by A. C. Arthur
“What are you wearing?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she replied. “I um, I just got out of the shower.”
“Hmmmm, good,” he said. “Touch your breasts first. Remember how I squeezed and pulled on your nipples? Do that for me.”
She was pushing the sheet down to expose her breasts before she could think of a response. Cradling the phone between her ear and her shoulder she let both hands slide down over her breasts. She had large, heavy breasts, with dark nipples that she was now holding between her fingers. Amber squeezed them gently at first, recalling just how Brandon had done this same thing. He’d pulled on them slightly, not so that it was painful, but so that spikes of desire rippled like a stream through her body, moisture pooling in her center. She immediately uncrossed her ankles.
“Are you touching them?”
“Yes,” was her breathy reply.
“Good girl,” he stated. “Now squeeze them for me. Hold them in your hands and squeeze.”
He was moaning before she even did what he said and when she did, Amber moaned too.
“If I was there I’d kiss those tight nipples. They feel so good against my tongue, like sweet pieces of hard candy.”
Amber continued squeezing her breasts, loving the weight in her hand and how this simple act made her feel sexier than she ever had before.
“Unbutton your pants,” she told him before licking her lips. “Unbutton them and let me see you.”
There was a second of heavy breathing and then she thought she heard some shuffling around.
“Can you see how hard I am for you?” he asked.
Amber kept her eyes closed and saw him right there where she’d placed all her memories of him. Long and hard, the crest of his erection thick and so tantalizing, her mouth watered.
“Yes,” she sighed. “So good and hard.”
“Are you wet for me?”
Was she? There was probably a puddle on the comforter beneath her, she knew her folds would be so slick with desire. Still, she slipped one hand down her torso as she spread her legs. There was only a second’s hesitation before she let her hand continue over her neatly shaved mound, through her plump lips to the wet heat they’d both expected.
“Yes,” she answered. “I’m so wet.”
“Good baby. That’s so damn good.”
For another few seconds there was just breathing. His and hers. The arousal so palpable it was traveling through the phone lines.
“I want to be inside you,” Brandon whispered, this time his voice husky with desire.
Amber had already pushed a finger deep inside her center, moving it as if it were his length thrusting against her.
“Yes, you are,” she told him. “You feel so good inside me, Brandon.”
“Yeah, it does feel good,” he said and then moaned. “Good and wet and deep. I’m gonna go fast, baby. So sorry for how fast this is gonna be.”
Her head moved from side to side on the pillow, her hips lifting slightly as she continued to pump inside herself with one hand and squeeze her breast with the other.
“That’s okay, baby. I’m right there with you.”
“I’m right there…with…you,” he said before grunting and moaning.
Amber held her breath as her legs shook beneath her, release rippling through her so fast and so strongly her teeth chattered.
Then there was silence.
She heard a noise and moved her hand from her breast to reach for the phone that was now somewhere on her pillow.
“I have to go,” she said in a voice that didn’t really sound like her own.
“Okay,” was all he’d replied before the line went silent once more.
“Good night,” she said before disconnecting.
Essie made another noise from beneath the pillow where she’d snuggled. Probably hiding so she wouldn’t see the X-rated show that had just taken place.
“Mind your business,” Amber snapped at the dog before dropping her phone on the nightstand and moving off the bed.
She had to take another shower and dammit, she had to go into the kitchen and check on her pizza that was most likely burned way beyond the crispy stage that she liked so much.
#
What the hell was he doing?
Phone sex?
Really dude?
Cursing to himself Brandon stood from the couch where he’d been sitting in the family room at his father’s house of all places. He’d grabbed a few tissues from the table beside the couch to clean himself off, but now he was leaving the room entirely. He still had clothes in the bedroom he’d used all his life, so he headed up the stairs in that direction.
Each of the five bedrooms on the upper level of the house had private bathrooms, so Brandon didn’t have to worry about disturbing anyone. Brock and Noelle were down the other end of the hall, sleeping in the room that Brock had used when he was living here. Brandon didn’t know where Bailey was. She hadn’t shown up since walking out on him and Brock earlier, and she hadn’t been at the hospital as they’d assumed she would be when the brothers returned hours later. Noelle had said she’d spoken to Bailey, which was the only reason Brandon hadn’t left the hospital to go look for her. His sister said she’d needed some time alone. He could respect that.
He had no idea how Amber was going to respect him after what he’d just instigated on the phone. Pulling his shirt up and over his head, Brandon walked into the bathroom. He turned on the water in the shower to warm while he undressed, and felt like an ass. Correction, he felt like an immature ass. He stepped into the shower and closed the stall door, praying the hot water would wash away some of the embarrassment. It didn’t. To the contrary, it felt so good and soothing against his skin that he couldn’t help but think of Amber once more. He was certain she’d been warm and wet, her thighs soft just as they had been when they’d wrapped around him before.
Slamming his palms against the tiles, Brandon lowered his head and let the water pound against the back of his neck.
He’d called her because he’d needed to talk, to hear someone who wasn’t going to give him any more bad news. And she hadn’t. She’d given him exactly what Brandon needed, a great release. His shoulders weren’t as tight as they had been before and his temples weren’t throbbing with the incessant build of a headache. She’d made him feel better, just as she had on the cruise. Damn, she’d made him feel really good.
Still, it hadn’t been fair. He was certain phone sex wasn’t something Amber McNair did on a regular basis. He’d disrespected her by starting the interlude, and for that, Brandon hated himself.
He’d never disrespected a woman, not even when they’d rudely brushed him off when he was younger, or before they knew his last name. His father had treated his mother like a precious jewel, so Brandon had learned to view women in the same way. Of course, his father had also most likely cheated on his mother, a thought that made Brandon frown.
Grabbing the soap and a sponge he washed up hurriedly and ended the shower.
Once in his bedroom and after he’d slipped on some sweatpants, Brandon sat on the side of the king-sized bed. He’d brought this one to replace the full-sized one he’d used as a teenager, when he graduated from college. There were a few more changes he’d made in the room since he’d been the last one to leave the nest. He’d removed the space-themed border that had been there all his childhood years and painted over the sky blue paint with a warmer gray/blue color. The curtains with all the planets on them had been replaced with dark wood blinds and the dresser he’d put all his superhero stickers on lost its space to a bigger, dark cherry wood wardrobe with drawers. The superhero dresser, however, was safely stored in the basement of the house because it held too many memories for Brandon to simply toss it out.
Rubbing a hand down his face he thought of how far he’d come in all those years. Look how far all of them had come, especially since his mother’s death. He missed her terribly, every single day. He missed her laughter and that way she had of looking at him that
said she knew exactly what he was thinking. She always encouraged him, no matter what happened.
“You’ll find the right girl one day, Brandon. You just have to relax and let it happen,” she’d told him the night of the sixth grade dance when Michelle Silver had agreed to be his date.
Brandon had been nervous, but Darla was excited. His father helped him dress in the new black suit and had taught him how to tie a bow tie for the first time. It was gray with black polka dots. Al drove him to Michelle’s house in his mother’s Camaro because Brandon had insisted they go in the cool car, instead of his father’s SUV, or the other even bigger SUV that they used for family trips. When he’d gotten out and walked to the house all by himself, a corsage for Michelle in his hand, her mother immediately came outside to tell him that Michelle had already left for the dance with her date, Lenny Kolpman. The walk back to the car had been the longest walk of Brandon’s life and he’d gone straight to his bedroom when he arrived at home. The tie, shirt, shoes, and suit, were all thrown into the bathroom trashcan and he lay on his stomach across his bed, staring at the group of superheroes he’d aligned on his dresser.
His mother had come into the room with a cup of hot chocolate and a plate of walnut brownies—his favorite dessert. She’d kissed him on his forehead and told him to “wait for the one” before leaving him alone.
Brandon could still hear her voice as he sat in the room tonight. He sighed and reached for the pants he’d set on the bed after bringing his clothes out of the bathroom. In his front pocket was his cell phone. He held it in his hand now, looking down at it like it was the proverbial smoking gun. With a heavy sigh he prepared to call Amber back to apologize, but the phone rang instead.
“Hey man, it’s Ty.”
“Hey Ty, what’s up? Is something wrong?” Brandon asked immediately since it was so late at night.
“Yeah, well I don’t know. I wanted to run something past you before you came into the office on Monday,” Ty told him.
“Okay,” Brandon said, not really wanting to deal with business right now, but not having much of a choice either.
“With your concerns about Margaret, I started looking over some of the client accounts she manages.”
“Right,” Brandon said. “I was going to do that when I came into the office.
“I figured you would too, I just wanted to get a head start,” Ty said. “So one of her accounts is for Saul Masterson. He’s on the board at Pacific Southern Electric.”
Brandon nodded. “I worked on his son’s account when I first started with your firm.”
“You sure did,” Ty said. “And I know for a fact that you didn’t advise Saul’s son, Ray, to buy stock in any companies you had a hand in personally.”
“No. I didn’t. That’s against company policy.”
“Right. And with Margaret’s recent racial comments and actions directed at African Americans, it wouldn’t make sense that she would advise Saul and Ray to buy stock in a company owned and run by a reputable African American family, now would it?”
Brandon felt his headache coming back before Ty could even tell him where he was going with that question.
“No, it wouldn’t,” he said.
“Donovan Oilwell’s stock is at a record low, man. Margaret sent an email to Saul and Ray just before she left for the cruise telling them they should buy now.”
Brandon’s jaw clenched as he closed his eyes and then re-opened them. “Because they’re thinking there’s about to be a hostile takeover.”
“Exactly,” Ty said. “You know anything about this? Has your dad or your uncles said anything to you and the rest of your family about the state of the company?”
His father, Uncle Everette and Uncle Henry hadn’t been saying much to any of them lately, and what they did say, nobody wanted to hear.
“My cousin did mention that someone was buying up stock in the company,” Brandon said. “Which means that for some reason the stockholders are jumping ship.”
“I’ll bet if you find out who’s buying up those stocks you’ll figure out why the stockholders are bailing,” Ty said. “I’m sorry about this, Brandon. That’s why I didn’t want to wait until Monday to tell you.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that,” Brandon said. “Listen, I’m going to make a few calls and then I’ll probably be in the office tomorrow if you want to stop by and talk more about Margaret.”
“Now you know Felicia and my mother would kill me if I wasn’t in church with them tomorrow,” Ty said with a chuckle.
“I thought Felicia was on bed rest,” Brandon stated.
“She stays in the bed all day, every day, but gets up on Sundays saying the Lord is not going to have her go into labor during the two and a half hour morning worship service,” Ty told him. “I don’t know how she got this message from the Lord himself, but she’s seems pretty confident in that fact. So I have to be right there next to her, just in case her communication is off and she does go into labor in the middle of the sanctuary.”
Brandon had managed a smile. He was truly happy for Ty and Felicia. They’d married young and then separated, Felicia being fed up with Ty’s workaholic lifestyle. Then they’d reconciled and had their first child. Now, they were about to have a second one. Yes, Brandon was elated for not only his boss, but his friend and his family.
“I hear that,” he said finally. “Okay, so I’ll see you on Monday. But I’m still going in tomorrow to see what else Margaret has advised her clients.”
After ending the call with Ty, Brandon reached into his suitcase, which he’d brought up here earlier tonight, and pulled out his tablet. He searched for the email from Trent with the details about Dane’s financials. If he was the one buying up stock, the guy’s end game was pretty clear, to take over Donovan Oilwell. Uncle Henry ran the company’s Las Vegas office, along with Uncle Everette. Albert had always maintained the home office in Houston. There was one more arm to the family company and Brandon figured he’d better find out if his cousin who ran the UK office was feeling the same type of heat the US companies apparently were.
He dialed the number that he had stored under the name, Roark Donovan.
Chapter 11
Chicago
Two years ago Elder had surprised Zelda with a remodeled kitchen, using all the ideas she’d bugged him about over the years. Now the area was bright with white, cabinets, subway tile backsplash and granite countertops. The floor was a lovely medium-sized slate gray tile that perfectly accented all of the stainless steel appliances. Amber’s favorite spot in the kitchen was the white pedestal table with its stone-washed wicker chairs. She’d missed sitting here and looking out to the back yard through the arched windows.
“So, did Amber tell you that she met a guy on the ship,” Fiona said casually as she leaned over the island to dip her spoon into the spaghetti sauce her mother had simmering on the stove.
Today, with the kitchen full of her parents and siblings, Amber wondered if she should have taken another day to herself before coming to visit with her family. Of course, Fiona wasn’t asking anyone in particular, just posing the question to everyone in the room, knowing full well that Amber hadn’t told anyone but her about what happened on the cruise. Clearly that had been a mistake.
“Oh that’s sexy,” Rita said. “Donnie and I loved walking along the deck and looking up at the moonlight when we went on our anniversary cruise last year.”
Donnie had been Rita’s boyfriend for the last six years. Zelda asked about them marrying so much in the first three years that finally, everyone accepted the couple was never going to get married. Their live-in relationship worked fine for them, so Rita said, which meant there was no need to change what wasn’t broken. Amber figured that was a good idea, especially since her sister and Donnie were a cute and loving couple. What difference did it make if they were legally married or not, they were as committed—maybe even moreso from the stories Amber had heard—as any other couple with a state license.
�
�Was that smart?” Delta asked. “Having a fling on a boat? Where’s this guy from? Are you planning to see him again?”
The queen of questions and suppositions, Amber thought with a sigh.
“We just had fun for the days we were on the ship,” Amber told them, not even bothering to send Fiona the evil eye. Her sister would only resist looking at her, or worse, ignore her irritation. Out of all of them, Fiona was also the best at ignoring someone or something.
“Fun in the sun,” Freddie quipped.
He was Fiona’s twin and polar opposite. Where Fiona had height and curves for days, Freddie was even taller at six feet two inches, and rail thin. Like JJ Evans thin, which only worked because he loved to play basketball and even coached a team at one of the public high schools in the city. Freddie also had a joking, non-judgmental and non-confrontational demeanor.
“What’s his name?” her mother asked.
Amber hadn’t missed the knowing glance that had been shared between her parents. Her father sat in one of the wicker chairs across from her, while her mother moved between the stove, the refrigerator and the island where she supervised Delta cutting vegetables for the salad and continually swatted a hand at Fiona, who was determined to taste everything that was being prepared.
“It really doesn’t matter because he lives in Houston and I live here,” she told them.
“But he has a private jet,” Fiona added. “Or at least his family does.”
Amber did send Fiona a searing look at that point. How the hell did she know what Brandon had?
“His family owns a jet?” Freddie asked. “Who’d you meet, one of the Jacksons?”
Rita shook her head. “Nobody wants any of the Jacksons,” she said with a frown.
Delta laughed. “Ain’t that the truth.”
“A long time ago that wouldn’t have been the case,” Elder said contemplatively.
He’d returned his attention to the Sunday newspaper, even though his ears were all in the conversation going on around him.
“I remember girls screaming and yelling over Marlon and Jackie,” Zelda added.
