Chapter Fourteen

His hold gentled, his thumbs rubbing the insides of my arms so that I shivered. What was it about this man that made me behave completely out of character, had me doing things I knew were a bad idea, yet I couldn’t bring myself to stop?

It couldn’t just be his face, the body, that voice—which slid silkily from foreign endearments to guttural Anglo-Saxon curses, the accent here, there, gone again, never strong enough to figure out what, or even if, it was.

Couldn’t be the sex either—though that had been spectacular—because I’d been fascinated with him long before he’d ever touched me.

I wasn’t the kind of woman who fell in love at first sight—nor was I the kind to believe this was love. I was too practical for that.

What it was, was something that both scared and thrilled me, something I couldn’t give up. At least not yet.

His palms cupped my hips. The pulse of his arousal pressed into my belly, and I shimmied against him.

He groaned and stepped back, putting out a hand to stop me when I followed. “We can’t—”

“We can. Did. Will.”

“Anne, I—” He shook his head. “I’m no good at this.”

“I disagree. You’re very good.”

Most men would have been flattered. Of course, most men wouldn’t be inching slowly away from a woman who wanted them.

He shoved a hand through his hair, then let it drop back to his side. “I meant you and I can’t—”

“Can,” I argued.

“Shouldn’t. I’m not…” His voice trailed off.

“Not what, John?”

“Good for you. I’m not good for anyone.”

“I disagree,” I repeated.

“You don’t know me.”

“Then let me get to know you.”

“No.”

I don’t know why that hurt. I didn’t plan to stay; I doubted he’d go. This wasn’t a love affair, and I didn’t want it to be.

I’d made a promise—to myself, if not Katie—that I wouldn’t move on with my life until I got hers back. I couldn’t throw that promise to the wind and make a future with this man, even if he asked me to.

“Fine,” I said, horrified when my voice shook. I stopped, cleared my throat and lifted my chin, staring straight into his… sunglasses. “We won’t date. We’ll just fuck.”

The word tasted nasty on my tongue, but he’d hurt me and I wanted to hurt him back.

He muttered something in Spanish, but he didn’t appear shocked or upset. All the anger went out of me.

“You don’t have to worry about—” I broke off, uncertain how to broach the subj ect.

His head tilted. “What?”

“Me.”

“But I do, chica, very much.”

I didn’t understand how he could say I was attractive, that he worried about me, then turn away the offer of my body. I knew I’d never model for  Vogue or Victoria’s Secret, but he didn’t. Had I been that bad in bed?

“Never mind. I’m not accomplished like—”

“Who?” he asked warily.

“No one in particular. I’m sure the women you usually—” I waved my hand, then realized he couldn’t see me. “Um, sleep with, I’m sure they’re spectacular.”

“You think I sleep with so many?”

“Why wouldn’t you? The first night you thought I’d searched you out for sex.”

“I don’t sleep with just anyone.”

My head came up. I wished for the hundredth time that I could see his eyes. “You don’t?”

“No. I haven’t been with a woman for a very long time.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t deserve happiness.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. How many times had I thought the same thing?

“Everyone deserves happiness,” I lied.

“No,” he said sharply. “They do not.”

Since I agreed with him, I quit arguing and brought up the concern that had troubled me since we’d fallen all over each other. “You seemed upset the other night, after we—You know.”

He smiled slightly. “I know.”

“You don’t have to worry,” I repeated. His smile dissolved into confusion. “I’m, uh, on the pill,” I finished quickly.

I hated this conversation.

“That wasn’t what I was worried about.”

“I don’t have any weird diseases either.” I bulldozed onward. “I’ve never…”

“Never?” he murmured, with a quirk of one dark eyebrow.

“Well, not never. I wasn’t a virgin.”

He muttered something I couldn’t make out, and I decided I didn’t want to.

“I’ve never been with anyone who hasn’t used a condom,” I blurted.

“Ah.” Understanding dawned. “The modern plagues.”

“What?”

“Haven’t you heard the theory that the sexually transmitted diseases of this age are the Black Death of the old?”

“‘Fraid not.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about me either. I was examined quite thoroughly when this”—he pointed to his eyes—”happened. Nothing wrong with me that a little eyesight couldn’t cure. I haven’t touched anyone since.”

A tingle of unease began at the base of my spine. “How long?”

“Over a year now.”

“You haven’t had sex in a year,” I repeated.

“That’s right.”

My shoulders sagged. No wonder he’d kissed me.

“What’s the matter?” he murmured. “I’d think that news would make you happy.”

“Sure. Of course.” I laughed, the sound too loud in the sudden stillness. “I’m thrilled. But if you weren’t worried about birth control or STDs then why were you so upset the other night?”

“I—” He lifted his hand as if he planned to touch my cheek, then lowered it and turned away. “I thought I hurt you.”

“Did you hear me complaining?”

He remained silent.

“You didn’t hurt me,” I said. “If you had, I’d tell you. If you do, I’ll tell you.”

“My life, it hasn’t been normal.”

“Join the club.”

” Chica, your life was so normal, it positively glowed.” His sigh was long and sad and full of things I didn’t understand. “Until three years ago.”

Now I remained silent, because he was right.

“When are you going to give up?” he asked softly.

“Not until I know the truth.”

“The truth can be an ugly thing.”

“At least it’s the truth.”

“What if she’s dead?”

“At least we’ll know.”

“What if she’s worse than dead?”

“Worse?”

He turned, and the lights reflected off his sunglasses so brightly I flinched. For an instant the glowing white orbs had looked like eyes. In a horror flick.

“Believe me, there are things much worse than death.”

“Is that why you talk to yourself? Why you have headaches? Nightmares? Why you won’t let anyone close? Because of things that are worse than death?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe if you talked about it—”

“No.”

“I could—”

“What? Listen to my nightmares, kiss me and make them all go away? You can’t. No one can.”

“What happened to you?” I asked.

“Only what I deserved.”

A sudden, shrill howling split the night. “What the hell is that?” I headed for the door.

His hand shot out, and he grabbed my arm—a pretty good catch for a blind man—then held on when I would have pulled away.

I opened my mouth to ask if he heard the howl, if he knew what it was, and he kissed me.

I tasted desperation on his lips, and I wasn’t sure why. Was he as desperate for the taste of me as I was for a taste of him? I doubted it. He’d managed to convince me that the two of us together wasn’t a good idea. I’d believed him when he’d said we couldn’t do this.

So why were we?

I didn’t know and, right now, I didn’t care.

Mouth on mine, tongues at war, he walked me backward until my shoulders met the wall. An instant later, the lights went out.

I wondered momentarily what difference it made, then realized that with the lights glaring and the big window up front, anyone passing on the street would get a peep show worthy of Bourbon.

In truth, I liked the darkness. That glimpse of the lights reflected in Rodolfo’s sunglasses had spooked me, and I didn’t want to see it again. Especially now.

His body pressed the length of mine; he crowded me against the wall. I arched, moaning as his erection settled more firmly between my thighs.

Hands under my shirt, he filled them with my breasts, unfettered in the night. His fingers were so long and supple. With a musician’s talent for coaxing music out of ivory and metal, he’d have no trouble coaxing everything out of me.

I could have sworn I heard that howl again, but when I broke the kiss, turning my attention toward the window, he swung me onto the bar in one swift movement, yanking my paj ama bottoms to my ankles along with my panties, and I forgot about everything that wasn’t in the room with me right now.

Perched on the edge of the cherrywood structure, I was several inches above where I needed to be. Or so I thought. When I tried to scoot off, to pull him upstairs, or maybe to the nearest table, he stopped me with a hand on my chest. “Lay back.”

I resisted, but not for long, as his other hand dipped between my legs.

The bar was long and wide, not exactly comfortable on my spine, but I didn’t care once his head descended.

His lips were as clever as his fingers; I felt like an instrument being persuaded to make music it had never before been capable of.

The tip of his tongue found the tight bud between my legs. How could a tongue be hard and soft, seductive and at the same time demanding?

My neck arched; I caught a glimpse of us in the mirrored wall behind the bar, his dark head framed by my thighs, pale in the slight drift of the distant streetlight through the window.

The picture as erotic as the sensations, I cried out, so near the edge I quivered with it. He pulled away, lifting me from the bar and depositing me on the nearest table. I had an instant where I felt like lunch as he gazed down at me, the black holes of his glasses familiar yet disturbing.

Then his loose trousers pooled at his ankles, and he pushed into me, stretching, filling, making what was empty full, what was two suddenly one, and the loneliness that lived inside of me receded.

I wrapped my legs around his hips, my arms around his neck. I was going to have a bruised backside in a few hours, but that seemed a small price to pay.

He slowed things down, his strokes deeper, longer, more deliberate. His clever hands traced my breasts, my belly, my nipples, as if memorizing their shape and texture.

When his fingers lifted to my face, I was tempted to deny him. Would he be able to tell I wasn’t a pretty girl just by touch? Would it matter?

Except he whispered my name, and I couldn’t tell him no to that any more than I’d been able to tell him no to anything else.

He murmured words in several languages, his body moving in and out of mine as his fingertips traced my cheekbones, my j awline, the bridge of my nose. The latter made him smile and press his mouth to the crooked bone.

“Did someone hurt you?” he asked.

In that instant, I knew he was going to, worse than anyone else ever had.

I tried to shake off the weird premonition. I wasn’t a woman who believed in such things.

“No,” I said. “It was an accident, in a basketball game.”

Speaking of how I’d broken my nose, taking an elbow on a rebound, made the last shiver of superstition die away.

“You’re so…” His voice trailed off and I tensed. Did he know I was plain?

“Amazing,” he finished, and an unladylike snort escaped.

“You don’t think so?” he asked.

“People have called me many things,” I said, “but ‘amazing’ doesn’t happen to be one of them.”

“Then most people are more blind than I am.”

“I think you’re seeing things that aren’t there.”

He tilted his head, seeming to look right at me, despite the barrier of the ever-present sunglasses. “I
see better than you think.”

I certainly hoped that wasn’t true.

Unwilling to continue talking, I began to move against him, and his face tightened as did his body.

I came gasping his name, even as he gasped mine, the two words somehow more intimate than the actions that had preceded them.

The orgasm rolled through us both, his fueling mine and mine his, the sensations drawing out, seeming to become more intense rather than less.

When the final convulsion faded, he collapsed, his sweat-slicked skin sliding along my own.

I must have fallen asleep. That was the only explanation for what happened next. I sensed a shadow drift past the window, and I opened my eyes.

Staring through the glass was the biggest wolf I’d ever seen.