3rd World Products, Book 16 (39 page)

With a tap on Tanya’s door, a woman stepped inside the office and said, “Mr. Rosen is here.”
 

Tanya thanked her, then said, “Well, back to work. Wish me luck; Rosen and his brand-new wife want a three-bedroom.”
 

“So soon? Ambitious, aren’t they?”
 

That made her blurt a short laugh. She quickly picked up her phone and faked ending a call just as a somewhat short man was escorted in.
 

I said, “See you later, Miz T,” and dropped the link. My first thought after that was, ‘
Now, what the hell do I do with the rest of the day?
‘ Not one interesting idea came to mind at that moment, and then began envisionments of Tanya. Not just naked ones, either. How she looked in Aspen, grinning and slinging snow. How she looked when I’d first met her.
 

Clothed or not, she stirred me mentally and physically. All the symptoms. Lust and strong general attraction. Not love, but just as distracting when it drives all else from your mind.
 

Well, not quite all else. A number of people knew about us and word would get back to Marie eventually. Mental sigh. Probably just about the time she was regaining her power of speech so she
could rail at me about it. Oh, well. Might be good practice.
 

Angie pinged me and I answered, “You got me,” as I put up a screen. For a moment, Angie just looked at me.
 

She said flatly, “Ed, I just called to apologize.”
 

“Uh-oh. What’d you do now?”
 

Her gaze narrowed. “Don’t joke. I jumped on you earlier about something you couldn’t help. Your flitter answered the call. You shut down the video almost instantly.”
 

“Yup. Sure did. And I told Tea to let me open future links.”
 

With a glance askance, she replied, “That’s probably wise as long as you’re with Miss Connor.”
 

“Tanya.”
 

Her gaze hardened. “I’ll be calling her Miss Connor. What are you going to do when she figures out her affections are just gratitude and some kind of daddy issue manifestation?”
 

“I’ll send her straight to you for psychiatric counseling, Dr. Angie. And since when do you get to pass judgments? You’re about her age and you nailed me. Often, as I recall.”
 

“I’m a few years older than her. Doesn’t it bother you that she may be experiencing a deep psychological disorder?”
 

“If she is, that makes older men her thing until she gets over it, so she might as well be with one who can make her purr.”
 

Her anger very evident, Angie growled, “I really didn’t need to hear that, Ed.”
 

“Apparently you did, ma’am. You kept pushing. I’ll tell you what I told Cap; it’s heat. It’ll probably end in a few months.”
 

“And if it doesn’t?”
 

“Well, then, I may be stuck with a hottie half my age who makes me feel her age. Could be worse, right?”
 

Shaking her head, Angie said, “I thought you were smarter than this, Ed. I don’t know what she really wants from you, but you can bet it’s going to cost you big trouble somehow.”
 

I sighed, “Look, Angie… What if — only by some strange happenstance, of course — she just wants more of what she’s already getting from me? And I don’t mean just the sex. People need occasional adventures.”
 

Giving me a long, silent stare, Angie said, “Just don’t come crying to me when she dumps you.”
 

“Yes’m. Got it. No crying to you.”
 

“Goodbye, then.” She dropped the link.
 

Great. Who else could I expect to hear from? Lori? Aunt Lisa? Probably not; even if they’d seen the video or heard gossip, neither of them had a viable excuse to voice an opinion. On the other hand, when did that ever stop people?
 

Didn’t matter. I could do a lot worse than lovely, lusty Tanya. If she had psych issues — which seemed possible, given her drinking — I’d just roll with them unless they became intolerable. Every flight of fancy catches some flak. It’s the way of things.
 

Bringing my legs back aboard the board made them tingle and I realized how long I’d been sitting above Ocala. I stood up and thought about lunch. Anything would do. I found a mom ‘n pop place and landed between trucks.
 

Half an hour later I was back in the air, again wondering what to do until Tanya got home. The easy answer was to monitor 911 for trouble, but trouble didn’t cooperate. For over two hours there were nothing but fender benders. Nothing dire happened.
 

I tried writing, but got nowhere with it. Or should I say, I wasn’t particularly happy with what came of it. Got lucky around three with a house fire, but snuffing it thoroughly only killed fifteen minutes and talking with cops only used another fifteen or so.
 

Watching for another 911 call, my thoughts returned to Tanya; her face, eyes, hair, voice. Her legs, shoulders, neck. It was both exhilarating and annoying as hell to be so wrapped up in someone. I took the board for a hard run, but all I did was kill some time. Envisionings of various
Tanya-features kept flitting through my head, even during the most difficult maneuvers.
 

She pinged me at 4:30 to say she was leaving early to pick up keys and paperwork at a property. I zipped back across town to meet her and waited upstairs while she visited a house. Ten minutes later she rejoined me and we returned to her office so she could drop things off.
 

Again I waited upstairs, then she rejoined me and we headed for her place so she could change. She told me about her day and I told her about mine. Well, I mentioned the fire, anyway. I didn’t say I’d essentially spent the whole day waiting for her.
 

As we descended, I saw only one NIA guy in the parking lot. Guess they’d sorted out whatever had caused so many of them to gather in the morning.
 

Taking a seat on the bed, I sat marveling at Tanya’s anatomy as she took off one item and put on another. She’d said she was starving, so I mostly kept my hands off her as she swapped clothes, taking only occasional opportunities to run a hand over a flank or down a thigh.
 

She surprised me by choosing a mid-thigh denim skirt over jeans. Instead of a blouse, she picked a white t-shirt advertising a two-year-old event in Orlando. Instead of sneakers, she put on soft black ankle boots with low heels. After transferring keys and a few other items to another handbag, she announced herself ready and said another buffet would be fine.
 

“You sure?”
 

Nodding, Tanya said, “I want to eat and run.”
 

“Run?”
 

“First we’ll visit mom, then Jessica, and then we’re coming back here.”
 

On the way through the kitchen, she opened her booze cabinet, shuffled boxes and bottles for a moment, and closed the door. With a glance at me, she said, “I need to restock. Since you only drink gin and that green stuff, I’ll let you get your own.”
 

Eyeing my pack, she nodded again, then went to the bedroom for her own pack and dumped it out on the bed. After putting her handbag in it, she slung it on a shoulder and said, “Ready.”
 

During dinner, I suggested that I visit a grocery store while she visited her mom and Jessica. After some discussions about possible quick breakfast choices, we had a list.
 

Aiming her fork at the food list, Tanya said, “Well, if you’re going to pick up all that, I’ll take care of the booze.”
 

“Good ‘nuff. Have I thanked you properly for wearing that skirt, ma’am?”
 

She chuckled, “No, but I’m sure you will later.”
 

And so it was. After dinner she gave me a kiss and took off. I crossed the parking lot to the grocery store. Even with adding a few things to the list I finished shopping in half an hour and couldn’t see hanging around to wait for her, so I took the stuff to her place and sent her a ping.
 

When she answered, I said, “I took the groceries home. Want me to come meet you somewhere or wait here?”
 

I could feel her grin as she replied, “Just be naked when I get there, okay? It’ll save us some time.”
 

“Oh, yes
ma’am
, ma’am. By your command, milady.”
 

We’d just dropped the link when the door bell rang. I answered it to find a guy in his fifties on the porch. He introduced himself as the apartment manager and said someone had reported a man entering Miss Connor’s apartment without her. I sent a ping to Tanya and let her see what I was seeing.
 

Showing him the key and pointing to the groceries, I introduced myself and said, “I’ll be visiting for a while. House sitting, too, probably. Her friend Jessica’s in the hospital.”
 

“You her father?”
 

“No. I worked with her mom for a while.”
 

Saying that appeared to make him turn a bit wary. He said, “Worked with, as in you did whatever it was she used to do?”
 

Shrugging, I admitted, “Well, yeah. Pretty much.”
 

Nodding, he fidgeted for a moment, then said, “I saw her take down two guys in the parking lot one night. We had a bad tenant and he had some bad friends. They started some sh… stuff with
her and Tanya and Tanya’s mom flat kicked their asses.”
 

“Sounds about right. She always did have a short fuse.”
 

“Thing of it is,” he continued, “I never did see exactly what she did to ‘em. I started out the door with my gun and all of a sudden they were just on the ground. What is it she used to do, anyway? Some kind of cop?”
 

“What did she tell you?”
 

He shook his head. “I never got a chance to ask her. Haven’t even seen her since the accident.”
 

“Then I’d probably be talking out of class to say anything about what she used to do. But you’re right. Some kind of cop.”
 

Glancing over his shoulder toward the NIA car, he asked, “Are you with the NIA, too? I have to run this place and look after it. Is there something going on I ought to know about?”
 

“Nope. I’m not with the NIA, CIA, FBI, or anything else. But I’d prob’ly have to say that anyway, wouldn’t I?”
 

I grinned to make it seem like a joke, but he took it as I’d intended. Stepping back a pace, he forced a chuckle and said, “Yeah, I guess you probably would. Well, okay, I just wanted to check and see everything’s okay here. G’night.”
 

Tanya’s chuckle was real. She said she was about to see her mom and that she’d be home soon.
 

It was only about seven. Nothing on TV. I prowled the apartment and found only some steamy-looking romance books on a few shelves. Tanya’s music collection seemed to be about half-eighties and nineties hits and half country. I wondered if she’d enjoy the clubs Toni and I used to frequent.
 

Thinking of Toni made me wonder what she was up to these days. I sent a ping to her datapad and it logged the call, but she didn’t answer. Probably out. She didn’t haul her pad around.
 

I turned on the TV anyway and found a show called ‘
Cash Cab
‘. It was a standard trivia-questions-for-money format moved into a taxi in the streets of New York. Sipping coffee, I sat through two half-hour segments before Tanya got home.
 

She saw what I was watching and said, “I like that show. How many did you miss?”
 

After our kiss, I said, “One. About a basketball team.”
 

“Just one? Wow. Hey, didn’t I say something about you being naked when I got here? Come on.”
 

I followed her to the bedroom and watched her strip as I took off my own clothes. After another kiss, she grinningly slipped away and headed for the kitchen. Taking a chair, I watched her move about and noted where she put the things that didn’t require refrigeration.
 

Once everything was stashed, she retrieved a tray of ice, took the nearly-empty pint gin bottle down and set it with the much larger bottle she’d bought, and then opened a bitter lemon bottle and mixed me a drink.
 

“Taste it. Did I get it right?”
 

I nodded. “Just right.”
 

“Good.”
 

Tanya turned back to the counter to mix her own drink and I noticed her glancing at me in the reflection from her stainless steel toaster. I pretended not to have noticed and continued ogling her backside. That had an effect on me, of course, and it stood jutting upward eagerly when she turned around.
 

She wordlessly pulled up a chair, sat down facing me, and reached into my lap as she sipped her drink. After some moments of fondling me, she suddenly seemed to realize something and stood up to go get her backpack. From it she pulled a package.
 

“It’s a shower curtain,” she said, “For the back door. I didn’t want to take the time to shop for a real curtain and I still have the old curtain rod in a closet.”
 

A few minutes later there was an opaque blue curtain across the back door. I reached up to fasten the left side of the curtain rod and Tanya reached for my dick as she sipped her drink. She
pronounced the curtain adequate and led me back to the table, where she pretended to only then discover I’d been slickly dampening her fingers while she fondled me.
 

Taking a seat in front of me, she took me in her mouth and played for a while, eventually announcing with a big grin that the leakage problem had been solved for the moment. I sat down and watched as she made another drink and noted that the leakage problem hadn’t really been solved at all.