His three oldest children, along with their women, were already at the table when Charles and Jenay arrived. Brent Sinatra, Charles’s oldest son, was sitting beside his wife Makayla. Tony Sinatra, Charles’s next oldest son, was sitting beside his best friend, Sharon. There were rumors that they had more than a friendship going on, and Charles used to think so too. Now he didn’t know what was going on with those two.
Robert, the mayor of Jericho, was with his latest girlfriend, who was beautiful and petite like all the others and, Charles could also tell, was boring the hell out of Bobby. He was looking for the next one already.
Brent, Tony, and Robert all stood on their feet to greet their stepmother and father, and Tony held out Jenay’s chair. Although her stepsons were closer to her age than she was to Charles’s age, and they all had the kind of close relationships that was more like friendships than parent-child, she was nonetheless proud of all three of them. Charles pretty much raised them alone, and he raised them to be good, strong, responsible men. Especially Tony, who Charles once admitted to her was the real jewel in his crown, although the town assumed it was Brent and Carly. He loved all his children, and Brent and Carly were the very definition of responsibility, but Tony’s goodness and ability to do what was right, no matter what it cost him, won his heart.
After greeting their sons and their sons’ women, they all sat down. Jenay sat next to Brent’s wife Makayla, a voluptuous woman in a town that catered to thinness, and asked her who was babysitting.
Makayla smiled. “Ashley and Donald,” she said.
Jenay smiled too. “Ash I’m not worried about. She loves kids. But Donnie? He’d leave a kid with a homeless man on the bench in the park until he gets back from the latest party.”
Makayla laughed. “I hope not,” she said.
“He’d better not,” Brent said, smiling too, and then he placed his arm around Makayla. Not that long ago, their marriage was on the rocks. But then a tragic event that nearly took Makayla’s life stopped them cold, and their relationship strengthened. Now Brent was so protective of his wife that it was beyond cute. They might just make it after all, Jenay thought.
And then the ceremony began. The categories were the usual ones: Man of the year. Woman of the year. Business Person of the Year. Politician of the Year. Yada yada yada. A Sinatra was nominated in every category, and a Sinatra lost in every category. It was the same every year. Put their names up for nomination, seemed to be the theory, but be certain to never let them win. This was the night, it felt to Charles, when they showed those Sinatras who was really boss! It wasn’t showing Charles shit, but he was certain the townspeople thought it did.
But as more awards were given out, Charles thought he saw somebody very familiar in the corner of his eye. When he looked over, and realized who it was, his heart slammed against his chest. What in the world? And then she rose from her seat and walked out of the banquet hall through the side door that led to the restrooms.
Tony, a clinical psychologist, was trained to notice mood shifts, and he noticed his father’s shift right away. He would have said something about it, to make sure his father was okay, but Charles leaned toward Jenay, whispered “I’ll be back,” and rose to his feet, negating any chance at a conversation.
Although Jenay didn’t give Charles a second look as he left the table and headed toward the side door too, Tony watched his every movement. Tony had also noticed the beautiful woman who had left first, and that she had left out of the same door Charles was now exiting. He remembered the days when his father juggled several women at once. Was he back to his old ways again? For Jenay’s sake, and his father’s too, Tony prayed he wasn’t. But he was concerned.
Charles was concerned, too, as he made his way through the side door and down the narrow hall that led to the restrooms. He was concerned that he saw her, and that she was back in Jericho at all. He was concerned that that messy part of his past, and his own moral lapse, was right back in front of him.
When he finally found her, she was standing outside the restroom area. With one hand folded under her armpit, and the other one limply holding a long cigarette, she was leaned against the wall like some sophisticated call girl. Which he knew she wasn’t. And he hesitated. People who knew Big Daddy Sinatra would be shocked by his hesitancy. He was always full steam ahead, no matter what the risk or danger. But he was hesitating to talk to some female?
But it was true. He really would have preferred to never have to have this encounter. But he needed to know what she was up to. He inhaled, then exhaled, and then headed her way.
Kattia Tremblay took a slower drag on her cigarette when she saw Charles coming her way. He still had that swag, she noticed, and those unquestionable good looks. He had everything she’d always wanted in a man: big wallet. Big dick. Big looks. He looked so sexy to her, in fact, that she almost forgot what an unparalleled asshole he really was. But she couldn’t forget that. She would never forget that!
“The men’s restrooms are on the other side,” she said to him.
Charles found himself staring at her as he approached. He glanced down at her big breasts: he didn’t remember them ever being that big. And then he looked into her bright, blue eyes. He ignored her restroom quip and got down to the nitty gritty. “What are you doing here?” he asked her.
“What’s it to you?” she responded.
“What are you doing here?” he asked again.
She hesitated, and then tapped off her ash. “I still have friends in this town,” she said, and took another long drag on her cigarette. The fact that her Canadian accent was on full display was a testament to just how long she’d been out of town. “They invite me to things,” she added.
“I haven’t seen you at anything before tonight.”
“That doesn’t mean I wasn’t there,” she said, and a sadness appeared in her eyes. She looked away from him, to shield it, and puffed on her cigarette again: her shield and buckler.
“You aren’t supposed to be smoking in this place,” Charles said. “You know that.”
“You aren’t supposed to cheat on your wife,” Kattia said, and looked at him hard. “You know that.”
Charles stared at her. His anger wanted to rise, but he knew he should be angry with nobody but himself. It was his actions that gave her that power. It was his actions that put him in that position. “What do you want?” he asked her pointblank.
But Kattia had a different agenda. She tried to smile. “So that’s Mrs. Charles Sinatra,” she said. “That’s the winner.”
Charles shook his head. “There was no contest,” he said.
“Oh, yes, there was! A fucking Olympic-size contest. And she won. It’s nothing I have against her. She won fair and square. But you on the other hand!”
“What do you want, Kattia?” he asked again. “Why are you here, at this particular event? And don’t give me that bullshit about your friends inviting you.”
But Kattia had a one-track mind that night. “It should have been me,” she said. “All I sacrificed. All I gave up.” Then she looked at him. “It should have been me, Charlie.”
But Charles would have none of it. He was shaking his head again, as if he could shake off the reality of what he’d done. “Stop saying that because you know it’s not true. We nearly killed each other.”
Kattia smiled. “Yeah but the sex was great,” she said.
It was just like her to say it. Just like her! And it was that very devil-may-care attitude, as if she had nothing to lose, that fueled Charles’s decision to call it off. He should have called it off on moral grounds, to begin with, but he didn’t. He was addicted to that lady once upon a time. But just like a drug addiction, it did him serious damage.
Then Kattia smiled and lifted her broad shoulders. “But I’m not worried,” she said. “Do you know why, Charles?”
Charles only stared at her. She didn’t need his response to continue, and he knew it.
“I’m not worried,” she continued as sh
e dropped her cigarette and began crushing it underfoot, “because shit has a way of coming back around.” Then she smiled and looked at him. “And around and around and around and around.” And then she smiled even greater and began to leave.
But Charles grabbed her arm and pulled her back against him. They were within an inch of each other. He could smell the smoke on her breath and she could feel his animalistic sexuality, and how badly she still missed it, just from his touch.
But Charles had Jenay’s well-being on his mind. “Do anything to embarrass or disrespect my wife,” he said, “and that shit you’re talking about coming back around and around, will come for you.”
Kattia stared at him. She knew he meant it. He could be a bastard like that. But she meant it too. “Here you are,” she said with a smile, but in a voice dripping with bitterness. “Mr. Charles Sinatra. Big Daddy they call you. The devoted, faithful husband. The man everybody respects for his unprecedented moral core.” Then her looked turned nasty. “Yeah, right!” she said dismissively, angrily snatched her arm away from him, and then headed back into the banquet hall.
Charles was shaken by the bitterness he saw in her eyes, and the words she spoke, but what did he expect? Compassion? Friendliness? Fear? Not Kattia! She’d rather die than lose. And he knew better than to ever hook up with a woman like that. What the fuck was he thinking?
But he couldn’t do a damn thing about it now. He walked back into the banquet hall, too.
But when he entered the hall, and saw Kattia making a beeline for Jenay, his heart fell through his shoes. And he hurried over to his table, to stop her.
Jenay was looking at the beautiful woman who suddenly appeared beside her chair, and her stepsons and their women were looking, too, as Kattia leaned down to Jenay. Charles’s heart was pounding. He felt as if he was about to go on trial, and he was guilty as hell. But his family, the jury, didn’t know that.
But then Kattia looked over at Charles as he approached, and she smiled that conniving smile of hers again. Because it was a deceptive smile, born out of jealousy and hatred more so than friendliness. She knew all about that temper of Charles’s. His brother Mick was called Mick the Tick, as in ticking timebomb, because of his temper. But even Mick the Tick had nothing on Charles.
“Never mind,” she said to Jenay, as Charles approached them, and left his table and went back to hers.
“What was that about?” Robert asked Jenay as Charles sat back at the table.
“I don’t know,” Jenay said with all kinds of concern in her eyes.
But it was instructive, Tony thought, how none of them asked Charles that very question. Including Tony himself. Not because they didn’t want to. They all did. But although their father was a good, caring man who loved his family more than he loved himself, they also knew he wasn’t the kind of man who allowed his family to get all up in his business, either. His children were still his children, and no where near his level in his eyes, and it would be that way until the day he died. Or they died.
Jenay was on his father’s level, Tony thought, but she wasn’t asking questions either. But he could tell, as she continued to watch the awards ceremony with that quiet dignity she always possessed, that she was going to ask those questions, in the privacy of their own home, and give their father some of her own answers too. They had a saying in the Sinatra family. Jenay didn’t play, they always said. And their father never disagreed with it.
Because he knew she didn’t play either.
CHAPTER TWO
They made it back home late that night. Bonita was in bed asleep, while Ashley and Donald were in the family room playing cards. They owned a little store now, a property Charles gave to them after acquiring it in a bigger land deal, and he was surprised how they were actually making it work.
He sat in the family room and talked shop with them for a few minutes, although he found them both completely out to sea about what was ahead of them as small business owners, and then he headed upstairs. This was a new home for them, after a terrible fire, and they were still getting used to it. Especially Charles, who found it confining and small compared to their previous home. But it would have to do for now.
Jenay had checked on Bonita, and she was already upstairs. She was also, Charles noticed to great satisfaction, already naked, having removed her clothes when she first arrived in their bedroom. Now she was removing her jewelry.
Charles stood behind her at the dresser and began removing his clothes as well. He could tell, on her face, that what happened with Kattia was still bothering her. But he didn’t see where there was anything to be said about it. She didn’t know Kattia from the man on the moon, and he wasn’t about to discuss that stain on his life in her company. He undressed quietly too.
But when she had removed all of her jewelry, and she had combed and then brushed her hair around and around into a wrap for the night, she sat the brush down and began to make her way into the bathroom.
But Charles looked at her. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked as he removed his pants and boxer’s. He was already feeling a loss from the heat her body had generated just standing in front of him. “Bring it back over here,” he said.
Jenay knew what he meant. She could have told him to go to hell, easily, but she looked down at what she inwardly referred to as that swinging pine tree between his legs. And she wanted what he had to offer as badly as he wanted to give it to her. And besides that, she wasn’t even sure if that woman who stopped by their table had anything to do with Charles. Suspecting she did wasn’t a fact. It was just a suspicion.
She walked back to the dresser, and stood in front of him, with her back to him again, as she knew he wanted.
Charles placed his hands on her slim hips and rubbed his dick against her ass. He kissed her soft neck, and her back, and then he knelt down, kissed her ass, and began eating her from behind.
Jenay opened her legs, and leaned her hands on the dresser, with her head down, as he ate her. The feelings rushed in, and all she could do was enjoy every moment. Because it felt great. So great that her stomach was pushing in and out, mimicking sexual intercourse, at the way he ate her.
And when he stood back up, and entered her from behind, she leaned over and took him all in with one long, hard push.
“Ah, Jenay,” he started saying. “Ah, Jenay. Ah Jenay. Jenay!” It was all he would say as he fucked her. He rubbed her hips. He rubbed her ass. He called her name repeatedly as he fucked her hard.
He fucked her so hard, slapping against her with such might, that her wrap became undone and her bouncy hair fell down around her shoulders. It wasn’t Jenay’s perfect sexual position. She would have preferred several to that one. But it still felt damn good. Because no matter what position he put her in, she always came. No matter what. Charles never left her empty. She always came.
And she came that night. With a hard orgasm. She came long before he came.
But when it was Charles’s turn to feel that heat to the breaking point, he let out a grunt that caused her to cum again too. She stood straight up, with her stomach pushed forward and her butt pushed back, as he grabbed her breasts, squeezing them hard, and filled her up.
When he was empty, not only of semen, but of all energy too, they leaned against each other and tried to regain control of their erratic breathing.
And when he finally pulled out of her; when his long dick took that long glide out of her, it left her feeling filled and empty at the same time. She looked at him through the mirror.
Some strands of her hair had flapped over her forehead, making her look even younger than she really was, but her eyes, Charles could tell, were filled with seriousness. And he had a great idea why.
“Who was that woman, Charles?” she finally asked him.
Charles stared at her. The sincerity on her face made it clear she wanted a straight answer. But he always gave straight answers. “Nobody,” he said, because that was how he felt about Kattia.
But Jenay
stared at him. That woman was somebody alright. She could see it in his tired, green eyes. “I don’t play that shit, Charles,” she said harshly. “You know that.”
“I don’t play that shit either,” he replied, knowing exactly what she meant.
“I’ll leave your ass just as sure as I’m standing here if you pull that shit on me,” Jenay continued.
But Charles frowned. “Pull what shit on you? Where the fuck is that coming from?”
But that look on Jenay’s face allowed no debate. She wasn’t going to argue with him. She wasn’t going to pound her chest or yell from the rafters. But she was going to make her feelings clear. “Cheat on me,” she said, “and you’re find out where it’s coming from.” Then a sadness appeared in her eyes, a sadness that broke his heart. “So please don’t do that to me,” she said, heartfelt. And then her butt slid away from his penis, and she headed for the bathroom.
Charles placed his hands on the dresser and leaned his head down. He felt like shit. He could take Kattia and ring her trifling neck! Jenay leaving him would be the end of the world to him, and he wasn’t letting Kattia or anybody else cause that to ever come to pass. But he knew they wouldn’t anyway. Only him, and his actions, could cause that kind of fucked-up shit.
And he wasn’t about to let that happen.
He just hoped Kattia remembered just what kind of ruthless sonafabitch he could be if he was ever crossed, and that she kept their past to herself.
CHAPTER THREE
“What do we do, Mister Reese?”
Hammer Reese exhaled. He sipped from his glass of wine and stared out at the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the courtyard. It didn’t used to affect him like this. And never for this long a period of time.
It had been a week since that mission. A whole damn week. It was a rescue mission billed as low-risk, low-casualty. It turned into a suicide mission. But he was used to that bullshit too. His ass wasn’t new to the game. He’d been in command a long time!
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