The Vargas Cartel Trilogy (Vargas Cartel #1-3)(66)

Like a broken record stuck on repeat, I continued shaking my head back and forth. “You told me to give Evan a second chance. That’s what I’m doing. If you haven’t noticed, that’s what tonight is about. This is my engagement party.” My voice trembled on the last word, showing a chink in my armor.

He planted his hands on the wall beside my head, imprisoning me. “I noticed, but I changed my mind about us…about being with you.”

His body slanted against mine until his lips were inches from my ear. I closed my eyes as his warm breath billowed along my neck, ruffling my hair. A shiver shot down my spine and goosebumps erupted on my arms. This was bad. Really bad.

Confused and on the verge of crying, I inhaled, desperately trying to track down every last ounce of my wilting willpower, but I regretted it instantly. His spicy, sea-salt scent filled my lungs, intoxicating me, weakening my defenses. I wanted him.

I opened my eyes, and he was close. Too close. I could see every individual eyelash and the charcoal rim around his irises. “You think it’s that easy? That you can just declare you changed your mind, and I’ll run back into your open arms?”

His eyes raked over my body like a predator inspecting his prey. “I know it is. I can see it on your face. You still want me.” His lips playfully ran along the side of my neck, sucking on my pulse point, and I moaned. My brain took a leave of absence and my body went on autopilot. I unfolded my arms and looped them around his waist.

I condemned the familiarity of his touch and the sensation of his body against mine to hell. Every slide of his lips against my neck was a pleasurable form of torture. I shouldn’t crave something so toxic to my sanity, but couldn’t resist him. I never could. Time hadn’t changed my reaction to him; it only made him more potent.

The air around us crackled and buzzed with unrestrained lust. My body felt like it would go up in flames any second, even as my ego still wept from his dismissal almost four weeks ago. I was standing on the edge of the cliff waiting for him to tell me to jump.

His hands bit into my hips, drawing me against him. Hip to hip. Chest to chest. Our lips only inches apart, my breathing quickened as I waited for him to make the next move. If he kissed me, claimed me, all bets were off. Everything would change. I didn’t think I could give him up again. I’d fight for him.

“I missed you,” I whispered more to myself than him.

Then, his lips crashed against mine, and I jumped into the rabbit hole of my destruction, surrendering to my inexhaustible weakness for him. I moaned as his tongue slipped through my parted lips. His hands tunneled into my hair, tilting my head back, demanding more, and I willingly gave him everything.

His forbidden, familiar taste made me lightheaded. I wished—not for the first time—that I could take a vaccine and make myself immune to him.

To his charm.

To his smile.

To his smell.

Fuck…I missed his smell. Nobody smelled like him. It was even headier than I remembered. My senses whirled every time I inhaled. I felt as if I had tumbled head first into his bed.

He groaned, and the sound ignited a frenzy inside of both of us. Static hummed in my ears. I didn’t care that we were in my fiancé’s childhood home celebrating my engagement to another man. We could’ve been in a room full of people for all I cared. My driving need for him made me delirious and impulsive. I buried my betrayal of Evan and our engagement deep in the convoluted chambers of my mind.

I needed him. I needed this more than anything else. It had been too long. We staggered even closer to each other, and he braced his hand on the wall behind me to stop us from falling. I wanted to climb inside him and lay claim to his heart and soul, melding us together like two atoms in a nuclear fusion.





Chapter Five




Ryker



Everything I led myself to believe over the last few weeks disintegrated into dust the moment I came face to face with Hattie Covington again. How could I keep my bearings around her when my feelings for her crippled my judgment?

I planned to slip into the party and leave before she saw me. But the minute my eyes landed on her standing in front of the room, smiling prettily at Evan, their hands intertwined the slow burn of something resembling jealousy churned in my gut. At that instant, I knew I couldn’t walk away without talking to her, touching her, kissing her, claiming her. I wanted to beat my chest and scream she was mine, not Evan’s. That she’d never belong to him the way she belonged to me.

I wasn’t accustomed to these messy emotions. The turmoil of a human psyche didn’t have a place in my life. In the short time I’d known her, Hattie had succeeded in messing with my head until right and wrong had flipped on its axis. She made me feel something I had no right to feel.

“Hattie,” I groaned when her hands slipped beneath my suit jacket, roaming impatiently over the starched fabric of my shirt. Fucking hell. We didn’t have enough time to do everything I needed to do. The memory of the feel of her beneath me haunted me since I released her. I wanted to sling her over my shoulder and carry her out the front door. I had to be inside of her again. I needed to kiss, taste, and stroke every inch of her skin. The engagement party and the deal I made with Senator Deveron be damned.

For some reason, I got it in my head that if I put enough time and distance between us, my need for her would disappear. It didn’t work. Far from it. Now that I held her in my arms again, I didn’t want to let her go.