Sweet Silver Bells

by Rochelle Alers

  There came a swollen silence.

  “You were right, Joseph.”

  “What about?”

  “If I’d sued Hugh instead of resigning, Gillian wouldn’t be carrying a baby as a result of rape.”

  Joseph kissed her hair. “It’s too late to second-guess yourself. Duncan is a serial sexual predator who should spend the rest of his life in prison.”

  Crystal closed her eyes, wishing she had confronted Hugh rather than resign, although he would’ve come up with the excuse that she was either delusional or burned out like with Gillian.

  For Crystal, it hadn’t been what he said or did but what she perceived. On several occasions he stood too close for propriety, would deliberately cover her hand with his whenever they met to review a project and compliment her on what she was wearing. Invariably his forearm brushed her breasts when he leaned over her shoulder to place a report on her desk. It was then she noticed his erection.

  Perhaps he hadn’t reached the stage where he’d invite himself to her home or out to dinner, drug and rape her because she was Judge Solomon Eaton’s niece. Rather than allow his continual subtle violation, she resigned.

  She opened her eyes. “Who’s going to put him there? No lawyer in Florida would risk going up against the Duncan family political machine.”

  There came another prolonged silence, and then Joseph said, “I think I know someone who would be willing to take her case.” Crystal turned over, resting her chin on his breastbone. He saw a shimmer of excitement in her eyes. “I’m familiar with a lawyer specializing in sex crimes. In his former life he was a forensic psychologist, so it’s the perfect marriage when it comes to defending sex crime victims.”

  The light in Crystal’s eyes faded. “Do you think he can get her a fair trial?”

  “What he’ll attempt to do is not go to trial because Duncan’s defense team will try and dissect her sex life from her first encounter to the last. And if the baby is proven to be his, they’ll turn it around and say it was consensual sex, or she deliberately seduced him and got pregnant so she could sue him for paternity.”

  A flicker of apprehension coursed through Crystal. “Please don’t tell me you’re talking about a plea deal. He’ll pay restitution, and then get off with a slap on the wrist so he’s free to rape another woman.” There was a hint of panic in her voice.

  Joseph placed a hand alongside her delicate jaw. “Seth will not let him get off that easily. In order to spare Duncan’s family the embarrassment of a trial, he’ll suggest he plead guilty to misdemeanor rape and register as a sex offender. His offender status will depend on how many women are willing to come forward and testify to being victimized by him, and if they agree to a class-action lawsuit and win, hopefully Hugh Duncan will have a lot fewer zeroes when it comes to his net worth.”

  Her jaw hardened under his light touch. “This may sound vindictive, but I want him to pay for everything he’s done.”

  Joseph’s mouth replaced his hand. “He will.”

  “How can you be that certain?” Crystal whispered.

  “I know people who can get someone to snitch on their mothers or firstborn just to save their behinds.”

  She froze. “What are you going to—”

  “No more questions,” he warned, stopping her words with a light kiss. “You asked me to help you, so please leave it at that. What I’m going to need is the phone number of your friend Emerson so I can pass it along to Seth.”

  Crystal nuzzled his throat, breathing a kiss there. “Thank you.”

  “Thank me once your predator gets what he deserves. However, I will accept a little kiss right now.”

  Crystal melted against his body, losing herself in the pleasurable sensations of his mouth on hers. Joseph deepened the kiss and within seconds she forgot why she’d called him. And in a moment of madness, nothing mattered except the man holding her to his heart.

  She wanted him with the hunger and thirst of someone deprived of food and water. Joseph was a constant and nagging reminder of what she’d missed and had been missing for far too long. She’d been so intent on growing her interior decorating business she denied the strong passions within her.

  However, if she were to become involved with Joseph, both knew it would be brief. Anything short-lived and personal fit nicely into Crystal’s current lifestyle; her upcoming commission would take her away from home for prolonged periods of time and thankfully she didn’t have to answer to anyone as to her whereabouts.

  She’d known a few women who’d sacrificed advancing their careers because their boyfriends or husbands weren’t willing to accept their need to travel for their jobs. Spending four years in a city as racially and culturally diverse as New York City and living with a man sixteen years her senior had forced Crystal to mature at a faster rate than her same-age female counterparts. There were times when she felt this gave her an advantage and other times when she found herself quite cynical about the opposite sex. And like many thirtysomething women, she looked forward to marriage and motherhood, but didn’t feel an all-encompassing need to find Mr. Right before her biological clock started ticking.

  A slight gasp escaped her parted lips when she felt Joseph’s fingers feather under her sweater, his hands coming to rest over her breasts rising and falling heavily under the lacy fabric of her bra. “You smell and taste wonderful,” he whispered, swallowing her breath as she exhaled.

  Laughing softly, she began her own exploration, her hands searching under the front of his tee, encountering hard-rock muscle. “So do you,” she countered in a husky whisper. Crystal bit down on her lip to keep from laughing aloud when he jerked as if burned as her thumbs grazed his nipples, the tiny buds hardening like pebbles. Within seconds, her mouth replaced her hands. She gasped again, this time when Joseph hardened quickly, the solid bulge in his groin pressing against her middle. “Jo-se-ph,” she whispered, his name coming out in three syllables.

  Reaching for her shoulders, Joseph managed to extricate her mouth with a minimum of effort. Lowering his head, he fastened his mouth to the side of her neck. “You see what you’re doing to me, Crystal?”

  She buried her face between his neck and shoulder. “What am I doing?”

  “I just have to look at you or touch you and I get a hard-on.”

  “This isn’t as one-sided as you think.”

  “Are you telling me you’re ready to take what we have to the next level?”

  Crystal gave him a long stare. “I need to know what you mean by the next level.” She hadn’t lied to Joseph. Her body said yes while her head still said no when it came to sharing a bed.

  A smile played at the corners of his firm mouth. “I’m surprised you’re asking me that. I want to make love to you, but it has to be on your terms.”

  Her eyes opened and Crystal couldn’t stop the smile parting her lips. “Are you certain you want to hear my terms?”

  Joseph eased back, his eyes searching her expression for a hint of guile, and finding none, he nodded. It was the same thing he’d said to Kiara, but with unexpected dire consequences. He knew it would be different with Crystal. She was older, more mature and secure enough to speak her mind.

  “I’m very sure,” he answered after a comfortable silence.

  Crystal stared at the cleft in Joseph’s chin, pausing as she chose her words carefully. “If we do happen to sleep together, then it would be like the Las Vegas commercial. What happens here stays here.” Joseph smiled, attractive lines fanning out around his large eyes. She sobered quickly. “You wouldn’t have to concern yourself about me asking you for a commitment or a declaration of marriage because I don’t want or need either at this time in my life, and I’d like you to promise the same.”

  He knew she was referring to his disclosure to why he’d ended his relationship with Kiara. Although his life was more predictab
le than it had been two years ago, he still wasn’t ready to marry or start a family.

  “I promise.”

  “I’m not on birth control, so you’re going to have to assume responsibility for protecting me from an unplanned pregnancy. That is, if we do decide to make love,” she added softly.

  Joseph wanted to tell Crystal the only thing better than going to bed with her would be waking up with her beside him. And it had nothing to do with sex—that was something he could get from any willing woman. Whenever they were together he experienced a level of comfortableness he hadn’t thought possible.

  “So I can look forward to the time when we can become friends with benefits?”

  Crystal’s arms went around his neck. “Yes.”

  “Don’t worry about contraception. I’ll take care of it.”

  Exhaling an audible breath, Crystal met his eyes. “I said all that because I need you to understand where I’m coming from.”

  Reaching up, he gently removed her arms. Joseph had asked Crystal what she wanted, and it was something he could very easily live with.

  Joseph knew instinctively that if he’d met Crystal years ago, fallen in love with her, he would have seriously considered proposing marriage. That is, if she thought him worthy of becoming her husband.

  “I understand and accept your terms. Let’s go out.”

  Crystal sat up. “Where?”

  “The Watering Hole is a local sports bar that’s within walking distance from here. I want to warn you that it’s a little noisy.”

  Rising on tiptoe, she kissed his cheek. “I don’t mind noisy. I’ll be right back. I have to change my shoes and get a jacket.”

  Cradling the back of her head, Joseph brushed a light kiss on her mouth. “I’m going to my place to get a jacket. I’ll meet you at the elevator.”

  Chapter 9

  Crystal sat next to Joseph in the booth instead of opposite him in order to hear what he was saying. When he said the Watering Hole was a little noisy she didn’t know it would be from decibel-shattering music.

  A dozen wall-mounted, muted televisions were tuned to various sporting events, a few displaying closed captions. Shouts of triumph and/or collective groans followed a hockey goal or basketball sailing through the net. Motown hits and ’60s and ’70s R&B blared from speakers as several couples seated at the bar got up to dance to Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ “Ooo Baby Baby.”

  Thursday night at the pub was advertised as wing night, and the rustic establishment offered more than ten different varieties of Buffalo wings, attracting hoards of college students paying a twenty-dollar flat fee each for all-you-can-eat wings with unlimited pitchers of domestic tap beer.

  She and Joseph ordered fresh guacamole with grilled corn, salsa, crisp tortilla chips and virgin margaritas. They were watching the Miami Heat in a back-and-forth scoring battle with the New York Knicks.

  “Yes!” Crystal said between clenched teeth while pumping her fist. The Heat’s point guard had just scored his fourth three-point basket within the span of five minutes, ending and winning the game.

  Joseph found it hard to conceal his own excitement. Both he and Crystal were into the basketball game, and it was the first time he saw her that relaxed. So, he thought, the prim and proper decorator did know how to let down her hair.

  “That was swee-eet,” Crystal crooned.

  Joseph smiled. “You really like basketball.”

  Crystal gave him a sidelong glance. “I do. I played basketball in high school.”

  “Come dance with me,” Joseph said close to Crystal’s ear when the classic love song segued into the Temptations singing “Just My Imagination.”

  She didn’t have time to accept or decline as Joseph grasped her hand, pulling her off the well-worn vinyl booth and leading her to the area dance floor. She had to quicken her step to keep up with him. He eased her to his chest at the same time her arms circled his slim waist inside his jacket.

  Crystal rested her head on his shoulder, inhaling the lingering fragrance of his cologne that mingled with his body’s natural scent. Crystal felt as if she were being pulled into a sensual vortex from which she did not want to escape.

  Lowering his head, Joseph pressed his mouth to her ear. “Do you have anything planned for Friday night or Saturday?”

  “What do you have in mind?” Crystal asked.

  “The Heat are playing the Bobcats in Charlotte Friday night. I figure we’d drive up, stay overnight and then come back here Saturday, when we’ll have dinner at the Ordinary. If you like seafood, then you’ll love this place. When I make the hotel reservation I’ll ask for a suite with adjoining rooms.”

  Crystal nuzzled his warm throat. Joseph had just gone up several approval points when he mentioned adjoining bedrooms. He hadn’t assumed because they were going away together she would automatically fall into bed with him. Crystal was forced to admit to herself the more she saw Joseph the more she wanted to sleep with him. In him she found everything lacking in the men with whom she’d become involved.

  Involved! She shook her head as if to banish the word. What she didn’t want was to become emotionally involved with Joseph. If and when the time came that they did sleep together, she wanted it to be no more than a slackening of the sexual tension wound so tight it kept her from a restful night’s sleep.

  “Your offer sounds very, very tempting,” she murmured.

  He spun her around and around. “Tempting enough to take me up on it?”

  “I think I’m going to need a little convincing.”

  Cradling her face in his hands, Joseph met her eyes in the semidark space. “How much convincing do you need, sweetheart?”

  Crystal felt as if she and Joseph were the only two people in the crowded restaurant. Everything else ceased to exist: the music, the images flickering across the many television screens, pub regulars, college students and waitstaff. Within seconds of the question flowing from her lips, she realized it sounded like a subtle challenge for seduction. And as much as her body craved intimacy, she was ambivalent about sleeping with Joseph, wishing she was more like some women who were able to sleep with a man without becoming emotionally involved. If she and Joseph were to make love, then she had to make certain not to confuse love with lust.

  “Tell me, how are you going to get tickets?”

  Joseph chuckled. “I have season tickets. They were my brother’s, but he gave them to me just before he left the country. Is that convincing enough?”

  Pressing her forehead to his shoulder, Crystal nodded. The noise escalated when another crowd of students pushed their way into the pub, and yelling to be heard was getting annoying. “Can we please get out of here?”

  Tightening his hold on her waist, Joseph led her off the dance floor and back to their booth. Signaling for the waitress, he pressed a bill into her hand.

  Crystal sucked in air when they walked out of the Watering Hole. Afternoon temperatures peaking in the high ’70s had dropped to mid-’60s with nightfall and the streets were filled with pedestrians taking advantage of the warm night.

  Tucking her hand into the bend of his elbow, Joseph steered her out of the path of a group of rowdy teenage boys playing a game of chicken by pushing one another off the sidewalk and into the flow of traffic.

  She gave him a quick glance. “How well do you know this city?”

  Slowing his stride, he stared straight ahead. “Well enough to get around without getting lost.” Joseph told Crystal about coming to the Holy City for the first time when he negotiated purchasing land to set up the tea garden, then again while conferring with the engineers hired to drain the swamp and surrounding land for cultivation. “Instead of commuting between here and Palm Beach, I decided to live at the Beaumont House, and whenever I have some downtime I become a tourist.”

 
Crystal huddled closer to Joseph’s side. “Would you ever consider living here permanently?”

  He patted her hand. “Not really. It’s not that it isn’t beautiful, but I like living in Florida. How about you? Would you ever consider leaving the Sunshine State again?”

  “Yes,” she said truthfully, “only because I’m unencumbered.”

  “Unencumbered,” he repeated under his breath. “I like your way of saying you’re single with no children.”

  “It’s because I have options some women my age don’t have. Either they’re in relationships, are married, going through a breakup or divorce or have children. All of which would make it more difficult to pick up and relocate. If I were to get my big break, the only thing I’d have to do is put my condo on the market.”

  They left the avenue, turning down a cobblestoned side street lined on both sides with houses with decorative wrought-iron gates and white porches. The flickering glow from streetlights reminded Crystal of Victorian-era gas lamps. “If it were raining and this street were lined with town houses, it would be the perfect setting for a Jack the Ripper–type movie,” she murmured, her tone pensive.

  Something within Joseph quieted; he suddenly saw what hadn’t been as apparent to him as it was to Crystal. He knew that, as a decorator, she looked at everything with an artist’s eye. “You’re right. I think Charleston’s charm is its architecture. Whenever I come here I always feel as if I’ve stepped back in time. It’s the same when I go to Eagle Island.”

  “Is that where you’ve set up the tea garden?” Crystal asked.

  “Yes. An elderly man who claims he’s a direct descendant of one of the oldest black families living on the island told me about stories passed down by the griots, who talked about hundreds of large birds with wings that were wider than a man was tall that had built their nests high up in the pine and cypress trees, hence the name Eagle Island. But when the European landowners decided to build homes, they cut down many of the trees, disturbing their habitat. Later it was the pesticides that greatly reduced the numbers.