Red Leopard (The Vistaria Affair Series) (9 page)

Calli stirred, her attention drawn from her dark reflection on the side window. “No,” she said, as gently as she could.

“Duardo thought he had upset you.”

“He did? I’m sorry, I didn’t intend that.”

“Then you do like him?”

Calli roused herself, trying for Minnie’s sake to give an honest answer. “He’s an honorable and loyal officer. But Minnie, he’s in the army. They lead such precarious lives—especially now. There’s danger for him, being with you. Are you aware of that?” The echo of Nicolás’s words set up a pang of sadness in her.

“The army people don’t mind Americans,” Minnie said. “No one was rude to us tonight, just as Duardo said.”

“There is more to Vistaria than the army,” Calli pointed out.

“Lots of civilians work at the mine Dad is setting up. They don’t hold grudges either.”

Calli shook her head. “It’s not that simple.”

Minnie gave the steering wheel a little thump. “Damn it, Calli, I have to live here too. For as long as Dad is working the mine, I have to live amongst these people. I have to find acceptance where I can. Do you think I’m so thick and stupid I don’t know what some of them think of us? But I can’t do anything about how they feel about me, because they don’t know me. So the only thing I can do is ignore them and find the few who do not think I’m some sort of disease or parasite that will suck the life out of them. So quit trying to depress me, because I just don’t want to hear about it, okay?”

“Okay,” Calli agreed. “I’m sorry, Minnie. You just seem to move through life with so little concern.”

“I get concerned,” Minnie muttered.

“About the latest dress length.”

“Well, that’s something I can do something about!”

“Okay.” Calli held up her hand, motioning for peace and realized the gesture echoed Nicolás Escobedo’s motion, too. Quickly, she dropped her hand back to her lap and held it with the other. “God I need sleep,” she muttered.

* * * * *

Something warm and soft supported her back. A hand, warmer still, pressed against the back of her shoulder, holding her. His hot heavy body moved against her restlessly. She felt the touch of skin upon hot skin and the moisture building between them. Sweat. And a softness of flesh over unyielding bones.

The pressure of his body against her was good. Welcome. It’d been far too long since she had last enjoyed the sensation of a man laying over her and it had never felt like this. Not this feeling of being overwhelmed by his size and weight and of being smaller, weaker, more feminine.

He looked into her eyes. His hand was on her waist. It slid down along her hip. The muscles there quivered as his thumb stroked across the little dip by her hipbone. He cupped her thigh and brought her leg up around his waist. The good, hard pressure of his thigh between her legs pushed against her. His cock, thick and large, throbbed against her pelvis.

He dipped his head and his hair tickled her chest, then his mouth fastened upon her breast, around her nipple, and she let her head fall back with a sigh. But his mouth did not give the sharp jolt of pleasure she expected. It felt ghostly, distant. She tried to look at him, to protest, but she could not speak, no matter how she struggled to get the words out....

* * * * *

Calli wiped the sleep from her eyes and let her hand fall back on the pillow with a sigh. Her body zinged with arousal. Her throbbing clit kept time with her slowing heartbeat. Sweat had gathered between her breasts and now trickled down to her stomach.

She swallowed, wishing she had put a glass of water by the bed.

Why could she not speak in these dreams? What held her mute? The inability to talk had shadowed both nights’ dreams, along with the thundering sexual arousal.

The arousal was another novelty. She had not had a sexy dream since before she had met Robert, and never this explicit, this stimulating.

The hand along the hip....
Of all the images and sensations in the dream, this one burned in her mind. The possessive sweep of his hand against her hip had felt
real
in the dream, more real than the other ghostly, unsatisfying sensations.

She sighed again and turned over, bringing the sheet up and over her shoulder, burying beneath the cotton. The ache was worse now that she knew he wanted her, too.

Why him? Why, after five years since Robert had left did she
now
suddenly yearn for sex? And with someone so impossibly out of reach?

Just before she fell asleep the solution occurred to her and astounded her with its simplicity. Sex was the issue. So go get some. Problem solved. Life back on track.

Chapter Five

“Everything takes longer here,” Uncle Josh explained, pouring Calli another cup of coffee. “You just have to go with the flow.”

“But my credit card company isn’t
here
. It’s in Montana, and it’s—” she looked at her new watch and added two hours, “—ten in the morning. They’ve at least had two coffees and a doughnut by now, so they can’t plead that they’re asleep.”

Josh smiled a little. “Is that a comment about my breakfast-making skills?” he asked, picking up the huge big broadsheet newspaper that covered the remains of his breakfast plate, piled high with blackened toast crusts. “You could always phone the competition and tell them they can have your business if they will give you a card sooner than your replacement will get here.” He buried himself behind the newspaper.

“There’s a thought,” Calli said.

“You’re late today, Dad,” Minnie said from the door to her room. She belted closed an apricot satin robe, her hair spiky from sleep and her eyes still half shut. She looked as though she had slept soundly.

“Speak for yourself,” Joshua returned. “I’m meeting some people in the city for lunch. Actually, Calli, I meant to mention something and that reminds me. There’s a man on my staff, single, American. From Wisconsin. A lawyer—”

“Well, no one’s perfect,” Minnie said, pouring herself a coffee.

Calli smiled a little. “Are you setting me up on a blind date, Uncle Josh?”

He lowered his paper a little, considering it. “I suppose I am,” he admitted. “Although it didn’t feel like that when Peter first proposed it.”

“Peter?” Minnie asked. “You’re talking about Peter
Kaestner
? He’s a creep.”

“He’s perfectly normal,” Joshua said calmly. “That he told you to grow up simply emphasizes he has the necessary maturity for a man who holds the responsibilities he does. You know, there aren’t all that many Americans in Vistaria, and most of them are with the company. Single women are unusual...I think he’s lonely.”

“Or horny,” Minnie added.

Joshua glared at her.

“What?” she asked, spreading her hand. “Am I wrong?”

He chose to ignore that and looked at Calli instead. “What about dinner tonight?”

Calli nodded. “Yes, I’d love to,” she said, without pausing to consider it. She knew if she allowed herself to think about it, she would find a reason to say no.

“Good.” Joshua folded up the newspaper and plopped it onto the middle of the table, then stretched. “I should get going, anyway. There’s stuff to do at the Palace. I’ll talk to Peter at lunch and call you with details, okay?”

“Sure,” Calli said briefly, but she stared at the front page of the newspaper which now faced her. The picture was grainy, but unmistakable. A wide shot of the head table at last night’s dinner. The general sat front and center in the photo, but Nicolás Escobedo’s features were clear too. The headlines screamed something in huge type, exclamation marks either side, the first one upside-down.

Uncle Josh picked up his briefcase, jiggling his pocket for keys.

“I’ll walk you to the car,” Calli told him, getting to her feet.

“‘kay,” he said without hesitation.

When they were outside he raised his eyebrow. “Something in the paper spook you?” he asked.

“A little. What did that headline say?”

“Congratulations to Blanco for his excellent leadership and his birthday.”

“Oh.”

“It’s
El Liberalé
, which is a conservative newspaper despite the name. What were you hoping for? Disclosure of a conspiracy?”

She shook her head. “It was the man a couple of seats to the right of Blanco.”

“Nicolás Escobedo?” Joshua said, a little sharply. “What of him?”

“He’s the man who helped me at the jail.”

Joshua rested his briefcase on the bonnet of the silver Chevy Cavalier and leaned on it, as if thinking hard. “You’re sure?” he asked quietly.

“Positive.”

Another thoughtful silence. “
Jesus Maria....
” Joshua breathed. “He really
does
have feelers out everywhere.”

“He’s the man the army calls
el leopardo rojo
.”

“Yes, I just made the connection,” Joshua said, frowning. “Although I wouldn’t go around blurting that out to just anyone, Calli.” His brow smoothed. “Well, it’s good to know we have friends in high places,” he said. “This really does confirm they’re working to support us here. With the problems I get handed every day I sometimes wondered.” He patted her shoulder. “Thanks for telling me,” he said and got into the car and drove away.

Calli stood on the narrow cobbled street, watching the Chevy twist around the hairpin bend twenty yards down the hill and disappear.

The conversation had cheered Josh immensely, but Calli, perversely, felt more uneasy than ever.

I want to live in your mind, at least.
His voice curled through her thoughts.

Had he honestly thought she would be able to dismiss him with his face plastered on the front page of the daily national newspaper? But...gut instinct told her his intention had been to linger in her memories at a far more personal level.

The image from her dream, her thigh over his hip, his hand on her skin, hot and demanding, slipped into her thoughts.
That
was what he had meant.

Why her?
Why?
When no other man had raised so much as an eyebrow in her direction for five years? More? She was a dusty, ill-used thirty-something woman well on her way to becoming a rusty, disused old spinster set in her ways, entrenched in academia and teaching dry economic theory until she retired.

Why me?
And why him?

It was beyond comprehension.

It was all theory, anyway. He had made that clear last night. Nothing would ever come of it. He was as untouchable as she had suspected.

She went back inside, blinking in the dimness of the apartment after the brilliant sunshine outside, and asked Minnie to take her shopping again. She would need something sexy to wear tonight if she was going to get herself laid.

* * * * *

“You know, you really are a knockout,” Peter said. “Joshua said you scrubbed up well, but I think he was being conservative.”

Calli smiled mechanically and swallowed another mouthful of the dry, overcooked steak. Peter had told her three times already what a knockout she was, and it didn’t sound any better on the third repetition. But his need to please her added points in his favor.

She had surreptitiously checked off other criteria throughout the evening. His breath smelled sweet; he had no discernable body odor. Clean hands, a nice white smile and a small bonus: tight buttocks beneath the dark business suit. He stood perhaps half an inch shorter than her, which she could overlook for now. In bed, the height difference would be no difference at all.

The absolute lack of any appeal he had for her
was
a drawback, however. He had light brown hair, light brown eyes, nicely tanned skin to go with the white smile, and he obviously worked to maintain his body. Nothing wrong with him at all. But nothing sparked her interest.

He had picked her up at the apartment right on time. She had walked out the door knowing she looked as beddable as it was possible to look. Minnie had worked all afternoon to ensure Peter got the right impression.

Minnie had somehow intuited Calli’s intentions for she had rapidly discarded various options, settling on a look that she pronounced with her arms crossed, “totally fuckable, honey.”

Calli wore a dress made of stretch lace. The halter top had a vee-neck that ended low between her breasts. Virtually backless, the dress dipped down to the point where the indentation of Calli’s spine flattened out over the back of her hips. It had no lining—her skin showed clearly through the mesh of the lace, except for a virtually invisible flesh-colored panel of elastic that covered her breasts and supported them. The skirt hugged her hips—the elastic fabric gave her flexibility, but the dress clung to her. The hem stopped several inches short of her knees.

Minnie had insisted she wear the tallest shoes they could find, a black pair with ankle straps. All her hair had been piled on top of her head and held down with dozens of hair clips. Wisps fell around her face. Minnie also directed the application of her makeup. Red lips, red toenails, and gold hoop earrings. But Minnie could do nothing about Calli’s work-worn fingernails other than file them neatly and paint them.