Silver Mayor: The Silver Foxes of Blue Ridge

by L. B. Dunbar

  I look away from him, not able to offer what I know of his daughter’s plans, and I’m suddenly embarrassed that I asked him to stay with us. Billy pulls his phone from his pocket, types something, and then sets it back in his pocket.

  “I have to make a few rounds,” Billy states to Roxanne, as he’s the owner of this establishment. “Sadie’s out with Christian.” He grimaces as he mentions this information, but Roxanne smiles.

  “Be good, Dad,” she teases, and I gaze back and forth between them. Billy kisses Roxanne’s temple before warning her not to drink too much.

  “These boots are new,” he tells her, and she swats at him before they both laugh. I guess it’s a private joke.

  As both men walk away, Roxanne explains Billy’s angst over his teenage daughter dating, and Grace gives me her background. Widow. Five boys. How sad. It’s evident she loved her deceased husband deeply. Being a military wife comes with great risk.

  “It’s been a while, though,” she says, trying to end on a positive note, implying how his death was a few years ago.

  “And that’s where Clyde comes in,” Roxanne interjects. Grace’s face pinkens again.

  “Who’s Clyde?”

  “Who wants to know?” A deep, jovial voice draws my attention as a large man steps past the table and then backs up to stand next to it. He’s got a thick beard and slightly unruly dark hair along with a plaid flannel. Hello, mountain man. Only he looks a little disheveled, and his pants are too tight. Are those corduroys?

  “That’s Clyde,” Alyce whispers with a smile in her voice.

  “He’s my best customer,” Roxanne adds. Clyde holds out a paw of a hand and shakes mine.

  “Welcome to the village. We promise not to eat the young here.” He winks at me, looks up at Grace, and then walks away from the table.

  “He loves graphic novels, utopian society fantasy, and Grace,” Roxanne explains.

  “He does not,” Grace drones.

  “He so does,” Alyce adds. Grace’s brows pinch, and her gaze follows Clyde’s retreating back before glancing down at the table.

  “I’m not interested,” Grace says, but there’s untruth in her tone. After all she just told me about the love of her life, I’d say she’s scared to open up again, and I can relate.

  My eyes wander to where Charlie is standing near the bar. His older brother Giant enters with his fiancée under his arm.

  “Hey, ladies,” Letty announces, walking up to our table after Giant releases her with a kiss. Her non-Southern accent gives away she isn’t from the South. I learned at dinner that she’s from Chicago and recently moved here like me. Pulling up an extra chair, she joins our little party, and more laughter ensues. It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed like this. Bending at the waist. Tears filling my eyes. It’s so good for the soul to laugh like this, and I’m…happy. For the first time in a long time, I’m content right where I am.

  And then I look up to see Charlie watching me. Only my eyes catch on the large television screen behind his head. The closed captioning reads the announcement of Richard Swank being traded to Atlanta mid-season.

  Something about Richard looking for a fresh start. Deciding he wants to be near family.

  But Richard isn’t from the East Coast. He’s from Arizona.

  His parents remain there where his mother is an alcoholic and his father, a notorious adulterer. Seems the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, but I didn’t see the signs. I believed all of Richard’s pretty promises about wanting to be a better person.

  “Will you excuse me a second?” I say, slipping out of my seat and heading for the restroom. I just need a minute to wrap my head around this farce.

  What is Richard doing?

  + + +

  After splashing cool water on my face and running my wrists under the faucet, my heart rate lowers, and I exit the bathroom. I don’t know if I’m surprised to see Charlie standing in the hallway as if he’s waiting for me.

  “Charlie?” I question as he’s peering down at his phone. I can’t simply ignore him. We’re the only two standing in this narrow space.

  He looks up, and his eyes search my face. Those eyes. And I know what he wants.

  “Charlie, I’m here with the girls. I need to get back.”

  “Tell them you had to call home. Vega needed you.” He steps up to me. “There’s a party room upstairs. Just one more time, and then we’ll stop.”

  I stare up at him, and his knuckles swipe down the side of my face.

  “I find it hard to resist you when you look at me like that,” I whisper. The next thing I know, Charlie’s unlocking a door for the second floor and leading me upward. The hard soles of his shoes make a racket of noise on the wood plank risers. As we enter the opening at the top of the stairs, he spins me, and my back presses against the wall.

  Out of breath as though he’s run a marathon, Charlie says, “And every time you call me fucking sir, my dick gets hard.” His mouth crashes against mine, hungry and desperate. I can feel his words in this kiss.

  One last time. Then we’ll stop.

  So much for the let me in he asked for the other night.

  “And why do you respond in such a way, sir?” I murmur, attempting to pull back from his devouring lips.

  “Because I want to own you, possess you, and I can’t seem to stop myself. This isn’t like me.”

  “Goody Two-shoes Charlie?” I ask as his mouth lowers to my jaw and then skims to my neck.

  “Fucking nickname,” he hisses into my skin.

  “Those pictures show otherwise,” I tease. Charlie’s head snaps up.

  “I don’t want to discuss them.” His tone is the roughest I’ve ever heard. As I have plenty I don’t wish to discuss either, I respond with, “Whatever you say, sir.”

  His eager mouth returns to mine, hard and anxious, taking me like he said—owning me, possessing me—one more time.

  He releases my mouth and lowers to my breasts. Pressing up my T-shirt, he tugs down my bra cup and covers my heavy swell with his mouth. He suckles and sips. His tongue teases the nipple, and then his teeth nip. I hiss, and he covers me with the bra, moving to the other breast and repeating the attention. My fingers delve into his hair, holding his head to me, massaging his scalp as I purr under the warm suction of his mouth.

  I moan his name, and he releases me, not bothering to cover this breast. His mouth returns to mine, and we spin, moving across the floor until my backside hits a table. Charlie lifts my skirt and works my thong to my ankles. Then he hikes me up on the wood surface.

  “Charlie?” I question as he lowers onto a chair, then pulls himself up between my knees.

  “If this is my last chance, I want a taste.” He reaches around to my backside and tugs me to the edge of the tabletop. Forcing my thighs to spread, he lowers his face, and his tongue swipes across the heat of me. Thick and flat, he sweeps over ready folds and then dips his tongue between them.

  “Oh God,” I groan as my palms cup his head. My legs dangle off the table, trembling with the effect of Charlie’s mouth on my center. His fingers dig into my hips, holding me in place as I rock, unable to help the movement. Charlie catches on, and he aids me in moving against his face, his mouth working its magic as his tongue takes me.

  I warn him with only the moan of his name before I explode. Like crystal candy dissolving, bursting with flavor, I come apart at his mouth, and he vigorously laps as the orgasm drags.

  “Charlie, I…I’m going to go again.” My voice catches, my breath hitching. It hasn’t ever happened like this. “I’ve never…” I begin until he pulls his mouth back, stands as he fumbles with his suit pants, shoving them to his hips and slams into me without a word.

  “Come. Fucking come all over me,” he demands. He tugs me off the table and onto his lap to ride him in the chair. My hands grip his shoulders but move to the back of the wood seat for leverage. I drag myself up and down his thick length, the sound of us quietly reverberating in the large room
. I rebuild quickly what I lost at the removal of his tongue. His thickness lashes at me more firmly than his mouth. The drag and draw of his length is deeper in this position. His mouth seeks mine, that tongue surging forward to meet mine, and I come all over him.

  “Sweet heaven,” he mutters, rocking back and forth. Setting a new rhythm, he’s moving faster, diving deeper, and his grunts grow louder. Finally, he stills, tugging me down on him and holding me in place. His fingertips pinch at my hips as he releases, jetting off inside me.

  My heart races as I rest my forehead against his.

  One final time? It won’t be enough. It’s not like I want to walk away from this, from him. It’s just that it isn’t smart to keep doing whatever we’re doing.

  After what feels like only seconds, Charlie lifts me off his lap, and something swipes between my thighs. I step back and straighten my skirt. Charlie folds an honest to goodness handkerchief and slips it into his pants pocket as he tugs them back in place. He’s hardly pulled them down. I smooth my skirt again and bend to the floor for my underwear. A hand skims over my backside and then moves to my lower back as I stand. The touch feels intimate as though he isn’t ready to let me go either. Perhaps he’s only helping me stand upright as my legs still tremble from what we did. He takes my thong from me and slips it into his pocket as well.

  “Did you like seeing that picture of me?” The question is like ice on his tongue, and I stare back at him, surprised by his tone.

  “Lost her phone, that’s what the article said, right? Those images were blackmail, and when that wasn’t enough, she had a blatant affair in hopes to break me.”

  I stand taller, wanting to reach out for him but sensing he didn’t want my touch.

  “And then she tried to use my child, threatening to release more images, embarrassing our daughter.”

  “Charlie, I—” I step up to him, but he holds up a hand to stop me from getting closer.

  “She used my child to forward her political career, playing her brand as a single mother, raising a modern feminist child, only she forgot to mention she hardly sees that sweet child, and all the while holding more exposing photos over my head. Goody Two-shoes Charlie wouldn’t want the scandal, and she was right, I didn’t. I wanted my wife to be faithful. I wanted my child to be loved by her mother.”

  The vulnerability in his face and the crack to his voice break me in two.

  “Why didn’t you tell me the girls went to the movie with your mother?” he asks, switching subjects.

  “I wasn’t going to announce in front of the others that my mother is your housekeeper and nanny, Charlie.” My voice drips with displeasure, and I cross my arms.

  “Why not?”

  I stare back at him. “Because I don’t want everyone to know my entire family works for you.”

  “Are you embarrassed?” The question stings.

  “I’m not embarrassed. My parents work hard, but I don’t need the town thinking I’m shacking up with their employer, and perhaps that’s how I got a job working for him myself.”

  “That’s not how it happened,” Charlie says, taken aback. “And we aren’t shacking up.”

  “What the hell are we doing then?” I groan. Charlie looks at me for a long minute.

  “Nothing. This was it.” Like he has the last word. The final say. Judge and jury on my feelings for him or my body’s reaction to his.

  “If that’s what you want,” I snap, and Charlie stares at me.

  “Isn’t that what you want? You won’t let me in. You refuse to see me. You won’t tell me what happened the other day in my office or tonight as you stared at the television over my head.” Charlie’s voice rises. “What does Richard Swank mean to you?”

  After what he’s just revealed about his ex-wife, the door is open for me to explain my relationship. I could easily agree with his assessment that I wanted a husband to love me and a father for my child, but I don’t open up like he did.

  “It’s…not your concern,” I stammer, not willing to tell him.

  Charlie huffs and runs a hand over his lips, the palm swiping off the taste of me on him.

  My God, what he just did to me. My core pulses again. I want him. I want to comfort him about what I’ve learned. I don’t want to give him up, but one of us needs to be strong, and it’s obviously him.

  “I’m going home.” His tone is cool like when he explains something, a directive, a dismissive. “I’ll relieve your mother, and she can take Vega home. Enjoy the night with your new friends.” His words are distant, robotic even as he stands from the chair. He dismisses me as though I’m some petty constituent under him, and before I can comment that I never voted for Mayor McSteamy to conquer me as he has, he’s disappearing down the stairwell.

  13

  Mayor McSteaming Mad

  [Charlie]

  I enter my house still worked up over what I’d done with Janessa and how things ended. I didn’t want to walk away like I did. I didn’t want to walk away ever, but she’d been right. We shouldn’t be doing what we’ve done. She works for me. Her parents work for me. It has scandal written all over it.

  I sigh as I recall the damn pictures.

  Fortunately, only one out of the fifty or so made it into the press after Angela lost her phone. On our honeymoon, she wanted to spice things up. This from a woman who penciled in our sex life. She had a local photographer do boudoir shots at our island destination. Bedroom. Beach. Dinner.

  The images flash back to me.

  Angela in the skimpiest thing I’ve ever seen a woman wear. Sheer and lacey with straps and clasps. Then the beach in her bikini and me in that damn suit. The shot that made the press was one she took with her phone after I watched her remove her teeny bikini in a private alcove off our room. God, how I wanted her like she was on that trip, but she was never like that again.

  We’d been hot for each other from the start but not like the flame burning between Janessa and myself. Angela was smart, strategic, and power-hungry, and somehow, I found that attractive despite the regulated sex life. When we went on our honeymoon, I thought we were turning a corner. Instead, it was a blip. A few snapshots. Insurance, she later called it. She’d use those images to get what she wanted from me if she ever needed them.

  Hard to scream scandal when it’s consensual between a newly married couple just experimenting with boudoir images, but Angela was devious like that as I later learned.

  When she had an affair.

  When she wanted to use Lucy to her advantage for political gain.

  I didn’t trust her after that photo leaked. She lost her phone, she said, but when a second image was sent to me upon our divorce, I knew it was a warning.

  Unwarranted. Unnecessary. But still a threat.

  I toss my keys on the kitchen counter and then look up to see two heads peeking over the couch in the sitting area off the kitchen. The television pauses on a movie, and Lucy and Vega stare at me.

  I take a deep breath and place my hands on the island countertop.

  “Hey, Pint. Hi, Vega. Did you girls have fun at the movies?”

  “It was good, Dad,” Lucy says, speaking for both of them. She straightens on the couch and leans her little arms over the back cushions. “Dad, did you know Vega’s dad is famous?” Her voice rises with enthusiasm, but Vega hisses Lucy’s name beside her.

  I stand taller and try to catch Vega’s eyes, but she’s glaring at Lucy.

  “I don’t think—”

  “Her dad is Richard Swank. Do you know who that is?”

  My heart races with the name. Richard Swank, center fielder for Houston and recently…

  “He’s a baseball player, and he’s been traded to Atlanta.” Her little voice lifts higher, excitement filling it, but Vega continues to glare at Lucy.

  “Lucy, I told you, you couldn’t tell anybody,” Vega mutters, her voice low but not low enough.

  Lucy turns to her new friend, her eyes going innocent. “But it’s my dad. He isn’t going
to tell anyone.”

  “I said no one,” Vega reminds her.

  “I thought you meant the kids at camp, but still, it’s my dad. Who is he going to tell?” Lucy looks up at me, her eyes confident I’ll keep this secret.

  “I won’t tell a soul,” I say as Vega shifts to look over the cushions at me. I swipe a big X over my chest and then draw a line along my lips like I’m zipping them together. Then I act as if I’m throwing away the key by tossing it over my shoulder.

  “My mom’s still going to be mad,” Vega says, shifting her gaze back to the paused television.

  “You don’t need to tell her,” Lucy says, turning to her friend.

  “But you just told your dad, and my mom will want to know. She doesn’t want anyone knowing who we are.”

  What? My brows pinch. A million questions run through my head. Why not? What happened? Are they in danger?

  “But it’s so cool. He might be coming back for you,” Lucy encourages, and I’m reminded of the tremble in Janessa when Jordan announced Richard Swank was being traded to Atlanta. That’s only an hour away. If they don’t want to be found, he’s too close.

  “Lucy,” I softly call her name. “I think Vega has her reasons for asking you to keep a secret, and you should have honored that.”

  Vega looks back at me for a second and then stands from the couch.

  “I’d like to go home, Mr. Harrington,” she says, looking down at her feet.

  “But you said you’d spend the night. I don’t want you to go,” Lucy whines.

  “I think I should see my mom.”

  “Your mother is still out. I saw her in town at the pub.” I just did ridiculously sexy things to your mom, who obviously has a huge secret of her own.

  “Mami can take me,” Vega states the nickname for her grandmother, and as if on cue, Rosa enters the room.

  “Oh. Mr. Charlie. I didn’t know you return,” Rosa says in her faltering accent. She looks from the girls to me and back. Her brow pinches when she sees Vega, and Vega steps up to her.