Here Comes Trouble

“I’m sorry, Lorena. How many times do I have to say it? I’ve said it a hundred times. Yes, you’re right, I’m an ass. I’m an insensitive jerk. I’m a pendejo and all those other insults you yelled at me in Spanish that I don’t know the meaning of, but I’m pretty sure they all mean ‘jerk.’”

Lorena had lived in the United States most of her life, but having been born in Puerto Rico, Spanish was her mother tongue and the language she spoke with her parents. From time to time, when she got very angry, she resorted back to it.

“What do you want from me? Do you want me on my knees?” he asked.

“I don’t want anything from you. I’m over you. I’ve moved on.”

“Well if you’ve moved on, why won’t you communicate with me?”

“Because I don’t want to. I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to. If you want a grant writer, find someone else to help you.”

“I don’t want someone else. I want you.”

Her heart jolted. Did he have to use those words?

“You can’t have me.”

He threw up his hands. “Come on, Lorena, you can’t be this bitter. I’m practically begging. This is important. The community center really needs some help. Funding has been cut, and people aren’t giving like they used to. I want to make sure they keep this place open, and I want you to work on it for us. What will it take?”

She narrowed her eyes. “You want to know what you can do? Tell them to pay me double what I charge my other clients. Then I’ll do it.”

“You can’t charge them double,” Matthew said patiently. “You’d be discriminating against a minority organization.”

“I’m not discriminating against them because it’s a minority organization. I’m discriminating against them because I don’t like you. There’s a difference.”

With glee, she internally turned cartwheels, watching as his nostrils flared with aggravation. However, she stopped the inner acrobatics when he took two steps toward her, forcing her to back up into the window, crushing the blinds. The temperature in the office plummeted with the level of icy calm he exhibited.

“You can hate me all you want to. I get it, and I accept it, but you’re going to help me get this grant for these kids, or I’m going to contact your buddies down at the Foundation Center and strongly suggest they reconsider sending you any more referrals because you won’t work for people you don’t like.”

“You’d better not.” She should have never told him her old coworkers sent her referrals.

“Think I won’t?”

Furious, their brown gazes locked, both of them refusing to look away. Perhaps if they had, the frigid tension in the little office wouldn’t have mutated into something familiar. The air became charged, and insidious warmth, slow and sneaky, crept through her limbs.

“For someone who’s over it, you sure are mad at me,” Matthew whispered. “Makes me wonder if there’s something else behind all the anger.”

“There is. Hate.”

“Nah. I don’t think so.”

Without warning, he reached out and removed her glasses. Lorena grabbed at air as he lifted them above her head. “I need those.”

“You only need them for reading. You can see me just fine.” He stepped closer again, and this time she could feel the heat from his taut, hard body.

“Stop. Right now.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said.

“Like I hate you?”

He didn’t even flinch. “No. Like you want me.”

“It’s your imagination.”

He lowered his gaze to her lips. “I wasn’t lying when I said I miss you.” His voice had dropped lower, deeper.

He was doing it again. Making her weak. Melting her bones, her muscles, her willpower to resist him. Three months wasn’t enough time to get past her feelings, and they were so easily reignited by him.

I hate him. I hate him.

She internally chanted the words in vain. Because she could smell him now. His drugging masculine scent, overlaid by the subtle tone of sandalwood in his cologne, had her stomach bunched up.

His pupils expanded, and she couldn’t look away. “God, I miss you,” he said, as if to himself.

He lowered his head to hers, and his thick lips came within centimeters of her own. If she raised up a fraction, their mouths would connect.

“Get back.”

“I miss you, baby,” he whispered, his voice rough and dark. His warm breath swept lightly across her lips, and he reached up and gently traced her jawline.

Sparks flared on her skin where he touched, and her heart constricted as she struggled against the awakening of feminine desire. He still had the same effect on her. Slowly but surely, he was hypnotizing her, and if she didn’t do something fast, she’d be lost. He’d gain the upper hand.

How dare he? How dare he do this to her?

With his mouth positioned temptingly above hers, she did the only thing she knew to do. She did something drastic—sure to break the spell and drag her back into sanity.

She brought her leg up and kneed him in the groin.