MisMatch (A Humorous Contemporary Romance) (17 page)

She smiled up at him. “What? Did you think I
was going to let you have all the fun?”

He had to get inside her. He couldn’t take
much more of this. With gritted teeth, he pulled her away from her
ministrations and shifted her so she lay beneath him again. He
smiled down at her. “You have a wicked tongue.”

Her return smile was full of feminine power.
“I learned from you. I told you I wanted to taste you.”

“Anything to make the lady happy, but right
now, I think I may actually die if I don’t get inside you.”

Her only response was to raise her hips to
his. He groaned out a curse as the tip of his shaft grazed her dewy
core. His left hand fumbled for a condom in the nightstand. As he
struggled to open the wrapper, Jessica refused to be patient.

“I just want to feel you for a minute.” She
moved her hips again, and this time, the whole head was surrounded
with warm, slick, tight female.

Eli slammed his eyes shut and dropped his
forehead to hers. “Sassy, oh Jesus. You feel so hot.” He
groaned.

He pulled back and quickly worked the condom
on. When he returned, she was ready for him. Open, eager, slick,
hot. He once again nudged the tip of his cock inside her and felt
the muscles of her inner walls draw him in.

Slowly, he inched forward, watching Jessica
carefully for a reaction. Every bit of energy he had was
concentrated on not moving too fast. She met his gaze directly. Her
pupils were dilated, smoldering and completely focused on him. When
he was finally sheathed inside her, she squeezed around him, and he
knew he was lost. Being inside her warmth felt like a homecoming.
He rocked his hips forward slowly and was rewarded with another
contraction. “You…So…God…Tight.”

“Mm, I think it’s a perfect fit.” Jessica
met each of his strokes in time.

He pulled back to the tip and surged forward
again. As he worked in rhythm, Jessica gasped and moaned with each
stroke.

Deftly, he shifted their position so that
she lay on top of him, not only giving her all the control, but
also giving him better access to her full breasts. His hands
settled comfortably on her hips as she rotated them. He couldn’t
last long. He was aching to come, but now that he was finally
buried inside of her again, he never wanted to leave.

He raised his head to suckle first one
distended nipple, then the other, flicking the tiny silver ring
with his tongue. Her breasts filled his big hands completely as he
taste-tested the feast before him.

Their bodies rocked and mated to a beat only
they could hear. When Eli knew he wouldn’t be able to hold on much
longer, he held tight. Reaching a hand between them, he gently
stroked her clit, and she immediately started to quake around him.
Throwing her head back as her orgasm rolled through her, she called
out his name. Eli stroked in once more, then again, before finally
giving into bliss. He shook with the force of his release, until he
collapsed backward with Jessica on top of him.

“Vince, tell me you got something, man?” Eli
looked up at Vince hopefully.

Vince leaned against Eli's doorjamb wearing
his ‘We're fucked.’ expression. “Sorry man, nothing came back on
him except he has no discernable past beyond three years ago.
Anything we could get him on is circumstantial at best.”

“What about the bracelet? What about the
photo?”

“Without the bracelet, we can’t verify its
authenticity. And the photo is iffy. Sure, he looks like the right
age, height, and build, but facially, this guy is sort of a ghost.
None of the other pictures we have on him is really conclusive.
It’s most likely him, but I couldn’t get any of our vics to come
forward with a positive ID. If he is our guy, then he's got enough
money to afford fancy prosthetics to change his look. We only got a
partial on the facial recognition.”

“Fuck.” Anger simmered close to the surface,
and the threads of Eli’s control snapped. Gripping the edge of his
desk, he dragged in a couple of deep breaths. “This is him, Vince,
I know it.”

Vince nodded. “I believe you, but we still
have the little problem of proof. If you can get close enough to
snag the bracelet to identify its authenticity…”

Eli ground his teeth. “Of course, we want to
do that legally with a warrant.”

Vince shrugged. “Eh, legal, shmegal. If your
girlfriend grabbed it for you and brought it forward as a concerned
citizen, then there is no problem.”

Eli narrowed his eyes at his partner. “You
want me to use her to get us the evidence you need.”

“Use is such a strong word, but yeah.” He
shrugged. “It's the only way we'll get something good enough to
stick on him, unless you have a better idea. What do you suggest we
do?”

“Shit. Vince, I don’t like it. I'm already
on thin moral ground here.”

“Look, I know you like the girl, and
frankly, I don’t like you doing field work, but you kind of fell
into this on your own. It's a lead. Better than we've had in
months.”

Vince was right. He might have to ask
Jessica for help. Anything was better than letting that douchebag
close to her mother and thereby close to Jessica. “I’ll see what I
can do. In the meantime, did you get anything on any of the other
artists at the party? Anyone with a past that's not too shiny?”

“We’re about halfway through. Some of them
have already popped for minor things. Some theft, some
prostitution, but nothing nears the scale of grand larceny. Maybe
we'll get lucky and one of them is his accomplice.”

It still made Eli nervous to think that
Michael had recognized him. Since he didn’t know him, he could only
assume Samson did, and that meant trouble. Not to mention Samson’s
signatures were all over some of the pieces. He gritted his teeth.
He'd have to talk to Samson about Fenton. In the meantime, he had
to get his shit together. “Okay. I'll stay in with Jessica. If this
is the guy we've been hunting for, then the last thing I want is
him anywhere near her.”

“I'm glad to hear you say that, because the
bosses want you to stay in. If anything, it at least keeps us in
play with this guy. We'll see how things pan out for a couple of
weeks.”

In the meantime, Eli had some cleanup work
of his own to do. He needed to make sure the past he'd constructed
with Samson stuck. If any of the threads he'd woven started to
unravel, or anyone tied those signatures back to his brother, the
whole facade of Samson Marks would crumble.

“One more thing. I pulled some cases trying
to figure out the deal with that signature we found. It popped on
some sealed case from over a decade ago.”

Eli froze, unable to breathe. “A decade
ago?”

“Yeah. Means there is probably a minor
involved. I’ll have to work a judge to get the records
unsealed.”

It wouldn’t take Vince long to put two and
two together. Eli needed to talk to Samson.

***

“Okay, I really have to stop with this whole
grinning like an idiot thing, wouldn’t you think?” Jessica peered
in the rearview mirror at the chubby toddler in her car seat.

Kara just beamed a toothy grin at her and
shook her head. The motion had the little girl’s curly afro
catching the light and infusing it with shades of auburn and blonde
to match the light brown.

Maybe Kara was right. Nothing wrong with a
smile. Just something wrong with the way it got on her face. As she
hunted down a parking spot, Jessica’s skin hummed as she thought of
Eli’s strong hands gripping her thighs open as he slid into her.
God that man knew how to—

“Jaja, Jaja. Cah,” Kara squealed and
pointed.

Sure enough, a large SUV had just vacated
its prime location right by the entrance to the Grove. “Hot damn,
you’re like my little parking Karma Buddha doll aren’t you?”

“Damn,” Kara repeated merrily. She clapped
her dimpled little hands and grinned.

Shit
. “Darn, I
meant darn.” The running joke with Izzy, Jason, and Nick was that
it would be Jessica who would have Kara dropping her first F bomb.
As she parked, she mumbled, “Can’t have you swearing yet, kid.
Apparently, that’s bad parenting.” And while she was only Kara’s
godmother, she took her godparenting skills seriously. Not to
mention she adored Kara and wanted to be granted babysitting
privileges again. If she kept it up with the potty mouth, Izzy
would ban her from talking to the kid.

“Okay, kiddo. Do you want the stroller? Or
you feel like walking? We’ll only be a minute. Mommy wants Auntie
Jess to pick up her shoes from the shoe repair and pick up some
fruit. You want some fruit?”

“Kara want walk.”

Figured. Though Jess had a feeling how this
would go. They’d walk, and Kara would last exactly ten minutes then
want to be picked up, and Jess would be forced to carry her for the
rest of the errand. But if she grabbed the stroller now, Kara would
howl with indignation. She hated being treated like a baby. Jess
hated to break it to the kid, but she was barely two. She didn’t
really get to have an opinion on such matters.

Hand in hand, they skipped past the fountain
and skirted the Stuart Weitzman store. Jessica averted her gaze and
distracted Kara with a well-timed, “Hey, do you want to get
ice-cream later?” Never mind that Kara wasn’t supposed to have too
many sweets. Jess would deal with that later. The key was to
distract her from the shoes. If Kara had her way, she’d be playing
in a pile of stilettos for hours. Which was how Izzy’s pair of
Louboutins got scratched up.

I feel you, kid, but
there’s no way we have time for this. Once we get home, I need to
go and prep for dinner with another potential client.
If she
kept up this pace, she’d be a full-fledged working girl. She
shuddered at the thought. But she didn’t have any time to wallow.
That opening would make or break her. So much for a life of
leisure. Seems like she was never meant to be a debutante
anyway.

As they picked up the shoes for Izzy,
Jessica let Kara play with some of the model shoes in the window.
Thankfully, she was able to find a cobbler who specialized in high
end shoes. Otherwise, Jason would have gotten his way and just
bought Izzy another pair. And Izzy wasn’t having that.

“Come on, munchkin, one more stop, and we’re
outta here. Fastest shopping trip ever.”

“Jaja?”

Jessica stroked Kara’s hand with her thumb.
“What’s up, kid?”

“Want up.”

Jessica rolled her eyes and scooped her up.
“How did I know this was going to happen? I gotta tell you, honey,
you ain’t light.”

As they made their way to the farmer’s
market, Jessica managed to avoid the magazine stand with its candy
and glossy covers that sometimes featured Jason. Last thing they
needed was for Kara to advertise to the paparazzi that she was out
in public by shouting, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!” Izzy would kill
Jessica if one of the photogs snapped a photo of Kara.

They also managed to avoid the Mr. Softie
stand. Though Jessica might have promised ice-cream, there was no
way she was giving the kid Mr. Softie. She knew better. There was a
low sugar, organic ice-cream stand on the way back to the
house.

Lucky for her, Kara was immediately
distracted by the bright colorful fruit of the farmer’s market.
Jessica made quick work of grabbing the provisions and was paying
for it when her heart slammed against her chest.

Kara must have noticed the jolt in her body
because she put her hand on Jess’s faces and asked. “Jaja, what
happen?”

Eli Marks happened. Across the farmers
market, she saw him standing at the flower mart, picking up daisies
with a striking brunette.
Shit
. He
casually swung an arm around her shoulder, and nausea rolled
through Jessica’s body.

When the cashier handed her the bag, she
barely mumbled a ‘thank you’ as she grabbed it and hugged Kara to
her. She had to sit down and get out of sight. God, how humiliating
would that be if they ran into each other?
Hi
there, Eli. Thanks for the fuck last night. Who’s your
friend?

White hot jealousy seared through Jessica’s
veins. Rounding the corner, she followed Eli and his friend through
the crowd. He no longer had his arm around her, but they still had
that look of two people who were intimately acquainted with each
other.

She had to sit down. If she kept this up,
she’d run right up to him and fire herself as his manager. And that
would be no good. And yeah, she might have some new talent coming
onto the roster, but none of them as vibrant as Samson Marks, so
she couldn’t do anything crazy like finding the children’s play
area, scooting Kara inside, and texting,
Been
thinking. Last night was a horrible mistake. Let’s keep things
professional. Pretty daisies, btw.

Instead, she called Izzy.

“So I need you to explain to me why you're
so upset,” Izzy mumbled after Jessica explained. She sounded
distracted.

“Isn't it obvious?” Sometimes Izzy could be
so obtuse.

“Well, if you were actually interested in
him, and it wasn’t just about the sexual chemistry, then yeah, I’d
get it, Jess. But honestly, honey, you said he wasn’t your type at
all, unless he was in artist mode. What happened to that?”

“Nothing happened to that. And he's not my
type. He just put his arm around her, but still...”
Liar
. “I just can’t believe that a day after I, erm,
rocked his world”—no need to tell Izzy all the deets within
listening distance of the kidlet—“that I see him just strolling
about with some chick. Some way hot, model-looking chick. Not a tat
or purple-streaked hair in sight.”

Izzy's voice went soft. “Honey, he should
love you for you, tats, piercings, purple hair, and all. Though you
are ever evolving, I’m noticing. He should like a little variety.
Maybe he's just showing someone around. You never know.”