Mr. Fix-It (20 page)

“I’ll do it!” came a male voice from the kitchen.

Eugenio, sweat glossing his bald head, bounded into the sitting room.

“Ugh. Honestly, Eugenio,” Sofia complained. “Didn’t I ask you to man the blender?”

“Please, Eugenio, sit,” Friend said, offering the black folding chair she had sat in during Sofia’s introductions.

Eugenio, smiling snarkily, happily sat. He revealed his anticipation for whatever was to come by rubbing his knuckles along the black nylon of his track pants. He gleefully tapped his toes, his white athletic shoes noiseless against the white carpet.

Friend took the feather and guided it to hover over Eugenio’s bare forearm. “Imagine lying in bed on a hot summer night with the man who brings out the goddess in you,” she crooned in her dreamy, high-pitched voice. “He looks at you, and he sees the goddess of his dreams.”

“If she says godd-ESS one more time, I’m going to up-CHUCK,” Khela whispered to Daphne.

“You take Aphrodite’s Feather,” Friend continued, “and you invite the warrior inside your man to come out and play.” She stroked the feather lightly along Eugenio’s forearm.

He giggled like a kindergartner, pulling his arm back and scratching the place the feather had touched.

“Oh, are you allergic to feathers?” Friend asked.

“No, it just tickles, that’s all,” Eugenio said.

“ ’Genio!” Sofia cried, aghast. “God, you’re so annoying!”

“I think I’d like to buy one of those feathers,” Khela said offhandedly.

Everyone, even Eugenio, looked at her.

“I don’t know, I think it’s broken,” Eugenio said. “A feather doesn’t really cut it, at least not for me.”

“The toy is only as good as the person wielding it,” Khela interjected. Liking the sound of the phrase purloined from Friend, she asked for a closer look at the feather. Friend handed it to her.

“How would you use Aphrodite’s Feather?” Friend asked her.

Everyone watched Khela run the vane, the soft, flat, web-like part of the feather, along her palm. Holding it by its stem, she pulled it through the circle formed by her thumb and forefinger.

Instantly, she pictured Carter as he’d been the last morning they had awakened together. The night had been mild, and they’d slept with the windows open. Carter, his long, lean body at complete rest atop her tangled bed sheets, looked like one of Rodin’s greatest works made real.

Khela clutched Aphrodite’s Feather between her fingers, and slowly brought it to Carter’s chest. In sleep, his hand batted at it, likely annoyed by its slight tickle. Khela, smiling now, brought the feather lower. With its tip, she traced the dark-gold trail of hair arrowing toward Carter’s thighs. He absently rolled perfectly flat on his back, subconsciously craving more attention as evidenced by the response of flesh yet to be touched.

Khela lay the feather gently on him, allowing the downy softness of the vane to settle upon him before she drew the feather along his full length. His body began seeking her even before he completely awakened, and Khela helped him out by placing herself upon him.

“Gimme that feather!” Sofia said, snatching it from Khela, thus pulling her out of her reverie. She hadn’t realized that she had shared her imagined scenario until she saw the faces of her audience. Mrs. Willmore’s color was high, but not as flushed as that of her redheaded friend, whose cheeks blazed.

Friend had finally stopped her odd swaying, and Eugenio sat rapt and slack-jawed in his chair.

“C’mere, ’Genio,” Sofia demanded, grabbing his collar as she passed his chair. Eugenio stumbled over his own feet as he tried to keep up with his wife. “We’re going to try out this feather, babe!”

Daphne looked at Khela, who blushed fiercely.

“You’d better make up with Carter,” she advised. “Quick.”

* * *

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Khela licked her lips. She could still taste the fruity martini she had consumed at Sofia’s, but she couldn’t tell if it had been apple, mango, watermelon or raspberry. Her taste buds were dead. Every part of her had felt dead ever since she had shared her feather fantasy.

Idling in front of Carter’s building, Daphne waited for Khela’s answer.

Startling Daphne with her agility and speed, Khela hopped out of the car, her black handbag dangling from her shoulder. “I want to do this, and I want to do it now, while I have the guts,” she said, leaning into the window. “I’ll see you when I see you.”

“I’m going to wait until he buzzes you in,” Daphne said.

“Great, hon,” Khela said, mimicking Sofia. Her high-heeled black Mary Janes tapping out her progress, she climbed the steps leading to the walkway to Carter’s townhouse.

Once she found Carter’s name on the resident directory, she pressed the buzzer corresponding to his apartment for a good minute.

“He’s probably not home!” Daphne called, leaning across the seats to shout through the passenger window when Khela got no response.

“It’s Saturday night,” Khela hollered back. “He better be home. If he’s out with another woman, I swear, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Carter demanded angrily, throwing wide the front door. Khela jumped back, releasing the buzzer.

“See you later,” Daphne shouted. “And good luck.”

Khela watched Daphne pull slowly into traffic before turning back to Carter, who stood with his arms crossed over his chest. “I’d like to talk to you,” she said with a calm she didn’t feel as she stared at him. The sight of him restored all feeling to her, and her heart throbbed painfully as she waited for him to say something.

“Come on up,” he finally said, dropping his arms and offering his hand.

* * *

“What are you doing here?” Carter asked, breaking the awkward silence they had suffered during the elevator ride to his apartment.

Khela, her heart hammering against her chest, tried to calm it with deep breaths as she moved through the foyer and into his living room. His wasn’t the apartment of the typical building superintendent, unless that super happened to be related to Warren Buffett. The carpet beneath her feet was so thick Khela almost felt as though she were walking on a mattress.

Carter’s furnishings were tasteful, simple and comfortable-looking. The extra-long sofa, which faced a gloriously large fireplace, complemented the width of the big bay windows, which offered a look at the Prudential Center. Carter fit his environment perfectly, dressed in a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, khaki trousers and white socks.

Strolling past Carter, Khela went to the fireplace. She caressed the glassy smoothness of the marble mantel. Her brain flashed her an image of a snow-covered Boston day spent sharing the warmth and crackle of a fire with Carter.

She shook her head, ridding herself of the image as she continued her self-guided tour of the place. She went into the dining room with its dark pine table, chairs, hutch and buffet. She passed the bathroom without entering it, but noted its location, and she entered his office. Through the opposite door she spied the foot of a high, wide bed, but the office held her interest.

It was so unlike hers.

Khela’s bedroom and office had blended into the same space, the loft area high above the rest of her living quarters. The place where she worked and the place where she slept were inextricably linked, much to her detriment. When she was seriously working, she often wanted to be sleeping. When she was sleeping, she often dreamt of working.

Carter had achieved a healthier balance in keeping his workspace completely separate from his personal space.

“You’re very good at compartmentalizing your life, aren’t you?” she said coldly, brushing past him to get back to the living room.

“I don’t appreciate your tone,” he responded once he caught her near the fireplace.

She whirled on him, fire in her eyes. “I don’t give a crap about what you think about my tone. I haven’t seen or heard from you in weeks. You’re lucky I’m speaking to you at all.”

“I didn’t invite you here,” Carter said.

“Fine,” she snapped. “Bye.”

He caught her by the arm and pulled her to him as she tried to pass him. “Don’t go,” he whispered into her hair. “I’m glad you came over. I needed to talk to you. I just couldn’t figure out how to start.”

“An explanation would be a good place.”

His arms went around her, and Khela detected a slight tremble in his body. Instinct trumped anger, and she held him tight.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, his lips moving at her right temple. “I’m so sorry.”

“About what? Calling me a disappointment?”

“I wasn’t referring to you,” he said, drawing back to face her. “I’m the disappointment.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

He cupped her face. “You said you thought it was weird that a Boston University graduate would want to polish banisters all day.”

It took her a moment to place those words. After she had, she put her hands on his neck, gently choking him. “If you’re going to eavesdrop, you should listen to the whole conversation, not just the part of it that gives you an excuse to walk out on me.”

“I want to be the kind of man you deserve.”

In her Mary Janes, Khela was tall enough to touch her forehead to his. Carter’s hands moved into her hair, cupping the back of her head.

“I deserve a man who makes me feel as though I’m the only woman in the world for him,” Khela whispered.

Carter tilted his head to kiss her, but she stopped him with a finger to his lips.

“And a man who’ll talk to me if there’s a problem, not run off and sulk like a spoiled child.”

“Nothin’ I can do now but say I’m sorry,” he said, his hands tightening in her hair. “I’m so sorry, Khela.”

“Me, too. I wish you’d heard everything I said that night.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon get on with the business of making up the days we missed out on in our two weeks,” he said.

“No.”

“No?” he chuckled in disbelief.

“I want more than two weeks,” Khela stated.

* * *

“When you said you lived across the street, I had no idea it was in the penthouse apartment,” Khela said. She accepted the glass of wine Carter had poured for her, and she took a sip of it as he joined her on the sofa.

“You didn’t give me a chance to explain,” Carter replied. “This isn’t the super’s apartment. It’s the apartment for the building owner.” He dropped his eyes to his own wine goblet, swirling the pinot noir.

Khela’s eyes became perfect circles. “You…Y-You’re…You own this townhouse?”

He nodded. “I own yours, too.”

Khela’s stomach flip-flopped. Her heart seemed to stop beating. She set her wine glass on a black leather coaster atop his low cocktail table before she lunged across the sofa and let him have it. “In three years, you couldn’t be bothered to tell me that you were my landlord?”

Laughing, Carter caught her fists. “You make your rent checks out to CR Management,” he said. “You never associated that C and R with me?”

“When we met, you didn’t exactly look like the owner of a five-million-dollar Boston property.”

“Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“No wonder you never seemed interested in money,” she said. “You’re probably worth more than I am.”

He shook his head vigorously. “Nope, never. You’re worth a hundred of me, Khela.”

“So underneath that cool and confident façade, you’ve got the same insecurities as everyone else,” Khela said.

Groaning, Carter let his head fall back. “I totally walked right into that.”

Khela took his face and returned his gaze to hers. “I adore you exactly the way you are.”

“I thought you wanted me just because you thought I was hot.”

He expected her to laugh, or at the very least, to make a smart-ass comment. The last thing he thought she would do was caress his cheek with her fingertips, and touch his lips in a delicate kiss.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“For now?”

“For always,” Khela said.

“I want to be happy.”

“What would make you happy?”

“Someone who accepts me whether or not she understands me. Someone who’ll accept me for my faults and not punish me for them. And who’ll make me a better man without changing who I am.”

“That’s odd.”

“Why?” he asked against her lips.

“Because that’s what I want, too.”

Carter offered her a sweet smirk. “You want to be a better man?”

“I want
you
to be a better man.”

Chapter 12

“True love survives chaos, madness, spite and greed.

True love solves all.”

—from
A Proper Princess
by Khela Halliday

Carter brewed a pot of strong coffee, which gave them the fuel to talk through the night. The pale grey light of the approaching dawn tinted the heavens beyond the silhouettes of the familiar skyscrapers, where thousands of commuters would soon begin their workday.

Once their words had been exhausted, their bodies seemed to follow. Communicating only by offering his hand, Carter invited Khela to leave the fat armchair she’d been sitting in. She took his hand and allowed him to lead her into his bedroom, where he unbuttoned the back of her dress and helped her out of it. He unhooked her black bra, carefully slipped the straps from her arms, and he laid it neatly on top of her dress, which lay atop the pine Harbury accent bench at the foot of his bed.

Left in only a dainty pair of sheer black panties, Khela’s skin prickled under Carter’s bold scrutiny. His fingers grazed her abdomen, making her skin jump, on their way to her hips, where he hooked them into the waistband of her panties. Slowly squatting, Carter drew her delicate panties down the length of her legs. She bent and rested a hand on his shoulder to maintain her balance as she stepped out of them.

Carter neatly folded them and placed them with her bra.

Knowing that his eyes were tracking her movements, Khela went to the bed and slid beneath its lightweight duvet. The massive sleigh bed was a near-perfect square and slightly bigger than a standard king. Through heavy-lidded eyes, Khela watched Carter undress, enjoying every second of what seemed like a great unveiling.

His belt came off first, and he put it on the bench with Khela’s clothing. Next, he unbuttoned his button-down, shrugging out of it with the bored ease of a man in no special hurry to climb into bed with the woman he loved and craved. His eyes on Khela, he took off his pristine white T-shirt.

She shifted her head on his pillows, giving herself the perfect view of his bare torso. Bracing one hand on the big burled pine dresser facing the foot of the bed, he bent and removed his socks, apparently in deference to one of her long-ago observations that there was nothing funnier than a man wearing only his socks.

His pants and sports briefs came off last. Khela sighed at the sight of his nude body. He appeared to have grown only more beautiful in the time they had spent apart. His long legs, shapely in the distinct way that only a man’s legs can be, brought him to the bed. His strong arms, the biceps and triceps working gracefully under his tawny skin, pulled back the duvet.

Khela welcomed him into the silken warmth of his bed, a place now made most inviting by her heat and presence. Carter aligned his body with hers. She rested her head on his right bicep; he clasped her backside, plastering her hips to his. He worked one of her legs between his and embraced her, assuring that her heartbeat was as close as possible to his own.

He nuzzled her hair, breathing deeply of her, reacquainting his senses with every detail of her. His abdomen moved hard against hers, and Khela took his face in her hands.

“Are we all right?” she whispered, her dark eyes searching his lighter ones.

He nodded, afraid of what else would spill out if he dared speak.

“I missed you,” she said, her voice as soft and gentle as a caress.

Carter kissed her then, his tenderness planting the seed for a belief Khela thought herself incapable of, that love—the kind she wrote about, the kind she wished for—actually existed.

Sliding slowly down her body, Carter continued to cover her with chaste kisses, occasionally darting out his tongue to taste a specific part of her, or learn its texture anew. His warm breath, firm lips, taunting teeth and talented tongue at her breasts left her gasping for more of him.

He eagerly obliged, disappearing under the duvet to dot her taut belly and lower abdomen with kisses. He positioned her fully on her back before settling between her thighs. Khela caught a glimpse of his hunched shape beneath the covers before she closed her eyes and pushed her head into the soft pillow.

Carter braced the backs of her thighs on his shoulders, and he held her hips in his hands, as though presenting the feast of her body to himself on a platter.

Khela shivered in anticipation, hungrily awaiting what would come next. Through the duvet, she clutched at Carter’s head and back, her spine arching upward. Friend Oceanwater had introduced them to dozens of tools that would accomplish the simple goal of sexual release, but Khela was confident that Friend and Aphrodite’s Feather had nothing that could surpass Carter’s ability to please.

He parted her wet folds by stroking upward with the bridge of his nose, anointing himself with her slippery perfume. He finished the stroke with the flick of his tongue, eliciting a sharp intake of air from Khela. Carter smiled against her dampness within the tent of the duvet. Pulling her thighs as widely apart as possible, he held her to his lips and tasted her, his tongue probing, swirling, lapping and thrusting.

The duvet protected Carter’s skin from Khela’s fingernails, which would have dug into him from the strength with which she was clutching his head. Carter held her tightly, breathing hard and fast against her, almost as hard and fast as the movement of his tongue and jaw.

He fully exposed her, and then gently clamped his teeth on the pulsating nub no longer hiding within its hood of slick flesh. He gave it a tiny tug, flitting the tip of his tongue over it, and Khela responded with a guttural moan that echoed off the walls and high ceiling.

Her thigh muscles hardened, her back curved, and her hands clenched into tight fists, and for one short second she was utterly still. But then her hips began moving against Carter’s mouth and chin, working her into the hottest, most heavenly frenzy.

He fit his tongue into her in time to feel the violent constriction of her dark tunnel. Her body undulated, and Carter wished he could see her from outside the covers. He imagined how lovely she looked in the throes of rapture, and he found himself erupting in an amateurish display reminiscent of his earliest adolescent fumbling under the covers in the quiet of night.

Explosion after explosion rocked through her until her flesh became so sensitive, she could only whimper in mindless bliss as he continued to expertly gnaw at her.

“Carter,” she exhaled weakly, “please. I can’t…”

He pushed aside the duvet. “Do you want me to stop?” he asked against the warmth of her inner thigh.

Yes,
was in her mind, but her love-starved nerve endings forced out a breathy, “No.” For the first time ever, Khela’s eruptions stacked, building higher and higher, the sensations intensifying until she felt she would shatter. Something within her did indeed break, and to her surprise, it turned out to be the very last of her reservations about giving herself, in total body and mind, to Carter.

He sank once more into the heaven between her thighs and, as the light of the golden sunrise flooded over them, Carter took Khela to a place where her cries of pleasure sounded like the songs of angels.

* * *

They finally left the bed just after noon for a picnic in Carter’s living room. White carryout containers from Rami’s covered the coffee table and sat on the floor around them and their plates. Carter, dressed only in grey sports briefs, scooped up the last of the baba ganoush with his finger.

“I think the carton is edible, too,” Khela joked. “Go on, try it.”

“Hardy har har,” Carter said. Passing on tasting the box, he did turn it upside down to shake the last bits of eggplant into his mouth.

“Have you ever been to Rami’s?” Khela asked him.

Having scoured his plate clean with a piece of pita, Carter moved on to the next container. “I’ve never had food like this before. What is it? Greek?”

Khela marveled at how good ol’ Southern boy ignorance and urban sophistication resided side by side within him. “How can you have lived in Boston for so long without sampling some of its Middle Eastern cuisine?”

He shrugged. “I just like American food better, I guess.”

“I’ve never seen you lick your plate after eating a hamburger,” Khela said.

“Okay, so this is a little tiny bit better than a hamburger,” he admitted. “What was in it? I can’t really tell.”

“Eggplant, lemon juice, cumin, olive oil, parsley, tahini—”

“Tahiti?”

“Tahi
n
i,” Khela repeated more clearly. “It’s a sauce made of sesame seeds.”

“I bet tahini would taste good on pork rinds.”

He said this with a straight face, but then he started laughing and Khela knew that he was just teasing her.

“Have you tried the penis stew?”

Carter’s laughter abruptly died. “They put real penis in a stew?”

“Well, how do you make
your
penis stew?” she asked with a sardonic smile.

Carter’s face wrinkled in disgust. “Man, that’s nasty.”

“I’m kidding. Rami’s doesn’t make penis stew. You’d have to go to Malaysia or China to find a restaurant that delivered penis stew. You could probably get bull, goat, deer—”

“I don’t need to hear the flavors,” Carter laughed.

“Try one of the spinach borekas,” she offered, handing him one. “They don’t taste a thing like penis.”

He took her wrist and held her hand in place so he could nibble the potato and spinach-filled turnover right from her fingers. When he finished, he licked her fingertips, sucking every crumb of pastry, every tasty bead of filling, from them.

Khela purred her approval. “Would you like to try a meat kabob?”

Tugging her by her wrist, Carter pulled her into the hollow formed by his crossed legs. “I like the theme you got goin’ here.” Grinning suggestively, he took her hand and wrapped it around his personal meat kabob.

“Ooh,” Khela murmured through prettily puckered lips. “This could feed a family of eight.”

“Try nine.”

“Friend Oceanwater had a table full of B.O.B.s built like this,” Khela whispered against his neck. “Tell me, what power source does
this
require?”

Carter closed his eyes and expelled a low moan. “It’s manual,” he sighed. “Good old-fashioned elbow grease gets the job done every time.” He opened his eyes. “What’s a B.O.B?”

“Battery-Operated Boyfriend.” Khela put a little more elbow into the movement of her hand in his lap. “I think some of the girls went home with a couple of them last night.”

Carter reluctantly moved her hand aside. “Exactly what did you and Daphne do last night?”

“We went to an Aphrodite’s Feather party.” She slid off his lap and onto the floor, nearly sitting on a shallow box of pitas.

“What’s that?”

“It’s, um…” She tapped her chin with her index finger. “It’s like a Tupperware party, only instead of storage containers and measuring cups, you get to see samples of vibrators and edible panties.”

“Oh,” Carter said, reaching for a pita. Then he spun around and faced Khela. “What?”

She fell over laughing, upsetting her glass of Mideastern-style lemonade. Carter quickly grabbed a pile of white napkins from the coffee table to clean up the mess. After picking up the flecks of mint and the orange blossom that had garnished and flavored the beverage, he used bottled water to dilute the remaining liquid. He dabbed at it until no traces of it remained in the carpet.

“All better?” Khela asked after he’d wadded up the soiled napkins and stuffed them into the empty baba ganoush carton.

“Thank God, I had the carpet treated with a stain guard,” he said.

“It’s just lemonade, not sulfuric acid,” Khela commented. “Or cat pee. Or ketchup. Or grape—”

“I get it, smarty,” he chuckled. “I like to keep my things nice.”

“You do realize that children will destroy this place,” Khela said.

“Children? What children?”

“
Your
children. When you have them.”

“Oh, I won’t be livin’ here when we have kids. This is my big-city bachelor pad, my playboy penthouse. Our kids are gonna have a house with a big ol’ yard to run ‘round in.”

Khela kept her eyes on her half-eaten falafel. She didn’t want him to see how his use of “we” and “our” affected her.

Carter had chosen those words deliberately. “You do want to have kids some day, don’t you?” he asked when she continued to avert her eyes.

“Absolutely,” she said, finally meeting his gaze squarely. “I grew up with parents who chose me, so I always felt that I was the most special little girl in the world, at least to them. I want someone who belongs to me completely. I want to know what it feels like to have someone with my eyes looking back at me. Or who flashes my smile at the world. I want someone who’ll love me, no matter what.”

“You got that, girl.” Carter stood on his knees and cupped her face. “You got that right here, and then some,” he said, covering her mouth with his and easing her onto his cushy, spotless carpet.

* * *

Sitting in the rear of the Crispus Attucks High School auditorium with Khela’s shoulder handbag on his lap, Carter squirmed uncomfortably. Every seat in the cavernous space was occupied by a student, teacher, parent or guest who wanted to listen to Khela, who had been invited to the school as part of its Weekend Mentor Lecture Series for Seniors.

Carter knew nothing about Crispus Attucks High, other than what he discovered upon their arrival—that it was a public school in the Dorchester section of Boston and two armed security guards patrolled its parking lot during weekend functions. His own alma mater, Dearborn Academy, was as different from Crispus Attucks as an ostrich from a shark.

Dearborn’s 60-acre campus was nestled in the quaint bedroom community of Concord, where median housing prices were close to $900,000. The rowhouses neighboring Crispus Attucks High were vacant, condemned, or occupied as evidenced by raggedy furniture, broken toys, uncollected newspapers and garbage strewn across patchy front lawns. Underneath their ugliness, the red brick structures had so much character, so many beautiful architectural details. Riding past the houses, Carter had wished that he could adopt the buildings as one would neglected children.