Miami Spice
Deborah Merrell
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2013 Deborah Merrell
Adult romances by the author for Smashwords.com:
Angie’s Kiss
Hot Pursuits
Miami Spice
Naked Pizza
Pleasure Cruise
Under Cover Girl
Books under her pen name Marva Dale, also for Smashwords:
Babes in Arms
Private Eyes
Chapter One
“Ooh, Gianni, you are soooo wonderful.... Oh, baby, yes, yes, yes!”
“Hey, baby, I can say the same for you. You have the most delicious body. I want to kiss, and then lick, every bit of flesh.”
“Ooh, ah, oooh, Gianni darling! Put that big boy inside of me! Do it, do it, do it now!”
Erica Ivonne Rael closed her book, leaned back against the headboard, and checked the clock on her nightstand. Oh, yes. Just like clockwork. At least her upstairs neighbor kept on schedule. The women in his bed might change, but the time and the pillow talk remained constant.
Not that Erica would complain. After all, the upstairs condo owner had a right to entertain. He never played loud music or raised his voice enough to consider it shouting. He didn’t stomp his feet or move heavy furniture. The problem lay in the vent for the centralized heating system. The duct ran from Erica’s bedroom wall and up and over to Mr. Gianni Sloan’s master boudoir. Of course, she really couldn’t hear much at all unless she really concentrated on listening. With the stereo or the television on in the bedroom, she heard nothing at all. So why did it annoy her so much?
Erica did not consider herself a snoop, a voyeur, or a busy body—far from it! She had far too much on her personal plate to worry about other people’s lives, or love lives as the case may be. So, she didn’t have a steady man in her life right now. She had Tepeyol, her temperamental but loving black and white cat who enjoyed sitting on the foot of her bed as he did at present. As far as dating anyone... Well, Erica had decided to give up the dating scene for the moment. Despite what those matchmaking sites claimed as success rates, she had two very disappointing blind dates before she decided to call it quits with trying to find Mr. Right over the Internet.
Perhaps, Mr. Gianni Sloan from No. 5C irritated Erica so much because he seemed the ultimate poster boy for the playboy types out in singles land who thought their come-on lines were so suave that women ate up every word they uttered. Obviously, many did, if the onslaught of feminine company upstairs proved indicative of his conquests.
Not that Erica kept a tally, but so far she’d counted twenty-five different female voices in the past two months. Always good in math, she figured Mr. Gianni Sloan copulated with three-point-one females every week. That is different women. And as far as she could distinguish, each new conquest would eventually come around again in the next cycle. Thus, in four months time, Mr. Sloan seduced and recycled fifty women. Not even the Miami Dolphins managed to score such an impressive record in any one season.
Tuning her stereo to a jazz station, Erica turned it up just enough to cover the kissy-coo noises. Thankfully, her upstairs lady killer had wall-to-wall carpeting, or she might have born witness to a whole lot of shaking and quaking going on once Mr. Stud really got started under or over the sheets. In the six months since Gianni Sloan had moved in, Erica had yet to meet this God’s Gift to Women face-to-face. Not that she wanted to go looking for this lounge lizard, but he did have her imagining what he looked like, even what kind of sheets he preferred—one hundred percent cotton or maybe black satin?
Sometimes, while in the elevator or even in the laundry room, she wondered if the man in the suit standing next to her, or the one doing his underwear two washers down, could actually be him. Erica knew his name from the elegant script across his post office box in the lobby, and though she sometimes lingered as she fetched her own mail, she had yet to catch a glimpse of her upstairs neighbor. Of course, the way his female conquests took his name in vain as they screamed in bloody passion only reinforced his status as a professional Lothario in her mind. Now if she wanted to do a bit of digging, Erica could probably come up with a tenant or two who knew something about the real Gianni Sloan. That was if she really wanted to find out more.
When a strident meow came from the other end of the bed, Erica offered her apologies to Tepe for accidentally hitting him with her foot. Stretching, she reached for her book and for him.
“You poor baby.” She stroked his soft fur. “I know I had you fixed, but you don’t want to go around boinking all the girl kitties every night like that tomcat upstairs, do you?” Tepe answered with a firm purr and a chin nuzzle before jumping out of her arms. Erica took up her book.
Another Wednesday night, another journey into the romantic sexcapades of a Clarise Lamour novel. At least the cries of ecstasy from Gianni and his love interest had wafted away with the strains of a jazz quartet. Now, all she had to do was read about a magical night in the embrace of a fabulous, mythical hunk. Glancing at her nightstand, Erica sighed. She always had her trusty vibrator.
* * *
“You know, I think we should go with the textured fabric for the walls in the den. Preferably in a buff, or maybe a desert taupe with sage accents. What do you think?” Sacha Kahlo, the other creative genius at Prestige by Design, cleared his throat. “Hello—Hola! Are you in there, Rica?”
Erica, who had been sitting at her drawing board, looked up from the container of untouched latte still grasped in her hands. She finally noticed Sacha Kahlo and the piercing look he gave her. “Oh, oh, yeah, sure. I think it’s a great idea.”
With a huff, Sacha clasped fists to each narrow hip. “All right, then what did I just say?”
“Sandy...something.” Sighing, Erica stretched and set her cup aside. “Sorry. I guess I’m off in lala land.”
He raised his tweezed and pampered brows. “Oh? What’s his name? Anyone I know?”
Erica smiled. “No, I don’t think so. It’s nothing really.”
“Well, it has to be, girlfriend, to have you off in the clouds like that. If anyone knows romance it’s moi!” Taking up a colored pencil, Sacha leaned his slender body over the work table and pointed the tip in Erica’s direction. “You’re going to have to spill all over lunch. I insist, because I’m going to pay. But until then, can we get back to Mrs. Weissman’s multi-million dollar hacienda? She’s not paying us for a pink flamingo motif. She wants Southwest in the middle of Miami.”
Opening her carpet swatches book, Erica came back to the present. “All right, then, let’s give her Hopi pottery, yucca stalks and adobe.”
* * *
The beautiful day called for them to eat al fresco on the patio, beneath a fawning umbrella. As Erica dug into her shrimp and spinach linguine, she related her tale between polite mouthfuls. As a firm believer in any story involving love and sex, Sacha ate up every word between bites of his pita sandwich. When she finished with her story about her upstairs neighbor and his sexual antics, Erica sat back and played with the ice in her peach tea.
“You must find out,” her friend pronounced, “all about the man! This is just too juicy a predicament to ignore. Of course, I have the perfect solution!”
Crossing her legs, Erica smiled thoughtfully. “Somehow I knew you would, dearest.”
“How are you fixed on housekeepers?”
She gave a small frown. “Housekeepers? If you mean do I have one, then no, I don’t.”
“Well, I’ll lend you mine.” Sacha’s cocoa eyes grew wide with excitement. “Her name is Rosina, and she’s a font of information. In fact, she can pry information from sources better than one of those FBI G-strings.”
“You mean G-men.”
“No, darling, I mean a G-string! I always picture those guys wearing red spangle thongs beneath their regulation black suits.”
Erica chuckled. Dear, sweet Sacha lived and breathed for the lively and the entertaining. As one of the South Beach crowd, he trod the boardwalks with flamboyant zeal. “So, you think your Rosina will be able to ferret out everything there is to know about my mysterious neighbor in 5C?”
Sacha’s slim hands rose in the air. “Darling, she’ll not only get the scoop, but tell you his blood type and the regularity of his poo-poos! Just give her a week and you’ll see results.”
“I don’t think I’ll need a full blown report, but if she’s willing to do some housekeeping in between, then she’s hired. Those results I can live with.”
“Good. I’ll have her see you the morning after next. This will give Rosie time to adjust her schedule. Now, she’ll do everything you ask except walk your dog, but since you have a cat, that’s a moot point.”
“I like to do my own laundry, but if she’s willing to iron, all the better.”
“Girlfriend, ironing, scrubbing, dusting, and vacuuming are her middle names. She works from eight till three, with a half hour for lunch. Oh, and she gets ten bucks an hour.”
Erica threw him a perceptive look. “Just when will she have time to scope out my neighbors? You do know I’m willing to pay her for the time she works as a housekeeper and not as a private detective.”
“Don’t worry, darling, she’ll deliver!” After adjusting his salmon-hued ascot, Sacha took up their check. “I’ve always loved,” he ruminated as he perused the bill, “the way they used to call those guys private dicks.” His eyes took on a mischievous glint. “You know what I would tell one if he wanted to investigate me? ‘Frisk me, darling, and don’t be gentle! The harder you search, the easier I become!’ Of course, I like the big, hunky he-man type who carries a loaded midnight special in his waistband!”
Erica couldn’t help but laugh. Sacha came up with these little provocative gems just about every day. Like herself, he was in between significant others. The only time she found her friend down in the dumps had been when his last live-in lover unceremoniously dumped him for a female impersonator who performed at one of the nightclubs on the strip. It took all of two weeks before Sacha snapped out of his sorrow and got back on the horse so to speak, in his case a particularly feisty Italian stallion.
After reaching for her pocketbook, Erica offered to get the tip and put down a generous amount. As a working girl herself and a daughter of hard-working immigrants, she knew every little bit counted.
“Well then!” she declared. “Shall we return to Mrs. Weissman and her desert casita?”
Of course, in this case, the lady’s little cottage happened to contain seven bedrooms, eight baths, a home gym and spa, and a large entertainment center. Oh, well, Erica sighed agreeably, if you got it, then flaunt it!
Chapter Two
Erica Rael knew the value of money and what it could or could not buy. She knew her condo apartment remained a wise investment, and she snapped it up as soon as she had amassed the down payment. As a daughter of Cuban refugees, she learned all about hard work. Her father, a painter in his former life, never considered his job as a restaurant manager to be beneath him. He had a family of eight to support, plain and simple. In addition, Erica’s mother worked as a daycare assistant. The fact that Olga Elena Rael held an advanced degree in education cut no ice when she had to find any job she could in this country to put food on the family table. Second in order of birth, Erica had an older brother, Estaban, and younger siblings Maritza, Gabriel, Selena and Vianney.
Since the age of fourteen, she had helped her father in the restaurant, and when Santos Rael had time, he showed Erica the wonderful world of art. For young Erica, colors, textures, style and perspective seemed as natural to her as breathing, and she knew her flair for such came from an optimistic and patient instructor. With all this on her side, she wholeheartedly embraced her creative genes as well as her heritage.
Her apartment reflected her tastes, from the light peach, turquoise and cream walls to exotic and colorful prints done by Hispanic artists. Her preferences in furnishings ran to stressed and natural woods, woven Guatemalan fabrics, and thick Mexican glassware. Now, as she took her new housekeeper on a tour, Erica felt proud to call her colorful but comfortable place her very own home.
“Yes, I see I won’t have too much to worry about,” Rosina Gonzales concurred as she surveyed Erica’s surroundings with a crucial eye for detail. “You are a fairly neat person, señorita. I like that. Now then…”
The little barrel of a woman wandered back to the L-shaped kitchen. She wore a light gray uniform and a pristine white apron around her ample girth. According to Sacha, Rosina could run a vacuum cleaner around a so-called professional cleaning crew any day and still have time to wipe down the counters. In addition, she wore comfy white Crocs and kept her long hair in a tight braid.
“About this other little matter.” As she spoke, Rosina opened Erica’s refrigerator and took inventory of what her new employer had to offer. “I will give you satisfaction in finding out all about this neighbor of yours.”
“As long as you’re not intrusive,” Erica countered. “I wouldn’t want to get a reputation as a tenant who goes around asking her housekeeper to get the goods on my neighbors.”
“Do not worry, guapa.” As the housekeeper laughed heartily, she tapped the side of her head with a pudgy finger. “I have good eyesight, good hearing and a good head. Plus, I look very motherly. It is amazing what strangers will tell me. I do a good job, and no one will ever know I am under the covers! Information can be bought for a good price, like my homemade guacamole.”
Rosina brought out a bowl of fresh cut pineapple. “First, I find the other maids here. They are a fontana of information about what goes on in this building. Then I work from there. Within two, three days, I should have answers to pass along.”
Covert operations, spies and information for the price of a few avocados? Just what exactly had Erica gotten herself into? All this in order to appease her curiosity over a Mr. Gianni Sloan, the playboy of Palmetto Terrace? Oh well, more often than not, curiosity came with a price.
So, leaving her apartment in capable hands, Erica finished readying for work. As she cinched a red belt around her waist, she took stock of herself in the full-length mirror. She never considered herself a beauty, but she wasn’t a total fea either.
She credited her mother’s side of the family for her fair complexion, and her father’s side for the sable eyes and matching hair. She usually wore it just below the shoulder and with just a bit of natural curl. Her one physical asset, her voluptuous bosom, could be a toss-up genetically. Erica had no complaints about her ample breasts, and neither had former lovers.
Now, with a pastel blue and white striped sundress, she slipped on sandals to match the belt. She looked crisp, efficient, and oozed creative zeal. Today was the day she and Sacha went to present their schematics to Mrs. Weissman. If all went well, and the client approved them, she planned to take her partner out for a celebratory drink along with their boss and owner, Craig Marin. Mrs. Weissman and her estate represented a good chuck of money for the firm. Confident that their proposal would be met with enthusiasm, Erica could almost taste that piña colada with her name on it.
* * *
Instead of their usual drinks to start, and because he felt in a highly generous mood, Craig Marin ordered champagne cocktails for all his hardworking staff. Not only had Mrs. Weissman loved Sacha and Erica’s ideas, but she had decided to add the pool house into the decorating mix. All in all, the Prestige by Design firm could easily walk away with a hefty fifty thousand dollar profit.
The employees and their boss congregated at their usual watering hole, the Gold Coast Pub & Grill. The place offered an eclectic mix of décor and clientele, as well as a comfortable, relaxed atmosphere. Now as the five participants sat around the table, Craig propose
d a toast.
“Here’s to Sacha and Erica, as well as the rest of us! Because without us, the world would be in terrible color-coordinating shape!”
“Here, here!” everyone agreed with buoyant laughter.
Relaxing, Erica allowed her gaze to roam around the table. Craig Marin ran his company with open, honest ease, yet still demanded hard work and loyalty. He had been in the interior design business for at least twenty years and had graduated from one of the country’s top design schools, the same institute that Erica attended and graduated from on scholarship. At forty, he still looked youthful with his ash blond hair, darker goatee and bright blue eyes between crinkled laugh lines. The good life and a strong, twelve-year marriage had put on a few pounds, but Craig always referred to his tubby status as a selling point. Clients would rather see a well-fed, contented, and highly creative designer, than a wasted and pinched cardboard cutout, a victim of the latest fads in physicality and decorating ideas.
Next to the boss sat Victor Samaniego, the firm’s accounts and billings manager. Victor’s job kept the others in line just in case the designers came close to falling off the deep end both creatively and fiscally. Dark and handsome, Victor also claimed a happy marriage to an art director for an advertising agency.
That left Erica, Sacha and Tai Wilson, the office manager, as the unattached members of the group. Cute and spunky, Tai also remained the youngest staffer at twenty-three. A former California surfer girl, she had come out east to try her luck in Miami and wholeheartedly embraced her assistant’s job during the week. On weekends, the little brunette with the spiked cut, sea foam eyes and pixie face could be found co-managing a surfboard and jet ski shop at South Beach.
As she returned to her champagne, Erica took a quick sip before she turned to scan the happy hour crowd. She had hoped her sister Maritza could join them this evening. Trying to get over a mentally-draining divorce, Mari had just begun to circulate again. Like her sister though, she found the singles life to be just as emotionally challenging and certainly different after seven years off the market.
Miami Spice Page 1
