by Louisa Trent
“Yes,” he said. “I've wanted something that bad.”
But Seraphina didn't seem to hear his answer. She'd gone someplace else, someplace far away, somewhere in her own mind where he couldn't reach her. He knew that for a fact because he'd been there too. He'd been to that dark, unholy place where panic claws at your guts, where fear is a foe that lives inside your own head. And because he knew, because he understood, he made himself a promise right there and then that the school would work out for her. If she needed the mansion to feel secure, he'd give her the mansion. Hell, he'd do whatever it took to make all the bad stuff that was bothering her go away...
Tomas picked up Seraphina's hand, felt for her pulse, counted the beats, decided she needed a jump start, a kick of fresh air, or she'd pass out on him.
“Let's go take a walk around the property. I'll finish the floor when we get back. Okay, Sera?”
“Sera,” his tenant repeated, coming back out of her melancholic trance. “Who's Sera?”
“You are, honey.”
“No one's ever called me by a nickname before. I've always been Seraphina. Never Sera. Pricilla Monroe was called Prissy by her husband. Wasn't that sweet?”
“Real sweet,” he said, leading her toward the door.
They were almost at the rusted screen when he heard an odd, out-of-place noise coming from outside.
Jaw arched, eyes narrowed, Tomas searched the woods at the back of the house.
There was movement in the trees. Someone was out there, someone who shouldn't oughta be there, and that bastard someone was watching the house. And because his company truck was parked at the bottom of the hill, instead of in the mansion's rutted driveway, that piece of shit someone figured the music teacher was alone.
Tomas's attention whipped back to Sera.
She had stopped before the damned glass window. Oblivious to the danger she was in, unaware that she made the perfect target reflected as she was in the clean, sunlit glass, she smiled. At him.
“Isn't this window beautiful, Tomas? Just goes to show what a little elbow grease will do. “
She had no sooner finished speaking the words when a sharp shwish split the air, and the glass window came smashing down.
CHAPTER NINE
When the dust cloud cleared and the porch stopped shaking, Seraphina determined, that yes, she was still alive.
But only because of Tomas Ruiz's quick action.
She still wasn't quite sure what had happened. She remembered, in a dull and distant sort of way, that her shiny glass window had caught her attention. She had stopped to admire it. Commented to Tomas about its beauty. And then that same window had shattered, the glass blown inward, the sharp shrapnel ricocheting in every possible direction.
If Tomas hadn't been there, if she had been alone in the house, if he hadn't used his much larger body to shield her from the breaking glass and flying debris, she might very well be seriously injured now.
Tomas was still shielding her.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his breath warming the top of her ear.
What a straightforward question! And by all rights, she should have been able to give him a straightforward, yes or no, answer.
Only she couldn't. Because everything that had happened to her this past year, everything that had tested her strength of character in ways she never thought her character would be tested, was now catching up with her. She stood mute within the shelter of Tomas's arms.
Was she all right?
She really had no idea.
It all happened so fast. Ten seconds? Twenty? How long does it take a dream to shatter?
It had taken less than a minute for her floor-to-ceiling window to implode, less than sixty seconds for a burst of jagged glass fragments to cover the porch to within mere inches of where they stood. The breaking glass had been deafening as her beautiful window crashed to the floor, the sound of its impact blocking out her own high-pitched cries.
Not so her dream. That had shattered silently.
“I've got you,” Tomas Ruiz had said, swooping her up in his arms and literally carrying her across the floor, away from danger, as her world fell apart for the second time in a year.
And what did she do?
What a madwoman usually does. Naturally, she'd started to laugh. Unreservedly. Whole-heartedly. Inappropriately.
After the laughter, came the tears. Ugly, self-pitying tears, streaming hotly from her eyes and rolling down her cheeks, burning her skin, the tears she couldn't cry before.
She sobbed. “My beautiful window!”
“Can be replaced,” Tomas’ voice rumbled into her ear, while his strong arms tightened around her. “It was only glass.”
Only glass?
What did he know? That window had meant more to her than ‘only glass'!
She could say nothing to him in reply. She could only shake and shudder, shattering, not noisily like the window, but silently like her dreams. While a heart, still whole and strong, hammered hard against the side of her face; while a warm breath, smelling faintly of some hot and pleasant spice, dampened her cheek, almost like a lover's stroke. He held her almost like a lover too...
She knew-at least, anecdotally she knew-that some men become rapidly aroused after a life-threatening situation. It was the element of danger, she supposed. And the need to reaffirm the continuation of the species, or some such thing, that caused their loins to quicken.
Tomas Ruiz proved this out.
To save her, he had literally placed himself as a barrier between her and a shattering wall of glass. There was now a hard bulge pressing against her bottom testifying to both the element of danger, and his virile response to it.
The element of danger could arouse women too. Women could throw their arms up in the air, their morals out a shattered window, and for the first time in their lives, give into their secret natures.
Her generous bottom accepted his hard masculinity.
No! That wasn't right. Nothing as tepid as accepted. She enthusiastically welcomed his hard masculinity, the thickness of which was rapidly imprinting itself into the deep gorge between her buttocks. She pushed back against it.
“Are you all right?” he asked again, one hand now placed intimately on her hip, a thumb moving up and down and over the fullest portion of her round bottom, cupping a cheek.
In answer, a soft sound of pleasure vibrated deep in her throat.
She wanted to purr.
Covered in plaster, filthy with it, a fine dust that coated her hair, her loose cotton dress, infiltrating her very skin pores, and yet she wanted to purr.
She clenched her teeth against it, even as she parted her legs for him.
Wide. Wider still.
Her white cotton panties were of the Mother Hubbard variety: high waistband, low leg elastics, hopelessly modest, hideously ugly.
As was her bra. Also white cotton, also utilitarian, the rigid style engineered for the matronly figure. For the first time in her life, she wished she had give into temptation and indulged her Victoria Secret appetites. After all, her breasts were small; she didn't need the extra support of sturdy cups or wide shoulder straps.
Force of habit. Too afraid to let go, to free the physical side of her nature, even as a young woman she'd never worn pretty or frivolous or feminine or sexy underwear. And, of course, after marriage, she'd had to keep that part of herself hidden so as not to shock or repulse...or send her saintly husband running for the relative safety of his own bedroom.
She needn't have those same concerns with Tomas Ruiz, not after the gossip she'd heard about him. The stories said that her landlord never turned down the opportunity to sleep with a woman, any woman. And so she knew that nothing she could do would shock or repulse or send him running.
It would take only a slight twist of his large hands to unfasten her bra, less time than that to slip her panties down and off. Her breasts were achy; the nipples hardened to points. The void between her open thighs was throbbing; the p
anel on her underpants was already damp, and growing more so. If Tomas Ruiz touched her there, he would know how wanton she was, how physical was her nature. He would understand then that she was not the angel he thought she was.
Would he touch her there? Did men routinely touch women there before, during, after lovemaking...any time?
She wanted to know. No, she needed to know.
She was a mature woman, married for five years, widowed for one, and she still didn't know.
A window had just shattered, the glass sent flying in every direction. She could have been struck, maimed, killed. Life was so short! She needed to know, right now, right this very minute, what it was like to let go, to truly let go, to be the woman she really was inside.
Tomas Ruiz, she sensed, would touch a woman everywhere. She sensed that he would do whatever he wanted to a woman, and that the woman would enjoy it.
She didn't expect romance, or impassioned kisses, or pretty words whispered in her ear. What she wanted was sex. Hard, driving, pounding, wild, uninhibited sex. The kind of animalistic sex at which Tomas Ruiz purportedly excelled. According to his reputation, he could give her what she needed and it wouldn't mean anything.
Meaningless sex was exactly what she wanted.
“If you weren't here,” she began and stopped, only to begin again. “If you hadn't gotten me out of the way-”
“But I was here. I did get you out of the way,” he said softly. “So don't go there. Don't go looking for the ‘if's’ in life. If you do, they might find you someday.”
Light fingers were swept over her twisted tight hair.
To remove plaster?
Most probably. But the removal of plaster didn't explain why his thumb continued to move over the full curve of her buttock.
His attention was more centered now. More sexual. His thick penis was pressing, pressing, into the demarcation between her cheeks.
Unable to help herself, the purr she'd desperately tried to suppress finally managed to escape on a breathy word: “Please.”
“It's okay,” he whispered.
Would he draw up her skirts in back? Would he undo his zipper and free that tremendous bulge? Would he take her from behind, like an animal?
Yes! Now! Please now! She could hardly wait.
Where was the harm in finally giving into her true nature?
Her parents and husband were gone. As she was no longer a missionary, she need no longer hold herself to exemplary standards of behavior. For once in her life she could do something with only herself in mind.
Was that so horribly selfish?
After all, the usage was mutual. Tomas Ruiz wanted her; his erection told her so. He could make her feel something again. He could release the knot of tension that was a tight fist in her belly-
She'd do anything he asked if only to feel something again, even if what she felt were pain. Maybe afterwards, she'd finally get some sleep. Restful, sex-satiated sleep.
As her breathing quickened with excitement, Tomas’ large hand, the one cupping her bottom, loosened.
A scream rose inside her that had nothing to do with the shattered window or with the destruction of her dream. She blocked the scream with her folded knuckles. Only pride kept her from begging.
Why had he stopped?
Unless-
Had he only just then realized what he was doing?
He must have, for he was backing off from her. Not a lot. His hand was still protectively on her hip, but that hard bulge had retracted.
“You're a nice woman,” he said, and by that pronouncement, denied her what he'd given more than half the women in town. “It's the shock,” he soothed. “That's what this is about.”
No, it was not what this was about! Her need had been building inside her long before her window shattered.
But he couldn't know that.
He must think she was hysterical! He must think the broken window had unhinged her.
Then again, he also thought she was a do-gooder society lady. He knew nothing about her!
Seraphina looked over her shoulder at him. “It was a rock, wasn't it?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you see who threw it?”
“No. All I could make out was movement in the trees.”
“Do you think it was just some kid up to mischief?”
He took a deep breath. “I don't know. Could've been.”
“But you don't think so, do you?”
“I think whoever threw the rock knew that flying glass at close range can do some serious damage.”
“I see,” she said, feeling a chill run through her.
Someone wanted her out of the Southside. Someone wanted her out of this mansion so badly they had picked up a rock and hurled it through the window, intending to hurt her in the process. She had never before known that kind of hatred. Who would so strongly oppose her presence, and why?
The slippery nylon thread of her pride wasn't enough to hold onto anymore. She was about to let go. She was about to fall. And there was no safety net. No one to catch her.
She wasn't stupid, and she wasn't naïve. Tomas Ruiz wanted her out of the mansion. He could have paid someone to scare her, to hasten her departure by throwing a rock through the window she'd just cleaned. She was standing in the way of all those luxury houses he wanted to build. Time was money. Every day she spent in the house was a day he lost a small fortune.
She had to know how far he would go to get her to leave.
“What I can't understand, Tomas, is why you aren't saying I told you so about the mansion? Why aren't you rubbing my nose in the fact that you were right, and I was wrong, and that the Southside is dangerous? Why aren't you saying those things, hunh, Tomas? Why aren't you saying that I deserve everything I get for ever thinking I could start a music school here?”
“Deserve!” he scoffed. “What does deserve have to do with anything that happens in life? Listen, if I heard, ‘I told you so', as many times as I deserved to hear it, most days, I'd hear nothing else.”
He waved a big hand. “Look around you! The window broke, but the house is still standing.”
“W-what are you saying?”
He raked his waving hand through his dusty hair. “I'm saying...I don't know what the hell I'm saying. Except that, yeah the porch shook a hell of a lot, but the main house didn't so much as twitch when the window caved, and that says to me that structurally, the mansion is sound. This old house is stronger than I gave it credit for.”
The dark eyes holding hers were openly admiring. “You're a lot stronger than I gave you credit for too.”
“Oh, you're very much mistaken about that. I'm not strong at all.”
Pulling away from the protection of his arms, she ran back inside the house before she begged Tomas Ruiz to make love to her.
He didn't attempt to follow her.
Why would he?
Tomas Ruiz didn't want her, not even after she'd made it easy for him. He'd slept with most of the women in town but he didn't want to sleep with her. And why should that surprise her?
Her own husband hadn't wanted to sleep with her.
CHAPTER TEN
Jet black ponytail walloping the back of his muscled neck with the force of his stride, Tomas stalked the back trails of River Park, taking the paths where no one in his right mind ever ventured. In his present frame of mind, he knew he was as dangerous as any gang member who hung there, as desperate as any druggie waiting on his connection.
And violent?
Hell, yeah, he was feeling violent. Damned violent. He was raised on these mean streets, and no punk, no matter how bad they supposedly were, was messing with him. Let them try. Bring ‘em all on. He was in a skull-busting mood.
Fists closed on the studded pockets of his black jeans, Tomas growled into a thick cover of trees, “Enrico Cortez! Show yourself!”
The young gang leader strolled out of the bushes eventually, and faced his mentor and friend. “What's up, man? Why you trippin’ ?”
He stopped, looked him over. “Fuck, man! What happened to you? You look you've been in some kind of train wreck. You got blood and grit all over you.”
“The woman staying over at the Monroe mansion, Mrs.Norris, just had a rock fired through her window. Know anything about it?”
Enrico's expression showed his confusion. “I told you, Tomas, the R.P's were gonna leave the lady alone. And we are.”
“ ‘Rico, if you're fucking with me, so help me, ese, there ain't enough desperados in your posse to watch your back.”
“Hey, amigo, haven't I always been straight with you?”
Tomas narrowed his eyes. “You patrolling the grounds at night over there, like I asked?”
“Yeah, man! Whatd'ya think? Don't freak on me. You asked for a favor, and the RP's are comin’ through for you. So far, it's quiet at the Monroe place.”
“What about cross-town gangs?”
“There's no street rap anywhere about hassling her. As far as I've heard, the situation is firme with her staying there.”
Tomas’ mouth twisted. “Ain't cool for no one while the dope show's still in town.”
“True dat! The dealers were some pissed when that gringa lady moved in. She stopped their action cold-”
Tomas rubbed the tight cords in his neck. “Fuck!”
Today's rock throwing incident might only be the start of things to come. Who knew how far the dealers would go to scare Seraphina Norris out of the house? She could've been hurt today. Her pretty face could've been busted up, cut, scarred...
Tomas cringed. He'd seen the results of what dealers did to anyone who stood in the way of them making their dirty money, and it was ugly. For the teacher's sake, he was scared shitless. He was the one moving in on the dealers’ action. He was the one putting up houses in their territory. Not Seraphina Norris.
It was always the weak ones that got picked on, always the ones that couldn't defend themselves, who got intimidated. And it didn't matter squat that the music teacher was a woman; women made the easiest targets. She'd pay the postage on the message they were sending to him.
