La Chanteuse came as advertised. Crossing over the threshold was like crossing back through decades of time. The staff was dressed in period clothes. The décor was straight from the Jazz Age—lush and gilt, art deco with a patina of age. It appeared to have been designed to look like a club built in the Twenties and then worn by use. The lights were low, and tables lit by candles in colored glass ringed a large, gleaming dance floor—no dancers just yet, and no live music yet, either. But on one side, a full orchestra was set up in the period style, and front and center stood an old-style microphone, its head massive and ideal for a torch singer to clutch passionately in mid wail. The music would be live soon enough.
Carmen and Jordan both stopped dead as they were all being led to their table by a hostess wearing a slinky, satin dress, her hair sleekly coiffed.
“Wow.” Carmen’s eyes scanned the whole room.
Jordan was much more effusive. “Is this the best thing ever, or is this the best thing ever?!”
Theo reached out and, for the first time that evening, touched Carmen, his hand curling around her arm. “Acceptable?”
When she turned to him, she was smiling completely. “I might even take you up on that tango.”
“I embellished about the tango. I can dance, but not that. Sorry.”
She rolled her eyes. “Men. All talk.” But her smile remained sincere. Theo tamped down the urge to move his hand from her arm to her face.
“Come on. The food’s supposed to be good, too.”
~oOo~
The food was good, a nice blend of French and American cuisine. Jordan and Carmen split a bottle of wine. Eli had beer. Rosa kept to Shirley Temples, and Theo had his usual bourbon. He was drinking more than usual since he’d been in France, more than he had since the early months after Maggie’s death, while he was writing Orchids. He’d started to slide down a rocky slope back then, but had caught himself before anyone but he knew he’d been slipping.
He wasn’t near that slope now, but he was definitely drinking more. Probably a feature of eating out most of the time, and of writing about Maggie again. Trying to, anyway. But it was good he was aware of it—that awareness should keep him from sliding.
The band had started playing right before their entrees arrived. At first, they played some standards, just background music by which the crowd—the tables were full—could dine. After about thirty minutes or so, a lovely young woman in full period dress slunk to the big microphone and began to sing. She had a voice like Lena Horne. Looked like her, too.
When the waiter came around to ask about their dessert order, Carmen declined and ordered a second bottle of wine instead. Theo smiled. He liked her with some wine in her. The others ordered sweets, but Theo stuck to his bourbon, in allegiance with Carmen.
While the youngsters were eating their crèmes brûlées, Miss Lena’s doppelgänger crooned the first notes of ‘Stormy Weather,’ and Theo leaned over and put his lips to Carmen’s ear. Christ. She was wearing a perfume that must have been pure pheromones. She’d been stingy with the scent, not bathing herself in it, so he hadn’t picked it up until he’d gotten this close to her—which was, hands down, the absolutely best way to smell perfume. His cock charged into his pants leg, and for a second he reconsidered the question he was about to ask. He might need to stay seated. Then he went for it anyway. He was wearing a suit; the jacket would probably be sufficient camouflage.
“Have you made up your mind about that tango?”
“You can’t tango to ‘Stormy Weather.’”
“I can’t tango at all. Will you dance with me anyway?”
She tipped her head back and stared at him for a long second. He could smell the wine on her breath, mingling with that astounding perfume. “You’re trouble, Theodore Wilde.”
He grinned. “Not trouble. Fun. I’m a good time.” He stood and held out his hand. She shook her head but put her hand in his, and he led her onto the dance floor.
She had downplayed her ‘tendency’ to lead. It was more of a demand. But Theo knew only how to lead, so there was a bit of awkwardness at first, until he stopped trying to gain her cooperation and simply moved her. Her eyebrows went sky high as he used his strength to force her into following, but he merely grinned at her—right at her; she was eye to eye with him in those shoes—and kept moving. Finally, she acquiesced, and they moved smoothly together.
As a writer, Theo thought in metaphor. If he had a religion, it was symbolism—which was, in his estimation, all any religion really was. The metaphor of their first dance, vying for the lead, was not lost on him. He considered it a primer for the future with this woman, however long that future might be.
That wasn’t the only metaphor occurring to him as he moved her around the floor, her body fitted perfectly with his, moving fluidly under his hands. He knew that she knew how being this close to her, smelling her, feeling her, affected him. She could feel it for herself, and she gave him a sardonic look, cocked eyebrow and all, and shifted against him in such a way that the inane, small-talky comment he was trying to make was totally derailed mid-inanity.
When she did it again, flexed on him in that decidedly sexual way, he spun them, clutching her more tightly to him. He put his face to her neck and drew a deep breath, filling his head with her scent.
“What is it you’re wearing? The perfume?”
She laughed. “I don’t even know. I bought it today. I don’t usually wear perfume, but I guess their shopping mania rubbed off on me a little. I like the smell—kind of spicy. And warm, if that’s a smell.”
“It’s bottled sex, is what it is.”
She pulled her head back and smiled at him. “Is that what this is about?” Again, she pressed her leg on his erection.
“You’re what that’s about. What do you think about claiming that rain check?”
The current song ended at that moment, and the music stopped. So did Theo and Carmen, though he didn’t let her go. They stood in place, staring at each other, while the diners applauded and the orchestra started a new song. As they began to move again, Theo asked, “Carmen?”
“I need to stop drinking around you. Wine makes me think with the wrong part.”
“Are you drunk?” Christ, he hoped not; he didn’t want to give her that excuse. She didn’t seem to be.
She sighed and put her head on his shoulder. “No. Just excessively romantic.”
He changed his hold, wrapping his arms around her. “Is that a yes?”
“Work it out so your kids and my sister aren’t watching us, and yes. It’s a yes.”
~oOo~
Theo scanned the liquor cabinet in Hunter’s grand dining room for something that might appeal to Carmen. “There’s no wine, but there’s brandy. That’s almost the same thing, I think. Do you drink brandy?” There was wine, actually, a whole temperature-controlled, oak-enclosed room of it, but Hunter was a collector, and Theo didn’t want to decant some thousand-dollar bottle accidentally. He knew nothing about wine. The brandy, Jordan had bought. That he could offer.
She was in the salon, so they had to raise their voices a little to be heard. “I’m not sure I’ve ever had brandy. Sure, I’ll try some.”
Working it out with the youngsters had turned out to be easy. Jordan and Rosa had been on the dance floor, too, and Eli had walked over to cut in. The five of them had stood under the gently turning lights over the floor and discussed their plans for the rest of the evening.
It had only been ten o’clock, and none of them had been ready to call it a night. They’d known why Theo and Carmen wanted to separate from them, and they’d made their remarks, both snide and encouraging. Carmen had admonished Rosa to keep her head this time. Rosa, who still had not had anything alcoholic to drink, flipped her big sister off with a swipe of her middle finger down her nose. Carmen had returned the gesture.
Theo gave Eli cab fare, and then he’d brought Carmen back to Hunter Anders’ swanky digs.
He filled a snifter half full and poure
d himself three fingers of bourbon, then joined Carmen in the living room. No—she’d moved on to the library. He found her examining Hunter’s wall array of vintage posters from famous opera houses. At the moment, aptly, she was considering a poster of Carmen from its engagement at La Scala in 1946.
He stood behind her and reached around to hand her the snifter. She looked over her shoulder as she took it. “Thank you.”
“You like opera?”
“My parents do—did—I mean…” She sighed. “My father does. My mother did. So I know a lot about it.” She’d already told him that her mother died some years before. “I was named for this one. My mother’s favorite.”
“It’s a lovely name. A sad thing to be named after, though, isn’t it? Carmen’s story is tragic.”
She turned back to the poster and shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve always liked that she’s a gypsy. She dies, but she dies free, standing up for herself. I don’t mind being named for her. She’s a fierce broad.”
“Yeah, she is.” He wasn’t talking about a character in an opera. And Carmen knew it. She turned, sipping at her brandy. Only inches separated them, and he could catch the minutest whiff of perfume, now that he was primed for the scent. Seeking calm, he swallowed.
“Trouble, Theodore. That’s you.” She smiled. “Are you named for anyone?”
“My granddad. He was a cowboy, by the way. And he was named for Theodore Roosevelt, so I guess I was, too, in a meandering way.”
She lifted her eyebrow. “Are you a Rough Rider?”
Oh, hell. Okay. He tossed the rest of his bourbon back and set the glass on a nearby shelf. “Is that what you want?”
“I don’t want long-stemmed roses and ‘Bolero,’ that’s for sure.” She took a longer sip of the brandy. “I like this. It feels warm in interesting places.”
“Christ. You need to finish it or set it aside, I think. Wouldn’t want to spill on Hunter’s fancy rug.”
Another enigmatic smile, and she drank the rest of her brandy, setting her empty glass next to his. She turned to him and, as he was reaching for her, grabbed his tie and pulled him sharply forward, slamming her mouth over his. The cool-warm taste of the brandy was rich on her lips. He was stunned at first, and by the time he’d recovered enough to participate more than to wrestle with her tongue, she had his tie undone and was working on his shirt.
He grabbed her head in both hands, sliding his fingers into her hair and finding the pins that must have been holding her style in place. He wanted that heavy, dark mane loose. When he started to seek pins to pull them out, she broke the kiss with a cry and released him, stepping back against a bookcase, momentarily out of his reach.
Then, her eyes locked with his, she fished the pins out and released her hair, shaking her head to toss the locks sexily over her shoulders. He used the time to shed his jacket, shirt, tie, and t-shirt. She went for the zipper at the back of her dress, but he stepped up and hooked his hand around her arm, turning her sharply to face the bookcase.
She gasped a little with surprise at his force. He pushed her hair over her shoulder and leaned in. “I thought you wanted a Rough Rider.” He nipped at her earlobe. And then pulled the zipper down.
“I ride rough, too, you know.” She shrugged out of the dress. Black satin bra and panties. Have mercy.
“Looking forward to it.” He pushed her against the bookcase again, shoving his clad thigh between her legs. “But right now, find something to hold onto, beautiful.” His hands cupped her breasts, his fingers pinching her nipples through the satin until she was writhing in his arms, then he slid down, over her flat, firm belly, the pads of his palms virtually sighing at the feel of her soft skin. When he got to her panties, he slid his hands into them and pushed them down, down her legs, squatting as he went, until she stepped out of them, her high heels tapping the rim of parquet floor between the Oriental rug and the bookcase.
He kissed the backs of her knees on his way up, laving his tongue over the sensitive skin there.
When he was standing behind her again, he pulled his wallet out of his pocket and retrieved the condom he’d placed in it earlier. He’d felt like an idiot child tucking a condom in his wallet, something he hadn’t done since college, but he was damn glad to have it now; the box from which it had come was all the way in his bedroom. He opened his pants, released his cock, and rolled it on. From behind, he pushed his hand between her legs and found her dripping wet, her clit swollen and hot. She moaned and pushed her ass toward him as he fingered her.
“Come on, come on,” she whispered. “Come on.”
“What do you want, beautiful girl?”
She looked over her shoulder. “Don’t be an asshole. You know what I want.”
“You want me to fuck you until you scream your throat raw?” He had no idea where all this was coming from. His sexual history had not, to this point, included anything like this. It had been much more roses and Ravel. But the rough rawness was there now, in him, on his tongue, in her eyes, and he went with it.
“You think you can bring it?” Her tone was a dare.
With his knee, he knocked her legs wider. He pulled her hips back and shoved into her in a hard drive, going balls deep. He slid smoothly, like silk on silk, but she was tight and firm around him, almost resistant, once he’d hit home. And God, how she felt. God. He couldn’t even pause to consider that he was inside a woman for the first time in years. All he could do was feel. It took up his entire mind and body.
She cried out, her head rearing back. “Oh shit, oh shit. What the fuck?”
Worry for her brought him back a little. “Too much?”
She gasped and closed her eyes. “No…I just wasn’t expecting…sweet Jesus.”
He wrapped her hair around one hand and pulled her back to his shoulder. “You figured a poet would have a little dick?” He flexed his hips, smiling when her short nails made a long scratching sound as her hands clenched on the shelf she was holding. He did it again, and she made a guttural, animal sound deep in her throat.
“You want it?”
She nodded, his grip on her hair impeding the movement.
“Oh, I think you’re gonna scream for me, beautiful.” Keeping his hand wrapped with her hair, he brought the other around and pushed it between her legs, finding her clit. He strummed it like an instrument as he pounded into her. After a moment, the resistance he felt inside her eased, and then she began moving, too, countering his thrusts so that they slapped noisily together. Every time she tried to lean forward, he yanked her back by her hair, keeping their bodies sealed together as much as he could.
He felt her orgasm rise in her, rolling spasms starting up in the muscles that clenched him most intimately, and she let go of the shelves and reached her hands back, over her head, to grab handfuls of his hair. As her body milked him harder, driving his frenzy toward madness, and as her cries grew louder, he changed his approach, leaving long thrusts in favor of short, rapid ones, just as deep. And then he slapped her clit. Her body went stiff at that, and then wet ran over his cock, his hand, down her leg. He slapped her again, more sharply, and she screamed, pulling his hair so hard he felt strands give up and part from his scalp.
He’d never done anything like that before. And he hadn’t come yet—how was that possible? As her coming waned, though, he pushed her forward, toward the bookcase again, and grabbed her hips with both hands, surging into her again and again until the heat in his belly and balls caught fire, and he nearly screamed himself.
Spent, he pulled out and leaned lightly on her, resting his forehead on her shoulder as they both fought for breath. Her sweat had intensified the scent of her perfume, and it wafted around him, holding him prisoner.
“Jesus Christ,” she whispered, her voice edged with strain.
He nuzzled her shoulder. “Are you…was that…I…” The power of speech had deserted him.
“I’m good. Surprised. Shocked, actually. But good.”
So was he. “Stay tonight.
” On the ride over, she’d said she wouldn’t, but he wanted her in his bed. He wanted that badly.
“Theo…”
“Stay.”
“What about Eli and Jordan?”
“We’ll move to my room. They know to stay out of there. It’s not like they’ll be scandalized, anyway.”
“I don’t…” She didn’t finish, and he knew that, with a little more coaxing, she would stay.
He turned her face so he could kiss her. “Stay. I don’t want to be done yet.”
She chuckled, low and sultry. “Only if I get to ride you rough, too.”
He grinned. “Yee-haw. Ride away, cowgirl.”
~ 7 ~
Carmen woke but didn’t open her eyes right away. Nothing felt right or familiar, so she took a minute to get her bearings and decide whether she was in some kind of trouble. As sleep receded completely, she remembered where she was. Theo’s bed.
Rooted (The Pagano Family Book 3) Page 9
