Chapter 7
“I want to get in the pool!” the little pixie whined.
“It’s freezing.”
“It’s Florida!” JL pulled off the shirt she’d borrowed and jumped in, screaming the moment her naked body made contact with the water. As soon as she came up for air she shrieked, “Holy shit! It’s freezing!”
Enzo laughed and squatted down by her to hand her his cup of hot coffee. “I told you!”
“Come in and keep me warm.”
“You’re on your own with that one.” He sat back on his lawn chair and looked at her. Not even half an hour ago he’d woken up to big blue eyes staring up at him, her chin resting on his chest, his legs dangling off his couch. They’d ended up having coffee outside because she’d said it was a beautiful day.
It was eleven in the morning and he’d just grabbed his first cup of coffee. Normally by this time he’d have had at least three cups and a huge tension headache and heartburn. “So you never did tell me. Do you work today?” he asked, opening up the business section of the New York Times.
She rested her forearms and chin on the ledge. “Nope. You?”
“I had a conference this morning,” he said, looking at her over the paper.
“You missed it, didn’t you?” She feigned disappointment.
“I did. I’ve never missed an appointment before.”
“I’m sorry,” she said with a smirk.
He snorted. “Yeah. You look very sorry.”
“Okay, I’m not,” she said wryly. “So, Pretty Boy, do you have any other conference calls? Banks to run? People to fire?”
He laughed again. “No. I’m pretty much free the rest of today and the weekend. All the peasants have been fired or accounted for.”
Then it got a little awkward. He wanted to spend time with her. But their first and only date was now going on twenty-four hours and he didn’t know exactly how to proceed.
Thankfully, she spoke first. “You want to hang out or are you done with me?”
He was probably supposed to play it cool, but he couldn’t help it. Her playful smile made him grin just as big. “I absolutely am not done with you yet.”
“Can I have some more of that coffee, then?”
Carefully folding the paper and putting it down, he crouched close to her to hand her his mug…and then she took his arm and pulled him into the pool.
JL chortled with laughter before swimming away.
“Son of a bitch!” he yelled as he came up for air and looked around for her. “You’d better run, little girl.”
JL stared at his bulging triceps as he hoisted himself up and out of the pool. Enzo ran his hands through his hair before stripping down bare, causing her to salivate. She thought of the perfect tribal design that would look great on him, beginning over his oblique muscles and running down to—
A splash on her face from his dive into the pool took her out of her fantasy, and she yelped when he pulled her by her waist into the deep end of the pool—which for her was pretty much the entirety of the pool. “Don’t dunk me!”
“I’m going to do whatever I want. It’s not like you can reach the bottom. You’re helpless.” He took her legs and wrapped them around his body.
“I can swim. I’m not help—” she began to say before he dunked her head under the water.
She began to laugh as he brought her back up for air. He did it a few more times as he jabbed her ribs and tickled her. Between laughing and trying to catch her breath, she couldn’t get a word in, so she did the only thing she knew would stop him.
She kissed him.
Hard.
His grip tightened around her waist and he kissed her back, his cock pressing against her. He moved them back to the shallow end while she rubbed herself against him. He leaned her against the steps and reached over the ledge to grab a condom from the pocket of his discarded clothing.
“Presumptuous,” she said.
“More like hopeful,” he told her as he quickly put it on. “I can’t seem to not be hard when you’re around.” Without any preliminaries he pushed inside her, one arm around her waist and the other against the steps. “Fuck,” she said against his neck as he pumped into her over and over. He leaned down her breast and sucked and nipped on her nipple, causing an orgasm to hit her fast and unexpectedly. He followed right behind her.
Once his breath evened out, he set her on the edge of the pool. “Wait here,” he said, then climbed out and ran behind the enormous bar by the pool, opened a large teak cabinet, and took out two thick fluffy towels. He dried off and then came back to her, lifted her up, and dried her off.
“You make me feel like a rag doll,” she observed.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you move me around and place me where you want me.”
“Just taking care of you, sweetheart.”
“Yes, I know.” And that was the problem. In the last twenty-four hours he’d taken better care of her than all her past lovers combined had ever done. More than most people in her life, for that matter. She could easily get used to this. She cleared her throat and shook her head; she needed those thoughts out of her head, immediately. She had to remind herself that it had just been twenty-four hours. They were in the lust part of their date, and it would soon fizzle out.
Enzo pulled her down to the lounge chair with him, her head resting on his chest. “So I have now had outside sex two times in my life, both times within twenty-four hours, and both times with you,” he said as he took a sip of his coffee, which was surely now cold.
“Fun, right?” She drew lazy circles on his chest with her fingertip.
“Oh, yeah.” He put the coffee down, lowered the back of the lounge chair, and stared up at the sky. She turned her head and pressed her cheek against his chest. “You feel yummy,” she murmured.
“So do you,” he said as he ran his fingers through her hair. Neither spoke for some time, and she thought he’d fallen asleep.
“What are you doing to me, Jamie Lynn?” he said quietly. “I’m lounging outside naked. I went skinny dipping, broke into a public library, had sex outside, and fell asleep in a park. And I feel at peace for the first time in my life.”
She looked up at him through her lashes. “If I would’ve let you plan the date, what would we have done?”
“Probably would have tried to impress you with a fancy restaurant. Maybe dancing.”
“VIP somewhere?”
“Of course.”
“And instead you got the complete opposite. Did you have a good time?”
“Did I? As in past tense? Is the date over?”
“No. I’m just curious. We’re just so different. I…” She sat up and looked at him. Her naked body was warm against his, and the Florida sun shone down on them. “This is me, Enzo. I mean, I don’t feel comfortable in cocktail dresses and VIP lounges.”
Where is this coming from? he thought.
“I’ve never seen you look more beautiful than you do right now, Jamie Lynn. I love the dark crap you put around your eyes and that red lipstick and the crazy stockings, but this fresh-faced, makeup-free, snark-free, carefree person I’m looking at is the most beautiful you I’ve seen.”
She sat up. “But you see, this isn’t me.” She tried to get up, but he stopped her. “I’m not going to dye my hair back to my natural color. I’m not going to start wearing pastels. I’m not—”
“Would you stop? Let me finish.” He caressed her cheek. It seemed to be something that he liked to do; it also seemed to both settle her nerves and rattle them, all at the same time. She wasn’t used to tenderness from anyone. “This is you, baby. You’re that chick, the badass tattooed pixie, and you’re also the soft, sweet girl who’s afraid of the dark and of heights. I like them both, Jamie Lynn. A lot. More than I should. More than I thought I would.”
“It’s the sex,” she sassed.
He took her face in his hands and looked at her seriously. “Don’t make light of this. It’s
not the sex. You feel it too, I’m sure of it. I know it’s fast, but from the first moment I saw you, I knew you’d shake up my world, so don’t try to dismiss my feelings. I tell you how I feel, how you make me feel at ease, and you freak out. Just stop doing that.” She didn’t say anything, just searched his eyes, so he continued. “I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, or in a week—hell, I don’t know if you have to leave this afternoon—but I do know that you make me feel things I’ve never felt before. Liberated. Carefree.”
“Well, I’m glad I could do that for you,” she finally said, feeling uncomfortable and disconcerted because he was making her feel “things” too.
“Anything you want to do today?” he asked.
“I need to go feed Bird.”
“And I should get in a workout. Slade and Tony will ride my ass if I don’t work out.”
“Drop me off at home and go work out.”
“Why don’t I go with you to your house, then you come to the Academy with me and visit with Violet across the street or do a yoga class with Jessica, and then we go to dinner?”
“Aww…you don’t want to let me go. You’re totally going to miss me, aren’t you, Pretty Boy?” She’d said it with a full dose of sarcasm and snark, making it clear she didn’t want any more of the heavy conversation.
But he replied seriously, “I totally will.” That wasn’t something she’d expected.
—
An hour later, JL and Enzo were walking into her apartment. “So what’s the deal with this bird?”
“It’s only the coolest pet in the world.” She got close, and the parrot tried to bite her through the cage, causing her to jump back. “It hates everyone.”
“I see that.” He laughed. “You have a sick sense of what ‘coolest’ means.”
She took the tray off the bottom and cleaned it as Enzo walked through the apartment. “Your apartment is so colorful.”
She scowled. “Is that a dig?”
His brow furrowed. “No,” he said, confused. “You have an orange wall and a lime wall.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and leaned in and kissed her before walking away to continue to explore her small apartment.
He realized that she had issues regarding their financial disparity, and he needed to proceed with caution, because it seemed to make her very defensive. For him, it meant nothing. He’d grown up being groomed for a life of wealth and entitlement. He’d worked hard and sacrificed a lot for where he was at the moment, but it had never really been his choice, and because of that, money didn’t mean as much to him as she thought it did. Somehow he needed her to understand that.
He glanced into one of the rooms where the door was ajar. Hearing sounds that suggested she was still busy with the parrot, and hoping she didn’t catch him, he opened the door fully.
“Oh, wow,” he whispered to himself.
The walls were painted black, and there were elaborate sketches all over them in chalk. They were huge. One wall had a man and a woman in an embrace; the drawing was at least six feet and five feet wide. It was beautiful.
“Hey!” She pulled him out by the arm and slammed the door shut. “I don’t like people seeing my drawings.”
“But you’re so talented. Please, let me see them. I’m so impressed, Jamie Lynn.”
“It’s stupid. It’s just something I do for fun,” she said. “We can go now. I’m finished with Bird.”
“Please.” He cupped her face and ran his thumb along her cheek in that way that disarmed her completely. “Just let me in. Why are you hiding?”
“I’m not hiding it. I’m just private about it,” she admitted shyly.
“That’s the definition of hiding. You don’t want to show me what essentially makes you you. This is your artistic and creative side. Not showing this side of you is hiding the most important part of yourself.”
“No one likes a know-it-all,” she sassed.
“You do,” he said softly. He gripped the doorknob behind her and looked at her to see if she’d stop him. When she didn’t, he turned it slowly and pushed the door back open. She closed her eyes before stepping aside.
“Jamie Lynn, sweetheart…,” he said, taking in the entirety of the room. The other wall had an image of two toddlers holding hands, the beach in the backdrop. “I can’t believe you did all this with chalk.” Along the floor were dozens of canvases. He picked one up and looked over his shoulder to find her leaning against the door frame, biting her nails.
“Wow.” He looked at the perfect portrait of Violet, her mouth open and her eyes closed, laughing. He could practically hear her cackling through the sketch. Then he picked another one, and it was Travis holding a slice of pizza. He’d never seen such talent. “They look like photographs, not sketches. You’re so talented.”
“Really?” she said, her face alight.
“Really, baby. Like, put-these-in-a-gallery-somewhere talented.”
He lifted another one and was startled to see himself. “I can’t believe I did this,” he said, remembering the humiliation of being naked in front of the art students only two days ago.
She laughed and walked into the room, taking the canvas from his hand and looking at it. “Yeah, I can’t believe you did that either.”
“I didn’t see you sketching that much. Mostly you gawked.”
“Ha-ha.”
“Seriously, you did all this so fast.”
“No, actually, I was gawking and didn’t finish, but I have a great memory. I did the rest of it later that night. I don’t sleep much, remember.”
“You haven’t finished my legs, though.”
“I may have been staring a little too intently at your junk and then couldn’t remember your legs.”
He smiled mischievously and hooked his fingers in the waistband of his gym shorts. She put the sketch down and lifted an eyebrow almost in a dare.
“You’re going to sit for me again, Pretty Boy?”
“Hell no. But I will let you touch me. Isn’t there something about muscle memory?”
She laughed. “That’s sculpting, not sketching.” She stepped in closer. “But, I wouldn’t mind touching you.” She pushed his hands out of the way and pulled his shorts down, along with his boxers. “You’re always very ready,” she said, gripping his very erect cock.
“What can I say? You’re a very arousing woman.” He smiled sheepishly as he stepped out of his shorts and swept her into his arms. “Don’t want to mess anything up in this room.” He carried her out and dropped her on her couch. Quickly she scrambled to her knees and pulled him down. He reached out to touch her, but she stood and began to strip, slowly and seductively. “You’re a tease.”
She winked and slowly, achingly slowly, hooked her fingers around the sides of her panties and dragged them down her legs, until she stood before him completely naked except for her ink.
“Turn around for me,” he said, his voice husky. She spun slowly. The tattoo of the book on her lower right side extended out around her waist and to her front hip and up her ribs. Most of her tattoos were on her right side. He hadn’t noticed that before. She had red cherry blossoms on her upper right thigh and some delicate and colorful Asian-inspired fish and a pagoda by her right breast. She was a canvas…one he wanted to touch. “You are breathtaking,” he said, sitting back on the couch. “C’mere.”
She took the final step toward him, then knelt between his legs and grabbed his cock. His head hit the back of the couch when she took him in her mouth. Her tongue licked up and down in long strokes. He needed to feel her. He lifted her and maneuvered them around so that her pussy was on his face as he lay flat on the couch. “Enzo!” she squealed in surprise at the fast change of position, and when his tongue flickered out she almost jumped off him, except he had one arm wrapped around her holding her down. “Oh, God,” she moaned breathlessly. “I’m going to smother you with my pussy if you don’t let me go,” she said as she ground her pelvis against him, obviously not caring whether or not she in
fact smothered him. When he laughed, she scolded him. “You can’t laugh when your face is practically in my ovaries.” He laughed again, and she reached down the length of his body and readjusted herself so that he was now in her mouth. She sucked him as he licked her and in no time they were both lost in the pleasure of it all. He thrust his dick deep in her mouth; at the same time he held her ass cheeks apart as he continued to devour her pussy.
“Can’t hold on. Come with me,” he grunted as he moved his hips up.
She didn’t have to be told twice. She cupped his balls and continued to bob her head up and down as he came in long hot spurts in her mouth at the same time that his tongue plunged deep inside her, making her come hard and fast in his mouth.
—
Half an hour later, Jamie Lynn was sprawled on top of Enzo, naked, on the floor. “Will I actually make it to the gym, you think?” he said gruffly as he caressed her back.
She chuckled. “Why are we on the floor?”
“Not sure how we ended up here, but I have noticed you’re on top of me a lot.”
“It feels good to be on top of you,” she admitted, snuggling closer still.
Jamie Lynn weighed next to nothing, and he found himself carrying her often. His ex-wife had complained that he’d been cold and inattentive, as well as unaffectionate. Now, after spending a mere twenty-four hours with Jamie Lynn, he’d realized that his ex was right. He had been all those things…with her. With this little pixie, he wanted to touch her all the time, carry her, care for her, protect her. It was too soon for any sort of declaration, but the more time he spent with her, the more he knew he didn’t want to end their time together anytime soon.
She stood up and reached her hand down to him. “Come on, Pretty Boy. Time to get up and go work out.” She left him standing naked in the middle of the room as she padded to her bedroom to change. “I texted Jessica and she has a yoga class starting soon, which will keep me busy while you do your thing, since you can’t seem to let me go,” she said teasingly. But wasn’t that the truth? He didn’t want to let her go.
Fighting Dirty Page 8
