by Rie Warren
“You know what them work boys do down at Sharon’s since she won’t let common folk into her house?” Momma had quieted to a whisper, “They piss on her siding. Serves her right.”
Mimi, Momma, and me were exactly alike. Red heads. Firebrands.
“How’s mah house, girl?”
Momma grumbled at Mimi’s usual question. “Still standin’.”
“Y’all cain’t ever get rid of it. Miss Cassandra told me so. That be Adelaide’s momma, and you know they got the foresight.”
Mimi’s face was pressed parchment, wrinkles so deep they joined to her luminous bones. She’d been the looker of our family, back in the day.
“Who’s this now?” She squinted at me. “This my Shay-girl?”
I hugged her close as I dared, my hands crossing her bony back beneath the dowager’s hump. My hand tucked inside her elbow, she doddled to an afghan-covered recliner.
Settled down, she drawled, “Dawlin’s, y’all can take a seat now.”
Having welcomed us, she concentrated on her beading. A magnifying glass sat on a stand before her and her knuckles bent like birds’ spines over the fiddly work. Mimi motioned a gem over the thread three times until the eye captured, and she beamed victoriously, only to turn her glare in Momma’s direction.
“I said, sit down, Letha-girl.” A hanky pressed to her lips to catch the spittle collecting at the corners. “Never did pay me no mind.”
Momma whipped her ass to the hard plastic chair beside me, handing over the Ziploc baggy of beads she’d stolen from Mimi last time we were there. For each three necklaces Mimi made, she purloined one, collected the beads and brought them back. She was a grifting re-gifter.
Huffing at her penny-pinching ways, I laid a paper bag on the swivel-table. Mimi hungrily emptied the loot. Cat’s eyes and crystals and turquoise and lettered beads rolled around in her hands.
We spent the morning recounting nothing at all, and many a pleasant memory, Momma and me reaching through our own minds to keep time with Mimi’s crisscrossing remembrances.
Nap time approached. Mimi unsteadily shook the beads into plastic pill compartments. “Shay,” she confessed, conspiratorial as a young girl, “one of these days Imma gonna make these nurses think I been swallowin’ these beads all this long time, instead of the medicines they’re always pushin’ on me. Those pills make me so tired, dawlin’.”
I held her body to mine, careful not to agitate the osteoporosis that made her wilt like a sapling. “Love you, Mimi.” I kissed her and inhaled against her flyaway white hair. Her rose scent was redolent of the polished Avon jars arranged in the same formation on her institutional dresser as they’d been in her bedroom on McCants Drive.
“Girl.” Veils lifted between us, and she was right there, spry and knowing. “Y’all lookin’ good. Doin’ better, aren’t ya?”
Hiding my cheek against her, I couldn’t let go. My tears leaked to the downy folds of her neck. “Hush now, been a long time comin’.”
She patted me and hummed, and I remembered every time we’d gone mucking about at Cove Inlet during low tide–her in pedal pushers up to her knees and a kerchief tied over hair that used to be as red as mine.
She whispered for me only, “It’s all gonna set right for you.”
It wasn’t until Momma dropped me home I finally topped up my phone with airtime. The messages beeped in faster than I could read. I hadn’t had this much action in forever.
The thing went off in my hand.
“Where’ve you been?” Reardon barked.
“Um–”
“Do you have any idea how close I came to cutting my trip short?”
“Not really?”
“You want to know what you’ve done to me for two days?”
“Okay?”
“I’ve sat through meetings and made pleasantries, I’ve made sure my cell was turned on, every half hour.” He was running his hand over his face and smothering his top lip with his finger, rolling back his cuffs and pacing, I pictured it all. “You told me everything about Delilah.”
I sucked in a breath.
“Then I left you.”
“Yeah.” My voice got stuck in my throat.
“You think everyone disappears.”
“They do.”
“Shay, I wanted to make sure you were okay. I wanted to tell you I’m not going anywhere, even if I’m out of town.” I pictured his clenched jaw, his shoulders rolling under his shirt. “We agreed you’d take my calls.”
“But–”
“I don’t like this. I don’t...this wasn’t in the plan.”
“But–”
“Dammit, woman! I was worried about you.”
“I didn’t mean for you to worry,” I whispered.
His silence was loud enough to say he was scared by this.
I held the tiny cell, waiting. I was scared too.
He took a deep breath. “But what?”
“What?”
“I assume you have a good reason for your unavailability.”
Superior Reardon was back.
“You used all my minutes whackin’ it.”
“Pardon me?”
“Jerkin’ off, masturbatin’, spankin’ the monk–”
His slight cough slowed me down. A smile was in his voice. Bet Rat Bastard raised his eyebrow for good measure too. “I was referring to your minutes comment.” Used minutes were obviously a foreign concept, whereas sexual self-help was not.
“You know, pay as you go.” Huh, just like me. “That reminds me, we gotta talk.”
“Do we now?” He let it hang, to the left, no doubt. “Getting bossy with me?”
“Someone needs to take you in hand.”
“Not gonna argue with that.”
“I’m serious.”
“I look forward to it,” he answered.
“Tomorrow?”
Sensuality deepened the pitch of his voice, “I wish it was tonight.”
“Me too.” I stopped myself from making kissy noises into the phone, just.
* * * *
Monday began with Palmer commenting, “All dressed up?”
Dressed up was an improvement on tarted up. “Headed to work.”
I was all dressed up, underneath, but no way could he have known. The last time I’d put on my seductress’s garments, he’d pulled a lumpy pillow over his face with a, “Not tonight, Shay.”
At The Tides, Temperance motioned me inside. “He’s waiting for you.” She sped me along. “Down the hall. Third door on the left.”
Before I could ask for a map, she disappeared.
Hoping I had the right hallway and the correct door, I rapped gently.
The door swung wide, framing a completely buck-fucking-naked Reardon.
’Course my pal Temp hadn’t warned me he was free-swinging, fresh from a shower. Sneaky woman.
Half his face lathered, the other half showed the largest shit-eating grin I’d ever seen. My eyes darted lower, the dirty little bitches.
“Whoa! Do you always shave naked?” I shouted. My volume control had gone out the window, with his towel, apparently.
I did an about-face.
He reached around me, locking us in. “It is my house.” He spun me around. My eyes slammed shut. He laughed. “I’d give you a hug, but…”
I peeked at him through traitorous eyes to see his arms wide open, not hiding a damn thing. “Oh, you...you!” Slapping his sides, my fingers ran up to his well-defined chest.
He lowered his mouth, kissing the curve of my lips from one side to the other. When I was good and cross-eyed with lust, he chuckled and bent toward the mirror. Nude. Still.
I studied the marble underfoot instead of his marvelous glutes. “What about Temperance?”
“She knocks.”
“I knocked.”
“I know.” He winked at me through the reflection.
Bracing his thigh against the vanity, swishing the blade in the sink, he added more foam to his face from a br
istled brush he swirled over a dome of shaving soap. Swirling, like his tongue on my nipples. Oh fuck.
I perused him, pretty sure my tongue lolled out. A light layer of black hair arrowed from his chest to his stomach. From the ripped muscles of his belly, the line thinned until it bloomed at his groin before the edge of the sink shielded his cock from sight. Sexy man fur! Step away from the man fur, Shay.
Returning my eyes to their sockets, I asked, “You let just anyone in here?”
He stopped mid-scrape along his jaw. “No.”
Biceps bulging, broad back and toned waist and narrow hips, Reardon tilted his neck, pulling the razor through foam. Diamonds of water dewed along the muscles fanning out from his spine, gathering in the dimples above his butt. I never wanted to be a towel so much in my life.
I made a pact with myself: if I could keep my hands above the Promised Land, I’d hug him. I folded my arms around his waist. Mmm, warmth, soft skin, hard muscle.
His head bowed, he covered my hands with his. “Missed you.”
Pressing a kiss between his shoulders I murmured, “Me too, baby.”
His body bent and moved while he plied the razor. Every so often he rose up, the base of his shaft revealed. Solid, thick, Kegel-worthy clenching material. This was a far cry from waking to a sink full of Palmer’s stubble.
Screw Playgirl PPV. I was getting paid to look at this.
Right. Paid. We needed to talk.
“I have an idea, Shay.”
Me too. Most of them began with Fuck and ended with me.
“You should give it a go.”
He questioned my salon-paid lady-scaping?
He held the razor out to me. Oh, a go on him. I’d rather use my tongue.
I hopped onto the vanity, my legs opening like the two-bit whores they were.
Settling in, the hot turgid weight of his erection bore down on my thigh. “Takes a firm grip, that’s all,” he coaxed.
I knew exactly what he wanted me to grip, firmly, because it rubbed against my thigh. Scraping across his cheek, I revealed smooth skin ready for my kiss. Exposing his throat, I hummed, “Like this?”
“Hmm.” Shoulders relaxed, eyes closed, he luxuriated in my touch.
When I finished, he opened sultry eyes, rinsing the razor behind me in the basin, enclosing me in his arms.
We kissed, his hands in my hair, our tongues gliding slowly.
“We need to talk?” He nuzzled my neck.
“Yeah, we do.” Pushing him away, I leaped down. “I’ll wait in your office.”
“My office?” He whipped a towel around his hips, finally. “What about my bedroom?”
“Tempting, but no.” I wiped a last puff of soap from his face and left.
Caught reordering his periodicals, I pocketed the fifty cents I’d found in the leather cushions of the settee and guiltily blushed when Reardon joined me.
Carrying two tall drinks and not a goddamn shirt in sight.
Dirty tactics.
And barefoot to boot. So of course I was thinking about his sexy toes trailing along the back of my calves while he used his knee to part my thighs, leaning down to lick my hot, wet, waiting pussy…
I jammed one hand into my purse and took the drink with the other, relishing the cold ice over fresh mint and white rum of the mojito. “God, this is delicious.”
I referred to the drink, but I drank him in. Washboard abs, washed-out jeans. With the top button undone.
Refusing to be waylaid by the Never-Nether Land of his crotch when he sat down, legs splayed, I pulled the envelope from my bag with a flourish. “What the hell is this?”
“Now, now, Shay, language.”
I threw the check in his lap. “This, this, this!”
He didn’t touch it but twitched nonetheless as if the amount of money branded him, as it did me.
“What the hell is that?”
“Your paycheck.”
I simmered, “It’s astronomical.”
“Well, it is out of this world.” With a wink, he referred to his obvious endowments.
I growled and slammed back the rest of my drink.
“Time and a half?” he feebly joked.
I shook my head.
Drumming fingers on the desk, he seemed unnerved by my silent pique. “Isn’t that why you’re here, what you need, money?”
“You idiot. I want–” you. The unspoken word hung frail as a paper lantern between us, spinning gently, lighting all the ways we were going to get hurt.
“It’s not about the money then. I thought I was helping you,” he muttered.
“Helping yourself to me.”
“I’m not going to apologize for wanting you, Shay.” He placed the check in my bag. “Cash it, please.”
I wouldn’t look at him.
“Shay.” He offered his hand from across the room. “Come here.”
“No.”
“Stubborn.”
“You know it.”
“Okay.” He nodded, then frowned. “I’m going to my bedroom. You can leave. You can stay. But I’d really like you to join me.” His hand held out, he waited patiently. “Darlin’, it’s been a damn long week without you. I don’t want to waste any more time arguing.”
When my fingers wound through his, he let out a long breath.
On the deck beyond his bedroom, we stood at the base of an oak corkscrew winding against the outer wall of the penthouse. The stairs were timbered, joints flushed, wood rounded.
Taking the circular staircase, we emerged on the roof where late afternoon sunlight gilded pots of aromatic herbs and painted bright colors over beds of sunflowers, lantana, lilies. There was nothing above us but the azure sky traced in white puffy trails from airplanes.
“Oh!”
“You like the flowers?”
“How did you know?”
Bringing my fingertips to his mouth, he kissed the rough ovals. “You can’t take your eyes off the trumpet lilies, and your hands are used to hard work, your nails dirty.”
I snatched my fingers back.
Trapping me in his arms, he eased, “I wasn’t insulting you. It was a compliment.”
“You ever get your hands dirty?”
“Every day, in the boardroom.”
“Radaman-Slaughter?”
He poured two glasses of wine, passing one to me. “What do you want to know?” Lying on the picnic blanket, arms crossed behind his head–he still didn’t have a damn shirt on–he wasn’t as relaxed as he wanted me to think.
“Y’all aren’t happy with your business partner.” I kneeled next to him.
“I don’t do long-term partnerships well.” Obviously. “Used to be Radamanthus Slaughter, back before the Civil War.”
“You mean the War of Northern Aggression.”
The dimples in his cheeks deepened with a broad smile. “I’m from the Radamanthus side. My great-great-great-Granddaddy cut loose from the bastard cousins, the Slaughters. He worked in banking during the Reconstruction, but the family lost it all during the collapse of 1893. Took a century, but we built it again, minus the ne’er-do-wells. A few years ago I…” He dragged his arm over his face. “Something happened, I needed bailing out. Shepperd Slaughter came on board. End of story.”
Stroking the underside of his arm, I cajoled him from his black mood. “So, you were born with a silver spoon in your pretty mouth.”
“You think my mouth is pretty?” He lunged quickly, pulling me on top of him.
“So pretty.” I took three chaste kisses from his lips. “But what about–”
“Let’s not talk about my family.” Reardon sat up abruptly.
“What about contraception, then? We never finished that talk.” I returned his frosty tone.
“I’m clean.”
“Nevertheless, maybe you should use condoms.”
His short laugh cut me. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“Well, you certainly don’t want children.”
His eyes wide
ned, he blanched.
“That’s right, and I’m barren, so we make a perfect couple, don’t we?”
Suddenly as he’d turned cold, he melted. Moving quickly, he captured me in his embrace. His hands running up and down my back lanced the ugly bitterness from me. But he didn’t correct me. Every unsaid word reinforced the job description. Family had no place in this arrangement.
“Let’s go for a walk.” Reardon’s lips brushed my ear.
“Is it safe?”
He helped me to my feet. “C’mon. We’re allowed to go outside.”
After he tugged on a shirt in the bedroom, we made our way to the riverside park. We strolled along the paths surrounding the playground, listening to screamingly happy kids. Jealousy stabbed me as I watched.
He tried to hook an arm over my shoulder, but I didn’t want to get caught out in public. He squeezed my waist instead.
I whispered, “I’m okay.”
At the end of the pier, with seagulls’ cries overriding the squall of children, we snuggled hip-to-hip on the wide, whiteboard swing. Tugboats blasted their horns, making way for sluggish container ships shuffling to the port terminals of Longpoint and Wando, dolphins dancing in their wake.
“Is it safe to kiss?” His husky words were followed by warm lips pursed against the pulse in my neck.
Slinking lower, I pulled him with me. Reaching into his hair, I slanted his face and made out with him like a teen on the bench seat of a pickup truck. I thrilled in the freshness of his taste, innocent in the first hesitant swipe of my tongue, desperate when we really got going.
He drew his hands beneath my top, cradling my breasts, roughly thumbing my nipples. “Somethin’ else I want to kiss,” Reardon groaned.
I grabbed his belt, yanking him hard between my thighs. The backs of my fingers brushed the skin of his abdomen.
Uncertainty, loss, culpability washed away.
I shivered with expectation.
“Cold?”
“Not with you.” My fingers dipped lower.
He caught my wrist. “Shay. We need to go inside.”
At the door of his apartment, he pinched the corners of his mouth, then settled his hands on his hips. “Stay with me tonight?”
Chapter 7
Fraternization
When I hesitated on the threshold, a flicker of panic pulled Reardon’s eyebrows together.
