She pressed her body against his and slid her hands down his back, fingernails scraping the ridged muscles, the indent of his spine.
“My God.” His hands quickly slid up under her skirt, trembling to find only the thin scrap of nylon panties. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Yes.” She was on fire. A wild woman. That was not even her own voice.
His hand touched her bare skin, parted her tightly clasped thighs, and pressed against the shallow cleft. He stroked the little hooded button of flesh gently, insistently. “Easy, easy,” he told her as she jerked up against him, biting her lip against a wild, shivery scream. The sensation was more than she could bear.
He gazed down at her face, her half-closed eyes, lips swollen with naked desire. “Gabriela ... “ The Spanish version of her name was incredibly seductive. “Don’t do this,” he murmured, “unless you want to.”
Smiling dreamily, Gaby showed him nothing but total, sensual surrender. He pressed her down onto the bed. She lay passively as he stood up and yanked off his shirt. The muscles of his naked chest and shoulders rippled as he kicked off his boots, then unzipped his jeans and peeled them down his legs. Then he pushed off his clinging black briefs.
For a moment he was outlined against the window in a blaze of hot summer light, his body spectacularly golden, yet vulnerable in its beauty. He looked young, unguarded, incomparably vital. As he turned, the florid shaft of his sex jutted out from him, almost brutishly heavy against his groin’s mat of dark hair.
The nearly sinister reality of the naked male body washed over Gaby in a chilling wave. And she was embarrassingly aware that she was still fully dressed, that she still wore her linen skirt, flowered silk shirt, even her shoes. The man who moved to the edge of the bed was completely naked.
She sat up, fighting panic. “I can’t do this!”
“What?”
“You heard me.” She scrambled to her knees on the bare mattress. Had she completely lost her mind? All he had to do was touch her and she went crazy. “I don’t fall into bed with a—with a man in the middle of the afternoon!”
He went very still. He stared at her for a long moment, then he said, his voice expressionless, “Do you want me to come back after dark?”
“No! No! I can’t. I don’t want you.”
He didn’t move, handsome features frozen, eyes slitted in dawning anger. Gaby sat back on her heels. She knew she couldn’t have said anything worse.
“What are you trying to do to me?” he asked harshly.
She couldn’t drag her gaze away from his icy hard eyes. He thought she was playing cruel games. But he was a gangster. An underworld character. She had no business going to bed with him! “You don’t want me,” she blurted out. Her teeth were actually chattering. “I’m not your type.”
She saw his hands slowly clench, the long muscles in his arms sliding and bunching under smooth, tanned skin.
“My type? Jesus, what kind of a rotten tease are you?” He got the words out with an effort. “Is this some new kind of Anglo fun? To get my pants off and then cut off my balls?”
She was horrified. “Don’t say that. It’s disgusting!”
“And I thought you were different!” he shouted. “What a damned fool I’ve made of myself!”
“Let me out of the bed.” She tried to scramble around him.
“Are you kidding?” He grabbed her, yanking her to him roughly. His face was contorted with rage. “You tell me you want me, then that you don’t, and now you’re going to leave?”
“No—wait!” she cried.
His hands were already working at the buttons of her blouse. She struggled against him as he yanked it down one shoulder, exposing her brassiere. “We’ll see,” he growled. “We’ll damned well see if you want me.”
It was her fault, she admitted that. “You’re not going to rape me,” she sobbed as he dragged her shirt down her arms and flung it away. “You’re not!”
“Isn’t that what you expect?” He knelt over her and grabbed her skirt. She felt the button pop as he jerked it down over her legs. He grabbed her flailing ankle and pressed it down into the bed, furious, implacable. “It comes with the grease-ball approach.” He tore her panties off her and flung them away. “Lots of hot Latin action, real animal stuff,” he ground out savagely. “Want me to sing ‘Guantanamera’ while I do it?”
“Don’t.” She closed her eyes tightly as he nearly ripped her bra off her. He was matching her in cruelty. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice full of tears. “I’m sorry—sorry—sorry!”
He crouched over her, his hands covering her breasts. “Gabriela,” he said hoarsely.
There was a burgeoning ferocity in the way his hands swept down the curves of her hips and legs, stroking her soft, yielding skin with fierce hunger. “You’re so damned beautiful,” he muttered. “Why the hell do you have to drive me so damned crazy?”
She whimpered as he lowered his dark head to touch his mouth to her hardening pink nipples. Digging her fingers into his hair, she writhed beneath him as he caressed each breast in turn, pulling, teasing, his teeth scraping her skin.
“I couldn’t forget this, how beautiful you are,” he murmured against her silky flesh. “Your lovely white skin, that fantastic red-gold hair.” He lifted his head, eyes blazing into hers. “Oh, damn, Gabriela, you’ve got me drunk on you, I want you so much.”
“I don’t want to do this,” she said weakly.
“Yes, you do.”
His mouth covered hers, claiming her completely. As he shifted his big body over her, she felt a rod of hot silky flesh move against the inside of her thighs.
She tried to pull away, but he lifted his mouth and buried his face in her throat. She could smell the scent of his hair. “Gabriela.” The words were muffled. “I’m not going to be rough with you. I can’t, even if you like it that way. It’s not my style. Just let me love you a little, will you?”
Her heart leaped. That incredible sweetness in the midst of all the burning virility spoke to her as it had the first time. How could she resist him? James Santo Marin was her own particular madness. As her body melted against him, she knew as clearly as she knew anything in this world that she’d pay for her sins later.
He felt her surrender, and sighed. “Damn, I actually dream of this.” He lavished eager kisses on her throat, her breasts, her face. “I can’t get you out of my head, Gabriela, you re there all the time.” He hesitated. “For me, that’s so damned dangerous, it’s almost suicidal.”
His hands slid under her, clutching her soft bottom and lifting her to him. She could feel him growing harder, bigger against her. Excitement swept over them in a wild flood. He pressed against her, powerfully, and her thighs, warm, damp, opened to receive him. Irresistibly strong, he arched his body and thrust himself into her.
Gaby’s cry froze on her lips. Wild-eyed with the sudden, tearing pressure, she dug her fingernails into him as he thrust again. Pain jolted through her. She knew that he’d only partly entered her and couldn’t go farther. She felt his body shaking as he pulled back, struggling to maintain control.
“You’re not a virgin.” He could hardly speak.
Her mind was focused only on the stretching, incredible ache where he sought to enter her. “A-almost.”
“Almost?” It was nearly a shout.
“Only one time!” She tried to ease around the pressure tearing at her, spurred by a vague but hotly burning need of her own. For some reason her body wouldn’t stay still. Beneath her hands his silky-wet shoulders trembled as he strained to hold himself motionless. He was only partially lodged in her, yet she had never imagined anything so intimate, so frighteningly erotic. This beautiful, dangerous man was having sex with her, making love to her. It was really happening. She gasped again. “Only once before.”
“Oh, my God.” He closed his eyes and took a long, shuddering breath. “Why am I doing this?” His voice was despairing. “It’s madness. I should be shot. I even fo
rgot the condom.”
They were both drenched with perspiration, trembling with desire, Gaby moved her hips tentatively. He groaned. “Jesus, don’t do that. Aren’t you listening to me?”
She looked up into his face, dazed with her own incredible feelings. “Darling,” he said, “you’re too little and tight.” Sweat beaded his upper lip. “I didn’t take enough time. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He started to pull away but she grabbed at him frantically. She wanted him in spite of the pain. This was all new, but she was aching with wanting him. She couldn’t stop now if she tried! “It’s all right,” she told him. “It’s fine.”
“It isn’t fine.” He kissed her mouth, her eyes, her forehead feverishly. “I shouldn’t—”
“No!” she cried. She clung to his powerful, straining body, felt him big and rigid in her, and she experienced a burst of fiery tenderness that rose in her like a sob. She wanted him! He had stolen her heart somehow, this burning, difficult, beautiful man. The whole world was centered in him, nothing else existed. “Love me,” she urged him. “Just love me!”
She moved her hips, her legs, drawing him into her. He sucked in his breath almost violently. She moved again, startled to hear herself make a little purring sound in the back of her throat. She was all flesh, all burning feeling. She writhed with insatiable need.
He couldn’t hold back any longer. With a choked sound he pressed into her, a long, invading, relentless thrust that stormed her senses. Low words spilled out of him passionately, that she was so sweet, so soft, so beautiful. That he didn’t want to hurt her.
Maddened and uncaring, they came together, seeking each other in a storm of possessing, drowning in each other. He lifted her hips in his hands and thrust into her again and again, going deeper with each long heavy push. Then with a hoarse cry he lost all control.
Somewhere in the flame-shot darkness of desire Gaby knew there couldn’t be a more passionate, potent lover in the world than James Santo Marin. He loved her wildly, caught in the grip of a powerful desire that whirled them into soul-destroying abandon. When she reached the peak, driven to it by the pounding of his frenzy, she cried out and heard his hoarse cry of release answering her, his mouth quickly covering hers as he poured himself into her.
The shocks of his body jolted on and on as he lowered himself to his elbows, his breathing ragged. “Never, never, never like this.” His lips caressed her hair, her face, her throat. “Gabriela,” he said in hoarse wonder, “it’s never been like this for me.”
The world came back very slowly: the sound of the humming fan in the window, the stripes of sunshine on the bed where they lay, the simmering summertime heat. Gaby drifted back, too, her body ringing with the last echoes of their desire. James lay on top of her heavily. The feel of him now, and the memory of his rampaging need, left her weak. She tenderly stroked his wet hair back from his brow. Tiger, she couldn’t help thinking. The babalawo was right.
He stirred and looked down at her, fierce, proud, and beautiful. Then he smiled, showing white teeth. “You make me so happy,” he murmured.
Her heart contracted painfully. It was totally unexpected, this thing that had happened in the old apartment over the garage on a hot summer afternoon. It was pure and wonderful. It couldn’t be bad. I’m in love with him, she realized, unsurprised.
“The hell of it is,” he went on, gently touching his mouth to her forehead. “I can’t do this. I really can’t commit myself to anything.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Not a damned thing. Hell, I can’t even explain anything. And I want you so much.”
She watched those curving, graceful lips move as she fought against the fading of the blissful glow. She’d forgotten everything this beautiful afternoon, making love. But there was one thing she couldn’t forget.
Slowly, he stopped kissing her, knowing from her expression something was wrong.
“I’m engaged.” It was a hoarse, desperate croak, full of horror. Gaby couldn’t have prevented those words from tumbling out if her life depended on it. She stared up at him helplessly. “I’m engaged to be married!”
The shock was absolute. “What?”
She pushed him away. It took all her strength, he was so heavy. She rolled away from him and sat up in the bed. “I just got engaged to be married. Today.”
He sat up too, uncoiling his long, naked body. “Married,” he repeated, staring at her.
“I’m engaged to be married to Dodd Brickell.” It was as though she couldn’t stop saying it.
His face registering nothing, he rose from the bed. She watched numbly as he pulled on his jeans. He bent and picked up his boots, but didn’t put them on.
“Congratulations,” he said stiffly. “I’m glad you remembered. Particularly after we made love and not before.”
“Don’t say that,” she whispered.
He gave her a brief, piercing look. “On the contrary, I mean it. I didn’t have much on my schedule for today. So this was a great way to pass the time.”
Gaby got to her knees on the bed, still naked. He looked away. “I forgot it,” she said, but she didn’t believe it herself.
“Then you’d better forget this too.” His control was icy. So was his anger. “Am I supposed to say I wish you every happiness? Frankly, to hell with it.”
Gaby wanted to go some place and hide. But there was nowhere. She wrapped her arms around her body, shivering, enveloped in despair. She wished the world would collapse. She couldn’t face tomorrow. Next week. Next year, the rest of her life. She loved James Santo Marin. Why hadn’t she been able to do something before this became such a mess?
“What is it?” he demanded, staring at her.
She couldn’t meet his eyes, she was so full of confusion and pain. How could she be in love with a man like this? Subconsciously she must have been sure she was going to marry Dodd. Was this just some dishonest, crazy compulsion she’d given in to, simply because there was something so physical, so strong between them that she couldn’t resist him? She was horrified with the realization of the terrible things she could do. Dear God, she hardly knew herself!
Shrugging, he turned away and picked up his T-shirt from the chair.
But at the door he stopped. “One good turn deserves another,” he said, his back to her. “To show you how much I appreciate what you—what I got here today, I’ll give you a piece of advice straight off the hot-tip line. Whatever you do, don’t let your Anglo jock boyfriend scare you into selling this place.”
She heard his footsteps receding down the stairs, then a minute later the engine of the Lamborghini starting up. Then the crunch of gravel as it pulled out of the drive.
Chapter 13
Crissette lay stretched out on her stomach on a rustic bench in the shade of a banyan tree, the untied strings of her bright yellow bikini top dangling over the wooden slats. The public park on Miami Beach’s Eighty-first Street was almost empty at noon, most of the sunbathers and swimmers having taken refuge in their hotels from the relentless fireball of the midday sun. Beyond the wide stretch of sand the Gulf Stream glimmered like a field of solid aquamarine gemstone, breathtakingly crystal-clear.
Crissette stifled a yawn. “This is some way to take a lunch break, Gabrielle,” she drawled. “You gotta admit Miami is no hardship territory, not when you can spend your lunch hour like this.”
“Mmm,” Gaby agreed absently. She was reading the draft of her engagement announcement.
Gaby was sitting with her feet propped against a railing, below which she could see a beach jungle of sea grape and banyans. She and Crissette had spent all that Thursday morning shooting winter formal wear, a collection of beaded and sequined evening gowns at St. Laurent’s Rive Gauche shop in Bal Harbour. The contrast between a hectic three hours of adjusting lights, soothing a nervous shop manager, and encouraging a gaggle of particularly awkward socialite models, and what they were doing now—catching a lunch break and a swim at one of Miami Beach’s most beautiful seaside parks—was
the better part of Miami’s sometimes frenetic lifestyle. As a native, Gaby supposed she’d always taken living like this for granted. Now she was learning to appreciate the exotic environment.
Crissette rolled over on her back, holding the bikini top to her breasts to keep it from falling. Gaby thought that Crissette, with her graceful dusky body, looked more like a professional model than the amateur volunteers she’d been shooting the past few hours. While they’d been at the St. Laurent shop Crissette had bought two summer outfits that, even though on sale, had been dazzlingly expensive, worth several weeks of her salary. The day before, Crissette had bought lunch at an expensive waterside restaurant, picking up the check for both of them because Gaby didn’t have the money to spend. But in spite of the bursts of extravagance, Crissette was noticeably restless and edgy, and certainly not very happy. She never mentioned David Fothergill.
“Hey, Gabrielle, is your announcement okay?” she asked lazily. “How does it look?”
“It looks all right.” Gaby studied the photograph that had been taken when she’d been working in Florence. She hadn’t realized how much she’d changed. The young woman whose photo would appear in the Times-Journal wedding announcements column looked like a stranger with her prim smile and pale hair scraped back from her face. She had to admit she certainly wasn’t the same person she’d been a little over two months ago. She now had an entirely new wardrobe and a new hairstyle. She even had a considerable tan. Her gaze dropped to the words below her photograph. “Mrs. Paul Aston Collier of Miami announces the engagement of her daughter, Victoria Gabrielle, to Dodson Flagler Brickell III, also of Miami.”
Well, she thought, sighing, it was done. The announcement of her engagement would be read by the Times-Journal’s several hundred thousand readers in the Greater Miami area on Sunday, including all of Paul and Jeannette Collier’s friends and Old Miami acquaintances, as well as Dodd’s and his family’s.
“The bride-elect is the daughter of the late Paul Aston Collier, sportsman and founder of the Marathon Ocean Racing Cup event, granddaughter of Aston George Collier, a pioneer South Florida developer, and a grandniece of General Robert R. Pierce of St. Augustine. Miss Collier attended Ransom Country Day School in Coconut Grove and graduated from Miami Beach High School. She has a degree in art history from the University of Florida and until recently worked as research assistant for the Ohio State Fine Arts project in Florence, Italy. She is currently employed as fashion writer for the Miami Times-Journal newspaper.”
Miami Midnight Page 14
