Page 38 of Total Abandon

“Yep.” Tilly beams, propping herself up on her elbow. “Help me up, sis.” She extends her hand and Chloe grabs it, hauling her up to her feet. The two women embrace, both smiling like idiots.

“Thanks, I needed that.” Chloe grins, pulling back and locating her other heel.

“At your service.” Tilly offers her a salute and then throws herself on the bed. Chloe chuckles and turns to face me, offering me a little happy shrug as she breezes past. I shake my head and start to follow.

“Zeke?” I pause, glancing over my shoulder at the woman who is lazily twirling a condom in her hand. “Give my love to your brother.” Tilly winks, laughing as she chucks the condom up in the air and catches it again. My brows shoot toward my hairline. My brother is almost as much of a man whore as Chase Walker and I’m not sure how I feel about him sleeping with the sister of the woman I’ve decided to pursue. I grunt noncommittally before leaving the room.

“Logan and your sister?” I query as I close the door to Chloe’s bedroom behind us. She’s already laid flat on the bed with her phone out, scrolling through something that looks like social media.

“Oh.” She glances my way. “You didn’t know?”

“He must have forgotten to mention it while we were braiding each other's hair,” I deadpan, earning myself a snort. I trace slow steps to the window, burying my hands deeply in my pockets and looking out over a well-loved back yard that stretches all the way down to a little creek at the bottom. There’s a wooden white and yellow playhouse with weathered little handprints in different colored paint. Yeah, this is worlds apart from the kind of home I grew up in. You wouldn’t catch Miguel Guerra finger painting. Casting my eyes back around the room, I zone in on the magazine cutouts above the desk. “Bull riders, really?” I smirk, looking at the various Wranglers ads.

“Buck daddies,” Chloe corrects with one finger in the air, still engrossed in her phone. Buck daddies? She glances up when I don’t reply, her soft brows knitting together. “Don’t look at me like that, there’s something hot about a man who can handle a bucking bull, what do you want me to tell you?”

There’s something ironic in her finding that attractive, because I imagine dating her would sometimes be like handling athousand pounds of angry bull. “Don’t tell me, your favorite color is red, too,” I mutter, tracing the spines on the old textbooks stacked haphazardly on the desk.

“How did you know?”

***

I roll my head sideways across the pillow and use the shuttered moonlight peeking in through the blinds to check my watch where it lay on the bedside table. It’s one in the morning, and the bundle of nervous energy next to me won’t stop tossing and turning, letting out the occasional huff.

“For god's sake, woman. What is it?” I groan, rolling onto my side and pressing myself up on one elbow to look at her. She’s perched as close to the edge of the bed as possible,on topof the covers because she refused to get under them with me and is wrapped tightly from her chin down in a blanket. She’d already been like this when I got done with my shower, lights off and eyes shut. She couldn’t be more obvious if she erected a flashing neon sign above her head that saidDon’t touch me!

“You take up so much room!” she hisses, rolling further away from me so I can’t see her face.

I glance down at the bed. Granted, I’m a big guy and the bed can be no larger than queen size, but there’s a valley the size of Texas between us that she could fit in if she wasn’t so stubborn. “You would have plenty of room if you scooched over a little.”

She turns to look at me over her shoulder like I’ve just suggested she steal the Queen of Sheba’s cat. “What, so you can do your witchy voodoo whatsit and maul me like a rabid dog?”

I blink. “Pardon?”

“You know,” she hisses, lifting her head and slamming it down in the pillow like it’s done her a personal hardship. She tuts and lifts it again, this time using her fist to thump it into a shape thatdoesn’t offend her. “Whatever it is you do to make me forget you’re an asshole and try to climb you like a tree.”

I laugh, dipping my head and pressing my finger and thumb into my eye sockets. This fucking woman. This will sound arrogant, but I’ve never met a woman who didn’t want something from me. Fame. Status. Sex. And to be met here with a woman whoviolentlywants nothing to do with me, is refreshing. And infuriating. Because she also happens to be one Iwantto want something from me.

“If I promise not to maul you, will you lie closer, so you have room?”

There’s a long pause in the dim before a reluctant “okay” follows. I twist on my side to give her more room, dropping my head back down to the pillow and watching her settle in closer. She’s on her back, her nose wrinkled slightly and her long caramel lashes blinking periodically. The skin on her face is bleached the palest white by the moonlight, almost turning her silver.

Forcing myself not to stare, I slam my eyes shut and try to ignore the way her peaches and cream scent wraps tight fingers around my senses. Even during her fidgeting, my dick has been rock solid for so long it actually fucking hurts. Getting to sleep is going to be tough. She shifts slightly next to me, and I feel the bed vibrate faintly. My eyes snap open to see her scowling up at the ceiling again. A shiver runs through the bed again and I realize that it’s her.She’s fucking shivering.

“Right, that’s it,” I snap, sitting up abruptly and snatching her up from the top of the covers. She lets out a quiet shriek, her blanketed legs flailing as I drag her up and under the covers, pinning her in front of me with my chest to her back.

“What the f— Oh.” All of the fight drops out of her, and she breathes softly as a shiver of relief runs through her petite body when she gets a hit of how warm it is in here.

“Mujer Terca.” I settle back in, secretly wishing I’d taken the blanket off her first so I could feel her skin on mine.

“You always say that to me.Mujer Terca.”I smile into her hair at her clumsy pronunciation. “What does it mean?” She twists slightly in my hold, and I open my eyes lazily to see her face just inches from mine. God, she’s so beautiful.

“Stubborn woman.”

She giggles and turns back around, her silky cheek brushing against my bicep. It strikes me then that I’ve never lain like this with a woman. Cuddling isn’t my style. But I suppose that’s what this is, with her head tucked under my chin and her little limbs caged in my arms. I throw my leg over hers for good measure, leaning into the experience. I’ve certainly never slept beside a woman before. I’m usually in and out. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am.

“Jesus, you’re like a furnace,” she gripes after a few minutes, trying to wriggle herself out of my hold. Awesome. Perfect excuse. Clamping her in place, I pull the covers back and peel the fluffy blanket off her. I almost groan when I see she’s wearing the skimpiest little black silk two-piece, the shorts riding up to show off the lower curves of her perfect, pert ass just inches from my throbbing cock.

“Seriously?” I ask hoarsely.