Flirting in Traffic Read online

As he’d quickly learned was the usual case with Esa, however, what began as teasing and playful became hot and eye-crossingly serious in no time flat. She tasted like mint mouthwash with just a hint of cherry that had nothing to do with the plastic bottle of green fluid in his bathroom and everything to do with Esa’s singular taste. She smelled like fresh air and sweet, well-loved woman.

  He thought of what she’d tasted like when he’d finally coated his tongue in her honeyed, musky essence last night.

  His cock swelled hard and full at the thought of tasting her again, the strength and near-pain of his body’s reaction shocking him a little.

  “How fast do you think you can get us back to bed, Speed Racer?”

  “We’re there within ten minutes,” Esa replied huskily.

  “Make it eight and I’ll give you a prize.”

  Her eyes smoldered. “And if I make it seven?”

  “I’ll make it the grand one,” he promised as he grabbed her hand and they jogged toward the car.

  He seriously considered doing a rerun of their foyer escapade from a few nights ago when she yanked him down to her like some kind of lusty barbarian warrior-queen the second after he closed his front door. But no, he’d learned his lesson. What if this was the last time he made love to her?

  He’d take her right…no matter how much she tempted him.

  He chuckled into her ravenous kiss even though amusement wasn’t his only reaction to his thoughts. Lust was the other. What man wouldn’t want to be ravaged by a fiery red-haired beauty who was built along the lines of Wonder Woman, a la Lynda Carter?

  What red-blooded man wouldn’t want to tame the little hellion?

  Okay, maybe she wasn’t little relative to other women, Finn thought as he overfilled his hand with a firm breast, but she was little compared to him. Graceful and delightfully curved, not to mention the most exciting woman he’d ever kept sequestered in his bed for a night of pleasure.

  For a morning of it.

  For an afternoon and evening, if he could talk her into it.

  He tripped over her feet as he returned her kiss with equal ravenous hunger and pushed her back to his bedroom.

  They finally stumbled and fell on his bed in a tangle of long limbs and craning necks. She tried to roll on top of him but he held her down with ease with his flexing, spread thighs and heavier weight.

  She squirmed beneath him.

  “Are you that anxious for your prize?” he asked with gruff amusement as he ground his cock in the heat emanating from the apex of her thighs. She resisted the pressure with her hips, rubbing up against him like a strong, supple feline in heat.

  “You know I am, you damned—”

  She paused in the process of biting his lower lip between her small white teeth when the sound of a key in the front door lock penetrated the cloud of thick lust that surrounded them.

  “Shit,” Finn muttered with blistering heat.

  It must be building maintenance. Was there something elementally wrong with his condo that he hadn’t had the ability to notice with his nose next to Esa’s fragrant skin? Was the building perhaps going up in flames around him while he operated under the sole dictate to bury himself between her thighs?

  “Who’s there?” he roared. His head reared up. He was furious with anything that even remotely dared to interfere with his possession of the warm, vibrant, succulent female he held captive beneath his body. A second later he heard a voice call out his name and a familiar figure walked through the door of his bedroom.

  Not an inferno then. More like an earthquake.

  “Julia. What the hell are you doing here?”

  * * * * *

  Esa pushed on Finn’s chest in a silent plea. Without removing his eyes from the stunning brunette who had just walked into his room wearing a black and white formal gown, cashmere wrap and large diamonds in her ears and around her elegant throat, Finn stood up at the side of the bed.

  Esa clambered up after him, all too eager to not be left lying on the bed with her legs spread wide in front of this divine creature who currently watched her with an impassive stare tinged with dark amusement.

  “I apologize. I’d not realized you were entertaining a guest. How are you, Esa?”

  “Just dandy, Julia,” Esa answered while she shot a fulminating look at Finn.

  He stared first at her, then at Julia, then back at Esa, as though he were convinced he was hallucinating current events.

  “You two know each other?” he asked incredulously.

  Julia gave a small, elegant shrug. “We know each other from our Junior League days.”

  “Still partying until dawn I see,” Esa said scathingly as her eyes swept down the woman’s slender, Town & Country-cover-ready figure. Her voice sounded cool but in truth her heart beat frantically in her ears.

  “I attended a charity ball last night to benefit St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. Unfortunately my date is passed out cold in our hotel room. Gavin likes his drink a bit too much.”

  Esa’s jaw dropped in disbelief when she saw the way Julia gave Finn a smoky look as though Esa wasn’t even in the room.

  What the hell was Julia Weatherell—the only woman who held a viable claim to her sister Rachel’s title as the reigning social queen of Chicago—doing in Finn’s condo looking like she owned the place and treating Esa as if she were some small annoyance, like a suspicious-looking spot on the carpet? Of course Esa knew the answer, impossible though it seemed.

  Shit. If this didn’t beat all. Julia Weatherell was Finn’s ex-fiancée?

  “Finn? May I have a word?” Julia asked in that low, cigarette-rough voice that Esa used to hate…and envy like crazy. It only made her more jealous that Julia possessed that sexy voice without ever touching a cigarette.

  Finn met Esa’s eyes briefly before he grimly nodded at the bedroom door and followed Julia out of the room. He pulled the door closed behind them, but not all the way.

  And Esa was so wild with curiosity at that moment she wasn’t above listening in through the crack.

  “Give me the key,” she heard Finn say clearly in a low, furious tone.

  The sound of keys jangling on a keychain and Julia’s husky laughter filtered in through the door. She imagined Julia dropping the key into his waiting palm in the silence that followed, letting her fingertips linger on his skin the process. Esa’s lungs began to burn as she waited in trepidation and forgot to breathe.

  “I like that new vase. Did you get it from Serge at Mycroft and Sons? It would look better over on the credenza next to the bowl that we bought together in Paris. Remember that little restaurant next to the shop where we found it? And how after we drank almost two bottles of wine we went back to the hotel room and—”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Finn interrupted, the degree of rage in his tone highly gratifying to Esa.

  Or maybe it shouldn’t be gratifying? Would he be so royally pissed off if the gorgeous Julia didn’t still have her hooks in him? Who was Esa kidding? She knew too much about Julia Weatherell to think it was possible for a man to become impervious to her charms.

  Besides, hadn’t Finn said they’d only broken up a month ago?

  Finn and Julia? What a bizarre pairing. Julia was known for her snobbishness and Finn was one of the most down-to-earth people she’d ever met.

  Once Julia had started a rumor about Rachel and Esa—one of many, at least in regards to Rachel—insinuating that neither of them really had attended college at Northwestern. Esa couldn’t have cared less about Julia’s petty rumor-mongering on the social circuit but Rachel had been in the process of acquiring investors to start up Metro Sexy. Her sister had nearly lost two crucial but wavering investors due to Julia’s lies.

  “I made a terrible mistake, Finn,” Esa heard Julia say. “You should be glad to know that I’m being punished cruelly for my stupidity. I’m miserable. You have no idea how much I’ve regretted—”

  Her voice broke with tears. Esa’s eyes widened in pani
c at the sound. A beautiful, delicate creature like Julia was always a threat…but Julia vulnerable and overcome by emotion?

  Don’t even think about it.

  “There are nights I would give anything, do anything to be back with you here in our cozy home,” Julia muttered wetly.

  Please, laying it on a bit thick aren’t you, Julia? Esa thought with rising disbelief. Had she no shame? Surely Finn wasn’t buying into this!

  More soft crying and helpless hicupping ensued, only to be followed by a dreadful silence.

  Some kind of masochistic urge made Esa press closer to the door. Oh God, what was going on out there? Why aren’t they speaking? she wondered in rising panic. Surely it wasn’t because they were experiencing a passionate, torrid clinch, was it?

  Finally she heard Finn exhale audibly.

  Don’t let her pull you in, don’t let her, Finn. Esa knew her mental chants had been for naught when she heard the softened quality of his deep voice when he spoke.

  “I’m sorry you regret it, Julia. But—”

  “Are you really?”

  “Of course I am. I don’t get off on the idea of you being unhappy. We were engaged for Christ’s sake. I was in—”

  He stopped abruptly.

  Esa’s heart plummeted into her stomach. Oh no, this was much, much worse than she’d suspected.

  “You were the only one who really understood me, Finn. The only one who knew the real me.”

  “You made your choice. You can’t come waltzing into this condo like you still live here. What’s between us is over,” he replied gently.

  Damn straight it is, Esa thought.

  “Is it, Finn? Is it really?” Julia asked tremulously.

  Esa cringed in the silence that followed.

  “Yes,” Finn finally said.

  Esa stepped back from the door. Never mind the single word that came out of Finn’s mouth. That pregnant pause before he’d spoken had said it all.

  She caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror when she rose from picking up her backpack. Her clothing was rumpled and smelled vaguely of mildew after sitting on Finn’s damp bathroom floor all night. Her hair looked like a rat’s nest.

  And why the hell were there tears in her eyes? What kind of a pitiful fool was she to get emotional over a weekend fling, especially when the guy was clearly still pining for his gorgeous, deceitful ex-fiancée?

  He must be a moron for getting involved with Julia Weatherell.

  Except that she knew very well that Finn was far from being a moron. Esa had been firsthand witness to several of the brightest, sweetest guys in the city falling like lead for Julia. She was the kind of beautiful that made guys lose all remnants of rationality. Plus she was a savvy, sophisticated lawyer. Esa recalled that she was a successful Assistant United States Attorney General.

  She was also poison, but apparently a sweet, addictive one when it came to men.

  “I’ll just let myself out,” Esa proclaimed too brightly when she walked out of the bedroom a few seconds later.

  She caught a glimpse of Julia’s tear-stained, incredulous face. She didn’t give herself time to interpret Finn’s rigid expression before she raced for the door.

  She stared blankly at the blurry reflection of herself in the gold elevator doors as they silently shut. Undoubtedly Finn had gotten his fill of her because this time he hadn’t uttered a peep of protest about her abrupt departure.

  Chapter Ten

  Esa barely stopped herself from screaming like a blonde in a slasher movie when Mrs. Fuentes dug her cane between two bones in Esa’s foot.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, Dr. Ormond!”

  “It’s okay,” Esa grunted through a twisted grimace. “The elevator is always crowded on Fridays. I probably should have taken the stairs.”

  “Especially tonight. It’s Halloween, you know. There’s a party in the dining room,” Mrs. Fuentes explained as Esa continued to grit her teeth as the pain in her foot ebbed from a roar to a dull throb.

  “You’re coming, aren’t you, Dr. Ormond? I’ve got a bottle of gin for the punch and they’re gonna show Halloween 3,” Mortimer Shively provoked her with a sly grin.

  Esa knew precisely which activity he expected her to lecture him about so she chose the other. “You better watch out, Mort. Halloween 3 won’t do your kidneys any favors either.”

  Mort snorted with laughter.

  “Look at her, Shively. She’s gorgeous. Why the heck would the doc want to party with a bunch of half-dead zombies like us?” Mr. Abercrombie growled.

  “You know as well as I do I like going to Shady Lawn parties once in awhile, Mr. Abercrombie.” Her brow crinkled in suspicion when she noticed Abercrombie’s wry, assessing glance as he peered up at her from beneath bushy gray eyebrows. For some reason it reminded Esa of what Carla said last week about her reserving her room at Shady Lawn nursing home before she turned thirty.

  One of the many things Carla had said in order to goad her into going to One Life.

  Had it really been a whole week since she’d first seen Finn walk out of that construction trailer, six days since she’d stormed out of his condo and left him alone with that man-eater Julia Graves? She hadn’t heard a whisper from him since. Now that the weekend was here, it seemed more and more unlikely that she’d ever hear from him again.

  She was a fool for expecting anything different, of course. Hadn’t they set clear parameters for their fling? He’d said he wanted his fill of her and surely she’d given it to him during that night of wild, uninhibited, write-to-Cosmo-it-was-so-phenomenal sex.

  She’d been meticulous about driving Rachel’s car in the far right lanes when they neared 63rd Street all week long, determinedly ignoring Carla’s muttering under her breath that she was a coward in addition to being lame. Look where listening to her best friend had gotten her last week, after all?

  Naked, shameless and lust-drunk beneath Finn Madigan’s beautiful body, that’s where.

  She flinched away from Mrs. Fuentes’ cane when the elevator door opened on the fifth floor and two more people squeezed on.

  “When are you gonna order me one of those fancy electric wheelies, Doc?” Abercrombie demanded as the doors shut once again.

  “When your physical therapist recommends it and I see even a trace of evidence that it’s warranted.”

  They’d ritualistically engaged in this conversation since Abercrombie had come to Shady Lawn for continued physical therapy following his acute hospitalization for a stroke. Despite his surliness, Esa liked Abercrombie’s wry sense of humor and sharp wit. He’d quickly become one of Esa’s favorite patients. She realized that he grumped constantly to her about the wheelchair because he knew that her consistent reply gave him hope.

  “In other words, never,” Abercrombie grumbled. “Both you and my physical therapist always say I’m too strong for an electric chair.”

  “You are,” Esa replied cheerfully. “Anyone who has the energy for being as ornery as you are doesn’t need electricity to power him. If we put you in some pimped-out chair you’ll get so lazy and out of shape that blinking will make you out of breath.”

  “Doc Ormond tells it like it is,” Mr. Ostrowski said before he glared at the man and woman who tried to get on the packed elevator when the doors opened on the fourth floor. “Are ya blind as well as brain dead? Wait for the next one!”

  Esa sighed. “Thanks, Mr. Ostrowski. Coming from you that’s a real compliment.”

  When they exited the elevator Esa strayed in the direction of the Shady Lawn dining room as she chatted with Mrs. Fuentes. The large room was decorated with black and orange streamers and plastic jack-o-lanterns.

  “Hey, Doc.”

  “Yes, Mr. Abercrombie?” she asked when she saw him waiting alone in the corridor. She walked toward him.

  “I watched you park that red car of yours in that postage stamp-sized parking space this morning from my window on the seventh floor this morning. Nine out of ten people wouldn’t have at
tempted the maneuver. Nine out of ten of the ones who tried would have never come close to making it. You drive like you got balls.”

  “Thanks,” Esa said, surprised how pleased the compliment made her feel.

  “Must be that fancy new sports car that’s put that restless look on your face.”

  Esa frowned. The man possessed the observatory talents of a spy. “It’s my sister’s, Mr. Abercrombie. I don’t like sports cars.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  His comment reminded her bit too potently of Finn saying something similar while the dawn sunlight turned his sexy, tousled hair into pure gold.

  “What’s your point, Mr. Abercrombie?”

  “I’m going into that dining room right now and eat my low-fat, high-fiber plate o’crapola and unglue my dentures chewing on sugar-free candy because I got nowhere else to go, see? You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, a healthy young body and a car fast enough to take you to hell and back in ten minutes flat. So my point is, haven’t you got any place better to be?”

  Esa’s mouth fell open.

  “No?” Abercrombie answered for her. “Well, take my advice, Doc. Find a place.”

  Esa shifted on her feet indecisively. “Well, I suppose you’re right. I still have to pick up Carla at the office and Friday night traffic is going to be a nightmare.”

  “I’d even choose Dan Ryan traffic over this,” he said as he started to wheel his chair into the dining room.

  “Mr. Abercrombie?”

  He paused and looked over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

  “You have someplace else to be. Home. Just give me a little more time. Another two weeks of therapy and you’re going to be doing laps around the physical therapy gym with your walker. If you give me three I might even send you home with a cane.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Esa replied.

  He snorted and resumed rolling down the hallway. But Esa had caught the look of hope that blazed into his blue eyes. It was enough to make her smile broadly for the first time during the whole work week as she walked out Shady Lawn’s front door into the crisp autumn evening.

  A half hour later Esa’s moment of euphoria had evaporated. She swallowed what felt like gravel in her throat. Not only were they approaching the dreaded 63th Street viaduct in brain-numbing traffic, Carla had just sprung on her where she was going to tonight.