Landon's Obsession: An Endless Series: Book 3 (Series 3) (4 page)

     “Maya, Landon, what’s going on in here?”

     Rita walked in the room looking at the both of us in
concern. Why was she looking so uneasy? What did she think we were doing? “I
just had some of your chicken and dumplings as well as a piece of your
delicious pie. I was also trying to get Maya to use the dishwasher, but it
seems she might have some deep seated issues with them.”

     As Rita walked further in the room I noticed that she
had a cast on her arm. It partially covered her hand and went up to her
mid-forearm.

     “What happened to you?” I asked. Nobody had said
anything about Rita hurting herself.

     But really, why would they? She was only the help.

     Rita looked down at her arm with a grimace. “I fell.
It’s only a hair line fracture, but they still needed to cast it. I have to
wear it for three weeks.” She looked apprehensively between Maya and me again.
“That’s why Maya is working here. It’s only temporary until my cast comes off.”

     The disappointment that hit me at that bit of news was
surprisingly disconcerting. I barely knew the girl. What did I care if she was
temporary?

     “Is that fair to her? Maybe she really needs this job?”
I looked over at Maya and frowned at the anxious look on her face. Why were
they both looking so anxious?

     “Oh, Maya has another job. She’s just doing this to
help me out, and your mother too, of course.” I had a feeling she tagged that
last part on for political purposes. “It was also easier to hire someone we
both knew that would have the same kind of discretion she requires.”

     My brow rose in surprise. “My mother knew Maya before
hiring her?”

     “Not personally, but with Maya being my daughter your
mother was willing to trust her.”

     I frowned. Maya was Rita’s daughter? Looking at them
together I could see the resemblance now. Rita’s skin was darker, and her hair
had that kinky quality like most African American’s whereas Maya’s was a softer
texture, probably because of her mixed heritage, but they shared many of the
same attractive features. I’d always thought the Rita was a good-looking black
woman, and Maya inherited her looks, plus more.

     But if Maya was Rita’s daughter then she most likely
spoke English. I narrowed my eyes on her, but she remained silent, looking
slightly sheepish.

     She should be looking more than
slightly
sheepish, the little bitch. She’d been pretending this whole time, acting as if
she couldn’t speak English, and I’d just spilled my guts out to her thinking
she didn’t understand a word I’d said.

     Lying fucking bitch. She was the same as the rest of
them.

     I pushed away from the counter and stood up, giving her
a frosty look. “Sorry to hear about your arm, Rita. Hope it heals quickly so
your daughter can get back to her life.” Turning on my heel I left without a
backwards glance.

∞                   
∞                    ∞

     Three days later I was still stewing over Rita’s
daughter. I couldn’t believe she’d deceived me. The more time that passed the
more pissed I got.

     Until Monday morning when I woke up and started to
question ‘why’.

     Why had she lied? There was no rhyme or reason to her ruse,
unless it was just a bad joke on her part. It didn’t say much for her
character, but then I was familiar with bad characters.

     I was also accustomed to women finding any means
available in an effort to get my attention. However, what Maya had done didn’t
seem like a scheme to get my interest; it seemed like the opposite, in fact.

     Why had she done it?

     I stood in the entry way of one of the spare bedrooms
in an effort to find out. Maya was dusting; her back to me, ear bud’s affixed
in place. She wasn’t dancing the way she normally did though. All she was doing
was dusting, vigorously. Stepping in the room I sat down in the chair in the
corner and waited for her to notice me.

     While I waited I couldn’t deny that I was enjoying the
view just as I had those other times. The girl was petite but she had some
great curves.

     About forty seconds into my wait she finally turned and
at seeing me squealed, stumbled, and grabbed her chest in shock. I held back
the smile that wanted to split my face at her reaction. She looked damn cute
when she was shocked silly.

     Yanking out her ear bud’s she groused breathlessly.
“You scared the bejesus out of me.”

     I held back another grin, keeping my face bland. “You
might want to look up ‘bejesus’, you probably wouldn’t like the acknowledged
definitions for the word.” Shit, crap, even vagina…I have no idea why.

     Her eyes narrowed. “That word is as old as my great grandmother.
What people have done to pervert it over the years makes no difference to me. It’s
amazing some of the words people have changed, and even made up, in their
efforts to modernize the English language. I mean, how bored do people get?”
She was rambling and whipping the cloth in her hands agitatedly against her
leg. It pleased me enormously to know that she was nervous. She should be after
her ruse.

     “I’m not sitting here to discuss the latest fades in
urban language.” I relaxed further back in the chair, crossed my feet, and
rested my hands on my abdomen.

     “Oh.” A blush colored her cheeks and she stared at me
warily, but that was it.

     I frowned, not happy with her short declaration. “I
don’t want to hear ‘
oh’
either, I want to hear ‘why’.”

     “Why.” She quipped with a weak grin.

     I closed my eyes, surprised at my reaction. The anger
that had been burning in my belly was dissolving and I wasn’t sure whether to
grin or bark at her. I went with expressionless and reopened my eyes. “
Why
did you lie to me?”

     “Hey, I didn’t lie to you.” She shifted nervously again,
her gaze not quite meeting mine. A sure sign of a guilty conscious. She wasn’t
very good at covering her emotions. “You never once asked if I could speak
English, you assumed I couldn’t. If you would have asked me that one simple
question I would have told you. There’s nothing wrong in speaking a different
language if I want. I like speaking different languages.” She stopped another
ramble to glance my way, and I observed discomfiture in her eyes. “I
am
sorry that I just stood there while you talked about private matters when I
knew you thought I couldn’t understand you. That wasn’t right. But you started
spilling things out of the blue and I didn’t know what to do. I thought I might
embarrass you if I suddenly blurted out that I spoke English.” Her voice rose
in agitation, and she gave me an imploring look that actually tugged at me. “I
didn’t think anything less of you because of what you told me. I felt sort of
sorry for you thinking you had to deal with that type of crap. If it makes you
feel better I can tell you something embarrassing about me.”

     Before I could tell her I hadn’t been embarrassed, just
pissed, she rushed forward. “Three years ago while I was practicing cross
country for my high school I really had to go to the bathroom. We were running
these forest trails and I figured I’d just hop into the woods.” I watched in
fascination as her face turn nearly crimson as she recounted this story to me.
“So I was out there doing my business when I suddenly heard this growl behind
me. Well, I totally freaked out and started stumbling back toward the trail
while at the same time trying to pull my sweats back up. Unfortunately, I
tripped and fell about ten feet from the trail with only my underwear up and my
sweats half way down. Worse, on the trail watching me were two freshmen boys
laughing their butts off at me. Worse yet, the growling I heard was some lost
Yorky dog that wouldn’t have hurt a fly.”

     Maya stood there twisting the furniture can between her
hands like she wanted to wring the lemon scent out of it, and I stared at her,
my eyes widening in rising amusement as she finished her story.

     “How long did you have to live that down?” I asked with
a grin tugging at my lips and a raised brow.

     “Who’s says I’m still not. Those two guys never let me
forget it. To this day they call me ‘pinky’.”

     I frowned. “Pinky? Why Pinky?”

     The blush that had been going away returned, and she
shifted again. “I had pink underwear on that day.”

     Blood rushed south instantly at the thought of her
underwear, which was fucking weird. How in the hell was just the thought of her
underwear giving me a hard-on? They’d probably been basic, no-frill pink
panties. What was erection inducing about that? I’d seen women in expensive,
sexy Victoria Secret thongs and only become half as hard as I was now. 

     I leaned forward hiding my bulge and realized that
along with the arousal I also experienced acute irritation that the two males continued
to hassle her…that they’d seen her in those pink no-frill panties.

     “Have those guys gone beyond anything besides calling
you ‘Pinky’?” I asked darkly.

     A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “No, we’ve
actually become friends. They are pretty cool guys.”

     For some reason that irritated me more.

     Maya’s smile dwindled at my frown. “Uhm…so again, I am
sorry. I wasn’t trying to play you or anything. I was listening to some Latin
music that first day and spoke automatically in Spanish because of it, and then
I thought it might help to keep my distance.”

     My frown deepened. “Why did you feel like you needed
distance?”

     She appeared abruptly uncomfortable and looked away.
“Well…we’re just from different worlds and I’m only going to be here for a
short while. Speaking of which, I should get back to work.” She moved to leave
the room hurriedly, and I stood up to…I don’t know; stop her, make her
stay…when she suddenly halted in the doorway and turned. “You know, you seem
like a nice guy under that veneer of arrogance so I don’t think its just money
those girls are after.”

     The next second she was out the door and I stood there
alone, her words ringing in my head. That might have been one of the nicest,
while at the same time erroneous, statements a girl had ever said to me.

∞                   
∞                    ∞

     I stayed away for one day contemplating Maya, and her
words. She was a conundrum. Some of her explanation on why she’d perpetrated
her ruse sounded true, but I thought I read something else there as well. I
just wasn’t certain what it was.

     So Wednesday morning I went looking for her, and found
her in the West sitting room. She was on her hands and knees bent over trying
to vacuum underneath one of the settees, her ass in the air.

     Fuck! Every time I walked into a room with her the
first thing I saw was her ass, and every time my dick took immediate notice. As
her hips rocked with her vacuuming images of what I could do with that ass
slammed into me with unbelievable force, cramping my belly, and I had to press
on my cock and breathe deeply through the arousal.

     While waiting for the painful tightness to pass I could
only hope she didn’t turn around and see me holding my dick yet again.

     After several seconds I noticed that she was struggling
to get the vacuum attachment under the settee so I crossed the room and lifted
one side up. She shot up into a sitting position looking around, and I grinned
at seeing how delightfully mussed she looked with her bun askew and loose
tendrils falling down around her flushed face.

     Would she look like that during sex? Oh, shit, down
boy.

     She yanked out her ever-present ear buds and gasped.
“What are you doing?” She exclaimed loudly, shutting off the vacuum.

     I raised my brows. “What does it look like I’m doing?
I’m trying to help you.”

     She frowned. “Are you allowed to?”

     I laughed. She was too funny.  “What do you mean, am I
allowed to?”

     With a small shrug and a confused, disgruntled look she
mumbled. “I don’t know? I’m expected to do this, I get paid for it. If your mom
wanted you doing this I think she would have tasked you with it.”

     I rolled my eyes. “Maya, I can make my own decisions.
If I wanted to clean this entire house I would. I don’t need my mother’s
approval. You looked like you were struggling getting under the couch and I
thought I could help.”

     “Well, yeah, but that doesn’t mean she would like it.”
She grumbled, flipping the vacuum back on.

     I shook my head at her grumbling.

     She stayed on her knees to finish the job, and more
images bombarded my thoughts, causing me to swell uncomfortably all over again.
It was a good thing I was wearing loose board shorts, because if I hunched it
caused them to bunch concealing my reaction down there where she was at eye
level.

     Finally she pulled back and turned off the vacuum, and
I lowered the settee back to the floor. “Have you gotten to the other sofa and
chairs yet?” I asked.

     She stared at me with a small frown. “Uhm, yes, but
thank you.” Bending down she pulled off one of the cushions.

     I followed her move, pulling up the other one.
Underneath was relatively clean, with only a few popcorn kernels and two
chocolate kiss wrappers—from my father’s hidden stash—but there was some random
crap as well; like a pen, a few coins, and a cuff-link.

     I picked up the cuff-link. “I wondered where that went
to. Are settee’s the collectors of all lost shit?”

     Maya threw me a cautious side glance…she seemed to
always be looking at me that way. “Of course they are. You’ve never gone
looking for something in the cracks of the cushions before?”

     I shrugged. “No. If I lose something I either forget
about it, or ask Rita to keep an eye out for it.”