Reckless Kiss: A forbidden, billionaire romance (stand-alone) Read online

  Reckless Kiss

  Tia Louise

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Reckless Kiss

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  Wait for Me

  Prologue

  Stay

  Prologue

  Books by Tia Louise

  About the Author

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Reckless Kiss

  Copyright © TLM Productions LLC, 2020

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Cover design by Lori Jackson Design.

  Photography by Wander Aguiar.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, photocopying, mechanical, or otherwise—without prior permission of the publisher and author.

  Created with Vellum

  Acknowledgments

  I’m so incredibly thankful to my team of family, friends, readers who helped me get this book in your hands…

  Mr. TL and my two “teenage geniuses,” you three believe in me, support me, ask me what I’m doing when I’m playing Two Dots instead of writing… I love you guys so much. I can’t even begin to say how much you mean to me.

  My readers, who love my books, who tell me they love my books, who leave amazing reviews, make graphics, send cards and gifts, and tell their loved ones to read my stories… I couldn’t do this without you!

  Huge thanks to Ilona Townsel for reading as I wrote, giving notes, listening to the audiobook, and just keeping me encouraged… Thank you for everything you are. The Best.

  So MUCH LOVE to Kate Farlow for listening to me, making the most amazing graphics, having adorable babies, and just being awesome… MASSIVE HUGS to Harloe Rae for your encouragement from Day 1 years ago. You’re an amazing person.

  Christine Estevez, who keeps me so organized and on track and for providing such incredible marketing support. I appreciate you so much! Also to Kylie McDermott and all the gals at Give Me Books—thank you for keeping me.

  To my incredible squad… Renee McCleary, Mich Abascal, Amanda Shepard, Tamara Mataya, KC Caron, and Gem’s Precise Proofing—you ladies give amazing notes. Love you!

  To my Mermaid VEEPs, Ana Perez, Clare Fuentes, Sheryl Parent, Cindy Camp, Carla Van Zandt, Jaime Long, Tammi Hart, Tina Morgan, and Jacquie Martin. You ladies have no idea how much you mean to me!

  Every author who helped share and promote with me… What would I do without you? I love you.

  Special thanks to Lori Jackson for the masterful cover design, and to Wander for another gorgeous, inspirational photo. Love you two!

  To my Mermaids and to my Starfish, Thank You for giving me a place to relax and be silly, and for showing me all the love…

  THANKS to all the bloggers and bookstagrammers who have made an art of book loving. Sharing this book with the reading world would be impossible without you. I appreciate your help so much.

  To everyone who picks up this book, reads it, loves it, and tells one person about it, you’ve made my day. I’m so grateful to you all. Without readers, there would be no writers.

  So much love,

  Stay sexy,

  <3 Tia

  Reckless Kiss

  By Tia Louise

  I love you too much to hate you…

  Angelica Treviño was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.

  I wanted to make her smile, but I had no idea when she did, she’d steal my heart.

  Sunset eyes, waves of golden-brown hair, cute little butt…

  I’m ready to meet the family and put a ring on it.

  Instead, I’m on the wrong end of a gun, her older brother threatening to kill me.

  It all started with a kiss…

  Deacon Dring is a cocky rich boy with ocean-blue eyes, sexy brown hair, and a chiseled body.

  Soft lips that melt my knees, that melt everything.

  As a child, my family said he was bad.

  They made me promise never to see him again.

  But one touch of his hand, one reckless kiss, and I broke that vow…

  Many times.

  Now we’re adults, and the price of lying is more than I’m willing to pay.

  They say we can’t be together. I say try and stop us.

  (RECKLESS KISS is a stand-alone, forbidden, billionaire romance about two families who hate each other and the boy + girl who choose to love in spite of their violent past. No cheating. No cliffhanger.)

  “I was standing. You were there.

  Two worlds collided…”

  -INXS

  Prologue

  Angelica

  Midnight blue sky over misty mountaintops, the moon paints the edges of the peaks in shimmering, silver light. Mamá would sit for hours gazing at the twilight, changing filters, changing lenses, manipulating the angles. I was little, and I would watch her, thinking she was magical, imagining her a genie or an alchemist.

  Only her vision wasn’t gold. It was a nightscape of shadow hues, deep and complex, and layered with emotion. I never asked her why the darkness lured her more than the light. I only wanted to follow her.

  “La Luna,” she would say, as I studied her photograph. “To the moon and back.” She’d smooth my hair off my cheek, smiling warmly, tiny laugh lines crinkling her hazel eyes. “What do you see, Carmelita?”

  “A lady sleeping, dreaming of a feast.” My voice was little-girl quiet, and she’d laugh, holding the small metal camera.

  “What kind of feast?” She’d gaze into my eyes as if she were memorizing my soul for the next time we met.

  Her hair was stick straight and dark, inky brown spilling down her back. Her olive skin was pale. Mine was tanned by the blazing sun, and my long, coiled curls were tipped in gold.

  Sitting under a string of multicolored twinkle lights, I’d hear a click and look up to see the round black lens tracking me, waiting for Mamá to tell it what to capture, what to preserve forever.

  “Chilaquiles!” I’d grin, singing out my favorite dish.

  “It’s not breakfast,” she’d playfully complain.

  “Flautas with guacamole!”

  “Hm… perhaps.” She’d nod, returning to her work.

  Our home was full of her art hanging from strings along the walls like laundry put out to dry. Georgia O’Keefe was my mother’s idol, but where O’Keefe used canvas and acrylics, my mother used photopaper and film.

  She was an artist.

  She was a wizard.

  She was the most beautiful
woman I’d ever seen.

  We lived in the Villa de Santa María de Aguayo, where the colorful houses rose in layers along the foothills, and I ran barefoot in a thin, cotton sundress on the cobbled streets with the other children.

  She taught me how to cook with spices, how to eat fruit sprinkled with chili, how to dance. She had named me in the traditional way, Angelica María del Carmen Treviño, but I was Carmie or Carmelita to my family and friends.

  The days passed slow, but the time moved fast.

  Every day, death crept closer to our door.

  My mother’s death was insidious. More than a year passed from the time she was diagnosed to the day she died. She grew thinner, paler, weaker, but she never stopped working, taking photos, capturing the beauty of the mountains.

  She was a Buddhist. She told me Death was a wave returning our souls to the sea. She said it was as natural as Life. Still, I clung to her and cried when she said it was time to go.

  “You will be an artist, Carmie.” Lying in her bed, she held my cheek, her eyes shining with love, her voice breaking with fatigue. “But your path is not mine.”

  Placing my face against her chest, I soaked her gown with my tears. I breathed her scent of gardenia and grace as I listened to her heart slowly stop beating.

  I didn’t know how to live without her. I didn’t want to live without her.

  I wanted our life in the shadow of the Sierra Madre forever.

  Instead, she slipped through my fingers like those salty waves on the shore, and I was put on a bus at fifteen years old, sent to Plano, Texas, a huge suburb of Dallas, in the country where I was born, to finish school.

  Closing my eyes, I long for our golden paradise, shining and bright with love, so different from this flat, barren land, baked dry by the sun. I taste the dirt on my tongue, put there by the hot wind that never stops.

  My eyes are still closed when I slam into what feels like a brick wall.

  “Watch it!” A tenor voice cries.

  My eyes snap open, and I look up… up… up… as my breath disappears.

  He’s tall and slim with brown hair that flops attractively over his lowered brow. He studies me with piercing blue eyes that have flecks of gold around the pupils.

  His gaze is so intense, my stomach tingles. It’s a sensation low in my belly, a feeling I’ve never had before.

  He’s the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen.

  “I-I’m sorry.” My voice is soft, and I can feel my eyes are wide like a deer’s caught in a spotlight.

  “You can’t walk around with your eyes closed.” His brow relaxes, and when he smiles, my heart skips faster.

  His voice is like ripples in velvet, and he’s wearing a navy blazer with a golden patch on the pocket. It’s a fancy emblem, like he’s royalty or something.

  Pointing to his jacket, I find my voice. “What’s that?”

  He looks down, confused, then his brow relaxes. “It’s my school uniform. Phillips Academy.”

  We start to walk slowly, side by side. I feel his eyes on me, and when I glance up, the way he looks at me reignites the heat in my veins.

  “Are you lost?” He’s so different from the people in my new neighborhood.

  “I’m going to my cousin’s house.”

  More steps in silence. I don’t know why he’s walking with me. “Why were your eyes closed?”

  I’m embarrassed, but for whatever reason, I tell him the truth. “I was thinking about my mother.”

  He studies my expression, the slump of my shoulders.

  “Is she sick?”

  My lips press together, and I swallow the knot in my throat. “She died.”

  Again, he’s quiet, thinking. “Mine too. A while back.”

  A connection, a shared injury pulling us closer, a scarlet thread tied from his finger to mine.

  “Wanna hear a joke?”

  Not really, but I shrug. “Okay.”

  “A skeleton walks into a bar. He orders a beer and a mop.”

  I don’t laugh, and he tries again. “A horse walks into a bar. Bartender says, ‘Why the long face?’”

  My nose wrinkles, and he keeps going. “A hamburger walks into a bar. Bartender says, ‘We don’t serve food here.’”

  I stop walking and squint my eyes at this beautiful boy, shining like the sun, doing his best to make me smile.

  His head tilts to the side, and he gives it one last try. “The sign outside our service station says, ‘Eat here and get gas.’”

  Two heartbeats.

  A flutter in my tummy, and my lips curl up at the corners.

  His jokes aren’t funny, but everything about him has me fizzy and alive. I want him to keep talking. I want to hear what he has to say.

  He points a finger at me, winking. “Gotcha. I knew I could do it.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Deacon. What’s yours?”

  “Angelica.” I leave off the rest.

  “You got a boyfriend, Angel?”

  “No.” I only have one friend, but he doesn’t need to know that.

  Full lips part with a smile. White teeth, and a satisfied look. “Good.” Lifting my hand, he holds it carefully in his.

  The warmth of his touch, the pressure of his grip echoes in my bones. I’ve never been reckless in my life, and yet…

  I take a step closer. Our eyes lock, and we’re engulfed in a magnetic field, drawn together. He takes a step forward, causing me to lift my chin. As his face lowers, heat rises in my stomach.

  Warm breath ghosts my cheek, mingling with my rapid breathing. Am I going to do this?

  Blinking my eyes closed, my heart says Yes…

  My head grows light as warm lips cover mine. My fingers curl on the rich material of his blazer. His fingers tighten, holding my arm.

  Our lips part, and I feel the lightest touch of his tongue against mine, so delicate. Energy surges in my belly, and a bird is caught there, fluttering and beating its wings.

  He lifts his head, and his blue eyes hold mine. A real smile lifts my cheeks, echoed on his face. We both exhale a little laugh at this powerful thing we just shared, so simple, yet so overwhelming.

  His voice is low, as he makes me a promise. “I’ll see you again.”

  Then he turns and leaves me, walking backwards a few steps before waving, confident and graceful.

  I’m still watching, my head spinning, my heart flying, when my cousin Valeria’s voice breaks the spell. “What did he want?”

  He’s gone, and I turn to face her. “Nothing.”

  But my heart says different. My heart says, Everything. He asked without saying a word, and I said Yes.

  “Carmie.” Her voice is sharp, and she grips my arm, giving me a little shake. I meet her eyes, and she’s blinking fast. “You are never to speak to that boy again. You understand?”

  No. “Why?”

  “Because he’s bad.” She looks up the way he left. “Promise me.”

  “Promise you why?” Defiance is in my tone.

  Her jaw tightens. “That boy is our enemy.”

  “Our enemy?” I actually laugh. “What does that mean?”

  “That boy’s grandfather cheated ours. He stole all his land, he sent our grandfather, Papa Luis to prison. He left us beggars in the street.”

  She’s right. I don’t understand. “But we’re okay now?”

  “You didn’t grow up here, Carmie. You don’t understand these things.”

  Valeria is ten years older than me. She takes care of me now that both my parents have passed, and my brother is back in Mexico. I have nowhere else to go if not here.

  Still… My throat is tight as I force the words. “Whatever. I promise.”

  But my fingers are crossed in the pocket of my hoodie.

  Valeria is wrong. Deacon is not my enemy.

  My heart is full of light, and I can’t hate where love is already starting to grow, what my heart already knows. He’s going to change my life.

  1

>   Deacon

  Present day

  When I step into the warm-beige interior of La Frida Java coffee shop from the blazing heat of late May in Texas, I have two things on my mind—air conditioning and the girl behind the counter.

  Slim and petite, her hair hangs down her back in tight, spiral curls. She moves like a dancer, spinning to fill the coffee dispensers, hitting the brew button, then starting another order. My eyes drink her in, the curve of her cheek, the fullness of her glossy lips, and every second we’ve been apart aches in my bones.

  It’s been a month since I’ve seen her. I went back to Harristown to finish my degree, and now I want to sweep her into my arms, cover her mouth with kisses, plunge into her depths.

  “Welcome to La Frida. What can I get…” Her amber eyes blink up, and as soon as they meet mine, she lets out a little gasp. “Deacon!”

  Her smile grows so big, the little dimple at the top of her cheek appears, and my stomach tightens. I love that dimple. I love tracing my lips along it when I hold her body next to mine.

  Angelica Treviño is the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. She has been since the day she slammed into me walking on the sidewalk near a park on the south side.

  I’ll never forget that day. She had the saddest face, and I only wanted to give her a smile. I had no idea when she did, I would also give her my heart.