Pure Lust (Lust for Life) (13 page)

He raised his hands, surrendering. “All right, I got the
point.”

“You’re lucky I got to you first, you know. Tammy is out of
her mind pissed you didn’t bring Claire with you.” She pointed a finger at him
and took a step back. “And if you think Tammy is gonna have your ass, it’s
nothing compared to what’s going to happen if Mom gets her chance to give you a
piece of her mind about it.”

He crossed his arms. “And how do you know all this?”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “You think all we were doing
was cutting the cake while we were in the kitchen?”

He blinked, nodded. “Yes.”

“Then you don’t know the first thing about your mother and
sisters.” The finger poked him in the center of his chest. “Do you love her,
Diego?”

He looked at his sister steadily, completely sure of the
answer when he nodded.

“Then the best you can do is try. I know thinking you have
to be perfect is the hazard of being the oldest of us, because we’ve all
followed your lead in just about every way but love, but I think I speak for
all of us when I say we want more for you than an endless string of one-night
stands. We want you to fall in love and be happy like the rest of us.”

“Except for Dave,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “Dave likes to be miserable. He doesn’t
count.”

He took a deep breath. “I think you just want to be able to
tell me you told me so.”

“Well, duh, dumbass.” She rolled her eyes. “More than that,
though, I would like to see you end up with a good woman and not settle for
some dipshit who’s way beneath you once your old ass gets too tired to whore
around anymore.”

“You’re always so eloquent with the words,” he told her with
a laugh.

“It’s what you love about me,” she grinned.

“Among lots and lots of other things,” he said and hugged
her close again.

It was getting dark. Claire thought absently that maybe she
should get up, turn on some lights and make something to eat, but her limbs
felt as if they were suddenly unable to fight gravity, and she wasn’t hungry.
She knew she should move since she’d been lying in the same spot long enough to
watch the rectangle of late-morning light that had been on her floor shorten to
a square, then a sliver before completely disappearing as the sun passed over
her house.

The last of the sunlight was going to be completely gone
soon and Claire was beginning to feel fear creeping into her bones. Not fear
because a man she’d dated had broken into her house in the middle of the night
and attacked the man she’d been sleeping with. Maybe a small part of her was
going to be nervous about going to bed alone from here on out, but she was a
rational-minded person. She knew Steve was in jail—at least for the time
being—and that she was safe from him as long as he was there.

All day Claire had been wondering what it was going to be
like, going to bed without Diego, without his strong, warm body, his smell that
was better than home, the sound of him breathing beside her in the dark. He’d
changed her from someone who preferred to have the bed all to herself to
someone who couldn’t sleep without him.

He’d changed her in so many other ways. She’d gone into
their arrangement two weeks earlier thinking she was going to have a fling with
a former classmate who’d grown up gorgeous, but she’d gotten so much more. He’d
wooed her the way she’d been secretly hoping to be wooed her entire life—with
flowers and romantic getaways and chivalry and yes, sex that was so much better
than anything she could have dreamed with her limited experience and
imagination.

She already missed his smile and the way it had always made
her feel as if she was in on the joke instead of the butt of it. She was going
to miss the long conversations that had kept her up all night and the way he’d
made her feel as if she was beautiful instead of plain and sleepy-eyed with a
boring haircut. And she was going to miss the way she’d felt as if she’d found
herself—really, truly understood who she was and what her life meant—when he
held her in his arms.

She lifted her hand off Popeye, who’d curled up in the
corner made by her belly and her drawn-up legs hours ago, and put her hand over
her aching heart. No matter what she’d tried, all day she couldn’t seem to get
it to stop aching.

Claire flinched and the cat raised his head when her phone
rang. Since she hadn’t yet told her family or friends what had happened, it had
been silent all day. She sat up slowly and picked it up off the nightstand just
as it stopped ringing.

The display said she’d missed a call from him. She was still
staring at it, trying to decide whether or not it was a good idea to call him
back when it started to ring again.

“Good call leaving without giving me a chance to say
goodbye,” he said when she answered. Despite the sarcasm, the sound of his
incredible voice caused both a thrill and an incredible sickness to well up
deep within her belly.

She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, Diego. I couldn’t do it.
Still can’t.”

There was a moment of silence. “What if I wasn’t ready to
say goodbye?”

For the first time all day, the threat of tears started to
sting in her eyes and nose.

“I don’t see what difference one more day would have made,”
she answered softly.

“I’m not talking about one more day.” His voice was almost
as quiet as hers. “I don’t really want to talk about it on the phone either.
Can I come inside?”

She swung her legs off the bed and looked toward the front
window. “What?”

“I’m on the front porch, sweetheart. Please let me in.”

She felt a rush that made her dizzy even though she was
sitting down. He was there. All she had to do was open the front door and get
him.

“If you’re here for one last romp in bed before you fly out
in the morning, I can’t do it.” She didn’t add that she wouldn’t survive it.

“Open the door, Claire,” he said, and she could hear the
smile in his voice. “Please.”

She hung up. It took all the willpower she had to walk, not
run, to the door, turn the deadbolt and open it. The bottom dropped out of her
stomach at the sight of him standing there, looking pretty cheerful for someone
who held both her heart and her happiness in his potentially devastating hands.

Her heart was knocking heavily in her chest, her stomach a
riot of nervous flutters and her throat had nearly closed at the sight of him
looking so dark and so damn beautiful. But when he stepped over the threshold,
drew her into his arms and pressed his mouth to hers, all of that stopped. His
chest rose and fell against hers as he sighed, then wrapped his arms around her
even tighter.

Claire had no choice but to hold on for dear life.

“I don’t want us to be over,” he murmured against her lips.

She brought her head back far enough she could meet his
gaze.

“Not today, or in the morning, or maybe ever,” he added,
looking as close to vulnerable as she imagined cocksure Diego Rodriguez could
get.

She swallowed hard. “What about your vow of bachelorhood?”

A small, sexy smirk played over his lips. “I’m a stubborn
man, Claire, but I’m not stupid. And I would have to be a fucking moron to walk
away from you.”

While her heart was jumping for joy, her head was screaming
a warning.

She put her hands to his chest and pushed gently, putting
some space between their bodies so she could think clearly. “What about all the
other women?”

He put his hands in his pockets. “There hasn’t been anyone
but you since the moment we bumped into each other at the hospital.”

She took another step backward. “I wasn’t prying, but when I
used your phone to call 9-1-1 last night, there were so many text messages from
different women. And when you were getting your arm stitched up, a…picture
message came through.”

A topless picture from a young woman with much perkier
breasts than Claire’s.

“I’m sorry,” she said, heat filling her face. “I really
wasn’t prying, it’s just that the screen on your phone lights up every time—”

He put up a hand and she stopped. “Don’t apologize to me.
Please.” That uncertainty came into his expression again. “I’m ashamed to admit
it, but that’s probably still going to happen from time to time. Half of the
texts you saw were from business contacts. The other half were from women I
either haven’t seen for a long time or didn’t care about enough to tell I
wasn’t going to be coming around any longer.”

The shock of his words must have been clear on her face,
because his expression went from uncertain to pure shame.

“I know,” he said, looking embarrassed. “I didn’t lie to you
when I told you there were no others that morning on the plane. I had already
broken up, for lack of a better term, with anyone I’d seen even remotely
regularly when I traveled.”

He raised his arms and dropped them.

“Fuck, for that matter, I don’t think I’ve so much as looked
at another woman since that morning in the parking garage. That first kiss we
shared changed everything for me, Claire.
You
changed everything.”

“We live thousands of miles apart,” she reminded him in a
whisper, her heart knocking erratically in her chest, ecstatically happy.

“Yes we do.” His eyes searched hers. “But it wouldn’t always
have to be that way.”

He took a folded piece of paper out of his back pocket,
opened it and handed it to her. It was a plane ticket scheduled for departure
the next morning.

“You still have a week of vacation, and your bathroom
project is finished. I would love for you to come back with me, stay in my
house.” His hands touched her waist and held her lightly, scrambling her brain
at the slightest touch. “Sleep in my bed with me every night, because I’m not
sure I can sleep without you anymore, and I’m not willing to sleep alone long
enough to find out.”

That heaviness came back into her chest. She stepped back to
give herself some space to think clearly. “I would still have to come back in a
week. Go back to work. I can’t just drop everything and run away with you.”

“But you
could
run away with me for a week. It would
be a start.”

She looked at the ticket and knew she was going to say yes.

“I know it’s fast, but do you love me, Claire?”

Her eyes closed and she drew in a deep breath. When she
opened them he was simply watching her, no pressure, no apparent expectations.

The heaviness on her chest eased. “Yes I do love you, Diego.
Very much, in fact.”

A slow smile eased its way over his mouth. “Then we’ll work
out the rest in time.”

She put the plane ticket on the little table where she put
her purse and keys.

“I agree to that arrangement,” she said, and stepped into
his arms.

His smile vanished and something that looked like real fear
came into his expression. “Don’t let me fuck this up,” he said very quietly.

She held his gorgeous face in her hands, her heart breaking
at what it must have cost to expose himself to her that way, making her love
him that much more.

“You won’t need me to keep you on a leash,” she said, her
heart swelling, her head getting on board with the idea that this was really
happening. “You’ll see.”

One of his hands slid up the center of her back to her neck,
the other palmed one side of her ass. “All I need is the time to show you.”

She nodded and arched her back so her chest pressed to his.
“You got it.”

She felt as much as saw him go calm and relax—his
expression, his body—while other parts of him were getting deliciously hard.

“I love you, Claire.”

“I think you should take me to bed and show me how much.”
She went up on her toes, laced her fingers through his hair and took a deep
breath of his scent. “And make it quick,” she added, looking at her watch over
his shoulder. “I’m have to pack for a trip and call someone to come watch my
cat.”

But he was already moving them toward the couch, his hands
quickly moving under her shirt, pulling it off over her head before popping the
hook on her bra. They undressed quickly, first fumbling with the other’s
clothes, then laughingly undressing themselves before Diego drew her down so she
was straddling his lap.

Claire took his cock inside of her eagerly, loving the feel
of his fingers digging into her hips and the way he bared his teeth with the
rush they were both clearly feeling. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders,
holding on for dear life when he sat up straight and wrapped his arms around
her, his mouth angled up to hers, taking her hungrily as she kissed him.

The heat poured through her from where their mouths were
connected, through her pussy, and out through her toes. She couldn’t hold
still.

“I missed you,” she confessed when his heated kissed trailed
down her neck. She gasped when he thrust his hips slightly and a shock jolted
through her. “We were only apart a few hours, and I missed you every second of
that time.”

“Never again,” he whispered against her skin, his eyes
coming up to meet hers. “I won’t ever leave you wondering where things stand
between us again.”

His hands went to her hips, showed her how he wanted her to
circle him wider. She caught his head in her hands and kissed him with every
ounce of passion she was feeling, for the love filling her heart and the need
taking over her body.

And the pure, unadulterated happiness washing over every
part of her being.

Claire pushed him so he fell against the back of the couch,
braced her hands on either side of his shoulders and started to ride him. Hard.
She was caught up in a wild torrent of the feel of his thick cock hitting all
the right places both inside and outside of her body, of the wet heat pouring
through her cunt, the sounds of their mingled grunts and moans as they became
something untamed. Possessed. Out of control.

Her body was struck with the first tsunami wave of an
orgasm. Her back arched, her head fell back and her hips stilled as his began
to pump up into her with his release. She was aware of the root of his cock
pushing against her clit in a mind-blowing rhythm, his fingertips digging into
her hips, the deep, desperate sounds of his moans.

He sat up again and laid siege to her mouth, drawing out the
dreamy feeling as her muscles loosened and she began to feel boneless,
deliciously spent. She wrapped her arms around him loosely, reveling in the
feel of his sweaty, heated skin and the solidity of his strong, hard body
starting to relax beneath hers.

“I don’t know how I’m going to live without this for a
minute when you have to come back,” he confessed after a few moments. “I am
fucking addicted to you, Claire.”

She laughed and pulled back far enough to look him in the
eye, but he was serious.

“Not just your body, but your eyes, your smell, the sound of
your voice.”

He kissed her slowly but no less deeply.

“Yes, I want you naked in my bed every night,” he continued.
“But more than that, I want to wake up with you every morning. I want those
long talks through the middle of the night that continue over coffee, and I
don’t want to have them on the phone. I want them with you lying in my arms or
sitting across the breakfast table the way it’s been for us the past couple of
weeks.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. She wanted all of those things
too. In the worst way.

“Tell me you’ll consider looking for a job when you come
back with me.”

He smoothed her hair back from her face, his eyes searching
hers.

Her throat was too choked with emotion to speak, so she
simply nodded.

That stunning smile of his appeared, and if she hadn’t been
sure of how much she loved him before, she was positive it was with her whole
heart at that moment.