“Can I make a confession?”
Yes, please. Her soft-voiced question strikes me low and, predictably, I react. At least I’m sitting down and the table is covering my growing wood. “Sure.”
“I don’t like Peruvian food.” She grimaces. “I can’t recognize half of it.”
“I’ll eat all the weird-looking shit for you.”
She grins wide and I’m slayed. Holy fucking shit. There’s the smile I knew she was capable of. That smile is enough to power the entire city for one friggin’ night.
“No rain today,” she says lifting her head.
“Yes, it’s beautiful.” We both know I’m not talking about the weather.
She gives me a wry look. “That’s kind of cliché, isn’t it? Something a guy would say to a girl in a Nicholas Sparks movie?”
“I wouldn’t know. Haven’t seen a movie of his but this is Lima. It’s not exactly Paris.”
Her smile turns wistful. “I kind of wish I was in Paris.”
“I’ll take you,” I volunteer immediately. “Say the word and I’ll have you riding the elevator at the Eiffel Tower. You just tell me when.”
Those round cheeks of hers pinken, and it makes her strangely colored eyes even brighter. “Mr. Mendoza—”
“Call me Rafe.”
“Rafe,” she says, and my dick gets hard just the way she rolls my name around on her tongue. “I appreciate the offer but . . . now is really not a good time for me. Personally. Please don’t be offended.”
She’s trying to let me down gently. The look on her face is troubled and sad. And just like that, I go from giddy with lust to sober again. She’s not here for fucking fun. She’s here because she’s in danger and I’m distracting her, like a dick.
I need to get my business concluded. I tug my ball cap down and shift slightly away. I wonder what the keywords are, the secret mission code words to get her to open her purse and show me the sample.
“Why did you say you were in Lima again, Lucy Wessex?” That’s a shit fake name. She doesn’t look anything like a Lucy Wessex, which brings to mind a perky blonde from Connecticut whose daddy runs a hedge fund and whose mom, Muffin, bangs the tennis pro.
“I’m, ah, on vacation.”
“Been to the beach?” I’m picturing her lush figure in a tiny bikini.
“Not yet.” She looks sad. “Been too busy. I do love the beach, though.”
“I’d love to take you.”
She shifts uncomfortably. “Maybe I should go.”
Shit. I’ve been too forward. My hand shoots out to grasp hers. “No,” I practically shout at her. I take a deep breath and then manage to blurt out a few words to make me sound less like a madman. “No, please stay. I’m enjoying the company.”
Her skin feels like silk under mine. I’ll dream about this tonight. It’s not lust that I feel for her. I know what lust is. I’ve felt it every day since my cock hardened as a boy and I spilled into my sheets. This is fever, burning, life-changing mania. I want her more than I have wanted anything in my life. But that want will never be satisfied. I know this and still I linger over her skin. And worse? Worse, she allows it. I withdraw slowly, stealing one more moment of pleasure.
I hear a tiny hitch in her breath as I withdraw, as if she liked my touch, but since I’m a big, scary motherfucker with calluses on my hands, I know I’ve dreamt that sound up. But I pack it away with my other memories. I’ve gotten a good close look at her. I know what she sounds like—husky and warm. I’ve inhaled her clean scent and touched her satin-smooth skin.
It’s not much for other men, but for me? It’s more than enough.
“I have to go somewhere soon,” she admits. Her hand pulls from mine and goes protectively to the purse in her lap. I’ve seen her take that damn thing everywhere, even into the bathroom in her hotel room. It’s clear that’s the information she’s supposed to share. It’s clear I should be thinking about it and how to get it from her.
But all I can think about are her soft hands. “At least stay to help me eat the mammoth pile of food I just ordered.”
Her grin flashes again, and a small chuckle escapes her throat. “Can we eat fast?”
“We will throw down,” I promise. “Like wild animals.”
AVA
Rafael Mendoza is utterly charming. God, I wish I were here in Lima on vacation, like I said. I wish I were a carefree model that could pick up a beautiful man on a street corner and think this could go somewhere.