Page 44 of V-Day
“Now, Chloe!” Parris said sharply. “You wanna be here when Insurrectos ram the front door open and come in with machine guns firing?”
Chloe flinched and hurried after Cristián. She bolted down the steps into the kitchen and saw him climbing a different set of steps on the other side of the room. They weren’t the stairs to the back of the house, but another wing on the front of the house.
She ran across the kitchen and leapt up the steps two at a time. There was only one room at the top. The door was slowly swinging closed. She rammed it open with the heel of her hand and strode into the room.
The door swung closed behind her once more. It was weighted to do so, she guessed, for it clicked shut with a soft snick.
The room was an office. This one was ordered, calm and tidy, with none of the frenetic chaos which marked Cristián’s room. The desk was bare, except for an old-fashioned blotter and a silver pen cup.
There were bookshelves on the wall behind the desk, with paperbacks and thick hardcover business books, photos in frames and an awful plastic dragon which looked as if it had come out of some sweatshop in Taiwan. It was there, she guessed, for sentimental reasons, not decorative ones.
Cristián was staring at the desk with a deep resentment marring his face. His hands were fisted.
Duardo’s desk, Chloe realized, with a sinking feeling. She glanced at the other side of the room. There was yet another set of steep stairs heading upward and at the top, she glimpsed the corner of a bed, beneath an attic-styled dormer window. Duardo’s bedroom. Had to be.
Anger stirred, wiping out the last of the fizzing wickedness which had been circulating.
“So, did you pick Shadow as your handle because of the Freudian comment upon your life, Cristián?” she asked, her tone dry.
He turned his head sharply to look at her, his eyes widening.
“That would be no, then,” she surmised. “Shit, you didn’t see it atall, did you? You’re so big on self-awareness. You used to hound us all the time to face the truth about ourselves. You dogged me for years about going straight so my internal gyro could run smooth. And you can’t see how much you’ve been letting your brother drive your life for you.”
Cristián swallowed. “Duardo is…” He shook his head. “I love him, but…”
“You hate him, too.”
Cristián closed his eyes. “Shit.”
Chloe inserted herself between Cristián and the big desk he was staring at. She lifted his chin to make him look at her. “You think you’ve got a monopoly on resentment, Cristián? Your brother was the perfect son and scholar, now he’s a brilliant general and the president of the county. You thinkanyoneis going to be shocked you have issues about that?”
Cristián drew in a deep breath. “I’m shocked.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
“It’s just…no one ever noticed me.”
She gripped his shoulders. “I did. I didn’t know your brother. I didn’t know you even had one, remember? I only caught up on that stuff about your life in the last few years and by then…” She halted, aware of where her words were taking her. “You have only ever been you, to me,” she finished. “The most important person in my life, since 2003.”
Cristián’s gaze met hers. “Guess I just wrecked that, huh? Fraternal issues he never noticed…”
“Hey, I like that you’ve actually got a flaw, Peña,” Chloe told him. “It makes me feel as if my shitty history isn’t so bad.” She picked up his hand. “Tell me something.”
He lifted a brow.
She lifted the hem of her shirt and slid his hand beneath. She still wasn’t wearing a bra. Her breasts were small enough she could go without most of the time and she liked the unfettered feeling.
She put his hand on her breast and sucked in a sharp, shocked breath at the sensation. “Oh….”
Cristián’s finger moved, exploring. Stroking. His breath emerged in a hot rush, too.
“You liked this fine on the screen,” she whispered, unable to work her voice to sound normal. “Tell me you don’t like it now.”
Cristián pulled her closer to him. “You know I like it.” His breath fanned her cheek, then his lips touched it. His hand stroked and teased and made her moan. “Damn it, you know I do…” he muttered.
She did. The heat seemed to pour off him in waves. Chloe clung to him, as his lips hovered over hers.
Then he thrust her backward, her shirt tearing as his hand ripped from beneath. She staggered up against the desk, her brain scrambling. “What’s wrong?”
