by Cindy Dees
She glanced up. “Do you know what you’re ordering?”
He nodded. “I’m still deciding how I want my dessert, though.”
Her cheeks blossomed twin spots of pink and her chest lifted on a quick breath. Give the lady high marks for catching the subtleties of double entendre.
When the waiter came, Melina exchanged pleasantries with the guy in perfect Spanish before ordering effortlessly in the same tongue. Where did she learn to speak that tongue so well? John wished there’d been time to run a background check on her before they left Pirate Pete’s. But Brady Hathaway had been in such an all-fired hurry to hustle him out of there and away from that noose that he’d barely had time to collect his own gear, let alone outfit Melina.
John ordered a steak-rare-salad with vinaigrette, roasted local vegetables, no mushrooms, and a bottle of wine, lightly chilled. The waiter left, and John turned his attention back to his dinner companion. Time to do his own background check. In the guise of polite dinner conversation, of course.
“For an American, you speak Spanish exceptionally well.”
“I live in Mexico City.”
“What do you do there?”
Her eyes clouded over. “I work for a pharmaceutical company.”
She didn’t look particularly happy about it, though. They sipped their wine in silence while he considered her. He couldn’t come up with a single reason why a cosmopolitan woman like her needed to go on a trek in the Andes that was so obviously not for pleasure. What was she up to?
“Tell me about yourself,” he said casually as he refilled her wine glass.
She swirled the maroon liquid, staring down into it pensively. She looked up abruptly, her reverie broken. “Why don’t you tell me about me? You dodged my question earlier. Let’s see how your instincts stack up to mine.”
Fine. Maybe he could shake loose some information out of her by playing along. He sipped his wine, studying her until she began to fidget beneath his intent gaze.
Only then did he speak. “All right, here goes. My overall impression of you is that you’re generally frustrated.”
Her eyebrows shot straight up. Interesting reaction. He expanded on the impression. “You have a decent education that you’re either not using or don’t like how you’re using. You don’t like what you’re doing with your life. You’re not in a satisfying relationship, and perhaps that frustrates you most of all. And well it should. A beautiful, bright woman like you should expect to have a good man in her life.”
Storm clouds drifted into her gaze.
“Ahh,” he said in realization. “You thought you had a good man, didn’t you? But you misjudged him. One of those colossal errors in judgment you mentioned earlier.”
A startled look flashed through her expressive eyes. He didn’t even need to attempt to read her body language. Her eyes were an open book. He’d hit it spot on. How long ago had that ugly breakup been? She wasn’t giving him any clues on that. Could be recent; could be an old wound.
“What else?” she asked cautiously.
“You’re hiding something. Something you’re afraid of. You think it’ll shock me.” She opened her mouth, obviously to protest, but he cut her off with a quick wave of his hand. “For the record, you’re wrong. Nothing you could say or do will shock me. Believe me. I’ve seen it all.”
She downed a good half-glass of wine in a single gulp. Bingo. Score another direct hit for him.
“Anything else?” she asked, sounding almost afraid of what else he would say.
“Someone has almost got you convinced that you don’t deserve the best for yourself.”
She nearly dropped her glass of wine at that one. She fumbled the crystal vessel, recovered it, and downed another large gulp of liquid courage.
“Left to your own devices, I bet you like to have fun. To laugh.” He glanced down at where her crossed foot peeked out from under the linen tablecloth to his left. His mouth quirked up at one corner and he continued, “Any woman who’d wear a pair of shoes that sexy has a bit of a brazen streak lurking in her. Since you haven’t shown any hint of it to me…yet…I can only assume it means you’re a fiery one in the bedroom.”
Something flashed in her gaze that he hadn’t seen so far. Challenge. Humor. The very fire he spoke of. A silent dare to him to find out if he was right or not.
And something flickered deep in his gut in response. A spark he hadn’t felt since before…well, before.
Their meal came, and he found himself taking inordinate pleasure in watching Melina eat. She savored every bite as if it were her last. In turn, he found himself enjoying his succulent steak immensely. It was the first time he could remember actually tasting food in a while.
They finished the bottle of wine with their meal. Melina ordered chocolate mousse for dessert and he did the same. He was surprised when she added an expensive, aged armagnac to the order.
“You know brandy?” he asked in surprise.
She smiled. “I used to.”
“Some things you never forget.”
She nodded. “Like the taste of a fine cognac.”
“Or a fine woman,” he remarked lightly.
Whether it was the copious alcohol or embarrassment staining her cheeks that rosy color, he couldn’t tell.
The sommelier decanted the armagnac for them, and John watched Melina over his snifter while he let his palms bring the liqueur up to proper drinking temperature. She anticipated the taste of the fine beverage with almost sexual intensity. It had obviously been a long time since she drank cognac. What idiot of a man hadn’t been giving it to her nightly, just to watch her enjoy herself like this? It was what he would do if she were his.
She raised her snifter to him in silent toast and sipped the dark amber drink. Her eyes drifted closed, reveling in pleasure long denied and deeply savored.
The alcohol esters drifted up to his nose, carrying hints of vanilla, pepper, rose and chocolate. Wow. Give the woman an A+ for her taste in cognac. Delicately, he sipped the liqueur. It was smooth as silk, its round, Monlezun black oak flavor dripping in subtle finesse. He nodded at the waiter, who left the bottle upright on the table. After all, armagnac and cork didn’t mix.
In combination with the chocolate mousse, the fine brandy was sensational. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear Melina entered a near orgasmic state across the table from him. Hell, he wasn’t far behind.
They finished eating in silence and he signed for the meal, putting it on their room tab. He did a double take at the price tag on the bottle of brandy. That was more than he made in a month. And worth every penny.
“Shall we retire to our room?” he murmured.
She smiled, more relaxed than he’d seen her since they’d met. He held her chair for her. She stood up, snagging the bottle of armagnac on her way past the table. Her gait wasn’t a hundred percent steady as he draped his arm over her shoulders and guided her out of the restaurant. When in public in South America with a woman this beautiful, it was generally good policy to stake very obvious claim to her. It avoided no end of unpleasant encounters with single males on the prowl. Besides, the lady wasn’t complaining. In fact, she leaned into him as if she found his presence reassuring.
He led her into their room and she kicked off her shoes, dangling the bottle of armagnac from her right hand as she moved across the room in the dark toward the windows.
“Leave the lights off, okay?” she asked.
“Okay.” He followed her across the room, vividly aware of the bed looming on his left. He actually felt a little light-headed. With his body mass and metabolism, he usually held liquor like nobody’s business. But apparently, mixing a half bottle of wine with the potent brandy had gotten to him a little. Of course, he usually didn’t drink on top of the meds he was still taking for his back pain.
She stood in front of the window, silhouetted against the city lights and the night outside. The woman had a body made for sin. He stepped close behind her and looked over her shoulde
r.
“I never imagined I’d come to this place,” she murmured. “And certainly not under these circumstances.”
“What circumstances?”
She turned to face him, coming up short practically against his chest. “Hi there,” she giggled.
“I think you’re a little bit drunk.”
“I hope so. I wish I were a lot drunk.” And with that, she tipped up the brandy bottle and took a hefty swig.
“A couple more swallows like that and you will be,” he cautioned her.
“I hate drinking alone,” she announced. “Here. You have a drink.”
“I can’t afford to get drunk. I’m on a job.”
“There’s nothing to do until I call the number they gave me.”
She was almost more temptation than he could stand. But he had a responsibility to her. To the mission. To…hell, he didn’t know what to…That brandy was damned strong. He felt its effervescence rising to his head, scattering his thoughts.
“Drink.” She put the bottle to his mouth and tipped it up. He swallowed a big gulp before he could disarm her of the bottle.
“Easy, darlin’.”
“I want to kiss you,” she announced.
If she’d sounded a little more drunk, he’d have laughed off the announcement. But as it was, he thought he heard an undercurrent of real intent in her voice.
“I work for you. It’s totally inappropriate.”
She reached up, placing a soft hand on either side of his face. She looked deep into his eyes, her face wreathed in moonlight and shadows. “John, you’re fired. Now kiss me.”
He couldn’t help it. He laughed. And he was lost. Her laughter rose up to mingle with his, and she took the short step forward, closing the gap between them. She must’ve stood on tiptoe because her lips nuzzled his ear, sending lust roaring through him.
She murmured, “You think you can make love to me until I can’t stand up, huh? This I have to see.”
Holy-His brain tumbled like a fighter jet shot down out of the sky and falling wildly out of control toward oblivion. If he were going to be around long enough to have a real relationship with a woman like her, he’d never contemplate making love to her now. He’d get to know her better. Woo her. Let her know he cared about her for more than sex. After all, he was no raw boy intent only on getting a cheap lay.
But hell. As soon as he delivered her to wherever she was going, he was checking out for good. She seemed to be celebrating some sort of unspoken last hurrah, too. Why shouldn’t he take her up on the offer? She was an adult, after all. Not to mention beautiful. And sexy. And attracted to him. Hell, she’d initiated it.
How did that old saying go? He who hesitates is lost?While he hesitated, she reached up and pushed her dress’s spaghetti straps off her shoulders. And then, holy mother of God, she pushed her dress down to her waist. The scrap of lace that passed for her bra did more to reveal than cover, and all coherent thought deserted him. He stared, dumbfounded as she shimmied all the way out of the dress, revealing a-sweat popped out on his forehead-lacy thong that was possibly the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.
And he was well and truly lost.
She stepped out of the circle of black fabric on the floor and reached behind her back with both hands for her bra hooks. He stepped forward quickly, reaching around her to stop her hands. “Hey. That’s my job.”
She laughed up at him, “Well, get to it, then.”
“You can’t tell me what to do anymore. You fired me.”
“Please get to it, then?” She smiled up at him.
He bent his head down to capture all that unleashed joy suddenly bursting from within her. It was as if a floodgate had opened. She’d been so serious, so restrained. But now that she’d let loose, she’d completely let loose. This was the woman he’d sensed beneath her worried, drawn exterior. The real Melina.
But he’d been wrong about her. She wasn’t fiery in the bedroom. She was a volcano. In full eruption. Sex appeal not only rolled off her skin until it all but scalded him to touch her, it created a cloud of steam around them that incinerated him from the lungs out. He couldn’t get enough of her. He breathed her in, wrapping her in his arms, drawing her satin body up against his. Skin. He wanted to feel her skin with his. He reached for the top button of his shirt and she pushed his hands aside, all but ripping the garment off him.
His belt slithered from around his waist, and her hands were on his zipper in a trice. He sucked in his stomach, frantic to avoid her touch long enough to get naked before he totally lost control. “Slow down, honey. We’ve got all night.”
“It won’t be long enough for all I want to do with you,” she panted back.
He laughed, but even to his ears it sounded more like a possessive growl. Her palms slid around his waist to the small of his back, pressing him against her. Her breasts pushed impudently against his chest, and his erection pushed even more impudently against his zipper. And his control snapped.
He swept her off her feet and carried her over to the big bed. He followed her down to the cool sheets, lost in her sexual eruption. He had little recollection of how the rest of their clothes came off, but it involved her pushing him onto his back and crawling all over him, and his hands roaming all over her spectacular body while she moaned with need and pleasure.
They should use protection, but he wasn’t going to be around long enough to care about his own health. Nonetheless, out of respect for her, he drew back. “Hold on. I’ve got condoms in my pack.”
She pulled him back down to her. “Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“I insist. For your safety.”
She laughed bitterly. “I’m so not safe, you have no idea.”
His eyebrows shot up. She corrected hastily. “I don’t have any contagious diseases. I swear.” As he continued to hesitate, she added, “As I understand it, a person has to actually have sex now and then to get a sexually transmitted disease.”
That shot his eyebrows straight to his hair line. A woman of this passion, and she didn’t have sex on a frequent and regular basis? It was practically a crime!
Then she was kissing him again. And the lady could kiss like nobody’s business, her whole body getting into the act. She made a swear-to-God purring noise in the back of her throat. It rippled through him like the ground shock of an explosion, rocking him to his core.
And then her mouth was on his stomach, contracting his muscles so hard they hurt. He withstood it as long as he could, and then he surged up over her, returning the favor. Her flat stomach went soft and hard by turns under his mouth, her long fingernails raking through his hair in desperate pleasure.
And then she cried out sharply, her entire body trembling. The smell of her pleasure wrapped around him sweet and warm, brandy and chocolate. She drew him up the sinuous length of her body.
“Please, John. I want all of you. And you can have all of me in return.”
“I never could refuse a lady,” he murmured.
She all but sobbed in relief against him, her slender legs wrapping tightly around his hips. He sank down into her, body and soul, his gaze locked on hers as their bodies became one. Her eyes went wide with delight, fluttering closed on a sigh of pleasure he felt all the way to her core. Almost dizzy with the intensity of her reaction to him, he strained toward her, reaching higher and higher with her. His raw cries joined hers as they built a tsunami between them and rode it like a pair of death-defying big wave surfers.
She pushed on his shoulders, and he rolled onto his back, taking her with him to straddle him even more deeply. He groaned at the sensation. She rocked experimentally, then burst into laughter and rode him with abandon. He clenched his teeth, restraining himself by the thinnest thread.
“You’re killing me,” he ground out.
She threw her head back. “But what a way to go.”
His laughter mingled with hers as he sat up, gathering her in his arms, their bodies still one. She looped her
arms around his neck, gazing deep into his eyes. The laughter faded from her expression, and something…unnamed…passed between them.
A moment of naked and total understanding. Of having found a kindred soul. Of seeing past all the artifice, all the emotional defenses, all the petty facades, to the bare truth of one another. Had it been any other moment but this one, they might have recoiled, might have looked away, might have attempted to hide from each other. But as it was, he surged up deep within her and her internal muscles gripped him even more tightly.
He groaned, and she laughed, and the wave of their lovemaking came crashing down upon them, racing up onto shore, tumbling them in its joyous chaos, depositing them upon the sands of a pleasure so intense neither of them could move, let alone stand up. The wave retreated slowly, leaving in its wake a sparkling diamond mist of joy hanging in the sunlight of their souls.
He collapsed onto his back, dragging her down on top of him. She sprawled, satisfyingly boneless, across his insanely sated body. He tingled from the top of his spinning head to the burning soles of his feet.
“Wow,” she breathed. “Double wow.”
He chuckled. “Triple wow.”
She lifted her head languidly, and a shaft of moonlight caught her hair, turning it to spun gold as it draped over her shoulder to tickle his chest. “Wanna do that again?”
“And again, and again, and again.”
“Only four times? I thought you looked like you’re in better shape than that.”
He laughed up at her. “Don’t tempt me. The night is young.”
“Hah. I dare you.”
He narrowed his gaze in a mock scowl. “Thing is, I need you to be able to walk sometime in the next week. Sorry, honey, but I’m going to have to restrain myself.”
Her fingernails raked across his chest just hard enough to make him flinch. They trailed down his side and across his hip. “Restrain this,” she murmured.