“Four men? Did they seem like friends?” I asked after my initial surprise.
“Yeah, sure. Or why else would they help you move out of your apartment?”
“Can you describe them?”
“Why?” he asked, suspicious.
“Because I hit my head and”—a weak laugh at having to say the next part—“I can’t remember them or where I moved to.”
“No shit!” My old landlord sounded impressed. “One was a real big guy—tall, six and a half feet at least, heavily muscled like one of those pro-wrestler types. Another was movie-star handsome. The third guy had this old-fashioned beard and mustache like those people in the Victorian age, and the last one was just average looking, you know.”
None of this struck a familiar chord in me. One huge wrestler type, another looking like a movie star, another sounding like an Englishman? It didn’t describe any of the doctors, orderlies, or tech guys I knew from work. The average-looking fourth fellow might have been one the few guys I had dated, but none of those brief relationships had ended well, certainly not well enough for them to help me move out of my apartment. “Were they young, old?” I asked.
“A little older than you. Late twenties, early thirties, maybe.”
“Did I leave any forwarding address?”
“Nah, you best check with the post office. Maybe they can help you.”
“Thanks, Mr. Samuels.” I hung up with even more questions whirling in my damaged brain.
“Do I have competition,” Roberto asked lightly, “these four men I heard you mention?” He had been sitting so quietly I had almost forgotten that he and the two bodyguards were still in the room. I blushed when I saw his smile and the intent look in his eyes. My headache and wooziness had lessened in the half hour of time I had spent hunting up more information. And the can of soda and analgesic he had brought in helped as well.
What had Roberto asked? Oh, yeah. If he had any competition. He was teasing me, of course. Latin gallantry. As if the idea of a man as dashing and wealthy as he obviously was being attracted to me wasn’t ludicrous.
“I have no idea who those men he described to me were. They don’t sound like anyone I know. Maybe my landlord mixed me up with someone else who moved out recently. I didn’t have any friends, just acquaintances from work.”
“No old boyfriends?”
“None that parted on good enough terms to help me move out of my apartment.”
“They did not end well?” Roberto asked with warm sympathy.
“Or last long. Only a couple of dates.” Just enough to hit the sheets once, after which it became clear that a physical relationship was not going to work out between us.
“What about your patients? Did you befriend or get romantically involved with any of them?”
For a moment, something tickled the edge of my mind, then was gone like a phantom breeze. “No,” I said slowly, “I never got involved with any of my patients.”
“Was it, what you say, professional ethics?”
“More like no interest, on their parts,” I said with rueful honesty.
“A lovely woman like yourself?”
“What is it, Latin genes or something, flattering any woman you come across? I know I’m a very average-looking woman. And, no,” I said, holding up my hand when he opened his mouth, “I’m not trying to fish for more compliments or flattery. I’m simply stating the truth. You are very gallant, and I am deeply in your debt for your help and letting me rack up a huge phone bill with all these telephone calls. I’ll pay you back, I promise . . .”
Words died in my throat as he reached out and grasped my hand. That awareness, that strange humming energy between us intensified into sudden blazing brightness at physical contact, and all I knew and felt was him. Like he was my moon, my stars, my entire freaking orbit . . .
“You are far from plain or average, Lisa. You are like me.” Cradling my fingers between his own bigger, broader hands, he clasped my hand as if he was savoring our contact, our connection. “Just like me.”
FIVE
TOUCHING ROBERTO WAS overwhelming. I felt like I wanted to tear off his clothes and jump his bones . . . and that was just so not like me. I’d never felt physically attracted to anyone ever before. Never felt this overpowering urge to mate, like some irresistible force pulling him and me together. It scared me enough to tear my hand away from his, to stand up and back away from him. Distance, I found, helped. Whatever it was I was feeling, it lessened the farther I distanced myself from him.
His bodyguards drew their guns at the sudden movement. And the fact that I had two deadly firearms pointed straight at me was less alarming than the way I reacted to Roberto: like he was a flame I wanted to bask myself in . . . to be consumed by.
Lust.
Holy crap! What I was feeling was lust. Me, the coldest fish in the world.
My heart pounded like a giant drum gone crazy, and my breath sawed in and out of me as Roberto spat out harsh orders in Spanish. I smelled my sweat and some other unfamiliar odor emanating from my body as his men put their guns away, leaving the room.
That, unfortunately, didn’t make me feel any better.
“Easy,” Roberto murmured.
“No,” I said, gritting my teeth, knowing my eyes were wide and wild. “I won’t let it control me.” With those words, that willful determination, I felt that maddening pull start to ease up between us.
Silence followed, broken only by the sound of heavy breathing. Silence like what a bomb squad must hear after they’ve successfully prevented an explosion. Roberto eased closer to me, and I did nothing to stop him since his nearness no longer made me want to tear off my clothes and offer myself to him.
His breath came as heavy and fast as mine. Farther down, his pants tented out stiffly with unmistakable prominence. My face flamed, and my unfortunate headache chose that embarrassing moment to reassert itself.
“Argh!” I said, gripping my poor head. God, I ached, not just the bump on my head but the entire right side of me—shoulder, arm, leg, and hip. When the merciless pounding eased, Roberto was standing before me.
“What the hell was that?” I asked, breathless.
“That, querida, was a miracle—it was attraction.”
I would have snorted if it wouldn’t have split my head open. I made a faint, disbelieving noise instead. “I think it was much stronger than attraction. More like this unthinking raw urge to mate.”
“It was attraction—lust,” he said, echoing my own earlier thoughts. He looked curiously appalled and eager, wary and amazed at the same time. “I have never felt anything like that before.”
“Then you were lucky.”
“No, I thought I was cursed. I have never been attracted to any woman before, until you.” Carefully, delicately, he touched a fingertip to my face.
There was that sensation, that odd zap of energy and awareness again, but muted now. I had somehow reined it in, smothered down the raw intensity of the primitive urge. It still hovered, however, like dry tinder ready to take spark again, but I was in control now: the reason, maybe, why I didn’t freak out when his other hand joined the first and his fingers explored my face with something almost like reverence.
“Your skin feels so soft,” he murmured in wonderment. His eyes dipped down to my lips, and slowly his head lowered down to mine as hesitation and curiosity held me still. Strong attraction zinged between us again.
I drew back, more than startled by my response. “Oh!” I exclaimed, my hand flying up to cover my mouth.
It had always left me feeling nothing before, men’s kisses, their touch. Left me feeling empty, dispassionate. But not now. Whatever chemistry had been missing before was present in full, blazing glory with Roberto.
“Oh as in I did not like it?” asked Roberto in a low, throaty murmur. “Or oh as in That was unexpectedly good . . . wonderful . . . something we should do again?”