She turned to face him. “Kevin, I live here.”
“M-Miss Spuh—Spinney?” He stared. “Is that you?”
“In the belly-shirted flesh.” She grinned.
“Wow.”
“Thanks, I think.” She turned and continued to lug her bags toward the elevators.
“Uh, Miss Spinney? I hate to even ask you this, but there was a complaint lodged from your own phone number about you. Something about a pig?”
She stopped and turned her head. “Oh, Kevin.” She laughed. “A pig? In my unit? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
After her brief elevator ride, Kate stumbled into her condo and dumped all of her bags. Gracious came out immediately, squealing and grunting and bouncing up and down on her stubby front legs. Kate looked at her sadly and dropped to the floor to kiss her little snout. “I’m going to miss you.”
“Oh, how touching,” Wendell said, emerging from the guestroom with his signature smirk. It faded immediately, to be replaced by a look of horror when he saw her face and new clothes. “Katydid? Is that you under there, or has J Lo taken over your body?”
Kate stood up and put her hands on her hips. “Like it? This is the new me.”
His lip curled. “You look like South Beach trash.”
She should have known better than to expect a positive reaction, but she was hurt anyway. “Pretty expensive trash.”
He shrugged. “Whatever the budget, you’re channeling ‘available.’ Grandfather Spinney and Aunt Cornelia would have a coronary if they saw you like that.”
“Like what? In clothes that fit?”
“Those don’t just fit, Katy. They display your goods like they’re in a shop window.”
“Why is that such a crime? I’m not even thirty.”
“Did your Latin stallion put you up to this? What’s next? Bleached hair, double-E knockers and lips the size of a pool raft?”
“Why do you have to be so hateful all the time, Wendell?” She turned away from him and got Gracious a couple of grapes out of the refrigerator.
He had the nerve to look offended. “Hateful? I’ll tell you what’s hateful—letting your greasy pimp of a sex toy throw your own flesh and blood out of your home. Choosing him over me.”
Her jaw dropped open and she had to take a moment to compose herself. “Wendell, I didn’t do any such thing. You pushed Alejandro—and me—to the limits of human tolerance. If he hadn’t removed you, I would have. And stop calling him rude names.”
“What’s hateful,” Wendell continued as if he hadn’t heard her, “is forcing a family member to live with a disease-carrying, flea-ridden slab of walking bacon.” He eyed Gracious with malevolence. “Speaking of her, you owe me four grand.”
“What? Why?”
“That F-ing barnyard animal pissed in my suitcase!”
Kate put a hand up to her mouth.
“It soaked my suit, my folded custom shirts, my handmade shoes, my extra set of Pratesi sheets, and quite a few other things.”
She bit back a wild cheer.
“And don’t tell me to wash them and forget about it. I’m not wearing pig pee, and I’m not sleeping in it, either. So unless you want your little antics with the greaseball broadcast to the board and the family, you’ll be sitting down right now to write me a check.”
Like hell! Fury engulfed her, and she couldn’t even speak to him. Kate scooped up Gracious and stalked to her bedroom, then slammed the door.
In private, she gave the pig a dazzling smile and danced across the room with her. She kissed the top of her fuzzy porcine head. “So that’s why you didn’t need to go out that night. Good job, Miss Piggy! You go, girl. Or, uh, I guess you went.”
The pig squealed, and Kate gave her three more grapes and a dried apricot from a bowl on her dresser. She thought about how much she did not want to give Gracious back to her owner. She sighed and kicked off the infernal black peep-toe heels.
Alejandro was not a jerk. If not for him, she’d never have met Gracious. And he was a saint in comparison to Wendell.
When she heard the door slam, she assumed that her cousin had left her in peace for the time being. She fantasized about calling the police to remove him permanently…but even though he was obnoxious, black-mailing scum, he was family. She didn’t think she could actually call the cops on him.
She padded around her condo gathering the pig’s things. She hauled the bags of food and litter down to her car first, casting a look of dislike at old Mr. Perv-Pants, who was arguing with a police officer and the owner of the parked car he’d run into. She popped her trunk and dumped the supplies into it. She was closing the trunk when Landry said, “There she is, right there. Now you look at that ass and tell me you wouldn’t-a wrecked yourself, officer.”
Christ Almighty. Kate pushed her sunglasses farther up her nose and ignored them as both men turned to stare at her. She walked calmly back into the building, but not before she heard the officer say, “I certainly see your point, sir.”
Maybe I should go back to my baggy khakis! Kate was torn between outrage, amusement and utter embarrassment. But it was also just a tiny bit thrilling to have caused an accident, even for a nasty old geezer with a freaky eye and a toilet mouth. She’d definitely never caused an accident before. Kate treated them to an extra little wiggle before she disappeared into the freight elevator. Kiss it, boys.
She decided to wait half an hour before bringing out Gracious, so that old Mr. Landry would be gone. Kate turned on the radio and found some salsa music. Then she dragged her shopping bags into her bedroom and put her new things away in the closet.
She looked at herself in a mirror, twisting her mouth. Screw Wendell. She looked great, if she did say so herself, but she didn’t look like her.
The custom cosmetics girl had applied her new makeup with a trowel, and giving in to her Boston upbringing, Kate blotted off half the lipstick. Then she stared at her eyes. They looked huge, dark and mysterious, but they also reminded her uncomfortably of those camouflage fatigues that troops wore in combat. Gray, olive, brown and army-green. And she wore so much mascara that it was a miracle she could blink.
It had to come off. Kate stripped out of the belly shirt and the stretch jeans, and turned on the shower in her bathroom. “C’mon, Gracious!” she called. “Time for a bath. I can’t return you smelly, and I have it on the best authority that I look like South Beach trash or a ‘five-hunnert-dollar hooker.’”
Once Kate had washed them both, dried them both and applied a little less makeup to the best of her ability, she called Alejandro’s house. “Rude Yankee, here. Today, you get a free pig if you’ll buy an apology.”
After a pause he laughed, and she sagged in relief. She’d refused to acknowledge how much his anger had bothered her.
“I should apologize first, Kate,” he said. “I can be a little hardheaded at times.”
“Hey, you have to wait your turn, sport. I get to sell you on mine first.”
He chuckled. “Okay. What model and make of apology? What are the special features? Do they include dinner and dancing? Complimentary thong panties?”
Damn. That was the one thing she’d forgotten to buy. You couldn’t wear big cotton underpants with anything she’d bought today, that was for sure. However…Spinneys didn’t wear butt floss. It just wasn’t done.
“The apology might encompass dinner, but the thong is not included. Dancing is negotiable.”
Alejandro sighed. “I don’t know about this. You were awfully cruel to me, and all I did was try to buy you an outfit.”
“You drove off and left me, sport. With two beautiful Columbian sadists who clearly understood the meaning of shampoo heiress, and milked it to the limit. My credit card company has already called to ask about the break in spending patterns. I believe they thought that some criminal mastermind was outfitting his entire harem.”
“I dunno,” he mused. “I’m still feeling awfully mistreated.”
; “They dragged me to a custom cosmetics establishment where they made my face look like a freakin’ color wheel. And don’t forget about the free pig. You are going to accept this apology or I will jam it down your throat with my scruffy old loafers, got that?”
“Kate, mi corazon. May I offer a piece of unsolicited advice?”
She sighed. “Oh, please. I’m sure I couldn’t possibly live without it.”
“You should never apply for a job with the United Nations, or accept a post as ambassador to anywhere. You have no tact or finesse.”
“Thank you. Now can I bring the pig over, or not?”
“I will welcome you, the pig and the apology with open arms,” Alejandro said. “But…I am still lobbying for the thong.”
AN HOUR LATER, after a brief stop back at Miracle Mile at a boutique that sold a bottomless variety of butt floss, bras, lacy teddies and naughty nighties, Kate parked her Mercedes outside Alejandro’s small, neat house in Coconut Grove.
Her new Brazilian lace thingie—what the hell was it called? A tanga?—had wedged itself right where she didn’t want it, and something in the matching apricot lace bra was digging into her spine.
She got out of the car and let Gracious out, too, scratching her on the head. “The way that horrid woman acted when I brought you into the shop! It’s not like you’re a cockroach, now is it, baby?”
Gracious squealed and dug her snout into the grass.
“Can you believe I had to swear to spend a thousand dollars in there just so she would let you stay? What was I supposed to do, let you suffocate in the car? And now I have butt floss in every color.” She hoped her inner rebel was happy, because Just Kate was actively afraid of blisters where the sun didn’t shine.
She stomped as well as she could—it was, admittedly, hard to stomp in four-inch heels—onto Alejandro’s porch and hammered on the door.
“Do I look like trash? Like I could suck a golf ball through a garden hose?” she demanded when he opened the door.
He blinked. “I beg your pardon? What did you say?” He stood there barefoot, in jeans and an open white shirt. “And what did you do to your eyes?” He began to laugh.
“What do you mean, what did I do to my eyes? I used makeup. I lined them and used shadow like the girl said I was supposed to,” she said crossly. “And an old pervert in my parking lot had an accident with a parked car. He says it was because of me, that I looked like I could suck a—”
Alejandro pursed his lips and cocked his head at her.
“—golf ball through a garden hose.”
He shook his head. “Maybe a jelly bean,” he said. “Or a Tic Tac. Only the best of professionals could attempt the legendary golf ball.”
“He said I looked like a pro! Like a five-hundred-dollar hooker. And it’s all thanks to you.”
“How old was this guy?”
“At least eighty.”
“Then that was a true compliment,” Alejandro noted, “since rates have skyrocketed since his time. I’d say personally that if we fixed your eye makeup, you could be a two-thousand-dollar hooker.”
“Really?” Kate’s eyes widened. Then she glared at him. “Why did I consider that a compliment, even for a moment? You have a very strange effect on me, Torres.”
He grinned and took Gracious’s leash from her. “So here’s my bonus pig. Where’s my apology?”
“You don’t get one now, since you insulted me.”
He sighed mournfully. “I didn’t. I just explained to you that it’s a compliment.”
“No, you’re saying I look cheap!”
Alejandro’s eyes widened. “You think two thousand dollars is cheap? Oh. Well, you are a shampoo heiress. I forgot.”
“Gaaaaaah!”
“Care for a drink?”
“Yes. I think it’s the only way I can tolerate you.” She looked around her, at Alejandro’s things and his decor. He had a modern brown leather couch set into a steel frame, lots of plants that he actually kept alive, and a huge magical-realist painting on one wall.
It depicted a woman and a boy on a flying rag rug, while another woman in a pink smock sucked them towards her with a hairdryer. She stood outside of a house, the door open behind her and filled with cheerful yellow.
Alejo saw Kate looking at it and smiled. “Tia Carlotta, my mother and me after my father died. The Gabriel Garcia Márquez version of us, anyway.”
Kate felt the oddest urge to walk into the painting. She couldn’t understand it. “What’s the symbolism of the hairdryer? And why does it operate in reverse?”
“Tia Carlotta and my mother started a beauty salon after my father passed on,” Alejandro said quietly. “I used to help there after school and on Saturdays. In the painting, Tia summons us with the hairdryer. Toward a new life.”
“I love the whimsical style.”
“I am glad you like it. That painting will always hang somewhere in my home and in my heart.”
Kate looked around some more. The floor was a pale, neutral tile, with Peruvian woven rugs here and there. A large fountain played softly in one corner.
She followed him into the kitchen, which was modernized with stainless steel appliances. But a large stone mortar and pestle dominated one counter, the ancient tools incongruous among all the shiny machines.
Alejandro made her a drink called a mojito, which was made with crushed mint leaves, about a pound of sugar and a great deal of rum. One sip of it and her eyeballs did figure eights in her head.
He laughed. “That will get you in the mood for dinner and dancing later.”
“Later? It’s already eight o’clock.”
“Kate, mi corazon, you are in Miami. We won’t even have appetizers until 11:00, we’ll dine around midnight and we’ll stay out until at least 4:00 a.m.”
She gaped at him. “But I’m starving! And I’ll be asleep by 11:00.”
“If you’re hungry I will grill some chorizo and heat a tamal for you.”
“What are those? Are they animal or vegetable?”
“Chorizo is a sausage and a tamal is similar to a Mexican tamale, but much larger and with slightly different ingredients. You may have both with ahi, a hot sauce.”
Alejandro prepared the food, and Kate ate it with pleasure, all before 8:45 p.m. She finished her mojito and looked around for more.
“No, Kate, I think you’d better switch to water or you’ll pass out on me.”
She frowned at him. “I can handle my liquor. Besides, what are we going to do for two hours, meditate?”
His eyes deepened, and suddenly she knew exactly what he wanted to do for two hours.
“That’s supposed to happen after the date,” she argued.
“Is that another unwritten WASP rule?” Alejandro asked, the gold chain around his neck gleaming in the low lighting. “Spinneys only do it after dinner? Because if so, it’s a rule that I think we should break.”
15
ALEJANDRO MOVED TOWARD KATE, still unable to believe how sexy she looked in the jeans, belly shirt, bad-girl belt and heels. But especially endearing was the fact that she’d somehow gotten black smudges and dots—probably mascara—all over the shadow on one eye, and slipped a bit with the liner on the other.
She was utterly incompetent in the beauty arena, but for some reason this made Alejo want to kiss her all over. So he started to do just that. Then he shrugged out of his shirt and took her onto his lap on the couch and told her in Spanish all the dirty-sweet things he was going to do to her.
I’m going to caress every inch of you with my hands and my mouth. I’m going to suck your nipples through your little cotton shirt until you beg me to rip it off you.
Then I’m going to touch your ass through your jeans and walk my fingers down between your legs until you moan and push against them, trying to find relief.
I’m going to push you onto your back and peel off your jeans. Spread your legs and put my mouth right there and lick you through your panties.
Then I’m going
to take the rest of your clothes off and bend you over the back of the couch while I play with your breasts and take you from behind. I’m going to drive you hard and wet until you scream my name and I’m burned into you erotically like a brand….
He knew she didn’t understand a word he was saying, but she definitely comprehended his intent, as he stripped the studded black belt off of her and nuzzled at her breasts, stroking the peaks into hot little pebbles. He bit her through the black belly T, and she gasped, arching her back to give him better access.
He made twin wet spots on the black T, and then treated her belly button to a sensual invasion, licking into it and around it, stabbing his tongue below the waistband of her jeans.
Then he tugged the shirt over her head, growling his pleasure when he saw the whisper-thin, apricot lace bra. He left it on, scraping his teeth against her nipples this time and seeming to excite her even more.
He plunged his hands down the back of her jeans, taking full advantage of the stretchy fabric, and encountered bare flesh…with just a tiny bit of lace at the top. Could it be? Had she bought, just for him, a thong?
He was already hard, but just the possibility took him to cold steel. “What have you got on, mi amor? Hmm?” He didn’t give her time to reply, just stood her on her feet and yanked the new jeans all the way down her legs. She stepped out of them, now wearing only her lingerie, her high heels and a wicked smile. She turned so that her bottom faced him, looked back at him over her shoulder, and tucked her hair behind her ear.
He almost had a coronary. Instead of the serviceable white cotton underpants she’d had on at her condo, Kate wore an apricot lace tanga that matched her bra. And it was just as whisper-thin.
It rode the curves of her cheeks, half impudence and half innocence. About midway down, it disappeared into the dusky crevice between them.
Maybe it was the new lingerie, or maybe it was the mojito, but something sure had gotten into Kate because she bent over a little and wagged her bottom at him like a naughty showgirl.
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