What Stella Wants. Nancy Bartholomew

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      “You knew this would happen, didn’t you?” Suspicion dawned in my gullible brain. He was not nearly as interested in tracking down Aunt Lucy’s mysterious visitor as I was.

      “Now, Stella, you know that wasn’t it. I just like to be prepared, that’s all.”

      I felt my spine stiffen. “Prepared, my ass!” Wasn’t that just like a man? I’d left Florida and a promising career in law enforcement to get away from a no-good, cheating scoundrel only to wind up back in my old home town with the very first con artist to break my heart. What was it with me, anyway? When was I going to learn?

      Jake leaned down and kissed me so thoroughly I began to appreciate the beauty of thoughtful preparation. So what if he was prepared? So what if he didn’t care about Aunt Lucy’s boyfriend as much as—Oh, please keep touching me there!

      I reached for Jake, grabbing the waistband of his jeans and pulling him closer. My fingers found the top button and I knew there was about to be no turning back.

      “What if the limo comes?” I murmured, my lips never leaving his.

      “We’ll hear it,” he assured me. “I’ll listen out for it. I have unbelievable ears.”

      Jake’s fingers slipped under my bra and began softly stroking and tugging at my nipples.

      “You have unbelievable fingers,” I whispered, and sighed as my body gave itself over to his slow seduction.

      “You’re no slouch yourself,” he answered.

      I smiled and pushed his jeans down over his hips. Another moment and we were naked beneath a pile of warm afghans and quilts. Outside, the street was silent. With the exception of the old people, like Aunt Lucy and her best friend, crazy Sylvia Talluchi, all the other inhabitants on the block were at work.

      Jake’s knowing hand moved slowly down across my stomach, teasing me with its leisurely approach. I heard someone moan and knew it was me. Here we were, naked in a van, about to make wild crazy love while also trying not to make enough noise to rouse the curiosity of any inadvertent passersby. It was illicit, steamy and a complete turn-on. Jake, I realized, was a brilliant man. He knew what this unexpected opportunity would do to me, and he was totally prepared to take full advantage of it. You just had to love a man like that.

      Or did you?

      In the past few months our relationship had kindled into far more than the adolescent fumbling that had been our high school romance. We’d gotten past, kind of, Jake jilting me at the altar in a failed, underage elopement. We’d survived my uncle Benny’s murder investigation in which Jake had been one of the prime suspects. We’d even gone into business as private investigators and resumed our personal relationship with the wisdom that only age and experience can bring. But in the past few months, the chemistry between us had exploded into an all-consuming fire that frankly scared the hell out of me.

      I’d tried to play it cool. I’d forced myself to spend time away from him. He’d let me down before, and while we’re on the subject, so had every other man I’d every had a personal relationship with, even my father. He and Mom had had the nerve to take a second honeymoon to Ireland, without me, and had managed to die in a fiery plane crash. I just had to be sure about Jake before I got so hopelessly entangled in the relationship that I couldn’t survive the loss of it.

      “Oh, Jake!” His tongue was following his fingers. I felt my body explode into a bonfire of need and without thinking I reached for him, pulling and positioning my body beneath him. What was wrong with me? How could I not trust someone who made me feel like this? This was so incredibly good! This was better than anything I’d ever felt in my entire…

      Outside, the van walls began violently shaking as someone beat the door with their fists. Maybe more than one someone was beating on the van. The loud noise seemed to come from everywhere, surrounding us.

      “What the—” Jake jumped to his feet, completely naked except for his unbuttoned, plaid flannel shirt. I had a full frontal flash of what I was about to miss before I, too, jumped up and joined him in the frantic dash to reclothe ourselves.

      “Who in the—” I gasped, struggling into my jeans.

      “They’re in there. I saw them!”

      “No, no, no!” I moaned softly. Sylvia Talluchi, the world’s most active busybody and self-appointed watchdog for the entire neighborhood, had seen us and pulled the alarm.

      “Stella, are you in there?”

      Oh, we were dead. Aunt Lucy was banging on the other side of the van. There was going to be total hell to pay.

      Jake looked at me, wide-eyed, as the same realization hit him.

      “Let me handle this.” I pushed my way past him, pulling on and zipping my parka as I went. I didn’t even wait for Jake to answer me. It was my aunt and my execution.

      I flung open the door and was momentarily blinded by the brilliant winter sunlight.

      “Stella! Marone! What are you doing in there?”

      “Lucia, you don’t know?” Mrs. Talluchi’s querulous tone grated like fingernails on a chalkboard. “They were doing the nasty if you ask me!”

      My eyes adjusted in time to see my aunt shoot her best friend a dark look before she leveled the same gaze at me.

      “Well?”

      I forced a broad smile and stepped down the two metal stairs onto the sidewalk where Sylvia Talluchi and Aunt Lucy stood waiting. Jake stood framed in the doorway behind me and I prayed he had the sense to smile as well.

      “No, of course we weren’t ‘doing the nasty’ as you so succinctly put it, Mrs. Talluchi. Jake and I were about to stop back by the house before we went out on surveillance. You see, we were on our way to Lancaster to see Max when we got this call and…”

      I stopped in midsentence. At the far end of the street, a limousine slowly crept past on Johnston Avenue.

      “Who is that?” I demanded, pointing so there’d be no doubt about the vehicle in question.

      Aunt Lucy and Sylvia Talluchi spun on their heels just as the long black sedan’s tail lights vanished from view.

      “Who was what?” my aunt asked, turning back to face me. “Never mind that! What were you doing out here? Have you no sense of common decency? In the van, for all the world to witness? Have you no shame?”

      Jake stepped down out of the van to join me on the sidewalk. “Mrs. Valocchi, we noticed you had company and I said we shouldn’t disturb you, so we were just waiting.”

      I wanted to slap him. How could he think my aunt, a former CIA chemist, could possibly be so stupid? But it was too late. Jake had wandered into the minefield.

      “You noticed I had company? How did you notice that, Jake?”

      “Well, we saw the limousine pull up and…”

      “Saw the limousine, did you?” she echoed dangerously.

      Jake nodded. A СКАЧАТЬ