Red Leopard (The Vistaria Affair Series) (8 page)

Her mouth opened a little as her jaw sagged. “No,” she said honestly. “I could only think that you have women throw themselves at you every day and I was just one of dozens—of no passing concern. A moment’s amusement.”

He nodded. “So you squirm with shame for responding to a natural impulse.”

She gave a dry laugh. “It’s not
natural
for me. Not since Robert—” She clamped her jaw tight, suddenly realizing what she had been about to say, to no less than the president of Vistaria’s half-brother.

“You just remembered who am I, didn’t you?” he said softly.

She looked down at the stone balcony rail where her hands rested. “Yes.” She couldn’t look him in the eye while her cheeks burned with embarrassment. “Did you come up here simply to watch me squirm while you reminded me of my foolishness, Señor Escobedo?”

He did not answer at once, but when he did, his rasping voice was even lower. “I dreamed of you, Calli.”

Her whole body seemed to leap at the quietly spoken confession. She looked at him, her pulse skittering.

He nodded. “Yes. I dreamed of you, of running my hands all over that pale, soft skin of yours. Your long legs wrapped about my hips—I spent hours simply savoring the taste of your flesh, pleasuring you.”

She shuddered as a wave of pure silver excitement rippled through her, brought to life by the low, sensual sound of his voice, his words. She licked her lips, remembering the knowing expression she had seen in his eyes. There
had
been regret there, and something else....

“Then, in the cell, I didn’t imagine—”

“No, you did not.” His voice seemed to reach directly into her mind and throb inside her bones.

She turned to face him properly, but did not move towards him. She feared to hope, to make any movement that might indicate that foolish hope.

“That is what you had to tell me?” she breathed.

He shook his head, the same tiny movement he had made in the cell, and she almost cried out her dismay, for she knew what would come next.

“I wanted you to know, to understand how dangerous it would be for me...for us. You’ve been here twenty-four hours and I know your uncle will have brought you up to date on the politics of Vistaria. My brother Jose is a moderate, just as I am. We know that we need American help to keep Vistaria whole and alive, but there are factions out there who would tear this country apart than allow a single American to have any influence here.”

“Why are we hated so much?” Calli whispered.

“It is a hatred born out of fear. For generations Vistaria has watched other South American nations fall under the might of the American economy and know-how, their identities, their culture be swallowed whole by the U.S.A. They tremble knowing how easily it could happen here. Radical factions have played on that fear, whipping it up into hatred, bigotry, worse.”

The tiredness crept back into her bones. “I see,” she said with a sigh.

“Calli, I am a bastard who cannot use his mother’s name as any Vistarian does by right.” She heard a surprising amount of bitterness in his voice. “But no one forgets who my half-brother is and I have some power here as a result. If any hint escaped of a foreign woman in my life, if it was thought for a moment that I might be influenced by an American, then what little power I have here would be gone in that instant.”

“You want to keep that power so you can help Vistaria,” she finished.

“I
must
keep that power, or the precarious balance here will be lost and Vistaria will crumble into civil war and worse.”

She felt her eyes widen. “Is it that...critical?”

He sighed and pushed his hand into his pocket. “You’re used to thinking in terms of billions. This is a very small country, with barely a million people on four islands. There are perhaps half a dozen key people and I’d be a fool if I didn’t know I was one of them. The army, for undisclosed reasons of its own, extends its loyalty to me. For as long as the army stays loyal to me and by extension, my brother, then the country can be held against the rebels. If I lost that loyalty, if they had any reason to think I had betrayed them, then their sympathies would swing to the rebels. The civilian population would have no choice but to support the army and Vistaria would be lost.”

“You have a tiger by the tail, don’t you?” she said. “You can’t let go now.”

“You understand, then.”

She nodded. “But you did not have to tell me this at all. You could have left me—”

“Squirming?” he supplied.

“Ignorant of how you feel,” she amended.

His silence gave her the answer.

“You wanted me to know?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Why? If nothing will come of it,
why
?”

“Because I could not stay away,” he ground out. “I want to live in your mind, at the very least.”

Far down on the dance floor, the show had ended. “I have to go,” she said. “They will be looking for me now.” She moved towards the stairs and as she passed him, his hand touched her wrist. It halted her. She looked at him as he straightened up from his lean. He stood very close to her now...she could feel his body heat radiating from him. The blue eyes looked totally black in this light.

“I must go,” she said. “They are waiting for me down there.” But she couldn’t get her feet to move. With him standing this close, her whole body prickled with anticipation. He swayed and she felt his hot breath on the nape of her neck. His fingers stroked the inside of her wrist, slowly, almost as if he did it unconsciously. He seemed to taste her with his fingertips. A shiver rippled through her in response and she turned her head to look at him.

“If it is so dangerous, Nicolás, then I must go now, before my delay is noted.” She couldn’t help adding bitterly, “This is the point you wanted to emphasize, I believe?”

“I want to hear you call me Nick, like any other man you know,” he said.

“You’re not any other man,” she whispered. She could feel the flesh between her legs throbbing—not simply her clitoris, but the whole sensitive saddle of flesh pulsed. Her breasts were almost painfully tight and erect. She wanted nothing more than for him to slide the straps of her dress from her shoulders and take her breasts in his hands. Her body remained perfectly still but her mind urged him to follow his instincts.

For sure, Nicolás Escobedo beckoned her like no other man she had ever met. She had never felt this rush of wantonness before.

He moved and she could feel the brush of his jacket against her bare shoulder. His voice sounded in her ear. “I regret what cannot be.”

And just because he had taunted her with the knowledge that he wanted her after all, only to snatch it away with the next breath, she lifted her chin to look him in the eye. “I dreamed of you, Nick. I dreamed of us making love.”

She paused long enough to watch his eyes widen, for the knowledge to spear him, before she moved away, through the doorway to the stairs that would take her back down to the ballroom and the safety of a room full of soldiers.

She had been frightened of them all when she had first arrived here, wary and braced for trouble. The thought made her laugh. Trouble had come, but from an entirely unexpected quarter.

Perhaps she could convince Minnie to go home now. She needed peace and time to think. But when she got to the table, it was completely empty. She spotted some of the occupants on the dance floor. Elvira, with her upswept hair and black crepe dress, waltzed sedately with one of Duardo’s men. Calli couldn’t see Minnie or Duardo anywhere.

* * * * *

Nick stood for a long time in the gallery alcove with his head down, his eyes closed, listening to the sound of the party below, while tension clamped his body into stillness. He could still smell a hint of her perfume, something light and clean. When he had stood next to her, her warm scent and the touch of perfume had wreathed his head, making him giddy with the explosive arousal that had gripped him.

The need to touch her had been almost overwhelming. Only the knowledge of how unfair it would be to indulge himself had stopped him.

I dreamed of you, Nick
, she had said, in a voice smooth and mellow like brandy.

At least he had wiped that look of desperate shame from her eyes. He’d managed something constructive. True, anger had replaced it, but he could live with anger. Better that she be filled with fury—it might give him the edge he needed to hold on to his sanity. While he clung to sanity, he could avoid any lethal decisions.

As long as she hated him, he could stay away from her.

* * * * *

Calli had done a tour of the upper floors and was searching the service rooms on the lower floor when she found them in a small, unused kitchen, tucked away on a back hallway. She paused, her hand on the swing doors, one pushed a few inches aside. She had no intention of interrupting them, but she had frozen completely and could not move, either, for the first glimpse she had of them had caught at her heart and throat.

If she had been asked to find a phrase to describe that first astonishing sight, she would have said without thinking:
pure, driven passion
. The image would stay with her forever—Minnie, her dress fallen down around her waist, lying on the wide steel counter, her back and hips a taut curve, offering herself as Duardo took one creamy brown nipple into his mouth and lapped at it with his tongue.

Her hands were in his hair, encouraging him, as she gave a low groan. He stood with his thighs against the table. His jacket had gone. His shirt was unbuttoned and half off, revealing smooth brown shoulders. Firm rounded muscles bunched and moved under his flesh as he slid his hand up Minnie’s thigh, pushing the dress up with it. He gathered the fabric around her waist, revealing garters and stockings, smooth bare skin and nothing else. No panties, not a glimmer of hair, just the smooth slit between her legs. Duardo made a deep rumbling sound of appreciation.

Calli couldn’t pull her gaze away. Their hunger for each other hammered at her heart and body. The small, eager movements they made, the little noises, sighs, groans of pleasure...the pure eroticism grabbed her throat and held her there to watch, breathless.

Minnie lifted herself a little, reached for the buttons on his pants and Duardo straightened, giving her access. He held her hips, thumbs moving in restless circles, as she nimbly released each button. She pushed the cloth aside and his cock sprung free, thick and visibly pulsing with excitement.

Minnie gave a little laugh, low and throaty. She stroked him, her hand curling around his cock and sliding up to the tip.

Duardo’s eyes narrowed in response to her touch. “No more,” he growled. “It must be at once.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

He drew her closer to him and she guided the head of his cock between her legs. He pushed inside her and Minnie’s head rolled back in ecstasy, even as Duardo groaned aloud. He thrust. Hard.

Her legs folded around his waist, drawing him closer and he lifted her hips with each thrust. He gazed down upon her, his eyes narrowed, his expression almost one of bliss, of fierce satisfaction.

Minnie reached up a hand towards him and he kissed her palm.

Their movements grew more frantic as the excitement spiraled upwards. Calli could feel her heart picking up speed to move along with them. She was caught up in the spell, mentally a part of their pleasure, her own body responding. Slick heat grew between her legs and her breath quickened.

To be loved like that, to be the subject of such longing...oh, she wanted it! Her body trembled with the imaginary joy of taking a man. Each time Duardo thrust, Calli felt the heavy, hard pressure as if it were her own body he pounded into.

Her breasts seemed to swell a little, to grow heavy inside her dress. Her clitoris throbbed behind the chiffon.

She held her breath, until the moment Duardo gasped and shuddered and grew still.

As Minnie sat up and reached for him, her breasts gleaming in the darkened kitchen, Calli at last forced herself to turn away. Her heart trip-hammering, she took a step on legs that seemed weak.

Behind her she heard Duardo’s voice, thick and slow. “One sip of you is not enough.”

“Drink your fill, if you dare,” Minnie said, very low.

Calli quickened her pace, heading back for the ballroom.

When Minnie and Duardo returned to the table fifteen minutes later, she had herself back under control. She made no comment about their absence and they gave no hint of what they had been doing. Duardo treated Minnie with utmost deference, bowing over her hand when Calli said they had to go, uttering polite expressions of regret and gratitude for their company this evening. Not a single hint was given of the passion that had gripped him moments before.

He’s a soldier and used to staying in control
.
Just like Nicolás Escobedo
.

The comparison rankled. For Duardo had chosen to take the moments he wanted, unlike Nicolás.

* * * * *

“You going to tell me what’s eating you?” Minnie asked as she carefully steered the car around another group of fiesta-goers wending their way home.