But then the woman called out, “Cera? Cera Winslow?”
When she turned around, the woman pushed off the flagpole and gave her a dazzling smile. “Hi, I’m Pru. Pru Washington-Benton.”
She then tilted her head with a bemused look. “Max wasn’t exaggerating. I do look a lot like you.”
Cera just raised her eyebrows. She and this woman both had warm brown skin, short curly hair, long legs, and rather ample breasts. If not for the fact that Pru was wearing heels to her more sensible flats, they probably would have been the same height, too.
But other than that, Pru was dressed in what looked like authentic 70s-era hot pants and a white peasant blouse, while Cera wore one of the cheap shirt dresses that had gotten her through her student-teacher requirements. Also, Pru was at least twenty pounds lighter than Cera, and just about glowing with a vivacious cheer that put Cera in mind of models from a vintage Sears catalog.
But despite this, Pru told her, “You should have looked into Vegas when you decided to go back to school. One dance minor later, you wouldn’t have needed Gus’s money to get by.”
“He still probably would have figured out a way to manipulate me into his bed,” Cera answered, crossing her arms over her chest. Feeling cheaper by the minute in comparison to the lovely creature standing in front of her.
“I can’t argue with you there.” A shadow passed over Pru’s face. “Irritating but true, those Benton brothers have a way of getting what they want. By any means necessary.”
“Is that why you’re here?” Cera asked her. “Another manipulation?”
Pru shook her head. “Not exactly. Gus asked Max for a favor. He purchased a certain garden estate recently, and he wanted Max to help him gift it to you without you finding out.”
Cera let out a huff of frustration, switching her back-pack from one shoulder to the other. “Why? I already told him—”
“I know what you already told him. That’s why I’m here.” Pru scrutinized her with a heavy frown. “You know, Gus was a total wreck after he got back from Santa Fe. He stayed with us for a while. Told Max everything. And now he’s walking around like a shell of his former self. Frankly, we’re all kind of surprised he managed to keep the Sorley Miami project on deadline.”
Cera shook her head. Refusing to care. “Why are you telling me this?” She asked. “Why do you expect me to care about anything concerning a man who’s done nothing but lie to me the entire time I’ve know him?”
“That’s my question.” Pru watched her closely. “Do you care, Cera?”
“Does it matter?” asked Cera, shaking her head again.
“That you can’t answer my simple question about whether or not you care about Gus directly? Yeah…” Pru nodded her own head slowly. “Yeah, actually I think it does. You see, I started looking into you right after Max told me about your…” she cleared her throat, “…unexpected meeting at Gus’s place. And I’ve got to be honest with you, I didn’t love what I found.”
Cera re-crossed her arms, shoulders hunching. “Yes, I’m well aware I don’t look great on paper after what my father did.”
Pru snorted. “Girl, if I judged everybody I met by what their fathers did, do you think I’d be married to Max?”
She pinned Cera with a direct look. “No, I’m talking about the fact that despite being well-liked and, from what I can tell, sweet as all get-out, you don’t have any real friends. Why is that, Cera?”
Cera hugged herself tighter. “I guess I was too busy. I had my sister…”
“Yeah, and she went off to her special boarding school five years ago, giving you plenty of time to start your own life, with your own friends. But nothing. No relationships, even though you’re a very pretty girl. I don’t get it. And I’m not sure you deserve all this time Gus has spent being miserable over you.”
Cera blinked at Pru. “You know what, Pru. I don’t need this. I’ve already been hurt enough. I put up with a lot of stuff I shouldn’t have from Gus, and that’s all on me. But standing here, listening to you tell me I’m not good enough for your monster of a brother-in-law because I don’t have enough friends or a proper dating history—I don’t have to stand here and listen to this.”
She started to leave, only to have Pru chase after her, “Let me tell you a few things about Gus,” she said, getting in front of Cera. “He’s a great guy—an awesome guy. I’ve seen girls literally line up to meet him. But I’ve never seen him give any girl the time of day for more than a week or two—other than me. And apparently, that was only because I look like you. Do you understand?”
Cera only shook her head, trying to get around her.
“I don’t care! I don’t care!” she said—not sure if she was trying to convince Pru or herself.
But Pru obviously wasn’t convinced, because she kept talking even as Cera pushed past her.
“Yes, he’s crazy. But he’s also lonely and he’s been scared shitless of being abandoned again. Just like Max. Just like you. But he took a chance on you—Cera, listen to me!”
Pru grabbed her by the arm, made her stop. “He took a chance on you. Now, I’m here asking you to be even half as brave as he was and take a chance on him.”
Cera looked up at the sky and clamped her lips. Then she leveled Pru with a withering look. Pru, the woman who obviously didn’t understand there was no reason on Earth for her to give the man who turned her heart to sand another chance.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” Cera said.
23
“Did she take it?” Gus asked without preamble when Max called him late the next day.
Donna had already gone home for the night, but Gus lingered at the office. To prepare some notes for next week’s inaugural staff meeting, he told Donna when she stuck her head into his office. But really because he didn’t want to go home.
To the apartment where she no longer lived. To the white bedroom with a closet filled with the clothes she’d left behind. To the thought that she was supposed to have been his for the summer, but they hadn’t even made it to August.
“Hey, bro, did you get the office furniture I sent you?”
Gus slid a disparaging look at the red wing couch and slick guest chairs Max had sent over. He’d say it totally wasn’t his style, but as Max had already pointed out, he didn’t have a style to speak of, so he just said, “Yeah, thanks, Max. So were you able to do what we talked about yesterday?”
“The electrician hasn’t coded the elevator yet, right? You can still just push the button to get up to the executive floor?”
“No, he’s not coming until tomorrow. All you have to do is push a button. Are you here?’
Gus looked out the window to the parking lot below, and sure enough, there was Max’s Jaguar rental. “Does this mean she took the offer?”
“No, she didn’t take the offer. I didn’t even make it, because the offer’s crazy.”
“Fuck, Max.” He gripped the phone, wanting to throw it. “I asked you to do one thing. ONE thing.”
“Yeah, and that one thing was cray-cray. So I sent Pru over to talk to her. They ended up having a long conversation about how crazy you are. And how trying to get her to take your guilt money by processing it through me only made you crazier. And how they’re both in agreement about this not being the way to get you back into her affections.”
Gus spit out a stream of curses before growling at Max, “It wasn’t supposed to be like that. You were supposed to give her the space as an apology from our corporation—not from me. Now she probably thinks I’m trying to buy her again.”
And that was the last thing he wanted. He’d been reliving their last conversation over and over, ever since she slammed out of his life four weeks ago. He’d been so desperate to deny everything she’d accused him of that night, but in the cold truth of day, he couldn’t help but see just how badly he’d wronged her. She was right. About all of it. And all he wanted to do now was make it up to her somehow, with absolutely no strings attached.
“So no passcard needed. Good to hear,” his brother said.
“Max, do not come up here right now,” Gus snarled into the phone. “Mood I’m in, I will kick your ass as soon as you get off that elevator.”
Max snickered. “Doubt it, bro. Remember the last time we fought? After you tried to make moves on Pru?”
“Yeah, I do remember that,” Gus answered with a sneer. “You sucker punched me. And then Cole told me I’d lose my job if I gave you the beat down you deserved.”
“Oh, you’re going to regret saying that to me,” Max said, with a low laugh.
“Bring it,” Gus answered, welcoming the sound of an elevator dinging in the outer hallway.
The thought that he was being beyond irrational popped up in the back of his head as he threw the phone into his suit pocket and turned to meet the elevator with a balled fist. But he didn’t care. This had been his last chance to make things right with Cera, he thought, and Max had ruined it. And now he was more than ready to release some of the pent up rage he’d been carrying around since New Mexico—
But he stopped short, his fisted hands unclenching when he saw the person now standing in his doorway.
“Cera,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
Cera didn’t answer. Just stepped into the office and looked around. Both her eyes and her body carefully avoided coming within six feet of him as he watched her take in the large corner office space.
“More glass walls,” she said with a murmur when her eyes landed on the floor to ceiling windows, “But at least it’s fully furnished.”
Gus’s heart ached with the need to have her look at him. He couldn’t believe how much he wanted her eyes now that she was no longer blindfolded.
“So this is the hotel you came here to build? The reason you came to Miami?” Still carefully avoiding any eye contact whatsoever with him, she moved over to the window behind his desk and took in the view.
The vista beyond was cast in orange by the setting sun, but the sun wasn’t so low that she couldn’t see what he’d been looking at every day since returning to this office.
“Yeah,” he said, answering her questions several beats after they’d been asked. He wasn’t sure why she was asking them, but he was happy enough just to have her here, talking to him. “This one’s going to be way bigger than the Sorley New Orleans. And with more amenities, since we can’t offer gambling here. But we’ve already got a lot of buzz going for the club we’re building on the bottom floor, and a DJ residency line-up that will blow minds. So we’re pretty confident about our chances, even in a competitive market like Miami. And we’re working on a few other projects around the city, so Miami will definitely be my home base for the next few years.”
He was rambling. He knew he was rambling. But he wanted her to know everything now. Everything he’d never told her. What he did for a living. That he wouldn’t be leaving Miami anytime soon.
However, her face didn’t register any reaction to his words. She just kept staring at the white stone structure in the distance. “How did you think that was going to work out when you sent me the link to that estate back in July? You here and me there? If I’d taken you up on your August offer, would you just have kept on coming into work right up the street from me without telling me who you really were?”
He came to stand next to her at the window.
Max’s rental car was gone now, he noticed. His brother’s way of doing things. Like the office furniture, he’d delivered the package. Now it was up to him to decide what to do with her.
But the truth wasn’t pretty. And he had to take a deep breath before admitting, “I had a vague plan brewing. A scholarship in September. Tablets for the whole school in October. Student Emergency Fund in November. I’ve got a whole list going through next year on my computer.”
He turned to face her then, leaning one shoulder against the glass, so he could see her reaction to his confession.
But she just continued to stare out the window, face as neutral as it had been when she walked in.
“So you were just going to keep bribing me,” she said, voice dull. “For how long?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “For as long as it took.”
“Took for what?”
He hesitated, but in the end, he manned up. Took a resigned breath and answered the question as best he could. “For you to love me.”
A bitter shadow clouded her face. “That didn’t take long,” she huffed. “I got so swept up in my little girl fantasies, I think I was halfway in love with you by the end of June.”
“No, not love me like that,” he answered, voice quiet as a prayer. “I wanted you to love me like I love you. Like I’ve always loved you, even when I didn’t want to. Absolutely and without condition.”
She flinched, glancing at him—but only for a second before her eyes returned to the scene outside. “That’s crazy. A crazy plan, and a crazy thing to say to me now.”
“I know it is,” Gus answered, refusing to look away from her despite her shaming words. “But you asked me for the truth and that’s what I’m telling you. I love you. From the first moment I saw you fifteen years ago, I’ve loved you. And I never was able to fall out of love with you, baby. Maybe that makes me crazy, but I’m not going to lie to you anymore. Not about anything. And especially not about how I feel about you.”
Now and only now did she turn to face him, meeting his soft eyes with a furious look. “You wanted me to love you?” she asked, her voice shaking with incredulity. “But you didn’t want me to touch you! Wouldn’t let me see you! Wouldn’t let me know you!”
“Yes, that’s true,” he agreed. “Because I knew how it would go if I did. If you realized who I was. Exactly like what went down in New Mexico, except sooner. And I didn’t want that for us, baby. I wanted us to be together and that was the only way we could.”
“But we weren’t really together, were we?” she pointed out, rolling her neck. “You touched me. You saw me. You knew everything about me. But you barely let me skim the surface of who you really are.”
He inclined his head, really thinking about her words. “You’re right, that wasn’t fair,” he admitted.
Then he took the biggest gamble of his life. “So let’s rectify that now, baby.”
Holding her gaze in his, he took off his jacket and let it drop to the floor. Then he slowly unbuttoned his shirt. The light blue material fell open, revealing his scar under the office’s bright light. He let her get a good look at it, before taking off his shirt, too. Then his pants. Then everything else, until he was standing naked before her.
“Come on, baby,” he whispered. “Come on over here and touch me if that’s what you want.”
24
“Come on over here and touch me if that’s what you want.”
Cera’s heart froze in her chest, the anger that had fueled her every word sputtering out of her for sheer lack of oxygen.
It was hard to be angry. Hard to think of much of anything, with Gus standing naked in front of her.
At five-foot-eight, she considered herself pretty tall, but Gus towered over her. Making it impossible to look away as she took in the miles of bronzed skin stretched tight over rock hard muscles, his rippled abdomen, two large thighs, heavily ridged with muscles, and bulging between them…
A cock so thick and long, she was almost glad for the blindfold. Because she’d definitely still be a virgin if she’d seen that thing before impaling herself on it.
She quickly raised her eyes, concentrating on the only thin thing on his entire body. The scar on his chest.
But then the scar moved closer. Gus was moving toward her, she realized with a gulp. Coming closer in all his naked glory.
“Go on,” his voice said somewhere above the top of her head. “Touch it.”
Touch his scar…he actually wanted her to touch it now. Wit
hout any conscious decision on her part, her fingers ran down the slightly puckered line. She touched him there, finding it hard to believe that a part of the brother she’d lost fifteen years ago was now beating inside this man’s chest.
But then she stopped at the bottom. Not knowing where her hand should go now that she’d reached the end of the scar.
“Keep going,” she heard him say quietly.
She stood there, frozen with indecision.
But not for long. His much larger hand covered hers. With breathless fascination, she watched as both their hands slid down his washboard abs until they covered the hard, thick length below.
And God help her, even when Gus’s hand lifted, she could not pull her own away from the thing pulsing beneath her palm.
“You wanted to know me. Now you do,” he said, his Latin-flavored Southern accent harsh with lust. “That’s what you do to me, baby. Just looking at you does that to me. From the first moment I saw you. You own me, baby. And this body is yours now. Do whatever you want with it.”
Something came loose inside of her. The tight anger inside her chest giving away to another kind of tightness below. Her core clenching at the thought of being able to do whatever she wanted…
Her hand wrapped around his long length. It almost seemed to be humming with need, begging her to…
She gave it one exploratory pull, her palm moving under the heavy ridge below. Pre-cum oozed out of the tip. And her mouth watered at the thought of tasting it. Of taking him with her mouth, like he’d done to her on so many occasions, but had stopped her from doing the one time she tried.
But she was the one in control now. He’d said so himself.
She lowered to her knees in front of him. Never taking her eyes off his cock. It oozed more pre-cum, seemingly at just the thought of what she was about to do to it.
Gus let out a hoarse shout when her mouth closed around him. And when she lifted her eyes, she saw that his head was thrown back.
His for the Summer: 50 Loving States, Florida Page 12