A Proposal They Can't Refuse (Vega Family Love Stories, #1)

by Natalie Caña

Para Abuela Gracias por enseñarme que el amor se mida con hechos.

“Ese doctor no sabe na’. Cuando me duele el pecho, me pongo un poco de Vaporú y ya.”

All Latinx people knew Vaporú was the cure for everything from a common cold to heartbreak.

“Ain’t nobody sticking a finger in my butt.”

“You didn’t have a problem when I did it last week,” she snipped in Spanish.

I’m too young and too pretty to be a widow.”

She was their aimless daughter, who went through the motions but never really accomplished anything. All talk and no follow-through.

“Now, we have more important things to talk about.” “More important than your life?” Liam asked. “Yes.” Granda nodded. “We need to talk about your life.”

“Claro que no lo quiero. Es un amargado. I’d be all broody and emo within ten minutes of being married to him.” Oops. She turned to glance at him. “No offense.”

“This doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the woman you love as much as Killian loved your nana.” Liam met Granda’s gaze from where he was standing close enough to hear their whispered conversation. The look on his face said If only she knew, huh, lad?

“Dude, you’ve had it bad for Kamilah since you were kids. Don’t act like you didn’t jump at the chance to come to her rescue and win your way back into her life.”

Her movement brought Liam’s attention to her feet, which were clad in a tall pair of socks covered in cartoon cacti and the text Can’t touch this. Oh good, a well-timed reminder. He definitely could not feast—even though he’d been dying to ever since he’d discovered what it meant to be attracted to the opposite sex.

“The way I see it, we can both sleep on the floor in some weird show of etiquette.” She paused. “Or we can just share the bed.” He’d figured she was going to say that, and there were a million reasons why it was a terrible idea.

It was a horrible idea. But the temptation to sleep with her, even platonically, proved too strong to resist.

She creaked one eye open a slit and stared at the back of Liam’s neck in thought. She never would’ve taken him for the little-spoon type of guy.

“Why would you want to marry your best friend?” “¿Por qué no?” “Because a best friend is one thing, and a person you marry is another,” Kamilah explained. Abuela smiled at her and shook her head. “No ojitos, son la misma persona. You should only marry your best friend. Remember that when you grow up.”

“Eso no fue na’,” he said with a smack of his lips. “Algo pequeñito para endulzarme la vida.”

What she needed to do, now that she wasn’t living with her parents in an apartment with paper-thin walls, was buy herself a sturdy vibrator and get herself off a few times, so she could focus on her goals. That was the smart thing to do.

Liam had never wanted to kiss someone so badly in his life. He found himself leaning forward until she broke through his haze.

The instant their lips touched, some part deep inside himself sighed as if relieved of endless torment. Finally, it seemed to say. He kept his mouth soft and light, coaxing and subduing her. He kissed her from one corner of her lips to the other, stopping only briefly to sweep the tip of his tongue down the crease at the center of her plump bottom lip.

Liam started to pull away, but she reached up and pulled him closer. He forgot everything else, savoring her in the same way she’d savored different foods all day long—slowly, methodically, missing nothing, and enjoying everything.

She eyed the way his hands flexed at his sides and wondered if he was imagining them wrapped around her throat.

That got her thinking about what Liam’s stubble would do to the delicate skin between her legs. An image flashed in her mind of a dark head of hair and intense blue eyes framed between a pair of thighs. Her muscles clenched reflexively. “It’s a good idea,” Liam said. It’s a very good idea. Kamilah fought the urge to moan.

I’m down to clown.” She paused, realizing that she’d basically just expressed her willingness to fool around. She closed her eyes and scrunched her face. “That last one,” she began, only to be cut off. “I know,” Liam said. “Let’s just go.”

The problem wasn’t with her abilities but with people constantly trying to block or subdue her.

It wasn’t a sexual desire. It wasn’t solely sexual desire. It was the need to just be close to her. A need he couldn’t resist.

“I knew my Liam was still in there. It’s nice to see you, old friend.”

My Liam. Holy shit, did he like the sound of that! As if he were something special she’d been waiting to see. He wanted to kiss her again. He wanted to do more than kiss her. But she’d also said “old friend.”

Where else would she follow his directions? He swallowed the thought.

She was so damn beautiful. One day those eyes of hers would kill him.

“You need to learn that shutting the fuck up is free, but constantly talking out of your neck can cost you.”

He swallowed hard and thought that maybe he could hold back, but then she said the words that would completely derail his good intentions. “Distract me. Please. I need you, Liam.”

“You want me to distract you?” he asked in a low, rough voice. His gaze tracked from her lips down to her chest and back up. Unable to speak, Kamilah nodded her head. “Don’t say yes when you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“I want to strip you bare,” he whispered. “And once you’re naked, I’m going to sit you down on my tasting table and do exactly what its name dictates I do.” Kamilah inhaled shakily. “That’s right. I’m going to taste you. I’m going to savor you like one of my whiskeys, and I’m not going to stop until I’m drunk on you.”

Through it all, Liam was there with her, urging her higher and deeper into the storm.

I love you. I loved the boy you were, and I love the man you are.

“Take me to bed,” she told him. She used the same phrase that had spurred him into action before. “Please. I need you, Liam.”

only Kamilah could have him as hard as the ironwork in his apartment but dying of hysterical laughter at the same time.

“Don’t you get it?” He lifted a finger and drew it lightly from her hairline down her nose. “Everything about you delights me.” He outlined her lips. “I’ve spent so long acting like it doesn’t.” He trailed the finger to her chin and along her jaw. “But I don’t have to do that anymore.” His finger swooped down the side of her neck and stopped at the thrum of her pulse. “The freedom is making me a bit giddy.”

“I need you,” she said again. It was a phrase he could get entirely too used to hearing.

He needed her so much it scared the ever-living shit out of him. He didn’t tell her that, though. Instead, he joined her on the bed, let her roll the condom on him, spread her legs, and then joined their bodies together. He tried his very best to ignore the part of him telling him that their hearts were also joining.

He kissed like he was trying to commit every single second of it to memory.

“It’s your fault,” he murmured in her ear. “You’re the one who bought a Costco-size box of condoms.” “It wasn’t a challenge to see how many we could use in one night!”

“I fucking love that you wear my clothes because you want to smell me wherever you are.” I love you.

“What are you gonna do, spank me?” Oh yes. That. “Don’t tempt me.”

“I’m sort of annoyed with you.” He frowned. “Why?” “For being sweet and sexy and considerate and all-around amazing. I wasn’t supposed to think these things about you. I wasn’t supposed to feel this way. That wasn’t part of the deal.” She paused. “It was unfair of you to make me fall in love with you.”

He wanted her more than he wanted his next breath. He always would.

Kamilah was dead.

“You love me,” Sofi replied breezily. “If we weren’t straight, you’d be my happy little housewife.”

“I’m going to enjoy watching you burn, you prickly old bitch,” she told her crappy car before slowly turning her head to look out her driver’s-side window.