Tres Leches Shake

by Jeanie Johnson; Jayha Leigh

  www.beautifultroublepublishing.com

  Copyright ©2011 by Jeanie Johnson and Jayha Leigh

  In the original version, Rafa Armada was named Miguel Estrada, who is a creation of Shara Azod and Marteeka Karland and first used in their book His Willing Prey. Also, in the original version the character Severiano Armada was named Ferdinand Estrada.

  The character Carmen Rodriguez is a creation of Shara Azod and Marteeka Karland and are used with their permission.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or shared in any form, including but not limited to: printing, photocopying, faxing, recording, electronic transmission, or by any information storage or retrieval system without prior written permission from the authors or holders of the copyright.

  This book is a work of fiction. References may be made to locations and historical events; however, names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the authors’ imaginations and/or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), businesses, events or locales is either used fictitiously or coincidental. All trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, and registered service marks are the property of their respective owners and are used herein for identification purposes only.

  Published by

  Beautiful Trouble Publishing, LLC

  PO Box 61

  Colfax, NC 27235

  www.beautifultroublepublishing.com

  Cover Art: Marteek Karland, http://www.marteekakarland.com/

  Editor: Stephanie Parent

  Proofreader: Novellette Whyte

  http://authorgurunovellette.blogspot.com/

  Formatting: Jim & Zetta, http://www.jimandzetta.com/

  E-book conversions: Jim & Zetta http://www.jimandzetta.com/

  ISBN: (ebook) 978-1-61788-244-9; (print) 978-1-61788-092-6

  To those who share sweetness…and to those who crave it.

  NOTE ABOUT EBOOKS

  eBooks are NOT transferable. Re-selling, sharing or giving away eBooks is a copyright infringement. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author or Beautiful Trouble Publishing.

  CAVEAT

  This work of erotica contains adult language and sexually explicit scenes, which are smoking hot. This book is intended only for adults, as it is defined by the laws of the country in which the purchase is made. Keep this book out of the hands of under-aged readers.

  TERMS:

  Basura: Spanish for trash.

  Boludo: Spanish slang for asshole.

  Castanets: Rudimentary percussion instrument which is part of the cultural heritage of Spain. The instrument consists of a pair of shell-like pieces made of hardwood or fiberglass joined together on one end by a string, which are held in a dancer’s hand to produce a series of rhythmic clicks.

  Flamenco: A style of Spanish dance and music, characterized by elaborate costumes.

  Gordo: Spanish for fat

  Jota: Courtship dance, traditional in Northern Spain (especially Aragon), performed by a couple who hold their arms high and click castanets. The dance is lively and bouncy and the music is often in ¾ time.

  Zapateado: A dance similar to a tap dance that is said to have originated with indigenous Mexicans but was later transported to Spain and claimed as a Spanish dance. The dance consists of the tapping of the heels in rhythmic fashion. It’s also known as “foot-stomping.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Perhaps if he hadn’t been busy issuing a threat over his cellular phone, Rafa Armada, attorney-at-law, could’ve avoided what was coming next: namely, Entity Vivace. But he was on his cell phone, telling Carmen Rodriguez that she owed him.

  “You owe me, Carmen.”

  “I know, Rafa. My brother was just being…well himself.”

  “He threatened to kill me,” he said. “Remember that whole ‘say hello to your parents before you have no chance to say goodbye to them’? Plus, your friend thinks I’m one step up from a scumbag since you told me to lay it on thick.”

  “Well, no one does ‘scumbag’ the way you do, Rafa.”

  “Or handsome, or kickass attorney, or…”

  “Or arrogant,” Carmen interrupted.

  “Yes, but handsome, kickass attorney, and arrogant are roles I choose to play. I did ‘scumbag’ at your request in order to help bring your romantic plans involving that asshole and that poor unsuspecting young woman to fruition.”

  He smiled upon hearing Carmen’s dramatic sigh. Still, he would not be moved. He wanted payment. “You owe me, Carmen. You owe me big. Not only did I have to play a scumbag, I had to act like a punk. While I know your brother is a highly trained Special Forces operative, I’m not his bitch or anyone else’s.”

  “I know, Rafa.”

  He listened to Carmen promise him all manner of things including her firstborn, but he wasn’t having that. He only wanted one thing from the feisty, curvy, raven-haired beauty: a homemade tres leches cake. No one made tres leches cake like Carmen Rodriguez. Despite his struggle with his weight as a youth, he’d never overcome his addiction to a well-made tres leches cake…and he wasn’t about to.

  “I want a tres leches cake, Carmen.”

  “Fine.”

  “Every month—for a full year.”

  Knowing that he was about to get an earful of loud Spanish, he held the phone away from his ear. Carmen was a spitfire, but she was first and foremost a lady. She might grumble about it, but she’d do it. Of course, she might smash said cake into his face, but he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

  “You’re a boludo, do you know that?”

  “I’ve heard the rumor.” He smiled. According to the gossip mill, he was equal parts asshole, bastard, and now, thanks to Carmen, scumbag.

  “Don’t brag about it, Rafa. It’s unbecoming.”

  “It is, but my devastating good looks help me carry it off without a hitch,” he teased.

  He wasn’t surprised to hear Carmen’s tinkling laughter. She wasn’t one to stay mad long.

  “Fine. One tres leches cake each month…for a year.”

  “Muchísimas gracias, Señorita Carmen.”

  “You are not welcome, Señor Boludo.”

  Weaving his way through the throng of revelers, he made his way to his car and smiled when he spotted it. The smoky granite mica Lexus LS460L was a far cry from the city bus…not that he was knocking the city bus, because that had been a whole lot better than his primary mode of transportation—walking. Catching a glimpse of his reflection in the glass, he smiled again. How he looked was a testament to how far he’d risen up the social ladder…just like his new physique was a testament to how completely he’d changed his eating and exercise habits. Poor and fat, he’d endured a lot of teasing growing up…and a lot of reasons to be the bastard he was reported to be.

  His days at school were filled with taunts of “gordo”; his days at home were filled with taunts of “basura.” While he’d borne the schoolyard taunts with ease, what wasn’t so easy was ignoring the taunts the community hurled at his family. He didn’t need to actually hear the insult of “basura” to know what people thought of his family. It was evident in their eyes and in the way his neighbors had treated them. They didn’t want his kind living in their neighborhood…or going to school with their kids. Funny, they didn’t mind his abuelita minding their children or his mamá and tía cleaning their houses or his padre or tío mowing their lawns.

  Many nights he wondered what his life would’ve been like had his family not left Spain. He’d thought leaving his native Spain would make things different, but it hadn’t. Relegated to the fringes of American society, they’d barrio-jumped before finally settling into th
e neat, predominately white middle-class neighborhood in southern California. He didn’t know how his family had gotten their hands on their little piece of the American Dream, but they had, and they worked together to hold on to it. Three generations of his family crowded into the thirteen-hundred-square-foot rambler home. His parents took up one bedroom; his grandparents another; his aunt and uncle the third. He and his cousins Juan and Marco shared the garage. It was a good thing Southern California weather was so mild, or they might’ve been in for a bad time out there in the garage.

  Sometimes he didn’t know which was worse: going to school in another district, being taunted by the children there who thought he considered himself better than them since he didn’t live in the community, or living in a community who let him know he wasn’t wanted. Both were honest, and both had hurt. They’d left divots in places within him that hadn’t quite scarred over despite the man he’d made himself into: rich, successful, fit. He might be the youngest senior partner in the history of his firm, but under the Juris Doctorate from University of Chicago, the swanky title and the tailored suits was six feet two inches, two hundred thirty-five pounds of scrapper that wasn’t about to let anyone tell him where his place was, especially as he’d spent so much of his life being told exactly that. He might be a transplant from Spain, but his context had drawn him close to the African-American population. With the exception of Carmen, his best friends to this day were African-Americans.

  Shaking his head in an effort to clear the memories, he unlocked the car door. He was about to climb in when five feet nine inches and a hundred fifty-five pounds of menace snatched his keys, bumped him over with her hips, and slid into his car. What the hell? he wondered a split second before he realized who the menace was: Entity Vivace.

  Before he could tell her off and demand she get out of his car, she rolled down the window and threw out a demand. “Get in or get left.”

  Hearing his engine roar to life, he scrambled around the car and slid into the passenger seat a moment before she took off. Carefully maneuvering around the crowd, she was all textbook driver with her hands at two and ten until she hit the highway, where she kicked it into “stunt driver” mode.

  He was about to ask her what the fuck when she launched into her spiel. “Okay, so here’s the deal. Tyler Morah, aka New Zealand hottie, is the best up-and-coming windsurfer to hit the scene. And I want him.”

  “I’m so sorry for him,” he said before his brain had a chance to think about the words.

  “Don’t get smart. It’s not attractive,” Entity said as she stomped on the accelerator and swerved around a tractor trailer. Anyone else would’ve waited to pass, especially considering the proximity of the oncoming traffic. Not Entity. At the last moment, she slid back into their lane, avoiding certain death.

  “I can do this all night, so yeah, tell the peanut gallery to shut it. Now as I was saying…I want him, and you’re going to help me get him. Here’s his phone number,” she said as she handed over a piece of paper.

  “Can you put your hands back on the wheel?” he asked as he snatched the paper. “I do like my car as it is—in one piece…un-mangled. Kind of the same way I like my body.”

  “I can’t say much about your body, but this is a sweet ride. What’d it set you back—thirty K?”

  Did she say thirty K? Hearing such preposterous words spill from her lips, Rafa forgot to be outraged over the fact that she was kidnapping him. “This is a Lexus LS series.”

  “Okay, apparently that means something. Forty K?”

  His left eye started to twitch. “Get out.”

  “I would, but in case you missed it, I’m driving here,” she said a moment before she took a curve much too fast.

  Rafa’s heart, which was already beating like it was mimicking zapateado tapping in time to flamenco music, now beat like a pair of castanets in the hands of a jota dancer. “You call that driving?”

  “Ignoring that rather smart-assed and completely uncalled-for remark. Now back to what I came here for. Before the close of the upcoming week, you need to have made contact with him so you can best discuss how to get him out of that wack-ass contract he has.”

  “And if I don’t?” he asked.

  “I assure you, you don’t want to find out.”

  “And I assure you, you don’t want me reporting you for kidnapping and carjacking,” he said.

  “A, If I was going to kidnap someone, it’d be someone with a much better attitude than you.”

  “What’s wrong with my attitude?”

  “What’s right with it? You’re like a little weaselly punk.”

  “A little weaselly punk you want to help you,” he pointed out.

  “Well yeah, because word on the street is that you’re the bomb-diggity attorney. That doesn’t preclude you from being a weaselly punk. And B, I’m not kidnapping or carjacking you. We’re taking a pleasant drive.”

  “That’s not how I see it,” he said.

  “Yeah, well, it’s your word against mine.”

  “And I’m a highly respected attorney,” he began.

  “Which is why I chose you to see to my little issue,” she said as she slid to a stop and parallel parked his brand new car Ace Ventura style into a spot it just fit into.

  “Thanks for the ride,” she said as she tossed him the keys and slid from behind the wheel. “Call my friend…or else.”

  And just like that, Entity Vivace disappeared into the night.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Entity was so not amused, which was going to bode bad for someone. No, not someone, a particular someone: Señor Rafa Armada, attorney-at-law, who thought he was simply going to ignore her request. Owner of Ba-Dow Windsurfing, Surfing, and Snowboarding products, she made her money getting big names to advertise her products. Well, that and the prize money she made on the windsurfing and snowboarding circuit. There weren’t many black females involved in windsurfing or snowboarding due to various reasons (primarily revolving around hair and money), but she’d been one. She’d done well on the circuit, but while she’d never lost her love of the sport, she’d never developed a taste for turning it into a job. What she had, however, turned into a job was BA-DOW! BA-DOW! was one of the premier makers of gear for windsurfers, surfers and snowboarders. With an eye for talent and a big sister who had a wad of cash and an MBA that she knew how to use, she’d opened her first shop in her sister’s garage, and three years later, she had her own digs, a shop in Hawaii, several in Florida, and a new shop in San Diego. Now all she needed was Tyler, and by extension she’d have the New Zealand market.

  And she would’ve had him if Rafa “Asshole of the Universe” had done what she’d asked. She’d been nice. Scratch that, she’d been more than nice. Obviously, being nice didn’t pay, so now she was going to have to be a bitch. Sigh. She had better things to do than be a bitch, but if that was what it took to secure Tyler a position in the BA-DOW! family, that was what she was going to do. Picking up the phone, she called Carmen.

  “He did what?”

  “He totally dissed me…for no reason after I asked him nicely for his help, Carmen. I just want to get Tyler out of that shitty contract that’s basically strong-arming him out of any prize money he wins. He has a family, you know.”

  “You’re laying it on thick, chica.”

  “I know, but is it working?”

  “Only because I like you and because Rafa has it coming.”

  “Well good. Now tell me, how are we going to get him to see the light without having to resort to breaking the law?”

  “Here’s what we’re going to do…” Carmen began.

  Entity listened. Carmen didn’t say much but every word she spoke had Entity smiling bigger…and damn glad that Carmen was her friend and not her enemy.

  “Sounds like a plan. See you in a few days, chick.”

  Her plan in motion, she called her big sister. Technically, she didn’t need to call her sister, but she wanted to. People only thought Entity was bad
because they hadn’t met her big sister. Standing five foot ten and a half and rocking her size eighteen like it won’t shit, Abstract “Abs” (only to Entity) Vivace was the motherfucking shit. Like their uncle, she had a black belt in “fucking people’s shit up.” Like their father, she had an undergrad from Yale. Like their mother, she had an MBA from the London School of Economics, but she also had two more master degrees from LSE to go with it.

  All that was impressive, but that wasn’t what made her so freaking badass. Despite her prestigious academic background and her talent for making money, Abs was best at beer. Not only had Abs created one of the finest brews in existence, she knew it, which was why she’d patented it, labeled it, and bottled it. And Entity had designed the label.

  Abs wasn’t just some fly-by-night brew master; Abs had the experience to back it up. She’d earned her certificate in Brewing Science and Technology from UC-Davis, and then gone on to complete the eighteen-week Master Brewers Program there, before graduating from the Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago. With an IBD Diploma in Brewing, she was a member of the American Brewers Guild and the Institute and Guild of Brewing, which was universally recognized.

  Abs was used to putting men in their place, be it in the classroom, the boardroom, or on the playground. Rafa Armada was fixing to have a bad day—a very bad day. She couldn’t wait to see it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Abstract Vivace was minding her own business when the sound of the theme song to the original Hawaii Five-O signaled the fact that her little sister was calling. While little sisters could often be the bane of an older sibling’s existence, Entity had been nothing but joy. Who didn’t want someone looking at you like you were the best thing since sliced bread? While other people thought she was weird because, well, she was a tad weird, Entity had never thought her weird. When she’d graduated high school at fifteen, Yale at seventeen and London School of Economics (LSE) at eighteen, Entity hadn’t been the least bit jealous. That didn’t mean that she was going to simply allow her to trek off to Yale without her. Nope, as soon as she’d been accepted into Yale, Entity had presented their parents with a list of private schools in the area along with a list of student apartments and houses for rent. Their parents hadn’t fought it, and neither had she. Together they’d trekked to New Haven and made it their home for the next two years. Entity had graduated high school a year early, so when Abstract had gone off to LSE, there’d been nothing stopping Entity from coming with her.