SBC Fighter: Tails Of Love Part 16

"Abra para mi." Pul ing back, he palmed himself and reached for the nightstand drawer. There was the quick flash of a red wrapper as he opened a condom with his teeth and slid it on, and then he was ready. "Open for me, querida."

She hardly needed the encouragement. Clutching his shoulder, scratching him in her haste, she angled herself and spread her legs wider, begging him, needing him.

"Buena." A faint smile flickered across his face. "Tan buena."

"So good," she echoed. "So good."

Another heavy-lidded smile answered her. He rubbed against her wet core, lubricating himself, and then inched inside, mil imeter by slow mil imeter until he was seated to the hilt and she was stretched tight and faint with renewed ecstasy.

And then he began to move in slow, deliberate strokes, each more exquisite than the last, and his eyes rol ed closed and his head dropped to the hol ow between her neck and shoulder.

"Te quiero, " he murmured, his tempo increasing with each pivot of his hips. "Te quiero . . . te quiero-"

"I love you, too." Locking her ankles behind his back, she pul ed him deeper, held him tighter, and the waves crashed over her again. "Cruz. Cruz."

Her body's powerful contractions sent him over the edge; his body went rigid and his two-hundred-plus pounds of heat and muscle surged one last time, driving her up the mattress as he came with loud, unabashed cries.

"Ay Dios mio! Dios!"

He shuddered over and over again, whimpered, keened.

In that second it felt as though he gave her every ounce of himself, every part of his soul, and wasn't afraid to let her know it. And she loved him al the more.

At last he raised his head to look at her with wonder in his eyes and a smile touching his lips. "We're getting married, okay? Just so you know where this is going."

She'd hoped, but there was nothing like hearing the words spoken again in that dark velvet voice. "Wil you always speak Spanish to me like that?"

His brows quirked. "Spanish?"

Reaching up, she smoothed the faint lines across his forehead and then pul ed him down for a kiss. "Mmm." Her skin heated al over again. "You told me you loved me in Spanish."

"I love you in Spanish and English," he said between nips and nuzzles of her lips. Deep inside her body, she felt him stir again and begin to swel . "And I love that crazy little monkey, too."

"Atticus?"

"Without him, Keenan wouldn't have his job back. He wouldn't be reclaiming his life, and you wouldn't be here with me. Would you?"

"No." She arched, surging her hips up to meet his, and they both moaned. "I think we owe him a big bag of marshmal ows, don't you?"

"Absolutely." With complete absorption, he kissed her forehead, both her eyes, and the tiny round mole at the side of her mouth before final y making his way to her lips.

"Here's to Atticus," was the last thing he said for a while.

"To Atticus."

RESCUE ME.

Marcia James.

To my husband, James, for his unwavering love and wicked sense of humor . . .

To my friend and critique partner, Patricia Sargeant, for getting my jokes and going light on the red pen . . .

And to Lori Foster and Dianne Castell for conceiving these wonderful benefit anthologies and offering me the chance to partic.i.p.ate in Tails Of Love .

CHAPTER ONE.

"Rata!"

The shout jerked Adam Baumgardner's attention away from next week's menu, and he scanned his restaurant's dining room. Wasn't rata Spanish for "rat"?

"Rata gigante albino!" Rey, his sous chef, stormed from the open kitchen fol owed by emile, his maitre d'.

d.a.m.n. Thanks to Adam's basic knowledge of several languages, he understood his international staff. "There better not be a giant albino rat in my kitchen."

"Not the kitchen, the al ey," emile explained.

Rey muttered something about rats and bad omens.

"Actual y rats, especial y white ones, are considered good luck in India," emile pointed out in his haughty Gaelic accent.

Before the two could launch into their customary squabbling, Adam stood. "I'l take care of it."

With Rey and emile trailing behind, Adam headed through the kitchen to the back door. At least this had occurred between the lunch and dinner seatings. The last thing his Nuclear Fusion Restaurant needed was a rumor about rodent infestation.

The al ey door was propped open for the warm spring breeze. Sergio, his head waiter, stood in the doorway. "Not un ratto," Sergio said in his half-English-half-Italian way.

"Dog."

Adam pushed past him into the al ey. Sergio was right.

The shivering animal huddled against the Dumpster was a smal dog. Its pale skin was hairless and mud-splattered.

Two sad, black eyes peered anxiously from its dirty face.

Without taking his gaze off the pathetic dog, Adam instructed emile and Sergio to bring him a bowl of water and some country pate. They left, both chuckling, obviously antic.i.p.ating their temperamental chef's reaction to this misuse of his appetizer special. It wasn't long in coming.

"No!" Chien's indignant shout was so loud even the dog cringed. "Pate for people, not rats!"

Adam sighed. Chien's culinary mastery had earned Nuclear Fusion its four-star reviews, but the Chinese chef's mulish personality was a pain. Before he could remind Chien once again who owned the restaurant, Sergio was back with a slice of pate on a plate. emile fol owed with an empty bowl and bottle of spring water.

emile shrugged. "You can't serve tap water with that pate."

Grinning, Adam took the food and water. He didn't approach the dog directly but walked to the left of the door.

He crouched, ignoring the pain from the damaged knee that had ended his pro-footbal career. Then he quietly placed the pate and bowl on the ground.

April sunlight glinted off the fine china's gold Nuclear Fusion logo as he fil ed the bowl with water. The trembling animal whined, its nose twitching. Adam retreated to the door and crooned softly, "It's okay. No one's going to hurt you."

Slowly the dog skirted the food, sniffing, then backing away. Final y it nibbled the pate. Adam released the breath he'd been holding, and emile and Sergio high-fived. The skinny stray took dainty bites of the food, swal owing without chewing.

Martha, the restaurant bookkeeper, entered the kitchen.

"What's up?"

Jared, one of the restaurant's teenaged busboys, made a disgusted noise. "Nuke is feeding some mangy mutt."

Adam grimaced. It'd been two years since he'd retired from the NFL, but people stil cal ed him "Nuke." Despite christening his international cuisine restaurant "Nuclear Fusion" as a nod to his footbal nickname, Adam was getting tired of it.

Martha peered out the door. "Poor thing. It looks starved."

Adam faced her. "What should we do with it?"

emile sniffed. "Maybe some lemon sorbet to cleanse his palate before the second course?"

Adam laughed with his staff. Even Chien gave a grudging smile before suggesting, "Chocolate souffle for dessert?"

"Chocolate is dangerous for dogs." Martha glanced away from the stray. "I learned that volunteering at the animal shelter on Caridad Street. That's where you should take it."

"They'd just put it down," Adam protested.

She shook her head. "Rescue Me is a no-kil shelter."

Ten minutes later, Adam was driving the five city blocks to Rescue Me, with a muddy, smel y dog sitting in an empty banana box on his newly detailed BMW's leather seat.

"You reek of Dumpster-diving, little buddy." He kept his voice soft to avoid scaring the nervous dog. Adam lowered his car windows several inches to let in the rich scent of the area's ethnic restaurants-a wonderful mix of exotic spices and fried foods. He inhaled deeply as his pa.s.senger's nose twitched.

He maneuvered past double-parked vans, delivering shipments from around the world to this eclectic neighborhood. Adam braked for a man pushing a two- wheeler stacked with Dos Equis beer. Down the street, two Asian women chatted anima tedly as they examined produce boxes. The area's amicable quirk iness appealed more to Adam than the ritzier parts of the nation's capital.

Storefronts grew shabbier as he turned right onto Caridad Street. The short block held two parking lots, an Indian grocery, and Madame Magda's Tarot Card & Palm Reading Parlor. Between the lots was a sooty, two-story brick building with a cheery green sign over the front door.

The sign featured a cartoon cat and dog bracketing the words RESCUE ME.

Adam paral el-parked in front of the building. After pumping a few quarters into the parking meter, he retrieved the box from his pa.s.senger seat and locked his BMW.

Hopeful y the car would stil be there when he got back.

Inside the carton, the pathetic animal shivered and pawed catlike at the tablecloth he'd used for padding.

Thanks to the dog's hairless state, Adam could see its ribs.

What if the little thing was too sick to save? He blocked the thought.

"Hang in there," he rea.s.sured the animal. "We'l fix you up."

Adam held the box in one hand as he opened the shelter's front door. A bel tinkled when he stepped into an empty waiting room. The furniture was the olive metal and vinyl of government surplus. A hal way led toward the rear of the building.

"C'mon back," a woman cal ed from a room off the corridor.

Adam started down the hal . He peered through the first open door into an examining room. A woman wearing kitten-themed doctor scrubs leaned over a stainless steel table reading a chart. Her chin-length, light brown hair concealed her face.

Then she straightened, turned, and offered her hand.

"Welcome to Rescue Me."

Recognition struck Adam with the force of the defensive tackle who'd ended his career. His lungs scrabbled for air, and he resisted rubbing his chest where his heart had taken a direct hit. Claire. It was Claire. Her beautiful brown eyes met his, and it seemed like seconds instead of years had pa.s.sed since he'd made the biggest mistake of his life.

CHAPTER TWO.

Dr. Claire Mendelsohn froze, her hand extended toward Adam-the man she'd prayed she'd never see again. The icy shock of his appearance stuttered her heart and closed her throat.

What was wrong with her? She'd known this day would come, when she'd heard he'd returned to D.C. and opened a restaurant practical y in her backyard. But, G.o.d help her, knowing hadn't prepared her for this emotional jolt. Claire dropped her hand and forced the best smile she could muster. "Hel o, Adam."

"Um," he began, looking as stunned as she felt. "I didn't know you worked here. I mean, I read in the University of Virginia Alumni News you'd gotten your vet degree . . ."

Her stomach roiled. Was he, too, remembering that awful night after their UVA graduation? It'd been ten years since he'd delivered his ultimatum-go with him to San Francisco or take her scholarship to Cornel veterinary school-but the pain was scalpel sharp. She quashed thoughts of that bitter argument and kept up her end of their oh-so-polite smal talk. "Three years ago, I moved back to D.C. to be closer to my parents. I opened this shelter instead of joining an established practice."

Adam nodded, and the tension in the room grew palpable. Claire wanted to weep at how coldly formal they'd become.

She tried not to catalogue the ways he'd changed from the s.h.a.ggy-haired, twenty-one-year-old she'd loved. But how could she not compare this muscular, wel -dressed man to that jeans-clad col ege kid? Adam's mahogany hair was shorter and expensively cut. Was it stil as silky to the touch? And his blue eyes were just as intense today as in her memories. When they'd made love in his fraternity room, he'd stared into her very soul. . . .

Claire cleared her throat. "I read that you'd opened a restaurant. The reviews have been great."

Adam shrugged. "I hired the right chef." He was silent for a moment, then added, "I've never seen you at Nuclear Fusion."

"I haven't been, yet." Yeah. Like she'd wil ingly put her heart through a grinder by visiting his restaurant. She glanced away. "Honestly, I didn't think you'd want to see me."

"Claire-" He stopped as a pitiful whine came from the box in his hands. "d.a.m.n, I nearly forgot." He set the box on her examining table. "I found this dog behind my restaurant.