Fierce Passion (9 page)

“I’ll do it. Tell me one thing, Ana. I’m sure your student is a very nice young man, but is he sophisticated enough for you?”

Despite a slightly raised brow, Fatima was sneaking up on an obvious problem rather than asking if she’d lost her mind. “He has no idea who I am. I’m easing him into it. He’s a grown man, not a kid anyway.”

“I won’t say another word.” Fatima gathered up the laundry, and Ana didn’t follow.

As Ana soaked in the tub, she fought not to panic over the evening. She was a natural blonde, and waist-length hair suited her well as a model, but a photographer would tie her hair back or wear it in a single braid. Deciding on the latter, she asked Fatima to braid her hair before she left for home.

“Let’s leave a few loose strands around your face so you don’t look like a peeled grape,” Fatima suggested. She stood back to admire her work. “Looks good. You have a good time tonight.”

“Thank you. I’m sure we will.” At least she hoped so.

She liked wearing white shirts with slim blue jeans. She added only a couple of coats of mascara; her brows were dark enough on their own. A pale lip gloss made her look too sweet for her tastes, but she didn’t want to shock Alejandro too badly.

Before leaving, she fed the kittens and corralled them in the guest bathroom. Gathering her courage, she drove her Porsche to El Gato to pick up their dinner and parked the car around the block from Alejandro’s studio. Fearing she was imagining more problems than she actually had, she carried their dinner bag up the stairs.

Alejandro opened the door on her first knock. He stared at her, looked much too closely and then broke into a wide grin. “You’re even prettier than you were.” He reached for her waist and pulled her into a loving hug. “You disappear so often, I don’t want to let you go.”

“I’m here,” she assured him. She patted his back, felt the muscles play under her fingertips and found his strength wonderfully reassuring. When he dropped his arms, she didn’t back away. Barefoot, he wore a knit shirt and shorts rather than attempt to hide the bruises and scrapes running along his right side, but when he turned toward the table, he limped. She was certain he’d been hurt worse than he’d admit. “Do you fall off your bike often?”

“No, thank God.” He’d cleared the end of his worktable and made brown paper placemats. He had laid out napkins and utensils and had pulled up two chairs. “I’d just like to look at you for a while. Do you mind if we wait to eat?”

“Not at all.” She stowed the café bag in his nearly bare refrigerator and took out a bottle of water. “I like looking at you too. We ought to sit down, though. Do you want to use the futon?”

He took her hand and walked her to it. He lowered himself slowly, and she sat on his left side, stretched out her legs and crossed her ankles.

“It’s nice to see you in something other than black.”

She drank a sip of water and licked her lips. “Thank you. Tell me what you’ve been doing all week.”

He reached for the water bottle and took a drink. “Classes, projects that have to be completed on time, nothing fun at all. I’ve been to Palma. I wish I could have been there with you.”

“Me too.” She couldn’t believe he’d eyed her so closely and not thought she at least looked familiar. Looking forward to the night, she wouldn’t admit anything he didn’t see, however.

He set the bottle aside and laced his fingers in hers. “Tell me about the shoot. Did it go well?”

“All in all yes, but not entirely. It doesn’t matter now, though.”

“Are you sure?”

She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. “I work with different people every week, and I never know what to expect. I may think I know, but there are always surprises.”

He squeezed her hand. “Not good ones?”

“No, never good ones.”

He brought her hand to his lips. “Don’t I qualify?”

The devilish glint in his light eyes made her laugh. “Yes, you’re a delicious surprise.” She leaned close to kiss him, and he lay back and pulled her down on his chest.

“If we don’t get too rambunctious, I’ll be fine,” he promised.

“What if I get rambunctious and you just lie back and enjoy it?” She ran her fingertips down his arm in a teasing caress.

He moaned way back in his throat. “I’ve really missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too.” She slicked his hair out of his eyes, ran her hands down his belly and unzipped his shorts without breaking eye contact. “Condoms?”

“Pocket, but I don’t want you to think…”

She silenced him with a lavish kiss that made him breathless. “Let’s not think.” She leaned back to pull his shorts down his legs and took care not to brush his skinned knee. He’d gone commando, and she raked her fingertips across his bare belly and watched him grow hard. “Take off your shirt.”

He yanked it over his head and threw it aside. “You ought to remove something.”

“Maybe after dinner.” She pulled her hair out of the braid and leaned over to swish the gentle curls over his chest and hips.

He grabbed hold of her shoulders. “How can you talk about dinner?” he asked in a choked gasp.

“All right, I’ll forget food for the moment, but we’ll have to eat eventually.” She played her fingers over his hairy chest. He looked like a real man, not a carefully waxed and manicured model. The next time she brushed her hair over him, she moved lower to straddle his left leg and slid her fingers around his rock-hard cock. “You’ve got a real mouthful here, but I’ll give it a try.”

“Ah.” His voice ended in a grateful sigh, and he grabbed her hair to hold her close.

She teased him with soft licks, savoring the smooth head before sucking him in deep. Circling his shaft with gently twisting hands, she lured him nearer and nearer to the edge before sitting back. She pulled her hair free of his grasp, tickled his balls and pinched his nipples. “You liked what I did last time. Now you’ll know what’s coming.”

When he could only manage a strangled moan, she bent down to swirl her tongue over the sensitive spot where his shaft met the head, and again took him deep. She held him so he couldn’t thrust down her throat, rubbed the spot behind his balls, and pressed down with her thumb to delay his climax. He could only stand a few seconds of that erotic torture, and she slid his cock out of her mouth and pressed it to his stomach. She raised her thumb to give him another world-shattering climax and watched his cum spew across his belly. She wiped it up with a tissue from her pocket.

After rolling off the futon, she washed her hands in the kitchen sink and called over her shoulder. “I feel like eating, but you can take your time. I love the placemats.”

Alejandro mumbled incoherently as he fought to regain his breath. He stared up at the ceiling. “You must have had a lot of practice with that technique, whatever it’s called.”

Indeed she had, and with a master. “I doubt it has a name, but I’m discreet and never name my lovers.” Earlier, she’d slid the elastic band from her braid onto her wrist and used it now to make a low ponytail. She took the El Gato bag from the refrigerator. “If you want to eat, you have to wear clothes when you come to the table.”

He propped himself on an elbow. “This is my studio, and I make the rules.”

She found plates and carried his sandwich and beer to the table. She warmed her vegetable-filled pasta in the microwave. “You ought to please your guests, especially considering how easily I please you.”

“You think I’m easy?”

The silly question made her laugh. “Of course, you’re a man.”

He eased himself up and pulled on his clothes. “I think I like the Goth girl better. Can you bring her back?”

That hurt, and she was angry with herself for not thinking he might have a favorite. She shrugged as though he’d been joking. “I’d still be the same person.”

He came to the table, and when he found his favorite sandwich, he sat back. “We didn’t exchange more than a half-dozen words that first Sunday, and you remembered what I like?”

“Goth Girl has a great memory. Thank her next time you see her.” She took the chair beside him and had a bite of her dinner. The pasta held a comforting warmth, but her feelings were still hurt.

“No, wait. I’d rather you stayed one person, and you’re so pretty with your blonde hair. How long did it take you to grow?”

It was a question she’d been asked a million times, and she didn’t want to sound annoyed. She forced a smile. “I’ve had long hair since I was a child and trim the ends once in a while. Now tell me something. You must be at least six-three.”

“I’m six-five when I stand up straight.”

“Perfect.”

He finished chewing a bite of his sandwich. “You wouldn’t describe me as gangly and awkward?”

“No, not at all. You have an athlete’s grace, and you’re better looking than most of the male models I photograph.”

He dipped his head as though embarrassed. “I’m not any good at standing still, so that career is out for me.”

She played with a strand of pasta. “It’s still nice to find a man who doesn’t have to look up at me.” She licked a bit of tomato off her lip. “It makes for a nice fit.”

“I believe it. If I could climb the ladder up to my bedroom, we could try it.”

She’d brought her water to the table and took a long drink. “There’s no need to rush. I fed the kittens and don’t have to hurry home.”

“Good. We can spend the whole night together. I don’t suppose anyone’s died from too much sex.”

“Sure they have. Men have heart attacks all the time. I’ve heard more often with a mistress or girlfriend than a wife.”

“Have you ever been married?” he asked.

She finished a bite of grilled zucchini. “No, I haven’t.”

He frowned slightly and looked more serious. “What about your boyfriend who died? Would you have married him?”

Her breath caught in her throat, but it was unfair to both of them to think about Miguel when they were together. “Yes, but now you’ve depressed me thoroughly. Let’s leave that subject closed and just eat.”

He gave her shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. “I’m sorry. I always ask the wrong questions.”

She curled her hand around his wrist. “I’d like to really know you, but I don’t want to know about other women unless they were circus performers who had some unusual tricks we could try.”

He jerked his hand away to grab his napkin. His mouth was full, and he couldn’t laugh, so he shook his head and swallowed. “No, you’re the wildest woman I’ve ever met, but I like it.”

“Wild?” She regarded him with the enticing sultry glance she used so successfully in ads. “I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“It was.” He glanced at her plate. “Don’t you eat anything other than vegetables?”

She smiled. “I also eat fruit. You could call it the fruit-bat diet.”

His gaze turned quizzical. “How could you recommend the restaurant’s filet mignon?”

She toyed with another piece of grilled zucchini but didn’t bring it to her mouth. “We don’t discuss other people, remember?”

“So your dates, who shall remain nameless, said it was good?”

She set her half-eaten dinner aside. “Nothing matters, Alejandro, but here and now. Life is fleeting, and we should enjoy the moment and not worry about the past.”

There were only a few crumbs left on his plate, and he turned his full attention on her. “You sound like a fortune cookie.”

“True, but it’s good advice. Now tell me something about Moorish art. The buildings on Palma are so beautiful, and it’s difficult to believe they’re seven hundred years old. Was construction that much better then?”

His brows dipped in disbelief. “You want to talk about architecture?”

“Why not? I’m curious, and you’re an expert, aren’t you?”

He nodded. “The Moors had superb craftsmen who built with local stone, and their measurements were so accurate that once built, their structures will stand indefinitely. If Spain were a country with frequent earthquakes, all we’d have now would be intriguing rubble, but the ground here is solid.”

“There’s no difference between one architect and another, though, is there?”

“No, they all combined the same elements. Now we can build whatever we want, or whatever we can convince someone to pay to build, but my little boxes won’t last seven hundred years.”

“They’re meant as family homes, so they won’t have to,” she assured him.

He finished his beer and set the bottle aside. “Now I’m curious. Why do you go around in a Goth disguise?”

She smiled and hoped it would distract him until she could come up with an answer that made sense. “It’s just fun. I work in advertising where we often make one thing look like another. On Sundays, it’s fun to disappear into someone else, and it doesn’t hurt anyone.”

“I suppose not, but if there had been another table with a vacant chair at El Gato, I would have taken it and missed knowing you.”

“A tragedy,” she replied flippantly, but the possibility truly saddened her.

“For me, if not for you,” he insisted.

She reached for his hand and gave him a quick squeeze. “Truthfully, for me too. One of the models who went to Palma is looking for a man with substance. She’s not talking about money, but good character, someone really worth knowing. You’re in that category, but I won’t introduce you.”