Her Body of Work (3 page)

Rey pulled her hand away and looked for a pen, pencil, jumbo-size kid’s crayon—anything so she could start drawing and ignore that sensual glitter in his eye.

He grinned at her and ambled toward her tiny changing room, her black bathrobe slung over his arm. His buttocks flexed under the tight satin.

She found a soft charcoal stick and slashed blindly at a piece of scrap paper. She heard the curtain rattle closed and finally focused on her rough sketch. Oh, no. She’d drawn the thick, long lines of Marco’s penis. The tiny muscles in her vagina clenched in response.

She ripped the tattletale sketch into confetti. Working on this commission would either make her reputation or drive her insane with lust. And she wasn’t sure which outcome she wanted more.

T
EN MINUTES LATER
M
ARCO
walked out of the cubicle, grimacing as his snow-damp pants stuck to his thighs. Although Rey had a few space heaters scattered around the loft, the high ceiling gobbled their small output. “Aren’t you cold?”

“No, I’m used to it.” She looked at his pitifully thin clothing. “Apparently you aren’t.”

“Not really.” He didn’t want to get into details of why he was in Chicago without a winter coat.

“I was born in Sweden and moved to Chicago when I was a kid, so I have a few tricks to get through a long, dark winter.” She grabbed a blank sheet of paper from her worktable and clipped it to her easel.

Marco had already thought of several ways and several positions in which to spend winter with Rey, starting as soon as possible. “If you’re not busy later, I’d like to take you to dinner. You can explain more about your project.”

Her skilled fingers curled around the thick pencil and stroked it across the paper’s pristine white sur
face. He leaned over her shoulder as she stood in front of her easel, her spicy cinnamon scent mingling with her own warm scent of woman. His shaft hardened again.

She looked up from her sketch, black charcoal smearing her long pale fingers and her long neck as she brushed aside a blond strand of hair. He tried to recognize the shape of his body in her drawing, but it looked like random squiggles.

“I’m busy tonight,” Rey stated, turning to him with a pleasant look on her face before returning to her work.

“What about tomorrow?” He ought to know better, but it had been months since he’d been so attracted to a woman.

She set down her pencil and faced him. Her ice-blue eyes were frosty. “Marco, I’m paying you to model for me. As your employer, I shouldn’t go out to dinner with you.”

She said
shouldn’t,
not
won’t.
Maybe she had mixed feelings. “Sure, I understand.”

“Good. You’re the most suitable model I’ve seen for my project, and I’d hate to have any hard feelings between us.” She gave him a smile. Despite her cool manner, a hot flush crept up her cheeks.

His brain realized she was being smart and probably just following her professional standards. But his body wanted to push aside her thin tank top and see if her breasts were as pale and smooth as the rest of her.

She cleared her throat, drawing his attention to the pulse fluttering at the base of her neck. Triumph rushed through him, and he stretched out to stroke the thrumming beat. His dark finger drew invisible circles against the white canvas of her neck. Instead of quelling it, his
touch spurred her pulse to an even faster rhythm. She swayed into his delicate caress.

When she didn’t knock his finger away, he was encouraged. He traced the elegant horizon of her collarbone, the strength of bone and flesh hidden under her soft skin arousing him even more. He skimmed over her shoulder with the pads of all four fingers. His breath hitched as he realized that she wasn’t wearing a bra.

“Marco?” Her blue eyes weren’t icy anymore.

“Yes?” Her nipples had peaked against the thin white cotton of her top, matching the heavy pulse of his erection against his zipper. Her glance dropped to the front of his jeans. She zoned in on his arousal, her breath quickening.

If he lowered his hand, the hard tip would brush his palm. He needed to roll her nipples between his fingers and his lips, pull on them with his teeth and tongue.

“What are you doing?” Her husky voice held no indignation, only curiosity.

He smiled despite the growing discomfort as his erection strained against his zipper. “You have a few charcoal smudges.” Only on her throat, and nowhere near where he was touching, but she didn’t need to know that. He contrived to look innocent as she glanced at his fingers diligently rubbing away invisible smears.

“I think you got them all,” she said, trying to be ironic but instead sounding breathy and turned on.

He decided to press his luck and hooked his index finger under the thin ribbon holding up her tank top. “I missed one right here.” He slid his finger down the ribbon to the seam above her nipple. She inhaled sharply, and the top of her bare breast swelled against his knuckle, its hard peak grazing his hand.

She stepped back abruptly, forcing him to release her shirt before he ripped it. Their eyes met and held, blazing blue tangling with hot hazel. She looked away first and strode over to her desk and opened her appointment book. “Can you come at ten on Monday?”

Yeah, he could
come
anytime she wanted him—now, tomorrow, the next day. “Sure.”

“Great.” She swallowed hard, her delicate throat throbbing.

Monday he’d make her forget she was paying him to get naked. In fact, he’d do it for free, out of the goodness of his heart.

“I’ll see you at ten o’clock, Marco.” She sped him to the door. He turned to say goodbye and saw the loft’s thick door close in his face.

She wasn’t as indifferent to him as she pretended. If his Nordic goddess needed some encouragement to thaw, then he’d apply some Cuban heat.

“W
HERE IS
M
ARCO
F
LORES
?” Juan Carlos Rodríguez clicked a solid-gold cigar lighter with his manicured thumbnail and stared at the glittering expanse of Biscayne Bay sixty stories below. Tendrils of silence twined around the sumptuously furnished office as he rotated his massive cordovan leather chair to face his assistant, Gabriel. Gabriel, who had been suspicious of Flores since the beginning. Rodríguez had discounted it as jealousy, since Flores was not only an astute businessman but also willing to get his hands dirty, unlike Gabriel.

“The feds don’t know where their key witness is. He disappeared from the safe house several days ago.” Ga
briel met his gaze without flinching. “Our
informador
hasn’t been able to find him, either,
señor.
”

“How much do we pay this scum informant to pass us information?” Rodríguez opened his rosewood humidor and picked up a thick cigar. He held it to his nose and sniffed, more from habit than anything. The fumes from years of cooking cocaine and methamphetamines had ruined his sense of smell, much to his regret.

“Several thousand a month, if you include the cocaine,” admitted Gabriel. “But he was able to discover that Marco Flores was his real name instead of the alias he used with us.”

Rodríguez cut his cigar with tiny gold scissors and lit the cigar’s cap, rotating it slowly. He let the flame equalize throughout the tip and took a puff. At least he could taste the tobacco. The Cuban cigar rollers had finally gotten his special blend correct. If only everything in his life were as perfect.

Rodríguez had seen Flores as a possible successor. Both Cuban, both self-made men, both ruthless in dealing with their enemies. Except the man he now called Flores had his ruthless streak aimed at an unexpected enemy: himself, Juan Carlos Rodríguez,
El Lobo.
The Wolf.

And like the wolf, he would track down his prey, despite the incompetence surrounding him.

“Why am I wasting my drugs and my money on this man that you hired? What
do
you know?”

The younger man shrugged uncomfortably. “We do know that Flores is no longer in town.”

“And that narrows it down to the tiny part of the United States that lies north of Miami!” The drug lord blew a smoke ring, squinting at Gabriel through the
haze. “My conspiracy trial starts in just over a month and Marco Flores knows enough to ruin the whole cartel.”

If Flores were alive to testify, the Colombians had made it clear that their esteemed business associate Juan Carlos would not live to see the inside of a prison cell. “So tell your source to find Flores. If he can’t, cut off the money. Then cut off the drugs. Then cut off his balls.”

M
ARCO BOLTED UPRIGHT
,
his hands gripping an imaginary weapon, his stomach churning. It had been years since he’d dreamed about the raft, that miserable hunk of rotting wood and worn-out tires. He was still amazed it hadn’t sunk and drowned them in the Florida Straits, the ninety miles of dangerous waters between Cuba and the Keys.

He ran a hand through his sweaty scalp. God, he hated his long hair. If he hadn’t agreed to impersonate Francisco, he’d cut it with his brother’s manicure scissors. It only reminded him of the scumbag he’d played in Rodríguez’s organization. He gave a dry laugh. His baby brother wasn’t the only actor in the family.

Marco lay down and grimaced as the futon frame dug into his neck. It reminded him of the time he’d been hit with a two-by-four on a previous sting in Tampa.

He’d fallen asleep last night watching some action flick dubbed into Spanish. One glance at the clock and he groaned. It was already close to eleven in the morning. He swung his legs off the wooden torture device and stood. He couldn’t believe how rotten he felt. The stress from the past year had finally caught up to him, and his body was paying the dues.

He padded into his brother’s kitchenette to scrape together some Cuban-style coffee. He prowled through both cabinets, finally finding a half-empty bag in the freezer. Inhaling deeply, he smiled. The scent of the finely ground Jamaican blend made him homesick for the coffee stands on the streets of Miami.

He pushed away thoughts of home and measured several scoops into the froufrou German coffeemaker. The slightly burned odor of the liquid dribbling into the pot made Marco start to feel better. He opened the fridge to find some milk for his
café con leche.
It was nearly empty, no dairy products of any kind. Maybe there was some nondairy creamer.

He pulled out a five-pound can of protein powder. Ugh. The label guaranteed maximum increase in muscle. What was wrong with weight lifting?

The fine print read, “With a minimum of sexual side effects.”
¡Caramba!
He threw the can into the fridge and checked his fingers to make sure the protein powder hadn’t leaked.

Francisco’s
pene
was going to shrivel up and fall off if he wasn’t careful with his crazy supplements.

He poured himself a big cup of brew and dumped in some powdered creamer and sugar from dusty containers. He’d found a couple of stale almond biscotti next to the creamer, probably leftover from their
mamá
’s trip to Chicago last summer. Once the biscotti were dunked in his
café con leche,
they were somewhat edible. He stared out the kitchen window at the steel-gray sky. He’d better lay in supplies before he got snowed in and had to resort to eating Francisco’s Amazing Penis-Shrinking Powder.

By the time he’d finished his skimpy breakfast, it was
almost noon, ten o’clock in L.A. Francisco might have dragged his ass out of bed by now.

Marco grabbed the phone and dialed his brother’s cell phone number.

“Yeah?” a voice crackled.

“Francisco, is that you?”

“Hey, Marco, how’s the Windy City treating you?” His younger brother’s carefree voice floated back to him.

“If it gets any colder, my
cojones
are going to freeze off.” Marco was wearing a T-shirt, a long-sleeved thermal Henley and a woolen ski sweater to top it all off and he still couldn’t get warm.

“Too bad you’re not here in L.A. I’m sitting on the beach, where the ocean breezes are cool and the blondes are hot.”

Marco rolled his eyes. “I’m only here in Chicago because you begged me to take your modeling job.”

“Correction—I begged you to go audition. Did you actually get offered the gig?”

“Yeah.” Despite showing up unshaven, half-frozen and scruffy-looking as possible.

“And you’re gonna do it? For me?” Francisco sniffled melodramatically. “I’m really touched.”

Marco grimaced. If he skipped out, Rey would black-ball Francisco with his agency. On the other hand, Marco couldn’t stay in Chicago very long. Francisco had moved around a lot over the past few years but wasn’t impossible to track. And if they found Francisco’s place, they’d find Marco.

“Seriously, this is great for my career. My agent told me Rey Martinson is one of Chicago’s up-and-coming artists. The Museum of Contemporary Art is consider
ing a small-scale exhibit of his work next year. Any model would be thrilled to work for him.”

“First of all, Rey Martinson is not a ‘him’.” Rey could never be mistaken for a man, not with her silky golden hair and plump breasts.

“Really? Just shows how much I pay attention to my modeling agent. If I land this soap-opera role, I’m firing her.”

“You
should
fire her.” Marco ran a hand through his tangled curls. “
Hermanito,
do you know what life modeling is?”

“I know what life modeling is. Don’t you?” Francisco was uncharacteristically cagey.

“I do now, Francisco!” Just remembering standing nude in front of Rey sent a rush of blood to his penis.

“You mean this modeling gig is nude modeling?” His brother let out a shout of laughter loud enough to be heard in Chicago without using the phone. “Were you rough, tough and in the buff?”

“It’s not funny, Francisco!”

While Francisco choked with laughter, Marco contemplated choking his brother.

Francisco finally caught his breath. “I swear,
hermano,
my agent never told me I’d have to go full monty. I wouldn’t have sent you to take my place if I’d known it was nude modeling.”

“Thanks, Francisco. I didn’t think you’d set me up for this on purpose.” He knew Francisco wouldn’t have left him there hanging. Literally.

“Yeah, I would have taken the gig myself. The last nude modeling job I took, they paid me an extra fifty percent!”

Marco groaned. “I don’t want to know the details.”

“How much is this artist paying us, Marco?”

“Us? Last time I checked, it was my bare body on display.”

“Whatever.” Marco pictured his brother’s dismissal of the situation. “How much, Marco?” Francisco persisted.

He gave up trying to make his brother understand and named the amount Rey had offered.

“Hmm. Not bad, minus fifteen percent for my agent. You can keep whatever you make,” Francisco offered, obviously impressed at his own largesse.

“Muchas gracias.”
Marco’s voice was heavy with sarcasm, which his brother chose to ignore.

“
De nada.
And Rey Martinson is a woman?” Francisco asked, still intent on ferreting out all the salacious details.

“Definitely.”

“What does she look like? Is she hot?”

Marco shifted, glad that his brother couldn’t see what must have been a goofy expression on his face. “She’s tall, blond and blue-eyed.” He didn’t want to elaborate further. Francisco had a dirty enough mind without hearing how sexy Rey was.

“Tall, blond and blue-eyed? Damn, some guys get all the luck. Last time I modeled nude for a wrinkly little woman who chased me around her studio.”

“So that’s how you made your extra fifty percent.” Marco knew the modeling world was crazy, but his brother always found the real lunatics.

“That old broad only got to look, no touching allowed. I’ve got my pride, you know.”

Marco had his pride, too, but he wasn’t sure how long
he could keep any pride around Rey. Standing naked in front of her, he’d almost begged her to wrap her long artist’s fingers around his hard shaft.

His brother broke into his lascivious thoughts. “Much as I’d love to come to pose naked for your hot blond artist, I have to stay in L.A. for a while. I made the first cut and got called back for a second audition.”

“That’s great! Stay there as long as you want.” The longer the better. “If you run low on cash, I’ll send you some.”

“Wow, you must really want this artist all to yourself. I haven’t heard you so worked up over a woman since you went all the way with your junior prom date.”

“No, it’s not like that, Francisco.” He wanted Francisco safe, and modeling was a small price to pay.

His brother laughed. “Sure it’s like that. Anyway, I’ll be out here for a while. The executive producer is in Mexico for an experimental face-lift procedure. The FDA banned it after a bunch of people wound up unable to blink.”

Marco grimaced. “She must be some kind of hag.”

“Actually the executive producer is a man.”

Marco rolled his eyes. The man probably had a droopy dick to match his droopy eyelids. And Marco’s own undroopy dick was causing him problems. “I know it may confuse your oversexed little mind, but Rey doesn’t date her models.” He was surprised to hear the plaintive note in his voice.

“She doesn’t like men,” Francisco commiserated. “Too bad. It happens a lot in the artsy-fartsy set. I knew this gay painter once who painted nothing but female nudes. Of course, he did have issues with his
mamá….
”

“Francisco.” Marco ground his jaw, molars scraping off a layer of tooth enamel.

“On the other hand, lesbians usually don’t go for naked men, artistically or otherwise. They tend to paint weird pink flowers or oysters, if you get my drift.”

“Francisco.” Mercifully his younger brother’s attempt at Freudian analysis and art criticism meandered to a halt. Marco took a deep breath and began again. “Francisco, Rey likes men. She paints men. I think she even dates men. But she won’t date me because I’m her model.”

His brother’s hoot of laughter nearly broke his eardrum. “She probably doesn’t date her male models because most of
them
date men.”

“Oh.” Marco’s conservative
cubano
upbringing made a rare appearance and he shuddered.

“Look at it this way, Marco,” his brother offered in a conciliatory tone. “Show up, take off your clothes and maybe your impressive body will convince her to change her mind about dating her models.”

Marco considered his brother’s advice. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea.”

“I do have good ideas now and then.” Francisco’s tone became concerned. “Are you doing okay, Marco? Have you been spotted by any men with large necks intent on avenging their slutty girlfriend’s honor?”

Marco stopped thinking about posing nude and got serious. “No, Chicago’s the perfect city for me to hang out. It’s big enough to get lost in, and I can cover my face with a scarf when I leave the apartment. Hell, I need to use a scarf anyway. Besides,” he prevaricated, “I only slept with that mob chick once, and nobody with any sense would leave Miami this time of year.”

“All right.” His brother sounded relieved. “Wish me luck, and you’ll see me next on
Hope for Tomorrow.
”

“Good luck,
hermanito. Adiós.
”

“Adiós, hermano.”
Francisco clicked off his phone.

Marco hung up and stared at the off-white apartment walls. He had refused to hide in the feds’ safe house after one of his informants disappeared. No doubt the man had provided a meal for the bull sharks off the Florida coast.

Marco’d suspected for a while that Rodríguez had a mole, a snitch in the Miami division. Since he didn’t know who to trust at DEA, he would trust the only man he could count on: himself.

Being turned into shark chow held no appeal, but neither did sitting around a government-owned shack on the edge of a swamp, watching satellite soccer and skin flicks waiting for someone to put a bullet in the back of his head. If Rodríguez wanted him dead, by God, that son of a bitch would have to work for it.

But damned if he was going to sacrifice Francisco. Marco would keep his younger brother out of town if he had to pay him. Considering Francisco’s spotty income from modeling and bartending, it would be an offer he couldn’t refuse.

He stared at the snow falling past the window. Chicago was cold, but it was better than being cold and dead in sunny Miami.