Page 111 of The Crush
“I wasn’t sure if you’d want me to have it.” My thumb brushes across the cool metal. “Do you think it’s too fast? Maybe I should wait until I’m… Maybe I should wait?”
My dad frowns as he considers, then smiles again. “You’re asking the wrong person. The only regret I have where your mamá is concerned is that I didn’t ask her to marry me the day I saw her.”
I grin a bit. “Yeah, well…that might have come on alittlestrong.”
My dad raises his eyebrows at me. “Are you really talking to me like I didn’t catch you with Isabel in the kitchen after… How many times had you seen each other since you’d been back? Twice?”
I tuck my tongue in my cheek to try to keep from laughing at myself again. “That was actually the third time.”
“My mistake,” my dad says dryly, shaking his head and laughing too. “Why are you asking me if you should wait? Are you thinking you’re going to change your mind?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so,” my dad agrees. “Lord knows she’s not going to change her mind about you. Think she made it up quite a while ago.”
“Does seem that way.” I tuck the ring box safely into the pocket of my jacket. “Still can’t figure out why.”
My dad’s gaze drifts back to the gray stone, and he smiles at the returning breeze. “Sometimes you just know.”
Eighty-Nine
Isabel
I’m coming out of the bedroom when I hear Daniel, his deep voice calling out my name like a question before the front door shuts behind him. I hastily finish tugging a sweatshirt over my head before I start running, saying his name in return as I round the corner for the entryway. All the remaining pent-up nervousness from earlier in the day unleashes as I reach him, and he reverses our positions with a grin, pressing me back against the door.
“Hello, bonita,” he says as he skims his mouth teasingly over mine. “You miss me?”
“Yes,” I mutter, about to slip my hands beneath his jacket before I belatedly notice the flowers and snatch them up. I have hardly enough time to lift them to my nose before Daniel gently takes them from me, sets them on Tadeo’s chair by the door, and puts his mouth on mine again.
I let out a small satisfied hum as I kiss him back, his hands over mine against his chest. My mouth chases his and deepens the kiss whenever he shows even the slightest indication that he might stop. I don’t let up until he nips my bottom lip, forcing me to gasp and inhale some much-needed oxygen back into my lungs.
“You keep going like that and your brothers are going to end up left outside to their own devices for the rest of the night,” he murmurs to me, nuzzling my cheek with his nose. “You understand?”
My eyes fall back to his mouth as he pulls away, and I know I should care about what he’s said, butGod…
He kisses me again, letting go of my hands when he feels my fingers bunch in his shirt. He moves his own down my body, sweeping them along my sides. Slipping beneath the sweatshirt, his fingertips trace my curves and my ribcage, inching higher to drift beneath my bra, light and teasing again until I tremble.
“I could fuck you right here.”
“I would let you.” I make sure to whisper the words directly into his ear so that he can’t miss them and so that I can’t miss the effect they have.
“Christ, what happened to the shy thing that showed up on my porch last summer?”
I shrug, grinning, my mouth barely a breath away from his. “Haven’t seen her in a while. Heard she’s shacked up with someone outside town.Quitethe scandal.”
“Think I heard that, too,” he murmurs, his lips ghosting along my neck. “Heard he can’t keep his hands off her. Heard she needs it just as bad.”
“Oh really?” I’m laughing from the way he’s nuzzling against the ticklish spot under my jaw. “What else did you hear?”
He’s about to answer right before his head lifts up, his focus breaking away at the sound of the back door to the kitchen sliding open.
“Hermanita?” Gabe calls out, causing me to belatedly remember that I hadn’t only come in for a sweatshirt but for thefood. Notexactly something that was bound to go unnoticed long with my three brothers outside. “You need help?”
He draws up short in the kitchen doorway, his eyes finding mine where I’m peeking out from around Daniel. “Ah, you’ve been detained by the DEA. Should have guessed.”
“FormerDEA,” Daniel corrects him as he places one more quick kiss on my forehead and turns. “Perfect timing as always though,Gabriel.”
“A broken clock would have perfect timing when it comes to this,Daniel. When are you two evernot…” He gestures vaguely in our direction. “Well, you know. Like, don’t you get bored eventually?”
