by Laudat, Reon
“Dinner sounds good,” she said. “Would you like me to bring something? My favorite beer?”
“Just bring the sexy. Is six okay?”
“Six it is. See you then.” Kendra wrote down his address before jabbing the end call button and plunking her cell phone on the desk.
***
After Dominic ended his call to Kendra, Quentin entered his office. “Brody is on the line. Said he didn’t want to leave a message on your cell’s voicemail. Should I put him through?”
“Yes.” Dominic settled back in his seat.
After exchanging greetings, Brody got right down to the purpose of his call. “I thought I should tell you I’ve signed with Porter Literary Agency.”
“So you’ll be working with Kendra Porter.”
“Yes. You’ll still handle my present contract, but—”
“I know the routine,” Dominic said, failing to keep facetiousness out of his voice. His hunch about those two had been confirmed. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it. If Brody had just signed with Kendra it had been more than thirty days since he gave Dominic notice. Their author/agent agreement had officially expired. And it was not as if Dominic could reasonably expect Kendra to tell him about Brody approaching her regarding representation. It appeared as if everything had been done aboveboard. She’d chided him about courting other peoples’ clients. How likely was it that she’d gone after Brody?
Dominic needed to see the situation for what it was—just business—and get a handle on his ego. “Kendra Porter is an excellent agent. I wish you both well,” he said, hoping to suppress the sore loser threatening to show up and show out. He had dozens of successful clients. What did it matter that he’d lost one? At the end of the day, he still considered Brody a friend. And if he’d lost a prized client to another agent at least it was to someone he actually respected, right? Not someone like (shudder) Piper Hodges. Genuinely falling in love with Kendra meant he’d want what was best for her agency. However, knowing what he should feel and how he actually felt weren’t always so neatly aligned.
Losing was losing, no matter how he sugarcoated it.
“I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, man. I do,” Brody said with uncharacteristic humbleness. “No hard feelings?”
“No hard feelings,” Dominic said, taking the fake it-until-you-make-it approach.
When the phone call ended Dominic tried to focus on preparing for what would likely be an interesting evening.
Chapter 31
Kendra phoned Corinne a few more times that day hoping to get more detail on how her partnership with Dominic had come about. But she kept getting her voicemail. Then Kendra became paranoid, wondering if Corinne had noted her name or Porter Literary Agency on caller ID and had purposely ignored the calls. Frantic for answers before leaving the agency, she had also reached out to Momster Ostertag, who had been unavailable, too.
After taking a taxi to Dominic’s scenic neighborhood, she stopped at a nearby bar and drank stout until its twelve percent alcohol had calmed her rattled nerves.
As Kendra made her way up the steps to his beautiful brownstone, her nice beer buzz battled her disillusionment over losing Four Simple Wishes. She willed herself to shake it off and vowed not to give him attitude, under any circumstances, until she had the full story. Keep a cool head. Be fair.
A barefoot Dominic greeted her looking sexily rumpled in another muscle-hugging Henley, a pair of those fleece sweatpants-slash-jeans (sweans?) with a drawstring waist, and geeky black glasses she hadn’t seen before. His wavy hair looked more chaotic than usual, as if he’d been raking his fingers through it. He removed the pencil at his ear and tossed it toward the coffee table where it bounced before rolling to the floor. “Just making a few notes for my work in progress,” he told her.
“Longhand?” Kendra asked as she stepped inside his open arms for a hug.
“Yes.” After he took her coat, he tried to give her a heated kiss. But she kept it at lip level only, smoothly refusing his tongue.
“Ah, so you frontloaded before you arrived,” he said, obviously referring to the whiff of beer on her breath. “Thought you were coming straight from the agency.”
“It was after five, and it was a long day,” she explained, watching him put her coat away. “I stopped for a quick drink.” Goodness. She shifted from one booted foot to the other as she imagined his mouth on her nipples and those big hands kneading her bottom. Uh-oh! How had she forgotten that an amped-up libido was often an inconvenient side effect of stout overconsumption? She wanted him, but she also wanted to throttle him. Nevertheless, it was not a good idea to wind up in his bed before she had the facts, not just provisional facts. She might need to hold off on sex for a few days so as not to get too distracted. Think with your head, not your hormones.
Most of their dates had been at restaurants, movie theaters, comedy clubs, and concerts, often ending at her apartment because he’d always escorted her home.
“Is this all yours?” she asked, looking around.
“Yes, I’ve considered renovating the lower floor to rent, but never got around to it.”
This was the first time Kendra had been to his place, which appeared at least four times larger than hers. Its décor was just as vibrant and eclectic as his wardrobe. In the living room, she admired the multiple oversize wall hangings with assorted Moroccan motifs, terracotta African masks, a massive Art Deco mirror, and a metal table lamp resembling a shiny satellite dish. She walked over to three retro-inspired neon signs on one wall: fireflies in a Mason jar, a retro bathing beauty, and Phil & Emogene’s Fish Fry.
“Who are Phil and Emogene?” Kendra asked.
“The hell if I know. But I’m told all three signs are from the ’40s. I found them in my grandmother’s garage and had them restored.”
Matching chairs flanked a large leather sofa with silver accents. A rug with a tribal pattern covered the hardwood floors. But like Kendra’s apartment and office, books lay everywhere. Leather bound first editions sat artfully arranged on floating shelves while stacks of mass market paperbacks stood in untidy towers or filled plastic bins. A billboard-sized flat-screen TV hung over the fireplace.
She moved deeper inside the room. A back parlor area had been transformed into a gym with a free-standing training bag, possibly used for his taekwondo workouts; an extensive set of gleaming weight equipment; and a high-end treadmill. An old Smith-Corona was polished and displayed on a pedestal like a rare museum piece.
Kendra moved back to the airy living room space and turned full circle. “Your place is so you. I love it.”
“Thank you.”
Since that quick hello kiss and hug, Kendra had taken three steps away for every step Dominic took in her direction. She ached to have him. He felt the same, judging from the lustful gleam in his eye. She renewed her vow: No fooling around until you get to the bottom of what went wrong with Four Simple Wishes.
When he reached out for her again, she walked to the massive desk with a sleek laptop computer and stacks of typed pages in a three-ring binder. “A pencil and plotting poster boards?” She tapped the one propped up next to what looked like books for research. “And what have we here? Composition notebooks.”
“It’s not goose quill and parchment, you know,” he retorted, obviously peeved by her retreat.
“But close.” Kendra touched more boards with sticky notes sprouting from them like multi-colored feathers. “I must admit these have cool covers.” She lifted the notebook with green dinosaurs stamped on it and then put it back in its place. “I totally took you for the type who would go for the highly sophisticated word management software out there. You know, the ones that use combination pie-area-column-line-x-y-charts, tables, spreadsheets, and multiple-nesting-doll-like menus that not only wrangle your words, but also make a mean Macchiato and a side order of French butter cookies.”
“That’s not for every writer. Because you can do something doesn’t always mean you should.”
“I’m old school about a lot of things. When I’m in the early draft stages of a novel, there’s something about the scratch of a pencil on paper that has always worked best for my creative process. I’m not in a race to increase productivity because I write for my enjoyment. And now, for yours, as long as you want to read my work.”
“I’m determined to convince you to put Shecky Lamar out into the world so everyone can have the opportunity to enjoy him.” Kendra touched the Norman Butterfield figure on the desktop and stepped away when Dominic tried to touch her again. “From your Aunt Aubrelia?”
“Right,” he replied, brows drawn close over his glasses, as he regarded her.
“See, I pay attention.”
“Thank you.” He’d starched his words and took another step toward Kendra, who dodged him again. This time, she moved toward the jukebox and Galaga arcade game machine—both vintage yet pristine. They stood like sentries on each side of a large mirror.
Kendra inspected the Galaga game. “I’ve always wanted my own Ms. Pac-Man machine. When I was a kid I’d tag along with Aunt Jackie, who used to go to a Laundromat that had a vintage one, along with a barely functional Centipede machine,” she babbled, moving away yet again when he tried to get close. “The graphics were faded, but I slaughtered a lot of centipedes and annihilated a ton mushrooms.”
“Me, too. I was born a little too late to fully enjoy these things during their heyday, but better late than never. The jukebox is stocked with eighties hits only.”
Kendra perused his vast collection of vinyl rock, hip-hop, pop, and R&B.
“Such a remarkable, eclectic mix,” Kendra said. “Almost as cool as mine.”
“Almost as cool?”
Kendra rattled off artists in her own collection like the alphabet, ending with a popular female rap pioneer.
“She was bigger in the nineties.”
“Ah, but her first album dropped in the late eighties,” she said before asking him about the three-member R&B band famous for integrating soul, gospel, and New Jack swing.
“Strictly nineties. No debate. Had one album in late eighties, only a modest success. Biggest hits solidly nineties.”
Kendra mentioned one of her favorite rock bands.
“I have their synthesizer period.”
She asked him about another favorite rock band.
“In there.”
She asked about more artists.
“Check, check, and check. There’s more. A lot more. I take records out and put others in all the time. They don’t make a jukebox that can hold my entire vinyl stash,” he boasted. “Some are originals, others reissues.”
“I don’t have vinyl. Most of my collection is digital. Sound quality is much better and there’s no gap between songs if I choose.”
“I’m a purist.”
“Oh? Then why is Milli Vanilli still in here?” she said of the duo who did not perform lead vocals on their biggest hit songs.
Dominic opened his mouth to respond, but Kendra cut him off. “Ooooh, ‘Don’t You Love Me’ by the Funktronics.” She butchered several lines of the song, replacing “me’’ with “meat” to amuse herself as she’d done when she was a kid.
“Did you notice ‘Bed Me, Baby’ by that sexy one-hit-wonder trio who called themselves G-String?” His voice dropped to a low rumble. “I remember seeing that old video for the first time when I was about eleven or twelve and getting very, very tingly below the belt. Hmmp.”
Kendra continued surveying his collection and reading artists’ names aloud. Oh, wow,” she said after spotting the contemporary urban/Latin freestyle band known as Moni-Moni-Moni & Tee-Tee with Gravity Mode featuring Diego, Deuces, FiFi Alvarez, and Bow-Legged Luiz. Now that was mouthful. Guess they couldn’t agree on a shorter name for the group and everyone wanted billing.” She chuckled. “And Bow-Legged Luiz was, like, omigod, totally tubular to the max with his Jheri curl mullet, Karate Kid headbands, bulging muscles, and ripped Members Only jackets,” Kendra said in her best Valley Girl upspeak. “And am I, like, the only one who, like, thinks Moni-Moni-Moni is a dead ringer for Raven Raw?” With a vacuous expression, Kendra looked skyward and twisted a lock of her hair as if pondering one of life’s great mysteries.
When Dominic didn’t laugh on cue, she glanced in his direction. Eyes glazed, he leaned against the Galaga machine, arms over his broad chest, legs crossed at the ankles. She could just see the speech bubble over his head: Are you done now?
Kendra shrugged and turned her attention back to the jukebox. “Well, all right, then.” She nodded in appreciation as she read the rest of his collection. “Oh, look, eighties Elton John. ‘I’m Still Standing.’”
“Not for long.”
“Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.” Kendra chuckled without looking in Dominic’s direction.
“Gotcha!” Dominic had stealthily moved behind her, catching her waist when she tried to escape again. He caged her in, bracing his strong arms against the jukebox. “To stay on theme and maintain the integrity of the collection, I couldn’t put my favorite Elton John song in there. It’s from the seventies,” he whispered against the nape of her neck and then buried his nose in her hair.
“Which one is that?” she asked as a delightful shiver moved along her skin.
“‘Panties under Dress.’ ”
“‘Panties under’…?” Kendra started to search her mental discography, but quickly realized he was joshing her. She pivoted to face him and thwacked his chest. “There’s no such song!”
“‘Panties under Dress’ is my riff on ‘Bennie and the Jets.’” Dominic said, waggling his brows. “Just one thing on my mind.”
Kendra groaned. “You do realize that’s over-the-top corny?”
“Of course. Fresh off the cob. The corniest of corn. A cornucopia of corn, all for you,” he said, breathing in her ear and making her tingle all over.
“How did I get so lucky?”
Dominic closed in to nuzzle her neck and sucked her earlobe again. His tongue and soft lips rendered her defenseless.
“This is what you get for making me chase you around the room,” he said in a gruff whisper as his hand eased up her skirt, caressing her thighs and bottom before slipping inside her skimpiest undies, mere strings of lace she’d taken to wearing since the period-panties blunder.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” she said, her determination to avoid sex now ensnared in a red hot tangle of need.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Dominic found the barely-there undies bothersome so he ripped them off with a single jerk and tossed them aside. “There, that’s better.”
“Oh!” she gasped in approval.
“Ah, so you like, huh?” His breath was warm and moist against her ear.
“Actually, I’m still swooning from the cornucopia of corn, dork-a-dingus.” Kendra moaned and pressed against him. As he nipped and tugged at her bottom lip, he unbuttoned her shirt and unhooked her bra to fondle her breasts and caress her nipples. When his hand descended, she parted her legs, giving full access to his probing fingers. He expertly worked her until she was slick and trembling for more.
Their tongues moved in a type of carnal combat before their lips came together in the deepest kiss. When he lifted her, the skirt rode up over her bottom and she curled her legs around his lean torso. He walked them to the sofa and dropped his glasses on an end table. The next thing she knew he was seated on the sofa with his pants and briefs around his ankles as she’d straddled his hips.
“Now, dork-a-ding on this,” Dominic said, his voice guttural with passion as he gestured toward his impressive erection.
A demand? A dare? Whatever. Kendra couldn’t resist
as he roughly gripped her bottom to pull her closer.
“Wait. Condom?” she asked, with a hand pressed against his chest. “First things first.”
“Right.” Dominic pointed to the pants around his ankles. “In my pocket.”
“So your sweans have pockets? Always prepared,” she said, reaching for a packet and fitting its contents on him. With a shudder of desire, she took him inside deliberately, tauntingly. Sinking an inch, retreating, sinking another inch or two, retreating, descending a little more each time, and then retreating in an attempt to whip him into a frenzy, daring him to show weakness by rushing her.
His breathing deepened as his hands clasped her waist. The muscles in his jaw flexed and his pupils dilated, yet he made no moves to hurry her along.
She was in control.
After she had him fully sheathed inside, Kendra moved against him with uninhibited aggression, as if each rock and roll of her hips was a lash for snatching Four Simple Wishes away from her.
As blissful as her connection to Dominic felt, Kendra refused to utter so much as a wisp of a sigh or whimper of pleasure as she swayed back and forth against him. Nor did she prettify raw appetite with a kiss or embrace.
As if he’d read her thoughts, neither did he.
Beating back moans as her ecstasy intensified, she clasped one hand on the back of the sofa to maintain her leverage as she rode him. Hard. Her unhooked bra bounced with the rise and fall of her breasts.
Skin slid against skin. Body pounded body.
Fabric rustled. A dog barked outside. A truck passed.
Dominic, not one to play passive for long, eventually maneuvered until he’d kicked away his pants and briefs around his ankles. He pinned her supine on the sofa with her knees to her breasts and her boot-covered feet at each side of his strong shoulders. He thrust with force and focus. Their heated gazes locked, neither daring to look away or make a sound beyond heavy breathing.
An erotic stare-down contest.