“We can’t expect a boy toy to fill a man’s shoes—or my woman’s pussy. Can we, querida?”
God, what was it with the way he said those words? Rio DeSilva no doubt spoke English as his second language, yet he caressed the words in all the right places…had called her his woman! In such a romantic way, she yearned to believe it.
But the warm drizzle of hot fudge on her belly distracted her. Like liquid velvet, it drifted along her skin and pooled in her belly button until she was giggling and wriggling—
“Ah! I’m not finished!” he said. “If my creation slides off onto the floor, I’ll make you kneel and eat it—naked, without a spoon. Maybe with your hands tied behind your back.
“And then we’ll have to start all over,” he added solemnly, “so I can have mine.”
Ooooh, something yipped inside her when he talked that way! She was so tempted to sit up and lay him one across those wicked lips, just to defy his orders. Just to make him make her do as he’d said!
But Lola behaved herself. Practiced the patience of a saint as he shook that can of whipped cream so slowly, he must’ve been waiting for the damned ice cream to melt, so she’d still have to lap it up while he watched her.
Just the furtive spurt of air escaping the can, and then the squirt of thickened cream from the nozzle had her laughing. God, he was circling her boobs with it! Zigzagging around those mounds of ice cream, along that river of fudge sauce—down to her mound.
He drew a new pair of panties for her. A thong, really, the way he trailed the cool, white cream between her lips.
“Would you eat already?” she teased. “My God, Rio, there’s enough sundae here for—”
“For both of us to enjoy. One way or another.”
He knelt beside the table, his chestnut hair swinging around his face and his golden body taut.
“One for you,” he intoned, spooning some ice cream and fudge sauce up to her mouth. “And one for me.”
Lola closed her lips around the spoon, thinking how goofy this was—how it had been years since she’d allowed herself so much sugar and—
“One for you,” he repeated in that low, sexy voice. “And another for me.”
His mustache flickered as he swirled his ice cream around in his mouth, watching her. Her lush body was smeared with pale golden cream and umber fudge, with crinkly streams of Reddi-Wip melting down her pert breasts and into that rust-colored fur between her lovely legs.
That she was actually holding still for this amazed him.
But then, he’d seen Lola Wright in action for five days now and considered her a miracle in motion. A mixture of minx and Madonna who—
He was getting way ahead of himself.
“You’re a treat, Lola mia. Thank you for indulging my fantasies,” he murmured. “Thank you for playing along without fussing about fat and calories and—well, it’s a joy to be with someone who can play like a child and love like a woman. Who doesn’t give a damn about getting messy or—”
She shushed him with her finger. Held absolutely still, even when his next bite of ice cream slipped from his spoon back onto her stomach.
“Whoever she was,” Lola whispered, “she’s not here now.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. He nodded solemnly.
“And besides,” she teased him, “you’re going to lick every drop of this stuff off my body! And then you’re gonna kiss my cherry until I say you can stop. And then you’ll ram that banana inside me again, so I can squeeze the cream out of it. When you promise me a sundae, DeSilva, you damn well better deliver. Got it?”
Her wink made him laugh out loud, chasing the ghost of that other woman from the room.
“Whatever Lola wants,” he said, spooning up more of the melting ice cream. “Your wish is my command, sweet queen.”
It went quickly then, the fudge sauce he smeared with his spoon and the dribbles he lapped from her skin as she quivered from giggling so hard. Whipped cream caught on his mustache when he licked her midsection, and she smeared him up good when he stuck his tongue in her belly button and made her double up.
Deep, chocolate kisses…the abrasion of brickle bits when he sucked them from her nipples…the rumble of laughter in his chest as he assaulted her with lips that kissed up the remaining sludge, on his way down to where her legs waved in the air with her laughter.
Her toes curled inside her high-heeled sandals. If she lived forever, she’d never forget these sensations, or the man who’d brought them on.
DeSilva paused at the apex of her thighs. Even when her slit was white with melted cream, he could smell her sex. Her need to be refilled.
His spoon clattered to the floor. He scooped her into his arms and tossed her on the couch, his movements desperate. When his fingers parted her and he lapped the length of her slit, Lola cried out. She grabbed his ass, wanting that cock that bobbed just beyond her reach, so Rio swung his leg over.
When she took him in her mouth, the Spaniard let out a few words in his native tongue and then went at her, until they were both writhing out of their minds. Somehow they slid off the edge, and somehow Rio broke their fall.
And then he rolled them over on the rug, so she was on top. Confined between the table and couch, yet feeling freer than she’d ever known sex to be.
Lola dug the toes of her shoes into the rug as he brought her off with those powerful tongue strokes. And then she let DeSilva have it, payback for the way he’d so mercilessly made her his dessert. With his shaft in her hand, she concentrated on the warm, smooth tip of him, sucking hard, until his breathing got ragged.
He erupted in her mouth.
“I’ll get you for that!” he rasped. He rousted her up off the floor before she was ready, smacking her ass to steer her toward the bathroom.
“What?” she protested. “I gave you exactly what you wanted!”
“Twice! In one night!” he mocked, twisting the handle of the shower faucet. “I’m not twenty anymore, you know!”
“And your point would be?” She grabbed him again as warm water sprayed around them. He was limp, yes, but he was laughing like he was way happier than he’d been for a long time.
Rio kissed her, like some wild thing much younger than twenty getting his first taste of sex and wanting a big gulp of it. Then he held Lola against the wall of the shower, watching her breasts rise in rhythm with his as the rivulets of water ran in wet patterns on their skin. His fingers found her again, too, and he strummed her like a guitarist who truly loved his instrument.
“If I die from this tonight, will you miss me, Lola mia?”
It went straight for her heart, his question. But it wasn’t the time to answer it—not when he was revving her up, to see if she’d come again. Even in the steamy dimness, she could read that challenge in his eyes.
“If you die from this tonight, Rio mio,” she teased, “I’ll know you went out a happy man.”
“You’ve got that right. You’ve got it all right, querida.”
Her low chuckle echoed in the shower stall. “That’s why I’m…Miss Wright. Get it?”
Rio slipped his fingers inside her, making her arch backward against the wet wall. “Oh, I got it, Lola. So now I’m giving it back to you. If you ever think I’m finished, I’ll make you think again.”
Thinking was the furthest thing from her mind—if indeed she had anything left in her head. Her pussy was still sensitive from their previous escapades, so in a matter of moments she was yelping and thrusting against his palm again.
Absolutely amazing, how bad Rio DeSilva made her want it. Had she found a lover who could keep her coming back for more—or just coming—more times than she could count?
Lola only had enough strength to let this handsome man massage her body with lemon-scented soap, and then caress her all over to rinse it off. Her knees felt so rubbery, she didn’t fuss when he wrapped her in a towel and carried her to his bed.
Never had a man made her feel so special. So desirable. So crazy for sex.
She rolled closer to the night stand, squinting in the dimness. Wow, this kid was a cutie—and she flashed an endearing smile that looked awfully familiar, minus the mustache.
Lola’s heart dropped into her stomach. “Your daughter?” she wheezed.
God, had she fallen for a married one? A devoted daddy, no less?
Rio ran his finger fondly over the photograph nearest her head.
“My Chloe,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. “And after next week’s cruise, I’ll be leaving my post on the Aphrodite to become her full-time father. At last!”
A lump the size of Texas rose into Lola’s throat. “I see.”
29
Stupid, stupid, stupid! her inner voice chided. Why WOULDN’T a man like Rio be married? God, he could have any woman on the face of the earth!
“Her mother was an international model,” he went on softly. “A woman who stunned the fashion world with her beauty.”
See there? We’re not talking about some small-potatoes American businesswoman here.
Lola sat up, feeling drained and queazy and—well, used.
But Rio wasn’t finished rubbing her nose in it. He grabbed her shoulders, leaning down so she had no choice but to gaze into those golden eyes and see the love light there. Burning for someone else.
“I loved her madly,” he breathed. “But Katya didn’t want to be tied down. Didn’t tell me about our child, until I saw the two of them together in a magazine ad. I—I couldn’t miss the resemblance.”
Her eyes widened. The man who sat down on the edge of the bed was more than naked now. He’d exposed himself from the inside out. Lola’s hand went to his knee before she knew what it was doing there.
“Helluva way to find out.” She felt Rio shaking, as though the wound still oozed. “How old was Chloe then?”
“Almost three. Katya’s career was skyrocketing, and she’d refused my offers of marriage so many times—”
Rio paused to catch his breath, like a mountain climber unprepared for the higher elevation. “Motherhood had seemed the farthest thing from her mind before we broke it off. She’d always been so—so careful not to conceive.”
“But she had your baby. Wow.”
Lola closed her eyes to let out a long breath. What a roller coaster ride, coming out of a triple loop-de-loop of mind-blowing sex, into a discussion about international relations. And his child.
“I—I can see you’re crazy for Chloe,” she murmured. “And I can’t fault Katya’s taste in partners—can certainly understand how you got under her skin, so to speak.”
DeSilva’s eyes flashed sadly.
“I wasn’t the only habit Katya had that way. She was very young when she came into so much money and fame. The endless cycle of photo shoots and stress and cocaine…”
He paused to gaze at his little girl again. “More stress as she became more in demand, so more drugs bombarding a body she kept fashionably anorexic.
“Not even Wonder Woman could’ve survived such abuse,” he continued in a thin voice. “She was only twenty-eight.”
“I’m so sorry,” Lola squeaked.
She grabbed his hand, feeling bad about the tragedy this man still suffered—and yes, feeling bad for herself, too. She’d fallen for that ‘Whatever Lola Wants’ fantasy, forgetting that all these men vowing to make it come true had real lives off the ship. Same as she did.
Lola found a smile for the pretty child who’d inherited her father’s long lashes and tawny eyes, and whose chestnut pigtails were the replicas of Rio’s hair, too.
“But lucky Chloe, to have a daddy like you,” she made herself say. “Where will you live? What will you do, now that you won’t be a security agent?”
His handsome face eased into a smile.
“My family’s estate in the hills above Palma, Mallorca, will be a wonderful place for Chloe to grow up,” he said in a hopeful voice. “For the first time, she’ll have the stability of a home, and she can make friends! She’ll have a father who adores her. I—I confess that I’m overjoyed, while feeling overwhelmed, as well.”
Rio looked up from the photograph, his eyes ablaze with more than the lamp light. “I want to do right by her, Lola mia. Raising a six-year-old…alone…is a lot different from spoiling her senseless on the weekends we’ve spent together.”
Alone. That word quivered between them as Rio DeSilva’s gaze deepened.
Was it wishful thinking, or was this man pondering her possibilities? Wondering if she’d take that wild, uncharted journey into parenting with him?
She bit her lower lip. Looked at Chloe again to lessen the intensity of his golden, high-beam eyes. Felt so damn jittery, sitting against him, that she got off the bed to study the other photographs he’d collected over the years.
God, I need a smoke.
No ashtray on the night stand. Shit. One of those sexy little cigars sounded pretty good about now, but she’d have to keep acting interested in these pictures. This was his daughter; a part of him that would never go away, no matter how the script of her fantasy went.
Here was Chloe and a very thin, chic European woman—Katya, obviously—in an ad for high-dollar moisturizer.
Now, Chloe blowing out the five candles on her cake, and then with her little arms and legs wrapped around Rio as he held her, sleeping sweetly, against his shoulder—
You’re doing it again! You’d say “how high?” in a heartbeat, if DeSilva asked you to jump!
Where had that thought come from?
Lola tugged her towel tighter around her breasts, caught in an emotional whirlwind. She hadn’t even known Rio a week! Hadn’t she sacrificed enough of herself, for a relationship with another man who’d betrayed her trust?
Swallowing hard, feeling Rio’s gaze following her around his room, she kept after herself. Steeling herself against a sad little smile that resembled her own at Chloe’s age.
How could five minutes of looking at this kid, listening to this wounded daddy’s tragic tale, make her forget all about the business she’d built from scratch? Why did menswear suddenly seem so shallow, compared to mothering?
And why was she even thinking about the questions this Spaniard was asking with his eyes? He’d brought her here for mind-boggling sex, to catch her in a weak moment so he could trot out his personal life. Reel in a mommy for Chloe, before she knew what hit her. How conniving was that?
And you’re falling for it, too, honey. Hook, line, and sinker.
“I—I wish you and Chloe all the best,” she replied resolutely. She set the last photo down with a decisive thump. “I wasn’t much older than that when I found out my mom only married my father because I was on the way.”
Now why had she let that puppy out of the crate again? Were her mouth and mind going to betray her, just like her body had?
But she couldn’t unsay it, could she? The man sitting naked on the bed, already baring his soul to her, would pester her until she spilled the rest of her story, too. It was only fair.
DeSilva was already up and wrapping his arms around her. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Wondering how any parent could let a sweet, sensitive girl hear such a thing,” he clucked against her damp hair.
Lola had to laugh at that one. “Well, if this sweet, sensitive girl hadn’t been listening at their door, she might not’ve found that out. But then, it was pretty hard not to hear them fighting.
“I hated it when they went at each other,” she murmured, revisiting those hostile scenes in her mind. “At that age, when you think the whole world revolves around you, it’s easy to believe you caused the problem. Especially when snatches of their conversation, with your name in it, wake you up at night.”
Dammit, he was holding her close now, swaying with her to console the frightened child she’d been. An
d she was clinging to him.
“I’m so sorry, Lola mia,” he whispered. “You were so very young to be learning about issues that even grown-ups can’t handle well.”
She shrugged, craving his warmth despite all the warning sirens wailing in her mind. “It was no surprise that Dad walked out on us. Or rather, he just didn’t come home for nights at a time, until it stretched into forever. I figured that must be my fault, since—”
“How could that be? You couldn’t help it they were careless with their passions,” he asserted. “And with your feelings, as well, it seems.”
He lifted her chin. Gazed down at her with eyes that pooled with compassion. “My mission with Chloe has always been to love her completely. To prove to her again and again that she was not an accident, and that neither of us could’ve prevented Katya’s death.”
“A tall order.” Lola closed her eyes, trying not to get lost in the clean, fresh scent of him, and the way his warmth made her feel so…wanted. She’d had damn little real loving, and this was getting dangerous.
“I used to dream about going after Daddy,” she went on wistfully. Too late to turn back now, wasn’t it? “I believed that if I could be smarter in school—if I could bake him his favorite cookies whenever he wanted, or sing well enough to travel in his band—I’d be good enough to win him back. Good enough to make him stay.”
“Oh, Lola—”
“I know, I know,” she added when his scowl bent that sexy mustache downward. “With years of practice and therapy, I’ve figured out that I was plenty good enough all along. It was Dad’s problems, and Mom’s, that made them split. He just never gave me credit for the things I did well. Same as Fletcher.”
Well, she’d jumped in head-first now, hadn’t she? Just begging to get hurt again, the way she was playing for Rio’s affection.
“No, Lola,” he said, holding her very still now. “You haven’t given yourself the credit you deserve. Few women could’ve created your menswear empire, or gotten this far in life on their own. And yet, where it counts, querida, you’ve never rewarded yourself for your success.”
All Night Long Page 26