Pure Lust (Lust for Life) (5 page)

“You were my first crush, you know,” he said, completely
catching her off guard.

They’d been talking all evening from the car ride to the
airport until the moment he asked her to dance, remembering things about
school, sharing stories about their adult lives. As Claire kept her gaze locked
on his she realized this was different, this confession, and she wasn’t quite
sure what it meant. All she knew was it cooled her off somewhat, and she knew exactly
why.

“With all the girls you used to talk to in school, I’m
having a hard time believing that’s true, Diego,” she admitted, then regretted
it when it made him frown.

They’d been having a great time the whole night, and she was
about to ruin it.

One of his arms went back around her waist to hold her
close, the other continued to wander, and all the while the slow sway of his
hips never stopped. “Because no one could have possibly found the shy, chubby
girl of the class pretty? Or desirable?”

She snorted up an embarrassing laugh. “Desirable? At eleven
years old?”

He made an appreciative humming sound she heard above the
music. “You had that long, strawberry-scented hair that always got all over my
desk when you would flick it over your shoulders, like you knew it was
torturing me.”

The fact that he remembered that little detail made her
blush. She’d used Alberto VO5 strawberry shampoo right up until she moved into
a dorm room with three other girls her freshman year of college. Her roommates
had teased her about using what they called baby shampoo until she’d switched
just to shut them up and get them to leave her alone.

“It used to drive me out of my mind, watching you put
bubble-gum lip gloss on that sexy mouth of yours all the time. It gave me a
stiffy every time, right there at my desk.” He held up one hand, finger and
thumb an inch apart. “It was this big.”

That made the flush in her cheeks go just a little hotter,
but she laughed.

“It’s a little bigger now,” he added, and moved his fingers
another half inch apart.

“Liar, liar,” she said, and shifted her hips to let him know
she’d felt his much bigger than an inch and a half dick getting harder against
her belly as he’d been talking.

His answering smile was all she could see for a moment, as
if she were looking directly into the sun. And then he was kissing her with
that lush mouth, deeply and as if no one else in the world existed but the two
of them, let alone a six-man blues band and a couple dozen bar patrons, two of
them possible swingers.

She could hardly breathe from the way he was holding her so
close, scrambling her thoughts and nervous system alike with his kiss, flooding
her system with the most deliciously overwhelming desire.

“You want to get out of here?” he asked in a low, rough tone
she barely heard.

She licked her lips and nodded quickly. “Yeah I kinda do.”

But he didn’t take her to a hotel the way she might have
been expecting. In fact, the surprise on her face when he took her hand outside
the blues club and started walking was a good sign. He wanted her so primed she
was willing to rip his clothes off to get to him before that happened. Even if
it killed him to wait.

Which it might. He couldn’t stop thinking about the way she
felt in his arms. There was so much more to it than just the ripe lushness of
her body and the mind-boggling passionate way she returned every one of his
kisses. He wasn’t usually the kind of man who spent much time speculating on
how a woman was in bed, because there was no way to know until the deed was
being done, but he got the distinct feeling Claire had been missing something
when it came to sex.

There was a shy reservation to her in the first few seconds
when they kissed, as if she was waiting for him to let her know she was either
doing it right or wrong, but once she softened, melted…hot damn it was
head-spinning stuff. He got hard just thinking about the way her plump lips
parted and her sweet tongue tangled with his. And that soft, submissive whimper
she made when he really kissed her deep made him want nothing else in the world
than to hear her crying out his name as he made her come, his hips between her
luscious thighs, cock buried deep inside her.

But instead of taking her to a hotel and making that happen
the way he wanted, they walked to an all-night diner he knew about in the same
neighborhood as the blues club. They ordered breakfast and continued to get to
know each other while they ate. The sun started to rise over the tops of the
buildings, and pretty soon they weren’t the only customers in the place,
nursing their cups of coffee while they waited for it to be time to go back to
the airport to catch their return flight home.

“That was some kind of first date,” she told him once they’d
settled into the seat of their private, first class compartment. “Do you woo
all the ladies in such a big way?”

Diego could tell she was half teasing, half fishing for
information.

“No,” he answered honestly. Dating for him was usually kept
to the requisite pre-sex dinner and dancing, if a date was necessary at all.
“This was a first for me.”

She smiled and looked out the window at her opposite side.
“Yeah, me too.”

The captain hadn’t called for them to put their seatbelts on
just yet, so he turned in his seat toward her.

“Are there a lot of women?” she asked quietly.

He paused, then lightly rested his hand on her knee since it
had already been heading that way. “I date quite a bit,” he answered, softening
it as much as he could.

She turned to him, her big, chocolate-colored eyes searching
his. “Do they know about one another?”

Diego groaned internally. Since she’d asked he would tell,
but the answer could quite possibly send her running for the hills, and that
was the last thing he wanted.

He took a deep breath. “When I was still working on the road
there were several women in the different cities where I traveled that I would
see when I was in town. They all knew about each other, and they all knew I
wasn’t looking to settle down.”

Her gaze never wavered from his. “And you’re still not.”

He shook his head.

“What about the women from the other cities?”

“We’ve all said our goodbyes.”

She turned back toward the window. “And there’s no one in
San Francisco?”

“No one.” He kept his hand still despite the fact that he
wanted to slide it under her skirt and take her mind off the conversation they
were having.

“What about in Toledo?” she asked so quietly he barely heard
her.

He leaned close to her and admitted. “There’s only you,
Claire.”

It was true that his phone had been ringing off the hook
since he’d arrived, but between family visits, getting his loft ready to sell
and being preoccupied with getting some time with Claire, he hadn’t made plans
with anyone else. Hadn’t even promised a vague “Let me get back to you.”

She turned and didn’t so much as flinch to find him leaning
so close. “And will it be only me until you have to go back to California?”

The eleven-year-old boy still alive and well inside of him
let out a victorious shout.

“Only you,” he promised.

A sparkle laced with generous doses of mischief and
confidence came into her eyes. She pulled the hem of her skirt up until his
hand was touching nothing but her silky-soft skin. “Then you may proceed,” she
told him, making both of them laugh.

He slid his hand to the inside of her leg and squeezed a
handful of warm, delicious flesh. A groan moved up from his chest as he closed
the few inches between them and claimed her willing mouth.

There was an insistent cough from across the aisle. Diego
ignored it, but it was almost immediately followed by the loud clearing of a
throat. He reluctantly broke free from Claire’s mouth and looked over his
shoulder to find a man and his teenage son sitting across from them. The son
was openly gaping at them. The father had his eyebrows raised in a silent
request to knock it the fuck off.

He removed his hand and gave the man an apologetic wave.
When he turned back to Claire, she was looking out the window again, hand over
her mouth to keep from laughing, her cheeks flushed with either arousal or
embarrassment, he couldn’t tell.

“Maybe we should wait until we’re in the air.” He spoke low
and close to her ear.

There was a curtain they could close once the plane was
airborne.

She put her hand to the side of his face when he snuck a
kiss to her neck and whispered, “I think that’s a good idea.”

But she fell asleep before the flight had reached full
altitude. Diego closed the curtain anyway and closed his eyes, resting without
really sleeping during the flight. She came awake right away the moment the
pilot announced they were starting to descend, apologetic for missing out on
the moment they could have shared.

He thought maybe she would doze off again on the short drive
from the airport back to her house, but she stayed with him. They were silent
but the sense of anticipation was thick in the air between them. He could tell
she was looking at him as he drove, but she didn’t shy away whenever he would
look back. There was something about her open gaze that made him even hungrier
for her every time their eyes met.

Her neighborhood was coming alive for the day as they drove
through it. People were walking their dogs, running, sitting on their front
porches with their morning coffee, or already working in their yards. It was
idyllic, the little slice of Americana she’d created for herself, with her
small but perfect house in the middle of it all.

He parked in her driveway and went around to open her door
for her, and as she stood, she wrapped her arms around his neck. Their mouths
met and he found her just as hungry as he was feeling. His head spun as their
tongues danced eagerly. He wrapped his arms around her, still standing in the
open car door, and pulled her close so she could feel how hard he’d already
gotten for her.

That impossibly sexy little whimper she made shot through
every nerve ending in his body. He slid both hands over her amazing ass and
hauled her even closer despite the fact that he was already so aroused it was
going to be a serious test of his control once they were finally naked
together.

He was seconds away from picking her up so she would maybe
wrap her legs around him when he felt something brush solidly against the backs
of his calves. Surprised, he broke free from the kiss and found a very large
white cat rubbing against him.

“Hey, there,” he said as it turned and brushed against him a
second time.

It looked up at him and meowed and he realized it only had
one good eye. The eyelid of the other was closed but the socket was clearly
empty.

“Popeye,” Claire gasped and slipped out of the space they’d
been sharing to pick up the cat and clutch him against her. The cat purred and
rubbed against her chin, but her expression had gone both confused and
frightened as she turned toward her house. “What are you doing outside?” she
asked, as if the cat could answer.

“He’s yours?” Diego asked, not remembering seeing a cat when
he picked her up.

“Yes, and he’s not supposed to be out here.”

They both turned toward the house at the same time and found
the front door open just wide enough for the cat to get out.

Claire whispered, “Oh my God.”

“Do you have your phone?” he asked. When she answered yes he
said, “Call the police from the car. I’ll go in and look around.”

“I’m going in with you,” she insisted, her eyes big with a
mixture of fear and anger.

He turned back to her. “What if whoever broke in is still
inside? And what if they have a gun?”

Her resolve didn’t waver. “Then I’ll be a witness when he or
she shoots the first person through the door.” She gave him a look and moved as
though she meant to go around him and added, “Or you will.”

He caught her by the arms and stopped her. “There’s no way
you’re going in there first.” He got out his phone since she hadn’t yet and
dialed 911.

He handed Claire the phone since it was her house and led
her through the front door cautiously, making sure she stayed safely behind
him. They made their way through the house together, Claire explaining to the
dispatcher that nothing seemed to have been touched as they went from room to
room. The back door was standing wide open, but there was no damage to the
frame or locks.

“Does anyone you know have a key?” he asked when he hung up.

She put her hands to her face and leaned against the
counter, looking both bewildered and frightened. “Lin and my parents, but they
didn’t know I wasn’t home last night, and none of them would have left the
house wide open like that.”

“What about the guy from the Buick?” He went to her and put
his arms around her, drew her in close.

She shook her head and looked over his shoulder, her arms
pinned lightly between their bodies. “We didn’t date long enough for me to have
given him a key. He was only here once for dinner, but I called it off shortly
after that.” She looked up at him and he could feel her start to tremble. “Do
you think he would have done this?”

“I never met the guy, but if he’s creepy enough to stalk you
at work, I think it’s worth telling the police about him when they get here.”

She nodded, jerky and nervous, then let her breath out in a
rush and rested her forehead on his shoulder. “What a crappy way to end such a
great night,” she muttered.

He should have been ashamed of the way finding her house
broken into had done absolutely nothing to squash the desire that had been
stoked throughout the night, but it hadn’t, and he wasn’t. He buried his nose
in her hair and drew in a deep breath of her amazing scent.

“You had a great night?” he asked, his mouth close to her
ear.

Her arms came down and wrapped around his waist. “The night
of my life,” she said, and turned her face into his neck.

He skimmed his hands down her back and over her hips. “Well,
the rest of it should be happening as we speak, but I’m glad you enjoyed the
first part.”

She looked up at him, the barest of smiles touching her
lips. “I’m going to kill whoever did this when they get caught.”

“We’ll take turns making it a slow death,” he assured her.

The police arrived within a few minutes to take their
statements, not that there was much to tell them. After they left she called
Lin’s husband Mark, who arrived within half an hour to begin installing cameras
outside her front and back doors.

Knowing she was safe with Mark there, Diego went home to
shower and change, grab his tools and stop by the hardware store for new locks
and deadbolts for both her front and back doors—neither of which had anything
more than the lock in the doorknob. When he got back to her house he found
she’d changed into jeans and a t-shirt as well, Mark had finished installing
the front-door camera and was just starting on the back, so Diego went to work
changing the locks on the front door first.

It didn’t take as long as Diego would have thought to
connect the feed from the cameras to both the company’s mainframe and Claire’s
computer, located in the tiny second bedroom that served as her home office. It
was mid-afternoon by the time Mark left and they found themselves alone again.

“You didn’t have to stay all day,” she said, looking
mournfully at the split-screen camera feedback on her computer screen. “And you
didn’t have to do all that work.” She turned to him. “But thank you. For both.”

“I was happy to do it.” It wasn’t a lie. He would have much
rather just be getting out of bed in search of food and water at the moment,
but he wouldn’t have just ditched her after that kind of scare. “Are you
hungry?”

Her gaze held his for a moment, then dropped to his mouth.
“No,” she said, and touched the tips of her fingers to his bottom lip. “Not for
food anyway.”

“You might not be thinking clearly on no sleep and the
aftereffects of that adrenaline rush,” he warned playfully, putting his hands on
her waist anyway.

But she’d pressed her body and mouth to his so hard and fast
he staggered back into the bookcase behind him. Blood surged to his cock in a
rush. He gripped her ass and held her close, letting her lean as hard into his
body as she wanted, push her tongue as deep into his mouth as she needed.

After a moment of indulging in the most delicious, welcome
assault, he shoved away from the bookcase and started to walk her backward out
the door, pulling her t-shirt over her head as he went. They came apart with a
gasp. Her eyes had gone dark, pupils dilated wide, and her already kiss-swollen
lips were parted, her breathing heavy.