Untamed Love

The rain was light as a woman’s fingers on his head and cheeks, its touch cool but soothing after the heat of the morning. Despite his earlier complaints, Victor breathed in the smell of the rain and of the green grass under his feet with a minute shudder of pleasure. This was another part of his job he loved—wading into the disorder of nature and finding harmony in it.

The grounds were large, but he’d worked on larger. The grass was overgrown, the weeds bold enough to take over nearly every inch of free space, leaving room for occasional sprouts of wildflowers and dandelions. A small orchard of mango trees lined the back of the property while a high garden maze, at least seven feet high, that had lost nearly all of its rigid form, took up nearly half the space. He would have to fix that.

“It looks daunting,” she said. “What do you think?”

Watching her with the wind flinging her wet hair at her cheeks, her hands on her hips and the wet curve of her smiling mouth, Victor thought he just might be in trouble. Big trouble.

* * *

He surveyed the property, the back first and then the front, walking around the acre plus of overgrown land, dried grass, wild fruit trees and out of control weeds. Juggling his umbrella so his iPad wouldn’t get wet, he took notes and pictures, briefly sketching ideas of what he wanted to do. Mella sat on the steps as he worked, having finally opened her umbrella, eyes taking in the gloomy morning, the heavy clouds, while Victor walked through the untamed gardens.

While he worked, he felt her eyes on him, assessing. Her gaze made him vaguely uneasy, but there was something in him that enjoyed her attention, the focus of such a striking and unpredictable woman who couldn’t look away from him.

Unlike most people, she didn’t take out a cell phone, book or some electronic device to pass the time. She simply watched him and the rest of her world with her large and devouring stare.

When he was finished with the front and back of the house, he joined her on the stairs with his own open umbrella. Rain tapped the umbrella as he held it over both their heads. She folded hers closed and put it at her feet.

“What’s the verdict?” she asked.

“It’s a beautiful property,” he said. “It’ll be even more beautiful when I’m finished with it.”

He took out his notes and shared his ideas on the space. Trim up the English maze, install a fountain, transplant the fruit trees to another part of the yard, put in a paved walking path winding through the entire front and back of the mansion.

Victor kept his language as straightforward as possible, making sure the entire process was transparent. As he spoke, he noticed her frowning more than once, but she waited until he was finished to voice her concerns.

“I don’t like any of it,” she said.

Victor had to mentally repeat what she said to make sure he wasn’t misunderstanding her. Mella shook her head and reached over to tap the surface of his iPad, enlarging the image. Despite the layers of clothes between them, he felt her warmth, the way the muscles of her arm moved.

“The fruit trees should stay where they are. The kids would love to have their own mango trees in the backyard instead of going through the garden to get them.” Her breath brushed against his neck as she spoke, her attention completely focused on the notes he laid out on the tablet. “They’re for fun and food, not just to look good. And the English maze—” she actually put up air quotes with the closest thing to a sneer he’d ever seen on her face “—I want that to look more natural. Those mazes in English movies are boring. You can still leave it a maze, but nothing so rigid. Give the plants some room to breathe. Leave the flowers that are accidentally growing together. I don’t like rectangular plants, and I don’t think the kids will, either.”

The longer she spoke, the more he frowned until he swore his forehead had folded in on itself. Just who was the professional here? “You don’t like any of my suggestions?” He made it a question because he couldn’t believe it.

“Sorry, that’s not quite true.” She grinned at him as if she was about to pay him the biggest compliment. “I like that type of buffalo grass you suggested. It won’t need too much maintenance after it takes hold.”

“Listen...”

But she was already standing up and walking out into the rain with her umbrella. Her purple boots splashed in the puddles and squished in the grass. She stood with the closed umbrella, its curved handle draped over her arm. Mella stared out into the wide yard, her breath blowing out the drops of water falling in front of her mouth.

“This place is beautiful and natural and should feel like a home. The garden is overgrown, but that’s what makes it pretty, don’t you think?”

He didn’t tell her what he really thought.

“The grounds just need a little grooming, not a complete overhaul.” She turned to him, and Victor felt his breath catch. Damn, she was...

“Frustrating.”

She drew up to every inch of her five feet nothing. “What?”

“You can’t have it both wild and civilized, Ms. Davis. You have to choose. Having it both ways just doesn’t make sense, and it’s not possible. I’m telling you the best way to do this.”

“Well, I’m telling you it is possible. I’m trusting you to perform what’s apparently a miracle—” she lifted her eyebrows at him, mouth aggressively smiling, all teeth and little warmth “—and give Nala and the kids exactly what they want.”

“Right now, you’re the one saying what you want. Why, when your opinion, as you’ve just said, doesn’t matter in this equation?”

She was clenching her teeth so hard Victor thought they would crack. “You should assume what I’m telling you is exactly what Nala wants. Create something beautiful that won’t make the kids feel like they’re living in a showplace. It’s a home, not somewhere they’re made to feel like they don’t belong.”

Frustration bubbled up in his chest, but he tamped it down. “All right,” he said. “All right. Let’s start again, shall we?”

Her jaw relaxed, and her smile became more natural. The sight of it loosened a tightness he hadn’t known was in his chest. She grinned up at him, a small ray of sunshine glowing beneath the heavy gray skies.

“Oh, good.” Her smile widened.

He was so screwed.

Chapter 3

Mella shouldn’t have touched him. But she thought if she put their flesh together, casually, as she’d done with any other man in the past, it would be nothing. That she would get past the foolish notion that touching Victor would be significant. But it had been much worse than she thought.

On the porch of the mansion, she looped her arm through his and felt shivers run through her body, tiny seismic events jolting through her and making her deeply regret the impulsive move. His skin on hers was exactly the shock to the system she had been expecting. And more. He smelled like something she wanted to put on her body. A favorite blanket, an old T-shirt, Christmas socks that felt perfect while she lay by the fire. Even now, after he’d driven off to his office or wherever he needed to be at one o’ clock on a Thursday afternoon, her entire side tingled from where she’d been pressed against him. The core of her felt like it had been flung about on a roller coaster. Stupid. She had been utterly stupid.

Mella sat in her car with the windows up, steam fogging up the interior as her thoughts ran completely away from her.

This is pointless, she thought. I need to get out of here.

With a shuddering sigh, she started the engine and roared her little car down the long driveway. The tires hissed through the rain, windshield wipers thudding back and forth across the glass.

There was work to do at the café, but she didn’t feel like dealing with any of it. Not with the awareness of Victor Raphael riding so close to the surface of her skin. Mella just drove. She didn’t realize where she was going until she pulled into Mary McLeod Bethune Park. The small Coconut Grove park lay between two roads, one open to vehicular traffic and the other closed to everyone but the long line of motorcycles doing the charity ride for pelican protection and conservation.

Her aunt Jessamyn, who didn’t give a damn about pelicans but used any excuse she could to travel with other bikers, was on the ride. Around one thirty, she and the other riders were supposed to take a break at the park to eat and stretch their legs before continuing north to Deerfield Beach. If Mella had thought about it, she would have ridden her own motorcycle to link up with her aunt, but the anticipation of meeting with Victor Raphael that morning had made basic thought processes impossible.

It was still raining, and her hair was already wet. The rain jacket she pulled from her car kept the rest of her mostly dry, though. Her boots squelched in the grass as she crossed the manicured green to the other side of the park and to the line of motorcycles. She took out her phone and called her aunt.

“Are you still at the park?”

Her aunt immediately answered in her gravelly voice. “Yeah. By the statue of the old girl. One of the shaded picnic benches.” In the background, Mella could hear other voices and the occasional grumble of a motorcycle.

Mella waded through the crowd of bikers, fifty at least, and easily found her aunt in the roundabout, her bike parked near the eight-foot bronze statue of Mary McLeod Bethune. Her aunt straddled her big purple Harley while she chatted up another biker, a man with a handlebar mustache and most of his muscled chest bare under an open leather vest.

Even in a crowd like this, her aunt stood out. Almost unnaturally beautiful, she’d gotten even more striking in her middle age. She had long ago traded her sleek pantsuits and blazers for jeans, biker boots and the occasional tuxedo when she was in the mood. Today, she wore her mostly salted hair in two big French braids with the ends curled like snails at her shoulders. The freckles on her sand-colored cheeks glistened under the steadily falling raindrops.

As Mella came closer, her aunt’s companion gave her a fist bump, then wandered off. Aunt Jess waved at Mella. “I didn’t expect to see you here, honey.”

“I didn’t expect me, either.” Mella made a face, irritated with herself now that she was officially running to her aunt as if someone had stolen her lunch money.

“What’s wrong, Michaela?” Her aunt’s forehead wrinkled in concern.

But even though she’d run halfway across the city to see the woman who had raised her, she wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. It being whatever the hell Victor was doing to her.

“I’m not sure,” Mella finally said. “Maybe I’m just feeling restless.” She rubbed a hand over her face.

But Aunt Jess wasn’t buying her helpless act. “You’re a terrible liar, Michaela. But I’ll wait.” She got off her bike and pulled a minicooler from her saddlebag, then pointed Mella toward an empty picnic bench under a nearby banyan tree offering some protection from the light rain.

Aunt Jess unpacked two sandwiches, two bottles of water and a bag of potato chips from the cooler. “Eat. It’s lunchtime, and I doubt you’ve made the time to get something.”

“I was going to stop by Gillespie’s on the way back to the café.” But she took a sandwich anyway, one of her favorites her aunt made with turkey, rye bread and raw kale. The wasabi mayo burned sweetly as she chewed her first bite. “This is good.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” her aunt chided, but she was smiling. She opened the other sandwich and nudged the bag of kettle chips closer to Mella’s hand.

When she was very young, Aunt Jessamyn had been one of Mella’s favorite adults to be around. Her aunt liked the same movies Mella did, cooked the best food and liked to do different things from the rest of her family, including her own parents. Although Aunt Jessamyn had a kid of her own, Shaun, she often acted like a child herself, laughed loud and long in public, impulsively took Mella and Shaun on trips to Disney World and learned to ride motorcycles just because. She loved doing things for the experience of them, and that was one of the things Mella had always enjoyed about her favorite aunt and her mother’s only sister.

The three aunts on her father’s side were boring. It just seemed natural that after Mella’s parents died when she was eight, Aunt Jessamyn was the one to take her in. She’d loved her parents and missed them every day, but she was glad she had Aunt Jess.

“How’s the ride going?” Mella asked after chewing a mouthful of chips.

“Decent enough. It would be good if this rain let up, but it’s not too bad. Watching out for the fool drivers cutting up in this weather is a decent distraction from thinking about Shaun.”

Mella nodded. She’d noticed the date, nearly four years to the day Shaun had been sent away to begin his ten years behind bars for vehicular manslaughter. Her aunt was hurting. Mella reached across the table and squeezed her hand.

“You saw him this week?” she asked.

Her aunt nodded. “Yesterday. He’s in such bad shape.” She pressed her lips together, her face a mask of pain. “I’m not sure he’ll last in that place if he doesn’t get paroled. Every time we talk, he tells me he’s sorry for what he did and wishes he could take it all back.”

“I know,” Mella said. “We all wish that.”

But they didn’t live in a world where wishes came true and felons got released just because their mothers were sad.

When Shaun was only twenty and in college, he’d been dumb enough to get behind the wheel after a few too many drinks. The crazy thing was he’d done it so many times before that he hadn’t even thought twice about doing it again. Or at least that’s what he’d told Mella when she visited him in prison.

That night, he’d had too many drinks and didn’t notice the stop sign until he’d plowed through it in his SUV and T-boned a little white sedan. The man in the car hadn’t survived. And although her aunt, through her tears of anger and disappointment, had hired some of the best lawyers in Miami, Shaun had still been sent away for ten years. That was a long time to be without your child.

Shaun had done some crazy things before the accident, partying hard with kids with more money and less responsibilities, kids whose parents lived in a higher tax bracket and played outside the boundaries of the law, knowing that their parents could get them out of trouble if necessary.

Mella tried to warn him about what could happen, but he didn’t listen. Then he was in jail, and his so-called friends disappeared from his life as if they’d never been there. Mella and Aunt Jess had been trying to pick up the pieces over the years. And now that he’d served his minimum sentence and was eligible for parole, Mella and her aunt crossed their fingers that the prison system would let him go. Shaun was only twenty-four. He had spent so many of his prime years in prison.

“Do you need some company tonight?” Mella asked. “I can make us that lasagna you like.”

Although her aunt lived in a decent-sized house on Key Biscayne and often had her housekeeper make meals for her for the week, Mella knew she’d appreciate the offer.

Her aunt nodded. “That would be nice.” She balled up the empty sandwich bag in a delicate fist while Mella finished the last of the chips. “A vegetarian lasagna?”

Mella shook her head in disgust. “Hell no! What do I look like?”

Her aunt chuckled. “Just checking. You’ve been hanging out a lot with that Nala woman.”

“It’s just work, Aunt Jess. Besides, you should be worrying about her other habits rubbing off on me, not the fact that she doesn’t eat meat.” Nala loved to party, loved to travel to places that weren’t the safest and had a wicked collection of knives in her Wynwood loft.

Her aunt made a noise that was all doubt. “That girl is a bad influence.”

“She’s fine. Just because she doesn’t work doesn’t make her a bad influence.”

“Idle hands, Michaela.”

Mella grinned. It was funny that the only people who called her Michaela were her aunt and Nala, the girl she disapproved of so much. “She’s nice. Once you meet her you’ll see.”

The sound of a whistle pierced the rainy afternoon. A woman stood on a picnic table at the far end of the park waving a green flag. The whistle between her lips shrieked again.

“Break time is over.” Her aunt threw the remnants of lunch in the nearby trash can. “Do you want to do the rest of the ride with me?” she asked. “It’s only another couple of hours, then we head back into the city.”

Mella didn’t even have to think about it. The bike ride would be a distraction from her own obsessions. Specifically the one that wore Victor Raphael’s face. “Sure. I can catch up on my work when I get back.”

At the bike, she took her aunt’s spare helmet, hitched up her already short skirt and climbed on the back of the big, rumbling Harley. The seat was damp under her butt, and the bike’s rumble rattled her teeth. The world beyond the screen of her helmet was still rainy, still cloudy, but it felt good to have her aunt near her, even if they were both carrying their separate worries.

“Lead on, warrior princess,” she called to her aunt, her voice muffled behind the helmet.

“That’s warrior queen to you, girl!” Her aunt opened up the throttle, and they were off.

* * *

The Miami Heat was losing the basketball game, but Victor was having a good time, anyway. He was grateful to Kingsley—again—for dragging him out into the world. He had a lot to do at home—cook, work out, look over the draft of the grant request his sister, Vivian, had sent him. But a phone call from Kingsley had him sitting on the courtside, watching Dwyane Wade try to get his team back on top.

“This might be a lost cause,” Kingsley said. But he sounded disgustingly cheerful over the fact.

Kingsley spent more of his time people-watching and answering texts from his little sister than paying attention to what was happening on the court. The game was good, though. The Pistons were putting on a good show and making the Heat work for every score they got.

“Depends on what cause you’re talking about.” Victor swallowed the last of his sparkling water. “I know I’m having fun watching them get burned for a change. Keeps them humble.”

Victor looked away from the court when Kingsley nudged him.

“Hey, isn’t that the auction honey?” He jerked his head across the court where a trio of women jumped to their feet and cheered along with the crowd to the sudden three-pointer by one of the Heat.

Yes, it was definitely Mella. No need to ask Kingsley who he was talking about. She was with her friends from the auction. This time all three women were dressed more casually. Mella wore a white T-shirt under a bright yellow blazer, and tight jeans clung to her exquisite body. She was as distracting as ever, exchanging high fives with her two friends and laughing in a way that made him wonder what the joke was.

He hadn’t seen her since the afternoon they’d looked over the grounds of Sanctuary together. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t been thinking about her. Often. And at the most inconvenient times. Those thoughts made him feel like he was cheating with his friend’s girl. Kingsley never explicitly expressed an interest in Mella, but Victor could see the writing on the wall. They were going to end up together, and he was just going to end up looking stupid.

People were jumping to their feet, whistling, applauding and flagging down the hot dog guys. Halftime.

“Let’s go see what the ladies are up to.” Kingsley stood up. He was apparently anxious to go talk to Mella.

But Victor couldn’t blame him. If he had been the one Mella was interested in, he would already be over there staking his claim, “taste tester” or not. Once she had a taste, maybe she’d discover he was what she craved. He swallowed at the thought. “You go ahead,” he said. “I’ll just chill here.”

He couldn’t bear watching them together from up close. He didn’t want it to be a repeat of their visit to Fever. Not only had it been torture to watch Mella dance with Kingsley and share flirtatious smiles with him, it had also been a social situation he wasn’t quite prepared for. Hundreds of people had crowded him with their sweat and expectations. Women approached him. Men sized him up as competition. The thought of it made his skin crawl a little. But later, when Mella had unexpectedly found him at the downstairs bar, he hadn’t minded as much. There, he’d almost managed to convince himself he was the one she wanted. She’d been a warm and brilliant thing, tempting him with the wet stroke of tongue across her lips, the low hum of her voice as she leaned closer to him at the bar.

He remembered wanting to tug open the buttons of the tiny shirt she wore and just stare at her nipples until they stiffened and ached for his touch. She’d talked about tasting that night, and God, he’d wanted to taste. Later in bed, he’d had particularly vivid dreams.

In the seat next to him, Kingsley glanced at his phone, then shoved it back in his pocket. “You know, not every woman’s waiting around the corner with a shank. Metaphorically speaking.”

Victor winced at the idea that he might be talking about Mella. Was Kingsley really that into her?

But Victor tried to play it off. “Are you saying that with your big head, or the little one?”

Like him, Kingsley had had his share of ruthless women in his life. The only woman he’d been interested in and that actually seemed decent turned out to be his brother’s current wife. She was a woman who seemed ruthless on the outside, all vicious high heels and dry humor. Underneath it all, though, she was a version of sweet. But it turned out she’d also had a thing for Kingsley’s brother, Wolfe, for years before the two of them finally hooked up.

“Don’t be a dick, Vic.” Kingsley grinned at the rhyme, and what he obviously thought was a good joke. “There’s nothing wrong with entertaining a beautiful woman or two for the afternoon. But if you want, I’ll pass along your hellos.”

Just for the afternoon? Mella deserved more than that, if that was what she wanted.

Victor shrugged the tightness from his shoulders. He needed to pull his head out of his ass exactly right now. Stop. Thinking. About. Her. But from the corner of his eye, he couldn’t help but notice her wild, haloing hair and the graceful bow of her back as she threw her whole body into a laugh. She and her friends had attracted the attentions of the other people around them, especially the men. Victor winced again.

Although he didn’t want to see Kingsley with Mella, he wasn’t exactly eager to be in that social of a crowd. Part of him had always thought there was something wrong with him for not wanting to socialize much. Hell, even his parents enjoyed getting out more than he did. Being in crowds didn’t torture him, per se, but when he was expected to interact with the hoard, his comfort level dropped into the basement. His sister said he had mild social anxiety. Victor just thought he was selective about the people and situations he exposed himself to.

All around him, people were chattering, gobbling down hot dogs, dancing to the loud music coming from the speakers. No one looked at him. No one seemed to expect anything from him. He was cool with that.

“Go ahead,” he said to Kingsley. “I’ll be right here enjoying the view.”

Kingsley hesitated, a split-second pause, before he glanced again at his phone then stood up. “I’ll be back.”

“All right, Ahnald.”

Kingsley chuckled as he walked away.

While his friend made his way toward Mella and her friends, Victor leaned back in his seat and watched the action in the stands. A tall guy who looked like a pro ball player joined Mella and her friends, no doubt drawn to their collective vivacity and beauty. Victor didn’t recognize him, but that wasn’t saying much.

Mella’s friends, though, seemed immediately starstruck, flirting with the tall guy and then with Kingsley, who’d walked into their gathering with enviable ease. When his friend got to the women, they looked like a blessing had fallen on them straight from heaven. One of Mella’s friends—he couldn’t tell them apart—amped up the charm on the ball player while the other claimed Kingsley. Despite the attempted pairing up, Mella never lost the attentions of the ball player or Kingsley. Victor didn’t bother guessing what they were talking about. Would Kingsley mention him?