Goddamn him for being right.
Valeria, out of an instinctual need to be safe and nothing more, peeked back to the ranch, and stables. Here, all she ever did was look over her shoulder to see who was spying, and might report back to Jorge about her behavior. She hadn’t realized how often she did it until Chris was nearby.
Sad thing, that.
“No worries, no one is watching,” Chris said, amusement coloring his tone.
Valeria was quick to snap around to glare at him, then. “Don’t treat this like a joke. I might like your attention, but that doesn’t mean I can always accept it.”
His playful smile never faltered.
God.
Why did he have to be so cocky?
So damn confident?
Arrogant men were not Valeria’s first choice, that was for sure, and yet she found it was a good look on Chris. She was not used to the heat traveling lower between her thighs, making an ache settle deep in her bones.
Jesus.
And that want?
Clawing at her chest?
It was too much.
“Don’t you have questions for me?” he asked.
She did.
Too many.
And yet, all she could say was, “You will get me killed.”
“Quite the opposite, Valeria.”
What?
Again with that suggestion. Like he was here for her—he said it as though that’s what he meant, but she couldn’t be sure that’s what it was.
She didn’t even trust herself.
“Would you let me do it again?”
Valeria sucked in a shaky breath, a flush traveling down her throat. She could feel the heat crawling over her skin though she did her best to ignore it. She asked, although she was sure she knew his answer, “Do what?”
“Kiss you.”
“Valeria!”
The shout of Abril coming from the stables had her rearing the horse back, already turning to head for the stables and leaving Chris behind.
“Will you?” he called after her.
His tone was still dark with wicked promises that made her skin pebble, and her thighs clench. She couldn’t miss it, not that she wanted to.
“Not if I value my life.”
He probably didn’t hear her.
That was okay.
Even she didn’t believe it.
• • •
The week following Valeria’s encounter with Chris in the field could only be described as hell. Not because anyone had caught them, although it came close, or because anyone suspected something had happened. Rather, she couldn’t help the paranoia that seemed to creep up her spine whenever the memory of Chris kissing her against that wall, or him asking her if he could do it again as he leaned against the fence, would flood her mind.
It was made worse whenever she would be close enough for Jorge to be looking at her when the memories came rushing into her mind, intent on driving her crazy, making her hot, and scared for her life all at the same time.
Because that’s what her husband would do, she knew. Undoubtedly, he would kill her for even thinking about another man, let alone kissing one. Jorge was terribly jealous when a man was staring at Valeria for too long because he thought of her as a prize he had won. And not once, but twice, when he caught her after running. He was not giving her up, and instead of treating her like something prized, he behaved like she was shit under his shoe.
The more troubling part?
Valeria couldn’t stop thinking about it.
About Chris.
That moment replayed in her mind daily—on fucking repeat. It woke her up at night when Jorge was beside her, and she didn’t need to be thinking about it, all things considered. The taste of him seemed like it lingered on her lips whenever she sipped on a glass of water because it reminded her of him. Crisp, and fresh.
Like the way his kiss and simple touch had made her body light up with barely any effort on his part at all.
God.
She didn’t need that.
None of it.
Worse was the fact she thought a huge part of her might want to do it again, and that was terrifying. Valeria spent her days at the side of a man who raped and beat her simply for being his wife. And a random man shows up with strange words coming out of his mouth about being there for her, and she’s kissing him in a stable? Entertaining his flirting while she rode a horse?
Stupid.
That’s what she was.
A stupid little niña.
Because only a girl would behave the way she did, so recklessly and dumbly. It was the only excuse she could come up with to justify why she had done what she did, and why she wanted to do it again.
Or you are so starved for love and affection that a kind man with care in his eyes reminded you that you are both alive, and a woman.
Fuck her thoughts, too.
Valeria had done her best to avoid Chris over the last week. He had occasionally joined them at their table for a meal, but he made a careful effort not to talk to her in her husband’s presence, which she was sure Jorge appreciated, as he usually did for other men. And if there was a chance for her to speak with Chris, she was quick to take herself out of the situation so they couldn’t talk.
She didn’t need the trouble.
Right?
So, why did her body think differently?
“Don’t let the kitten get too far from you,” Valeria called to her daughter from the porch.
Sitting on the steps with her sister-in-law, she watched as Maria chased after a kitten she sneaked from a barn. It was normal for the cats to mate and have a batch of kittens on a ranch. Cats kept the vermin down with their hunting habits.
Somehow, Maria convinced her father to let her keep the kitten she had snuck away from the litter when it was big enough, and no longer needed its mother. Valeria figured Jorge had only allowed her to take the gray and white kitten because it was something for him to use to bribe their child, not because she seemed to love the kitten. Whenever he thought she misbehaved, he threatened to send the kitten back to the barn, or worse ...
Valeria did her best to assure Maria that wouldn’t happen, but she also seemed like she made promises she wouldn’t be able to keep. And that, more than anything, killed her. She was never more aware of how little control she had over her life until it was her daughter, and nothing was for her to decide.
Even if it was just a kitten.
“Oh, no!” Maria shouted when the kitten darted away from her and went around the house. “Come back, Kitty!”
Kitty.
Yep, that’s what she had named it.
Valeria let her.
What else could she do?
“Hurry and grab it before it goes back to the barn,” Abril told Maria, “because that’s probably what she wants to do.”
Maria darted after the kitten, almost going out of Valeria’s line of sight, but stopped just short. Her head tilted back as a shadow drifted over her form, and she stared up at whoever had come around the side of the house.
“Better hold on to her good so she doesn’t get away again,” a familiar voice said.
Valeria felt that voice through every part of her body.
Every single fucking part.
Chris.
“Thank you very much,” Maria said, smiling.
They both came into view around the side of the house, standing beside a garden bed of roses that Abril liked to maintain. She had one for every house although she only lived in her own.
Chris passed a look toward the house, his gaze landing on Valeria before it went back to her daughter. Kneeling down, he handed the squirming kitten to her daughter with a soft smile. His voice lowered as he spoke to her daughter, and pet the kitten between her ears with the pad of his finger.