by Lora Leigh
She hadn’t escaped anything. The fit was too tight. He worked his fingers in and out, and she rode them, urging a faster rhythm with small jerking motions of her hips, feeling absolutely licentious in her abandon. His knuckle ground against her clit and she whimpered at the stinging pleasure, biting into his shoulder with her nails, bearing down on a galloping climax.
The water lapped at her bottom, wantonly spread. Sweet Santa Maria, she was almost completely exposed!
Sensing her alarm, Jesse moved them into deeper water, pressing her against the wall for more privacy. She leaned back to brace herself, arms outstretched and shoulder blades sawing as she rode his plunging fingers like a valkyrie into war, the water churning and frothing all around.
He nuzzled between her breasts. “You are a dirty girl, aren’t you?” He tilted back, goading her. “Do it. I want to feel you tremble as you come on my fingers.”
The hot flush of embarrassment produced by his command was no match for her need for relief. But she couldn’t quite let go. She wanted to beg him to please not do this to her, so fast and blatantly, but if he stopped now, she might die.
Jesse kissed her, his breath hot as he whispered, “Don’t hold back.” He moved in tight against her, one hand secure at the small of her back, the other busy between her thighs, and, when his mouth found her breast and sucked her nipple deep into his throat, finally then she felt the irresistible pull and relentless pressure as her senses wound so tight, there was nowhere, no further, to go. The pleasure snapped and she flooded with a copious release.
She howled. Her body jerked; her arms flew up.
Jesse’s face nudged hers. “Hold on to me.”
She obeyed, hugging him. He kissed her ear, her neck, whispering soft words she wasn’t able to comprehend right then. His fingers slipped out of her, and for an instant there was a hollow ache before she was bathed by the soothing warmth of the water. Washing her, but not clean. She wasn’t ready to be clean. Maybe never again if this mindless bliss was the reward for being dirty.
Slowly, she came back into herself and realized that they weren’t through. The thought was a wonderful surprise, like finding a forgotten gift under the Christmas tree after the others had been opened. She might even be able to have him all night. Her intention had been to entertain him upstairs, but now that the moment had come—come like a steam train—she wondered if she really dared.
She had gone this far, so of course she dared. Why not? Her mother had always said, In for a peso. . . .
Though she doubted that her mother had intended this.
Gradually Estrella’s vision cleared, as did her head. She blinked and looked around at the empty pool deck and the border of landscaping, beginning to focus on the public aspect of the location. Titillating, but dangerous in all sorts of ways. “We should go up.”
“Your apartment?” Jesse grimaced. “I’m in no state.” As if in agreement, below the water his erection bobbed against her, sending a shock through her system. They definitely weren’t finished.
“I’ll be your shield,” she offered. “I just want to get out of the pool before we end up arrested for public indecency.”
He came close to smiling. “Yeah, that’s all I need on my record.”
She blinked. Okay, here I am asking an ex-con into an expensive apartment that’s not even mine, with an open invitation to perform unspeakably lewd and lascivious acts upon my naked body. Can I get any more risky?
“How do we do this?” Jesse asked.
“We find our clothes, for starters.” She pushed out of his arms and paddled toward the steps, remembering she’d tossed her top somewhere in the vicinity.
Jesse stood and stopped her when she’d climbed halfway out of the pool to reach for the abandoned garment. “Estrella.” His arm crooked around her neck and head, pulling her toward himself. He kissed her. Sweetly, with a gentle tongue.
She passed a hand over her face, ostensibly swiping up the droplets. “What was that for?”
“You’re safe,” he said. “I’m not dangerous.”
“I know that.” And she did. Not with one-hundred percent certainty, because that could only come over time—which they didn’t have, she realized with a pang—but there was something inside her saying that Jesse wasn’t like Tony. His gallantry might be grudging, and he showed little emotion, but he would never hurt her. She felt safe with him. A minor miracle, that was, after the length of time she’d gone when she’d wanted no contact with men at all.
Safe, but quaking with an anticipation that verged on trepidation. Make sense of that.
She grabbed her top, then swam to the deep end to find her skirt, taking the opportunity to cool her fevered body. Jesse climbed out of the pool as he was—sporting an erection that had scarcely subsided. Attempting to appear oblivious, she watched him out of the corners of her eyes while struggling into her wet clothing.
Oh my goodness. The sight of his engorged penis was riveting. Enough to bring a woman to her knees.
Estrella lurched suddenly off hers as he approached. She staggered and he caught her elbow, keeping her steady as she led the way inside beneath the lush trees and towering palms, finding the set of keys she’d zipped into her skirt pocket. Once inside, she peeked into the atrium lobby, found it echoing and vacant, then took his hand and rushed him through to the elevator, a compartment paneled in stainless steel with diamond-patterned quilting.
The walls were reflective. She peered closer, pushing wet hair out of her eyes. Not bad, though she was sodden and bedraggled while Jesse remained arrestingly sexy. Since he hadn’t dried off, his wet skin had already soaked through his shirt and trousers, making them clingy and transparent in various appealing spots. Especially those areas that highlighted his virility.
She started to thank the gods that they were alone, but luck wasn’t with her. A hand reached through the elevator doors just as they were closing.
Jesse stepped back, pulling her in front of him. An older man nattily dressed in a fitted suit entered the compartment, took a look at them and spun on one heel to face the doors, his narrow face hollowing in disapproval. He punched in his floor. Fourteen.
Complete silence. The elevator rose. Estrella couldn’t help but stare at the back of the third passenger’s head, where his closely cropped silver hair revealed a pink bald spot. She willed him not to turn around. She was in no state to withstand questions.
Jesse pressed a fingertip to the small of her back. The touch felt like the burned head of a matchstick applied to a bruise. She had to smother a yelp.
The other man glanced over his shoulder. “Been swimming, I see.”
Estrella recognized him, but not by name. “Yes, we had an impulsive dip.” She plucked at the sagging yarn of her top. It dripped like a used dishrag. Even though Jesse wasn’t as wet as she, a puddle was forming around their feet. “I’ll be sure to, um, wipe up the elevator.”
“Hmph.” The man looked at Jesse and raised a supercilious eyebrow.
Jesse must have responded with his own look, because the tenant quickly faced forward again. Estrella’s eyes went to Jesse’s reflection in the steel doors and met the hard black glare that she found strangely exciting. She was reminding herself to breathe when his hand dropped to her rear end. She tried to reach behind herself to grab hold but he avoided her. Seconds later, he lifted the back of her skirt. A wash of cool air touched bare skin. Her panties were missing.
She elbowed him. Jesse’s left hand closed on her shoulder. His right grazed her exposed bottom. She cleared her throat. The tenant moved his head slightly, trying to see without actually turning to look.
Estrella pasted on a pleasant smile, praying for the elevator to move faster.
“I’ve seen you before,” the man blurted as Jesse traced a finger along the seam between her cheeks.
Oh God. She was in trouble now.
“Aren’t you the—?”
“Here we are,” she interrupted. “Fourteen.” Bing. The elevator d
oors slid open. “Have a good evening.”
She kept an ungiving smile on her face as the man departed, exhibiting a quizzical look as if he wanted to say more. She’d only been in and out of the building every weekday for more than a year, but she supposed he’d never seen her as a real person. Fortunate for her, at the moment.
Jesse squeezed her ass as the doors closed, and this time she turned and socked him in the rock-hard gut. “There are mirrors all over this elevator. He might have seen!”
“He was a prig. You should have flashed him.”
“You should have flashed him.”
“Didn’t want the guy to get too excited.”
“He’ll be complaining to the condo board as it is.”
“What’s to complain about? A beautiful tenant, spicing up his ride in the elevator with a little gratuitous nudity?” Jesse caught her around the hips, rucking her skirt up beneath his fingers.
She smiled, pushing it down in front. “You are beautiful, in a ruthless way.”
“No, you are.” He nodded with his chin. “Look.”
She swiveled her head to take in the steel-and-mirror enclosure, and saw multiple angles of her naked butt, pale and marbled against the contrast of his brown hands. With a helpless moan, she buried her head against his chest.
“Pretty little dirty girl.” He palmed her cheeks, pressing her closer against the fullness at his crotch. Lazily she rocked her hips. His erection had subsided somewhat, but she soon felt the swelling and lengthening that signaled how well his equipment worked. Her own warming arousal answered as her mind filled with erotic images of what she could do once she had him in private.
Or had him right there, right now.
She tried to shake away the temptation. The hell he wasn’t dangerous. He made her forget herself.
And his damned talented fingers were tickling between her thighs again.
Estrella’s head snapped back. A terrible thought had cut through. “Security cameras!”
Jesse immediately pulled down her skirt. At the same moment, the elevator stopped and the doors opened on the lobby—empty, luckily. She stared out, dumbfounded for a moment before it occurred to her that after the other man had exited, they’d forgotten to press the button for sixteen. The car had automatically returned to the ground floor.
She slapped at the panel, closing the doors, then hit the sixteen before looking up. Sure enough, there was a camera high in one corner, filming their every action. She cringed. Please don’t let there be one at the pool.
She pointed the camera out to Jesse. “You’re a bad influence on me. Look at all the trouble I’m in.”
He laughed, the bastard.
“Maybe I should show you what it’s like,” she said. “See how you enjoy being at my mercy.”
He held his arms open. “You can try.”
“You think I won’t?” With a mighty shove that moved him only because he allowed it, she backed him into a corner and attacked the front of his shirt, giving it a good wrench that popped a couple of buttons. They pinged off the stainless steel paneling. Clean-up on Elevator One.
“I’ll sew them back on,” she said while staring at his naked chest.
His laugh made a number of muscles ripple. She wasn’t sure what she’d said to get him to laugh—she wasn’t thinking too clearly again—but she hoped he’d do it often. Her hands reached out, spreading over his chest like a Braille reader. Watching him ripple was nice, but feeling him ripple was better.
She stroked the corrugated slab of his stomach. The heaviness and heat below his waistband drew her, but she resisted by traveling upward. Jesse gripped the steel rail that circled the enclosure and rested his head against the wall while she experimented on him, prodding and petting, tasting and teasing, peppering small kisses over the expanse of warm rounded muscle until she reached his shoulder, where she scraped back the damp cotton and opened her mouth wide, making an unabashed glutton of herself as she slurped with her tongue like a child with a melting ice cream cone. A moan rumbled in Jesse’s chest.
The elevator stopped; the doors opened. Reluctantly Estrella raised her head. She hadn’t even managed to get his shirt all the way off. Only his biceps were—
Her eyes widened. Ice crackled in her veins. An inch below the glistening skin where her mouth had been was a tattoo. Somehow, she’d missed it up to now.
Maybe she’d blocked it out on purpose, she realized, as the bottom of her stomach dropped out. It wasn’t a large tattoo—only a simple line drawing that had faded to the point where she had to stare to make it out. A curling wave, vaguely Japanese in style, with a moon above.
Not a threatening tattoo, so why had she backed all the way across the elevator? Why was she reaching for the doors, to be sure they didn’t close and trap her inside?
“What’s wrong?” Jesse said, coming toward her with his shirt hanging off his forearms.
She stiffened. He stopped.
“You have a tattoo.” It was nothing. Nothing. No reason to get all psycho.
“Yeah. And a couple on the other arm too.” He lifted his right shoulder to show her. “Just small ones, from years ago.”
She didn’t want to look. Or explain. But he deserved something, because suddenly her entire body was a Popsicle. Her teeth would be chattering if she hadn’t clenched them so tight. “I’m s-sorry. I have a thing about tattoos.”
“I don’t get it.”
“An aversion.”
Jesse frowned. “They’re only tattoos.”
The doors started to close and again she put her hand out to block them. “I can’t help it. I know it’s irrational, but they turn me off. Tattoos remind me of some—they bring back bad memories.”
Jesse was breathing heavily. He clenched his hands. “I’ve had them all along. Why would they matter now?”
There was no good answer for that. She looked away, her previous trepidation rising too high to deny. One foot edged over the elevator threshold into the hallway. It was all she could do not to bolt. “I didn’t notice before. You’re very tanned and I . . . I . . .”
She was miserable. And even though the hot animal attraction was gone, she could still remember every bit even if she couldn’t feel it. She hated having to leave him, aroused and frustrated.
But that was what she must do.
“I’m sorry,” she said, looking into his eyes and pleading for an understanding that she knew he couldn’t offer. Given her open provocation, she’d be lucky if he didn’t follow and break the apartment door down.
Jesse shook his head in disbelief. “Estrella . . .”
“I made a mistake,” she said. “Good-bye.”
And she turned and ran.
Chapter Four
“I freaked,” Estrella said two days later as she stood over her minute electric range top waiting for the kettle to heat. “And I’m not talking about having second thoughts and backing out. It was a full-fledged panic.” She poked her finger near the spout and winced at the burning metal. No whistle and only a wisp of steam, but her stinging fingertip didn’t lie. She picked up a potholder and tipped the kettle over the teapot.
Brenda snuffled, not thrilled about the prospect of tea, especially green tea, even though Estrella had explained that the quality of its flavor was all in the precise steeping. Brenda, who read cozy mysteries and believed she knew about such things, had replied that only a jolly round Englishwoman in a cardigan and Wellies should be that concerned with serving tea.
The redhead dropped another Kleenex into the wastebasket. “So what were the tattoos of anyway?”
Estrella shook her head as she measured scoops of loose tea into the pot. “That’s not the point. Any kind of tattoo scares me.” She felt foolish, admitting that. But after a person has been attacked by a vicious dog, even friendly ones seem risky to approach.
“Get off the pity pot, chica. We’ve become a tattoo nation. Even my Lou has them. And you never said a word. You’ve seemed comfortable at our house.”
“I know. I am, but . . .”
Brenda went off on her own tangent. “I’ve told our boys they can’t get any until they’re eighteen, but I doubt either of them will listen to me.” Her teenagers were hellions. After Sunday dinner, she usually escaped to Estrella’s bachelor-girl apartment, where the three small rooms were austere but peaceful.
“Please don’t misunderstand. Lou’s tattoos are fine.” True, they’d given Estrella a jolt the first time he’d shoved a hairy arm at her out on the Ventanos’ front lawn. Her aversion was involuntary, but not exactly a phobia. She had some control. She’d looked into Lou’s kind eyes and been able to take his hand.
But Jesse had expected more than a handshake.
“It’s in, you know, intimate situations that I’m most—” She waved the tea strainer. “When my defenses are down.”
Brenda huffed. “That explains Benny Marx.”
Estrella brought the tea tray to her kitchen table and sat down. She’d dated Benny every Saturday night for three months, her only real relationship since the divorce, setting aside a couple of short-term flings. Benny had liked schedules, and she’d liked his predictability. But he’d also liked precisely six minutes of foreplay, the Sci-Fi channel and Taco Bell, sometimes in that order. He had asked Estrella to marry him, out of momentum more than passion, she’d believed. This had been confirmed when the gentle nudge of Estrella letting him down easy had rolled him in the direction of the shoe rental girl at Steverino’s Super Bowl.
Estrella distributed paper napkins and mismatched porcelain cups and saucers, mentally ticking off the final seconds of steeping time. Benny Marx had been safe—and about as likely to get a tattoo as he was to go out in the sun without proper SPF protection.
“You know that Benny was a toe in the water.” Thirty seconds early, she poured the aromatic tea through the strainer she’d placed on the rim of Brenda’s cup. “Drink up. This will be good for your sinuses.”