Some Rough Edge Smoothin' Read online

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  Atlantic Bridge/Liquid Silver Books

  http://www.atlanticbridge.net

  Copyright ©2003 Louisa Trent

  First Published by Liquid Silver Books, Imprint of Atlantic Bridge, January, 2003

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  Published by Liquid Silver Books, Imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 6280 Crittenden Ave, Indianapolis, Indiana. Copyright 2003, Louisa Trent. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  SOME ROUGH EDGE SMOOTHIN’ is a contemporary erotic romance, featuring a tough Latino hero with a heart made of mush, Tomas Ruiz, and a practical Anglo heroine with a heart made cynical, Seraphina Norris.

  When two adversaries, a former missionary lady and a town bad-ass, hook up to get what each of them wants, a decidedly practical, yet oh-so-erotic, arrangement results.

  ...sometimes sex is all a man and a woman really have in common, and sometimes that's more than enough ...

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was Monday morning, and just like he did every Monday morning, Tomas Ruiz stopped by to chat with his best girl before heading out the trailer door to the site.

  “You're looking mucho muy hot today, Myra,” he offered with a slow and easy smile.

  “Humph,” his administrative assistant-slash-receptionist replied, not bothering to glance up from her newspaper read.

  This blatant disregard on the part of his employee was nothing new. He might be the boss, but the title was strictly of the figurehead variety. They both knew who was calling the shots in this outfit and it sure as hell wasn't him.

  Ignoring him as usual, Myra picked up the phone, the one that had been ringing off the hook since his receptionist's two-hour late arrival that morning, and grumbled “Ruiz Construction” into the receiver.

  Now, this was a good sign. When his right-hand woman was feeling real stressed, calls never got answered at all. But that was a whole other story-

  “Yeah, he's here, Borowski,” Myra said with her industrial strength sandpaper croak. “No, you can't speak to him. Why? Because I said so, that's why. Got wax accumulation in those big ears of yours? You should maybe try one of those cotton-tipped swabs, then call back later. Kisses.”

  With a wet-sounding smooch, the receiver got unceremoniously dumped on the desk.

  Tomas winced. The woman in the faux leopard-skin sweats was the love of his life, but man, most days Myra wasn't exactly sweetness and light. On her bad days, she was downright unpleasant. Ornery came to mind. But...if someone was unfortunate enough to have landed on her shitlist, as poor Borowski obviously had, she was unapologetically surly.

  Whoa, yeah. Myra could be gruff and abrasive when she wanted to be. Assertive as all hell too. And those were her warm and fuzzy qualities. Dwelling on her less than endearing personality traits was something Tomas just didn't want to do-

  “Ya know something?” his recalcitrant employee muttered above the whir of the dumped phone, the one still chillin’ on her desk.

  See, now here was the thing: For the most part, Myra's questions tended to be rhetorical in nature, as she didn't give two shites about anybody else's opinion, especially his. But to be polite, or maybe just to listen to the sound of his own voice for a change, he went along for the ride.

  “What's that, Myra?” he queried.

  His adored-one kicked back in her semi-reclining chair, propped a pair of size ten, extra-wide, orthopedic shoes on an overturned rubbish receptacle-thus revealing the chronic wrinkles around the ankles of her support hose-and mused, “I've been thinkin'...”

  Uh-oh. It was never good news when one of Myra's pearls of wisdom got prefaced with that particular segue.

  “...that Ruiz Construction could use some improvement, you know, image-wise. It's high time the main offices moved out of this trailer and into one of those swanky new office condos in Fenton's business district.”

  Tomas let out a groan of affectionate exasperation. He worshipped every disagreeable bone in Myra Samuel's grumpy body, but when she started spouting stuff like ‘image’ and ‘moving’ at him it was time to put his foot down.

  He was doing just that, his boot was lowering, when Myra's cuticle scissors came leaping out of her desk drawer, and she squealed, real excited-like, “Oh, boy! Lookee here! A thirty-five cent off coupon on kitty litter!” And his foot got stuck right where it was, cuz no way, ese, was he stomping all over Myra's bubbly enthusiasm.

  Instead, he gently told the born-again collector as she clipped happily away, newspaper scraps flying, “But Myra, you don't own a cat.”

  Seemed like a reasonable reminder to him. After all, someone had to tell her that not everything in life's worth saving. Some stuff just ain't salvageable and should be thrown out. Right? Otherwise, you get stuck with things you don't need and no on else wants. Like, clipped kitty litter coupons, for example. Or raggedy old photos of strangers. Or stray animals. Or hopeless people everyone else has long since given up on-

  Except Myra.

  That woman never gave up on no one. Un-un. For some reason, hopeless was a word that never had made its way into her working vocabulary. He could personally attest to that. When he was just a snot-nosed kid, on the fast track to a locked juvey facility, he got himself added to her motley menagerie of useless treasures. It was the luckiest day of his sorry life.

  Clipping done, leftover newsprint scraps brushed onto the floor, cuticle scissors tossed back in the drawer, Myra stared him down, the heat from her glare just ‘bout singeing his eyebrows.

  “So what, I don't own a cat?” she asked belligerently. “I happen to like cats. I've got some that visit me regularly. Ya know somethin', Tomas? I think you should get yourself a cat.”

  “Can't,” he replied. “The trailer's too small. Got no room for a cat.”

  “You could have a small cat if you didn't live in a trailer,” she volunteered, though to his recollection he had never once asked for her opinion. Why would he? If there was one subject he didn't need her advice on it was how to get himself a little pussy.

  Myra plunked her morning's work-ie; the clipped coupon she would never use-on top of a purely decorative file cabinet with the rest of the coupons she would also never use. When the dust settled, she continued leading him around by the nose.

  “Besides,” says she, referring back to the ‘image’ and ‘moving’ issues, “you need a real office if you wanna make a serious impression on prospective clients.”

  A wise woman was Myra. She was most likely right-on about him moving his address uptown...

  ...except when it came to women...or office locations...he liked the downtown scene. Downtown was the happ'ning place to be. When you consider it, most of the action starts downtown. For that reason, he liked going downtown, staying downtown, spending a lot of quality time downtown whenever he got the opportunity. You might even say he was a downtown kind of guy.

  There was something else too, another reason for him to want to s
tay put: A move uptown wouldn't change who he was inside. After all, you can take the man out of the barrio, but you cannot take the barrio out of the man.

  Or some other real deep saying like that.

  Sayings like that were important. Even essential. He trusted in sayings. Without them, the whole of Western Civilization as we know it would collapse. Couldn't have that happening. It was an awesome responsibility keeping sayings alive and well, but he intended to do his part. Which, in a round about way, was his way of explaining why Tomas Ruiz of Ruiz Construction was staying put on the Southside where he was comfortable.

  On the Southside, a melting pot of ethnicities made up the neighborhoods. The pulse of different languages and peoples and cultures all beat in a blended rhythm. That rhythm was his rhythm, cuz hell, he was a blend too.

  His papa was right off the raft Havana; unlike his mama's people who'd made their ocean trip a few years earlier on the Mayflower. As a half blueblood Anglo, half first generation Latino, Tomas Ruiz knew what it was to walk both sides of the street.

  But, man, he loved Myra for trying to move his downtown groove up in the world. And when her back was safely turned, he snuck her a fond smile-his sweetheart didn't go for lots of outward displays of devotion. Then, real quick, before she caught wind of what he was up to, he changed the subject.

  “Er, Myra-did I get any messages on Friday after I left?”

  A penciled brow was raised. “Yep.”

  “Care to elaborate?”

  “Two calls. Both women. Figures.” She smirked. “Elaborate enough? Or you want I should dress it up some more?”

  Ah, yes. Myra was in fine fettle today.

  “What they want?” he asked, clamping down on an almost irresistible urge to duck. Things had a tendency to get pitched when his cupcake got irritated.

  “One was definitely business related. The other was definitely not.” A wink was sent his way.

  When Myra's purple-sparkled eyelid squinted like that it could mean only one thing. “Chi-chis?”

  “You guessed it.”

  Bending low to Myra's ear and breathing hard, just to wet her curiosity, he asked, “Was it...you know...urgent?”

  The thinly pencilled eyebrow lifted to preposterous heights. “Your lady friends generally are, boss.”

  “Stop it,” he said, humbly. “You're making me blush.”

  “Yeah, right. You're about a hundred set of chi-chis past blushing.”

  Hiding a grin, Tomas thumbed through his mile-high correspondence. “Tell me, babes, what would you do without my love life to speculate on?”

  “I guess I'd have to get my vicarious thrills elsewhere,” his sweetheart answered, eyes raised over the frames of her rhinestone-studded bifocals. “Though the loss of your love life would leave a mighty big hole to fill.”

  “Not so big any more. Business is so good, there's no time to sleep, never mind date.”

  “I'm thinkin’ Chi-chis wants you to combine the two.”

  A gentleman never tells.

  Finished with his mail thumbing, and not finding what he was looking for, Tomas wandered dejectedly to the trailer's breakfast nook where he poured himself a cup of black coffee. With a head tilt, he swallowed the contents in one long pull.

  “Myra, you said two calls-” Here, he crossed his fingers around the cup. “-was the second call concerning the Riverfront Project?”

  “No, but it's still early yet. You might hear somethin’ later on this week.”

  Taking pity on him, she didn't make him beg for the other message. “The second call was from that Seraphina Norris woman.”

  Tomas groaned.

  Pulling out her compact, Myra fluffed her eggplant-toned beehive. “She's not giving up, boss.”

  “Did you send the second eviction notice like I asked you to?”

  The compact snapped shut. “Who has time?”

  “Myra,” he said quietly. “I told you, I wanted that second notification out a week ago. The Monroe mansion is up for demolition at month's end.”

  “Stop yellin’ at me!” Myra shouted, reaching into the greasy cardboard box always kept on her desk. “You know what my doc says about on-the-job-stress and my weight problem.”

  After selecting a donut from the dozen or so inside the carton, she bit into the soggy-filled middle.

  “See what you made me do!” she squawked, after daintily wiping her lips.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  And he was. Sorry, that is. About a lot of things. He'd messed up plenty in his life. But not this time. This time, he'd crossed all those ‘i's and dotted those ‘t's'. Everything about that eviction notice was strictly legit. And still, Myra was pissed.

  Tomas couldn't understand why his multi-cultural ass was getting whipped. It wasn't even Saturday night, his standing date night with the redheaded, big-busted, leather-wearing, switch-cracking, Dom Lucille.

  He decided to tell Myra about his perplexity. “About the eviction letter... I just don't get what you're getting at, Myra. You know what's going on over at the Monroe place. You know that situation is damned dangerous-”

  “Yeah, yeah. All right! I agree it is dangerous.”

  “So, what is it with sending the letter?”

  “You want the skinny? Here it is. I couldn't do it. The Norris dame sounded so damned nice on the phone. Like a real lady. The kind you don't see too much any more.” She looked at him pointedly. “At least not in this trailer.” She paused for theatrical effect; her voice turned cagey. “I think you'd soften the blow if you explained about the eviction in person.”

  “Send-the-second-letter,” Tomas slowly enunciated. Because when push came to shove, he was a businessman, not a fuckin’ social worker.

  “Okay, so don't go over there. Give the nice lady with the sweet voice the brush off if you want to. I'll send her a cold heartless letter with your stamped signature on the bottom after the sincerely. That oughta do it.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “I'm sorry now I ever mentioned she called. You asked me who called, I told you who called. It's nothing to me if you don't want to do the right thing. I'll still be able to sleep at night.”

  “Glad to hear it-”

  “No skin off my nose.”

  “Great.”

  “No pay from my pocket.”

  “Firme. Cool.”

  “No-”

  “Stop, please-” Tomas hung his muscled neck over his coffee cup. “You win.”

  And his dentist asked how come he ground his teeth at night-

  Myra didn't believe in letting anybody off the hook too easy. Tilting her head, she made him suffer. “What's that you say? I left my hearing aid at home in a drawer.”

  Tomas wished he had one of those things. That way, he could tune certain people out whenever he wanted. “I said, I'll go over there and tell Seraphina Norris about the eviction notice in person. Call her and let her know I'm coming by. After work. Around six.”

  Myra smiled, smug as can be, and went back to reading her newspaper.

  What could he say? From time to time, his bad-ass needed flaying. Which, when he thought about it, was kinda funny, because try as she might, he never let Lucille anywhere near him with any of her S&M toys. When it came to sex, he was strictly a meat and potatoes kind of guy...

  ...or beans and rice, whichever side of his heritage happened to be hungry.

  He didn't do games or role-playing or anything involving too much kink. A little was okay, but nothing that involved more than two batteries. He never did understand that whole French maid concept. And stanky foot fetishes? What was that all about?

  Don't get him started on group sex. More than two noses in a bed was a crowd and he didn't do crowds. He was good under the sheets, but what man could satisfy more than one woman at a time? It was work getting just one woman to agree on something. As to two men on one woman-the only hard-on he wanted in close proximity was his own.

  No ‘bout a'doubt it, he liked women. All
kinds, all sizes, all shapes, all colors. He was also hung like a stallion, which could present a problem for whoever the lady was he was with. So, with that in mind, he'd made up a poem-he liked poetry. It went as follows:

  When doing the wild thing, keep the mating tame

  Fuck the rough stuff, only a pussy causes a woman pain.

  Despite the gossip going around town about him, he was your standard, look her in the eye, kiss her on the lips, ease it gently into her love grotto, have a lot of laughs, straight shooter. To each his own flavor when it comes to sex, but as for him, he'd stick with vanilla.

  So how did he explain those Saturday night dates spent with the whip-wielding Dom Lucille?

  He worked hard, his back muscles got a little sore, and that redheaded Dominatrix gave the best massage in the business. After she worked on him for a while, they generally sat around and watched WWE on cable. He didn't much care for wrestling—boxing was more to his taste—but Lucy was a huge fan, so that's where the TV channel stayed.

  The remote control...sex...they've got a lot in common. In either one or both, if a man don't respect the wishes of the lady he's with—even if that lady is a Dom wearing a ten-inch strap-on-he's pretty much a dick.

  Now that was a saying he lived by.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Seraphina Norris did windows.

  She also did walls and floors, and anything else that needed a good washing. She dreamt about detergent-scented pails of water at night, but that didn't stop her scrubbing. She was a woman on a mission, and nothing was standing in her way, especially not something as trivial as a little...okay...a lot of dirt.

  It was only dirt, after all. Only ten plus years of grime and neglect and filth and litter and tossed refuse and the occasional empty beer can.

  Really, washing the diamond-faceted panes was more a pleasure than a chore, Seraphina mused, squirting the next pane in line with a fine blue mist from her plastic bottle.

  They just didn't make intricately molded woodwork like this any more, she thought with an appreciative sigh over the workmanship. Like everything else in the old Monroe mansion, the windows were finely crafted and built to last.