Authors: Michelle Love
Cosima felt a nervous thrill go through when Arlo showed up at the office the next morning. ‘I thought we’d
look
at some sites,’ he said
nonchalantly,
and Tal had nodded eagerly.
‘Good idea…you
two
go check out the ones we ring-fenced, Cosima, I’m sure three would be a crowd.’
Cosima shot her chuckling boss a death stare as she followed Arlo out to his Mercedes. Arlo was polite and courteous in the
office,
but when he started the car, he gave her a wicked grin. ‘Time to show me what
you’re made
of, Bedi.’
She couldn’t help returning his smile. ‘You better be ready, Forrester, I have a whole stack of potential sites and places up for sale.’ She waved a thick stack of papers.
They drove to each site, Cosima giving him the pros and cons of each. The first few were empty lots. ‘I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that although your initial outlay may be more if you build from the ground up, you get to build
exactly
what you want.’
Arlo nodded. ‘Right…that’s
where
I’m conflicted. I took a look through the papers you’re holding – Tal emailed the details last night. If you’d offered me an empty
site, this time,
yesterday, I would have gone with it. But there was this one place in the Quarter…’
‘The old ‘LaBelle’? I know, right, it’s fantastic,’ Cosima was delighted he’d seen the same potential in the old broke down hotel that she’d seen. She got excited then. ‘Damn, Arlo, do you even realize the potential in that place? And it has that NOLA aesthetic you were talking about yesterday. I know it looks a
mess
but there’s so much we could salvage there…keep the shabby chic about it, really infuse it with…’ She stopped suddenly and laughed. ‘Sorry, I got carried away.’
Arlo grinned. ‘Not at all. I was thinking the same thing myself. Listen, let’s blow off these other sites and go there now – I want to see it for myself.’
Cosima grinned. ‘Then hang a left here, sport.’
Arlo steered the car deftly through the traffic until they reached the outside of the LaBelle. It was an
old
building
, one of the oldest in the Quarter, standing only seven floors high but almost a block wide. Cosima dug out her cell phone. ‘The realtor is only a few blocks away, and he knows we’re coming today. Shouldn’t be a problem to get him here.’
It wasn’t, and soon they were
being led
through the hotel, Cosima noting all the old features and fittings that could be salvaged, getting more and more enthused as they walked through. She looked at Arlo, waiting for his reaction. He nodded, looking around in silence for a few moments. Cosima, impatient, shifted from foot to foot.
Finally,
Arlo turned to the realtor. ‘How much? For everything?’
The realtor told him then there was another silence while Arlo considered. Cosima, her heart thumping, watched him.
‘You’ve got a deal…and I’ll throw in another two hundred grand if we can close escrow by Friday.’
The realtor’s eyes bugged out; he and Cosima exchanged a stunned look. ‘Well, I’ll see what we can do.’
Arlo smiled at him. ‘Make it happen, would you please? My…colleague and I are keen to start work on it.’ And he gave Cosima such a lust-filled, wanton look that she felt naked and hot under his stare. The realtor, clearly nonplussed, excused himself and went to make some calls.
‘I can’t believe you did that. I can’t believe you just bought the place, just like that,’
she
shook
her
head in wonderment. ‘What convinced you?’
‘You,’ he said simply. ‘The look in your eyes when you talk to me about wainscoting and staircases and hand-crafted metalwork. The sheer joy of turning this old wreck into something spectacular, Cosima. I haven’t felt that in years and today, you bring me
here,
and I find it again. Thank you.’
Cosima swallowed. Arlo’s expression was nothing but
genuine; he
wasn’t playing her, trying to suck up, trying for anything but the truth. ‘Thank you, that’s…’
She couldn’t finish because Arlo stepped forward and took her face in his hands, pressing his lips to hers.
The kiss was so sweet it made her head swim but gently, after a beat, she placed her hands on his chest and pushed him away.
‘Arlo…’
He grinned unashamedly. ‘Just a celebratory kiss. No strings.’
Laughing, she shook her head. ‘You are the worst.’
The realtor came back in, beaming. ‘
Mr.
Forrester, I have good news. I can do one better than Friday. How would you like to be the proud owner of this hotel by Thursday?’
She agreed to go out to lunch with him but clearly, young Sam was expecting far more before he’d hand over the information.
No problem,
Sabine smiled to herself, as she led him to her hotel room. Sam looked like he could hardly believe it as she unzipped his pants and reached for his cock. He tried to kiss
her
but she turned her head away. ‘I don’t kiss, Sam. I’ll suck your
cock,
and you can fuck me in whichever way you want, but I don’t kiss.’
She could tell he’d stopped listening at ‘suck your
cock.'
She sank gracefully to her knees and took him
into
her mouth, rolling her tongue around the sensitive tip, feeling it twitch and thicken as she tasted him.
When he was hard, she stripped off, pushing him back on the bed, and straddled him. He was only young,
early twenties
, but his cock was impressive and with a sigh, she impaled herself on it, riding him, thrusting hard onto him. His hands were on her waist, or cupping her small
breasts,
and she murmured encouraging words to him.
Of course,
he came too
quickly,
and she’d had to pretend to come, afterward excusing herself to the bathroom to finish herself, muffling her moan with a hand towel.
Strolling naked back to the bedroom, she smiled down at him. ‘So what have you got for me?’
Sam grinned and reached for his bag. ‘
Printouts
.
Mr.
Forrester’s schedule for the next three months. Looks like he’s going to be out of town.’
Sabine took the printouts, frowning. She scanned through them. ‘New Orleans?’ She kept looking, flicking through the papers again and again. Then she looked at Sam, her gray eyes cold. ‘What the fuck is in New Orleans?’
***
All day he’d been trying to resist touching her tawny skin then, in the old hotel, with the scent of her skin driving him crazy, he hadn’t been able to hold back, grabbing her and kissing her. She had kissed back too, before pushing him away.
It didn’t matter. Just in that brief moment when
their
lips had molded so naturally to the others,
he
’d
been taken
back to the little villa on the water in the Maldives, her body twined around his, his cock buried deep inside her.
Arlo looked over at her as he drove them back to the office. Her dark hair had escaped the clip she’d used to put it up into a chignon, the faint blush of her cheeks reminding him of her afterglow, the breathless undulation of her body under his. God, the need
for
him to make love to her again as beginning to hurt and
…
‘I still can’t believe you bought the place, just like that,’ Cosima said, chuckling. ‘The heady delight of being a billionaire.’
He smiled at her. ‘Surely your family is well off? I know your father’s assets
were seized
, but your mother…’
‘Put her entire earnings up her nose or injected into her forehead,’ Cosima
interrupted,
and he was surprised at the bitterness in her voice. She gave him a half-smile. ‘It doesn’t matter; Harpa and I have never needed her money, we do just fine. Money had never been an ambition for me.’
‘I respect that.’
‘Says the billionaire.’ But she was
chuckling,
and he joined in.
‘Hey, look, that’s just the result of my work, not the goal I was aiming for.’
‘What was?’
Arlo shrugged. ‘I just wanted to design beautiful buildings. Somewhere along the way, the practical side
kicked in,
and the company ended up going where the market dictated. Soon, we were mass-building hotels which were impersonal, functional and profitable. Now I want something different. I
was recently shown
how being spontaneous
could
bring great fulfillment.’ He slid her a sideways look and saw she was blushing.
After a moment, Cosima put her hand on his arm. ‘Arlo, I want you to know, whatever our situation is now, those few days in the Maldives were the best of my life. Truly. I’ve never had that connection with someone. Ever.’
After he’d dropped her back at the office, he went to his hotel and checked in with Margaret. His secretary reeled off a list of calls he’d gotten then told him Sabine had been calling.
‘Lord, that woman doesn’t know the meaning of ‘he’s not
interested.'
’
Arlo grinned. Margaret had never liked Sabine. ‘Thanks for putting up with her nonsense.’
‘No problem, dear, as long as I have permission to go full Mrs. Landingham on her.’
Arlo laughed. Margaret was a huge fan of
The West Wing
. ‘If only I
was
like President Bartlet, I’d be happily married to Stockard Channing, and she would hand Sabine her ass.’
‘
Yes,
she would,’ Margaret laughed. ‘Talking of happily married…’
‘Oh yes?’
Cole Trent is getting married. Just thought you ought to know.’
Arlo was
stunned,
but he gathered himself. ‘How’d you know?’
‘He came by to see me.’ Unlike Sabine, Margaret had been genuinely upset by Cole’s betrayal; she had, after all, seen both the boys through puberty working for their fathers, through college and had been as much of a part of their businesses as either of them.
Arlo sighed. ‘I don’t know what to say to that. Look, if you speak to him, pass along my congratulations.’
Margaret’s voice softened. ‘I will, dear. I’m hoping the idea of getting married rubs off on you.’
Arlo laughed. ‘I’m working on it, Margie.’
‘Don’t call me that.’ But she chuckled. ‘Call me if you need anything, dear.’
‘Okay, Maggie.’
‘Demon child.’
Arlo hung up the phone feeling remarkably happy. Margaret always had the effect, being as she was his de-facto mother and had been since his
own
mother had died. Arlo was almost forty and yet Margaret, with her joie-de-vivre still intact at nearly eighty, made him feel a like teenager.
Talking about feeling good…
he flicked through his photos on his phone to the one he wanted. He had taken it surreptitiously; Cosima was asleep in a lounge chair, her dark skin a perfect foreground to the crystal blue ocean around them. They had said no names, no strings – he reckoned that probably meant no photos too, but right at that moment, Cosima in a white bikini, her breasts golden and ripe, and her belly gently rising and falling with her breath as she
slept...
God, she was a
goddess
and
I’m
her willing slave…damn.
He respected her decision to focus on
work,
and he wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize her career but for him, it was a foregone conclusion.
They would be
together,
and he couldn’t wait for that day to come.
Harpa opened the door and grinned. ‘Hey, Handsome Jack, come on in.’
Jack Hampton rolled his eyes at her. ‘Harpa, I hope you checked it was me before you opened the door?’
‘Yeah, yeah, Grumpus, come on in,’ She tugged him into the
apartment,
and he waved a hello at Cosima, who was watching the scene with amusement.
‘Hey, Jack, I hope you’re hungry. Harpa has made what I can only describe as a planet load of food.’
Harpa flipped her sister the finger, grinning. ‘Didn’t hear you complaining when you wanted to try it all.’
Cosima took Jack’s coat while Harpa grabbed them cold beers from the refrigerator. ‘How’s New York?’
‘Still there, despite their grief at you leaving,’ Jack winked at
her,
and she beamed. Harpa wasn’t subtle when it came to her crushes. Cosima poked her sister.
‘Serve
already; I
’m starving.’
The food was
magnificent,
and as they ate, Harpa told Jack about wanting to move to Seattle. Jack looked at Cosima.
‘You going with her?’
Cosima shook her head, smiling at Harpa. ‘This is Harp’s thing. My place is here.’
Especially now. All afternoon, all evening,
she
hadn’t been able to get that kiss out of
her
head. She’d nearly forgotten all of her rules and gone back to his hotel with him, even wished herself there now, naked and
climbing
on that incredible body of his, feeling his huge cock pushing deep inside of her
…
‘Cos? Jack asked you a question.’
Cosima blinked and brought herself back to the present. Jack looked amused. ‘You looked absorbed in something.’
‘Just work,’ she smiled, and picked
her
fork up, ‘So to what do we owe the pleasure of your company, Jack?’
Jack’s expression became somber and just like that the atmosphere in the room changed. Cosima and Harpa exchanged a worried look. ‘What? What is it this time?’ Cosima felt a fist clench in her chest.
Jack sighed. ‘We have
intelligence
of another possible threat. To you, Cosima. We don’t know if it’s tied to your father but we got a call to say someone had been looking into you, Cos. Some detective from San Francisco.’
Cosima’s face paled.
Arlo.
That’s how he found her. On one hand, she felt relieved it wasn’t some random death threat; on the other, she knew she had to tell Jack about Arlo. She shoved her rice around on her plate for a moment.
‘I don’t think that’s anything…to worry about,’ she started slowly, looking away from both Jack and Harpa’s curious gazes, ‘I think it was to do with work. My…client is Arlo Forrester.’
‘The property magnate?’
She nodded. ‘
He
’s based in San Francisco. He, um, head-hunted me after we met a few months back. I assume the detective was to find out who I worked for, because when I met him, I was between jobs.’
Jack nodded, his eyes still fixed on her blushing face. ‘Work?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay then, well, if we find out anything else about the private dick, we’ll let you know. Good to know it isn’t anything more…challenging.’
Harpa, who had been watching her sister carefully, smiled. ‘That’s good news, because how many potential murderers does a girl need? What are they going to do, re-kill us?’
‘No-one’s going to kill you, Harpa. I won’t permit it.’
Cosima tried to smile. ‘Well, let’s forget all of that and just enjoy this amazing food, shall we? Harpa, tell us some more about this college course.’
Later, when they had said
goodbye
to Jack, Cosima started to clear the dishes, shoving the copious leftovers into their refrigerator. She studiously ignored Harpa who was standing, leaning against the
doorjamb
with her arms
cross
and watching her.
After a few moments, Harpa could bear it no longer.
‘So,’ she began, pulling out a chair and sitting down, ‘I figured out that the only time you were between jobs was a couple of months ago…and most of that time, you were in the Maldives.’
Cosima shrugged but said nothing, rinsing out
a wash
cloth in the sink. Harpa studied her sister. ‘You fucked Arlo Forrester?’
Cosima sighed, giving up. ‘Yes.’
Harpa gaped. ‘No, really?’
Cosima threw her hands up. ‘Harpa – what do you want me to say? I had a holiday fling with the man. It was wonderful. I came home. The end.’
‘Except he’s looking for you,’ Harpa was grinning, ‘Dude…Arlo Forrester is hot.’
Cosima nodded. ‘And here. He found me, Harp. And I’m working for him
now,
so our relationship is just professional from now on. Why are you looking at me like that?’
Harpa was smiling. ‘Because it’s so unlike you. You don’t do casual
hookups
, you never have. And you’ve been unreasonably cheerful since you got back
like
you…’
‘Like you what?’
Harpa burst out laughing. ‘Like you got laid properly for the first time in your life.’
Cosima snorted with laughter. ‘Well, that’s not far off the mark. But, hey, look, it’s over now so let’s just drop it.’
‘Except it’s not.
He
’s
here,
and you’re going to be working with
him
, mmm, getting close, working late…’ Harpa got up and put her arms around her sister. ‘New Orleans is hot even in the Fall, and you’ll get all sweaty and say ‘Gosh,
Mr.
Forrester, I do believe I’m feeling faint, I might just have to open my
blouse.'
’
Cosima was giggling now as Harpa continued her
skit
. ‘And then he says ‘Say, Missy, let me just help you out with that…’ Her voice had dropped
significantly,
and she strode around the kitchen like a Neanderthal. Cosima wiped her eyes.
‘Yes, because that’s the way it works.’
Harpa, exhausting herself, finally dropped into a chair.
‘Seriously,
though, Cos…do you like this guy?’
Cosima nodded. ‘I do. But, at the moment, my career comes first. When we’ve completed this project, who knows? We’ll probably be sick of the sight of one another.’
Harpa grinned then yawned widely, setting off Cosima. ‘Yup. Bedtime.’
Cosima was just getting into bed when Harpa stuck her head around the door. She smiled at her sister.
‘Cos, I just wanted to say…I’m really happy that you had that, the fling or whatever it was. For months I was worried – check that,
years
– that you were missing out. On life. On love.
You were always so serious, Cos, and since you came back from the Indian Ocean, there’s been something new in your eyes.’
Cosima was touched. ‘What’s that?’
Harpa smiled softly. ‘Joy. Night, Cos.’
‘Night, Boo.’
Cosima switched her lamp off and lay back in bed. She thought about what Harpa had said, thought about that kiss this afternoon some more.
You’re right, Harpa, I did feel joy. I feel joy whenever he is near me.
Cosima smiled to herself. She was looking forward to working on the LaBelle Project – and part of her was looking forward to it finishing. She hoped Arlo Forrester meant what he said.
She hoped he would wait for her.