Lovers and Takers (19 page)

Pam was touched by his apology.
 
She took his hand.

“Now,” he said with a smile, “why don’t you, me, and Troy go into that bedroom right there and make a little magic.”

“I told you no!” Pam said angrily and attempted to snatch away from him again.
 
But Druce wouldn’t release her.
 
He smiled.

“I was just seeing if you were as tough as you were making out to be.”
 

Pam looked at him.

“And I must admit,” Druce continued, smiling greatly now, “that you’re even tougher.
 
Good for you.
 
I wouldn’t want my woman any other way.”

That sentiment melted Pam’s heart.
 
She still didn’t like what he did, but she still loved him.
 

“And don’t you forget it,” she said with a smile of her own.

“Come here you,” Druce said as he pulled her
into
 
his
arms and kissed
 
her hard and passionately.
 
“Now,” he said,
touching
 
her
face.
 
“Let’s go to my place and enjoy ourselves.”

“Just you and me?” Pam asked.

“Just you and me, baby,” Druce responded.

And just like that, Troy thought bitterly, Druce had her right back in line.
 
Right back where he wanted her to be.
 
They left Troy’s apartment like two love birds.
 
It was sickening.
 

Then Troy did what he always did whenever Druce Lincoln left his apartment: he sprayed it down with Lysol.

The limousine pulled up at the front entrance to the luxurious Varnadore Hotel in Russia’s capital city.
 
Roni felt inordinately pleased as the chauffeur opened the back door and held her hand as she stepped out.
 
For a woman who often passed right by the ritzy Varnadore Hotels of the world for the more affordable Hiltons and Marriott’s, stepping out of a limousine not just to stay here, but to stay here with the owner of the whole shebang, was heady.
 
And when she saw that owner coming toward her, looking so striking and virile in his casual jeans and polo shirt, she didn’t just feel special.
 
She felt like a queen.

“Veronica!” Jake said heartfelt as he approached her, smiling from ear to ear as he came.
 

Roni could see the heads of his employees turn as he came.
 
They seemed to be wondering
who was the lady that would have their boss in such a giddy state
.
 
And he did seem happy, Roni thought.
 
If he didn’t want his subordinates to know what she really meant to him, he was doing a lousy job of it.
 

And just seeing
him
so excited made any apprehensions she had about coming all this way to be with some man sail right away from her.
 
Especially when, in full view of everyone, he pulled her into his arms.

“Oh, Roni,” Jake whispered in her ear in such a sensual tone that she feared he would try to make out with her right where they stood.
 

But that wasn’t his intention at all.
 
He was just thrilled beyond words to see her again.
 
And it was heady for him, too.
 
There was something so remarkable about this woman that every time he was away from her, he wanted to be with her, and every time he was with her, he never wanted to leave.
 
And with feelings like that he knew he would be happy to see that cheerful face of hers again.
 
But he never dreamed he’d be
this
happy.
 

When they stopped embracing, Jake moved sideways to introduce a man Roni didn’t even realize had come out of the hotel with him.
 

“I want you to meet Albert McCaskill.
 
He’s the chief operating officer for Varnadore Europe and my right hand man.
 
If for any reason you need someone while you’re here and I’m not available, he’ll be the one you ask for.
 
Understood?”

“Understood,” Roni said, shaking the man’s hand.
 
“Nice to meet you, Mr. McCaskill.”

“Albert, please,” he replied in what sounded to Roni like a clear Irish brogue.
 
“And nice to meet you, Miss Wingate.”

Roni wanted to get casual with him, too, and tell him that he could call her by her first name, too, but somehow she felt that Jake wouldn’t like that.
 
She once overheard Pamela tell Kara that for all of her father’s liberal views about people in general, he was really something of a prude when it came to chains of command and protocol.

Jake then placed his hand on the small of Roni’s back and escorted her into one of his three hundred hotels worldwide, a fact she’d only just discovered while reading a company brochure on the company plane.
 
When she saw that number she almost fainted.
 
Three hundred hotels?
 
The man she was going to see, the man who asked her to come and see him, owned a chain of three hundred hotels?
 
And she felt faint again, when she entered one of those three hundred for the first time.

Marbled floors and walls, thick Greek columns, sturdy steel rods and glass of emerald hue dominated the luxuriously-appointed lobby.
 
And the size of the place.
 
It felt to Roni as if she was entering a palace.
 
She even looked up, at the ivory ceilings, at the thickest crown molding she’d ever seen in her life, at the sheer richness of the place.
 
She didn’t want to look like a hick, but she sure felt like one.

Jake loved the fact that she wasn’t hiding her awe.
 
There was nothing wrong with being impressed.
 
He escorted her into the private back elevator, his hand still on the small of her back, and stared at her as they were driven up to his private suite.
 
He recalled the numerous other female companions that walked through the doors of some of his hotels as if they were nothing at all.
 
They walked as if they were born walking through luxurious doors.
 
Which was fine.
 
Fake it until you make it, he understood that.
 
His drug-addicted parents abandoned him when he was a kid, and he was raised in foster homes.
 
He knew how to play that game.
 
But he preferred Roni’s more honest reaction.
 
Because hers was the same reaction he had had himself, when he first walked into his own hotel.

When they finally entered Jake’s private penthouse suite, Roni was even more impressed.
 
Jake, like a kid in a candy store, took her fascinated eyes on a tour, as Roni could hardly believe the beauty that now surrounded her.
 
From the chocolate and cream hues to the mother of pearl inlaid walls, her eyes were wide with amazement.
 
Especially when she looked out of the floor to ceiling windows that overlooked a panoramic view of the Kremlin, of Red Square, of Christ the Savior Cathedral.
 
There was a wraparound balcony, a grand piano, a full-throttled wine cellar and full-sized lounge.
 
There was a library, a billiards table, a Jacuzzi, flat screen TVs in every room.
 
Five bedrooms in his suite, and seven bathrooms.
 
The dining room could seat thirty people.
 

When Roni finished the tour, and they were back in the living room, she looked at Jake smiling, and shaking her head.

“A bit much?” he asked her, smiling too.

“Just a tad,” she admitted.

“And I couldn’t agree more.
 
It’s certainly not my taste. My home isn’t this impressive.”

“Then why do you have it?” she wanted to know.

“Because impressing others is what we do.
 
It’s what keeps them coming back.
 
When I’m not in town, this is where our new venture investors stay.
 
Varnadore Global isn’t just about hotels.
 
We invest in a wide range of things, from computer software to tires.”

“Tires?”
Roni asked.

“I kid you not.
 
You slap the name Varnadore on a set of tires, and they automatically will cost you a bundle.
 
It’s like Armani on
fragrance,
or Versace on bedroom linen.
 
It’s all in a name, an appearance, my dear.
 
Have a seat, please.”

Jake held out his hand as Roni sat on the sofa.
 
He sat beside her, turned his body toward her, and crossed his legs.
 
The lights of the city shone in through the windows, and cast upon Roni, making her brown skin pop in angelic brilliance to Jake.

“This is extremely nice,” she said.
 
“Thanks for inviting me.”

“Thanks for agreeing to come,” Jake said, looking up, at her always well done hair.
 
“I’ve missed you so much.”

Roni steeled herself.
 
Okay, she thought.
 
Don’t hold back now.
 
You didn’t come nearly six-thousand miles just for the hell of it.
 
You obviously have feelings for the man.
 
Serious feelings.
 
She looked at him.
 
“I’ve missed you, too,” she said.
 
“Terribly.”

Jake returned her look.
 
“Do you miss me,” he asked, “or my body?”

Roni wanted to smile.
 
Sly fox
, she thought.
 
But two could play that game.
 
“Your body, of course,” she said.
 

When Jake looked as if he might actually believe her, she smiled and hit him playfully on the stomach.
 
“And you, boy!” she said.

Jake laughed, relieved.
 
“I’m no kid, Veronica.
 
You almost gave me a heart attack!”

Roni laughed too, and they both seemed overjoyed.
 

But as their laughter began to only highlight their feelings, rather than demonstrate them, the mood in the room shifted.
 
Jake began ever so lightly running the back of his fingers along the side of Roni’s face.
 
She could feel the hidden hairs of his hand barely touched her skin, but that lightness only made her
feel
his touch more intensely.
 

Although they were already close, he slid his body closer to her, and lifted one of her thighs until it was sitting on one of his.
 
It was a move that allowed her to feel his slowly expanding penis against her lifted thigh.
 

“So much for my plan,” he said, as he rubbed her hair.

“What plan was that?” she asked, amazed at the length of his beautiful eyelashes.
 
She knew some women who would kill to have lashes that long.

“I had planned,” Jake said as he began tracing kisses on the side of her face, “not to touch you on your first day here.”

“Not to touch me?” Roni said, as he touched her.
 
He took his hand and began to slowly unbutton her blouse.

“That’s right,” he said, her buttons one by one coming undone.
 
“I didn’t want you to think that I wanted you here just to fuck you.”

Roni’s vagina began to tingle.
 
“So you don’t want to fuck me?” she asked as he parted her unbuttoned blouse.

“Oh yes,” he said.
 
“I want to fuck you in ways you can’t even imagine.”
 
He unlatched the front clasp of her bra, opening it and causing her big breasts to spill out.
 
His breath caught when he saw those brown wonders again.
 

“I want to do this to you,” he said, as he began to kiss one breast and then lick its nipple.
 
Roni closed her eyes and leaned back as he fondled her.

“I want to do this to you,” Jake continued, as his mouth moved over to her other breast, and he kissed it and then licked its nipple.

He began to fondle both nipples and look his heavy-lidded eyes back up into her face.
 
“But I didn’t want you to think this was all I wanted to do to you.”

“Well, it’s like this,” Roni said as she began to unbuckle and then unzip his pants.
 
“I didn’t come all this way just so you can fuck me,
that’s
true.”
 
She pulled out his penis, causing his face to burn in the agony of anticipation.
 
He was already aroused.

“But it’s also true,” Roni said, as her hand began to massage his arousal, “that I didn’t’ come all this way not to get some, either.
 
Or to give some,” she said as she placed her mouth onto his rod and began to give him head.