The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas (the mitten read aloud TXT) 📗

hand was warm and firm against mine, making me feel good and tingly even though I could tell it weighted down that lifeline I was trying to hold on to with teeth and nails.

I was still unsure of how good of an idea this was when he softly dragged me where a small group of people had gathered to dance.

But it was when he stopped walking, turned, and stepped close—so very close—that my mind finally flagged this as a bad idea. So much that a part of me started debating whether I should run away or pretend I fainted right there and then so I didn’t have to face what we were about to do.

Dancing.

Together.

As in Aaron Blackford—the man I had been antagonizing for so long—and me.

Oh sweet baby Jesus.

Aaron draped his arms around my waist, and I felt a shock of electricity spreading across my body from the points where his hands rested on my back. My breath caught, and something heavy and solid dropped to the bottom of my stomach.

Swallowing hard, I tilted my head back. I thought I saw dare and wariness in his gaze. All at once. And that sent an unsolicited spur of anticipation through me.

I placed my hands on Aaron’s chest—noticing how hard and toned it felt under my fingers—but unlike earlier tonight, when I had accidentally touched him, this time, I let my hands rest there. Only then did he bring me to him. My small frame immediately cradled in his much larger one.

A heartbeat later, we were moving, almost every part of our bodies from our chests down pressed together. Aaron’s motions were sure, directing, while mine were stiff and incompliant.

Releasing a breath through my nose, I tried to relax my limbs. To focus on the mechanics of dancing. To calm that red-hot awareness raging inside of me. But the knowledge of how close our bodies were was blowing up alarms inside my head and making it impossible for me to think about much else besides that.

Dancing. We were dancing. Bodies flushed. And that was something we weren’t supposed to be doing. A situation in which Aaron and Lina, who barely tolerated each other, shouldn’t be finding themselves in because this wasn’t something that people who couldn’t stand each other did.

Aaron spun me in a circle with a swift motion and pressed me against him one more time, making my heart quicken in a way it had no business doing.

The music was slow, perfect for swaying and forgetting about everything outside the smooth rhythm. Ideal for getting lost in the peace that being in someone else’s arms could bring. But the more we swayed, the further I was from feeling anything that resembled peace. Not when Aaron was so … big and hard and warm against me.

That was probably why I tripped. Before I knew what was happening, my feet had messed up the beat and tangled together, and they would have probably sent me straight to the floor if not for the man—the pair of strong arms wrapped solidly around me—who held me in place.

“Thank you,” I muttered, feeling my face heat up and my body tense up further. “And sorry.”

God. I had never blushed so much in one single night. I didn’t recognize myself.

Aaron’s arms tightened around me. “Just for precaution,” he said, bringing me even closer.

Each and every nerve ending in my body turned into the end of a live wire. My skin tingled, my heart raced, and my mind whirled.

“Oh. Okay.” The words reached my ears, strangled, as if it had come out of me in a gurgle. “Thanks.”

The skin on my face heated up further.

Aaron hummed, just as his thumb brushed my back very lightly, drawing one single circle that left a tiny trail of goose bumps behind. Goose bumps that traveled to all corners and nooks of my body.

As much as I told myself that this was a simple physical reaction to being held against a male body, being held by a man’s arms, it was Aaron’s male body and Aaron’s arms after all. So, either I had been alone for too long or I was losing my mind. Because this felt … good. Really good.

Too damn much.

Those ocean-blue eyes shifted to my lips briefly. So quickly that I was convinced I had imagined it. It didn’t matter though because then his face dipped, getting as close as it had ever been and making me forget all about that. Making me notice instead details that I had never paid attention to before. Like how full those lips were, which I saw pressed in a line so often. Or how his eyelashes were long and dark and framed the blue in his eyes so perfectly. Or how I could see the lines of the soft creases adorning his forehead, right above the spot where that frown that was almost a fixed feature rested.

I was so lost in all that that one of my feet tripped again, but Aaron’s arms tightened their grip around my waist as he shifted his head to one of my sides.

“Aren’t you supposed to be good at this, Catalina?” he asked a few inches from my ear. I felt the air leaving his mouth on my temple.

Trying not to pay any extra attention to how close his mouth was from my face, I focused on my feet and answered almost absently, “What do you mean?”

Aaron’s diligent and smooth motions spun us one more time to the soft tune.

“I thought you were supposed to carry the beat in your blood,” he explained in a low voice, his head not giving up an inch of space. “Or was it the music in your veins?”

I hoped my ears were not red with embarrassment. “This is not my style,” I lied. I’d never done a worse job at dancing, and it had nothing to do with the music and everything to do with the man I was currently flush against. “Or maybe it’s my partner that’s not