Friends and Lovers Trilogy 03 - Seduced (20 page)

Even though men had been sniffing after her since she was fifteen, she’d always been self-conscious about her hour-glass figure. Between fashion magazines, film and television, and the brutal assessments of several casting directors, she had a firm vision of the ideal body. She’d been striving for perfection for years. Since moving to LA, she’d been insanely obsessed with staying fifteen pounds under her healthy weight.

God, she was hungry. And for more than just food.

She stepped out of the tub, and when Joe wrapped the towel around her, she wrapped her arms around his neck. She waited until he made eye contact to make her point. “I’m not Julietta.”

“No,” he said after a long, tense moment. “But you are needy.”

“I can’t argue that. It’s something I’ve been working on and I thought I had a pretty good handle on it.”
Until we hooked up again
. “Until recently.” She pressed her body flush against him, acknowledged his blatant desire with a satisfied grin.

He closed his eyes briefly. Valiantly fighting the inevitable, she thought as she rose on the balls of her bare feet and angled her mouth close to his.

He met her gaze then and his body tensed. “We’re not going to do this, Sofia.”

“Yes, we are. I’m not the only needy one in this room.” She pressed her lips to his and poured her heart and soul into a kiss meant to soothe. A kiss meant to ignite. She wanted this,
him
, so badly her entire body trembled.

She vibrated with frustration when he eased back.

“You’re cold,” he said, tightening the towel and reaching for her silk robe hooked over the back of the door.

Her temper flared. “For someone who reads people well, you’re not getting me at all, Joe.”

“Wrong.” He maneuvered her into the robe with all the intimacy of an overworked medical intern. “I know exactly what you want.”

“Are you saying you don’t want the same thing?” Exasperated, she boldly cupped his bulge. “Because that would be a lie.”

He grasped her hand and anchored her palm against his chest while he visibly fought for calm. “I’m saying I don’t want to take advantage.”

She marveled at his control, her pulse quickening at the feel of his heart thumping beneath her hand. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“The pills …”

“Relaxed me but didn’t rob me of my senses. In fact, I’m quite certain the euphoric effect is wearing off. I’m feeling more stressed by the minute.”

She waited for him to cave, to make a wisecrack about sex as a stress reliever, but the infuriating man just stood there looking guilty and anxious as hell. It was petty of her, but she couldn’t help feeling jealous of Julietta. He must’ve really cared about her to be this twisted over her death. And to think she’d once blasted him for being a heartless manipulator.

“Oh, forget it.” Feeling foolish and sorry for herself, she tightened the sash around her waist and stalked into the bedroom. “All I wanted was an orgasmic night in your bed instead of a troubled night in my own. I was stupid enough to think that we would both benefit. Christ,” she snapped, choking back tears, “it’s not like it had to mean anything.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

Or maybe the right thing. Joe moved in behind her and spun her around so fast she saw stars. He framed her face in his hands, and branded her heart with an intense, sizzling expression.

“I wanted you the moment I saw you. A day hasn’t gone by that I haven’t fantasized about you. At night, you monopolize my dreams. Goddammit, Sofia, you’re in my blood. If you think our making love wouldn’t mean anything, you’re dead wrong.”

Never had a man rocked her so utterly with a confessed infatuation. “I don’t know what to say.”

He brushed his thumbs over her cheekbones, tempered his tone. “Say stop. No. Say, I’ve changed my mind, Bogart. I don’t want to have sex. I don’t want to have anything to do with you.”

She blinked back tears and willed her knees not to buckle. If this were a scene in a movie, the women in the audience would hopelessly fall for this man.

His heated gaze slid to her mouth. “Last chance.”

She untied her sash and allowed her robe to slide off her shoulders and pool at her ankles. Something told her that she was going to regret this, but she was too carried away, too seduced by Joe’s honesty and desire to listen to the distant nagging voice of reason that sounded an awful lot like Jean-Pierre.

She expected him to sweep her off her feet, to toss her on the bed. She expected swift, hot, and heavy.

She got molten lava slow.

Gazing deeply into her eyes, he cradled the back of her head with one hand, while the other smoothed over her shoulders and down her back, stopping at the swell of her hip. He pressed his lips to her forehead, lingering a moment before brushing whisper soft kisses across her eyelids, her cheeks.
Sweet ecstasy
. Her breath stalled in her lungs when he nipped her lower lip, then gently suckled. The anticipation of a mind-warping kiss rendered her boneless.

Attuned to her body, he held her close, preventing a total, knee-buckling meltdown. His hand, splayed at the small of her back, felt warm, solid,
possessive
. In their past encounters, his hands had always immediately slid to her ass, but not now. This unexpected restraint was far more seductive.

She felt savored and cherished when he claimed her mouth in a slow, seeking kiss. He tasted of tell-tale spearmint and heady beer, his tongue skillful, and as soft as cashmere. The earth fell away, and she floated. He’d yet to touch her intimately and still she floated on an orgasmic cloud.

She wanted more. She wanted him naked. She wanted to slide her hands over hot flesh and corded muscles. So rugged. So manly. She too wanted to savor and cherish. She maneuvered one hand between them, tried to work the buttons of his white Oxford shirt. She’d always been able to rid a man of his shirt, one-handed. A sexy little trick that she’d practiced to perfection. Tonight, her fingers trembled so badly she was forced to rely on both hands, and even that didn’t work.

Joe eased back and smiled down at her, eyes twinkling with tender amusement.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Her cheeks heated and her voice cracked. “I’ve never been nervous about lovemaking. I’m actually quite skilled. I …”

He silenced her with another open-mouthed kiss, freed his own damn buttons. She at least had the dexterity to push the material off his strong shoulders and down his arms. The shirt fell to the floor and she concentrated on his belt buckle while his lips and teeth worked some sort of spellbinding magic on her earlobe, neck, and shoulder. “Dammit,” she muttered. Was there some sort of trick to unfastening this particular buckle? She dropped her forehead to his bare chest and sighed. “This is so embarrassing.”

“Actually,” Joe countered, tangling his fingers in her wet hair, “it’s a helluva turn-on.”

She didn’t see how. What kind of man fancied an inept lover? Her heart pounded against her ribs when he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed. She swallowed an anxious giggle. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d
giggled
. “You’d think I’d never done this before.”

He gently laid her on the mattress. “Exactly.” He pressed his lips to hers before she could comment, scattered her thoughts before she could fret herself into a panic.

Somewhere in the midst of what seemed an eternal kiss, he freed himself of his trousers and shorts. He was not inept. He was focused and confident and supremely skilled in the art of seduction. He worshiped her body with his hands and mouth, spending an inordinate amount of time on her breasts and cootch. His long fingers danced over her damp skin, caressed and teased. His tongue tasted and probed. Time blurred into a euphoric mix of decadent sensations and sexy endearments. When he massaged her feet and sucked her big toe, she squirmed with shock and erotic delight. By the time he eased away to tear open a foiled packet, she’d already come twice.

Skin tingling, breath labored, she watched as he rolled on a Trojan. “I’d offer to do that for you but I’d probably snap your dick in two. You look that hard, and tonight I’m that clumsy.”

He laughed softly. “Your candor never ceases to amaze.”

“Call ‘em as I see ‘em.”

“I like that.” He shifted so that he was lying on top of her, nudged her legs wide. “And not clumsy, Sofia. Perfect.”

Heart beating with the ferocity of tribal drums, she caressed the chiseled planes of his face. “I’ve never known a man like you.”

“Good.” With that, he sank deep inside.

She gasped at the feel of him, thick, long, and hard, filling her, stretching her and propelling her to new and exquisite heights. He didn’t just take her to an alternate plane. He showed her the Milky Way and asked for nothing in return. She trembled with awe and mindless pleasure as Joe made love to her with fierce tenderness and affection.

She came … and came. Wave after wave of delicious ecstasy. So this is what an out-of-body-experience felt like.

He climaxed with a raw, masculine groan that stoked a fire in her belly. Home fire, she thought hazily, as he rolled onto his back, bringing her with him, and pulling her flush against his warm, muscled body.

She tingled from head to toe. One, maybe two brain cells sparked, the rest had shut down. He’d pleasured her into a state of exhaustion. In her dreams it had been the other way around. “I’ve fantasized about this moment,” she confessed in a sleepy whisper. “It never went quite like this.”

“Same here.”

“Are you disappointed?’

“Far from it, Sofia.” He smoothed his palm over her cheek, kissed her forehead. “It exceeded my dreams, and then some.”

Pittsburg, Pennsylvania

T
his blows.”

Frank claimed the keys from the car rental agent and turned to face his red-eyed, slack-jawed brother. “I’m not getting back on that plane, Jess.” His gut clenched when he heard the female agent whispering behind his back to another female agent. Something about his battered face. He heard pity in that whisper. Made him feel like a goddamned freak. “I need a drink.”

Jesse fell in beside him while he sought out the nearest airport lounge. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

“No.”

“It’s one in the morning. You’ve been bending your elbow since noon. If you think I’m letting you get behind the wheel, you’re nuts. You’re plastered, Frank.”

“I ain’t seein’ double, so I guess that makes me fit enough to drive. Besides, it’s a stick and you’ve only got one good hand.”

“Thanks for the reminder.” Jesse shrugged his tote carryall higher on his shoulder as they ascended an escalator. He started to grasp the banister then jerked back, no doubt obsessing on the countless other hands that had gripped that rubber—germ count in the zillions. “Do you know how long it’s going to take us to drive from Pennsylvania to Vermont?”

“We’ll drive straight through.”

“It’ll still take something like fifteen hours,” Jesse said, as they hit the main floor and started down the semi-deserted hall of shops. “If we fly, we can be there in less than two.”

Frank tightened his grip on his duffle bag and made a bee-line toward the Wings and Things Bar. “Bitch all you want, I am not getting back on a plane. First we’re delayed, twice, in Los Angeles. Then, after barely making our connecting flight here in Pittsburg, we sit on the runway forty minutes due to structural problems.”

“The door on the luggage bay, or whatever they called it, was stuck open.” Jesse snorted. “Big deal. It’s not like the landing gear broke or an engine blew.”

The muscles in Frank’s shoulders knotted. “What if they get the door shut and then it springs open mid-flight?”

“They were switching us to another plane.”

“Forget it. It’s a sign.”

“Since when did you get superstitious?”

“Since you botched the Cavendish job.”

Jesse stopped in his tracks. “That’s right. Blame me.”

Frank spun around, putting himself toe to toe with his pain-in-the-ass brother. He tipped up his Stetson and glared down at the man. “You’re the one who freaked.”

“He was marked to die anyway.”

“But not in his house, and not in front of a witness.”

“Speaking of … ain’t that her?”

Frank whipped his head left, then right. “Where?”

Jesse pointed over Frank’s shoulder. “There, on the television.”

He whirled, stalked into Wings and Things, and pointed to the plasma screen anchored above the bar. “Turn that thing up, will ya, Mac,” he said to the bartender, “and give me a shot of whiskey.”

“Nothing for me.” Jesse set his bag on the floor alongside Frank’s, and settled on a bar stool.

They both stared at the screen.

Frank couldn’t believe his ears. The celebrity slut was still in Arizona. What’s worse, she’d shacked up with a fed, their exact whereabouts unknown. The news piece focused on their so-called steamy affair. Nothing about Cavendish. Only a minor blurb about gay-boy.

Jesse shook his head. “It’s like it never happened.”

Frank elbowed him to shut up, paid the bartender, and sipped his whiskey. He listened to the rest of the report, then nudged his brother, and angled his head toward an isolated table.

“Maybe it’s a sign,” Jesse said as they settled in the corner.

“You making fun of me?”

“Seeing I suffer from a phobia myself,” Jesse said, wiping down the table with a sanitized towelette, “I’d be a fool to do so.”

“Damn straight.”

“I’m just saying that if she’s not talking, maybe it’s a sign that we should call it quits and head to Mexico. I’ve got a bad feeling.”

Frank leaned forward, voice low. “She’s not just gonna forget what she saw and let lying dogs lie. She’s up to something. I say she’s plotting with that fed.”

“Former fed,” Jesse pointed out.

“Bet he’s still got connections and I’ve got a record. Won’t take much for him to track me down.”

“And why would he want to do that?”

“Blackmail.”

Jesse scratched the dark whiskers shadowing his dimpled chin. “Come again?”