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Carmen was digging deeper into my heart with every passing day. Now I didn’t wonder if we could last a year. I worried it would go too fast and be over before I was ready to cut him loose.
Then what?
“Are you going to expand on that?” he asked with an expression that made it very clear he wanted me to.
“I don’t think it’s the issue you keep trying to make it into,” I said as calmly as possible. In my head, I started counting backward from ten in Spanish. It was one of the many, many tricks I had to survive conversations I didn’t want to be having.
Unexpectedly, he reached out and finger-combed my loose hair across my forehead. It was such a gentle gesture, I let my eyes droop closed and enjoyed the contact.
“Can we make a pact? Regarding the binge drinking?”
Well, that ruined the moment he was building. I’d had all I could take of this topic. “There is no binge drinking. And seriously, Carmen, I’ve heard all I can handle on this, so maybe lay off or there’s going to be a blowout.”
That seemed fair. If he thought it was okay to keep needling someone about something, then he’d have to deal with the consequence. At least I was trying to give him a little heads-up on the impending explosion.
“Baby, listen. Ignoring the problem isn’t going to make it go away,” he said.
Talking to me like a five-year-old was the wrong approach too.
I surged to my feet and shouted, “There is no problem! I said enough!” My voice was loud normally. When I put some gusto behind it, it was like thunder.
However, my ballsy husband was unmoved. He sat quietly in the same spot on the bed and watched me grandstand.
“Are you happy?” I bellowed. “Is this what you wanted? Do you enjoy watching me come unglued? I told you to drop it. I told you there isn’t a problem! Therefore, there’s nothing to deal with. If you’re one of those people who is only content when they’re saving someone in crisis, go find someone else. Don’t insist there’s one here so you can play the hero!”
When I was finished delivering that mini tirade, my whole rib cage was pumping up and down, trying to allow more air into my lungs. With arms defiantly folded across my chest, I glared down at my man.
Finally, he calmly asked, “Are you finished?”
I shrugged. Then shrugged again. “Yeah, I think so. Are you?”
Carmen rose from the bed and prowled toward me. I wasn’t about to step back or cower in any way. But the expression on his face was intense. A little unnerving, definitely commanding, and seriously—hotter than hell.
When we were toe to toe, he bent over my much shorter frame until his lips were right beside my ear. In a dark, sexy timbre, he leveled his promise. “The next time you throw a temper tantrum like a child, you’ll be punished like one too. Have I made myself clear?”
He maneuvered so I could meet his serious stare, and I huffed. Fuck. His nearness and dark, promising tone scrambled my brain, so I couldn’t formulate a response. The only thing I could concentrate on were the goose bumps popping up on my arms and thighs by the thousands. And it wasn’t because the air conditioning had kicked on during that little episode.
“Answer me, Storm,” he insisted while holding me captive in his gaze.
“Wha? What? Answer what?” I sputtered and gave my head a little shake. The bastard knew he had me.
His lips spread into a cocky grin while he repeated the question. “I asked you if I’d made myself clear.”
“Yes. Abundantly,” I responded. The eye roll wasn’t meant to poke the beast looming over me, but apparently it did just that.
Before I could make sense of what he had planned, I was hanging upside down over the bossy man’s shoulder. The laugh that poured out of my body seemed to be victim to gravity, because as I hung there, the laughter just drained out.
“Put me down, caveman,” I wheezed between snorts. “Seriously, I’m getting dizzy!”
With very little grace, he flopped me onto the bed and followed right down to loom over my whole body with his.
“That’s one,” he growled just before biting my neck.
I gripped his shoulders while his face was buried in the crook of my neck, originally thinking I’d push him away. But after his wet tongue soothed the first bite, I changed my mind. Now I wanted to hold him there for many more minutes so he could do all the punishing he felt fit.
“One what?” I asked after a long moan sneaked out.
“Keep acting like a brat, and you’ll find out,” he growled.
