Alpha Me Not (3 page)

She peeked up then, those ruby lips curved, her dark eyes sparkling, and he just about melted down to the bone. Christ. He hadn’t been so turned on in forever. Her flushed cheeks, those blue-black locks swirling around her tanned arms, those trim hips, and he knew how pretty her pussy was. His dick hurt, he was so engorged.

Dinner was, surprise of all surprises, fun. Susie had an infectious, droll humor, and he hadn’t laughed so hard and so long in ages. She parodied every diner, but not in a hurtful way, more like a cartoonist drawing a caricature, painting a picture of each person’s life from a whimsical observation, a hand gesture, a lifted brow, a lopsided dimple.

He drew out the dinner, insisting on a decaf cappuccino after their main course, and prodded Azzo into a selection of every dessert on the menu. When the tray with the sweets arrived, Susie drooled a sigh and debated aloud which chocolate decadence to sample.

Before he could voice the suggestion, Azzo swept a courtier’s bow and declared, “For you, Susie
mia
, I will bring a sample of each.”

“That’s so sweet of you, Azzo.”

Joe flexed his hands when she touched Azzo’s bulging forearm for a mere breath.

“I haven’t had the time to run much this week. How about we save the sample for another time, and I just have the banana split tonight?”

Could she have ordered any dessert more designed to titillate? A banana, for chrissake?

“But of course, Susie mia. Would you like the traditional banana split? Or Mama’s version with three flavors of chocolate?”

Where the fuck had this “Susie mia” bit come from? Joe scowled at the Italian gigolo.

“Three flavors of chocolate?” Susie licked her lips.

Azzo kissed his fingers. “You will, how you say, climax on the chocolate.”

No. That was not—how you say—what the young stud meant. He’d have to have a fist-meet-teeth talk with Azzo later.

“We have ze chocolate almond, ze chocolate orange, and ze chocolate peanut ice cream. A little of each, no?” Azzo spoke perfect English when he wanted. His fake macho Italian accent grated Joe’s nerves raw.

Susie clapped her hands. “Perfect.”

Joe ordered another cappuccino.

After Azzo delivered the banana split with all the accompanying pomp and circumstance of a coronation ceremony, Joe bared his teeth and said, “I noticed the cameras aren’t on. Is something wrong with the security system?”

Azzo glanced at the two minicams set into the corners of the room. He cursed under his breath. “That Luciano, he lives in another world. Once again, he has turned off the switch.’
Scusi.
”

Relaxing when the young stud disappeared through the kitchen’s swinging doors, Joe braced an arm on the chair, turned to face Susie, and near choked on his spit.

She’d speared the banana in half and proceeded to dip the tip in each of the three chocolate ice cream scoops. He dug his hands into the wooden chair handles. A sliver stabbed his thumb, and he hardly noticed, couldn’t drag his gaze from her pink, delicate tongue as she lovingly licked the fudgy cream and then sucked on the cleaned banana.

“I’m somewhat of a chocoholic.”

Somewhat.

If he moved a muscle, if he so much as inhaled, if he didn’t stop staring at the dark smudge on her lower lip, he’d come in his pants, right there and then. He yanked his gaze to the ceiling. Counted to ten in Arabic, Mandarin, and Armenian.

When his ragged breathing regained something close to a normal rhythm, he jerked his attention back to Susie and stifled a groan as he watched the last morsel of fruit vanish into her mouth.

He’d give his left nut and then some if she’d agree to clean chocolate off his dick.

“I love bananas. Hey, I heard they grow in Florida. Like, you know, the whole banana tree thing. Can you imagine waking up to a bunch of ripe bananas?”

Jesus.

Fucking A. He was going to detonate on the spot.

Azzo reappeared. He rocked on his heels and beamed. “Mama has a bunch of banana trees out back.”

Her eyes went spaceship wide and took on a faraway glaze. “No kidding? That was an off-the-tree banana? Wow.”

Azzo did that I’m-a-horny-Italian-sex-god sweep of fingers and thumb to his mouth. “Shall I show you? You can even pick a few bananas to take home with you for breakfast tomorrow.”

And Joe’d be there to watch her eat it.

Come hell or Armageddon. Holy shit. Even the notion of her candy-pink tongue sliding down the length of his banana had him ready to ignite. And damn if she wouldn’t suck the crown as lovingly as she had that fricking lucky banana.

“Please allow me to escort you.” Azzo offered a crooked elbow.

Joe lurched to his feet. “I’ll take her out back.”

“Actually it’s getting late, and I really need to get back to my studying. I’ll check out the banana patch next time if that’s okay with the both of you.” Susie twined her fingers together and did a back-bowed stretch that had Joe’s cock twitching. Her nipples were pointed and shoving against the tank top.

“You don’t have to walk me back, Joe. I’m good on my own.” She threw him a out-and-out suck-it-up smirk and embellished the saucy pose with a little sex-kitten shoulder roll.

“You are so not so good on your own. Azzo, tell Mama I’ll call her later. And buzz off. Susan Elizabeth White, I am walking you home and then some.” He pushed his hand under her elbow and helped her to stand.

“Joe. I think I need to tell you something.”

He skirted the hostess station, his hand in the small of Susie’s back, edging her forward, anxious to get her out of the restaurant, needing to get them locked tight and hard.

“What?” He had her out the door and onto the sidewalk.

“I’ve changed my mind. I don’t need to study any more for the test. What I need to do is relax. Really, really relax. Rumor has it that an orgasm relaxes you to the max.”

Chapter Two

It took every ounce of willpower she had
not
to glance at Joe’s crotch. Susie wanted to howl. She had this big bad mercenary dangling by her pinky, and just the mention of orgasm had his jaw dropping to the cobbled sidewalk framing Champion Avenue.

“Witch.” He grasped her shoulders and turned her to face him. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a cock teaser. You’ve done everything but rub your pussy in my face.”

She blinked. Had she gone too far?

His hold on her firmed. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not objecting to the dance, just putting you on notice that the outcome may not be what you’re gunning for. I’m not a settling-down, white-picket-fence type of man. My job’s dangerous, and when I go on a mission, I go knowing I may never come back. I love what I do, and no woman’s going to change that.”

Susie stared at him. He wasn’t handsome by any conventional standards. The craggy features, the myriad faded scars above his right temple, and the crooked nose didn’t soften the harsh lines of his features but added a piratical, brooding aura that ambushed the senses, hers anyway.

He wasn’t the kind of man to do anything by halves, not Joe Huroq, and he was giving her fair warning, big-time. Whatever was going to happen between them would be temporary…and exciting. Gawd, all her woman parts were on overdrive. Her nipples burned, her clit throbbed, and she’d soaked her thong.

Good for him. And good for her.

He would be perfect for her first lover, but she didn’t like the idea of them living so close. What if things didn’t work out and she had to put up with an angry mercenary living next door? Or worse, if he dumped her and she had to live with him trooping females through his front door? It’d be best to nip this in the bud.

“You’ve met your match then, cowboy. I’m not a white-picket-fence kind of woman. And definitely not the settling-down type. No husband, no kids, no ties. No emotional entanglements. But as the saying goes, I don’t eat where I muck. You’re my neighbor. Let’s set the rules right here and now. No kissy-kissy. You can lump me right in there with Terri.”

She folded her arms and jutted her chin and plain hated that she had to crane her neck to meet his gaze. One of the few pluses of being five-eleven was she could look down on most men; it gave her a power edge she relished.

“There isn’t a gay bone in your body. My cock knows that as well as you do. I’ve lived next door to Terri for three years, and not once has the sight of her naked given me a boner. Even when I thought you were her, I was as hard as a steel girder. No way are we going to be platonic friends, Susan Elizabeth White.”

Maybe, just maybe this could work out. Gawd, was he temptation personified. The notion of running her fingers over his forged-of-steel muscles had her salivating.

“I don’t want your friendship. That involves emotions. Now, there is an arrangement I might go for. The kind that involves a certain type of buddy.”

The grin that swept his mouth showcased the type of dimples clean-cut Ralph Lauren male models claimed, and gave him a boyish air she would never have associated with his menacing, mercenary, razor toughness.

He cupped her elbow and urged her around the corner and onto Birch Close.

“You’re preaching to the converted, sweetness. I’d say we have ourselves the makings of a—”

His nostrils flared.

His gaze went distant.

He lifted his head.

Susie’s stomach clenched.

Predatory couldn’t begin to describe the hunter stance he assumed in a heartbeat—legs spread wide, hands jammed on lean hips, eyes narrowed. He sniffed and whipped his head to the left.

“Gas. I smell gas. Are you sure you turned off the tanks?” He met her stare full on.

She resisted the urge to smack him. Gas? She’d all but asked him to screw her, and he asked about gas? She inhaled and smelled nothing but the metallic aroma of asphalt baking under a semitropical sun.

He shook her. “Think. Did you lock the tank?”

She dashed his hands away. “Of course I did. I am not some simpering female. We’ve had a gas stove all my life. I know the rules. I disconnected the old tank, screwed the valve shut, and took it to the laundry room. I never even opened the valve on the new one because—”

“Crap. It
is
gas. And damned if it’s not going to blow any minute.” He’d turned around, poised to take off.

Susie backtracked. “I disconnected everything when I couldn’t figure out how to switch the tanks around. And how in heck can you smell gas from here?”

The boom thundered between them, an explosion so loud and so unexpected they both jumped.

“Jesus!”

He took off like a horse taking the final curve in the Belmont.

Susie sprinted after him. Raced to catch his wide-legged stride, panting to keep up with his pace, until, until…

Shit. Terri’s house had blown up.

Her arms plopped to her sides. She stood there following the leaping blue and yellow plumes, watching the points flare and sizzle, her mouth hanging open, too stunned to move an inch.

Terri’s cute little bungalow was on fire.

Correction—the house was consumed by fire. The porch was ablaze, the quaint milk cans with their nostalgic petunias and ivies charcoaled and crumpled in a slow dance of destruction. A conflagration of vaulting flames attacked the front door, the walls, the charming carved white window frames, as she stood there unable to budge.

This couldn’t be happening. She shook her head. No way.

Just a few weeks ago she’d left Chabegawn, Michigan, on the first real adventure of her life—college, and being on her own. Claiming her own space, doing all the college stuff she’d always dreamed about: sororities, football games, and intellectual challenges. Okay, she was older than most of the other students, but not by decades. This was her chance to spread her wings, to seek out new experiences, to push herself to the max, to throw out all the nasty small-town restrictions she’d dealt with for twenty-five years.

It wasn’t supposed to begin with a fire.

Everything she owned was in there.

The five hundred dollars she’d withdrawn from the bank to shop for groceries and other household items. She’d left the money in the drawer in the laundry room.

Maybe the back was better than the front.

Susie took off.

She hadn’t run far before Joe corralled her, crossed his arms around her, and hauled her tight against his chest. “Where in hell do you think you’re going?”

She elbowed him. “To the back door. Let me go.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

She wriggled and kicked at him, but he held her fast.

“The whole property’s a fire trap. It’s—”

The howling of multiple vehicles drowned his voice.

An ambulance, a fire truck, and a couple of patrol cars pealed around the far bend, zipped toward them, and screeched to a halt. Uniformed men swarmed out of the vehicles like ants fleeing a fired nest. No one paid any attention to Joe and Susie. Hoses unfurled, ladders emerged, and stretchers appeared. All in the blink of an eye.

The sky remained blue.

The sun continued to shine.

The ever-present spring breeze didn’t pause.

A flock of geese detoured around the smoke billowing high in the air. And all the while every possession she had, save for the clothes on her back and her purse and its contents, was wiped out, erased, gone, reduced to ashes.

A void centered in her stomach had her paralyzed. A sickening hopelessness, mired in the blaze dancing happily amid the water streaming from the multiple hoses trained on it, sucked the fight out of her. She didn’t protest when Joe locked his hands around her waist, never uttered a word when he gave her a little squeeze, and couldn’t have responded if he shook her again when he crooned, “It’s going to be okay. I promise you. It’s going to be okay.”

“Everything I own is in there.” The words sounded hollow and empty.

“I know, sweetheart. I know. It’s going to be okay.” He rubbed her shoulders, kissed the cusps, spun her around, held her chin between his fingers, and forced her to focus on him. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Fine for you to say. I brought so much with me. Pics, mementos, so much stuff.” She curled her fingers into her palms. “I bullied Melanie into letting me take it, and now it’s gone.”