Pure Lust (Lust for Life) (10 page)

He could do nothing but follow her command, his hips rising
and falling fast, their bodies coming together in a rhythmic slap of wet skin
on wet skin. Her eyes drifted shut and her mouth fell open with an ecstasy he
felt with every single cell of his body. The view was amazing because he could
see it all—the ecstatic expression on her flushed face, the way her tits
jiggled softly every time he pumped into her, his cock moving in and out of her
wet cunt, her gorgeous thighs framing his torso.

She moaned his name and the pressure built to epic
proportions in his balls.

He could have this all the time, he thought with a calm kind
of clarity. Her, Claire, with her clever wit, deceptively sleepy-looking eyes
and perfect body that responded wildly to his every touch. All he had to do was
ask. He was suddenly more sure of that than he’d ever been of anything else in
his life. And goddamn…he wanted it.

She cried out his name, looked up at him with lust-blind
eyes and the thought was lost. She cried out again as the beginning of her
orgasm took over, made her something untamed, a formidable force of nature. She
brought her hands up from his ass, dug her nails into his shoulders and her
teeth into one of his biceps and let out an unearthly groan that finally undid
him.

Diego’s hips snapped so hard his teeth ground together. His
whole body seized with an orgasm that made his muscles spasm and stars wink
behind his tightly closed eyelids. He could hear himself grunting roughly
through every earth-shattering pulse of his cock as he came inside her, but it
sounded as if it was coming to him from a great distance instead of out of his
own throat.

Claire was kissing the place where she’d bit him, murmuring
that she was sorry, as he started to come down. He used the last of his energy
to move beside her, then collapsed onto his back in the very last of the floor
space.

“Fuck the grout,” she said after they’d been lying there a
minute, her voice rough and a little drowsy. “That was totally worth it.”

It took a great amount of effort to turn his head to look at
her, lying there all flushed and spent and looking gorgeous. “Agreed,” he said,
and smiled when she laughed.

Her expression shifted and she looked sheepish. “I’m really
sorry about your arm.”

The sting of the teeth marks set in the moment he laid eyes
on them. She’d bit him so hard she’d nearly broken the skin.

“Totally worth it,” he assured her, lightly brushing the
backs of his fingers over her red, swollen lips.

As she looked at him, something that looked a lot like
sadness crept into her eyes before she looked away, then sat up.

“I should get some towels on this floor, just in case,” she
said as she stood.

Diego forced himself to get up from the floor, unsure about
what had just happened. He pushed the soaked rug out of the way with his foot
and helped her put towels down. She was starting to wrap one around herself
when he stopped her.

“Get back in the tub with me,” he prompted, drawing her
close with one arm and turning on the hot water with the other. “Let’s finish
our bath.”

It didn’t take any coaxing to get her to join him. They
washed each other with a lazy kind of exploration, both of them familiar with
the other’s body by now, but tentative about where they washed just the same.
By the time they were finished, Diego was hard as hell for her again. They
dried each other almost as slowly, then she lead him down the hall to her room,
where she pushed him onto his back on the bed, straddled his hips and rode him
into oblivion with a slowness that nearly drove him out of his mind.

And as he held her while she slept afterward, he wondered
how he was ever going to survive flying away from her in three days.

“What the fuck, Diego? Are you dating a goddamn cannibal?”
Eva asked, grabbing his arm and pushing up the sleeve of his t-shirt.

Diego looked down at the still-clear bite mark surrounding
the bruise that had shown up overnight. It made him want to smile, but he
fought back the urge. They were, after all, in the middle of a party their
parents were throwing for Oscar, Eva and Olive before they headed back to their
Chicago home the next day. Eva might not have any tact—something that was both
annoying and endearing—but he did.

Okay, maybe it would have been more tactful to wear a shirt
with longer sleeves, but it was unusually hot for early May and he’d still been
a little foggy-headed from the night he’d spent with Claire when he’d gotten
dressed that morning. Just the very bottom of the mark was peeking out from
under the sleeve of his t-shirt, and as far as he could tell no one else had
noticed. Leave it to Eva to not only see it, but point it out.

“Listen,” he told her quietly as he pulled his arm out of
her grasp and raised his eyebrows. “You don’t ask about the teeth marks and I
won’t mention the scratches I once saw on your husband’s back, little sister.”

Her expression went pointedly blank. “I have no idea what
you mean.”

“Good answer.” He went back to refilling their soda glasses.
Miraculously, they were the only two people in the food tent their father had
put up in the backyard. “I invited her here today, so no commenting on it when
she arrives. Got it?”

“Get the fuck out. You invited a woman to a family
function?” She pressed the back of her hand to his cheek, then forehead. She
moved behind him, lifted the back of his shirt. “Did she tie you down and whip
an invitation out of you?”

He laughed and shook his head. “No. Will you stop?” He
pulled the hem of his shirt out of her grasp and pushed it back down.

“Christ, the next thing we know you’re going to be
announcing you’re getting married,” she said, giving him a knowing smirk.

He capped the soda bottle and handed her a glass. “I
wouldn’t hold your breath on that one,” he assured her, turning to lean against
the edge of the drink table.

Eva took a long drink, never looking away from him. “Who is
she, and why are you not gentleman enough to pick her up and bring her with
you?”

“She had somewhere else to be first.”

It was Saturday, the day Claire usually spent the morning
and early afternoon with her parents. She’d missed the last one because of him,
so she’d felt obligated to spend the early part of the day with them before she
came to the party.

Eva narrowed her eyes at him. “That only answers half of my
question.”

“It’s a surprise. I promise you’ll like her though.”

The suspicion shifted to skepticism. “We’ll see.” And then
her entire being brightened when their sister Tammy walked into the tent with
Olive.

“You’re hogging the baby,” Diego said, putting his drink
down to take the tiny sleeping infant from her. She was wearing a soft pink
dress with shoes that looked like ballet slippers.

“She’s leaving in the morning,” Tammy pouted, then wrapped
her empty arm around Eva’s waist and leaned so the sides of their heads were
touching. “I have to get as much of her as I can while she’s still here. She’s
so sweet.”

“Clearly she takes after her father in that aspect,” Diego
said, reflexively touching the soft black hair on Olive’s head, chuckling when
Eva gave him the finger.

“Diego invited a woman to the party,” Eva told Tammy.

Tammy gave her a blank look. “He did what?”

“He won’t tell me who she is though.”

They both looked at him at the same moment a rousing cheer
sounded from across the yard. All three of them turned and found the cheer had
been started by Jamie and Oscar, who was hugging a very surprised-looking
Claire.

Eva’s head whipped back to Diego. “Get. The fuck. Out.”

Tammy turned to him a split-second later, a big smile
spreading over her face. “Oh, honey,” she crooned, wrapping her arms around his
neck to hug him over the baby. “I knew there was hope for you yet.”

“Fuck that,” Eva snapped in a harsh whisper, poking him in
the side before pointing the same finger in his face. “If you break my
midwife’s heart and turn her against me I will castrate you. I might want
another kid, Diego, and if I do, I don’t want to have to find someone new to
help me have it.”

“Easy,” he said, wrapping his arms protectively around Olive
and taking a step back from the sweet and salty onslaught of sisterly
attention. “We’re all adults here. I’m not getting married,” he said to Tammy.
“And I’m not going to break anyone’s heart,” he added to Eva.

“You’d better not,” Eva added, clearly not convinced.

“Don’t discourage him,” Tammy said, nudging Eva. “He brought
a woman to a family function. And she’s not some cheap tart.”

Diego gave her an indignant look. “I don’t do
cheap,
Tamara
.”

“But you
do
have a thing for tarts,
DJ
,” she
said, using the nickname only his mother and siblings got away with using.

“More like whores,” Eva said, then gasped as if something
terrible had just occurred to her. “Oh my effing God, Diego Miguel Rodriguez,
you turned my sweet, kind midwife into an arm-biting whore.”

Tammy looked from Eva to him. “What is she talking about?”

“I’m going to go rescue my guest from Mom,” he muttered, and
walked away.

If his mother was surprised to see Claire she wasn’t showing
it. She was introducing her to his dad as if she’d been expecting her all
along. As Diego approached them, his dad, who hadn’t gone to the hospital while
Eva was in labor the way half of the family had, was shaking her hand and
telling her he’d heard all kinds of good things about her.

“Wow,” Claire said, looking between Diego and his dad when
she realized he’d joined them. “The resemblance is uncanny.”

“Except for Eva, we’re all some variation of our father,”
Diego said.

And then, before he could think to stop himself, he kissed
her hello.

Right there in front of his parents, his entire family and
all of their closest friends.

The silence was deafening for a moment, and then he
chuckled, ignoring everyone around them as they slowly went back to what they’d
been doing. Claire smiled at him as if she understood what had just happened,
then she lowered her gaze to the baby.

“Hello, Miss Olive,” she said softly, touching the baby’s
soft cheek with the back of her finger. “You look lovely in pink, all tucked up
safe in your uncle’s arms.”

Diego was aware his dad had asked Claire if she would like
something to drink, heard her answer that water would be great, but he couldn’t
seem to pull his gaze from the way she was smiling dreamily. His heartbeat had
sped up slightly, making him feel a little out of breath.

“So do you,” he added as his parents walked away, just
realizing she was wearing a loose, summery top in hot pink over jeans that were
rolled to expose her pretty ankles.

“Thank you,” she said, still looking at the baby. “I like to
be tucked up safe in your uncle’s arms as well,” she whispered to the baby and
finally met his gaze.

If he hadn’t been sure what the racing of his pulse meant
before, the last bit of doubt in his mind was wiped out in that moment. For as
careful as he’d been throughout his entire adult life, he was lost the moment
her eyes met his.

Undone. Finished. Defeated. Royally fucked and completely in
love.

Every single member of his family was going to have a
goddamn field day with that little tidbit of information if and when it came out.
Minus his brother David—whose marriage was verbally combative on good days,
although Diego suspected he liked it that way—who’d always not-so-secretly
applauded Diego’s decision to stay single.

But they were standing in his parents’ backyard with everyone
watching their every move—not exactly the right time to be evaluating his
heartbeat or what it meant or try to figure out what he was going to do about
it.

“You want to hold her?” he asked and immediately started to
hand her the baby.

“Oh my goodness, she’s so sweet,” she said, sighing as she
got her settled into the crook of her arm, straightened her dress, lifted one
of her tiny feet to look at her shoes.

“Eva and my other sister Tammy are right…” He turned to
gesture in the direction of the food tent and found both of his sisters
standing right next to them. “Here,” he finished quickly, slightly embarrassed
he hadn’t seen them walk over.

“Hi again,” Tammy said, giving Claire a quick hug. She had,
of course, been part of the group who’d held vigil in the waiting room while
Eva had been in labor.

Eva hugged Claire next and gave him another wicked look over
her shoulder.

“You look great,” Claire told Eva warmly.

“Totally different without my legs up in the air, right?”

“I like you from this angle,” Claire answered agreeably.

He touched the small of Claire’s back. “You should let me
introduce you to my brothers,” he told her, then bent to whisper, “They’re not
crazy.”

* * * * *

It was clear he adored them both, but it was fun watching
Diego play big brother to his sisters, who obviously adored him back, and knew
exactly how to push his buttons. Despite him hinting that he wanted to steer
her away from them, they stayed to talk and laugh with Eva and Tammy for a
little while longer.

His parents rejoined them with her water, his father every
bit as swoonworthy as Claire’s mother had made him sound that morning at
breakfast, and his mother just as energetic and funny as Claire remembered from
the few times they’d met.

There were so many people at the party, her head was
spinning with names and faces, but she was having a great time, meeting them
all and watching the shock and surprise on each and every one of their faces as
Diego introduced her. He’d warned her it was going to happen when he’d invited
her, but she still didn’t know what it meant that she was the first woman that
he’d brought to a family function since the infamous fiancé from college.
Especially since their time together was winding down, and he was showing no
signs of wanting to continue long distance.

For that matter, she didn’t know if she wanted that either,
but she was starting to feel panicked about the day he was scheduled to fly
away, and she didn’t like it. She’d promised herself from the outset that she
was going to be a big girl and keep what they had in perspective. If he’d kept
their relationship to just dinners and sex it might have been easier, but there
were the long talks through the night, the fact that he’d done so much to help
her finish her bathroom, the couple of times they’d cooked together.

And the gorgeous bouquets of flowers were still coming,
every other day. Just that afternoon she’d gone home to shower and change from
the walk she’d taken with her parents to find another had been left on her
front porch, this one a mix of different flowers, all of them a pink that ran
the spectrum of very pale to vibrant fuchsia.

Now he was introducing her to his family and friends, who
were all assuming she was his girlfriend—and he wasn’t discouraging them. All
afternoon she felt as if she’d jumped out of an airplane knowing she was
wearing a faulty parachute. She knew it was likely going to kill her when she
hit the ground, but falling in love with Diego Rodriguez was so positively
exhilarating she couldn’t stop herself from taking the leap.

“Do you want to see my old bedroom?” He’d snuck up behind
her while she’d been getting a second bottle of water from the food tent.

Claire pressed a hand over her racing heart. The party was
starting to wind down. About half of the people had already left, including
Oscar and Eva, who’d rightfully become pretty tired a couple of hours into the
party.

She looked around to see who might be standing close enough
to hear them.

“We’re not going to fool around in your parents’ house,” she
whispered.

He grinned and she was sure he would get his way if sex was
what he was angling for. “Such a dirty girl, aren’t you, Claire? All I want is
to show you where I grew up.”

She narrowed her eyes at him skeptically, but he put his
hand on her back and steered her toward the house.

“I promise to mostly keep my hands to myself,” he added with
a wicked chuckle. “Can you make the same promise to me?”

She shook her head, because no, she could not promise him
that. In spite of being surrounded by his parents, grandparents, brothers,
sisters and friends, her mind had been wandering into what was going to happen
at the end of the day when they were finally alone together. Naked, sweating
and tangled up in one another.

She was out of breath by the time they made their way to the
third floor of the old house, where the high-ceilinged attic had been divided
into two rooms, one on either side of the staircase that went right to the
middle of the space.

“My mom redecorated it, of course,” he said as they stepped
through the door. “She took down all the car and girlie posters and got rid of
the Dallas Cowboys comforter as soon as I moved out, but the bed and the desk
were mine.”

No sooner had he closed the door behind him than he pulled
her into his arms and kissed her, long, slow and deep. Claire wrapped her arms
around his neck, her fingers digging into his shoulders, and pressed her body
to his from chest to knee. The feeling of free-falling became a dreamy kind of
drifting and she realized she hadn’t been catapulting to her certain death at
all—she’d only been waiting for him to catch her.

“You lied,” she said, panting, her lips to his ear when he
moved to kiss her neck.

“At the time I fully intended to keep my promise,” he said,
brushing his lips along her skin as he spoke, making goosebumps rise on her
body.