AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He laid the papers on the coffee table and pulled her across his lap. “I remember the first time I kissed you.”
“Is that part of the song?”
“No.” He nuzzled her throat. “You’d run off and left me once. I didn’t want you to run away again.”
Her brows dipped in a slight frown. “You were wrong that time, and it’s no wonder I left you on the beach. Perhaps it was a cultural misunderstanding.”
“No, I was an ass.”
“Leave that line out of the song, please.” She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him until it was difficult to recall the subject under discussion.
She sat back but remained relaxed in his arms. “My mother warned me about men in general, but her main point was to watch out for the self-centered type who think only of themselves. They’re easy to spot. They never stop talking, and they don’t listen when a woman interjects a thought.”
“You’ve met some?”
“Oh yes, here’s an example. I’d dated a man a few times, and we were having dinner together when he began a long explanation of everything he’d done that day. When he finally paused to eat, I mentioned I’d had a difficult day too and was concerned about one of my classes.”
“Trouble with the professor?”
“Thank you, you asked me to provide details. He began talking about his car. That was enough for me, and I made an excuse when he asked me out again.”
“It sounds as though he needed your mother’s coaching. You didn’t think to coach him yourself?”
“If I’d told him, sweetly of course, that he needed to give me some time and attention, he wouldn’t have understood what I meant. He’d just have stared at me as though I’d grown a second head. Either way, we were done.”
“I feel sorry for him, but I’m glad.”
He had the warm sexy glow in his dark eyes, and she was very glad too. “How autobiographical is your song? Do you have a lot of regrets you’ll turn into lyrics?”
“I have only one huge regret, that I didn’t understand how unbalanced my grandmother was before she attacked Maggie. Carmen had always been mean and aloof, but none of us realized she was deranged. She remained in the chair at the end of the coffee table, sipping hot chocolate while your sister nearly bled to death here on the sofa. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen, in or out of a bullring.”
She shuddered to suppress that horrible image. “We should have told our parents.”
He brushed a stray curl from her eyes. “It would have just frightened them.”
“True, but they ought to know, and they ought to know someone is out to kill you.”
He hugged her. “They’d make you fly home tomorrow.”
She could hear her father demanding she go directly to the airport. “They’d make me fly out tonight, but I still feel guilty for keeping them out of the loop. Speaking of tomorrow, what is our plan for Orlando Ortiz?”
“I’ll let him know someone followed us in his wife’s car. I’ll tell him how I was injured and the arson here. He’s a man with many contacts, he might be able to suggest a way to improve our security.”
“I see, you’re not calling him out, you’re treating him as an ally.”
“Everyone needs powerful allies.”
“Of course, unless his wife in involved, and then we may be in worse trouble than we are now,” she warned.
“Let’s not waste any more of tonight. I’ll have Manuel come in and help me up the stairs.”
“Not a second of tonight was wasted,” she exclaimed. She pushed out of his arms and stood.
“A poor choice of words,” he explained. “I don’t count every minute out of bed as wasted, but I can’t think of anything else when we’re in one. Is that better?”
She waited while he phoned Manuel. “I rather liked the dining room table, and the closet episode was memorable too. I won’t forget sex on the dresser either.”
He grabbed his crutches and shoved to his feet. “Let’s go out on my balcony. The railing is high enough to keep you from falling over and no one will be able to see through the bougainvillea to know what we’re doing.”
