Page 2 of The Slayer
“You can’t threaten me.” Edward huffed.
“I can,” Chuito assured him. “I just did.”
Alaine didn’t wait for Edward to make up his mind on the situation. She jerked her arm out of his hold when it loosened. She ducked underneath the ripped, corded muscles of Chuito’s biceps and then slipped her fingers in the belt loop at the back of his jeans.
“Come on,” she whispered and then touched the Puerto Rican flag tattoo at the back of his neck reassuringly. She swept her thumb over the wordBoricuaunder it like a caress to let him know she liked him just as he was. “We broke up.”
“If you’re not dating Alaine, you’re not welcome on this property anymore,” Chuito said to Edward rather than follow her. “There’re two legal ways of dealing with trespassing in this county. One of them is calling Wyatt, but if I’m dealing with it, I won’t be calling the cops.” The deadly threat was easy to believe as he promised, “I will end you, motherfucker.”
Chuito closed the door before Edward could respond, and then pushed past Alaine. He walked up the stairs, and Alaine ran up behind him. “I’m sorry.” When he opened his door, Alaine walked into his apartment with him. “Are you upset?”
Chuito opened his freezer and grabbed a bottle of liquor he kept there. Without saying a word, he got a glass out of the cabinet and filled it up halfway. Then he drank every dang drop. He winced but didn’t cough as he set the glass down on the counter and refilled it.
The anger still throbbing off him had her already frayed nerves raw. Shedidjust break up with her second boyfriend in less than a year. This trying-to-please-her-father thing she had been working on really wasn’t turning out very well.
She jumped forward and grabbed the drink before Chuito could down it.
“Alaine, don’t—”
She tried to drink it all. She honestly did, because she knew Chuito drank it when he was stressed out, and she couldn’t imagine being more frazzled than she was right now.
It was just that it tasted like liquid fire, and it burned her throat.
She coughed and choked. Her eyes watered, and she lifted her hand to her mouth as she wheezed, “It’s dreadful. How do you—”
“I’ve got more practice,” Chuito finished as he took the cup from her and drank the rest of the contents. He gave her a hard look. “Thatpendejocalled me a spic.”
She winced. “I’m sorry.”
“He should be dead right now.”
“Thank you for being diplomatic.” She gave him another apologetic look. “He didn’t deserve it, but I appreciate it.”
He stared at her for a long moment and then turned around and poured himself another drink. He took the shot and then tilted his head to look out the window. “He’s still out there.”
“Should I call Wyatt?”
“No, I already told you I wasn’t calling Wyatt.” Chuito’s voice was still threatening. “The game is to see if he leaves before the Patrón kicks in and chills me out enough to maim him instead of murder him.”
Alaine poured him another glass and pushed it toward him in silent offering. He drank it, and this time he didn’t wince, which was nothing short of a miracle. She filled up the glass and then took another big gulp, coughing a second time as she pushed up next to Chuito and looked out the window.
“Why did he say what he did?” Chuito asked her, the two of them still standing tightly together as they looked out the small window above the kitchen sink. “Did that imply what Ithinkit did?”
“I wouldn’t sleep with him tonight,” Alaine admitted.
Chuito turned around. “Screw waiting for the Patrón.”
“No.” She jumped after him when he walked toward the door. She wrapped her arms around his waist, but he kept going. “He’s not worth it, Chu. I promise.Please.” He wasn’t listening. He just kept walking and taking her with him, like a big, unbending wall with legs. “We’re broken up!” she reminded him. “I’m never seeing him again. He’ll leave and go tell his friends that I’m a horrible lay like Joe did, and I can finally give up on dating forever. I’m terrible at it anyway. He’s the last one.Forever.”
Chuito stopped so fast Alaine lost her footing. She ended up on her ass on the floor, her fingers in the waistband of his jeans. He turned around in her arms so that her face was level with his crotch, and she arched an eyebrow as she looked at it.
Usually she was subtler, but it was right there, and everything about him was so masculine and beautiful. Carved. Hard. Decorated. She touched the S in his Slayer tattoo etched over his stomach muscles that were deep with ridges impossible to ignore.
His breath hitched, but she didn’t care.
“Alaine.”
She lifted her head and blinked at him, the action feeling slower somehow, as if her world had just been placed inside one of those Jell-O molds her mother used to make.
