The Tough Guy and the Toddler

by Diane Pershing

  Setting the paper down, Cynthia stared at her, her mouth pursed in disapproval. “So, you’re going to that shop today—” she made shop sound like a piece of sour fruit “—you’re going to renege on an obligation you made, and you’re involved with that policeman.”

  “That policeman,” Jordan said, trying not to show her irritation, “has a name. It’s Dominic D’Annunzio, and he’s been very good to me. Really, Cynthia, I—”

  She cut the sentence off as Sofia entered the room, carrying a tray with Cynthia’s toast and tea. In the Carlisle house, one never discussed personal matters in front of the servants. Her mother-in-law glanced at the housekeeper and smiled. “Thank you, Sofia.”

  After Sofia disappeared into the kitchen, Cynthia stirred two sugar cubes into her tea, arched an eyebrow and said, “You were saying?”

  She would not discuss Dom with her mother-in-law, Jordan decided. Nor would she tell her about Michael. In truth, she could not impart anything of importance to her. They shared a house, but it was as if they came from different planets, spoke untranslatable languages.

  Over the years, Jordan had yearned to be a part of a loving family. Her parents had died in a flu epidemic five years earlier, and Jordan rarely spoke to her younger brother, whose life as a Wyoming rancher kept him overworked and closed-minded. But Cynthia would not fill the void.

  The older woman went on, her tone clipped and condescendmg. “Jordan, I find myself mystified by your behavior. I hope I have provided a good home and a reasonable allowance for my son’s widow. I hope I have done my duty by you. But, in all candor, I do not understand you. I expected—”

  Jordan cut her off. “Your duty?” she repeated, surprised by the deep well of bitter sadness this discussion was tapping into. “That’s all I am to you, isn’t it? Your duty.”

  Cynthia seemed taken aback by Jordan’s response. “Well, I didn’t really mean that”

  “What did you mean?” she asked, again surprised at her strong reaction—hadn’t she just admitted to herself that she and Cynthia were worlds apart?—but unable to mask the hurt anyway. “What did you expect? That I would go on behaving as I did when Reynolds was alive? The perfect trophy wife? The gracious hostess? The perfect mouse?”

  On the verge of tears, Jordan bit her lower lip to keep them in. She was too raw to be having this discussion. “Cynthia,” she went on more quietly, “I thank you for all you’ve done for me, really I do. And I’m sorry about tonight. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”

  The older woman sniffed, her expression remaining stiff and unyielding.

  Jordan gave up. You’re not enough, a voice inside mocked her, but she knew it was an old voice. Old tapes. She was enough, she told herself, just not for this frail, set-in-her-ways woman. A woman who was not her mother and didn’t want to be considered for the job.

  So she would manage without her. As Jordan rose from the table, the phone rang. Cynthia picked it up. “Hello?... Oh, Mabel. Hold on just a moment.” Putting her hand over the mouthpiece, she said, “I’m not sure what we decided. Are you going tonight or aren’t you?”

  At the doorway, Jordan stared at her. A sense of responsibility came with being beholden to another person. “I’ll go,” she said. “We’ll go together, okay?”

  Her mother-in-law nodded, then spoke into the phone. “Mabel, what in the world has you up at this ungodly hour?” Her tone was warm and chatty, but Jordan would not torture herself again with wondering why her mother-in-law never spoke to her that way.

  She left the room, the sound of Cynthia’s dry laugh trailing after her.

  When Jordan knocked on the door, Dom opened it right away. Her face lit up in a smile at the sight of him, and he answered with one of his own. They’d parted only hours ago, but the two of them stood in his doorway now, grinning at each other like idiots. Damn, he thought, she looked good today in a sleek, short dress and heels. Her legs were long and perfect, and he really wanted to know how they would feel wrapped around his waist.

  Remembering his manners, Dom said, “Should I invite you in?” then added warningly, “the place is a mess.”

  Laughing, she handed him the plastic bag with Wally’s three letters and shook her head.

  “No, it’s okay. I know you have to leave.”

  He grabbed another plastic bag, containing her money belt, from a table just inside the door, then closed the front door and locked it. “Come. I’ll walk you to your car.”

  On either side of the walkway there were patches of faded grass and two rows of sad-looking bushes. No flowers. Theresa had kept the garden up. Today, as he and Jordan approached her car, he wished he were more of a gardener.

  His musings almost made him miss what she was saying. “So I’ve thought of a way to help out.” With one hand on the Rover’s door handle, she told him about her planned meeting with Hal.

  “The guy you were with at Bistro Rodeo?”

  “I wasn’t with him, I ran into him.”

  “He a good friend of yours?” Dom knew he sounded prickly.

  “He was a good friend of Reynolds’s. Why?”

  “He’s a creep,” he told her bluntly.

  Chuckling, Jordan looked at her car keys, playing with them. “You two didn’t like each other on sight, I could tell.”

  He rested a hand on the roof of the Rover. “I can smell creeps a mile off. How about I talk to him instead of you?”

  “Why do I get the sense that talking to someone is a little different for you than it is for me? What are you going to do?” Cocking her head, she went on in a mock tough-guy accent, “Make him an offer he can’t refuse?”

  “Nah—that’s not my style.” He paused, then added, only half-kidding, “Not unless it’s necessary.”

  “How about you let me handle this one?” She placed a hand on his arm. “It will be all right, I promise.”

  He didn’t like it, but then, who was he to forbid her to talk to anyone? “Just be careful,” he said gruffly. “Okay?”

  With a soft laugh, she opened her car door. “I promise.” Then she turned, glanced up and down the street and gave him a quick kiss on the mouth.

  His lips burned after she had driven off. He ran his tongue over them and nodded. Soon, he promised himself. Real soon.

  Jordan called Hal at his office on her morning coffee break. She’d been looking through a few of Reynolds’s old suits, she told Hal, before giving them to charity, and had found a diamond pin with Myra inscribed on it. Did Hal know this Myra? When he hedged, Jordan said, “It’s all right, Hal. I knew about his mistresses. He used to tell me.”

  “No way.”

  “Oh, yes,” Jordan said smoothly, playing with the phone cord in the shop’s office. “It was part of our agreement. We went our separate ways. Hal—” she made her voice sound confidential “—I really didn’t care, and that’s the truth. This Myra, I thought she might want the pin.”

  “Toss it.”

  “I considered that,” Jordan said quickly, “but, it doesn’t feel right. Maybe she’d want something from him, to remember him by. Did he mention her?”

  “Who? Myra? Sure. She was around those last couple months, before he—” He cleared his throat. “Well, you know.”

  She reined in the sudden burst of exhilaration. Hal knew Myra! Careful, she told herself. Keep it casual. “Good. So then, do you know where she lives? Her last name?”

  After a moment of silence, Hal came back on the line with a sly, insinuating tone. “What are you willing to give me in return?”

  “My gratitude.”

  “How grateful will you be?”

  Even as her stomach churned with disgust, she knew she had to play along. “That depends on what you tell me,” she said silkily. “For instance, her last name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you ever meet her?”

  “Sure, yeah. I ran into him with her a couple of times. Blond, flashy, big boobs, you know. But who the hell can remember last names?”
>
  The phone cord was getting more and more tangled as Jordan continued to twist it. “So,” she persisted, “you don’t know where she lived, anything about her.”

  Hal’s low, intimate chuckle turned her stomach. “How ’bout if I make something up?”

  Disappointed, she let the cord go limp. “That won’t help, will It? If you remember anything, let me know, okay? I appreciate it.” She hung up before Hal could offer up any more innuendos

  “Foster’ Her name is Myra Foster!”

  Jordan stood on Dom’s doorstep under the porch light. She wore a straight floor-length black gown with a high neck. Her arms were bare; a long strand of pearls was her only jewelry, and she took his breath away.

  She was like something out of a Paris fashion show, slim and elegant. But still Jordan, he thought. Real flesh and blood under that exterior.

  He’d been watching “Letterman” and drinking a beer when his doorbell had rung. He was bare-chested, barefooted and wore the bottom half of some old gray sweats. She looked like royalty, he felt like Sylvester Stallone way before he beat the champ.

  Even so, man, was he glad she was here.

  “Come in,” he said.

  As she passed him he got a whiff of her perfume. It was something made from roses, both subtle and provocative, and it started his senses humming.

  As he walked over to turn off the TV, Jordan said, “I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have come here like this, without calling, but I wanted to tell you about Myra.”

  “No problem.” He kept his tone even. He knew instinctively that she was buzzed, with a lot of energy to expend, so needed him to be calm.

  She threw a tiny purse onto a chair, then began to pace in front of his fireplace, back and forth, back and forth. Not just buzzed, he thought, agitated as hell.

  “Maybe you want to sit down?” he suggested.

  “No. I can’t I’m too jumpy. Hal told me her name, Myra’s, I mean. I saw him tonight at this gala, this stupid big event.” She rubbed her hands together as she walked. “I hate them. Everyone brags about who has the deepest pockets and the latest million-dollar toy.” She glanced at him, smiled apologetically. “Of course, it’s for a good cause and all that, I mean, they raise money for charity—”

  “Hey, you want to bad-mouth something, you don’t need to apologize Sure you don’t want to sit? You’re pretty wired.”

  “Yes, I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. How about something to drink? It might settle you down.”

  “All right.”

  She followed him to the kitchen, her high heels clicking on the linoleum. Good thing he’d done the dishes, put things away when he got home tonight. Still, there was probably some grease on the countertop, and it had been a while since anyone had mopped the floor, so he didn’t turn on the overhead light. There was plenty of illumination offered by a small night-light near the stove.

  He opened another beer for himself, got some brandy for her, poured it into a juice glass. He handed it to her, watched her sip it, then he leaned against the sink, didn’t touch her. Not yet. “Take a deep breath,” he told her and watched her as she did. “Better?”

  Holding the glass in both hands between her small, high breasts, Jordan made an effort to smile. “Better.” Then she frowned and shuddered, as though some unpleasant thought had just entered her head.

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  He reached a hand to her. “Tell me.”

  She met his gaze, then lowered hers, took his hand and moved to stand next to him at the counter. “Hal,” she said. “You’re right, he is a creep.”

  Dom felt his jaw tensing. “What did he do to you?”

  “Just a little heavy breathing and an attempt at groping. Not that I let him, I didn’t. I wouldn’t.” She shook her head. “He disgusts me,” she said quietly, then took another sip of her brandy, set it down on the tile counter.

  Dropping Dom’s hand, she moved away from him, her hands on her hips, pacing again. “I had no tolerance tonight for all the shallowness. You know how you can put up with something for a while, then you just can’t any more? It made me think of all those years, being on display, for photographers, the public, on Reynolds’s arm. An object, men wanting to possess me because my picture was on the cover of a magazine.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “Undressing me with their eyes everywhere I went. So many lost years. Too many.”

  She stopped moving, gazed at him out of deeply troubled eyes. “I didn’t want to be there. All I was doing was waiting. All day, I’ve been waiting, to hear from you about the fingerprints, to hear from Hal if he remembered Myra’s last name, to get another note from Wally. Waiting, waiting, waiting. To be with my son again.” Her eyes filled.

  He pushed himself away from the sink, pulled her into the living room, put his arms around her. She smelled like brandy and old roses. “Yeah, waiting’s tough.”

  She sank into him, rested her head and hands on his chest for a few moments and let him hold her. She was so thin, he thought. And so tense. He laid his cheek on the top of her head and closed his eyes as they stood there.

  After a while, Jordan raised her head, looked at him and grimaced ruefully. “Here I am, falling apart on you again. It’s a pattern. I never do this. This is terrible. Just awful.” She tried to step away from him. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know why I’m here. I need—”

  “Shh,” he said, cupping her face in his hands. “I know exactly what you need.”

  Chapter 9

  He kissed her then, his action a surprise yet not a surprise, his mouth soft yet not soft. Shocked, Jordan froze for a moment, then she pulled away. “Dom, I can’t,” she said. “We shouldn’t.”

  He kissed her neck. “We can and should.”

  “But Michael—” she began.

  “Shh,” he said again, licking behind and around her ear, setting up a new kind of hum in her bloodstream. Closing her eyes, Jordan threw her head back, allowing his mouth and tongue further access to the area beneath her chin.

  Dom reached behind her for the dress’s zipper and slowly drew it down. “We can’t go after Michael right now, can we? Let it happen, Jordan. Let it go. Just for tonight.”

  Her eyes were still closed, and she tried to come up with more reasons they couldn’t do this. Then she felt her dress slide from her and onto the floor and heard Dom’s gasp. Her eyes opened to see that he’d taken a step back and was staring at her. Beneath the dress, she’d worn a black lace demibra, matching bikini pants and garter belt and black silk stockings.

  His hands were clenched into fists by his side. His eyes devoured her. “God,” he breathed. “You’re like a dream.”

  She had to fight the urge to cover herself with her hands. The desire in Dom’s eyes was so potent, she felt more than a small amount of trepidation. Would she please him? Or would he be disappointed with her? The worry stayed with her even as he unhooked her bra and removed it slowly, taking his time. He suckled her bared breasts—were they too small for him? she worried even as her nipples hardened into diamond-hard points.

  His mouth and hands skimmed over her rib cage. She watched him, heard herself groan as he played all around her garter belt but didn’t remove it. Kneeling, he kissed the inside of her thighs. That was when her knees began to shake.

  “I need to sit down, Dom,” she gasped

  “Not yet,” he murmured “Brace yourself on my shoulders.”

  She dug her fingers into the muscles of his shoulders as he kissed and tongued all around that most sensitive area, closer and closer to the junction of her thighs. Her panties were wet, and most of her self-consciousness was gone. He pulled off her panties, discarded them, cupped her buttocks and buried his face between her legs. At that point, she stopped thinking at all. A long groan ripped from the back of her throat as his tongue found all her secret crevices.

  He was amazingly tuned to her, his hands and tongue all-knowing about what s
he needed. As he tended to the small bud that was the center of desire, Jordan’s shuddering spread from her knees all over her body. He had a tight grip on her so she wouldn’t fall, but she was shaking so hard she thought she might break apart.

  Up, up, up she went, spiraling toward some peak she couldn’t see but knew was there. As he urged her on, her groans mixed with Dom’s, her sighs became moans as she neared the apex of sensation. When she found it, she let out a long scream and began to buck in Dom’s embrace, pushing against his face like a wild bronco.

  But he stayed where he was, firm and in control, holding her, kissing and caressing her, until she began her descent.

  Dom didn’t give Jordan any time to come down. His body was insane with need. He lowered her onto the carpet, tore off his sweatpants. Remembered about protection just in time. He reached for his wallet, which was—lucky for both of them—on the table right here in the living room. He reached in, found a condom and slipped it on.

  He took a moment to gaze at her. Jordan lay panting on the carpet, her loud sighs music to his ears. She’d been so wired, he’d wanted her to have the relief of an orgasm right away. What surprised him was the power of her release. She’d come apart like she’d been waiting for him all her life.

  “Jordan?”

  She opened her eyes, saw him above her, ready for her. There was a brief flash of concern in her eyes, then she smiled, opened her arms. “Yes,” she said. “Please, I want you in me.”

  Without waiting for any other invitation, Dom plunged into her to the hilt. “God!” he cried out. The fit was perfect, she was so tight, she was everything he’d fantasized. It was an effort, but he forced himself to hold still just for a little while longer. She had more to give him, more pleasure to take.

  Leaning over, he thrust his tongue in her mouth, rubbed her nipples with his thumbs, heard her gasp with surprise. Her hips rotated beneath him, as though urging him to move in her. Still he held back. Gathering her hands, he held them over her head, then moved his mouth from hers and over the column of her neck, sucking as though drawing life blood from her.