Читать книгу Insatiable - Julie Leto - Страница 7

“COULDN’T YOU just eat him up?”

If Samantha Deveaux heard the question one more time this morning, she was going to puke. After two weeks on the job at Louisiana Superdome security, her assignment at the SuperMarketing Expo was testing her mettle most. Last week’s Wrestlemania had been a cakewalk next to this. At least there she’d known what to expect. Screaming. Cursing. A tussle or two. Just enough unpredictable rowdiness to keep her busy.

But since the Supermarketing Expo’s eight o’clock opening, she’d gone from rolling her eyes to groaning aloud at the increasingly bad puns. In four hours, every female in the Dome, and a few men for that matter, had strolled through the wide section of wall-less, corporate-sponsored booths and eventually stopped to make a comment in front of the display by LaRocca Foods. Their snickers and sly remarks relied on a combination of food imagery and naughty sexual innuendo.

All for the man looming across from her position at the end of the aisle. Not in person, fortunately, but on a gargantuan aluminum and enamel replica of LaRocca Food’s best-selling pasta sauce in a jar—the centerpiece of their display—complete with a huge label stretched across the middle.

In the label’s center, a bare-chested man, sketched with lifelike precision, glistened with sweat as he toiled in the middle of some Mediterranean olive field. He had all the classic features of a Sicilian supermodel: ebony hair worn long and windblown, eyes tinted the color of green Italian marble, and a chest, arms and legs that would put Michelangelo’s David to shame.

He’s hotter than his marinara sauce.

He can toss my pasta anytime.

And then the succinct, but equally charged, Mmm, mmm, good.

Samantha had seen his type many times before, but even her jaded attitude didn’t deter her gaze from roaming back to that label.

His eyes drew her. Not just because of their Kodachrome color, but because an elusive, alluring emotion charged his emerald gaze with power, intensity. The man had attitude. Presence. Even in still life, he demanded attention.

His grin, sly enough to be sultry and subtle enough to make her wonder what he was really thinking, said, “Eat this, I dare you. And if you do, I’ll give you an equally delicious reward.”

As if the man on the label had leaned down from his rustic field and murmured his challenge only to Samantha, a spark of awareness flared as a fantasy formed in her mind. A wicked tryst. A delicious dalliance. Her thighs clenched, instinctively attempting to sate the hot tickle deep inside her, an all-too-frequent reminder that she hadn’t had a man in her life for way too long. She closed her eyes for an instant, battling to block the flash of flesh and folly that haunted her lately. Day and night. Asleep or awake.

Unfortunately, her once-indistinct fantasy lover now had a face and a body—a face and a body she obviously couldn’t resist. She closed her eyes to block his image, reminding herself that he was nothing more than the artistic rendering of some obviously anatomically obsessed artist, but the sensual stream of heat continued its course upward, quivering in her belly then tightening her breasts. Her self-imposed celibacy, enforced for almost a year, had taken its toll. Sam pressed her lips together and fought the sensations—determined to stay focused. Success would be a valiant feat for a girl who’d discovered her sexuality way too early and only recently recognized that her wild past had actually been a blind search for love and acceptance.

And a few sinful dreams were tolerable as long as she managed to put herself back on track. With her attention on the neon-lit soda logo directly across from her, she began silently reciting the techniques she’d learned in her Internet course on how to disarm a crazed stalker.

Despite the repetition, the unspoken invitation from the man in the olive field still echoed loud and clear.

“So, it’s the new girl who rates the choice spot. Enjoying the view, Deveaux?”

Samantha’s attention snapped to her left and connected with Ruby Gumbert’s wry smile. The retired cop, barely ten years older than Samantha, viewed the world with a laid-back cynicism that Samantha couldn’t help admiring. They’d become fast friends, though Sam would never admit just how choice she considered her vantage point across from LaRocca Foods to be. She didn’t have to. The minute Ruby slid her Terminator-style sunglasses down her nose, she let out the most impressive catcall whistle Sam had ever heard from a woman.

“Who’d you sleep with to get this assignment?” Ruby asked.

“Who’d I sleep with?” Samantha counted back six months to her move from Hollywood, California, to her return to New Orleans. After adding another six months to account for brooding after her breakup with Anthony, Sam shook her head. No wonder the Pasta God had her on the sexual edge of insanity. In this entire year, she hadn’t slept with anyone but her older sister’s cat, Tabitha II. Unless she counted Maurice. Which she didn’t. He was Serena’s mixed-breed sheepdog, and unlike her Himalayan feline, he preferred the cool floor to the cozy bed.

“I figured I must have insulted someone,” Sam quipped. “Listening to all the oohs and ahs isn’t exactly my idea of an ideal workday.” Neither is swallowing my own oohs and ahs, thank you very much.

Samantha forced her gaze away from the damn label that inspired all the appreciative groans. Some women were such suckers for a pretty face. Even she had been once, dating some of Hollywood’s heartthrobs, even living with Anthony Marks, the biggest cardiac arrester of them all. Thanks to her father, famed action-flick director Devlin Deveaux, she’d met and mingled with every male celebrity ever chosen as People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive, and more future coverboys than she cared to count.

And yet, this Pasta God had her fantasizing about new and interesting uses for extra virgin olive oil just from a pencil-drawn ad.

“If you want a lesson in bad pick-up lines,” Sam concluded, “you should trade places with me.” Sam watched another gaggle of suited, female conventioneers leer and snicker as they strolled by the sexy label. “If you want excitement and mayhem, unfortunately, this isn’t the place.”

Ruby’s smile curled with ageless wisdom. “Life ain’t like the movies, Deveaux. Mostly, this job is standing around, looking tough and politely asking people to follow the rules. Not to mention giving directions to the bathroom.”

Samantha stepped down from the box dais that provided a clear vantage of her area and wished she hadn’t made such a disparaging remark. She already strongly suspected that once again, this job wasn’t going to work out. She’d tried approximately four other professions in the past six months and nothing kept her interest. Except for becoming a personal bodyguard. That one really had her blood pumping. If only her brother-in-law, bodyguard Brandon Chance, would come home from his honeymoon with her sister so they could get to work. He’d already put her on the payroll, but with Brandon out of the country and no clients to serve, Sam had done little but earn some of her certifications and licenses and spend the petty cash on neat gadgets. She’d taken the security job at the Dome for two reasons—to pay back the money Brandon had originally budgeted for office rent and electricity and, at Brandon’s suggestion, to garner some experience.

So far, all she’d learned was that her attention span was shorter than even her second-grade tutor would have imagined. Oh, and that she could now be aroused by a pencil-drawn hottie on a pasta-jar label.

“I don’t mean to insult the job, Ruby. I know you love it. It’s just…”

Ruby pushed the sunglasses higher on the bridge of her nose. “Not what you expected. Never is, ’specially with your background. Pretty girl like you. Working in the movies, living the good life…”

“Define good,” Samantha interrupted, well aware that Ruby was teasing. They’d had this conversation over coffee at Café du Monde after last week’s Julio Iglesias concert. During her Hollywood childhood, Sam had always had food in her belly and a roof over her head—if take-out Chinese and trailers on movie lots counted. Her father had loved her in the way only a self-absorbed genius could, meaning that he showered her with affection whenever he didn’t have something more important to do.

A child thrust into an adult world from the age of five, Samantha was lucky to have escaped relatively unscathed—at least on the surface. She was only now starting to repair the damage to her heart. Her life in Hollywood could not be described as good unless the standards were incredibly shallow.

Ruby’s chuckle lacked humor. “Good always is a relative term. For today, this is a good job. No worries. Easy money. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?”

Samantha frowned, knowing full well what she’d encounter tomorrow—another day of watching conventioneers stuff food samples into their mouths while planning to cut out early and hit the bars on Bourbon Street. Samantha had wished this temporary job would work out, but she had her heart set on a career whose main benefit would be excitement. A little danger. Maybe she’d be lucky and there’d be a scuffle over the free tortilla chips or a grab for the Godiva. Anything to keep her from hijacking the next flight to Brazil so she could drag her brother-in-law back to the States.

“You sound like my mother,” Samantha said. “Sometimes I think she forgets that she stole ‘Tomorrow is another day’ from Scarlett. Unfortunately, I’ve always been a now and today kind of person. You’re less disappointed by life that way.”

“Are you? Less disappointed?” Ruby shook her head and grinned, her bob of raven hair not daring to move from where she’d gelled the strands in place. “Just wait until Signore Gorgeous makes his appearance. That ought to liven things up.”

Samantha swallowed her shock.

“The LaRocca model is coming here?”

“That’s the scoop. They’d be stupid to keep him under wraps. He’s the hottest draw I’ve seen in the Superdome since Mike Ditka coached the Saints.” Ruby lowered her shades. “Whoever he is, the man’s a god.”

Samantha felt inordinately annoyed she couldn’t argue that point without sounding like a big fat liar. Gorgeous men, real or in pictures, simply weren’t on her agenda anymore. She was done equating lust with love—with allowing her passions to triumph over cool thinking and common sense. She’d banked on coming home to Louisiana to find her focus. But since her job experience consisted of baby-sitting her father—a creative prodigy who could barely balance his checkbook—and stunt work that kept Devlin’s high-priced actors out of harm’s way, Sam wasn’t exactly a good candidate for the secretarial pool.

Her life had always been about adventure. Thrills. Discovery. When Devlin left her mother and sister in New Orleans after the divorce, Sam had followed, anxious even at five to see the world with her father, to live on location and mingle with the stars. She’d even appeared in a few films until she hit those awkward teenage years. By then, Sam had already begun to despise the celebrity spotlight. Becoming a stunt double had been the perfect profession—anonymous but exciting.

Then she’d been injured. She’d moved in with Anthony, followed a few months later by their heart-wrenching breakup. Returning to New Orleans after twenty-three years hadn’t been easy, but she’d come determined to heal all her wounds—physical and emotional—start over and reconnect with her family.

She’d made some headway. Her agility and strength were at one hundred percent. She no longer thought about Anthony every day or about the choices she should have made. The future beckoned.

Unfortunately, even romantic, outrageous New Orleans had held little promise by way of truly exciting career choices, until her sister married Brandon. Too bad the eldest Chance brother, in addition to his military background, had an insatiable sexual appetite that kept the couple on their honeymoon four weeks past their scheduled return date. Or maybe Sam should blame her sister. Surrendering to passion seemed to be a genetic trait.

Aw, hell. She couldn’t blame either of them. She’d never been one to deny her own desires—and she’d never even really been in love. Sam couldn’t begrudge her sister or Brandon their wedded bliss, but she still wished they’d be blissful at home.

In the meantime, Brandon had suggested that Sam pull some security gigs for hands-on learning. Nothing too risky, he’d insisted. Her stunt-work training gave her physical agility and mental preparedness, but the movie sets, speeding cars and fireball explosions had been controlled. Carefully planned and painfully executed. She needed to experience the unexpected—learn to trust her gut.

Somehow, she doubted the Supermarketing Expo fit the bill.

“Samantha, this is Mitchell. Respond please.”

Samantha unhooked the walkie-talkie from her belt and turned from the chatter and music echoing through the professionally designed booths and displays. “Deveaux, here.”

“The CEO of LaRocca Foods is on his way to his booth. He’s a major player. Tim’s with him. Stand tall.”

Samantha smirked. Another executive type headed toward his company’s booth and another opportunity for the security staff to play Secret Service to people whose importance hardly warranted professional protection. Except for the guys at the front assigned to allow entrance to paid conventioneers, the Expo was hardly high-risk. Now, if Mr. Model-licious did indeed plan an appearance as rumored, Sam might get her wish. Mass hysteria and raging female hormones could cause a very dangerous mix.

She knew that firsthand.

“Gotcha, boss.”

“And tell Gumbert to return to her position.”

Ruby slipped her glasses back onto her regal nose. “I guess the ogle-fest is over. Back to ice-cream land. How the heck do they expect me to stay on this diet when they keep handing me samples of mint chocolate chip? Still want to trade?”

Samantha shook her head. She had few weaknesses in the world, but one was definitely butter pecan ice cream, which she knew they were also serving at the booth near Ruby’s station.

“Fat chance.”

Ruby patted her flat tummy. “Fat is right. Have fun with the big shot.”

Samantha saluted then snapped the walkie-talkie back onto her belt, slipped her hands behind her back and waited for the corporate executive to rush by and ignore her diligence. She hated this job. She hated hating this job. So far, the only good thing to come of her move was being closer to her sister and mother—and again, the definition of good came into question.

Her sister, when not honeymooning in some South American country, was a trip in herself—and gave new meaning to the term unconventional. Her mother, a world-renowned medium and self-proclaimed New Orleans spirit guide, defied any and all definitions. But so far, Endora had been supportive of Samantha’s return, even when she’d taken this “rent-a-cop” deal to supplement her income instead of accepting Mommy’s proffered handout.

Which she wouldn’t need if her father hadn’t reinvested the money he owed her from her last job into his upcoming film. He’d named her as a producer and assumed she’d be thrilled. She could end up obscenely rich if the movie proved a hit. Too bad Sam didn’t care about vulgar wealth. She just wanted to be comfortable, stable and self-sufficient. A couple of months under her brother-in-law’s tutelage and she’d be a fully licensed, salary-earning bodyguard. She’d already obtained her concealed-weapon permit and had begun her coursework over the Internet. Now she needed some on-the-job training.

But four weeks after their first scheduled return date, Brandon and Serena were still sunning and loving on a beach in Rio de Janeiro. Never mind that Sam had bought and installed a state-of-the-art computer system. Never mind that she’d used next month’s office rent to invest in several tracking devices, night-vision goggles and the smallest communications mechanisms she’d ever seen. They’d be the best-outfitted outfit in the personal-protection game.

If they didn’t go out of business first. Okay, that was an overstatement. She’d only spent a couple thousand of the petty cash and next month’s office rent. But if she didn’t restore the treasury soon, she’d have to call Brandon and ask for more money—and admit she’d spent slightly more than he’d authorized.

A growing disturbance near the west entrance caught her eye, sending her senses to alert mode. Flanked by two security guards, a threesome of somber-faced suits made their way through the crowd. Sam recognized the first man as Tim Tousignant, the dynamic young executive at the helm of the massive Expo and the man who’d approved her assignment. Good-looking and driven, he impressed Sam with his desire to run any event with smooth precision. Not enough to accept his invitation to dinner, but Sam didn’t mix business with pleasure. Not anymore.

The woman on his left, a tall, dark beauty with luminous olive skin clutched a stack of presentation folders and barely contained a wry smile as she glanced at the growing crowd. She leaned nearer to the man in the center and said something she obviously thought was hilarious.

Nearly a head taller than the others, the CEO of LaRocca Foods obviously didn’t agree. He shot his companion a sharp look and muttered a few words that caused her laughter to die a quick death. He watched his feet and held his hand up to the growing number of followers in a gesture more like a “stop” sign than a wave.

Samantha’s skin prickled.

Lured by the presence of this reluctant Pied Piper, people left the other displays to follow the hulking executive and his burgeoning entourage toward Sam’s end of the aisle near the north exit. An electric buzz rippled through the Superdome until waves of convention goers, mostly female, rushed toward the five-hundred-square-foot area reserved by LaRocca Foods. Mitchell said the CEO, right? She glanced at the label again, then back at the man in the middle of the swarming horde.

Her heart skittered, but then she smiled. A few moments ago, the man’s incredible looks and intense gaze, captured on the pasta label, had affected her like a virulent potion. Now she had the perfect antidote—his obvious arrogance.

If he wasn’t the end-all, be-all of shameless self-promotion, she didn’t know who was. Mr. Chief Executive Officer, sans the top half of his pressed Italian suit, was indeed the sexy hunk-o-rama on his newest product.

Samantha started to laugh, but stopped when the security guards approached, their eyes wide as the swollen throng closed in. A few women squealed. Manicured hands reached across the guards, grabbing at the CEO who still walked, head down, until the mob stopped his progress.

“Oh, God, it’s him! Dominick LaRocca!” someone shrieked.

“You can dig in my field anytime, Pasta Man!”

“I’m hungry for more than sauce, hot stuff! Over here!”

For an instant, Sam thought she’d been transported onto Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras. A middle-aged woman in a silk blouse lifted her shirt and bra to the delight of every man within leering distance. The crowd, effectively incited, surged, pressing the small group of five to the wall. Sam jumped onto the dais to regain her fix on LaRocca and company.

Time to work.

She radioed for backup, then shouted at the two security guards ineffectively trying to hold the women back with drawn nightsticks. Folders scattered as the pretty olive-skinned woman twisted in front of her boss to put one more barrier between him and the tentacles of hungry hands. Sam lost sight of Tim altogether, but figured protecting the man at the center of the disturbance was priority one, especially since he was the one causing the melee.

She couldn’t wait for the guards to lead him closer to the exit. She tucked her hair under her cap and slipped into the crowd, diving low and pushing through the writhing mass until she reached her colleagues. They begged the women to stand aside, using minimal force despite the growing danger.

“I called for backup,” Samantha yelled before pressing between the ineffective wall they’d formed to keep the CEO from harm. “Keep them back!”

“One heck of a security plan you have here,” LaRocca growled.

She ignored him and grabbed his elbow.

“Follow me.”

“Wait. Where’s Anita?”

Samantha felt certain Anita would fare better once the object of these women’s desires was removed from the hall.

“She’ll be fine once you’re safe.”

“Wait!”

Undoubtedly used to calling the shots, he dodged her attempts to pull him out. Samantha knew better than to argue, especially when only about every third word could be heard over the fervent screaming, blatant offers of sex and even a marriage proposal or two, if you counted “marry me, marry me!” as a true invitation. Instead, Sam twisted around him and used her full body weight to shove him to the exit. The sheer velocity of her push sent the crowd fumbling and tripping over one another, allowing her the split second she needed to squeeze him through the heavy security door.

She slipped in behind him and immediately threw her back against the door to attempt to close and lock it.

“Which one are you, anyway?” she asked, annoyed. “George, John, Paul or Ringo?”

A growl tore from her throat as she met with resistance from the other side.

Sex-crazed bimbos! Desperate, man-stupid teenyboppers!

“Don’t be shy,” LaRocca said between pants. “Tell them what you really think.”

She’d tossed him into the hallway so forcefully, he’d hit the opposite wall with a grunt. The loosened knot in his tie had flipped over his collar and the left hip pocket of his jacket hung loose at his side. His nostrils flared as he gasped for breath, then he used the opposite wall to launch himself against the door.

Against her.

The contact cracked the air around them with a pop nearly inaudible with women screaming on the other side of the door. But the surge of static electricity burned Samantha from the outer layer of her skin straight through to her heart. She shook her head, trying to dispel the resonating tingle, and pressed her back to the door. She dug in with her powerful legs, legs now tangled between the Pasta God’s marble thighs. His scent was as crisp and clean as his starched white shirt, as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. The image of him in nothing but a fluffy white towel immediately sprang to mind.

“Did I say that out loud?” she asked, hoping like hell that he’d interpret the flush of her skin as natural exertion, even embarrassment at her mouthy tirade. She refused to look up in his face, though gazing straight into his chest wasn’t any less dangerous when she knew, thanks to the sauce label, exactly what his chest looked like bare.

“Loud and clear. But I’m not arguing. You’d think these women had never seen a man before.” He struggled to help her close the door, but hands and fingers, even an ankle or two stuck through the six inches of space between the steel barrier and quiet freedom. Over the noise from the other side, Sam finally heard the arrival of reinforcements.

“Back. Back. Move back!”

Hands and feet disappeared from the doorway, but the press from the other side remained constant, probably from the guards struggling to clear the doorway. They wouldn’t be safe until they closed the door, and her counterparts on the other side apparently had their hands full just blocking the exit.

Glancing down at her for approval, Dominick LaRocca took another deep breath. “On three.”

She nodded, bracing herself for further impact. The rush of adrenaline snapped her head up. Good Lord. He’s going to throw his weight against the door. Against me!

He counted, “One…”

His eyes mirrored the color of freshly crushed mint.

“Two…”

His jaw looked chiseled from flesh-toned granite.

“Three!”

Pressed Italian silk didn’t hide an erection worth a damn.