by Yvette Hines
Blushing, she used one hand to pull her dress down as she sat up and the other to fan her face. When he held his hand out to her, she took it then let him help her to her feet. A little unsteady at first, she clutched her dress to her breasts as she took in a few fortifying breaths. “Lead the way.”
He placed a hand at her waist and guided them out the door of the guest room and down the long hallway by-passing several doors. Some were more rooms, one a gym with weights and a treadmill, the other an office. That was the last one before he ushered her through double doors and into his inner sanctum.
It was the only thing she could think to call the massive room that could fit her three bedroom townhouse into it. “Oh, my word.”
One of his walls was floor to ceiling to windows. He had a sky light over the bed, the carpet was practically ankle deep and the super king-sized bed with its dark blue and gray trimmed comforter beckoned a person to climb in and lay under the stars.
“Make yourself comfortable. By that I mean get undressed.” He turned her to face him then kissed her soundly before heading off to the right and a smaller set of double doors.
She took a brief moment to enjoy the strut of his long stride and the stagger of his hips. “Um, the windows.” She called after him.
Glancing over his shoulder, he said, “No worries. They’re privacy windows. You can see out clearly, but not in. But if you’re more comfortable push the black button for the curtains on the bedside remote.” With a crooked grin he entered the bathroom.
Walking toward the bed, she figured by his smile, Zac assumed she’d freak out and close the curtains. Normally, she was more conservative than she’d shown herself to be this night. In keeping with the pattern she’d already set forth, she went to the wing black and indigo blue pinstriped wingback chair in the corner. She dropped her dress and stepped out of it before tossing it along the back. The remnants of her panties around the waist didn’t make sense to keep, but she didn’t know what else to do with them at the moment. Working them down over her hips she placed them in the chair then took off her thigh-highs and added them to the pile. Her shoes were still in the other room where she lost them during their first tumble.
A toilet flushed and the sound of water came through the opening in the doors. Moving to the bed, she got on it. It was higher, as well as bigger than her own queen-sized bed. In the center of it she went through a few poses to catch his gaze when he came back into the room. Their time tonight was limited and she was going to enjoy it to the fullest. Tomorrow they would be back at odds again.
Chapter Four
He stretched and allowed himself slow seconds to wake up as he felt the pleasure of his well-used muscles. His mind flashed the memory of the night before as it replayed all the things he’d done with Kourtney. Even as he became more awake, his shaft was at full mast as he thought about how to take her one more time before driving her home. He felt beside him and was shocked not to feel her supple curves lying next to him. Opening his eyes, he smiled as he rolled to his side and looked toward the beauty on the other side of the big bed.
The grin dropped instantly. She wasn’t there. He frowned and sat up, looking toward the bathroom trying to pick up the sound of running water. If she was in the shower again, he’d join her. Burying himself deep inside of her while the water cascaded over them both again made him even harder just thinking about it.
No water was running. There was an eerie stillness to his home. Finally, he glanced over to his chair and saw it was empty. Lifting a hand he dragged it through his hair and wondered when she had left and how he’d slept through it. More important to him was how she’d gotten home.
There was a vibrating sound that drew his gaze to his cell phone on the nightstand closest to him. He reached for it and grabbed it from where it sat among four condom wraps.
Last night he’d placed his phone on Do Not Disturb but Dillion and Steve were the only two numbers that could get through. They were also the only two that knew who he was with last night. The time on his phone read 5:40 am.
“What do you have for me, Dillion?”
“Mather’s from the Paypal project wants to move your meeting up to ten this morning instead of next month. He wants to discuss the contract regarding the acquisition of the property.”
Fuck. He knew this was going to happen. With the new HB2 law in North Carolina he was having more renegotiation meetings than he cared to ever have. Deals he was working on with major organizations and companies were being dropped or moved to other states. It made the Grand Overlin project that much more important that it went off without a hitch. Investors from outside of the Carolinas were hesitant and were having to be seriously courted to put funds into his state.
“Aren’t we meeting with Mayor Foxx at ten?” Flipping the sheet off, he stood. His day was tanking since the moment he discovered his beautiful lover gone. In the buff he stroll toward his bathroom.
“You did. However, as soon as I got the call I had Rebecca on the line with the Mayor’s staffer. You’re expected at the Mayor’s office at nine, now.”
“Got it. I’m going to take care of a few things from my home office. Can you let Steven know he can meet me here at seven forty-five and I’ll head directly to the Mayor?”
“Will do, Mr. Powers. Rebecca and I will have the file and we’ll meet you there.”
He ended the call with his assistant then went to the shower to turn the tap on. Things that he noticed were beside the towels in the hamper from a few hours ago, when he and Kourtney showered somewhere between their third and fifth round of love making, no other towel was used.
“Why creep out in the night?” He frowned. She had to call a cab or have someone pick her up to get home. It didn’t sit well with him that she would rather leave on her own than wake him up when she was ready to go.
Was she ashamed of the fact she’d slept with him? The thought caused his gut to tighten and a sour taste in his mouth. She was a grown woman. In this day and age, she had nothing to feel bad about two consenting adults hooking up for hours of passion. He hadn’t planned on having sex with her when he set the date, nor when he invited her to go to the gardens. It had just happened. Hell, yes, he was attracted to her, like no other woman, but he prided himself on self-control.
Until Kourtney Deen.
“Until Kourtney Deen.” He repeated out loud as he climbed in beneath the hot stream of water.
His mind flashed images of them together. Everything about the night before he saw vividly playing in his mind’s eye as he closed his eyes and washed his hair. He didn’t smell the clean fresh scent of his shampoo, no. As he inhaled he smelled her. She smelled of vanilla musk. A combination of baked goods and her own natural scent. Every time he was inside of her it had sent vibrations and powerful currents through his skin as if he was jolted by electricity—the touch of a live wire. It was something about that sensation that caused a niggling in the back of his mind. He wasn’t sure why.
He was like a person that had taken too many drugs and whose mind was stuck in a fog and he couldn’t clearly see what was in front of him. Pushing that thought even further back into his mind, he washed up, rinsed and got out.
The image of her shaking in passion as her sex clenched around his shaft almost had him groaning.
Did I hurt her? A thought entered his mind that maybe he’d taken her too hard, too deep. She’d asked for it, begged him multiple times to give her more. And he had given her everything and then some. The sex between them had been rough, wild and all-consuming, but she’d responded in cries of pleasure and enjoyment. However, it was the only thing he could fathom that led her to flee in the pre-dawn night.
He’d need to see her soon and ensure she was all right.
However, his day was jam-packed and time wasn’t his friend. Finding an open space in his schedule over the next week was like picking the lock at the US Treasury. Practically impossible.
Somehow he’d do it.
~YH~
She didn’t want to open her eyes. Instead, she wanted to burrow herself deep under her covers to get more sleep. She was worn out. This Friday was her off day and more than ever she needed the rest. Especially after last night.
“Mommy!”
“Zendaya, please sweetheart.” Kourtney peeled the blanket from her face and placed a finger at her lips.
“Why are you still sleeping?” The bright, pale gold features of her daughter peered at her closely. “Are you sick, Mommy?”
The love she had for the little girl filled her with an overwhelming amount of joy as it always did. It was the wild light brown curls with natural blonde highlights surrounding her angelic face that made Kourtney smile. Sitting up, she stroked the nest of swirly locks. “No, button, I’m not sick.” She couldn’t stifle the yawn that erupted and came out loud. “Just tired.”
“Is it cause you had that funchen?”
“Function. Yes, the business dinner went longer than I expected.” Keeping the thoughts about the night before PG for her daughter helped her to shove what actually transpired to the back of her mind. “No, you can’t wear your costume. That is for Annie’s birthday next week.”
“Oh.” She scrunched her nose. “Did you bring me somefen?” She beamed a wide smile at her, minus two front teeth.
Kourtney couldn’t hold back the laugh. The snaggatooth diction was too precious. She’d miss it when her seven year old’s adult teeth came in. “No. I didn’t. But, I will take you to the movies tonight and out for pizza. How does that sound?”
“Ya!” Zendaya jumped up and down beside the bed.
“There you are little miss. I leave you alone for two minutes and you’re off waking up your momma.” Margo, her live in nanny and all around everything, stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips. The older black woman had been a preschool teacher for twenty-five years. After she retired, she started working as a nanny for single moms. She and Zendaya were her second family.
“I didn’t mean to.” The word to came out on a whistle of wind through the gap as Zendaya attempted to look contrite.
“Mm-hm. Opening this door and standing where your standing speaks pretty clear of what you meant to do.” Margo waved her over. “Come on, so you can eat your breakfast and I can get you to school on time.”
“Give me a kiss, Zen, before you go.” Kourtney leaned over the side of the bed and accepted the tight hugs around her neck and sloppy kiss on the cheek from her daughter and returned one to her daughter’s cheek right below her ear where a small birthmark sat, an odd thumb-size shape like a heart. “Now hurry so you aren’t late.”
“Okay.” She rushed to the door and right by the live in nanny at full speed. The striped tights, green skirt and white shirt were all a blur of colors.
“That girl is going to be a track star, mark my words.” Margo nodded.
“That and an academic scholarship would make me very happy when it’s time for her to go to college.” She agreed.
“I know that’s right.” Margo grabbed the door handle and began to close it behind her. She paused for a moment and said, “Glad you made it home safe last night.”
“Thank you.” Kourtney truly appreciated the woman’s concern. She also loved the fact that the woman never interfered in her personal life. Not that she’d ever had one in the three years Margo had been with them. She’d texted the nanny and let her know that someone would be dropping off her car and keys, but that she was all right. She didn’t see the older woman as a mother, more like a wise friend, but she didn’t want her to worry either.
Kourtney knew her behavior last night was out of the norm, and even though she was having her own issues with her actions, she was grateful Margo kept her opinions or curious questions to herself.
“I’ll be off to the supermarket after I drop Zen at school, text me if you think of something you need outside of the standard.”
“I will.” Kourtney watched her bedroom door close behind Margo. She leaned back and exhaled loudly and forcefully. Usually she liked to get up and spend some time with her daughter on Friday’s, but today she was just too tired. She knew the reason for her exhaustion too.
Lack of sleep was one reason. Maybe if she’d allowed herself more than thirty minutes of sleep after the last round of sex with Zac, she’d be a little less zombie-like. However, she couldn’t stay. Even those few minutes in his arms and curled along his side started feeling too right. Made her think and wish for something that couldn’t be. There had been words rolling up her throat that she could hear herself saying. Words she’d decided never to utter.
For the first time in years, she wanted the perfect pictures always featured on Hallmark cards. It wasn’t meant to be. She’d given herself the night of reckless passion and when it was done, it was done.
She scooted down beneath the pile of blankets and felt every twinge of her over used muscles. Her sex throbbed from tenderness, as well as a desire to be filled by Zachary Power’s thickness again. She groaned pulling a pillow over her head, blocking out the sunlight as she tried to block out the memories of the night before.
It plagued her that he didn’t remember meeting her years ago. A part of her had hoped something would jog his memory, but it hadn’t. She’d made the right decision.
Leaving his arms hadn’t been an easy task mentally or physically. It had taken long excruciating minutes for her to slide in small increments from his arm locked around her waist. Once she’d gotten free, she quickly grabbed her things from the chair and tiptoed to a bathroom at the opposite end of the upper level and showered fast. While she was dressing, she’d ordered an Uber to pick her up. She’d gotten her shoes from the guest bedroom, but hadn’t put them on until she was outside.
All his marble flooring could have possible awaken him to her departure. She didn’t want the conversation or a long good-bye. To her, everything between them was now settled. She wasn’t going to sell, so he had no reason to seek her out again.
Realizing, sleep was not coming back to her anytime soon, she decided to get up and take a bath. A long hot soak might do her sore spots a world of good.
~YH~
“We can get others.” Rebecca disconnected the conference call as she glanced in his direction.
“How? None as big as these.” He shoved the Deutsche Bank file down the table in the general direction of Dillion. Even though he could care less at this point if it ended up in Dillion’s hands or on the floor. After two hours of conference call discussion with the CEO of the bank and president of the Cary software company that had been working on helping the German financial institute integrate to the Tar Heel state, Zac was losing another big deal on a property.
Dillion began to rattle off other companies such as a big clothing manufactory and two different family networks and the major crime network that were still looking to build filming studios at the old Phillip Morris plant.
All that his assistant listed and a few more were true, but Zac was frustrated. In the last week since meeting with the Mayor and following that up with a heated conversation with the Governor of North Carolina, it had been hell week at Zac Acquisition & Development.
“Mr. Landor sent in the financials for the last quarter and a side by side perspective package for the next quarter and year.” Dillion leaned back in the swivel leather seat as he snapped the cap on and off his pen against the high glass oak table.
“I saw them.” With the meeting, Zac didn’t have a chance to delve into them the way he really wanted. “The future doesn’t look good.”
“Mr. Landor is on your schedule this afternoon to give you a more accurate break down of the fine points,” Dillion informed him. “The bottom line he expressed to me was that Overlin had to come through without a hitch.”
Zac got up and stood by the window. He stared out over the city it was dark, but the lights were bright like welcoming beacons. His hometown. It was growing fa
st, booming in commerce and the population. Charlotte was the place to be. Until a few weeks ago.
Overlin had to work. Zac knew that and he’d been avoiding the issue for a week. He didn’t purposely set it aside, but with all the other projects going up in smoke, he’d thankfully gotten a reprieve. If he didn’t think about Overlin, he didn’t think about Kourtney Deen.
That wasn’t true. To his body and soul, those two things were not mutually connected. Even if his mind could block it out for the most part, as soon as he was laying down at night emotions took over and his last thought as well as his first thought in the morning was of Kourtney. It took every amount of effort for him not to analyze the feelings that were going deep for the beautiful, sexy, smart, stubborn woman. The admiration and feelings he was starting to have for Kourtney weren’t new to him. He’d been ‘in love’ before in high school then again in college. It was the college break-up that had almost taken him off his firm business plan. His discovering she had been using him to get his father to invest in her father’s company proved to him that everyone was an opportunist.
Relationships with women after that became just as much a mutual business negotiation as everything else in his life.
The impression that he was missing something big with her had not gone away and was consuming his gut more. Over his lifetime, he’d learned to trust his gut. It had not steered him wrong in business or his personal life, ever. But what was it?
“The bottom line I saw is that the Overlin contract has to come through.” Rebecca’s voice broke into his thoughts.
He glanced to his left. In the corner was the miniature of Overlin, a one yard by one yard table top design of the luxury, hotel, hot springs mineral spa facility, and more important the spa. The PGA was in talks with the city and him about adding at least three annual tournaments there, two celebrity tournaments. Where celebrities went, fans followed and paid out big. The structure drew him. He crossed the space toward it and stared down at the small tiny house on the east side of the place.
