The Pleasure's All Mine (6 page)

Born and bred in Harlem, Pierce could picture living nowhere else. He had achieved substantial success as the chief operating officer and vice president of Artists & Repertoire at MEG, a far cry from spinning records on the toy record player his father had given him when he was five. Patrick Randall had introduced his only son to the wonders of Motown, the beauty that had been the music of the early ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. Late night tales of the challenges artists experienced in those days explained how those musicians had laid the groundwork for soul music, rock, R&B and the blues, which later evolved into today’s popular music.

Patrick had been disheartened when sixteen-year-old Pierce moved to a studio apartment in Queens with Simeon Cahill so they could be closer to the hub of rap and hip-hop bursting onto the scene. The genre was rife with up-and-coming artists. LL Cool J, Salt-N-Pepa, Kurtis Blow, and Run DMC came to find great success after the movie “Krush Groove,” which brought the underground to more mainstream acceptance. Although Harlem had called him back on several occasions since it was also rich in musical and literary underground history, Pierce wanted to be in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens where new music and new sounds flourished. Music was in his blood, and so was the call to become a major force within the music industry, even though many didn’t see a future in it. That doubt had been short-lived as hip-hop and rap steadily made an impact on clothing, television, and movies in pop culture.

Pierce didn’t return to Harlem until his parents’ sudden deaths brought him back to the brownstone where he’d been raised. The fond memories and quieter vibe of the area soothed him. By all definitions of success, he had made it, but he’d become restless lately, needing something he couldn’t name. Since that night with Raven, he’d been unsettled to the point of distraction. He couldn’t afford to be distracted—not in the music business. Not when he had a partner who started fires all over the country, dripping stupidity like gas from a leaky fuel line.

Never before had he given a thought to what might have been or might be. For days after that last heated conversation between them, he had tried to forget about the woman who had disappeared as mysteriously as a cousin when loan payments came due. Why did she leave the first night? Why didn’t she come to the resort to meet him? Hadn’t she felt that electricity between them? It had been so strong, she had to have felt something! And those…conversations had only intensified it. Now she wasn’t taking his calls or returning them. Her assistant had begun answering with a curt, “She’s not available” or “She can’t come to the phone right now. I’ll give her the message.” It was a final, “Yes, she has your messages—all of them. She’s just crazy, crazy busy right now” that had him crying foul. Raven had taken the punk’s way out and he wasn’t feeling it. If she could tell him to his face that she wanted nothing more to do with him, then he could handle that. He would keep searching for her until that face-to-face meeting happened, by hook or by crook!

Steve cleared his throat and loosened his tie, something he only did when nervous. “Raven Armand is a pen name.”

Pierce’s head snapped to attention. “Don’t tell me what I already know! Find out her real name.”

“They guard that info like she’s a CIA operative. Her personal information is lacking on any site that I could find.”

Pierce thought about that for a moment as it confirmed why he, too, had hit a brick wall. “See if you can get me a copy of one of her books right away. It shouldn’t be so difficult to find out her true identity. And someone put her on our guest list. I’d like to know who it was.”

Steve moved almost soundlessly and perched comfortably on the edge of the desk, something only the brilliant twenty-five-year-old could get away with. Minutes later, when Pierce didn’t say anything more, Steve finally made his way to the door.

The trail of CDs and tapes on Pierce’s desk led to the only framed picture in the office—his parents. He was an only child, by his parents’ choice, and they had poured their hopes, dreams, and wisdom into him. Now he only hoped that they watched him from afar, and that they knew he hadn’t forgotten what they had taught him: diligence, decency, and dignity. He strived for those every day. Diligence—especially in finding that fiery, allusive woman.

Pierce picked up the silver frame and held his parents’ faces closer. He smiled, remembering his father had called him “Mr. Clean” when he decided to shave off all his hair. His mother had said it was bold, and some people had speculated that he had lost his hair to some unnamed disease, which was far from the truth. He liked the look. Period.

Fortunately, before their untimely demise, his parents had been able to see some of the results of his hard work. He had put several artists on Billboard’s Top 10, a deed that had required skill, knowledge of the industry, and having a finger on the pulse of every new artist and marketing technique, along with the resources to pull it all off.

His fingers traced the outline of his mother’s round face and shimmering silver hair. The honey skin and soft brown eyes gave her the elegance of a queen. His brow furrowed, remembering how she had set him up with every eligible woman this side of the English harbor. She had even become so bold as to invite five at a time. Pure disaster in everyone’s book.

Pierce wanted to settle down, but it hadn’t seemed fair to subject a woman to his ridiculous schedule. The woman would have been a layover, strictly a place to stretch his legs between flights. He wasn’t that kind of man. More importantly, he hadn’t met a woman who could intrigue him and keep his attention, a woman much like Raven. She made a man want to scoop her up and carry her off somewhere just to get her attention away from that damn writing pad.

When he’d held her, Pierce could feel her heat and need rising from just under the surface. She was a woman who almost unknowingly threw off pheromones and pure wantonness. He hoped she wasn’t the “I-don’t-need-a-man-my-vibrator-works-just-fine” type. Plastic, rubber, or whatever women used these days didn’t take the place of a flesh-and-blood male. Didn’t they understand that? However, at last check, those products were selling so well that in addition to regular techniques, a man might actually have to learn to shake like a tree in the middle of a sub-zero New York winter just to give a woman an orgasm.

Pierce remembered her smiles, the few she’d bestowed on him, and the revealing curve of flesh that sent his head—both of them—in a wayward direction. With as much flesh as women had offered him as bribes, down payments, or whatever, he should have been beyond feeling excited from the “sight” alone. The woman herself—attitude, confidence, her sultry voice, and that wickedly curvaceous body—the total package, was something he wanted all to himself. Raven was a keeper. His mother would have approved. His father would have applauded.

Pierce Randall was finally ready for the real thing and nothing would stand in his way. Not even Raven herself.

A sharp knock on the door interrupted Pierce’s daydreaming. “Yes?”

Eric Ripley sauntered through the glass doors. His demeanor hinted at easy laughter and the freshness of youth. That infectious smile gave away his age, no matter how much older he seemed. A well-tailored suit showed off his lean frame. His impeccably groomed appearance had created quite a stir when he first arrived at MEG. Grown women had dropped their panties faster than it took for Eric to cover his eyes and ask them to pull them up.

Pierce’s gaze dropped to the stack of books balanced in Eric’s hands, catching Raven’s pen name on the spine. His pulse quickened.

Eric spread the books in front of Pierce. “Steve asked me to get these for you.”

Pierce peered at the books, saying, “That was fast.”

“I had some at my desk,” Eric replied, shifting his weight nervously.

“You’ve read her work?”

After a short hesitation, he answered, “Yes, sir.”

“And…?” Pierce leaned back in the chair, glanced at the books, then back at Eric.

“She’s brilliant.” He beamed. “Her stories make you feel like you’re right in the room with the characters.”

“So you’re a fan?”

“Most definitely, sir!”

Pierce leaned forward and picked up the first one on the stack. He flipped through the first five pages, scanned the paragraphs quickly, and paused at a passage that read, “The man was pure Southern milk chocolate, willing to melt in a woman’s mouth as well as a few other places.”

He suppressed a chuckle.
Well, well, that sounded promising.

Looking up from the page, he asked, “You’re giving me your personal copies?”

“I had extras.”

Pierce winced as though struck by a moving car. “She’s
that
good?”

For once the young man seemed at a loss for words.

“Thank you for the books, Eric.”

“You’ll really thank me when you’re done,” he said with a wide grin, pointing to Open Door Marriage. “Start with that one.”

“You bet.”

Eric paused at the door. “But stay away from
Was It Good for You Too?
”

Pierce shifted his gaze to the last book in the stack before he looked at Eric.

“It’s erotica. You know, grown-folks-stuff,” he said with a light laugh. “I’ll still need a note from my mother when I’m thirty to read that one.”

Pierce laughed heartily and made a mental note to start with that very one. He had been reluctant to dip into Raven Arman’s work before then, fearing that she wrote that unrealistic romance drivel that gave men a hard act to follow. Evidently he had been wrong. The woman wrote a little of the spicy stuff—and that was all right with him. Pierce looked up in time to see another grin on Eric’s face. “Great work, Eric.”

The young man nodded, pivoted and practically skipped forward. Before he disappeared behind the closing door, he called, “Hey, Eric.”

“Yes.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about her…”

Eric inched back in and closed the door behind him, his features pulled into a thoughtful frown. “What do you mean?”

Pierce took a long, slow breath. “You know, where she lives, what she—”

“Oh, yes. She lives in Chicago, on the South Side. She attended Chicago Vocational School, then Hampton University. She’s thirty-six and has one son and—”

“Is she married?”

Eric’s knowing smile made Pierce bristle just a little. That this young man had more information at his disposal than Steve, a former law student, had managed to turn up, showed his resourcefulness. Although, he shouldn’t be surprised. Pierce had chosen the young man for the internship from hundreds of candidates, specifically because he had shown he was, smart, hardworking, and balanced, not to mention persistent as hell. Eric had been the only candidate to inundate Pierce’s postal and online mailboxes with a plethora of reasons stating why he should be chosen. Did being raised by a single mother have anything to do with the level of drive and determination the seventeen-year-old had? His mother should be proud; she had done an excellent job. And speaking of jobs...Pierce didn’t miss the fact that Steve had delegated such a personal task to an intern.

“No, she’s
definitely
single.”

Pierce steepled his fingers to hide his smile.

“At least, the last time I checked,” Eric added.

Pierce’s smile disappeared. In four weeks anything could happen. Her ring finger was bare so he didn’t ask if she had someone. He picked up
Was It Good for You Too?
and flipped to the back page. There was an author’s bio, but no picture. He picked up another book and nearly choked.
Looking for Dick in All the Wrong Places
. But no picture there either. None in the next book. Damn it!

Finally, in the last book,
Slaves of Heaven
, the back page displayed a color picture of Raven Armand smiling sweetly for the camera. The black jacket and white blouse, single strand of pearls and matching earrings showed Raven at her cosmopolitan best. A thin flush of color on her cheeks and crimson on her lips gave her a healthy, lively glow. Her brown eyes sparkled with life and adventure. The smile seemed as though it were just for him. She was breathtaking.

Eric cleared his throat. Pierce looked up as a grin disappeared from the young man’s lips.

“Do you think you can find out a little more about Ms.—”

“Armand,” Eric supplied.

“Yes, Ms. Armand.”

Eric strolled across the room back to Pierce’s desk. “I think her agent’s business card is in one of the books.”

Pierce swiveled the chair, his knee just missing the edge of the desk. “You know her personally? Do you know her
real
last name?”

Eric stalled for a moment, a small furrow forming along his brow. “We…um, have the same agent, and she was at Book Expo America earlier this year.” He swallowed hard, a thin sheen of perspiration peppering his forehead. “We were on the same panel for a publishing seminar.”

Pierce had never before witnessed a time when the young man was anywhere near breaking into a sweat. He folded his hands over his abdomen, waiting.

“Actually, I first saw her speak years ago. She was dynamic,” Eric said, practically gushing. “Writing is her life...”

“Please, go on.”