skin. The high cheekbones. Her naturally long eyelashes that curled at the tips. He had been
so lonely, and had always felt so alone in this world, before she came into his life. Now he was
like that bank commercial. Now he had an ally too.
But damn, he thought as he stared at her, why was he always the one in need of his ally?
Why was he always the one with so much drama going on? She didn’t need this shit. She could
do so much better without him! And she knew it. Nikki was nobody’s fool. But she came over
anyway.
“Are you going to stare at me all night,” she said, to his shock, “or kiss me?” She opened her
big, bright, gorgeous eyes.
And she caught Teddy so off guard that he smiled. “I should have known your slick ass
wasn’t asleep.”
Nikki grinned. “You should know all about slick asses, since you’re one yourself.”
Teddy leaned over and gladly kissed her, passionately, on the lips. He wanted more. But it
was Nikki who pulled back. And her look was one of serious affection. “What’s wrong?” she
asked him.
How would she know something was? Wasn’t he smiling? Didn’t he kiss her? He certainly
enjoyed the kiss!
But Nikki knew Teddy in ways even she couldn’t understand. She could sense his moods.
And she sensed he was in a terrible way. “What’s wrong?” she asked again.
Teddy remained crotched beside his bed. His broodiness had lost the battle. He wasn’t able
to hide it from Nikki. His eyebrows furrowed into a serious frown. “Didn’t go as planned,” he
said.
Nikki didn’t know what didn’t go as planned. But she knew it was hurting him.
She opened up the sheet that was covering her. “Get in,” she said to him.
A look of unbridled gratitude came over Teddy’s face. And shame, too, because he knew he
didn’t deserve her. But he removed every stitch of his clothing, and his shoes, and got into bed
beside her. And she pulled him tightly into her arms.
Teddy held her too. Fighting back tears. He held her too.
They remained that way for hours. No sex. No conversation. Just holding each other. And
Teddy, to his own shock, given what had happened that night, actually managed to fall into a
wonderful, needful, deep, deep sleep.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Teddy woke up early the next morning to the smell of bacon in his kitchen. It brought a
smile to his face. Nikki was back. It wasn’t a dream!
He tossed the covers off of his naked body, swung his legs out, and sat on the edge of the
bed momentarily. Nikki coming over last night wasn’t a dream, but neither was what happened
at that hotel. Half of the crew he had with him had been killed. Sammy and his man had been
killed. The service manager had been killed. Millions of dollars’ worth of weapons were
missing, and nine-and-a-half million to pay for those weapons was missing too. It was a shit
storm on top of a shit storm!
Teddy got up, went to the bathroom, peed quickly and jumped into the shower. He wanted
to scrub that hotel scene from his mind, and focus on Nikki. On the only positive thing he had
going in his life. On the woman his stupid ass almost lost.
After showering, he dried off his hair and his body, brushed and gargled, put on one of his
silk bathrobes, and made his way downstairs.
His contemporary home sported almost as many floor-to-ceiling windows as it had walls,
and he could see the mist from the early morning fog still foaming across the lake in the back of
his house. He felt a little chill and tightened his robe around his naked body.
But all of his chilliness left completely, when he entered his kitchen.
Nikki was still at the stove, cooking away, and the fact that she wore one of his big shirts, a
light blue dress shirt, turned him on more than he thought was possible. But to see her nice,
tight, big ass hug his shirt, and her shapely legs coming down from the hem of his shirt, had him
throbbing. He still couldn’t believe the men in L.A. found her voluptuous body too big for their
taste, and her brown skin too brown. What the fuck was their problem, Teddy wondered then,
and especially wondered now. And she was a good woman too? And smart and loyal? They
were settling for dull, skinny rocks, when they could have had pure gold.
“Good morning,” he said to her as he sat on the stool at the center island.
Nikki glanced back at him and smiled. “Good morning yourself. I thought I would have to
wake you up, then I heard the shower running.”
“I see you already took yours too,” Teddy said. “Or did you get in the tub?”
“The tub,” Nikki said. “I took a long, hot bath. My behind was tired and preferred to sit
instead of stand.”
But she worried Teddy. “Why so tired?” he asked. “Long work day yesterday?”
“It was. You’re rarely in the office so you won’t know this, but your employees, to the man,
has somehow put it in their heads that I’ve replaced your office manager. I have to keep
reminding them that I’m your personal assistant, not the office manager. But it goes in one ear
and out the next. They still bring me every problem in that office.”
Teddy looked at her. Like him, she was a natural leader and his employees gravitated to
that. “Not a job you want?” he asked her.
“What? Your office manager?”
“Yeah.”
Nikki scraped the scrambled eggs out of the pan onto a platter. “It would look nice on my
resume,” she said, “if that’s what I’m going for.”
That was an odd answer to Teddy. “That’s not what you’re going for?”
They were veering into territory Nikki wasn’t sure she wanted to explore. The last time she
came clean to him and told him that she cared about him, he freaked out. He didn’t know if
they had a future, he said to her. It was a sticky subject for him.
But Nikki wasn’t going to live her life walking on eggshells, and she wasn’t going to let
anybody else’s feelings stop her from experiencing hers. So she spoke it. “If I’m your personal
assistant,” she said, “by definition I’ll spend most of my time with you. If I’m your office
manager, by definition I’ll spend most of my time in the office.” She said this and looked back
at Teddy. “I’d rather spend most of my time with you.”
To her relief, Teddy smiled. “Good answer,” he said, although his heart also felt a pinch of
alarm.
“But I could interview some people for the office manager’s job,” Nikki said. “If you want
me to.”
Teddy shook his head. “The people I hire have to come from my world. They can’t be
straight lace people. They can’t be your run-of-the-mill manager types.”
“So what are you saying?” Nikki asked with a smile. “I’m not the run-of-the-mill manager
type either? Since you appeared to be willing to offer me the job.”
Teddy grinned. “Nikki Tarver, you are not a run-of-the-mill anything! There’s nothing run-
of-the-mill about your ass!”
Nikki laughed. “Good answer,” she said, grabbed the platter filled with bacon and eggs and
toast, and walked past Teddy to the kitchen table behind him. He smelled the freshness of her
body, and her perfumed hair when she whizzed past him. It prompted him, when she headed
back toward the center island to make coffee, to gra
b her by the waist and pull her against him.
She grinned when he pulled her into his big, muscular arms. “In some parts of this country,”
she said jokingly, “they call this sudden, out-of-nowhere move of yours a kind of false
imprisonment.”
“In this part of the country,” Teddy said as he traced kisses on her smooth neck, “they call
this sudden, out-of-nowhere move of mine a kind of real imprisonment. There’s nothing false
about it, sweetheart.”
Nikki laughed. Although she was leaned against Teddy with her back to his chest, she
leaned back far enough to turn her face toward him. His look was already hooded.
“There’s nothing false about what I want to do to you,” he said to her.
And just like that, Nikki could feel the outline of his erection against her butt. She could feel
his presence and his manliness and his affection for her. And she was on board too. And as his
lips moved in to hers, to kiss her, she closed her eyes in anticipation.
Teddy enjoyed kissing her. He loved the way she always tasted so fresh. He loved the way
she always smelled so sweet. He loved the way she made him throb and feel as if his passion
was going to explode if he didn’t have her and have her then and there!
He wanted her so badly that he had his fingers between her legs as he kissed her. He was
massaging her clit before she realized he also had lifted the shirt she wore all the way over her
breasts, and his free hand was massaging those too.
But when his passion was becoming too overwhelming for even him to contain, he stood
up. Nikki knew what that meant. He grabbed her by the hand and hurried her, not upstairs
because neither of them would make it, but to his sectional sofa. He laid her on her back, lifted
the shirt she wore completely off, and removed his bathrobe.
He got on top of her, sucking her breasts. And then he moved down between her legs, and
began going down on her so hard that Nikki had to lift up on her elbows to bear the intensity.
Teddy was breathing heavily as he ate her. It was as if he couldn’t get enough of her. It was
as if everything he knew that was still waiting for him to deal with wasn’t putting a damper on
his enjoyment, but was heightening it. Because Nikki was back in his bed. Nikki was back in his
life. Nikki was back and that was enough to overshadow even his darkest hours.
And when he moved up along her body, and placed his dick in her mouth, he knew she was
going to handle him right. No woman had ever gotten it right the way Nikki did. Because she
took her time. Because she didn’t try to impress him with skills she didn’t have. She responded
instinctively to his dick. If it was asking for a licking, she licked. If it was asking for a rubbing,
she rubbed. If it was asking to go all the way in, she took him in full.
When she took him in full, it felt so good to Teddy that it almost broke him. He had to pull it
out. And when he pulled out, and saw the veins on his penis as if it was already engorged, he
moved down between her legs and entered her quickly.
It was a quick thrust inside of her, but Nikki was hot and wet and ready for him.
He was lying prone on top of her, pumping his ass off, and she was holding onto him, with
her feet resting on the back of his calves, moving with the rhythm. She was mesmerized by the
way his big-ass dick was able to push deeper and deeper inside of her without her entire vagina
exploding from his sheer size. And there was an explosion, but not for that reason.
They made long, passionate love. Teddy was groaning and she was moaning and their
lovemaking filled the big, quiet home.
Until their will to continue gave way to the reality of their humanness, and they came. They
couldn’t hold back a second longer. Nikki’s orgasm spilled first, and then Teddy’s.
Teddy continued to pump into Nikki as long as he could, until he couldn’t pump anymore.
Until all he could do was push in and stay in because the intensity was too much for him to bear
too. He throbbed so hard that veins appeared on his forehead and his biceps and he poured
into her. The sensations overtook his penis to such an extent that even Nikki could feel his
trembles.
And when it was over, they both were beyond exhausted. They laid there, despite their
food getting cold, until Teddy’s cell phone began to ring.
Teddy had his phone in his bathrobe pocket. His bathrobe was on the floor, but he was able
to reach it from the sofa. When he looked at the Caller ID and saw who it was, he let out a big
exhale.
So big that it concerned Nikki. “Who is it?” she asked him.
“Pop,” Teddy said. And he answered the call. “Hey.”
“You’ve been busy,” his father said over the phone.
Teddy didn’t respond to that.
“My house. Tonight. 8 pm.”
Teddy wanted to ask why, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Besides, it wasn’t as if his father was waiting for him to ask shit. “Bring your siblings with
you,” Mick continued. “And Nikki,” he added, and then ended the call.
Teddy stared at the phone. What the fuck he needed all of them for? This was his mistake
and his mistake alone. He didn’t want an audience for his humiliation!
“What did he want?” Nikki asked when Teddy tossed his phone aside.
“He wants to see us tonight.”
“Us?”
“You, me, Joey and Glo.”
“It’s not family dinner night. You know what he might want?”
“I know.”
“What?”
Teddy hated to tell of his own ineptitude, but his father wanted her there too. She had a
right to know what she was going to witness. “I lost half of my crew, nine-and-a-half million
dollars, and an arsenal of weapons last night,” he said honestly.
Nikki was shocked. She looked at Teddy.
“Weapons I purchased for five million bucks,” Teddy continued. “I only paid half a million so
far. I owe my suppliers four-and-a-half million more. That’s what he wants,” Teddy said, and
pulled out of Nikki.
But he was barely out of her, and was barely sitting up, before his cell phone rang again.
“Damn!” Teddy said with anger in his voice. Are they ever going to leave him alone? What
went wrong now?
He snatched back up his cell phone and didn’t bother to check the Caller ID. He was ready
to cuss somebody out for bothering him. They knew what went down last night. Why couldn’t
their asses handle whatever it was without bothering him for a change? “What?” he asked
without pretending to not be pissed by the interruption.
But the voice on the other end wasn’t Joey or one of his men. The voice on the other end
was Gloria’s, and she barely sounded like herself. “You can’t tell daddy,” she said.
It was an odd thing to say, Teddy thought. Joey was always blabbing to Gloria, although
Teddy and Mick both told him to cut that shit out. Did he blab about what happened last
night? “I can’t tell him what?” Teddy asked her.
“What Giovanni did,” Gloria said.
Teddy quickly rose to his feet. Nikki, who was putting back on Teddy’s shirt, looked at him.
She could see Teddy was distressed. What now, she wondered?
“You’ve seen Gio?” he asked Gloria. He thought they weren’t together anymore! “Is he
with you now?”
“No. Settle down, Teddy, why you all hyper like that? He’s gone.”
“Then what are you talking about? What did he do?”
“Put it on Speaker,” Nikki said to Teddy, and Teddy did as she requested. He placed the call
on Speaker.
But that didn’t mean Gloria spoke up. She didn’t. She clammed up.
“What’s the matter with you, Glo?” Teddy asked. “Tell me what Gio did. What did he do to
you?”
“He kicked my ass, that’s what he did!” Gloria’s voice became stronger. “He tried to rape
me. That’s what he did!”
“That motherfucker!” Teddy yelled.
“But you can’t tell daddy,” Gloria quickly added. “He’ll kill Gio if he knew.”
And Teddy wouldn’t? Nikki thought to herself. Was Gloria insane?
“Are you home?” Teddy asked his sister.
“Where else am I going to be? Yes, I’m home!”
“I’m on my way. Don’t open your door for anybody but me.” He ended the call and began
hurrying toward the stairs.
“I’m going with you,” Nikki said. And she said it as if it was not up for discussion. Of all the
members of the Sinatra clan, she was closest to Gloria. She wasn’t about to stay out of this.
She went to the kitchen and placed the food in the oven, and then she hurried upstairs too.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Teddy’s red Corvette slung into the guest parking lot at Gloria’s condo and he and Nikki
jumped out and ran toward the entrance of the big, beautiful building.
“Good morning, Mr. Sinatra,” the doorman said as he opened the door for them. “It’s so
good to see you again, sir.”
Teddy grunted something to the doorman, something Nikki was certain the doorman didn’t
catch, but it didn’t matter. Teddy’s mind was on his sister and he wasn’t interested in niceties
at that moment. Nikki wasn’t either. Gloria was a sweet girl, but like Nikki used to be, she was
so unlucky in love. She didn’t deserve anything like this!
They got onto the elevator and made their way upstairs. They both were dressed casually in
jeans and tucked-in shirts, as if they didn’t have corporate jobs to go to. But Gloria took
precedent. A capo in Mick Sinatra’s crime family had beaten and attempted to rape her. A man
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