Seductive Moments

by Altonya Washington

  “Maybe we should leave it at that.” Her tone was quiet. “No need for you to make more of it than it was.”

  “Do you want to make more of it?”

  “I don’t expect that.”

  “That’s not what I asked,” he challenged and knew from the belligerent flash of her gaze that she would never answer the question. She was too tough to admit such a thing. He’d wager she had experienced too much in the way of heartbreak by admitting such things. She didn’t trust him enough. Lucky for him, the last was a thing he could change.

  “How ’bout a tour?” he asked, and could see that he’d thrown her off guard. He shifted his smile and regarded her expectantly.

  Ray glanced around the floor. “Doesn’t look much different than when it was Jazzy B’s,” she said.

  “I never came here when it was Jazzy B’s.” Barker spared another look around the space, as well. “Eli would’ve considered it a betrayal, I think.”

  Ray nodded, understanding and recalling the bad blood between Elias Joss and the woman his father had wanted to leave his mother for. Instead of making more of it, and more than ready to get out of answering his previous question, she gave a curt nod and turned.

  “Well, we’ve expanded this floor—we’ve kept the stage.” She headed toward the front of the expansive room. “It mostly serves as a second level to the dance floor, but we’re starting to book more live acts, so hopefully that’ll be a more permanent thing soon.”

  “How are the previous clientele handling the change?” Barker asked.

  Ray smiled and considered her answer. “It’s been tough for some of the regulars, but you can’t hide quality, even when it’s hidden beneath a racy but modest server’s uniform.” She moved them on through the club.

  “Clients can now rent out the rooms that used to accommodate private dances. They can hold private parties, meetings with their choice of the servers who’ll work them. Overall, the club’s doing pretty well, but it’s the private events that are putting us way over the top in revenue.” Rayelle escorted Barker to the wing that housed those rooms.

  “Speaking of parties,” Barker said, “I heard you were at Paula’s thing the other night.”

  “Oh? You...uh...you heard that?”

  He grinned, taking note of his poor attempt at understating. “Her fiancé and I go back, you know?”

  Ray had to laugh then. “So you heard that, too, I see?” She referred to the news that Paula Starker and Linus Brooks were engaged. The couple had made the announcement during Paula’s annual Christmas party the night before.

  “It was great seeing them so happy after all that,” Ray mused while leading them through the network of corridors winding through the club. “Makes me think of the way things change—sometimes for the worse, but sometimes they do get better.”

  Barker whistled as they moved into the next phase of the tour. The club’s loft lounge had remained virtually untouched and was decorated with widescreen TVs in every corner. Life-size framed portraits lined the walls and featured several servers in sexy, yet tastefully tailored outfits.

  “This would be a good spot for an interview,” he said while eyeing the decor with a complimentary gaze. “Wouldn’t be hard at all to get a guy to spill most anything in here.”

  Ray couldn’t resist laughing over the idea.

  “What? I’m serious.” Barker laughed and then resumed his appraisal of the area. “A man’s brain would be close to numb taking in all the scenery. How are your employees adjusting to their new jobs?”

  The question had Ray recalling what she’d confided to Barker about the effect the Jazzy B’s changes had on the dancers.

  “We’ve lost a few—not as many as I thought we would, but in a place like Jazzy B’s, everybody’s family...it’s hard knowing that someone could walk out the door and you’d never see them again.”

  “Any word on what the ones who left are doing for work?” Barker closed his eyes and then gave a tight smile. “Just hit me if I’m asking too many questions.”

  “No, no, it’s fine.” Ray was on the verge of more laughter. To herself, she admitted how good it felt to be able to share her concerns.

  “I’ve heard some of them left to do the same thing I offered them to do here.” She gave a bewildered shrug.

  “Couldn’t buy into the changes?” Barker guessed.

  “Well, in their new jobs, waitressing is just an added duty to dancing and...other things.”

  “I’m sorry, Ray.”

  “No need to be, but thanks.”

  “You talk to Clarissa yet?”

  “Nah.” Again Ray shrugged. “I’m gonna take more time to think about it.”

  “A lot of time?”

  “Not much, but enough.”

  They’d made it to the office wing. A few of the waitresses were along the corridor and made no effort at hiding their interest or awe for the man they’d only seen through a screen or magazine page.

  Ray held no grudges; moreover, she got a kick out of seeing Barker so humbled by his slew of admirers. The women cleared out soon enough, though, giving Ray time to resume the tour.

  “Miss J’s office is way too big for one person, so I’ve been sharing with Clari,” she explained. “We’re also using it as a meeting space. I think—hope, anyway—it gives the girls some comfort. We haven’t changed much in here. We believe it comforts some of the girls—makes them feel closer to Miss Jaz, the ones who knew her. Well.” Ray threw out her arms. “That about does it.”

  She was ready to lead the way back to the main floor and had reached the office door when it closed before her. Ray pressed her hand against it while Barker was drawing her back against him as it clicked shut. Like that, her legs had gone to water. “We can’t.” Her voice was a gasp, with his persuasive mouth at her ear.

  “We already have,” he reminded her.

  “It won’t work,” she moaned, melting when he cupped and weighed her breasts while pampering her earlobe with a whisper-soft suckle.

  “Bar—you, you have to listen to me—” She gave up, gave into his touch then. She was torn between pressing her point and focusing on the sweet, erotic rotations his thumb used to torment the peak of her breast, still confined inside her bra. She couldn’t remember when he’d undone her blouse.

  He stopped suddenly, and she moaned her disagreement with the move until she realized he had an ulterior motive. Barker had secured her back against the closed door. His gazed bored into hers as he challenged her.

  “Why can’t we, Rayelle? Because I’m privileged?”

  She rolled her eyes, recalling one of several discussions that had occurred during the Bahamas trip.

  “Did you think I’d take what you gave—what I wanted—and walk away like it never happened? You don’t need to admit I’m right.” He gave her space, but only a little. “We’ll forget all about this, once you make it up to me.”

  Fire heated her eyes then. “Make it up?”

  Barker maintained the innocent act. “Well, you don’t just expect me to forget the way you misjudged me?”

  “Misjudged—”

  “I want to know you, Ray. In bed and out of it. You not taking my calls has already wasted a lot of time. The sooner you make this up to me, the sooner we can get on with getting to know each other.”

  Torn between exasperation and amusement, Ray took great pains to calm herself before she spoke. “How exactly am I supposed to make this up to you?”

  “We’ll talk about it tonight when I pick you up.” His smile was devilment personified. As he’d suspected, her mouth fell open, and he capitalized by thrusting his tongue deep for the kiss he took while lifting her into him. Her legs were around his waist. The snug position inside the V-shape of her thighs merely heightened his need for more of her—all of her.

  Ray had already submitted to the
effects of the kiss, desperation alive in every slow stroke she treated his mouth to. Need had her so restrained in its clutches that she was pretty much unaware of the fact that she was trying to free herself from the shirt Barker already had half undone.

  He ended the kiss with a scrape of his perfect teeth down the long line of her neck, only to hear the erotic hitches of her breath while she succumbed to her arousal. Only when Barker set her back against the door, stilling her hands by squeezing them inside his, did Ray snap to. She blinked rapidly, as though she were waking from a dream.

  “Be waiting for me in your lobby at six,” he said. “Don’t make me come up there for you, Ray.” He kissed her forehead, pulled her from the door and left.

  * * *

  Ray thought she’d latched on to a reasonable excuse for weaseling out of Barker’s invite when she realized he hadn’t told her how she should dress for the evening. Barker took care of that when he called her an hour after he left the club. She didn’t hesitate to answer. It felt foolish to continue avoiding his calls, anyway. Besides, it wasn’t as if she really wanted to evade them. Barker informed her that it was a holiday party and that most anything she wore would be fine.

  With that settled, Ray accepted her fate and then criticized herself for acting like she had no real interest in going out with him. All she wanted was to be with him, despite the fact that she had a past that was working against her—one that was chock full of disappointments. She didn’t want any of her time with Barker Grant to be one of them, and yet that possibility was virtually all she could think of.

  “I was hoping you’d make me come up and get you.”

  Ray dashed the unwanted possibilities from her mind and turned to face Barker with a genuine smile already curving her mouth. “I love holiday parties and didn’t want to risk missing one.”

  “That wouldn’t have happened anyway. We’d have just been fashionably late—later,” he rephrased with a slight shake of his head. “The party actually started at six.” A broad smile brightened his face as he threw out a wave to security guard Oliver Dever before he relieved Ray of the wrap coat she’d been about to slip on over her dress.

  Barker indulged in a few moments to size Ray up in the frock—a strapless black number with an intricately laced back and softly hooped ankle-length skirt. “Told you whatever you picked would be fine,” he said.

  “Is that a compliment?” She tried to tease in an effort to dismiss the heat working its way up her spine.

  “Compliment? Damn straight.”

  The heat grew stifling. “Barker.” She risked a look past his eclipsing frame to Oliver behind the guard’s desk. It was far too late, however, to ward off the erotic heat radiating along her legs that attempted to ignite the familiar throb no man had ever been so adept at sparking. The ease with which Barker Grant was capable of doing so was close to frightening. “Stop,” she murmured.

  “I haven’t done anything yet,” he volleyed back.

  “It’s the ‘yet’ I’m afraid of.”

  He made a faint tsking sound. “There’s that word again.”

  “We’ve got a party to get to, Barker.” She reached for her coat.

  He easily held it out of her grasp before reluctantly settling it over her shoulders and angled the dark wool so that she could put her arms in the sleeves. “Guess there’s no point in asking where the party is or who’s giving it?”

  “You can always ask.”

  Ray shook her head. “Why do I get the feeling I’m the reporter tonight?”

  “Role-play, Ms. Keats? I like it.” He nudged her shoulder. “How ’bout we follow up with that later?”

  Ray could only laugh as they made their way out the door.

  * * *

  “All right, where are we going and who’s giving this party?” Ray’s tone as she repeated the question clearly relayed that she expected a detailed response.

  They’d taken the exit for the area of Mount Airy. The spot was undeniably impressive, and as well-known for its architecture as it was for its historic roots.

  “Barker?” Ray had to resort to punching the thigh nearest her when he didn’t look away from the road while navigating the Jeep along a ridiculously winding stretch of gravel.

  “Cut it out,” he hissed. “This road’s no joke.”

  “You seem to be handling it well enough. So how well do you know our hosts?”

  “Quite well.” He smiled. “For as long as I can remember, actually.”

  Ray took note of the homes they passed. Some peeked out intriguingly behind majestic towering rows of trees fringing the outskirts of the properties. The homes, beneath the starlit sky and blanket of snowfall the area had seen earlier that day, was a breathtaking sight.

  “Barker...come on.” Ray’s voice was close to a whine then as she wiggled against her seat. “At least tell me if I’m about to meet the mayor or the new football quarterback.”

  Barker’s long, infectious laughter filled the Jeep’s interior. “I can promise I’m not taking you to meet the mayor or the new quarterback.”

  Ray settled back in a new position against the Jeep’s heated suede seats. She couldn’t put a finger on exactly why Barker’s words failed to instill the sense of calm she was striving for. Before she could circle around to a new line of questioning, he was pulling the vehicle to a halt.

  Ray saw they were parked at the top of the horseshoe drive before a gloriously lit home of white brick and black columns. Against the snow, it looked like some sort of castle from a fantasy novel. She gave herself a mental kick and then called it all nonsense.

  Perhaps, but it was no less accurate. Strings of golden light encircled the columns while vibrant hunter-green garlands had somehow been decoratively draped over the white brick. The place was unbelievable.

  Ray turned to share her opinion with Barker and found that he had already left the cozy confines of their ride. She watched him head over to greet the parking attendants with handshakes and shoulder claps like they were old friends. She saw him grin, and dear God, he was a gorgeous thing.

  Enjoy it, Ray. Enjoy it, she chanted to drive out the pessimistic waves that hinted of problematic waters. The holidays were upon them, and she had the attention of a disturbingly beautiful guy, good sex, parties hosted by—the thought gave her pause—people he’d known for as long as he could remember.

  “Who lives here, Barker?” she asked when he came around to open her door.

  He was still grinning and completely unshaken. “I told you, they’re people I’ve known a long time.”

  “How long? Since birth?” Ray felt her heart sink, rise and sink again when she saw the confirmation surge in Barker’s dark eyes.

  His hold on her hands tightened, and then he was tugging her from the car seat. “How ’bout we let this guy do his job, huh?”

  Dazed, Ray saw one of the valets settling in behind the Jeep’s wheel. She let Barker finish helping her from the seat. He was grimacing and then patting the pockets of her coat. Coming up empty, he felt his own pockets and withdrew gloves.

  “Do you trust me, Rayelle?” He posed the question matter-of-factly, while putting her hands inside the fur-lined leather gloves that were clearly too large for her.

  “Yes,” she answered in the same manner.

  Barker smiled. Progress, he thought. Trust was a good start—the best start, actually. The rest would come later. Soon.

  Finishing with the gloves, he squeezed her hands before tugging her in more closely.

  Ray took comfort in the outline of his lethal frame against her. Disturbingly gorgeous, and sex appeal for days. Head out of your panties, Ray. She reminded herself that she was about to meet people he’d known for years.

  She smiled, flexing her fingers in the oversize gloves. “We’re about to go inside. My fingers would’ve survived.”

  “Listen to m
e, Ray.” He gave her the swiftest of tugs. “You’ll be on my arm in there the whole night. My family can be—” He paused at her gasp over the confirmation that she was to meet his family. “You’re on my arm the whole night, remember?”

  “What if I have to go to the bathroom?”

  “I’ll wait outside the door, unless you want me in there with you.”

  “Pervert.”

  “I prefer imaginative.”

  “You would.” Her attempt at playing didn’t last as long as she would have liked. “Barker...there might be people here tonight...maybe even some of your own family...who might remember me from Miss J’s. She knew a lot of people who lived in places like this—she lived in a place like this. People who live this way—” she seemed to shudder as though the idea were incomprehensible, despite the fact that she stood in the middle of it “—a lot of them patronize the same places, and Miss J’s places drew a lot of powerful—”

  “Ray. Ray? Stop.” He bent a little to look at her more directly. “If this was all for my benefit, I don’t need the warning. I don’t want it.”

  “So you’re saying you don’t care?”

  “I won’t lie and say I’m not curious—it’s in my nature to be. But that’s beside the point. You’re mine.”

  Ray had little time to fixate on her heart pole-vaulting to her throat before Barker was pulling one of her gloved hands over the crook of his arm and guiding her toward the wide porch before them. The steps were long, rectangular slabs of white brick that led to a set of wide double doors of dark pine. The doors were open to permit the interior’s golden lighting to spill past the double glass doors to maintain the indoor warmth against the chilly night.

  Ray curled her fingers into Barker’s arm as her light eyes scanned the majesty before her. The porch columns looked as though they belonged at the entrance of some grand museum.

  The guests still filing inside, attired in evening wear that whispered affluence and status. In spite of her nervous state, she took comfort in the spicy inviting fragrances that scented the air with festive provocation. The foyer seemed alive with the sparkling white lights that encircled additional columns that were smaller than their counterparts, but no less majestic. The vivid illumination was nothing against what waited beyond the foyer’s towering archway.