by Lynn LaFleur
He knelt beside her before his jacket and sweater had time to hit the floor. “Hell no, I’m putting my mouth where your treasure is.” With that, he pushed her thighs apart and lowered his mouth to her pussy.
She was already wet and swollen. Rico inhaled deeply of her scent. He loved the fragrance of her arousal. Slowly he teased her clit with the tip of his tongue. Like Ruskie and the kitten, he marked her as his own.
Mary Beth buried her hands in his hair and held his head close to her. He licked her folds in slow and gentle circles. He heard her breathing quicken. Her fingers wound tighter in his hair. The more her desire grew, the more he teased. She squirmed beneath him, rising up on her heels and spreading her legs wider.
“Oh god, that feels so good!” She pushed on his shoulders. “I need you inside me, Rico, now.”
“Not yet. Not until you come at least once first.” He spread her lips with his thumbs and speared his tongue into her slit.
She arched her back and pulled his hair. He didn’t care. She could pull out every hair on his head as long as she came.
Rico wet his thumb with her juices and circled her anus. Mary Beth spread her legs another inch. He concentrated on her clit—licking, sucking, nipping—as he worked his thumb inside her ass.
A keening moan signaled the start of her climax. She bucked her hips as he pushed his thumb all the way into her ass and suckled her clit.
“Rico!”
Her anus contracted around his thumb. He continued to softly lick her folds until her body relaxed. When she finally released the death grip on his hair, he rose to his knees and unfastened his jeans.
“Turn over, babe.”
She obeyed him instantly, rising to her knees and spreading them wide. Rico didn’t take the time to remove his shorts. He couldn’t wait any longer to be inside her. He tugged down the front of his underwear and let his cock spring free. He slipped one arm beneath her, lifted her and drove his shaft into her pussy with one thrust.
Tight, wet heat. He almost came the moment he entered her. He took a breath and rested his forehead on Mary Beth’s shoulder—a time-out to gain control. He had only tonight—now—to show Mary Beth no other man would ever satisfy her. He couldn’t do that by coming too soon. Not until she’d come for him over and again.
Her nails dug into his thigh. “Why are you stopping? Is something wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I want to touch every inch of you, inside and out.”
“Oh, Rico, that’s what I want too—every inch of you.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to hurt you. That I’ll be too rough.”
Her chuckle, low and throaty, almost sent him over the edge. “You won’t hurt me, Rico. You know I like it a little rough.”
Her words made him groan. Later, he and Mary Beth would make love to music as soft as the clouds. Now, he needed to fuck her slick pussy, rough and fast.
He began to pump his hips, driving his cock deep inside her. “Raise up a little. Yeah, like that.”
Her whimpers urged him to thrust even faster. Soon he was gripping her waist and pounding his shaft into her pussy so hard, he pushed her up against the headboard. Mary Beth braced her hands against it and spread her legs farther.
Raw. Earthy. Incredibly hot. All those words came to Rico’s mind to describe their fucking. His orgasm built in the base of his spine and grabbed his balls. He fought it, trying to draw it out as long as possible. He wanted Mary Beth to come again before he did.
He licked his thumb and pushed it into her ass.
The walls of her pussy milked his shaft. The sensation urged him toward his own release. Rico groaned as his climax tightened his balls. With a final lunge into her wet heat, he came deep inside her.
Despite a powerful orgasm, his cock remained hard. He withdrew his shaft from her body. “Roll over, babe.” He took both her wrists in one hand and held them over her head. Then he surged into her again.
Her eyes were wide and tear-filled. They sparkled like sapphires.
“You’re crying. Did I hurt—”
She shook her head. “Hurt me? Oh god no. You took me someplace I’ve never been.”
Rico knew then he’d never understand women. When did tears become a good thing? He stared into Mary Beth’s eyes as he pounded his shaft into her over and over. Tears slowly fell from the corners of her eyes. He licked each tear away from her temples, then covered her mouth with his. Parting his lips, he accepted the play of her tongue. He nipped it lightly, then sucked it farther into his mouth.
Mary Beth responded with a loud moan. She arched her back and wrapped her legs around his hips. Rico released one of her wrists and slipped his hand beneath her bottom. He lifted her higher and thrust even deeper while he trailed kisses up her neck to her ear. “Come for me, babe. I need to feel you come again.”
He’d barely said the words when her body began to shudder from her third orgasm. Rico’s own climax raced through his body. Holding her tightly, he rode the wave with her.
He didn’t want to open his eyes. An explosive orgasm with the woman he loved, dreamt about both awake and asleep, meant he’d died and gone to heaven.
Mary Beth was the first to break the spell. She unwrapped her legs from around his waist. “Wow.”
“Wow, back atcha,” he answered. “You’re amazing.”
She slid her hands down to his behind and squeezed his cheeks. “You’re not so bad yourself, sailor.”
He nuzzled her neck. “We’re good together, aren’t we?”
“Hoo-boy. Think we just proved that.”
Rico reluctantly pulled out and rolled on his back. Mary Beth wrapped one arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder.
Content to simply hold her, Rico stroked her back. “Are you cold? I can light the kindling, throw on a log.”
“Or we can crawl under the covers.”
“That’s easy.”
“Or…” She began by drawing light little circles on his chest and working her way down.
“I don’t think I can… Oh jeez, Mary Beth… Holy shit!”
Chapter Fourteen
“If you believe in a higher power, Rico, start praying.” Synda stood on the walkway between the kitchen and the storage shed. Sweater drawn close to protect her from a gust of wind reeking with the smell of snow, she frowned at the darkening sky. “That’s all we need—a hundred prima donnas marooned in our dining room by a snowstorm.”
Inside, Rico turned to Leandra and shrugged, his face a question mark. “Who’s she talking about?”
“Them.” Leandra handed him the list of RSVPs for Marty’s party. “You don’t strike me as starstruck, but if you are, get over it…quick.”
“Holy shit!” From among a hundred or so guests who’d phoned, texted or emailed their acceptance, Rico recognized at least a third—Clooney, Nicholson, P Diddy, A Rod, Leno—the list went on with the names of actors, athletes, comedians, producers and directors. All with huge dollar signs after their names. The second page contained names he didn’t recognize and couldn’t pronounce—Asian, Arabic, Russian. Dinner promised to be a frickin’ United Nations.
Leandra pointed to names on the list. “A couple of these guys are driving up from the Bay Area. Most are flying in, to Reno and Lake Tahoe. Marty’s putting them up in suites at the Towers, but they still have to get here and back. The last thing we need is CalTrans closing Highway 80 in both directions at the summit.”
Throughout the day, delivery trucks had pulled up to the front or around back to unload crates packed in dry ice, glass and metal containers, and cases of wine, champagne and liquor.
Trinidad had seen to every detail, including faxing over a floor plan and a seating chart. Rico also found several boxes waiting on the porch when he got home from Mary Beth’s this morning.
“Apparently he’s feeling very patriotic,” Leandra said once they’d unpacked boxfuls of tablecloths and napkins Marty had sent up from the city. All red, white and blue. “He doesn’t wa
nt that last box opened until just before the guests arrive. It’s some kind of surprise.”
The box, about two feet square, sat at the foot of the bar.
“I can’t imagine what it is. But let’s move it into one of the alcoves. The readers aren’t working tonight.”
By four, they’d changed the linens and laid flatware, crystal and charger plates at each place. The florist arrived with the centerpieces and stayed to help. Now they dealt with the last task, distributing the engraved place cards according to the seating chart.
Rico tagged along behind Leandra while she walked from table to table. She held a clipboard and ticked the names off the list as Rico positioned the place cards according to Marty’s precise directions.
“Guy’s a little anal for a stunt man.”
“How long do you think a stunt guy would last if he weren’t? Would you jump off a ten-story building if you didn’t have a good grasp of physics?”
Rico snorted. “I wouldn’t jump off a ten-story building without at least three parachutes. Those guys are nuts.”
Leandra tilted her head to one side. “Maybe that’s why women find Marty so attractive, that little hint of lunacy along with those sexy Latin looks, and—”
He cut her off. “And piles of money.”
“That, too.” She moved to the next table. “Come on, we’re almost done.”
Marty had also requested a wireless mike and asked Leandra to hold on to it until he asked for it. She’d tucked it in the top drawer of the host’s stand. “Two things,” she said to Rico. “There’s a package of batteries and the mike in the drawer of my stand. Put in the new batteries, then grab that last jacket and shirt from the coat rack. I pinned your name to it.”
He’d just set Mary Beth’s place card between Marty’s and his daughter Eve’s. Seeing her sitting next to the old fart might kill him, but it was better than sitting in his cabin wondering what was going on. “I’m on it.”
She put her free arm around his waist and hugged him. “Marty’s such an idiot. He knows Synda and I have a million things to do to make sure everything goes as planned. So what does he do? Invites us as guests. I’d rather not, but no is never an option with Marty.”
Rico didn’t want to go there. He and Mary Beth had spent the last two nights together making incredible love, sharing stories and getting to know everything they could about each other. He even admitted Ruskie and the kittens were starting to grow on him.
Every minute he was with Mary Beth, he loved her more. He saw she was changing too. He’d left this morning, hopes soaring higher than ever.
But they both knew, no matter how much Mary Beth denied it, Marty Trinidad still stood between them.
“Tonight we’re paying your hourly rate and a share of the gratuity. Marty told us to add forty percent to the tab.”
“Hey, stop it. With all you’ve done for me, you don’t—”
“Rico, don’t sell yourself short,” she scolded. “Syn and I are so lucky to have you as part of our family.” She hugged him again. “Go get ready. You have about twenty minutes to shave, shower and change.”
“You’re sure we’re done?”
“I’m following right behind you.”
*
The first guest arrived only minutes after Rico came back on the floor wearing the uniform of the day—dark blue slacks, a white dress shirt and a red jacket. Fine if it were the Fourth of July and not November eighteenth.
The champagne corks starting popping with the first guest.
“Oh, look, Rico, there’s M.B. Her dress is amazing.”
He turned to the door, where Mary Beth stood beside Trinidad, her left arm looped through his right.
She wore her red hair up, with a loose tendril on each side framing her face, and showing off her lovely ivory neck. She wore a dark green leather dress with a slashed neckline in the shape of the letter Z. It exposed parts of her creamy flesh that Rico thought only he had the right to see. The hem, a slashed Z in the opposite direction, showed way too much thigh for him too, but as Leandra had exclaimed, made Mary Beth look amazing. And hot. His cock immediately stirred. He was glad he stood at the host’s stand, until he could breathe deeply enough to quell his body’s reaction.
The hem ended several inches above her knees. She had slender legs, shapely and strong from running. In the spiky, strapped sandals she wore tonight, they looked like they’d been sculpted.
He sucked in a deep breath. He didn’t want to share her with anyone.
When he’d left her this morning, she was raiding her closet and moaning that she had nothing to wear tonight. He felt an unpleasant stirring in the pit of his stomach. Had that dress been a gift from Marty Trinidad too?
“That’s Eve, Marty’s daughter,” Leandra said about the woman who stood on the other side of Marty. She looked a few years older than Mary Beth, and several inches taller.
“Whoa.”
At six feet, Eve Trinidad met her father eye to eye. She had his dark skin and hair, and eyes an incredible shade of bluish-green, like Russian amazonite. Her dress looked completely different than Mary Beth’s, but he saw something similar in the way it flowed from her shoulders to a few inches below her crotch.
No one else seemed to notice, but to Rico, she looked like she was posing, as if she expected photographers to jump out of the wings and snap her picture.
“Eve was a runway model until her late twenties,” Leandra said. “She owns a boutique in San Francisco now, Eve’s Apple. She carries only her own designs. Each garment is an exclusive. I’m sure she designed Mary Beth’s dress too.”
Rico’s heart and hope crumbled. Not only was Marty Trinidad rich, successful, and in Leandra’s words, had “sexy Latin looks”, his daughter designed clothes that made every head in the room turn.
How could he possibly compete with them?
*
By Marty’s precise schedule, the waitstaff served the salads at seven. Rico and Leandra were still coaxing the guests to take their seats at seven fifteen. A truckload of Cristal champagne, at three hundred and ninety-eight dollars a bottle, had warmed the crowd, along with the caviar, raw oysters, and lobster everything.
Synda and Leandra slipped into their seats at the table next to Marty’s, while Rico and four of the regular waitstaff and two from the Tahoe Towers served a light Sauvignon Blanc to complement the plates of green stuff that looked like a pile of weeds topped with tomatoes and anchovies. Not anything he cared to eat.
He’d never tasted Beef Wellington, nor sipped Châteauneuf-du-Pape. He wouldn’t tonight either, but if it tasted even half as good as it smelled, he would have gladly chowed down. Synda and her crew had made individual Wellingtons for each guest, a feat the more seasoned waiters found amazing. The guests ate with gusto. The din grew louder as the wine flowed.
By eight thirty, the dinner dishes had been swept away, coffee and brandy served, and lazy Susans bearing platters of individually sized pastries placed on each table.
Rico stood at the far side of the room. He kept a sharp eye out for any signal from Leandra when he wasn’t watching Mary Beth and the other guests at Marty’s table.
He kept track of how much Marty drank. Not a lot, but as the evening wore on, Rico saw him lean more intimately toward Mary Beth, touch her. Even now, while she tried to eat one of Synda’s confections, he had stretched his arm across the back of her chair and slowly inched his hand onto her shoulder.
Rico’s blood boiled. Marty had seated Mary Beth between himself and his daughter, as if she were a member of the family, a spouse. Now his hand rested on her shoulder, his gold and diamonds sparkling in the candlelight. Until that moment, Rico didn’t know jealousy ached. The pain was real. All he had to do was ask his gut.
He stood with his fists balled, his feet planted, and his brain overriding the message from his heart to rush the table and threaten to break Marty’s arm if he ever touched Mary Beth again. In a New York minute, he’d toss the old fart out on his ass.
Leandra signaled him, breaking his trance and forcing him to look away. He walked to her table and stooped beside her chair.
“Remember the box you put in the alcove? Open it and set it on top of the host’s stand. Marty wants the mike now too.”
“Got it.”
Rico had tried to catch Mary Beth’s eye throughout the evening. Each time he did, she looked away quickly. That did nothing to ease the churning in his stomach. He wondered if something had happened between the time he left her this morning and tonight, something to change their relationship.
Trinidad’s her client, Rico told himself over and again. This is a party, but it’s a business meeting too. She was Marty’s attorney. Rico knew he’d have to learn to live with it if they had any future.
Rico moved swiftly and quietly. Still he heard the room quiet and felt the guests watching him. He set the open carton on top of the stand, pulled the mike out of the drawer and headed for Trinidad’s table.
“From what I hear, tonight’s Marty’s swan song,” Rico heard one of the guests saying to his table partner. “Going to leave his single days behind him.”
Rico slowed his step. Had he heard right? Did it mean what he thought it meant?
At Trinidad’s table, Rico watched him tug Mary Beth closer and whisper something into her ear. They both laughed until she saw Rico stood there. Immediately she stiffened and tried to pull away from Marty.
“Excuse me, Mr. Trinidad. Leandra said you wanted this now.”
Marty looked up at him as if he’d never seen him before. Long enough for Rico to see his eyes were glazed from too much champagne and wine. In his right hand, Marty held a snifter of brandy.
“Yeah, yeah, just put it down.”
Mary Beth still refused to look at him. Her face was flushed, probably from the wine, or from whatever Marty had just said to her. Rico fists tightened around the mike. “Do you know how to turn this on?”
Marty looked away from Mary Beth and let loose a bawdy laugh. “Don’t you worry about me, boy. I’ve never had trouble turning anything…” he paused and brushed one of the tendrils from Mary Beth’s cheek. “Or anyone on.” Then he laughed again.