The Slayer (Untamed Hearts #2) (18 page)

“Don’t call me that!” Jules punched him.

“
Hijo de la gran puta
,” he cursed. “You hit like a man. I suffer more damage from you than I ever have in the octagon.”

Jules punched him again. “He’s gonna ruin her day!”

“If he does, then he does.” Chuito rubbed his arm. “I had to try. I needed to try, ’cause if he doesn’t give her something else—” He threw up his hands. “I’m not that fucking noble. I’m not noble at all. How do you think I broke into your car? I’m not good, Jules.”

“You’re good.” Jules huffed and stood back, folding her arms over her chest. “How much was in the card?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“You’re good,” Jules repeated. “Too good. I hate that man.”

“He is a pendejo,” Chuito agreed as the Cellar doors burst open.

“Did y’all see who came to the party?” Wyatt said as he walked over to them. “The temperature dropped ’bout twenty degrees when he walked in.”

“Yeah, we noticed.” Jules gave her brother a look. “Hard not to when he’s calling us the devil.”

“You are the devil,” Wyatt teased and then shook his head and chuckled. “He never calls me sheriff. He always calls me Mr. Conner. You know that bastard burns his ballot rather than vote for me.”

Jules laughed with him. “He told Chuito he probably didn’t have a father. He just
assumed
’cause he speaks Spanish.”

“That’s not funny,” Wyatt said, but he was still laughing as he reached out and grabbed the back of Chuito’s neck, squeezing tightly. “You’re okay. He hates all of us. He still calls Clay trailer trash.
Clay
. Biggest fighter in the history of the sport. Trailer trash.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Chuito shrugged, even if the jab about not having a father had struck a nerve, considering in his particular case it was very true. “He’s a dick. I knew he was a dick.”

“Who invited him?” Wyatt asked. “The party was a surprise. How’d he know?”

Chuito looked to Jules, but the door opened before she had to answer. Clay walked out into the open air and took a deep breath, as if praying for patience.

“You okay, buddy?” Wyatt asked, but his voice was choked as if he was trying to swallow down the mirth. “Something upset ya?”

“I think I’m gonna walk my trailer-trash ass to the store and buy ice,” Clay growled.

Wyatt burst out laughing. “It’s like, two miles to the store. You gonna walk? You can’t afford a car? Do you need me to loan ya money for the ice?”

Clay glared at them.

“Clay, don’t leave.” Jules was laughing with her brother. “Come on. Wyatt’s an asshole. You know he’s an asshole.”

“I—” Clay pointed back to the Cellar. “That’s my haven. Y’all let him in my haven.”

“It’s okay. It’s for Alaine,” Jules said soothingly. “You should’ve heard what he said to Chuito. He’s still here.”

Clay frowned at Chuito. “What did he say to you?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Chuito winced. “It was bad.”

“So bad,” Jules agreed and doubled over. “
So bad
.”

“He gives rednecks a bad name.” Wyatt laughed too.

“You give rednecks a bad name!” Chuito assured Wyatt and then pointed to the Cellar. “That man. Ay Dios mio. How did she come from him?”

“Her mama was good.” Wyatt sat down on the cement. “Holy shit. I’m gonna hide out here with y’all till he leaves.”

“We’ll just sit our sinner asses right here.” Jules sat next to Wyatt, putting the box of cards in her lap and resting her head on her knees. “Just tell me when he’s gone so you don’t have to arrest me for assault.”

“Is that an option?” Chuito asked as he sat down next to Jules. “Arresting her for assault? ’Cause I’d like to file a complaint.”

“You’d have to stand in line, buddy.” Clay sat down in front of them, giving them a harsh look. “Who invited that asshole?”

Chuito saw Jules smile as she kept her forehead pressed against her knees and said, “The world may never know.”

Then Terry burst out of the doors, and all of them cracked up.

“Join our sinners’ party.” Wyatt waved him over. “Come sit.”

Terry sat down on the cement next to Clay and looked at Wyatt. “You know why I hate him.”

“I know; it’s okay,” Wyatt said and then gestured to everyone sitting there. “If he’s right, and you’re really going to hell, then you’re in good company, Terry.”

Chapter Seventeen

“So many leftovers.” Alaine mused as she looked in Chuito’s fridge that was packed as full as hers was next door. “We will never eat all this.”

“We can freeze some. We should freeze it now.” Chuito hung up his jacket and then pulled off his tie, draping it over the hanger. He hooked it to the chair at the kitchen table rather than go back to his room. “But fuck it. I’m tired and lazy.”

“I’m a bad influence on you.” Alaine shut the fridge and turned back to watch Chuito undo the top three buttons to the black dress shirt he’d worn under his suit. She admired the way he looked, with the tanned, muscular line between his pectoral muscles exposed, and said, “You didn’t dance with me tonight.”

“That was by design.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “You really want your father to see you dance with me?”

“He was there for half an hour,” Alaine complained. “You could have danced with me when he left.”

“After hearing that the devil had me, I decided not to.”

“Did he say that?” Alaine could physically feel herself pale as she stared at Chuito. He shrugged rather than answer and then pulled his phone out of his pocket, paging through it as if dismissing her, and she pressed, “Chu.”

“No. I was kidding.”

“It didn’t sound like you were kidding. Did you talk to him?”

“No, I avoided him.” Chuito looked up from his phone and asked, “You think I want to talk to your father?”

“I would have introduced you,” she whispered. “I couldn’t find you.”

“It’s fine. I don’t want to meet him. He’d hate me even if I wasn’t living next door to you. As it is, he’d probably smoke my ass if it wasn’t against his religion.”

“Why would he hate you?” Alaine asked, knowing it was wishful thinking on her part that her father would see all the wonderful things about Chuito like she did. “If he got to know you—”

Chuito gave her a look before she could finish, saying without words exactly why he thought her father would hate him.

“He’s getting better.” Alaine tried to convince herself of it too. “He gave me money for graduation. Actual, spendable money.”

“Yeah, how much?” Chuito asked as he cast her another look.

“A hundred dollars.”

“Carajo. A hundred dollars? That’s it?”

“That’s a lot for him.”

“He drives a brand-new BMW,” Chuito started as he held up his hand and clenched his fist. “He has money.”

“He hasn’t given me anything in four years. Not even on Christmas. He invited me back to church.”

“Nice of him.” Chuito rubbed a hand over his forehead and took a deep breath. “That’s great. I’m happy.”

“You don’t look happy,” she whispered, feeling suddenly melancholy. “It’s baby steps with him. Just him coming was something. It’s not easy for him. His world is small. He hasn’t gotten to see anything outside his bubble, but it’s a start.”

“Okay, mami,” Chuito said with a sigh.

“Maybe you should come to church with me. Let him get to know you.”

“No.” Chuito shook his head at that. “You go. I don’t need to go. They’re your people.”

She glared at him. “We’re the same people. Why does everything have to be divided? How are we that different?”

“When a Catholic church opens here, I’ll go.”

“Church is church.”

“No.” Chuito actually shuddered, as if the idea was so foreign he couldn’t bear thinking of it. “For all I know, they’re picking up snakes in that big, wooden building. Just looking at that church scares me.”

She gaped. “I’m from that church. That’s my father’s church.”

“I know,” he said with a pointed look. “That’s why it scares me. Wyatt hides from your father. I watched him sit outside and hide. Wyatt’s the biggest redneck in Garnet. If they hate him—” He snorted. “Coño. No.”

“It’s not scary.” She took a deep breath and remembered the card from Chuito in her purse. She didn’t want to fight tonight, so she walked up to him and whispered, “You think I handle snakes?”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

Alaine reached out and touched his arm. She ran her fingers over his forearm, knowing the snake tattoo he had hiding under his shirt. “Maybe I do.”

“Mami, no.” He pulled his arm free of her grasp. “It’s late.”

“You said you’d dance with me until the sun came up,” she said as she arched an eyebrow at him.

“I never said that.”

“Just like in the song,” she pressed, making her voice gentle and pleading on purpose. “And you owe me a dance.”

He hesitated, looking to the stereo system in his living room he’d bought when he got his UFC contract. “One dance?”

She shrugged rather than commit to just one.

“He should have given you more,” he whispered, almost to himself, as if he couldn’t let go of Alaine’s issues with her father. “You don’t need his money. I made sure you don’t need him. It’s the principle. You’re his daughter.”

“Are you gonna dance with me?” she asked with a smile. “So we can see how good I am at handling snakes.”

“That’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny,” she teased and then went ahead and put her arms around his neck, hanging off him just because she felt like it. “Dance with me.”

“One dance,” he agreed, giving her a hard glare that wasn’t nearly as fierce as he was clearly trying to make it look. “Just one.”

Chuito attempted to pull free of her, but Alaine wasn’t letting go as she said, “More than one.”

He still scowled but countered, “Two.”

“Until the sun comes up.” She gave him a wide, mischievous grin, because he looked very handsome with his shirt unbuttoned and those black slacks clinging to him in all the right places. “’Cause I don’t have to work tomorrow and you stay up all night anyway. Why waste time? It’s fleeting. We should make memories instead. Beautiful memories.”

He didn’t agree, but he pulled away and went to the stereo. He hooked up his phone and played the same song they’d listened to in the car. Alaine met him in the living room and draped herself over his back just as he turned up the music, a little louder than usual, but it was okay.

They were all alone.

Always alone.

The night was theirs.

Chuito grabbed Alaine’s hand, and pulled her around until she was flush against him. He wrapped an arm around her waist and held her so much closer than he usually did.

“Like this, mami.” He ran his other hand down her leg, slipping it to the inside of her thigh and forcing her to widen her stance. “Be soft this time.”

“I’m soft.” Alaine’s breath caught at the feel of him so close. He fit the two of them together like broken puzzle pieces, putting one of his legs between hers, making it almost sexual with the way it forced their lower bodies so close together. Then he grabbed her hand and stepped back, forcing her to move with him. She tried to let him lead, but she was distracted and whispered, “This is new.”

“Same thing, just closer.” His voice was low, his accent more pronounced all of a sudden. “I’m tired of dancing with you like I dance with my mother.”

“This isn’t salsa?” she asked, even as she closed her eyes to smell him, inhaling the scent of his expensive aftershave.

“You’re not soft.” Chuito slid his hand on her back lower and squeezed her hip. “Who’s in charge on the dance floor?”

She pressed a wide smile into the curve of his neck. “You are.”

“Just move with me; you’ll get it.” His thigh was still between hers so that she was practically sitting on it, and it left her feeling hot all over. She wasn’t nearly as focused on dancing as he was, and it was obviously frustrating him. “Coño, mami, forget you’re white for a moment. Move your hips.”

“I’m moving them.”

“No, with mine. I’m a man. I’m not supposed to know how to move mine better than you move yours. You’re a woman. Move them ’cause that’s what God made them for.”

She giggled. “That’s sexist.”

“That’s nature,” he argued, his grip on her hip still tight, forcing her to move with him. His other hand felt so big over hers as he grasped it more firmly. “You’re not soft right now. See, you got to lean into me. I move. You follow. Move with me. Why don’t you have rhythm?”

“It’s a new dance. I don’t know the steps.”

“No steps. You always need rules,” he complained. “Just listen to the music. Close your eyes.”

“They’re closed. I’m listening.”

“Listen to the drums. That’s the part you listen to. Feel it.”

“I’m feeling it.”

“No. Feel it like a heartbeat. Like life. You want it to be a love song, hear the sex in it. Hold me like I hold you.” He jerked her tighter against him as he said it, forcing her breasts to crush against his chest and her dress to ride higher up on her thighs. “Like you need me.”

She sucked in a hard breath and ran her hand up from his shoulder to his neck. The lust made her languid against her will, and when he moved this time, she followed because she didn’t have a choice.

“You’re not supposed to think when you dance. Supposed to just feel. To move the way I tell you to move.” He ran his hand up her back, pushing at the center of it until she arched into him, allowing her head to fall back and forcing her hips tightly against his. “Yeah, like that. Better. I step hard. You step—”

“Soft,” she finished for him.

“That’s right. Follow my hand. Hard, soft, together we fit.” He loosened his hold on her waist, and she stepped back to the beat and then allowed him to pull her into his arms again. They did it a few times, the push and pull, stepping away from the heat and moving back together like they needed each other to keep breathing. Then he pulled her to the right and stepped to the left at the same time. When he used his hold on her waist to force her back, she stepped so that her feet were between his. He fit the two of them back together like a puzzle piece again, with his leg pressed so intimately between her thighs it was making her ache. She arched her hips on instinct, and he hummed in approval. “
Bueno, asi mismo
. Move them like God made you to move them. That’s good, mami.”