Sweet Seduction

by Nikki Winter

  Felix zipped up the last of his suitcases. He’d have two weeks. Two weeks with his woman. Two weeks to convince her that she was in fact his woman and that she wouldn’t be able to fight it for too much longer. Two weeks to show Paige Matthews that she was everything to him.

  Every move she made, every time she smiled, every single little thing about her made him feel complete. She was intelligent and funny. Paige could be unconsciously sexy while performing the most innocent task, and had a light about her that managed to shine brighter than anything he’d ever seen. The way she interacted with Abby and Liam always managed to make his pulse race. Seeing how much love she had for his parents and her devotion to Lena let him know exactly how beautiful, inside and out, she truly was.

  Valentine’s Day was fast approaching and if he played his cards right he could get the greatest present of all. But for right now, he just needed to take a hot shower and try to get the image of what was filling his nephew’s diaper out of his head.

  Paige couldn’t wait to leave surgery; this year had been doubly hard on her practice. The drought sweeping the state wasn’t just hurting the legions of farmers, but ranchers were struggling to keep their animals on the positive end of the climate scale. She’d tended to more cattle that suffered from heat this year than she’d ever even dreamed was possible. The wild fires that had raged had luckily missed them but she’d been called in to treat animals that had migrated hundreds of miles to safety. Unfortunately, some of them brought sickness that could easily affect the native wild life as well as livestock.

  Winter in Texas wasn’t always the best season either but when the precipitation was still in the negative margins it made for a miserable winter. There had been no white Christmas, in fact she’d spent the day in shorts and flip flops. New Year’s Day had been blustery and a chill had frosted the air but the temperature hadn’t warranted much more than a light jacket.

  Two weeks in Whitefish, Montana with her best friend and god-children was exactly what the doctor ordered if she did say so herself. Not that Paige planned on learning anything about anything in Whitefish, Montana. All she planned to do was kick her feet up in front of the fireplace and teach her adorable minions the art of s’mores making and enjoy copious amounts of gourmet hot cocoa. She might throw in a snow angel or two just for shits and giggles, but mostly she was just going to hide out from Cupid’s apprentice, Felix, and catch up on the latest news from the back of her eyelids.

  At the thought of Felix, her very skin heated. If the man wasn’t so flipping persistent she’d maybe have given him a chance. But his utter absorption with everything ‘Paige’ had been driving her crazy since they were kids.

  When everyone else was teasing her, he was winking at her. When everyone else was calling her names and picking on her in junior high, he was calling her beautiful and threatening to kick their asses. And when she blossomed into a woman and was heading out to college, he’d kissed her and spoiled her for any other man. The memory of that kiss set her thighs to trembling and caused her to miss-chew her gum, nearly severing her tongue with her incisors.

  “Dammit,” she muttered as she sucked on the small muscle to ease the sting. Her mind instantly went back to that summer day when Felix had suckled her tongue...grazing the roof of her mouth with his.

  Shaking the memories from her head, she leapt to her feet. Time to pack and get to the airport. Good thing she was leaving a day before everyone else... she could get to the cabin and dive butt naked into the snow, because she was sure it would take the onset of hypothermia to cool her desire and help her remember that she didn’t want any part of Felix Ramos and his devil tongue.

  “What do you mean y’all missed your flight, how could you miss your flight?” Paige questioned finally making it through the doors of the cabin.

  “We were taking care of Liam. He was so sick and...”

  “So you mean to tell me you couldn’t call me before I got my black ass on a plane and flew to Whitefish, Montana that my godson was deathly ill and y’all weren’t going to make it?”

  Lena sighed from the other end of the phone, “Girl calm down he isn’t ‘deathly ill’, just ill and don’t worry you won’t be alone.” Her best friend stopped talking like she knew she’d just let something important slip.

  Paige froze, her whole body going rigid. What do you mean, he isn’t deathly ill you just said...wait...hold up what the hell do you mean I won’t be alone...?”

  Paige was almost sick to her stomach...she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what Lena meant, she just couldn’t get her head to wrap around the thought that her best friend would set her up like this.

  “Dude, it was either this or listen to both of you whining about each other for the rest of my life...and remember when I told you pay back was a bitch?”

  “YOU NO GOOD DIRTY ROTTEN-”

  “Best sister-in-law you’ve ever had in your entire life,” Lena finished for her.

  “I am not letting him in here. There is no way I’m letting that man share this cabin with me!” Paige declared. And she’d meant it... even when she heard the subtle clearing of a throat behind her...

  Closing her eyes, she slowly brought the phone to her chest and turned.

  There standing in nothing but a terry cloth towel that wasn’t big enough to hide half of one thigh let alone all of him, was what Cupid wished he could look like.

  Olive skin glistening with drops of water, dark hair still streaming rivulets down past his evil little, panty-melting smile and muscles twitching in ways that suggested his entire body was being rhythmically jolted by invisible electrodes.

  “Good God have mercy...” Paige muttered, her mouth suddenly feeling like it was full of cotton.

  Obviously she’d been falsely educated about the cold causing shrinkage because if that bulge just below the loosely tucked cotton grew any more, there was going to be a serious case of indecent exposure going on.

  “Okay, that’s my cue to hang up now... We sent you some cookies from Sweet Temptations but it sounds like you’ll be eating something else for lover’s day,” Lena’s voice was full of smugness.

  “Shut. Up.” Paige said to the air then realized she needed to lift the phone in order to speak to Lena.

  “Shut. Up.” She demanded again, but this time to the ringing laughter of her best (make that former best) friend and then the damning sound of the dial tone.

  Felix stood leaning against the smooth pine of the door frame. He hadn’t actually heard Paige come into the cabin. He’d been too busy trying to tame his thirst for her in the shower. But he’d heard the moment she answered the phone and began shrieking her displeasure throughout the whole house. He didn’t think she’d be so upset about the thought of having the cabin all to herself for two weeks. He wrongly thought that after the busy year she’d had, she’d be looking forward to a little solitude.

  To be honest, he half expected Lena to pull out on their deal. He’d convinced himself he needed to ‘get a grip’ so to speak and prepare to spend two weeks entertaining his niece and that poop factory they kept telling him was his nephew while pining for the affection of one seriously hot doctor.

  He couldn’t help the smile that crept over his face as Lena was apparently filling Paige in on the fact that he’d been invited to share their vacation.

  In Order

  “No, no, no.” Paige shook her head as she backed far, far away from Felix. “Outta all the best friends I could’ve had as a kid, the one I chose just happened to be the devil?” She looked at the ceiling. “Shouldn’t you have intervened?”

  Felix’s lips curled as he stared at her. She looked so adorable stuffed in an over-sized parka, a Yukon hat pulled low on her head and her bright green eyes blinking at him. “I’ve been trying to tell you, my parents, Archer and anybody else who would listen that Lena was Satan from the day I met her but nobody would listen to poor old Felix. Now,” he waved a hand at himself. “These are the consequences.”

  Paige sho
ok her head again. “No, these are the actions of a love child that could only be formed by Judas and Marcus Junius Brutus themselves,” She grabbed her bags and started for the front door. “And these are the steps of a woman getting the hell outta Dodge.”

  Felix didn’t vacate his spot as he leaned against the door frame and watched her as she quickly swung open the front door and started out. It closed behind her with a soft click.

  “One...two...three...four...” He counted softly.

  The door swung back open as Paige tossed her bags inside, slammed it shut and leaned up against it, gasping for air.

  “Cold out there?” Felix questioned easily.

  “Where...what...blizzard...freaking blizzard...” She panted pointing to the door. “I haven’t been here that long and...and...”

  “We’re almost snowed in?”

  “Yes! What the hell?!”

  Shrugging, he replied, “It’s Montana, baby, a far cry from Texas.” He gave her the most innocent expression that he could. “Aw, sweetheart, you’re shivering. Want my towel?”

  Paige glared at him. “What the hell is a damp towel going to do for me?”

  Felix shrugged again. “I dunno. I just figured I’d give you first shot at trying to get me naked.”

  “I’ve been set up by the devil and left with her gate keeper.” Paige muttered rolling her eyes.

  “I know nothing about hell sweetheart but—”

  Holding up a hand, she interrupted him. “If you complete that line I’m going to make sure you don’t see sunrise tomorrow.”

  “So you plan on keeping me in bed late then?”

  With the cutest snarl he’d ever witnessed, Paige snatched up a bag and stomped past him checking through the four-bedroom cabin and choosing a room to settle into. He followed behind, trying desperately not to laugh.

  “This is such bullshit.”

  “Uh...Paige?”

  She slammed her suitcase down on the bed and started unloading it. “I can’t believe Lena would do this to me.”

  “Uh...Paige?”

  “After all the times I dug her ass outta trouble and she goes and sets me up the first chance she gets.”

  “Uh...Paige?”

  “Me! The one person who knows how to turn her face orange for a month, you would think—”

  “Paige!” Felix shouted.

  She swung around. “What? What? What?!”

  “Baby, I have no problem sharing dresser space with you but the left side already has my stuff in it.”

  Her eyes widened to the size of saucers as she looked around the bedroom that she’d been intently putting her things away in. Felix bit the inside of his cheek.

  Her jaw clenched as she shot a death glare his way. “This is your room?”

  Rocking back on the balls of his feet, one hand still holding his towel up he answered with a bright, “Yes’m.”

  “And you let me put up half my shit without saying anything this whole time?”

  “Yes’m.”

  “I hate you.”

  He grinned long and hard. “I know baby, I know.”

  She was muttering angrily under her breath now, taking her stuff out and slamming them back into her suitcase.

  “Aw c’mon, batimentos cardíacos, what could you possibly lose sharing a room with me?”

  “My soul,” she answered in all seriousness.

  Not laughing was impossible. “Okay, so your ideal vacation has gone awry—”

  “Awry?” Paige cut in. “Awry? Really? No, something going awry is my hands wrapped around your throat. Awry is my going into that nice kitchen and finding a tool to do you in with. Awry is waiting for you to step out on the balcony and pushing you over. That’s awry. This shit right here is just wrong.”

  For once his little spitfire didn’t look so unruffled. She actually looked...panicked. Felix decided to put her mind at ease because the last thing he needed was to have her feeling like she couldn’t trust him. “Paige.” He said softly when she went back to taking her stuff out of his drawers.

  “What?”

  “You do know you have nothing to worry about with me right?” Stepping closer, he gently grabbed one of her hands, felt it shake and rubbed her wrist. “Right?”

  Her reply was so soft that he almost missed it...almost. “It’s not you who I don’t trust...”

  She really wished he’d stop grinning like that. It was really starting to piss her off. Over an hour ago she’d stood in the man’s room, a few feet from his bed with him half naked and admitted in so many words that she was afraid that she’d jump him. Paige didn’t like that he could do that to her—make her lose control. In everything she did, she had control but once she got around Felix it was like it evaporated. That wasn’t a relationship she wanted or needed to be in. Letting her hormones lead her around was a very bad idea and she knew it. In any other relationship she’d been in, she could say no without hesitation. With him, if he asked she wanted to answer yes and that scared the shit out of her.

  Now she was glowering at him as he made them dinner, something she had no choice but to let him do seeing as how she couldn’t cook worth a damn and she was starving.

  Watching Felix work in a kitchen was a far cry from boring, that was for sure. Every movement he made was fluent and slightly graceful but nowhere near feminine. When he turned and her eyes wandered to his ass in the well worn jeans he’d put on, she decided to distract herself.

  Offhandedly, she commented, “I’m amazed that I haven’t heard any smart-ass remarks about my inability to cook from you.”

  Felix smiled at her over his shoulder, creating slashes in his lean cheeks. “I grew up with a sister who couldn’t cook remember? I know not to mock.”

  She snorted. “Which begs the question as to how it worked out that you can?”

  He didn’t look at her when he answered, “Easy. I was fascinated with Mãe.”

  “Huh?”

  Chuckling, he said, “Mom. I was fascinated with Mom.”

  “Really? Why?”

  He took a few marinated strips of steak and placed them on the island’s grill, his eyes twinkling when he looked at her. “Well firstly, being that I hadn’t spent much time with my own mother before she passed, there weren’t many female influences around. Then all of a sudden here came this sweet-smiled woman with quick wit who didn’t hesitate to put a foot in Pop’s ass when he got out of line.”

  Paige found herself smiling.

  “Every time she talked to me, her voice was soft, gentle...maternal. She was just as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside and everything she did or said to me made me feel like one of the most important people in the world.” He stared off at something she couldn’t see. “There were things I could go to her for advice about that I couldn’t with Pop without having him tease me. Mom listened. I can remember watching her cook dinner one day. I dunno what led me to the kitchen, maybe it was the music she was playing or the grin on her face but I wanted to be right there. She looked up and caught me in the doorway and instead of chasing me out like she always did Pop or Lena she waved me in, told me to wash my hands and put me to work. Right at that moment, I knew I was special because she let me into a place that nobody else had access to.”

  Focusing back on her, he continued. “I’m not saying she picked me as her favorite but somehow she knew I needed that nurturing, that bond that I never got a chance to have. The same way Pops knew Lena needed it. So every chance I got, if Mom was in the kitchen, I was in there too.” Suddenly he grabbed an onion and sliced it expertly, grinning at her. “I just happened to pick up on a few tricks along the way.”

  Paige wanted to smile but it never quite reached her lips. She’d always wondered what it was like growing up in a household where two families had to mix and blend to become one. Paige’s life hadn’t been a fairytale in any way. She’d grown up watching her mother do everything in her power to make her father happy. That included giving him control over every aspect
of her life. From career choices to what she wore out of the house every day, Sabrina Matthews had let Eric run her; period.

  If it didn’t make Eric happy then she didn’t do it. It was just the way they’d lived. Paige’s father had never raised his hand or his voice. He never had to, not when he had a woman more than willing to do anything to please him. For a long time Paige had thought it normal until she saw the way things worked outside of her small world; where love was always used as a bargaining chip.

  She’d never gotten used to people who openly showed affection. It just wasn’t done in her family. Emotions were locked away and unused until manipulation was involved.

  Once she reached middle school, Paige had simply become introverted, deciding that if she kept to herself then she wouldn’t be burned. Of course that had all changed the day she met Lena. Being that Paige was quiet she was an easy target. One day during physical education, an asshole-in-the-making decided that he didn’t like the way Paige ignored him so he was going to make her notice him. He wouldn’t leave her alone, kept calling her names, pulling on her hair, anything that he could do to get under her skin.

  That had quickly ended when twelve year old Lena Ramos tried to ram her gym shoes far enough up his ass to leave a Nike check on his tongue. Even after getting in trouble and having to explain why she did it, Lena never left Paige’s side. From there an unbreakable bond was formed.

  Lena’s home was the only place she found even a little normalcy and saw what a real family was like. Where there was compromise and true love. Mama Mona and Pop Alejandro hadn’t been anything but sweet to her. Hell, even Archer who had a reputation for being an asshole of extreme proportions handled her with kid gloves. And then there was Felix. There wasn’t a day that went by where he wasn’t saying something sweet to her or trying to get her to smile.