“Oh my God,” I whispered. “What the hell was that noise?”
Aaron lifted his head slightly, just enough for me to be able to watch how his eyes traveled across my face, bouncing from every spot he had brushed his lips over to the next, as if he couldn’t decide where to set camp. Eventually stopping at my lips. Something that looked a lot like pain flashed across his expression. “Your cousin, I hope.”
Charo.
Of course. That … made sense.
Aaron sobered up slowly, his expression eventually going back to normal. “I’ll go check,” he announced before ripping himself off me.
My body grieved the loss almost immediately, feeling cold and unbalanced without him.
Willing my legs
to remain strong, I limited myself to following Aaron’s march to the door, feeling numb and all over the place. He looked back at me right before he opened it.
“Catalina.” There it was again. Not Lina. Catalina. “I’m glad I didn’t kiss you.”
Something halted in my chest.
“Why?” The word was nothing more than a shaky whisper.
“Because when I finally take those lips in mine, it will be the furthest thing from pretending. I will not be showing you what it would be like if you were mine. I’ll show you what it is. And I sure as hell won’t be showing how good I could make you feel if you called me yours. You’ll already know that I am.”
He paused, and I swore I could see the restraint in his posture. As if he was stopping himself from pouncing and returning us to our former position, right against the hard surface of the wardrobe door.
“When I finally kiss you, there won’t be any doubt in your mind that it is real.”
Chapter Twenty
The moment my eyes popped open to the glorious darkness that only a country where blinds were religiously installed could provide, I knew I wasn’t in my bed.
For one, I was used to waking up to bright beams of sunlight flooding my studio apartment. Then, there was the surface beneath me. It felt different. Softer and bouncier than the one my body was accustomed to. Same went for the pillow where my head rested—too flat and low.
But what really screamed at me that this wasn’t my bed—that I wasn’t in my apartment in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn—was the dead weight currently resting on my waist. It was heavy and warm and felt a lot like an oversize limb that surely couldn’t belong to me.
The drumming occurring in almost every corner of my head was probably not helping me get any clarity on what was responsible for that vise around my body. Or why I wasn’t in the comfort of my room, rolling in a mattress that had made it worth punching a hole in my bank account.
Blinking a few times as I brushed some of the sleepy locks of hair off my face, my eyes adjusted to the darkness.
My gaze searched for whatever was behind the weight on my midsection.
An arm. Just how I had suspected. It was dusted with dark hair and corded with muscle. So, it wasn’t mine. My eyes followed that muscular and long limb all the way up until reaching the very masculine shoulder it was attached to. A shoulder that led to a strong neck that ended in a head that—
Mierda.
The owner of all those body parts I had been studying in the darkness shifted. I froze. That robust and heavy arm that was latched to my waist moved slightly, his hand partially slipping beneath my shirt. All five fingers splayed on my skin.
My breath got stuck somewhere between my throat and mouth.
Do not fucking move, Catalina, I ordered myself.
But it was hard when those fingers felt so hot against my skin, causing my whole body to tingle.
Only a few inches separated me from Aaron.
Aaron.
Last night.