Sugar Daddy (31 page)

“She’ll just keep callin’.”

Grabbing my hip and his cock, he stroked a hard trail through my slit to my clit, leaving me to gasp, “Momma.”

“So glad I caught you, Shay.” She took off straightaway. “You know I hate to call that mo-bile phone of yours, never quite sure where I’m gonna end up. Could be one of them call centers they got in Indonesia.”

“Mother.” I used my
I’m busy
inflection, to no avail.

Didn’t help Reardon sat across from me, legs splayed, watching me while he fisted his length. I licked my lips, keeping my eyes on him and one ear on Momma’s anti-bureaucracy tirade.

“FBI, CIA, keepin’ tabs, and they’re always askin’ for my zipcode at the CVS whenever I–”

“I told you, you oughta be shoppin’ at Walgreens.”

Reardon beckoned me with two fingers.

I shook my head. “What you gotta tell me, Momma?”

He approached, crouching over me, his breath against my ear playing havoc with my respiration. “I want to put my face right into your sweet, wet pussy, Shay.”

He licked the shell of my ear.

I stuttered into the phone, “Wha-a-at?”

“We sold Mimi’s house! One of them damn brokers bought it. That Saint Joe sure came through. You gotta remind me to make a donation to Saint John the Baptist downtown.”

“The Lord does work in mysterious ways.” I offered my Sunday morning praise.

Reardon worked down my body, stretching the beaded pearls of my breasts with his teeth, letting go to tongue bathe me, telling me, “Time to say goodbye now, Shay.”

I cut Momma off. “Sorry, I’m in traffic. Congrats on the house!”

With a punch to the keypad, he tossed my phone across the room. His lips met my swollen folds. “That took way too long.”

Grabbing my ass in his hands, he swiped up and down before burying his tongue inside me. He bit and thrust, opening me with his fingers, detailing all my sensitive nerves with the tip of his tongue. A sexy grin lifted one corner of his mouth while he watched me, holding my hips down, flicking my clit, fingering my wetness.

“Good?” His face smeared with me, he twisted his fingers one final time inside me.

“Good God!”

With the mirror above uncovered–
thank you, Jesus
–the last thing I saw was his broad back rippling as he surrounded me.

The best thing I felt all day was Reardon surging into me with a long sigh. “Shay.”

As the hours ticked down and night dropped its black veil, after we’d made up and made out and held each other under the sheets, he became more and more tense beside me.

“I’ll stay with you,” I said.

“Okay.” His chin dipped into my hair. His whisper was weighty. “Tonight or for longer?”

“Not just tonight, baby. But not just now, either, you know?”

“Yes.”

“Because there’s still Palmer.”

He clenched me harder, his voice scratchy. “I know.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about Will?”

He swung his forearms over his face. “I didn’t want you to pity me, and I don’t ever talk about it. I don’t ever...I can’t think about him.”

“Oh, baby, I don’t pity you, not one bit.” I pulled his arms away. “I hurt for you, Reardon.”

“Don’t want you to do that either. You’ve got enough of your own.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a pretty strong woman.”

Levering himself above me, he met my eyes. “Yes, you are.”

“So, the night of the soiree-thingy, when you were outside with Leila, what was that really about?”

“I asked her not to mention Will.”

“I’d never want you to hide the most important person to you, baby. Not talking about him hurts you.”

His eyes cranked closed.

“He was your life.”

Reardon nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“Hey there, look at me.”

Damp and vulnerable, his eyes returned to mine.

“I hate that you couldn’t tell me yourself.”

“I know.”

Coiling under the blankets, our arms circled and our fingers braided and our bodies moved, mirroring the waves finding shore outside.

When we lay replete, after he strummed his fingertips along my back, humming a low tune, he must’ve thought I was asleep. “Don’t let me lose you too, darlin’.” But I heard him. I heard him, and my heart burst.

Waking next to him was splendid, especially since his continued slumber meant I could gawk as long as I wanted. Which was a really long time, until I smelled the bacon.

Temp stood at the stove with a griddle over two burners, her fluffy cakes flipped, and bacon fat sending out a greasy bugle call to the breakfast table.

She skidded a mug of cream-filled coffee along the bar. “Mornin’, Miss Shay.”

“Good morning, Temperance. Sure smells good in here.”

“Full breakfast, like my own mom used to make. You want a fried tomato too?”

My mouth watered. “If you please, ma’am.”

“Mr. Boone still asleep?”

“He was too angelic to wake.”

“To be sure, that man doesn’t get enough rest, between you and me, of course.” She piled two plates with food.

“Of course.”

All but licking the plate clean, I wiped my mouth and set the napkin aside. “I have a favor to ask.”

Her hand curled over mine, and it was the first time I noticed the faint spread of liver spots that had once been girlish freckles on her skin. “You know about his son.”

“Yes.”

“Will, the darling little lamb.” Her pretty features fell.

“You knew him?”

“I worked for Leila first, and I was so pleased when they got married. I suppose you can tell I’ve got a soft spot for Reardon. And then, well,
Will was a real bandit, he was. Mischievous, but very loving.”

“Like his daddy?”

“Oh yes, exactly like him
.
”

Temp took out a tissue and I made my request. “Where are the photos?”

“You sure he’s ready for it?”

“Not one bit.”

She nodded. “I’ll fetch ’em.”

Half an hour later, I sat with my legs crisscrossed next to Reardon’s bed, memorizing his sleeping face.

In my lap I held a large wooden box. The joins invisible, just like the winding staircase outside, its inlaid design was a delicate replica of
Ransome II
, sails billowing under a brisk wind.

The intricate chest itself wasn’t the real masterpiece.

Inside were all the pictures of Will his daddy had packed away.

Stretching and yawning, Reardon rolled to his side and patted behind him. Dragging a deep breath, he opened his eyes and when he saw me, he smiled. “What time is it, darlin’?”

“Just past nine.”

“You wanna come back to bed?”

His devilish invitation was tempting, but I shook my head.

“No?”

“No.”

Seeing the chest cradled between my legs, he woke completely and went rigid from head to toe. “What are you doing with that?”

Before I could explain, he jumped out of bed, yanking the closet doors open, pulling pants over his legs. “Get it out of here.”

“No.”

“Don’t make me do this,” he begged, hands pushed out to ward me off.

“He’s your boy, Reardon.”

An almighty crash echoed after he overturned the breakfast tray I’d set on the stand.

Spinning at me as the dishes bounced and spilled all over the floor, he bellowed, “I can’t fucking look at him! Don’t you understand?”

I opened the lid and lifted the first photo. It showed Will swallowed by a hospital bed, surrounded by balloons–his face was puffy, his skin sallow, his eyes feverish.

I quickly delved to the next.

“I don’t need a photograph to remember him, and I don’t need you snooping around
.
”

I blanched but didn’t move.

He gave a jagged sigh. “I didn’t mean that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered.

Putting the chest on the floor between our feet, my hands rubbing his thighs, I looked up at him. He wouldn’t relax. He only resisted more when I tugged him down beside me.

I gripped his fingers to keep him near, a small burst of hope lighting my insides when he turned toward me, toward the memories of his son. “How old was Will here?”

His eyes wild, he scanned the photo, then stared at the walls. “Charlestowne Landing. He was three. We couldn’t drag him away from the galleon they’ve got out there.”

The stark emptiness of his voice growing warmer, he snagged the picture from me. “He loved anything to do with the water, same as Ransome. The ocean, the creek. Will was our little otter.”

I pointed to another. A Christmas tree was in the background, and the washed-out figures too close to the camera lens were cheek-to-cheek. “Your ma and Will?” I guessed.

“Yeah. Just before his diagnosis. Look there.” He tapped the photo. “Leila was hiding behind the tree. It was near midnight at Ma’s, and we’d started putting the presents out, but Will woke up. Ma decided to soothe him back to sleep with stories about real life sugar plum fairies.” He laughed. “You can imagine how well that worked out. We were up all Christmas Eve night answering questions about how Santa got his big belly down the chimney, even when there was a fire lit.” The light brush of his fingertips on their faces was reverential. “One of the last good sleepless nights.”

I nodded and sniffed, bringing out another.

Sometime later, he pulled me between his legs, reaching around me to dig through the jumble of pictures.

Studying one in particular, he said, “Here he is with Ransome.”

The sun was at their backs, their silhouettes framed in golden light, matching fishing poles cast out to sea off the dock.

“He was beautiful, Reardon.”

“He really was. Christ, Shay, I miss him so much, the only way I can stop it is to pack it away.” Wet threads of tears trailed down his face. His shoulders slumped. “The only way was to stop loving.”

I had no platitudes and nothing the least bit lighthearted to offer. All I could do was comfort him, the quietest condolence, the saddest communion of one bereft parent to another.

Leaving him sitting in the plush chair by the opened windows with the box balanced on his lap, I took his ruined breakfast back to the kitchen.

Temp gave me a quick pat and prepared something fresh. “Mr. Boone okay?”

“He is.” I reconsidered for a moment. “He’s gonna be.”

His black hair ruffled, his eyes a subtle shade of shale, he inspected me closely when I returned. Underneath his mouthwatering appearance and all his money and swagger, he was just a man. One whose heart hadn’t merely been broken, a man whose very spirit had been destroyed.

I sat on the arm of his chair and drifted my fingers through his hair. “What happened with Leila? To make her have an affair?”

“She changed. We changed. It hadn’t ever been great
.
But with Will, it was easy to overlook the fact we were completely incompatible. After he died, I made myself unreachable to everyone. Unattached.”

“And you stayed that way.”

“Until you.” His eyelashes fluttered low
.
“I think Leila did it for comfort, any port in a storm. Maybe to force some emotion from me, but there was nothing.”

“Why were you looking at me that way when I came back in, Reardon?”

“Suppose I was thinking the same thing.” He rose, hands raking through his hair to linger behind his neck. “Am I just a port in a storm to you?”