"Wow! A thank you. That's more than I expected from a spoiled little bitch like you." Jessie swung her feet off the table and leaned across the desk. "No! Don't say a thing, not a damn thing. Sit down! There's a chair in front of you and to your left."
She waited for Alexis to obey, noticing that the blind woman looked like a child whose mama had caught her with her hand in the cookie jar and was braving herself for a scold.
"The limo is waiting. I don't have much..." Alexis began.
"Just what the hell do you think you're doing, Cash?" Jessie shot the question at her. "Has it ever, ever, occurred to you to think about anybody but yourself?"
"You don't think I should have the surgery, but..."
"Don't think! No, I don't think. This thing is jackass stupid, but you won't listen."
"I have thought about it, studied all the angles."
"You don't care about nobody but yourself."
"That's not true."
"It is true. All you care about is proving to the world that Cash Claremont can take care of herself, that she don't need nobody." Jessie paused to suck in breath before she renewed her attack. "You've turned this surgery into some big war-waging war against your man-to prove something."
"I'm doing this for him."
"Bullshit!"
"But if I could see..."
"Blindness is your issue, not his."
Jessie squinted her eyes, giving Alexis a look that was razor-sharp.
"Do you love him?" Jessie asked.
"Of course!"
"Are you willing to risk losing him over this?"
"It's a chance to see. You don't know what it's like to be blind. Never to see the changing of the seasons. To hear birds chirping, but to never see the red of the robin's breast. To walk into a public library, but to never be able read any book. To feel snowflakes on your face, but to never know if the sky is blue or white or gray. Never to see my lover's face."
"We all have our crosses to bear, some heavier than others."
"Oh, well, that makes me feel a lot better."
Jessie grunted. "I never said it was easy. I said don't lose what you got."
"I run risks, always take chances. That's the only way I know how to live."
"Yeah, that's your rep and you wear it like a big, fat, ugly dress. But when you start hurting people, you're like the little sister I never had."
"I didn't know. I..." Alexis frowned and then bit her bottom lip.
"You think that because I sell flesh, I can't care."
"Of course not."
"And what about old Randy McCord and my girls?"
"Randolph McCord? He's doesn't even like me?"
"The hell he doesn't. Beneath that thick, gruff exterior is ... well ... more thick, gruff exterior, but that's beside the point. He's crazy about you and not because you make money for his company. He could hire anybody to do that. Never seen him so smitten."
"I didn't realize," Alexis said.
"The hell you didn't."
"I don't know. For once in my life, I don't know. If I back out now..."
Alexis fiddled with her cane, looping and unlooping the strap from around her wrist. She looked up as if to study Jessie's face. Although she could not see Jessie's expression, she had heard the emotion in Jessie's voice. The same emotion that was in Drake's voice these past weeks. Only then, she had refused to listen. Would she now?
"How can I change my mind?"
"Don't test your man's love."
"After I've made such a big issue with Drake ... with everyone."
"Men don't like it," Jessie said. "It's like you're testing their manhood."
"Huh. I can't believe that you'd say something like that."
"If there's one thing I know, honey, I know the men." Jessie winked broadly.
"But what would Drake..."
Chapter 9
"Think?" Drake finished, speaking from the doorway. "He'd think that his woman has finally come to her senses. And, he would love her for it."
He took Alexis in his arms.
She curled into his chest, rubbing her cheek against the soft fabric of his shirt.
"I see you dried off," Jessie said, taking in his white-gold hair in all its tousled glory. In the dim light of the casino lounge, she hadn't noticed the shadows under his eyes or the stubble on his face or the leanness of his cheeks. She glared at Alexis, planning to let her have it for the misery that she'd put him through, but stopped when she noticed the strain on the beautiful features of her face.
As if a rough hand had written it on Alexis' face, Jessie saw that the past weeks had not been easy for the younger woman. In that short time, Alexis had struggled to come to terms with her blindness, engaged in a battle royal with Drake, and fought to maintain her bravado. If she made the wrong decision, she made it without the support of the man she loved. And paid for that decision with many lonely nights.
"You two, get out of my office with that necking," Jessie ordered, smiling, a smile of a weary, world-wise woman who had experienced true love only to lose it. She knew that the journey of Drake and Alexis would not always be easy. They would have their painful entrances and exits, but their love foretold a sweet merging, a poetic completeness, which most people only dream about, few experience, and all crave.
"I've got work to do," Jessie said with another crooked smile. "Go on, git! People pay for sex around here. Go into the lounge and neck. I'll buzz that lazy bartender of mine, tell him to cash out. Champagne! You might need it. Hey! Who's gonna to pay off that limo driver?"
Locked arm in arm, Drake and Alexis ignored her rapid-fire questions. When they entered the lounge, Alexis spoke with sudden determination.
"Drake, I've got a confession to make. I came here hoping that Jessie would try to talk me out of the surgery."
"Hmm. You needed an out," he said.
"I needed to save face," she said.
"You backed yourself into a corner without a backdoor. Gutsy, lady, gutsy."
"Uh-huh. You'd think I would have know better."
"You were thinking with your heart, not your head."
"Yeah, I guess so. In the end, I didn't want to go through with it. I wasn't afraid, I was willing to take the risk. I wanted to make you happy. I would have done anything to end this bitterness between us."
"I wasn't bitter," he denied, but there was a flicker of pain in his blue eyes.
"You were so quiet. When you stopped arguing, I thought ... I thought ... I don't know what I thought except that you were tired of it all ... that you stopped loving me."
"Never. I could never stop loving you."
As if to seal his vow, Drake kissed her several times, quickly, in rapid succession, making her giggle. She responded by ruffling his hair and jerking on his tie. Together, they waltzed into the dark recess of the lounge, practically prancing on air.
"I love you. I love you. I love you," Alexis said, her voice childishly singsong.
She grabbed his shirt and pulled, intending to place a hot kiss on his lips. She missed, kissing his nose, his eyes, and his cheeks instead. At that, he lifted her high in the air. They twirled together, until she shrieked for him to stop. He set her on her feet, sliding her body down his, to let go. She landed with a thud on her derriere. He burst out laughing, a rip-roaring laugh that chased away every vestige of pain.
"I thought that you were going to hold on," he said, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes.
He bent down to help her to her feet. But she stopped him in midair.
"My cane, lover."
He handed her cane to her, watching in puzzlement as she clicked it into place. Using it for support, she rose to her feet, then curtsied with a sweeping gesture, fluttering out her skirt, her cane transformed into a ceremonial staff. Her curtsy was so low and so graceful that a dauphine would have envied it.
"Drake Smith," she began formally. "Will you do me the honor of accepting my hand in the holy state of wedlock?"
Most men woul
d have been dismayed by such a romantic display.
Most men were not Drake Darius Smith.
Without a flicker of an eyelash, he clicked his heels, bowing.
"Alexis Marie Claremont. The honor would not be yours, but mine."
He worked off his heavy, gold signet ring and took her hand in the traditional clasp of courtship. He glided the ring past her fingertip, over the knuckle, into the sacred spot. It was sizes too big. Despite that fact, he raised her hand to his lips, kissing the ringed finger and sending tinkling jolts of love and lust through Alexis' body.
"Congratulations!" Jessie said. She was leaning against the doorjamb of the French double doors, an arm resting across her chest, a hand hidden at her hip. When she straightened her squat frame, a wicked smile of salty sin danced across her face.
"Time to celebrate!" she declared, pulling a bottle of champagne from behind her back. She tossed it at Drake, who barely had time to catch it, before she shut the door and bolted the lock.
Chapter 10
The lounge went dark.
"I think she locked us in," Drake said. "Ouch."
"What?" Alexis asked.
"I banged my knee. Damn that ... that ... that..."
"Don't say it."
"I wasn't. I couldn't. I can't think of a name graphic enough for Jessie Dane."
His eyes adjusted to the dim light. Tucking the champagne bottle in the crook of his arm, he felt his way to the double doors. He rattled the knob and yanked the handle. Although paned glass shook from his efforts, the doors didn't budge. "She has locked us in. What's up with that? Jessie. Jessie!" He slapped his palm against the wood.
"Why would she do that? She can't be serious." Alexis tucked the signet ring in her pocket, patting her skirt to make sure that the ring had sunk to the bottom.
"Who knows with that woman? She threw Perrier in my face."
"She never!"
"Yes, she did. Her idea of a wake-up call, I guess." Drake was making his way to the bar, feeling for tables and chairs along the way. "Damn!"
"Now what?" Alexis questioned, a frown marring the beauty of her face.
"I tripped." He bent down to rub his ankle. "Ouch! And hit my head."
Thump.
"Sh..."
"What the hell is going on?" Alexis stepped forward, straining her ears. "Drake!"
"Give me a moment," he said between gritted teeth. He was crouched over, sucking in air. Slowly, he rose to his knees and then to his feet. "I dropped the champagne bottle."
"And it fell on your foot?"
"Not exactly."
"What exactly?"
"It struck something."
"Your big toe?"
"No, something else that sticks out."
"Oh. Your..."
"Yeah. My..."
"Come to mama. She'll wrap her lips around it and kiss it and make it better."
"Don't tempt me," Drake chided. "I get hard from just thinking about that and this is serious. We need to get out of here. If there were a fire..." Crash. "I'm okay."
"Gosh, my marriage proposal must have really shaken you. I didn't know that the unflappable Drake Smith, the veteran of millions of business deals and litigator extraordinaire, could be such a klutz."
"It's a little hard to function when the lights are out."
"Huh?"
"Jessie turned off the damn lights."
"All of them?" Alexis giggled, rolling her eyes.
"Yeah, all of them."
"So, you're in the dark."
"Yes, you could say that. Yes."
"Wow! I knew sisterhood was powerful, but..."
"But what?" Drake asked. He reached the bar and with one hand on the counter, circled behind it. He found the bar phone and picked up the receiver.
"When Jessie told me off-thank god she didn't throw anything at me-she said I was like her little sister. I didn't know that she loved me so much. McCord likes me, too." Alexis shook her head in disbelief.
"You find that hard to accept?" Drake asked. "I fell in love with you from the moment I saw you. I wanted you out of your clothes, in my bed, under..."
"Now, she's turning the tables on you for me, leveling the playing field."
"By putting me in the dark..."
"So we're..."
"Dead."
"Jeez, no," Alexis denied. "Nothing that drastic. Equals. So we're equals."
"No, the phone is dead," Drake said. He returned the receiver to the cradle. At the bar, the moonlight streamed through the windows, reflecting off the mirrors, casting distorted shadows across the wall. The light in the lounge was much brighter there, and he was able to make out the cabinets and drawers under the counter. He opened one and then the other, letting each door close with a loud bam. "So Jessie thought locking us in, with me in the dark, was a good thing?" he said. "Hmm. Keeps me off balance, from exploiting my hand after your ... your..."
"My capitulation."
"I was going to say decision about the surgery," Drake finished.
"Yep. Jessie's smart and tough," Alexis said. She had weaved through the tables to reach the bar. The moonlight caught the flecks in her long, untamed tresses and made her skin appear like the pink and white petals of a China rose. "What a racket you're making."
Drake was rummaging through the last cabinet. Finding a corkscrew, he kicked the door closed with his foot. There was the clinking of fine stemware against fine stemware as he walked towards Alexis with two wine goblets dangling from between his strong fingers and with the bottle of champagne tucked under his arm. The corkscrew bulged from his pants pocket.
"Who am I to undermine the plots and ploys of Jessie Dane," he said, taking her hand to lead her to the ornate windows, to the sensual shadows of semi-darkness. There, he settled himself on the carpet, then tugged on her hand, bringing her to her knees in front of him, her skirt fanning out around them. He uncorked the bottle with a pop and a wisp of effervescent curled in the air. "I propose that we celebrate our engagement with the champagne that Jessie gave us."
He poured out two glasses and placed one in her outstretched hand.
"To us and to our life together," he said, clicking his glass against hers.
"To us," she said, smiling, a smile brighter than a thousand suns.
They sipped in silence, savoring the moment. Then, their lips met. Their kiss was the sweetest satisfaction, the purest pleasure, embodying their love and their future.
"Do you know," Alexis lied boldly as she seated herself on Drake's muscular thigh, "that in medieval times, alcohol was used as a perfume?"
"Really?" he said.
"Uh-huh."
"Considering that knights didn't wash, I guess ale smelled better."
"Nonsense. It was erotic. The lady would dab wine at the pressure points."
She swirled her finger in the champagne and then dabbed it behind her ear.
"Take a whiff," she said.
"Hmmm. Did they put it anywhere else?"
"The inner wrist was considered a very sexy place."
She dabbed a touch there, holding out her wrist.
Drake inhaled both the scent of her and of the wine and the weighty combination went right to his head. His tongue darted out to lick where he had sniffed, his lips trailing butterfly kisses on her satiny smooth skin.
"Let me try," he whispered. With his forefinger, he stroked the champagne along the long column of her neck to that sexy area at the beginning of her breastbone to her deep, voluptuous hollow where the buttons of her blouse stopped him. He fingered her there, making abstract patterns of the senses, only to replace his finger with his lips. Enticed by the delight, she shifted slightly in his lap, curling into him, until they lips met.
"Anywhere else?" he asked, between kisses. He brushed his knuckles across her breasts, rejoicing when her nipples pointed and warred with the fabric of her shirt.
"The shoulders," she said. "Medieval garb could be quite revealing."
"Show me."
Wi
th fingers that were all thumbs, she unbuttoned her blouse and wrapped it, sarong-like, around her chest. Her breasts were pushed high, like pump cushions, and teased him with their fullness. She took another sip of champagne. The amber liquid blended with her tawny lipstick and he watched, fascinated, as she slowly licked the contours of her mouth.
With a gentle shove, he shouldered her onto her back, his body covering her completely. His lips grazed hers, brushing back and forth, to then slant across her mouth, seeking penetration. His tongue was wet and firm, yet feathery too, as he explored the contours of her mouth, circled the rim of her white teeth, nibbled at her bottom lip.
"Did knights also use alcohol as perfume?" he asked, kissing the delicate curve of her jaw. Already, he was hard and rigid and wanting her, his prick curled up, hugging his stomach, the tip threatening to peep out over his waistband. He felt a tiny sliver of his essence slip forth and he grunted from the pain. These past weeks without her in his bed had played havoc with his sex drive, and he had been forced to ease the rock in his pants with spit and one hand. But, no longer. She was there beneath him, her legs open like scissors, her skirt bunched up around her hips. All he had to do was pump her, pump her, and let his manhood find its nest.
"Did knights use alcohol?" he asked again.
"You don't need it," Alexis said.
She breathed in deep, inhaling the fruity scent of Armani. If she lived for a thousand years, she would never tire of that scent. It was Drake. Strong, potent, and romantic. The scent struck at the heart of her womanhood, struck at her sex organ, urging her eagle-spread for him.
He ran his hands up and down her legs, sweeping along her stockings and past her panties, to finger her lace garter belt. He got harder thinking about the dual sides of her: the risk-taking CFO and the loving, wanton woman. Both matched his sexual desire thrust for thrust, took all of him in push for push, rivaled him stroke for stroke.
He removed her stockings, trying not rush, but the combo feel of their silky smoothness and her skin pushed him to the edge. He ripped them down and tossed them away. He dipped his head low, past the curve of her stomach, past her delta-he placed kisses there-past her dimpled knees, to her feet. He took her toes into his mouth, nursing each one. When his tongue drove into a tiny crevice, a shaft of desire struck her.
Romantic Days, Romantic Nights Page 18
