Hot Latin Docs Collection. Tina Beckett

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batted her hand around the counter without changing her position and finally found purchase on the phone. She brought it up to her eyes, blocking out Santi’s amused expression.

      Lovers’ quarrel over? Safe to come back now? We are ten minutes away, can delay if necessary. xx A

      At least it was proof Amanda hadn’t installed a secret camera anywhere.

      “Amanda?” Santi asked, tipping his head out from behind the screen of her smartphone.

      “Amanda.” Saoirse’s thumb tapped away at the phone, telling her to hurry up, suddenly aware how close she’d come to giving herself, body and soul, to Santi.

      “Tell her the barbecue’s off,” Santi murmured, his hands slipping around her waist, trying to close the space that had opened up between them.

      “No. Sorry.” She pressed a hand against his chest, forcing herself to wriggle out of his embrace, swiping a hand over her kiss-bruised lips as she did. “I think that’s probably enough of that. We made a rule. Remember?”

      Rich, coming from the number one rule breaker.

      She pulled her glass of iced tea along the countertop, leaving a watery pool in its wake, and took several long slurps through her pink flamingo straw. It was one of the first purchases she’d made when she’d moved here, kitting her house out with dollar-store specials, and it never failed to make her smile. She hardly noticed it now. She needed the icy tea to tamp down the flames of desire licking away at her nerve endings in wicked little flicks and quivers.

      “Want some?” She held the glass out to Santi. He shook his head, eyes clouded with something she couldn’t quite read. Irritation? Or ardor?

      “James and Amanda are going to be back in a few minutes, yeah?”

      Saoirse nodded. Where was this going?

      “And James is going to talk us through the whole process—the legal process—of putting in the forms for you to stay here and what we’ll have to prove and show, et cetera, right?”

      Gulp. He wasn’t going to back out, was he? Or maybe he should. Friends only was one thing, but friends with benefits? That had red, hot and dangerous written all over it.

      “Yeah.” She nodded, fingers unable to resist touching her kiss-swollen lips again. Could lips pine for someone else’s?

      “Amanda and James thought this barbecue was a good way to introduce the formal factor into the proceedings. Make the whole thing a bit more relaxed.”

      “Are you relaxed?” Santi’s body tensed as he spoke, evoking a jangle of nerves in her own.

      “Not exactly.”

      It wasn’t exactly a declaration of love but at the very least he knew he was now officially under her skin.

      * * *

      Santi gave his shoulders a sharp shake, eyes closed tight as he tried to clear his head of all the behind-closed-doors things he wished he was doing to Saoirse right now. She’d felt good in his arms, pressed against his body, wanting him as much as he now knew he wanted her. There was a pool of sunshine on the wide-planked wooden floor he wouldn’t mind laying her out in. Slowly...luxuriously...stripping off her tomboy gear and making it incredibly clear just how desirable he thought she was.

      Válgame Dios!

      What was life throwing him now? A buoy or an anvil that would shunt him straight to the bottom of the sea?

      He wasn’t doing a very good job of proving he could be steady, reliable. The whole point of this exercise.

      He opened his eyes, forcing his features and voice into a neutral zone the rest of him wasn’t quite yet in.

      “We should be. Relaxed and happy. This is a big decision. For both of us, eh, dulzera?” He ducked his head in a vain attempt to catch Saoirse’s blue eyes with his. In his gut—hell, in his heart—he really wanted to do this for her, but only if they could both leave unscathed at the end. “I’m afraid the ball’s in your court for this one, Murph. It’s your call. If I’m not the guy for you, there’s no point in me moving in here and going through this whole charade.”

      She shifted uncomfortably, eyes skidding everywhere around the room but on him.

      “I guess it’s the part about it being a charade that I’m not really comfortable with, you know? That it’s fake.”

      “I don’t know about you, but what just happened didn’t feel so fake to me.”

      “I know! That’s exactly my point!”

      “I don’t follow.”

      “It’s just that...” Saoirse only just stopped herself from tracing a heart shape onto his chest.

      It’d be too easy to fall in love.

      “Maybe it’s so close to the other wedding—you know, the Irish one—that I’ve got some guilt or...”

      Saoirse trailed off, not sounding convinced by her own argument. Santi had little doubt she was over her ex and from the kisses she’d just been giving him? No, it wasn’t guilt.

      “I just feel a bit duplicitous. It’s a shame it’s not—you know...”

      “The real thing?” He finished for her.

      “Yes.” She nodded glumly. “It would have been nice if our—the marriage was for real.”

      He nodded. He knew what she meant. But setting things right with his brothers was his priority. And so far coming back to Miami was the only step he’d taken in that direction. Getting married for real before he was square with his brothers simply wasn’t going to happen.

      “It would have been nice, but unless a messed-up ex-Marine is your thing...” He ignored the sharp glance she gave him. One filled with questions. Questions he wasn’t ready to answer.

      There was no point in going into details. The fact he couldn’t, with any sort of clean conscience, give his heart to her was the main thing they had going for them. She’d see soon enough. Friends was great. More than that? Not worth the trouble. There’d be another guy, another day... He just needed to see that smile of hers again. It lit him up, more than he liked, but that would be his cross to bear, not hers.

      “Murph, c’mere. Sit down.” He patted her stool in a show of It’s-okay,-I won’t-bite and waited for her to climb back up, arms crossed, a leery expression playing across her features.

      “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

      She tilted her head to the side, pretending to size him up. “As much as a girl can be with a man who insists on scrunching saline bags between his shoulder and chin can be.”

      “It’s how we always did it out in the field. And it’s not like I have a hook on my head.”

      “We could install one,” She hiccup-laughed, then smiled, visibly pleased he was playing along. As full of bravado as she was, he’d already learned Saoirse needed

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