Untamed Love

She saw some people she already knew and joined them, leaving her husband-hunting friends to make their move on Kingsley. The afternoon was fun and the music and energy all that Mella hoped for. She drank her cocktails, shared gossip with old friends and danced until the sweat ran down her back and she had to take off her blazer and leave it hanging on the back of a chair.

It wasn’t long before she finished her second drink and wanted another one, but the main bar had a line from hell. She excused herself from her friends and made her way to the other side of Fever and downstairs to the hidden bar very few people knew about. Mella gripped the chrome handrails and nearly stumbled down the stairs in her high heels, her thighs trembling faintly from dancing for nearly two hours straight in her stilettos.

The lower level of Fever was smaller than the rooftop space, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows letting in the bright Miami sunlight. But the bar, hanging as it was beneath dark beams and sheltered from much of the brightness, was partially in shadows.

Barely a half dozen people sat at the stools surrounding the bar. The patrons that sat on the stools were spread out, little islands to themselves. One man and woman were practically sitting in each other’s laps, an impressive feat considering the small size of the bar stools, a trio of businessmen and a lone man dressed in black who sat with his back to the room. Mella went up to the bar, fitting herself between the businessmen and the man in black. She signaled the bartender, who had been talking amicably with the lone man.

The bartender turned. “Hey, Mella.” His bright smile lit up his entire face.

“Hey yourself, Greg. How have you been?” She gave him her order, a Blood and Sand, and propped her hip against one of the bar stools.

“I’m doing great now that you’re at my bar.” He amped up his smile.

“You say the loveliest things, Gregory.” She batted her eyes at him while he made her drink, a mixture of Scotch, orange juice, sweet vermouth and cherry liqueur. Light on the orange juice.

“Sweet for the sweet.”

She laughed, knowing that he only flirted as a matter of course, part of the job. Greg was happily married with twin girls in kindergarten. He exchanged the drink for her ten-dollar bill, and she turned with the chilled glass in her hand, getting ready to head back upstairs and to the dance floor. But a pair of intense eyes pinned her where she stood. Victor Raphael.

He sat at the bar, drinking something from a cocktail glass and looking pleasantly relaxed on the stool. His strong forearms rested easily on the edge of the bar while his eyes held her with the strength of a leash in an iron grip. She forced a casual smile, although butterflies had started a small rebellion in her stomach.

“Mr. Raphael.” She nodded in his direction.

“Ms. Davis.”

Greg, who had been making his way back to Victor, looked between him and Mella, then abruptly turned to check on his other customers. Victor’s attentions, still fierce and predatory, didn’t stray from her.

Then the ridiculousness of it all forced her to laugh. They were in a club. She was covered in sweat from dancing the afternoon away, and he was sitting at the bar cool as could be, with what was probably some sort of manly whiskey drink. Their differences couldn’t be more apparent.

“You should call me Mella after all this,” she said and moved closer to him, despite instincts that screamed at her to run the other way. He wasn’t like other men. She couldn’t tease him and walk away and dismiss him from her mind as if he’d never been there.

Victor Raphael nodded. The unforgiving lines of his face and most of his body were wreathed in shadow, but she couldn’t mistake the way he stared at her. He didn’t say anything, but she forged ahead, anyway.

“And I’ll call you Victor.”

“If you like.” His voice brushed like the finest silk over her skin. Mella shivered.

“I do like.”

In the half light of the bar, he was even more fierce than at the fund-raiser. All remaining trappings of civility stripped away to leave this brooding shadow man who seemed to have a lot on his mind and wasn’t about to change his demeanor simply because someone had wandered into his cave. Because Mella was sometimes foolish, she went further into the beast’s lair.

“Why are you drinking alone?” she asked.

“Because I want to.” The words should have pushed her away, but she only leaned closer to hear his voice. “The alternative—” he waved vaguely to the party happening above them “—is not much of one.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

He tipped his head, appeared to consider it. Appeared to consider many things in that one charged moment. “No. Stay. And let me pay for your next round if you’re having one.”

The words were so uncharacteristic of the man she’d met at the fund-raiser that she looked down at his glass, wondering at his welcome and just how much he’d had to drink that he was inviting her to stay with him at the bar. Wasn’t he the one who’d wanted to get down to business and then go home? Had his drink changed his personality? Although she couldn’t talk. This was her third drink, and her blood was just warm enough that she was looser than usual, feeling so good about life that having another drink would take her from nice to naughty. She didn’t want that. She didn’t want to act that much of a fool with this magnetic stranger. A stranger whom she would be working with very soon.

Mella lifted her glass. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m afraid this is it for me. Although I’m not driving, I don’t want to get too blitzed today. I still have some work to get done tonight.”

She expected him to ask about her job, what kind of work she did and how long she’d been doing it, maybe even what school she went to. Those were the usual things people asked when they wanted to either dismiss or devour you in the world.

“It’s a weekend,” Victor said instead. “You should enjoy the rest of your Sunday. Work can wait until an actual workday, can’t it?”

She shrugged. In theory, it could. But the reality of owning your own business often didn’t allow for workdays versus rest days. But she said none of that. “Maybe you’re right.”

Sitting next to him, Mella felt that powerful hum of attraction all over her skin, so powerful that it was almost uncomfortable, putting her body in a higher state of awareness than she was used to. Before now, her interactions with men she liked had been all butterfly delight and the uncomplicated steps of a familiar dance. Mella took a sip of her drink to hide her gulping swallow. She felt him follow the movement of the glass to her mouth.

Remnants of the alcohol clung to her top lip. She licked them away and lifted her eyes to his.

“Although I didn’t say this before, thank you for donating to the charity this afternoon. The money will go a long way to helping them reach their goal, and the project you’ll be working on means a lot to me.”

Victor thumbed condensation from the sweating glass in front of him, his mouth curving faintly up. “You should actually be thanking Kingsley. He’s the one who put Raphael Design Group up for bid. I had nothing to do with it.” His smile turned openly sardonic. “I didn’t even know about it.”

“Oh.” She didn’t quite know how to respond to that. Was he pissed off that his friend had volunteered him? Mella started to pull back.

“But—” Victor tapped the smooth surface of the bar near her hand, reaching out to her without touching. “Despite how we got here, I’m glad to help.”

“I... I’m glad, too.” What kind of friendship did the two men have that something like this was okay?

“It’s not as bad as it sounds.” Victor’s mouth twisted again. “Kingsley just worries about me and my lack of interaction with the larger world.” He made a dismissive motion. “Nothing to dwell on.” His smile appeared. The nicer one. “So, tell me, what are you drinking?”

Mella blinked, mentally switching to accommodate the abrupt change in topic. Okay, she thought. I can do this.

Mella told him. “It’s sweet and strong, just like me.”

A smile darted across his face, briefly crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“Me neither, until recently.” Mella put the cocktail glass on the bar and traced a finger through the condensation in random patterns. “I like to try new things,” she said. “Sometimes I look online or in menus for a cocktail or food I haven’t tried, and then I taste it. If it’s good, I enjoy it until it’s time to try something else.”

“Interesting. Does that habit extend to all areas of your life?”

“Depends on the thing.”

“I see. Not everything will suit you, you know.” His eyes, a deep agate, grounding and challenging at the same time, held hers in a resolute grip.

Mella’s tongue darted out to lick the corner of her lips. “I know. But I want to taste it, sample it, have it again and again until I’m sure it’s not for me.”

Victor hummed a response, eyes on her mouth, gaze getting warmer by the second. Without asking, she knew what he was thinking. Her lips, his body. A comfortable bed. Maybe even a hidden corner of the bar where he could seduce her lips apart, encourage her to kiss him, to lick and suck whatever he had to offer. Her pulse began a fast and delicious tattoo in her throat.

This, Mella knew. It was flirtation with no consequences. She saw where it was going before it even properly started. A man and a woman in a bar. The spark of attraction. She fell into the moves of the familiar dance, unthinking. Practiced. Despite the electric attraction, unusual and disconcerting, that she felt for Victor Raphael, she could do casual like this blindfolded. If he was into that kind of thing. She smirked at the thought.

But things didn’t always go the way she expected.

Victor’s lashes swept up and his mouth firmed. “While I am an acquired taste, I’m no one’s experiment, Ms. Davis.” Without him moving an inch, his body closed itself off to her. “Taste testers have never been my preference.”

Mella bit her lip and called herself all types of fool. She knew he wasn’t a casual man. All she had to do was look into the swirling brown depths of his eyes to know that he was a man to drown in, not wade into and step back when the waves got too close. She sat up straight on the stool. “Of course, Victor.” She picked up her glass and swallowed a sweet, burning bite of the drink. “I think it’s time for me to get back to my friends.”

His expression didn’t change. “Thank you for spending a bit of your time with me,” he said.

“A pleasure.” Then she made her escape.

Chapter 2

Mella didn’t know how long she had stayed out the night before with her friends, but it had been much too late for someone who had to be at work by 5:00 a.m. Sitting on the patio of the North Beach flagship location of Café Michaela the next morning, she clutched a giant cup of black coffee while going over the previous week’s sales and current stock to decide what needed to be reordered.

It was still early, barely 5:30, and she was the only one in the café. Her first employee would arrive within half an hour to begin dealing with the morning rush, but for now, it was just her and the rising sun that seeped into her skin through the thin tank top and shorts she wore.

Mella sat on the patio with her laptop open, the sound of waves quietly whispering nearby. Her shop was on prime real estate. She’d been lucky to get it for a reasonable price a few years before. She never stopped being thankful for all her blessings, despite the other things in her life that hadn’t quite gone her way.

She was sending off an order to her supplier in Ethiopia when her cell phone rang. “Hey.” Mella kept her voice low to baby the last remnants of her hangover. She ruffled a hand over her thick hair and stretched out her legs in the sun.

“Good morning, Michaela.” Nala Singh laughed at her through the phone. “Either you’re trying not to disturb the other early birds, or a killer hangover is about to crack you wide-open.” Mella had to smile. Only Nala could make her laugh at herself in this condition.

Since they’d met, the billionaire orphan and jet-setting photographer refused to call Mella by the shortened version of her name, instead insisting, since their names sounded too alike, that she would call Mella by the name her parents gave her.

“What are you doing up so early?” Mella asked.

“I haven’t been to sleep yet. But I figured you’d be up doing something very responsible.”

“Good guess.” Coffee in hand, Mella stepped away from the table and walked to the railing, looking across the paved street to the glimpse of ocean through the bushes. The early-morning sun burned the sky with its incendiary reds and golds, spreading all that lush color through the clouds and over the virgin day. “What did I do to deserve a call so close to your bedtime?”

“Your email, of course. I just read it.”

Mella hid her surprise. She’d only sent the email a few hours before while she’d been at Fever. Before the drinks had started to dull her senses. “Good. I think we lucked out with the Raphael Design Group.” She ignored the way her stomach fluttered when Nala said the name of Victor’s firm. “They have a great reputation, and the projects they’ve done in Miami and across the States are phenomenal. They’re the perfect fit for your Sanctuary project.”

“It looks like it. Thanks for sending the links to their website and the Herald articles about their work.”

“I like to be thorough.”

Nala had inherited a mansion from her long-dead parents. It was a place she didn’t want to live in and had left to basically rot for years. But then she had the idea to turn it into a nonprofit space for homeless kids, kids who were kicked out of their homes for one reason or another and wanted to stay in school or get jobs but weren’t quite able to do it on their own. A sort of semipermanent home for formerly homeless kids. Nala wanted to complete the renovations to the mansion, have a party to celebrate her best friend’s marriage and new baby, then turn it over to the kids who wanted to move in.

When Nala told her the idea the night they’d met at a party on Star Island, it instantly captivated Mella. Helping kids who had been abandoned by their parents, people who were supposed to love them no matter what, had resonated with her immediately. She offered to help with the logistics of the mansion’s renovations, even finding a firm to deal with the applications to live in the home. The project and what it would eventually do for an underserved part of the city’s population made Mella feel she was doing something worthwhile with her life. She was thankful to Nala for giving her that chance.

“I’m hoping the firm would get some good publicity out of this, at the very least,” Mella continued. “Victor Raphael has been a good sport about this whole thing, especially since it wasn’t even him that put his services up for auction.” She explained Kingsley’s prank.

Nala snorted. “That sounds like something Kingsley would do. For someone who runs a Fortune 500 company, he has a lot of damn time on his hands.”

“You know him?” Mella took another sip of her coffee, then balanced the cup on the railing.

“He’s my best-friend-in-law’s brother.”

Mella laughed, almost choking on her coffee. “What?”

Chuckling, Nala explained their connection, that Kingsley was the older brother to her best friend’s husband. “Not complicated at all,” she said.

“Of course not.”

Mella laughed again and shook her head. It was a small world. “Anyway, Victor’s going through with the project, although obviously he doesn’t have to.” She remembered Victor’s melodic and downright sexy voice explaining what his friend had done. “But I sent him an email about Sanctuary this morning. He agreed to meet me at the site later on this week to take a look at what needs to be done.”

“Have fun. I know Corinne thinks he’s smokin’ hot.”

Corinne talked to Nala?

“I’m not sure if you can take Corinne’s word on something like that. She thinks any man with a pulse is a viable choice.”

Laughter snorted at her from the other end of the phone. “Are you saying Victor’s not sexy?”

“I’m definitely not saying that...” Mella bit her lip as she remembered Victor sitting at Fever, his furred forearms resting on the bar, the smell of faintly spicy cologne, and beneath that the more natural scent of a man. “He’s definitely sexy. But he’s too serious. You know I like my men with a sense of humor.”

“According to Nichelle, all men have a sense of humor—you just have to tickle them the right way.”

“I’m not ready to work that hard,” Mella said with a dismissive wave of her hand, although obviously, Nala couldn’t see it. But even as she said the words, she wasn’t sure she actually believed them. They had been true before she met Victor. She generally liked her men fun and uncomplicated. That way, the affair was light, just like she preferred it. And when it came time for it to end, nobody would cry any disappointed tears or make a scene. But it was a moot point. Victor wasn’t a fan of “taste testers.”

Her mouth tightened at the phrase he’d used. Not that his reaction hadn’t been her fault. What else would a man like that say to someone who basically compared a potential affair with him to having a monthly round of drinks?

Nala’s tsk-tsking brought her attention back to their conversation. “Most hard work is worth the reward, Michaela,” Nala said with a teasing lilt. Although Mella hadn’t known her long, she knew that Nala didn’t necessarily subscribe to that philosophy herself.

“Right.” She sipped her coffee, mouth curving in a reluctant smile.

Nala chuckled. “I’ll let you get back to your morning routine. But call me if anything comes up about Sanctuary or anything else.”

“I will. Thanks.”

Mella disconnected the call. Despite what she’d said to Nala, she knew she was already being an idiot. Victor was serious, unlike any of the men she’d dated before. The way he looked at her made her want to both run away from and curl up into him. She didn’t want him to laugh at her weak jokes. She didn’t want him to smile. She had no interest in changing him into what she liked. She just wanted him to come closer and cover her with all that masculine intensity.

* * *

It was raining. An expected rain, but still an annoying one. Victor would rather be in the office for the rest of the day, working on the looming Barcelona project, ordering in lunch and leaving only when it was time to go home. Instead he was in the rain. Granted, he was actually safe and dry in his SUV, but the main point was that he was at a mansion in the farthest reaches of Miami, waiting on a woman whom he didn’t quite know what to think of. Michaela Davis. Mella.

She was nothing like he’d thought she would be, yet she was everything his entire being gravitated toward. He’d expected her to be like a butterfly, flitting from one interesting thing to another, laughter always hovering on the curve of her lips. Mella was that, but even more. It seemed that actual light emanated from her. A radiance that he longed to bask in even as he tried to convince her, and himself, that her brand of living was not for him.

In that dark corner of the bar, she had been like a glowing curve of bioluminescence that begged for his touch. But no impulse he’d ever gone with had ever gone well in the end. So he pushed her away.

Besides, she was more into Kingsley, anyway. Victor didn’t miss the way Mella and his best friend had immediately clicked at the auction. She’d laughed at his jokes, looked up into his face with a smile radiating from her eyes. It wasn’t new to him, being looked over in favor of the more outgoing and better-looking Kingsley. But it still sparked something like pain in his chest.

After Fever, he went home to cook, accepting that she wasn’t into him, but he found his mind wandering to her. Her smile, the way she tried with a swipe of her hand to push the kinky curls from her face only to have them float back, tickling her nose into an amused wrinkle. It had been an interesting ballet to watch. All beauty and light. Nothing that belonged in his life. Only for someone like Kingsley.

Victor looked at his watch. It was nearly ten thirty. Michaela had been scheduled to meet him at ten. He wondered if she’d canceled the meeting without telling his secretary. No. Though he didn’t know her well at all, he figured that wasn’t something she would do. Not with this, a project she seemed to care very much about.

But the rain, a light but endless drizzle, made him regret his Italian-leather ankle boots and the pissing away of his morning. Victor glanced at his watch again, remembered that he had a pair of old Timberland boots tucked away in the back of his SUV. He reclined the seat and felt around on the floor of the large truck until his fingers bumped into the hard leather of his boots. He was tying the laces of the second boot when he saw a flash of light green, a Fiat convertible making its way up the long driveway through the rain.

The small car came up the circle drive and swerved neatly around him to park in front of his SUV. A sticker on the back of the ridiculously tiny car read My Other Car is a Motorcycle.

The car’s taillights flickered out, and the driver’s-side door opened. Purple rain boots splashed into the standing water. Black knee socks, bare legs, then a small denim skirt that clung to curvaceous hips. Mella was wearing a light green T-shirt that said “I didn’t claw my way up the food chain to eat vegetables.” A clear umbrella popped open before her head emerged fully from the car. Her hair was damp around her face, and she was smiling.

“Hi, Victor.” She waved the umbrella at him, then snapped it shut after gauging the intensity of the rain with one upraised palm, not bothering to apologize for being late. “Come on.”

After a moment’s pause, he left the safety of the truck, locking the Mercedes with a click of the remote. “It’s raining,” he said once he was at her side. She smelled like soft mint candy.

“I know. Isn’t it nice?” Mella unlocked the massive front door and wiped off her boots on the mat before stepping into the house. Despite the overgrown mess of the front yard and the large fountain that was crumbled and needed fixing, the inside of the house was immaculate. It smelled of fresh paint and furniture polish. The banister to the wooden staircases on both sides of the foyer gleamed from a recent cleaning. There was no furniture. “They did a great job fixing this place up,” she said. “You should have seen it a few months ago.” Her voice echoed in the empty space.

There was something about her, standing in the entryway of a deserted house, that he found dangerous. The whole look of her was inviting, the tilt of her head, the scent of rain and tangerine shampoo that sweetened the air around her, the clinging invitation of the short denim skirt. Victor wanted to move closer, so he stayed in the doorway. If he were Kingsley, he wouldn’t want a man who hadn’t had sex in over two years sniffing after the next woman to end up in his bed.

“We’re here to look at the grounds,” he said carefully, wanting very much to wrap his hands around her hips and test the feel of her. “But the rain makes it too difficult to see what needs to be done. We can come back another time when it’s dry.”

Mella looked at him with her big eyes from under her big hair, her head slightly tilted as she smiled. “We’re here. We might as well look at the grounds now. A wet lawn looks pretty much the same as a dry one.”

When he didn’t move, she shrugged and walked toward him, coming back out of the house. He stepped out of her way before she could reach him. “But you’re right about one thing, though. Why go through the house when the exterior is all you need to see?” Mella hooked her umbrella over one arm and looped the other through his. It was only his surprise and her boldness that allowed her to tug him around the wide wraparound porch, down a flight of marble stairs and out to the overgrown backyard.