“So, what should I do about that question?” I asked. “Is it going to be a problem?”
“That’s it? You beat up a guy because he was hitting a girl?”
“In summary, that’s all that happened.”
She wrinkled her nose. “How bad did you beat him up?”
If I was mad enough to beat someone, they didn’t get a mild ass whipping. I beat the guy within an inch of his life. I didn’t think expanding on the subject was necessary. She’d undoubtedly Google me and read about it anyway.
“It was a suitable punishment for what he’d done,” I said.
“Eight years.” She shook her head in disbelief. “How long ago was that?”
“The fight?”
“Umm. Yeah.”
“About eight years ago,” I responded. “Roughly.”
Her eyes widened a little more. “You just got out of prison?”
I nodded. “Sixteen days ago.”
She looked me over. Thoroughly. Not as if she were sexually interested. It seemed to be more of an inspection, of sorts.
“I’ve got a few questions for you. Are you ready?”
“Sure.”
“Have you ever been violent toward a woman?”
It seemed like an odd question for a job interview. I shook my head. “No.”
“Arrested for domestic violence?”
“No.”
“Had a PFS filed against you?”
“A what?”
“Protection from Stalking order.”
I chuckled. “No.”
She gave me a side-eyed look. “You know I can find out if you have.”
“I haven’t.”
“Have you ever stolen anything from someone you knew?”
“No.”
“Is this a job you can see yourself keeping?” she asked. “Or is it a stepping stone to something bigger?”
“If I like it here, I’ll stay,” I replied, not really knowing if the statement was completely true. I’d at least stay long enough to satisfy my parole officer.
“Check the box,” she said with a nod. “Everything will be fine.”
“I’m hired?”
She tried to change her grin to a stern look. “If you’ll accept forty-two thousand a year as salary.”
“Make it fifty thousand.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Forty-six.”
Considering my housing arrangement with the eighty-year-old widower I lived with, I could survive on five thousand a year. My only real concern was staying out of prison.
“Go forty-eight, and I’ll agree.”
“Fine,” she said. “Forty-eight thousand it is.”
“I don’t need to see Teddi?”
“She’s not here, so I’m making an executive decision. In fact, let’s keep the entire you’ve-been-to-prison thing between you and me, okay?”
“You don’t want me to tell her?”
“Not yet.”
“What if she sees my application?”
“She won’t.”
“She might.”
She grinned mischievously. “Not if I misplace it.”
“So, that’s it?” I asked. “I’m hired?”
She extended her hand. “Welcome to the team.”
Chapter Two
Teddi
Naples had three types of homes. Those situated in gated communities, the mansions along the Gulf Coast, and everything else. My focus was selling the first two types of homes. I left the everything else for the remaining Realtors who spent their time scurrying to match my sales figures.
The average asking price for my homes was eight figures. Properties were typically on the market for sixty days or less, and it was common for me to obtain ten percent over ask. In the world of Southwest Florida Realtors, I was despised. In the community, men respected me, women feared me, and those who didn’t know me referred to me using the word no woman wanted to be called.
“Sixty days?” I choked on my wine. “Margaret. Really? It’s the off-season. You can’t expect me to—”
“You’ve had the listing for six months, Teddi.” She folded her napkin and laid it beside her half-eaten plate of ceviche. “We’ve got two hundred million tied up in two homes, one of which we don’t need. Raymond’s livid about this. He said to give you sixty more days. If the home isn’t sold at that point, we’ll look at other alternatives.”
Other alternatives meant other listing agents. If I lost the listing, it would my first. I’d become the laughingstock of the industry. The loss would be the beginning of the end my career. I took a gulp of wine and then another. It wasn’t my fault the home hadn’t sold. Its continued existence on the MLS listing certainly wasn’t from my lack of trying.
Six months prior, I sold Raymond and Margaret a one-hundred-and-thirty-million-dollar modern beachfront mansion. They then placed their twelve-thousand-square-foot Mediterranean home on the market for less than half that amount.
The sixty-million-dollar mansion had been crafted of imported limestone. Standing at the gated entrance, it was breathtaking. The interior, however, was plagued with massive marble columns, hand-carved dark wood ceilings with Venetian plaster inlays, imported Emperador marble that was even darker, and arched stone doorways. Short of a wealthy European couple, I could see no one accepting the dungeon-esque home in as-is condition.
I pushed my empty wineglass to the side. “See if he’ll entertain a hundred and eighty days. That will give me an opportunity to direct my focus solely on European clients. I should be able to schedule viewings—”
“Sixty days,” she said. “He was adamant. I’m sorry.”
“What can I do, Margaret? We’ve known each other for what? Almost fifteen years? I sold you your first home here, right after Raymond—”
Her apologetic look hardened to one of distress. “I’m sorry.”
There was clearly nothing she could do.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck.
I put on a smile. “I’ll get my team on it.”
“I want you on it, Teddi. I want you devoted to this sale.”
“It will be my only focus,” I assured her. “My team will be on it as well.”
She pushed herself away from the table. “I hope this ends well. I’d certainly—” She shook her head. “The thought of a new agent is appalling.”
I reached for my wine and then realized it was empty. I ogled the glass as if it were a mystery. “I couldn’t agree more.”
She stood. “You’ll be in touch?”
Yeah, as soon as I find a filthy-rich Greek doctor.
I needed to pay for our lunch. I stood and shook her hand. “I sure will.”
She turned away.
I fell into my seat and sighed. A cursory glance around the restaurant produced no one of importance. Relieved, I checked my messages on my phone.
“Did the other party leave?” the waiter asked.
“She did,” I responded without looking up. “I realize it’s probably on the way out, but you can forget the food. Would you bring me another glass of wine, please?”
“Forget the food, ma’am?”
I set my phone down and shifted my attention to him. “I’ll pay for it, but I’m not hungry any longer. Just bring the wine, please.”
He nodded. “Very well.”
“On second thought,” I said, “bring a bottle.”
It was barely noon, and I was shitfaced. A giggle fit in the front seat of my car turned to a crying session. Incapable of driving, I swept the tears from my cheeks with the heels of my palms and called an Uber.
A ride from hell in the back seat of an un-air-conditioned car suited for an alley of clowns followed. Despite my desire to roll down the window, I couldn’t find a switch anywhere. After the fifteen-minute drive to the office, the back seat of his car was drenched in ten pounds of my sweat.
The driver pulled into the parking lot. “Here you go.”
We were two hundred yards from the entrance. I didn’
t care. I couldn’t get out of the rolling sauna quick enough. I thrust my hip against the door and sucked in a lungful of Florida’s muggy summer air.
I wrestled to free myself of the miniature back seat. As I wiggled through the opening sized for a starving teen, I glanced over my shoulder. “You don’t know any rich blind Italians looking for a home, do you?”
“Excuse me?”
With one leg out of the car and the other close behind, my purse got stuck between the back of his seat and the front of mine. The strap yanked against my shoulder, nearly sending me tits up onto the asphalt. After an embarrassingly long struggle, I pulled it free.
He stuck his head out the window. “Is everything okay?”
“No.” Stumbling to catch my balance, one of my knees buckled. I careened forward at ten times the speed my feet could move. After a dozen stutter steps, I came a screeching halt. Once I was planted firmly on my feet, I resituated my purse and shot him a glare. “It’s not.”
He opened his door and leaned outside. “What did you say about Italians?”
“Nothing,” I said in a huff. “I’ll tip you on the app.”
An ocean of asphalt separated me from the entrance. Not certain that he’d even taken me to the right place, I scoured the parking lot for a familiar vehicle. The first thing that caught my attention was a Harley-Davidson parked in the employee section of the lot. Assuming it was one of Neeson-Frye’s decorators, I shrugged it off and began my trek to the door.
I’d lived in the area my entire life and had yet to become accustomed to Southwest Florida’s ninety-seven-degree, ninety-five-percent-humidity summers. Heat rose from the parking lot in waves, each of which took my breath away. Halfway to my destination, I was drenched in sweat and my hair was a disaster.
My feet were throbbing. I couldn’t see straight. With each step, my heels sank into the molten asphalt. If I continued the trek in my Christian Louboutin So Kate heels, I’d be so facedown before I reached the door.
I took off my shoes. The parking lot’s blistering-hot surface was impossible to stand on. Barefoot, I clutched my shoes in my left hand and my Hermès bag in my right. I bounded across the scorching sea of black tar like a gazelle across an African savannah.
Drunk and disappointed with myself, I arrived at the entrance. The bottoms of my feet felt like I’d walked over a mile of hot embers. Exhausted, I leaned against the door and stumbled inside.
The cool air hit me like a speeding freight train. My stomach heaved. My heels clattered to the floor. Wine-soaked ceviche rose in my throat. My shoulders slumped. The floor began to spin. My purse fell at my feet with a thud.
I braced my hands against my knees. “Kate!” I gazed at my filthy feet. “I need help!”
I closed my eyes and begged the vomit gods to spare me. Footsteps approached. A hand gripped my left bicep. Thankful that someone came to rescue me, I lifted my drunken head.
Tall and muscular, he towered over me like a giant. A ruggedly handsome, tattooed giant. A five-o’clock shadow peppered his chiseled jaw. I darted my eyes to his crotch. It looked like he had a Chipotle burrito shoved deep in his pocket.
“Who are you?” I cooed.
“Wallace,” he replied in a baritone voice. “Devin Wallace.”
I despised men, regardless of age, income bracket, or looks. Having been fucked over by one so bad it nearly landed me in bankruptcy court, I knew better than to allow myself to fall into another trap. Knowing in advance that all men were pigs allowed me to use them for their intended purpose. I wasn’t interested in troubling myself with feelings, emotions, or the inconveniences that accompanied a relationship.
Men were placed on this earth to change oil, move heavy objects, forfeit their lives in pursuit of obtaining world peace, and for the sexual satisfaction of women.
Nothing else.
Considering that my car had a fresh oil change, all the new furnishings were in place, and he wasn’t wearing a uniform or badge, I planned to use him for the only thing that was left.
My pickled brain couldn’t seem to formulate another word, let alone a sentence. I mentally assembled a brief explanation of what I needed from him, but I couldn’t lift my thick tongue. I held his brown-eyed gaze and hoped he could read my mind.
Kate stepped between us. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “What happened?”
I peeled my eyes away from his and glanced in her direction. “Margaret’s going to take back the listing,” I blurted. “We’ve got two months.”
“Seever?” she asked. “The Mediterranean mansion on Gordon Drive?”
I nodded. “That’s it.”
She looked at my feet and then at me. “What happened?”
“With her or my feet?”
“Both.”
I draped my arm over her shoulder. “Guide me to my office. I need to sit.”
Stumbling to keep up with her surefooted pace, I glanced over my shoulder. The well-endowed baritone interior architect was collecting my shoes and purse from the floor. In addition to being handsome, it appeared he was a gentleman. Even so, he was a man.
Kate lowered me into my chair. I fell into it like a tranquilized hippo.
“You’re trashed,” she said.
I pressed my palms against my temples. “I’m so drunk.” I looked around my office. “Do you have anything I can take?”
“Like what?”
“A couple dozen Xanax?”
She rolled her eyes. “There’s Tylenol in the conference room.”
“I need something to calm my nerves. I feel like I’m going to explode. Or puke. Maybe both.”
“Where’s your car?” she asked. “Please tell me you didn’t drive.”
“It’s with the valet at Mercato.” I straightened my posture the best I could. “I came here in a clown car.”
“What?”
“One of those stupid little Fiats. It looked like it should be filled with clowns at a circus.” I cleared my desk with a swipe of my arm. I laid my head on the cool surface. “The back seat was insufficient for anything but a toddler. It didn’t have air conditioning.”
“An Uber?”
“Uh-huh. It was awful.”
“Why didn’t you get an XL?”
“It’s off-season,” I said. “There weren’t any.”
She bent over and looked me in the eyes. “How much did you drink?”
“Two glasses of wine, and then Margaret dropped the bomb.” I closed my eyes. “I had another bottle and a half after that. I had to tip the waiter a hundred bucks to let me overindulge.”
“Take a nap,” she said. “We can talk about it when you wake up.”
“Shut the door on your way out if you don’t mind,” I muttered, half asleep already.
“Okay.”
“Who’s the sexy guy with the tattoos?” I asked, smiling at the thought of him. “An architect?”
“He’s our new receptionist,” she replied. “I was going to surprise you.”
My head shot up off the desk. “What?”
“I hired him on Friday. You were out all day, and he was the only applicant worth hiring. You said to hire someone if they were attractive and able. He’s both. He’s a friend of Herb what’s-his-name. The old guy you sold the place in Pelican Bay to. The big house that needed to be redone by the clubhouse. You saw him in the store the other day.”
“Herb Riley?”
“Yeah. That’s him.”
I buried my face in my open palms and exhaled a long breath. If we employed Mister Sexy, there would be no way I could keep myself from fucking him. At some point it would happen. There was a reason I exposed myself to handsome alpha males as little as possible. I had no willpower when the time came to deny their sexual demands.
I spread my fingers apart and peeked through them. “He’s a man, Kate. We can’t have a man working here. I despise men. Especially men like him. You know that. What happened last time?”
“You don’t want me to fire him, do you?” She gave
me puppy dog eyes. “He just started this morning.”
“We don’t have a defined probationary period. You can’t fire him without cause. We’ll just wait for him to fuck up. It’s only a matter of time. He’s got to be out of his element.”
She sighed. “I think he’ll do great.”
I lowered my head to the desk. “I suppose that’s his Harley beside Janine’s Jag?”
“It sure is.”
He was a tattooed biker. Perfect. Just fucking perfect.
I closed my eyes. “Don’t forget to close the door.”
Within minutes, I was passed out cold. During my drunken slumber, I had a vivid dream about the new receptionist.
I’d taken him to a showing for some ridiculous reason. After the client left, Mister Sexy bent me over the kitchen island. In shock but unwilling to oppose his sexual advances, I complied with his demands. He grabbed a fistful of my hair. With one strong tug, he tore my panties and tossed them aside. Using his scuffed boots, he kicked the insides of my feet, forcing me to widen my stance. When he penetrated me, I howled like I was being branded by a red-hot poker.
He liked it rough.
His tattooed hands were everywhere. Each time he slapped my ass, the sound echoed throughout the vacant home. He squeezed my tits so firmly that I nearly reached climax. The web of one hand tightened around my throat. His stamina was remarkable. Like a jackhammer, he pounded himself into me for all eternity. Breathless, I allowed him to fulfill his every desire. In time, his breathing became irregular. His cock swelled to twice its size. My clit throbbed with each thrust that followed. On the cusp of an orgasm, I peered over my shoulder.
His head had been replaced with Margaret Seever’s.
I awoke in a panic. Still drunk and somewhat confused, I stumbled to the hallway. I gazed toward the reception area. Mister Sexy’s tattooed hand was cradling the phone’s receiver.
A low laugh escaped him. “One moment, Janice. Let me see if she’s in.” He tapped his index finger against one button and then another. “Janine, I’ve got Janice Williams on line one… All right, I’ll put her through.”
He appeared to be doing rather well for his first day at work. No matter how good he was at his job, I eventually needed to find a reason to let him go.
Misadventures of a Biker Page 2
