Chapter 6

 
Some kid came in at eight asking for her. Nicole was there alone and looked at him suspiciously. His dark chocolate eyes were the same as his skin, with matching hair. He was wearing a dirty brown winter jacket with a runny nose.
He asked again impatiently, "Can I speak to Nicole?"
"I'm Nicole," she acknowledged.
It was his turn to look at her suspiciously. "You don't look like a Nicole."
"And who do I look like?"
He shrugged. "I thought you'd be white."
"Why?"
"Because some white guy two blocks over paid me five bucks to deliver a little piece of paper."
"What paper?" she asked suppressing her excitement, knowing who the "white guy" was.
The little boy dug deep in his jacket pocket, pulling out old candy wrappers, crumbs, broken cookies, and finally a neatly folded piece of lavender paper. "Are you sure you're Nicole?" he asked again.
Exasperated, she insisted, "Yes."
"Prove it."
"He's got gorgeous green eyes."
"What's gorgeous mean?"
Nicole rolled her eyes heavenward. "They're real pretty green."
He smiled and put the paper in the money slot.
Can you get off an hour early and meet me out back? Please respond below and return with kid. Reward for a positive response to kid. Ethan
His writing was very neat and she almost wanted to treasure the enriched paper. It didn't feel cheap and it smelled like him. Reluctantly, she had to write on it, "YES."
Looking at the boy who patiently waited, she said, "Am I supposed to tell you something?"
He nodded. "He said you're supposed to write yes or no on the paper."
She smiled, handing the boy the piece of paper. "I told him yes."
Taking the paper, the little boy beamed and ran outside. In a moment, he was back hiding something behind his back. "Close your eyes," he ordered. "Push out the big tray."
She obeyed until he told her to open it, gasping at the beautiful white rose in a floral box with baby's breath. There was a card attached with his writing on it. She opened the laundry slot hurriedly and pulled the card off, reading it: "THANK YOU."
Warily, she looked at the boy. "What if I had said no?"
"He said if you said no to just leave and take this to my Momma."
"What's your name?"
"David."
"How far is two blocks over?'
"Down near the school over there. He's been working on two houses at the same time. He said he bought them. One house he tore down and he's building this thick wooden big fence around both the properties."
"Thank you, David." She put the paper in the money slot and he grabbed it. After sticking it deep in his pocket again, he waved and left.
She opened the floral box and smelled the rose. Did he know how expensive roses were this time of year? Of course he did because he paid for it.
She carried the box inside the booth, as if it were a newborn baby. Her thoughts were totally centered on him until Cleo came in at ten.
"I'm not feeling well so I'm going to leave early," she told her. Cleo accepted this as a legitimate excuse. But she then added, "If anyone calls me, I'm busy."
Cleo smiled knowingly, "With whom, may I ask?"
"I just want to check something out, okay?"
Cleo only nodded with a wicked smile. "Leave as early as you want. If you want to leave earlier, just call me in."
Nicole only huffed and hurried to finish several orders. With the holiday season, there were a lot of orders to complete. Nicole liked to keep the regular customers happy by getting their orders done early, so she was kept very busy physically and mentally.
At eleven thirty, she checked out of the peephole at the back door. Usually, she got out at one, but wasn't sure if he understood that. No one was there, so she finished pressing one more load. Twenty minutes later, she checked again. A black van was sitting there quietly and she hoped it was him.
Grabbing her bag, she told Cleo, who was on the floor sweeping around the machines, she was gone and rushed out of the back door. Opening the van door, she almost smiled seeing Ethan inside. Soon as she was seated, he took off, but he didn't head in the direction of her home.
"Where are we going?" she inquired.
That would ruin the surprise, wouldn't it?" he asked.
"What surprise?"
He shrugged. "It's a quiet space I just found out about close by. I just assumed you wouldn't be able to entertain me at your job properly without others knowing."
This tone of voice made her feel as if she were ashamed of him. "I'm only putting up with you because of the money," she indicated.
He nodded. "I'm aware of that."
As nonchalant as she could muster, she said, "And once my service is done tonight, I want nothing to do with you."
"Which is why I am making it easier on you by remaining anonymous. I know it wouldn't look good for you to be seen with a white man." These words were said with a lot of frustration and she had a feeling this didn't have anything to do with her. Yet, she didn't want him to think she was ashamed of his color; it was just that if Marvin or even her mother knew, or even suspected her involvement with any man, she would be in trouble. She still remembered the horrible beating she had gotten in the tenth grade when she allowed some boy to just walk her home, and someone had told Marvin. He had waited until Nanna had gone shopping the following day and beat Nicole with a thick cover over her so there wouldn't be any marks lefts. She was sore for days. Her uncle had made it clear that there would be no dallying for her with anyone.
So why was she taking a chance now with this man? That question remained to be unanswered for her. "I appreciate your thoughtfulness," she said, with her tone filled with sarcasm. "Am I going to catch something?" she asked.
He frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I'm sure you were there last night and notice ...how shall I say it...there wasn't a mess to clean up. I want to know how clean you are."
"Very," he answered. "A couple of months ago, I took a blood test. I'm clean," he assured her. "And you?"
"Virginal," she said honestly, but in a teasing way. "You could eat off of me."
He chuckled, which she knew he would since he thought of her as a whore. Knowing that his mindset was the same assured her emotional state of mind. As long as he thought of her like that, no deeper emotions could possibly come forth from her.
She would honestly admit when he wasn't being an ass, she was highly attracted to him.
He put the car in Park and turned toward her. "We're here."
She looked out to see a small city park. He cut the motor and light off quickly to not attract any attention. "A park?"
"I figured somewhere we won't be distracted." He reached down and unlocked his seat, pushing it back to give him more room between the steering wheel and him.
"I guess whores can't be choosy."
"If you could, where would you imagine being?"
Nicole thought about something kinky. "I'd like to have you lying on a bed with your arms tied up while I touched you all over." She turned around in her chair and took both his hands in hers and held them up. "You'd be mine to command all night long to drive you crazy."
He leaned his head forward to kiss her, but she moved away teasingly. "You enjoy driving me crazy?"
"Do I?" she asked, releasing his hands and moving down to her knees looking up at him.
His hands cupped her cheeks. The seriousness in his eyes alerted her senses to prepare to go on a tizzy. "You do, Nicole."
“Just get it over with!” she told herself, and she started to unbutton his pants. "I should get started."
Concentrating, she focused her thoughts to the duty at hand: pleasing him with her mouth.
She opened the belt and opened the dark green corduroy pants. He assisted her by removing his sheepskin jacket and opening the matching green corduroy shirt to reveal a white t-shirt underneath.
"Do I need to remove anything else?" he asked teasingly.
"Would you be more comfortable?" she asked.
"You talk as if you've never done this before," he said, chuckling huskily.
Nicole really wanted to confess; she hadn't just to get that amused expression off his face. She bit her lip hard because she couldn't reveal that to him. If he knew how really innocent she was, things would be so much different between them.
When she finished unzipping his pants, he raised up slightly, allowing her to pull his pants down past his knees to his ankle. Along with getting his pants off, she tugged down the green silk boxer shorts as well.
Taking a slow deep breath, she moved her hands around the semi-hardened shaft. Light from the street nearby filtered in to illuminate the thickness of him. Last night, she had not paid any attention visually because she wanted to get things over with and concentrate on Cleo's instructions. Now her eyes noted every dim detail as her fingers caressed every inch of his groin.
So engaged in her fondling, she didn't realize she wasn't concentrating on things Cleo had told her to do. In no way did she even want to look like innocence with him. Quickly looking up at him, she saw his eyes closed, his head thrown back, his lips parted, and his breathing rasped, enjoying what she was doing to him.
This spurred her on. Her eyes returned to the now engorged manhood. Both her hands could clasp around him with the thumbs barely making connections with the fingers and her palms, leaving about four inches still at the top screaming to be touched. The throbbing shaft pulsed and began to grow with life in her fingers.
"Do you enjoy doing this to men?" he asked.
"Doing what?" she asked innocently.
"Pleasing men orally?"
Her thumb brushed the tip, spreading the pre-love juice around. His body shuddered as the sensitive nerve endings on the top tingled every vein in his body.
"And if I told you I just enjoyed pleasing you, would you believe me?"
The seriousness in his face returned as he looked down at her, making her see a whole different man. If he actually believed her, she was positive he would do everything in his power to give her the world.
This terrified her. To have a man's heart - this man's heart - could be what she needed. But he was older and white. She would be just like her mother, and that's one person she didn't want to be like.
"No," he said.
She only shrugged nonchalantly, but inside, she was glad he hadn't. Nicole would have to stop letting her personal feelings come into play with him. To convince him of the truth would be insane.
Her hands parted his thighs, nudging them apart until she could easily move her hand in between his legs. Her hand moved down to the velvety orbs, cupping them gently. He tensed sharply, sucking in air between his teeth. Her mouth was quick to follow her hands and drew him deep into her mouth.
Her fingers explored below the orbs to the space in between and pressed the perineum, remembering the sensitive spot Cleo told her would make a man go crazy. At the same time, Nicole enveloped the engorged bar.
Hearing his groans pleased her. Cleo told her to pay attention to a man's body, breathing and voice. His sighs of pleasure and enjoyment were encouraging and educational in giving her instructions on how he wanted to be pleased. She moved upward, placing long wet kisses from the base to the tip of the tumultuous manhood. Soft succulent kisses tasted the first drops of sweetness at the tip of him.
Going to the peak, she circled around the edge slowly, leaving a wet trail to fuel her path; applying pressure in the dimple, tasting his masculinity. Using one hand to grip the base of him, she guided him slowly into her mouth, taking him inch by inch until he rested on the back of her tongue. All the while, she moved her oral muscle from side to side and applied slow powerful suction and increased the pressure on his secret love spot below the orbs in a circular motion. When she increased the movement with her mouth, she also increased the movement with her fingers below. His moans encouraged her and the tightness in the orbs told her he was close to giving himself to her. She sped up her motions, until he began to grow so much that she was not able to take him in all the way as she had been in the beginning. She used her other hand to stroke the space she was not able to account for with her lips.
His muscles were tensed until they vibrated, and the explosion in her orifice came at the same time as he cried out her name over and over again. Letting the warm liquid flow down her throat seemed easier than yesterday. She even realized the swallowing sensation brought him an afterglow of pleasure.
This was the end of her service for him, she knew, yet still her mouth continued to envelope the shaft until every last drop of him was down her throat. Slowly, she moved her mouth away from him, but gave him a long kiss at the tip, as if to say, "Goodbye." The movement was tender and priceless for both of them and she blushed as she looked up into his intense eyes that were looking down at her.
His strong hands grasped her shoulders and he pulled her up into his arms. She licked her lips before biting down on them nervously, hoping he hadn't caught her intimate kiss. Before she could say anything to explain her actions, he kissed her deeply and she responded just as eagerly. He pulled her closer in his arms and she crawled into his lap, resting her legs on the seat beside his thighs. Unconsciously, her hips grinded against his groin, rubbing her heat against him while his mouth praised her eyelids, nose, and cheeks.
"I want more," he whispered huskily with his lips near her ear.
The tingles filling her own veins were driving her insane. She fought through the haze, filling her brain to hear his words. "What do you mean?" she asked.
"I want more of you."
She was confused and afraid to ask what he meant. Would Cleo know what he meant? Of course she would; Cleo knew everything. Yet, if Nicole really thought about it, giving him even more meant giving herself and that she could not give. "Oh no, that could never happen. I can't let that happen," she answered breathlessly, gripping his shoulders to fight the wantonness she was feeling.
He stiffened, uncomfortably leaning back. His hands moved to her hips to stop her erotic grinding against him and she whimpered her protest, but allowed him to hold her back as he was doing. He used his hand to hold her chin so she would look at him. "What do you mean that can never happen?" His tone and look was bothered.
She wanted to continue her motions, but he held her firmly from moving her body against his. Biting her lip again, she cursed to herself for revealing so much. When she became hesitant about answering him, his look became bothered.
"Nicole, what do you mean by I can't ever?"
She sighed, knowing what they had just shared and the arousal she was feeling would be going nowhere soon. He was too serious by far and took everything so literal. Couldn't he just enjoy the moment? Couldn't he be just satisfied with the here-and-now instead of thinking about the future? Pushing out of his waist, she sat back in her chair, avoiding that intense glare she knew he was giving her. He was ready for a fight and she didn't want to give it to him, but she needed to make him understand without telling him the entire truth.
"Like I said yesterday, after my service, we have no strings attached."
"I don't want any strings," he gritted out, straightening up his clothes angrily. "I want you."
"You can't have me."
He sneered, "Is it my color?"
She had a feeling this man had had problems in the past with other women rejecting him because of his color, but that had nothing to do with it. Even if he was black, Marvin would be the color of her knowing she was involved with anyone. "That's not it. It's not you, Ethan," she implored.
"Is it our age difference?"
"I don't even know how old you are. It's not you at all, Ethan. It's me. Please just understand I can't."
His eyes narrowed. "You want more money."
"No," she said firmly. "I just needed the money you first gave me to pay off my education and now that that's done, I don't need anything else from you. I don't want anything else from you. I have too many obligations. I have too many responsibilities."
He looked desperately into her face, wanting to believe she was as honest about things as she said. But all he could think about was Lynne and Nicole looked like her mother, although Nicole was much more. Nicole’s inside beauty came to the surface, almost making him forget this was his present wife's daughter.
The deceitfulness of the mother had not washed off on the girl, had it? He couldn't be sure. Maybe this almost innocent ploy was to get more money or maybe more. Maybe she was using him to get away from the horrible conditions she lived in and once she was away, she would drop him like a bad habit.
Ethan cupped her face with her hands and looked deeply in her eyes, not sure what to believe, not sure what to do. He just knew he needed to convince her to be with him so he could get this all over with. The sooner he took her and threw this in Lynne's face, the sooner he could get away from them all. His lie came easily to his lips as he told her, "I've never wanted anyone as much as I've wanted you. Please Nicole, just one night, and I will give you the world. Anything you ask for, I would give to be with you for one night."
Just as she was about to protest again, he placed a finger over her lips to stop her.
"I'll give you three days to think about it. To plan, to make time to be with me because I know you want this as much as I want it."
"I don't want any ties to you. You don't understand me."
"All I understand is that you want me; even for one night." His lips brushed teasingly against hers. "I can feel your need, I can smell your lust, and I can taste your passion." This time when he pulled her in to kiss her, his tongue explored her mouth to the fullest, driving her senses insane. "Three days," he whispered, leaving her breathless.
Nicole whimpered, "Alright, three days," she agreed.
He released her and turned around to start up the vehicle. They drove in tense silence to where they had first met. He occasionally glanced at her to see her in deep thought, biting her lip.
When they arrived at their destination, she took a deep breath as he turned off the motor. "I want you to know, I take care of my sick grandmother when I am not at work. She means a lot to me and I can't imagine a world without her, but she's dying because her heart is weak. I told you all of this because if after three days I refuse, I don't want you to think it's because of you, or age, or your color. Choosing between her health status and you wouldn't be hard. I'd choose her. But it’d be the only reason I’d say no."
He nodded and watched her get out the van. He followed suit as she came around to his side and stood to look up at him.
"Goodbye Ethan," she said.
He drew her in his arms, intending to kiss her so deeply that she wouldn’t resist him. Her response was immediate and she equaled his passion, drawing his own senses into the kiss. They were oblivious to their surroundings as he moved her around until her back was pressed against the van's door and he was pinning her body was his waist. She felt light as a feather as he lifted her and drew her legs around his waist. With one hand, he held her up there securely as his other hand moved under her shirt, making a direct path to the soft mound of her breast. She moaned as he cupped the fullness in his hand and moved his thumb against the tip. She was senseless and completely under his control, wanting so much more.
A flash of light coming around the corner startled them both and they quickly drew away from each other. The taxi passed them without stopping, but they both knew things had gotten way out of control for both of them.
When he reached to touch her again, she moved quickly away and stood arms length from him to regain her equilibrium. "I am going. I'll see you in three days, Ethan."
He watched as she ran away into the darkness. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. He wanted to pound his head against the door and curse for losing his cool. Who was in control of what he did not know? On one hand, she was driving him crazy with her sexuality and he was tearing her apart with his wantonness for her. There was no doubt in his mind she wanted him, but as she said, there was too much responsibility on her hands to involve herself.
He'd heard the rumors in the nearby bars that Marvin was tough and lots of guys talked about trying to get in her pants. One man even spoke about hearing Marvin say he planned on getting in those panties first. The way the neighborhood guys spoke about her, one would think this girl was a virgin. But the way she acted to him was definitely a different story. He refused to believe an almost-twenty, beautiful smart girl like that would allow her uncle by marriage to have so much control over her life, especially now that she was not even a minor. Yet, the men at the bar and guys who had gone to school with her rattled on about stories of Marvin threatening to cut off family jewels if he found out anyone of them had touched his niece.
When Ethan had seen them interact in the Laundromat before he made his presence known to her, Marvin had been very rough on her. Once he had even dragged her in the back and a lot of screaming and hollering from the both of them had in sued. When Marvin had left from there, she hadn't come back up to the window for a couple of hours and even then, he saw redness on her face.
So Marvin probably slapped her around a couple of times. She didn't seem as if she couldn't handle her uncle. If she didn't want to be there, why didn't she leave? Was Nanna that important to her than her own life?
Had making her choose between spending time with him and being beside Nanna been wrong on his part? Ethan had to wonder. It didn't matter. His main objective was to destroy his wife, well his ex-wife, if he got his way in a month. His lawyers could have the whole thing settled by then and Lynne would be out of his life and destroyed. She would not only be destroyed financially because she would have to pay for the cost of the proceedings, but she would also be destroyed mentally knowing Ethan had seduced her daughter.
If Nicole was innocent, it would be all the sweeter.