” He lifted her into his arms only to lay her on a soft patch of grass. Then he stretched out on his side against her and toyed with the curly strands of her hair. “When Petula Gomez walked into Hector’s prison, her name keyed him off. So he had a paternity test done without her knowledge. He was as surprised by her incarceration as she was. We don’t know if her arrest was coincidence or—”
“When I heard about it, I suspected that the Mexican military mistook her for me. There are a lot of dangerous people looking for me in Ciudad Hueca. The more money I owed, the deeper I entangled myself with wanted felons. My sweet sister—”
“She murdered Hector in his prison cell.”
“What?”
At her stunned gasp, a smile overtook his face. “She’s fierce. Just like you.”
As she spluttered a million questions, he gave her a full retelling of how her sister, a Spanish high school teacher, outsmarted and cut down the capo of La Rocha Cartel in prison. His hands roamed her body as he narrated each heroic detail and reassured her about Tula’s safety and wellbeing.
His mouth shared the story while his lips vibrated the words along her ribs and the undersides of her breasts, dampening the shirt. By the end, he had her shoes and jeans off, her top and bra pushed to her neck, and her breasts glistening with the moisture from his panting mouth.