Momentum (10 page)

She cracked one eye open and gazed at the erection tenting the front of his boxers. “You don’t look very peaceful.”

“Want to do something about that?” He grinned and she smiled again.

“Maybe. What would you like to do?”

Now that he knew she wasn’t opposed to anal sex that thought was awfully tempting, but he decided to hold off. For some reason it was really important that she trust him implicitly before they ventured down that path. It was one thing to have his finger inside her, it was entirely another to have sex with her that way.

“It’s up to you,
amante
. Why don’t we go into the bedroom where it’s more comfortable and we will talk about it?”

He helped her up and she pulled the pajama pants off completely, tossing them onto the bed before getting in under the covers. But Marco was having none of that. He wanted to see his beautiful
tesora
. He still had no idea what good deed he’d done to deserve even a minute of this woman’s attention, but he was grateful for whatever it was. Marco tugged on the comforter and it slid down, revealing her clad only in a tank top.

“Hey! I’m going to get cold.”

Marco barked out a laugh. “I doubt that.” He climbed onto the bed and covered her body with his, his weight pressing her into the mattress. A rush of something startled him and he pushed up on his arms to stare down at her.

She squirmed under his scrutiny. “What?”

“Nothing.” He cleared his throat. “So what would you like to do?”

Natalie smiled. “I did what I wanted to do. Well, you did to me what I wanted done to me, but same difference.”

He wrinkled his nose. Sometimes he didn’t understand Americans at all. “Same difference?”

“Don’t worry about it. Anyway, I want to make you happy.”

“
Cara
, any way you touch me makes me happy.” She reached out and tickled him and he collapsed on top of her, laughing. “Okay, almost any way.”

“Seriously, Marco. I want you to be happy.”

“I am happy.”

She rolled her eyes. “I mean right now. Do you want me to…” She bit her lip.

He decided to play along. “Do I want you to what?”

“You know.” She motioned toward his cock. “Do you want me to give you a blowjob?”

Marco started laughing and she elbowed him before pushing him off her and onto his back next to her on the large bed. She was on top of him, her bare pussy so hot it felt as if it were burning his abs, before he even registered the movement. “That speed of moving will help you in the bull ring,” he commented from his position underneath her.

“Right. You didn’t answer my question.”

“I didn’t think it needed an answer. Has any man in the history of time turned down an offer by a beautiful woman who wanted to pleasure him?”

She looked thoughtful for a moment and then grinned. “I doubt it.”

“If that’s what you want to do, I won’t stop you. My body is yours.”

“I told you. I want to make you happy.”

Marco reached up and cupped her face. “If your warm, wet mouth is wrapped around me, I will be in heaven.”

“Charmer.”

“It’s in my blood.”

Natalie scooted down and spread his legs, settling in between them. “No. I believe all your blood is right here.” She indicated his cock, which had indeed taken on a plum-colored hue. He laughed.

“You may be right. See, you can’t leave me like this. I will die,
cara
.”

“Right.” But she leaned down, pushing her long blonde hair over her shoulder so he could see what she was doing, and put her mouth on him.

He couldn’t hold in the moan that seemed to come from deep within, especially when she answered with one of her own and the moan morphed into an almost pained groan. But Marco wasn’t feeling pain. Natalie looked like an angel, and he was sure she’d been sent from heaven to both drive him crazy and fulfill his greatest wishes.

Natalie’s chest was flushed with her desire, the pink showing easily on her pale skin over the top of her tank. Marco groaned again, realizing his throat was already stinging and dry from his noisemaking but totally unwilling to rise from this little slice of perfection to get a glass of water. Natalie stared at his cock with a fiery absorption as she slowly licked and sucked out his sanity.

Finally he was able to focus and say, “Enough,
amante
. I would like to be inside you when I come. I want you to fly apart around me. Ride me.”

She smiled and his chest constricted. Putting it off to the intensity of the moment, he reached out a blind hand to the condom on the nightstand. Natalie plucked it from him, tore open the package with her teeth and slowly, torturously rolled it down his painfully erect cock. With another little smile she rose and then sank down onto him, arching her back and thrusting out her small, perfect tits and he began to recite bucking statistics for the various bulls in his head to keep from ruining the moment far too early.

He reached around to cup her bottom and help her as she slid up and down his dick, setting the nerves ablaze. Wanting to see all of her, he whipped off her tank top. The pink buds of her nipples, gathered tight with her arousal, were practically begging for his tongue. He gently pulled until she dropped to her forearms and her breast was positioned right at his mouth. Marco took full advantage, licking and sucking that peak and then turning his head to capture the other full, pouting nipple. Natalie gasped.

“It’s too much.”

“No, baby,” he found himself cooing. He much preferred the Italian endearments but sometimes lapsed into the English terms when he was in the middle of sex. His brain never really functioned then and with most of the women he slept with, it didn’t matter what language he spoke or whether he spoke at all. They were scratching an itch. So was he. But Natalie was different. If this was an itch he’d never be able to properly scratch it, not in a million years of making love to her.

She sped up her movements on him and he placed his hands on her hips to guide her. “Oh God,” she cried and then clenched around his dick as her release began. He couldn’t stand it anymore and followed her right into the abyss.

When he’d calmed enough to speak, he said, “That’s it,
amante
. You are so beautiful when you let yourself go.”

Natalie giggled and then moved to his side, plopping down on her stomach. “Right. I’m sure my ‘O’ face is lovely.”

“‘O’ face?”

She grinned. “Yeah, you know, the weird look people get on their faces when they’re in the middle of an orgasm. That’s why it’s called an ‘O’ face.”

“You Americans. So crude.”

“Yeah, as if you Italians are really all that different,” she answered, elbowing him.

“Ow! We certainly do not try to injure each other right after having sex.”

“You faced down a bull that weighed over two thousand pounds tonight, I’m sure nothing I can do can hurt you.”

You might be wrong there…

Marco shook his head. He had to keep reminding himself this wasn’t permanent. In a few weeks she would go try out for the female tour and he would go on with his season, wherever that took him. The thought made him strangely morose.

Chapter Six

And when, before they left for the next event, Paolo told him his ranking had slipped two places, his mood did not improve. With his thoughts in a jumble, he kissed Natalie and got into the car with Paolo.

Marco let Natalie drive away and then turned to his brother. “We need to follow her.”

Paolo looked at him as if a bull had kicked him in the head. “Follow her?”

“Yes, but she must not know we are behind her.”

His brother pulled out of the parking lot, slowing some to get farther behind Natalie’s old, beat-up excuse for a car. “Okay, tell me why we are following her.”

“You’ve seen her car. I tried to convince her to just leave it here and travel with us but she wouldn’t.”

“American women are very independent.”

“Yes.” He folded his arms across his chest and glowered at her car several hundred feet in front of them.

Paolo glanced over and laughed. “You look as if someone stole your favorite toy.”

“My favorite toy is in that horrible car.”

“Don’t let her hear you call her a toy,” Paolo advised, whistling.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do, yes, but women do not like being referred to as toys.”

Marco waved his brother’s warning away. “Just concentrate on not losing her.”

But that’s precisely what they did by the time they’d been on the road for a few hours. Unfortunately they’d been forced to stop for gas, and by the time they were able to get back on the road, she was nowhere to be found. Paolo was afraid to go over the speed limit, as he only had a provisional visitor’s license, and Marco began to worry.

“She can’t go far, Marco. There’s only one road that makes sense to take.”

“I know,” he replied, not wanting to admit he was starting to panic.

Then he saw the smoke.

“What’s that?” Paolo asked at the same time Marco let out a stream of obscenities.

“Natalie.”

“Really?” Paolo sped up but wasn’t able to increase much as the rubberneckers had started to check out the scene. Luckily, he
was
able to pull over well behind her car and Marco was out the door before the car even came to a complete stop.

He ran toward the car, unable to see Natalie but calling her name repeatedly. He heard the fear in his voice as visions of her broken body assailed him, blood seeping into her blonde hair from a gaping wound in her head. “Natalie!”

He about had a heart attack when she appeared around the front hood. “Marco?”

“Get away from the car. Now.”

She backed away, her hands up. “What are you doing here?”

“We were behind you, remember?” He didn’t mention that they’d been specifically following her. Marco doubted she would appreciate his honest attempt to protect her.

“Do you know what’s wrong?”

Paolo joined them. He had more experience with cars than Marco did, and nodded. “I believe so, but I do not know the English word for it.” Marco could see he was trying to explain what he meant and wondered if Natalie would be able to figure it out even then. “It’s a long piece right in the front of the car. In the engine. It has liquid in it to cool all the parts down. It is called
radiatore
in Italian.”

Natalie’s eyebrows drew down. “You mean the radiator?”

“Ah, yes.” Paolo chuckled. “Then the English word is the same.”

“I guess so,” she answered. “So wait, why is it smoking?”

“Do you have the proper liquid in it?”

“How should I know? I bought this car right before I started the trip. I had to sell my other car.”

Paolo glanced at him, but he shook his head slightly and Paolo nodded in understanding. “I think there is not enough liquid and what is there cannot cool down. When that happens it makes smoke.”

Marco was thankful Paolo enjoyed tinkering around on cars because he was completely puzzled by what his brother was saying.

“Okay, then what can I do about it?”

Paolo glanced back at the car, which was still billowing plumes of white steam as if it were a very angry dragon. When he turned back to Natalie, Marco knew what he was going to say would upset Natalie. He took one step closer.

“Unless you have stuff to put in there,
and
you wait until all the steaming stops, you cannot do anything. Well, not right now.”

Natalie threw her hands up. “So what am I supposed to do?”

Paolo threw him a “help me” look and Marco stepped closer again. “
Cara
, you can leave your car here and travel to the event with us. We will arrange for someone to come and get your car and fix it and bring it to the arena.”

“I can’t afford that,” she answered, biting her lip. If she started crying it was all over. Marco would do just about anything to forestall that.

“You don’t have to pay for it.”

“I can’t keep doing this. I’m staying with you and now I’m supposed to travel with you and let you pay for everything, including my car repair? My daddy didn’t raise me like that.”

Even though he was sure she wouldn’t like what he had to say, he responded in a tone he often used with one of the more skittish horses in their stable back home. “You don’t have much of a choice.” He indicated her car. “You cannot drive this. Let us help you.”

Natalie looked from them to the car. Paolo, thankfully, remained silent. Marco used the time to pray she would be realistic and let him assist her. Natalie stared him down again, and he didn’t back down. “I need to at least get my stuff out of it.” She turned to Paolo. “Can I do that? Is it safe?”

“Yes,
cara
.”

She began to move toward the car. “What is it with you Italians and this ‘
cara
’ crap?” Marco didn’t take offense. Instead he grinned and indicated to Paolo to clear out their backseat. His brother nodded and moved away, and Marco took a large sack that Natalie had just hefted out of her car. “Put that down. It’s dirty laundry, Marco.”

He slid a gaze back to her and she went back to pulling things out as she mumbled to herself. Grinning, he stuffed it into the remaining space they had in the trunk and went back for more.

“How many things do you have in there,
cara
?”

“Just some food and stuff.”

He began to suspect that everything she owned was in this car. Marco resolved to find out exactly what her situation was. The thought of this paltry amount of things being all Natalie possessed in the world made him feel both sick and fiercely protective.

“Let’s get this into our car and you can relax. Perhaps nap, since I didn’t allow you to sleep very much last night.”

Natalie gave him a small smile and he considered it a victory. It was the first time her expression had changed from the grimace she wore when they pulled up. Without much struggle they got her and her belongings into the car and were back on the road within minutes. Marco pulled out his cell phone and dialed information, then realized he had no idea what to ask for.

He turned around. Natalie was already half asleep and he wished he could let her continue to doze, but they needed to take care of her car, preferably by pushing it into the nearest river. “Natalie?” She startled awake and blinked at him, her blue eyes showing her fatigue. “What do you call the truck that will come for your car?”

“A tow truck?”

Marco shrugged. “If you say so. I need to know what to ask for when I call the information number.”

“You really don’t have to—”

“I know I don’t have to.” He swiveled back toward the front. “But I am, so go back to sleep,
amante
.” Marco considered he probably shouldn’t be calling Natalie “
amante
” in front of his brother, as it wasn’t usually used outside of the bedroom, but his brother hopefully hadn’t noticed and Natalie didn’t know the difference. He glanced over at his brother, who wore a smirk as he drove. It appeared his brother had caught his slip of the tongue, but Marco ignored him and finished dialing the information number. He described the problem as best he could and the man promised to call him as soon as he’d been able to look over Natalie’s car. With that task completed, Marco settled down for a nap himself.

* * * * *

Natalie looked around the arena while Marco and Paolo registered for the night’s event. It was crazy how one event would end and the NBT expected all the riders to make it to a completely different city hours away for another competition starting the very next day. She supposed the female tour was like that too, but with her car broken down and no hope of being able to pay for an expensive repair, she didn’t want to think about how she would get from stop to stop.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she turned to see Jessica standing with another woman. Natalie tipped her head to the side. Why did she look so familiar?

Jessica grinned. “Yes, you know her. This is Leah Fitzpatrick, Brady’s girlfriend. She’s a figure skater.”

“Oh, okay. I’m Natalie. Nice to meet you. It didn’t hit me right away who you were in those clothes.”

Leah looked down at herself and said with a warm smile, “Probably not. Nice to meet you, too. Jessica tells me you’re traveling with Marco.”

Natalie felt her face flush. “Well, sort of. I mean, I guess I am now since my car broke down on the way here. It’s lucky for me Marco and Paolo left after me or I would’ve been stuck.”

Jessica and Leah exchanged a look, but before Natalie could ask what it was about Brady had slung his arm around Leah’s shoulders. Leah turned for a quick kiss and it was obvious those two were over the moon for each other. What an odd combination, though, a bull rider and an Olympic figure skater. Natalie made a note to ask Jessica what their story was later.

“Ladies. Stayin’ out of trouble?”

Leah elbowed him, but he just laughed. Jessica pasted an innocent smile on her face. “When have we ever gotten in trouble?”

Brady snorted. “How about that time a few months ago when me and Conner got held up at the arena and you two decided drinking on an empty stomach was a swell idea? I thought Conner was going to have a coronary when he saw you at the bar all giggly, practically falling off your chair with all the guys crowded around you.”

Conner joined them then and Natalie watched as his hand settled on Jessica’s ass. “Yes, I almost did have a heart attack. But I doubt that’s gonna happen again.” He patted her butt a couple of times and Jessica blushed. “I mean, you were pretty sick, right, darlin’?”

“I was. I’m pretty sure there was something in those drinks.”

“Yeah. A lot of alcohol,” Brady answered.

Marco and Paolo walked over and Marco promptly tucked her into his side. These men were awfully possessive. Natalie looked up and saw the smirk on Brady’s face. She wished she knew what all these inside jokes were about, but it seemed she was going to remain in the dark as the men began to compare notes on their recent performances and tonight’s competition.

As they continued to talk, Leah rolled her eyes. “How about we leave these guys to their preparations and go find somewhere decent to eat? I hate arena food.”

Jessica glanced at Natalie. “Sure, but I need to speak to Conner first.” She dragged him away and Natalie was about to decline the invitation when she felt Marco’s arm tighten.

He turned them away from the group and said, “Go with the women,
cara
. I will give you some money.”

“You can’t keep doing this,” Natalie hissed, but Marco just smiled.

“What? Taking care of my girl?”

“You know damn well what I mean. I’m starting to feel as if I’m a kept woman.”

“A what?”

“A whore.”

Marco took a step away, his dark eyes turning black. “You are not a whore.” His voice was no doubt louder than he’d intended and Brady and Leah both looked up before hurrying to pretend they hadn’t heard anything. Marco continued, his voice now soft but deadly serious. “You are not a whore. You are a beautiful, smart woman who I am happy to know and even happier to know well.” He backed her up to the wall and put a hand on either side of her head, caging her in. “I will take care of you. It’s how I was raised and I can’t be any other way. But that doesn’t mean I think of you as my whore, and it doesn’t mean you owe me anything in return. Do you understand what I’m saying,
cara
?”

Natalie nodded with a sigh. “I just don’t enjoy feeling helpless.”

“You are far from helpless. You are a strong person in a bad situation.” He reached for his wallet and withdrew several bills, pressing them into her hand. “Now take this and have a good time.”

Natalie accepted the money. It was far more than she’d need for a simple meal. No doubt he’d refuse to take the leftover money back, either. Marco wasn’t giving her much choice in the matter, but really, what choice did she have anyway? His hand returned to the wall and he leaned in, pressing his hard body against her softer one.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m about to kiss you. You didn’t think I’d just let you leave without kissing me, did you?”