Breaking the Rules (4 page)

“What are we doing here?” she gasped, her smiling mouth half hidden by windblown black hair. Her golden skin shone under the nearby streetlight, and her lips and cheeks flushed dark.

“I guess we’ll find out when it happens.”

Already this was the craziest, most exciting night of her life. Her heart thundered at the unaccustomed exertion, the rousing unpredictability.

Joe still held her hand tight, their hot fingers intertwined. His pulse mingled with hers in a fierce primal tune.

“Look at the water,” he said, wonder in his voice.

“It’s so black.” She shuddered a little at the heaving, night-colored mass.

“It’s beautiful, ruthless, it never gives up.” He turned to face her, his bold features etched in moonlight. “It seeps in through cracks, trickles down crevices, drips and flows, pours and rushes.” Laughter sparkled in his eyes. “It always gets where it’s going.”

A laugh bubbled up inside her. An echoing response to his unexpected boyish exuberance. The sound pealed out into the night air and sparked a grin that cracked across Joe’s face.

The clean tang of his sweat caught her by surprise, mingled with the reassuring scent of detergent and soap, the smell of a healthy male. He suddenly seemed so alive, so vigorous.

But she knew that other man lurked beneath the surface. The hard bitter man who’d come into her
ofisa
demanding answers, seeking retribution.

A little shiver of fear crept up her spine as she realized she was all alone in a darkened park with that man. Any screams would be lost in the roar of traffic on FDR Drive, which separated the park from the rest of the city.

She tossed her head, wild strands of hair dancing in front of her eyes. She’d never taken a chance like this. Never done something so blatantly foolish. Never done anything so irresistibly thrilling.

“Susana.”

“Yes.” Her voice emerged as a scared whisper.

“Do you believe in fate?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe that perhaps…” He paused, glanced out at the heaving black water. Her breath caught in her throat as she waited for him to finish.

But he didn’t.

Instead he pulled her to him with one quick motion, wrapped his free arm around her back and settled his hot mouth over hers.

His tongue pried her lips open and probed into her mouth. An instinctive adrenaline rush of resistance stung her, urging her to fight back. But she didn’t.

A blistering swell of heat rose through her, starting deep in her belly and seeping along her limbs until her fingers and toes sizzled.

You’re kissing a man
.

The taste of forbidden fruit burned her tongue, exciting in its punishing spiciness.

Joe’s hands slid along her back, pulling her closer until her breasts sank against his hard chest. Calloused fingers danced along her spine, teasing the flesh through her thin shirt, sparking trails of heat that shimmered under his touch.

Her nipples tightened against his firm muscle, thrilling to the hard masculinity of his body.

Who are you, Joe Figueroa
?

Who was this man she’d seen so long ago—his fate entwined with hers? A vision so strange it made her doubt the strength of her own gifts.

Right now her body didn’t care who he was. Didn’t care about fate, destiny or the future that lay even five minutes away.

Joe licked the inside of her upper lip, triggering a gasp as the sensitive nerve endings shivered under his touch. Then he plunged deep into her mouth.

His tongue wound around hers as his arms pulled her close, drawing their bodies tighter and tighter in an unforgiving embrace.

And she found herself kissing him back.

With her teeth she grazed his tongue, tested his lower lip. Her mouth teased over his hard cheekbone as she strained upward on tiptoes, wanting to claim his face with her mouth.

Joe bent down to give her the access she craved. Her heart stirred at his trust when she brushed her lips over his eyelids, feeling his eyeballs flicker beneath them.

She skimmed her lips over the semicircle of his scar, tracing the slight indentation with her tongue, and sensed him shudder slightly as she did.

His breath burned hot on her neck, his lips on her pulse as she explored him, trailing her mouth over the sharp prickle of his unshaved cheeks. The roughness of his face stung her swollen lips, exciting in its unfamiliar maleness.

Curls of desire rose though her like smoke, creeping along her limbs and making them heavy. Joe’s thick arms supported her, holding her close and tight as she allowed the sensation to flood her.

His mouth tickled her ear, hot breath sparking a little tremor as he whispered, “I don’t believe in fate.”

Her eyes flashed open, falling on the half moon shivering in the silent black water. Then his eyes caught hers, black and unreadable, and a quiver of alarm rang through her.

“What do you believe in?” Her voice emerged reedy and breathless, hung with apprehension.

“Life. Clinging to life with everything you’ve got.”

She could see the hardness in him then, its brittle bitterness gleaming beneath the surface of his skin. And she could see it now for what it was—his life force, an unbreakable diamond forged in the furnace of whatever he’d been through.

She shuddered gently, afraid of his past. Afraid of her own future.

Joe rubbed her back softly. “Cold?”

“A little.”

A night breeze dispersed the blistering heat and humidity of the day. Its cool breath on her skin soothed her, taming the fierce inferno of desire Joe had triggered with his shocking kiss.

It wasn’t the cold that caused her tremors, but she didn’t want him to know that.

He pulled his arms gently away from her and she shivered again, suddenly bereft of his warm touch.

He bent down and unzipped his bag, fished around in it, then brought out a dark sweatshirt.

“Here.” He arranged it carefully over her shoulders.

His thumb touched her chin tentatively, and he looked into her eyes. ”Maybe we shouldn’t be out here in the middle of the night.” The wary expression in his eyes seemed almost shy. “Sometimes I get these crazy urges. I’ve learned to act on them.”

“I’m glad you did.” The words slipped out before she could stop them. Her lips still stung with the force of his kiss, her belly tight with the heat coiling inside it.

“Me too.”

His eyes gleamed with something that shone through the hardness, a vital warmth she saw there for the first time. Had their kiss lit a flame inside him, too?

A moment of awkwardness followed. Now that they weren’t touching each other a gulf suddenly gaped between them.

“I need to find a hotel room before it gets too late.”

“You don’t live in the city?”

“Nope. Not yet anyway. I arrived this morning from western PA.”

“Oh.”

“You wondering where my luggage is?”

She shook her head. He didn’t seem like a man who’d have luggage. Just baggage.

“Well, in case you are and you’re too polite to ask, I don’t have any. I’m a rolling stone. Wherever I hang my hat, that’s my home.” He winked at her.

A smile teased across her lips. “You don’t have a hat.”

“Nope, and I don’t plan to get one either. Too much stuff just weighs you down.”

Stuff. She knew all about that. She lived surrounded by decades’ accumulation of someone else’s stuff. The old furniture, the old rugs, the old knickknacks.

The old ways.

A sudden vision of Joe standing in her grandmother’s apartment tickled the beginnings of a giggle inside her.

Her grandmother’s apartment? It was her apartment now.

Her grandmother was gone. Though she did live on in all the dust-gathering clutter she’d left behind. And in all the rules and codes and warnings and arcane rituals she’d left behind to clutter Susana’s mind.

The thought of Joe’s big, brawny, untidy, rather hostile presence in the midst of her grandmother’s lace-festooned parlor suddenly seemed irresistibly appealing.

The suppressed chuckle burst up and became a laugh.

“What’s so funny?” His brow wrinkled with confusion even as a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

“I just had a crazy thought.”

“Yeah?” He raised an eyebrow.

Susana bit her lip. Was she really about to ask a man back to her apartment? A man who’d just stolen her breath with an uninvited kiss?

It was a terrible idea
.

“You were in the Navy, weren’t you?”

A terrible idea that made her toes tingle with excitement.

“Yes.” Joe tipped his head, curious. “Seven years.”

“So you know how to obey rules.”

Joe pursed his lips and nodded his head. “I guess I have some practice with that.”

“And you need a place to sleep?”

“Sure do.”

She hesitated and he waited quietly, watching her. Expectation hummed in the air between them.

“I live a few blocks from here, near Delancey Street.”

“Oh?”

She could see wheels turning in Joe’s head, but he kept quiet. Waiting for her to make her move.

“And if you can agree to a few ground rules…” She lifted her chin. “If you can commit to those rules…” She stared hard at him, defying him to lie to her. “Then you could come stay overnight. If you like.”

As she said the last words it suddenly occurred to her that he might not want to.

But a hotel room would cost him upwards of $100 and she didn’t think he had that kind of change burning a hole in his pocket.

He didn’t reply right away though.

Joe’s eyes narrowed and he surveyed her coolly.

“And what exactly would these rules be?”

She tossed her head and drew his sweatshirt about her.

“No touching.”

“No touching.” He nodded thoughtfully, surveying her with suspicious black eyes. “And? You said ‘rules.’ That’s just one.”

“No poking about.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’d think no touching pretty much ruled out poking.”

“I mean through her possessions.”

“Whose possessions?”

“My grandmother.”

“Your grandmother lives there, too?”

“She used to.”

If Granna was still in residence there would be
no way
Joe could set foot in that apartment. Not and live to tell the tale, anyway.

“She died?”

“Six months ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.” And she was. Her grandmother had raised her, been a mother to her after her own mother died so suddenly.

But another part of her was glad to be free.

Free to do something crazy, something stupid, something dangerous and maybe wonderful.

“So you live alone?” Joe hoisted his bag onto his shoulder.

A prickle of fear raised the hairs on her neck.

“Yes,” she murmured hesitantly. “I live alone.”

Spoken aloud it made her sound vulnerable. Easy prey.

“I’ll obey the rules. Heck, it’ll be nice to be in a home and not some dumpy hotel room. I’ve stayed in enough of those lately. I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

He shoved the hands in question deep into the pockets of his faded jeans. “See?”

Susana chuckled, tamping down the swell of apprehension that stirred in her chest as they set off back toward the city streets.

She knew she had good instincts about people. She’d honed them over the last ten years of prying into strangers’ lives. She had a good feeling about Joe. He needed help, no doubt about that. Could she help him? Maybe, maybe not.

Did she trust him? Kind of. She trusted him probably as much as he trusted himself.

And for now, that was enough.

CHAPTER 3

“J
esus.”

Still breathless from the climb up six flights of stairs, Joe was unprepared for the strange world that awaited him on the other side of the battered door to Susana’s apartment.

Her grandmother’s apartment.

For the old lady clearly still resided there in spirit, if not in body.

Every surface in the apartment was crowded and cluttered with things. Boxes, candlesticks, icons, vases, trinkets of every size and description.

Heavy lace covered the windows and ancient floral wallpaper peeked out from behind the many pictures hung on the walls or simply stuck on with tape. Susana stood against the far wall, her back stiff, her eyes darting first around the room and then to him.

“It’s not a big place,” she started apologetically.

Joe cut her off. “It might be if it didn’t have so much stuff in it. I thought gypsies were supposed to travel light?”

“I guess this is what happens when they stay put too long.” A nervous smile played about her lips. “I never could get her to part with anything.”

She glanced around the room and a tremor of sadness passed over her features. “She came here from Europe in the 1940s. She’d been imprisoned by the Nazis. She had nothing and all her family was dead.”

“Jesus.” Joe raked a hand through his hair.

“This was her refuge from a world she didn’t trust. I guess she piled up all this stuff around her as protection, to keep her from having nothing, from being no one again.”

Joe blew out a blast of air. The cloying atmosphere in the room threatened to suck the breath from his body.

“She raised her family here. She had three children. And she raised me.”

“And now you can’t bring yourself to dismantle the world she created.”

“Oh, I’m sure I will eventually.” She removed his sweatshirt from her shoulders and folded it up. The apartment was warm, oppressively so.

She set it down on a chair and smoothed a hand over her T-shirt, tucking it tighter into the waistband of her long skirt.

Joe’s breath hitched as the action pulled the stretchy fabric tight against her breasts. Uh-oh, there he went, thinking about her breasts again. He was beginning to suspect they were on the large side. With no bra restraining them.

He shifted as his jeans tightened.
Remember the rules
.

He respected her rules. This was her home, her sanctuary. They barely knew each other.