Drawn to the Flames

2

2As Kate approached the house, she noticed a familiar Nogales & Sons van in the driveway. Andreas came out to greet her. He wanted to kiss her but that was not allowed in the charade they played out in public.

“Is Miguel here?” she asked.

“No, preciosa. I borrowed it.” He smiled. “In case you wanted to park someplace. For a while.”

“Always the considerate one,” she said, smiling at the ways he could proposition her without using the word s*x. “I don’t deserve you, baby.”

“It’s me who is the undeserving one. After I show you progress on the house, we can go work on deserving each other.”

Kate took Andreas’s clipboard and followed him through the garage door and into the house. She saw Henry Phillips, the building contractor foreman, working on the indoor/outdoor pool’s heating unit. When he saw her, he smiled. Kate was the sort of woman men of most any age above thirty smiled at, and it paid to have motivated contractors, so she walked around the end of the pool to say hello. Andreas knew the drill and busied himself clearing up his plans and notes on the huge temporary work table.

“Nice guy,” she said, rejoining Andreas.

Andreas raised his eyebrows, grinning suggestively. “Not that nice,” she clarified.

“Not yet, anyway. But no doubt you’ll give him time,” he joked. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you brought Mr. Hill out weekend before last.”

“No need, darling,” Kate said. “It’s my own fault for bringing him here on short notice. He travels a lot and called us from the airport to see if I could show him some listings. I was afraid to suggest another day. Who knows when he’d have had time again?”

“And the place was still a mess. I would have come to help you walk him through the place, but I was stuck at school. I had to make some last fixes on my thesis before they can publish it.”

“Really? You’re getting published by Cal Berkeley! That’s wonderful, sweetheart.”

“Not the university. A design journal. They liked the way I showed the classical roots of today’s contemporary garden sculptures.”

“Well, it’s still fabulous to be published, especially when you’re just starting out in your practice. I bet Papa Nogales is proud.”

“Not so much. He can see I’m serious about being an outdoor sculptor and architect. One less son to grow the business.” He finished gathering up his work. “It didn’t help when Deirdre told him I could be a star in that field. Travel all over the globe, like her.” Meaning with her, Kate thought. “I know she meant well, but that was exactly what Papi did not want to hear.”

“Yeah, she does that. But her heart’s in the right place. Speaking of Didi, can you show me where you propose to put your mosaic? She sent me your sketches but failed to show where it would go.”

Andreas led Kate to the edge of the empty pool. Cleaning it up after the retiling was yet another thing on the to-do list. “I want to put it in the very bottom of the deepest part, so divers can look down and imagine meeting the girl waiting in the depths.”

“My romantic Andreas,” Kate said with admiration. “Very creative. And provocative, having a mosaic design of a nude girl riding a dolphin on the floor of the pool.”

“Not crazy, then?” he asked.

“It’s great. A wonderful gender twist on the classic Greek design.”

Andreas beamed. “Deirdre said I should start with a painting. If the buyer approves it, I can then lay it down in the floor when we finish the re-tiling.”

“If we have a buyer, sweetheart.”

“Yes. But I’m optimistic. Mr. Hill is no match for my babygirl.” He grabbed his work satchel and a brown paper sack and took her arm. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I’m hungry. We can take your car. I’ll drive. The boys can pick up Miguel’s van tomorrow.”

“Where are we going?”

“Not to a restaurant, with me looking like an undocumented job site foreman. Anyway, if we went to a restaurant I’d have to bend you over one of the tables. Is Sasha home? If so, we can go to my place.”

“No, she’s going to a frat party. But there’s nothing to eat in the apartment.”

“We’ll stop at the supermarket. I’ll shop, and I’ll cook,” he said.

“Not the big one near my place, okay?”

“No problema. We’ll go to the one we Latinos use. No need to worry, little one. No one will see you with the Mexican lawn guy.”

Kate felt guilty for intimating that she was ashamed to be seen in Andreas’s company.

“It’s okay, preciosa,” he said, squeezing her hand. She relaxed. For about ten seconds. “Now, puta mia, take off your clothes. You know the rule.”

Though she’d stripped in a car for Andreas and other men maybe a hundred times, Kate still blushed at the command. “Do it, babygirl,” he said. “You want me to see you. You know it and I know it, so lose your fine suit and blouse. Now!”

“Okay, but does everyone else have to see me, too?” She chuckled.

“You’d like that even better, witch. Hurry. Put your things in the back seat. Keep your heels up here. They’ll match the outfit I brought for you.”

“Outfit?”

“Later. Right now, I want you naked. Slide across the seat so I can touch you.”

As they drove, she warmed to his probing fingers and offered to do him as he drove. “Too risky, Bellissima. Besides, waiting for your mouth is one of the best things a man can experience. The anticipation lets me think of all the ways I want you. Do you have your sweet little rocket?” Kate reddened. “Well?”

“You know I do, beast.”

“Show me.”

She pulled the small vibrator out of her bag and handed it over. “Give me the remote control, too.”

“Andreas, I–”

“Now, girl.” She produced the clever little control device. “Good girl. Did you use it today?”

“Please, Andreas.”

“Tell me, puta.” He made a show of sniffing it. “Ah. No need. I know the answer.”

“You do not, dammit! I washed it before I left the office.”

He smiled. “As I said. I’m not angry, girl. But you’ll need to be spanked for lying to your Master.”

He pulled off the main road into a strip mall parking lot. “Open your thighs, babygirl, so I can insert it.”

“Please, Andreas…”

“Please who, slut?”

“Please, Master. Don’t make me. Let’s go home and I’ll be anything you want.”

“What I want, puta, is to be obeyed. Now, open your legs.”

Kate didn’t object. She was never going to, not really, when she loved the ways Andreas excited her before he f****d her.

“Now, take my wrist and direct my hand exactly where my nasty little puta wants it.” Once he had buried his fingers deep, next to her G-spot, he smiled and kissed her. “Now. Little one. Just relax. Take my hand and use my fingers as a toy.”