Beneath the Surface (9 page)
She was a determined individual with purpose and goals, and when she put her sights on something, she wound up walking away with the prize.
Somewhere along the line she had gotten sidetracked, dropping her guard and forgetting to protect her borders against outside interferences. Interferences like Ms.
Uptight Personal Shopper.
She was going to have to step up her program and face the challenge; she hadn’t faced one in a while outside of her job, and decided she needed the practice. After all, nothing worth having was easy to get.
And Jade Aliberti always got what she wanted. Always.
* * * *
She touched base with her secretary, Daphne, as soon as she got back to the office, picked up her messages and made a few phone calls to her clients before telling Daphne she didn’t want any interruptions for at least the next half-hour, and shutting herself in her office. She was glad she pulled in the type of commissions and had the rank that warranted such freedom, but knew she earned every unchecked moment.
Angela interrupted the answering machine and picked up just as Evelyn prepared to leave a message. Evelyn understood why the delay when she heard the ruckus in the background. It sounded like her two nieces were giving their mom a way to go.
“The purchase price of my two youngest has just gone down to fifty cents a piece,” Angela said and Evelyn chuckled. She imagined Danni and Tina tying their mother to a homemade stake in the backyard of their suburban ranch house before they unraveled Angela to let her answer the phone.
“Oh, don’t you laugh,
auntie
. They’re just like you were when we were coming up.”
“Come on now, I wasn’t that bad. Besides, you used to love my tagging along when we were kids.”
“True, true.”
Evelyn wasn’t surprised by her sister’s ready agreement.
Angela had never made any bones about wanting kids of her own since she was a kid herself, the maternal instinct burning bright in her from kindergarten on. She’d practiced her mothering skills on her dolls and her younger siblings every chance she got.
Evelyn remembered many a day of Angela visiting a girlfriend’s house for a play date with Evelyn and EJ in tow in their little red wagon. She’d gotten a lot of pre-teen raised eyebrows and a few cancelled play dates, but it never deterred her from bringing along any of her brothers and sisters who wanted to come along for a ride. Angie’s motto: 44
Beneath the Surface
take me, take my brothers and sisters. “So what were they doing to get you all flustered before I called?” Evelyn asked now.
“The usual. Valentina’s teasing Danielle about a crush this boy at school has on her, and Danielle’s fiercely denying it. You know the damage to her tomboy image would be irrevocable if the rumors are true, or much worse got around.”
Evelyn laughed, always entertained one way or another when she called her sister, flashes of the same sort of disagreements occurring at the Vega house, especially when Evelyn started to sprout little buds and all three of her older, earlier endowed sisters had made it a day of celebration when they took her out to get her first training bra. The teasing from then on had been endless and merciless, especially since Evelyn at fourteen had been a later bloomer than any of her sisters in addition to having been a diehard tomboy who hadn’t wanted anything to do with breasts. At least she hadn’t before she discovered, as her three older sister before her had discovered, the persuasive power a pair of mammary glands held over the opposite sex.
“So, any news on the romance front? Can I assume I will be sending an invitation to Tabitha for EJ’s surprise party in a couple of months?”
“Hold your horses, sister dear. I think it’s a little too early to start sending out
any
sort of invitations regarding those two.”
“Shucks, and I had such high hopes.”
“Don’t give up hope just yet. The situation is promising.”
“Spill it. How are things coming along?”
Evelyn smiled. She could see her sister ensconced in her family room recliner/rocking chair and getting ready for a juicy tidbit. “I dropped by EJ’s today to check in.”
“And was Tabitha there?”
“Indeed she was.”
“Give, Evie, give.”
She gave Angela as many details as she could about her abbreviated visit, Angela held rapt attention until Evelyn had finished, if her sister’s silence on the other end was any indication.
“I know EJ’s a pretty fast mover, but do you think they, you know, did anything?”
Angela asked in a demure un-Angela-like tone.
“If the look on Tabitha’s face was anything to go by, they came pretty damn close.”
“How did she look?”
“Blushing and trying to hide it. I’ve never seen her blush. She’s too in control to let anyone know they’ve gotten to her to that point.”
“Leave it to EJ.” Angela laughed. “What about him? How’d he look?”
45
Gracie C. McKeever
“You know EJ. He’s like Nick. He acts like he doesn’t care when it’s plain that he does.”
“
Acts like
being the operative words.”
This was true enough.
Evelyn remembered EJ’s finger-combed hair, the color creeping up his neck at the mention of Tabitha in his bedroom. She knew EJ hadn’t been as unaffected by Tabitha as he’d tried to pretend, knew that whatever had gone on in that bedroom to put the flush in her brother’s and her friend’s faces had nothing to do with fashion consulting and everything to do with lust.
She wondered what Tabitha’s reaction to arriving in the middle of EJ’s workout had been.
Had
she come in the middle of it, or had she been a part of it?
“He looked…diddled,” Evelyn said, and listened as her sister chuckled and clapped her hands with what could only be described as childish glee.
“So you think they’re getting along okay?”
“Like I said, it’s early yet, but they seem to…vibe.” She couldn’t come up with another word to describe what she’d felt flowing between the pair, the current that had filled the air for just the brief moment that Tabitha had come out of the bedroom to say hi to Evelyn. For that instant, the room had sizzled with Tabitha’s and EJ’s curbed energy, palpable, like a fourth entity in the room.
“He was angry, wasn’t he?”
How did the two of them do that? Just pluck thoughts and emotions out of thin air, and with such accuracy? She’d felt the connection at EJ’s and she felt it now over the phone with Angela, a sensation of fingers caressing her mind.
Evelyn wondered vaguely if her sister’s uncanny link and insight had anything to do with the New Age spirituality that Angie had been practicing for the last two decades.
Crystals, aura and chakra readings…even Danni was into it, following in her mother’s footsteps wearing different color crystals for different effects and meditating in full lotus position.
EJ wasn’t nearly as spiritual, a former choir boy, now the typical lapsed Catholic—baptized in the faith, bred under his devout mother’s and the Pope’s edicts, but questioning most of the beliefs with which he’d been raised, and barely stepping into a church since he’d reached his late teens.
He and Angela seemed to have nothing in common where religion was concerned except the one time Evelyn remembered walking in on them during the performance of some ritual that involved lots of burning green and white candles, chanting and half lotus positions.
To this day the episode still mystified Evelyn, despite her sister’s hurried and vague explanations about a ceremony for promoting positive energy and healing.
Evelyn had just assumed what she’d seen was another manifestation of her sister’s rebellion against the doctrines she and her siblings had had rammed down their throats as 46
Beneath the Surface
kids. She hadn’t thought the ritual an example of Angela’s new burgeoning faith, or that she’d been trying to help EJ over his grief after Sinclair.
She knew now that the connection she’d witnessed between oldest and youngest sibling had been something sublime, proof positive of the special gifts that Angela and EJ
had always had, and the beginning of the family’s acceptance and understanding of those gifts.
* * * *
Regardless of his affection for his sisters, or the circumstances that had brought Tabitha to him, she knew he wasn’t going to let her and Angela off the hook as easily as it had taken him to throw Evelyn out of his apartment.
She didn’t worry too much about it though. Sure, he’d been angry, but he wasn’t nearly as angry this time as he had been the last time Angela had tried to fix him up with one of her husband Freddie’s co-workers.
This particular intended for EJ had been sweet like Tabitha but, unlike Tabitha, was a typical blind date with a “wonderful personality,” in no uncertain terms, what most men would call a dog.
Evelyn didn’t know if EJ’s level of anger then said more about whether or not he was shallow, as much as his level of anger this time said about Angela’s instincts about her brother’s preferences in women improving.
“He was angry,” Evelyn finally said, “but it’s nothing he won’t get over.”
“If he inherited anything from the Vega blood, it’s resilience and forgiveness.”
“I’m not so sure about the forgiveness part. At least not until he gets us back.”
“Another strong component of the Vega blood: revenge,” Angela wisely said and laughed. “So should I be expecting a visit from baby brother sometime soon?”
“I think you should.”
47
Gracie C. McKeever
Tabitha made it to work later than her usual seven, but still bright and early at eight Monday morning, unlocked the heavy glass doors to her outer offices, made a beeline for her private office and closed the door.
She had a half-hour to read her e-mail, go over potential client image profiles and sort through requests from her older clients, before Cynthia and a couple of other early birds arrived.
When she sat down behind her desk and booted up her computer, the last thing on her mind was what work she wanted to clear up before the day officially started.
The first thing on her mind was a man, one Eric Vega—tall, broad-shouldered, sexy and a brazen flirt, among other things—thoughts of him plaguing her since she left his loft last week three days ago.
Normally, Tabitha didn’t put much credence into Zodiac signs, but in his case she made an exception, recognized several distinctive traits of the Sagittarius he professed to be, especially in his flirtatiousness and outrageous candor, at least where sex was concerned. She had yet to test him on how honest he was in other areas of his life, still hung up on that tie comment he’d made in her office, revealing and candid enough in itself.
She’d never before thought of herself as a nympho or a sexual freak, but that vision she’d had in his bedroom wouldn’t let go, had her squeezing her legs together and desperately fidgeting in her seat searching for relief. The image of Eric’s wrists bound to his bedposts so intense and real she felt as if she’d done the knots herself and was now eager to try bondage when it had never been a conscience consideration before.
She usually had more control over her urges. What was wrong with her?
Tabitha pondered the latest symptom of her carnality for only a minute before she closed her eyes to recall that imaginary scene in his bedroom, and the actual one—his 48
Beneath the Surface
hand in her pants, fingers inside her, breath warm and seductive in her ear—that now had her nipples hardening against her silk top.
She immediately felt wetness seeping from her vagina.
This was not good, too early in the morning and the wrong place for these shenanigans!
Cynthia would have said there was never a wrong place or time for making whoopie, but then her secretary was a newlywed with the fresh glow of a one-month-old marriage hovering over her body like a halo publicizing her sated woman status for all the world to see.
How could he do this to her when he was nowhere in the vicinity? The arrogant sexy pig!
Okay, no use whining over spilled juices. She’d just have to take care of this while she had time. Granted she didn’t often indulge in self-titillation, and certainly not at the office. Indeed, most who knew her probably thought she was still an untried virgin and didn’t know where all her parts were much less how to get at them and stimulate them to fruition. But she had enough experience with her body to get herself off. She just preferred a partner, more accurately one who knew what he was doing, and cared enough about her pleasure to do it. Having had only three actual lovers since she’d turned eighteen, she had rarely come across men who fell into both categories at once.
Perhaps some shenanigans now
would
be good since she was meeting him a little later in the day to start shopping. She didn’t want to be loaded and pent up with so much sexual frustration the mere sight of him sent her into an emotional and physical tailspin, creaming her panties even more than they were now. If this kept up, she was going to have to start wearing Depends! Either that, or carry extra underwear in her handbag.
Tabitha spread her legs slightly, pussy throbbing with anticipation as she slid her hand into the waistband of her skirt, gliding down into her panties until she’d reached her slit. The crotch of her underwear was moist and the flood had only begun. She teased her labia and vulva with her fingers for several silent moments, intensely focused as she was with any goal she had her eye on attaining, determined to reach it. She gently rolled and pinched her clit between forefinger and thumb before she drove her middle finger into her hot sheath and clamped down on it as if it were a hard pulsing cock.