After a sip of my drink, I lean in and say in her ear, “This is just the tip of the iceberg when you’re with me.”
She takes a long drink as she looks at me. “So show me around, I guess.”
Going to find my parents’ table, I whisper to her, “Now don’t be all professional with them. Talk to them the same way you talk to me.”
She nods and gives me a thumbs up. She’s so funny. Her appearance is that of a sophisticated beauty. Her actions are that of a young woman who thinks she’s nothing special. I wonder if she’s really looked at herself in a mirror lately. She is magnificent!
Out of nowhere pops my three-year younger brother, Zeek. “Hey, bro!” He hugs me then gestures to Mercy. “And who do we have here?”
“This is Mercy Noland, she’s my date for tonight,” I say as I look at her with adoring eyes.
My brother, in typical Zeek fashion, holds out his arms. “Well, then get over here beautiful. In this family, we hug our hellos. I’m Zeek, this ugly guy’s younger and much more attractive brother.”
Mercy looks at me for only a moment before Zeek has her in a hug. Her cheeks turn red but she maintains her composure. “Nice to meet you, Zeek.”
He takes her hand and pulls her along with him as I follow behind. She looks over her shoulder at me and I give her a nod. This is what he does after all.
We make our way to my family’s table and my father gets up as Zeek says in a very loud voice. “Look who Jude brought to the party. Her name is Mercy and our boy, Jude, looks like he’s gonna need some of that tonight!”
I take Mercy back as she blushes and drops her head. My arm goes around her shoulders and I whisper, “The introductions are the worst, I know this. But they’ll be over with soon.”
She takes in a deep breath and looks up again. My father comes to us and brings Mom along as he says, “Well, well, well, we were wondering what was taking you so long but now we know. You were up in Heaven bringing this little beauty down to Earth with you.” He takes Mercy’s hand and kisses it. “If I wasn’t already hitched, I’d have to give my boy here a run for his money!” He laughs and Mom hits his shoulder.
“Don’t mind him, sweetie. He’s all bark and no bite.” She shakes Mercy’s hand. “I’m Jude’s mother, Loretta. His father’s name is, Jim. It’s nice to meet you. I’m so glad you could come tonight.”
The lights go down as the music is about to start and I take Mercy to sit down as everyone else takes their seats. Sitting side by side, I put my arm around her shoulders. She looks at me with a smile and lays her head on my shoulder. “This is the coolest thing ever, Jude. Thank you.”
With a kiss to the side of her head, I say, “No, thank you.”
And for the first time in my life, I really mean it!
MERCY
This doesn’t feel real. Not one bit!
Jude is holding me in his arms as we dance to a slow song sang by the man who made it and is sitting on a stage not far from where we are. It’s too unreal. Everything is so unreal.
His lips brush over my neck as he says quietly, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“It would sound stupid to you.”
He spins me around then says, “Nothing that comes out of your mouth ever sounds stupid.”
“Okay, I was just thinking that this doesn’t seem real. I kind of think I’m going to wake up and it will all have been a dream,” I confess.
He laughs a deep, throaty laugh. “Mercy, this is real and your life is about to become something people only dream about. If you let it that is.”
How I wish I could let it all change. But I can’t. I’m not about to spoil this night for him, though. “Why me?”
“Why not you?” he asks then spins me around again as the song ends then he kisses me.
A hand touches my shoulder and he ends our kiss. I turn to see a young woman smiling at me. She has Jude’s green-brown eyes and I can tell she’s his sister even though her hair has blonde streaks in the deep brown color.
“I’m Rose,” she says as she holds out her arms. “In this family, we hug hello.”
“So I’ve heard,” I say and find Jude letting me out of his arms and I go into his sisters. “I’m Mercy.”
“I know. I heard Zeek when he yelled it out,” she says as she lets me go and I find Jude’s arm back around my waist, pulling me tight to his side. “I just wanted to introduce myself. You’re like the first real woman that my oldest brother has ever brought around.”
“That can’t be,” I say as I look at Jude who’s smiling like crazy.
Rose nods. “It’s true. My brother usually has a certain type of girl he hangs with. Rich as hell and fake as hell too. You seem genuine. The real deal.”
“Thank you,” I say as I can’t seem to take my eyes off of Jude’s as they dance around in a sexy and mischievous way.
“Let’s sit this one out and get something to eat and drink, baby.” He leads me to another area off of the loud dance area.
A few people are in the smaller room with a large buffet and a bar. “Wow, that buffet is huge!” I say as I see an eight-foot-long table full of all kinds of food.
“My mother is the type who wants everyone to get exactly what they want. So what are you in the mood for?” he asks me as he takes me to look over the vast array of food.
“Those steaks look good. Then again, so does that tray of enchiladas. How am I going to choose?” I ask as I look at all the great food.
He lets me go and picks up a plate, placing a steak on it and one enchilada too. “Have both. There are no rules.”
I laugh and put a spoonful of mashed sweet potatoes on the plate too. “We have to have a vegetable,” I say as I pick up a little bowl of green beans.
Then we go to a small table as Jude waves at a waiter. “Two beers on tap, please.”
The man nods and goes off to get our drinks. Jude pulls the chair out for me to sit in and pulls the one he’s about to sit in closer to mine. When he sits, our legs touch and I find it sweet and charming.
He can’t seem to keep his body away from mine. He’s the first man to ever want to be around me this much and in almost constant connection too.
Rose comes into the room with a young guy trailing after her. Her date, I guess. They make plates while Jude and I share our plate as Jude cuts the steak and gives me a bite.
Rose and her date come and sit across from us. A thing that has Jude frowning a little. “Who’s your date, Rose?” he asks.
“Oh, yeah, you haven’t met him yet. This is Donald Pendergrass,” she says as she gestures to the shy looking young man. “We met online. He’s from London.”
“Hello,” he says with a quiet voice.
I notice that Jude isn’t introducing us so I do that. “I’m Mercy and this is Jude.”
“Nice to meet you both,” Donald says then looks at his plate as Jude’s quiet behavior is unnerving.
“So, London?” I ask. “Did you fly over just for this event?”
His eyes cut to Rose and she shakes her head then says, “I’ve had Donald over here for about a month. He’s staying in this hotel as a matter of fact.”
“Why is that?” Jude asks as he looks at his sister. “Why have you been hiding him from us? And when did you start meeting men online? Do you know how dangerous that is?”
“And that right there is why I hid him from you all. I knew everyone would get all over me for meeting someone online. Anyway, he’s here and I’m introducing him to everyone now. God! I’m not a baby! I’m twenty-four-years-old. When will all of you stop treating me like a baby?” she whines.
Placing my hand on Jude’s leg, I ask Donald, “So what is it you do for a living, Donald?”
“I’m in between jobs right now. I’ve been a professional gamer back in London. I’ve yet to find employment here doing that yet,” he says as he looks at me then right back down at his plate.
Jude’s body tenses as he asks, “So my little sister is supporting you?”
/>
Donald nods and Rose looks pissed as she says, “That is none of your business. God knows how much money you’ve blown on bitches, dear brother.”
“Whoa,” I say to try to ease the situation. “No reason to get all up in arms about anything. This night is about your parents and nothing else. So let this go.” I look at Jude as I touch his chin to make him look at me. “Okay?”
He nods and cuts another bite of steak and gives me a bite. “For you, Mercy.” He glances his sister’s way then looks back at me. “Only for you.”
With a nod and a smile, I place a little kiss on his lips and he smiles back at me. All the fire in his eyes is gone and he laughs then gives me a bite of the enchilada which I find is spicy.
Grabbing the beer, the waiter placed in front of us only seconds ago, I chug it all down as they laugh. Jude takes a bite and then a little drink of his beer then says, “It’s not that hot, Mercy.”
The waiter, noticing my distress, brings another beer to me and I manage to only take a sip of it then Jude is placing a forkful of sweet potatoes into my mouth. “This should cool you off.”
It does the trick and when he holds out another bite of that hot as Hades enchilada, I shake my head, making them all laugh.
I can see the kind of family they are now. A bunch of sadists!
JUDE
At the stroke of midnight, the actual date of my parents’ anniversary, the music stops and my parents are going up to the stage to give a speech. Mom beckons my brothers, me, and my sister to come up on the stage with them.
“Will you be okay here alone, Mercy?” I ask before I let her go. “Because I can take you up there with me, if you want.”
She shakes her head as her eyes go really big. “No way! I’m fine. You go on up there. I’ll be right here, waiting for you.”
With a little kiss, I leave her at our table, along with the other people my siblings brought, and follow my family to the stage. Once we’re all up, the lights come up and I see someone has made it to the party and is making a B-line for the stage.
Shit!
Ariel looks drunk as hell. Her fancy updo is down and her red hair is flowing wildly around her bare shoulders. Her dress is hitched up in the back and half of a bare ass cheek is showing as she waves at me.
My mother and father both look at me with frowns on their faces and I look at Ram and whisper, “Can you get those friends of yours you were on the football team with to run some interference with that crazy chick?”
He nods and makes a loud whistle that catches the attention of the three guys he invited to the party. With a wave of his hand, all three guys go toward Ariel and take her past the stage to stand at the side of it with them.
A few people noticed her but not all of them. With Ariel secured, I look out to see if Mercy noticed her and I can see that she did as she’s holding her hand to her chest and watching Ariel.
Crap!
Mom gets a smile on her face as she sees the situation is under control and nudges my father to begin his speech. “Hey, everybody!” Dad shouts over the microphone in his hand that Mom’s flipped the switch on to turn it on. “How are you enjoying the festivities?”
A ton of hoots and hollers sound off as the crowd lets him know they’re having a good time. In true Texas fashion, the crowd, though full of wealthy people, still sounds like a barroom full of hicks.
The crowd quiets as Dad continues. “Thirty-two years ago, I made this little filly my wife. Has every day been a picnic, you ask?” The crowd laughs. “No, it has not.” Mom smacks him in the arm. “Oww! See!”
Mom takes the microphone away from him. “Give me that thing, Jim!” She looks out over the guests she handpicked. “I’d like to thank each and every one of you for coming tonight to help us ring in this thirty-second anniversary we’re having. And I’d like to tell you all a little story about me and old, Jim Hurst, here. You see, he had a hell of a time getting me to say yes to his proposal of marriage.”
“Now, they don’t wanna hear that, Loretta,” Dad says, making the crowd laugh again. “Just bypass that little tidbit of history, would ya?”
Mom shakes her head. “I will not. Anyway, this man here was a suave man with lots of money and he set his sights on me. I didn’t understand why. I was a girl from a middle-class family. I wasn’t rich or even popular. I was plain as they come.”
“Oh, come on now, honey,” Dad says as he wraps his arm around her shoulders. “You were always a great beauty.” He kisses her cheek and I have to smile as Momma blushes.
“In his eyes, I suppose I was,” she says. “But in mine, I wasn’t fit to be the wealthy man’s wife. So when he asked me one night in July as we sat on the bank of a creek and fished in the moonlight if I’d like to marry him, I told him, no thank you.”
Everyone laughs and claps. Then my father says, “She nearly broke my heart with those words. I wanted her to be mine so bad, it made me crazy when she told me no. But did I give up on her?”
The crowd shouts the answer, “No!”
Dad laughs and says, “You’re damn right I didn’t give up on her!”
Mom laughs too then says, “So a month later, at the roller rink on my twentieth birthday, this man right here asked me to marry him again. This time, he produced a large diamond engagement ring. A thing he hadn’t before. My heart leaped with joy as I looked at that ring. But you know what I told him?”
The crowd answers, “You said, no!”
Momma nods. “I told him, no. I still thought I wasn’t enough for the man. I still felt like a rich woman, a woman in his league, could come along and take him away from me if she wanted to. So I turned him down again.”
“She really broke my heart that time,” Dad says as he looks into my mother’s eyes. “I’d went out and bought a big ol’ rock for her to put on her finger and let the other boys know she was taken. But she pushed that ring back in the little black box and gave me the answer I did not want. Did I give up?”
The crowd answers, “No!”
Dad shakes his head. “But I almost did. I left Dallas and went to Europe to get the little filly out of my head. I was gone a whole year. When I came back, my little Loretta was twenty-one and more beautiful than I remembered. I fell right back in love with her and for once, she looked at me with something in her eyes that had been missing before.”
Mom takes up the story. “I’d graduated from college. With hard work, I had managed to graduate with honors, a thing I didn’t think I was capable of. Not only did I graduate college but I also had me a boyfriend. A nice, normal, middle-class boyfriend who was nice enough to me. But he never looked at me the way this man right here did.”
Dad looks at Mom and says, “And you never looked at him the way you looked at me.”
Mom’s hand runs over his cheek and I feel a little shaky inside as I think about Mercy and wonder if one day that might be us. I wonder too if my mother’s story is sinking into Mercy’s head. I know she sees me as a man who’s out of her league. But the truth is she’s out of mine. But I’m not going to let that stop me!
Mom continues as she looks at Dad. “No, I did not.” She looks back out at the guests as she says, “So with my newfound faith in myself when Jim asked me to go with him to a very fancy restaurant here in Dallas, I accepted.”
Dad adds, “She also finally accepted my proposal and six months later I made her mine forever.”
They kiss as everyone awes. I find myself looking out to find Mercy and our eyes meet from all the way across the large room. I throw her a kiss and she acts like she catches it and holds her hand to her heart.
Then I hear a shout, “What the hell was that!”
Crap, Ariel!
MERCY
The red-headed bitch shouts, bringing everyone’s attention to her. Which is a thing she absolutely loves.
The three guys who are around her take her by her arms, holding her in place so she can’t make her way over to me. I give a silent thank you to the Lord above and l
ook back at Jude who’s pale and looks more than a little pissed as he points for the guys to get her out of the room and they do as he’s told them to.
His parents look mad but his mother quickly tries to fix things as she says, “Okay, then. Who’s ready to spend the next couple of hours listening to our good friends, George and Allen?”
The cheers ring out and Jude leaves the stage, coming straight to me. “Come on,” he tells me as he takes my hand and pulls me up then leads me out. Just as we make it out the door, I see those men have Ariel in the hallway too.
Jude spins us around as Ariel shrieks, “What the hell, Jude Hurst? You lied to me!”
I look at him and ask, “What did you tell her?”
“That I wasn’t coming here,” he says as I find Ariel struggling in the large men’s hands.
“Did you tell her we were in the shower together earlier?” Ariel screeches.
Jude turns around and shouts at her, “That’s a lie, Ariel. Tell her you’re lying!”
Ariel looks at me. “I was in the bathroom. His bathroom and he had no clothes on. His cock was all erect and.”
A loud slap rings out and I find my hand stinging as I’ve slapped Jude. My God, what have I done?
I haul ass away from him. My mind is a blur. I have no idea why I did that. That’s so not me!
“Fuck!” Jude shouts as he comes after me. “Mercy, don’t. She’s making more out of it than it was. I swear that to you!”
“Leave me alone!” I yell as I try to get on the elevator without him.
He grabs the doors before they close and gets into the elevator too. “Wait.”
“Jude, just let me go home. I’m too old for this shit,” I say. “I have a job and responsibilities and I have no time for this kind of thing in my life. Thank you for the nice evening and good night. Go back to that woman. She obviously has a thing for you and you must have one for her too or she wouldn’t have been in your bathroom when you were taking a shower.”
Jude looks over his shoulder and tells the guys who still have a hold on Ariel, “Can you put her ass in one of the hotel rooms my parents have here? Lock her ass in.”
Doctor's Demands: A Submissives’ Secrets Novel Page 56
