Jezebel (46 page)

* * * * *

Leo realized the dynamic
between them had changed the moment Roxanne had climbed into his car.
During the half-hour commute across town, she didn’t speak a
word. She’d even taken pains to make sure they didn’t
touch, sitting as stiff as an ironing board. And when he’d
dropped her off, she’d jumped out of the car so quickly, he
could barely say goodbye.

Cursing under his breath,
Leo gripped the leather steering wheel. He’d opened his big
mouth and ruined everything.

Leo made a sudden right. As
he merged into traffic, he speed dialed his assistant. Instead of
returning to his offices overlooking Lake Shore Drive, he headed west
outside the Loop and Chicago’s downtown business district. He
needed to let off some steam and there was no better place than a
round at Halsted Boxing Club.

“
What’s up,
boss?” His personal assistant, Marcello greeted him on the
other end.

“
I need you to clear
the rest of my afternoon.”

“
Okay.” Leo
heard the hesitancy in the other man’s voice. “You’re
not sick, are you?”

If
he were in a good mood, Leo would have smiled. He was notorious for
his work ethic. He worked so many hours, his staff, which now
numbered in the double digits, had nicknamed him the 80-Hour
Man―behind his back, of course.

“
No, I’m heading
uptown to HBC. I need to work through some things, let off some
steam.”

Damn,
too much information. His assistant knew he and Roxanne had a late
lunch every Tuesday and Thursday. And since he’d left in a good
mood, it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out
something had gone down between the two of them.

Extremely private when it
came to his personal life, Leo gripped the steering wheel even
tighter. Roxanne had him so turned inside out he wasn’t
behaving like himself.

There was a long pause on
the other end and then Marcello’s baritone voice drifted
through the receiver. “No problem, boss. I can shuffle Mr.
Lloyd around. Any phone calls you would like me to pass on to you?”

“
No.” He knew
Marcello was fishing for information.

“
See you tomorrow.
Enjoy the rest of your day.”

“
Same to you,”
Leo replied automatically. He doubted he’d be able to really
enjoy anything for quite some time. He’d made sure of it by
alienating Roxanne.

* * * * *

Only five blocks from his
parents’ home, the Halsted Boxing Club was so far removed from
the shiny, spotless gyms most hip Chicagoans flocked to.

Truth be known, many locals
barely knew the club existed since the brick building still resembled
the public bathhouse it once housed during the first half of the
nineteenth century.

The interior wasn’t
much of an improvement. Converted into a boxing club in the early
1950s, Halsted remained dark, dank and smelled worse than the inside
of an old gym bag. Leo wouldn’t want it any other way.

The place kept him grounded,
reminded him of how far he’d come from the hard-headed
fourteen-year-old disciple of the No Mercy Graffiti Masters. To this
day, Leo still marveled over the fact he hadn’t ended up behind
bars or living on a park bench, still breaking into train yards. But
he’d straightened his life out—or had it straightened out
for him by the gym’s owner.

Salvatore Cipriani had
caught him defacing the front of the building with a Papadopoulos
original. Instead of turning him in to the cops, he’d marched
Leo down to his father at the family restaurant and told him to get
one last look, because Cipriani now owned Leo’s ass, lock,
stock and barrel.

The crotchety,
third-generation Sicilian hadn’t been bluffing. He put Leo to
work fixing what he’d damaged. What should have only been two
days, Leo’s punishment lasted two months as Cipriani had him
repairing or repainting practically everything.

But by then, Leo didn’t
care. He was so hooked on boxing he was making up excuses to stick
around. Thankfully the old man took pity on him and opened a spot for
him on the youth boxing team. One single act of charity had led to
half a dozen amateur boxing titles and a four-year academic
scholarship from the USA Boxing Association, which he’d used to
attend Northwestern University.

He’d paid his debt,
but Leo received far more in return. He attributed his strict
personal discipline, his successful career, multimillion-dollar
fortune and even Roxanne to boxing.

As his thoughts turned to
Roxanne, Leo developed a mental hard-on. What’s new? He’d
been in lust with the curvaceous brown-skinned beauty since the
moment he’d laid eyes on her outside the college bookstore
several weeks into their freshman year, and secretly in love with her
by the time they’d graduated.

Now he’d gone and
ruined a perfectly good friendship by allowing his one-eyed monster
to lead, instead of his head. After all these years, why had he
decided to finally walk the line?

Simple—her rare sexual
confessional had turned him on.

“
Great job, dumbass,”
Leo muttered, retying the drawstring on his dark-blue athletic pants.

“
You’re here
early.” Salvatore Cipriani’s gravelly bark followed Leo
as he set himself up under a speed bag. The club’s owner had
just hobbled out of his tiny office, carrying a mug of God knows what
in one hand and a folded newspaper in the other. He glanced over at
two guys sparring in the club’s center ring and snapped, “Keep
your hands up, Rodney, unless you want your head to take the place of
your ass.” Without missing a beat, he turned back to Leo.
“What’s wrong?”

Leo rolled his shoulders.
Sometimes he hated how well the old guy knew him. “I came in to
exorcise a few demons.”

Salvatore’s shaggy
eyebrows shot skyward. “Demons? They wouldn’t be of the
female kind, would they?”

Leo shook his head.
Salvatore could read people like a book. “How’d you
guess?”

“
You have a great head
for business and you’ve tackled everything else with ease.
Females, on the other hand, have always been your Achilles heel.”

“
I hit on Roxanne.”

Salvatore nodded solemnly.
He’d met Roxanne on several occasions and, with a sixth sense,
he’d picked up on Leo’s secret infatuation. And ever
since, the old man pestered him on an almost constant basis to
finally seal the deal. “‘Bout time,” Salvatore
barked. “When’s the special day?”

Leo shook his head.
“Roxanne’s not interested. She doesn’t want to ruin
our ten-year friendship.”

“
Pshaah!”
Salvatore waved his newspaper in the air. “What a load of shit.
If a woman is really attracted to you, she won’t give a damn if
you’ve been friends for three minutes, three days or thirty
years.”

Leo rested his taped hands
on his hips. “Now you know why I’m here rather than at
work.”

Salvatore swatted the paper
against his leg. “What are you going to do?”

“
Nothing,” Leo
muttered. In an attempt to close the subject, he lifted his arms and
started working the bag. He didn’t get a chance to work up a
momentum because Salvatore stepped around him and smacked his hand
against the back of the bag.

“
Nothing? You’re
not going to try to convince her?”

“
I don’t beg,”
Leo countered with more attitude than he felt, but he didn’t
need this right now. He was trying to blow off steam, not become even
more worked up.

“
Begging isn’t
convincing. She just needs to see you in a different light.”

Leo almost rolled his eyes
but didn’t out of respect. Salvatore believed he knew the art
of seduction like he knew how to train a prize fighter. And he’d
trained dozens over the years.

“
You need to lay down
the three Ts.”

“
The three Ts?”
Leo asked hesitantly, unsure if he really wanted to know the answer.

Salvatore smiled slyly. “You
need to tempt her, tease her and make yourself so tantalizing she’ll
want you as much as you want her. Oh, and you should cock block any
potential suitors. You do know how to do that, don’t you?”

“
Yes,” Leo
replied, humoring his old mentor.

“
Good.”
Salvatore let go of the speed bag. “I’ll leave you to
your workout. You’re moving slower than day-old grits. And
that’s never a good thing, in or out of the ring.”

chapter two

Roxanne clutched her third
glass of margarita in one hand, a bottle of Heineken in the other and
went to answer the door. Leo had called a little over an hour and a
half ago to tell her he was on his way over to help set up her
WhipADate.com profile.

Her steps slowed. How could
she have been so blind? Leo was her best friend. She could read him
like the back of her hand. Obviously not. His offer to be more than
friends had hit her like a dump truck with no brakes. Thankfully
she’d imbibed a couple of margaritas to fortify her nerves.

But as she opened the front
door, Roxanne realized no amount of fortifying could have prepared
her for seeing Leo again.

Casually dressed in a pair
of well-worn jeans that hugged his thighs, he looked fresh from a
shower. His dark curls were still damp and she could see where drops
of water must have dotted the collar of his long-sleeved, navy-blue
Henley.

Were his shoulders always
that broad? Before she started to drool, Roxanne focused on his
glasses. Instead of being a safety net, the dark frames drew her
attention to his high cheekbones and aquiline nose, which helped her
notice his full bottom lip—

“
Hey, you,” he
said, his voice interrupting her blatant inspection.

Damn, this is going to be
hard. “Hey back.”

Mentally applauding the
casualness in her tone, Roxanne stepped aside to let him in. Per
their usual routine, she handed him the beer then locked the door
behind him. “The computer’s set up in the den. So we’ll
work in there.” There was no way in hell they were going
upstairs to her home office.

As she led the way into the
den, Roxanne found herself overwhelmed by his presence. It seemed to
blanket and overshadows everything in the room, including her.

Before she fell flat on her
back and did something she’d regret, Roxanne hurried over to
the sofa and sank down.

She tried to slide over to
give him some space but he sat on her skirt, trapping her. For the
first time since she’d bought the winter-white maxi skirt,
Roxanne regretted the purchase.

“
I came up with the
perfect user name for you.”

“
Oh really,” she
said, tugging on the flowing cashmere.

“
I think you should
use WantTheBIGOne.”

Roxanne didn’t care if
she resembled a deer in headlights. His recommendation was disturbing
on so many levels.

Scooting forward, Leo pulled
the laptop toward them. His leg settled firmly against hers and
Roxanne wondered why she had never noticed his perfect muscle tone.

“
Like it?” he
asked.

She more than liked it.
Couldn’t he see her hands were shaking? Any harder and she’d
spill her drink. Just in case, Roxanne set her glass down on the
table. When she sat back, he rested his hand on her knee.

“
You hate it, don’t
you?”

“
Hate?” she
squeaked, as visions of her grabbing his hand and thrusting it
between her legs danced before her eyes. “Hate…hate is a
harsh term. Is there any particular meaning to the name?”

“
I’m helping you
kill two birds with one stone. You want great orgasms, of course.
What’s the point of sex without them? And most women like men
who are well endowed.”

Imagining Leo giving her the
big one, in more ways than one, Roxanne licked her lips.
“WantTheBIGOne is perfect,” she said as if through a fog.

Was that a smirk on his
face?

While Leo turned back to the
computer, Roxanne found she couldn’t tear her gaze away from
him. Fascinated, she noticed the way his muscles rolled under his
shirt with every keystroke, and how his curls kissed the nape of his
neck whenever he leaned forward to peer at the screen.

With each passing second,
the temperature in the room seemed to bump up a notch, which was
impossible of course. It was almost Thanksgiving and close to fifty
degrees outside. And Roxanne never turned on the heat until
mid-December. Once again, she tried to put some distance between her
and the source of the heat, but still found herself pinned.

“
Now the fun stuff.”
Leo sat back some so Roxanne could see the screen. His arm bumped
hers and a jolt of electricity ran from the tips of her fingers to
her collarbone. She swiftly sat upright and rubbed her chest in an
attempt to dispel her reaction.

“
Are you okay?”

“
Yes,” Roxanne
gushed. “Just having a spasm.” When a frown wrinkled his
brow, she rushed forward with an explanation. “Long day, on
four-inch heels no less.”