Delgano: A Dark Contemporary Interracial Romance

She fashioned a pair of scissors out of her index and middle finger and snapped them together in his direction until he threatened to bite them off.

“So, if you’re off for the rest of the day, why are you here? To torment me?”

“To take you with me,” she said. “Tormenting you is merely a perk.”

For the first time since the beginning of his internment, he walked through a front door. That front door took them to a passageway, and they passed through a pair of arched, iron gates that deposited them onto a cobblestone driveway.

“There’s my car.” She gestured to a modest two-door white sedan parked along the curb. “Since you seem to think I’m abducting you, do you want me to get inside first to ensure there are no booby traps?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “That would be helpful.”

Laughing, she hurried ahead, opened the passenger door, and made a sweeping motion with both hands.

He stopped at the end of the driveway and stared at her, brows narrowed. “Sayeda, you cannot be serious.”

“I’m being chivalrous,” she insisted. “Also, I’m the driver. You don’t know where we’re going.”

“Where are we going?”

“Just trust me, Adrían.”

“How long have you been waiting to call me that?”

“Forever. Plus, we’re so close in age, it feels weird to call you ‘mister’ anything. Now, will you please get inside and let me take you to your surprise?”

“One on condition,” he prefaced. “Close that door and let me open it myself.”

Rolling her eyes, she shut the door, went around to the driver’s side, and slipped behind the wheel. Once she was settled, he grabbed the door handle and pulled, but nothing happened. Then he lowered his head to peer inside the interior cabin, and she was smiling so big that he saw the outline of her lips in the fabric. Without a doubt, he would be moaning her name again later.

“If chivalry’s dead, you killed it,” he playfully spat. “Now, how do I open the door?”

“Lift up, then out, and pull hard.”

He lifted, yanked.

The door flew open.

The car shifted with his weight as he climbed in, and his very own smile shoved his right cheekbone up into his eye socket. “How do you say ‘pain in the ass’ in Arabic?” he asked.

“Funny enough, the translation is one word: Adrían.” She started the engine, snickering at her own joke, and pulled away from the curb. “Seatbelt, my love. And thank you for trusting me on this little adventure.”

The words “my” and “love” echoed from one ear to the other, stirring a commotion in his stomach as he snapped on the seatbelt. Then he reclined as best as he could in the space obviously made for people not much taller than Sayeda.

“What’s with the ‘my love’?” he teased.

“You’re not my love?”

“Am I?” He stopped just short of leaning over and kissing her cheek. “Because I’m pretty sure that would be forbidden, querida.”

She shrugged. “Maybe I don’t care.”

When he found himself studying her profile for entirely too long, mapping the lines and curves of her face, he shifted his focus to the moving landscape through the windshield.

“What does ‘querida’ mean?” she asked. “Is it the same thing it means in Spanish?”

He reclined further. “Yep. It means ‘sweetheart.’ Why? Is there a problem?”

“A big one.”