Her Perfect Gift (2 page)

So she talked…about Montana, about the cabin, about—

“You like to talk,” he said at one point after she finished describing a book she’d just read about a man who inherited a winery in the south of France.

Her cheeks warmed. “I do,” she confessed. “I’m sorry. My dad wasn’t a talker either, so I know it can be overwhelming and irritating.”

He shook his head once. “No, it’s fine. It gives you pleasure to do so, and I like the sound of your voice.”

Now her cheeks really got hot. “I like the sound of your voice, too. The little I’ve heard of it. I guess it doesn’t give you pleasure to talk, huh?”

“No,” he answered. Then he fell silent again.

Okay, then
. Lacey started to gather another bite of pasta onto her fork but then she looked down at her plate and realized it was empty, along with her wine glass. Her eyes scanned across the table and saw his glass was also empty, even though there was still a half bottle of cabernet left.

“Do you want another glass of wine?” she asked.

He continued to sit there quietly, his eyes burning into hers. “No.”

“Do you mind if I have another glass?”

“No,” he answered again, but he made no move to provide her with a refill.

She raised her hands to do it herself, but then realized they were trembling and she’d never get the job done without breaking something. Somehow this ended up being the straw that broke the would-be one-night-stand’s back.

“Okay,” she said, throwing her cloth napkin down on the table. “This was really nice, and thank you very much for buying me dinner. But unfortunately I need to go now. I thought I could do this, but I guess I’m just not that kind of girl.”

His eyebrows lifted. “And what kind of girl is that?”

She inwardly cringed, but forced herself to say it. “The kind of girl who has sex with a guy because he’s really hot and bought her dinner.”

If possible, his face became even more neutral than before, almost a blank slate. “I don’t require sex from you in exchange for a meal.”

She let out an audible sigh of relief and stood. “Good, because trust me, it wouldn’t have been all that great anyway. I’m too nervous, and I get all fumbly when I’m nervous. It wouldn’t have been a night to remember at all.”

She opened the patio door and let herself back into the front room, where she’d left her brightly patterned satchel. “So don’t feel like you missed out on anything, because you really didn’t. It’s been a while and I’m pretty rusty in that area. So seriously, this is probably for the best.” She said all of this loudly, so he could hear her from the patio.

But when she got her purse situated across her body and turned around, he was right there, standing in front of her.

She gasped and would have stumbled backwards over the couch if his strong hand hadn’t whipped out with precision grace and caught her by the forearm.

“See,” she said, her heart beating erratically in her chest. “Look how clumsy I am right now. Not a great quality to have in a potential bed partner, right?”

A few beats of silence, then he said, “I’ll walk you to the door.”

Lacey had to clamp her lips shut to prevent herself from saying sorry again. Wasn’t she always counseling the girls at work that they didn’t owe the men who came in anything, no matter how many drinks they bought for them? Why was she having so much trouble with this? It was one dinner, and she wasn’t a prostitute. She didn’t have to have sex with this guy just because he’d fed her, even if she was very grateful she hadn’t had to eat out of a vending machine for the second night in a row. Unfortunately, hotels that let you pay in cash without presenting a photo ID weren’t exactly known for their amenities.

At the door, she turned and said, “Good night.”

She was taken aback, however, when she glimpsed something in his eyes. A flicker of sadness that quickly disappeared behind the unreadable mask he’d been wearing since she met him.

“Good night,” he answered.

She stared at him, her brows drawn together in concern. “Are you…?” she asked, pondering the look of sadness she’d seen on his face. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he answered. “You should go.”

“It’s just that you’re so…” she couldn’t find the right word, instead her legs propelled her forward and her arms acted of their own accord, pulling him in close for a quick hug. At least it was supposed be a quick hug, but he was stiff, like a block of ice as opposed to a human man. He needed this, something told her. She felt like a cozy blanket and like he was a man with hypothermia in need of her warmth.

“You should go,” he said again, his voice slightly muffled and strained.

“You’re right,” she answered, her voice much lighter than she felt. “I should go.”

But neither of them moved and just when she thought she might be standing there giving him the human blanket treatment all night, his arms came up and wrapped around her. His face collapsed into her neck and she could feel the hard, lean muscles in his torso bunch up as he held her even tighter than she had been holding him.

“If you don’t leave now,” he said, against her neck, “I won’t be able to let you go.”

“It’s okay,” she said, not quite knowing what she was agreeing to, just that she didn’t want to release him just yet. He’d been so distant all night, but everything in her body was telling her he needed this, needed her to hold him, like there was something broken inside of him only she could fix.

They stood like that for what felt like hours, his breathing becoming more ragged by the second.

Then his hand wrapped around the back of her neck and he was pulling her face towards his, kissing her with more passion than she would have ever believed the reserved man who’d watched her eat dinner could possess. His lips moved on top of hers even as he pressed into her so tightly, she could feel his erection through his linen pants.

And then she felt herself lifted off the ground for a few seconds only to crash land in a sitting position on an end table with her back against the wall. Somehow he managed to keep on kissing her while unbuttoning her shorts, pulling them and her panties down just enough to push three fingers inside of her.

He stopped kissing her then, but continued to hold her by the nape of her neck as he worked his fingers into her wetness. In and out, so good that Lacey tugged at her shorts, finally kicking them off so she could open wider for him.

In response, he pushed his fingers in even further, using his thumb to manipulate her clit.

Currents of pleasure charged through her, setting off sparks every time his thumb circled around her sensitive button. She wrapped her hands around his heavily veined forearm. She didn’t know why, maybe it was to try to dampen the intensity of what he was doing to her, or maybe she was trying to pull him in deeper. Either way, his forearm became her anchor when the climax he’d built up inside of her crested and flashed hot, making her entire body go tight as she came with her eyes and her mouth squeezed shut.

Only then did he let her go, abruptly pulling his fingers out of her and sucking her essence off of them while using his right hand to take his wallet out of his suit pocket.

“You taste better than the wine,” he informed her in his deep voice as he extracted a condom from the wallet before tossing it aside.

Lacey wanted to reply but became mesmerized by the sight of him pulling his pants down past his muscled thighs. His dick was long and rigid with need, and she felt her pussy clench with thirsty anticipation.

He didn’t give her long to ponder the sight, though. Almost as soon as she saw it, he’d quickly sheathed it in latex. She had never seen anyone get a condom on so fast.

And then one hand was back around her nape while the other parted her folds so he could ease his cock into her. He let his forehead rest against hers as he moved inside her.

It felt—Lacey didn’t have words for how it felt to have him inside the cradle of her legs, filling her up, so she could feel him all the way up to her womb.

His strokes were gentle at first, then faster and rougher, as if the chains were coming off whatever kept the beast inside of him tamed and still. To her surprise, her quiet lover began to speak, whispering what she thought were Japanese words in her ear with such intensity she didn’t have to comprehend them to know he felt it, too—the hot conclusion building up inside both of them, so big it scared Lacey, because surely once it came, it would tear her apart.

But then he kissed her, all but devouring her lips underneath his, and soon she was exploding, bright and hot like a star at the end of its life. It was all she could do to hold on to her sanity, much less her body, which was now glowing with previously unknown sensations.

And then there was her unexpected lover, still kissing her, until suddenly he broke off with a deep yell. He pressed his forehead into hers and shuddered into her, his cock throbbing hard.

Then he drew back slightly and they stared at each other in wonderment, now sweating and breathing hard.

“Stay,” he said.

“Okay,” she answered.

SURO WOKE UP to the brightness of the morning sun shining down on him. This was strange in and of itself, since he usually woke naturally at the dimly lit hour of five to do his morning exercises. But then he remembered the night before with an inward smile.

The woman from the bar. It hadn’t been enough to take her by the door. They’d come together a second time in his bed. That should have been it, but Suro clearly remembered waking again in the middle of the night and going down on her until she woke, too, ready for more.

Sex with her hadn’t been like sex with any other woman he’d let into his bed in recent years. He found her warmth and softness intoxicating, craved it like a hot bowl of udon on a rainy day.

The only reason he didn’t turn over right that minute and have her again was because he had run out of condoms and the clock read 9:15, which meant he needed to leave soon for the one event he’d come to Montana to attend.

Still, he knew he wasn’t done with this woman, not yet, not by a long shot.

Sitting up in the large, king-sized bed, he quickly devised a plan. He’d let her sleep but would leave a note telling her to enjoy the place while he was gone and to call him when she woke, so they could make plans to see each other again. But he was cut short when he reached out to grab a hotel memo pad and found a note already written on it.

“Thank you for last night.”

And that was it. No name, no phone number, no promises to be back in touch, nothing except for five words scrawled hastily across white paper. He turned around to see what had so obviously escaped his notice just a few minutes ago: a rumpled but empty spot where the woman had slept. There was only the slightest dent to mark the fact that someone else had shared his bed. Suro stared at the abandoned sheets, unsettled.

He’d approached her last night with the intention of picking her up and getting rid of her as soon as he was done with her. He was merely curious, he had told himself as he walked over to where she was seated, and she was a welcome distraction after a very busy spring, filled with the kind of work that required a deliberate hardening of the soul. But now it was morning, and she was gone.

So why then did he feel like the one who had been used and tossed aside?

CHAPTER 3

“HI,
my name is Hector.”

The boy who fell into step beside her as she walked out of her Financial Econometrics class was clean-cut, tall, handsome, and almost as dark as she was. If she hadn’t already known of him, she might have mistaken him for one of the few other black students taking the course with her. But as it was…

“I know who you are,” she said, throwing him a teasing smile. “Everyone does.”

He glanced sideways at her. “And who do you think I am?”

She had to fight hard not to laugh. “Hector Mendez, Jr.” She didn’t add the obvious, that he was the only son of Hector Mendez, Sr., the head of New Jersey’s Dominican mafia. “I don’t live under a rock.”

But if he minded her laughing at him, he didn’t show it. Instead he smiled back at her. “You say it like that’s all I am, my father’s son.”

“No insult meant or anything,” she said. “Back in West Trenton, just about everybody knows me as Antoine Cofi’s daughter. You see, he owns this Cajun food restaurant, kind of a hole in the wall, but it’s pretty popular. So that’s mostly what people see when they look at me. I think they were surprised when I got into Rutgers, like I’d been born to work behind Cofi’s counter all my life.”

Hector nodded. “People expect me to follow in my father’s footsteps, too. That’s part of the reason I came to Rutgers. My father didn’t even graduate high school. I’m hoping to do better for myself.”

“Mine didn’t either,” she said. “But he’s still the smartest person I know, even if he didn’t get a degree.”

“I see you’re a daddy’s girl.”

“I am,” she admitted. “My mom died when I was little, so it’s always been the two of us. He worked hard to raise me right and make sure I didn’t have to work at the restaurant if I didn’t want to. It’s hard not to admire him for that.”

“He sounds like a great man. I’d like to meet him some day.” Hector flashed her a smile and held out his hand. “You know my name. But you still haven’t told me yours.”

She smiled back at him. “Tasha Cofi. It’s nice to meet you.”

And being the friendly girl she was, she took his proffered hand, having no idea she was shaking hands with the devil.

The sound of a horn blaring behind her jerked Lacey out of the memory. She looked up and saw that the light had turned green. She made a left onto the road leading to the Starry Sky campgrounds, and chastised herself. “Get it together, girl.”

She’d barely had time to make it back to the hotel to shower and change clothes before it was time to get on the road. And even then she was only just going to make it to the outdoor picnic brunch that would kick off Parent’s Day. She didn’t have time to let her mind wander, especially back to a life she could never have again.

She shook off the memory as she parked her car in the grassy lot and dashed toward Starry Sky’s main field.