by Savannah May
Harlow
The morning after that beautiful terrible night, I descended the curving movie starlet staircase in Cole's penthouse duplex. Although I was wearing Abercrombie boyfriend sweatpants and a tight singlet, my bare feet skimming the luscious dark gray silk carpet, I was a pro on “Dancing with the Stars”.
Halfway into my tripping descent, I leaned back into the sweep of the rail with an arch of my back followed by a sashaying turn along the wide step.
“What a cornball,” I said to the mirrored wall but I couldn't hold back the throbbing sensation that was fit to detonate my lungs just because I was about to see him. I was shimmering. Less than Christmas tree lights, more than fairy dust but still alive with light.
“This is how happiness feels,” I whispered to my reflection. The shimmer inside and surrounding me like the glow of a complete body halo was how we knew that happiness had settled.
I could almost reach out my fingertips to touch it but I was afraid it might quiver then fall to the ground and vanish forever. I had nothing to be happy about, nothing in this crappy situation had changed one bit- but I was going to see him.
I knew he was here at the house still, not left for meetings already, because of the rising smell of Fatou's sweetbread. Honey warm aromas emanated stronger from the kitchen the closer I approached and there she was, Cole's little housekeeper, lovingly carving his favorite dense and aromatic bread into thick slices. Her face lit up with a huge toothy smile when she saw me.
An unusual bond existed between us, cemented by her soothing of my brow during one spectacularly vile nightmare when Cole was out. Her delight was echoed by Cole who turned toward me from his seat at the island on a high leather bar stool with a mega grin. Me-ga. Cole smiles and the room detonates. This was a fake offensive. His gorgeous lips turned up but his eyes remained guarded as though there was an enemy in the room.
“Harley, I made tukhum-bonjan- have some,” he said with a merriment that wasn't natural for him, like he was forcing it and trying way too hard. Then I saw the reason for his pretense. The new day welcome from my stepbrother and the housekeeper wasn't emulated by the woman standing close at Cole's side, her red-talon fingernail still held in a dagger point at the pile of papers on the island in front of him.
Too close, her arrow tip breasts were less than a fingernail's width from his taut bicep. She didn't look best pleased at my surprise entrance.
“The smell of your cooking dragged me down here,” I said, my empty stomach grumbled at the delicious aroma of eggs, tomato and onions in the skillet. “What's bonjan?”
“Afghan breakfast, you gotta try it, it's my specialty.”
“Yes try it, it's delicious,” the woman who was almost pressed into him said, the urn down of her lips now forced up into a big smile.
I scraped some of the scrumptious smelling egg dish onto a plate. Fatou rushed around to assist me and ensure I had everything.
“Am I interrupting?” I said. Cole and the gorgeous red-haired woman at his side hadn't returned to their business, both watching me closely from across the expanse of gray granite.
“No, of course you aren’t. Oh, you two haven’t met. This is Rowan, my indispensable manager at the Club, Rowan this is my- Harlow.”
He'd been about to say sister but the word got stuck around those divine pillow lips, now slightly pinched. Perhaps he didn't want to admit it or deal with the complex explanation of a sister who appeared from the ether and I felt the woman look me over intensely, no doubt wondering what foxhole this strange girl had popped out from to suddenly be co-habiting with her boss.
Her ongoing fascinated gaze became uncomfortable and I had to force myself to focus on the amazingly rich breakfast eggs so as not to give her the 'Whattup foo' look I'd picked up in high school and still not dropped. I guessed she maybe had never seen a woman so ensconced in Cole's bachelor aerie, padding around in comfortable Abercrombie as cosy as if she owned the place.
“My father's wife's daughter,” Cole finally announced and the assistant let out the air she'd been holding in.
“Your step-sister.” She smiled. “Of course.”
“Yeah, long-lost family, hi,” I said then turned to the housekeeper “Fatou, that roat looks stupendous,”
I piled up my plate with the housekeeper's tea bread, feeling like a kid under the glam redhead assistant's perusal. Fatou nodded vigorously although she understood only a handful of words of English and I was glad she was there as distraction. The young woman was plainly devoted to her master though, her eyes trailed him around whatever room they occupied together, always ready to anticipate his smallest whim.
If I didn't know better I'd have suspected she was wildly in love with him. Maybe she was or it was her cultural bent to be very subservient to males, but I could sense some other bond that added to the growing mystery of Cole Winter.
I knew he'd been posted to Afghanistan with the military but Fatou was African so where the hell on earth had Cole learned to converse with her? I watched how Fatou looked up at him with gratitude bordering on reverence every time he spoke to her in her native tongue. Perhaps there was something more between them.
I chowed down on the salty sweet scrummy breakfast, a distraction from the roiling turmoil in my lower gut. How was I going to get a grip on the constant torment of living in the same space as my stepbrother? He had been adamant, forcefully so, in his instruction that I was to get my life on track under his guidance, as though striking out on my own was some kind of humiliation to him as protector big brother.
And in a way he was right because I had nowhere to go, no job and not a single prospect on the horizon – the openings for a graduate in media anthropology weren’t exactly multitudinous. I would do as he instructed, get a job, then my own apartment and get on with some sort of a life. But the ballroom happiness slithered away with the thought of a life that didn't contain Cole.
That I wouldn't see him whenever I got out of bed and the possibility of him being in my bed, close enough to touch, to be held would be gone. He'd find a woman that fit and I'd have to attend family type dinners or parties with him and her. The green slime of envy curled into my stomach at the thought of the so far non-entity sister-in-law.
The business murmurings between Cole and his assistant were interrupted by the jangle of his cell.
“I gotta take this,” he said, his face contorted with annoyance, fear, fury? I couldn't be sure then he gave me a look like he'd suddenly recalled my presence and left the room. He stopped to get his coffee refilled and with a “Thanks, Fatty,” bustled from the kitchen to his office down the hall.
I looked at Rowan in case she was willing to fill me in on the subject of phone calls that had to be kept secret from me but not her and my eyes met hers already mining for snippets of information to compile into a profile like some CIA operative.
The woman even looked like a sexy spy, her black shirt sculpted her mounds and curve of waist expensively, the pencil skirt did the same for her hips. I couldn't help but envy her perfect body, sure that Cole must have indulged himself in it and maybe continued to do so. Were they more than boss assistant?
They were stunning together, the perfect fit and didn't men like Cole often get together with the woman they could trust? Hmm, I was convinced of it. The way she was trawling her eyes across me as though hoping to find the secret to my soul etched in hieroglyphics was enough to convince me one hundred percent she had a thing for Cole.
Chapter THREE
“So the little sister – Are you still in school?” She purred in a 40-a-day voice that dripped seduction.
“No- just graduated actually.”
“New job in the city?”
“No not yet. I, er, haven't found the right thing yet.” I forced myself to answer casually but her tautness infiltrated the room and made me feel gawky and young.
I knew she could see right through my confidence and that I hadn't a clue what to do with my life, a loser sponging off the generos
ity of her boss and not even willing to put in some labor in return. She had me down as some spoilt little bitch, lazy and living off a man she had no right to.
“So why don't you come join us at Illicit until you get yourself straightened out?”
“Oh god no,” I said abruptly, then softening my horror, added,” I mean, it's not quite my thing, I'm searching for a proper niche, you know.”
“Not really, no,” she said. I'd either offended her or she thought I was the most naive little twerp in the history of sexual relationships, probably the latter.
“Why wouldn't you want to be connected to the richest, most powerful, most glamorous men in the world and all that they could do to help you with a career. Out of gratitude.”
“Have you worked at the club a long time?” I asked, hoping to maneuver the conversation around to find out exactly how close she was to Cole. It was none of my business really and I don't know why I'd already developed an irrational distrust to the woman simply for being attracted to my step-brother.
“Since we opened- before that actually. Cole and I have worked closely for years,” she said with a pointed stare that gave me my answer. They were together. Hence he had been anxious to let her know I was family – nothing to worry about. “I met him and Strikey while they were still sniping.”
“Oh, were you enlisted in the army with them?”
Rowan cackled like the wicked witch on hash brownies at my eager query.
“Fuck no,” she said with a husky squeal. “Not quite my thing, you know?” Her lip curled in a snarl as she emulated my disdain using my exact words. Then she brushed a tear of hysteria from the corner of her perfectly made-up eyelid.
“I meant when they were snipers for hire and the money Cole pulled down needed a function so we came up with the idea of Illicit.” She looked at me brazenly, assuring herself from my awestruck slack-mouth that I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Cole was a – killer?”
“You really don't know the first thing about your big brother do you?” she said. I shuddered with the unfamiliar use of the term from an outsider's lips. Would I ever get used to thinking of Cole as my brother?
“What do you think he did in the military?” she continued.
“I heard he enlisted young like many others and was sent to the Middle East to fight,” I said and that was about as much as I knew. She was right, I was totally out of his loop.
“So you didn't know they discovered right away in training that he's a crack shot, learned to shoot while gun-running for a gang in Vegas and they seconded him right into special ops?” She was enjoying one-upping me with her intimate knowledge of the man we were both creaming our panties for.
“But for money?” I mumbled. Unsure what she was actually trying to tell me, if anything.
“Money or glory, what's the difference?” Her solid stare was now a challenge. My eyes flicked across to Fatou, who went about her clearing up, content and unaware of the subject of the discussion on the other side of the gray marble kitchen island.
“Hey, Eenema, fill me up.” Rowan held out her cup to the little housekeeper who reluctantly reached for the coffee jug at the speed of cold molasses.
The women plainly had zero affection for each other but I was repulsed by Rowan's nickname for Fatou.
The girl spoke only one, very strange, word of English, that she'd learned when she first arrived in the States and still pronounced 'Ee-nema' very tentatively, dragging out the syllables.
I'd asked Cole how she came to be working for him, curious how such a young girl all alone came to be in the US. Whether she was illegal or a refugee from Afghanistan. The story was fascinating to me who'd been nowhere. He said he owed her his life and that he'd brought her back from Africa but that was a far as he got before diverting the conversation and I never found out how he got to be in Africa.
If only I'd been able to communicate with Fatou, she'd have filled me in on Cole's activities in the time we'd been apart. With the distance in language between smiling, constantly happy Fatou and shimmering, fragile happy me, I was left to rely on Rowan's version. The woman was still watching me intently, her eyes had barely left me since I'd been enticed down for breakfast. Now she was waiting for a response to her buzz.
“In the army, he was killing, I mean fighting for a genuine cause,” I said softly, unsure of my position on this, especially as the bullseye was on the back of the man I once thought I could love.
“And then the army outsourced their genuine cause to private military corporations,” she snapped, triumphantly kicking the interrogation up a notch.
“So you think the world should be every man and woman for themselves?” I said gaining a moment of relief from her gouging stare.
“I think the world and the humans currently occupying it are that way inclined and that you make your own causes rather than follow them.”
Did I have a cause I could say I'd made my own? I knew I didn't want people to be killed or hurt by others no matter where in the world they lived but that seemed naive compared to what worldly Rowan was talking about. Something worth fighting for and dying for.
It was suddenly clear that she and Cole were peas nestling in the same pod. They'd seen things I hadn't even imagined and that same haunted look glimmered brightly in eyes hiding pain just beneath the surface. Rowan was the woman Cole should be with now, or someone like her. What did he possibly see in me, an unsophisticated girl who'd been nowhere and done nothing? Bugger it, I couldn't even find a job, when Cole had fought to create employment for himself and his friends when they needed it.
“You should come to Illicit again,” Rowan said when I gave up on searching for an answer. “It's more than just a club for sex games you know. That is, the games are the key unlocking an insight into the person. Some people have said Illicit is their vision quest. It saves lives. And creates them.”
“Maybe,” I said and concentrated on pouring the last of the coffee into my cup.
Fatou went to the double-door steel refrigerator for cream to top up the small jug she'd laid out for me. I couldn't help thinking it was a huge claim to make for what did indeed seem like a sex club to me, one where people indulged hedonistic pleasures as well as darker fantasies involving the inflicting of pain that I simply could not fathom.
Cole barreled back into the kitchen, finishing up his call saying he'd get there in ten.
“You ladies getting acquainted?” he asked. Surely he couldn't miss the tart chill in the air.
“Harlow was telling me she needs a job,” Rowan was in there before I could open my mouth. “I suggested she come work in the Illicit office.”
“That's a great idea,” Cole said, grabbing some papers, a coconut water from the fridge, his mind half out the door.
“Heck, she could come work in acquisitions with me.”
“Oh, no, I-” But I was cut off by his enthusiasm.
“Can't think of a better person to work under,” he said, Rowan smiled so sweetly I was almost convinced.
Cole was certainly snowed. It made my heart pump harder that he was so disingenuous despite his tough stance. Those ripped muscles and full sleeve tattoo were a facade that made people miss the innocent and loving guy underneath. It was so hard to picture the real Cole out there in the desert, doing what they were ordered to do.
“What with Tokyo, Rio and Berlin about to open, the Caribbean retreat - I sure have plenty to keep her busy,” Rowan cooed.
“Tokyo, Rio, Berlin? The Caribbean?” I repeated.
“Illicit is about to embark on global expansion,” Cole said, the ironic tone covered the obvious pride at building success.
“The Caribbean retreat?”
“You like that, huh?” he said with a filthy look that dripped sin and made the blood rush to my cheeks and, oh god, why was my body responding in such a wildly inappropriate, downright illegal way to him?
“The club has a trusted name worldwide thanks to the service Cole gives his
high level clients,” Rowan busted in, her breasts swelling with pride that made me want to slap her.
“She would learn a ton of stuff from you, Ro. And I'd get to see you every day, keep an eye on my little sis.” he gave me the hugest grin, so that I almost forgot the intense emotion of last night. How I'd come so close yet again to backing down from my beliefs, overwhelmed by lust for him. His arms around me so protective, but I needed to feel him deeper. Only taking him inside me, filling me, the bliss of his shaft sliding across my tingling walls would bring me close enough to him.
“Er, do I have anything to say about this?” I said, forcing the depraved images flickering through my mind while they organized my life like parents over a child.
“Er, no,” Cole echoed, with that grin that said discussion over. “I really gotta go. Rowan I need you at the club in forty-five.”
“Yes, boss.”
With a brush of his lips to my forehead that made my clit squeeze he left us wan as sunflowers at dusk. I was glad for the hard leather of the stool as I shifted my buttocks for a surreptitious grinding of the ache between my legs. The pristine kitchen bristled with hot tension between three more different women you could not have found if you searched the world looked awkwardly one to the other and dropped our eyes to the unpolished black limestone floor before Rowan finally broke into the discomfort.
“You should be careful about confusing what happened with your father and what happens at the club,” she told me.
Was I being completely unfair reading persecution beneath the concern on her face. I wasn't comfortable with the fact Cole had shared that sordid story with her and she was prodding now, going for the open, weeping sore.