King of Hearts

by Stevenson, Jennifer

  “Put ’em on the fucking internet,” he said with what Nadine could tell was only partial sincerity. “I don’t give a rat’s ass.”

  Nadine gushed, “May I have your card, Melvin? That’s so kind of you.” She leaned over to take the card. “I’ll wear it next to my heart.” She tucked the card inside what there was of the front of her dress. Melvin was mesmerized.

  Now to break up the catfight and put the bite on Tammy.

  “Tamm—Tamara,” Nadine said, turning to the ex-spouses. “I did want to discuss one little thing with you in private before you two lovebirds run along back to your seats. But your delightful young man gave me his card. So we can stay in touch.” Nadine smiled menacingly at Tammy.

  King Dave shot Melvin a sharp, suspicious look. Nadine patted her décolletage. Instantly the two men were doing the rooster square-off.

  “The entertainment industry is so tacky,” said the beef.

  King Dave said, “Beats working with dead animals.”

  Heavens, I’m good at this, Nadine thought. I must be careful only to use this power for good. She blocked them with her body.

  Tammy tried to crane her neck past Nadine, but Nadine was too big to see around, and it was apparently occurring to Tammy that King Dave’s date was more than a mountain of mammaries.

  “Here’s the low-down, honey,” Nadine said softly, descending from preacher’s daughter to waitress. “You’ve got those pictures and the negatives. Linda has your check and your little boy. I’m guessing you want the check but you don’t want the child.” You cheap trash.

  Tammy watched her warily.

  “If you don’t want your new sugar daddy to find out about the boy, you’ll mail all the evidence to King Dave. All of it.”

  Shooting a frightened glance over Nadine’s shoulder at the antler-clashing men, Tammy whispered, “I don’t have it.” When Nadine snorted, she added, “I mean, I can’t get it right away.”

  “Real soon,” Nadine said. “It’s a long ways to October, honey. Plenty of time to spill the beans.” She pulled the beef’s business card out of her cleavage and waggled it. “I can find the boyfriend any time I want.”

  Tammy transferred her frightened look to Nadine’s face. “You don’t know what happened. You weren’t there.”

  “Pardon me. I was a personal eyewitness. I can describe your friend’s car, the hot pants you were almost wearing—”

  “Keep your voice down!” Tammy pleaded. She clenched her red-nailed fists. “Please. You don’t know Melvin. He doesn’t like kids. He hates it that I know tacky people like stagehands.”

  Nadine went hot with anger. Tammy’s red-nailed hand darted out and snatched Melvin’s card, and Nadine caught her wrist.

  “That’s dumb,” Nadine said. “I know his name. I know his company’s name. Do you think I’ll forget?” The red claws curled and she squeezed Tammy’s wrist. “Give up, honey,” she advised. “You got the ring. Soon you’ll have the man and his money.”

  With a yank, Tammy got her hand back. “His own mother was on my side. She was always on my side before,” she said, sounding resentful and confused.

  “I was on your side, myself,” Nadine said. “Until I met your little boy.” Funny how a good catfight brought out the truth you didn’t know you knew. “I made King Dave write you a check, first thing. He really did write it, you know. Linda’s got it.”

  “Well, she won’t give it to me.”

  “I expect she’s tired of babysitting.”

  A gorilla-sized hand reached past Nadine and grabbed Tammy by the shoulder. “They’re clapping. I need to get to the bar,” Melvin Zweck said, and hauled his fiancée away down the hall.

  “Great idea,” King Dave said at her elbow. “Only let’s go to the bar on the other side.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “That was a laugh riot,” King Dave said as he escorted Nadine down the big marble staircase two and a half hours later.

  She loved the feel of his hand on her back. She felt grand promenading with the audience up Wacker Drive under the mighty collonade in front of the Opera House, wearing diamonds and pearls, escorted by the handsomest man in Chicago.

  “I enjoyed it even more than I expected,” she said honestly.

  “You made hash out of Tammy. What’d you two talk about?”

  “I told her she should be nicer to you.” She added in a whisper, “That man doesn’t know about Davy Junior!”

  King Dave grunted. “’Splains why she dumped the kid on Mom.”

  Nadine would love to know when the blackmail stuff turned up in his mailbox. But what if it didn’t? Best not to reveal her own blackmail attempt. She changed the subject.

  “Thanks for telling me what was happening during the opera. It made the whole story come alive for me.” She hesitated. “The fact is, I kind of hated opera before this.”

  He gaped. “This date was your idea!”

  “And I’ve loved it,” she said hastily. “I mean, apart from running into your ex-wife. That opera I had to listen to, when I was in the basement? That didn’t sound like this one.”

  “Pinocchio? That’s screech’n’fart. No wonder you didn’t like it. Da Fledermaus is easy listening, as opera goes.”

  Then, with a rush, Nadine remembered meeting Momma. “I hope I didn’t spoil your evening.” She looked at her shoes. “Crying and all.”

  “Tsk.” King Dave put his arm around her bare shoulders and kissed her on the ear. “For a chance to see you in this outfit, I’d spend the evening with Tammy and ol’ Melvin.”

  In a small voice, she said, “Thanks.”

  “You’re allowed to cry when you find your long-lost Mom.”

  Nadine’s tummy fluttered. “I don’t cry much,” she said. She stared at the elegantly gowned women walking ahead of her.

  Her mother was somewhere in this crowd. Walking to her car, the same as they were. Living in the same city. Nadine’s heart thumped slow and hard.

  King Dave laced his fingers into hers. They shuffled toward their parking ramp in a mob of tuxedos and evening gowns. “So why’d you want to go to the opera if you didn’t like it?”

  She smiled demurely. “For a chance to see you in a tux, I’d listen to three hours of caterwauling.”

  He reached around and pinched her on the bottom. “Happy, then?”

  “Oh, yes. This opera really was lots better. I enjoyed it, once you explained what was happening. Except the lady who sang the maid. I thought she was screechy.”

  “Yeah, she’s getting kinda old for those roles. Her voice ain’t been the same since she sung Aïda here two years ago.”

  Nadine admired him as he walked beside her, so noble-looking in his tux, with his clean jaw and his keen blue gaze and his fine shoulders. She was aware that in the currency of Goreville dating rules, King Dave had bought approximately three weeks’ worth of intensive debauchery. She quivered with hope.

  He seemed thoughtful. He didn’t pinch her or try to kiss her in the crowded elevator. She ran out of small talk.

  At the Camaro, he halted. “Nadine,” he said huskily.

  She stepped close and raised her face. “Yes?” When he swallowed, she leaned against his chest. “Yes, King Dave?”

  Oh please, please kiss me and say you’ll take me home!

  Footsteps echoed around the corner. He grabbed her hand, lifted it, spread open her palm with rough fingers, and pressed his open mouth to it. She felt his tongue move on her palm, slick and warm. Her knees buckled and her eyes closed.

  When she opened her eyes he was staring with hot hunger at her face. The footsteps clattered nearer. His hand tightened on hers. Without another word he put her in the Camaro.

  The lake was dark and wind-tossed off Lake Shore Drive. He put the Camaro’s top down. The wind tore the hairpins out of her hair, sending it streaming behind her, lashing her cheeks.

  He didn’t touch her in the car. That made the anticipation worse. Her head filled up with pictures of him naked. />
  They parked in front of his bungalow. As he snapped the convertible top into place, his sleeve brushed her bare shoulder, setting off a dark, silent burst of fireworks through her body.

  As he opened his front door for her, he snatched a length of trailing pink petunia blossoms off the hanging basket on the porch. He pulled the flowers across her throat. The leaves and flowers were sticky. The feel of them dragging on her skin made her think sticky thoughts, made her think how his sweat tasted, how his hot skin smelled. He dragged the petunias over her shoulders and let them catch in her tumbled hair.

  Mesmerized, she watched the flowers tremble in his hand. If she looked in his eyes again, she would lose all control.

  He started to brush the petunias across her lips.

  “Don’t—” she whispered, and he stopped.

  “Don’t?” His voice cracked.

  “Don’t make me wait.”

  He reached for her.

  They didn’t get to the bedroom.

  Four long, hot kisses later, she broke free and panted, “Those condoms are still in my purse.”

  He smiled, lazy and slow. “You hussy,” he said, and she felt a heat-flash. “Don’t you know who you’re talking to?” He dug a hand into his pants pocket and came up with a fistful of colored packets. One by one he poked them into her cleavage. When the dress was spilling over he tucked them under the pearl-and-diamond choker. He kept going back to his pockets for more, grinning wickedly, until she started to laugh.

  I have fallen into the hands of a major seducer.

  His hands slid around her back to her zipper.

  She shimmied. “Oh, no. I get to undress you first.”

  He gave an exasperated laugh, but he stood still. A bead of sweat ran down his temple. His hair was curling more wildly now, and bits of it stuck up, silhouetted against the pale ceiling.

  She fiddled with his tie until it came loose. Then the shirt, with real studs, not buttons. Then the black cummerbund. Her breath blew back hot into her face as she crouched, reaching around behind him to unhook all the little hooks and eyes on the cummerbund. It came loose finally, and he grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her to her feet for a ferocious kiss.

  “Don’t make me wait,” he said as he released her mouth.

  She laughed. “All right.” She stepped back. “Get naked your way.”

  He shucked his shirt and coat, kicked off his shoes, reached for his waistband—and one, two, three. Buck-naked stagehand.

  Her jaw dropped. “How did you do that?”

  “Practice.” He reached for her. “I’ll show you again.”

  In about ten seconds he had her out of the dress, without even ripping the zipper. Condoms rained down on her feet.

  His eyes kindled when he looked at her. “No underwear? Jesus H., Nadine, did I sit through that whole opera next to you in these shimmery seam-ass stockings and no underwear?”

  “Good thing I didn’t mention it, huh?”

  He held her hands out at her sides and looked her up and down. Everywhere his gaze fell, she swelled up hot.

  He already looked pretty swollen himself.

  He lifted one bare knee and stroked the side of her leg with it. His leg-hairs rasped over her stockings.

  Her breath stuttered. “Do you want me to take them off?”

  “Eventually.”

  He put both hands on her waist and lifted her, a thing she hadn’t thought could be done without a derrick, and placed her on his La-Z-Boy chair. With hot, careful hands he arranged her arms over her head, then lifted her knees one at a time and draped them over the chair arms. She felt wide open and ready to howl.

  She looked up at his naked height. Yellow streetlight fell through the window on his shoulders and his sculpted, quickly-moving chest. He stared down at her and licked his lips.

  “Don’t make me wait,” she begged.

  “Not much longer,” he whispered. Bending, he did something at the armrest under her right knee, and she tipped back slowly. Her thighs rolled farther open to his gaze. The earth moved with sluggish power between her hips. He spread her hair over her arms above her head, over the head-rest, down over her breasts. Now she could see him only by looking through her lashes, down the length of her own sprawling, naked body. His hands shook, hovering over her breasts. She stifled a whimper.

  He trailed his fingers down the center of her body from her breasts to her ankles. She felt his hands close over her ankles, and he lifted them, left and then right, showing her the platform stilts still strapped to her ankles. “King Dave,” she whispered.

  He sank to his knees. His eyes closed, his cheek turned, he lifted her left ankle to his lips and kissed it. She almost said, Take my stockings off. But he looked utterly focused on kissing her ankle. Holding her ankles in the air, he kissed his way up her leg to the inside of her knee, inside her thigh, kissed past the garter to sweaty bare skin. She clutched the head-rest over her head and her mind went blank.

  Two hours passed. The recliner was probably sprung all out of shape, but King Dave could care less. It held them both if they turned sideways. They touched all over. Good enough.

  “King Dave?”

  “Mmm.” He felt too good to answer in words. He put his hand over her breast and laid his cheek on top of her head.

  “What do you think about—then?”

  “Not much.” He rubbed his forehead drowsily against her scalp. “Rock and roll, I guess.”

  She giggled. “This from the guy who critiqued the soprano?”

  He wriggled, squishing against her in the recliner. “Mark Kopfler. Or early Jeff Beck. Something with a walking beat, where the guitar never loses touch with the melody.”

  She twisted to look at his face. “I don’t believe you.”

  He shrugged. “You asked.”

  “Well, I think about heat lightning. It’s like a picture of the brain.”

  “The brain?” he said incredulously.

  “I think about those brain nerves that stretch out like octopuses, and the lightning cracks along all the stretched-out connections and makes it all light up at once.”

  “Can I have some of what you’re smoking?”

  “Or like heat lightning over Texas. I feel like I’m up in the clouds, and crack! It flickers sideways. It doesn’t touch the ground, you know. Heat lightning. It cracks sideways and connects up all the clouds in the storm.” She twisted farther and looked urgently into his eyes. “It seems to go on forever.”

  “Are we still talking about sex here?” he said cautiously.

  “I love you,” she said, and just like that he said, “I love you, too, your highness.”

  Wow. That was easy. All night he’d been wondering how to tell her. “Can I—” he began.

  “Would—” she began. They stopped. “You first,” she said.

  The phone rang, shockingly close. He ignored it.

  “Shouldn’t you answer that?”

  “Naw, I’m getting romantic here.”

  “You are?” she said and looked pleased. She snuggled her chest against him, making him feel ten feet tall.

  The answering machine clicked on. This is King Dave. Talk quick. Beep.

  He rushed it. “I was going to ask you to marry me.”

  “King Dave, I need you at the Arena at eight a.m. for a put-in,” Corky Finn said from the phone. “If you’re there, pick up.”

  Nadine stiffened in his arms.

  Damn Corky!

  “I’ll square it with FX tomorrow. Right now I need guys. If you’re there, pick up,” Corky said again. He sounded crabby.

  Must be a major emergency, King Dave thought. Corky hates filling calls in the middle of the night, he hates answering machines, and he really hates mixing it up with my old man.

  “Aren’t you going to pick up?” Nadine said. She sounded tight. Suddenly her knees were poking his gizzard, as if she’d forgotten how to cuddle.

  “No.” Sheesh, and they say men are easily distracted. “Is th
at your final answer?”

  “I ain’t fuckin’ around all night, King Dave,” Corky said in his scariest voice. “God dammit, if you’re there, pick up.”

  She rolled her Bambi eyes. “You haven’t worked in two weeks.”

  “I won’t starve,” he said, smiling.

  “Hello?” Corky snarled from the phone.

  Nadine cowered against King Dave’s side. She was six feet of opulent naked flesh, and her hair smelled like roses.

  “He’ll go away in a minute,” King Dave promised.

  Corky growled on cue, “Ah, fuck it. You’re off the call.” They heard the rattle as Corky’s phone hit the cradle.

  Nadine’s eyes were huge. “You turned down work!”

  He really wasn’t such a hero, but the adoration in her voice made him feel like one. “Aw, nuts.” He was trying to propose, dammit. “What about—you know?”

  She wriggled until she was sitting up on top of him, straddling him on the recliner. “You...turned down work?” she said again as if she still couldn’t believe it.

  He reached for her. “I thought we’d get up late tomorrow. Go back to that jewelry store. Get you a ring.”

  She seemed to be short of breath. Her lips trembled and her eyes bugged out. “King Dave.”

  Picking up her hand, he pulled it to lay palm-down on his bare chest. “You got to me, princess.” She was such a babe, all smooth skin and tits and golden hair, plus, and this was the part that stunned him, she liked him. She wanted him to like himself.

  Bizarre idea.

  “I’m ready to take the plunge.” And he meant it. The idea didn’t even scare him.

  “King Dave,” she said in a shaky voice. “You spend too much money on me.”

  “Music to my ears.” He smiled.

  “Tammy probably won’t want to keep Davy Junior.”

  “I’m hoping he likes me better. You’re good with him, too.”

  “Oh, King Dave,” she said, and sank down on top of him. Bliss. His eyes rolled up in his head. Laying her head on his shoulder, she said, “That was when you got to me.”

  What were they talking about? “The kid?”

  “That first night. When he came to the door to see you and your mother wouldn’t let him. It—it broke my heart.”