The Slayer (Untamed Hearts #2)(22)

“I’ll start dinner. Just come in,” she said as she turned to leave. “I’ll keep my door unlocked. Does that work?”

He nodded. “Sí.”





Chapter Ten


Alaine wasn’t sure what Chuito would like, but she decided soup was good if he was cold. So she made him tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich, because it was fast.

She had just put the sandwich in the pan when he peeked into her apartment.

“Come in.” She waved him in and gestured to the table. “I didn’t move my books. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’ll get it,” he said as he walked to the kitchen and picked up her calculus book, looking at it like it was a foreign object. “You’re really smart, huh, chica?”

“I hate calculus,” she said as she turned back to the stove. “I just need it to graduate. I made tomato soup and grilled cheese. Is that okay?”

“I don’t complain about food that’s served to me.” He worked on straightening her things spread out over the table, handling them as if they would break. She noticed his hands were still shaking. “That’s a gringo thing.”

“How so?” she asked him curiously.

“You have too much of everything. Gringos are picky.”

“Do you want something to drink?”

“Do you have coffee?” he asked with a wince. “I ran out and—”

She looked at him in surprise. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“It’ll keep me from going to sleep again.” As if that triggered a memory, he looked to the freezer. “I’ll get you ice. You can take something, maybe. Do you have medicine to take? What do gringos take for things like that? Aspirin?”

She turned around and frowned at him. “What do you take for things like that?”

He shrugged. “I usually just smoke bud when I hurt myself.”

“Bud?”

“Pot.”

“Oh.” She turned back to the stove and laughed. “Does that help?”

“Yeah. It works great. Especially for sore muscles.” He pulled open her freezer and found a bag of peas. He put it on her shoulder without asking permission. “Too bad we don’t have any.”

“Isn’t that a little extreme for a sore shoulder?”

“You think bud is extreme?” He laughed bitterly as he stood behind her, holding the frozen peas to her shoulder. “Dios mio. I need to go home, chica. I feel like I’m in another world here.”

Alaine’s voice was stolen temporarily, because this was very intimate, standing there cooking while he was behind her still holding the peas to her shoulder. She suddenly became aware of wearing nothing but a nightgown, and she got the impression he was very aware of it too.

On instinct, she tilted her head, seeing that he was looking over her shoulder, his gaze on the low dip between her breasts. She wasn’t particularly endowed in that department—everything was mostly hidden because of it—but she still saw him staring.

He glanced away, as though sensing he had been caught looking.

“You’re not cold?” he asked. “Peas will make it worse.”

“I like the cold,” she confessed. “Winter’s my favorite season.”

“Whatever.” He shrugged. “You want me to wrap them in a towel?”

She shook her head, because she didn’t want to give him a reason to leave, and honestly she was feeling very warm with the memory of what he looked like in his underwear still fresh in her mind.

“Why are your hands shaking, Chuito?” she asked him softly as she turned to him.

He stepped back, taking the peas with him.

“No, no, it’s okay. I’m just asking because you seem—” She paused, trying to choose her words wisely, because it sort of felt like anything could put him on the defensive. “Do you have a medical problem? Maybe your blood sugar is low or—”

“I’m crashing,” he admitted in defeat like he needed to tell someone. “Please don’t tell your boss. They’ll take away the sponsorship and—”

“I’m not gonna tell anyone anything,” she promised quickly before she had to ask. “But I don’t have a clue what crashing means.”

“It means I’m coming down off”—he studied her, as if trying to decide if he could trust her, and then admitted—“a drug.”

She looked to him in concern. “Like pot?”

“I don’t think people crash off pot.” He winced and then glanced away from her. “I’m crashing off blow. C-cocaine.”

“Oh my God.” She gaped at him in horror. “That’s—” She turned back to the stove for a moment as she tried to process that. “Isn’t that serious? Don’t you need medical care for that?”

“No.” He shook his head, like the idea of medical intervention was completely foreign to him. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?” she repeated. “You decided to get off cocaine without being sure? Isn’t that highly addictive?”

A broken laugh burst out of him. “Yeah, it’s pretty f*cking addictive.”