Page 18 of Just for the Holidays
“It certainly won’t with that attitude,” Gabi retorted, and she sounded like she was about to completely lose her patience. “Have you ever considered that if you just go with it, things may not seem so monumental? You’re both young, hot and with money to burn. If you want something or someone, all you have to do is reach for it...or her.”
“I don’t know, sis.” Gael considered his sister’s words. Being around Perla today he felt like he had ants under his skin. Unsettled and frantic from wanting her. But maybe that was what he had to do. Just let this thing between them happen. Just let them run their course and then she would leave and his life would go back to normal. They were both adults, after all. If they went in with their eyes open, then they could walk away once it was over.
“You know what, Gabi?” he asked, a plan hatching in his head already. “I think you’re right. I think I just need to go with it.”
“What are you up to, Gael Alberto Montez?” Gabi asked suspiciously as they turned and headed back up the pier.
“You should be happy. I’m finally taking your advice,” he said distractedly, his mind already picturing how he’d find Perla. Maybe she was already in bed.
“That’s what I’m worried about.”
“Don’t worry about me, little sister,” he told her as he bent down to kiss her forehead. “I have it all under control.”
The last thing he heard as he walked up the stone path to the cottage was his sister’s laughter. “Famous last words.”
Perla woke up on a slab of granite. Of very warm, very bronzed granite.
“Oh, Lord,” she whispered as the events of the previous night, and day, came roaring back to her. She was in bed with Gael Montez, and despite it being a California King, she’d somehow ended up sprawled on top of him. He was significantly larger than she was, which meant that with her fully on top of him, she could still see a lot of golden brown skin. She opened one eye, and yes, there was a good amount of sculpted muscle and delicious collarbone to admire. Her lips, which at the moment were exactly in the valley between his pecs, itched to pucker up and press a kiss on that smooth skin.
God, she couldn’t even count the number of times she’d yearned to wake up like this again. Of getting to look her fill, to touch as much as she wanted. And she wanted. She wantedso much. She’d fallen asleep waiting for him to return, so she didn’t get a chance to propose her plan to him. But she would as soon as he woke up. She’d be a fool to waste this chance. Because if one thing was certain, it was that this lust was not going anywhere.
She sensed something stirring at the foot of the bed and stiffened, wondering if she’d been thinking so loud she’d woken up Gael, then she felt it, a very warm vibration by her feet.
She sat up startled, and Gael, with his eyes still closed, shifted, until something started moving up his body under the blankets.
“What the hell?”
“It’s just Chavi,” he explained and lifted a hairless sphynx cat from under the covers.
“Oh, my,” Perla said as the cat rubbed its tiny bald head against Gael’s wrists. She purred like a little motorboat. “I thought you didn’t like cats.”
“I don’t,” he assured her as he ran a hand over the animal’s back. “But she likes me, and my mother insists I need ‘some kind of company.’ Which means I got Chavienda for my birthday this year.”
She couldn’t help the laugh that exploded out of her. “You named your cat nuisance?”
He grinned at her and then winked, and goodness, the man really was beautiful. He was sitting up now and she could see the notches of his hips and that trail of brown hair leading to his...
“My eyes are up here, Perla.” Oh, that was his sex voice, and wow, it still had a very strong effect on her. “And her name’s nuisance inPuerto Rican slang.” Gael’s voice snapped her out of lusting for him, and she kind of melted when she saw how gentle he was with the cat. “It’s very fitting given her family situation.”
Perla could not help the grin that tugged at her mouth. “So far she’s been extremely well behaved, so she’s not much of a nuisance. This is kitty slander.”
“That’s because you haven’t looked closely at my coffee table. She loves to file her claws on it,” Gael harrumphed as he swiftly grabbed the cat, put her out of the room and closed the door. He flopped back into the bed and smiled up at her.
“How did you sleep?” He sounded tentative, but there was something in his voice this morning that had not been there last night. Like some of that distance he’d been putting between them had been bridged.
“Good,” she quipped as she warmed under his attentive gaze.
“I’m glad.” He shifted so that the sheets revealed more of his skin.
It was exceedingly difficult to focus on what he was saying when she had over six feet of Puerto Rican male in his prime two feet away.
His mouth had always been a particular fixation of hers. The bottom lip was fleshier, but both were perfectly shaped, the top one a shade darker than the rest of him, but the bottom one was this enticing pink, and God, she loved tugging on it with her teeth. Sucking on it until she made his breath hitch. Her gaze locked on that mobile mouth. The way it stretched when he smiled, and parted just a little when he was deep in thought.
She’d never stopped wanting him. She might never stop. She wished she could be bold and ask for what she desired, but she didn’t want him to push her away. Gael sucked in a breath as she worried her thumb over his lip, and then moved to clamp a hand on her wrist.
“Te agarre,” he said, and that was exactly how she felt. Caught. Caught looking, caught wanting something she shouldn’t and craved anyway.
Her body flushed hot and cold and her stomach fluttered frantically at his touch. His gaze moved up until they were looking at each other. And she could see it there, that fire in his eyes,that want. Gael may not be able to love her. He might not want a future with her, but he desired her. That heat in his eyes could be nothing else. And if this was all he could give her...she would take it. He pulled on her arm until their mouths were inches away, and her heart felt like it would burst through her chest.
