Almost.
CHAPTER 5 – LAKE
“LOOK WHO THE HELL THE storm blew in!” I announced, laughing when my sister Harlow breezed outside to the pool where we were lying out in the sun.
It was a rare hot day in October, and I took advantage of the sun with my best friend, Will, and our good friend, Izzy.
“Harlow!” Izzy declared, jumping up and tugging her bikini bottom out of her ass as she ran to my sister and threw her arms around her.
Squealing, Harlow squeezed Izzy back, and the two jumped up and down.
“Okay, okay, enough of all that screaming,” Will declared with one arm drunkenly tossed over his forehead, pushing his glasses askew.
When the two ladies calmed down, Izzy flopped back down on her towel and swung her feet back into the water.
“Figured I’d find you guys out here on a day like today. Once a beach bum, always a beach bum,” Harlow said, bending over to hug and kiss me on the cheek.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’ve earned this life. Will, quit looking at my sister’s ass before I kick yours, dude!” I called out.
Laughing, Harlow plopped down on the chaise lounge beside mine. “Will’s always looking at my ass, has been since I was sixteen, and you guys were just getting ready to head off to college.”
“Sick bastard,” I muttered.
“It’s a nice ass,” Will called out from behind his dark glasses, flipping over onto his stomach on the chaise lounge two seats over from mine.
“Hey, watch that! You see enough ass at that club of yours,” I said, referencing Prestige, of which he was a co-owner. He inherited his ownership from his father, who passed two years earlier. Will had been being groomed to take over since he graduated from college.
“You’re not missing out on any ass either if what I’ve been hearing is true. All year, you’ve been interested in dark meat, Lake. What gives?” he asked, chuckling and tilting his sunglasses down a bit to peer at me.
My jaw clenched at his words. That was the downfall of my best friend being part owner of a club that was like an addiction. He had access to everything, including the records of who was linking up with who. Not that he would ever use that information for immoral purposes, but still, I didn’t like it. Especially when he called me out in front of my sister and friend.
“It’s got shit to do with you, Crerie,” I said.
He always knew I was pissed when I resorted to calling him by his last name.
“Hey, don’t be mad at me. It’s just a joke. I’ve always appreciated women of every persuasion, from here to China and in the Amazon jungles. There’s no discrimination here,” Will said, sitting up and turning on his side to look at me.
“What I do at that club is none of your business,” I growled.
Patting my hand, Harlow laughed and said, “Calm down, brother dear. You have an addiction to Prestige, and the world knows it. When you finally find the right woman to settle down with, she’s going to have to be one amazing woman to get you to quit chasing free ass at the club.”
“Trust me, lil sis. That ass is hardly free. It costs me twenty grand annually. That’s some expensive ass.”
“Careful, you two, if you don’t watch it, you’re going to make it sound as if I’m running a prostitution ring, and the last thing I need is the big boys on my ass,” Will said.
“Settling down is highly overrated, Lake,” Izzy said.
Scoffing, I said, “Says she who couldn’t wait to get married and as soon as she did, she was cheating within the first year of marriage.”
Shrugging, she said, “As I stated, settling down is highly overrated.”
“Maybe you haven’t found the right person, yet,” Harlow suggested, peering at her old friend.
“Damn, she should have figured that out before saying ‘I do,’” Will snickered.
“I could say the same thing about you,” Izzy lazily tossed back.
“The difference between Lily and me, and you and John, is that Lily knows what I do. She’s a part of it all. I don’t cheat on my wife; my wife and I have a swinger’s lifestyle, and we don’t have a problem with that.”
“Will, if that’s the case, I don’t get why you married Lily. I mean, if you wanted other women, why didn’t you remain single and just take advantage of being part owner of one of the greatest billionaire clubs in the country?” Harlow asked.
“I have the best of both worlds. I’ve got a wonderful woman who loves me, and access to more ass than just hers, and a woman who loves to indulge me and to indulge,” Will said, smirking.
“I just don’t get it. You still shouldn’t have settled down,” Harlow pointed out.
“Yes, I should’ve. She’s got my back no matter what. I’ve got someone I can share everything with, I’m not lonely, and when I go through difficulties, she’s right by my side. We’re planning a future together and loving life while we’re doing it,” Will explained.
“What about kids? Won’t that screw them up?” Harlow asked.
Izzy laughed. “They’ll turn out as fucked up as he is. It’s why he’s that way. His parents were that way; they used to take part in orgies all the time. You guys remember, until his mom got fed up and demanded a divorce.”
“Yeah, but Dad got his act together. Meeting Lily in the club was the best thing that I could’ve done. She knew from the start what I liked. There were no surprises. That’s where my dad went wrong. Deciding he wanted to do something like that out of the blue after they’d been married for years,” Will said.
I looked at my best friend and shook my head. “You are a fucked up individual.”
“And you’re not?”
“I compartmentalize my fucked up behaviors. I don’t make them a part of anyone else’s life. It’s the reason I’m not in a relationship because I know that I don’t want to screw someone else’s life up. I keep my shit within certain barriers. If I were to settle down with one woman, and that’s a big ‘if,’ I won’t be fucking around with other women. And she sure as hell won’t be screwing other dudes. That shit is sick and twisted,” I said.
“You don’t know what you’re missing out on, man,” Will defended.
Shrugging, Izzy said, “To each his own.”
“What’s been up with you, Harlow? You found someone yet?” Will asked.
Although no one expressed it outwardly, all three of us tuned in to her answer. Harlow had never been in a relationship that we knew of. We’d never seen her so much as dating another person.
Smiling bashfully, my sister looked up at me with green eyes so much like my own. Eyes that we inherited from our father.
“There is someone, and he’s good to me. I...I think I might be in love.”
Izzy laughed loudly, smacking her hands against her bare thighs. “The ‘L’ word for Harlow Marie Chambers? The same one that said she wasn’t capable of love thanks to her parents?”
Our parents loved us; they just hadn’t done a good job of expressing it. Diamond encrusted platinum or gold trinkets, black cards, vehicles, clothing, exotic vacations, and exclusive parties and trips around the world were their ideas of love.
The things that mattered most to Harlow and I didn’t count. They didn’t consider quality time, idle chatter, having a conversation about our hopes and dreams, asking us why we were sad or acting out, or even contributing to events or charities that meant a lot to us. Unless somehow that meant the hospital would dedicate a wing to my parents in their name, or the group home would build a new house with their name, then those things never mattered.
Don’t mention volunteering at those places; they shunned it as if it were beneath us. Harlow and I derived our penchant for volunteering and working hands-on from our maternal grandmother. Grandmother Rose Turner was the sweetest person we’d ever met. And we could never understand how she and Grandfather Pete had given birth to our mother. Yet, they’d both explained she changed after being married to our father. In a word, money changed her.
“Thin
gs change,” Harlow said in response to Izzy’s question about love.
“Especially when you’re almost four thousand miles away from the parent figures,” I muttered.
Smirking at me, Harlow nodded. “Then there’s that.”
“Do they know you’re here?”
Her smile visibly slipped a few notches. I reached over and thumbed the space between her eyebrows, trying to ease the tension.
“Not yet, and I’d like to keep it that way for as long as possible.”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” I said, lying on my back again.
Harlow was staying with me while she was in town. The relationship with her and my parents, although intact, was strained. When she’d taken off for London to launch her modeling career full scale, they hadn’t agreed. Mom wanted her to remain at home and become a socialite following in her shoes and marry a good, wealthy local man. Dad wanted her to take a position in the family business if she would not do as my mom desired.
“Tell us about this person you’re so in love with,” Izzy prompted.
“He’s sweet, romantic, patient, and kind-hearted. He’s generous and spoils me, but he’s so humble. Gabriel takes good care of others, too.”
“What does Gabriel do?” I asked, looking at my sister.
“Um...he’s into fashion.”
“Oh, a designer?” Izzy asked.
Shaking her head, Harlow bit her nail.
“A buyer?” Izzy tried again, as though this were some game show.
“No,” Harlow sighed. “He owns the agency.”
“Your agency?” Izzy asked.
Nodding her head, Harlow looked at her fingers.
“Jolie Fille?” I asked.
Harlow nodded once again, not meeting my eyes. I could feel Izzy's and Will’s eyes on me.
“Dude is like, what sixty-three?”
“Sixty-one, but that’s beside the point, Lake. He loves me, and he’s good to me.”
“Harlow, he’s three times your age exactly and two years younger than mom and four younger than dad!” I balked.
“And he treats me well! He adores me, and he’s protective of me!” Harlow argued back.
“Harlow,” I said in a softer, patient tone. “This man cannot give to you what you were missing from dad. And it sounds as if that’s what you’re looking for.”
“No, I’m not!” she cried, wiping tears from her eyes. “I really don’t want to do this with you. I missed you, Lake. It’s been a year since we were last with each other. Can’t we just enjoy our time together?”
Izzy got up and moved to Harlow’s side, wrapping her arms around her and evil-eyeing me.
“Yes,” I said, pushing out a breath and running my fingers through my dark hair. “Yes, we can.”
“Speaking of...what did Will mean when he said, ‘dark meat?’” Izzy asked, changing the subject as she stroked Harlow’s arm.
“Are we on that again?” I groaned.
Laughing, Will said, “We never left it. Looks like my guy has given up his blonde and brunette obsession, trading it in for sistas.”
“Sistas?” Izzy asked.
“Yes, of the African-American persuasion,” he chuckled.
I glared at him and shook my head. “You’re an idiot. I should revoke my membership.”
“But you won’t,” he said, calling my bluff.
He was right; I wouldn’t.
“I can’t help that I have an affinity for beautiful women of color.”
“Oh, now it’s women of color?” Will teased.
“Must be the melanin,” Izzy replied.
“Must be the booty,” Will said.
“Or maybe he’s just interested in what he always was interested in. Or even more so, maybe someone, in particular, has caught his eye...again,” Harlow said.
I turned away from the knowing twinkle in her eyes.
“FUCK!” TAWNY SCREAMED.
Tonight it was just the two of us. Cherish wasn’t in town.
I pressed my hand tightly against Tawny’s lower back as I drove deeper inside of her. Arching her back, she pushed back against me, moaning and pulsing her pussy muscles all around me. Slow pumps of her ass and the tight squeezing of her muscles had her milking my cock.
It wasn’t long before I felt the need to cum. Pulling out of her, I slid my hand over my thick cock, pulling the condom off as I went. Laying my rod on her back, I shot my load all up and down her back as she quivered underneath me.
Tawny flipped over on her back and smiled at me as she lay against the Egyptian cotton sheets in a pool of my semen. Smiling at me, she rubbed her slit up and down.
“You never get enough, do you?” I asked.
Biting her bottom lip, she said, “Not enough of you, anyway.”
Laughing, I replied over my shoulder as I headed for the bathroom, “I’m sure plenty of fellows have heard that same line.”
“Maybe,” she said, causing me to glance up in the mirror.
She leaned against the doorframe of the bathroom, watching me in the mirror.
I smirked and turned the sink faucet on.
“What’s her name?”
“Who?” I asked.
“The woman that has you running here. I see it in your eyes. You’re not really here. It’s like this place allows you to escape your reality. You can’t have her, so you come here instead to relieve your sexual tension and frustration.”
I wanted to unload my secret, and I couldn’t think of a better person than Tawny. No strings were attaching us, and outside of the walls of Prestige, we didn’t acknowledge one another. Both of us had too many secrets to hide.
“Just an old friend that returned into my life recently,” I said, soaping up my cock, eyeing Tawny as she stepped her curvy figure right up beside me.
Reaching for my washcloth, she took it and nudged me. Obediently, I turned around and luxuriated in the feeling of her hands holding my cock while she washed it.
“Oh, just a friend? What does this just a friend look like?”
“Gorgeous, hazelnut smooth skin, exotic hazel eyes, a long silken sheet of black hair, thick lips. Striking, gorgeous, mysterious.”
“Hence your affinity for black women at the club?”
“Why do you think that?”
“Honey, that wasn’t a white woman you just described. And if I’m not mistaken, she’s either black or some other woman of color. But either way, we’re not her, lover boy,” Tawny said.
Chuckling under my breath, I said, “I know. I’m not that foolish. Yet, somehow when I’m with you or Cherish, I can lose myself just enough...”
Breaking off my sentence, I realized what I was about to say. I didn’t mean to insult Tawny at all.
“To pretend that one of us is her. It’s okay. When I’m with you, I like to pretend that you’re someone I can’t have,” Tawny replied with a wink.
“Oh, yeah? Who?”
Laughing, she said, “This place is for secrets, and I choose not to divulge mine.”
“Oh, it’s fine for me to share my secrets, but I’m not good enough for you to share yours with me?” I asked, smirking at her as I took the washcloth from her and rinsed the soap from it.
She grabbed one of her own and soaped it up.
“You made your choice, and I’m making mine. This entire club is nothing but an outlet for us to chase our fantasies and entertain our fetishes. Maybe one day, my dream will come true, and maybe it won’t. Until then, I’ll hide it close to my heart and have fun while I’m doing it. And you, my friend...are lots of fun,” she said, tossing her washcloth into the sink and dropping to her knees and taking me into her mouth.
I closed my eyes as my wet washcloth fell from my fingers. My hands moved to her head and clenched in her hair, massaging her head, then jerking it back and forth as I allowed myself to get lost in the heat and moistness of her mouth.
And for a while, I could pretend that she was the woman that I couldn’t have.
CHAPTE
R 6 – XIOMARA
“HE DID WHAT?” KENDRA asked.
Kendra was an editor at my mother’s magazine, Beautiful Life, and a close friend of mine. I had met her for lunch at a seafood restaurant at the end of the promenade closest to the pier.
“Yes, he told him he would call me with the details, and I would ensure that Russell received them.”
“Why didn’t he just get Russell’s number to relay the information himself?”
I shrugged and took a bite of a jumbo shrimp. We sat outside on the patio, enjoying the beautiful, balmy day. The breeze coming off the ocean had a bit of a bite, causing me to draw my sweater closer around my body.
“What did Russell say?”
Swallowing my food, I said, “You know Russell. Things like that go over his head, and the only thing that he heard was that he was receiving donations for his program. Something else to please his father and prove he’s worthy of holding the seat he’s being groomed for. You should have seen him. He was like a little kid getting his long prayed for request from Santa on Christmas day.”
Smiling sweetly at me, she said, “He’s a great guy, though.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I replied solemnly.
“What’s your ‘but?’”
“I don’t have a ‘but,’ Kendra.”
“Yes, you do. I’ve known you for over eight years, and when you say ‘yeah,’ the way that you just did...there’s a ‘but.’”
I wondered if I could share this with anyone. I hadn’t disclosed my true feelings to my mother, sister, or even my best friend, Chanda. But Kendra was a bit more removed from the situation than they were, and maybe, just maybe, it might feel good to get it off my chest.
“These last two years that Russell started visiting me, I honestly had hopes that I would feel something.”
“And you don’t?”
“Nope. I mean, he doesn’t make me excited or happy or angry or sad. With Russell, I feel safe, like I’m just existing. Russell does what his father tells him to do. That’s the reason that we’re engaged.”
“As opposed to you doing what your father tells you to do?” she asked, repositioning a bobby pin in her hair.
The Arrangement Page 4