“Oh man,” Estrella said some time later—she wasn’t sure how long—as the feeling came seeping back in through her fingers and toes. “I think I passed out.”
Jesse was facedown on a pillow. “You okay?”
“I will be.”
He put his hand between her legs. Like a homing pigeon, she thought, wincing a little as she straightened a knee. When had she bent that way? Better yet, how?
There was something nagging at her, but his fingers were more important. He caressed gently, easing the burn. Oh yeah. Eve.
“Listen.” Estrella tried to raise up on her elbows, then gave up, flopping over into a slanted patch of moonlight. “Jesse.” For a couple of seconds her fuzzy brain lingered on the satisfaction of saying his name, but then she flexed her tongue and refocused. This was Very Important. “You can stay, but we’ve got to be up early. I have work. Okay?”
“Sure. So do I.”
“Don’t forget.” There was a clock to set and they had lots of time between now and then, but if he always screwed so hard, there was no telling what she’d lose track of—the time, her head, maybe even her heart.
Chapter Six
Estrella in the starlight.
She thought he’d forget any detail about this night? Never.
Jesse watched her for a long while, dozing with her peaceful face bathed in the silvery light from the wall of windows. She was deservedly exhausted. The first time, that raw, wild pounding, hadn’t been enough for either of them. After an hour of recovery, she’d gone searching for condoms in the bathroom and had returned triumphant. Even surprised. If her body hadn’t already told him, that reaction would have—she wasn’t accustomed to this. He would have to be more gentle, no matter how wicked she got with her tongue or her provocative words.
He’d been surprised too. Gentleness had come easy to him. He’d thought he’d lost that capacity years ago. Maybe it was having a woman like her that did it. She gave him reason.
Jesse laid his head on the down pillow. He wasn’t worried about sleeping too late. He never did. Prison had hardwired him to wake up at every sound.
Of course, there was no comfort in prison like Estrella to keep him in bed. He turned and pressed against the back of her curled body. She woke enough to snuggle her ass into his groin. The warmth of her spread through him. She was a sturdy little space heater, but soft, so very soft. . . .
His arm went around her, intending to hug, until his hand found her breasts and he cupped their sweet weight. Her nipples formed two hard points beneath his pattering fingers.
“Jesse,” she murmured.
“Shhh.” He forced his hand to go still.
“Okay. But that was nice.”
He buried his nose into her hair. “You need to sleep.”
“What about you?”
“I’m thinking too much.”
She seemed to drift off for a minute, but then she shifted her butt against his wakened penis. “Talk to me.”
He moaned. “Not again.”
A small laugh burbled in her throat. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
Such a girly request. But he found he wanted to. It was necessary. “I was thinking that I want you to know about—” He breathed, unashamedly taking his comfort in her fragrant skin and womanly curves. “—about my record. My crime.”
“Oh, that.”
“You don’t think it’s important?” For chrissakes, she was the woman who panicked at the sight of a tattoo. How could she just trust him?
According to Brenda Ventano, that was the way Estrella was—wary but naive. Sweet but tart. Slow to open up, but once given, her friendship was solid as a bar of gold.
Jesse wanted her to know that he could live up to her trust. “I told you about being in trouble when I was younger. I grew up with a single mom, but that’s no excuse. She had no help from anyone, least of all my father. She had to work two jobs to make ends meet, but she did everything she could to raise me right.” His hand began to move again, absently stroking Estrella’s breasts. She felt so good. “I was just too stubborn and angry. I wouldn’t listen.”
Her arm reached back, her hand found his thigh. She patted it, saying nothing. The touch was enough.
“But I got older and smarter. At least I thought so. When I quit the ships, I had savings and a plan to make something of myself. Then a few shipmates took me out to get toasted their last night in port. There was this girl. . . .”
Estrella inhaled. “You loved her.”
“Hell, no. I didn’t even know her.”
“Hmm. You don’t know me either,” she said lightly, sounding relieved that he wasn’t mooning over a lost love.
He tugged a nipple. She wiggled her butt, aware of exactly how to get him back. “You’re wrong about that. I know you, Star.”
“You know my body,” she said with a sigh, lazily trying to turn around.
He held her with one hand pressed flat to her belly. “Stay like this. Let me finish.”
She made a sound of assent, burrowing deeper against him, again squirming her bottom more than strictly necessary.
“This woman was having a fight with her boyfriend. They were both drunk, and after a while they got to pushing and yelling. The other customers just watched. Me too, I’m sorry to say. A bouncer came to get rid of them, but the fight got worse. He tossed them out. Except . . . ,” Jesse sighed. “I was near the exit. I saw the guy swing at her as the door shut. He’d split her lip open.”
Estrella whispered, “I get it. You tried to rescue her.”
“I didn’t want her to be hurt. My mom had a boyfriend who—” He swallowed another sigh. “The thing was, the guy fought me and I lost my temper and beat him up. Then in court, his girlfriend testified for him. They made up a helluva story about me instigating the fight. Because of my record, I was given the maximum sentence.” He let out a rusty chuckle. “Eventually commuted for good behavior. But by then I’d lost my savings to the lawyers.”
Estrella was quiet for so long, he thought she’d fallen asleep. He had closed his eyes, waiting for the remaining tension to drain from him, when she spoke in a small tentative voice. “I know about women like that, so caught up in a destructive relationship that they can’t break free. Do you blame her?”
“I don’t know if blame is the word. I’ve wished a thousand times that I hadn’t tried to help her.”
“That’s understandable.”
He swallowed. “But I’d probably do it again. Except this time I’ve learned the tools to control my temper so maybe I could avoid the fight.”
She patted him again. “Good.”
“That’s the story. I just wanted you to know.”
“Thank you for telling me, Jesse.”
He kissed the back of her shoulder. “Go to sleep now.”
“I’ll try,” she said under her breath, twining her legs with his beneath the sheet. He let his hand move against her stomach, barely a caress, to settle her. Maybe to settle himself.
Before long, he knew that it hadn’t helped. Her body had worked on him. The hot curve of her ass was the moon, pulling at his instincts, pooling his blood. He was semierect, fitted against her ripe slit. Temptation, succor and torture all in one.
But she was sleeping.
He clenched his teeth. Counted to a hundred.
She moved. Reached to a mirrored nightstand, flipped a packet at him. It fell among the sheets.
“Estrella?” he whispered.
A purring sound was her only response. Until she reached between her legs and rubbed his shaft in her hot slippery fluid. He found the condom, pulling free to slip it on. She whimpered, one imploring squeak, and searched further for him, lifting her thigh so the tangled sheet pulled taut.
They didn’t speak again. He swept away the sheet. She rolled over onto her drawn-up knees, staying curled in on herself, head in the pillow, arm down between her legs where her fingers splayed to pull apart her pouting labia and offer him the glistening inner
flesh and her budded clit. A dewdrop clung to it.
Estrella in the starlight.
The soles of her feet were white against the creamy gold of her ass. He covered her with his body. Hugging her. Holding her. Wanting to keep her whole even as his cock split and filled her, forcing a deep-throated grunt out of her. He kissed the bumps of her spine, the blades of her shoulders. She flattened beneath him and he held her tighter, higher, sliding his thighs under her, nudging her farther apart. They rocked back and forth, panting.
She turned her head, pressed her teeth against his forearm, sucking and biting. He pushed against her, driving deeper, losing his last shred of reason to the erotic slide and squelch of their flesh. Their fingers met over her clit. He rubbed it and she bolted beneath him but there was nowhere to go except surrender. With one short sharp cry, she came, gloriously liquid. He let go too, jetting into the velvet vise of her convulsing body. All the affection in him, all the love and caring that he’d sworn had dried up and blown away, came pouring out too. The warmth of it enveloped him. He didn’t know if she felt the same, since he had no words to explain, but he thought that she might. She very well might.
They tumbled over onto their sides, finally replete, and dropped off into a blissfully entwined sleep.
Lassitude had sunk into Jesse bone-deep. He sprawled on sheets impossibly soft, smelling the outdoors—flowers nodding in the hot sun. The dream was so real, his eyelids squeezed shut against the screeching drench of light.
Sunlight?
Screeching?
He bolted upright, flinging aside the covers, ready to attack even though he could hardly see, the room was so bright.
There was a loud crash. A thud. Shattering glass.
A woman’s voice rose to the ceiling. “Estrella! What is this?”
Jesse blinked. A woman stood at the end of the bed, staring horrified at his naked body. The remains of the vase of sunflowers were smashed against the stone floor, broken stems, shards of glass, a spattered puddle of water.
“Estrella!”
The screech sounded like rusty metal. Jesse grabbed a pillow off the bed to cover himself. Estrella was sitting up, pushing the hair out of her face. “Eve?” she quailed. “You’re home?”
“Yes, I am. I caught an early plane.” The woman spoke through zippered lips. “I cannot believe my eyes. You used my bed. My sheets! You dirtied my Porthault sheets!”
Estrella scrambled out of the precious sheets, crouching to gather their scattered clothing. She threw Jesse a panicky look, then his jeans. “I’m sorry. I’ll wash the sheets, of course.”
“You’ll burn them, and buy me new ones.” The woman’s face darkened as she gaped at Jesse, who’d dropped the pillow and was pulling on his jeans. “My God. He’s a brute. What were you thinking, letting a stranger into my house? I gave explicit instructions—”
Her house? Understanding socked Jesse in the gut.
“He’s not a brute.” Estrella cringed, holding his crumpled T-shirt over her breasts, but still she defended him. “He’s—he’s—”
“Her boyfriend,” Jesse said, straightening. “I apologize, ma’am. We shouldn’t have used your house.” He looked a question at Estrella.
She bowed her head, dragging his shirt over it, “This is Eve Romero. My, um, my employer.”
For few seconds there, he’d thought the woman might be an older sister, even Estrella’s mother or aunt. She was a dark-haired Latina, but there the resemblance ended. Eve Romero had none of Estrella’s wholesome goodness. Her slender body was rigid and angular inside an expensive white cashmere suit. The narrow face was squeezed of all compassion and joy.
“Eve, this is Jesse.”
“I don’t want an introduction,” the fury said, averting her eyes. “I want him out.” She pointed to the door. “Out. Immediately.”
Estrella’s face had blenched. She nodded miserably, keeping herself away from Jesse when he moved past the bed to take her arm. She ducked, picking up the sheets, the tangled skein of her thong. “Yes, of course. I’ll go too.”
“Oh, no, you don’t. You’re staying, Estrella. After you strip the bed, I want this room cleaned from top to bottom. Then you’ll go when I tell you.”
Jesse glowered at the woman before trying again to reach Estrella. “You don’t have to stay here and be treated like this. Come with me. It’ll be all right. I’ll take care of you.”
Her eyes flickered. “Thank you all the same, but I can take care of myself.” She thrust his boots at him and pushed him past Eve and out of the bedroom, speaking hurriedly in a whisper. “Please, Jesse. Just go. I’ll take care of the situation here.”
He resisted. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“Eve is only angry, not hurtful.” Estrella shook her head, hushing him when he would have protested. “She has a right to be, don’t you think? She’s never mistreated me, and I’ve paid her back poorly for her trust.”
The screech came again. “Estrella—I’m waiting.”
Her eyes pleaded with Jesse. “Please. You have to go. I don’t want any more trouble.”
He let her hustle him out the door. “I’m sorry I didn’t wake up early enough.” He tried a grin, a squeeze of her hand. “I slept like a log.”
Her answering smile was distracted, and still she wouldn’t look into his eyes. Ashamed for her lies, he supposed, which he wanted sorted out, although that was not his chief concern.
“Go quickly.” She stared at his bare chest in consternation, plucking at the front of the oversized T-shirt she’d put on. “I’ll have to change. Wait in the hallway and I’ll bring your shirt out to you.”
“Never mind about that,” he said as she started to close the door. “Just tell me where we can meet.”
She winced. “I can’t think about that right now.”
“But—”
“I told you that we might be a now-or-never proposition.”
Stunned, he stepped back from the door. Did she honestly mean that she never wanted to see him again? Could he have been that wrong about her intentions?
Estrella hesitated for a couple of seconds, her face bleak, then whipped her head around when Eve’s voice started in again as she stalked into the living room.
“What’s that disgusting dirty rag you’re wearing? Get into your uniform at once and start—”
Estrella slammed the door shut.
Surging with anger and protectiveness, Jesse lifted a fist to beat on the steel door. But he stopped himself before the first slam. Losing his temper would lose him Estrella. Forever.
Chapter Seven
In times of stress, Estrella needed the comforts of home. Home was a small house in a small town in New Mexico, where her parents and two of her siblings still lived, a place she hadn’t seen for two years but that was more real to her than Eve’s immaculate marble mausoleum or even her own threadbare apartment. Lately, the closest she’d come to finding the feel of home was at the Ventano’s cheerful, chaotic household, but Brenda wasn’t off work yet.
Besides, Estrella was determined to cope on her own.
She’d been fired. The shock had worn off after a couple of hours. Instead of taking the bus home, she’d walked into a department store and used up all of the cash in her purse on a deep-fat fryer.
Utterly ridiculous. But comforting.
Now it was dinnertime. She’d taken a long bath, put on shorts and a T-shirt and gathered her hair up in a ponytail. The oil sizzled as she squeezed another dollop of pastry into it. Watching the dough bob about and turn golden brown was as close to being in her mother’s kitchen as she was going to get, hundreds of miles away, with no easy phone contact.
There was a knock at the door. Estrella’s stomach gave a funny little spin, but she told herself it was Brenda, or one of the neighbor children, smelling the freshly made churros. She lifted the fresh batch out of the fryer and laid them on folded paper towels before answering the door, peeping through a crack with the safety chain on.
/> It was Jesse. With more sunflowers. Smiling and wearing long sleeves that covered his tattoos.
Estrella shut the door. She fussed with her hair, her shirt. Patted her flushed cheeks. Her heart tried to drum itself out of her chest, but she swallowed it down again and opened the door. “Hello, Jesse. How did you find me?”
“I remembered that Brenda had mentioned working on Alvarado. I went from cafe to cafe until I found her. She gave me your address.”
“You know Brenda?”
“We met, a couple of nights ago. By chance.” He extended the flowers. “To replace the ones your boss smashed.”
“That was an accident. Eve was startled by the sight of us.” Estrella accepted the flowers, widening the door so he could enter. “Come in. Um, it’s nothing fancy. Watch your head.”
He had to duck the doorframe, going into the living room. “This place looks more like you.” He turned a slow circle, studying her secondhand furniture and the few homey touches she’d added to brighten the apartment—family photos, mosaic flower pots, a woven wall hanging. “Smells good.”
“I was making churros.” She hurried into the kitchen and thrust the flowers into the stained ceramic sink. “The oil is hot. . . .”
“Go ahead. I don’t want to interrupt.”
“Please sit.” She nodded to the drop-leaf table with a pair of rickety chairs she’d painted emerald green and robin’s-egg blue. “Have you ever had churros?”
“I’m not sure. What are they?”
“Fried pastry. Very simple, just flour and water and a few other ingredients.” She piped several stripes of the dough into the oil. “When I’m homesick, I crave them.”
Jesse sat, cautiously. “You’re homesick?”
She poked at the pastries, making them swim in the bubbling oil. “I haven’t seen my family in two years, since I moved here. We don’t get to talk very often either.”
“Why not?”
So many questions, but none of them about her charade pretending to be Eve Romero. The delay was making her nervous. Or it might have been the surreal experience of having Jesse in her house, filling the rooms with his very large presence. For a fantasy man, he’d become all too real.