Best Kept Secrets (28 page)

Smiling, she curtsied gracefully. “Pretty enough?”

Samuel took her left hand, raised it to his mouth, and kissed the back of it. “You are incredible.”

Teresa lost count of the number of times he’d said she was incredible, and she wanted to ask him incredible how. Was he drawn to her because he thought her pretty, smart, or because she was a woman? She prayed it was the latter.

Lowering her lashes, she smiled. “Thank you, Samuel.”

Tightening his grip on her hand, Samuel tucked it into the bend of his elbow over the jacket of his custom-tailored white
linen suit. “You’re welcome, Teresa.” He lifted his eyebrows. “Are you ready?”

She met his mysterious, dark eyes. “Where are we going?”

Running a forefinger down the length of her delicate nose, he shook his head. “No guesses. You’ll find out when we get there.”

Teresa tried extracting her hand from his firm grip. “Wait a minute, Samuel Cole. How did you make arrangements to go somewhere when you admit to not speaking Spanish?”

Samuel smiled and angled his head. “I told you I can’t carry on an in-depth conversation, but I do know enough to ask where’s a good place to eat.” Teresa gave him a look that said she didn’t believe him. “We’re going to El Café Americano. It’s a place not far from here, and a lot of Americans from the States congregate there. It’s also a popular hangout for sailors on shore leave. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”

She flashed a sensual moue. “A little.”

“What else are you curious about,
Chica?
”

A slight frown furrowed Teresa’s smooth forehead. Was he calling her
Chica
because he thought of her as a little girl, or was it an endearment? Her frown faded as quickly as it’d appeared. She did not want to ruin her time with Samuel by questioning and analyzing everything he did or said.

“Nada, Papi,”
she teased.

It was Samuel’s turn to frown. “I’m not old enough to be your father.”

Teresa pressed her body to his. Tilting her chin, she gave him a long, penetrating stare. “I know that. I used it as a
como se dice,
a
sweet nothing.”

“Like
Chica?”

“Sí, Papi.”

“Que bueno,”
Samuel countered, grinning from ear to ear.

El Café Americano was crowded with Americans from the mainland, and those who’d made the island their home since
Congress passed the Jones Act in 1917, making Puerto Rico a U.S. territory and its inhabitants U.S. citizens.

Samuel wound an arm around Teresa’s waist, holding her close to his side in an attempt to protect her from the crush of bodies waiting to be seated inside the popular dining establishment. The sound of a live band playing a Latin rhythm competed with loud voices speaking English and Spanish.

The promulgation of the Volstead Act extended to the island, but alcohol flowed as freely as water. It was obvious the owners of the establishment had paid off federal agents to look the other way.

“Do you want something to drink?” he whispered, his warm, moist breath sweeping over Teresa’s ear.

She peered at the glasses of those waiting to be seated, filled with a liquid that looked like milk. The well-dressed men were boisterous, laughing loudly while telling ribald jokes. After a few sips of the beverage, their attractive female companions laughed and flirted shamelessly. There was no doubt they were feeling very good.

“Yes.” She’d said yes when she’d never drunk anything alcoholic in her life, and because she did not want Samuel to see her as a gauche ingénue. She’d cut her hair to appear older and sophisticated.

Samuel patted her back. “Don’t run away.”

Teresa watched Samuel weave his way through the throng. What did he mean,
don’t run away?
She could not imagine running away from Samuel—not now, not ever.

Samuel sat at a small, round table with Teresa, mesmerized by her transformation. The sleek hairdo had replaced the matronly bun, and the silk dress that teased more than covered had taken the place of her perpetual white blouse and shapeless skirt. The effects of the
coquito
, a tropical eggnog, was evident by her lowered lids, parted lips and high color in her cheeks.

He knew if he did not get her up, she was going to fall asleep. Rising, he came around the table and eased her to her feet. “Let’s go,
Chica
.”

“No, Samuel. We can’t go yet.”

“Why not?”

Teresa pressed her breasts to his chest, eliciting a soft gasp from him. “The band is wonderful, and we haven’t danced together.”

Everything and everyone at the restaurant was wonderful: the friendly staff and patrons; the food; the music; and a “moonshine” rum the locals called
canita
, or
mample
. They’d shared a platter of
carne empanadas, lechon asado, tostones de platano
and a stuffed avocado salad.

Samuel stared down at the woman smiling up at him, lashes feathering over the top of her high cheekbones. His gaze, soft as a caress, followed the outline of her full, lush mouth, the short, straight nose and the arching sweep of her tawny eyebrows.

“Do you really want to dance—here?”

Teresa sobered immediately. She was under the influence of the delicious rum-laced eggnog but not enough to be intoxicated. Leaning closer, her breasts flattening against his chest, she wound her arms around his waist inside his jacket. Samuel’s body heat burned her palms through his shirt. He was on fire!

“Where do you want to dance,
Papi?
” she crooned, her voice lowering to a purr.

Aware that he’d become a willing participant in a web of seduction in which even if there had been a way to escape, he did not want to.

Lowering his head, he brushed his mouth over hers. “Back at the hotel.”

Rising on tiptoe, Teresa opened her mouth, kissing Samuel in a way she’d practiced countless times whenever she pressed her lips to the mirror in her bedroom. She’d perfected an open-and-closed-mouth kiss until she could perform the action at will.

Samuel jerked as if he’d been burned with a red-hot poker.
His eyes alone betrayed his ardor. Not taking his gaze off Teresa, he reached into his pocket and dropped a bill on the table.

He rested a hand in the small of her back as a vaguely sensuous light passed between them. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.

“Let’s go,
Chica.
”

S
amuel led Teresa into the hotel, then swung her into the circle of his arms, taking the stairs two at a time. He shifted her slight weight long enough to unlock the door to his room. Using his shoulder, he pushed it open, stepped inside, then kicked it closed. Light from the courtyard inched through the louvers on the shuttered windows, providing enough illumination for him to discern the bed.

He placed Teresa on the mattress, his body following hers down. Her heat, her sweet musky scent, the velvety feel of her tiny, compact body sucked him into a vortex of desire and longing he was powerless to resist.

Teresa had prayed for this moment and now that it was hap
pening she couldn’t believe it. She was in Samuel Cole’s bed, in his embrace, his hardness pressing against her middle, and she was paralyzed with wonder and fear.

She’d rehearsed seducing him, learned to bring herself pleasure, practiced kissing techniques all within the privacy of her bedroom, but she wasn’t back in the small hot house in a poor West Palm Beach neighborhood. She was in an Old San Juan hotel room with the man with whom she’d fallen in love.

They were so close, breaths mingling, flesh touching. Shyly, tentatively, she kissed Samuel’s smooth jaw, smiling. “You smell wonderful.”

He chuckled, the sound rumbling from his chest like far-off thunder. “So do you,
Chica
. I love the way you smell, the way you feel, and the way you kiss.” Cradling her face between his palms, he moved his mouth over hers, devouring its softness. The kiss deepened, his tongue parting her lips.

Teresa gasped, shocked at the roughness of the tongue filling up her mouth, but her shock was short-lived, as it moved in and out in a slow hypnotic cadence that had her close to fainting away.

Blood coursed through her veins like hot oil.

Her body vibrated like liquid fire.

Her breathing grew shallow when his fingers feathered up her legs and thighs, sending waves of delight washing over her. A fog of desire clouded her as the harsh uneven rhythm of her own breathing resounded loudly inside her head.

“Do you want me,
Chica?”

Teresa closed her eyes. His query had penetrated the erotic haze.
“Sí, Papi,”
she whispered. “I want you so much.”

Samuel slowly and methodically undressed Teresa: shoes, garters, dress, stockings, slip and panties, then himself. She lay before him, her smooth khaki-brown skin shimmering in a ribbon of remaining daylight.

Moving over her, he took her face, held it gently, and showered kisses around her lips, along her jaw, down the
column of her neck. He released her face, lowered his head and suckled her breasts, licking and biting gently on the nipples. Her gasps became hiccupping sounds as he journeyed lower; his tongue mapped a path over her flat belly, and still lower.

Positioning his thumbs against the blond down, he spread the folds to her vagina and pushed his face against the moist, pulsing flesh. He alternated licking and rolling the swollen nodule between his teeth.

Teresa moaned, sobbed and screamed at him not to stop. He couldn’t stop even if he’d wanted to. The woman between whose legs he lay had bewitched him. It took only a single glance and he’d found himself sucked into and drowning in a morass of lust that made him crave her when he didn’t want to.

Everything he’d professed when sleeping with a woman was forgotten as he guided his blood-engorged penis into her vagina.

Gasps echoed in the stillness of the room—his and Teresa’s. She was tight, tighter than any woman he’d slept with. He thrust into her, eliciting another soft gasp from Teresa. Sweat poured off his face and body and onto her trembling breasts.

“I can’t!”

Teresa’s fingers tightened around his wrists, her sharp fingernails biting into the tender flesh. “
Sí, se puede
. Yes, you can,” she translated. “You must, Samuel. You can’t leave me like this. Wanting you so much that my heart hurts.”

Supporting his weight on his arms, Samuel kissed her tenderly. “I want you, too,” he confessed truthfully. “But I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.”

“What if I tear you?”

“It will heal,
Papi.”

“Chica—”

Teresa cut off his words with a kiss that belied her sexual inexperience. Her tongue plunged into Samuel’s mouth, mi
micking his hardness sliding in and out of her. She knew she’d achieved her intent when he groaned loudly. Growing bolder, she moved her hands down his moist back and cupped his firm hips.

The hardness poised at the entrance to her femininity swelled, stretching her virginal flesh. And with one powerful thrust of his hips, Samuel tore through the barrier that had kept him from full possession of what had become his latest obsession.

A bloodcurdling scream exploded from the back of Teresa’s throat, only to be swallowed up by Samuel when he covered her mouth with his at the precise moment he ripped her hymen asunder.

He went completely still, savoring the moment when he and Teresa had become one. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” he crooned near her ear. “I just wish it could’ve been easier, but you are so small, baby.”

Tears leaked from under her tightly closed eyes and streamed into her hair. “Maybe I’m not that small. Maybe it is because you are so big.”

Choking sounds came from his throat. Within seconds Teresa had reduced erudite Samuel Cole to a bumbling, inexperienced boy. He wanted to ask her how many penises she had seen, but he didn’t want to talk.

Pulling back, he tested how far he had to go before thrusting into her newly opened flesh. Tucking her curves neatly into his own contours, he set a slow, steady rhythm.

Love flowed in Teresa like warm honey, the pleasure pure and explosive. She alternated trailing her fingers up and down her lover’s back with tunneling them through the hair on his chest. She loved his body; she loved him!

The tempo changed, slowing, then quickening, then slowing down again. Raw sensuousness carried her to heights of passion she could never have imagined. The comforting weight bearing down on her, the hardness sliding in and out of her body, and
the combined scent of their bodies and sexual desire hurtled Teresa to a place where she’d never been before.

She couldn’t control her outcry of erotic pleasure or disguise her body’s reaction to Samuel’s hardness, which seemingly had swelled to even larger proportions. Anchoring her arms under his shoulders, she surrendered, shaking and weeping uncontrollably with the joy that hurtled her beyond herself and reality.

Pulling out before he ejaculated, Samuel reversed their position, and they lay together, limbs entwined, motionless, and waiting for their pulses to resume a normal rhythm.

Teresa, her cheek resting over his heart, fell asleep.

However, sleep wasn’t as kind to Samuel. A heaviness settled in the pit of his stomach as if he’d swallowed a stone. It wasn’t the first time he’d slept with a woman since he’d married M.J., but it
was
the first time he hadn’t used a condom!

“Wake up,
Chica.
”

Teresa rolled over onto her belly. “Go away.”

Leaning over, Samuel kissed her shoulder. “You can either stay here or get up and go shopping with me in St. Thomas.”

Turning over quickly, she stared up at him. He was naked! It was torture for her not to look below his waist. She sat up, and the sheet covering her breasts slipped to her belly.

“When are we leaving?”

Samuel stared at Teresa, complete surprise on his face. The full impact of her beauty made his heart slam against his ribs. The bright sunlight coming in through the window bathed her nude body in gold: hair, face and breasts. Something in her eyes, darkening to a lush, verdant green, invited him to postpone his trip and spend the day in bed with her. He knew it would be days before they would make love again, because he wanted to wait for her tender flesh to heal.

When he’d awakened earlier and left the bed to use the bathroom, the bloodstained sheet was blatant evidence that
he’d taken her innocence. He was her boss, she his employee, he was thirty, she nineteen, and they’d become lovers.

Smiling, Samuel scooped her off the bed. “Now. Come, let’s take a shower together.”

Holding on to his neck, Teresa rested her head on his shoulder. “I’ve never taken a shower with anyone.”

“Then we must make certain to make your first time a memorable one.”

Lifting her head, she gave him a direct stare. “Like last night?”

Samuel’s gaze caressed the white-gold waves falling around her delicate jaw, the full lush mouth that was made for kissing, and the glowing green eyes that changed color depending on her mood.

“Last night was very, very special. I’ll never forget it.”

“Neither will I,” she concurred.

For Teresa, sharing a shower with Samuel was like making love again. He soaped her body, his fingers skimming the area between her legs, then handed her the soap so she would do the same with him.

“Where do I begin?”

Samuel turned, presenting her with his back. “Start with the back, then work your way around to the front.”

“But you started with my front,” she argued softly.

Moving closer, he pulled her against him. “That’s because your front is so delectable.” He cupped a firm breast. “You have perfect breasts.” His hand moved between her legs. “And the sweetest little pussy.” His hand inched around her hips. “And your ass isn’t doing too badly either.”

Heat singed Teresa’s face. “Samuel!”

He lifted his eyebrows. “What?”

“How can you say such things?”

“What things?”

Rising on tiptoe, she whispered, “Pussy.”

Grinning, Samuel shook his head. She was so sexy, yet so innocent. “I could’ve said twat.”

“Samuel!”

“Wash my back,
Chica
, before the water is completely cold.”

She complied, soaping a cloth and drawing it over his shoulders, down his straight spine and over his buttocks. Samuel Cole was beautifully proportioned for a man: broad shoulders, slim waist, hips, and long, powerfully built legs. Moving around him, she soaped his neck, chest, belly, then moved down to his legs and feet.

“You missed a spot, Teresa.”

She stared up at Samuel staring down at her. She’d deliberately ignored
that
part of his body that had given her so much gratification.

“You can wash it yourself.”

“No. I want you to wash it.”

Teresa backed away from him. She’d avoided looking at his penis, but now he wanted her to touch it. “I can’t, Samuel.”

Taking her hand, he guided it to his belly. “Start with the pubic hair, then gently lift the testicles and soap them like this.”

She followed his instructions, her eyes widening when his penis moved under her fingers. Her mouth formed a perfect O as she watched it grow bigger.

Samuel let go of her hand and cradled her face. Water darkened her hair to a tawny gold and spiked her lashes. “See the control you have over me? One look, a mere touch, and I get hard.”

“Has it always been that way,
Papi?”

“Lately it has,” he answered truthfully.

“I’m glad.”

“So am I.”

Taking the cloth from Teresa, Samuel finished washing himself, watching her as she stared at his erection. It wasn’t until he stepped out of the shower to dry himself that it finally went down.

Teresa stood beside Samuel as he examined a tray filled with pearls strung on silk cords. There were tiny knots between each pearl and some graduated in size, while others were perfectly matched. The colors ranged from alabaster to pink, gold to South Sea–gray and Tahitian-black.

“Which ones do you like?” Samuel asked, staring at her profile.

“They’re all beautiful.”

He angled his head and lifted an eyebrow. “Do you have a preference?”

She liked the gold-hued, but liked the pink better. “The pink.”

Samuel frowned at the jeweler hovering over them like a vulture perched on a branch waiting for carrion. The man with the thick Dutch accent was an expert gemologist. He could closely identify the carat weight, color and clarity of any gem without his loupe.

Grinning, he picked a strand of perfectly matched pink-hued pearls off the velvet tray. “Your lady has good taste and a good eye,” he said to Samuel.

Something told Hans Vanderpool that the stunning blond-haired woman with Samuel Cole wasn’t his wife, but his mistress. But who was he to be judgmental? The American had already selected an exquisitely carved Italian-made cameo gold bracelet with a variety of colored stones, a pair of tiny diamond earrings and a small crucifix and chain. These were no doubt for his wife and children.

Samuel took the strand from Mr. Vanderpool and looped it around Teresa’s neck. His gaze met hers in the mirror the jeweler had placed on the counter in front of her. The pink baubles against her tawny skin took on a deeper rosy hue as if warmed by her body’s heat.

“How large are they?” Samuel asked.

“Eleven millimeters.”

“All of them?”

“Yes, sir.”

Samuel nodded. “Where are your clasps?”

Smiling and stroking his goatee, Hans mumbled a silent prayer. Even if he did not make another sale, he would count the day as a very profitable one. Mr. Cole hadn’t bothered to ask the price for the pearls.

“Would you like a simple gold one or one with stones?”

Samuel removed the pearls from Teresa’s neck, handing them to Hans. They were still warm from her body. His hands rested casually on her shoulders, causing a slight shiver to shudder through her.

“What type of stones?”

“Rubies, pearls, sapphires, emeralds and diamonds.”

“Show me them all.”

Teresa suffered Samuel’s closeness as he bent over her shoulder looking at clasps for the pearl necklace. She felt intoxicated by his clean and masculine scent. She wanted him, oh how she wanted him, but knew that wasn’t possible for several more days. They would share a bed, but not their bodies until the tenderness between her legs was gone. Eyes wide, she watched Samuel point to an elaborate gold knot encrusted with brilliant blue-white diamonds.