The Viper (Untamed Hearts #1)(26)
“Shit, that sounds all off.” Marcos groaned, as if reading her mind. “I’m not saying I expect something. I’m not that guy. It’s just you’re…you, and I’m me and— Co?o, I shouldn’t have come. I just—”
Katie jerked the door open, because there was something about the low rasp of pain in his voice that spoke to her. The fear of the moment had caused temporary amnesia of why she had posted all those Missed Connections posts to begin with. She wasn’t sure what it was exactly in him that could somehow mirror all her own insecurities, but it resonated in her so strongly she couldn’t not open the door.
Marcos stood there, protected from the storm under the shelter of the awning over her porch. His short dark hair was wet but standing up in inky spikes as if he’d run his hands through it repeatedly. The tight plain blue shirt he wore clung to his powerful chest and muscular arms like a second skin. The light from the house reflected in his pale eyes, making the emotion swirling in them stark and undeniable as his gaze ran over her standing there in nothing but the robe. The low dip in it must have made it obvious there wasn’t much beneath it.
“Ay Dios mio,” Marcos choked, his voice low in a way that made all the fine hair on Katie’s arms stand on end. He shook his head, as if doubting his claims that he didn’t need anything from her. “You shouldn’t have opened the door, cari?o.”
Katie should ask him in, but she was still frozen in a pulsing, stunned state of lustful shock. As much as she enjoyed just being around him, a part of her couldn’t believe this was actually happening. To her of all people. She was supposed to date men like Grayson, not ones like Marcos, who bled raw sex appeal so potent she could almost taste it on her tongue. Everything about him was hard and unforgiving as he filled her doorway, those inked-up biceps now dripping wet and begging to be touched.
“W-what does cari?o mean?” she asked rather than do the logical thing like invite him inside, because the way he had said it in that low, husky voice made it feel almost like a caress. She pulled her robe closed unconsciously, because his gaze kept dipping to the V of it. “You make me wish I’d taken Spanish in college instead of—” Katie’s rambling was cut off when he lifted his light gaze back to her face, that unbridled intensity still swirling in it to the point that she had to suck in a breath because she actually felt a little faint. To say this was a situation she wasn’t accustomed to was a vast understatement. She pushed the door open wider in invitation. “I-I’m sorry. I’m being rude. Would you like to come in? You’re all wet. I can get you a towel or—”
She stopped when he grabbed her hand on the door and pulled her forward. Her nerves were such, she would have tripped, but Marcos caught her and wrapped his other arm around her back to keep Katie on her feet.
He smelled really good, like soap and man and rain, all things raw and natural. She closed her eyes, needing a few seconds to feel everything about this moment. Her emotions, her thoughts, her heartbeat, and the sharp, hard breaths she found herself taking. Everything was going wild, as if her world had just exploded in a prism of colors after a lifetime of nothing but black and white.
“One night.” Marcos sounded breathless too. As if he was experiencing that same coiling burn in the pit of his stomach that Katie was. “Then you kick my ass out of your house and promise to never post another message on craigslist.” He ran his fingers up her arm, tracing the scars the accident had left her with. “Try to forget I ever happened.”
She blinked at that, the frown marring her forehead before she even grasped the full meaning of his words. When she did, she shook her head in denial. “No.” She couldn’t promise that. Just couldn’t. She wasn’t going to give this feeling up for anything. She wasn’t going back to black-and-white again. “No way.”
“Promise, Katie,” Marcos urged, sounding hard in a way that made it obvious he wasn’t used to people arguing with him. “Do it, and I’ll—” His voice cracked as his gaze slipped back down to the curve of her breasts. Some of the fierceness left, replaced with a smooth, compelling tenor that melted like honey off his tongue. “I’ll make it good. Very good.”
That slight accent she’d noticed a few times before became more pronounced now, but all the more compelling because of it. Katie actually shivered in response. She almost agreed, but she was stronger now than she’d been before the accident. She shook her head instead. “Please don’t ask me to do that.”
“I have to.” His thumb swept over the scars on her arm again, as if reminding himself. “Let me do the right thing. It’s not just about you. It’s about me too. I need to know I can make the right choices. That I’m not all bad.”
“I know you’re not bad at all,” she said with such conviction tears welled in her eyes. “Bad things just happened to you and—”
“I was doing a lot of illegal shit before my mother died.” He cut her off with grim certainty. “A lot.”
Maybe, but that was in the past, and right now all she could say about it was, “I think you’re wonderful, Marcos.”
Katie knew it sounded adolescent and left her vulnerable in a way a full-grown woman with a divorce under her belt shouldn’t be capable of. Another man might mock her for it, but it affected Marcos very differently. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, and seemed to waver.