Chapter 5
Yolanda and I are curled up together. The blanket I came up here with is wrapped around us both. Her body lies warm and slick and soft against mine. Her head is pillowed on my bicep, her breaths tickling the hair on my arm. I’m glad she’s getting some rest, but I like the feel of her in my arms way too much to close my eyes.
I know when she wakes because she wiggles her ass against the hard-on that has been raging since nearly the moment she fell asleep. I smile against her ear. “If that’s an invitation, consider me a yes.”
She laughs softly. “Consider yourself invited.”
She rolls in my arms, and we are kissing again. I am over-the-fucking-moon happy. I can’t get enough of her. Every part of me—and one part in particular—wants to dive into this woman. She is… beyond anything I deserve.
“East…” She pulls away. “Is this really real?”
“It feels pretty damn real to me,” I say, moving my hand down to cup her ass.
She moans. “I mean… us? Together?”
All my teasing drops. She’s right. This feels bigger than one night, one fuck, and an orgy’s worth of oral sex since I’d only had the one condom. “Yeah. It is.” I swallow a knot of hope. I’ve never connected with a woman like I have with her. Ever. “It’s really real.” I kiss her, giving it everything I have because I mean it. I mean this moment and I want her to fucking feel it.
A banging sound startles us from the heat of our kiss. We jerk apart as the door to the roof flies open.
A big guy with curly black hair, a scruffy beard, and a crazed look in his eyes bursts onto the roof, holding some kind of wrench.
I jump up to defend Yolanda from this madman despite the fact that I’m naked with a hard-on.
“Mateo,” Yolanda breathes, and I realize with dawning horror that this crazed-looking dude is her brother. The one she’s been talking to me about most of the night.
Shit.
“Quién carajo es ese?” he says, zeroing in on me with that wild look.
“Un amigo,” Yolanda says, dressing with goddess-like calm. She pulls her cami over her head so fast I can barely process it’s happened. Me? I have no idea where my shorts are. Thankfully, she hands me the blanket.
Her brother careens toward us. Is he drunk?
Oh, damn. Wrapping the hotel blanket around my waist like a towel, I put up my hands because this guy is looking for a fight.
Yolanda steps between us. “Mateo, what are you doing?”
“I’m trying to beat the shit out of the pendejo who trapped my sister on the roof and took advantage of her.”
She laughs. “The only pendejo here is you. If anything, I took advantage of him.”
Not really. “Well, that’s not?—
“Don’t help, Easton,” she says, putting her hand on Mateo’s chest. She directs me with a backward glance. “Go.”
“No fucking way. I’m?—”
Mateo surges against her hand, and I tighten my fist, ready to knock this guy on his ass. I don’t care who he is to her, I don’t like what I’m seeing.
“Easton,” Yolanda says, turning to me with desperate eyes. “Please. Go. I’ve got him. I promise. Trust me. Please. I need you to trust me.”
I hate the idea of leaving her here, but I know her well enough… God, that seems weird to say, but it’s true. I know her well enough to trust her. I know her well enough to know she needs me to trust her.
“Call my room when you get free,” I say, stomping past them to the now-open door.
Once out of their view, I wait, listening to hear her berating her brother, and him apologizing sheepishly. Satisfied, I make my way down the stairs. As long as she’s safe, it’s not my place to stay here and get in the middle of that. But, oddly, I want it to be. I want my place to be beside her.
I’ve never experienced this kind of connection before, the kind where, even as I leave her, I’m planning my next moments with her—where we can go, what we can do, and the very next time I will be inside her.
With a spring in my step, I run down the single flight of stairs, through the lower door, and down the hall to my suite. I nod at a couple who gives my blanket-wrapped body a curious and alarmed glance.
“Toga party,” I say, smiling widely. I feel like a kid on the first day of summer break, knowing that, from now on out, everything is freedom and possibility.
At the suite, I knock to wake up Stone. My key is in my shorts upstairs. It’s early, and I settle against the wall, knowing I’m going to have to keep knocking to wake him…
The door flies open.
“East.” Stone grabs my arm and drags me inside. Before I can react, he has his arms around me. He’s crying. “I’m sorry, brother. I’m sorry. I tried to find you. I’ve been looking all night.”
Shivers race down my body. My stomach drops. I pull back from him and notice he’s wearing the same clothes he had on when I left. I also notice our bags are packed.
A chill of foreboding rides down my body. “Why are our bags packed? What’s going on man?”
“The bags?” He looks at them as if he’d forgotten them sometime in the night. He runs a hand over his hair. “I got a flight for us this morning.” He shakes his head. “When you didn’t answer your phone, your aunt called me.”
I brace myself. Dad is worse. He somehow got worse. “What happened?” I say, cursing myself for not leaving yesterday. I should’ve been there to help my aunt. She needed me.
Stone puts his hands on my biceps, holds me as if to keep me from breaking apart, to keep me grounded, and says the words that change everything. Forever.
“Your father killed himself last night.”