Текст книги "The Spanish love deception"

Автор книги: Elena Armas

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“I want to feel you milking me, baby,” Aaron said before stealing my mouth. One of his hands flew to my breasts, closing over my rosy peak. “Come for me,” he demanded in a husky voice. “Come on my cock.”

His words, his feral rhythm, his body pinning mine—all of it made my eyelids flutter shut. My body burned. Blazed with every thrust.

A desperate plea escaped my lips. “Aaron.”

“Look at me. I want you to look at me.”

He lifted my weight, placing me against his chest. He moved me, burrowing himself into me from below, lifting and pressing me into him. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I felt the high coming alive. I tugged at his hair. Hard.

Aaron pulled both my arms behind my back, securing my wrists with one hand. My back arched.

“Look at you, at my mercy.” He increased the rhythm of my hips, of the way he jerked me onto his cock. “Just where I’ve wanted you all this time.”

One deep and hard thrust after, Aaron’s jaw tightened at the same time his other hand reached between us, his fingers landing above the spot where we were connected. Circling, rubbing. And before I could do anything about it, I was sent flying. Right at the same time as I felt Aaron pulsating his release inside of me.

My name left him in an animalistic growl. Pure, unadulterated bliss shocked me as the motion of his hips continued, his thrusts growing slower, riding us both through the climax. His arms tightened around me, his face burrowed in my neck, the outline of our bodies a blur until his hips came to a stop.

We remained right there, suspended in time. The beating of our hearts against each other’s skin and the soothing rhythm of his pulse under my touch.

Eventually, Aaron pulled out of me and laid us on our side, his arms still wrapped around me. He nestled me against his chest, and I knew I was ruined for any other embrace. Nothing else could ever compare.

He brushed a kiss against my hair. Then one against my temple, leaving his lips there for a long moment. “Was that too much?”

I turned my face into his chest and placed my lips above his heart. “No, never.” And I meant it. “I …” I trailed off, my voice turning into a whisper. “I liked how you lost control. I liked it a lot.”

“Careful.” I felt his hand on my hair, his palm brushing down the tousled locks. “If you get any more perfect, I’m going to believe you were made just for me.”

My lips curled up in a giddy smile with the thought, and I had to press my mouth into his chest, so I wouldn’t say what was on my mind. Keep me. It’s the least you can do if I was.

After a few minutes, Aaron shifted. My arms locked tighter around his neck. “I need to take care of the condom, baby.”

He tried pushing away, but I refused to let him go. His chuckle came light and sunny and just like a blow to the chest. It distracted me enough for him to slip out.

I whimpered, disappointed and cold. I guessed I was a greedy woman when it came to cuddles.

Or perhaps it was when it came to him.

“I’ll be back before you blink, promise.”

Luckily for him, he was. And the sight he treated me to as he strolled, flawlessly naked, across the room helped his case. Once back on the bed, he wrapped himself around me, tucking me to his side. He pulled the light comforter over us and hummed with deep, sultry content.

Yep, I thought. Same here.

“See?” he said against my hair. “Not even a full minute.”

I sighed into his chest. “I’m needy, okay?” I admitted, unashamed. “And I’m not talking just snuggles needy. I’m spider-monkey needy.” I made my point, throwing my leg over his and my arm over his chest, tangling our bodies in a way that I guessed wasn’t anywhere close to being cute.

Somehow, even with my face buried in his neck, I knew he was smiling. Then, his chest rumbled, confirming that he wasn’t just doing that.

“Are you laughing at my misfortune?”

“I wouldn’t dare. Just enjoying you being all greedy with me, spider monkey.” His palm trailed down my spine, stopping at my backside. He squeezed. “But if you don’t behave, we will never manage to get any sleep tonight. And as devastating as it is, I only had that condom.”

My grip on him loosened a little, “Did you … expect this to happen?” I asked, thinking of him slipping a condom in his luggage. A rush of anticipation rose beneath my skin.

“No,” he answered softly. His fingers making their way up my back. “But I’m not going to lie to you; a big part of me hoped it would, and maybe that’s why I left it in. It had been in there forever anyway, so I thought it wouldn’t hurt.”

“I’m happy you did,” I told him truthfully, and his hand came to rest at the nape of my neck. His fingers slipped in, tangling with my hair. “It’s too bad you didn’t think of throwing in more.”

The sound that came out of Aaron’s throat gave me life. “Oh yeah?”

Instead of answering what I hoped was a rhetorical question—because how could I not mourn the loss of more mind-blowing sex like that?—a different question popped up in my mind.

“Can I ask you something?” I ventured, leaning back so I could look at his face.

Aaron’s head tilted back too, finding my eyes. “You can ask me anything.”

“How in the world is your Spanish so good?”

His lips tugged up sheepishly.

“Seriously,” I continued, grilling him for an answer. “I had no idea you spoke a word of Spanish. You never told me you were so good at it.” I watched his eyes sparkle at the compliment. I liked putting that there. Just as much as I liked making him smile. “To think that you might have understood all the names I called you.”

He sighed, his cheeks turning a little pink. “I really didn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“You said everything had to go absolutely perfect.”

I searched his face for the meaning behind that. “So, you just … what? Started a crash course before flying here?”

It had been a joke, but Aaron shrugged his shoulders.

Understanding sank in slowly. “Oh my God, you did,” I said under my breath. For me. He did that for me.

“It’s not like I had never learned Spanish before. I did, in school.” He reached for my hair again, playing absently with a strand, curling it around his index finger. “And now, there’s an app for anything. I learned enough to make a good impression. I still have a long way to go.”

Something must have been plastered all over my face—something I hoped wasn’t the adoration I felt for him in that precise moment—because Aaron’s eyes seemed oddly interested in studying me.

Then, he brought me even closer to his chest, tucked me securely against him, and placed a kiss on my shoulder. I melted into that brush of his lips like butter left under the sun.

“I bet I’m still missing all the interesting vocabulary,” he added, sounding thoughtful. He brushed another kiss on my shoulder. “The best words.”

“Oh.” My lips curled up, interested in the direction the conversation was taking. “You want me to teach you all the dirty words?”

I looked up at him and wiggled my eyebrows. Aaron gave me a lopsided smile that would have made my panties drop to the floor had they been resting on my hips.

“Well, you are in luck; I’m a wonderful teacher.”

“And I’m a highly dedicated student.” He winked. And that goddamn wink disrupted the beating of my heart. “Although I might get a little distracted every now and then.”

“I see.” I placed my index finger against his chest, watching Aaron’s eyes dive down quickly before returning to my face. “Maybe you need the right kind of motivation to keep your attention on the subject.”

I trailed that finger up, traveling across his pec and then up his neck, following the line of his jaw until reaching his lips. They parted with a shallow breath.

“This …” I pushed myself up and kissed his lips gently. “This is a six-letter word in Spanish. Labios. Tus labios. Your lips.”

The only answer he gave me was taking my mouth in his again. As if the only way he’d learn the word was tasting it.

“And this,” I said before parting his lips and making the kiss deeper, our tongues dancing together, “is another six-letter word. Lengua—tongue.”

“I think I really like that one.” Aaron’s head dipped low, his new favorite word reaching my breast. “And this? What do you call this?” he said, grazing his mouth over the peak.

A giggle that soon turned into a moan left my mouth before I was able to answer. “That’s a five-letter word. Pezón. Nipple.”

Aaron hummed while his lips traveled up my chest, placing soft kisses on his way.

“So, we have worked on six– and five-letter words.” He placed more of those pecks on my skin. “Just for the sake of sticking to your method, we should go over four-letter words. Would you teach me one?” Aaron’s wish fell against my skin.

A four-letter word. It shouldn’t have been complicated. There were probably thousands of four-letter words in my mother tongue. But my mind was a treacherous thing, and it betrayed me. Often. And the only word I could think of was a very particular one. One that, despite not being too long, was powerful enough to change things. To change people’s lives. To move mountains and start wars.

It was a big word that I had promised myself I wouldn’t give anybody without being sure I meant it with every single molecule in my body. Without being sure I was safe.

My silence seemed to give Aaron the perfect opportunity to keep exploring my skin. His mouth causing my heart to pound against my chest.

“I don’t know,” I murmured distractedly. Scared and turned on too.

More kisses were brushed against my skin, making me fight to catch my breath.

“It’s okay,” he said like he really meant it. “We can break the rules. That’s the magic in being us, the ones making them.”

He took my mouth keenly, getting me out of my head for a blissful moment. And when we came up for air, his head dipped one more time, placing an openmouthed kiss above my heart. “Corazón,” he said softly, so softly that the word seeped into my blood, mixing with my own so it would never be able to leave. “Heart. That’s your heart. Seven letters.”

Looking into his eyes for a long moment, I swore I could see in them everything he wasn’t voicing. I’ll make it mine. And everything I wasn’t brave enough to say. Take it.

When Aaron finally spoke, it sounded like a promise. “I’ll earn my four-letter word.”

And there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he would. But at what cost?

Chapter Twenty-Four

The experience of waking up next to Aaron that following morning had absolutely nothing to do with the two other times I had opened my eyes to find him lying in the same bed.

For one, we were naked. Something I thought I could quickly get used to. Effortlessly.

Then, there was this teeny-tiny thing that separated this morning from the previous ones. A technicality really. And that was the beaming grin already on my face. It was stupidly wide, and I was afraid I might have slept with it. Ridiculous, I knew. But who had the time to be embarrassed when Aaron Blackford was right there, all big and naked and ready to be eaten?

Not me.

And not when something definitely not tiny was throbbing against my thigh.

Aaron grunted, shifting and pushing that pulsating part of his body into me.

Ah, hello, new favorite limb.

“Morning,” he rasped. His voice was thick with sleep, begging me to snuggle into him.

“Mmm,” I managed to answer.

It was terribly rude of me, but I was busy with more important stuff. Like learning every inch of his chest with my hands. Or the abs that topped his stomach. And that narrow trail of dark hair. Yes, I needed to get well acquainted with that too.

“Your parents are picking us up soon,” he told me almost breathlessly.

“Yep.” I was aware. “But one hour is sixty minutes, and if we manage to pack our suitcases in five and shower in … three? That leaves us with fifty-two whole minutes.” Time I was planning to spend learning more of Aaron’s body. “One can do many things with so many minutes. It’s all about time management.”

My fingers continued their pathway down, down, down. Finally closing around his length. Aaron pushed his hips up into my palm.

“Baby.” The word sounded strangled. But I continued palming his hardness up and down. “Do you want to kill me?”

He kept asking me that as if I had the answer.

“No?” I rasped, my focus completely gone. “Yes?”

His hips thrust into my hand again.

“What was the question?”

Aaron groaned, and his hand came to rest on the small of my back, pulling me to his side—hard—making me straddle his hip. Unconsciously, instinctively, I rocked against him, looking for release. Just like Aaron was doing into my hand.

At that moment, I was starting to consider the possibility of forgetting about my suitcase, my parents, our flights back, work, life, and basically anything outside this bed. Anything that wasn’t Aaron. I simply didn’t care enough.

And the next thing I knew, we were up in the air. Well, I was.

With my body in his arms, Aaron crossed the distance to the en suite bathroom in a few long strides. He turned the shower on without placing me on the floor.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but fifty-two minutes is not nearly enough time for what I want to do to you. So, we’ll need to multitask,” he explained, placing me under the stream of hot water. His eyes roamed up and down my body, hunger obscuring the blue in them.

“Time management and multitasking,” I told him, watching him step inside the shower with me. “You have an impressive résumé, Mr. Blackford.”

His hands came to rest on my hips. The grip of his fingers demanding. Desperate. “And I don’t shy away from a challenge. Please add that in there too.” His body pressed mine against the cold and smooth tiles. “I’ll just have to make you come with my tongue while we shower.” My new favorite word peeked out, traveling along his lower lip.

Hot fucking damn.

“And maybe again while we pack. All of it under fifty-two minutes. But I’m pretty sure I’ll manage.”

Oh boy. And did he ever.

Against all odds, we had made it on time.

Turned out that Aaron’s soft skills were really that impressive.

My parents drove us to the airport with more than enough extra time to have breakfast in the terminal before boarding.

Once in the plane, Aaron’s arm draped around my shoulders, and I snuggled right into his side. My head rested into the crook of his neck, his delicious scent engulfing me and causing a multitude of happy sighs to leave my lips. The feeling of this new sense of normalcy that had been born between us calmed me enough to knock me out, even before takeoff.

It wasn’t until we touched American ground that a familiar alarm went off in my head. The conversation. If I were smart, I would have used that large amount of time we had been confined in the same space to have one. We needed to draw lines, to define and box whatever this thing between us was. To … decide what to do about it. Because while I wouldn’t normally feel that kind of pressure, Aaron wasn’t just anybody. He wasn’t a man I had started casually dating or one I had had a night of amazing, mind-blowing sex with. He was Aaron. My Aaron. My work colleague. Soon, my boss. And that screamed to take a different approach to this. Whatever he wanted it to be. Whatever we wanted to make it.

But for that, we needed to talk.

His hand came to rest at the small of my back, his thumb brushing a circle over my T-shirt. I looked up at him, finding his gaze already on me. Damn, those eyes of his were quickly becoming my favorite thing in the world. Even more so than triple-chocolate brownies.

We had just crossed the Arrivals gate, so we found ourselves in the middle of the terminal. On New York soil. Only a few feet from what awaited us outside the airport. Whatever that was.

“Lina,” he said softly.

Judging by the way he had uttered my name, the weight with which he had said it, I knew he was going to tell me something important. But that simple word—my name, not Catalina, but Lina—from his lips did things to me. To my chest, to my head.

“I love hearing that. My name.” My confession left my lips quietly, as if it were meant to be just a thought. “You don’t call me Lina nearly enough.”

Aaron looked into my eyes for a long moment, not speaking. Not acknowledging my fleeting comment. It wasn’t until I thought he wasn’t going to say anything at all—that we would walk out of that airport in silence and continue our merry separate ways—that he spoke, “Come home with me. To my place.”

Caught off guard, I blinked. In stunned silence, I thought about how I would love nothing more than to spend more time with him. To get lost in him for a little longer before having to go back to real life. Before we had to talk, have that conversation that would consolidate—or not—every single thing that had changed between us.

A conversation I feared more and more with every passing minute.

I wanted to take the leap. Badly. But my experience told me otherwise, warning me of not making the same mistake twice.

And I knew deep in my bones that recovering from that—from losing Aaron, or from possibly dilapidating years of hard work under dirty and unfair accusations, if history was to repeat itself—would not be easy. It would be the hardest thing I’d have to do in my life. I already knew.

As all that swirled in my head, I watched something that looked a lot like trepidation, fear, dance in Aaron’s features.

“Come with me, Lina.”

My eyelids shut briefly.

“I’ll feed you, make sure we stay awake so the jet lag doesn’t last for the rest of the week. Tomorrow, early in the morning, we’ll drive to your apartment, so you can grab whatever you need, and then we’ll head to work.” He paused. “Together.”

It sounded like a dream.

Just like him. He had to be if he thought he had to convince me to go with him anywhere. I wanted to, so badly. I’d follow him anywhere if he asked. But …

But … there was always a but, wasn’t there?

“Aaron,” I breathed, “I’m going to be very honest with you.” I owed him—and me and us—at least that. “I’m … scared. Terrified. You are going to be promoted. To my division leader. And that’s going to change things.”

I inhaled through my nose, averting my gaze to his chest. There was too much in his eyes. They distracted me, stole away my sanity.

“We are not in Spain any longer. This is real life. And this”—I waved a hand between us—“is going to complicate things.” Or perhaps it was the other way around—him being promoted to a position above me would complicate whatever this could be.

He snatched my hand and brought it to his chest. So warm and firm, so full of all the things I wanted but was terrified to reach for. “We’ll talk about it. Later, once we have cleaned up and I have you comfortable and relaxed.” His other hand came to my chin, tilting my head back so he could peer into my eyes. “And tomorrow, we’ll talk to HR. We will ask Sharon, if that gives you any peace of mind.”

Why? Why, world? Why did he have to be so thoughtful? So fucking perfect?

“But before doing that, you’ll have to give us a chance.” It was his turn for a shaky breath to leave his lips. “Do you trust me?”

My hand, which still rested over his chest, right above his heart, fisted the fabric of his shirt. Unable to do anything else but hold on to him. “Take me home, Aaron Blackford.”

Staring at the screen of my phone, I deliberated for the hundredth time if I should reply to the message with the truth.

She’s gonna flip. She’s going to kick my ass so hard that she’ll send me right back to Spain.

Lifting my gaze off the screen and looking at my reflection in the mirror—Aaron’s bathroom mirror—I didn’t like what I saw. It had nothing to do with the bags under my eyes or the messy knot that had been promoted to chaotic probably somewhere across the Atlantic Ocean. What bothered me wasn’t something I could point out with a finger or fix with a shower, a few hours of sleep, and a brush.

Turning away, I leaned on the edge of the impressive and enticing bathtub. Large enough to accommodate two Aarons, just like everything else in his apartment. Spacious and luxurious in a very sober and tasteful way. It suited him so perfectly.

I peered down at my phone again to reread her message.

Rosie: Are you back? How bad was it? Tell me everything in front of a coffee. Or two? Maybe three? How much is there to tell?

Just as I finally worked up the courage to answer, three dots started dancing on the screen.

Rosie: I can come by your apartment, bring the caffeine to you. In one hour? Thirty minutes? Now?

I could picture my friend batting her eyelashes at me. Rosie had never drilled me so hard for a story.

Lina: I’m not at my apartment.

Rosie: Still at the airport? I can come by later. Just give me a time.

Taking a deep breath, I typed my answer.

Lina: I don’t think I’m going back to my place tonight.

Those three dots bounced back to life on the screen. She typed and typed and typed. For a stupidly large amount of time. I frowned at my phone, bracing myself.

Rosie: I KNEW IT.

A strangled sound climbed up my throat. That’s all she was typing?

Rosie: SO? Spill it. Type it, so I can tell you that I saw it coming.

I chuckled under my breath. Had I been that blind?

Lina: …

Rosie: SAY IT. SAY IT OUT LOUD. Say. It.

Lina: Chill, Edward Cullen.

Rosie: Catalina, if you don’t start talking, I’m going to get pissed. And I never do. You still don’t know what a pissed Rosie looks like.

Lina: Aaron’s. I’m at Aaron’s apartment.

Rosie: Of course you are. I want to know the rest.

Lina: The rest?

Rosie: A condensed version—for now.

Lina: We sort of kissed. Kinda slept together.

Rosie: SORT OF? KINDA? What does that even mean?

Lina: *eye roll emoji* We did. Kissed. Had sex.

Rosie: AND?

And so, so much more, I was about to type. But my thumbs froze above the screen. Ugh. Then, they worked at breakneck speed.

Lina: … and I’m a mess. I’m scared and giddy. Stupidly happy too. And he’s so good to me. So good that it feels like a dream I’m going to wake up from with cold sweat sticking to my skin. And you know how much I hate when that happens. Remember when I dreamed that I was getting raunchy with Joe Manganiello and the fire alarm in my building went off right as he was unclasping his belt buckle, and I was cranky for a whole month?

Lina: This feels a million worlds better than that dream. Galaxies better.

It was, and I wasn’t just talking about the way my body seemed to come alive under his touch. Hell, that was the smallest part of all of this.

Lina: I don’t want to wake up, Rosie.

Rosie: Oh, sweetie.

I could almost feel the hug that would have followed that.

Lina: Anyway, I’ll tell you everything about it tomorrow.

This wasn’t a conversation we should be having via text anyway.

Rosie: You’d better do that. Otherwise, I’ll kick your ass.

A knock came from the door.

“Baby?” said a deep voice from the other side. The word traveled right to the center of my chest. “I’m going to start thinking that you are hiding from me.”

God, I sucked so much.

Aaron continued, “Come out, and let’s go get something to eat. You pick.”

My jet-lagged stomach grumbled at the thought. “Even fish tacos?”

“Especially fish tacos.”

Dammit. He was really going after my heart.

“Okay, one minute!” I called as I typed another message to Rosie.

Lina: Gotta go. We are picking up takeout.

Rosie: Okay. But tomorrow, you and I. We’re talking.

Lina: Sí, señorita.

Rosie: And, Lina?

Rosie: It doesn’t have to be a dream you need to wake up from.

With that thought—no, with that hope because that was exactly what I felt as I read my friend’s message, foolish hope—I left my luscious and tiled hiding spot and went hunting for Aaron.

I found him standing in his living room, looking out the industrial-style windows facing the waterfront.

Aaron’s apartment was in Dumbo, an area of Brooklyn I wasn’t all that familiar with but I was starting to love more and more. The place was incredible. Spacious and stark, elegant but simple.

Walking up to him, I peered out the massive windows myself. “These views of the East River are breathtaking.”

“I’m very lucky to be able to afford all this,” he said, and he sounded thoughtful. More than he usually did.

Turning and angling my body in his direction, I laid my back on the windows and faced him. How could I tell him that this view—him—was just as beautiful? One simply didn’t say stuff like that. So, I limited myself to look and soak it all up.

Aaron stared into the distance, the sunlight coming through the glass of the windows and kissing his skin. His blue eyes glinting under the light.

But there was something on his mind. I could tell.

“Is everything all right?” I reached out and placed my hand on his arm.

Only then did he look at me. “Come here.” In a swift motion, he had me tucked against his chest. He squeezed me, swaying us. “Better. Now, everything is much better.”

I couldn’t disagree with him. Anything that involved being in Aaron’s arms was far better than anything that didn’t. I let him tug a happy sigh out of me, and I relished in the way he hummed when I squeezed him right back.

When he finally released me, his gaze wandered out of the window again, but this time, it did with a small smile on his face.

Baby steps.

My eyes somehow ended on an industrial-style console that perfectly complemented the vibe of the windows—and the rest of the place. The only items on its surface were a framed photo and what looked like a textbook.

Feeling curious about who was in that photo, I walked up to it and picked it up. A woman. A beautiful, blue-eyed woman with raven hair and a smile I was starting to need to breathe a little easier. My heart warmed.

I felt his arm come around my shoulders, and then a kiss was brushed against my hair.

Letting my body fall into him, I asked, “What was your mom’s name?”

“Dorothea.” I felt his voice rumbling in his chest, right against my back. “She used to complain about it constantly. She made everybody call her Thea.”

“Tell me more about her, about your family.”

He released a breath, and it hit my hair with a puff. “It was her grandmother’s name. ‘A pretentious old lady’s name,’ my mom would say. Her side of the family was very wealthy but always unfortunate when it came to their health. They called it a curse.” He paused, sounding a little lost in his memories. “When I was a kid, my mom was the only living member left, so I never met my grandparents. And when my mom passed away, the last one of the Abbots became me. So, I inherited everything. That’s how I can afford this place.”

“That makes sense,” I murmured. I considered myself lucky to work for a company like InTech. For having a good wage coming in every month. But this place belonged to a whole different kind of life. One where studio apartments could fit in bathrooms. “So, you don’t really need to work a nine-to-five job.”

“No, but I love what I do. Even if some might call me a workaholic cyborg.”

I snickered. “Oops, I deserved that.”

I didn’t think anyone at the office knew about this. Aaron had always been so … private. But the fact that he didn’t need to work and yet worked harder than the vast majority of us was commendable. It made me love him—

Whoa. I shook my head.

“I have always admired you, you know? As much as I’ve bugged you for being so pragmatic and hardheaded, I have always, always admired you.”

“I …” He trailed off, sounding at a loss for a moment. “Thank you, baby.”

My lips curled up as I put the frame back on top of the console. “Your mom was beautiful. I can see where you got your looks from.”

Aaron chuckled softly. “You think I’m beautiful?”

“Of course. You are more than just beautiful. Don’t sound so shocked. You know you are.”

“I do, but I never thought you were all that attracted to me. Not for the first few months at least.”

I snorted. If he only knew. Then, I thought about how he had phrased it. “What gave it away? What changed after that time that made you realize I was not made of steel, Mr. Oblivious?”

His hold on me grew a little tighter, and then he exhaled. “Remember that colloquium InTech hosted for high schoolers a few months after I started? We realized there weren’t enough chairs when the kids started filing in. I saw you sneaking out, and somehow, I knew where you were going.”

I remembered that day. Jerkface Gerald had miscounted the number of attendants. “Folding chairs.”

“Yes, you shot out of there to fetch the folding chairs we kept in storage.”

Aaron had appeared out of thin air that day, exactly how he always did. Then, he had given me shit about wanting to carry the chairs on my own, that it wasn’t my job to do that.

“So, what gave it away? Was it how I almost smacked you with a chair for being an overbearing jackass?”

“It was how you shivered when I came behind you to help you with one that had been stuck to a shelf. You know, right before you pulled again and went toppling down to the floor.”

Oh. Oh yeah. I remembered that precise moment exactly.

I had felt his body behind me. His arms came around me without touching me, and I stared—and shivered and flushed and gotten all worked up—at how they flexed under his dress shirt as he tried to disentangle that damn chair. It had been like a slap on the face, how hot and bothered that left me.

“That gave it away. I just knew that the red spreading through your neck and cheeks had nothing to do with you calling me a stubborn, heartless robot.”

“Did it …” I trailed off, unease growing in my stomach. “Did it ever bother you, everything I called you? Everything I said when we butted heads?”

My heart raced, as I feared his answer.

“No,” he said simply. “At that point, I took anything you were willing to give me, Catalina.”

Something staggered in my chest.

“The story I told your sister about how we met? I was only speaking the truth.”

My eyelids fluttered shut, and I thanked the heavens I was currently leaning on Aaron, that he was holding me against his chest, because I would have tumbled to the floor otherwise.

“By the time I realized how much of an idiot I had been by pushing you away, you already hated me.”

I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. “I heard you talk to Jeff. Accidentally.” That knot wouldn’t go away, squeezing my throat tight. “You said you’d work with anybody else, anybody but me. And I felt as if you had just pushed me aside. Deemed worthless as a professional because you didn’t like me. Because I had crossed some line I hadn’t known existed. I … how could I look at you and not think about it after that? I blacklisted you.”