Page 91 of Drawn Together

Sebastian stared at me, and finally, an amused grin spread across his face.

“From now on, this is my territory. I don’t want you anywhere near this stove, do you hear me?”

“No way! I’ve just discovered my deep love for cooking.”

Sebastian shook his head, picked up the frying pan, whichwas still on the hot burner, and flipped the last pancake in the air. Then he strategically balanced two plates on his right arm and placed one in front of me on the table. When I looked down at my plate, I felt a warmth flood through my body. He’d made the last pancake in the shape of an elephant, tusks and all, and it had come out perfectly.

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, but he just ate his pancakes as if he hadn’t just made the sweetest gesture.

I smiled silently and started to eat my breakfast.

CHAPTER 25SEBASTIAN

The storm was drawing near, literally. I read the forecast and saw that a blizzard was moving in as I waited for Marfil to finish getting ready to go to class. It had been a week since we’d returned from that disaster of a spring break. So much had happened at Alejandro Cortés’s house. Even though it didn’t surprise me, having run into an asshole like Marcus Kozel, I never could’ve imagined being intimate with Marfil in that abandoned barn.

I tried every day to act like it had never occurred, employing all my willpower to keep from falling for her, to keep my hands and my body as far away from her as possible. I’d even kept my cool as that moron Kozel continued accosting her daily with flowers, trying not to let my old self rear his ugly head once again. I had already let Marfil see much more of me than I’d ever wanted to show her. The encounter with Samara was the worst thing that could’ve happened, and I’d totally lost it, furious with myself for being so stupid.

Marfil came into the kitchen and smiled, radiant as ever in a miniskirt, leggings, and a wide sweatshirt that left her shoulder exposed when she moved. I couldn’t help but feel that, despite our situation, Marfil Cortés belonged to me and no one else. One look at her, and a strong urge to kiss her came over me. The fact that I couldn’t touch her left me in a foul mood, and I often took it out on her.

“It’s thirty-seven degrees outside,” I said, looking sullenly at her outfit.

“Now you’re a weatherman?” she replied, sharp as always, but with a smile on her face. She didn’t wear much makeup, although her lips always had a layer of gloss that made it look like she’d just licked them.

“I’m the man who’s not leaving here until you put on a coat,” I answered, taking my cell phone out of my pocket and looking at the screen in order to keep from staring at her.

“Sometimes you’re even worse than my father,” she said, turning around and walking back to her pigsty of a bedroom.

If you only knew…I thought to myself.

She stepped out a minute later, wearing a pink wool hat, matching scarf, and a leather jacket.

“Happy?”

I didn’t answer. I simply walked to the door and held it open for her. As she passed, she paused for a second beside me.

“Thanks for your concern over my well-being,” she said, standing on her tiptoes and giving me a kiss on the cheek.

I felt my body tense at that innocent contact. That was another thing—Marfil now took certain liberties, leaving me constantly anxious. I was incapable of rejecting those seemingly harmless gestures, even though we both knew that she was playing games with me. But a brief touch, a caress, a kiss on the cheek was nothing, right?

I grunted in response, and as always, she continued on as if nothing had happened.

In the car, I turned on the heat and the radio to listen to the news. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one worried about the imminent snowstorm. Temperatures had dropped dramatically in just a few hours, something unusual considering it was almost April.

“This weather is crazy,” Marfil said with a worried expression.She took out her cell phone and began typing rapidly. I would’ve liked to ask her who she was texting, but I kept quiet and continued driving.

We reached campus, and it came time to separate since she still didn’t want anyone to think there was anything between us. I observed her from a distance, sitting at the back of her classes, admiring her wit, her constant smile, the way she was so feminine yet so tough at the same time.

She’d been arguing with her professor for the past ten minutes about how to proceed during an economic crisis, and how the mistakes made during the last recession could’ve been easily avoided.

“The problem is greed, and the fact that the country’s largest banking institutions took on too much risk without a big enough financial cushion to support them.”

The professor, a former banker himself, looked fed up with her. Luckily, it was time for class to end, and he dismissed us before I had to intervene to defend her. Marfil gathered her books, put them in her Prada bag, and waved goodbye at the classmate seated next to her. As I leaned against the wall outside the classroom, waiting for her, a small group of female students stood glancing at me and whispering. Over half of them had already introduced themselves to me, their intentions obvious, but my monosyllabic responses were enough to keep them from trying again.

Marfil exited the classroom, and just as she’d been doing every day for the past week, she stopped to talk to me as if we were friends.

“How’d you like the lecture today?”

“Very educational,” I said, looking ahead, checking every doorway and dark corner, eyeing anyone who looked suspicious.