“Why me, Dwight, and not some other woman?” Sasha could not believe she’d asked him why when it was enough to know that her feelings were reciprocated.
“Why not you, Sasha? Do you think you’re unworthy of a man’s love?”
“Grant felt me unworthy of being his wife. I’d just come off the cupcake competition, and although my team didn’t win, I’d become an instant celebrity and attracted a lot of attention because of my hair and laugh. Grant came into the shop where I was working, and he turned on his country-boy charm. He came back a few days later and asked me out. I didn’t want to believe that one of Nashville’s fastest-rising stars was interested in me. We dated and it wasn’t until after I became Mrs. Natasha Manning-Richards that I discovered he married me because he felt we would make the perfect celebrity couple. Once his publicist branded us as the Cowboy and the Redhead, the paparazzi began following us relentlessly. It was only when my star as a pastry chef began to rise that Grant showed his true colors when he attempted to sabotage my career. He insisted I tour with him and accompany him to the studio for recording sessions—time I needed to devote to baking.”
Pushing to his feet, Dwight came around the table and sat next to her. “You didn’t realize the man was as insecure and controlling as he was talented.”
“It wasn’t until I’d filed for divorce that my lawyer made me aware of that. The final straw was when he went on tour and left one of his security people at the house to watch me. I knew I’d become a prisoner. That’s when I discovered he was tracking my cell phone and had installed cameras throughout the house to monitor my comings and goings. It took all my resolve not to expose him to the tabloids. He finally agreed to end the marriage when I did threaten to talk to a reporter. Grant had me sign a prenup citing I wasn’t entitled to any of his earnings or property.”
“You’d signed it?”
“Yes. What my dear husband didn’t know was that he’d married a woman who didn’t need his money.”
Sasha knew what she was about to tell Dwight would probably shock him. “I left The Falls two months after graduating to accept a job in Tennessee. Mrs. Harvey, a childless former English teacher, sold the mansion where she’d lived with her late husband, moved into a smaller three-bedroom house in a gated community and advertised for a live-in companion. We bonded and I’d become the granddaughter she never had. Her library was filled with the classics, and because of the onset of senility and failing eyesight, she wanted me to read to her. That’s when I fell in love with Dickens, Dumas, Shakespeare, Austen and Brontë. Just before she was confined to an assisted living facility, she asked me what I wanted for my future. And when I told her I wanted to become a pastry chef, she made it happen. Her wealth manager gave me a check to cover my tuition at The Art Institute of Tennessee in Nashville and to rent an apartment. Going to school in Nashville allowed me to visit Mrs. Harvey, although she no longer knew who I was. I’d just received my degree in baking and pastry when I got a call from Mrs. Harvey’s lawyer that she’d passed away and I was to attend the reading of her will. She’d left me enough money that it could take me into retirement if I didn’t squander it.”
“So, it’s not that you don’t have enough money to keep the bakeshop viable, but whether the business can sustain itself.”
“Exactly,” she agreed. “I invested my inheritance in an account Grant knew nothing about. I also signed a nondisclosure not to reveal anything about our marriage.”
Dwight pulled her closer. “Thank goodness you don’t have to deal with that clown anymore.”
Sasha rested her head on Dwight’s shoulder. “You’re right about that. I just can’t believe I put up with him for five years before I came to my senses. I didn’t fight with Grant because I didn’t want to relive my parents’ marriage. It’s sad when your childhood memories are filled with your mother and father’s constant bickering. One time I asked my mother why she didn’t leave my father and she said she couldn’t because she loved him.”
Dwight ran his fingers under the wealth of thick red curls on Sasha’s neck. “People fall in love for different reasons.”
“You’re right, Dwight. I knew you were special the night I came to your house to return Kiera’s cell phone. When you gave me your jacket, I decided then you were special. And when you invited me to be your date for the chamber fund-raiser, I felt like the princess in a fairy tale who’d met her prince where they would live happily ever after. I haven’t had a lot of experience with men, but those I’ve met always wanted something from me. You’re the only one who wants me for me even though I’m a freckle-faced country girl.”
“I don’t think you realize how easy it is for me to love you. And there’s no need to be self-deprecating because you’re one of a kind.”
Turning her head, she smiled at him. “I could say the same about you, darling. You’re unlike any other man I’ve met or known.”
“So, I’m your darling?” he asked, deadpan.
“You didn’t know?”
Dwight smiled. “I didn’t want to be presumptuous.”
“You are my love, my darling and of course my sweetie.”
Dwight pressed his mouth to hers. “How do you taste, Miss Sasha’s Sweet Shoppe?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “However, I’m not opposed to offering you a little sample.”
Throwing back his head, Dwight laughed loudly, startling a few birds perched in a nearby tree. “What if I want more than just a sample?”
Shifting, Sasha straddled his lap and buried her face against the column of his neck. “Don’t you want to find out if you like the sample before you ask for a larger piece?”
* * *
Dwight gasped when he felt the press of her bottom as she gyrated against his crotch. He’d hardened so quickly he feared ejaculating before he could make love to her. “Don’t! Please.” He was pleading with her to stop and didn’t care if Sasha knew the power she yielded at that moment.
Her response was to press her breasts against his chest as her hot, moist breath feathered in his ear. “What do you want, Dwight?”
He gasped again as one hand searched under the tank top, fingernails trailing over his breasts. “You, babe.”
“How much do you want me?” she taunted.
Dwight had had enough teasing. Wrapping an arm around her waist, he stood up, bringing her up with him. Taking long strides, he managed to slide back the screen, walk into the house and shut it after him without dropping Sasha. He did not want to believe, and was pleasantly surprised, that Sasha was a seductive temptress under the prim and shy exterior he’d come to know. When he’d invited her to spend the weekend with him, his intent wasn’t to make love with her, but to give her time to relax and rejuvenate from her hectic week.
He carried her into his bedroom and placed her on the bed. He drew the drapes and then returned to the bed and the drawer in the nightstand to take out a condom. What he and Sasha were about to share was too new for them to risk an unplanned pregnancy. Dwight smiled at Sasha staring up at him when he caught the hem of his tank top and pulled it up and over his head. His eyes searched her face for a hint of uncertainty but saw only confidence in the green eyes. Dwight took his time undressing, and when he was completely nude, he saw Sasha’s expression change as her lips parted.
* * *
Sasha tried not to react to seeing Dwight’s nakedness, but she couldn’t believe that his body was as magnificent as his face. Lean and muscled, he was Michelangelo’s David in mahogany instead of marble. She forced herself not to look at his erection when he slipped on the condom. Sitting up, she slipped the straps to the dress off her shoulders, baring her breasts. Dwight got into bed with her and kissed her as he removed the dress and underwear. Her mouth was as busy as Dwight’s, slanting across his lips, jaw and ear. Her teeth nibbled at his exposed throat, staking her claim at the same time a deep moan rose from the vall
ey of his wide chest.
* * *
Dwight wanted to take Sasha hard and fast because he had been celibate much too long—but he decided not to. She needed to be loved, to know that she was loved. Cradling her head in his hands, he increased the pressure of his mouth on hers until her lips parted and he took possession of her tongue. One hand moved from her head to a satiny shoulder and still farther to a firm breast. It filled his hand, the nipple tightening against his palm. His thumb drew circles around the areola, pebbling and increasing his own desire and arousal.
Shifting slightly, he raised his body, while hers writhed with an escalating awakening. Slowly, methodically, Dwight held her hands at her sides while he slipped down the length of her silken body until his face was level with the juncture of her thighs. The erotic essence of her body filled his nostrils when he buried his face against the silky down concealing her femininity. His hot breath seared her delicate flesh before it cooled with the sweep of his moist tongue.
* * *
Sasha wanted to tell Dwight to stop yet couldn’t. Not when his rapacious tongue made every nerve in her body seem to be on fire; not when she felt herself falling over the edge where orgasms waited for her. Waves of ecstasy throbbed through her body. She gasped in sweet agony, and her fingers tightened on the sheet, twisting and pulling it from the confines of the mattress. She breathed in deep, soul-drenching drafts at the same time ripples of fulfillment gripped her. Arching, unashamed screams exploded from her parted lips as she gave herself up to the passion hurtling her higher than she had ever soared before.
The pulsating continued, faster and stronger until she abandoned herself to the liquid fire sweeping her into a vortex of sweet, burning fulfillment. The flames of passion had not subsided entirely when she felt Dwight’s erection easing into her. She took him in, inch by inch. He moaned as if in pain, then began a slow thrusting, preparing her body to accept all of him.
* * *
Sasha moaned, her body opening and giving Dwight the advantage he needed as he rolled his hips, burying himself to the root of his penis. Her hot, wet flesh closed around him like a tight glove, and he knew it was helpless to hold back any longer. He rolled his hips again, each thrust deeper, harder. The sensation of her body opening and closing around him, pulling him in where he did not know where he began and Sasha ended, hurled him to a dimension he did not know existed. He had to let go of his dammed passions.
Sasha’s soft sighs of satisfaction were his undoing. Listening to the throaty moans from her forced him to release the obdurate control on the passions he had kept in check and withheld from every woman since his divorce. Collapsing heavily on her slender body, he sucked in precious air to fill his lungs with much-needed oxygen. Dwight didn’t know where he found the strength, but he managed to roll off Sasha’s body, while at the same time savoring the pulsing aftermath of his own release.
The bedroom was silent as they lay side by side, eyes closed. Sasha reached for his hand, threading their fingers together. There was no need for conversation. Their bodies had spoken for them. She loved him and he loved her.
Chapter Eleven
Sasha did not want to believe life could be so perfect starting with the weekend at the lake house. She and Dwight spent more time in bed than out, talking and making endless love. He told her about his forensic psychologist FBI special-agent father, who lost his life when the driver of a tractor trailer had fallen asleep behind the wheel and plowed into his car.
He’d also disclosed that he might have contributed to the dissolution of his marriage; although he had not accepted a ROTC Guard/Reserves scholarship, he owed the army six years with two years remaining on active duty. He’d elected to fulfill the two-year commitment before enrolling in dental school, unaware that Adrienne was pregnant. He hadn’t been there for her during the first year of Kiera’s life; then he was gone again after he’d enrolled in dental school. Most of her immediate family had left The Falls, and Adrienne had made up her mind that she also didn’t want to stay.
* * *
It wasn’t until mid-June when Sasha was finally able to hire an assistant, a young man who was extremely talented. She suspected he was attracted to Kiera, who totally ignored him, and Sasha had come to believe Kiera resented his intrusion because it reduced the time they would spend together. With the additional help, she was able to fulfill more special orders from clients as far away as Beckley.
Her alone time with Dwight was infrequent because they were unable to get away to the lake more than once a month. Most of the time Kiera accompanied them, and the weekend before Kiera left to go to New York to vacation with her mother, Victoria and Charlotte also joined them. Kiera passed her driver’s test, and Dwight had promised that when she returned in August they would go shopping for a late-model used car.
* * *
Sasha had just parked the van at her home when the front door opened, and her mother walked out onto the porch. Charlotte was now an official member of the Ladies Auxiliary, which was on hiatus until the fall, and she was looking forward to the induction ceremony. Charlotte’s strained expression said it all: she was upset. Reaching for her tote, she got out, her pulse throbbing at the base of her throat.
“What’s the matter, Mama?” She prayed her mother wasn’t experiencing chest pains again. Reaching for her hands, she discovered they were ice-cold.
“I just got a call from Grant Richards.”
“What the hell...?” Sasha paused, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry about that.” She didn’t want her mother to bear the brunt of her anger. “Why would he be calling you?” She knew there was no way he was able to call her because she’d changed her cell’s number.
“I suppose he still has my number from when he came here for your daddy’s funeral.”
“What does he want, Mama?”
“He said he has upcoming concerts beginning next month in Charleston, Richmond, Virginia, and the DC area, and he wants to see you. He did ask for your number, but I know you don’t want him to have it.”
Sasha struggled to control her anger. “Not only don’t I want to talk to him, but I also don’t want to ever see him again.”
“He did say he was sorry for how he treated you.”
“And you believed him?”
A pained expression flitted over Charlotte’s features. “He did sound remorseful.”
“That’s because he’s a charlatan and a con man, Mama. He knows what to say to draw you in, and then before you know it, he’s got you trapped in his web where he’ll control every phase of your life.”
“I thought by this time you would’ve forgiven him. It’s not good to carry around so much hate.”
Sasha threw up her hands. “I’m sorry, Mama, but I’m not you. You were a sponge, soaking up everything Daddy dumped on you and still you turned the other cheek.”
Charlotte’s eyes filled with tears. “That’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair is becoming a receptacle for abuse. What really bothers me is that I told you what he did to me and you still want to welcome him into your home like he was the perfect son-in-law.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth, Natasha. I never said I was going to invite him here, so don’t shoot the messenger.”
Sasha knew her mother was angry when her face turned beet red. “I think we’d better end this conversation before we say something we’ll later regret.”
“Yes, we’d better,” Charlotte shot back.
“I’m going inside to shower, and then I’m going to bed.”
Sasha was still upset when she crawled into bed. She cursed Grant even though she knew he couldn’t have done what he did to her if she hadn’t given him permission. Too often she’d asked herself when had her ego surpassed her common sense because she’d gotten an A-list recording artist to choose her to become his wife from among the screaming, adoring women who’d risk life and limb
to get close enough to touch him.
Her cell phone rang, and she knew from the programmed ringtone that it was Dwight. They’d made plans to go to the lake house after she closed on Saturday now that Kiera was away. She picked up the phone. “Yes.”
There was a pregnant pause before Dwight said, “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” she lied smoothly.
“If nothing’s wrong, then why does it sound as if you’ve lost your best friend?”
“Look, Dwight, I just don’t feel like talking right now.”
“If that’s the case, then call me when you’re in a better mood.”
Suddenly the connection went dead, and she knew he’d hung up on her. Frustrated, Sasha threw the phone across the room, and it landed on the chair in the corner. Hot, angry tears pricked the backs of her eyelids, but she refused to cry. She’d cried enough because of two men to last several lifetimes. First it was because of her father, when she stayed on her young knees praying for him to change; and then it was because of Grant, who had used her to his advantage, then openly flaunted his infidelity with a woman who’d grinned in her face while she was sleeping with her husband. Sasha knew she had to get her head together before seeing Dwight again, because it wasn’t fair to him to let her dilemma with Grant destroy her newfound happiness.
* * *
Dwight immediately recognized the number on the phone’s screen, wondering why his daughter was calling him from the Dominican Republic. He tapped the speaker feature. “What’s up, Kiera?”
“Daddy, can you come and get me?”
His stomach muscles tightened as he struggled not to panic. “What’s the matter?”
“I was having a conversation with Mom when Omar called me an ungrateful little snot who should be slapped across the mouth after I told him I needed to talk with my mother without his interruptions.”
Second-Chance Sweet Shop Page 16
