Loving the way he stretched and filled her, she rocked her hips to pull him even deeper. She skated on pleasure so intense it bordered pain, but she couldn’t find the breath to ask for even more rather than beg him to stop.
He leaned down to catch her mouth in a kiss that held all the passion she brewed withi
n him and came with a grateful moan. When he could find the strength to pull out, he couldn’t stand and sank back down in his chair to get rid of the condom. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”
Thoroughly dazed, she looked up at the ceiling. The room was decorated with Picasso sketches, and she felt as though she must resemble one of the modern artist’s strangely disjointed women. She had the most delicious throb between her legs, and the rest of her body floated with the lightness of a cloud.
“There’s no one else like me, or you.” She rolled up into a sitting position but doubted she could stand on her own. “Give me a minute, and I’ll bring us some cake.”
He swept his hair out of his eyes. “I think I remember cake, but it doesn’t taste nearly as good as you.”
He wore such a convincing grin, she believed him. This was going to be her most glorious summer ever, and she couldn’t bear to think how soon it would have to end.
Chapter Nine
Santos spooned Libby in his bed later that night. She lay relaxed in his arms, filled with a dreamy contentment, until a whiff of smoke jarred her awake. She sat up to make certain she wasn’t dreaming and then grabbed his shoulder. “Wake up, something’s burning!”
She leaped from the bed and rushed to the door. It was cool, and she pulled it open to look out. At the end of the hall, smoke billowed from the elevator door and rolled toward them along the ceiling. “There’s a fire in the elevator!”
“What?” He rolled out of bed and pulled on his shorts. “The alarm system should have gone off.”
She looked down at her sleep shirt but didn’t care what she had on. “Come on, we have to leave the house while we can.” She handed him his crutches and pulled him toward the door. “Hurry! We can call the fire department from a neighbor’s.”
Flames shot from the elevator door. He grabbed his cell phone and made his way as fast as he could behind her. She dodged into her room, grabbed her purse to save her passport and stopped at the top of the stairs. Santos threw his crutches over the banister and, holding on to the rail, hopped down the stairs beside her. There was a security panel by the front door, and when he hit the button to alert the security company, the alarm sounded with a beeping wail. He unlocked the front door and pushed Libby though it.
He used his cell phone to summon the fire department. The station was so close, they immediately heard the sound of sirens in the distance. “There really is a fire extinguisher in the kitchen.” He turned back toward the open doorway, and Libby grabbed his arm.
“No! Don’t go back in. That’s how people get killed. You’re staying right here.”
Awakened by the alarm, Manuel came running from his garage apartment, and Santos told him to park the cars on the street. “If the fire spreads, I’m not losing the Hispano-Suiza.”
Libby was more worried about the beautiful artwork in the house. The spectacular paintings were too heavy for her to carry out on her own, and on crutches, Santos couldn’t help her.
Within minutes of having been called, the firefighters pulled up in front of the house and jumped down from their huge red trucks. They wore the familiar black protective gear with yellow stripes on their coats, but rather than the hats she was used to seeing on firefighters, they wore helmets. Santos directed them to the smoky back hall, where flames glowed from the elevator shaft. He and Libby kept out of their way outside as they dragged in heavy hoses and using foam, attacked from the first and second floors to swiftly extinguish the blaze.
Neighbors gathered in front of their homes to watch, but while Victoria had often been on the beach, Libby saw no sign of her tonight. When the firefighters pulled back toward their trucks, the crowd cheered and went back to their beds. No one came up to talk with Santos, which struck Libby as odd, but perhaps his neighbors respected his privacy more than the tabloids did. She hadn’t seen anyone with a camera, but that didn’t mean someone hadn’t taken pictures.
Two men from the security company arrived in a gray SUV. Dressed in black with heavy combat boots, they resembled a black ops force rather than a home security team. Santos spoke with them at length while Libby could only imagine the gist of their conversation. She did, however, admire Santos’s confidence. He wore only shorts and was barefoot, but his expression and tone of voice were calm and self-assured, as though he typically conducted business in nothing more than jogging shorts.
When the security men left, Santos sighed unhappily. “They insisted there’s no sign of a break-in on their monitors. They also blamed me for installing a smoke detector only in the kitchen, and a fire upstairs didn’t trigger it. My father must have thought the kitchen was the only room where a fire was likely to occur. They’ll send someone out tomorrow to install smoke alarms throughout the house and recheck their system.”
Libby bit her lip rather than complain that a home with their expensive art collection should have had multiple smoke detectors, and his father should also have been concerned about the safety of the residents. She hadn’t looked for detectors when she had arrived, but she’d had a whole lot more on her mind. Now it seemed like a near tragic oversight.
The fire captain walked over to speak with Santos, and Libby again had to wait for him to translate. He questioned the captain at length and took her hand when he turned toward her. “The fire started in a trashcan in the elevator. Clearly arson. Even if the security company doesn’t show a breach of the system, it must have been tampered with to allow someone to enter and set the fire.”
Chilled by the thought, Libby rubbed her arms, and he hugged her close. “Could they have gotten in while we were at the bullfights, hidden and waited for us to go to sleep?”
He rubbed his eyes. “I hope not, but the house was empty long enough for someone to disable the alarm and break in. We rode the elevator up when we went to bed, and there was no flaming trashcan in there then.”
Badly frightened, Libby wrapped her arms around him. “Someone’s after you, Santos. It’s not protesters wanting to make a point with any matador. You’re the target.”
The lights they’d turned on as they’d run from the house were still on, so the fire hadn’t disrupted their power. “Let’s make some coffee and have more cake,” he suggested. “We can worry about who did this in the morning. The fire department will have an arson investigator here.”
Libby drew back. “What if whoever did this is still in the house?”
Santos waved to the fire captain. “Because this was arson, will you please search the house for suspects before you go?”
The captain called for a couple of men and went inside while Libby and Santos waited, huddled in each other’s arms. The night had started out so well, but now terror slid down her spine and shot all the way to her bright pink toenails.