Lovers and Takers (12 page)

As they entered the shower, and the water rained forcefully down upon them, he settled behind her, his condom-covered penis jutting against her ass.

“Do you always smell this good in the mornings?” he asked as he rubbed and then squeezed her bare ass.
 
He trailed kisses down her neck and back as he rubbed her.

“I can’t really say,” she said, lifting her head so that his kisses could connect easily to her long neck.
 
“I don’t go around sniffing myself usually.”

Jake laughed.
 
“Very funny,” he said as she smiled, too.
 
“Now be still so I can love you.”

Roni’s heart pounded when he spoke those words.
 
She understood what he meant.
 
It had nothing to do with him being in love with her.
 
But the act of lovemaking was what he was talking about, and she loved the way he was taking command again.
 
Weak men didn’t turn her on.
 
They were just too indecisive for her.
 
But Jake was the boss, he seemed to know how to handle her, and she really liked that about him.
 
Submitting her body to him, then, was a piece of cake, she thought, as his fingers slinked in between her thighs and began to rub the folds of her labia.
 
She became wet almost immediately.

“I love the way you respond to me,” Jake said as her wetness began to saturate his fingers.
 
He rubbed harder, and harder, his mouth against her ear, his cock settled in between the crack of her ass.

“I love the way you do me,” she said.
 
“You make me feel so good!”

“That’s how I want to make you feel.”
 
He rubbed harder, pushed his finger inside of her.
 
“That’s what I want from you.”
 
He pushed in deeper and deeper.
 
“I want you to want it.”

She felt as if he was going to make her come by his finger fuck alone.
 
She squirmed against those fingers, as he dug in deeper within her, rubbing her long and hard until her wetness became a drenching.
 

“Oh,
Jake
,” she purred as her pussy clasped around his fingers.
 
“I want it.
 
I want It, Jake!”
 

And he gave it to her.
 
He took his cock and shoved it into her pussy, not even pretending that this was going to be a slow drag.
 
She wanted it fast and she wanted it rough, and he gave it to her faster and rougher.
 
He thrashed into her, over and over, for a long time, his dick exploding with size as her cunt clenched around him.
 
The idea that he almost let her get away from him seemed almost ludicrous to him now.
 
He wasn’t letting this go that easily.
 
He
couldn’t
let this go that easily.

But as he thought about how much he loved being with her, he slowed his grind.
 
He didn’t want this to end too soon.
 
He didn’t want her to leave his embrace too quickly.
 
He slowed down, and experienced every inch of her sex.

And as they both slowed down and got into the rhythm of their fuck, Jake closed his eyes and relaxed against her.
 
He wanted to get to know her better.
 
He knew that much.
 
Because time didn’t change his mind.
 
Usually, after a night of passion, he didn’t want to have anything to do with the woman the next day.
 
All of the anticipation was gone and he just wanted to get away from her.
 
Time usually changed his mind.

But not this time.
 
He spent nearly an hour this morning just watching Roni sleep.
 
She slept like a baby.
 
He even traced the side of her face, and her lips, with his fingers, and she never woke up.
 
She simply smiled in her sleep, and kept on snoozing.
 
It warmed his heart to see her smile.
 
Time didn’t change his mind at all in her case.

They gyrated for a longer time still, as they both battled their own divergent thoughts.
 
For Jake, he thought about how wonderful it could be to get to know her better, and then dismissed such a thought as the reality of what kind of emotional toll that could take on him began to reassert itself.
 

For Roni, it was all about what
could have been
too.
 
She thought about how wonderful it could have been if she was emotionally able to just go with the flow of this relationship and see where it would take her if she wasn’t so shell-shocked already.
 
And as his dick grind deep inside of her, and his arms wrapped around her, it was a shame, she thought, that she was bound by her past pain.

They both felt the weight of their emotional limitations, and they both felt the joy of their sex together.
 
Until the sex dominated again, and their gyrations took a drastic turn, and they suddenly, euphorically, came.

Jake pounded into her with a powerful release, filling his condom with his juices of love.
 
He shuddered at the thought of just how much he loved being with her, and fucking her, and wishing that he had the power to make this work.
 

But he knew that making a relationship work was a two-way street, and he couldn’t allow himself to get that helpless again.
 
He didn’t linger after they came this time.
 
He pulled right out.

Roni understood why he didn’t linger.
 
She understood it better than he probably did.
 
Because she was of the same mind.
 
She wasn’t about to allow the love of sex to make her helpless, either.
 
Especially when she already knew she was not the kind of woman who could take something like this casually.
 
She’d be expecting a world-wide trip, when all he would undoubtedly give her was a trip around the block.
 
And then dump her.
 
No thanks, Roni decided.
 
She could do
bad
all by herself.

Jake leaned against her now moist, black body, breathing heavily, as the reality that she would be just another notch in his belt crystalized, in stunningly sad detail, his sense of regret.
 

“What’s your problem?” Kara asked as she got into her own Mercedes and plopped down on the passenger seat, allowing Roni to remain behind the wheel.
 
“You’ll wake the whole complex blowing that horn up like that.”

“I told you I was late,” Roni replied as she backed up and drove off.
 
She had one hand on the steering
wheel,
and one hand on her cup of coffee she picked up from Starbucks.
 
“What took you so long, anyway?”

“A girl’s got to look good,” Kara said, fluffing her long, black weave.
  
“I’m not like you.
 
I’m not trying to repel
men,
I’m trying to wrangle me some.
 
Or at least one in particular.
 
So I wasn’t running out here looking like no Grandma Gump.”

Roni shook her head.
 
Kara’s apartment was located in a trendy neighborhood in South Beach, and between her rent and her car payments, she barely had money to feed herself.
 
But she always found money to feed her habit of clothes, nails, and hair.

“So,” Kara said, turning toward her cousin.
  
“How did it go with Mr. Varnadore last night?”

Roni was stunned that Kara knew anything about that.
 
“How did you---”

“I’ve got my spies.
 
How did it go?
 
Did he throw you on the bed and make passionate love to you?”

The nerve of this girl, Roni thought.
 
“That is so not your business,” she said.

“Oh, come on, Roni!
 
That man didn’t come all the way to your house after you gave him the shove off for nothing.
 
He went there to get some.
 
And you gave it to him, didn’t you?”

“Not your business,” Roni repeated.

“Okay, just tell me this then,” Kara said.
 
“Did the two of you at least have an enjoyable evening?”

Roni thought about just how much she enjoyed the evening.
 
“Yes, Kay-Kay, we enjoyed the evening,” she admitted.

“I knew it!” Kara responded, pumping her fist in the air.
 
Then she looked at Roni.
 
“He’s big, isn’t he?”

Roni almost choked on her cup of coffee.
 
“What?”

“You can tell me, girl.
 
You know me.”

Yeah, Roni thought, and that was exactly why she wasn’t telling her a damn thing.
 
“Let’s just get me to my job so that you can take back possession of your car and get to work yourself.
 
Because you will not be sitting up in here working on my nerves, not this morning.
 
Okay, Miss Want-to-Know-Everybody’s-Business?”

Kara sucked her lip.
 
“Uh hun, don’t tell me then.
 
But I know you.
 
If that man wasn’t well-endowed like some of those other dudes you been with before, like your ex-fiancé Curtis, for instance, you’d be singing the blues this morning.
 
But you’re a happy bitch.
 
That man big as a boat!”

Roni smiled and then laughed.
 
Because that was Kara.
 
That was the cousin she couldn’t help but love.
 
Kara had her faults.
 
She had more than her share of faults.
 
But she sure knew how to make you laugh.

But then Roni thought about it.
 
When she stopped at a red light, she looked at her cousin.
 
“How would you know how big Curtis was?
 
Or any of my old boyfriends?”

Kara grinned.
 
“I didn’t know.
 
But no woman is going to have an emotional breakdown the way you nearly broke down over some limp dick Willie.
 
I’m sorry.
 
Curtis had to be packing, or you wouldn’t have given that breakup a second thought.”

Roni shook her head, and laughed again.
 
“You need help,” she said to her cousin as the light turned green, and she proceeded cautiously.

“It’s a loser,” Druce said to Aubrey as he leaned back in the swivel chair behind his desk.
 
“Nobody’s going to know any more than they already know about Varnadore Hotels with a pitch like that.
 
I told McCloud it wasn’t good enough.”

Aubrey sat in front of the desk and listened carefully, although he couldn’t disagree more.

Druce, however, kept leaning further back and boasting of his disapproval even more fervently.
 
“It’s like watching a car commercial and you’re like, ‘okay, you’re Ford, you’re Chrysler, you’re whatever, but what else is new?
 
What’s the new news you’re trying to make here?”

“I don’t think that’s the point of the pitch,” Aubrey finally said.
 
“I don’t think they’re trying to introduce us to people who don’t know us, but to reintroduce us to people who do.”

“What?
 
That’s ridiculous!”

“That’s the pitch I’ve approved,” Aubrey made clear, “and you’re going to sell it.” Aubrey said this with such firmness that silence fell between the two men.
 
 

“Anyway,” Druce moved on, “I took the liberty of approving the Cambridge campaign when we couldn’t locate you earlier today.
 
I think it’s perfect for our DC Hotel.”

“Yes, they phoned me about it.”

Druce stared at Aubrey.
 
“Phoned you?
 
Why would they phone you?”

“They wanted to make sure I was on board, too.
 
I told them I was not.”

This was getting personal now, and Druce knew it.
 
“It’s a routine campaign, Aub.
 
Why wouldn’t you be on board?”

“Because it’s not a truthful campaign.
 
Our hotels are excellent, but they did not leapfrog to number one in luxury appointment the way that campaign implies, and we aren’t going to claim that we did.”

“But there was that one poll that put us at number one,” Druce pointed out.

“A discredited poll, let’s be honest.
 
They wanted us to pay them to run it.
 
And, besides, there were fifteen other legitimate polls that put us at number two or three at best.
 
It’s dishonest, Druce, to run around pretending we’re number one when every industry insider knows we aren’t.”