French Silk (10 page)

Resplendent in a gold lamé dress, she had been introduced to the handsome young congressman by one of his colleagues. For several minutes Alister had been tongue-tied, but her laughs and gentle teasing soon put him at ease. They ignored everyone else at the reception, eventually left together in a limo provided for her, and concluded the evening in bed in a suburban motel.

It wasn't until the following morning that he confessed to having a wife and children at home in New Orleans. The passion that Yasmine had exhibited in bed hadn't prepared him for the passion of her unleashed fury. She had railed at him, called him scandalously filthy names, and threatened him with voodoo curses that would shrivel his manhood and render it useless.

"You fuck 'em and forget 'em, is that it, Congressman? Well, sugar, you're not dealing with any ordinary dumb chick here. I'm Yasmine. Nobody screws me over and gets away with it."

Once he had calmed her down, he explained the sad state of affairs. "My and my wife's families were friends. Belle and I grew up together."

"Big fuckin' deal."

"Please, Yasmine. Hear me out. You don't understand our society down there."

"I understand enough. I've read the historical novels. I know that the rich white men marry rich white ladies, but take their pleasure in bed with black mistresses."

Groaning her name, he had slumped onto the edge of the bed and plowed all ten fingers through his hair in abject despair. "I swear to you… Oh, Jesus, you'll never believe me." He looked up at her imploringly, "I never loved Belle. But once my folks died, hers took me under their wing. I did what was expected of me, what was expedient. I've been a good husband. And I've tried to love her. God knows I've tried.

"You have every right to be angry with me, Yasmine," he'd said. "I should have told you I was married before we left the party together, before things got out of hand. Better still, after meeting you, I should have turned my back and walked away. Because I knew then that, well … you dazzled me."

He was a tormented man playing tug-of-war with desire and honor. "But the attraction was just too strong. I was thunderstruck. I simply had to be with you." He bowed his head and stared at the carpet between his shoes. "Now that you know about my family, you've got every right to despise me."

He raised his tortured eyes to hers. "But I'll never forget our one night together. It was the most erotically charged and sexually satisfying experience of my life. Forgive me, but I refuse to apologize for it." He swallowed, visibly emotional. "I'm thirty-four years old. But until last night I didn't know what it felt like to fall in love."

Yasmine's heart had melted. Dropping to her knees, she embraced him. They wept and laughed and then made love again. Since that morning they had met whenever their schedules permitted, stealing a few blissful hours in Washington, New York, or New Orleans. Yasmine didn't feel guilty about her affair with a married man. To her, adultery was just a word. What she shared with Alister was right. It was his marriage that was wrong.

Now, she whispered yearningly, "I get so lonesome for you, baby. I want to be with you all the time. I can't wait for the day when we won't have to sneak around."

"I'm running out of patience too, but I'm making headway."

"How?"

"I've been suggesting to Belle—very subtly, you understand—that perhaps she isn't fulfilled. That perhaps we married before she had a chance to discover herself. That sort of thing."

"Is it working?"

"I've noticed a coolness."

Yasmine's heart skipped a beat, and a hopeful smile flickered across her solemn face.

"And we're not … you know, sleeping together much anymore. It's been months." He drew Yasmine against him and whispered fervently into her hair, "Thank God for that. Every time I had to be with her, all I could think about was you. How you feel and smell and taste. How wanting you drives me insane."

Their mouths met, melded; desire was rekindled. Yasmine's lips skimmed his chest and belly, then she took his penis into her mouth, using her agile tongue to bring it to steely hardness. Rising, she teasingly drew the glistening tip across her nipples, transfixing him with her shameless sexuality. His face flushed, he clutched at the sheets. When he finally entered her, they were half-crazed with lust. Both climaxed in a feverish rush.

Alister showered while Yasmine languished in the tousled bed. She liked to linger as long as she could amid the linens that bore the musky scents of their sweat and their sex.

Eventually, she forced herself to get up and began dressing. Before he'd arrived, she had discarded her panties and placed them in her large leather shoulder bag. As she reached into the bag for them now, her hand closed around something familiar.

Her revolver.

Alister emerged from the bathroom. "Whoa!" He dropped the towel he'd been drying himself with and raised both hands in a sign of surrender. "Was my performance unsatisfactory?"

Laughing, Yasmine aimed the gun at the juncture of his thighs. "Bang bang!"

He laughed, too, then gathered his clothing and began dressing. "What the hell are you doing with that?"

"I don't know." He gave her a quizzical glance. "I mean, I thought I'd lost it."

"I wish you had. You shouldn't be toting that thing around."

"Where I grew up, carrying one of these helped ensure survival." She balanced the revolver in her palm. "I thought I'd misplaced it in a piece of luggage on one of my trips between here and New York. I figured it would turn up sooner or later, but I didn't know it was in this bag when I left with it tonight." Shrugging, she tossed the revolver back into her bag. "I'm glad Mr. Cassidy didn't have a search warrant."

"Cassidy? The assistant D.A.?"

Yasmine stepped into her dress. "Oh, I didn't get a chance to tell you earlier. He came to see Claire this afternoon."

"About what?"

"You'll never believe it. Reverend Jackson Wilde."

Alister, straightening his cuffs, checked his reflection in the hotel dresser's mirror. "What about him?"

"He wanted to know what Claire was doing the night Wilde was killed."

Alister turned to face her. "Get real."

Yasmine laughed as she buckled her oversized belt. "That was Claire's reaction, too. That crazy evangelist was a pain in the ass while he was alive, and now he's plaguing us from the grave."

"What's the connection? Other than the obvious."

"Wilde had a 'hit list,' as this Cassidy called it. A list of magazines that he wanted to abolish. French Silk's catalog was one of them. Did you know about that?"

"How would I?"

"Well, you and Wilde were so chummy," she teased.

"I attended a few receptions welcoming him to the city because Belle thought it politically beneficial for me to do so. Personally, I think he was full of shit."

"Amen. I wonder who had the pleasure of shutting him up permanently," she said with a wicked grin. "The police must be scrounging for leads. Anyone on that list would have motivation for killing him, but since French Silk is headquartered here in New Orleans, Cassidy thought that maybe… You get the picture.

"Anyway," she continued, sliding on her bangles, "it wouldn't have looked too good for me to be toting around a gun, would it? Especially if the D.A.'s office discovered that I was in New Orleans with you that night and not in New York as everyone believes. If it came down to it, would you vouch for my Whereabouts?"

"Don't even joke about it, Yasmine." He took her by the shoulders. "I know Cassidy by reputation: he's ambitious and shrewd and always goes for the jugular. It sounds as though he's grasping at straws to connect French Silk to Wilde's murder, and it might look silly to us, but you can be damn certain that he's serious."

"Well, I'm not worried. He's got nothing on Claire. He can't build a case around her catalog's appearance on a stupid list."

"Of course not."

"Then why the frown?"

"Because I don't want him snooping around you."

"He didn't question me."

"That doesn't mean he won't. If he does, I can't be used as your alibi. Listen, Yasmine," he said urgently, "until I resolve my marriage, in my own time and in my own way, it's imperative that no one find out about us."

"I know that," she said sullenly.

"You can't indicate to anyone—
anyone
—that we're seeing each other."

She was glad he'd brought up the topic because she'd been wanting to address it for a long time. "I want to tell Claire about us, Alister. I hate tricking her and acting out games like having her pick me up at the airport when I've already been in town for twelve hours. Can't I confide in her? She's not going to tell anybody."

He was stubbornly shaking his head before she'd even finished making the request. "No, Yasmine. You can't tell anybody. Promise?"

Angrily she thrust his hands off her shoulders. Her eyes glittered dangerously. "Are you so afraid that word will leak out and reach Belle?"

"Yes, I am. If she ever learned the real reason I want a divorce, she'd try to stop it any way she could. And when she realized that I was determined and that it was inevitable, she'd stall and drag out the proceedings indefinitely."

He sighed and drew Yasmine into his embrace. "Don't you see? Why give Belle ammunition to hurt us even more than we're hurting already? I'm thinking of you. I don't want you dragged into a nasty scandal. No one would understand what it's like between us. The public would think the worst."

She cupped his face between her hands. "I love you, Alister. But I'd kill you if I thought you were lying to me."

He turned his face into her palm and kissed it. "I want to be with you more than anything in the world. I want to be married to you, having babies, all of it."

They kissed until tenderness blossomed into passion. "We can't, Yasmine." He moved her questing hand away from his fly. "I'm already late."

"You ain't that late, sugar," she whispered seductively as she opened his zipper.

The time came, however, when he had to leave. It did no good to pout, cry, threaten, or cajole. When he had to go, he had to go. It was as simple as that. She didn't like it, but she had learned to accept it. She made their goodbyes as painless as possible.

"When will I see you?"

"I've got several meetings with the reelection committee this week," he told her as he checked the room for anything he might have left behind. "November will be here before we realize it. Then there's a family reunion in Baton Rouge over the weekend. It'll be hell, but I have to go."

"Belle and the children will be there?"

"Of course." He tipped up her lowered chin and kissed her again. "How about Sunday night? Here. I'll make up some excuse. They'll be tired after the weekend. I should be able to get away for an hour or so."

"Sunday night," she agreed, trying to look happy about it. It was five days away.

"If I run into a problem, I'll call you." She had a private telephone line in her bedroom in Claire's apartment; it wasn't answered if she wasn't there.

He was almost through the door when he turned back. "Do you need some money, Yasmine?"

Her wistful smile disintegrated. "For services rendered?" she snapped. "How much do you figure one of my blow-jobs is worth?"

"I merely want to help."

"I should never have told you I was in a cash crunch."

In a weak moment several months earlier she had mentioned to him that her expenditures were running slightly higher than her income. Each month she got a little further behind. Some of her creditors were making threats.

"It's more serious than a cash crunch, Yasmine," Alister said reasonably. "You've been in financial straits for months."

When her contract with the cosmetics line expired, the company had decided against renewing Yasmine in favor of a "new look," a youthful, bouncy blond. Yasmine had pretended to be unfazed by their decision, but it had been a blow to her ego. She'd always known that the life span of a cover girl was short, but when that last major contract had expired, the bitter reality of being a has-been had caused her bouts of depression. At least she hadn't depended exclusively on that contract for her livelihood.

Neither had she taken into account just how lucrative it had been. She hadn't reduced her spending to compensate for the loss. In addition, some of her investments hadn't paid off as well as anticipated. Unreal as it seemed, Yasmine was now broke.

"The situation is temporary, Alister," she said with asperity. "My accountant and I are working out a solution. Things are already beginning to turn around. In any event, I won't take money from you. I'd feel like a whore. Don't offer again."

"What about Claire? She'd be glad to help you."

"It's no more her problem than it is yours. It's mine, and I'll work it out."

She sensed that he wanted to argue further and was glad that he didn't. Instead, he came back and playfully swatted her fanny. "Sassy and sexy. No wonder I love you so much." He whisked a kiss across her mouth. "See you Sunday."

* * *

Yasmine and Claire arrived at French Silk at the same time. Yasmine paid her taxi fare, then joined Claire at the door. "What are you doing out at this time of night?"