Now and Always (10 page)

“Ssshh,” he whispered against her lips, ate the whimpers that came from deep in her throat as with his free hand he grasped her other breast, massaged its fullness.

Her body trembled against his, and where her thighs hugged him, the heat of her, the wet of her, bathed him through the thin cotton fabric of her khaki shorts.

Victor dropped his hands, eased them under her buttocks, and brought her even closer. Her femininity pressed into his groin and he leaned back onto the sofa, trying to find some measure of stability in a world that was gradually losing all sense of reality.

The soft cushions of the couch cradled him the way the soft flesh of her inner thighs held him. Against his chest, her warmth pressed against him. He embraced her tighter, until she was up against his hardness and the heat of her there nearly drove him over the edge. But not until she had her pleasure.

He broke from the kiss and asked in a voice that sounded shaky to his own ears, “I want to feel you against me.” He created a small space between them, reached down, and ripped his shirt off, then carefully undid the small buttons down the front of her shirt. All the time she watched his hands as he undressed her.

When he slipped the last button free, he parted the edges of her blouse. She wore a lace-trimmed, peach-colored, cotton camisole. Close to practical, but not quite. Like Connie — a contradiction. He cupped her breasts through the fabric and still she watched his hands, biting her lip to keep from crying out.

“Connie. You’re so beautiful,” Victor murmured. He leaned toward her, replaced his hands with his lips, alternately tugging at each aroused nub with his lips and then fingers.

She dug her hands into his hair and held him against her, her breathing growing choppier by the second. Her hips moved against him, as if seeking that ultimate union.

He pulled away, looked up, and met her gaze. Without a word she seemed to know what he wanted. Or maybe it was what she wanted as well.

Connie hesitated for only a moment. With a shrug she let her shirt slip from her shoulders and then she reached down, pulled off the camisole, and tossed it aside. Her breasts free of the fabric, Victor wasted not a moment to feast on them with his mouth.

“Touch me, Connie,” he said as he moved from one breast to the other with his lips. “Please, touch me before I go crazy.”

She ran her hands across his shoulders, then down the length of his back as he brought her to the edge with his caresses. Moaning, she reached between them, ran her hands across his chest, palming him until his nipples hardened into tight points.

The trembling in her limbs grew with each tug and pull of his mouth. When he teethed the tip of one breast, she jumped and ground her hips against the hard length cradled below her, against the hottest part of her. Against the wet and heat that was becoming nearly unbearable from just the kiss of his lips and the jut of his erection rubbing along the sensitive nub at her core.

Victor groaned against her breast. “Don’t, Connie. I don’t know if I can hold back for much longer.”

He bit her nipple again, a little harder, and the tremors in her body lengthened, growing into waves that washed over her. Everything went tight within her and then every cell of her body jolted awake, felt every little touch as if they had suddenly just come alive. She shook, grabbed his shoulders to hold on as she was overwhelmed by her physical release. Her back arched and she leaned her head back, crying out her completion.

Victor moaned at her shout. As her hands gripped his shoulders, then slackened, he grabbed her buttocks, held her closer to steady her. A mistake. It brought her right over him. The convulsions of her muscles wrapped around him, as if trying to draw him in. The wet heat of her seemed to seep through the layers of fabric, drenching him.

He took a deep breath to control himself and smelled the light perfume she wore. Smelled her arousal and he couldn’t wait any longer.

He rose with her still wrapped around his waist. “Con. Where’s the bedroom?”

Connie murmured against his lips, “The last door on the right.” His limbs were shaking, whether from the strain of carrying her or his desire she couldn’t tell. She was still too unsettled from her own release.

When he entered the bedroom, he wasted no time in laying her on the bed, gently divesting her of her khaki shorts and peach-colored, cotton bikini briefs. He groaned as he unveiled the thatch of tight curls, and bent, dropped a kiss on her navel.

“I need you inside me, Victor,” she pleaded, sitting up to reach for the snap on his jeans. She fumbled with it for a second, the cast making it difficult to get a good grip on the small snap. She had a harder time moving the zipper down over the tight bulge, but finally he was free of the denim. She helped him drag the jeans off and he kicked them aside.

His chest was broad, with a slight trace of hair that arrowed down to a tight abdomen ribbed with washboard muscles. She skipped quickly over his cotton-covered arousal to his legs. Beautiful, long, muscular legs with just the right amount of hair. The white of his briefs drew her attention again. It was glaring against his tanned olive skin. She wanted nothing marring her view. With shaky hands, she peeled down his briefs and caught her lower lip between her teeth.

“You are so beautiful,” she said.

He smiled, bent, and joined her on the bed, dragging her against the long length of him. “I thought that was one strike against me,” he teased as he ran his tongue across her lips, soothing the spot she had worried with her teeth.

“I may rethink that one.” She laughed as he gave her neck a playful bite.

Then in a moment, it stopped being playful and became in earnest as she cupped him in her hand. Cradled him. She stroked the length of him and he jumped and murmured his approval of her caress.

She raised her hands, finding them hard to control still, but forced herself to move them over his shoulders, careful not to scrape his skin with the cast. She held him to her breasts. Beneath her hands, his broad back expanded as he took a deep, bracing breath.

“Tell me what you want, Connie.”

The need in his voice made her tremble.

“Please tell me no one has made you feel this way.” He raised his head, gazed at her, the raw hunger evident in the taut lines of his face.

She’d had one lover and some later sexual encounters. Discreet ones which had failed to move her the way he did. None which had made her want to make the leap to make love again. Until now. What she was experiencing with Victor had little to do with just sex. But if she told him, she would be giving him a piece of herself. One she wouldn’t be able to get back.

Connie ran her hands through his hair, cradled the sides of his head as she bent and kissed the lips that had brought her so much pleasure. “Never,” she whispered against them. “No one has ever made me feel this way,” she said, giving him that part of her heart with the admission.

He groaned as he accepted her gift and kissed her deeply. She parted her thighs and he started to enter, then hesitated. “Con, are you protected?”

“In the top drawer,” she responded quickly, but still mewed a little protest as he shifted away. He left her for the short time it took to cover himself, then returned to between her thighs. He was so hard, so hot, he branded her with his entry. He moved in gently, her slickness letting him penetrate slowly. Too slowly.

Connie shifted her hips and urged him into her a little more, but still he tarried and slipped into her inch by tantalizing inch. She threw her head back and moaned, clenched his shoulders until he was buried to the hilt and she was pulsing around him, wanting more.

“Open your eyes, Connie,” he commanded, and she did, drugged beyond resistance by their passion.

“Touch me,” he said.

She moved her hands to his chest and roved the lean muscles there as he teased her nipples with his hands and mouth, sending a little jolt straight to her groin with every tug and pull and delicious suck. She wondered if he could feel what he was doing to her, and when their gazes collided, there were fine beads of sweat on his forehead. Tight lines bracketed the mouth that only moments before had been giving her such pleasure. She understood then how much control he was exerting.

She wanted to break through that control. She wanted the wildfire that was racing through her body to erupt in him. She leaned forward and ran her hands to cup his jawline as her lips descended on his, biting, suckling, until he opened his mouth to her.

She tongued the outline of his lips, shifted her hips against him, and heard his groan. She kept moving, kept suckling, until he answered her back, his tongue darting into her mouth, making love to her as she made love to him with the movements of her hips.

He groaned and grabbed her buttocks to still their movements, but she reached down, stopped him and forced him onto his back, straddling his hips, burying him even further. “Connie, your wrist —”

“It’s fine,” she said, then moaned as he lifted his hips, drove into her even as she rode him.

“Come with me,” she replied on a long expelled sigh.

Connie held onto his chest and his heart beat a rapid tattoo against her hands as she shifted against him, his hands on her buttocks guiding her, helping her set the rhythm of their loving.

Her gaze locked with his, she moved faster and faster, until the climax built inside of her. Her breath was so erratic she didn’t know if she could draw another. She threw her head back, and suddenly felt the warmth of his mouth and hands on her nipples as he drove up into her with his hips.

She came then, her body thrumming, shuddering, wrapping itself around him, drawing him in as far as it could.

He met her with his own release, his heat exploding inside of her, his groan buried against her breasts. She dropped down onto him, wrapped in his arms as she cradled him tightly against her.

Victor drew a ragged breath, tried for another, as if he had just run a marathon. Every inch of her lay draped on him, the cells of her body somehow joined to his. The heat and wet of her wrapped around him, the tremors still gripping him from within and to his surprise, he hardened again, growing rigid within her.

“Damn, Connie,” he said, almost in apology as she stiffened above him.

She rose up on one elbow and smiled at him sexily. “I may have to amend those golden rules to eliminate the too macho part,” she teased and rolled over, settling him deep within her. “And I won’t ever regret it.”

Chapter 12

Connie fought off awakening, wanting to savor her first morning with Victor. The heat of his body bathed the length of her. She was tucked under his shoulder, her head resting on his chest, along with her left arm in its cast. One thigh was draped carelessly over his leg and there was a slight soreness between her legs, not quite unpleasant, which gave testimony to the many firsts of the night before.

“Con?” Victor’s voice drifted up from his chest as a low rumble beneath her ear. His arm was wrapped around her waist and his long fingers idly traced the curve of her hip.

She rubbed a hand across the light mat of hair on his chest and mumbled a lazy, “Mmm?”

“Good morning,” he said sleepily and tightened his hold on her waist.

“It will be a good morning if you tell me you have nothing to do today.” She ran her nail over one of his flat nipples and shifted her head higher against his thigh, feeling … well, feeling wanton, although she had never thought of herself in such terms. Against the top of her leg, he began to stir, his erection tightening, and she continued moving her hand across the muscles of his chest, enjoying her newfound abandon.

There was a sexy satisfied smile on her face, one Victor had not seen before. Another facet to her many sides. He sensed this side of her was one with which she wasn’t all that familiar, but it was one he with which he wanted to get oh so familiar.

“Ah, Con … I do have something to do today,” he answered and took her hand, stilling its movement against his chest. “I have to spend the day catering to your every whim.”

She chuckled and bit his ear lobe playfully. “Well, let’s see. I’d like to take a nice long jog, four or five miles or so. Sunbathe. Eat.” She shifted suddenly and straddled his hips. “Make love to you again. Like last night. Like you did to me.”

Warmth traveled to her face, bringing a flush to her breasts as she looked down at him and moved her hands from his chest to his abdomen. She traced the ripped muscles and dropped her head to place a kiss against his navel. As she did so, her breasts rubbed against him, and he hardened and groaned. “Con, this is kind of what I had in mind, only ….”

She stole his breath when she took him in her soft hands and stroked him gently.

“Is this kind of what you wanted?” she teased, seemingly growing bolder before his eyes.

“I think this may just be what this doctor ordered,” he replied and gave himself over to her loving.

#

Free to spend the day — and hopefully the night — together, Connie wanted to hold him to his earlier promise to cater to her every whim. But she was concerned with displaying too much of herself in the South Beach area before her undercover role officially began. The solution was for them to spend the time at Victor’s home before going to her parents’ for Sunday dinner.

“Are you comfortable with this, Con?” Victor asked as they pulled into his driveway.

No, she really wasn’t, but it was time she dragged herself into the twenty-first century. “I’m okay, it’s just —”

“Something you don’t normally do,” he finished for her. He reached out, took hold of the hand with the cast, and dropped a quick kiss across her exposed knuckles. “I don’t either. I wouldn’t have suggested this unless my parents were away right now. It’s just between us and we can keep it just between us until you’re ready.”

It eased her conscience somewhat. She wasn’t used to these kinds of things, especially since it was happening so fast. For today she was going to try to act like the independent liberated woman she wanted to be.

She faced him. “Up for that jog?”

He groaned and dropped his head on the steering wheel. “How many miles did I promise you?”

Connie pinched his side and then stepped out of the car. “Four or five, but I’ll settle for three. A man with your stamina,” she teased in her best Groucho Marx-like voice, wiggling her eyebrows, “should be able to do that without a problem.”

Victor raised his head to face her. “I think I’ve created a monster.”

#

They jogged a few laps along the road that circled the island before heading back to his parents’ house. Victor had provided her the use of a guest bedroom, obviously not wanting to pressure her right away, and she changed out of her sweaty clothes and took a quick shower.

When she emerged from the bathroom, she rummaged through her bag, and pulled out the two bathing suits she had brought with her. She stood before a cheval mirror in one corner of the room and draped the simple black maillot before her, considering it. Then she put it to the side, and grabbed the two small pieces of bright red cloth that posed as a swimsuit. Carmen had convinced her that this was the kind of suit she would need to draw attention to herself on South Beach.

She held up the tiny crimson scraps of fabric. They covered little and she put them back down, shifted the maillot against her again, and wondered which Victor might like best. The black or the red, she wavered again, and shifted the two suits back and forth in front of her body.

Then inspiration struck. She tossed aside the maillot and shimmied into the bikini. After all, his car was red, so it had to be his favorite color.

#

They spent the remainder of the day by the pool, sprawled in chaise lounges, sunning themselves before cooling their bodies with an occasional dip in the chill waters. Connie was careful to keep the cast from getting wet, but wished she could go for a real swim. At lunch time, Victor fixed some fresh fruit, cheeses, bread, and tall glasses of iced tea for them to share.

He hadn’t said much about the suit, but his eyes had almost eaten her alive. Lying beside him, not touching except for the occasional brush of their hands or his smoothing lotion on her body, was almost more erotic than making love, especially knowing he wanted her from the hooded look in his eyes. The anticipation of it had her very nearly breathless for the better part of the day as she waited for him to fulfill the promise that was so blatant in his gaze.

But he didn’t, seeming to want to keep her on the edge. As dinner time approached, he asked if she wanted to go out, but Connie didn’t think she could handle being with others and having them intrude on this very intimate time.

She helped Victor grill some steaks on the barbecue and make a quick salad. They ate on the terrace surrounding the pool, talking quietly, finding out about their lives pre-relationship. As the day lengthened, Victor suggested they move to a small dock behind the house to watch the sunset.

Connie nodded, stood, and helped him clear the dishes from the table. She followed him back to the house and once inside, shivered as the air conditioning hit her body. “Why don’t you go change into something warmer?” he offered.

“Sure. Meet you in the back?”

“Sounds good. Think you can find the dock?” He loaded the plates into the dishwasher.

Connie smiled. “Head for the water and stop before I fall in?”

He laughed. “That sounds about right. I’ll meet you there in a few minutes.”

Once Victor had finished, he went to his room and within a minute or so he had changed into khaki shorts and a T-shirt. With a quick detour past the kitchen to open a bottle of wine and get some glasses, he exited back onto the terrace and walked to its edge. Beyond the flagstone there was a small bank of grass that in turn led to a cement seawall and a wooden dock.

He strolled to the end of the dock and sat on the edge that faced the Causeway and the Port of Miami. Setting the bottle of wine and glasses on the wood planking, he dangled his feet above the water. He leaned back on his arms and savored the growing quiet of the night. From behind came the slap-slap-slap of the water on the hull of his parents’ toy, a small speedboat. A gull swooped by, screeching a welcome before it dove into the bay and came up with a fish in its beak. The high-pitched hum of an engine signaled the approach of another boat and a sleek, bright teal Cigarette sped by in the waters of the bay. The boat’s powerful engines kicked up the aqua waters, sending a wake of white foam racing toward the dock. When the small swells reached him, the pilings shuddered, moving slightly. The slap-slap-slap grew louder and more erratic from the movement of the water as it passed by and then echoed off the seawall.

Amidst the cacophony of waves, gulls and engine came a footfall. He turned and Connie was approaching. She wore a light green polo shirt that brought out goldish highlights in her eyes. The khaki shorts she had slipped on hit her mid-thigh, exposing her long beautiful legs. He held out his hand in invitation and guided her to sit next to him. Her feet dangled close to a foot above his, which were almost skimming the surface of the water.

Victor poured glasses of wine and offered her one. Connie took it and leaned against the deck piling, sipping her wine. She let out a long sigh as the sun colored the sky with a warning that dusk was on its way.

“Do you order these perfect sunsets for us?” she teased.

“Maybe they’re perfect because I’m with you,” he answered honestly, wanting her to know just how much she meant to him.

Connie leaned into him and murmured her content.

The sun set nearly twenty minutes later, but they lingered on the dock, watching the lights come on in the skyscrapers of downtown Miami and on the cruise ships berthed in the Government Cut, waiting to pull out to sea.

Unlike the night before, tonight there was just a sliver of a moon, and it was almost pitch black on the dock, except for the small lights along its edge to warn boaters of its presence. Despite those lights, Victor could barely see her.

“Ready to go indoors?” he asked.

Connie tried to see his features, but it was too dark. She rose, held his hand, and urged him to follow her. She picked her path back to the house gingerly, unable to see more than a few feet before her in the almost moonliess night. Finally they were back on the flagstone of the pool terrace. She hesitated, unsure of where to go next, but Victor wasn’t about to let her procrastinate.

He swung her up into his arms, carrying her weight in his arms as if it was nothing. Purposefully, he strode into his wing through a French door he had apparently left open earlier. It led right into his bedroom.

The décor of the room was what she would have chosen for her own home. Rough plastered walls were done in a pale, cream color and washed with a darker glaze to accentuate the texture of the wall. Wrought iron sconces fitted with handmade mullioned glass cast soft shadows in the room.

The furniture was Spanish-style, rich with dark woods, tapestried cushions, and leather. Two chairs and a sofa were clustered around a low coffee table near the doors. He bypassed them, heading for the center of the room where the bed took center stage.

Here he had broken somewhat from the traditional since the bed was a wrought iron frame with upright posters that met canopy bars. Draped along the bars in what appeared to be careless abandon, but had likely taken hours, was a deep cream-colored fabric.
Probably raw linen
, she thought as he rounded the corner of the bed with her and laid her gently amongst the rumpled sheets.

She toed off her deck shoes and cuddled onto the pillows. He turned on a brighter light on the night table and she squinted as her eyes adjusted from the earlier darkness. Then he joined her on the bed, moving the pillows against the headboard, and pulling her against his side.

Connie settled into the gap between his arm and shoulder. Victor wrapped his arms around her waist and slipped his hands beneath the slight gap between her shirt and shorts. His hands were warm against the night chill her skin had picked up out on the dock.

“That feels good,” she said.

“Everything about you feels good,” he whispered against her ear, his voice low and all too tempting.

“Is sex all you have on the brain lately?” she teased, although in fairness, that was all she’d had on her mind the entire day.

He chuckled and moved his hands off her bare skin and back to safer ground. “I must confess that I’ve been thinking about
you
all day.”

She turned and moved away until she could sit cross-legged next to him. “Every one of my interrogations should go this easily.”

Victor eyed her and leaned close. “So I’m easy, huh? Are we adding that to the other labels you’ve already tagged me with?”

Her dark coffee-colored eyes glittered, but not with humor. “Easy? Why does it seem as if things between us aren’t necessarily going to be easy?”

He shrugged, reached out, and took hold of her hand, tracing the fragile lines of her bones. Feeling for the first time a trace of fear at how vulnerable she might soon be when she went undercover. “You and me,” he said, motioning to the two of them. “We don’t lead easy lives. We’re always being pulled in all directions. By our jobs, our ambitions, even by our pasts.”

Her gaze met his and he hoped she would open up to him, try to solve for him the puzzle that she was. “Tell me about you. What it was like for you, back in Cuba and here?”

Connie looked away uneasily, but she finally nodded. “What’s there to say about Cuba? Our homeland ….”

She paused, questioning him with her gaze, and he answered, “Yeah, I was born there, although we left when I was pretty young. I don’t remember very much on my own. Just what my parents and relatives have told me. What I’ve read over the years.”

“Well, I remember,” she said unhappily. “But the Cuba I left was nothing like what it must have been like at one time. There was never enough of anything and everything beautiful was in a state of decay.”

“We wanted to leave for so long, but it took time to get exit visas. In the meantime, you kept your mouth shut and did whatever you were told to do.”

Victor nodded and sensing her upset and hesitation, he urged her to go on with a gentle squeeze of her hand.

She continued. “I was the best in my class. That meant I was going to be slated for special things. My parents were afraid that I would be sent away.”

“Is that when your family decided to leave?” he asked, wanting to understand what made her tick.

Connie shrugged and held his hand tightly. “We had decided a long time before that. Every now and then we’d hear talk about someone managed to raft through the straits successfully. And then ….”