Page 97 of Dex

I’m too focused on how this feels, on what might happen next, to do anything, but savor the moment.She strokes me gently, in that tight, small space between us.Fuck, if this doesn’t feel like heaven.I’m so hard, I could come over her hands if she keeps this up.

This can’t happen, so I lift her fingers, and bring her knuckles to my lips, pressing a kiss there.

“We’re good actors,” I murmur entwining my hand in hers.We’re also totally screwed.“I should get back to work.”I get back to the safety of the villa and wonder how the hell I’m going to get through this honeymoon.

Things are moving so fast and my feelings for Daniela have evolved.I’ve done a one hundred and eighty degree turn with her.

But I didn’t want this.

She did.

Now I don’t know what to do.I’m a man who has built his life on control.On emotional detachment.On never letting anyone get too close.

I don’t do relationships.I can’t love.

Iwon’tlove.

And yet, ever since I stepped into this woman’s orbit, something inside me has shifted.Maybe it’s because the dynamics are different.Daniela is a woman who is perfectly fine without me.

I like that about her.

She’s strong.Independent.Snarky and unafraid to put a man in his place.And she’s got a good body; hard and firm, honed from jiu-jitsu and running.Yet she still has curves in all the right places.

She had the guts to fly out alone to meet my father and negotiate a deal.But still, the nagging question lingers.Why this alliance?It smacks of desperation.Or is it something else?She has alluded to her family business going through some struggles and has admitted they could use an injection of capital.

But something in my gut tells me it’s more than that.I hate that I don’t have the answers, but what I hate even more is that she’s perfectly fine without me.

I feel tempted to do the one thing I swore I wouldn’t.To stop pretending.But if I gave in, where would that lead?

She thinks we have twelve months but seven months from now, I’ll walk away.We’ll part, go our separate ways, and life will go on.

That’s the plan, but I’m suddenly not so sure.

***

DANI

If Dexter wants to play games, he can.I know men like him.Men who run when they feel trapped.

But I haven’t trapped him.His own father did that.

Though I did choose him.Would it have made a difference if I’d picked Rio?I shudder.No.Not Rio.He’s too much like Oscar Ramos.He hunts, and chases.

Dexter is different.Aloof.Detached.He also told me once that his father couldn’t have forced him into marrying me.He’s his own man and he’ll do whatever he wants.Then why would he agree to this?

I spend the rest of the day on my own, making the most of my solo honeymoon.Time flies as I read by the pool, swim in the ocean, then, occasionally, slather myself with suntan lotion before lying back on the recliner with a cocktail and a book.

By six o’clock, Dexter still hasn’t come out.I should check on him and make sure he hasn’t passed out.Make sure he hasn’t been bitten by some poisonous insect.

But I won’t.He’s expecting me to.

I was so relieved when he came out to rescue me from that odious celebrity, that I couldn’t help but lean in and hug him out of sheer gratitude.Except, it just felt so natural when I ended up kissing him.

What I didn’t expect?Him kissing me back.

My brain went into a daze as soon as he touched me, pressing me tight against him.His firm body, impossible to ignore.His hardness, a shock.I did that, to him?

My heart leaps with the thought of Dexter Knight becoming sexually aroused.His lips, his sweet mouth, the taste and feel of him.My legs almost buckled and I tightened my hold on him, as if clinging to stay upright.My breasts pressing into his hard chest.

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