Mi Carino - Risky Love Read online

  Mi Carino - Risky Love

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty -one

  Epilogue

  Mi Carino

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Mi Carino © Copyright 2012 Sienna Mynx

  Cover art by Reese Dante

  Electronic book publication February 2012

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, The Diva’s Pen LLC.

  Please do not redistribute or upload to share sites. Any attempt at pirating this brand or work is in direct of the author’s copyright.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Prologue

  The sheets were cool. After a long stretch they drew down to his pelvis. His chest expanded and heaved before a contented sigh of release escaped his broad nostrils. Diego’s lashes were long for a man, a cursed trait from his mother. They were so long that when his lids parted a fraction, he saw little and had to stretch his eyes to see more. He thought he heard tiny bells. A melody of soft chimes echoing with the wind.

  Why the hell are my doors open?

  First his gaze, then his head dropped over to the right. He missed the heat of his woman’s body. And she was his. After everything, she had returned to him, on his terms. Diego found her side of the bed empty. The melodic clinks were not wind chimes but the hollow sound of her restless gold bracelets on her wrists. He scanned the room and found her. She was at the closet, snatching off clothing from hangers.

  She was leaving.

  “Que pasa?”

  She froze. He could see her hand tremble as it lingered on a hanger for a moment. Slowly she cast her dark locks back over her shoulder and peered out at him from under long bangs. Diego inched back on his pillows, sleep had clouded his conscious mind, but the sight of her removing her clothes from next to his things was a sobering moment. Marcella turned and faced him but he saw it took inner strength for her to do so. She looked as if she wanted to bolt from the room. With a nervous bite to her bottom lip, her eyes flittered from him to the floor. There was something far more distressing. Diego noticed how red and inflamed her nostrils were and slick her cheeks remained with fresh tears. She’d been crying. Taking a deep breath at first, she tucked her long locks behind both ears. She wore a NYU sweatshirt and a faded pair of jeans. She was dressed?

  “Are you leaving?” Diego asked, considering that sometimes she would take her things to be dry-cleaned. But if that were her intent why was she up at four in the morning, after a night of allowing him to make love to her? They made love several times last night, as many times as he needed. She was so giving, so willing to please him. He forgave her. She forgave him. He was addicted to every inch of her. So what was she doing? And where the hell did the tears come from? They were past it now dammit. No more debating their affections, they were one. They understood each other.

  Instead of answering him she walked away. Out of the room, to the next then back with an arm full of her things. Diego eased from the covers with a curse under his breath. He slipped on his robe and followed her when she headed out once more.

  Marcella had a lot of clothes. He loved her style. The sexiest most feminine suits and dresses he had seen on a woman. He remembered how the moments when she was away he would go into the closets and run his finger over the fine threads. Now he stood in the door watching as her hands, those gentle beautiful slender fingers folded her things neatly then laid them flat in her bag. He watched her sniff, wipe at her wet cheeks with the back of her hand and struggle not to cry. She was leaving. She wasn’t supposed to go.

  “Stay.” Diego heard himself say. A request he never made from his heart until that moment. Sure he wanted her, desired her even, but he was speaking from a place he always thought was barren—his heart. “Marcella stay.” He stammered. She shook her head sadly and continued to pack.

  Diego’s hands went up, he grabbed the back of his neck with both. The pressure in his skull became so intense he then slammed his fist as hard as he could into the wall. When he looked back she continued to pack. When he opened his mouth to plea he realized he couldn’t do it. There was just so far he would go. Of course her pain had been his doing. How could he care so passionately for her and not be able to tell her? Hell he hadn’t told her anything in the short weeks they’d been together. And she’d asked him over and over, begged him to let her in. She turned and started picking up her shoes and he felt a growl form deep in his throat as his hurt met with age-old pain. Women had hurt him before, one woman in particular. But none ever meant as much to him as his sweet Marcella. Finally he found his voice.

  “I was born in a city called Barranquilla to a woman named Marie Andes Juarez. She had three children, me, my sister Ana and little brother Enrique. All of us were from her marriage to a man named DeMarco Andes. When I was seven we moved to a neighboring village called Santa Catalina. My Papi had gotten a good job working for a man named Juan Juarez. He set us up with a cottage. My father ran the coffee bean fields, and my mother worked for him and his wife as a domestic in his mansion. The affair started soon after, and went on behind Papi’s back until I was ten. I know this because I was forced to be the lookout for my mother while she indulged Señor Juarez’s urges. Then unexpectedly Señora Juarez, his wife, took ill and died. It is rumored that my mother poisoned her. I think that may be the case. If you met my mother you would understand why. She and Juan Juarez decided they needn’t hide it any longer. But my Papi was a proud man. He went beyond his position and challenged Juarez for his life. I was there the day they dragged him out into the coffee fields and butchered him with machetes as my mother and Juan watched. No one saw me, but I was there. She didn’t care how much he loved her, how much he sacrificed for her. She betrayed him, she didn’t care at all.”

  Marcella froze.

  Shock registered over her entire being. Her lips quivered as if she would speak. He expected her to come to him. Throw her arms around him and kiss him the way she did whenever his hurt became too much. He never denied this. He felt entitled to it because this moment was the one she had been asking for, for months. Then like the dawn the truth cast a dull haze of light over the fact that he had blown it. Pushed her too hard, forced her to submit and bend to his will until there was nothing left. Instead of returning to his arms she turned away. She picked up her shoes and continued to pack.

  “The watch you asked about? It’s Papi’s, and his father before him. The only thing of value he owned. He wore it in the fields, to church, to m
y sister and brother’s christening. He was never without it. After his death Juan Juarez wore it as a trophy. My mother had given it to him off of my father’s cold body. It’s the only thing I stole from them when we fled… after.”

  Diego felt his chest cave under the weight of his confession. And still she continued to pack. She should be still. She should listen and not move. His mouth curled in fury and his chest tightened to the point that his neck and face flushed deep red. “Did you hear me? Marie had no use for us I said. She left us there, in the cottage, never visited her baby boy who was only three and cried for her every night. I believe the food we received most days was from Juan Juarez and other villagers’ kindness not hers. So I decided to run away. I took them and ran to the coast. We slept on the streets, on the beaches, I danced for change and juggled cans for tourists until Enrique slipped away from me and drowned in the ocean. His body washed up two days later.”

  Marcella burst into tears. This he expected. His story was a horror story. One he never wanted to share with her. She had forced him to reveal the ugliness of his past and like he suspected she was going to run from him. Just as most did when they saw what lay behind his mask.

  “Enrique’s death broke Ana, she ran from me. I found her two years later. She’d become a prostitute strung out on cocoa. She had only been nine. She died before she ever saw ten.”

  Diego watched helplessly as she zipped her bag. He never cried, never permitted it, but he never spoke the story aloud to anyone. “I did what I could. I did things you don’t want to know to get my fortune and justice. I’m telling you this because… I made a mistake. I punished you to keep from loving you. I know that now. I crossed the line, and I couldn’t stop myself. This is my curse. Still I can’t be the man that lets you go. I need you Marcella, desperately.”

  “It’s too late.” She said.

  Diego stepped to her. He blocked her from leaving. “This is me. Pain and fury is what I’m made of. I understand, because of you Marcella that life can be about more. Teach me. Teach me how to love you and I swear I will never hurt you again.”

  She dropped her head and covered her eyes, her shoulders shaking with her sobs. He ached to touch her but he knew he’d lost the privilege.

  “Marcella. When I hold you in my arms, it’s the way you feel. It’s not the sex, it’s the way you feel nena. It’s something I didn’t count on, I didn’t plan for. That’s why I can’t stop touching you, desiring you. I know it started as sex, but it’s something more between us. You were never supposed to happen. But you did. I never counted on… on… on… loving you so much.”

  She moved away from him, blowing hard breaths. She kept her back to him. It killed him when she turned from him. “It’s too late. I’m empty. Just like you. I’m empty inside.”

  She went to her coat and slipped it on. Diego walked around her to block her in.

  “I’ll send Susan to pick up my things,” she said circling him wide to keep from being within his reach. Ginger the cat purred and she swept the white ball of fur into her arms. He tried to cut her off again but she sidestepped him—again.

  “Marcella. Marcella? Marcella?”

  At the door, with her hand to the silver knob she paused. Then she turned it and walked out.

  The air drained from his lungs. His eyes stretched to the point of watering. He pressed three fingers to his temple and rubbed hard, as if to wake himself from a nightmare. Then he dropped on the wall and every mistake he made with her since the moment they met hit him like a falling brick.

  Chapter One

  “What do you mean you’re on your way? I’m in my pajamas,” Marcella tossed a triangular cheesy Dorito chip into her mouth. A myriad of tangy spices exploded over her tongue. She munched on delicious crunchiness. She licked the sprinkle of crumbs from her lips and wiggled her freshly painted pink toes. Ginger, her cat, swiped her tongue over her kitty jowls and yawned hungrily, from across the room.

  “Are you kidding me? Nava has jazz all night and a little wine tasting. You swore you wouldn’t do this. I have friends meeting us there.”

  Marcella reclined in her favorite lounger, wishing the remote wasn’t over on the sofa. When Susan said that there were ‘friends meeting us there’ it usually meant she’d be ambushed with some pathetic hook up. No thanks.

  “Sorry sweetie, I got home and my inbox was flooded.” Marcella took her job as the Acquisition Director and Manager at Garrison’s Antiquities seriously. She was the youngest in the field. The gallery was more like a museum though, with non-artistic works dated from the Dawn of Civilization, mostly from Greece, Egypt, Rome and other Mediterranean civilizations. “You understand don’t you?”

  “No. I understood when you said you needed time to recover after Richard. I swear I did. What that asshole did to you—”

  “Stop. Don’t go there, not tonight.”

  “Marcella it’s been months since you dropped the loser. It’s time to live it up girl.”

  Marcella stifled the bubble of laughter building in her throat. Live it up? How could a night in a smoky jazz club with some guy named Cliff or Bob pawing you, be living it up? “Let’s do lunch, tomorrow it’s on me. I swear.” Marcella offered.

  “Oh hell, never mind. I give up. Have a good night eating Doritos and playing with Ginger.” The phone line disconnected. Marcella shrugged and dug out more crumbs than chips from the bottom of the bag. Susan would be over it by the morning. If not she’d buy her a bottle of her favorite merlot, and they’d do a movie night together. She loved her for trying, but there was something to be said about the sanctity of one’s comfy chair. It would be criminal to leave it at this point.

  The television switched to a commercial with a young woman seated between two guys, trying to decide between them based on the whitest smile. Marcella had to work at remembering the last time a guy caught her attention with just a smile. Every date she’d been on in the past year had bored her to tears. It would be nice to have the tingling feeling in the pit of her stomach return, to actually have someone to curl up with and keep her warm. Not necessarily a relationship, just some of the benefits of one. Casual sex in the past never worked. Men would get attached, and she’d have to pull a Houdini to shake them off. The one time she went for a full-fledged commitment, the jerk turned out to be legally tied to someone else.

  Susan believed Marcella’s cavalier attitude about intimacy alienated suitable prospects. She was wrong. Men, or Marcella’s bad choices in them, weren’t the cause or her issue. If anything her attitude could be traced to the solitary existence she lived with her single, African American mom, who had been a schoolteacher, and the non-existence of her Afro-Cuban father. A man she’d never met. Though Marcella’s mocha brown skin, raven black hair, and high cheekbones were to his compliment, his absence remained the sole reason she didn’t trust easily. Who needed the trouble of heartache? Therefore, Doritos and Ginger would have to do, for now.

  “What do you think Ginger? Am I pathetic? Shouldn’t I be on the hunt for Mr. Right Now and look for Mr. Forever later?”

  The feline licked her paw then walked away. Marcella munched on another Dorito. “Thanks for nothing.”

  Dusting her hands she pushed up from the lounger and headed to the sofa to search for the remote. However, the moonlight caught her eye. Marcella turned off the inside lamps and then drew open the blinds shielding her deck doors. The night sky appeared empty of clouds or stars. The moon could be seen looming above in a blanket of darkness. She’d chosen her apartment for its accessibility to her job; the added bonus proved to be her view of the bay.

  Marcella went to the folding doors of her balcony and opened them allowing the cool night wind to rush over her. Tonight the sky looked lovely with an unbelievable full moon. She leaned out over her balcony ignoring the chill. She could stand for someone to touch her, make her feel special. Her chin lifted and her eyelids closed. Richard may have been a louse, but he did fulfill her most primal needs. How sweet the memory of thei
r time together could be at times.

  She could sense the power of his desire coiled tight in his muscular frame as he stepped up behind her. His hand moved gently down the length of the left side of her back. Her nightshirt stopped mid-thigh, and slowly crept upward with the aid of his fingers. His hand travelled again, to skim her hip and left thigh, inching toward her sex. The touch of his fingertips intimate, forbidden, felt light and playful. Then came the sleek caress of his fingers delving further, and her thighs parting an inch. “Marcella,” he breathed against her ear. The deep spice of his cologne was spun by the wind. It filled her. “Why don’t you call me, you know I’ll come over. Make it easy for me babe.”

  Marcella’s eyes flashed open. Richard Epstein’s deep seductive voice echoed through the recesses of her mind, burning the memory of their shared passion into her thoughts. For a moment she stopped breathing. The phantom caress of her lying, manipulative, married ex-boyfriend was gone. The ache her foolish lust stirred would probably follow her into her dreams. Make it easy for him? The bastard! She’d let her guard down before and it brought her nothing but heartache and regret. Her focus returned to the moon and the phantom desires crawling over her skin ceased. She allowed more pleasant memories to come in and soothe away the burn in her heart from Richard’s betrayal. The camping trips she used to take with her mother usually happened under a moon like the one above. No one understood why her single financially strapped mother would make such a trip with a child. Marcella knew the truth. Her mother loved life and wanted her to do the same. She shared once that her grandfather used to take her on camping trips along with her cousins. Marcella’s mother vowed to give her daughter the same lessons he taught her. They’d sit outside the tent and watch the sky for shooting stars and she’d learn everything from her family history to the name of each constellation.