Blush

by Cherry Adair

  Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks; his fingers lost their hold on hers. Pulled off balance, her heart kicked as her bare feet no longer had the solid surface of the wooden stairs beneath them. There was nothing, just air. Empty space.

  Heartbeat crazy fast, arms flailing, she reached to grab anything stable to break her fall. Nothing. Too far from the banister. Too far from the upper landing.

  Cruz was the only thing between her and fifteen hard steps below. Shock made him appear impossibly far away, as if he’d moved out of reach in the blink of an eye. “Cruz!” For a second, one awful, long second, it seemed as though he wouldn’t catch her, that he was going to just stand there as she tumbled to the foot of the stairs in a broken heap.

  Then strong fingers grabbed her upper arm and he yanked her in hard against the solid, safe plane of his chest. Air whooshed out of her lungs on impact. Mia clung to his waist, holding on tightly, face pressed to his chest. The jolt of adrenaline made her heart kick, and cold sweat prickled her skin. It was a near miss, and she could’ve been seriously injured if he hadn’t grabbed her.

  “Good catch.” Her voice rushed out on an exhalation of fear and air. She looked up to observe his tight lips and the muscle flexing in his jaw. He drew deep breaths as if he, too, had had a near fall. The unflattering single lightbulb overhead made Cruz look more dangerous, more ruggedly handsome. The light cast shadows on his face, making his eyes appear darker and more deep-set. It formed shadow muscles on his bare chest and accentuated the flexing of his biceps.

  Mia shifted to break free of his tight hold. So he’d saved her from a tumble. Didn’t mean he wanted to engage in wild monkey sex with her. She had more pride, more dignity, than that. She was making a fool of herself, and she knew it. Her skin still felt hot and prickly all over. And only partly because of the slip.

  “This obviously isn’t working for you, and I don’t need to drag you up the stairs. Or pull you down, for that matter. I still have the number of the Bon Temps agency . . .”

  In response his arms tightened, almost cutting off her air. Fine with her. Right now her legs felt weak—she could use the support. “Far be it for me to coerce you into doing something you’re clearly reluc—”

  Without telegraphing what he was about to do, Cruz grabbed her by upper arms. He slammed her back against the wall, hard enough to knock her breath out of her as he grasped her by the wrists to hobble her hands over her head in the hard shackle of his fingers.

  All lovely and sexy, but by his expression he was considering flipping her over the banister rather than kissing her. “Look, Cruz, I—”

  With a small shake of his head, he swept a rough hand from her hips, to her waist, to her breast, sparking small flashes of burning need in their wake as he kicked her feet apart. Standing between her legs, he loomed over her, blocking the light, stealing all the oxygen in the room as he said dangerously, “Anyone ever tell you you talk too damn much, woman?”

  Seeing his eyes change from disinterested to predatory slammed her heart against her ribs. “Not anyone who wanted to keep their job—” The pissy words dried up at the look of intent in his face.

  Catching her face in one large hand, he crushed his mouth down on hers, forcing her lips apart. There was nothing gentle or seductive in his kiss.

  Plowing rough fingers through the hair at her temple, it was as if he wanted to crush her skull. He fisted a hank to hold her head still so he could deepen the kiss.

  Barely allowing her to drag in a sip of oxygen, he kissed her again and again. Deeper, harder, bringing her up on her tiptoes as he crushed her between his rock-hard chest and the wall.

  Mia moaned, on fire as he pressed his thigh against the pulsing juncture of her thighs. The merciless press of his hard chest against her aching breasts, the heat and slip and slide of his tongue ravishing her mouth, giving no quarter. He was everything she wanted and needed. Her air. Her water. The solid ground beneath her feet.

  Breathing was overrated. He took her mouth aggressively, the cavern of his mouth scalding hot, his tongue promising untold pleasures to come. A delicious and effective way to shut her up.

  Mia sank into the kiss. He tasted so good. So familiar. So damn perfect. His skin burned hot against her naked, acutely sensitive breasts, and the hard jut of his penis from behind the prison of his jeans rocketed her lust from just I want to Give me. Now. She wanted him so badly, she could barely breathe. Her heartbeat thumped hard against her breastbone, then sent off tendrils of surging heat to every atom of her body like sharp electrical currents running along the pathways of her veins.

  After playing the cool virgin all day—him, not her—his onslaught shot her sadly ignored libido from zero to a hundred in seconds. Mia wanted to climb his body as he murmured low, sexy words in her ear and nuzzled and licked his way around the shell of her ear.

  She fought to free one hand from the shackle of his fingers, still anchoring her wrists high above her head. Liberated, she went exploring, fumbling blindly to forge a small space between them. Bracing herself with one leg wound around his, she managed to undo the top button of his jeans. Still kissing, she pulled down the zipper, the exercise made infinitely more difficult because he was pressed, penis to mound, against her, and she was so focused on his avid mouth, she kept forgetting what her hand was supposed to be doing.

  “Upstairs,” she managed when they broke apart to drag in oxygen, their chests heaving as they gulped air.

  “No time.” Large hands skimmed down her sides and slid the wet, stuck-to-her-skin nightie up over her sensitive breasts and then over her head. It hit the wood floor with a wet slap. Then his mouth was back.

  Thank God. She’d rather kiss Cruz than breathe.

  She vaguely remembered what her clumsy fingers were trying to do, and struggled to tug down the zipper. As he made love to her mouth, his teeth scoring her lower lip, his tongue dueling with hers, she inched that damned zipper down. His erection made the task that much more difficult, and that much more distracting.

  She arched her back when his palm cupped her breast and he unerringly found her nipple, teasing it between his fingers to pain-pleasure until she whimpered with greed.

  More. More. More.

  She’d known how badly she wanted this, but Mia hadn’t realized the depth and scope of that need. It spread through her, a living, breathing emotional need that shocked her to the core as she rose on her toes to meet him.

  With a hard thump of her heartbeat she realized that Cruz was the first lover she’d ever had who was equal to her in every way. It made their encounters even more intoxicating to know that he wouldn’t back off. Wouldn’t back down. That he’d give her everything she wanted, and knew the things even she didn’t know she needed.

  It was incredibly strange to have that clarity of truth, considering she knew this man intimately on one level but not at all on another.

  Licking her lips, she breathed hard through the spirals of arousal swirling through her body. “I have . . . fresh . . . thousand-count Egyptian cotton sheets on the bed—”

  He cut off the inane words with a kiss. Fine with her. She loved the slide and slip of his tongue mating with hers. She loved the pressure of his body crushing her to the wall. After several minutes, or perhaps a week, he lifted his head. His smile predatory as he skimmed his palm down her thigh, then curled his fingers under her knee. “Up,” he murmured thickly against her throat.

  The hair on his chest teased her breasts and Mia felt the flex and power of his biceps against her side as he drew her leg up high.

  “We can’t have sex standing halfway up the stairs!” she told him, the sternness in her voice not as effective as usual because she was having a hard time breathing, let alone talking. Standing on her toes, she curled her knee over his hip, opening herself to him, and urging him more tightly against her with her heel on his butt. With little purrs deep in her throat, she scraped her teeth along the prickle of his unshaven jaw. “If we do this here, we’ll break our n
e—”

  “No ifs about it—” His entire body shuddered as he pushed the hard length of his penis deep inside her in one powerful thrust, pinning her to the wall with his driving weight.

  The instant orgasm rolled though Mia in enormous waves and she went deaf and blind, all pure, hot, sizzling sensation.

  “Yes,” he grunted, face tight, eyes black, as he pumped into her, hard fingers gripping her butt. “Just. Like. That.” He took her mouth in a soul-eating kiss, mimicking with his tongue what he was doing with every thrust and parry of his hips.

  Another strong climax broke over her, in her, around her, leaving Mia panting and gasping for breath as she dropped her head to his shoulder and tried to drag air into her starving, heaving lungs.

  A few minutes later, as her internal muscles squeezed and contracted, his climax made his body jerk and shake. They were both sweaty and panting, clinging to each other like leaves in a storm.

  “Jesus. Jesus. That was too fucking fast. No time for foreplay, woman.”

  “My foreplay was thinking about this all day. I’m amazed I lasted as long as I di—” The lights blurred and turned. “What the hell are you doing?” His fingers gripped her butt, holding her in place. She strengthened her hold around his neck and locked her ankles at the small of his back to keep him inside her.

  “It seems pretty obvious. Carrying you upstairs. Didn’t you say you had sheets?”

  Eyes closed, Mia laughed against his sweaty throat as he took the stairs two at a time. He was still inside her. Still hard. She had to tighten her internal muscles hard around him as well as her arms and legs as he took the stairs. “Fresh sheets.”

  “Then a shower is called for.”

  She briefly thought of her large luxury spa bathroom in San Francisco, with its rainfall showerheads and personal body sprays and miles of white marble tile. “No water pressure,” she warned as he crossed the dark bedroom and went into the small bathroom with her twined around him like a jungle vine. She flicked the light switch on in passing. Too bright. She needed dimmers everywhere. “I’ll have to add dimmers to my to-do list,” she said.

  “Add it to my to-do list,” he told her, making her smile and kiss the prickly underside of his jaw. Tightening an arm around her to secure her, dipping her dangerously low, he leaned in to crank on the old shower.

  It spat at him. Tightening her hold on him, inside and out, Mia laughed as he straightened. “Better make that a priority, Barcelona. Grab my hairbrush off the sink and hit the pipe a couple of times; that usually does the trick.”

  • • •

  What the fuck was he doing? The goddamn job should be over by now. Instead, he’d broken her fall, he’d fucked her, and now he had her hairbrush in his hand, banging it against a pipe and having more fun than he’d had in . . . forever.

  Sex was never fun. It was a release. It was a guarantee of a decent night’s sleep. A way of blowing off steam. It was a few minutes of oblivion when necessary.

  Sex with Mia was a roller-coaster ride, naked, at noon.

  Hitting the pipe didn’t do the trick, so they showered in cool water that spluttered at them as they stood tightly together in the narrow, chipped cast-iron tub. It was worse than trying to shower with a water pistol.

  “This is going to take days.” He liked the feel of her ass crack tucked against his dick, and the slick, soapy glide of his fingers over her breasts.

  “I hope not. I’m cold. We need to hurry up and jump into bed to warm up.”

  “It’s ninety degrees outside.”

  “Then we should build a decent shower outside. I’m cold now. Don’t even think of hanky-panky in here,” she warned, slapping a hand over his as he skated his palm over her mound. “There are more death-in-shower accidents than anywhere else.”

  Yeah, he knew. He’d been responsible for several of them.

  She twisted to look over her shoulder. “Is there soap on my back?”

  They’d spent several minutes soaping each other, making sure there wasn’t a patch of skin or an erogenous zone untouched. Cruz didn’t feel cold at all. In fact, he was surprised that the dribble of cool water didn’t turn to steam the moment it came into contact with his skin.

  He slid his palm over her belly, circled a soapy finger around her navel, then skimmed his hands back to her breasts. “I’ll check after I finish washing your breasts.” Her nipples— peaks hard due to his stimulation, he suspected, rather than the cold—nudged his palms, ultrasensitive and responsive to his every touch, no matter how light.

  “I believe they’re squeaky clean now.” Her voice was dry as she rolled her head against his shoulder to look up at him with sparkling blue eyes filled with laughter and heat. Spiky-wet, long black lashes fluttered flirtatiously as she leaned back against his chest, cupping the backs of his hands where his finger stroked her breasts.

  Turning adroitly in his arms, she slid down his body. Kneeling in front of him, Mia took his penis in her hands, then slipped the head into her mouth. It wasn’t the first time she’d given a man oral sex. She knew just how to apply pressure as his penis hardened, how to suck so that his erection became rock hard.

  Using superior skills, she squeezed and stroked, sucked and licked, her head bobbing against his belly. Cruz plunged his fingers into her wet hair, holding her against him, his eyes squeezed shut as pleasure washed over him in waves.

  Cupping the back of her neck, he guided her head so that her mouth mimicked the thrust and counterthrust of intercourse.

  Her skin felt cold.

  He reached under her shoulders and lifted her up. “You’re freezing.”

  “Since when does that matter to a man getting a blow job?”

  Stepping out first, he helped her over the edge of the old-fashioned tub and cranked off the dribble of water. Her skin was pebbled and pink, her nipples tight, rosy buds, and beads of water sparkled on her pubic hair. “Since tonight,” he told her, wrapping her in a towel.

  “Well, I wasn’t finished there, mister. I want a do-over.”

  He briskly rubbed the towel over her from her shoulders to her upper thighs, and considered the job done. “You and me both.” Picking her up, he carried her into the bedroom and stretched over her on the fresh white sheets.

  Lazily she parted her legs, and he slid into her wet heat. Missionary style was not something he often did. It was too intimate, too slow, too face-to-face. It was a style that invited connections that he normally resisted. Now, though, he kissed her as he thrust in and out, their eyes open, their gaze locked on each other.

  She came not once, not twice, but three times before he did. Each time she moaned her release, his arousal built. When she finally screamed his name, he exploded into her with an intensity that stole his breath.

  He woke up an hour or so later, hard again, and slid inside her as she slept. She woke up to his penetration, welcoming him by wrapping her legs around his waist and arching into him.

  He slept only until arousal awakened him. Each time he reached for her, she welcomed him, and his desire for her had no boundaries. He’d never had so much sex in one night in his life, and when he wasn’t making love to her, he held her, slept with her, felt her breath, relished the silky sensation of her skin on his.

  When the morning sunlight hit his face, he groaned, because she should be dead, and he should be many miles away.

  Chapter Ten

  Miss Mia, you want me to do anything for you in the house?” Daisy kept her face averted as she clutched the leafy branches to her chest. It was barely nine in the morning, and wet-blanket hot already, yet she wore a brown fleece sweatshirt over her jeans. Sweat darkened the neckline, and her brown hair lay flat and lifeless against her head.

  Mia, dressed coolly in shorts and a skimpy tank top, hesitated. Latour, working nearby, cast his wife a threatening glance before his gaze snagged on Mia’s. He held her gaze for several hostile beats before going back to trimming a shrub whose boughs were so heavy, they were nearly touching
the ground.

  A shiver of revulsion cooled Mia’s skin. She returned her attention to Daisy. “Yes, would you come inside now?” She had to raise her voice over the buzz of the trimmer.

  Daisy shot a glance at her husband, but obediently placed her armload of sticks at her feet as carefully as if they were a baby.

  Oh, shit. From Daisy’s sucked-in breath and how stiffly she moved, Mia could tell it caused the woman pain. “Let’s go into the kitchen. I made sweet tea.” Turning her back, she headed back to the house, anger seething under the surface.

  “Oh. You shouldn’t do for me, Miss Mia. Just ask, I’ll be happy to make it . . .” Her voice trailed off fearfully. “Next time?”

  Oh, crap. She thought she was being fired. “Thanks, next time I will. I don’t quite have the hang of the simple syrup. You’ll have to show me. Let’s see if Cruz left us any chocolate chip cookies. I’ll give you some to take home to Charlie.”

  She gave Cruz a meaningful glance as she went down the hall. He’d already painted the wall going up the stairs a soft, warm, misty gray, and was about to start on the opposite wall. He shook his head and raised his eyes.

  He’d told her not to interfere, but how could she not? It had been obvious, just observing Daisy through the kitchen window earlier, that the woman was in a great deal of pain. Mia suspected at least a broken rib. Possibly worse.

  She wasn’t just pissed, she was enraged.

  Cruz clearly wasn’t used to dealing with a hundred staff problems a day. She was. And while Mia kept herself out of her employees’ personal lives, this was different. She couldn’t turn a blind eye to outright abuse. It was unacceptable on every level.

  Daisy’s steps behind her were slow and deliberate.

  “It’s way too hot to be working out there in the full sun. Sit down,” Mia told her, keeping her voice upbeat. “I’ll pour.”

  “I like the sun. It’s full of vitamin D,” Daisy said defensively as she pulled out one of the ladder-back chairs at the table by the window and gingerly lowered herself into it.