And although Aaronson and Jim Hines were laughing, Benny could not. He knew all about Alex’s reputation. Yes, he was impressed with the way Alex jumped right in and took control of Jordan’s defense. But was it because he wanted Kari in his bed that badly, or because he was genuinely concerned about Kari and Jordan? He’d been known to really treat women lavishly. Was this just his M.O.?
But Kari and Jordan didn’t have time for doubt. They were going to New York, if only for a night. But they were going.
It felt like always looking at the fancy dress ball from outside the windows year after year. And then suddenly to not only be invited indoors, but to be the guest of honor once you got in. That was how Kari and Jordan felt. Benny might have had his doubts regarding Alex’s motives, and Kari wasn’t totally certain that she could trust Alex with her heart just yet, but she wasn’t exactly going to New York to marry him. She was going to party with him. They were still getting to know each other, and she was well aware of that.
But seriously anyway, she thought, there were worse things in this world to be than Alex Drakos’s woman.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Jordan was like a kid in a candy store. He was in the cockpit chatting it up with the pilot. He was in the stewardess room chatting it up with the stewardesses. He was asking questions about every aspect of the plane.
Kari sat back smiling. It was hard to believe for her, too. Not only had Jordan never been on a plane, but his first experience was on the most luxurious plane Kari had ever seen.
Jordan, tired, finally sat next to his mother. “Mr. Drakos owns all this?” he asked her.
“All of it,” she said. She was amazed the first time, too.
“It even has a bedroom, Ma. Bigger than yours at the house.”
“Considering how small mine is, yes. But I get your point.” She smiled at her happy son.
“May I ask a question?” Jordan asked.
“Always, Jordy, you know that.”
“Why?”
Kari stared at him. She knew what he meant. Why his generosity. Why his kindness. Why? “Why do you think?”
“Because he’s in love with you?”
Kari smiled. “Try again.”
“He doesn’t love you?”
“He doesn’t know me well enough yet. Love takes time.”
“Then if he doesn’t love you, why?”
Kari thought about it. “Maybe he likes me.”
“Do you like him?”
“Yes.”
“A little or a lot?”
“A lot.”
“Does he like you a little or a lot?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“I say a lot,” Jordan said with confidence. “Why else would he do all this? And he wants us with him in New York, too? That’s saying something there.”
“It’s just overnight. He’s a very busy man. So don’t expect him to spend much time with us.”
“I won’t.”
But when the plane finally touched down in New York, they both were shocked.
“Look Ma,” Jordan said, pointing at the window. “He’s waiting for us!”
Kari looked. And there was Alex, standing at his limousine, waiting for them.
“Wow, Ma. He came himself. I feel special,” Jordan said.
“You are special,” Kari said. “You are! No matter what happens between Alex and me, you are the most special person in this whole wide world to me.”
“I know,” Jordan said. “And you’re the same to me. It’s just nice to know we’re the same to somebody else, too.”
Kari looked at her precocious son. She understood exactly how he felt. She ruffled his hair.
Waiting on the side of his limousine, Alex watched as Kari and Jordan alighted the plane. They looked refreshed to Alex, and breezy, as if a lifetime of burdens had been lifted from their small shoulders. They’d never know how pleased he was to have something to do with that lift. They’d never know how pleased he was that the burdens were actually no-more.
Little Jordan was dressed in a pair of Docker pants, a light blue polo shirt, and tennis shoes of no known brand. Nicely dressed for a teenager.
But Kari, as Alex saw it, was “done up” beautifully. She wore a little white, form-fitting dress, black heels, and her hair was down her back in a cascade of wide, thick curls. She looked like an angel to Alex. He’d seen many beautiful women in his day, but for some enchanting reason none of them affected his heart, his spirit, his very soul the way Kari did. She could have worn a trash bag, while a hundred women were decked down in designer heaven, and he would prefer Kari.
She and Jordan were smiling ear to ear as they made their way to Alex. In fact, when they came closer, Jordan and then Kari ran to him. Nobody had ever been happy to see Alex the way they were. And Alex couldn’t help it. He started grinning too. He had never felt this great in he couldn’t even remember how long ago!
“Hey, buddy!” Alex said as he and Jordan half-shook hands, and half-hugged.
“How are you, sir?”
“I’m good. Thanks for asking. How are you?”
“I’m great! Thank you so much for what you did for me. Your lawyers and investigators are the real deal! For real though.”
Alex laughed. “They cost enough. They’d better be,” he said, and all three laughed.
Then Alex looked at Kari. His heart was already fluttering when he saw her, and now, seeing her up close again, it was downright pounding. Pounding, he thought. Exactly what he was going to be doing to her when he got her alone.
“Hey,” he said to her.
“Hi,” Kari said.
“How have you been?”
“You mean since you last saw me this morning?”
He smiled. “Yes. Since then.”
“I’ve been good,” she said, as she reached out her hand to him. There was still that awkwardness she felt when she came around him.
He shook her hand, alright, but then he pulled her against his body, and kissed her, open mouth, on the lips. His heart fluttered when he kissed her.
Kari’s heart was fluttering, too, as he leaned into her and kissed her. “I’m good,” she said, when he moved back, as if she had not already answered his question.
Jordan smiled. His mom was so out of practice, he thought.
But Alex didn’t seem to mind, he also noticed. “Good,” Alex responded to her.
“We’re all good,” Jordan said, and they all laughed.
“Then let us good people get our good behinds away from here,” Alex said, as he opened the back door of the limousine. “What say you?”
“I say yes, sir,” Jordan said, and got in first.
Kari smiled, and got in behind him.
Alex got in behind her, and sat beside her. Very close beside her, Jordan noticed. He was sitting across from them.
And they were off.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
It was, for Kari and Jordan, as if they were walking through the pages of a magazine. Alex was giving them a tour of his New York mansion on the Hudson River. From its dramatic double staircase and cathedral ceilings on entry, to its mosaic tiles and stained-glass skylights, and its indoor solariums, pools, and even an indoor basketball court, it was a dream-like setting for both of them. Even the drawing room, Kari noticed, had a sweeping double staircase!
The bedrooms, all twelve of them, were spacious, too, considering how old the historic home was, and the bathrooms took what Alex said was imported Carrara marble to an entirely different level. Kari had never seen so much marble. And the master bedroom, where Alex slept, was on a wing all its own. The sitting room alone spanned four-hundred feet.
The house was so big, and so grand, that it should have felt like a museum rather than an intimate home. But it didn’t. It felt, to Kari and Jordan, incredibly intimate. Even cozy.
And after dinner, after Jordan begged and Alex allowed him to get into the outdoor pool, and Alex and Kari went outdoors to, on the veranda. Alex pu
t on some music, and he and Kari danced. Kari smiled when he put on the first tune, because Jordan was right, Alex did like show tunes!
But he also liked the modern stuff to. And Kari didn’t mind either way. She danced to show tunes, the modern stuff. She just danced! Because Alex was there, moving like he knew what he was doing, and he actually did, that made it all magical.
When they both were drained, Alex plopped down in a chair and took sips from his glass of wine. Etta James singing Gordan and Warren’s At Last came on, a slow drag, and Kari removed her heels. She sat down, on the edge of the pool, and dipped her feet into the water. Jordan gladly swam over to his mother.
“Show tunes,” Jordan said with a grin. “Didn’t I tell you, Ma?”
“Not every song.”
“Might as well be! I don’t hear anybody who’s put out a record in twenty years in his arsenal of tunes.”
Kari laughed. “Just quit, boy,” she said, and they continued to small talk and grin.
Alex crossed his legs and stared at both of them. He had no business taking tonight off. He should have been at that negotiating table with his team. But he knew, if he ever was going to get the life he wanted, he had to prioritize. He decided this morning, with the same speed of decision he always made when it came to his business, that Kari and Jordan, henceforth now and forever more, was going to be his priority.
He would have never thought that Kari, that waitress in Lucinda’s Diner, would turn out to be the one. It still amazed him. He drove alone to Apple Valley because he needed to get away. He would have never thought, in a million years, that by getting away, he got to Kari.
When Jordan pushed away and began swimming again, into the deeper waters, Kari, hearing the song, turned and looked at Alex. He smiled at her. She smiled at him. And they just listened to the music, and stared at each other.
“At last
My love has come along
My lonely days are over
And life is
like a song.
At last
The skies above are blue
My heart was wrapped up in clover
The night that I
looked at you.”
And later, when Jordan was so tired he could barely stand, he went to bed in one of the many rooms on the home’s east wing, while Alex and Kari were already in Alex’s bed on the west wing, naked and horny as hell, making hard love.
She was on top of Alex, riding his cock, and he was sucking her breasts and rubbing and squeezing her ass in fast, sweat-filled lovemaking. Jordan was free now. The burden had been lifted. And Alex felt it deep inside of Kari’s inviting, pulsating pussy.
And when he took over, and put her on her back, he slowed it down considerably. He wanted this night to last! He fucked her with long, deep, and slow strokes: the kind that made their hearts quiver. The kind that made Kari feel as if her insides were being invaded by a force that was overwhelming her. The kind that made her want to scream out in joy. She wanted to shout from the rooftops how great it felt. But she couldn’t. Because Alex, feeling her need, covered her mouth with his, and her words disappeared into their passion.
They made love for a long time. Alex pumped his ass off, and she tightened around his rod, causing him to pump even harder, until they were in a rhythm that could not be stopped.
It felt so good to Alex that he had to lean up and look into her eyes as he fucked her. Was it this good to her, too? Her eyes, he knew, would tell him all he needed to know.
When he saw that she had tears in those eyes, and that she was smiling through her tears, he knew she felt it too. He smiled at her, and continued to fuck her harder and harder as if he still had points to prove. Until the fever suddenly broke. Not the heat of their passion fever. But the tempestuousness of his love.
Because it was more than that now.
His smile left, and his look was dead serious. “We’re together now,” he said to Kari. “You’re my lady. We’re in this together.”
Kari smiled, as her eyes filled with even more tears. “We’re in it together,” she said, nodding her head. “But are we in it alone?”
Alex stared at her. He knew what she meant. He had other women. That was no secret. He had more women than Kari in her wildest estimate would probably underestimate. His lifestyle was going to have to change.
That was not going to be easy.
But . . .
“Yes,” Alex said. “We will be.”
Kari stared at him. She knew about Alex’s extensive female collection. And she was nobody’s fool. It was going to take him considerable time and effort to wean himself off of that kind of free-for-all sugar. But if he was willing to give it all he had; if he was willing to at least try, she was willing to see.
“Okay,” she said. “We’re together.” And both of them smiled.
And although his words, that Kari was now his girlfriend, or his lady, as he put it, was the climax for Kari, Alex wasn’t finished with her yet. He needed the other kind of climax. The sensual kind. And he got it with a hard cum. So hard that Kari came too. So hard that he began slapping his balls against her thighs as he couldn’t stop fucking her, or even slow back down, even as every ounce of his being was drained.
The elevator doors to the fifth floor of the hospital opened, and Danny Pataki, with Scrub McGhee at his side, stepped off and made fast, deliberate steps to Room 1542. But when they walked into that hospital room, and saw Vito Visconni in all kinds of contraptions to support his spine and jaw, Pataki stopped in his tracks. Vito was wide awake, and the bitterness in his eyes said it all.
“You see what he did to me?” he asked his boss. “I can’t walk. I can’t fuck. I can’t even pee on my own. Look what he did to me! And you’re worried about his old man? What about me!” he screamed. “Look what he did to me!”
Pataki was angry too. And it was personal. “My best man a cripple? That fucker turned my best fixer into a fucking cripple?”
Pataki nodded his head. It was beyond Vito now. Vito was useless to him now. This was about the Family. “He’s going to pay,” he said. “Don’t you worry, Money. Nobody takes from me, and get away with it. On my father’s life, that bastard will pay!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The next morning, Alex drove Kari and Jordan to the airstrip. To Jordan’s shock, he drove them in what was yet another S-class Mercedes. This one a powder blue S-class. And when Jordan got out on the tarmac, and opened the car door for his mother, he found himself staring at Alex as he got out, too, and put on his suit coat. He was a very distinguished man, Jordan thought. Different than any man he’d ever known. And he very much liked the fact that Alex loved his mother. And that was how Jordan saw it. When he saw how Alex looked at Kari, he didn’t see like. He saw love.
But it was bittersweet as the three of them made their way to Alex’s waiting private plane. Alex walked in the middle, with an arm around Kari’s waist and an arm around Jordan’s shoulder: as if they belonged to him. But they had to leave him. And, from what he could tell, he might not be able to get back to Apple Valley until the day of the vote on the casino referendum. He was just that busy.
Jordan’s prayer was that he wouldn’t forget about them while he was in one state, and they were in another one.
His hopes were lifted when they got on the plane. Instead of Alex immediately saying goodbye and leaving, since it was obvious that the plane was ready for takeoff, Jordan saw Alex staring into Kari’s eyes. And rubbing her upper arms. And then hugging her for a long, long time. It was as if he was going to hate their separation as much as Jordan was.
And Jordan was right. Alex absolutely hated parting with Kari, and he was going to miss Jordan too. He knew the more he got to know that young man, the more he was going to adore him.
But when he stopped hugging Kari, it was Kari he was adoring. He lifted her chin to his face. He looked into her big, brown eyes. He saw, in her unable-to-conceal-anything eyes, that she was going to miss him, too. “Take c
are of yourself while I’m gone,” he told her.
“I will, Alex. And you do, too,” Kari responded.
“I wish you and Jordan could stay right here in New York until I’m able to get away.”
“We do, too,” Kari said, “but I still have a business to run, such as it is, and Jordan needs to get back in school.”
“If those students or teachers give him a hard time, pull him. We’ll find a better school.”
Kari wasn’t sure if she was going to give up on his school that easily, but his suggestion was coming from the right place. “Okay,” she said.
And then, not at all surprising to Jordan, Alex was rubbing her shoulders again and hugging her for a long time again. It was as if he couldn’t get enough of touching her. And when he stopped hugging her, lifted her chin again, and began kissing her, it only confirmed what Jordan knew to be true: it was love, not like. He didn’t care what his mother said!
When Alex kissed Kari, she closed her eyes and soaked up every second of his kiss. It was last night all over again, and this morning, when he made love to her again, before she even got out of bed.
There she was, waking up stretching, and there was Alex, before she could even stop stretching, sucking her breasts. Then he moved his mouth downward, between her legs, and began sucking her there for the longest oral in her life’s history. She was on her back, with her legs over his big shoulders, and he was feasting on her with a passion that far exceeded even her own. And hers was outsized!
When they stopped kissing on the plane, and Alex said his goodbyes to Kari, and Jordan, giving him a half-handshake, half-hug, he pulled out what looked like a credit card. “Take this,” he said to Kari.
Kari took it, but only to see what it was. “What’s this?” she asked.
“A debit card, with your name on it. For your use.”
But Kari, as Jordan knew she would, was already shaking her head. “Alex, no,” she said, attempting to hand it back. “I couldn’t . . .”
Alex Drakos: His Forbidden Love Page 18