A Fool for You (The Cochran/Deveraux Series Book 7)

by Melanie Schuster

  The rude reply hovering on Aidan’s lips was cut off as a shadow fell across their table. A deep voice addressed Paris with warm seduction.

  “Excuse the interruption, but I think this is our dance, Paris.”

  Paris looked up into the smiling eyes of the man who’d haunted her dreams for too long, Titus Argonne. She didn’t hesitate, she put her hand into the one he held out and rose gracefully to her feet. “Yes, Titus, I think it is.” They turned onto the dance floor and looked at each other with sincere pleasure as the music took them away in each other’s arms.

  Aidan flagged down a passing waiter and took a flute as well as an entire bottle of champagne form the tray. “About time,” he said as he poured himself a toast.

  By now John’s long strides brought him to Nina’s side, or more correctly, to the side of Raphael Fuentes. Raphael had Nina in his arms and was about to whirl her out on the dance floor again when John deftly pulled Nina away and into his own embrace. Raphael stepped back and took a good look at the expression on John’s face, an expression that was lethal in its cool fury. Raphael merely raised an amused eyebrow and said “Is she yours?” in Spanish.

  “Si” was John’s only answer. Raphael held his hands up and apologized, again, in Spanish. “Hey, I didn’t know, man. Sorry about that.”

  A gentleman would have replied “De nada”, meaning it’s cool, never mind. John was too far gone for more than a curt nod as he tightened his arms around Nina and they began to move to the slow, sexy music. He would have been perfectly content to enjoy the sensation of Nina’s slender body pressed close to his, but Nina wasn’t about to let him off the hook.

  “Do you care to tell me what that was all about?” she asked crisply. “Why in the world did you come stomping over here like a Neanderthal and wrest me out of that man’s grasp like a chunk of mastodon meat?”

  John didn’t answer her. He rubbed his face against her soft hair and inhaled her delicate fragrance, stroking her back at the same time as he endeavored to bring her even closer. She felt wonderful in his arms, she felt perfect, as a matter of fact. If he’d had any way of knowing how satisfying it was to dance with her he’d have done it a long time ago. Unfortunately, Nina didn’t seem to be sharing his reverie.

  The hand that was clasped in his moved and her fingers took hold of his little finger, twisting it until she had his full attention. “Don’t act like you can’t hear me. What did you think you were doing snatching me up like that? If you wanted to dance all you had to do was ask.” Her eyes flashed with indignation as she stared up at him.

  “I shouldn’t have to ask,” John told her, amused by the look of incredulity that came over her face. “You shouldn’t be dancing with anyone but me, Miss Parker, so let’s just enjoy it.”

  “I can dance with whomever I want,” she said hotly. “I’m not your date, or did you forget that little detail?”

  John chose to ignore that remark and concentrate on Nina. “Miss Parker, you look absolutely beautiful. You look fantastic in that dress and you smell amazing. What are you wearing?”

  Nina narrowed her eyes and stared at John. “Are you drunk? How much have you had to drink? You’re not supposed to be drinking and you know it. The medication you’re on can’t be mixed with alcohol,” she said sternly. “If you’ve been drinking, I’m going to…”

  Whatever she was about to threaten John with was lost as his lips descended on hers. Their lips met and a mutual caress began, a long, sweet and tender kiss, a kiss that signaled the beginning of something wonderful. When John finally pulled away from her, he smiled in total satisfaction and waited for her response. It wasn’t long in coming as Nina raised her right foot in its expensive purple shoe with the T-strap and French heel, which she planted firmly on John’s instep.

  “You idiot,” she snarled before stalking off and leaving him in the middle of the crowd of dancers.

  Oddly enough, John was undisturbed by her reaction. That went pretty well, considering. I should have kissed her way before this, he thought cheerfully as he followed her from the dance floor.

  Chapter 2

  “Well, Paris, how have you been?” Titus asked in his deep, sexy voice. He was prepared for an awkward silence since Paris was always so shy with him. More than sky, really; he was used to her blushing like a schoolgirl when he spoke to her and he always found it adorable.

  “I’ve been just wonderful, Titus, and how have you been?” She smiled brilliantly, looking directly into his eyes. This time it was Titus who was almost at a loss for words.

  “I’ve been doing just great, thank you. Even better now that I have you in my arms.” He could have kicked himself for that remark. He’d been telling himself to take it easy with Paris because she was so bashful. Every time he saw her, though, she looked more enchanting, more alluring. He liked everything he saw from her long, thick black hair to her creamy complexion with the tiny adorable freckles scattered across the bridge of her sculpted nose to her bountiful figure with its feminine curves. She was wearing a red wrap dress that was molded to her shapely body in such a way he had a sudden urge to take her somewhere and undo the tie securing it in place.

  Incredibly, Paris smiled as though she knew what he was thinking. “Well, if you like me in your arms so much I’ll just have to stay here, won’t I?” she said sweetly.

  Titus’s blue-gray eyes took on a brilliant deep blue hue and he smiled delightedly. “Those may be the most words I’ve ever heard you say at one time,” he said, gently teasing her.

  Paris gave a throaty laugh and offered to make up for lost time. “I know lots more words, would you like to hear some? I’m actually quite a chatterbox when you get to know me.”

  Titus pulled her a little closer, and bent his head to make sure she heard every softly spoken word. “Getting to know you is exactly what I have in mind, Paris Deveraux. I think we’ve wasted enough time, don’t you?”

  She lowered her long lashes and gave him a look that would have stopped a weaker man’s heart. “Yes, Titus, I do. I think we’ve wasted an incredible amount of time. Let’s start making up for it, shall we?”

  He answered by rubbing his chin against her cheekbone and brushing his lips against it so softly she wasn’t sure he’d actually kissed her. Her eyes widened and she locked onto his penetrating gaze. At that moment all conversation and conscious thought ceased and she was lost in his eyes, which is just where he wanted her to be.

  ***

  John caught up with Nina inside the stadium in the area that led to the concessions. The reception was taking place in the park infield and the outdoor annex that held several carnival rides and other amusements. If this were a normal game day there would be vendors everywhere selling everything from nachos to the ubiquitous hot dogs, but the long corridors were deserted now. John risked more of Nina’s wrath by grabbing her arm and turning her to face him.

  “I’m sorry, Nina. I shouldn’t have kissed you like that, I guess, but you look so incredible I couldn’t resist.”

  “I look good, so you kissed me and now you’re sorry for it? What happened, John, do I suddenly not look so attractive and you wish you’d never touched me”? Nina crossed her arms tightly and glared at John who was trying to look amused.

  “Not at all, Nina, if anything you look even prettier. You really do look beautiful when you’re mad, you know.”

  “So if I look so good why are you sorry you kissed me?” Nina’s expression was even more forbidding than usual but all it did was turn up the heat in John.

  John put his hands on her shoulders and this time he did smile, a calculated risk as Nina was still quite put out with him. “I’m not sorry I kissed you, not at all. My only regret about the kiss is that it didn’t happen sooner. Your lips, Miss Parker, are delicious.”

  He moved closer to Nina, stroking her shoulders in an effort to soothe her ruffled feelings and also because he just liked the feel of her. It seemed to work because when she spoke again she wasn’t quite as snappish.


  “So why were you apologizing, John? For a supposedly intelligent man you’re making very little sense.”

  John took one hand off her shoulder and tipped her chin up. He seemed to have lost all common sense because he was determined to kiss her again. He pressed his lips to her forehead, then her temple and her cheekbone. “I apologized,” he said between kisses, “because I made you angry and I didn’t want to do that. I caught you off guard and I may have embarrassed you and that wasn’t my aim either.” He stopped talking long enough to pull her into his arms and kiss her cheek, then her neck.

  In a soft voice completely unlike her usual brisk tone, Nina asked him what he did want. “If you didn’t want to embarrass me, and you didn’t want to make me mad, what did you want, John?”

  “I wanted this, Nina. I wanted to hold you in my arms and kiss you, I wanted to taste your lips and see if they could possibly be as sweet as they looked. I wanted…”

  Suddenly Nina pulled John’s lapels so that his head was bent to hers. “You talk too much,” she murmured before placing her lips on his.

  ***

  After dancing with Titus through a slow number and two fast ones, Paris had to reluctantly take her leave of him. “I’m sorry, Titus, but I have to go back to work. My production crew is filming and I need to make sure that we’ve gotten enough footage. Once we start editing it never seems like there’s enough,” she said with a smile.

  Titus looked down at Paris and stroked her cheek with his index finger. “I understand completely. How about we meet later and maybe have a cup of coffee or something? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want this night to end,” he told her.

  Paris blinked in surprise and smiled. “You don’t?”

  “Absolutely not. I’ve been trying to have a conversation with you for way too long and now that you’ve finally started talking I want to hear everything you have to say.” He put his hand at the small of her back and led her away from the dance floor. “Since I’m working too, how about if we meet after all the festivities have wound down?”

  The fact that Titus was attending in an official capacity didn’t surprise Paris; he was a private investigator who specialized in corporate security. Although he was a good friend of her cousin Martin Deveraux, he was also responsible for the security of both the Cochran and Deveraux families and his well-trained and discreet staff were at this moment deployed strategically throughout that venue.

  “That sounds fine, Titus. But where will we meet? This is a huge place and we could easily miss each other,” Paris pointed out.

  Titus leaned down and put a soft but penetrating kiss right at the corner of her luscious mouth. “You just take care of whatever you need to do, Paris. I’ll come to you, sweetheart. I’ll always be able to find you, count on it,” he said with a quiet laugh.

  ***

  John and Nina were still exploring their newly found passion with more long, delicious kisses when a musical laugh broke up their embrace.

  “There you are! Come on, you two, it’s time for Adam and Alicia to get going so we need everyone on the dance floor.”

  The voice was that of Marguerite, another of Alicia’s aunts who was directing the wedding with really intimidating precision. Nina felt her face heat up as she realized there was no way the woman had missed the sight of her and John kissing madly. She was profoundly grateful for the woman’s polite discretion in not mentioning what was going on until Marguerite said something in Spanish that made John laugh out loud. The heat flared up again making Nina feel as though her head were about to burst into flames. John didn’t seem to see anything wrong with the situation; he had the audacity to bring his head down for yet another lip caress before going to join his family.

  “Stop that!” Nina looked anxiously after Marguerite’s retreating figure and tried vainly to push John away. They were still in the corridor, with Nina pressed against the wall and John all over her like a lusty teenager on his first date. He had a generous amount of her lipstick on his face and he wore the glazed look of a man swimming in a sea of sexual desire.

  “I don’t want to stop, Nina. I want to keep going,” he murmured as he slid his hands down her hips and licked her neck.

  Nina wriggled away from him and left him kissing air as she smoothed her dress down with trembling hands. She looked at him sternly and tried with all her heart to not let her own yearning show. “You look like a sleazy magazine ad for condoms,” she sniffed. “You have lipstick on your face and your shirt is all undone. Pull yourself together and let’s get you moving before someone thinks we’ve been kidnapped.”

  John pulled a linen handkerchief out of his back pocket and held it out to Nina who looked at it suspiciously. “I don’t have a mirror,” he told her.

  Nina took the folded square from John’s hand and stood about two feet away from him as she removed the evidence of their tryst. In the meantime, John buttoned up his band-collared tuxedo shirt, humming as he did so.

  She ignored him as best she could, but when a woman is removing her own lipstick from the smoothly bronzed face of a man well over six feet tall with perfect features, devastatingly seductive eyes with thick black eyebrows, a glossy, perfectly groomed moustache and goatee, and a long thick braid of black hair, she can’t help but be aware of him. Especially when he’d just kissed her senseless. Her breath caught in her throat as John slipped both his hands around her waist and pulled her against his hard chest.

  “Okay, that’s enough of that. Cut it out or you’ll regret it,” she said weakly.

  “Nina, the only thing I regret is not being able to sweep you away right now,” John replied.

  Satisfied that all the lipstick was gone, Nina once again disentangled herself from John and slapped the now stained hankie into his hand. “Here. Let’s get this over with. And behave yourself. Are you sure you haven’t been drinking? Because I swear I’ll call your doctor,” she said sternly.

  “I’m drunk but I haven’t been drinking. You intoxicate me, Miss Parker.”

  Nina gave him a baleful glare. “That’s so lame I won’t even honor it with a retort. Now come on before you provoke me into something for which I might have to do time.” Taking him by the hand, she dragged him back to where the wedding party was supposed to be.

  The bridal couple was almost ready to depart and the traditional garter tossing was about to take place. Nina watched in amusement as all the single men made the usual show of trying to avoid the inevitable; none of them wanted to be the next one caught in the marriage trap. The groom, however, had a plan of his own. Adam called John’s name and tossed the delicate garter straight at him. John caught it with a grin and had the nerve to look at Nina with a wink. Before she could mentally react to that, it was time for the wedding bouquet to be thrown and she was determined not to be anywhere near it. She tried to remove herself from the shameless horde of squealing single women but the bride had much better aim than Nina could have imagined.

  Alicia’s natural heritage as the daughter and sister of professional baseball players came to the fore as the bouquet sailed straight to Nina. She had to catch it to keep it from smacking her right in the face, but she didn’t hold on to it very long; two buxom sisters collided in midair as they pounced on the floral trophy and snatched it away from her hands.

  “Don’t mind me,” Nina said dryly. “Would you like my arm, too?” Left with only a gardenia, Nina glanced at John with no expression whatsoever on her face. Swept into the eddy of the celebrants as Adam and Alicia exchanged a final passionate kiss before getting into the limousine that would take them away to begin their honeymoon, Nina found herself on the edge of a crowd of cheering relatives, friends and colleagues of the couple. She looked around with a little half smile on her face before leaving by a deserted side entrance.

  Chapter 3

  The next morning, Nina surveyed the empty track before her with satisfaction. It was a perfect morning for a run; at least it was her idea of perfect. As a member of the An
n Arbor Track Club she got to use the facilities at the University of Michigan, something she took advantage of every chance she got. Running was more than exercise with Nina; it was her passion. She rotated her neck slowly, finishing the stretches that prepared her body to move easily across the surface of the track. Moving her shoulders in circles, she took one final stretch before removing her sweat pants and jacket. Clad in running shorts and a midriff athletic top with a racer back, Nina started running on the deserted track.

  It was too early in the morning for even the most avid denizens of the sport, and Nina liked it that way. The overcast sky, the clouds and fog that rolled across the U of M campus would’ve discouraged most people, as would the cool damp morning. Nina thrived on it, though; she liked a good long run in just this kind of weather. She knew that in a little while the natural exertions of her body would produce a warmth in all her muscles that would make the temperature seem ideal to her heated skin. She needed the solitude, the cool moisture of the fog, the eerie isolation of running alone; she needed all of them this morning to cool her overheated thoughts as well as to invigorate her body . She hadn’t slept at all last night; she was too nerved up, too restless to sleep.

  John Flores had stayed with her all night, not in the physical sense, of course, but he might as well have been in the bed with her for all the rest she got. He’d consumed her every thought from the moment he snatched her away from Raphael on the dance floor. If she was going to be honest about it, there was something totally compelling about John, something that called to her on a level she’d never thought existed. It was hard enough to ignore that pull when they were working together but when he was holding her, touching her, when his lips were caressing hers, when their mouths parted and their tongues met…Nina stifled a gasp as the same sensations that had assailed her the night before made a repeat appearance.