by Sienna Mynx
Susan blinked rapidly, then laughed. “What?”
“Diego.”
“Diego?”
“That’s his name. He’s all I can think about Susan,” She lifted her head and the diamonds in her ears made Susan gasp.
“Girl let me see!” Susan marched over and gripped her chin turning her face upward. She appeared too stunned for words.
“It’s a gift. From him.”
“These are what… three carats? Jeesh girl we should have them on display they’re so beautiful.”
“I know.” She tore her face away. “I’m giving them back. I would never keep them. He insisted and when he does, I get weak. It’s stupid, I barely know the man. And now… I can’t stop thinking of him. I, um, I’m taking off the rest of the week.” Marcella sucked in a tight breath. “I’m going to be spending the night with him at his place.”
Susan just stood there staring. “Are you for real? We got to deal with Katchner.”
“I’ll deal with him soon enough. I already called Garrett and he’s okay with it. I need you to feed Ginger, and watch over things.”
Marcella rose from her chair and reached for her sweater.
“What’s going on with you?” Susan’s tone lowered with concern. “I mean I know you like him but you’re going to go stay with him? Seriously? Blow off work and just what? Be with him?”
“He’s…” Marcella stopped. “I can’t explain it. It’s just a few days. We’re going to spend more time together. I’ll be home Sunday. I’ve got to go.” She picked up her purse. When Susan called out to her in a voice tight with worry, she managed to flash a confident smile. “I’m doing what you said I should, going with the moment.”
Susan nodded. “Right. The moment. Be careful. Let me meet this Casanova sweetie.”
“You will, and soon. I promise.”
Marcella parked in front of the beach house. Monday he asked her to stay a few days. He said he wanted to spend the day with her on the beach. It would give her a chance to get to know him. More importantly, it would give her an opportunity to be with him uninterrupted. Crazy as it sounded even to her, she could not refuse his request. Once out of the car she retrieved her garment bag and duffle, and then closed the doors.
When she looked up, a very handsome black man stepped out of the beach house. He wore sunglasses and a dark suit. His head lifted and he froze. Marcella paused. This man wasn’t the driver. Even behind the coffee colored lens of his sunglasses, he possessed an intense presence when his gaze focused solely on her. Susan would be all over him. She walked toward him and when she arrived at the door he stepped down, still he towered over her like Diego. Athletically built with broad shoulders and long legs in an expensively tailored suit, she couldn’t help but notice how beautiful his skin appeared under the waning sunlight. Brown as roasted chestnuts and evenly smooth over his strong features, his hair was tapered low through the crown of his head with a hint of a dark wave pattern. She swallowed. The stranger pressed his lips together and his gaze lowered. She felt his perusal as his eyes made a slow climb from her shoes, to her hips, her breasts, then her face. Christ who was he?
“Hi,” Marcella stammered.
“You must be Marcella?” he spoke in a low smooth voice.
She smiled, glad that Diego mentioned her. “I am.” she dropped her garment bag over her other arm and offered her hand. “I’m Diego’s friend.”
He took hold of her hand and brought it to his lips. “I’m Lance.”
“Nice to meet you, Lance.”
With a sly smirk and curt nod he lowered her hand.
“Is Diego inside?”
“He is.” Lance looked back to the door then to her. “Again, nice to meet you Marcella,” he said then stepped around her toward the sleek black sports car parked in the driveway. Marcella watched him go. Lance never turned back to her.
Diego’s friend or business partner? Marcella couldn’t be sure. The man certainly left an impression. Again her mind switched to Susan and how she’d be all over the man. She smiled, and went inside, thinking to ask Diego more about the mystery man. Finally, she met someone connected to him. Halfway through the living room Diego surprised her from behind. Her bags dropped with a hard thud and her feet left the ground. He swept her up in his arms like a bride.
“Oh my God! Diego, put me down.”
“Hello beautiful,” he kissed away her objections. Her arms naturally rose and circled his neck. “I’m glad you came.”
“Me too,” she said a bit breathless. Lance temporarily forgotten, she kissed him hard, giggling. He squeezed her to him then lifted her in his arms and carried her toward the stairs.
Diego rested on his back, her body pressed to his, both of them hot and slickly coated in sex and sweat. Their rhythmic breathing did little to keep pace with their racing hearts. Content, they lay in silence. Marcella exhaled a satisfied sigh and snuggled him. Her arm slipping around his chest, her sex pressed into his thigh with her right leg thrown over his. It felt so right, to be this close to him, especially after the passion between them.
“I have a question?”
“Mmm?”
“Who was that man?”
“What man, there is no man but me.”
She had to smile over his clipped response. She could drive a steam engine train through his ego it was so big. She listened to the mellow beat of his heart. It never changed in pitch or rhythm. Her head lifted from his chest and she met his gaze. “The man leaving when I arrived, who was he?”
“He works for me. He is no one.”
“Oh, okay.” She relaxed. What was the big deal? He worked for him is all he had to say? What a stupid answer. “What does he do?” she asked.
Diego ran his hand up and down her back. His touch caused her to press her sex harder into his thigh to stay the achy burn she had for him. Silently she prayed he didn’t want another round. She didn’t think she could take it.
“Diego?”
“Did he say something to you?” he asked.
Her brow rose to the odd note of concern in his tone. “Yes, he spoke. He knew my name.”
“I can’t stop talking about you,” Diego relaxed and gave her a shy smile. It looked almost childlike. Was he blushing?
Marcella blinked at him. “Really? You can’t?”
“No, I look at my watch.” He reached for the antique timepiece he always carried. She lifted on her elbow to see it. He rubbed his thumb over the surface. “I look at the time and I think of you, when I will see you again, touch you, taste you. Do you think of me?”
“Ah… yes, I um, I do.”
Diego nodded satisfied. He put the watch out of her reach.
“Come here.”
She moved up him and rolled on top. Darn it he was rock hard again! She touched his jaw with the tip of her finger then traced it to his bottom lip. The hairs of his mustache were so silky and thin over his upper lip they were barely seen. She ran her finger over the softness admiringly. He eased his hands under the blanket and cupped both halves of her ass.
“I’m glad you decided to stay and let me have you, because you’re mine Marcella. I like this. You please me. It will be just us.”
“My friends are going to think that I made you up. They haven’t met you.”
He pulled her head down to his and captured her mouth swallowing her words. She gasped in his kiss over his forceful nature, then again succumbed to the seductive pull his flickering tongue had once it entered her mouth. Diego flipped her on the bed and pinned her beneath him.
“Why can’t I get enough of you Marcella?”
She smiled. “Mmm, I dunno.”
He hesitated to speak. His growing cock pressed between her inner folds. “It is risky, you are risky, but I can’t help myself.”
“Diego?”
This time the kiss was hard and passionless. She pushed at his chest then he entered her and she shuddered in acceptance. Her hips worked under his plunging to help ease him in, and her eyes
rolled to whites under her fluttering lashes. His broken pleas for more of her hauntingly clear in her ear.
Thursday –
Marcella submerged and the warm wave forced her under with such force she nearly reached the ocean floor. The undertow dragged her legs beneath her into the current, and pressure pounded her chest and back, her lungs burned. Marcella gave two, then three strokes and broke through the calm rolling tide, having slipped further back into the sea.
Diego remained on the shore. Marcella swam for him, before another wave came. This time she was ready. It washed over her driving her down. Her feet connected with sand and shells and she swam up against the current, breaking through the rolling waves of foam. The wind was strong. The chill dried her skin as she ran out to the shore topless. Tracing her hands back to smooth down her wavy wet hair she grinned at him. His beach had a pleasant seclusion thanks to the season. “No one would go for a swim in this temperature Marcella,” he said when she stripped and ran toward the water.
The last days of winter gave the town of Port Delgado temperatures of high fifties when the skies were clear of rain clouds. “Awe, of course they would if they saw this ocean. The day’s beautiful. Like you, now c’mon and let’s have some fun!” She called back to him. Of course she ventured the sea alone. But he remained on the shore, watchful, approaching when she took too long to emerge from the waves.
Diego now stood on their yellow and green beach blanket, which was held in place by a picnic basket and a large peppermint, striped umbrella. He wore khaki linen pants rolled up to his claves and a long white loose linen shirt. His dark sunglasses covered his eyes and even in this temperature the man seemed to tan more. Though he complained of the temperature he dressed as if they were vacationing on South Beach.
She grinned and walked out of the water, in her bikini bottoms. She’d brought one over to his place for the indoor Jacuzzi. Even she didn’t imagine running out into the ocean in the middle of February.
“You will catch a cold. I told you not to go in the water, you are so stubborn,” he said wrapping her up in a towel.
“I love it though. The water isn’t cold. Besides, admit it, you like seeing me in my skivvies.” she said her teeth chattering.
He held her close trying to warm her up. “Let’s go back in. You’re shivering.”
“You care? What about the night on your deck? I was shivering then and you weren’t concerned,” she asked searching his eyes.
“Of course I care, I don’t want you sick. I never want you harmed.”
“Then make me happy Diego.”
His head lifted. She could see the shadow of his eyes behind the dark lens of his sunglasses. “Name it nena, what do you wish for?”
“Let’s swim together.”
“Marcella, it’s fifty degrees out, we should…”
“It’s seventy degrees in the ocean. Make love to me… in the sea…don’t you want to?” she pushed away from him, the towel dropping from her shoulders. The harsher winds lifted it from the sand and blew it along the shore. She stepped back grinning.
Diego shook his head and watched her. He wished he could understand her courage, her strength. He knew little of it from the women in his life, in particular his mother. Thanks to his wretched mother’s influence he trusted no one, let alone beauties like Marcella. But she touched him, in soft unexpected ways. He remained unable to deny her anything. He removed his sunglasses and tossed them. He began to undo the buttons of his shirt. The cold winds tossed tiny grains of sand in his eyes. He squinted without the cover of his sunglasses to keep her in his line of sight. She ran out into the water, the round fullness of her ass bouncing and her slender toned legs disappearing into the blue waters.
Undressed, his flesh prickled with newly formed goose bumps. Diego wanted to laugh. His Marcella had been right. The cold is invigorating.
He went after her. His new addiction. His Marcella.
Friday –
“Here, lift your head.”
Marcella sneezed. She opened her eyes, feeling achy all over. Diego sat on the edge of the bed with a tray. He dipped in the spoon and blew over the soup. Her throat was itchy and raw and her nose runny. “Marcella, take it.”
She obeyed. The hot soup coated her tongue and soothed the soreness of her throat as it went down. Her nasal passages cleared and she inhaled.
“I will make you well,” he said with a determined look on his face.
“I’m not a ‘U type’ of girl. I’ve taken care of myself plenty.” She coughed. Her fever left her shaking under the covers down to the soles of her feet.
“I should have never let you go into the sea. Eat, rest.”
Marcella stared up at him, and she realized those tendrils of desire had turned into thick cables that anchored her heart to his. She had fallen for the man, and it would be hard to resist him. And even now, as he fed her soup and stroked away her fever she had to admit, she knew nothing about him. Only the ways he made her feel.
Diego leaned in and kissed her between the brow. “Better?”
Marcella sunk back into her pillows. “Better,” she said softly.
Chapter Ten
The day was unusually busy. From her office she heard the soft chatter mixed with laughter. New and returning customers strolled through the gallery thanks to the Egyptian funerary she acquired from Juan Juarez. For all her hard work, planning, and praying, the payoff had been delayed thanks to her blasted head cold. She became a prisoner of her own misery behind her desk.
Marcella sniffed. She picked up her herbal green tea, taking a pained sip. It was bland, in need of honey and some lemon but the heat soothed her throat. She reclined just a little in her office chair, and raised her wrist. The glare stung her weepy eyes with color beams radiating rays of sunlight off of the circling diamonds along the bezel of her watch. Exhausted, she checked the time. For five days and four nights Diego whispered for her, reached for her, and moved in on her whenever he pleased. Then he enticed her to demonstrate the naughty thoughts that filled her mind, reenacting every sinful detail. It had become their game and Marcella liked playing.
However, the fun paused when she took ill. Though she lapsed in and out of consciousness, he never strayed from her side. She didn’t have to ask for anything. Not since she left home and the care of her mother had she been so adored and cared for. Marcella loved when he spoke to her in Spanish, a mix of words she could and could not understand. The sponge baths he gave when her fever had reduced her to chills and incoherent rambling, were delightful. Every tender moment was real.
Dropping her head back in the chair, she lowered the mug of lukewarm tea, which had cooled considerably during her daydreaming. She prayed for a healing. Shouldn’t she be better now? She tried to let her sinuses drain without swallowing by leaning back in her chair. It hurt to swallow. She resisted the urge to rub the itch and sting from her eyes. Diego had warned her. She should have stayed in today as well. Stubbornly she held out hope that the worst of it had passed.
“You look like shit.”
Her lids sagged. Her eyes, raw and puffy, leaked tears of fatigue. They parted then closed again. She yawned and groaned feeling achy all over. “I feel like shit.”
“Sorry, girl. It’s really busy downstairs. We need you.”
“I know, Susan. I’m just… I need a minute. Okay?”
“You still sick?”
Marcella sneezed, covering her mouth and nose. Plucking a Kleenex, she tended to the messy mucus. “Yeah, sick.”
“You got in so late last night I didn’t see you, and then you were sleeping so hard I didn’t want to wake you.” Susan walked around the desk, the scent of her perfume possibly left a fragrant trail that Marcella would have recognized as her own pirated signature fragrance if it weren’t for her stuffy nose.
Susan placed her hand to Marcella’s forehead. “Well, you don’t have a fever, so you aren’t contagious.”
“Good, cause I need to get over this, and soon. I ca
n’t afford to be sick. So much crap to catch up on. Look at my desk.”
“Anybody deserves a few days off, it’s you, Marcella.”
“Yeah right,” Marcella mumbled, a blush of guilt stained her cheeks. “How are things down there? Customers buying?” she asked.
“Sold the Assyrian Mother Goddess statue this morning.” Susan backed away. She gave her a weak smile then moved on.
“This thing with Bailey is paying off. Now is the time to strike and woo Edward Katchner. I know he’d prefer our gallery than the museum. I should have dealt with this sooner, Susan. I swear I don’t know where my head has been.”