God Ain't Blind (16 page)

I was horrified by what he said next. “You are not gwine anywhere until I lick that pussy and then give you a tune-up with my dick. I dreamed about it all last night.” He let out a moan, checked his watch, and then turned to me, licking his lips. “We can either go to my place or get a room. What is it gwine to be?”

I gasped so hard, I burped, anyway. “Look, I am flattered that you want to take me to a room and do all kinds of interesting things to me, Louis. I am sure that it would be a lot of fun,” I admitted, fumbling around in my purse for some breath mints. As soon as I located my Certs, I tossed four into my mouth. The last thing I 116

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wanted my employees to know was that I’d been drinking during business hours. I had strongly advised them not to do it, but here I was, drinking like a sailor.

“I just told you what I want to do, goddammit,” he said, his jaw twitching.

“I can’t let you do that,” I bleated. I had to cough to keep from choking on the breath mints. “Now if you don’t mind, I really do need to get back to work.” My butt was so numb, I knew that I was no longer responsible for what it did. I reached for a napkin and wiped off the trail of sweat sliding down the side of my face.

“Do you know where the Do Drop Inn motel is located?”

I nodded. When I attempted to stand, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me back to my seat.

“Meet me there tonight,” he ordered.

“What?” I gulped. “I can’t do that,” I said, removing his hand from my wrist. “Not . . . uh . . . tonight,” I added, unable to face him.

“Then when?”

“I don’t know. Look, I can’t even think straight right now. Why don’t we worry about business first? Did you bring a list of the other menu items you want me to consider?”

“Fuck a menu. What I want to eat is not on my menu, or any other menu,” he said with a growl.

“Shh! You want these people in here to hear you talking all this nasty trash?”

It was impossible not to be flattered and turned on. Especially when his hand went up under my skirt. Good God! Before I could stop him, he stuck two of his fingers inside me, strumming my most intimate body part better than Jimi Hendrix ever strummed his guitar. I gasped as a mind-blowing orgasm caught me off guard. All four of the mints that I had been sucking on flew out of my mouth.

They landed on my salad plate, click-clacking like tiny hailstones.

C H A P T E R 2 4

I was still trembling and panting five minutes after I’d been finger fucked. The ecstasy that I’d just experienced had been just that potent. I had no idea whatsoever why Louis was laughing, so I asked. “Why . . . why do you think this is so funny?” I stammered.

“You should have seen the look on your face,” he teased. He looked like a cat that had just swallowed a canary. He laughed again.

“You . . . you shouldn’t have done that,” I stuttered as he gently wiped sweat off my face with his cloth napkin. “That was so . . .

nasty.
” There was so much love juice between my legs, I felt like I had peed on myself. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” I half-heartedly scolded, slapping the same hand that he’d used to “vio-late” me. I was horrified when he licked his fingers.

“Aw, come on. I know that your husband, or one of your boyfriends along the way, has done the finger deed to you before.”

“Not in public!” I snapped. I had never felt such a pleasant sensation on that level before in my life. Not even close. My husband and all the other men, more than I cared to think about, had never satisfied me with their fingers.

“Let’s get out of here,” Louis ordered. He dropped some bills on the table and led me by the hand out into the parking lot.

I was so stunned, I couldn’t speak, and when I tried to unlock my car door, I dropped my keys. He had to open the door for me.

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“I will see you for lunch on Monday. Have a nice day,” he said.

Then, just like that, he was gone. I watched him climb into a dusty, battered white van a few cars over from my freshly waxed Mazda.

As soon as I got back to my office, I put my DO NOT DISTURB sign on my door. There were a couple of folks who ignored that sign from time to time and just walked into my office like they were walking into a room in their own home. I locked my door this time.

I spent the next hour stretched out on the sofa facing my desk. I could not believe what had occurred during lunch. I could not believe that I had allowed it to happen, and I could not believe how fast Louis was moving. What was even harder to believe was the fact that I was letting him take me along for the ride.

I had hoped and prayed for something to happen that would keep me from fretting over Jade’s return and dwelling on issues related to my faltering marriage. Now I was concerned that I’d need something to divert my attention away from Louis! I sat bolt upright on the sofa and looked around my office. Then, all of a sudden, I shuddered. I had just tried to imagine a full-blown sexual relationship with Louis. What he had done to me with his fingers in the restaurant had sent me into orbit. What could he do to me with his dick? I wondered. The thought made me so wet, I had to remove my panties. As dazed as I was, I was still lucid enough to hide them in an interoffice envelope before I stuffed them into my purse. The first thing I planned to do when I got home was to put them in the dirty clothes hamper. All I needed was for Pee Wee, or my daughter, to root through my purse, looking for loose change, and wonder why my nasty panties were in my purse. What a fine mess my life had become!

Louis was a man of his word. He showed up the following Monday right when he said he would with three of his employees to help him set up and serve me and my staff Yankee pot roast with all the trimmings. Not once did he make even a remote pass at me.

As a matter of fact, he was so businesslike and aloof, I thought he’d lost interest in having anything to do with me, other than feeding me and my staff.

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He called me later that afternoon, about two hours after we’d finished our lunch.

“Well?” he asked.

“Well what?”

“Are we going to do business or not?”

“We will. My employees can’t stop raving about your food and your service. But only if we can do this on a trial basis. Say for three months. If things work out, then we can talk about a formal contract.”

“You’ve already told me that,” he said sternly. “Repeatedly.”

“I know. I just want to make sure we keep that information in the forefront.”

“That sounds reasonable enough to me. Now what about that other thing?”

I swallowed hard. “What other thing? What are you talking about?”

I whispered, even though I was in my office, with the door closed.

“You know damn well what I’m talking about.”

“Oh,
that.
I’ll have to get back to you on that.” The telephone suddenly felt so hot in my hand, I could barely hold it. Even after I hung up right away, I could still feel its heat. I didn’t know if it was just my imagination, or if I was truly losing my mind.

I made a few calls to clients and got cussed out royally. Then I called Rhoda.

“I’m so glad you called,” she stated. “Jade just called me collect from Mexico. She’s flying in this evenin’—with that bullfighter.

Her daddy is about to have a heart attack.”

“Where is this bullfighter going to stay?”

“In the spare room, with Bully, when he returns from London.”

“I didn’t know Bully had gone back to London,” I said, trying to avoid talking about Jade as long as I could.

“I put his horny black ass on the plane last night. Like always, he’ll be back in a few days. Before he packed last night, I washed a few of his clothes. While I was in the laundry room, he snuck up on me, bent me over the top of the dryer, and fucked me from behind like a hound dog. Otis almost caught us again.”

Rhoda had been carrying on with Ian “Bully” Bullard, her husband’s best friend, right up under his nose for so long, he had to 120

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know. But if he did, he didn’t care. And no matter what I said, she always dismissed my comments and opinions about her extended affair. It had become such a worn-out subject that we discussed it only when she brought it up.

“Is Bully going back to his wife again?”’

“Oh, hell no. She’s livin’ with
his
best friend in a flat in Paris, fuckin’ his brains out. Bully’s just goin’ home to check on his property. I tried to talk his dumb ass out of buyin’ those two apartment complexes, and now he wishes he’d listened to me. They’ve been nothin’ but trouble. That’s what he gets for rentin’ to illegal immi-grants! He’s spendin’ a fortune goin’ back and forth from here to London a couple of times a month.”

“Well, it is his money and his property. And you are not his wife, so you really don’t have a right to tell him what to do, Rhoda.”

“I know, I know. He just seemed so much happier when he was just managin’ that luxury hotel. Anyway, it’s a good thing he’s goin’

to be out of the way for a little while. With Jade comin’ home and all, I’m goin’ to be busy as hell keepin’ her in line.”

Rhoda’s last sentence saddened me even more. “I guess I won’t see much of you for a while, huh?”

“Why do you say that?” she asked, sounding alarmed.

“You just said you’re going to be busy with your daughter,” I replied in a meek voice.

“Horsefeathers! Nonsense! You’ll see just as much of me when Jade gets home as you do now. I’ve already told you that I am not lettin’ her come between us again. And I meant that from the bottom of my heart.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that. I was worried about it,” I confessed.

“Well, don’t worry about it, because you don’t have to. Jade’s my problem. Now, tell me somethin’ good.”

It took me a few moments to decide what was “good” enough for me to share with Rhoda. “Is this a good time for me to tell you about that caterer?”

“Louis? What about him?”

“He’s a . . . really sweet guy.”

“I told you. And isn’t he sexy?”

“He is. We . . . he wants to . . . you know, get to know me better.”

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“You mean he wants to fuck you?”

“You could say that,” I answered, without hesitation.

Rhoda started to breathe so loud and hard, for a moment I thought she wanted to fuck me, too. “Do you want him to? And don’t lie to me.”

“I like him, Rhoda. I like him a lot. As a matter of fact, I’m going to call him up and see if he wants to meet me for a drink after work.”

“You’d better enjoy it while you can. Life is shorter than you think,” she said. The last part of her comment had an ominous under-tone, but I chose to ignore it. “Look, I’d like to continue this conversation, but I’ve got to get ready to drive to that damn airport. I know I said Jade’s return won’t interfere with us, but I might not be able to call or see you for a couple of days. I need to get her settled in first. I hope you understand.”

“I understand.”

As soon as I hung up, I immediately called Louis and asked him to meet me at Antonosanti’s again after work. He didn’t ask why, but I told him, anyway. I simply said, “I need to talk to you about something important.”

He was there when I arrived, waiting for me in the same booth where he had worked me over with his fingers. “You said you wanted to talk to me about something important,” he stated, pouring me a glass of wine. “Is it about your husband?”

I shook my head. “It’s a lot worse than that,” I said. He listened with bated breath as I told him everything there was to tell about my horrific experiences with Jade. When I stopped talking, half an hour later, he gave me a profound look of pity and shook his head.

“She tried to drive you crazy and take your husband. What a bitch!”

“Thank you for listening to me, Louis. I don’t really like to discuss this too much with my husband anymore.”

“Well, you can discuss it with me anytime you feel like it.” He gave me a hungry little kiss on my cheek. “I am here for you, Annette. Day or night, seven days a week.”

“Uh, you remember that motel you mentioned?” I said, blinking hard. “The Do Drop Inn?”

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He nodded.

“Maybe we can go there to relax or something,
real soon.
”

He nodded again.

“My best friend belongs to a bowling team, and they go bowling every Thursday night. I can use that as my alibi when I need to get out of the house. I’ll have her pick me up and drop me off wherever you are so it’ll look real convincing—in case my husband gets nosy. Besides, a lot of people know my car, and I wouldn’t want them to see it parked somewhere it shouldn’t be.” I paused to catch my breath. “And . . .” I wasn’t sure how I wanted to finish my last sentence, so I decided to stall.

He took the cue and ran with it. “This Thursday night would be a good time for us to get together at that motel, right?”

This time I hauled off and kissed him. “Right,” I said.

That following Thursday, we made the first of many visits to the Do Drop Inn.

C H A P T E R 2 5

It was a little after four on Sunday afternoon, two weeks after my first motel rendezvous with Louis. I had not spent last Thursday with him, even though we had made plans to. But Mother Nature had pulled a prank on me and made my period start a day early, which happened to be last Thursday. I had actually gone bowling with Rhoda and her team that time, like I was supposed to, and had been bored to tears.

Pee Wee had gone fishing, or so he claimed, somewhere near Akron. Charlotte was at my mother’s house, where she had spent the weekend. My mother had called my house and left three messages on my voice mail, all within the last hour. I had ignored them all until now.

Her messages were always the same. All she ever said was, “Call me back.” It didn’t matter what the reason was. Last month when I returned a call to her, it was because she wanted to know if I could remember the name of the first blonde who had replaced Suzanne Somers on
Three’s Company.
The “call me back” message that she’d left the very next day had to do with the death of a girl I went to school with.