“This is true,” Adrian said. “You’re friends with me.”
He took the meat and veggies out to the grill, leaving Marcelo in charge of making the tortillas. Soon the scent of grilled beef and spices drifted over the deck, while the sun dipped lower in the sky, sending sparkles over the waves in the bay. His friends chatted while the margaritas flowed freely, people drifting in and out of the kitchen to refill the chip bowl or just to keep Marcelo company. It was, Adrian realized, exactly what he’d been looking for when he came here to set down roots.
“Are you grinning about the girl or the tequila, which I still think is way overpriced?” Paul asked, joining him at the grill, and eyeing the meat. “I can’t wait. It’s been ages since I had your mama’s fajitas.”
Adrian gave the veggies an expert stir in the grill pan. “Neither. I was thinking I should do this more often. After all, it’s why I moved here and settled down.”
Marcelo delivered a covered bowl of fresh tortillas to the table in time to hear his comment.
“You should host Cinco de Mayo here,” he said.
“This guacamole is to die for,” Brooke said, scooping up a hefty bite onto a chip and closing her eyes.
“Gracias. I will send you the recipe.”
“Mama always hosts Cinco,” Adrian said, even as the idea held a certain appeal. He hadn’t had the whole family out at once to his house yet, and he’d built it with those big family get-togethers in mind.
Marcelo scoffed. “She’s been doing it for how long? Twenty plus years? Alex is too busy with the twins to do it.”
“What do you do for Cinco de Mayo?” asked Nell, shading her eyes against the setting sun.
“It’s a huge two-day shindig,” Adrian said, sliding the veggies onto a serving platter and handing them to Paul. “One day to cook and prep all the traditional meals. The next day to eat, drink and dance.”
“You should definitely have that here and invite us,” Jan said with a grin.
Brooke elbowed her. “It’s probably a family event, honey.”
“No, no,” Adrian assured them. “We always invited friends, girlfriends, neighbors. In Mexico, it’s not really celebrated across the country like it is here. In fact, Mama told us that she started to host a big party once she moved to America—for her it’s a way to share some of her traditions with her adopted country. And, to teach my brother and me about our heritage.”
Jan got up and held up her empty glass to Paul, who moved behind the bar for a fresh batch of margaritas.
“When did your mom immigrate to the States?” asked Jan, taking a seat at the table next to Brooke.
“When she was twenty,” Adrian answered. He slid the meat into another platter and made room for it on the table. “My twin brother and I were two at the time.”
Jan winced. “That’s rough. I had Nell when I was twenty, married her dad then, too. It seems impossibly young to me now.”
“And, you moved all the way from the Midwest to Seattle,” added Brooke.
“It’s not quite the same as moving to a foreign country, but it felt like it at the time,” Jan laughed. “Did she have family here?”
“Eat up, everyone,” Adrian said, sitting down. He patted the seat next to him and wiggled his eyebrows at Nell, who rolled her eyes but complied. He passed her the tortillas. “Her family, except for my aunt Sofia, cut her off when she got pregnant with Alex and me, and my dad wasn’t in the picture. She moved, alone, from our tiny fishing village to Mexico City. Luckily, my aunt had already been in the U.S. for a few years, so she started frantically trying to get my mom a visa. Alex and I were two when she was finally able to move to the U.S.”
“Another thing Jan has in common with Agata,” remarked Marcelo. “Also a single mom, also estranged from her family.”
“You just met her this afternoon,” said Paul, joining them with a blender of fresh margaritas, which he used to top off glasses. “How did that even come up?”
“I have a gift,” said Marcelo smugly.
Adrian filed this away, wondering at the fact that he hadn’t known any of this about Nell and her family. Their chemistry was so scorching that they’d spent most of the last few weeks in the bedroom. Clearly, he needed to spend more time getting to know his new lover.
“Wow. So your mom moved here with two twin toddler boys, only knowing her sister?” Nell asked, finishing building her fajita. She took a bite and closed her eyes. “Armed only with this really fantastic recipe for fajitas?”
“Pretty much. My aunt was a maid at a Seattle hotel at the time, struggling to get by, but she still invited all of us to come live with her in her one-bedroom apartment. My mom had picked up a knack for bartending in Mexico City where she’d worked a lot of odd jobs to make ends meet. So she worked in the evenings and at night while Sofia watched us. Then during the day, my mom was with us while Sofia worked.”
“But she’s the executive director of a nonprofit now, right?” Nell asked.
“Right.” Adrian sipped his drink, noted his guests were all tucking into their dinner with gusto, making appreciative noises about the food and listening with interest. “Aunt Sofia had been in the States about four years but still hadn’t made it far down the path to citizenship. My mom was afraid both of their visas wouldn’t get renewed, and especially after she landed a steady bartending job in an upscale restaurant that paid decent wages and even offered some meager benefits, she worried they’d get deported back to Mexico. She was determined to become a citizen. So, over the next few years, she started to connect with other people in the immigrant community. One thing led to another—she and my aunt both became U.S. citizens; my brother and I started school, and she took a part time administrative assistant job at El Refugio.”
“It’s a nonprofit that offers help to recently arrived immigrants—getting IDs, help with housing, job training, stuff like that,” explained Marcelo.
“She worked two jobs for a few years, earning enough to move us into a larger apartment. Eventually, she quit bartending and was able to work full time at El Refugio. When Alex and I were in high school, she’d earned enough to buy a small house, with a yard—she still lives there today. And when we went off to college, she became the executive director of the organization.”
Brooke patted his hand. “You’re so proud of her.”
“Damn straight.” Adrian smiled. “She’s my hero. I wouldn’t be where I am today without her.”
The conversation drifted to other topics—Jan and Brooke’s wedding, Marcelo’s sister who had recently taken over his London gallery, and Nell’s plans to take control over her business. But while he joined in, Adrian found himself sneaking little glances at Nell, wondering just what her childhood had been like. How had she fared without a father in her life? He’d never really mourned the lack of one—he and Alex had both adored their second grade teacher, David, and when Sofia sat them down to say she was dating him, they couldn’t have been happier. Once the two married a year later, David became more than their uncle—he cheered them on at their sports events, gave them advice on dating and called them out when they did something stupid.
But he’d never heard Nell mention her father in the little over a year he’d been on the Island, and while she had Brooke, he got the impression she hadn’t come into Jan’s life until Nell was already grown. It wasn’t dinner party conversation, but he vowed he’d find the answers.
For now, he put it aside—the setting sun cast a fiery glow on the horizon, seagulls swooped over the Bay and the mild evening air hinted summer was on its way. Last year at this time, the deck had been faded, missing boards, and listing to one side. Now, he sat enjoying dinner with a few of his closest friends, a woman he found fascinating and sexy, and her parents that he was growing more and more fond of. Life, he decided, couldn’t get much better.
Chapter 11
As Nell got closer to Adrian’s studio, she heard a loud, static buzz coming from the open door. She hesitated a moment, wondering
if she should interrupt him while he was working, then shrugged. She’d texted him and asked him if she could stop by and he’d said yes. Of course, she’d lost track of time going over Anna Sue’s report on the pros and cons of different types of online reservation solutions, so she was about an hour later than she’d planned.
Adrian stood with his back to the door, covered head to toe in a brown leather apron with sleeves over his arms, hefty gloves, and a helmet with the protective faceplate lowered. Sparks fizzed and jumped from the welding machine he guided with slow and steady movements across a sheet of metal. Nell stood just inside and watched him, studying the way he moved with confident grace. Muscles rippled across the back of his shoulders, and she drank in the sight, her eyes sweeping down and lingering on his ass. Her mouth watered. Yep, the man was definitely turning her into a sex addict. It had only been three days since they’d last been together—Marcelo had decided to keep his visit short and return in a few weeks for Cinco de Mayo. But the way her core was tingling and her blood heating, you’d think it had been three weeks.
She tore her gaze away from his ass and focused on the sculpture in front of Adrian. It looked like shoulders, maybe a neck—she squinted a bit to see through the sparks. When she shifted to the side of the door to see around Adrian, she realized with a shock it was her shoulders, her neck, her head thrown back in ecstasy. Nell just stared for a minute, absorbing what she was seeing, before realizing that Adrian was guiding the welding machine down her neck in sure strokes. As he did she imagined his fingers on her skin, leaving a trail of fire.
When he finally caught sight of her standing there, Nell tingled all over, aching for his touch. He lifted up the lid of his helmet, shot her a grin. She met his eyes, not masking the hunger in hers, and the greeting on his lips seemed to die away. They stared at each other across the studio, the haze from the welding drifting away. Nell, keeping her eyes on his, closed the door, flipped the bolt to lock it. Adrian ripped off his helmet and gloves, and strode over to her, unfastening his apron on the way, tossing it aside.
“I was imagining touching you,” he murmured, cupping her face in his hands and sliding them back up into her hair, drawing her closer. “And, here you are.”
Nell arched her body up against him and fastened her lips on his, thrusting her tongue in his mouth and fisting her hands in his hair. And just like that her nerve endings caught on fire. She drank him in with greedy gulps, pumping her hips against his erection, wild and fast. He grabbed her ass, pulled her roughly against him, his breath coming in short pants.
“Christ, Nell,” he muttered, tearing his mouth away and scraping his teeth down her neck.
She let her head fall back, just like the sculpture, and he grabbed her shirt, ripped it open, buttons flying. He groaned as he realized she wasn’t wearing a bra and slid his hands across her breasts, rough and fast. Adrian ran his teeth over the hollow in her neck as his hands moved to her pants, tugged them off. Nell unzipped his jeans, her mouth seeking and finding his once more. They kissed hungrily as she pulled his pants down. Once he’d stepped free and kicked them aside, he yanked her up to devour her mouth again, rubbing his hand over her lace panties, pressing through the fabric on her center. She gasped, feeling shockingly close to orgasming just from his touch.
Adrian tore his mouth from hers, fastened it on one breast, sucking hard on the nipple. Nell groaned, and bucked against him. He ripped off her underwear as he moved to her other breast. As he licked and sucked, Nell grabbed his erection, giving it one stroke, then unable to wait, grabbed her jeans off the floor, took out her wallet to grab the condom she kept inside. In one quick motion, she ripped the packet open and slid it over his penis, then guided him inside her. Adrian groaned, backed her up against the studio wall, and hoisted her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist and gasped when he thrust hard into her, the waves of pleasure washing over her so intense that she wasn’t sure she could take it. He thrust again and again and the pleasure wound higher and higher until he slammed into her deep and hard, and she broke, shouting his name as she contracted hard around him, shuddering as he pounded into her, not letting up. She moaned long and loud as the pleasure pulsed through her, intensifying when he stiffened, thrusting as deep as he could, and releasing with a yell while she continued to milk him with her orgasm.
Out of breath, he pinned her against the wall, his forehead against hers. Nell felt like her bones had melted out of her body and anchored herself by gripping his shoulders. After a few long minutes, he pulled away slightly, only to lean down and capture her mouth with his again. She could have purred like a kitten as his mouth stroked hers, lazily, sensually, while his hard body held her in place, the rough wall pressing against her back.
“Mmm,” she murmured when he finally pulled away and smiled into her eyes. She twined her fingers around his neck. “Hi.”
“How’s things?” he laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Pretty damn good at the moment.” She stretched against him, feeling wonderfully used. “Sorry I interrupted your work.”
“You should feel free to interrupt me anytime,” he assured her, kissing her one more time, and then setting her down. She pulled on her underwear and pants, and shrugged the shirt closed, now missing its buttons. Adrian eyed her.
“I’d say I owe you a shirt, but I like the look.”
“I see I’ve inspired you.” Comfortable with her semi-nudity, Nell studied the sculpture.
Adrian followed, ran a hand carelessly down her back. “I need a lot more research in order to get it perfect.”
Nell laughed up at him. “Oh, really?”
He shrugged as he grinned at her. “It’s the price I have to pay for my art.”
“I suppose I should be supportive of your work,” she murmured, turning to him and toying with the snap on his jeans, still undone. “I’m free tonight if you need to…study.”
“The art world thanks you,” he told her, solemnly.
She wandered away to study his other pieces. “I wanted your advice and then I got distracted—oh, are these your nieces?”
“That one’s Zoe, and that one’s Lila.”
Nell tilted her head, studied. From what she remembered seeing online, he tended more towards landscapes, but here, a chubby-cheeked baby rested her head on the shoulder of a man. The copper glowed in the light streaming in through the windows, and even though Nell knew if she touched it, the metal would be cool and hard, the curls of the little girl looked feather-light and soft. She felt an unexpected tug towards the soft and dreamy scene. In contrast, the sculpture of little Lila captured a frozen moment of laughter, her hands mid-clap, curls awry. Nell wondered how Adrian could work the metal to make it seem alive, to capture so perfectly that childhood sense of joy and wonder.
“Amazing,” she said simply and narrowed her eyes when his shoulders seemed to lose some tension. “Were you worried whether or not I would like it? I know shit about art. But, even I can tell these are fantastic.”
Adrian shrugged, ran a hand through that silky dark hair. “This exhibit is a lot more personal to me. So, I’m nervous.”
Nell nodded, taking in the next sculpture of the hands raised to fight. “Yeah, I get that. This is your mom’s hand, right?”
“How’d you know that?”
“You have her hands,” Nell said, moving on.
She marveled at the variety—from the powerful portraits of his family to a scene of MacKaye Harbor so detailed and realistic, she half expected the boats to start bobbing on the waves. Of course, she’d known, in an abstract way, that he was talented. But now, seeing his work up close, she realized with a hint of unease that he might not fit in the flighty playboy box she’d drawn around him in her mind. The man that created these pieces saw right through people, to their core, and then used his hands, eyes and clever brain to twist and manipulate metal until it told a story. And, hadn’t he heated her up, molded and shaped her with his hands and smooth words and strong will
so that even now she was breaking her rule of no on-Island flings, and wondering when she could get her hands on his body again? More than that, she’d come to him for advice and because she wanted to see him in his element, working.
Well, shit, she thought.
“What are you thinking?” Adrian asked, studying her. “I can see the wheels turning from here.”
“This one’s my favorite,” Nell said, shifting gears quickly and smoothly. “I love the harbor. You should do a companion piece—this one is looking out at the sea. You should do one from the ocean looking in to land. You could add your house to it. I’ve always loved the way it blends into the surroundings. So many other houses are huge and showy, and this one manages to be grand while looking like it sprang up from the hillside.”
It was true enough. She’d known the family that owned it, the Delaneys. They lived in Seattle and had spent summers on the Island. During the months of freedom for several years from grade school through high school, she ran wild with their two boys, Keenan who was a year older than her, North a year younger. One memorable summer, she and Keenan steamed up the windows of the boathouse with some epic make out sessions. She’d loved to sit on the dock with the boys, ever so casually letting her bare leg rest against Keenan’s, enjoying the flush of still-innocent desire while she looked up at the house, the deep green wood blending in with the surrounding forest, the windows with their gray trim glinting in the sunset.
Adrian’s eyes unfocused for a minute, staring off into space, and then he narrowed them at the sculpture. “That’s a fucking great idea. Now I have to make it.”
“When you do, keep it,” Nell suggested. “Because it’d have your house in it. It’d be cool to hang it over the fireplace—you could look out the window and see the view to sea and turn back and see the view in through the sculpture.”
“And you said you don’t know anything about art.” Adrian moved in, nestled her between his strong legs up against the table, kissed her hard. “I love it.” He began to nibble down her neck. “You said you wanted my advice?”
Love in the Air: Lopez Island Series #2 Page 16