Blush

by Cherry Adair

  But one could be halfway there if one allowed it. “Have you ever been in love?”

  “No.”

  “Do you believe in love?” she asked curiously, sitting upright and running both hands through her hair as they approached the house. It was the first time in hours that she’d given her appearance a thought. In fact, tonight was the first time in several months that she’d even bothered to put on makeup at all.

  “Doesn’t exist, except in advertising to sell anything from your fancy Blush perfume to Ferraris.” He pulled her truck under the carport and cut the engine. She’d left all the lights on in the house when she’d run out, so pools of golden light dotted the wide expanse of non-lawn. It looked welcoming and safe.

  “Wow. We’re both cynics.” That was kind of depressing. She’d never given her cynicism any thought at all until now. “Well, I do believe in love. Pretty much three out of four songs for hundreds of years have been about it, so it must exist, right?”

  “Maybe for some people.” He could almost have added, But not for people like us.

  Mia realized she wanted everything love could bring into her life. As mysterious and closed as he was, she was already more than halfway in love with Cruz. She wanted to lie on a blanket in the sun with him and eat strawberries. She wanted—

  It was good to want things. But her life was chaotic enough as it was, without adding a man into the mix.

  Her sigh shook a little as she gusted out a breath.

  “You okay?” Cruz asked.

  “Just really, really wired.”

  “It’s all that adrenaline racing around your body. You’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep . . . or a hot night of sex.”

  “Right now I’m not sure I can do either, thinking about what he did to her and Charlie.”

  “And I’ll sleep well only when I know Marcel’s been arrested. If they found him.” The police hadn’t, as of half an hour ago. “I’ll call Detective Hammell again when we get inside.”

  Mia didn’t care that they’d already called twice in the last hour and a half. “I hope they throw the book at the pig.”

  She wanted Latour arrested. Just seeing Daisy lying in that hospital bed with a breathing tube and a brace around her neck had shot Mia’s blood pressure sky-high. “I hope someone in prison thinks he’s pretty,” she told Cruz, tone grim.

  “They’ll get him on aggravated second-degree battery. He’ll be there awhile, so there’ll be plenty of opportunity for him to make friends and perhaps get a taste of his own medicine.” Cruz’s voice was tight. “He not only used his fists, it looks as though he gave Daisy that orbital fracture behind her bruised eye by striking her with the lamp base. He wasn’t battering her. The sick fuck used brute strength and a weapon to try to kill her.”

  He hadn’t told her that at the hospital, and now she pictured what it must’ve been like for Daisy. Tears prickled behind Mia’s eyes, and she began to shake with a potent combination of anger, fury, and a deep-seated desire for justice. “I’ve never said this in my life, but I want him to die.”

  Cruz’s fingers tightened around the curve of her shoulder. “They’ll be hard on him. Prisoners don’t take kindly to wife beaters.”

  “Then I hope he’s the only beater in there, and they’re all bored and looking for a punching bag.”

  He looked down at her, and Mia’s heart did a somersault at the tender expression in his eyes. Probably the moonlight. Possibly the adrenaline. Definitely the sexy man beside her.

  “Bloodthirsty. Hell, I feel exactly the same way.”

  “I know, right? This has brought out a whole different side of me. But, honest to God, any man who puts the people he should protect at risk deserves to die.” She popped the passenger door.

  As soon as they got out of the truck, the muggy heat slapped them like a hot, wet blanket. She waved away the persistent mosquito buzzing around her head, and Oso started frantically barking from inside the camper.

  “Let’s go liberate the beast, then hit the sack.” Cruz wrapped his arm around her shoulders as they walked through the carport into the backyard, where his truck and camper were parked near the house. Mia slipped her arm around his waist and listened to the throaty moans of the frogs and the dog’s happy barks as their feet crunched on the dead grass. She’d miss this place when she was back in San Francisco.

  Maybe she’d keep it. Hire a property manager to ensure all the repairs got done. She could come here for vacations— No. She couldn’t: (a) she never took vacations, and (b) every time she set foot on the property she’d remember Cruz.

  No. When this was over, eventually she’d sell the house, and not give it a second’s thought. Would their time spent together be a fond memory, or would thinking about him tear off another little chunk of her heart?

  She’d deal with the aftermath as she did every other crisis, decision, and big event in her life. By analyzing it, researching her options, weighing the facts, and making an informed, rational decision.

  Except she had no facts about Cruz other than what he presented to her, and, God help her, she couldn’t make any rational decisions because everything she knew and felt was based on her visceral physical response to him, and pure emotion.

  She knew that any man with his sexual appetite had a bedpost somewhere notched with all the nameless women he’d had sex with.

  Even in his passion he was cool and controlled. He kept himself so well guarded, it would take a lifetime to really get to know him. Mia knew she didn’t have lifetime, or anything close to it. He was more drifter and less the kind to stick around, especially since she’d told him the truth about who she was. She couldn’t picture Cruz mixing in high society, not when he wore the bad-boy persona so well. Not that he couldn’t, she suspected; he just wouldn’t be bothered to make the effort.

  Her business in San Francisco would be concluded in days. Todd and Miles would figure out who was trying to kill her, and she’d go home. Where did that leave any chance of a relationship with Cruz?

  She knew she wouldn’t sleep for what was left of the night. She had a lot to think about. At home, when her mind was too full to sleep, she went into her gym and worked out until she pretty much dropped. There was no gym here, and with Cruz in the room she wasn’t going to try to master that stupid pole.

  Instead, she’d lie beside him, memorizing his sleeping face all night. Because dollars to doughnuts, one day, sooner rather than later, Cruz would be long gone when she woke up.

  • • •

  “What are you reading?” Mia looked adorable, and sexy as hell, wearing black horn-rimmed glasses and a frown of concentration as she leaned against a mound of pillows. Her laptop was balanced precariously on the mountain of her knees and a book was propped against her thighs.

  She wasn’t naked. Thin, fire-engine red straps curled over creamy bare shoulders. The snowy sheet covered the rest.

  Pulling the glasses down her nose, she gave him a sweet smile that caused some weird shit in his chest. Which was damned odd. He’d been aloof and cold inside from childhood. His mother’s death had closed off what little emotion was left. He had never considered his lack of emotion an issue. Never even noticed one way or another.

  But a smile from Mia made his insides feel as if the block of ice was slowly thawing.

  Cruz felt a jolt of panic at the sensation.

  Maybe, once he was satiated by her, he’d lose this odd ache he felt when she smiled at him with complete trust in her eyes.

  “Tomorrow I thought I’d try my hand at making something incredibly valuable and stunningly beautiful with my potter’s wheel.”

  He had a flash memory of some movie with two people slippery with clay. . . . “Does it have to be either to have value to you?” he asked, toeing off his shoes and pulling his T-shirt over his head at the same time.

  Like a naughty schoolmarm, she gave his bare chest a hot look over her reading glasses. “No. But anything worth doing is worth doing well.” Her twinkling eye
s returned to his face, and she gave him a smile he was sure wasn’t intended to be seductive, but the end result was the same. “I might have an aptitude for it. Who knows?”

  Cruz unzipped his jeans, not in the least surprised to discover he had a boner. “You won’t know till you try.”

  He slipped between the smooth, cool cotton sheets, then rolled to his side to face her, propping his head on his folded arm. She had all the pillows. “Are you going to be at that all night?”

  “Why?” She gave him a serious look. “Do you have anything else in mind?”

  “Sleep?” They could both use it. It had been an action-filled day.

  She closed her computer and slid it onto the bedside table, followed by the book she’d been reading. “You should go on a regime of vitamins,” she said over her bare shoulder as she turned off the light, plunging the room into darkness. “No stamina.” She slid down beside him, stroking her smooth foot over his hair-roughened calf. “Would you like a pillow?”

  He pulled her flush against his chest, burying his nose in the damp strands of her hair. He’d never smell tuberoses again without thinking about her. “I’ll rough it tonight.” Her nose nuzzled under his throat as she slung an arm across his waist. Mia was practically straddling his body. “Ever been camping?”

  Not unless she considered sleeping with one eye open under an overpass camping. “No. You?”

  “Uh-uh.” Delicate fingers traced his rib cage. “Ever ridden a bike?” She found his nipple, then removed her finger to lick it before returning. The sensation of her wet finger tweaking his nipple, which had never been, in his entire life, an erogenous zone, made his dick jerk and weave like a divining rod to get inside her.

  “Yeah. The kid I stole it from beat me within an inch of my life.” His father had knocked him unconscious and put his mother in the hospital for not controlling her son. “I was nine. Last time I stole anything.” Cruz stroked his hand up and down her slender back in slow, even caresses. Her skin, impossibly soft, heated with every brush of his hand.

  She laid a string of kisses down his throat and played with his now hard nipple, rolling it between her fingers as he’d done to her. “I stole a lipstick from a grocery store when I was about the same age,” she admitted, pausing. “Does this feel good?”

  “Don’t stop,” he said hoarsely, skimming his fingers down the crack of her ass and making her shiver.

  “My father was livid, and made my assistant take me back to the store to return it with a letter of apology. He wasn’t pissed I stole it; he was pissed because it was a Revlon lipstick. Brand loyalty was important at my house.”

  Her father sounded like a dick. Abuse by any other name . . . “You had an assistant at nine years old?”

  “I’ve had an assistant since I was born.” Her tone was dry. “Babies have incredibly busy social lives; someone has to keep track of all those playdates, dance lessons, and birthday parties.”

  “Wow. Poor little rich girl.”

  “I didn’t know any differently. How about—”

  “My turn.” Time to switch gears and not go down memory lane. “Ocean or mountains?”

  “Ocean.”

  “Me, too. Drive or fly?”

  “Fly.”

  “Yeah, I like to get there faster, too. You on top or on the bottom? No, let me answer that for you.”

  “How’s the view up there?”

  “Spectacular.”

  “Your eyes are closed.”

  “How do you know? It’s pitch-dark.”

  “Do you realize this is the first time we’ve made love in the dark?” Made love. He hadn’t even been about to say fucked. How had the L word slipped out? He never used it in any context, ever. And certainly never thought it.

  “I like it. Eliminating one sense makes the others more intense.”

  “Would you like to use one of the hundreds of condoms you have in the drawer?”

  “It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?”

  He brushed his lips over hers in a light, tantalizing kiss. “Before you, I’d never had sex without one.” Never been tempted. And now he knew why. He was hungry to feel her slick, hot juices surrounding his dick as he pumped into her. Rationality was a distant annoyance. Caution thrown to the wind, he was consumed with the idea that he’d have her with nothing but lube between them. His balls tightened.

  “Neither had I. I love the way you kiss. I love how smooth and firm your lips feel against mine. I love how hot the inside of your mouth is, and the taste of you. When you kiss me, it’s as if there’s an electrical charge running directly from my lips to my womb. It makes me hot and shivery all over.”

  He tangled his fingers in her hair at her nape, letting the strands part and drift in a silky fall over the back of his hand. “Are you aware that when you’re hot and shivery all over, you’re blushing all over?”

  Her hands clutched his shoulders. “I don’t blush.”

  He kissed the shell of her ear, then trailed his lips down the side of her throat, his fingers still buried in her hair. “You have your own personal heat wave when you’re turned on.” He smiled against the rapid pulse at the base of her throat, then moved his mouth slowly to where he knew those three cute freckles were.

  “You being turned on turns me on.” The want, the need, he felt for this woman blew his mind. The smell of her skin made him light-headed, and as hot as a pistol. And yet, making love to her slowly was its own reward. Strong yet fragile, she was a match for his fierce and fevered passion.

  Cruz kissed her luscious mouth slow and hard and deep, and felt her shudder through his own body. Everything male in him responded to the small sigh and whimpers she made.

  His hands drifted over her body, her contours, hills and valley so familiar to him now, yet new because he was taking his time. Savoring her. Knowing that, after the horror she’d seen, she needed to be treated with gentle, loving hands and deep, sweet kisses.

  Now he knew he was never going to kill her. Now, instead of being irritated that he couldn’t resist her, he was free to relish every second that he was with her. He fondled her breast, loving the weight and shape in his hand.

  “Too light.” Cupping the back of his hand, she pressed his fingers down hard. His thumb rasped her nipple, just the way she liked it.

  Her abdomen was flat and firm, her skin as soft as the smoothest satin. He kissed the little dimple of her navel, then swirled his tongue where he had kissed.

  A primordial instinct made him want to brand her, claim her as only his. Fucking insane.

  He had other commitments. So why think beyond the moment with her?

  She dug her nails into his back, her hips undulating against him. He grabbed one of the pillows, stuffing it under her ass. Rising above her, he settled himself between her thighs and slid into her slowly. She was wet, slick with juices, and the slow movement of her hips in counterpoint to his set him on fire.

  Sweat glued their skin together, and his breathing came hard and fast.

  Her head rolled back and forth on the pillow.

  His teeth ground as he tried to hold back, to give her as much pleasure as he could before they went over the edge together. All his attention was on Mia’s responses: he knew her body so well, knew when she wanted him to touch her breasts, when she wanted his hand between them to touch her clit.

  She cried out his name when he kissed from her breasts to her neck, then nibbled at the soft skin beneath her ear.

  He moved with urgent power, primal in his need to come at the same time as Mia but so aroused by her he worried he’d come first. And that would be a first. He never lost control. Without the drumbeat of a killer governing his thoughts, she aroused him too much.

  “Don’t stop,” she whispered, sensing that his urgency was driving him to the brink. “Please. Don’t stop.”

  Her sheath clutching him tighter and tighter, he gritted his teeth, trying to make it last. Impossible.

  “Let go, sweetheart. I’ll catch you.�
� Reaching between them, he found her clit in the swollen folds and rubbed it lightly; then, when she moaned and her hips bucked against him, he rolled her clit between his thumb and his index finger.

  With every slow thrust into her, he applied more and more pressure on her clit. She screamed his name as she came. He nibbled at her neck, then let go, thrusting hard and exploding into her, biting her, branding her as his.

  For now.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The bedroom smelled of sex and fresh paint when Mia emerged from a tepid shower. Cruz had woken her with coffee, a juicy kiss, and two slices of peanut butter toast, then informed her he was painting. They’d decided to complete the parlor so that she could get the furniture delivered before she left. Mia didn’t tell Cruz the “before she left” part of that decision. Her lips had clung to his as he leaned over her, arms braced on either side of her head as he gave her a lingering good-morning kiss.

  They’d spoken to the police. The bad news was that Latour still hadn’t been apprehended. But the good news was he had no idea where his wife and child were, so at least they were safe from him. He couldn’t run forever. Then they called Charlie’s foster mother and spoke to her, then to Charlie. He sounded subdued, but he was safe, and they assured him he’d be reunited with his mom soon. They also told him they’d pick him up later for a short visit to the hospital. Yes, they’d bring Oso.

  Soon was a relative term. Daisy was in bad shape. But she’d mend, and as soon as that happened, Mia planned to fly her and Charlie to San Francisco. They could start a new life there, far away from Marcel.

  All of that had happened less than an hour ago. Mia heard Cruz murmuring to Oso, and the dog’s happy barks as she flung open the window to let in a warm breeze and the green smell of the bayou.

  She dressed in tight black exercise shorts and a stretchy pink tank top, and made up the bed with fresh linens. Today she was determined to master the pole. Moving her computer within easy reach at the foot of the bed, she cued up the first exercise video.

  Once Cruz was done in the parlor, Mia planned on contacting the furniture company in New Orleans to have that room’s furniture delivered. Tomorrow, she had to go to the rented mailbox in downtown New Orleans to pick up the papers sent from David and Kent and have them notarized. Once those were returned to the investment company, and the money changed hands, she’d be the sole owner of Blush come Monday close of business.