Page 118 of South Beach Bodyguards

She was attempting to unzip her bodysuit but she was struggling to get the zipper down. Frustrated with that and me simultaneously, she huffed. “You don’t have the right to tell me how I feel.”

I crossed the room in three steps and put my large hands on her zipper and started to take it down. She jumped and tried to pull away but I stilled her by leaning close to her ear. “Let me help,” I murmured. “And you’re right, I don’t. But I’m concerned about you. I’ve always been concerned about you.”

The frustration, old and gnarled and nasty, rose again. What the fuck did she see in Max? Or really, why couldn’t she see the truth? He was good at masking his rotten inner core. But he wasn’t that good. Even the world’s best liar and sociopath can’t hide how narcissistic he is. It pissed me off that Miranda was just perfectly willing to overlook all of that. Had she never noticed that Max didn’t do anything that wasn’t self-serving? That every gift he gave her came at a price? It was either a manipulation, like he wanted a guys’ weekend in Vegas without her, or some bullshit apology, i.e. “Sorry I used your car and left the tank empty and you were late to work.”

This was my frustration my whole life with Max. No one ever saw. No one. I was a man alone on an island and everyone had thought I was jealous of my charismatic brother.

When I got the zipper halfway down her back, Miranda shivered and turned around. Her eyes were troubled. “I can get it the rest of the way. What do you want me to say, Alejandro? A new relationship hasn’t come along for me so I decided it doesn’t matter. I want to move on with my life and become a chef and a mother. I’m sorry if that isn’t enough progress for you.”

“It’s like this zipper,” I said, brushing my thumb along her bare skin, feeling the ridges of her spine. “You can do it by yourself, but you’ll struggle some.” I needed to think about this, but I needed her to think about something too. “I know you’re a very capable woman, Miranda. And I know you’ll be a great mother. But before we discuss this any further, I need to know if you can agree to two conditions.”

Her expression was wary. “What conditions?”

She wasn’t going to like either one. But I had my limits.

“That you at least admit that there is a possibility that Max left of his own free will.”

Immediately her mouth opened and she was going to protest. “Stop. I don’t want you to defend Max or tell me I’m full of shit. I just want you to think about it. Nothing is one hundred percent. You can’t know with certainty that he was abducted or met with foul play any more than I can know that he wasn’t.” I was pretty damn sure though, but in the interest of fairness, I couldn’t prove it. So I just wanted her to say that it was possible. That her blind faith in him might have been misplaced.

She didn’t say anything. She just stared at me. “The other condition?”

This one might go over with even less enthusiasm. “I don’t want to go into an office and donate my sperm. I want to do this the old-fashioned way. I want you to have sex with me.”

Already furious from Alejandro’s implication that I was an idiot for believing in Max, his follow-up request shocked me speechless. “What? Why?”

“Because making a baby is intimate and if you love me as a person, or friend, or whatever you want to call it, it shouldn’t be a big deal.”

His muscles and body and personality were crowding my space. I felt hot and flustered. “This feels like blackmail.” It did. But it also felt… arousing. I was breathing too hard and it wasn’t just from anger, though I was angry. It was from desire. I was attracted to Alejandro, there was no denying it, even though it was so damn wrong.

He was sexy, he was built. He had a devilish smile and charm. I knew him too, had known him for a decade, so he felt familiar, easy to be around. But he was Max’s brother. I couldn’t get over that. Max’s brother who didn’t even understand why I loved Max. That was obvious. Or why I felt guilty.

“It’s not blackmail. You don’t have to say yes. You can still have a baby with someone else.”

“That makes it blackmail.”

He just shook his head, and the bastard was smiling, the grin of a playboy who knows he’ll get exactly what he wants. “No. That makes it payment.”

My hand flew up to slap him before I even realized what I was doing. I’m not a woman who runs around hitting men. This was the first time ever, in fact. Yet I was just so furious and offended. “I’m not a hooker, I’m your sister-in-law.”

His instincts were better than mine. He grabbed my hand and stopped my momentum before my palm made contact with his skin. “You never married Max. So you are not my sister in any way. And I never said you were a hooker. Don’t put words in my mouth. I told you that I love you and I meant it.”

Confused, I stood there with his hand wrapped around my wrist. “But I don’t understand why you would want this.” For some insane reason I couldn’t bring myself to say sex out loud, which was irritating as hell. I was thirty damn years old and I had toured with some of the biggest names in the music business. I had fended off creepers and stalkers and stage hands. I had endured endless days and nights on the road. I am not wimpy. Yet I couldn’t say sex out loud. It was so stupid.

“Why do I want this?” he asked, startling me by running his finger down my back. “Or why I want this?” His hand drew across my waist. “Or this?” His voice was slow, seductive, his touch light as a feather.

I shivered as his hand rose near my cleavage without actually touching me. It was just a subtle gesture, an indication of his desire.

“Or why do I want these lips?” There was the pad of his thumb, rubbing across my plump bottom lip.

My anger mingled with confusion, which warred with desire. I wanted to touch his bare chest, to tilt my head, raising my lips to him. To peel down the bodysuit and stand before him naked, a full complete woman, with nipples begging for his touch. Not usually at a loss for words, I stood there, waiting. Needing. I had known him for a decade, but never like this.

“Do you really want to know?” he asked, bending down. He was so close to me I could smell his aftershave.

See the scar on his cheek that he hadn’t had before. “Yes,” I whispered. “I want to know.”

“Because ever since I was fifteen I have thought you were the perfect woman and just once, I want to feel your skin against mine. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

Then he lowered his head and I knew what he was going to do. He was going to kiss me. And for whatever insane reason I was going to let him. His hand had shifted to cup my cheek with the softest touch imaginable. He had calluses and large encapsulating fingers, a big man with an even larger intensity. I had always felt older, wiser, and totally in control with Alejandro. It was because I was the first of those without dispute, the second in my mind because of the first, and the third because I had known he had that harmless little crush.

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