July (Calendar Girl #7) (11 page)

He caught up to me as I picked up my pace. “You are unbelievable.”

With a hip bump to his side, he staggered. “You better believe it! It’s all real.”

Wes reached for me again and caught me close. “And all mine.” Then he kissed me. Not a soft kiss. Not a hard kiss. A downright knock-down, drag-out, precursor to boning type kiss that made me pant, moan into his mouth, grip his hair, and pull him closer. I wanted more, and I didn’t care where we were or how I got it, just that he gave it to me. Now.

“Want you…”I whispered between licks and sweet, drugging sucks of his succulent mouth.

He grinned, and I could feel his smile against my teeth, his hand locked into my hair. “I know,” he whispered then tugged on me and gripped my hand. “Come, like you said, we have a million miles of lawn to traipse through, and I, for one, want to get you back so I can ravish you.”

I followed, a little dazed and a bit annoyed play time was over, yet equally anticipating more play time when we got back. “Where’s the exit?”

He tipped his head back and laughed, a deep, throaty sound that I absolutely adored. Wes gave good laugh. Then again, Wes gave good everything. “Soon baby. Anticipation sweetheart, makes everything more intense. We’ve got all night.”

Pinching my lips together, I sneered, “But one of us has to work tomorrow and wants her man to exhaust her tonight, not by trailing through unending paths and lovely gardens, but by plundering her garden,” I wiggled my eyebrows suggestively.

“Wicked woman!”

“That’s right. No rest for the wicked. So come on, make me tired.” I grinned, and he lifted me up in a princess hold and spun me around in a circle. It was fun; it was carefree. It was Wes and me.

***

The instant the elevator doors closed, he was on me. His hands were all over my body, his tongue in my mouth. Claiming, consuming, devouring. The hand rail around the elevator dug into my back, and I mewled and winced. Wes’s hands roamed down my back until he felt the offending bar and slid his hands over my ass and down to my thighs where he promptly lifted me. I was happy about this for two reasons. One, the bar was no longer digging a hole through my spine, and two, it put his cock exactly where I wanted it, pressing hard against my love button. It was wild, wicked, and just what I wanted.

The doors opened, which should have stopped the very overt public display of affection, but we were too far gone, until the sound of laughter and the elevator not moving pierced through the fog that was Wes. He too moved his head infinitesimally from my mouth and took in the two bodies standing there, Anton holding the door of the elevator open and Heather holding her hand over her mouth to try and contain the escaping peals of laughter.

“
Lucita
...” Anton’s voice was laced with humor. Then he looked at Wes. “I’m guessing you’re the man in her life,” his voice as smooth as honey and just as sweet. His eyes danced with mirth and his lips pursed into a pout. “Glad you finally showed up. At least you can touch her.” His pale green eyes took in the display before him not even a little flummoxed. It was as if he saw this kind of thing every day. And knowing Anton and his penchant for women—lots and lots of women, in his bed or otherwise—I could see why this didn’t bother him a bit.

Heather waved hysterically from a foot behind Anton. Wes made an uncomfortable noise from deep in his throat that sounded like part growl, part annoyed boyfriend. I chuckled and unwound my legs from his waist, and he let me down but didn’t allow me to go far, probably because he was sporting serious wood. And by serious, I meant a massive, long, hard, cock ready to go. I pouted, missing it against me as much as I think he did right then.

Wes’s eyes narrowed at Anton as he held out a hand and we stepped off the elevator on my floor. Anton shook the outstretched hand. “So Mia didn’t mention you were coming, but I imagine after that
cabron
attacked her last month, you needed to see your girl. Respect man. Mad respect.” He clapped him on the back.

“Excuse me? What guy? Attacked Mia?”

Anton’s face jolted back. The shit was about to hit the fan. I tried to give hand signals, throw up flares, wave down the plane, but nothing stopped him. He gripped Wes by the shoulder. “Ah, don’t worry. Her secret is safe with me. The no-touching thing though, shit man, she’s beautiful, and a man wants to put his hands on her even in a friendly way, you know. Well”—he grinned pointing to the elevator—“you know.” He winked. “That
bastardo
that did it uninvited, put her in the hospital; you must have been downright
loco
eh?”

Wes stopped on the way to my temporary apartment. His eyes narrowed, and both hands turned into white fists. He shot a guarded glance my way. “You were attacked? A man put you in the hospital? A fucking client?” The calm way he asked was scary, downright frightening because it was laced with venom. “Mia? Answer me.”

I stood still, tears forming in my eyes. “It wasn’t that bad,” I whispered.

“Did this guy also try to touch you uninvited?” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward where Anton stood obviously misunderstanding what Anton meant to say.

My eyes widened and I opened my mouth to speak but something on my face registered wrong and he flipped around and had Anton by the throat against the wall. “Did you fucking touch her?!” Wes slammed his body once against the wall. Anton recovered quickly and put his hands to Wes’s forearms. I feared he’d start a brawl. He didn’t. Anton went still and allowed Wes to hold him against the wall; Wes’s arms shook with the effort. “I asked you a question,” he shouted.

“No.” A single word, his eyes directly on Wes, challenging him not to believe the truth.

I placed my hands on Wes’s back, not knowing what to do. I didn’t want to make it worse. Tears scuttled down my cheeks. “Wes, baby, Anton has been trying to help me get past what happened. Please, let him go. We’ll talk. Me and you. He didn’t hurt me.”

“What’s this about you not being able to touch her? Why the fuck would you even say that?” he thundered right up in Anton’s face.

Again, Anton showed the patience of a Saint, which was odd, because I knew he boxed for sport and worked out like a mad man. He could probably take Wes, or at the very least, destroy this hallway trying. “When she came to me, she couldn’t even handle a simple hug. It was bad, man.” I sunk to me knees.

No. No. No. No.

Wes wasn’t supposed to know. I didn’t want this ruined. It was too new, too important. Now he would see that I was damaged. Not good enough for him. I hadn’t had enough time with him. Heather shouted something I couldn’t even hear through the roaring noise in my head. I was lifted up in a flourish, held in the cocoon of the only arms I ever wanted to be in again. Wes.

“Sweetheart, I’m sorry. Baby, it’s okay, it’s okay.” I trembled against his chest. Somehow he got into my apartment and sat on the couch with me curled up in his lap. He held me for a long time while I cried. He soothed me, petted my hair, whispered sweet nothings to me. Finally, parched, he got me to take a few sips of water from a glass that appeared from out of nowhere.

“We’ll leave you.
Amigo
, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.
Puneta! Lo siento
.”

“If you need anything, I left our cards on the counter. I’ll touch base with you later. Take care of our girl,” Heather said.

Our girl. They thought I was their girl, but the only girl I wanted to be was Wes’s girl. I sniffed against Wes’s neck, enjoying the ocean scent, wishing we were at his place in Malibu, not in Miami in a strange albeit nice apartment.

“Hey, you okay?” He tilted my head up and wiped away the remaining tears as I nodded. “You hungry?” I shook my head. “Thirsty?” Same response. “What do you need?”

“I need you to love me.”

“Mia, I’ve loved you from the moment you took off your helmet at the beach. Hell, maybe it even happened before, when Mom showed me your photos on the website. I knew then I had to have you. And not just in my bed.” He squeezed me tight. “Though I love that too.” He grinned wickedly. “With you, Mia, it’s always been more. Everything about you calls to me. Your body makes me weak with desire. Your love of life and new things makes me want to set the world at your feet just so I can see you smile. I’ll love you today, tomorrow, and every day after that.”

“Prove it.”

He groaned and then sighed. “Sweetheart, we need to talk.”

“Prove it,” I pleaded, my voice bordering on begging.

He ran a hand through his dirty blond layers and down his face. “Fuck me,” he grumbled.

“Exactly. Fuck me.”

He shook his head. “Not tonight. Tonight I’m going to worship you.”

Back and forth. Back and forth. Stop abruptly. Tug the hair. Scowl. Mumble profanity. Turn. Repeat.

I watched Wes pace the floor, figuratively burning the tread off his shoes in the process. He stopped suddenly, clenched both hands into fists and faced me. “I’m going to fucking kill him. I’ll
ruin
him. Political career”—he made a slashing gesture with his hand—“over. He’s going to pay in blood!”

“He already did.” I glanced up when the chill in the room turned white hot. Wes’s eyes were dark, pitch black with only a tiny ring of translucent green around them. “Mason beat the hell out of him,” I whispered, the words trailing off. Gulping down the dry ball of newspaper that had built like paper Mache in my throat, I tried to speak, but the look in his eyes kept me silent.

Wes’s eyebrows narrowed so severely a gnarly pair of eleven’s worked its way above his nose. “Mason? Who the fuck is Mason?”

I blinked at the grating tone of his voice. “Uh...uh, Mace is an ex-client…” Wes’s eyes went dead flat, devoid of feeling then widened. “Friend,” I amended.

Back to pacing.

“I can’t believe this. My girlfriend gets attacked, by a scumbag”—he turned on a heel and kept walking—“and ends up in the hospital, and I’m not told jack shit about it! Jesus Christ, Mia! This is so fucked up.” It probably wouldn’t do any good to point out that we hadn’t officially determined the status of our relationship until yesterday, but I thought it might go over worse than a hole to the head. He stood still, his eyes closed, jaw ticking with the extreme way he was holding his mouth so tight. “I don’t know what to do.”

Jumping up, I grabbed his hands, brought them up between us and rubbed out the tension until they loosened. “Baby, there’s nothing you can do.”

He bit down hard on his lip, so much so that I worried he’d break through the tender flesh until he drew blood. “Mia, I’m so angry.” His voice was raw and pained. “I need to do something.” His eyes opened and found mine.

“No. You need to see to
me
. Help me. That’s what you can do. It’s over.”

And it was. I had spent the last hour going over in excruciating detail what happened, the moments leading up to the assault and the fallout. Through it all, Wes held my hand, sat patiently while I retold the horrific experience, and caressed my back, wiped my tears and more. He listened and didn’t react until afterward. Once I’d told him an acceptable version of what Aaron did to me that night and the time before, when he inappropriately touched me while I slept…that’s when Wes started the pacing. And profanity. Next came anger.

Wes shook his head and clutched at his hair for the umpteenth time. “It’s not over. There’s a god damned whole in my gut. Sweetheart, the only thing that’s going to fix this is me taking that fucker down. Don’t you see?” His eyes blazed as his hands shook. “He hurt the woman I love. Badly. He needs to feel that pain.”

“Like I said, he is. He has to go to a therapist, AA, and more. Baby, if this hits the news or anyone finds out about what happened, the ramifications will hurt a lot more people than just Aaron. Hundreds, possibly thousands more in other countries. Warren, his Dad, he’ll have to pull out of the project. His investors would never support a man whose son is a sexual predator and a drunk. Please try to understand.”

And back to the pacing. I knew by the slump of his shoulders that he got it. We’d already been over it. I told him about Warren’s business, about the work he was doing, about the contributions pouring in and how all that could very well stop if something this heinous came out. The good ol’ boys club would crucify him and take their money with them. Weston knew that. He agreed to it because, if faced with the same circumstances, he would pull funding.

“Wes, there’s also the backlash…” I tried to broach the very sticky subject of my work and how the rest of the world would view me.

His eyes narrowed, and he leaned against the edge of the chair across from me. “Backlash?”

I nodded. “Yeah. On you, on Alec, Mason, Tony, Hector, the D’Amico’s, Tai, Anton; it’s too much to risk to go for a full-court-press-style justice for what he did.”

“Sweetheart, you’re losing me. Who are all those people?”

And that was when it got real. Very real. The kind of real that either made couples stronger or broke them forever. I had no choice.

“Wes, you know I’m an escort. The general public thinks that means I’m a well-paid hooker, and in some instances, that information could be inferred as correct.” He huffed and let out a long breath. “Also, securing me as an escort means that the people who can afford me are all big in their own right.”

“I’m not following. Explain it.” He spoke in a way that I found rather ruthless. He wanted to go there? Fine. I’d take him.

I shrugged. “You asked for it.”

Looping a finger around the opposite hands first finger I called them off. “Aside from Warren and his help the poor in third world countries, the clients immediately before him were the D’Amico’s. I did the Beauty Comes In All Sizes campaign. News that they hired an escort to model for them could destroy what they built.”

Wes pointed at me. “I actually saw the campaign. Was really proud of you, sweetheart. You looked great. Amazing really.” I beamed under his compliment. It made me feel amazing that Wes was proud of the work I’d done. “Next?”

“Mason Murphy.” Wes’s eyes widened in recognition. “Yep, the famous baseball player for the Boston Red Sox. Was hired by him to be his girlfriend to perfect his image. In the end, it actually worked, and he did find his mate in his PR representative.”