Oh god.
My stomach rolls. My eyelids are so heavy.How long have we been at this club?The pulsing music doesn’t even faze me anymore. My ears are numb to it.Go to a crazy dance partywas on Winnie’s list.Check. Never doing it again.
“He’s almost here,” Simone says cheerily, leaning over to pat my shoulder in an attempt to lure me back to the land of the living. “Time to rise and shine, princess.”
Who’salmost here? I don’t even care.
“Just leave me,” I protest. I’ll sleep wherever I am. Is it the bench seat at our booth at Solaría? Is the cool leather pressed against my cheek? I can’t look. My bones are useless. The brownies have set in, swirling with vodka shots (blech) and Jell-O shots (doubleblech) and all the other cocktails Annika has shoved intomy hand tonight. I might as well be in a king bed with eight-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets.
“Do you want me to carry you or are you okay to walk?”
Thatvoice.
I blink open my tired eyes.TwoCristianos stare down at me. Double the trouble, double the fun. I unravel what I hope is a lazycome hithergrin, but then I hiccup and it’s ruined.
The Cristianos smile and bend down to scoop me up, sadly converging into one person instead of two. I open my mouth to try to assure him I can walk, but his body is so warm and his scent so intoxicating I’m happy to keep quiet. With my arms wrapped around his neck and my cheek pressed to his chest, I relax against him and close my eyes. I can’t keep them open for the life of me.
“I was going to have the best night out, maybe even make you a little jealous or something,” I lament as he carries me out of the club. “I really tried, but then I fell asleep in the booth because I ate a pot brownie and chased it with every drop of alcohol in this place.”
I feel his laughter, but then he drops a kiss to my hair and lowers his voice. “I wish you had gone to Aura, where Ramón could have watched out for you.”
I nestle into him even more. “I’m fine. I have you.”
Outside, I’m loaded into the front seat of Cristiano’s SUV while Thalia, Mia, Annika, and Simone slide into the back.
“Do NOT press that button!” Simone warns them about the massage seats. “I learned my lesson last time I was in here. I still have bruises on my arse!”
I smile and lean my head against the cold window and fall asleep again. I don’t wake up until my door opens and my cheek loses contact with the glass. Cristiano is there, lifting me up again.
“I can walk,” I insist.
He doesn’t listen.
Oh well, if he wants to carry me for the rest of the night, I don’t see why it matters. There’s no one with us now that we’re back at his house. His house! He’s going to let me sleep here again. I revel in the delicious excitement.Two nights in a row.Lucky me.
“Cristiano?”
“Hmm?”
“I like you so much.”
I say the words into his shirt because I can’t say them to his face.
“I like you, too,” he says with a chuckle as he carries me inside.
My stomach twists with apprehension. Maybe it’s the alcohol or maybe it’s the sense of foreboding I’ve been stewing in the last few days.
“I’m glad you like me. I honestly can’tbelieveyou like me…” I tilt my head and look up at him in the dark hallway. “But you can’t fall in love with me. I’m going back to California at the end of the summer, and if you keep looking at me like that, it’s going to make it so much harder. I’m serious. Stop.”
He tries to argue his innocence. “I’m just carrying you into the house.”
No he’s not. He’s undoing me.
It’s his eyes.No—everything about him is so romantic and potent, revealing and honest. I reach up, wanting to trace my finger along the hard line of his jaw.
“You can put me down now,” I say dreamily.
He doesn’t. He waits until we’re in his room, where he sets me carefully on the bench at the foot of his bed. His hands on my shoulders hold me steady for a moment as he waits to see ifI’ll topple over. I tip my chin up and smile as if to say,Look at me! I’m sitting all by myself!
