Unlike my ángeles, I see the walls painted crimson with Aria’s blood. Once I exact revenge on Dominic, of course. The tips of my fingers slide across her creamy brown thigh. I’ll be the last vicious touch she’s ever known.
“LeAnna, you continue to disappoint me.” I crouch down. A sadness I hadn’t anticipated drapes over me as I watch her gorgeous face at peace.
We were to save each other, yet she transitioned into my hermano’s whore.
“One day, sooner or later, I gotta kill—”
“Dom . . .” The prettiest brown eyes on this side of the galaxy pop open.
LeAnna rubs her hand along my face, drawing me close to her. I press my mouth against hers. My tongue drags out to taste her lips. She kisses me so hard that my legs would cave were I standing.
“You’re so perfect. You were my hero.” Her voice grows muddled, still fighting sleep. LeAnna’s fingers glide across my jaw and cling to my shirt. She yanks at me.
All the neurons in my brain explode. Cock expanding in my pants, I climb on top of LeAnna as she tugs at me. Her eyes are still shaded. My hips slide between her thighs.
“You are trouble, mami.” I groan. There’s not a single shred of vengeance in my bones.
“Shhh. Let me pretend this is a dream. That yesterday.” Her voice takes on a delectable, husky tone. “That yesterday was our normal. Our life.”
Yesterday, at the gym.
Eyes still shaded closed, LeAnna purrs, stirring her sex against my jeans. She groans. “That I’m not crazy. That you’re not a lifetime player. That you . . .”
I’m not a player. I can be monogamous. Fuck. I pause from unzipping my pants. This puta is all in my head. These words are for . . .
LeAnna softly snores. I begin to shift off her. Sensing my movement, she clings to me again. Her mouth settles next to mine, and she smiles as if tickled by my jaw.
“I’d say it’s not fair you’ve brushed your teeth, and I haven’t, but I taste a faintly sweet, spicy scent. Dominic, have you been smoking?”
“Sí, mami.” My voice echoes in my ears, lowering to a harmonic timber. LeAnna Jones still has a hypnotic hold on me that will only die with her as my palms squeeze the oxygen from her slender throat.
She presses her lips to mine and kisses me harder. “Stop smoking. I . . . care so much about you, so much.” Her hand falls, and her voice grows groggy. “Gimme another hour. I’ll wake up. All those drinks, it’s so hard to wake up, baby.”
“You care—”
Footsteps sound near the door, along with the sound of Dominic on the phone. I’m fucked!
Chapter Fifty
Aria
Is it too soon to say “I love you?” The words were heavy at the tip of my tongue. I knew I was speaking incoherently much of the time, but I wanted so bad for this to be . . . us.
Sleep snatches me back into oblivion before Dominic can respond. Or had I made the declaration out loud? He’s always so full of confidence, so when “you care” came tumbling from his mouth, I may have smiled. It was like he hadn’t believed it.
“Wake up, chula.”
I ignore Dominic’s voice, which has grown a pinch deeper. My left hand takes flight off the bed, like an inch or two, waving him away.
“Chula, wake up for papi.”
“I told you I was . . .” With a huff, I roll onto my side and peel an eye open.
Dominic is at the door, bare-chested and holding a tray with two frothy drinks. One is orange, and the other has a green tint. But what has me on pause is my luck. I could pluck a bucket full of four-leaf clovers and still not believe what’s standing before my eyes.
Panty wetter. Stick of caramel that I want to lick, savor. If I jumped on Dominic right now, wrapped my legs around him, and declared I had no intention of ever letting go, there’s no doubt he’d run. Last night, I was good and tipsy when we walked out of my childhood home. I’d been dreaming that the man who will never settle down would sign his name on my heart.
Yes, I have seen him in action with my eyes. Heard the deceptive, charming devil tell other women what they wanted, not what they needed to hear. Am I crazy to crave that, no matter how long it will last?
“Was it a second ago, an hour ago when you came in here to harass me? Keep your healthy drinks.” I muse, knowing I have this habit of lucid dreaming. Maybe Dominic hadn’t kissed me at all. Thank goodness because it’s too soon to say the words I’ve never spoken to a man. And it will be too soon—in this lifetime—for Dominic Ángel Alvarez to reiterate my sentiment and mean it.
“Took me about thirty minutes to make breakfast.” He gestures toward the tray, placing it down on my side of the bed. “What is this? Dirt?”
I glance down as Dominic pads a foot into soil particles on the light gray runner on my side of the bed.
“Yeah, looks like it.”
“Okay, drink up. Then it’s time for a bath.”
“I’m not that stinky!” I squeak.
He laughs a little, removing his house shoe to search the sole of it. “Might’ve been me. Dario hasn’t checked the mail in ages, so I went. But I ran your bath first thing before I went down to make the drinks. Say ‘thank you, papi.’ ”
“Thank you, Dominic.” I offer a sloppy grin, grabbing the orange drink with its mango scent. Smiling, Dominic takes it from my hand, placing the other there.
“This one is for you, mami. Get your strength up. You owe me.”
“Cocky bastard.” I down the green drink, surprised by the sweet taste of pineapples, a hint of pear, and a lingering taste of honey.
“Bueno?” he asks, heading toward the bathroom.
Stretching to my feet, I’m careful not to step in the dirt. I notice a fragment of jean material beneath the bed. Eyebrows furrowed, I reach for the crumpled light blue jeans when Dominic calls, “Get in here, chula. Now!”
“I’m . . .”
“Thirty?”
I stand to my full height. “Thirty what?”
“Oh, you know, Aria.”
I stalk toward the bathroom. “Thirty swats? I’ll fight back!”
My eyes collide with his. He’s seated on the ledge of a standing tub. He’s naked, and my sex begins to spasm, rain, and call out to him.
“You good, chula?”
I drag my tongue over my bottom lip. The heat between us intensifies. A magnetic pull brings me toward a body dripping in gold-plated muscles. “Okay, papi.” Damn it, Aria, how easy are you? He hasn’t even touched you.
Dominic holds up a loofa in one hand. In his other open palm is translucent liquid. “How should I wash you? This is the only choice you have right now, chula? The loofa or my hand. After that, papi tells you exactly what you need. Comprende?”
Dammit, I stutter on a monosyllabic word, “Y-yes.”
“So?” He cocks a brow.
Oh, God, my mind keeps clearing. “Wash me with your hands.” My second round of self-deprecation is strangled by desire.
“Undress for me, mami. Get in.”
First, I move fast like a NASCAR racer, shoveling the shirt over my head. At the reflection of me, a rooster in the mirror, I slow down, acutely aware that his eyes are eating me up. I slink my thong over one hip then the other.