Page 28 of Consequence of One Reckless Night

“Oh.” Her mind stopped working as sexual languor spread through her, making her quiver with need. She blinked but couldn’t see past the haze that began to fill her mind. The blood in her veins congealed and her heart pounded with breathless anticipation. Raising a hand to his face, she touched the small bump on his nose. “How did you break your nose?” she asked, curious about the only imperfect feature on his handsome face.

Alexandre’s eyes darkened. His nostrils flared as her touch sent sparks shooting through his body. “In a brawl,” he muttered, his eyes tracking the tip of her tongue which came out to lick her suddenly dry lips.

“What did you fight about?”

“Someone called me a bastard.”

His clipped reply made her scowl, but her fingers didn’t stop their exploration. They slid down to his lips, the forefinger tracing the outline before hovering over the white puckered line on the left side of his mouth.

“And this?”

“Backhanded by my father.”

Her eyes flew to his, filled with pain and—sympathy.

“Why?” Tears stung her eyes as she waited with bated breath for him to answer.

“Because I had the temerity to show up in front of his friends one night.”

“How badly did it hurt?”

****

Over the years, manyhad asked him about the scar, but none had ever asked him this question, and it surprised him that Raquel cared enough to ask.

“My pride hurt more,” he whispered.

She turned her head causing her beautiful hair to fall over her face. He parted the thick curtain because he wanted to see her. He wanted to look into her brown eyes and know her every thought.

If he thought she would cry for him, she surprised him again. Her tears didn’t fall, though they remained perched on her lower eyelids, ready to roll over at the slightest hint of encouragement.

Continuing with her exploration, she touched his left arm—where on his bicep, was a tattoo. A crown of thorns with blood dripping from it—something he’d got a few years ago, on a particularly difficult night.

“This is beautiful,” she murmured, skimming over every line on his flesh. “Why did you get this?”

Alexandre remembered that night clearly when his father had shot down his ideas for the expansion of the family business. Rico had never approved of him working for the family business, but Leandro had insisted that as a Monteiro, he had every right to be a part of the Monteiro legacy.

“You have no say in this family, or this business!” his father had shouted at him. “You are nothing to me. I’m merely tolerating you because your foolish grandfather thinks it’s better to keep the enemy closer.”

Those painful words had sliced through him, and with it had come the realization that, despite being adopted into the family, Rico didn’t think of him as his own blood. And neither had Carlos, who thought he was an enemy who needed to be watched closely. It had sent him into a flying rage, and that night he’d renounced what little hope he’d had of ever being a part of the Monteiro family.

“It was a difficult time in my life,” he muttered.

Her fingers traced the crown which seemed to pierce into his flesh, the blood drops looking surprisingly real as they dropped from the crown. “It must have hurt a lot,” she whispered, and Alexandre knew she wasn’t talking about the pain he’d endured while getting the tattoo done.

He was amazed that she inferred the real meaning of his tattoo, without him even divulging the real story behind it.

“It still bleeds, doesn’t it?” she asked, evoking a curious mix of emotions in him.

“What are you doing?” he growled when she leaned down and kissed his tattoo.

He shuddered when her lips touched his hot flesh, heat pooling in his stomach as blood rushed into his loins. Need shot through him when she sucked on his flesh, her teeth grazing his skin as she proceeded to drop small kisses all over his tattoo. When she had kissed every inch of his arm etched in ink, she moved on to his chest. A very bare chest. Rock hard—and generously sprinkled with soft, springy hair.

“Comforting you,” she whispered, slapping a palm on his chest and pushing him onto his back.

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