by Jo Leigh
The vanity interfered with the rest of his view, leaving him ripped with curiosity as his mind filled in the blanks of what he was not seeing. Those long legs. She had legs that could wrap around him twice, he knew that much from her dance.
It was all too easy to imagine lifting her onto that strong, flat surface, spreading her legs, then pulling up a chair to sit between them. He’d push her back, then loop her knees over his shoulders. Dipping his head in close for a thorough exploration, he’d sample those pretty curls and the shiny folds that they concealed. He’d pleasure her completely, devour her until his face was wet with the slickness of her arousal. He’d take the edge off his hunger, then focus only on her, giving himself a long time before he’d look up to watch the pleasure on her face as her orgasm rolled through her.
But in the vision, it wasn’t the masked face of a stranger he saw. It was Izzie’s face. This stranger had aroused him. Izzie was the one he wanted to fulfill him.
He needed to get out of here. Now. Because even if Izzie had shot him down-if there was absolutely nothing between them-she was still the one he really wanted. The one he’d dream about tonight, whether he got his rocks off right now or not.
He could do this stranger…and it might even be good. But it wouldn’t get rid of his hunger. And it sure as hell would complicate things here in his new job.
Logically, he knew all that. The good Santori son who couldn’t imagine bringing a woman like this around his traditional family should have been gone long before now.
Something made him stay. Maybe it was the other Nick. The one who’d grown predatory on the battlefield and bored in the real world. The one who’d been shot down by the reluctant woman he craved and was face-to-face with a willing one he desired.
They just locked eyes, hers mostly hidden behind that mask she still wore. Her lips slowly curled up into a sensuous smile and her chin came up in pure visual challenge.
Nick couldn’t help it. He started to smile, too, a tight, dangerous smile that few would have recognized on the face of one of the affable Santori boys. “I don’t think that screen works very well,” Nick managed to say, his voice throaty.
“I’d say that depends on what I want it to do.”
Knowing better, he asked, “If not giving you privacy to change, what is it you want it to do?”
The smile widened, a glitter of pleasure appearing in those shaded eyes. “Perhaps just heighten the anticipation. It’s amazing how much more arousing it is to see some…but not all.”
“You show almost all on stage.”
“Almost,” she conceded. “But if you noticed, it’s mostly flash and petals, and only a tiny glimpse at the end.”
His jaw clenched. “I noticed.”
“Did it make you want more? Did a glimpse make you hunger for a look…which in turn made you ravenous for a touch?”
Which would make him insane for a taste.
He didn’t answer, he didn’t need to. She saw the answer in his face. As if tired of the game, she stepped out from behind the screen, still wearing only three things: the minuscule panties, the skimpy bra and the red velvet mask which was bigger than either of the other two.
“Why don’t you take that off?” he asked, needing to see her face. He needed to find something about her that turned him off so he could get upstairs where his boss was waiting. So he could put her out of his head and get his libido back under control.
Quirking a questioning brow, she pointed to her bra, which startled a small laugh out of him. Because hell, yes, he’d like to see her without the bra-up close-but he knew he couldn’t let that happen. Not if he wanted to keep his job. Not if he wanted to have the kind of life his brothers had.
Not if he wanted to work things out with Izzie.
“No. I mean that.” He nodded toward the mask.
“I don’t think so.”
“You really take this anonymity seriously?”
“More than you know.”
She moved closer and Nick honestly didn’t know which pleased him more-feeling her warmth as she approached, or seeing her both in the flesh and reflected in the mirror. The woman’s panties were not only tiny, they were thong-style and he could see the succulent curves of her ass in the mirror. His hands clenched with the need to fill them with those curves.
She reached for his left hand and lifted it. “No ring.”
He shook his head.
“So there’s no one…special?”
He hesitated a second before answering. A week ago the answer would have been an unequivocal no. Right now he wasn’t so sure. He hedged. “That one’s in the air right now.”
Her bottom lip edged out in a tiny pout, glistening and wet against the red velvet cupping her mouth.
He wanted to bite it. Suck it into his mouth and lick the plumpness of it, then pull her down on his lap and explore all those curves and soft angles of her body.
“I’m unattached, too,” she murmured, licking her lips as if she’d read his thoughts. “And frankly, in my line of work, I don’t have much use for dating and get-to-know-you chats.”
He suspected he knew where she was going. With some other woman-just about any other woman-he’d watch for signals, wonder if she was trying to pick him up. With this one, he knew she’d be very frank about what she wanted.
Her hand came up, she trailed the tips of her fingers across his shoulder, her nails scraping the cotton of his shirt. He felt the touch everywhere. Her scent overwhelmed him. Her heat screamed to him in pure sexual invitation.
She made it even more clear. “I want to have sex with you.”
His heart skipped a beat. His pants shrunk across his groin and if the woman looked down, she’d know he could quite easily accommodate her. Several times, if she’d let him.
Before he could say a word, she quickly continued, “Despite what you might think since we just met, I’m not making this suggestion lightly. As Harry could confirm…I’m not in the habit of letting men in my dressing room. You are, in fact, the first one I’ve been alone with since I started working here.”
Interesting. She sounded as if she was worried he’d question her morals or think she was trashy. He’d known trashy women. But in his experience, they were women with low self-confidence and lower self-esteem who grasped at sex with anyone in an effort to feed their egos and fill their empty hearts.
He could already tell Rose wasn’t like that. She was incredibly self-confident. She could lift a finger and have any man upstairs ready to give her anything she wanted…and she knew it. She didn’t need physical devotion to feed her self-esteem. In fact, he suspected it was her unshakeable self-esteem that enabled her to take off her clothes in front of a room full of men and yet remain so completely out of reach of all of them.
She could strip for them, entice them, seduce them…but never lower herself to a level that said she’d ever give them what they wanted.
But now, that’s exactly what she was doing. Offering herself…to him. “I’m flattered,” he said, his tone husky.
She reached for him, scraping the tips of her fingers along the waistband of his pants, tugging a little at his shirt.
“But it’s not going to happen.”
Her hand stilled. “You said you weren’t attached.”
“That’s not the only issue.”
“You’re attracted to me.”
He couldn’t deny something so obvious. “We work together.”
Shrugging in unconcern, she stepped closer, sliding one bare foot between his so that her leg scraped against his thigh. “Working together is what makes it so very…convenient.”
She tilted her head, glancing toward the sturdy-looking vanity, and Nick knew she was picturing a very similar scenario to the one that had filled his mind earlier.
It would be shockingly easy to lift her onto that surface, step between her legs and drive into her body. Or to tur
n her around, lay her over it and come into her from behind. Their eyes would meet in the mirror…but he wouldn’t see the passion in their depths. He could barely make out their color behind the fabric of her mask. And he knew one thing for sure-he would never make love to the woman as long as she wore the thing.
“I’m sorry, Rose. You’re very attractive and sexy, but you’re just not who I’m looking for right now,” he said. “I’ve done the one night-stand-thing and I’ve had enough of it.”
“Who said anything about one night?” Her words were flippant. Her husky tone was not.
The idea of having more than one night appealed to him. But it didn’t change the basics: she was not the kind of woman he needed to get involved with right now. Not even on a purely sexual basis. “I’m sure there are a hundred guys upstairs who’d take you up on this in a heartbeat.”
“I don’t want any of them,” she murmured. “I want you.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“I don’t have to know you to want to have sex with you.”
“I’m not wired that way.”
She made a sound of disbelief. “You’ve never had raw, wild, uninhibited sex with someone just for the sake of feeling good?”
“Just to get off, yeah,” he muttered, making no effort to be delicate. “But only because time and expediency demanded it. I don’t operate that way anymore.”
“I could make it so good for you.” She lifted his hand again, this time putting it on her bare hip.
Nick couldn’t help squeezing it. “I don’t doubt it.”
“Let me,” she ordered. “Let’s see how good it can be.”
His jaw stiff, he pulled his hand away. “I know how good it could be. I don’t doubt we could screw ourselves senseless and make each other come a dozen times in an hour.”
Her eyes closed behind the mask. He could see her pulse fluttering in her neck. Still talking in that throaty, sultry whisper, she asked, “And what would be so bad about that?”
Nothing would be so bad about that. In fact, it would be incredible. But he’d feel like shit afterward. He knew it as sure as he knew his brother Mark was never going to let him forget he’d been born twelve minutes before Nick had.
Some things were inarguable.
Like the fact that he couldn’t have sex with this woman tonight and still look Izzie-the woman he sensed could be right for him for all the right reasons-in the eye tomorrow. So glancing at his watch, he found some nugget of resolve and said, “Harry’s waiting for me upstairs. I’ll see you later.”
Without giving her a chance to try to stop him, he turned around and walked out of her dressing room. Judging by the way something went flying in that tiny room once the door was closed behind him, he knew he’d left a very angry woman in his wake.
“SO HOW YOU DOIN’, little brother?” Nick heard a woman’s voice ask as he sat in a booth at Santori’s the next day. It was early Sunday afternoon and the church crowd hadn’t yet shown up for their traditional Sunday big mid-day meal, so he’d taken advantage of the lull to grab some lunch. Glancing up, he saw his sister-in-law, Gloria, Izzie’s older sister.
They didn’t look much alike. Gloria was pretty-especially for a thirty-something mother of three-but she didn’t have Izzie’s flamboyant looks. Her face was sweet, not dramatic. Her mouth soft, not sensual. She didn’t have Izzie’s amazing figure. Nor had she inherited her sister’s desire to escape from here.
Gloria personified the world in which he’d grown up. She’d worked in her parents’ business, gone to high school right here in the neighborhood. Married an Italian boy up the block. Gone to work in his family’s business. And proceeded to produce lots of little Italian babies who looked just like her husband.
Though they were both hard-headed and volatile, and had been known to shout the street down when they got going, Tony and Gloria were absolutely crazy about each other. They had the kind of marriage anyone would want to have. The kind he would be lucky to have…once he figured out if he really wanted it.
Not knowing what he wanted was proving to be a real pain in the ass. Made more painful by the very sexy distraction called the Crimson Rose. He’d been able to avoid her for the rest of last night while working at the club, but every time their eyes met, she reminded him that she knew he was attracted to her.
“Nick?” Gloria prompted. “Everything okay?”
“I’m good, where are the boys?” he asked, looking past her for his two older nephews, or the carriage holding the baby one.
“I came in through the back…Tony Jr. and Mikey are in the kitchen with their father.” She raised her voice, never shifting her eyes toward the swinging door leading into the kitchen. “Who had better not be giving them candy outta Pop’s candy jar if he wants to live another day.”
From the back room came the sound of Tony’s deep laughter. Nick would lay money the boys were already high on Pop’s secret stash of gummy bears. “What about the baby?”
Gloria frowned, glancing toward the door of the restaurant. “He should be here any second. It’s hard enough bringing the boys to mass without Tony there to help me. No way could I handle three of them. So he stayed with Auntie Izzie.” Smiling in relief, Gloria nodded. “Here they are now.”
Something about seeing Izzie pushing a baby carriage into the restaurant made Nick’s stomach twist. Not because she looked like an absolute natural doing it…but because she looked miserable. Uncomfortable as hell.
He had to laugh. The woman was so unlike anyone else around here. Maybe that was why he couldn’t get her off his mind.
“Hey, Iz, how’d you do with my little prince?”
“He puked in my hair. Twice.”
Gloria swooped in and lifted the three-month-old out of the stroller, cuddling him close. “Aww, what’d you do to him?”
“I told him if he puked on me again I’d take him to the zoo and drop him in the bear cage,” Izzie muttered. “What do you think I did to him?”
Gloria patted the baby on his back. “It’s okay, Auntie Izzie’s just grumpy because she doesn’t have a sweet man to cuddle up with…much less four like Mommy’s got.”
Nick almost choked on his water at that one. If Gloria had been facing her sister, she would have seen the death ray that had come from Izzie’s eyes. Apparently she heard him…because suddenly that death ray was sent in his direction.
Nick held up his hands, palms out, in a universal peace gesture. “I’m with you. Don’t drop me in a bear cage.”
Her glare faded and she half-smiled. “Don’t tempt me.”
“Careful, Nick,” Gloria cautioned, still focused on the baby, “our Izzie’s not quite the sweet young thing you remember. You don’t want to tangle with her.”
Oh, yeah, he did want to tangle with her. Tangle his hands in her hair and his tongue in her mouth and his arms around her body and his legs between her thighs. Mostly he wanted to tangle in her life…and tangle her in his. At least enough so she’d give him a chance to win back some of that interest she’d once felt toward him.
Before Izzie could say anything, the door opened and more family members poured in. His parents and his brother Joe-with wife and baby in tow-led the way. Folks from the neighborhood followed. Next came lots of cousins and aunts and uncles, all of whom came to the restaurant every Sunday for a big family meal.
Izzie’s whole body went tense. He could see it from five feet away. She didn’t want to be part of this-didn’t feel a part of this. And Nick, more than anyone else in the room, understood. So without saying a word, he got up, took her hand, and tugged her toward his table.
She resisted. “What…”
“Come on, it’ll be okay,” he whispered as he pulled her down to sit beside him. “I’ll tell you who I recognize, you tell me who you recognize and we’ll get through this together.”
She stared at him, her eyes wide, her mouth trembling. Look
ing for a moment like a trapped deer, she seemed on the verge of fleeing. She appeared unable to deal with something as innocuous-yet painful-as a neighborhood gathering.
“It’s okay,” he repeated. “You can do it.”
It took a few more seconds, but that panicked look slowly began to fade from her eyes. As family friends and neighbors greeted her, he felt her begin to relax beside him. She even chatted a little, smiling at people she hadn’t seen in years.
Everything went fine. Right up until the minute some old lady from the block clapped her hands together, then pinched Izzie’s cheek. “Oh, you’re a beautiful couple!” she exclaimed. “At last you’ve got your man, Isabella Natale. All those years and you’ve finally landed him!”
Everyone fell silent, immediately turning in their direction. Especially Gloria. And Nick’s parents.
“Shit,” Izzie mumbled under her breath. Her face turned as red as a glass of the chianti Pop loved so much.
Nick put a hand on her leg under the table. But she pushed it off. And with a quick goodbye to her sister and the family-and a glare at Nick-she strode across the restaurant and stalked out the front door, not looking back. Not even once.
OVER THE NEXT couple of days, Izzie gradually began to lose her mind. Began? Heck, she’d been losing her mind since the night she’d toppled onto a table full of cookies and Nick Santori had landed on top of her. The man had been consuming her for years. This week, however, he was on track to win the gold medal in the Let’s Drive Izzie Crazy games.
After her failed seduction attempt at Leather and Lace, he’d avoided her as much as he could when on the job. They hadn’t been alone at all the rest of Saturday night, or when they’d both worked again Sunday. Just as well. She was still ticked about what had happened at the restaurant that afternoon.
He did take his job seriously, making sure she went nowhere alone. But he hadn’t been alone with her for one minute. It was as if he feared “Rose” would make another move on him the first chance she got, and was making sure she didn’t get the chance.
