Page 36 of Indulging Temptation (Tempting the Heart #1)

LORENA

I don’t understand how me and Tino can go from joking around, flirting with his damn hand in my mouth feeding me one minute, only to revert back to acting like neither of us know how to function around each other.

Like we’re doing right now. Neither of us has said a word since we left Tomás’. Usually, I would welcome silence, given that I’m no fan of small talk, but this isn’t just silence. This is the culmination of a thousand words left unsaid.

I’m tempted to put my big girl pants on to address the other night at Cielo + Cibo, and the moment we had in the alleyway.

My center pulses at the thought of that moment of feral, raw, unexpected bliss.

As amazing as it was that’s not all that has me swooning for him.

It’s also all the other sweet and unnecessary — but greatly appreciated — gestures he’s done in the short time I’ve been back home in the city.

From practically demanding to make me breakfast, remembering my favorite flavor of coffee, and then, of course, there are the candles, that I know smell exactly like my perfume.

I want to address it all. Lay everything out on the table.

The good, the bad, the utterly confusing, but I can’t.

Not when we are on our way into the restaurant for what is a defining moment in his career.

This isn’t cut and dry. We aren’t cut and dry. We’ve crossed a complex line that neither of us truly knows how to handle. Discussing it now would only make him more stuck in his head than I already sense he is.

I know he’s nervous. He hasn’t stopped bouncing his knee in between pressing in the clutch. A habit I've picked up on since shortly after I met him. Whenever he is preoccupied, or nervous, he seems to tap things. Mainly his legs or his hands, to distract himself.

I flip down the visor on the passenger side to see the mirror for no reason other than this is what I do when I’m nervous.

I suddenly become hyper-aware of my hands, my body, my breathing, absolutely everything.

So why not awkwardly kill time and occupy myself by looking in the mirror, making it seem like I’m conceited, when really, I don’t know what to do with myself. Thanks to Tino.

Seriously, I need to get a grip. Yes, him being Tomás’ best friend complicates things, but he surely isn’t the first man to casually go down on me.

Heat runs to my cheeks, recalling the memory.

I swear my entire body has his tongue, his touch, his smell, memorized.

Tempting me to ask him to pull over and do it again.

He’d do it too. I saved the voice memo to prove it, but I still haven’t decided how I want to proceed with this, knowing that we are likely to get caught and even worse, one of us, if not both, will likely get hurt.

A conversation from years ago comes up in my head, killing the arousal that lingers in my body when he’s around. Reminding me just how much this can’t work.

“I don’t believe in fairytales, same way I don’t believe in relationships. It’s easier that way. It’s less painful.”

For now, I need to get out of my head. Tell my pussy to behave and focus on what I was hired to do…encouraging him to behave.

Deciding I need to switch tactics from awkwardly staring at myself in the visor mirror, I flip it shut, about to look out the window, when something else catches my eye.

Big mistake.

Epic fucking mistake.

Now angled with my left arm bent on the center console between us, my gaze is forced to take in a sight that rivals how good he looks in gray sweatpants.

He has to be doing this on purpose. In the time that I was lost in my thoughts, he must have reached for the baseball hat he always has placed on the dash and put it on…backwards.

Fuck me.

And not just that, his sleeves are rolled up, exposing his ink drenched arms that only highlight the sea of veins protruding from his entire forearm spilling down to his hands, that are moving the gear shift with such ease.

I’ve always found the open-handed, flat palm steering wheel maneuver to be hot, but now, I fear I’ve developed a stick shift kink, and that hat backwards of his is making me feel like I’m going into heat.

Seriously. My thong is soaked.

Desperate to shift gears, absolutely no pun intended, I do what has become a specialty of mine… make a tense or awkward situation more of both.

Fuck my life.

“So…work!” I shout, dying on the inside as my voice fills his car, competing with the music playing.

Eyes on the road, he shifts gears, before his arm drapes over the steering wheel, shooting me the most effortlessly intoxicating stare.

“What about it?”

“Umm.” I trip over my words, before I literally start fumbling my body to reach for my purse, taking out my laptop.

This is so embarrassing. I suddenly don’t know how to act.

I’m about to rest the laptop on my lap when he brushes his hand over from the gear stick, meaning to swat my computer from my grip, but his hand falls innocently to my lap instead, and that arousal that’s been building in me only intensifies.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I’m sure you have a shit ton to go over with me since you’ve been busying yourself with whatever, but can it wait until after?”

“Sure. I guess.” I put my computer back in my bag, relieved, because between the weed sinking into my system, and this newfound appreciation I have for watching him drive, I don’t think I’m capable of producing a coherent sentence.

We stop at a red light, and I look out the passenger window, recognizing that we’re only a couple blocks away from the restaurant.

“Sorry, we can talk about all the work things your heart desires after the judge from the foundation comes in. I’m too nervous to think clearly right now,” he says, and there’s an innocence in his voice, one that I find so refreshing and alluring, all at once.

My subtle high inflicts a boldness that I don’t think I’d be capable of with my stubborn will always getting in the way. Leaning over the center console, I reach for his shoulder, kneading it in my hand. The thick muscle sends a shiver down my spine.

He takes his hand off the wheel for a split second, crossing it over his chest, squeezing my hand, anchoring it in place.

The air in my chest becomes trapped. My mouth suddenly dry. How can such a simple act, and an equally simple gesture, feel so intimate?

He keeps his hand on mine, and for a few seconds, I hang in the balance of him and his always well executed madness. He’s driving the car, steering with his knees. With his elbow on the shifter, and his free hand extended messing with the music control.

Tino lets go of my hand only to quickly throw on the turn signal, but my hand stays on his shoulder, unable to move, as the song he selected begins to play.

The intro to Sleep Token’s The Summoning fills the car, as he brings both hands back to where they should be while driving…on the damn wheel.

“I hope you don’t mind, but whenever I have a competition or anything like that, I have to blast music before. It helps me get in the zone.”

“Always Sleep Token?”

“Most of the time, yeah. I rotate between Sleep Token, Deftones, I Prevail, lots of 2000s rock, and occasionally Marc Anthony or Celia Cruz.”

I bite my lip at his response, not giving a damn if he noticed.

As if him listening to Sleep Token wasn’t hot enough, literally every band, genre, and artist he mentioned is top tier.

Marc Anthony has always been one of my mom’s favorite artists, she had his music playing on repeat growing up, even still to this day.

“Nice.” Is all I offer up, disguising how impressed I am as we make the rest of the drive to the restaurant.

Though as the music consumes the air, I can’t help but to allow my mind to drift to thinking — fantasizing — how fucking him would be like a Sleep Token or Deftones song.

Dreamy. Perfectly paced as it works its way up to an earth shattering crescendo, only to continually repeat the process, leaving you breathless and needing more.

And as we pull up to Cielo + Cibo, it dawns on me that I want to experience that feeling. I want to be left breathless. But not just by anyone…by him.

Being at the restaurant without Tino last week might have been boring, but at least I was able to get work done.

Today that’s been next to impossible. Between replaying our current events in my head, and then the car ride in, not to mention the view I’ve had — limited or not — of him in his element preparing and then serving his meal for the judge, I feel distracted.

The distraction mounts as Tino emerges, standing in the doorway of his office looking like he just ran a marathon.

He plops down on the chair in front of where I’m sitting at his desk that I took over and leans back, propping his feet up onto the wooden surface.

“Fuck, that was intense,” he breathes out. Tilting his head back, he brings his palms behind his head, clasping them together.

“You did good out there,” I note, and he instantly perks up at the mild praise.

His dimples pinch inward as he smiles. “You were watching?” The optimism in his voice is contagious, causing butterflies to swarm in my stomach.

“A little bit.”

“Did you like what you saw?”

“Yes,” I quip.

“Well, thank you. That means a lot coming from you, mama.”

“You’re welcome. I know how hard you work, and I believe it’s all going to pay off.

” I tell him that because I know it will.

I have no doubt that come June, Tino will be the recipient of a James Beard Award.

He deserves it, and I’m putting it out into the universe, that it will be his.

Tino has worked so hard to get to where he has.

Which is why I refuse to let him fuck it up.

Whether he gets annoyed with me or not in the process is irrelevant.

I give him a few minutes to decompress before I ready myself to dive back into business.