by Pinki Parks
A soft and relaxed air that followed his frank confession had taken the space of the tense one that had preceded it.
“… How long are you a here for?” She asked quietly.
“If the schedule is kept, a week,” Etienne said but then smiled sadly, “But you never know what will happen when some geniuses gather in a pissing contest.”
Settling her cup on the saucer Keisha looked at him and had to admit to privately that seeing and talking to him had opened a door in her mind that she wasn't ready to go through yet.
“Etienne… I hear you but…this doesn’t solve everything,” Keisha said calmly, “I’ve gotten over it for a long while and I really didn’t want to go down back that road but… I do understand though and I’m willing to let bygones be bygones.”
Etienne’s eyes took on a satisfied light, “That’s all I’m asking for Keisha.”
Calling for the sever Etienne took care of the bill and the tip and with a hand on the small of her back led her outside to where both of their cars were parked. Always chivalrous Etienne made sure to walk her to her car and when they were there released her and stepped back.
It was nearing dusk and Keisha was solidly surprised about how late it was. She stood at the car's door for a moment as Etienne offered her a small smile. His hand reached up and once again tucked a strand of her hair back.
"I'm glad you accepted my offer, Keisha," Etienne murmured as he stood so close to her that their arms brushed. “I’m glad that we could talk and get to an understanding, something we should have done years ago.”
Either it was purely accidental or it was done by design, their eyes met and Keisha found herself being pulled into and losing herself in his eyes. They were so deep and filled with so many different emotions that she had to literally drag herself away.
“Goodbye Etienne,” Keisha said turning away and into the comforting solace of her vehicle.
Starting the car, she watched Etienne walk away to his blue Mercedes and then forcing herself to focus drove away.
She took a long a slow drive back to her home as there was no sense in going back to the office. On the way there she had called Lila just in time hear that they were closing up.
Leaving the car, she took the elevator up to her floor and studiously forced herself to not think about Etienne. It was only when she stepped inside she remembered that Hunter was to come back there and grimaced.
There was no way she could entertain Hunter in the frame of mind she was now in. Etienne’s visit had unearthed a part her that she had taken time and energy to bury. And it was going to take more energy to rebury.
Dropping her bag and mechanically taking off her shoes Keisha padded barefoot to her kitchen for a glass of water to soothe her parched throat.
After drinking half of the full glass, she pressed the cold glass to her forehead. There was no way around it; she had to call Hunter and try to dissuade him from coming.
Sitting on the couch she took out her cell and stared at it. God, this was hard but it had to be done. The number on the pad before her seemed to swim in her vision but she still dialed it.
“Hello?”
She managed a small smile, “You really are a different person off the clock.”
“I told you so,” Hunter replied and Keisha could practically hear a smirk in his voice. “And besides, I saw your number, so what’s up?”
Keisha bit her lip for a moment then sighed, “I- I would rather you not come tonight... I have a ton of work to do and work me isn’t fun because I practically become a zombie when I’m in full concentrating mode.”
She internally cringed at the lie she had just said, but a part of it was true, she needed to concentrate. She needed to take all the feelings Etienne had unearthed and compartmentalized them. Take them apart and just like Hunter had said and then file them in the neat little folders in the back of her mind, hopefully, to never think of them again.
Outside of her thoughts, she realized that Hunter had gone silent before he uttered a simple, "…Okay.”
That simple word of agreement really shocked Keisha but then again, what was she shocked for? It wasn't like Hunter was her significant other; they'd only had sex, once. Besides the fact that she craved to experience his touch once again, they weren't involved other than that.
“…You’re… okay with that?” she asked with an undertone of unbelief.
"Yes," Hunter replied, "What grounds do I have to contest your will? You're a grown woman Keisha and it's not like I have a claim on you."
‘Oh, but how I wish you did,’ instantly ran through the young mogul’s thoughts.
“Thank you,” she managed to say, “…I really didn’t plan this…but thank you. I’ll make it up to you somehow.”
Hunter laughed quietly, “We’ll see.”
Hanging up the phone Keisha went to her room to change into a loose pair of pajamas and then went to the kitchen to make some tea. She had a haunting feeling that it was going to be a long night.
Chapter 10
With a pleased smirk Keisha ticked off another milestone in a file just as her office door was knocked on. Without looking up she gave the permission to enter.
Lila stepped in and Keisha glanced up with surprise to see her assistant half hidden behind a large bouquet of pure white lilies and royal purple orchids backed by a bed of maiden hair ferns and settled in a translucent blue crystal vase.
Her chair rolled back as Lila placed the extravagant composition on her desk. Lila had a brimming smile on her face as she stepped back.
“Someone really likes you,” Lila grinned, “I mean this is really over the top.”
“It really is,” Keisha replied while actively scanning the arrangement for any indication of who sent them but a part of her already knew who the sender was. "Thank you, Lila."
Her assistant smiled but then her expression slipped to somber, “Keisha… how it the…”
Knowing the young woman’s tactics, Keisha smiled softly, "It's fine Lila, it's being worked out. You know as well as I do that I'm not guilty of any crime."
Lila's face shifted to a bit more settled, "I'm glad then. If you need me to send a reply to the sender, I'll be happy to do it."
“I know Lila,” Keisha replied while standing up, “But I’ll deal with this myself.”
With a nod, Lila left the room and softly closed the door behind her. Keisha ran her hand over the delicate lilies and the deep orchids and knew who had sent them; it was Etienne.
A long time ago she had confessed to him that her favorite flowers were these two and whenever they had an argument or something to celebrate about; he presented her with a bouquet of them.
She searched the stalks and found a half-hidden off-white card with a large elaborate ‘E’ scrawled over it.
It was a gracious gesture but that in itself concerned her. What was Etienne trying to accomplish with this? Was it a simple expression of thanks for their outing yesterday or was it an indication of something more?’
Last night she had gone through every moment of the meeting between them yesterday and had come to the cold conclusion that the emotions she thought were completely dead for her ex had undeniably been unearthed.
She had felt sympathy and concern for him, a mix of emotions that in her anger after the breakup, she had sworn would never happen again.
Etienne had been born with a gift of natural charm which when employed was just a lower level from hypnotism. She had witnessed firsthand how he had sweet-talked many people into giving him what he wanted.
The man was dangerous when it came to manipulating people’s emotions and she knew she had to steer clear of him- even though being under that seductive power had been more addictive than drugs.
She had felt it yesterday when his eyes had met hers but she had been strong enough to pull away. Sighing she took the bouquet and placed it in a corner of the room and then went back to her work.
*****
Hunter pressed two fingers of both hand to both of his temples trying to massage a brimming headache away. This morning he had come to work only to find that he now had a deadline; he had to find who was behind the Al-Habar case in ten days exactly or the case would be transferred to the FBI.
God knew he didn't want the federal bulldogs to take over what was now a personal mission for him. Keisha had gotten under his skin, in more ways than one. The sex they had was phenomenal but it was more than that.
She was just a different kind of woman; so young but strong enough to hold her own both physically and mentally and he really admired that. At twenty-six, she had grown the balls to break into a field that was predominantly run by men and went on to excel in it.
Keisha was a force to be reckoned with. In the business world, she had fearlessly methodically and meticulously forged her own path. But on the personal affairs side, she played it on the safe which led him to believe that under her strong exterior was a soul that yearned for love and companionship but she didn’t lower herself to beg for it.
She was a proud soul and Hunter knew she wanted a man on her level to match her academically, soothe her emotionally and satisfy her sexually. But was that him? There was no doubt that he developing something more of an attraction for her but could he do it, could he be what she needed with all the scars in his past?
The phone on his desk rang and Hunter snatched it up, “Blake.”
"Um, Detective, it's Jackson, on that matter you asked me to look into…I haven't found much… if you could get me more than that, like a surname, that would be great."
Damn it, Hunter felt the migraine surge a bit more. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you.” Jackson said, “On the other hand, I’ve found that Ares Inc., is just a registered company with a website with no psychical presence in the country at all.”
“It’s a dummy corp, just like I figured," Hunter remarked. "Has the account been checked since we seized the desktop?"
“No,” Jackson replied, “I place a flag on it to alert me of any activity but so far, I’ve got nothing.”
“Whoever it is had Intel,” Hunter realized as his agile mind ran over the whole situation, “But I wonder how...”
“Maybe whoever it was had some kind of surveillance on the property.” Jackson suggested, “I know if I had a comp that was linked to an illegal account in a location like that, I'd have a ton of cameras all over that place.”
“Son of a bitch,” Hunter swore in full realization, “Jackson, do you have a mobile unit?”
“Um, yes, we all do,” the analyst replied with clear hesitation in his voice, “Why?”
"Because I'm putting you in the field," Hunter said standing up and grabbing his jacket, "Get your kit and gear up."
*****
The following day Keisha entered her office to see another resplendent bouquet of flowers, a box of rum filled white chocolates and a thicker envelope. The setup had Etienne all over it.
Lila was pressing her lips together trying to stifle a smile but she felt cold. She shoved the envelope into a lower drawer in her desk and didn’t even think of eating the chocolates; she would have to find some way to dispose of them and the new bouquet joined the older one in the corner too.
There was no doubt that Etienne was up to something but what the thing was she had no idea. The worry was a constant thought in the back of her mind all day until she got home in the dusk of five p.m.
Inside, she attempted to try and figure out what her ex was up to. It was the same thought that had taken set in her mind from the moment she had gotten home from their meeting came again. How was it that all of a sudden, he popped out of the woodwork and came to her for what, to ask her forgiveness?
Keisha stayed in the apartment for an hour and a half but realized that staying there wasn’t going to help. Etienne was slowly getting to her and she knew if she stayed by herself and occupied her mind with him, it would only get worse.
She needed a distraction and besides from that the urge, a deep itch under her skin, that she had felt from the moment Hunter had left her bed surged again.
This was out of the norm for her but God knew she wanted Hunter to distract her from the real world.
She wanted him to put it on her, hard and so mind-blowing that she would temporarily forget that there was an outside world. She wanted the cocoon they had forged that first night to get even stronger where it was just her and him and pleasure.
But could she just show up at his home out of the blue, with such a flimsy reason as being sorry for blowing him off? Biting her lip, she decided that she wasn’t going to know if she didn’t try.
*****
She knocked on the blue painted wooden door of the one-story building with a hand that wasn’t occupied by the bottle of tequila and the Chinese takeout. Standing on a man's doorstep with her heart pounding in her ears was a thing Keisha had never imagined herself doing
But there she was, standing nervously on Hunter’s step. The urge to turn and leave was cramping her gut but she knew if she did, it would only make her sink harder.
It felt like slow motion scene in a movie when the door was opened and Hunter looked at her with slight surprise.
With one hand she twisted the bottle of tequila to show the message scrawled with a thick black marker on the bottle, it read, ‘For You.’
Hunter leaned on the door and it was only then she really took in what he was wearing; he had on a pair of sweats that were hanging dangerously on his hips. The defined cut lines of his pelvis bone were arched over the waist and his chest was so deliciously bare. On his chest were his silver metal dog-tags and they were resting between two dusky nipples.
“Hm,” the detective grinned while taking the bottle, “Trying to bribe me now?”
"It more apology than a bribe," Keisha replied looking up from under her lashes while lifting the bag of Chinese, "This might be more a bribe than that, actually.”
“Come in,” Hunter said stepping back while reaching for the bag, “I’ll take that.”
Relieved, Keisha stepped into the one-story house and looked around the wide living room. The room was decorated with utilitarian blacks, woods, and whites.
A solid black leather sectional couch, recliner and love seat dominated the space with a glass coffee table and matching lamp tables which rested on squares of white carpet. A muted ash entertainment center was in the middle with a large set of black speakers and a sixty-inch TV on the wall between them.
The off-white wall was mostly bare but in the center of the long inner stretch was a framed Purple Heart medal on a velvet bed and was surrounded by a collage of pictures of four men in army uniforms.
One had the soldiers relaxing in the front yard of a bunker, two showed them armed and standing before a tank and a large one showed them in scuffed clothes and mussed war paint on looking tired but victorious. A younger, buzz-cut Hunter was in all of them.
“My old cell members,” Hunter said beside her, “They’re good men, all of them.”
“I figured,” Keisha said quietly while trying hard to not fidget. She knew what she wanted, but how was she going to come out with it?
Thankfully, the choice was taken from her as Hunter slowly turned her around and backed her up against the wall.
Caging her head with his arms, Hunter’s voice dipped, “I doubt you came all this way just to give me liquor and Chinese.”
Tilting her head up, she smiled, “I didn’t.”
Her hands rose up to slide over his abdomen to his chest, starting from his rock-hard abs and over to his strong chest and then her arms reached up and circled his neck, “I need you.”
“I figured,” Hunter replied darkly.
His hands then dipped to her thighs and grabbed them. Keisha, braced on the wall and feeling his grip, took the hint and with a smooth move wrapped her legs around his waist.
Hunter grasped her
ass and buried his head in her neck, his mouth finding purchase on a tender spot and attacked it with his teeth and tongue mercilessly. He then pressed himself unto her and there she felt his hardening erection.
“Yes.” She hissed as warmth surged to the gut. With her sex pressed directly on his growing cock and feeling his hands massaging her ass so strongly paired with his mouth working despicable pleasure into her system, Keisha felt fire race all through her body.
Her waist was softly rolling on the stiffness between them and her breast felt so full and heavy. She needed him in her so bad that her mind had degraded to its base animal need. She placed her mouth to his ear and whispered filthy words of what she wanted him to do to her. How she wanted him to give it to her, how hard, how long and how mercilessly.
She told him that she wanted him to take her so hard that she could feel him for days inside her and how she needed it raw.
“Really now,” Hunter had said in soft disbelief. “Aren’t you concerned about-”
“Let me worry about that,” she hissed while gyrating harder on his filling member, “I just need you thick, hot and buried deep inside me.”
Wordlessly, Hunter took her off the wall and carried her to his bedroom. Inside the room he let his grip slip a bit and she slid down his chest to the edge of his bed.
To fulfill a growing need in her, Keisha reached up and tugged his sweats down and was glad to find he was going commando again. Hunter was thick and long enough to grace almost nine inches. His uncut and reddening head was peeling back and unashamed, Keisha reached out and held him and then started to pump his firm length from the base.
When a drip of pre-cum beaded Keisha licked her lips bent forwards and took his head into her mouth, sucking softly while running her tongue over the tip. His crown was just inside her mouth and she lapped at the droplet; he was all musk and salt. With a deep groan Hunter’s hand fisted in her hair as she eagerly took more of him inside.