Miami Spice

Deborah Merrell

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Deborah Merrell

Adult romances by the author for
Smashwords.com:

Angie’s Kiss

Hot Pursuits

Miami Spice

Naked Pizza

Pleasure Cruise

Under Cover Girl

Books under her pen name Marva Dale, also for
Smashwords:

Babes in Arms

Private Eyes

“Ooh, Gianni, you are soooo wonderful.... Oh,
baby, yes, yes, yes!”

“Hey, baby, I can say the same for you. You
have the most delicious body. I want to kiss, and then lick, every
bit of flesh.”

“Ooh, ah, oooh, Gianni darling! Put that big
boy inside of me! Do it, do it, do it now!”

Erica Ivonne Rael closed her book, leaned
back against the headboard, and checked the clock on her
nightstand. Oh, yes. Just like clockwork. At least her upstairs
neighbor kept on schedule. The women in his bed might change, but
the time and the pillow talk remained constant.

Not that Erica would complain. After all, the
upstairs condo owner had a right to entertain. He never played loud
music or raised his voice enough to consider it shouting. He didn’t
stomp his feet or move heavy furniture. The problem lay in the vent
for the centralized heating system. The duct ran from Erica’s
bedroom wall and up and over to Mr. Gianni Sloan’s master boudoir.
Of course, she really couldn’t hear much at all unless she really
concentrated on listening. With the stereo or the television on in
the bedroom, she heard nothing at all. So why did it annoy her so
much?

Erica did not consider herself a snoop, a
voyeur, or a busy body—far from it! She had far too much on her
personal plate to worry about other people’s lives, or love lives
as the case may be. So, she didn’t have a steady man in her life
right now. She had Tepeyol, her temperamental but loving black and
white cat who enjoyed sitting on the foot of her bed as he did at
present. As far as dating anyone... Well, Erica had decided to give
up the dating scene for the moment. Despite what those matchmaking
sites claimed as success rates, she had two very disappointing
blind dates before she decided to call it quits with trying to find
Mr. Right over the Internet.

Perhaps, Mr. Gianni Sloan from No. 5C
irritated Erica so much because he seemed the ultimate poster boy
for the playboy types out in singles land who thought their come-on
lines were so suave that women ate up every word they uttered.
Obviously, many did, if the onslaught of feminine company upstairs
proved indicative of his conquests.

Not that Erica kept a tally, but so far she’d
counted twenty-five different female voices in the past two months.
Always good in math, she figured Mr. Gianni Sloan copulated with
three-point-one females every week. That is different women. And as
far as she could distinguish, each new conquest would eventually
come around again in the next cycle. Thus, in four months time, Mr.
Sloan seduced and recycled fifty women. Not even the Miami Dolphins
managed to score such an impressive record in any one season.

Tuning her stereo to a jazz station, Erica
turned it up just enough to cover the kissy-coo noises. Thankfully,
her upstairs lady killer had wall-to-wall carpeting, or she might
have born witness to a whole lot of shaking and quaking going on
once Mr. Stud really got started under or over the sheets. In the
six months since Gianni Sloan had moved in, Erica had yet to meet
this God’s Gift to Women face-to-face. Not that she wanted to go
looking for this lounge lizard, but he did have her imagining what
he looked like, even what kind of sheets he preferred—one hundred
percent cotton or maybe black satin?

Sometimes, while in the elevator or even in
the laundry room, she wondered if the man in the suit standing next
to her, or the one doing his underwear two washers down, could
actually be him. Erica knew his name from the elegant script across
his post office box in the lobby, and though she sometimes lingered
as she fetched her own mail, she had yet to catch a glimpse of her
upstairs neighbor. Of course, the way his female conquests took his
name in vain as they screamed in bloody passion only reinforced his
status as a professional Lothario in her mind. Now if she wanted to
do a bit of digging, Erica could probably come up with a tenant or
two who knew something about the real Gianni Sloan. That was
if
she really wanted to find out more.

When a strident meow came from the other end
of the bed, Erica offered her apologies to Tepe for accidentally
hitting him with her foot. Stretching, she reached for her book and
for him.

“You poor baby.” She stroked his soft fur. “I know I
had you fixed, but you don’t want to go around boinking all the
girl kitties every night like that tomcat upstairs, do you?” Tepe
answered with a firm purr and a chin nuzzle before jumping out of
her arms. Erica took up her book.

Another Wednesday night, another journey into
the romantic
sex
capades of a Clarise Lamour novel. At least
the cries of ecstasy from Gianni and his love interest had wafted
away with the strains of a jazz quartet. Now, all she had to do was
read about a magical night in the embrace of a fabulous, mythical
hunk. Glancing at her nightstand, Erica sighed. She always had her
trusty vibrator.

* * *

“You know, I think we should go with the
textured fabric for the walls in the den. Preferably in a buff, or
maybe a desert taupe with sage accents. What do you think?” Sacha
Kahlo, the other creative genius at Prestige by Design, cleared his
throat. “Hello—
Hola!
Are you in there, Rica?”

Erica, who had been sitting at her drawing
board, looked up from the container of untouched latte still
grasped in her hands. She finally noticed Sacha Kahlo and the
piercing look he gave her. “Oh, oh, yeah, sure. I think it’s a
great idea.”

With a huff, Sacha clasped fists to each
narrow hip. “All right, then what did I just say?”

“Sandy...something.” Sighing, Erica stretched
and set her cup aside. “Sorry. I guess I’m off in lala land.”

He raised his tweezed and pampered brows.
“Oh? What’s his name? Anyone I know?”

Erica smiled. “No, I don’t think so. It’s
nothing really.”

“Well, it has to be, girlfriend, to have you
off in the clouds like that. If anyone knows romance it’s
moi!
” Taking up a colored pencil, Sacha leaned his slender
body over the work table and pointed the tip in Erica’s direction.
“You’re going to have to spill all over lunch. I insist, because
I’m going to pay. But until then, can we get back to Mrs.
Weissman’s multi-million dollar hacienda? She’s not paying us for a
pink flamingo motif. She wants Southwest in the middle of
Miami.”

Opening her carpet swatches book, Erica came
back to the present. “All right, then, let’s give her Hopi pottery,
yucca stalks and adobe.”

* * *

The beautiful day called for them to eat al
fresco on the patio, beneath a fawning umbrella. As Erica dug into
her shrimp and spinach linguine, she related her tale between
polite mouthfuls. As a firm believer in any story involving love
and sex, Sacha ate up every word between bites of his pita
sandwich. When she finished with her story about her upstairs
neighbor and his sexual antics, Erica sat back and played with the
ice in her peach tea.

“You must find out,” her friend pronounced,
“all about the man! This is just too juicy a predicament to ignore.
Of course, I have the perfect solution!”

Crossing her legs, Erica smiled thoughtfully.
“Somehow I knew you would, dearest.”

“How are you fixed on housekeepers?”

She gave a small frown. “Housekeepers? If you
mean do I have one, then no, I don’t.”

“Well, I’ll lend you mine.” Sacha’s cocoa
eyes grew wide with excitement. “Her name is Rosina, and she’s a
font of information. In fact, she can pry information from sources
better than one of those FBI G-strings.”

“You mean G-men.”

“No, darling, I mean a G-string! I always picture
those guys wearing red spangle thongs beneath their regulation
black suits.”

Erica chuckled. Dear, sweet Sacha lived and
breathed for the lively and the entertaining. As one of the South
Beach crowd, he trod the boardwalks with flamboyant zeal. “So, you
think your Rosina will be able to ferret out everything there is to
know about my mysterious neighbor in 5C?”

Sacha’s slim hands rose in the air. “Darling,
she’ll not only get the scoop, but tell you his blood type and the
regularity of his poo-poos! Just give her a week and you’ll see
results.”

“I don’t think I’ll need a full blown report,
but if she’s willing to do some housekeeping in between, then she’s
hired. Those results I can live with.”

“Good. I’ll have her see you the morning
after next. This will give Rosie time to adjust her schedule. Now,
she’ll do everything you ask except walk your dog, but since you
have a cat, that’s a moot point.”

“I like to do my own laundry, but if she’s
willing to iron, all the better.”

“Girlfriend, ironing, scrubbing, dusting, and
vacuuming are her middle names. She works from eight till three,
with a half hour for lunch. Oh, and she gets ten bucks an
hour.”

Erica threw him a perceptive look. “Just when
will she have time to scope out my neighbors? You do know I’m
willing to pay her for the time she works as a housekeeper and not
as a private detective.”

“Don’t worry, darling, she’ll deliver!” After
adjusting his salmon-hued ascot, Sacha took up their check. “I’ve
always loved,” he ruminated as he perused the bill, “the way they
used to call those guys private dicks.” His eyes took on a
mischievous glint. “You know what I would tell one if he wanted to
investigate me? ‘Frisk me, darling, and don’t be gentle! The harder
you search, the easier I become!’ Of course, I like the big, hunky
he-man type who carries a loaded midnight special in his
waistband!”

Erica couldn’t help but laugh. Sacha came up
with these little provocative gems just about every day. Like
herself, he was in between significant others. The only time she
found her friend down in the dumps had been when his last live-in
lover unceremoniously dumped him for a female impersonator who
performed at one of the nightclubs on the strip. It took all of two
weeks before Sacha snapped out of his sorrow and got back on the
horse so to speak, in his case a particularly feisty Italian
stallion.

After reaching for her pocketbook, Erica
offered to get the tip and put down a generous amount. As a working
girl herself and a daughter of hard-working immigrants, she knew
every little bit counted.

“Well then!” she declared. “Shall we return
to Mrs. Weissman and her desert casita?”

Of course, in this case, the lady’s little
cottage happened to contain seven bedrooms, eight baths, a home gym
and spa, and a large entertainment center.
Oh, well
, Erica
sighed agreeably,
if you got it, then flaunt it!

Erica Rael knew the value of money and what it could
or could not buy. She knew her condo apartment remained a wise
investment, and she snapped it up as soon as she had amassed the
down payment. As a daughter of Cuban refugees, she learned all
about hard work. Her father, a painter in his former life, never
considered his job as a restaurant manager to be beneath him. He
had a family of eight to support, plain and simple. In addition,
Erica’s mother worked as a daycare assistant. The fact that Olga
Elena Rael held an advanced degree in education cut no ice when she
had to find any job she could in this country to put food on the
family table. Second in order of birth, Erica had an older brother,
Estaban, and younger siblings Maritza, Gabriel, Selena and
Vianney.

Since the age of fourteen, she had helped her
father in the restaurant, and when Santos Rael had time, he showed
Erica the wonderful world of art. For young Erica, colors,
textures, style and perspective seemed as natural to her as
breathing, and she knew her flair for such came from an optimistic
and patient instructor. With all this on her side, she
wholeheartedly embraced her creative genes as well as her
heritage.

Her apartment reflected her tastes, from the light
peach, turquoise and cream walls to exotic and colorful prints done
by Hispanic artists. Her preferences in furnishings ran to stressed
and natural woods, woven Guatemalan fabrics, and thick Mexican
glassware. Now, as she took her new housekeeper on a tour, Erica
felt proud to call her colorful but comfortable place her very own
home.

“Yes, I see I won’t have too much to worry
about,” Rosina Gonzales concurred as she surveyed Erica’s
surroundings with a crucial eye for detail. “You are a fairly neat
person,
señorita
. I like that. Now then…”