Thor'sday Night - Paranormal Erotica (3 page)

‘Hello, Carmen, I’m sorry to call you so late,’
Jay Westgate’s relaxed and confident voice fills the small room,
‘but I’ve had one situation after another today.’ He pauses. ‘I
guess you got tired of waiting.’

Will pauses in the doorway.

‘I really wanted to see you tonight, Carmen.
I’ll call you in the morning at the office… Goodnight.’

‘Your boyfriend?’ Will asks.

‘No,’ she can’t bring herself to lie to him, ‘I
only met him this morning.’

He pockets the condom, zips up his jeans, and
walks over to her phone. ‘What’s the address here?’

She gives it to him.

While he orders a cab, she slips off the desk
and picks her dress up off the floor.

He slams the receiver down. ‘I’m really sorry
about this, Carmen, I hope you can forgive me.’

‘This wasn’t your fault, Will, I—’

‘Yes, it was. I know you probably don’t trust me
anymore, but I’d like to see you again. Would you consider giving
me your number?’

‘Of course.’ She drops the dress and quickly
scribbles it on a message pad she keeps by the phone.

For the second time that day she hands a man a
pink slip with her phone number on it.

He pockets it, raises her chin with one finger,
and very effectively punishes her for making him leave with another
exquisitely slow, lingering kiss. Then he leaves.

*

‘Damn!’ she exclaims, stamping her foot, and
Sage purrs consolingly around her ankles.

Every time the phone rings at work the next
morning, Carmen snatches the receiver up hopefully. But they are
all business calls.

She knows she is leaving herself wide open to
disappointment again, but her obsession with Jay Westgate helps
take her mind off what happened in the Grove.

She doesn’t want to think about Officer William
Reed. He saved her from being raped, took advantage of her
gratitude, and then rescued her again, from herself. The memory of
his clear blue stare is a glass in which her feelings are mixed in
an intoxicating way.

Not until Mike walks into the office shortly
after ten o’clock, laughing over his shoulder at someone’s joke,
does Carmen realize how profoundly shaken she still is.

‘Good morning, Carmen.’ Mike is his usual
smiling self again this morning. It takes a lot of problems all
dumped on him at once to pollute his good nature.

‘Good morning.’ She gets up to pour him a cup of
coffee, grateful for this excuse to follow him into his office. Her
pulse is reacting to his appearance like a bird lost over a
tumultuous ocean spotting an island. With her free hand she smooths
down her sleeveless, thigh-length cotton jersey dress, exactly like
the one she wore to the Grove last night, except that this one is
black.

Mike is standing behind his desk. ‘So, Carmen,’
he slips off his jacket and drapes it over the back of his chair,
‘did you have a hot date last night?’ He loosens his tie.

‘No,’ she sets his coffee cup down in the usual
spot on his desk, ‘I didn’t.’

‘Really? I’m surprised.’ He snaps open his
briefcase. ‘I would have called you right away.’

‘I went out by myself, to the Grove.’

He picks up his coffee, sits down, and leans
back in his chair. ‘Did you have a nice time?’ He takes a sip.

‘I was almost raped.’

‘What?’ He sits up so abruptly that a wave of
hot black liquid breaks against his chest. ‘Jesus!’ He leaps to his
feet.

Carmen doesn’t think twice about running around
his desk to him and ripping open his shirt. Buttons fly across the
office, vanishing like seeds in the lush carpet. ‘God, Mike, I’m
sorry!’

He yanks his tie off so swiftly it cracks like a
whip against his chair. ‘Did I hear you say you were almost raped,
Carmen?’ He quickly shrugs off the ruined shirt.

She wonders what possessed her to tell him.
‘Yes.’

He tosses the wet cloth into a wastebasket. ‘Are
you all right? You did say “almost”?’

‘Yes…’ She has to make a supreme effort to keep
her eyes off his chest. It is as firm as she had imagined it would
be, and covered with fine golden hairs that threaten to entangle
her feelings in them.

‘Tell me what happened, Carmen.’

The phone rings out at her desk.

‘Don’t worry about it.’ He presses a button.
‘Beatrice?’

‘Yes, Mike?’

‘Answer Carmen’s phone for a while.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He strides over to his door and closes it. ‘Sit
down.’ His tone brooks no argument as he returns to his desk. He
opens a bottom drawer and produces a light blue shirt still neatly
folded in its plastic sack. He tears it open, pulls out the pins
holding the arms down across the chest like a mummy’s, and wrestles
his broad shoulders into the stiff folds.

Watching him from a chair, she conceals her
disappointment, but then almost smiles when she sees him realize he
can’t tuck it in without unzipping his pants.

It hangs open as he perches on the chair next to
hers. ‘Now,’ he leans towards her, ‘tell me what happened.’

Avoiding his eyes, Carmen finds it surprisingly
easy to obey him. She feels a little awkward describing how Will
drove her home, then embarrassed to admit that she insisted he
accompany her up to her apartment, and that’s as far as she can go.
She stares mutely down at her clenched hands.

‘My God,’ he says beneath his breath, ‘don’t
tell me that cop took advantage…’

‘Oh, no… I mean, he stopped himself.’ She isn’t
doing a very good job of ignoring his chest. Her eyes keep diving
off the edges of his open shirt, and hitting the rocky bottom of
his muscles.

He asks quietly, ‘What did you say this
officer’s name was?’

She rises. ‘I didn’t.’

He follows her up. ‘You should go home and get
some rest.’

He is standing so close she feels irresistibly
caught in his orbit. ‘Okay,’ she says, and forces her body to turn
away from him.

He grasps one of her arms. ‘Carmen…’

She cries out.

He lets go of her as if she burned him. ‘You’re
hurt,’ he whispers in disbelief.

‘Just a little bruised, that’s all. I’m okay,
really.’

He holds her eyes. ‘Are you sure?’ Lightly,
casually, he caresses her arm all the way down to her wrist, and
his fingers brush hers.

Sparks flash between them…

Suddenly his shirt fills her vision like the
sky, the narrow path of flesh visible between its open folds a
crack of lightning, and his warmth comes as a blessing.

He asks quietly, ‘What are you doing,
Carmen?’

She quickly pulls her hands out of his shirt. ‘I
don’t know… I feel strange, Mike.’

He brushes the hair away from her forehead to
rest his palm against it. ‘Should I call a doctor?’

She stares longingly at the hard line of his
mouth. ‘No, I’m fine.’

He gruffly messes up her neatly combed bangs,
the way he might a mischievous little girl’s. ‘Okay, no doctor. I
don’t think you need one anyway. You’re just in shock. Go home and
get some rest. That’s your assignment for the day. Got it?’

‘Got it.’ She heads for the door.

‘And Carmen,’ he says as she opens it, ‘if you
tempt me like that again, I’ll do something we’ll both regret.’

She can’t look at him.

She goes to tell Beatrice she is leaving for the
day.

‘Is everything okay, Carmen?’

‘Everything’s fine.’

‘Mike’s been eating a lot of people out
lately…’

‘Well, he wasn’t eating me.’

Bee laughs happily, and hands her a pink slip.
‘Some guy named Ray something called you. He really wants to get a
hold of you, querida. He left three numbers.’

Chapter Two

A storm is coming. To the south the sky is an
untroubled Caribbean sea, but dark clouds are rolling ominously in
from the north like smoke from a fire.

When Carmen turns right onto Flagler street, the
encroaching darkness threatens her from the left, while to her
right the lovely morning remains unaware of the atmospheric passion
about to swallow it up. Lightning flashes in the corner of her left
eye, and gusts of wind buffet her car, forcing her to keep a firm
grip on the wheel.

The mood of this impending storm differs from
the summer’s constant low pressure, and the fact that it seems like
a reflection of her own turbulent emotions thrills her.

It is always a pleasure to enter Coral Gables,
where beautiful old trees offer a welcome relief from the unbroken
concrete plains and neon branches of Miami, which keeps spreading
northwest like a manmade fungus.

At this hour it is easy to find a parking spot
in front of her building.

In a courtyard across the street a cheap plaster
statue of Venus looks strikingly authentic against the brooding
sky.

Strands of hair whip across her face as the wind
gently shoves her from every direction, making her laugh; she finds
the atmosphere’s invisible attention so exhilarating.

Thunder drums across the sky as she unlocks her
door.

Sage is clearly surprised and pleased to see her
again so soon.

Carmen basks in her feline family’s purring
devotion for a few minutes before falling into her favorite chair
next to a window overlooking an avocado and a mango tree. Their
branches are swaying with supple grace in the wind, but the black
phone lines threaded through them don’t look as immune to the
charged strumming of the wind.

She quickly dials Jay Westgate’s work
number.

A sexy sounding secretary answers the phone, and
politely informs her that Mr Westgate is out of the office.

Carmen hangs up without leaving a message, and
dials the number he left for his cellular.

She can hardly believe it when he answers.

‘Jay Westgate.’

‘Hello, Jay, this is Carmen… can you hear
me?’

‘Yes, but you’re breaking up!’ The interference
is so intense he sounds as though he’s in the middle of the ocean
with wooden masts cracking and sails snapping disastrously around
him. ‘I’ll be right there! I’ll take you to lunch!’

‘But I’m not at work,’ she cries, ‘I’m at
home.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘In the Gables.’

‘I’m in your neighborhood, give me your
address.’

‘Forty-Eight Sixty Nine Salzedo, apartment
four!’

‘I’ll be there in five!’

He arrives ten minutes later looking like a lion
forced into a bath. ‘I could have sworn I had an umbrella in the
car,’ he remarks.

She quickly closes the door behind him.

He leans against it to avoid dripping all over
her carpet. ‘I guess I didn’t.’ He smiles wryly. Strands of dark
red hair look painted onto his pale forehead and cheeks.

‘I’ll make us lunch,’ she says firmly, ‘and you
have to get out of these wet clothes. Come on.’ She gingerly takes
hold of one of his dark heavy sleeves, and quickly leads him into
the tiny bathroom opening off her bedroom.

‘How did you manage to get so wet between here
and the car, Jay?’

‘I walked to the wrong building,’ he explains.
‘I couldn’t see any numbers through the rain, and for some reason I
decided you lived across the street. It must have been the statue
of Venus in the courtyard.’

The compliment pleases her so much that she
ignores it. ‘I don’t know what I can give you to wear.’

‘You don’t have any male clothing lying around?
That’s good.’ He smoothes the hair away from his face with both
hands, drawing her attention to his bone structure, which is so
symmetrical it might look common from a distance. But up close, her
thoughts slip over his features as an irrational sense of knowing
him possesses her.

‘Um, there are some towels in the cabinet behind
you. You’ll have to settle for a big old bathrobe while I throw
your clothes in the dryer downstairs.’

‘Do you always undress a man on the first date?’
He doesn’t smile. ‘Thanks.’

She leaves him for a moment to fetch a
forest-green terry-cloth robe out from the back of her closet, an
old Christmas present from her grandmother two sizes too big for
her.

‘I’ll be right out,’ he promises, holding her
eyes as he slowly closes the door.

Breathless, she hurries into the kitchen, where
she rinses off the two boneless skinless chicken breasts she just
defrosted in the microwave. Fortunately, she has some of her
homemade fat-free Caesar dressing on hand. She’ll broil the
breasts, cut them up, and whip up two Chicken Caesar Salads. She
pulls a head of Romaine lettuce out of the refrigerator, and washes
that as she listens for the sound of the bathroom door opening.

There is another naked man in her house.

She stops what she’s doing for a moment as she
realizes with a shock that he will be the third man she has somehow
helped undress, in one way or the other, in less than twenty-four
hours.

She has just finished chopping up the lettuce
when she hears the bathroom door opening.

She quickly sets two wineglasses out on her
marble table.

Jay strolls out of the bedroom. He has taken
everything off, including his shoes and socks.

He stares fixedly at something across the room.
‘Oh, no,’ he says.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘You have a cat.’ From his expression you would
think Sage was a white tiger about to leap for his jugular.

‘No,’ she corrects him mildly, ‘I have four
cats.’ She indicates the furry knot of kittens sleeping in a
corner.

He closes his eyes and thrusts his hands into
the robe’s deep pockets.

What she can see of his chest is a hairless,
translucent rose, like alabaster with a flame burning inside it.
‘You’re allergic to cats?’ She can’t hide her dismay.

He opens his eyes and stares intently into hers.
‘It seems the powers that be are doing their best to keep us apart,
Carmen.’

‘Yes, it does seem that way, doesn’t it? Um,
I’ll be right back.’ She walks back into the kitchen to turn on the
broiler.