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Lola hugged her arms around herself, suddenly cold without Carmen’s warmth. She thought of the tenderness in Carmen’s touch, the sincerity in her words. The exhilarating freedom of letting her guard down, if only for a moment. The rush was as addictive as it was terrifying.

She shook her head, almost laughing. It was madness. Absolute insanity to contemplate anything real with Carmen. After all the crap they’d put each other through, it was more than crazy. It was suicide.

Lola threw herself down on the bed, fully out of orbit and floating in the vacuum of space, or maybe the middle of a wild sea. She didn’t know how to navigate these uncharted waters. Didn’t know if she could ever find the courage to dive so deep.

But she wanted to try. The thought terrified her, but it also made her feel alive in a way she never had. Maybe together they could leave their broken pieces behind and build something neither imagined possible. Was that childish? Stupid?

Lola turned off the light, possibilities swirling as she finally surrendered to exhaustion. The only certainty was that everything had irrevocably changed. A new day was dawning, and she could no longer fight the light.

CHAPTER42

In the shower,Carmen let the steam ease the ache in her lower back muscles. The ones she hadn’t realized she was clenching while standing with Lola at the edge of her bed. While waiting for her to agree to stop fighting and get to know each other. A proposition Lola took as seriously as organ donation.

Closing her sleep-starved eyes, she pressed her forehead to the ugly beige tile and let the warmth seep into her skin. How had they ended up so out of order? How had they had sex before even admitting that they liked each other? A pit opened in Carmen’s stomach. One she desperately wanted to fill with certainty and hope.

Should she have followed Lola out of the room? Lola’s face flashed in her mind’s eye. She didn’t want to be followed. Everything in her body language said she needed time. Time for what, Carmen wasn’t sure, but she hoped that Lola would tell her when she came back. Hoped that Lola would come back at all.

Wrapped in a towel, body still wet, Carmen started for the bed. The open blinds gave her a view of the dawn sky. Even more magical than the stars, the pale pink and burgeoning orange illuminated the patchy white clouds like a living painting changing while Carmen watched.

She was gazing out the sliding glass door, considering not even trying to sleep, when there was a knock behind her. It was too soft to be a hotel staff.

Heart leaping into her throat, and body alive with a jolt of energy, Carmen started for the door. She tried to keep her hopes down with facts. Lola didn’t knock softly. She pounded. She kicked down doors. She barged.

Fingers trembling despite her best efforts to make them stop, Carmen turned the brass knob.

Lola, hair pulled back and eyes wide, was wearing the same tank top and shorts she’d left her in. Looking like the weight of the world had fallen on her since they’d been apart, she gazed directly into Carmen like she wanted to speak to her soul.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Lola said in a voice so soft it was shattering.

Carmen reached out for her, hand empty, palm up, heart open. “Come inside.”

Lola’s perfect eyebrows stitched together, her gaze dropping to Carmen’s hand. This time, Carmen didn’t see a woman looking for the trap, the con, the trick… she saw a person terrified of the unknown.

Like it was a true leap of faith, Lola took her hand. Fingers sliding over fingers, skin warming, palms touching, bodies connecting. It was a new kind of shot fired. A new declaration. One more treacherous than war.

“I don’t know how to do this,” Lola said when she was inside her room, shaking even though Carmen had the heat on. “I don’t know how to be sweet and gentle—”

Carmen couldn’t help the gurgle of laughter that bubbled up in her chest and floated past her lips. “I don’t want you to be anyone but you. I don’t want you to change.”

“You want to like… date…” Lola pronounced the word like a student speaking a foreign language for the first time in front of the class. Hesitant. Unsure. Embarrassed.

Letting go of her hand, Carmen wrapped her arms around Lola’s waist. “I just want you to let me on your team,” she said, using terms that might seem less daunting.

Lola’s dark brows furrowed again. She moved cautiously, hands finding Carmen’s hips and holding on to her for dear life. She studied Carmen like something in her face would tell Lola what came next.

“I’ve never met anyone like you. You’re better than me. You’re so smart and kind and so fucking out of my league,” she confessed in a tangled rush, her neck and cheeks turning red.

Of all the things she’d expected arrogant, self-assured, confident Lola to say, that was not it. She pulled her closer, held her tighter. “That’s not true.”

“It is,” she countered like the admission hurt.

Carmen softened her expression and listened. “What makes you feel that way?”

“My family doesn’t host galas. I don’t have any kind of pedigree.”

“I’m not a blue-ribbon Yorkie.” She smiled, hoping that would soften the mood. “I’m not looking to breed dogs.”

Lola shook her head, looking away, and Carmen understood she’d used the wrong tactic. She cupped her face, holding her close and urging her gaze back to hers.