Authors: Reon Laudat
“Hello there!”
Kendra forced a cheerful note in her
thin voice.
“I’m calling to see if you’re free for dinner
tonight, my place this time.”
Kendra
hesitated. Was she ready to face Dominic before she’d had a chance to process
the latest turn of events?
She’d
also planned to edit a client’s manuscript, but she wouldn’t be able to focus
until she got to the bottom of what the holy hell had happened with
Four
Simple
Wishes
.
“Dinner sounds good,” she said. “Would you like me
to bring something? My favorite beer?”
“Just bring the
sexy
. Is six okay?”
“Six it is. See you then.”
Kendra wrote down his address before
jabbing the end call button and plunking her cell phone on the desk.
***
After Dominic ended his
call to Kendra, Quentin entered his office. “Brody is on the line. Said he didn’t
want to leave a message on your cell’s voicemail. Should I put him through?”
“Yes.”
Dominic settled back in his seat.
After exchanging greetings, Brody got right down
to the purpose of his call. “I thought I should tell you I’ve signed with
Porter Literary Agency.”
“So you’ll be working with Kendra Porter.”
“Yes. You’ll still handle my present contract,
but—”
“I know the routine,” Dominic said, failing to
keep facetiousness out of his voice. His hunch about those two had been
confirmed. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it. If Brody had just signed with
Kendra it had been more than thirty days since he gave Dominic notice. Their
author/agent agreement had officially expired. And it was not as if Dominic
could reasonably expect Kendra to tell him about Brody approaching her
regarding representation.
It
appeared as if everything had been done aboveboard. She’d chided him about
courting other peoples’ clients. How likely was it that she’d gone after Brody?
Dominic needed to see the situation for
what it was—just business—and get a handle on his ego. “Kendra
Porter is an excellent agent. I wish you both well,” he said, hoping to
suppress the sore loser threatening to show up and show out.
He had dozens of successful clients.
What did it matter that he’d lost one? At the end of the day, he still
considered Brody a friend. And if he’d lost a prized client to another agent at
least it was to someone he actually respected, right? Not someone like
(shudder)
Piper Hodges. Genuinely
falling in love with Kendra meant he’d want what was best for her agency.
However, knowing what he
should
feel
and how he
actually
felt weren’t
always so neatly aligned.
Losing was losing, no matter how he sugarcoated
it.
“I appreciate everything you’ve done for me,
man.
I do,” Brody said with
uncharacteristic humbleness. “No hard feelings?”
“No hard feelings,” Dominic said, taking the fake
it-until-you-make-it approach.
When the phone call ended Dominic tried to focus
on preparing for what would likely be an interesting evening.
Chapter 31
Kendra phoned Corinne a
few more times that day hoping to get more detail on how her partnership with
Dominic had come about. But she kept getting her voicemail. Then Kendra became
paranoid, wondering if Corinne had noted her name or Porter Literary Agency on
caller ID and had purposely ignored the calls. Frantic for answers before
leaving the agency, she had also reached out to Momster Ostertag, who had been
unavailable, too.
After taking a taxi to Dominic’s scenic
neighborhood, she stopped at a nearby bar and drank stout until its twelve
percent alcohol had calmed her rattled nerves.
As Kendra made her way up the steps to his
beautiful brownstone, her nice beer buzz battled her disillusionment over
losing
Four
Simple
Wishes
. She willed
herself to shake it off and vowed not to give him attitude, under any
circumstances, until she had the full story.
Keep a cool head. Be fair.
A barefoot Dominic greeted her looking sexily
rumpled in another muscle-hugging Henley, a pair of those fleece sweatpants-slash-jeans
(sweans?)
with a drawstring waist,
and geeky black glasses she hadn’t seen before. His wavy hair looked more
chaotic than usual, as if he’d been raking his fingers through it. He removed
the pencil at his ear and tossed it toward the coffee table where it bounced
before rolling to the floor.
“Just
making a few notes for my work in progress,” he told her.
“Longhand?” Kendra asked as she stepped inside his
open arms for a hug.
“Yes.” After he took her coat, he tried to give
her a heated kiss.
But she kept it
at lip level only, smoothly refusing his tongue.
“Ah, so you frontloaded before you arrived,” he
said, obviously referring to the whiff of beer on her breath. “Thought you were
coming straight from the agency.”
“It was after five, and it was a long day,” she
explained, watching him put her coat away. “I stopped for a quick drink.”
Goodness.
She shifted from one booted
foot to the other as she imagined his mouth on her nipples and those big hands
kneading her bottom.
Uh-oh!
How had
she forgotten that an amped-up libido was often an inconvenient side effect of
stout overconsumption? She wanted him, but she also wanted to throttle him.
Nevertheless, it was not a good idea to wind up in his bed before she had the
facts, not just provisional facts. She might need to hold off on sex for a few
days so as not to get too distracted.
Think
with your head, not your hormones
.
Most of their dates had been at restaurants, movie
theaters, comedy clubs, and concerts, often ending at her apartment because
he’d always escorted her home.
“Is this all yours?” she asked, looking around.
“Yes, I’ve considered renovating the lower floor
to rent, but never got around to it.”
This
was the first time Kendra had been to his place, which appeared at least four
times larger than hers. Its décor was just as vibrant and eclectic as
his wardrobe. In the living room, she admired the multiple oversize wall
hangings with assorted Moroccan motifs, terracotta African masks, a massive Art
Deco mirror, and a metal table lamp resembling a shiny satellite dish. She
walked over to three retro-inspired neon signs on one wall: fireflies in a
Mason jar, a retro bathing beauty, and Phil & Emogene’s Fish Fry.
“Who are Phil and Emogene?”
Kendra asked.
“The hell if I know. But I’m told all three signs
are from the ’40s. I found them in my grandmother’s garage and had them
restored.”
Matching chairs flanked a large leather sofa with
silver accents.
A rug with a tribal
pattern covered the hardwood floors. But like Kendra’s apartment and office,
books lay everywhere. Leather bound first editions sat artfully arranged on
floating shelves while stacks of mass market paperbacks stood in untidy towers
or filled plastic bins. A billboard-sized flat-screen TV hung over the
fireplace.
She moved deeper inside the room. A back parlor
area had been transformed into a gym with a free-standing training bag,
possibly used for his taekwondo workouts; an extensive set of gleaming weight
equipment; and a high-end treadmill. An old Smith-Corona was polished and displayed
on a pedestal like a rare museum piece.
Kendra moved back to the airy living room space
and turned full circle. “Your place is so
you
.
I love it.”
“Thank you.”
Since that quick hello kiss and hug, Kendra had
taken three steps away for every step Dominic took in her direction. She ached
to have him.
He felt the same,
judging from the lustful gleam in his eye. She renewed her vow:
No fooling around until you get to the
bottom of what went wrong with
Four Simple
Wishes.
When he reached out for her again, she walked to
the massive desk with a sleek laptop computer and stacks of typed pages in a
three-ring binder. “A pencil and plotting poster boards?” She tapped the one
propped up next to what looked like books for research. “And what have we here?
Composition notebooks.”
“It’s
not goose quill and parchment, you know,” he retorted, obviously peeved by her
retreat.
“But close.” Kendra touched more boards with
sticky notes sprouting from them like multi-colored feathers. “I must admit
these have cool covers.” She lifted the notebook with green dinosaurs stamped
on it and then put it back in its place. “I totally took you for the type who
would go for the highly sophisticated word management software out there. You
know, the ones that use combination pie-area-column-line-x-y-charts, tables,
spreadsheets, and multiple-nesting-doll-like menus that not only wrangle your
words, but also make a mean Macchiato and a side order of French butter
cookies.”
“That’s not for every writer. Because you
can
do something doesn’t always mean you
should
.”
“Tell me about it,” Kendra said, thinking how
downright lickable he looked and smelled at that moment. His shirt was
unbuttoned enough to hint at cakes of muscle and chest hair.
Man, it’s warm in here.
She tugged at
her collar, but wanted to peel off her shirt and wool skirt.
“I’m
old school about a lot of things. When I’m in the early draft stages of a
novel, there’s something about the scratch of a pencil on paper that has always
worked best for my creative process. I’m not in a race to increase productivity
because I write for my enjoyment. And now, for yours, as long as you want to
read my work.”
“I’m determined to convince you to put Shecky
Lamar out into the world so everyone can have the opportunity to enjoy him.” Kendra
touched the Norman Butterfield figure on the desktop and stepped away when
Dominic tried to touch her again. “From your Aunt Aubrelia?”
“Right,” he replied, brows drawn close over his
glasses, as he regarded her.
“See, I pay attention.”
“Thank you.” He’d starched his words and took
another step toward Kendra, who dodged him again. This time, she moved toward
the jukebox and Galaga arcade game machine—both vintage yet pristine.
They stood like sentries on each side of a large mirror.
Kendra
inspected the Galaga game. “I’ve always wanted my own Ms. Pac-Man machine. When
I was a kid I’d tag along with Aunt Jackie, who used to go to a Laundromat that
had a vintage one, along with a barely functional Centipede machine,” she
babbled, moving away yet again when he tried to get close. “The graphics were
faded, but I slaughtered a lot of centipedes and annihilated a ton mushrooms.”
“Me,
too. I was born a little too late to fully enjoy these things during their
heyday, but better late than never. The jukebox is stocked with eighties hits
only.”
Kendra perused his vast collection of vinyl rock,
hip-hop, pop, and R&B.
“Such a remarkable, eclectic mix,” Kendra said.
“Almost as cool as mine.”
“
Almost
as cool?”
Kendra rattled off artists in her own collection
like the alphabet, ending with a popular female rap pioneer.
“She was bigger in the nineties.”
“Ah, but her first album dropped in the late
eighties,” she said before asking him about the three-member R&B band
famous for integrating soul, gospel, and New Jack swing.
“Strictly nineties. No debate. Had one album in
late eighties, only a modest success. Biggest hits solidly nineties.”
Kendra mentioned one of her favorite rock bands.
“I have their synthesizer period.”
She
asked him about another favorite rock band.
“In there.”
She
asked about more artists.
“Check, check, and check. There’s more.
A lot
more. I take records out and put
others in all the time. They don’t make a jukebox that can hold my entire vinyl
stash,” he boasted. “Some are originals, others reissues.”
“I don’t have vinyl. Most of my collection is
digital. Sound quality is much better and there’s no gap between songs if I
choose.”
“I’m a purist.”
“Oh? Then why is Milli Vanilli still in here?” she
said of the duo who did not perform lead vocals on their biggest hit songs.
Dominic opened his mouth to respond, but
Kendra cut him off. “Ooooh, ‘Don’t You
Love
Me’ by the Funktronics.” She butchered several lines of the song, replacing “
me’’
with “
meat
” to amuse herself as she’d done when she was a kid.
“Did you notice ‘Bed Me, Baby’ by that sexy
one-hit-wonder trio who called themselves G-String?” His voice dropped to a low
rumble. “I remember seeing that old video for the first time when I was about
eleven or twelve and getting very, very tingly below the belt.
Hmmp
.”
Kendra continued surveying his collection and
reading artists’ names aloud. Oh, wow,” she said after spotting the
contemporary urban/Latin freestyle band known as Moni-Moni-Moni & Tee-Tee
with Gravity Mode featuring Diego, Deuces, FiFi Alvarez, and Bow-Legged Luiz.
Now
that
was mouthful. Guess they
couldn’t agree on a shorter name for the group and
everyone
wanted billing.” She chuckled. “And Bow-Legged Luiz was,
like, omigod, totally
tubular to the
max with his Jheri curl mullet, Karate Kid headbands, bulging muscles, and
ripped Members Only jackets,” Kendra said in her best Valley Girl upspeak. “And
am I, like, the only one who, like, thinks Moni-Moni-Moni is a dead ringer for
Raven Raw?” With a vacuous expression, Kendra looked skyward and twisted a lock
of her hair as if pondering one of life’s great mysteries.
When Dominic didn’t laugh on cue, she glanced in
his direction. Eyes glazed, he leaned against the Galaga machine, arms over his
broad chest, legs crossed at the ankles. She could just see the speech bubble
over his head:
Are you done now?
Kendra shrugged and turned her attention back to
the jukebox. “Well, all right, then.” She nodded in appreciation as she read
the rest of his collection.
“Oh,
look, eighties Elton John. ‘I’m Still Standing
.
’”
“Not for long.”
“Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.” Kendra chuckled
without looking in Dominic’s direction.
“Gotcha!” Dominic had stealthily moved
behind her, catching her waist when she tried to escape again. He caged her in,
bracing his strong arms against the jukebox. “To stay on theme and maintain the
integrity of the collection, I couldn’t put my favorite Elton John song in
there. It’s from the seventies,” he whispered against the nape of her neck and
then buried his nose in her hair.
“Which one is that?” she asked as a delightful
shiver moved along her skin.
“‘Panties under Dress.’ ”
“‘Panties under’…?”
Kendra started to search her mental
discography, but quickly realized he was joshing her. She pivoted to face him
and thwacked his chest. “There’s no such song!”
“‘Panties under Dress’ is my riff on ‘Bennie and
the Jets.’”
Dominic said, waggling
his brows. “Just one thing on my mind.”
Kendra
groaned. “You do realize that’s over-the-top corny?”
“Of course. Fresh off the cob. The corniest of
corn. A cornucopia of corn, all for you,” he said, breathing in her ear and
making her tingle all over.
“How did I get so lucky?”
Dominic closed in to nuzzle her neck and
sucked her earlobe again. His tongue and soft lips rendered her defenseless.
“This is what you get for making me chase you
around the room,” he said in a gruff whisper as his hand eased up her skirt,
caressing her thighs and bottom before slipping inside her skimpiest undies,
mere strings of lace she’d taken to wearing since the period-panties blunder.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” she said, her determination to avoid sex now
ensnared in a red hot tangle of need.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Dominic found the barely-there undies bothersome
so he ripped them off with a single jerk and tossed them aside. “There, that’s
better.”
“Oh!” she gasped in approval.
“Ah, so you like, huh?” His breath was warm and
moist against her ear.
“Actually, I’m still swooning from the cornucopia
of corn, dork-a-dingus.” Kendra moaned and pressed against him. As he nipped
and tugged at her bottom lip, he unbuttoned her shirt and unhooked her bra to
fondle her breasts and caress her nipples. When his hand descended, she parted
her legs, giving full access to his probing fingers. He expertly worked her
until she was slick and trembling for more.