Page 35

COMPANY

VANESSA

T his shit was getting to be habitual.

For the second time in less than a week, a ghost from her not-so-distant past had appeared before her in this city and Vanessa had no idea what the fuck to do.

Her first impulse? Go the other way. So that’s what she did, turn on her heel to leave.

Tugging on Santino’s hand turned out to be of no use.

His body had gone from open and warm to solid, unyielding brick like the walls surrounding them.

“We should go,” she whispered to him, her eyes flicking from him to the other man, who stood up, muscles unlocking as he reached his full height.

“What the fuck for? I didn’t see his name on the sign outside. He’s the one who should leave. We’re enjoying ourselves,” Santino answered through gritted teeth.

Yeah, that sounded like he was having fun.

Santino stood his ground, implacable as stone, as Scott walked over and stopped in front of them.

A blonde woman with a name tag on her blouse was standing nearby, looking at the three of them as if sensing the vibes were way off.

Vanessa tried to grin at her to let her know everything was all good as the two men stared each other down, green eyes locked in a battle with blue.

“Hello, Vanessa,” Scott said, his low-pitched voice full of rock salt. “I see you made the festival after all. Enjoying yourself?”

“She’s having a great time,” Santino answered, emphasizing “great” with a humorless smirk. “You’re here alone, I see.”

Scott quirked a sardonic eyebrow and glanced around. “Looks like I am. I come to the festival every year, hang out, and visit with friends. I’m comfortable. I was going to stay home, but I figured, why not come up anyway? It would be a waste of that room I booked with that big, comfortable bed.”

Vanessa’s face couldn’t have gotten any hotter after that taunt.

Scott’s flint gaze touched Santino’s long-sleeved shirt. “FDNY, huh? It’s cool you could get time away and enjoy Montreal with your wife.”

The way he said the word “wife” sent an actual fucking chill down Vanessa’s spine, sinking notch by notch over her vertebrae.

His incisors pressed into his bottom lip when he enunciated it slowly.

Why hadn’t she noticed before how sharp they were?

Almost shark-like, sharp enough to tear through layers of flesh.

“Speaking of wives,” Santino said. “I seem to remember telling you not to call mine again when we had our talk, but yet I heard you did exactly that a couple days ago. Do we have to have another conversation to refresh your recollection? Because I’m available right now to talk outside if you are.”

“Santino…” Vanessa murmured, one hand still clutching his while the other rose to grasp his bicep.

It was flexing. Her fingers, long as they were, wouldn’t come close to wrapping around that muscled arm to stop him if he decided to go after Scott.

“Can we please not have a ‘catch me outside moment’ on this vacation? Let’s just go. ”

The corner of Scott’s mouth lifted but his eyes looked anything but amused as he ignored her, focusing like a laser on the stiff man by her side. “Is that another threat?”

“It’s an invitation,” Santino clarified. She could feel his body thrumming and ready to go.

Shaking his head with a short laugh, Scott held up his hands and backed away. “I definitely plan on taking you up on that offer but right now, I’m here to have a good time. Let’s save the scrappin’ for another day so you don’t end up embarrassing yourself in front of our girl.”

“ Our girl?” Santino made as if to move toward him, fingers tightened into fists, but the blonde lady appeared at their side.

“Is there a problem here?” she asked sweetly yet firmly in accented English, looking between the two men.

“No problem at all,” Vanessa answered, grabbing Santino’s hand in both of hers and pulling. “We’re leaving. Nous sommes désolés. ”

Finally, after her apology to the lady, she got him to go.

Scott watched them leave with that sharklike grin, the muscles still flexing through his shirt.

It was mind-bending to think that only two weeks ago, her intention had been to be here with that man.

Never in a million years would she have guessed she’d be with the angry blond who was fuming at her side instead.

It had just proven Auntie Belle’s frequently-made point that no matter how well you planned out your life, Fate had a way of laughing right in your fucking face.

And yes, Belle had cursed profusely, one of the things that had set Nadine’s teeth on edge and made Vanessa giggle with glee when she was younger.

Unfortunately, the situation she was in right now wasn’t exactly a laughing matter.

Outside, Santino’s nostrils were flared, and his face was still red. Anxiously, Vanessa walked and tugged, trying to get them as far away from the gallery as possible before he changed his mind and went back in after Scott.

“Well, that was nuts,” Vanessa quipped, trying to lighten the mood as they put more distance between themselves and the other man. “Who would have guessed he’d come up here after all?”

“He didn’t look surprised to see us. That motherfucker was waiting for us. At least now I know who keeps fucking calling me,” Santino muttered.

“What are you talking about?” she asked, slowing down and taking a gulp of air. In their haste they’d left their umbrellas in the courtesy bin at the gallery entrance. Fortunately, the rain had slowed to a drizzle.

“Somebody’s been blowing up my phone since we’ve been here. It’s a restricted number. They’re not leaving messages or texts. It must have been him all along. Somehow, he figured out we’re here together and he’s fucking with me. Next time I see him, it’s on and I won’t give a fuck where we are.”

Eyebrows drawing together, Vanessa put a hand on his arm again.

“He told me before that he does come up here every year. He’s not here for me.

So, no fighting. Please. If we see him around, and hopefully we won’t, we’re going to ignore him and have a good time.

I didn’t come all the way up here for drama. ”

Santino’s labored, angry breathing slowed down a bit and became easier.

He stared at their surroundings as if reabsorbing the laid-back atmosphere and the calming light-hearted music pouring out of a nearby café.

She was stroking his arm, soothing him, until his eyes moved back to hers and then lower to her mouth.

“Okay. No fighting. Just gimme more of this.” Santino pulled her into his body by the hips and kissed her, his lips moving over hers while he ignored the stares of people passing by.

She could practically see him shake off the bad attitude as a lopsided grin made its appearance on his face.

“Alright, what’s up next on our no-drama itinerary? ”

The rest of the day was drama-free as he’d promised.

They had an early dinner at a different garden restaurant.

The sun came out and dried up some of the puddles on the streets, but the trees and flowers had all been refreshed and lent the air their perfume.

When evening came, they happened upon a three-story house.

In front of the powder blue dwelling was a college-aged kid with a high-top fade passing out little flyers for a hip hop show inside.

“Hip-hop performances, in a private house?” Santino asked, his eyes hopeful but his face skeptical.

“Yeah. There are four playing tonight. Go on in,” the kid encouraged them with a smile.

On the first floor, the living room was big and devoid of furniture.

There was a stage at the head of the room with amps and a set up for turntables and other equipment.

A throng of people ranging from teenagers to forty-somethings were scattered throughout the whole house, which they checked out from bottom to top.

People had red solo cups and were buying drinks from a barrel on the second floor while the smokers were hanging out on a back balcony.

They bought drinks and went back downstairs for the show.

They found a quieter corner away from the stage.

“I’m sure this is illegal as hell,” Vanessa said in his ear, taking a dubious sip of her drink. It was rum punch that went down smooth but landed hard. “Wow.”

“Isn’t illegal usually the most fun?” Santino downed half his drink in one go, then let out a whoop.

“My degenerate husband,” she said, watching him with a grin.

“You love me, though, right?” he responded teasingly.

“Ugh, I plead the Fifth.”

“Come on. That is one thing you never complained about, though, me partying hard all night,” he reminisced. “Why not? You got on me for just about everything else but not that.”

“Because you never partied without me. You got me out of my head. It’s like somebody finally gave me permission to shake my butt and have some fun.”

Santino’s pleasure at her admission shone in his face.

He swigged down his drink in one gulp, put the cup down on a ledge, and pulled her against him.

His mouth curved into a grin as he stared into her eyes.

His strong hands moved down to her ass and gave it a healthy squeeze, keeping her hips pressed against his to feel his thickness come to life as he began to move her to the pumping bass.

“Finish that and let’s have more of that fun you were talking about,” he urged softly.

After another sip of her drink and the immediate rush to her head, she let him take the cup from her and put it down on that ledge, all the while keeping their hips pressed together as they moved as one.

This part of the room was darkened. The people around them were all shadows, either absorbed in dancing or swaying to the hot, heavy beats or intoxicated. Most likely both, like she was now, except her intoxication was only a little from the alcohol.

Most of it was him, the fruit-punch flavor of his mouth, and the hard tongue stroking against hers.

Vanessa was inebriated on the heavy ridge of his cock pressing against her pussy through his khakis and her skirt as they ground together.

She was drunk on desire for him that coursed hot through her veins when he kissed beneath her ear and surreptitiously rubbed her nipples to throbbing hardness through her thin shirt with his fingertips.

He swallowed down her surprised half-moan, half-laugh as flashing red and blue lights lit up the ceiling above them.

They blended deeper into the shadows, until he hit the wall and roughly hauled her against him even tighter.

She could discern vague movement on either side of them in this recessed area.

She couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear much above the music, only the occasional hint of a whisper that would be quickly drowned out by the speakers.

Everyone in the room beyond them would be blinded by the white strobe lights.

She and Santino were invisible. And with the power of invisibility came freedom.

Another thing she’d loved about partying with Santino was that he could move .

The same rhythm that pounded fantastic orgasms out of her was also in how he danced with confidence she found incredibly sexy.

His focus was solely on her, all his raw energy and sensuality reserved for her.

Vanessa drank it in, forgetting for once to be nervous about any of the strangers in the next room seeing her dance, seeing anything that might happen. All of her focus was on him.

All at once she realized he was pushing down her panties hastily, unzipping his pants, blind and rough and quick and then…

oh …his cock was sliding into her pussy.

One more sharp, hard thrust while hooking her legs up around his waist and gripping her ass with his strong hands, and he was all the way in.

She bit back a cry and rolled her hips on him, and he pumped, like the bass of the music in her body, like the drum of her heartbeat against his.

“ Fuck …Oh fuck me, Santino, fuck me…” She moaned it in his ear. No one else would hear her.

“ Tesoro …”

The pressure of his hips against hers, the rocking of his cock against that perfect spot at that perfect angle, the next feather-light kiss under her ear and she was suddenly sailing into a delicious pulsing release right there, surrounded by darkness and hot bodies, bass throbbing into her body, her nose full of the sweet smell of punch and herbal essences and him .

Santino kept her right there, and she held on to his shoulders.

He slid her up and down his length while his heartbeat pounded against her chest like a stallion running free.

Vanessa rode that stallion, rode him until the last spasm had been wrung out of her.

His climax was right behind hers. She knew it when his head tipped back, and he groaned deep in his throat while his dick twitched and erupted inside her.

A dark pink strobe passed over his face, and his mouth was parted, eyes still squeezed shut with rapture.

It was the fucking sexiest sight she’d ever seen.

Well, at least since that morning when he’d come in her mouth and on her cheek.

She wanted him to do that to her, again and again.

The next wild swing of light revealed that he’d opened his eyes, and he was still panting with that dazed expression she loved.

Then they were plunged once again in the secret dark.

His mouth found hers again and he kissed her hungrily. Vanessa pulled her lips away to whisper one word in his ear.

“More.”