Page 63 of Hard to Love
Chapter Seventeen
Shell shock. A few of the Tejanos Pintados guys had flinched for weeks after a particularly violent firefight, some dropping to the ground when Orlando Lopez’s forty-year-old Cadillac had farted out a backfire anywhere in the barrio.
As Greer lay soft and warm and spent in Alex’s arm, his chest felt like someone had just blown holes in it. When he’d asked her what she wanted, all she’d said wasyou.Him. Jesus. If she knew exactly why Javi had died, she wouldn’t even be able to look at Alex’s face, much less with that kind of trust and desire in her eyes.
But if he was building a new life, did she really have to know? His mamá and Nicolás were far from here, doing fine.
He would’ve never imagined creating a place for himself somewhere like Prophecy. But it was like being almost-home. And if he planned to stay at Wild Card—at least for now—he could afford to give her part of the story.
He threaded his fingers in her hair, tugged back her head. Her eyes were closed and her lips were lifted with the kind of dreamy smile some women got when they ate a big piece oftres leches. Her tongue darted out to skim across her bottom lip as though she were tasting their lovemaking all over again.
Their limbs and bodies were still sweaty and tangled. The scent on the air was a combination of man, woman, and unshared secrets.
She sighed, nestled her head in his palm. “Alex, that was…”
World-changing. At least his.
“…appetite-inspiring.”
That surprised a laugh from him. He was still inside her, and she was already thinking of food. But food would give him the perfect excuse to take a step back, regain his footing, and ditch the damn condom that would soon become a problem if he didn’t do something about it. “How about I feed you then?”
Her eyes opened then, but her expression was still too dreamy, too soft. He needed Greer to be tough and practical. A starry-eyed woman couldn’t handle some of the things she should know about him.
He pressed one last kiss to her swollen mouth before lifting her off his lap. The sound she made was a huffing groan.
“What’s the use of a rubber,” he said, “if I don’t get rid of it?”
She pushed her curls away from her face and smiled at him. “You’ve got a point.”
“Grab your clothes and I’ll make you something to eat.”
That got her on her feet in a flash. “Chile rellenos?”
Alex dealt with the condom and looked around for a place to toss it. Somehow, flipping it into the pasture seemed wrong. Yeah, no one told you about this part of the doing-it-al-fresco thing.
“Give it to me,” she said.
No way in hell. He scooped up his clothes in one arm and nodded toward the barn. “Inside.”
Walking through calf-high grass barefoot and bare-assed wasn’t the most comfortable thing Alex had ever done, but they made it back to the barn with no snakebites. Greer headed for the bathroom while he did a toss and wash at the kitchen sink.
He stuck his head in his fridge. He had no poblanos, so chile rellenos weren’t on the menu. But chilaquiles he could manage. He stacked corn tortillas, leftover verde sauce, an onion, and a couple of serranos on the counter. By the time Greer emerged from the bathroom, he was dropping strips of tortillas into a skillet full of oil.
Over the pop and sizzle on the stove, a rumble-grumble came from Greer’s direction.
“Was that your stomach?” he said.
One side of her mouth quirked up. “In case you didn’t notice, we burned a lot of energy out there.”
Oh, he’d noticed. His skin still felt as though static energy was buzzing beneath it. But his stomach was tight with the knowledge that she deserved more background than he’d given her to this point. But first, he would feed her.
Thirty minutes later, Greer was staring down at her empty plate with the kind of blissed-out expression she’d worn in his arms. Either his cooking was damn amazing or he needed to work on his sex skills. Alex took the last bite of his chilaquiles, topped with cotija cheese.
Nah, he was safe on the sex thing, because his food was pretty damn delicious. He grabbed their plates and busied himself stacking everything in his small sink. Now that the sex and snack were over, he wasn’t sure how to move forward.
While his hands were under running water, Greer came up behind him, looped her arms around his bare waist. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to ask me to stay.”
Without bothering to cut off the faucet, Alex turned to face her. The way her cheek rested against his chest just about broke him. “I want you to.”
