Dancing in a Hurricane (23 page)

"You can ask." He set his guitar aside.

"Your date last night…" She shifted in her seat. "I mean, I've been thinking about what you said. Why do you think you have those dreams about marrying the wrong woman?"

He looked at her for a long minute. Did he really want to get into this with her?

She gave him a smirk. "I'll take that as a 'no.' Let's do the thing where you tell me yours, and I'll tell you mine."

His eyes narrowed as he concocted a dozen questions he'd like to ask her.

"You answer first, though." She resettled on the couch.

He thought back to high school, but that incident wasn't the start of his uncertainty about women. By then, he'd already convinced himself he had to be vigilant about their motives. His first life lesson on women—girls—went back further, to seventh grade. "When I was thirteen, I was crazy about a girl. Julie Olmos. She was beautiful."

"Of course." Her smile was too snarky.

"Hey, can I help it if my first love was superficial?"

She shook her head. "A pubescent boy? Of course not. Please continue."

He groaned. "She was beautiful…on the outside but my friends kept hinting that she wasn't all that nice. My family liked her, though, so I assumed the guys were jealous."

"This must have been serious if you brought her home to meet your family." Her eyes held a concerned look.

"I thought it was. She had me fooled." He set the guitar behind the couch and stretched his arms across the back of the couch.

Her eyes shifted along the line of his forearms, across his biceps and chest, and over his other arm. He covered a grin. Didn't she know what it did to him to see her check out his body? He had to hide a rise in his shorts by setting one ankle on his knee.

She blinked a couple times and averted her gaze. "Then what happened?"

"I heard her talking to her friends after cheerleading practice. She had some nasty things to say about my house. The house my father built. She made comments about Mom's thick accent and called her ignorant."

Bree bit her lip. "That must have hit you hard if you remember it after all this time."

"Yeah." An ache still poked his gut as he thought about the betrayal he'd felt.

"How did you handle it?" She leaned forward. "I mean, nobody talks crap about your family, right?"

A laugh burst from his chest. "You know me too well,
chica.
" Very true. Better than any woman he could recall.

She lifted her eyebrows.

Shit, he'd been staring. "I walked up behind her. Her friends moved back, but stayed to watch. She tried to bullshit her way out of it. I didn't say a word, I just listened for a couple minutes."

"Oooh, the silent condemnation."

"After she'd run out of lies, she whispered, 'Forgive me, I'll never say anything bad about your family again'." His jaw was so tight, it hurt, and he took a breath to relax himself. "Her whispering pissed me off more than anything else."

"Why?"

"She cared more about her friends' opinion of her than she did about us."

"Girls that age are very—"

"Nasty."

She shook her head. "Socially fragile."

"That's an accurate statement, even if the term isn't textbook." He stared off into the corner, labeling the emotions he'd felt that day. Anger and disappointment lingered all this time. Hell, no wonder he had nightmares.

"So then?" she coaxed.

"She ripped off the necklace I'd given her and threw it at me. She said she'd planned to break up with me anyway." He could still remember the bitchy smile she'd given him as she turned and walked away. Toward her girlfriends.

"That had to hurt."

"Na." He smiled. "It was just a little heart on a gold chain with—"

Bree laughed. "Not the necklace, her words."

He nodded. He still had that fucking thing in his drawer. A reminder of… He dropped his head back. Damn, why had he never realized how crazy that was?

"So you think that's the root cause of your nightmares. Does it have anything to do with you wanting to go into social work?"

"No. I wanted to be a rock star back then." The experience he had in high school was the main reason for choosing to be a social worker. He shivered. The experience that had also inflicted him with the phobia that he hoped Bree never had to learn about.

"I'm guessing you've analyzed it? Through the filter of your nightmares?"

"Yeah." He'd developed a compulsion to know a woman better than she knew herself. The bad thing was, he dug and analyzed until he found a flaw, and that was the end. The dozens of short-term relationships he'd had over the years, his inability to accept and forgive. Hell, he was the one who should seek counseling.

"Do you want to share?" She looked hopeful.

"No." Another piece of his psyche he wouldn't be unloading on her.

Bree yawned and blinked a few times. "Okay." She set her feet on the floor as if to stand.

"Uh, I think it's your turn, Ms. Prentis."

She nodded and sat back. "Fire away."

Could he ask her flat out if she was jealous of Helena?

"Last night, what you did, were you…" No. She wouldn't answer his question. It would only push her further from him.

The look on her face was priceless as she waited, frown lines announced her worry about what he'd ask.

"What do you think was behind your actions last night?" Good. An open-ended question which she could answer as honestly or as evasively as she chose.

She raised her hands and flopped them palms-up on the couch. "Honestly, I didn't plan any of that to happen." Shaking her head, she sighed. "Well, of course I didn't, but what I mean is…"

She seemed to be having a difficult time of this. What was the deeper meaning?

"I just miscalculated. I didn't give myself enough time to eat. I got lost in a book and suddenly found myself with an empty bottle of wine. I had to take the pills or…" She looked so despondent. "It was just me being stupid."

He chuckled. "You're far from stupid, Bree. But I understand how it could happen."

She flopped onto her side and pulled a pillow under her head. "I promise never to do anything like that again."

"I'd appreciate it." If he ever brought a woman home again, he'd… Did he even want to bring a woman home?

She closed her eyes. After a few minutes, her breathing steadied.

"Huh." He watched her for a few a while, but that became too self-destructive. She was beautiful and he had already grown too attached. He got up, quietly cleaned the kitchen, put the leftovers away, and lay on the opposite couch and slept, too.

"Oh, crap!" Her voice woke him. She stood, wobbling a couple times before catching herself. "Élian will be here in a half hour." She ran to her bedroom and slammed the door.

A fist of jealousy grabbed his stomach. "Damn." His friend was perfect for Bree. Serious, cautious and might be ready to settle down. Élian dated women for a long time before he slept with them. Sounded perfect for her.

So why did Sixto want to break the man's legs?

He picked up the book his uncle included in the box with the fish and read. A half hour later, a knock sounded on the garage door. "Come in."

Élian walked in wearing a suit.

"Hey, you got a funeral?"

Élian straightened his tie. "I got a real date."

Sixto gestured to the kitchen. "Grab a beer, she's not ready yet."

"No, thanks." He walked to the couch and sat. He looked back at Bree's door and leaned closer. "How did your hookup go last night?"

Sixto picked up his guitar and played. "Not good. She left before anything happened."

"What? Man, you said she hung all over you at the photo shoot."

"She did. But…" He shrugged. "She just didn't do it for me."

Élian snorted. "Since when did that stop you from getting some?"

Sixto looked at his friend. Is that what Élian thought of him? A man chasing after tail and nothing more? Sixto nodded slowly. That's probably what his life looked like from the outside. He did want more from a relationship. Just not as much as Bree wanted.

Her bedroom door opened and she stepped out wearing a knockout red dress with shoulder straps holding triangles over her breasts. Enough cleavage to make a man curious for more, the clingy fabric ending at her knees. She looked tall and curvy up on high silver sandals. She carried a black jacket and purse. Her hair curled long and full down her back. And, damn, her lips were that same red from last night. As heat flooded low into his gut, he kept his guitar on his lap.

Élian saw him staring and he stood, turning toward her. "Bree, God you look nice."

She smiled and slid her purse strap on her shoulder. "Thank you. I'm sorry I'm running late."

He walked toward her. "No, really, you're perfect. Our reservation isn't until nine."

"You look very handsome tonight."

He straightened his tie again. "Once a year, usually at funerals…" He glanced at Sixto. "I put on a suit."

"Well, I feel privileged to witness such an auspicious occasion."

Élian laughed. Bree giggled. Sixto watched them size each other up. It would be cute if it wasn't his best friend and his… What? His what? What was she to him?

"Ready?" Élian asked.

"Mm hm. Bye, Sixto."

"Have fun, kids."

Élian gave him a look as he opened the garage door for her.

His friend's car started and they drove away.

He set down his guitar, his hard-on painful in his boxers. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to touch. Bree. Jeez, last night in that see-through thing and now in a hot red dress, those fabulous lips of hers, painted for sex. She'd strip out of that dress for him, kneel between his legs, her tongue would dart out… His balls tightened, his shaft throbbed, his hips pumped, and he popped like a pubescent teen, throwing his head back as he whispered, "Bree."

He wanted her. He would do anything—anything—to have her. He'd know that since the day he met her. But now, it felt like something more and it scared the shit out of him.

He was falling.

"Fuck!"

***

Rico picked up Marisa at her parents' house. She warned him that her father expected him to come in and sit with them for a while, even though Marisa was in her 30s and had lived away from home for ten years.

The big old house in Little Havana looked to be in good shape. He walked up the sidewalk. Mrs. Doria's flower gardens bloomed on both sides of the house. Shit, was he supposed to bring a bunch of flowers for Marisa? Na, she wasn't that kind of girl. He stepped up onto the giant front porch and rang the doorbell.

Rico had known Marisa's parents since he, Sixto, and Élian were kids, but this was different. Dating one of Sixto Sr.'s daughters was a major event. Her mother, Estelle, opened the door. "Rico, come in."

She hugged him and led him into the living room where Sixto Sr. sat in his recliner lording over the television remote. He stood. "Rico."

Rico shook his hand. "Mr. Doria."

He chuckled a slow, gruff laugh. "You're old enough now to call me Sixto."

"Yes, sir." The older Dorias, especially Estelle, never completely lost their accents and coming to their home always brought Rico back to childhood weekends spent with his grandparents.

Sixto, Sr. gestured to the couch. "Sit. Tell me about your date tonight."

"We're going out with Élian and Sixto's roommate, Bree."

"We have heard about her," Estelle said. "Does she really look like Cloe?"

"Pretty much in the face. But she's…" He held his hands out around his hips but dropped them immediately. "She's heavier."

Sixto Sr. and Estelle shared a look.

Perfect. He just got caught comparing Bree's ass to her sister's. He enjoyed a woman with a butt—he'd always admired Marisa's. He sat on the couch as instructed and kept his hands still. "She's a really nice girl."

Footsteps sounded, heading down the stairs.

"I know you're not talking about me," Marisa said. "I've never been called nice."

He stood and watched her descend the last few steps. Sexy in a tight black skirt and a white shirt, buttoned up to her neck, he guessed, for her parents' benefit.

"You look amazing, Marisa."

She smiled slyly. "Why thank you, Rico. And you, indeed, look gentlemanly and proper."

Rico stifled a smile. Smart-ass woman.

Estelle tsked. Sixto Sr. harrumphed.

Rico wore a slick gray suit he'd found on a clearance rack, a purple shirt, and black shoes. He'd greased back his hair and looked like a player, but Marisa went for the flashy guys.

She picked up her zebra-striped purse and walked on her matching spike-heeled shoes to her mother, kissed her cheek then bent over and kissed her father's.

Rico couldn't tear his eyes off her legs. Holy Jesus Lord, were they real?