“Do you?” her Papi Chulo questioned as he imitated her earlier move, slowly passing the tips of his fingers up and down the gap between her breasts, then up along the swells of them. All the time, he watched the reaction of her body and as parts of her peaked against the fabric of the Cavalli lingerie, he grinned. “Are you impatient?”
“Not normally, but…” Tori reached up, covered her hand with his and urged it down to cup her breast. “Por favor.”
His smile broadened, displaying that tempting dimple once more. “Impatient but polite. I love a woman who’s a walking contradiction.”
Tori had been called many things in her life, none of which came close to his perception of her. She liked that he found her unpredictable. Stepping from the puddle of silk at her feet, she toed off her shoes and took a step closer to him.
He cradled her waist, bringing her flush to his body, then moved his hands up and down her back, before resting them beneath her breasts.
Tori gave a little mew of eagerness. “Ay, Papi. Bueno, do you think you can handle me? Impatient as I am?”
“I think I already am handling you,” he teased as he brought his hands up to cup her breasts. A flash of a quick smile greeted her question a moment before he buried his head between her neck and shoulder, zeroed in on that muy sensitive spot which he kissed, then sucked gently. All the time, his fingers teased her until she needed more.
She cupped the back of his head and bumped her hips against his, inviting him into the next step of their little contest. “Ready for another game?”
“Hmmm,” he murmured, but did nothing to grab the cards from the table. Instead, he slowly backed her toward the bed and once there, urged her to sit on the edge.
“Definitely,” he began, “because I’m feeling incredibly … lucky.”
Before Tori could guess what he planned, he retrieved the cards from the table and laid them beside her on the bed.
She gave him a questioning look and he replied, “Maybe I’m more impatient than I appear. Hearts are still wild. High cut of the cards gets their choice.”
Tori glanced from what she wore to his rather sparse ensemble. “It seems I have a decided advantage, mi amor.”
He kneeled before her so they were almost eye level and took her mouth with his in a deep kiss. When they eased apart for a breath, he whispered against her lips, “Querida, I’m not afraid of the risk; are you?”
“Nunca,” she answered back readily, totally confident that in the ultimate outcome of their battle there would be no losers.
He leaned back and cut the cards. A two of hearts.
After he had replaced the cards, Tori made her cut. A queen of spades. A loser thanks to his wildcard.
Her Papi Chulo wasted not a millisecond in easing his hands beneath the waistband of her panty hose and stripping them down her legs. Surprised her a second later as he surged forward and planted a kiss on the gap of bare skin between the top of her panties and the camisole.
Playfully she shoved him back and complained, “Not fair.”
“All’s fair in love and war,” he teased, drew another card. Another heart.
Tori grimaced. “So it’s war, is it?” Once more she cut and lost.
She waited for him to reach up and peel her camisole off, but he surprised her. Again. Grasping the minuscule strips that passed for a waistband on her panties, he slowly eased them down her legs, then tossed them aside.
He laid his hands on her thighs, skimming his palms gently along the outside, then to the more tender skin along the inside of her thighs.
Tori thought she knew where he was headed. She didn’t.
He continued upward until he bracketed her waist with his hands. Almost playfully, he skimmed his index finger along her midsection, pausing to trace the edges of her belly button. As he lifted his gaze to meet hers, he gave her a dimpled grin and said, “Anticipation, ¿verdad?”
Her breath was rough. Her body shaking and so on the edge, she surprised herself by saying, “No, Papi. No more waiting. It’s time.”
“I wasn’t sure I could wait much longer either,” he admitted, confirming his own need.
Tori reached for the drawer of the nightstand, hoping her ever efficient and slightly demented friends had thought of everything. She was not disappointed. Inside the drawer was a collection of all different kinds of condoms.
Chuckling, she grabbed a few and looked back at him.
He stood before her in all his naked glory and her mouth suddenly went dry. He was perfection. And he was hers. And he was laughing as he reached for yet another three or four condoms from the assortment in the drawer. “Let me guess? Your three friends, verdad. The ones that are probably in one of the rooms next to us with their ears plastered to the wall?”
Dios, but she liked his off-balance sense of humor. “Sabes what that means?”
He arched one eyebrow, tossed back the condoms he held as she selected one and pulled it from the foil. “That we need to use them all?”
There was a slight catch to his words, followed by a groan as she unrolled the latex over him.
Tori smiled. A sexy, incredibly pleased-with-herself smile as she eased into the center of the bed and crooked a finger in invitation. “No, amor. It means that you’d better not make me scream too loud.”
As he placed one knee on the bed and slowly crawled toward her, his mischievous grin sparked a fire within her. “Sorry, querida. But that’s one promise I don’t think I can keep.”
Chapter Eleven
The unaccustomed sway roused her to wakefulness, together with the also unfamiliar warmth of a body pressed to her back and the arm draped over her waist, keeping her close.
Tori slowly opened her eyes. Golden light filtered in around the edges of the drawn curtains. The alarm clock said it was six. They had a few more hours until the yacht docked back in Bayfront Park. Her camisole was draped over the lampshade on the open-drawered nightstand. An assortment of clothes and foil wrappers were strewn along the floor. The empty bottle of Cristal sat punt up in a puddle of water in the cooler. And the playing cards …
The cards which had lost her one kind of luck, but decidedly improved her fortune at love, sat in a neat pile on the nightstand.
She hadn’t wanted to get to like him. But she had. And it wasn’t that he was absolutely gorgeous and an amazingly skillful lover. Patient and demanding. Funny and yet serious. Dios mio but he always kept her guessing, even though he’d confessed to being boring and predictable normally. And during their lovemaking—he’d been caring and tender.
What must he think of her? Did he think she’d just been out for a one-night stand? But then again, what else could he think since that was exactly what she’d told him. And why did it bother her so?
Because she didn’t want the night to end.
He moved slightly behind her, tightened his hold on her waist to draw her nearer. His erection nestled against the small of her back and as she shifted to press herself tight to him, the slight soreness between her legs gave testament to just how often they had enjoyed each other the night before.
“Buenos días,” he said and placed a kiss on her cheek.
She rolled until she was facing him and laid her hand on his chest. Stretching upward, she placed a gentle kiss on his lips and husked, “Not bueno. The noche is almost over.”
Chuckling, he placed his hand on the middle of her back and brought her flush to him. “We still have a little time,” he said as he kissed her more deeply, opening his mouth against her lips.
“Muy poca,” she replied as she tugged on his bottom lip with her teeth and soothed the nip with a lick of her tongue.
“Time enough for another cut. Are you game?” he said, but was reaching for the cards even before he heard her answer.
He offered up the cards and she picked one—a jack of hearts. Hard to beat unless …
Her papi drew the king of hearts. Somehow prophetic, she thought. “And you want—”
“To
know your name. For you to know mine before we make love again.” There was command in his voice. He wouldn’t take no for an answer this time as he had the night before.
It went against her original game plan. It would change what she had resolved for her special Three-O night. None of that seemed to matter anymore.
“My friends call me Tori.” She offered her hand for a shake.
There was no denying the satisfaction on his face as he took hold of her hand, pulled her full against him and said, “My friends call me Gil.”
“Gil.” She liked the sound of it on her lips and repeated it again. “Gil.” Then she repeated his name several times before she said, “I like, Gil. Suits you.”
As he rolled to his back and brought her to straddle him, he playfully said, “Don’t you think you might get tired of saying my name?”
Tori stretched her hand toward the open nightstand drawer, withdrew a condom and playfully waved it in the air. “Nope. But how about you if you try tiring me out?” She leaned forward, kissed his lips, then worked her way down his body until she was poised right above the tip of him.
“But of course,” Gil confirmed.
* * *
An hour later, Gil was nestled against her back once more, clearly sated and with no complaints that Tori had uttered his name on more than one occasion. But there was no denying that they soon had to dress and go their separate ways as the speed of the ship registered. They’d be in port soon.
Tori hated that thought even more now. Knowing his name had upped the ante. “We need to get dressed,” she murmured and rubbed her hand along his arm as it rested on her waist.
“Five more minutes,” Gil grumbled in complaint.
She suddenly could imagine waking beside him in the morning and hearing that gravelly voiced request on a daily basis.
This was not good. After this morning …
If she stuck to what she’d planned, she wouldn’t see Gil again. But she had already deviated from that plan by giving him her name. Could she just walk away now? For that matter, she was assuming an awful lot, wasn’t she? Her abuelita had warned her that men were dogs and not long for a relationship after they got what they wanted. Except, of course, for her saint of a husband.
But I was a dog, wasn’t I? I acted just like a guy. I saw. I conquered. I planned on leaving.
In her heart, however, she knew she wasn’t the kind of woman that could just scratch an itch without caring about it afterward.
Tori tried not to think about that as, a few minutes later, Gil placed a kiss on her shoulder and moved from the bed. For a moment she watched as he collected his clothes from around the room. Then she rose, grabbed a robe from the small closet at the far side of the room, and approached him.
She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly wary and slightly defensive. Amazingly fearful that Gil would behave as she had wanted to and slip away into the morning light, never to be seen again.
Tori couldn’t watch him go. Instead, she stood by the door, staring down at the light blue pile of the rug. A pair of polished black dress shoes came into her line of vision. A second later, Gil cupped her chin and gently urged her face upward.
She met his gaze and saw the reflection of her emotions in the blue of his eyes. Hesitation. Desire. And something different. Determination.
He reached into his back pocket, took out his wallet, and withdrew a business card, which he handed to her. “I’d like to see you again.”
Tori glanced at the card and surprise pulled a strangled chuckle from her. “Gil? As in a nickname for Guillermo. As in Guillermo Gonzalez, new partner at Harrison, Morgan and Smith?”
She was babbling, but somehow couldn’t contain her amusement at the little joke fate had played on her.
He pointed an index finger at the card and then motioned to her and then back to him, clearly confused. “That’s the card from my old law firm, but they’d forward your call to me. How’d you—”
Tori held her hand out to him again in introduction as she said, “Tori. As in a nickname for Victoria. As in Victoria Rodriguez, new partner of same said firm.”
He pointed at her. “You were out on Friday. On my first day.”
She nodded and smiled. “Took the day off to celebrate my birthday.”
“Your birthday, huh? Happy Birthday. Sorry I didn’t bring a gift.”
Tori stepped up next to him, cupped his cheek and ran her thumb along the outline of his lips. “Oh, but you did. And it’s not the kind of gift I’m likely to return.”
Gil wrapped his arms around her and began to laugh. A full, rich, happy kind of laugh and she joined in.
“So does this mean I can see you again?” Gil asked.
Tori gazed up at him and grinned. “At the office? In my boring lawyer clothes?”
Gil brought his lips to hers and whispered, “Actually, I was thinking of somewhere else and in something a little more casual. Maybe even without clothes.”
Tori chuckled and nodded. “I’d say that’s a definite maybe.”
“And I’d say I’m a really lucky guy.”
Tori opened her mouth and accepted his kiss, thinking she was going to have to find an extraspecial way to thank her friends for giving her a birthday night she’d not forget anytime soon!
And then as he backed her against the door, she stopped thinking and just let herself seize the moment.
And Gil.
Revenge of the Fashion Goddess
BERTA PLATAS
Chapter One
If a stiff drink is Dutch courage, then a double mojito is liquid Cuban backbone. I’d ordered one earlier from room service, and although the mint and the lemon wedge looked kind of wilted, the rum was still strong. Alone in my hotel room, I picked up my glass and sucked down the equivalent of three solid-steel vertebrae. I needed it.
I picked up the invitation and read it again, as if a secret paragraph might have appeared since the last time. My full name, California Esther Montalvo, was front and center, long and shudder-inducing. To me, at least. No one who knew me would be dumb enough to use the whole thing, not even my mother. I think she’s embarrassed about it now, as if she’d named me California in a hippie moment. You’d laugh if you knew Mami. She’s a Cuban version of Nancy Reagan.
The invitation trembled in my hand. Bad news, since it meant that I was still scared. I could have another mojito, but I still had to get to Scooter’s—a name that didn’t inspire visions of cutting-edge décor—and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself on the first night of my reunion weekend.
I was here in downtown Chicago because the words “fifteenth year reunion of North Elmwood Park High School” had stopped me from tossing the envelope in the trash, my first impulse after seeing my horrendous full name spelled out beneath the blue-and-gold North Elmwood Park heraldic crest.
I was amazed that I’d been invited at all. I didn’t think my old classmates remembered me, and I sure didn’t want them to remember me, not as I’d been. The Cali Montalvo who had worked in the school library, unibrowed and fashion-challenged, who had hidden during PE classes to skip dressing out and had avoided contact with the student body—that person had ceased to exist. I started to kill her in college, bashing her to death with the discovery of people just like me. Latina and literate—not the usual mix at old Elmwood Park, where the only person anything like me had been Rick Capaldi, and that was because he was a borderline social outcast, too. I had the double whammy of also being the school’s only Latina.
Rick. Dios mío, just thinking his name gave me shivers, years after the hormonal rush of my teenage years, when love and bad self-image combined in a vortex of longing. I wanted to see Rick again.
I wondered where life had taken him. A literature professor? A writer? Certainly something to do with books. Maybe he wouldn’t attend the reunion, ashamed of his humble beginnings, his garage mechanic days. Of course, reunions are a chance not just to revisit your past, but to show off your success. Rick would be the
re.
That’s what decided me. But as the date approached, apprehension seized me. Details that had faded as I got busy with college, internships, and the succession of jobs that led me to the fashion industry came back, like ghastly nuggets floating in a sewer. The paralyzing shyness that ruled my life. The indifferent kids I went to school with.
The shyness was gone, but the memories were returning. I’ve heard that after childbirth the memory of the pain goes away, until you’re facing it again. It’s a fitting analogy: if anyone had told my eighteen-year-old self that I’d be a hot New York fashion designer, I’d have laughed hysterically, hard enough to forget to raise my hand to cover the gap between my front teeth, long gone after spending my freshman college year in braces. I had reinvented myself, become reborn.
I put down the drink and picked up my little Prada handbag. It was time to go. The reunion was tomorrow, but tonight was the Friday night mixer, a way to see everyone without committing to the exposure of name badges and whatever horror the planning committee had cooked up.
My girlfriends back in New York were waiting for my report.
Right now they’d be racking up the first balls for our usual Friday night pool game at PeeBee’s, Paolo’s Billiards, a cheap joint that was all that remained of the ’hood in our revitalized Bronx neighborhood.
They were probably drinking wine and laughing at my strange need to revisit ancient misery. All had agreed that I just needed to get laid, a decision I couldn’t argue with, since the stress of Fashion Week had segued into long meetings about the retail lines. Sex was a distant, and not too pleasant, memory, so far in the past that I could almost attribute mystical powers to the act. Instant relaxation. Instant boost of self-esteem. My girlfriends definitely thought it was great. They’d even bet on whom I’d pick. Like I’d pick anyone.
I didn’t expect great sex, but I hoped to lay some ghosts to rest. It was a high school reunion. Everybody probably had the same expectations.
I left my room and started down the carpeted hall toward the elevator. I was still about thirty feet away when a woman staggered out of one of the two elevators. I cursed and hurried to catch it, but I was wearing my bronze leather Jimmy Choo stilettos and couldn’t run. As the doors slid shut behind her, the woman grabbed the faux-burled walnut console opposite the elevators. Her knees sagged and she bent double, putting her forehead on the table’s glass top. It looked like a weird modern dance move. My heel snagged a carpet loop and I almost went sprawling. Good thing I’d drawn the limit at one mojito, or I wouldn’t even make it out of the hotel.
Friday Night Chicas Page 11