by Kimball Lee
Allie stepped out of the elevator and breezed across the lobby and was out the door as quickly as a breath of fresh air. And just that fast William’s heart had flipped over in his chest and his cock was irritatingly stiff. Fuck it all! He had known her for all of three days and just that fast emotions he had worked to suppress for the better part of his life were running rampant.
“She refused your car and driver, sir,” the head valet stood next to William fidgeting, his eyes blinking rapidly, waiting to see what William’s response would be.
“Did she know it was my car?” William asked, standing and glaring down at the valet.
“Well sir, I didn’t tell her but she must have figured it out. I told her the car belonged to the hotel and it was at the disposal of any guest who was staying in a suite, just like you said. But she saw right through that bullshit… excuse me sir, she said, “Tell Mr. Warfield I’m just fine on my own.”
So that was that, Alaina Darling might be fairly young and less than worldly, but she was no fool. William took the elevator up to his office and stared out the large angular windows toward the French Quarter. She was out there in his city without him, what a strange thought. And she is fine, just fine, leave her alone, his inner voice cautioned. That inner monologue had not shut up since the moment Allie climbed into his car for the first time and sat wide eyed and dripping with rain and unmistakable sensuality.
*
“You must be Alaina, welcome to New Orleans, darlin’. That’s crazy isn’t it? Darlin’ is your last name and it’s an everyday part of our vocabulary down here in these parts! I’m Thelma Maguire and that handsome young gentleman up on the library ladder is my son, Brodie. Come on in and let me show you around our humble office here at the Southern Gothic Literary Society. Did you have any trouble finding the place? We are just a tad hidden amongst all these crumbling warehouses. I have high hopes that the Warfield Shipping Company will get around to renovating more of those old buildings soon, but I’m not complaining. They gave us a rent-free one hundred year lease on this little gem of a building and you sure can’t beat a deal like that with a stick, now can you?” Thelma Maguire took a quick breath and would have continued to talk nonstop if her son hadn’t materialized beside her.
“Hello, Miss Darling, I’m Brodie Maguire. How about a quick tour of your own personal office space and then we’ll grab a cup of coffee. The coffee shop on the edge of the district is not quite as good as Café Du Monde, but it’s better than the weak brew my Mother makes,” he said and he motioned for Allie to follow him through a high-ceilinged hallway to the back of the building. “How’s this? It has a better view than any of the other little rooms we use as our offices. My mother is a bit long-winded but she’s also a terrific gardener and you can see that for yourself,” he said as Allie walked to a narrow set of ancient French doors with wavy glass panes. The doors creaked as she opened them and a few flakes of the original faded delft-blue paint fluttered to the floor but she gasped when she saw the tiny courtyard beyond.
“Call me Allie,” she said, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the extravagant beauty of gardenias, azaleas, bougainvillea and countless scores of blooming shrubs and vines and ornamental trees. “This is so cool! I’ve heard the French Quarter is famous for its hidden courtyards, but just wow! It’s like an oasis in the middle of the warehouse district, right?”
“Yes it is, now, what do you say we walk a few blocks to the Roasted Bean? I hate to admit that I have an out-of-control dependence on that demon called caffeine, but I do,” Brodie said and his hand strayed to the small of her back for an instant as they made their way to the street.
Three streets over from the derelict row of warehouses the area was completely transformed. High-end art galleries and restaurants crowded into refurbished four and five story high brick and stucco storefronts. Names of early Louisiana merchants like Lafitte and Thibodaux and Saint Michele were still visible where they had been painted in scrolled script above broad antique entry doors. Brodie carried cups of fragrant steaming coffee to a bench in a picturesque park on the corner and they sat in silence until Allie took a hefty swallow of the coffee. Her eyes watered as she tasted the famed coffee and chicory mix.
“Strong, huh? Believe it or not it’s half steamed milk but the coffee and chicory are potent.” Brodie’s grin was crooked and boyish and Allie was instantly put at ease by his good-natured charm.
“Yes, strong is an understatement, spicy is more like it,” she said, laughing as she dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief he offered her. “This really is the Old South isn’t it? Linen handkerchiefs and chivalry and all the stuff of romantic legends.”
“Yes ma’am! I suppose that’s the reason so many influential writers were drawn to this rarefied atmosphere. It’s the Big Easy and as far as scandal and secrets and unbridled hedonism go, well this is a hot-bed, literally, for the ‘anything goes as long as nobody knows’ way of life.” Brodie smiled and raised an eyebrow and Allie’s cheeks blushed pink as she realized he wasn’t just boyishly endearing, he was sexy in an unintentional sort of way. “Don’t drink the coffee if it’s not to your liking Allie… did you mean it when you said I could call you Allie?”
“I like it, the first taste was surprising, that’s all. Yes absolutely, call me Allie. So you and your mother run the Literary Society by yourselves, just the two of you?”
“Oh hell no! There’s no way I could work with my mother full time, I’m just lending a hand while I’m home for the summer. I’ve just finished my second year of law school at Vanderbilt, by this time next year I’ll take the Bar exam and if I pass I’ll be one of those dreaded bloodsucking lawyers. You know, the sort of scoundrels Shakespeare swore should be eradicated to make the world a nicer place, how did he put it—‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers’?”
“I don’t know any lawyers, my parents were artsy people and anti-establishment. I mean my dad still is but my mom passed away last year… so who knows what or where she is now. When my parents divorced they refused to hire an attorney, they just printed out one of those disillusion of marriage contracts from some bizarre website. It might not have even been legal and my dad has been married like, three more times so he could be a bigamist, which would serve him right since he’s definitely an asshole, what do you think?”
“What do I think? Hmm, I think you might be okay with lawyers but not too crazy about your father,” he said, again with the disarming smile. His tosseled light-brown hair kept falling over one eye so that he raked his fingers through the mass of shaggy waves. His eyes were large and round and a color of blue that changed depending on his pattern of thought. They were darker as he listened intently to Allie speak and more crystalline when he laughed at something she said. “So you don’t get along with your father or you just don’t like the sort of man he is and the two of you have nothing in common?”
“Oh, who can say for sure? The only thing he and I have in common is that we both love literature and especially the great southern authors. That’s his field of expertise, he’s an American Lit professor… and a philanderer. He had… has a distinct weakness for his students, my mother was one of the first he lured into an affair… Anyway, literature is my great love and his as well, so I suppose it bothers me that I have that in common with a man I have no respect and very little love for. That’s all, it’s no big deal,” Allie said and she glanced up with a small smile to find him watching her intently.
“Speaking of parents, we’d better get back or your mother will send out a search party, I would imagine,” she said, throwing her half empty cup into a trash can as they walked back into the heart of the warehouse district. “So parts of this area are really upscale and fancy, I guess the renovation gods haven’t made it as far as our street yet.”
“Warfield Shipping owns entire streets and dozens of structures that it hasn’t bothered with. The family has its fingers in a lot of important pies in a manner of speaking, worldwide shipping com
merce is much more lucrative than historic preservation. There is one building they’ve fully restored, at least that’s what I’ve heard, no one has seen the inside as far I know. It’s this one,” he said, stopping in front of an imposing façade with massive cypress doors. They were intricately carved with what looked to be a scene of Adam and Eve eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the so called ‘Tree of life’.
“The doors are fantastic, are they original? What’s inside, is it a business or does someone live here? It must be apartments, this place is huge,” Allie said and as she shielded her eyes from the sun and looked up at the full height of the structure she noticed that all of the exterior shutters were closed and bolted shut.
“Walden Warfield lives here, he’s our most infamous eccentric and that’s not a small distinction in a city known for its oddities. I doubt you’ll ever meet him and you’d do well not to, although it was his father who brought you here, wasn’t it? His late wife and my mother went to school together, they were both Tri Delts at Tulane and southern universities are all about well-bred popular sorority girls. Soooo, that was a thousand years ago. Mom and William the third have stayed in touch and now here you are. How is it that you came under the beneficent wings of the Warfield family?” Brodie asked, although he wondered if he really wanted to know. This girl was very different from any woman he’d ever seen in the company of the Warfield men, but if she was not a love interest to the elder William or his son, then what was the connection?
“Here we are,” Allie said brightly when they reached the door of the Literary Society. “My mother was a love interest from Mr. Warfield’s distant past, he’s sentimental where she’s concerned. That’s all there is to it, I don’t know him or his son William at all. Just casually, I mean, I’ve met them both, of course… Okay, well. Time to get down to it, right? I’m anxious to get a look at some of the personal letters written by Eudora Welty in particular.”
There is no way this girl is not on the younger William Warfield’s radar. Brodie thought as he watched Allie’s sooo sweet ass outlined prettily beneath the silky fabric of her rather conservative dress. She must have chosen the Sunday school appropriate dress to avoid calling attention to herself but that was a definite fail. With an erotically curvy little high and tight ass like hers, not to mention the perky breasts that drew his attention like a pair of small supple peaches… to put it mildly the girl was the definition of ‘Sex kitten’. Rumor was that the Warfield’s liked their women a little on the trashy side, which Allie was not, so that was good because Brodie liked Allie. He liked the way she looked but more than that he liked the way she spoke about literature and the way she twirled a strand of blonde hair and stared deep into his eyes when she was making a point. He’d had his share of women but they all came to him, he had gotten lost somewhat as the little brother to four older sisters. Women ran the show as far as he could tell and with his good looks and good heart they chased him and he rarely ever ran. This girl was not like that, it was easy to see, she would not make the first move. He would just have to bide his time, wait for the right opportunity, and then ask her out on a date. The rest would be history, surely it was fate, Allie Darling was the girl for him.
*
“Wait here, I’ll go get my car and be right back,” Brodie said, lifting Allie’s hand to his lips before he disappeared down the street.
“Alaina,” a stern voice came from behind her as she waited outside her office in the gathering twilight. There in the middle of the street leaning against a sleek black Porsche Panamera sedan was William Warfield the fourth. And damn if he didn’t look like living breathing sex with his freaking suit and tie and long tall body that was all bulging muscles and last but not least his stop-the-clock gorgeous face.
“I’m driving you home so don’t give me that look, Alaina. Rage all you want and call me seven times a son-of-a-bitch, it won’t do any good. I’d forgotten that my father let the Literary Society move into this neighborhood, it’s mildly safe during the day but as soon as the sun starts to set it’s not a suitable area for you to be wandering alone. By the way, Brodie Maguire is a joke, I really can’t imagine the two of you hitting it off. Do you understand what I’m saying or are you just ignoring me and shutting out my words? Allie, say something please,” William said as he left his car and walked toward her.
“Brodie is giving me a ride to the hotel. Why are you here William?” she asked and her voice sounded strange even to her own ears. The question was deeper than why William wanted her to go with him, the question was whether William wanted her to go with him on a much more intimate journey. “You’ve come here to drive me home? This city is not my home and you are not my keeper, William. I don’t know what you are to me or what I’ve done to make you torment me so. You warn me that you’re all wrong for me, that you have no interest in me whatsoever. Then you show up at my job acting like a jealous boyfriend, all alpha-male and domineering and what, I’m supposed to swoon? Do you enjoy this, is it some kinky perversion of yours to lead women on? I mean seriously, you must know that you’re freaking ridiculously hot and gorgeous and that any woman with eyes and estrogen and all those other raging female hormones is gonna want to sleep with you. You told me to go find a nice normal boyfriend and the first guy you see me talking to you swoop in to make sure I stay virtuous and untouched. Is that what’s going on?”
“Hey, William would you mind moving your car out of the middle of the street? I’d appreciate it, buddy. Are you ready to go Allie?” Brodie had rolled his window down to speak to William but he decided to stop his car and get out. The look on William’s face was clear enough, he had staked his claim on Allie. From the murderous look in his stormy eyes and the firm set of his jaw it was probably futile to argue with him. Fucking asshole, Brodie wanted to yell and then knock the living shit out of him.
The Warfield’s ran the world or at least this part of it and if they set their sights on a woman her decency and reputation meant nothing to them. Women were a dime a dozen to a billionaire and cheaper than that to a billionaire who looked like William the fourth. Brodie might concede the night and let William drive her to her hotel but he had faith in Allie to keep her wits about her and not fall prey to his seductive charms. In the meantime he would not give up on her, but he stopped short before he reached her.
“She isn’t going with you, Brodie. She’s quite safe in my care, why don’t you ask her? She belongs with me and she knows it. Now be sure and tell your mother I said hello.” William said dismissing him as if he were an errant child.
BASTARD COCKSUCKER! Brodie didn’t say it but he sure as fuck wanted to, the ‘Mama’s boy’ implication was a low blow even for William Warfield.
Allie’s heart had leapt into her throat, speaking wasn’t possible and breathing was damned difficult as William moved between her and Brodie. He wore a white button down shirt and he methodically loosened his tie and removed his cufflinks all the while giving Brodie a look that could kill. He wants me! That was all she could think, the rational ‘Stop acting like a caveman’ part of her mind had deserted her. The worst part was that she liked the whole ‘master of the universe’ scenario and not because he was richer than rich and powerful beyond comprehension. She had never wanted a man the way she wanted William Warfield and it was clear that despite his earlier reservations he wanted her in the very same way.
“It’s alright Brodie, I’ll see you here in the morning, don’t worry about me,” she said and she couldn’t believe she had regained her voice and sounded so nonchalant. She didn’t feel nonchalant, she felt like she was about to hit the jackpot in the sex department. And yet she had spoken to nice, handsome, very available, soon-to-be a lawyer Brodie as if she intended to attend a church service with William and nothing more. What a devious little vixen she had morphed into practically overnight.
Chapter Six
“Where are you taking me, and what happened to the Maserati?” she asked as William’s driver steered con
fidently through the winding cobbled streets and finally pulled into what looked to be an old train depot.
“I have more than one car and I’m taking you somewhere you’ve never been before,” he said and before she could respond he clasped one big hand on the back of her neck and one on her waist and drew her to him. His lips silenced any word of protest she might have had. His kiss was deeply erotic, his tongue seeking hers and then retreating, leaving her wanting more as he gently sucked her bottom lip for an instant until she was moaning in his arms. Her fingers clasped at the back of his neck, holding his face close to hers as he trailed light kisses from the lips to her cheekbone and back down again. Even if she’d wanted to protest she couldn’t have and it didn’t matter where he was taking her, a volcano was erupting over and over down deep inside at her very core and all she knew for sure was that she wanted to feel the scalding heat of that eruption forever.
“We’re here,” he said, unlocking her hands from his neck and smiling at her soft cries of protest. “Come on, Alaina, follow me,” he held her hand as they maneuvered through a poorly lit building that smelled of grease and dust and he caught her as she tripped over a shallow metal track. Just as her eyes adjusted to the gloom the overhead lights flashed on and she stopped and then turned in a slow circle admiring the vintage streetcars in the old car barn.
“Whoa! Are these original? They look vintage but weren’t the old streetcars destroyed in Hurricane Katrina?” She asked, although she didn’t especially care about streetcars at the moment. That long neglected region at the apex of her thighs was vibrating with need as she tried to imagine what he might have in mind for the evening’s entertainment.
