Truth be told, I didn’t even want to hurt her family. I just wanted to keep her in line. “Alright.”
“Alright what?” she pressed. “Does that mean you’ll stop?”
I nodded. “I’ll stop. I have no ill will toward your family.”
She breathed a sigh of relief, that confession meaning the world to her.
“But make no mistake, if they ever become a problem, I’ll be forced to do something. I know you don’t want to hear that, but I have to be honest with you.”
She gave me a heated look again.
“I’m sorry,” I said gently. “As long your family never finds out about me, I’m sure nothing will ever happen. If you trust Vanessa, then I’m sure everything will be fine.”
“I do trust her.”
“Then let’s not worry about it.” I used to not care about making her angry, about threatening to hurt the family she loved so much. But now I hated myself a little bit more every time I dropped those kinds of threats.
“No more eavesdropping.” She crossed her arms over her chest as she stared me down. “It’s a huge invasion of privacy, and I think it’s below you to cross that line. If you want to have months of amazing sex, that needs to change.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
She was visibly surprised I gave in so easily.
“My attention was never to eavesdrop on you. Drake told me about your first conversation with Vanessa because he thought it was important, but I never asked him to do that. Now he’s been doing it ever since…because I didn’t ask him to stop.”
“That doesn’t make it any better, Bosco.” The fire in her eyes turned to ice. “I demand the respect I deserve. I want to tell my best friend about my life without worrying about you listening. I shouldn’t even have to ask.”
She made me feel like shit so easily. Only a truly powerful woman could do that. “You’re right. It’s over.”
Her eyes shifted back and forth as she looked into mine, searching for the sincerity in my gaze. But she didn’t need to look because I was always honest with her. If I wanted to keep spying on her, I would just tell her that. “Okay.” Slowly, the anger faded away. Her eyes didn’t look so belligerent, and her body physically relaxed. Her arms lowered to her sides, and she took a deep breath, like she was truly relaxed.
Even though I was desperate to touch her, I moved my hands into the pockets of my sweatpants. She wasn’t angry anymore, but her aura of hostility still burned bright. “I’m gonna make dinner. Would you like some?”
She sighed. “Fish?”
I grinned. “Chicken.”
“What if we order a pizza?”
I couldn’t remember the last time I had pizza. “You can order anything you want, Beautiful. But I’ll pass.”
She rolled her eyes so hard it seemed like they might get stuck in the back of her head. “You need to live a little. One day, all of this is gonna be over, and you’re gonna regret not eating more pizza and drinking more beer.”
“Or maybe I’ll live longer because I don’t eat pizza and drink beer.”
She shook her head. “That’s not a life worth living, if you ask me.”
I chuckled, loving how real she was.
“Being around you makes me feel fat.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible.” I looked her up and down. “You look perfect.”
“You’re the one with the perfect body,” she countered. “You have like six percent body fat or something?”
“Yeah. Probably.” I didn’t know how to be humble about it. “But trust me, men don’t want a woman with six percent body fat.”
“And what do they want?” she challenged.
Carmen. Every man in the world wanted Carmen. “A woman with tits, curves, and an ass.”
“That doesn’t sound like a lot of criteria.”
“Because it’s not. Men are pretty simple.” There were a lot of beautiful women out there, but Carmen’s fire is what attracted me to her the most. If I saw her in a bra, I probably would have thought she was sexy and got hard at the sight of her, but that wouldn’t necessarily have caught my attention. It was watching her fight off four guys fearlessly that made me stop in my tracks. It was her demand for respect that made me drop to my knees. Those were qualities that had nothing to do with the size of her tits or the perkiness of her ass.
“Well, how about you ditch your strict diet and relax for once? Let’s have pizza and beer tonight.”
I shook my head. “You’re a terrible influence.”
“Like you aren’t?” she teased.
We were both terrible for each other—but in very different ways. “Alright, let’s do it.”
The light brightened in her eyes as the excitement hit her. “Really?”
I nodded.
“Wow. I can’t believe this is actually happening. My hands are shaking.” She pulled out her phone to order the food.