Fortune's Just Desserts

by Marie Ferrarella

  So she really was insecure. That was something that would have never occurred to him. “And my approval means that much to you?” he asked incredulously.

  When he said it that way, it made her sound much too needy. Wendy sighed as she dragged her hand through her hair. She shouldn’t have come here. This was coming out all wrong.

  “Never mind,” she said, a mixture of anger and resignation in her voice. Turning, she started heading for the front door to let herself out.

  Stunned by her actions for the second time in five minutes, Marcos caught her arm before she could get past him and out the door.

  Looking down at his hand, Wendy tried to pull away. He tightened his grip just enough to hold her in place. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “This is me, reaching out,” he said, his tone as mild as hers was sharp. “Isn’t that what you just said you wanted?”

  She pulled again. He continued holding her arm. “Now you’re just making fun of me.”

  “The thought never crossed my mind,” he told her with a straight face. “Other thoughts, tormenting thoughts, provocative thoughts, they crossed my mind, but none about making fun of you.” His eyes on hers, he released her arm. “So, you never answered me. Is my approval that important to you?”

  She would have wanted to deny it, to toss her head and just keep walking, but it was too late for that. She’d already given herself away.

  Hedging, she answered his question with a question. “What do you think?” The simple answer was that his approval meant a great deal to her because she cared about him—and wanted him to care about her.

  Maybe he was crazy, but right now he felt that a little soul-baring truth might be in order, and might even help to clear the air.

  “I think that since the day you walked into Red, my uncle and aunt on either side of you like some kind of an honor guard, I’ve had absolutely no peace of mind. You’ve tormented me every single day.”

  Was he referring to something she was unwittingly doing at work? Was this the beginning of yet another complaint? One step forward, two steps back, she thought, resigned.

  “No I haven’t,” she protested.

  A smile curved his mouth. A small, unfathomable, impossibly sexy smile. Wendy felt her gut tightening.

  “You have no idea,” he said to her softly.

  All the protests that were rising to her lips died and, just like that, the room became incredibly quiet. As her pulse quickened, she swore she could literally hear her heart pounding.

  Could he?

  “Then show me,” she coaxed in a quiet whisper.

  Very slowly, as his eyes held her prisoner, Marcos brought his hands up to her shoulders, bracketing her and ever so gently holding her in place.

  “You sure you want me to?” he asked. Because once he started, there would be no turning back. They both knew that.

  Excitement was wrapped around the tension, shimmering in the air.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice so low it was barely audible. “Oh yes.”

  A smile came to his lips and drifted into his eyes and then, the next moment, his lips touched hers. Softly, gently, and so very lethally she was surprised that she didn’t burst into flame right then and there in front of him.

  The kiss deepened, ignited the rest of her body, spreading heat from her toes to her fingertips and up to the roots of her hair.

  Wendy’s head was spinning—or was that the room? All that was clear was that nothing was clear—except that this time, this time, her soul whispered, there would be no stopping, no interruptions from the outside world wedging them apart.

  No hesitation.

  No place to hide.

  In her heart she knew Marcos wouldn’t be pulling back, wouldn’t be leaving her high and dry—and unfulfilled—because he wanted this as much as she did. She could taste it on his lips, feel it on his breath. Every part of him wanted her as much as she wanted him.

  She felt as if there was a cry of joyous celebration echoing in her body.

  And then an urgency seized her, pushing for her to step up what she was doing, just in case there was some sort of interruption hovering in the wings, ready to pounce, to separate them before—

  Before—

  She kissed him hard, transmitting her sense of urgency to him.

  It was like trying to hold on to a ball of fire, Marcos thought—completely impossible without seriously singeing his hands. He’d never been in this position before, never had a woman behave like this before.

  Her lips traveled along his face, his eyes, his throat, reducing him to a swirl of heat and urges. He’d never before experienced a reaction like this to a woman. Never had a woman in his arms who made him feel this wanton, this hungry. He’d had his fair share of women. More than the average man, fewer than a card-carrying womanizer. But this was all new to him.

  There’d always been a decorum, even in the wildest of frenzied moments. He’d never lost control, never lost his train of thought. Never fallen, head over heels, into an abyss.

  But it was as if everything was short-circuiting now. There was only this pulsating demand beating through him, urging him to move quickly, before the moment, the opportunity, was gone. Making him feel as if he would die if that happened.

  He was breathless almost from the very start though he prided himself on both his stamina and his endurance. She’d managed to steal both from him in less than a split second.

  Wendy felt his hands tugging away her clothes, making urgent love to her body with each caress, as barrier after barrier disappeared.

  His hands were hot. Her body was hotter.

  His mouth devoured her and she returned the favor in kind. It wasn’t a sense of competition that drove her on. It was need. A need to touch, to taste, to feel and to show. She wanted him to know how much she desired him. How much he was affecting her. There was no holding back for later because there might not be a later. All she had was now and now would have to be enough.

  More than enough.

  She had no idea where any of these responses were coming from. It was as if she was channeling another Wendy, who was living through her body, making things happen, using her as an instrument.

  Channing Hurston, the fiancé-who-wasn’t, had been her first lover. And, until this moment, he’d been her only lover. Adequate, but tepid was the best phrase she could use to describe what had gone on beneath their sheets. There’d been heat, but no fire. A satisfaction, but no frenzy, and definitely no overwhelming desire.

  Certainly nothing like this.

  This was something she could only pray would continue until she just went up in smoke, because in her heart she sensed that there would be nothing like this again for her, once Marcos became part of her past, her history, rather than her future. Channing had taught her that. Taught her that no matter what she felt, what she planned, she couldn’t count on any man. Couldn’t count on anything lasting.

  So, now that they were finally at this rarefied plateau, she was going to make the most of it. She was going to allow her body to have free rein and just take over.

  A cry tore from her throat without any preamble or warning that it was even there, or that anything was building within her. Marcos had made her climax so quickly, she hadn’t even realized the sensation was in the offing.

  It was her first. Channing, she now vaguely realized, had been neither a patient lover nor a clever one. Marcos was everything that Channing was not.

  One minute, Marcos’s mouth was teasing the flat of her belly, the next, it was possessing the very core of her. The resulting explosion stole her breath away so completely that for a second she couldn’t pull in enough air to sustain herself. She found herself coming perilously close to passing out.

  Sheer grit propelled her onward.

  And then, employing instincts she’d had no idea she possessed, she brought Marcos up to a fever pitch using her own lips and tongue.

  Firebrand. Spitfire. Wildcat.

  All
inadequate words to describe what she was and what she was doing to him right at this moment. “Surprising him” didn’t begin to cover what was going on.

  Wendy was making him crazy. Utterly, fantastically, deliciously crazy.

  Any second now he’d—

  Catching her before the final moment, Marcos dragged her supple, damp body up over his own, exciting them both with the heated contact. He was more than primed and ready.

  Then, suddenly reversing their positions, Marcos was over her.

  And then in her.

  The look of sheer wonder on Wendy’s face tugged on his heart and whispered to him that he was on very, very perilous ground here, in imminent danger of losing the one organ he had never lost control of before.

  Ever.

  Sealing his mouth to hers, he began to move. To rock. Taking her on that most intimate of dances until they both ascended to the uppermost peak. A wild peace found them and then settled over Wendy and him as their hearts pounded together in a harmony all their own.

  His arms tightened around her, holding her fast. Holding her to him.

  Eventually, as the euphoria receded, Marcos found his breath and then his voice.

  “So,” he whispered against her ear just before he rolled off her and to her side, “spectacular desserts aren’t the only thing you’re capable of creating.” Be side her now, he slipped an arm beneath Wendy and gathered her close to him, unwilling to completely release her or this wondrous feeling just yet.

  She felt him shake his head. “You are a complete mystery to me, Wendy Fortune.”

  She could feel his smile against her cheek and it created another smile deep inside her. So this was what true contentment felt like, she thought. How had she managed to live without it before?

  And how could she have settled for Channing without it?

  She strove to hang on to the feeling for as long as humanly possible, realizing that, for all intents and purposes, she had just made love for the very first time, since everything that she had experienced before, with Channing, completely paled in comparison.

  The desire to whisper, “I love you,” was unbelievably strong.

  The desire for self-preservation proved to be just a little bit stronger.

  Because she’d said the words once, to Channing, not realizing until this moment what they truly meant. The words had been thrown back at her. Not at that time, but later, when Channing had shed her as if she were last year’s ski jacket. He had abandoned her to take up with the woman who shortly thereafter became Mrs. Channing Hurston.

  There was another reason she didn’t give voice to the sentiment that echoed within her. Marcos undoubtedly heard the words “I love you” all the time. She didn’t want to be like all the other women who had passed through his life.

  Not because she was naive enough to think that what they had would turn into a relationship—she was finally smarter than that—but because she had her pride. If nothing else, she wanted to be at least a little unique in his eyes. And that meant not saying the L-word. Even if she desperately wanted to.

  “Every woman wants to be mysterious,” she finally said in response to the observation he’d made that she was an enigma.

  Marcos threaded his fingers through her hair, pushing a few wayward strands back from her face. The smile on his lips all but made her melt all over again.

  So did what he said next.

  “You don’t strike me as being like ‘every woman,’” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her forehead. And then his lips softly brushed a kiss against each eyelid.

  Wendy could feel the fire—never fully extinguished—flaring again. “You are good,” she breathed, turning her body in toward his. As excitement began to swiftly build up in her all over again, she nipped the tip of his chin with her teeth, and then her lips.

  She heard Marcos suck his breath in and that excited her all over again

  As if she needed more fuel.

  “Right back at you,” he breathed, his voice low and rumbling along her skin.

  The next moment, there was no space for words, only actions, as they once again embarked on the wild, heady roller coaster ride without brakes that they’d just experienced.

  Joy vibrated through Wendy. She’d just bought herself another trip to paradise and pushed back the inevitable for a while longer.

  Chapter Fifteen

  He couldn’t sleep.

  Contentment warred with fear. Fear existed because of the contentment.

  Marcos suppressed a sigh as he carefully leaned back against the headboard. He’d never been in this place before, never felt this way before. Hadn’t known how something like this could even begin to feel until he was hip-deep in it.

  The disappointment he’d been hoping for last week had never materialized. Making love with Wendy had not just lived up to expectations, high though they were, it had exceeded all expectations.

  And, as exhilarating as this feeling was, that was how frightening it was, as well.

  He was in big trouble and he knew it.

  Moonlight inched its way in through the bedroom window, softly caressing the face of the sleeping woman beside him.

  Wendy.

  The ball of fire he’d made love with for the first time a week ago. And every single night since, without realizing that in so doing nothing would ever be the same again.

  Oh, Marcos had had his suspicions, but he’d discounted them and forged on anyway, thinking that the pattern would ultimately remain the same: his interest would wane with each intimate encounter until it eventually disappeared.

  Except that it hadn’t.

  Instead of waning, the feeling, the need for her, only seemed to intensify. Which was what scared the hell out of him—he felt consumed by this feeling that she’d generated. Consumed by the desire to be with this woman all the time.

  He was addicted to Wendy’s smile, to the very sight of her. Moreover, he cared about her. That was the strongest word he could bring himself to use.

  It wasn’t just the attraction that kept him a prisoner. Marcos realized that he cared about how she felt, what she thought, what she did. Cared about whether or not she was happy.

  He cared.

  He’d always treated the women in his life with respect, but there had never been this overwhelming attachment that had embedded its hooks in him the way it had now. And he had no idea when it had happened, only that it had. One moment he was a carefree bachelor, bedding yet another desirable woman, the next, he wasn’t thinking about any woman but Wendy. Wasn’t wanting any woman but her.

  He had to put an end to this. Now. Before he sank so deeply into the quicksand, there would be no getting free. Ever.

  Very slowly, so as not to rouse Wendy, Marcos got out of the queen-size bed. Gathering together the clothes he’d shed so haphazardly last night, he slipped into the bathroom and quickly got dressed. Except for his shoes. Those he carried, afraid that if they came in contact with the tile, she might hear him.

  If Wendy opened those soft brown eyes of hers and looked at him, he knew there would be no leaving. And shortly thereafter he’d be going down for probably the third time. Utterly lost.

  There was a pad and pencil by her bed. She’d told him she kept them there in case the ingredients for a new dessert came to her in the middle of the night. He took the pencil now and hastily wrote her a note, saying he had to get an early start on the day and hadn’t wanted to wake her.

  The latter was the truth, but the former bent the edges of that concept. It wasn’t the day he was getting an early start on. It was his escape.

  Marcos left the note on the pillow next to her. Holding his breath in addition to his shoes, he let himself out of her bedroom, her apartment and, if all went according to his hastily conceived plan, very possibly her life, as well.

  Wendy stared at Enrique later that morning, trying to process what he had just said to her. She’d felt rather dazed and confused ever since she’d woken up this morning to find herself alone
in bed. Calling out to Marcos, she only heard her own voice echoing back to her, compounding the emptiness.

  The moment she’d seen that his clothes were gone, an uneasy feeling had settled in the pit of her stomach. Finding his note on the pillow hadn’t helped any. Neither had coming into work only to be told that he wasn’t here and wouldn’t be for a while.

  She had a very bad feeling about this.

  “Los Angeles?” she asked Enrique incredulously. Wendy blinked. Why hadn’t he mentioned anything about this to her last night? He must have known he was leaving. “What is Marcos doing in Los Angeles?”

  “He called me this morning and said he had some business to take care of.” Enrique knew his answer probably only raised more questions for her. “Marcos said he was leaving me temporarily in charge.”

  A chill ran down her back. She should have seen this coming, she upbraided herself.

  “How long is ‘temporarily’?” Wendy did her best not to look or sound like someone whose feelings had just been slashed.

  Enrique shrugged. “Probably only a couple of days or so,” he speculated quickly, seeing the flash of hurt in Wendy’s eyes. “He said it had something to do with the restaurant,” Enrique felt compelled to add, even though the words were his and not Marcos’s. The restaurant manager hadn’t explained anything at all about the impromptu trip.

  Wendy was barely aware of nodding. Everything inside of her felt momentarily numb and disjointed. “Thanks for telling me.”

  When she’d found herself alone in her apartment this morning, she’d quickly gotten ready and left for work, expecting to see Marcos’s car in the lot. But the parking space was empty. Still, she held on to hope, thinking perhaps he had taken a cab here for some reason, or had someone drop him off. Maybe his car was in the shop. Maybe—

  Maybe she was being a gullible fool, Wendy told herself angrily.

  Marcos hadn’t said anything about needing to go in early today, much less going out of town. There was a reason for that, she thought. This had to do with them, not Red.