After Hours (25 page)

T
he week following her debut as Sparkle, Dina felt like Alice in Wonderland. She wasn't sure what was real or make-believe. Sybil had given her two thousand, and her tips had totaled twelve hundred. Thirty-two hundred dollars was very nice money for half an hour of work. All of the cash went into the knapsack hidden in her apartment.

She'd spent several nights a week at Lance's apartment. They alternated cooking for each other as she felt herself growing closer to him. After a passionate session of lovemaking, he'd placed a set of keys to his apartment on her belly, but she'd refused to touch them. He took it personally, saying that if she didn't want the keys, then she didn't want him; he refused to listen to her explanation that she wanted to get used to sleeping with him before they took what they had to another level. What they shared was too new and much too fragile to consider blending their households.

Lance didn't take her rejection well. He'd stopped talking, becoming practically monosyllabic, and that annoyed her. His behavior was proof positive that grown men were still little boys.

Dina knew if she did move in with Lance, there was no way she could hide her after-hours activities from him. How could she explain why a driver brought her home in the wee hours of the morning? Sybil secreted her Delectable paraphernalia in a locked closet in her office at SJC Catering, while Dina washed her fairy outfit by hand and, when dry, stored it in tissue paper in a box on a shelf in her bedroom closet.

 

“There's no need to pout, LL.”

Lance glared at Dina. “Do I look as if I'm pouting, Dina?”

She refused to relent. “What else do you call it when you won't look at or talk to me?

“What am I doing now if not talking to you?”

“Asking me, ‘Do you want a doughnut, Dina?' is hardly talking to me, Lancelot Haynes.”

“Let's drop it, Dina.”

“I don't want to drop it, LL. You need to understand why I can't move in with you.”

“Why are you like a dog with a bone, Dina? Let it go.”

Moving off the stool at the cooking island, Dina walked over to Lance. Her bare feet made soft flip-flop sounds on the terra-cotta kitchen floor. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she pressed her face to his back and kissed his shoulder over his white T-shirt.

When she woke up earlier, she'd found herself alone in bed. By the time she'd showered and washed her hair Lance had returned to the apartment with doughnuts and coffee. They'd done something the night before that was a first: they'd gone to bed angry.

Lance shifted slightly and stared down at the petite woman who'd become everything to him. When he woke each morning he looked for her beside him, and whenever he retired for bed each night he wanted her beside him. Seeing Dina one or two nights a week wasn't enough—he wanted her in his bed every night.

He didn't know how he'd become so incredibly lucky to have found her. Beauty aside, she was more than he could've imagined her to be. He wanted Dina Gordon—in and out of bed.

“I hate fighting with you, Dina.”

“And I don't want to fight with you, Big Daddy.”

As much as she enjoyed playing house with Lance, Dina didn't want to jeopardize her relationship or future with the man she'd become quite fond of because she hadn't resolved her sordid past.

She'd come to enjoy sex so much that she'd begun fantasizing making love with Lance at the most inopportune times. Desire, passion and orgasms were emotions that were new to Dina, so whenever she recalled the passion in Lance's foreplay and the tenderness of his afterplay, her body betrayed her.

Leaning down, he pressed a kiss to the damp hair that hung down her back like black streamers. “Then don't fight with me, baby.”

Tilting her chin, Dina smiled up at Lance. “Okay. And, to answer your question, yes, I would like a doughnut.”

One morning she'd stopped at a bakeshop to order coffee but when she'd opened the bag had realized the coffee wasn't coffee but tea. The flustered salesclerk had apologized and included one of their honey-glazed doughnuts as a peace offering. The result was that she'd come to crave the incredibly delicious breakfast treat.

Lance patted her behind over a pair of cutoffs. “Go sit down and I'll serve you.”

Dina moved over to the breakfast nook. She watched Lance remove two foam cups of coffee from a bag before opening a waxy bag with her favored honey-glazed doughnuts. A slight smile touched her mouth when he washed his hands in one of the two stainless-steel sinks. Although he denied it, he was a neat freak. He, and everything around him, was always neat and pristine. Even when sporting a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, he still managed to look elegant. He poured the coffee into large mugs and placed the doughnuts on a plate.

“Do you want me to set the table, LL?”

Lance shot Dina an incredulous stare. “I don't think so, baby girl.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Just asking, Big Daddy.”

He placed a mug in front of her and she picked it up and took a deep swallow, savoring the warmth spreading throughout her chest. Even the coffee tasted good this morning. “That's yummy,” she crooned.

Lance sat opposite Dina. “It's definitely not yummier than you are.”

A blush darkened her face. “How do you taste, LL?”

It was Lance's turn to blush. He shook his head because he knew what she was thinking. “No, Dina.”

A mysterious smile tilted the corners of her lush mouth. “Why no, LL? Why shouldn't I find out how you taste?”

“Forget it.” Lance wasn't a prude when it came to lovemaking, but he was usually uncomfortable whenever a woman went down on him. It was akin to losing control, and he always wanted to be in control—at all times.

Pushing back her chair, Dina stood up, rounded the table and straddled Lance. Looping her arms around his neck, she angled her head and trailed kisses along the column of his strong neck.

“I read an article in a magazine yesterday,” she said in a low, seductive voice.

“What was it about?”

“Fifty ways to drive your man wild in bed.” The article had had her laughing out loud because some of the suggestions were downright ingenious
and
outrageous.

“You don't need a sex manual, baby girl. You drive me wild just being Dina.”

She pushed out her lower lip. “You're not going to let me try some of the suggestions?”

“Now who's pouting?”

“Please, Big Daddy.”

Lance couldn't believe that the incredibly sexy woman sitting on his lap wanted to use him as a guinea pig in a sexual experiment because she'd read something in a magazine. “What am I to you, a piece of meat?”

Rocking back and forth, Dina achieved the reaction she'd sought when she felt Lance's rising erection. She lifted her eyebrows in a questioning expression. “I think your meat is getting hard.”

“Dina!” Lance didn't want to believe the little minx was giving him a lap dance in his kitchen.

She increased her writhing on his lap. “Go to the bedroom and get into bed,” she whispered near his ear. “I want you completely naked.”

He froze. “You're kidding, aren't you?'

“Do I look as if I'm kidding, Lance?”

His gaze went from her face to her chest. Her nipples were clearly visible through her tank top. Dina was just as aroused as he was, maybe even more so, because her eyes were now a dark forest-green. He found it hard to believe that within a week Dina had gone from innocent virgin to succulent, sexy siren.

He stood up, bringing her up with him. He set her on her feet. “No, baby.”

Resting her hands over his chest, Dina kissed Lance. “Go to bed and wait for me.”

L
ance lay in bed, smiling. He'd gotten up early to get coffee and the doughnuts Dina raved about. He would do anything she asked because he didn't want her to shut him out of her life.

What he'd come to love about Dina was that she was always full of surprises. Even though he'd taken her innocence, there was still a modicum of childlike innocence that she'd managed to retain.

When she first told him she'd never slept with a man, he actually hadn't believed her. It wasn't just the physical evidence but also her reaction to him whenever he introduced something new to their sexual repertoire. It wasn't what she said but what she didn't say. Somehow he'd become attuned to her every expression and had come to know what Dina was feeling by touching her back.

 

“Are you naked, Big Daddy?”

“Yeah.” Lance lay in bed naked as the day he'd come into the world.

“I'm coming in,” Dina announced somewhere outside the bedroom.

“I'm ready, baby.”

“Close your eyes. Are they closed?”

Lance closed his eyes. “Yes, they're closed.”

Dina walked into the bedroom carrying a jar of honey in one hand and a small dish with a doughnut in the other. She'd also removed her clothes. Smiling, she approached the bed to find Lance on his back, his flaccid sex resting against his thigh. His body was tighter now than when she'd first met him. And when she'd remarked about it, he'd confessed to swimming laps in the building's pool several times a week.

She set the plate with the doughnut at the foot of the bed. “Don't open your eyes until I tell you.”

“Are you going to tell me what you're going to do?”

“No, Lance. It' a surprise.”

“I don't like surprises, baby.”

“I think this is one surprise you're going to like.”

Dina opened the top on the bottle of honey. Leaning over Lance, she squeezed the plastic bottle and, starting at his throat, she trailed a stream of honey down his chest, over his belly and to his groin. The sticky substance was the same color as the hair on his pubis.

“Don't move,” she cautioned softly as she straddled him. Resting her hands on either side of his head, Dina lowered her head and flicked her tongue over his throat.

He moaned softly. “That feels good.”

Dina raised her head to check whether he'd opened his eyes. He hadn't. “You taste good.”

She moved slowly downward, her tongue lapping up the sweet substance off his warm flesh. “Sorry, Big Daddy, I neglected to introduce myself.”

“Who are you?” Lance asked, playing along with her.

“Honey Dip.”

Lance gasped, arching off the mattress when her tongue circled his belly button, then dipped into the indentation to lick the drops of honey pooled there. “Baby, please.”

Dina glanced over her shoulder to see Lance's growing erection. Waiting until he was fully erect, she reached for the doughnut and slipped it over the head of his penis. It fit. She'd had to use a little kitchen ingenuity to make the hole in the doughnut larger in order to accommodate the girth of his sex.

Smiling, she checked again to see if Lance had opened his eyes. “Now baby girl is going to have her honey dip.”

Sitting back on her heels, she bent over and licked the honey off the hair around Lance's magnificent hard-on. She rested a hand on his belly as he bucked wildly when her mouth closed on his sex, she suckling him as if he were a savory treat.

The pleasure from Dina's mouth sent heat then chills up and down Lance's body as he struggled not to come. He opened his eyes to find Dina nibbling at the doughnut perched around his penis. The sight of her hair falling around her shoulders, her sexy pink tongue darting out to lick the honey on his scrotum, was his undoing. A growl that came from deep within his throat exploded as he ejaculated. Pieces of the doughnut were everywhere: in Dina's hair, on her breasts and on the sheet.

His growl dissolved into moans as Dina grabbed his pulsing flesh, squeezing gently until the spasms slowed, leaving him weak as a newborn. “Sweet baby Jeez-us! Swee-e-t baby Jeez-zus!” he chanted over and over, the words becoming a litany. He was so overcome with emotion that he wanted to weep. Dina's selflessness touched a core that he hadn't known he possessed.

Smiling in triumph, Dina picked up pieces of the doughnut and popped them into her mouth. “Hungry, Big Daddy?” she crooned, dropping a small piece into Lance's mouth.

Somehow Lance managed to push himself into a sitting position, his back supported by several pillows. He reached down and pulled Dina to his side. “Big Daddy should spank Honey Dip for that little stunt.”

Pressing her body to his, Dina met his amused gaze. “Don't tell me you didn't like it?”

“The problem is I liked it too much.”

“Then why are you complaining, darling?”

Lance sobered quickly. It was the second time Dina had called him darling. The first time was at the Kings' July Fourth gathering. Could he hope that her feelings for him went beyond gratitude for his promise to protect her?

He'd walked to the doughnut shop instead of driving because it had given him time to think, think about Dina and what he wanted from her. What he had to remember was that she'd been raised by her grandmother, who'd passed along her outdated ideas about sex and how men and women related to each other.

Dina had managed to scale one hurdle when she agreed to sleep with him, but she wouldn't relent whenever he offered to give her money or suggested that she have a key to his apartment.

Women like Dina Gordon were a throwback to his grandmother's generation, where girls waited until they were married to give up their virginity. He'd taken her virginity, but what surprised Lance was that she hadn't hinted at marriage. Tightening his hold on her shoulders, he buried his face in her hair.

The expression
There's more than one way to skin a cat
came to mind. Dina Gordon wouldn't accept the key to his apartment, but he knew of another way to get her to change her mind.