The perfect recipe for procrastination includes the following: a church, a category two hurricane, and an irresistible ex-con. Said ex-con is smarter than he looks, and as it turns out, he's also an incredible kisser.
There would be no studying thi...
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Sadness.
Something Darrell knew all too well when he saw it.
Esmeralda was a bucketful of sadness. Her smiles were mostly forced and slow in coming. A pity, really, because her smile was fucking gorgeous.
The only time she ever let her guard down completely was around her immediate family. Which was fine, but he worried that she was missing out on life.
Most of the teenagers he knew were either partying it up for the summer, giving their parents hell, exploring their sexuality, or backpacking somewhere in Europe before they headed off to college.
He glanced over the roof of the convertible at Esmeralda. Her long lashes lifted and lowered just as quickly, hiding her somber eyes from him. She was as nervous as a mouse in his presence and he had no idea why. They'd rarely spoken. To be honest, he was surprised that she was even here talking to him.
For the first time in four years, he took a second to truly look at her. Her dark and wavy Spanish hair rested casually on her shoulders. Parted in the middle, she had both sides tucked behind her ears and away from her delicate face. Dark brown eyes gazed up at him and her perfectly sculpted lips trembled as if she was about to say something, but then decided against it.
Fuck him. She was beautiful with her high cheekbones and upturned nose. Why hadn't he noticed that before? But then again, maybe that was a good thing. He forced his eyes to look away from the long inviting column of her neck.
That was dangerous territory. Territory he had no intention of exploring.
He clenched his jaw, and all the while she kept stealing glances of him. This was crazy. He shouldn't be noticing these things about her.
She was a child.
She was Xiomara's little sister.
That's all. Nothing more.
If his brother caught so much of a whiff of his sudden attraction toward Esmeralda, he could consider himself a dead man. Omar's protective streak had no boundaries. Especially after his ex-girlfriend had taken it upon herself to try and kill Xiomara and Esmeralda because the thought of his brother moving on with his life and being happy was something she couldn't live with.
Esmeralda was well loved and protected by everyone around her. His brother, Omar, had seen to it, but that didn't stop Darrell from having his own protective feeling toward her. Ever since the incident with Omar's ex-girlfriend happened, he too had hovered over Esmeralda from a distance, like a rain cloud, ready to put out any flames.
However, that protective feeling was family oriented and not at all possessive or sexually motivated.
Once again, his eyes were drawn to her face, to her larger-than-life eyes. She didn't smile. He didn't understand how someone so young could have so much pain in their eyes.
