by Nan Ryan
Blackie was tempted.
A sensual man by nature, he was tantalized by the prospect of whiling away the long August afternoon in erotic play on that inviting white bed with the luscious, uninhibited Lilly.
A muscle danced in his lean jaw when his dark eyes returned to her upturned face and he said, “No, Lilly, I really have to get back to the hotel.”
Lilly read the indecision in his eyes and knew it was time to move in for the kill.
“If you must,” she murmured softly, “then you must.”
Holding his gaze, licking her lips, she took a quick step back, reached down and grabbed up the hem of her dress. With amazing speed and deftness, she lifted the loosely flowing dress up over her head and tossed it aside.
She was totally naked beneath.
Blackie’s dark eyes widened, then narrowed. Lilly laughed seductively, trailed one hand across her flat white belly and cupped and lifted her full ivory breasts with the other.
She said, “It’s all yours, Blackie. Don’t you want to touch anything? Kiss anything?” Her hands dropped to her sides, then lightly caressed her pale, strong thighs. “Don’t you want to have my legs wrapped around you?” She saw him swallow convulsively and quickly pressed her advantage. She began to anxiously unbutton his shirt; he stopped her.
“No,” he said weakly, “don’t do that.”
Lilly was beginning to get a little nervous. By now he should be reaching for her, crushing her to him, filling his hands with her flesh, kissing her senseless. Lilly gripped his shirtfront and tore it open, sending buttons flying. She pressed her naked breasts against his bared chest and whispered, “Make love to me, Blackie. You know you want me.”
Her hand went between them, found his groin. He was half hard. She had him now. A smile of triumph touching at her lips, Lily’s hand eagerly cupped him, caressed him. She leaned into him, put out her tongue, and licked his broad, naked chest, inhaling deeply of his clean, masculine scent.
Against the dense black, tickling chest hair, Lilly murmured provocatively, “Mmmm, darling, I’m going to eat you up.”
Blackie shuddered involuntarily. He was tempted to stay. Snared by the lure of lust, he wanted to shed his clothes, join this beautiful, naked woman in the cool, white bed, and let the rest of the world—including Lucy Hart—go to hell.
But he couldn’t do that.
An unfamiliar sense of duty, or something akin to it, made him mentally shake himself and stop short of surrender. His hands lifted, clasped Lilly’s bare arms, and set her back.
“Not this time, Lilly,” he said to her. “I told you, I can’t stay.”
Stunned, hurt, realizing he actually meant it, she said, “But why? I don’t understand. I came all the way down here to see you and now you tell me…”
“You shouldn’t have come without letting me know. Without asking me first.”
“Asking you?” Her eyes began to spark with anger. “Asking you? I don’t have to ask you for permission to visit a public resort!”
“No. No, you don’t. But had you told me you were coming, I might have been able to join you this afternoon. As it is, I can’t.”
“That’s nonsense. What could you possibly have to do that is better than what I am offering?” With her hands she gestured to her voluptuous body.
“It’s not that. It’s…well…I have obligations.”
“Obligations?” she snorted derisively. “You? Why, you don’t know the meaning of the word!”
Blackie exhaled wearily. He bent, picked up Lilly’s discarded dress from the carpet, held it out to her. “You’re probably right about that. I’ll amend that; I have a prior commitment.”
Lily angrily snatched her dress from his hand, but did not put it on, or bother to cover her nakedness with it. “You have a prior commitment?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “I’m sorry you’ve come all this…”
“You’re seeing another woman!” Lilly cut in, her voice lifting. She swatted at him with her discarded dress, then dropped it to the carpet again. “So, that’s it! That’s it, isn’t it? Isn’t it? Answer me, Blackie LaDuke!”
Calmly, he said. “I promised a young lady I’d take her dancing this evening.”
“Well, darling,” Lilly’s hands went to her bare hips and she gave him a knowing smile, “it won’t be the first time you’ve broken a promise to a woman, now will it?”
“This is one I intend to keep.”
Lilly was growing really worried now. “Who is she? What’s so special about her?”
“I have to go, Lilly.” Blackie turned away.
Lilly grabbed for his arms, spun him around. “You think you can take some trollop to a silly dance while I sit here alone? Do you? How dare you treat me this way! I won’t have it!” She was starting to shriek, shaking her doubled up fist in his face. “Do you hear me? I will not have it!”
“Good-bye, Lilly,” he said, and again turned away.
“You come back here!” she screamed and when he ignored her, she flew at him in a rage.
“Jesus Christ, behave yourself,” he warned, easily shaking her off. Turning to face her, he said, “Get dressed and pour yourself a drink, Lilly. You need to calm down.”
“Don’t you tell me what I need to do,” she wailed. She reached out to a rosewood bookcase nearby, picked up a one-of-a-kind porcelain figurine, and whacked him hard across the jaw. The glass statue shattered. Blood flew. Blackie raised a hand, wiped it away.
“I hope you’re really hurt,” Lilly screamed hysterically. “I hope I hurt you as badly as you’ve hurt me, you…you…shitheel!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Moments after Lucy pushed Lochlin’s wheeled hospital chair back to the table and poured him a tall glass of iced tea, Colonel Mitchell rose to his feet. Nonchalantly he sauntered over to the mounted telescope, swung it slowly around, leaned down and pressed his right eye to the lens.
He focused on the sleek white yacht.
Blackie LaDuke stood on the teak deck, the brilliant summer sunlight glinting on his blue-black hair. He was not alone. A beautiful blond woman was with him. Her slender body was pressed intimately against Blackie’s tall frame; her hands were clasped behind his head. She was smiling up at Blackie and her smile was almost as suggestive as the manner in which she was grinding her pelvis to his.
The silver-haired Colonel straightened, coughed needlessly, shoved the telescope aside, and drew a slow, deep breath.
Mitchell was not surprised by what he had seen. Not at all. Blackie LaDuke had been an unrepentant rogue and insatiable womanizer for as long as he’d known him. Which was, in the Colonel’s view, nobody’s business but Blackie’s. So long as Blackie stayed with his own kind. Like the rich, beautiful blond on her private yacht.
If Blackie wanted to spend all his time and energy drinking and carousing with women as jaded and experienced as he, that was his look-out. More power to him. Live and let live. Eat, drink, and be merry and who cared? The Colonel didn’t. Did not give a hoot in hell.
But he did care about the tender feelings of the genteel, unsophisticated Lucy Hart. He was deeply offended by the notion of Blackie spending the afternoon in bed with the glamorous blond and the evening dancing with the unsuspecting Lucy.
Mitchell frowned as he squinted out to sea, but carefully composed himself before turning around. No hint of concern showed on his face when the Colonel came away from the railing, and sat back down near Lady Strange.
Lady Strange, having finished the last of the cookies and cakes, was mellow and uncharacteristically quiet. She sat languidly stroking a contented Precious as the black tom catnapped on her lap. She noticed Lucy lifting and looking at the brooch watch pinned to her bodice. Again. Lucy had glanced at the watch a half dozen times in the past hour.
Lady Strange smiled to herself.
The younger woman was counting the minutes until Blackie joined them. Lady Strange wasn’t surprised. Nor could she say she blamed Lucy. In all likelihood, the nai
ve postmistress from Colonias, New York had never known a man half so handsome and charming as Blackie. Much less have been courted by such a dashing rascal.
Lady Strange’s romantic heart was warmed by the thought as she studied Lucy’s face.
Unlike her overprotective friend the Colonel, Lady Strange wasn’t worried about what might or might not happen between Lucy and Blackie. She was just glad that the dynamic Blackie, for whatever his reasons, had chosen to spend so much of his time with the dazzled Lucy.
Every woman should have a Blackie LaDuke once in her life. Even if only for a brief two-week interlude.
Lady Strange had learned years ago that life was more the re-living of it than the living. Long after this lovely summer had ended, the spinster postmistress would—time and time again—relive the treasured hours she had spent here with the exciting Blackie LaDuke.
Fanned by a cooling ocean breeze, Lady Strange sighed deeply, closed her eyes, and half dozed like the contented cat on her lap.
A little more than an hour after leaving Lucy and Lochlin in the lobby of the Atlantic Grand, Blackie was back at the hotel. He raced up the beachside steps, hoping he wouldn’t run into anyone he knew. He was in luck. The spacious lobby was almost empty at this quiet hour of the afternoon. Blackie made it to the elevator without attracting attention.
Holding his torn and bloodied shirt together over his dark chest, Blackie waited impatiently for the car to descend and the heavy elevator door to slide open. He heard he clanking of machinery signaling the elevator’s descent. He was in luck again. The door opened and no one was inside except the operator, the grinning Davey.
“Wow!” Davey exclaimed, eyes and grin widening as Blackie stepped inside. “Look at you!” Davey admired Blackie’s cut and badly bruised cheek as though it were a badge of honor. Noting the torn shirt as well, Davey said, pleased, “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to get into any fist fights this summer.” He closed the elevator door.
“Now you know me better than that,” Blackie said, smiling, touching his purpling cheek with two fingers. “Have I ever failed?”
“No, Siree,” said Davey happily, and both men laughed in easy comradeship as the car lifted.
At the penthouse floor, Blackie hurriedly exited the elevator, rushed down the silent corridor to his northern tower suite. The minute he stepped inside the door, he began undressing. By the time he reached the black marble shower, he was stripped to the skin.
He stepped into the roomy enclosure, twisted the silver faucet handles, and lifted his bruised, bloodied face to the pounding needles of water. Blackie soon bent his dark head under the spray, braced both open palms against the black marble shower wall before him, closed his eyes, and reviewed the events of the past hour.
He saw again Lilly throwing her arms around him when he stepped on deck. Kissing him and thrusting her pelvis to his while white-uniformed crewmen stood only a few yards away. Lilly leading him down the ladder to her dim stateroom. Locking the door and climbing all over him. Removing her dress and standing there naked and eager in the cool cabin darkness, begging him to make love to her.
Blackie’s dark head sagged lower. The force of the water pounded on his bare, brown shoulders.
He wondered at himself.
Lilly was a beautiful woman. She had been undeniably desirable standing there naked, offering herself to him. He had wanted her—but not with the hunger she usually evoked. Her wanton behavior seemed almost repugnant. He had never found it so before. He’d always liked her aggressive and vulgar and shocking ways. Had thought it appealing that she was delightfully lewd and shameless and immoral.
Just like him.
Blackie’s eyes opened. He lifted his head. He pushed away from the shower’s black marble wall. He rubbed water from his thickly clumped eyelashes and began to smile.
Jesus, he knew what it was.
It was the contrast. The glaring difference between Lilly and Lucy. Lilly had acted no more unorthodox than usual, but her behavior seemed somehow scandalous when compared with Lucy’s proper demeanor.
Lucy was the reason he hadn’t gone to bed with Lilly, not Lilly. If Lucy was like Lilly, he could have made love to Lilly, then come back and made love to Lucy an hour later.
But she wasn’t.
And he couldn’t.
Even to a shitheel like him, it would have seemed somehow unforgivably obscene to make love to Lilly in the afternoon and take Lucy dancing the same night.
Blackie soaped his body from head to toe and scrubbed himself vigorously to make sure none of Lilly’s scent clung to his skin. Then he turned round and round in the shower, allowing the jetting sprays of water to wash away the thick suds. He turned off the shower, stepped out, and hurriedly toweled himself dry.
Blackie checked his face in the mirror above the black lavatory.
An inch long gash directly below his bruised and blackened right cheekbone was hardly visible on the discolored flesh. He looked as if he had been in fight and that his opponent had gotten in a well-placed left hook to his jaw. No one would have any trouble believing that was exactly what had happened.
Blackie quickly threw on some fresh clothes. He was buttoning his shirt when he got back on the elevator and told Davey to rush him down to the fifth floor.
His night-black hair still damp from the shower, Blackie stepped out onto Lochlin’s balcony. Every head immediately turned. Every eye came to rest on him. He offered a cheery hello and stood smiling confidently in the sunshine.
“Hey, Slugger,” teased Lochlin. “How does the other guy look? Hope you got in a couple of mean punches.”
“Oh, Blackie, honey! You’ve been at it again,” said Lady Strange worriedly, pressing a plump hand to her bosom.
Colonel Mitchell said nothing. Just nodded coolly.
“Blackie,” Lucy’s lips formed his name but no sound came.
Her face pale, she instinctively moved to him. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to cradle him protectively to her and kiss away his hurt. Instead she calmly checked his bruised cheek with chilly, assessing eyes. As soon as she was satisfied he wasn’t badly hurt, her hands went to her hips and she scolded him.
“Fighting like a school boy or a waterfront ruffian. I really must tell you that…”
“I know, I know,” he interrupted, grinning mischievously, “…that such philistine behavior is totally inexcusable and I should be ashamed of myself and if I insist on continuing to act a demented fool you will have nothing more to do with me and neither will anyone else who cares one whit about decorum and decency.” He paused, inhaled dramatically, and asked, “That about it? Have I left anything out?”
Lucy tried not to laugh, but couldn’t quite manage.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Despite a faint lingering reluctance to associate with a man of his dubious reputation, Lucy found the debonair, determined Blackie impossible to resist. She had never known anyone like Blackie, and it was more than just his striking good looks and strong sexual magnetism that snared her.
He was mischievous. He was exasperating. He was exciting. He was funny and he was fun. He was cynical and mysterious, as if he was the keeper of intriguing secrets. At the same time he was playful and boyish, as open and as honest as a guileless child.
Lucy found herself relaxing with him, letting down her guard, opening up, allowing the dark, engaging charmer to steal into her lonely heart. Fascination had turned quickly into infatuation.
Lucy knew, deep down inside, that she was making a foolish mistake, but once she had fallen under his spell, there was no turning back. Moreover, she didn’t really want to turn back.
Or away.
She just wanted to get closer. Her days were now filled with laughter, and fun of a kind she’d never known before. Her nights were a romantic dream come true. A cherished, longed for dream from when she never wanted to awaken.
The two of them were inseparable. Every warm, sun-drenched day together was a new adventure
to be eagerly shared. Every sultry, moon-silvered night was a fanciful fairy tale.
Blackie LaDuke had easily, effortlessly awakened Lucy Hart from a decade long slumber. She came alive when he came along. And it was wonderful.
Lucy realized that life, as it really was, lay back in Colonias, waiting for her. But life as it should be was right here in Atlantic City.
With Blackie.
Even as she was living these long lovely days of this last summer of the century, Lucy knew that nothing this side of Heaven would ever be quite so sweet, quite so perfect, again.
It didn’t matter.
She was happy right now and she refused to think about tomorrow.
After a wonderful weekend, Lucy found herself with an hour to spend alone on Monday afternoon. Blackie had been saying for days that he badly needed a haircut. She whole-heartedly agreed. So after a late, leisurely lunch, Lucy left him just outside the hotel barbershop.
She glanced through the barbershop’s plate glass window, saw Colonel Mitchell seated in one of the red barber chairs, and waved spiritedly to him. He waved back. She watched as Blackie walked inside, dropped down into the chair next to the southern Colonel, and two men spoke.
She heard the Colonel say, “Glad I bumped into you, Blackie. There’s something I’ve been meaning to discuss with you.”
Blackie shrugged and nodded. Then he ran a tanned hand through his too-long black hair as the barber stepped up behind him.
Lucy, sighing with contentment, turned and walked away.
She considered a solitary stroll on the Boardwalk, decided instead to take this opportunity to avail herself of the standing invitation to visit the royal reader of tea leaves, Lady Strange.
Not that she believed in fortune-tellers. Of course, she didn’t. Still, she saw no harm in hearing what Lady Strange had to say.
In the quiet corridor directly outside the door of Lady Strange’s Southern tower penthouse suite, Lucy lifted her hand to knock, but hesitated. A hint of a chill suddenly skipped up her spine. She shuddered involuntarily. She lowered her hand, deciding not to knock after all. Not to go inside.