It Had to Be You (7 page)

“And do what?”

“You know. Have sex.”

“Don’t you think you’re a little young to pick up an old guy like me?”

“I’m tired of boys. I want to do it with a man.”

A video game machine beeped near the doorway.

“I like my women with a few more years on them.”

She slipped one hand from the pocket of her school jacket and, moving close enough to him so no one in the store could see what she was doing, brushed upward along the inside of his thigh. “I’ll be real good to you.” Her hand grew bolder. “Please. I promise. I’ll let you do anything you want.”

“When you put it like that, doll baby, you make it tough to refuse.”

She took her hand away as if she were embarrassed by her brazenness and pulled a set of keys from her pocket. “I’m driving my dad’s car. Follow me.”

The car was a late model Mercedes. Dan kept the tail-lights in view as he drove through the quiet, tree-lined streets into an exclusive residential area. The house, an imposing two-story white brick, sat on a wooded lot. As he pulled into the driveway, he saw the muted lights of an elaborate crystal chandelier glowing through the leaded glass fanlight over the front door.

The house had a three-car garage opening off to the side, and the door on the left slid up. She drove the Mercedes in. He parked behind it and got out. When he was inside the garage, she pushed the button that closed the door.

Her little Spandex skirt hugged every curve of her bottom as she walked up the two steps that led into the house. “You want a beer?” she asked as they entered a dimly lit white kitchen with state-of-the-art appliances and a restaurant-sized, stainless steel refrigerator.

He shook his head.

The lights fell softly on her overly made-up face. She set down her purse and kicked off her flats. Without removing her school jacket, she reached underneath her skirt and pulled off her panties. They were light blue.

She dropped them on the white tiled floor. “You want some taco chips or gum or something?”

“Yeah, I want something, all right.”

For several seconds she stood completely still. Then she led him from the kitchen. He followed her through a softly lit hallway into a spacious living room containing white-washed oak furniture upholstered in rich, gem-colored fabrics. The faux marble walls displayed large canvases of original art and broken stone pediments held several pieces of sculpture.

“Daddy must have some big bucks,” he drawled.

“We’re Italian. He’s with the mob, but nobody’s supposed to know. Do you want to see one of his guns?”

“I’ll pass on that.”

She shrugged and led him into another room, which was dark until she flicked the switch on a small desk lamp with a black paper shade. The light revealed that she’d chosen the study instead of a bedroom. A sleek black desk sat at one end in front of a set of bookcases. More pricey art hung on the walls, and plantation shutters covered the windows. She stopped between a mulberry leather sofa and matching club chair.

“You sure you don’t want something to drink, Mr. Calebow?”

“I’m sure.”

She gazed at him for a moment, and then her hands went to the row of buttons on the front of her white blouse. One by one, she unfastened them.

“How ’bout you get rid of that gum for me.”

She walked over to the desk, her expression sulky, and removed the large pink wad from her mouth. Reaching past a stack of papers, she stuck it in a carved alabaster ashtray. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and he saw her breasts as she leaned forward. The glow from the desk lamp gilded her small nipples.

“Sit up on the desk, darlin’.”

The Spandex skirt rode high on her thighs as she eased her hips onto the front edge. She parted her legs, keeping the balls of her feet resting on the carpet.

He walked toward her, discarding the cummerbund of his tux. “You’re a pretty wild kid, aren’t you?”

“Uh-huh. I get into a lot of trouble.”

“I’ll just bet you do.” He slipped his hands beneath the school jacket and then under her blouse, pulling it from the waistband of her skirt. His big hand traveled upward along her spine and moved to the front. He cupped her small breasts and brushed her nipples with his thumbs.

Her hands moved to the slide on his zipper. For a moment she did nothing, and then she shivered. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

“You seem to be doing real fine all by yourself.”

“Tell me, dammit!”

“All right, darlin’. Open my zipper.” 

“Like this?”

“Just like that.”

“Now what?’

“Reach around a little bit and see if you can find anything that catches your interest.”

His breathing quickened as she followed his instructions to the letter.

“You’re real big.” She cradled him in her hands as she arched her back so that her breasts were pressed deeper into his palms. “I’m getting scared.”

“Oh, I’ll take it real easy on you.”

“You will?”

“I promise.”

“It’s okay if it hurts a little.”

“I wouldn’t want to hurt you.”

“It’s okay. Really.”

“If you say so.” He smelled bubble gum on her breath as he caught her by the knees and drew them upward, then braced her heels on the desktop. The skirt bunched across her stomach. He moved between her open thighs and slipped a finger inside her.

“Does that hurt?”

“Oh, yes. Yes! What are you going to do to me?”

He told her. Roughly. Explicitly.

Her breathing grew heavier and he could feel the heat of her skin. He pushed off her school jacket and, slipping his hands beneath her bare buttocks, lifted her from the desk. She wrapped her legs around his hips and ground her breasts against the tucks of his shirt front as he carried her to the big leather club chair. He settled into it and positioned her knees on each side of his hips so that she straddled him.

Her blouse hung open displaying breasts that were rosy from the abrasion of his shirt. Her splayed legs revealed the glistening thicket of curls between her thighs. He was throbbing, and he began to pull her down so she could take him, but she resisted.

“You’re not going to spank me first, are you?”

He groaned.

“Are you?” she repeated.

He surrendered to the inevitable. “Did you do something wrong?”

“I’m not supposed to let anyone in the house when my parents are gone.”

“I guess I’ll have to whale you, then, won’t I?”

“No, don’t!” Her eyelids drifted closed with excitement.

He was ready to explode and no longer in the mood to play games. Making up his mind not to take long with this, he pushed her down over his lap and shoved her skirt all the way to her waist. With her buttocks bared to his gaze, he smacked the flat of his hand on her soft, round flesh.

He was a powerful man, but he carefully leashed his strength, giving her only a bit more than she wanted. She gasped and writhed beneath his blows, growing increasingly more excited.

As her buttocks took on a faintly rosy hue, he thought of all the trouble his ex-wife was causing him. The late-night phone calls when she ripped his character to shreds, the legal hassles, that newspaper interview.

“Ouch! That’s too hard!”

Once again the flat of his hand connected with her tender flesh. “Are you going to be good, darlin’?”

“Yes!”

“How good?”

“Ouch! Stop!”

“Tell me how good you’re going to be.”

“Good! I’ll be good, dammit!”

He spanked her again. “No nasty little digs in the newspapers.”

“All right. Stop!”

“No more late-night harangues on the telephone.”

“You’re ruining everything!”

He slipped his hand between her legs. “I don’t think so.” And then he lifted her.

She immediately impaled herself on him. “You son of a bitch.”

He drove deep. “That’s right, I’m a son of a bitch.”

She rode him viciously. The phone on the desk began to ring, but they both ignored it. Harsh moans slipped from her throat as she grabbed his dark blond hair in her fists. He buried his face in her breasts while his fingers dug into her buttocks.

The ringing stopped and the answering machine clicked on.

She threw back her head and yelled as she shattered.

This is Valerie Calebow. I can’t come to the phone right now. If you leave a message, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

The machine beeped and then spoke. “Congresswoman, it’s Stu Blake. I’m sorry to be calling so late, but . . .”

The voice droned on.

With a groan, Dan spilled himself inside her. She slumped against him as the message came to an end.

Beep.

“For God’s sake, Dan, get a glass,” she said in that snotty voice he hated.

He took another swig before he screwed the cap back on and returned the container to the refrigerator. Resting the side of his hip against the door, he studied her. She had scrubbed the makeup from her face, revealing her sharp bone structure with a nose that was a bit long but well balanced by a high, smooth forehead. Her light brown hair, free of the silver barrette, fell almost to her shoulders, and her teenybopper clothes had given way to a midnight blue peignoir set trimmed in black lace.

“Where’d you get the cheerleading jacket?”

“My secretary’s daughter. I told her I was going to a costume party.” She lit a cigarette, even though she knew he hated being around smoke.

“This escapade tonight crossed the boundary into creepy. Sixteen-year-old girls haven’t turned me on since I was twelve.”

She shrugged and exhaled. “It was different, that’s all.”

Not so different, he thought. In one way or another, all of Valerie’s sexual fantasies tended to lead toward male domination. Pretty damn funny considering the fact that she was a Class A ball buster. Unfortunately, the only person he could share the joke with was Valerie, and he knew she wouldn’t laugh. Besides, she got all riled if he criticized any of these weird scenarios she set up, and they already had enough other things to fight about.

Her hand crept to her rear. She rubbed it through the dark blue silk and gazed at him with resentment. “You shouldn’t have hit me so hard.”

“Honey, I was holding back.”

He could tell by her expression that she was trying to make up her mind whether to sink her teeth into him or not. Apparently she decided against it because she walked over to the small kitchen desk and began thumbing through the Filofax she had left there. “I don’t have to be in Washington for a few more weeks. How’s your schedule for the weekend?”

“I’ll be at the Meadowlands. We’re playing the Jets.” He moved away from the refrigerator and took a banana from a stainless steel fruit bowl that looked like the terminal at Dulles.

She slipped on the pair of half-glasses that were lying on the desk and set her cigarette in a chunky black glass ashtray. “What about Thursday evening before you leave?”

“Meeting. Friday’s all right, though.”

“The vice president’s going to be in town that night, and there’s another reception.”

“Wednesday night if we make it after midnight.”

“That looks like it’ll work. Except—” She slammed the book shut. “I’ll have my period.” Slipping off her glasses, she rubbed the bridge of her nose, took another drag from her cigarette, and said briskly, “We’ll work around it. We have before.”

“We’ve been divorced for nearly a year, Val. Don’t you think it’s time we talked about putting an end to this?”

“There’s no need to end it yet. We agreed this would be the best arrangement until one of us finds someone else.”

“Or until we kill each other, whichever comes first.”

She ignored his crack and showed that rare vulnerability that always got to him. “I just—I just can’t imagine how to go about it. I’m attracted to powerful men. How am I supposed to tell someone like that I won’t sleep with him until I’ve seen a complete workup of his blood chemistry?”

He tossed the banana peel in the sink. “Sex in the nineties. It makes for strange bedfellows.”

“No one should have to screw an ex-spouse just because that ex-spouse happens to be HIV negative.” She stabbed out her cigarette in the ashtray.

“Amen to that.” He disliked the arrangement a lot more than she did, but whenever he tried to break it off, she made him feel like a heel. Once he found his baby-makin’ woman, however, he was putting an end to this.

“We’re both too smart to play sexual roulette,” she said.

“And you’re crazy about my body.”

She didn’t have much of a sense of humor these days, and his wisecrack set her off. Her nostrils began to breathe fire, and before long she was accusing him of gross insensitivity, reckless behavior, a bad disposition, not caring about anything but winning football games, and emotional dishonesty.

Since she was pretty much on target, he tuned her out while he polished off the banana. In all fairness, he knew her problem was worse than his, and the fact that he felt sorry for her was one of the reasons he went along with this sick arrangement. As a female member of the House of Representatives, she was judged by a stricter moral standard than her male colleagues. The voters might forgive some hounding around from their congressman, but they sure wouldn’t forgive it from a woman. For someone who liked sex as much as Valerie, but didn’t have either a husband or a man she cared about, it was a definite problem. Besides, she was one of the few honest legislators in Washington, and he figured it was his patriotic duty.

Not that there weren’t some benefits for him. He’d had so much free sex during his early playing days that he’d lost his appetite for promiscuity. He also wasn’t stupid, and he had no interest in taking chances with groupies. But despite Valerie’s kinky little scenarios, sex hadn’t been much fun for a long time.