by Rie Warren
Oh boy, if only he knew. I wasn’t doing yoga for nothin’. “Referrin’ to?”
“Much as I’m looking forward to finding out how limber you are, I meant your hours of availability.”
Oh, that. “I’m at your disposal.”
“Shay,” he sighed. “I don’t want our relationship to be that way.”
“Surely you mean business relationship.”
His expression closed. “I’d rather not talk about this right now.”
Plucking bits of lint from my blouse left by my ten-year-old Kenmore dryer, I challenged, “Meanin’ I’m not gonna like whatever you have to say on the matter.”
He stalked forward, falling back on the big come-on.
I jumped away from him. “Oh no you don’t. I know all about your ways and means, buster.”
Ways and means? Was I lobbyin’ for Congress now?
He crossed his arms, waiting.
“You’ve done this before.” I pointed my finger to his chest, a wall of unmoving muscle. “How do you manage it?”
“I like to have all loopholes closed. I took my first mistress off-spec. It was a messy affair.” He tapped his fingers at his hips. “The next time, I went about it in a more thorough manner. She was on the books, accountable. I found it worked well.” His frosty tone dared me to run. “My business partner agreed to an additional part-time personal assistant.”
“How many runners-up did you have?”
“This time? None.” His hands shoved into his pockets, he shrugged. The man-on-the-make mask was replaced by honest longing.
“Just me?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
My heart skipped. Warmth spread from my belly, flushing my cheeks. To be wanted again, my turmoil over right and wrong was taken over by shy disbelief. “Really?”
His smile was beautiful. “Yes, Shay. Just you.”
The last of my resistance evaporated. “Okay.”
“Of course, it doesn’t really matter now, since you’ve already signed the contract.” He winked.
I laughed. “You really are a dirty dealer, aren’t you?”
“You’re going to find out just how filthy I can be, darlin’.”
Uh, what? My panties disintegrated with his provocative promise.
He brought me to his side. “May I walk you to your car?”
“Please.” The chaste touch of his hand holding mine hinted at all I’d been missing.
Outside, evening was painting orange and pink swatches across the sky, and the raucous crickets reanimated in a loud chorus.
Opening my car door, Reardon watched my legs swivel inside. His arms crossed on top of the open window. “Monday evening. Seven o’clock. Be prepared to work late.”
Yessir, oh Yes sir was on the tip of my tongue, until he sent me off with a knock on the roof and a flippant, “Looks sturdy enough.”
Rat Bastard better be talkin’ about my Honda, and not me.
Chapter 4
Trade Secrets
The following morning, I dreaded my Saturday date with Momma. We’d been through enough she could read me like an unauthorized tell-all biography. This time I needed to keep my trap shut and my nose clean.
When I let her into the house, she planted her habitual kiss on my cheek with a, “Mornin’, Sunshine,” before carrying on into the kitchen. “Hello, son.” She nodded at Palmer while he scarfed a breakfast of fried eggs and ketchup.
Stylishly dressed, my momma took pride in her appearance. No one would ever guess she trawled the bargains at TJ Maxx and scoured the racks during senior citizen discount day at Ross.
Soft as chamois cloth with her love, she was hard as a quintessential ass-beating wooden spoon when needed, and she sure as hell didn’t mince words, setting Palmer straight. “Now, son, I know you’re not gonna let my daughter come back to a house fulla mess this afternoon.” She indicated his muddy boots housing cheesy smelling socks lying on their sides, his belt swinging from the stair banister, and the mark on the arm of the couch where hours of passing out in front of the TV had left a stain from his hair.
“Why, Momma Letha, I know you’re not tellin’ me I don’t do enough around the homestead. I support this family.” His harsh chuckle reopened the gross wound in my heart.
I spun from the door. “Well, that ain’t true anymore, is it, Palmer Jefferson Greer?”
He shot out, “Yeah. ’Bout damn time too.”
He was right. There were a hundred mornings in the past year I hadn’t even bothered dragging myself out of bed, yet he didn’t have a choice in the matter. Keeping us afloat, he couldn’t let the anguish swallow him whole as it did me.
The price of his carrying on while I wallowed in pain? A broken marriage. An unpleasant home. The death of our love.
What we’d had was a mock-up just like our little look-alike home. A house of cards built on a fault line waiting for one fissure to collapse the entire damn structure. We’d been the Couple Most Likely to Succeed in the Wando High yearbook. For a long time, we’d believed it, without question.
Showing Momma the door before she got another crack in, I rounded on him. “I know you did good, Palmer, in the best way you knew how. But don’t you badmouth me in front of my family.”
His ugly expression fell, revealing the man beneath, scared and hurt as me. It broke my heart. I stooped down and took his face in my hands and whispered, “You’ve been a good man. In spite of everything.” I placed the first kiss I’d given in months upon his mouth, just a remembrance. “I’m sorry for it all.”
“You never did nothin’ wrong, Shay.”
I walked away to his tired words. I didn’t believe him.
Didn’t matter anyhow, because I was about to.
Inside Momma’s sedan, the air was dense with unasked questions. “You know, Sunshine, I don’t approve of the way Palmer treats you.”
Guilt wormed through me. “Oh, Momma, please don’t.”
“Don’t you tell me what to do, young lady. I birthed you, raised you, and made a home for you.” She gentled. “You’re my baby girl, my only child, and I will not abide you bein’ takin’ to the dogs. Besides, you could be happy.”
“I’m not unhappy.”
“Pshaw.” Pshaw? Really? “Y’all have had a difficult time.” Her eyes welled up as she reached across the console to grab my hand.
Her hands back at ten-and-two, she told me, “A husband should look after his wife, no questions asked. That’s Palmer’s job.” Leave it to my momma to make it black and white. “That’s how it was with your daddy and me, most times.”
I’d been Momma’s Sunshine, his Tiger Lily.
Alexander ‘Zanny’ Motte.
“I never did tell a soul.” While we stopped at an intersection, an ambulance blazed a strobing red path behind us. She pulled to the verge where pink flowers from the crepe myrtle rained down on the windshield. “Not even my own momma.” She reached for the vice she’d given up long ago–my cigarettes–before pulling back. “Your daddy had an affair.”
“What?” I stumbled out of the car.
Momma followed. “You were ten. Times were difficult.”
Was this shit genetic?
“You took him back?”
“I ignored it. I was a coward. Then I took it to heart. I gave Zanny my trust again. I’m as much to blame as he was.” She stroked my cheek. “It was after I miscarried Shawn. My third baby in six years.”
“The babies.” Tears leaked down to my lips.
“It’s how he dealt with it.” She plucked a Kleenex from her sleeve and wiped my face, as she always had.
“And you?”
“I had my own crutch, darlin’.” Her smile was laden with memories. “I had you.”
“Don’t you regret–”
“Yes. I wished I could have saved all my babies. Of course I’d rather your daddy had never slept with another woman! But that ain’t how life works. We take what we’re given and make it fit, or we follow a different path.”
An ambulance and two fire trucks blazed across the intersection; cars merged back onto the road. I ushered Momma to the driver’s side.
I couldn’t make sense of this. Daddy had been infallible to me. My thumb worried the compact diamond on my engagement ring. “Why’d you tell me?”
“You’re old enough for the truth. No one’s either all good or all bad. There are decisions to make, even when it feels like life is beyond your control.”
“But Daddy–”
“He did wrong, and I’m not makin’ excuses for him. Our marriage changed. His goin’ off hurt us.” She sighed. “This isn’t making any sense. I’m sorry.” For a moment, she took her eyes off the road and maintained my gaze. “We loved each other through the worst moments, and I don’t regret it one little bit.”
“What about you and George?” I asked about her Diamond in the Rough.
“George?” She laughed. “Well, he’s my bit on the side.”
“You’re not planning on settlin’ down again?”
“Lawdy, no. I’m footloose and fancy free and enjoyin’ it. I’m not fool enough to think there’ll ever be more than one great love for me–I’m an old romantic at heart–but that don’t mean I’m not gonna enjoy a man’s company. George doesn’t interfere with my lunch dates and Bunko nights with the girls, and we get along just fine.” She whispered conspiratorially, “He’s no Rhett Butler, but he’s not ready to be put out to pasture either.”
At the coffee shop, Momma grabbed a table while I waited in line amidst the business men and college students, the moms with their stampedes of towheaded children gabbing and grabbing any damn thing they could get their hands on.
I was waving at a youngster peeking out behind a display of stupidly expensive tea bags when a recognizable heat radiated against my back.
It was him. On-fire Rat Bastard Reardon. Of all the Starbucks in all of Charleston.
“You slummin’ it, Mr. Boone?”
He tweaked my ponytail the way I wanted him to squeeze my nipples. No, scratch that, I’d rather he fisted all of my hair, pushed me against the counter, using his legs to spread mine and…
“Fancy meeting you here too, Miss Greer.”
He stood close enough that the brush of his trousers against my bare legs made me arch backward into him. Appearing as if we were making nothing more than small talk, he placed a hand over my rear, gave it a rub, and then a sharp swat.
Goodbye cloak and dagger, hellooo Mr. Goodbar.
His cocky grin met my surprised eyes, and his hand stayed on my ass.
Beneath the swanky tails of his tailored suit jacket, I jerked his leather belt before moving onto the half shell sinew of his glutes, giving him a rub of my own.
His eyes slamming shut, he purred, “Shay, if you don’t remove your hand right now, I’ll have no recourse but to fuck you in front of these pleasant baristas.”
I’ll take two of those to go, please.
I turned to him, my hip bumping against his full erection. My face flamed and I mumbled to myself.
His grin brimmed with naughty implications. “What was that?”
“I said, it’s good to see you’re upwardly mobile.”
“You’ve got no idea.” He kept a hand on my hip and pointed to the menu board. “What can I get you?”
Under the guise of inspecting the other offerings, I wiggled until my bottom was seated against him. “You referrin’ to a beverage, or somethin’ better?”
“The former, for now,” he gruffly replied. “We’ll get to the other later.”
“I’ll settle for a latte then.” Swiveling my hips in diminishing circles, I added, “And if y’all are very good, later, maybe I’ll grant you a lap dance.”
With a groan, he stepped away from me.
“And a cappuccino for my momma,” I tacked on.
“Your momma?” He scanned the room, his gaze snapping between me and the other patrons before he stalked away.
Wearing a small smile, he returned and placed our order, pushing a folded bill into the tip jar.
“Well?” I asked.
“Yes?”
“Satisfied?”
“Thoroughly.”
I huffed. “So?”
“She’s a beautiful lady, your mother.”
Prideful, I nodded.
He tipped my chin up. “I see where you get it from.” Sweeping his hand down my neck, he gazed at me as no one had in a long time. “Not only your looks, but your spirit.”
“Will you stay?”
He handed over two cups and ushered me away from the counter. “I don’t think that’s wise, Shay.”
Of course not. Commitment-opposed Reardon meeting my Momma? That was never gonna happen.
“Hey.” He pressed a kiss to the inside of my wrist. “I’ll see you Monday.” He bowed slightly and made for the door where he gave a final nod.
Momma sat in the back corner near the toys, as close to the toddlers as she could get. She watched the surrounding chaos with glee, enjoying the hubbub.
She focused on me. “Y’all are glowin’, what happened up there?”
Patting my hair, I mumbled, “Am I?”
“Mmm hmm. So?”
I wiped the goofy smile off my mouth and settled for a sulk. “Nothin’.”
“Don’t you bullshit me, Caroline Shay.” Snap. Momma pulled out the swears and the double-barreled guns.
“Well, the barista was kind of cute.” I winked.
* * * *
For the remainder of the weekend, after I’d worshipped as expected–tucked between Momma and Palmer before a God who had ignored my pain and my prayers–I did the washing and wiled away a lot of time on wanton fantasies.
I was deliciously enfolded against a body I’d never felt before. A muscular thigh parted my legs and sat between the lips of my sex. Against my ass a hard shaft swelled while a strong hand ran down my spine to my bottom, spreading me open, moving lower. I stretched into the hot length, needing to be filled.
And opened first one eye.
Then the other.
To find Palmer, snoring beside me.
I checked the clock.
Six o’clock. Not sex o’clock.
I cursed the Sandman who’d teased me with erotic delights, then plunked me unceremoniously back in my wedlock bed.
Palmer needed to get up. I lifted the sheets. Oh Christ, Palmer was already up.
I hadn’t seen his erection in a long time. Not even a glimpse of morning wood.
I honed in.
A jerk of cloth, a hush of breath, a lick of my tongue, and I had him inside my mouth. Closing my eyes, I remembered how much I loved giving head.
He came awake with the first kiss and lap around him, from root to tip. “Shay?” His voice was hoarse with sleep and the promise of sex.
I wanted his come, a creamy treat in my mouth. I wanted to taste him. I’d never speak to Reardon again. I’d shred the contract, I’d try to never want what I didn’t have.
Swiping the bulb of his cock with my tongue, I smiled. His hips punched up, his body in command. His hands beat the mattress and stroked his chest and found my hair, calloused fingers working through the flames of my snarled tresses.
His cock swelled, the tip coaxed my throat open.
His hips stopped moving. He lifted me off his hard, wet shaft.
He pushed me aside.
He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
Pressing his cock between his thighs, effectively emasculating himself, he exhaled. “I’m late.”
I watched him pull his up boxers.
I watched him walk to the bathroom.
His back turned.
I slapped my palms to the bed and whispered, “You’re too late.”
I felt denied. Discarded.
Cheated from his love, I closed my eyes, waiting for Palmer to leave the house.
* * * *
“You’re late,” Reardon said, looking entirely too mouthwatering from his stubbly jaw and rumpled s
hirt down to his bare feet. Bare toes had no right looking so completely suckable.
“I had good reason.”
An exquisite surge ran between us as we relished the sight of each other.
Rhett Butler, eat your heart out.
I was ready to be Reardon’s Harlot O’Hara.
“Family emergency?”
“Not exactly.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Rip, dip, and clip,” I squeaked. “You know, wax, highlights, haircut?”
His glare gave way to a grin. “Just a good old lowcountry gal, aren’t you?”
“You sayin’ I’m old?”
“No, I called you a local girl, darlin’. My sister calls it a rip, dip, and clip too.”
“Sister?”
“Mmm hmm, all country, raised in McClellanville.”
I caught the drawl he usually hid behind clipped tones. “So, y’all are nothin’ but a good ol’ boy.”
“Good doesn’t cover the half of it.” He took my elbow and lowered his voice. “But don’t distract me. You were tardy, Miss Greer, and that doesn’t bode well.”
“Whatcha gonna do, country boy, demote me?”
“I don’t ever want you below me, unless we’re in bed.” His lips made a moist path down my neck. “Though I wouldn’t mind you taking me for a ride.”
“Okay,” I croaked.
“Really?”
“No.” I beseeched my voice to remain steady, my nipples to stand down, my cha-cha to shut the hell up with her greedy capitulating tendencies.
Shaking his head, Reardon took in my appearance. “The wait was worth it.” His gaze swam over me, from my heels to my hem, to my hips and silk halter.
I swayed toward him, and he took the opportunity to run his hand along my waist, guiding me against his body before propelling me away with little mirth. “Shay. Jesus.”
“Why, Mr. Boone, did you just break your cardinal rule?”
He squinted.
“No swearing, right? I distinctly recall your reaction when I asked…” I traced the inside of his bicep, soft skin over mountainous muscle. “If you wanted to fuck me.”
“Woman, I have a feeling you’re going to make me break all my rules,” he growled. “C’mon. I could use a drink.”
Through a maze of muted hallways, we entered a small sitting room. Understated and welcoming, dark wood floors and an intimate seating arrangement showcased a spread of paintings I didn’t dare inspect. Shit looked Museum of Modern Art-worthy.