Page 70 of The Right Garza

Glad you find me amusing, you manipulative bastard.

“Yeah, I’m already starting to question my sanity.”Sobering, I ask softly, “You’ve really never cuddled anyone else?”

“Never.”

“Why me, then?”

He tips my chin up so our eyes meet. “It’ll only ever be you, Lexi.”

I’m always compelled to panic and look away whenever those darkly intense and intruding eyes of his meet mine, but this time, I fight the urge to panic, the urge to avert my gaze, and instead meet his head on without cowering, without hiding. Until a calming acceptance washes over me.

Then, quietly, I whisper, “Okay.”

Chapter TWENTY

“Timing is everything.”

Lexi

I wake up alone,sated, and sore.

The wine-red sheets smell like Trent and sex. I press my face into the pillows and smile, feeling a sense of peace and calm that I can’t even begin to describe.

He cuddled me all night. And it was…beautiful.

Surprisingly, I didn’t feel vulnerable, or soft. In his arms, I feltsafe. Wanted. Cherished. And I don’t want to think about why that is. It freaking scares me.

Suffice it to say, he won’t have to manipulate me into letting him cuddle me in the future.

I laze around in the sheets for a while, never wanting to leave this bed. But the occasional sounds downstairs eventually push me to get up. After freshening up, I throw on clean underwear and a casual summer dress from my overnight bag.

It’s only when I’m making my way downstairs that the smells hit me. The delicious aroma of bacon mingling with the happy sounds of reggae music. I’d assumed Trent had gone to the office again and it was True down here, but when I hit the landing and turn into the open kitchen, there’s Trent, in lounge pants and nothing else. He’s making breakfast while bobbing his head and singing along to Bob Marley’sIs This Love.

I stop at the kitchen island. “Someone’s in a good mood this morning.”

He turns, arching a brow as though he hadn’t heard me enter, but he doesn’t stop singing. Setting down the spatula, he starts dancing toward me, a big old smile on his face, his usually dark and intense eyes full of life and mirth. He looks so boyish in this moment, happy even, like the carefree prankster I grew up with.

“What’s gotten into you this morning?” I ask through a laugh.

Still singing, he snakes his arm around my waist and begins to move me along to the beat, and his mood is so damn infectious I start dancing along with him.

Giggling, I ask, “Is this your usual ‘I got laid last night’ mood.”

“No. This is my ‘I’ve got Lexi fucking Flores in my bed’ mood,” he replies, then resumes singing to me.

I’m grinning so wide my face hurts. “You’re ridiculous.”

“And you’re breathtaking.”

“Your bacon is gonna burn.”

“Let it. I just want to dance with you. Everything is irie, mon.” The latter is said in such a comical bogus Jamaican accent that it makes me giggle even harder.

We dance around the kitchen in swirls of genuine happiness and laughter until his burning bacon starts to smoke up the kitchen.

Then I crack up with belly-deep cackles as I watch him rush to get it off the stove and salvage what he can. But it’s all beyond saving, so we dump it all and start from scratch together. Then we eat while standing up because we’re cool like that.

“We need to make the best of the morning before my family lets themselves in,” Trent says, feeding me a piece of kiwi.