Chapter Seven
Selena
The cement stairs took us a while as Carlos moved well but not swiftly. We finally sat in the room now, eating our food.
He kept groaning and munching.
I finally laughed aloud. His appreciation for the fast food was as hilarious as anything else he did.
Who knew he was so funny? Then again, I remember years ago when Alex used to tell me that Carlos was a crack-up as he called it.
I could almost hear Alex’s laughter in my head.
I pushed the sadness away. I know it had been years, but I still missed him.
And maybe being with Carlos had caused that?
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.
I nodded and crunched up the hamburger wrapper.
“So, I have a few questions,” Carlos said.
“Bien, I bet.” I smirked. “Let me see…First answer: the waiter was a hitman. I have a hit out on me by the Muriello Cartel. I killed their top well… killer. I had no choice. They showed up at one of our warehouses and attempted to jack our stock. He shot at me and I shot back.”
“Si, that is the way it happens,” Carlos replied with total understanding.
“So now, his brother has a reward out on my head. Then yesterday, I decided to move us. I got that feeling, ya know?”
He nodded. “The one where your belly does this little flip and you feel like you left the stove on at home?”
I smiled. “Yes. So I knew we needed to move. Then question number two: Your spleen. I was there the day you got a bullet. Plata O Plomo. I have been watching you for a long time.”
“Wait, you were the unknown shooter that saved my life?”
I looked away.
“Bien… fuck. Selena, that was—”
“—selfish. You might have known where the kids were, so I saved you. And you were his best friend. So I needed to know if…”
“If I was in on it? Or did I approve of my father killing him?”
I let out a troubled sigh as I again nodded.
“For about five years, I never knew what happened to him,” he explained.
“I was in America training and working the deals as my father ordered me to do. I had been forbidden to talk to or see Gabby. So, I was just as clueless as your family was. Then one night, me and…Santiago got into a huge argument. Over Gabby. I was angry that he forbade me to see my own sister. In a rage, he then admitted that he had done away with Alex. I couldn’t even pretend to not care.
No, I wanted him dead right then and right there and I went for it.
We got into a hand to hand fight. He called out and had two of his men take me down.
He locked me up for a month. Then he came in one day and showed me pictures of the kids.
Who were only six or so by then, I think? ”
“Mierda.” I sucked my breath in. This wasn’t what I always believed. Far from it.
He nodded. “Yes, and I felt like a bus had hit me. Not knowing about them at all. And they were all we had left of Alex. So that was the day he established the pattern of real control over my life by using Gabby and the kids. The day I knew I would never be free of his control until he died.”
I stood and grabbed the trash from our meal. “On one hand, you are free now. Then on the other, we have a dangerous mission ahead of us.”
“I know.” Carlos sighed. “He has them well protected too and the place he keeps them is almost unapproachable without being detected.”
“So, he pays the people keeping them?”
“I’m unsure.”
I stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“I think he placed them with a pair of women. I could only get that much information on them.”
“What?” I asked as I felt a little disappointed.
“I only got the name of the place and the information that two women take care of them. Anything more might have exposed my contact. I have someone there locally that I have paid over the years to watch them.”
“Oh, ok. I understand that.”
“When our tracker gets here, I will give him all the info I have then he can pinpoint them for us. Then our knight can make a plan.”
I nodded at him and chuckled. “Our knight?”
“Don’t laugh,” he cautioned me. “The man is serious about that shit.” He looked up at me. “So, I have one more question for you.”
Curious, I cocked my head at him.
He stood and stepped over to me. “Can you help me with my shower?”
I looked into his eyes and replied, “Shower? Carlos, you walked up two flights of stairs. You are able to—”
“Yes but now, I’m all sweaty. And I figure maybe you would like a shower too?”
I laughed. “Mierda, is this your sloppy way of hitting on me?”
He wrapped his arms around me and smirked. “Why yes. Yes, it is.”
I laughed again.
“And I wish you wouldn’t do that,” he said.
“Do what?”
“Laugh, it is hot as fuck. I mean when you went all badass Kill Bill like that by the elevator, I wanted you bad. But honestly, it is when you smile or laugh. I get hard as nails.” He stepped away. “I don’t… I hardly ever hit on a woman.”
“Yeah, cause you don’t have to.” I scoffed. “Just look at you. Ripped even after being in a coma.”
“I have been blessed,” he joked as he made a motion to flip his hair, like some girl.
I laughed all over again and admitted, “I do know that nobody has ever made me laugh so much.”
“I was sad for too long. I said it before but I now feel alive.” He smiled and went around me to the bathroom. “So, to help me feel even more alive I do wish you would join me. I will be in here.” He went through the door.
I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. I rarely trusted men.
In truth, I actually never trusted one. But this man was so damned good looking and up front too.
He was making his intentions clear enough.
I dared to step over and peek through the bathroom door.
I gasped when I saw him undressing. I’d spent several days with him since he awoke and had imagined being with him a time or two.
But I never believed it would actually happen. Stepping in, I looked into his eyes.
Just like before, his eyes darkened and filled with fire. “Are you going to join me or what?” he asked.
I swallowed heavily again and unbuttoned my shirt. I couldn’t look away as I stripped my clothes off. When I stood in only my bra and underwear, I saw his intense gaze. I reached behind me to unhook my bra and released my breasts.
He took a step toward me, swept me into his arms and crushed my body to his. “If we do this, I’m keeping you,” he whispered in my ear.
I could feel him as his body was hard and his skin satiny. He was hot to the touch too. He made me feel so many things all at once and no one had ever done that before. I stuck the tip of my tongue out to wet my lips.
Carlos actually groaned at the sight of me doing this.
I couldn’t believe I was about to do this with the man who’d been my sworn enemy for all these years up until just a couple of days ago. “Are you sure you mean this?”
He nodded. “One thing you will learn about me. I never say anything I don’t mean.”
I cocked my head at him with a raised brow. “Are you going to be bossy afterward? Like to have me is to own me?”
He laughed.
I had to admit that I was struck dumb for a moment. Damn, if he wasn’t the sexiest when he laughed too.
“I will try to refrain from doing that. I do realize that you could cut me a new one.” He chuckled.
I really did want this man now and I had a hard time focusing on anything else. “A new one?”
He grinned at me. “I don’t like bleeding. I know I must have done that when I hit that tree, but I am glad I never saw it.”
“You are cartel, Carlos...or you were. And you get the hee A Mafia Enemies-to-Lovers Romancebies over blood?”
He shrugged. “I told you I never wanted to draw blood,” he paused. “Except for…” He shook his head. “Now I will only do that to save you or me.”
Staring at him, my body tingled all over as my heart beat a little faster.
Yes, I could see this about him now. He was known as cold blooded, a true killer.
But what did they say about rumors? Most weren’t true.
I realized I was probably more dangerous than he was.
“If we do this, does it mean I will belong to you and you will be mine too?” I wanted to make sure we had no misunderstanding about this.
“That’s what it means,” he told me unconditionally. “And I don’t share.”
“Good, because I don’t either. You step out on me and I’m gone.” I narrowed my eyes at him to add, “And yes, there might be blades involved.”
Carlos stared at me for a few seconds, then he tilted his head back and laughed.
I bit at my lip again. Yeah, that was a bit much, but I was nobody’s fool. And I would never allow myself to be made into one either.
He finally slowed his laughter and grabbed my upper arms. “You just do not know. I barely dated. I also never ran around with women much, like most of my men liked to do. I felt like it needed to have meaning to it. Yet, I couldn’t have anyone getting too close and you know why.
It would be more than dangerous to their life.
So I avoided most females. But to be honest and to sound corny I think I’m just a one-woman man. ”
“And I am happy for that especially if I am that ONE woman.”
Again, he laughed. “That is what I was fumbling around trying to say. I’ve waited for this time in my life that I believed would never come. And I want you to be my one woman, Selena.”
My heart was pounding fast in my chest. He was telling me that this was not a one-night stand.
That he meant it to be permanent. I’d never felt this way before either.
This man was different from any I’d met and I wanted him.
A part of my soul recognized his. I couldn’t resist his offer of sharing a night or maybe a life together.
I just plain didn’t want to resist it. The tension between us ever since I’d first met him was a disturbing thing.
I know it was, but it had been my doing.
I blamed him for events he had nothing to do with.
He wasn’t even in the country back then.
“Look. I don’t know what…” He pushed his fingers through his dark hair. “…what it is but ever since I first saw you, I’ve wanted to taste you. I’ve wanted to show you how good it could be between us.”
I looked him in the eyes and whispered, “Show me what you got then.”
He smirked. “Chingar, I love the way you boss me around.” Carlos lifted me completely off the ground.
Surprised at his strength, I wrapped my legs around his waist as he pressed my body against the wall and his lips touched mine for the first time.
The explosion of pure color behind my eyelids astounded me and an instant fire lit in my blood.
I moaned at the power of his body and the flavor of his lips…
heady and explosive all at the same time.
Carlos deepened the kiss and he growled as he pushed his tongue into my mouth. His hands spread out and massaged my ass. My ass globes seemed to excite him as he ground his hard cock against me.
I whimpered in need, as I got wet from the friction he was creating. I tore my mouth away from his breathless wild kiss and stared into his eyes. Wow… was all that went through my head.
He stared back at me as we were both panting hard from the wild kiss.
“I want you. I want you so badly,” I admitted in a whisper.
“That’s all I needed to hear.” He kissed me again while moving us out of the bathroom and over to the bed. He lightly tossed me down on the mattress and followed me down. His body covered mine.
“I-I thought we were going to take a shower?” I asked.
He scoffed. “We will need one afterward and I think our first time needs to be in a bed.”
I agreed. I inhaled his scent and he did not smell sweaty at all.
I found it to be so fucking sexy and I wondered how a man’s natural scent could be so enticing as it gave me actual goose bumps.
Maldito, he was the best smelling man I’d ever—I’d rarely been this close to a man, except to use my blade or knock him down…
but damn, he smelled good. I rubbed my hands over his arms and shoulders as I marveled at his leanly muscled form all over again.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and held him to me.
I kissed him and this time it was my tongue in his mouth, my tongue wrestling with his.
I loved how he allowed me to lead if I wanted to.
Finally, he broke my kiss to look into my eyes.