Sweet Seduction (4 page)

Felix’s lips curled as he stared at her. She looked so adorable stuffed in an over-sized parka, a Yukon hat pulled low on her head and her bright green eyes blinking at him. “I’ve been trying to tell you, my parents, Archer and anybody else who would listen that Lena was Satan from the day I met her but nobody would listen to poor old Felix. Now,” he waved a hand at himself. “These are the consequences.”

Paige shook her head again. “No, these are the actions of a love child that could only be formed by Judas and Marcus Junius Brutus themselves,” She grabbed her bags and started for the front door. “And these are the steps of a woman getting the hell outta Dodge.”

Felix didn’t vacate his spot as he leaned against the door frame and watched her as she quickly swung open the front door and started out. It closed behind her with a soft click.

“One...two...three...four...” He counted softly.

The door swung back open as Paige tossed her bags inside, slammed it shut and leaned up against it, gasping for air.

“Cold out there?” Felix questioned easily.

“Where...what...blizzard...freaking blizzard...” She panted pointing to the door. “I haven’t been here that long and...and...”

“We’re almost snowed in?”

“Yes! What the hell?!”

Shrugging, he replied, “It’s Montana, baby, a far cry from Texas.” He gave her the most innocent expression that he could. “Aw, sweetheart, you’re shivering. Want my towel?”

Paige glared at him. “What the hell is a damp towel going to do for me?”

Felix shrugged again. “I dunno. I just figured I’d give you first shot at trying to get me naked.”

“I’ve been set up by the devil and left with her gate keeper.” Paige muttered rolling her eyes.

“I know nothing about hell sweetheart but—”

Holding up a hand, she interrupted him. “If you complete that line I’m going to make sure you don’t see sunrise tomorrow.”

“So you plan on keeping me in bed late then?”

With the cutest snarl he’d ever witnessed, Paige snatched up a bag and stomped past him checking through the four-bedroom cabin and choosing a room to settle into. He followed behind, trying desperately not to laugh.

“This is such bullshit.”

“Uh...Paige?”

She slammed her suitcase down on the bed and started unloading it. “I can’t believe Lena would do this to me.”

“Uh...Paige?”

“After all the times I dug her ass outta trouble and she goes and sets me up the first chance she gets.”

“Uh...Paige?”

“Me! The one person who knows how to turn her face orange for a month, you would think—”

“Paige!” Felix shouted.

She swung around. “What? What? What?!”

“Baby, I have no problem sharing dresser space with you but the left side already has my stuff in it.”

Her eyes widened to the size of saucers as she looked around the bedroom that she’d been intently putting her things away in. Felix bit the inside of his cheek. 

Her jaw clenched as she shot a death glare his way. “This is
your
room?”

Rocking back on the balls of his feet, one hand still holding his towel up he answered with a bright, “Yes’m.”

“And you let me put up half my shit without saying anything this whole time?”

“Yes’m.”

“I hate you.”

He grinned long and hard. “I know baby, I know.”

She was muttering angrily under her breath now, taking her stuff out and slamming them back into her suitcase.

“Aw c’mon,
batimentos cardíacos,
what could you possibly lose sharing a room with me?”

“My soul,” she answered in all seriousness.

Not laughing was impossible. “Okay, so your ideal vacation has gone awry
—
”

“Awry?” Paige cut in. “Awry? Really? No, something going
awry
is my hands wrapped around your throat.
Awry
is my going into that nice kitchen and finding a tool to do you in with.
Awry
is waiting for you to step out on the balcony and pushing you
over. That’s
awry. This shit right here is just
wrong.”

For once his little spitfire didn’t look so unruffled. She actually looked...panicked. Felix decided to put her mind at ease because the last thing he needed was to have her feeling like she couldn’t trust him.  “Paige.” He said softly when she went back to taking her stuff out of his drawers.

“What?”

“You do know you have nothing to worry about with me right?” Stepping closer, he gently grabbed one of her hands, felt it shake and rubbed her wrist. “Right?”

Her reply was so soft that he almost missed it...almost. “It’s not you who I don’t trust...”

She really wished he’d stop grinning like that. It was really starting to piss her off. Over an hour ago she’d stood in the man’s room, a few feet from his bed with him half naked and admitted in so many words that she was afraid that
she’d
jump
him.
Paige didn’t like that he could do that to her—make her lose control. In everything she did, she had control but once she got around Felix it was like it evaporated. That wasn’t a relationship she wanted or needed to be in. Letting her hormones lead her around was a very bad idea and she knew it. In any other relationship she’d been in, she could say no without hesitation. With him, if he asked she
wanted
to answer yes and that scared the shit out of her.

 
Now she was glowering at him as he made them dinner, something she had no choice but to let him do seeing as how she couldn’t cook worth a damn and she was starving.

Watching Felix work in a kitchen was a far cry from boring, that was for sure. Every movement he made was fluent and slightly graceful but nowhere near feminine. When he turned and her eyes wandered to his ass in the well worn jeans he’d put on, she decided to distract herself.

Offhandedly, she commented, “I’m amazed that I haven’t heard any smart-ass remarks about my inability to cook from you.”

Felix smiled at her over his shoulder, creating slashes in his lean cheeks. “I grew up with a sister who couldn’t cook remember? I know not to mock.”

She snorted. “Which begs the question as to how it worked out that
you
can?”

He didn’t look at her when he answered, “Easy. I was fascinated with
Mãe.”

“Huh?”

Chuckling, he said, “Mom. I was fascinated with Mom.”

“Really? Why?”

He took a few marinated strips of steak and placed them on the island’s grill, his eyes twinkling when he looked at her. “Well firstly, being that I hadn’t spent much time with my own mother before she passed, there weren’t many female influences around. Then all of a sudden here came this sweet-smiled woman with quick wit who didn’t hesitate to put a foot in Pop’s ass when he got out of line.”

Paige found herself smiling.

“Every time she talked to me, her voice was soft, gentle...maternal. She was just as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside and everything she did or said to me made me feel like one of the most important people in the world.” He stared off at something she couldn’t see. “There were things I could go to her for advice about that I couldn’t with Pop without having him tease me. Mom listened. I can remember watching her cook dinner one day. I dunno what led me to the kitchen, maybe it was the music she was playing or the grin on her face but I wanted to be
right there.
She looked up and caught me in the doorway and instead of chasing me out like she always did Pop or Lena she waved me in, told me to wash my hands and put me to work. Right at that moment, I
knew
I was special because she let me into a place that nobody else had access to.”

Focusing back on her, he continued. “I’m not saying she picked me as her favorite but somehow she knew I needed that nurturing, that bond that I never got a chance to have. The same way Pops knew Lena needed it. So every chance I got, if Mom was in the kitchen, I was in there too.” Suddenly he grabbed an onion and sliced it expertly, grinning at her. “I just happened to pick up on a few tricks along the way.”

Paige wanted to smile but it never quite reached her lips. She’d always wondered what it was like growing up in a household where two families had to mix and blend to become one. Paige’s life hadn’t been a fairytale in any way. She’d grown up watching her mother do everything in her power to make her father happy. That included giving him control over every aspect of her life. From career choices to what she wore out of the house every day, Sabrina Matthews had let Eric run her;
period.

If it didn’t make Eric happy then she didn’t do it. It was just the way they’d lived. Paige’s father had never raised his hand or his voice. He never had to, not when he had a woman more than willing to do anything to please him. For a long time Paige had thought it normal until she saw the way things worked outside of her small world; where love was always used as a bargaining chip.

She’d never gotten used to people who openly showed affection. It just wasn’t done in her family. Emotions were locked away and unused until manipulation was involved.

Once she reached middle school, Paige had simply become introverted, deciding that if she kept to herself then she wouldn’t be burned. Of course that had all changed the day she met Lena. Being that Paige was quiet she was an easy target. One day during physical education, an asshole-in-the-making decided that he didn’t like the way Paige ignored him so he was going to
make
her notice him. He wouldn’t leave her alone, kept calling her names, pulling on her hair, anything that he could do to get under her skin.

That had quickly ended when twelve year old Lena Ramos tried to ram her gym shoes far enough up his ass to leave a Nike check on his tongue. Even after getting in trouble and having to explain why she did it, Lena never left Paige’s side. From there an unbreakable bond was formed.

Lena’s home was the only place she found even a little normalcy and saw what a real family was like. Where there was compromise and true love. Mama Mona and Pop Alejandro hadn’t been anything but sweet to her. Hell, even Archer who had a reputation for being an asshole of extreme proportions handled her with kid gloves. And then there was Felix. There wasn’t a day that went by where he wasn’t saying something sweet to her or trying to get her to smile.

Over the years that she’d gotten to know him,
really
know him, she’d discovered things that never failed to amaze her. He had one of the purest hearts she’d ever encountered. He loved the simplest things. She could remember the day he’d tricked her into going to the state fair with him and dragged her around trying to win something for her. Her mind briefly flashed back to the almost six foot teddy bear at home in her bed—then said mind replaced that teddy bear with Felix…naked…

“Earth to Paige.” Felix interrupted her train of thought, waving a hand in her face.

She snapped out of it and looked at him. His look went from playfulness to concern in a few seconds. “Where’d you go?”

Shaking her head, she leaned back in her seat. Therein lay the problem. Her mind always went places it wasn’t supposed to go around him. She was supposed to be able to keep a lock on her emotions and what was between her legs. Felix seemed to have the key to both. “Nowhere. Just thinking.”