“No.” She heard her own trepidation and deliberately turned her back on Andrés. “Do you?”
“I’ve never seen him here before. Would you like me to ask around?”
“No. No, that’s all right, thanks.” She placed several small bills on the bar and headed for the door.
“Where’re you going so fast, beautiful?”
The man at the table caught Cat’s arm and held on, stopping her in her tracks. He was blond, muscular, and handsome; plenty of women would have been flattered by his attention. Cat wasn’t.
“Excuse me,” she said, shaking him off.
“Hey. No need to be so unfriendly.” He gave her a dazzling grin and patted the chair beside him. “Have a seat. I’ll get you whatever you want.”
“Sorry. I’ve got…things to do.”
“It can’t be all that urgent. Come on.” He grabbed the hem of her jacket and tugged. She lost her balance and banged her hip on the table. The blond looped his arm around her waist and pulled her against him. Cat could smell the alcohol on his breath.
“I’d advise you to let me go,” she said.
“Advise?” He laughed. “You a lawyer or something?”
“As a matter of fact, I am.”
He rolled his eyes. “Oooh. I’m seared.” He pushed her into the chair. “You need some loosening up, princess. And I’m just the man to do it.”
“You will unhand the lady, cabrón, or you will regret it.”
The jerk looked up into Andrés’s face with blank incomprehension. “What did you call me?”
“Do you require a translation, pajero?” Andrés glanced at Cat. “Are you hurt, señorita?”
“No.” She scrambled up and backed away. “It’s all right. I was just leaving.”
All her hopes of defusing the situation were shattered when the blond stood up, toppling his chair behind him. He towered over Andrés by a good six inches, and he was nearly twice as wide. “You shouldn’t have stuck your nose where it don’t belong,” he said, flexing his muscles.
“The lady is with me,” Andrés said.
“That so?” He turned to Cat. “This is what you like? Some pansy musician pretending to be a man?”
Andrés met Cat’s gaze. “Go outside, mi gatita.”
“Only if you come with me.”
“When this is finished.”
“That won’t take long,” the blond said. He beckoned to Andrés. “Go ahead, faggot. Just be careful not to hurt your pretty little fingers.”
He had barely lifted his own massive fists when Andrés struck, hitting the blond with a series of punches that snapped his head from side to side as if it were made of rubber. The bigger man crashed into the table and collapsed to the floor, sprawling in an ungainly heap.
The bartender appeared beside Cat. “You’d better get him out of here,” he said, nodding toward Andrés. “I know this guy, and he’s trouble. I don’t want a brawl.”
“Of course. I’ll pay for any damages.” Cat took Andrés’s arm, feeling the muscles bunched beneath his shirt sleeve. “Please, Andrés. Let’s go.”
He regarded her with a wild look and suddenly relaxed. “As you wish, mi gatita.”
Together they left the bar. It had grown dark; the plaza twinkled with lights that rivaled the stars. Cat paused to get her bearings.
“Where shall we go?” Andrés said close to her ear. “Have you a bed, querida?”
Prickles of excitement raced from the back of Cat’s neck to the base of her spine. “Thanks for your attempt to help back there, but it really wasn’t necessary.”
“That cabrón was mistreating you.”
“I could have handled it.”
“Few men are to be trusted by a woman alone.”
She turned to stare at him, challenging her own unease. “Does that include you?”
“Is that not for you to decide, amada?”
The very sound of his voice was a caress. Cat retreated several steps. “I don’t know why you just happened to be here in Taos, but I came to spend some time alone. That’s what I intend to do.”
Andrés searched her eyes. “If that is what you truly wish.”
“It is. Good-bye.” She began to walk away, feeling his gaze like fire licking between her shoulder blades. Only when she was in the parking lot of her motel did she let down her guard. She ran up the stairs to her room on the second floor, went inside and leaned against the door, her breath coming fast and shallow.
It wasn’t a coincidence. She was certain of that. Andrés hadn’t been here just to join the music festival. Either he’d followed her, or he’d known somehow….
And that’s ridiculous. He couldn’t have.
Cat flung herself down on the bed, grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest. No matter where she went, she couldn’t escape: not Andrés, not this feeling that made her wish she’d invited him up to her room and let him have his way with her. She could imagine his lean, muscular body naked beside her, his cock hard and high, his eyes blazing with lust the way Neal’s never had. She saw herself lying on a reed mat beside him, enjoying the pleasures of their wedding night….
She pounded the pillow with her fists. She was wet again, desperate for release that wouldn’t come. It was too early to sleep. She jumped up, paced the small room for a quarter of an hour, turned on the television to some abominable made-for-TV movie, and finally decided on a nice, long, hot shower.
The bathtub was hardly luxurious…one of those featureless molded plastic stalls that was about as welcoming as a tombstone in a graveyard. Cat was too muddled to care. She turned on the spray to its hottest, shed her clothes and stepped in with a sigh of relief.
But her mind would not be still. The water cascading over her breasts and hips made her shiver. Her body was transformed, as if she had become a creature of pure sensuality. She stroked her stomach, suddenly fascinated by the slight mound that had never matched the washboard ideal but now seemed a proclamation of her womanhood. She cupped her breasts, circling her nipples until they rose to firm peaks. She turned her face up into the water and let it cascade over her face while her fingers skimmed down her thighs and came to rest on warm, plump flesh.
Andrés. Oh, God, Andrés.
Her imagination was so vivid that she could almost hear the shower curtain sliding aside, feel the heat of a body behind her, masculine hands resting on her waist and massaging her hips. She could feel his tongue licking moisture from her neck as his cock worked between her parted thighs.
“Mi gatita,” he whispered.
She turned, eyes tightly closed. He put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her urgently, tangling his tongue with hers. After an eternity of such kisses he bent his head, following the slope of her chest lower, lower, until his tongue found her breast.
“You want more, querida?” he murmured.
“God. Oh, God. Yes.”
He flicked the tip of her nipple and then took her into his mouth. The cool plastic of the shower stall supported Cat’s weight as he suckled, first one breast and then the other, demanding, devouring. He wedged his hands behind her bottom, squeezing, lifting. His cock was trapped between them, hot and heavy. He withdrew to reposition himself and worked her thighs apart. She made no attempt to resist. He rubbed against her, the head of his cock caressing her swollen lips.
“What do you want?” he asked. “Tell me.”
“I…” She gasped as he pushed a little deeper and then pulled back. “Please…” Someone knocked on the door.
Cat came crashing back to reality. She staggered and clutched at the shower curtain to keep her balance. There was no one else in the shower. She was alone, silently screaming for deliverance.
The knock sounded again. Cat half stumbled out of the tub and reached for the towels folded on the rack above the toilet. They were barely big enough to cover her from breast to upper thigh.