Street. Ordinarily she would have been polite and at least said a passing hello to her neighbors, but she needed a cup or three of coffee before politeness was biologically capable of setting in.
Besides, she was a writer. Coffee was a must for her occupation, and those suspense novels weren’t going to write themselves.
“Yo! Robby! Where you going?”
Robyn sighed. She wasn’t in the mood to be civil to the others in her co-op. The fact that she was related to all of them made her feel even less inclined. That was the good part about family, she conceded. You could have your bitchy moments and all would still be forgiven. Well…eventually, anyway.
“What are you? My damn keeper?” Robyn asked in fluent Italian, turning to face her brother. “I need air and I need coffee. And not necessarily in that order.”
Dominic “Nicky” DiMarco flashed her a grin. The same devilish smile that had broken the hearts of countless women. “Bring me back some, sis,” he returned in English. “Coffee, I mean. You can keep the air.”
She rolled her eyes. “Your generosity knows no bounds.”
“That’s what she said.”
“And that is soooo last Tuesday, Nicky.”
“So is your hair.”
“That’s what he said.”
“That don’t make any kinda sense!”
Robyn grunted, conceding defeat. She’d pick a verbal fight with her brother later. Like after she’d pumped enough caffeine in her system to regain her usual bitchy wit. “I’ll bring you back some coffee,” Robyn growled as she turned and reopened the front door. Her speech reverted to Italian, the constant flip-flop in languages a natural part of life for those native to New York City’s Little Italy. “And a muzzle for your mouth.”
“And cannoli,” Nicky called out to her rapidly departing backside. “Plain! No chocolate chips.”
Robyn smiled her first real smile of the day. Her annoyingly loveable Romeo of a brother would get his cannoli. And he’d get it with chocolate chips.
Jake decided that being a freshly minted Super Bowl hero was anti-climatic when you didn’t have a sexy woman to celebrate with and fawn all over you.
That his idea of what made a woman sexy wasn’t shared by the average male was starting to matter less and less. Especially since he couldn’t even pretend anymore. Shutting his eyes and fantasizing that whatever stick- thin model he happened to be fucking at the time looked a lot less sticklike and a lot more voluptuous no longer worked. As soon as he touched her body and his hands felt nothing but skin stretched over bones…
He frowned, recalling his last disaster of a date with that Swedish underwear model. His dick had gone limp inside her. He supposed his cock was bigger while soft than most men’s were while fully erect, because Ingrid hadn’t appeared to notice. He’d managed to keep up the charade until she got her rocks off, faked an orgasm at the precise moment she climaxed, made some dumb excuse about needing to wake up early the next morning and got the fuck out of there. That had been four long months ago.
Sitting in the far corner of Cha Chas, his favorite bistro in Little Italy, Jake absently toyed with his Super Bowl ring while he did his best to go unnoticed. He wasn’t in the mood to sign autographs or talk to any dipshit reporters. He was in the mood to eat pasta and get laid. A man with a sexual appetite like his couldn’t be celibate for this long without a consequence. Judging from how rock hard his dick was for no reason, he supposed a serious case of blue balls was that consequence.
Sitting with his back toward most of the other patrons, Jake broodingly stared at the bistro’s pastry counter. He asked himself why he cared what other people thought about his sexual preference. For the first time in his life, he could understand how a gay man felt when he knew it was time to come out of the closet. Jake was as far from gay as a man could be, but it was the best analogy he could think of.
At least he didn’t get wood from fantasizing about his own mother like that psycho shrink. He didn’t want to eat dirt, get shit on or smell strange women’s underwear, like on that TV special he’d seen about fetishes. And he wasn’t anything like Tony, the Bloods’ star receiver. Holy shit! What a mess that guy was. What the press didn’t know about his teammate—but Jake unfortunately did—was that Tony would only date women who were unnaturally hairy in all the wrong places and who didn’t mind him wearing a diaper to bed before they fucked.
Jake pursed his lips. Why Tony had confided that particular piece of information in him, he had no idea. To this day he couldn’t pass by a box of Pampers in the grocery store without grimacing.
Deep in distressed thought, Jake absently ran a hand through his thick mane of hair, which reminded him that he needed to stop by the barber shop to get it buzzed off. He’d never let his dark hair go so long without a trim. He preferred to keep it crew-cut short and the shit was damn near to his shoulders now.
Distraction and depression, he decided. The state of his hair, like everything else not working in his life, was a direct result of distraction and depression.
“
“
“Nicky?”
“
Jake glanced over to the pastry counter in time to watch one of Cha Chas’ employees share a laugh with a customer. He started to look away, uninterested because he couldn’t understand a word they were saying, but found himself doing a double take instead.
He stilled. His damn dick that wouldn’t stay down for nothing got impossibly stiffer. “Holy shit,” he mumbled.
Jake’s dark eyes narrowed in desire as he watched the embodiment of his every sexual fantasy throw her head back and laugh. Her laughter was vibrant, enthusiastic and very real. And, he thought, unable to stop himself from cracking a half-smile, her happiness was apparently contagious.
The mystery woman finished her conversation with the bistro’s employee, then turned and walked toward the empty table next to his. She didn’t notice Jake, which was fine by him, because it gave him more time to stare at her.
The more he saw, the harder he got.
She was average in height and very, very curvy. She wore a tight little yellow sundress that, thankfully, left little to the imagination. Her breasts were round and large, her hips wide and provocative. He loved the way they swayed as she walked, tugging at the sundress, forcing her to show off legs that Jake wanted wrapped around his waist in the worst way. Her thighs were fleshy, not bony, thin or muscular. As she sat down at the table nearest him, Jake couldn’t help but notice her tummy wasn’t flat either. There was flesh there—sexy, hot, rounded flesh that looked so ripe and perfect.
Everything about her looked…right.
She didn’t look stereotypically Italian-American, not that he would have minded if she had. Jake had always found women of Mediterranean heritage to be the embodiment of sexiness. But Italian women, at least in theory, were supposed to have dark hair and eyes. Jake’s mystery woman had the curly hair he expected to see in this part of town, but it was a warm honey color that appeared to be natural. Her eyes, sparkly green, were definitely real and not contact lenses. He could always tell when someone with naturally dark eyes was wearing fakes because the lenses never seemed to completely cover the iris of the eyes.
Her skin, however, was very Mediterranean. She had a natural olive undertone that had darkened into a fuck-me bronze with the sun. The contrast of brown skin against light eyes was powerful, causing her baby greens to glow just a little.
Jake shifted in his seat. He blew out a slow, measured breath and counted to ten. He wished that he’d masturbated before he’d left his apartment because if his cock got any harder, it was conceivable that it might explode.
And then she smiled at him and his dick situation became unbearable. She had dimples, for fuck’s sake. Everything he’d ever fantasized about in a woman and she had dimples to boot.
Jake tried to smile back but, judging by the expression on her face, he doubted he’d succeeded. She gave
