by Francis Ray
“You want a real man, Honey, to rock your world.”
Trent came out of the booth in a rush. Grinning, the young man who had spoken held up his hands. “Be cool, Dude. Be cool.”
“One day, if we’re both lucky, you’re going to reach adulthood and I’ll be waiting,” Trent said.
The teenager chuckled and glanced around the restaurant. “Did you hear this old man threaten me? I oughta call the cops.”
“You mean you know your numbers, Isaac?” Trent asked mildly.
Laughter erupted in the restaurant, then ebbed just as quickly when Isaac turned toward the sound. His brown eyes narrowed, he faced Trent again. “Watch it, Old Man. I might forget my mama taught me to respect my elders.” He snickered and glanced around. “I forgot you wouldn’t know anything about that, since your mama threw you away like trash.”
Dominique gasped and tried to come out of the booth. Trent blocked her way and it was like trying to move the bolted down booth.
Charles had no such problem. “Say another word, Isaac, and I’ll gladly spend the night in jail,” he warned.
Dominique glared over Trent’s rigid shoulder. “Leave him alone!”
“You let everybody do your fighting for you, Old Man.” Isaac sneered. “See, Jessie, he ain’t nothing, just like I said.”
An overweight black teenager with a cherubic face glanced at them, then away. Head bowed, he dug both hands into his pockets.
Isaac didn’t notice. He was too busy looking Trent up and down in distaste. He sneered again. “Ain’t nothing. I could screw the bitc—”
Trent struck without warning. Isaac found himself a foot off the floor, Trent’s hand clutching the collar of his jersey. His eyes bugged, then watered. Only a strangled gasp managed to slip past his gasping lips.
“Trent. Trent, please,” Dominique pleaded, trying to peel Trent’s hand away from Isaac’s neck without success. No one else moved. “Trent, please.”
“I hate to do this, but she’s right, Mr. Masters.”
Dominique turned to see two policemen coming toward them. Relief surged through her until she thought of the consequences. “He was provoked.”
“Never doubted it, Miss,” said the older of the two—Officer Bolder was on his gold nameplate. “Mr. Masters, he’s going to pass out in a second and we’re going to have to take him to the hospital, and there’s going to be a lot of paperwork. I hate doing paperwork. Keeps me off my beat.”
“Trent, please!” Dominique pleaded.
His hand opened. Isaac crumpled to the floor. Gasping for breath, he held both hands to his throat.
“I can either assume Mr. Masters was teaching you a new judo technique, or there was some type of altercation,” said Officer Bolden. Isaac was already nodding his head.
“If there was an altercation your parole officer would have to be notified. I’d have to take statements from all the witnesses involved, and if I learned you caused this in anyway, I’m positive your parole officer would consider it a clear violation of your parole, and back in juvenile you’d go.”
The policeman looked thoughtful. “Then again, your overworked parole officer might decide he’s tired of fooling with you and let you be classified as an adult, and off to Lew Sterrett jail you’d go. Seems I remember from all our associations that you turned seventeen last week, and to the courts you’re now considered an adult.”
Trent moved. The second policeman stepped in front of him.
“Your call, Isaac,” Officer Bolden said.
The young man grabbed his baseball cap from the floor, then pulled himself to his feet. His cold eyes were savage and promised retribution. His gaze moved past Trent, who towered a good five inches over the policeman, to Dominique by his side.
“You made a mistake, Old Man.” Holding his throat, he shoved his way through the crowd that parted to allow him to pass. Silently the three youths with him followed. The youngest and heaviest of the three stopped and stared back at Trent briefly, then followed the others.
“The action is over, folks. Take your seats,” the policeman ordered, then said, “Charles, why don’t you get the boys together and take them home?”
“I’ll call you later, Trent.” With a slight squeeze of the younger man’s arm, Charles passed and motioned for the players. They were almost out the door before Trent moved.
The policemen and Dominique followed closely. Trent stopped in front of the group of wide-eyed teenagers.
“I broke a rule. What I did was wrong. I let my temper get the best of me. That’s not how you settle differences. Violence creates problems, not solve them,” he said. “If Sergeant Bolden weren’t a good man, I’d be in trouble and off the team. I wouldn’t have liked that.”
“We understand, Mr. Masters,” said Kent, the captain and quarterback of The Tigers. “You couldn’t let Isaac call Miss Everette out of her name. A man’s got to protect his woman. We’ll see you at practice next week if you can make it.” He held up his hand, palm out.
Trent slapped the palm, then in turn each of the subsequent players’.
“I told you you made a difference,” Dominique said, taking his arm as the last player left the restaurant. He flinched. She frowned up at him. “Trent?”
His face grim, he turned to the policeman. “Sorry, Officer Bolden.”
“Like the lady said, you were provoked. Why don’t you take her home so the place can get back to normal?” he suggested.
“Did you just happen by, or did someone call you?” Trent asked, not moving.
“The manager. Now, good-bye.”
Nodding, he closed his fingers loosely around Dominique’s arm, then led her from the restaurant. Outside he opened the door of his truck and helped her in. Without a word he came around, started the engine, and drove off.
Silently, Dominique sat in the truck, hoping to give him time to work through his feelings. He was angry, but she thought there was hurt and embarrassment as well.
A short while later he pulled into Janice’s driveway behind her Mercedes. Leaving the motor running, he walked Dominique to the front door. “Good-bye.” Spinning on his heels, he went back to his truck and drove off.
Dominique didn’t move until the truck disappeared. Sighing, she slowly went inside. Trent was doing his best to shut her out. She didn’t like the reversal of roles.
“Dominique, is that you?”
“Yes.” Janice always asked the same thing, Dominique thought. She took another step across the marble entryway and could go no further. There was no way she could leave Trent alone and in pain.
Placing her handbag on the couch, she fished until she found her keys, took off her sun visor and the silver barrette holding her hair in a ponytail, then swung toward the door. “I’m going over to Trent’s. Don’t wait dinner.”
“I may be gone when you get back,” Janice said, coming into the living room as she fastened the sleeve of a figure-flattering, gold gown.
Her hand on the knob, Dominique glanced around and whistled. “You look fantastic.”
Janice blushed prettily. “Paul Osgood—he owns the restaurant across the street from my shop—invited me to the Meyerson Symphony Center to see Porgy and Bess.” She bit her lower lip. “I’m kind of nervous. It’s the first time I’ve been out on a date in over a year.”
“Wish I could give you some pointers, but it’s been longer for me,” Dominique said, then grinned. “But if it’s any consolation, you’re going to knock his eyes out.”
Janice laughed. “That’s the idea.”
“Have fun.”
“Thanks, Dear.”
Opening the door, Dominique headed for Trent’s house. Obviously he didn’t want to talk with her. Too bad. They were friends. He was in misery, and she’d be damned if she’d let him stay that way or allow him to shut her out.
Chapter Ten
It took nine rings of the doorbell to get Trent to answer. His face wasn’t reassuring when he did. From his imposing height of six-feet, brow
n eyes that had been warm and teasing before Isaac’s arrival were as icy as his clipped voice. “Yes?”
On hearing the harsh sound she wanted to weep. She swallowed. Trent didn’t need tears. “I’d like to speak to you for a minute. You can time me if you want.”
For an uncertain moment she thought he would deny her entrance and close the door in her face. When he simply stepped back, she didn’t hesitate to step inside. Her gaze never left his stiff, unyielding face, nor his hers.
There was anger there, but there was also something deeper, shutting her and everything and everyone else out. She thought of him growing up without the support of a family, and had to fight harder to keep her tears from falling.
How much worse would her nightmarish marriage have been if she hadn’t had her family, if all her life she hadn’t known that they would always be there for her? Whether Isaac spoke the truth or not, his spiteful words had wounded Trent deeply.
“Trent.” She said his name softly, her voice trying to convey that she was there for him.
“I don’t want your pity, or anyone else’s,” he clipped out. “Your minute is almost up.”
So he didn’t want to listen. Then maybe … Even as the idea of what she was going to do came to her, she realized she was about to break another rule—that of never being the aggressor in a relationship. She smiled.
Her slim arms lifted. She felt the tenseness in Trent’s shoulders as her hands slid around his neck. His deep brown eyes widened, but he didn’t step back. She took that as a good sign and closed her hands around his neck, bringing his head downward while lifting herself on tiptoe to meet his descending lips.
They weren’t cold as she expected, but warm and incredibly gentle. The kiss needed to be just as soft and gentle and giving. Trent needed comfort from someone who cared, someone who thought he mattered, and she intended him to have it.
His past didn’t make the man. He did. He—the man he had become despite now knowing his origin, despite tremendous odds, despite obstacles that would have crushed a lesser man—was the only thing that mattered.
That was her intention until Trent’s body shuddered and his lips parted. Her tongue slipped naturally inside his mouth, tasting him, savoring the different flavors and textures and the pleasure. The unexpected shock was staggering, the need to dive deeper and explore unbearably tempting.
Somehow she managed to resist and lean her head back. Stepping away was impossible. His strong, muscular arms were locked tightly around her, keeping her flush against his lean, hard body. She felt him from the tingling of her nipples to the throbbing of her midsection, to the quivering of her thighs.
Swallowing, she stared up into eyes dark with passion and felt a tiny thrill of pleasure that she had put it there. More importantly, the shadows were gone. “Is my minute up?” Her voice was husky, deep.
“I forgot to keep track.” This time he was the aggressor, eagerly taking her lips, her thoughts, until she was all want and need caught in a riptide of passion. She gloried in every sensation rippling through her body.
“Dominique,” he whispered, his lips nibbling hers, then tracing a path to the pulse hammering in her throat. “You smell and taste like my dreams.”
His lips came back to hers, rough and demanding, and she matched him effortlessly, endlessly. Warm, callused hands slid beneath her blouse and closed over her aching breasts. She shuddered, pressing closer, somehow knowing he could make the sweet ache go away.
Suddenly she was lifted. She had a fleeting moment of seeing an arched foyer and high ceiling, then Trent’s mouth was on hers again, and with it came the mindless need and passion.
She sank back into his arms and their passion. She was as greedy for him as he was for her.
Then his mouth was gone and he was clinging to her, his grip almost bruising. “I don’t want our first time to be this way.”
Dominique slowly came out of her desire-induced daze to find herself in Trent’s lap in a big, oversized upholstered chair. Her head was pressed against his wide chest, her legs drawn up beside her.
His large hand released its tight hold on her and stroked her from her neck to her hips, then back again. That wasn’t what she wanted stroked. She made an inarticulate murmur of protest.
“Please, Dominique. Don’t move. If you do, I’m not going to be able to stop this time,” Trent told her, his voice gritty.
Dominique stilled, thinking of the incongruency of the situation. She had been the one running from a relationship and now it was Trent. Somehow in her inexperience she must have read him wrong.
Shame swept through her. “I—if you’ll let me up. I’ll leave and won’t bother you anymore.”
“You’re not going anyplace, and you bother me even when I can’t see you.”
“I do?” she asked, angling her head up and brushing her breast against his chest.
“Dominique,” he groaned. “Honey, please don’t do that.”
She eased back down, her fingers playing with the button on his polo shirt. “Then why did you stop?”
“A lot of reasons. Believe me, I still don’t know how I did it.”
“Are you going to tell me?” she asked, a bit of pique in her voice when he didn’t continue.
“You have as much fire and temper in you as you have passion and tenderness. You’re a unique woman.”
Dominique melted against him again.
“I’ve tried to resist you, and when it didn’t work I bowed to the inevitable. And before you get angry, no, I didn’t think you were easy.” His hand tunneled through her luxurious, unbound hair. “The attraction we had for each other was too strong for us to resist for long. It might have been different if we didn’t live next door to each other.”
“Janice would have been heartbroken if I moved,” she said.
“I know. I wouldn’t have liked it much, either.” He sighed. “Janice knows I’m attracted to you, but she was worried you’d run. And she was right.”
Dominique felt she had to defend herself and sat up in his lap. “Not for long.”
His smile was sad. “I know, but that was only yesterday. Can you really say with all honesty you came over here ready to accept us being lovers?”
Dominique started to twist, felt an unmistakable bulge beneath her and stilled. “No.”
“I thought not. You were coming to comfort a friend who is becoming more than a friend. But once we step over that line there’s no going back.” His gaze was searing, his voice gentle. “I want you like I’ve never wanted a woman, but I don’t want to risk losing you as a friend, or to have either of us dreading coming home for fear of seeing the other, or one of us moving.”
Tenderly, his large hands cupped her face. “We have to go into this with our eyes open and be very sure what we feel isn’t going to wear off in a couple of weeks.”
Dominique folded her hands in her lap. “I’m not much on relationships since my marriage ended badly.”
“You’re divorced? You want to talk about it?”
She hadn’t talked about LaSalle to anyone since the weekend Daniel rescued her. She had felt too ashamed. “I was such a fool. I let him control me and humiliate me, and did nothing. All in the name of love.”
Trent’s eyes blazed. “Sounds like the fault was his, not yours. Love makes a person blind to other people’s flaws. I thought I loved a caring, beautiful woman named Margo, thought we were going to be married one day. Turned out she was selfish and manipulative. The only reason she wanted me around was to help her father head off bankruptcy.”
Anger flared in Dominique’s eyes. “Don’t worry. People like that usually get what’s coming to them.”
“I’m not. She’s no longer of any consequence to me, although it took a long time for me to come to terms with the situation. Overhearing her and her father talking about using me was actually the best thing for me. It caused me to leave West Memphis.” His thumb stroked Dominique’s cheek. “Being married must have made it more difficult and
much harder for you to leave.”
His understanding enabled her to tell him the rest. “I kept hoping he’d stop being jealous, stop demanding perfection. I had finally had enough. Only LaSalle didn’t want to let me go. He kept me tied to the bed for two days before Daniel showed up.” Somehow she couldn’t tell him of the rape.
“Where is he now?” Trent asked, his voice dangerously quiet, his face savage.
“He died in an automobile crash three years later.” She didn’t add a broken, ruined man. Daniel had seen to that.
Once again she was gathered tenderly against Trent’s chest. “We don’t have the best track records for choosing the right people, do we?”
“No.”
“We certainly know what we don’t want, so choosing what we want shouldn’t be too difficult. I’m holding what I want.”
Pleasure and uncertainty went through her. “So, the problem is me?”
“Yes.”
An audible sigh slipped past her lips. “After all the doubts and reflections and worry I’ve gone through to get this far, you tell me I still have a ways to go.”
Warm lips pressed against her forehead. “You’ll get there.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I believe in you, and I refuse to let myself think otherwise.” He leaned her away from him to study her anxious face. “You’re going to come to me one day with no regrets, no hesitations, and I’ll be waiting.” His mouth claimed hers, the claiming tender and passionate.
Afterward, she nestled against his chest. “You kiss very well.”
“As the saying goes, ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet.’”
She laughed, as he’d intended. “You know you’re setting a lot of high expectations in my mind.”
“Good. It will keep you thinking about me.”
“You certainly don’t lack confidence,” she said, sitting up to look at him.
“I learned early to believe in myself,” he told her simply.
The shadows weren’t back in his eyes, but she heard them in his voice. “Do you want to talk about her?”