Up on the ladder, Luke chuckles at Mateo’s comment as my fists land on my waist. “So, Mr. Alexander thinks he’s in charge while you work in my house?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Mateo smiles. “Mr. Alexander is always in charge.”
Luke laughs this time, climbing down the ladder but not getting involved in my little standoff.
“Well, I’ll tell you what, Mr...?” I narrow my eyes but can’t help smiling back at Mateo. “What is your last name, please?”
His eyes brighten. “Perez.”
“Well, I tell you what, Mr. Perez. When you’re in my home and addressing me alone, I’m Stacey. No matter what the boss says. Okay?”
Mateo rubs his chin like he’s chewing on a delicious thought, and I’m caught by an odd feeling.
By his mouth. By the perfect bow in his blush-colored lips. By how they look so soft and full. By his white teeth in his wide grin shining bright against his light brown skin.
He’s so sexy yet familiar, which is so damn weird because I’ve never seen this man before. Though somewhere in my lonely heart, standing so close to him, it beats fast but secure, like going home after so long.
“I’ll call you Stacey,” he replies, caressing each letter in my name with focused attention, “if you call me Mateo.”
“I’ll be happy to, Mateo.”
“Even in front of the boss? Both of them?” His eyebrow rises cautiously, asking me how far we’ll push this little line that can snap back and break a neck.
Mateo’s wise.
He read the room yesterday when Gentry was here, probably from when I answered the door with tears in my eyes. He’s asking me to reconsider. Not for his sake; for mine.
“No,” I answer, unwilling to risk Mateo’s job. “I can handle your boss. Whether he likes it or not,”—the fact makes me smile—“Ford Alexander works for me. But as far as the senator goes, it’s a game, and we know the rules. Are we clear, Mateo?”
“Crystal,” Mateo answers, “Staayyccee.”
His voice caresses my name again, drawing out the syllables like he likes the taste of me in his mouth.
It’s in his eyes, lying me back on a bed. It’s in his lips, tickling my hip bone before his breath steams over the lace of my thong. It’s in his long thick fingers exploring my sex before his tongue does the same. It’s all in his deep gaze, studying me like his favorite subject.
“What about me?” A deep voice croons from over my shoulder. “You gonna call me Luke when the bosses aren’t around too?”
I swear, when I turn to him, Luke’s eyelashes flutter like a doe. Like he can seduce you to mate, but then he’s got a body like a prize stag that will fuck you any way his feral nature demands... holy shit, this young man is hot.
And he knows it, but it’s like he’s not quite sure how to wear it. Like his beauty is a new toy, he hasn’t enjoyed it yet… but wants to.
He wants me to play with him too.
Suddenly, standing between these two men—with Mateo’s seduction on one side and Luke’s flirtation on the other—the air on my bare legs prickles my thighs.
I’m so aware of my exposed skin.
Of my ribs starting to heave. Respectfully, neither man gawks at my breasts, but I know they can’t avoid them. My excited lungs make them lift on my chest while my mind is well aware that this dress is demure with its bright tropical print and full kimono sleeves, but its hem is very short. It falls just below where my lace thong feels so thin… and now… so wet.
What is happening to me?
I love it.
“Yes,” I sigh. “I’ll call you Luke and Mateo.”
Something snaps in me, a link breaking in the chain that’s bound my life to a controlling man for too long.
It makes me braver. Daring as I turn on my heels and walk up the stairs knowing with the flutter of this short dress, they’ll get peeks of much more.
At the top of the landing, I glance back, and yes, they’re watching me. And yes… it wets my pussy even more.
“Gentlemen,” I say as I disappear from their view, letting them hear exactly what I’m about to do to my pussy. It temps through the tone in my voice. “I’ll be saying both your names whenever it pleases me.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Alone with You by Phebe Starr
Dragging the wet, white edge of my two-inch angled paintbrush, I don’t need tape to cut in between the wall and the crown molding.
It’s the Zen of painting; I love it.
Tucking my earbuds in, I listen to audiobooks while I work. It keeps memories I don’t want from sliding into my tormented mind.
Lately, I’ve been getting into books on spirituality and health. Then twice, I downloaded erotic stuff at home, and now that’s popping into my suggested downloads, but I don’t need my dick getting hard at work. I work in people’s homes all day, and I already get looks. Long, black hair. Light brown skin. Tattoos. I love it all about myself, but like hell, I don’t know the kind of world I live in.
And lately, Ford’s been getting jobs in politicians’ homes. Once we did an excellent job in one house; word spread. Proof in that ilk of people, it’s who you know, not what you know.
Because what I know is there are some evil fucks in this world. The sad thing is no one’s born that way. It takes evil to raise it.
I’ve seen it my whole life. Heard it. Tasted it. Smelled it. Felt it in so many ways—racist shit assaults all your senses.
And when you’re born to Brazilian parents who live in rural South Carolina? Well, some things change, while some people die not willing to.
That’s what makes this job so damn weird. I can’t decide if fate’s being cruel or kind.
Because Senator Gentry Evans is a certifiable dick.
Never mind; that’s not fair to dicks.
No, he’s truly evil because he’s powerful too. We all know how much money his family has, how they own half the rental condos on this vacation island, and he’s now a hate-mongering politician. It seems, sadly, that’s par for the political course in America these days.
But what makes this job so weird for me is… I kissed his beautiful wife.
She was my first kiss.
She was my best kiss.
Dipping my brush into the paint, it makes me grin. It’s one of those moments you never forget when you triumphed over the shitheads who hated you at school.
At fifteen, I got to kiss Stacey James—the hottest girl in school.
Back then, people called me “M.J.” for “Mateo Junior.” Seems “Mateo” was too exotic for the teenagers of Bluffton, South Carolina. But my friends were alright, Brody Abbot being my best friend those days.
When Brody’s parents were at work one summer day, we hung out with his sister and her friends.
One of the girls suggested we play “Seven Minutes in Heaven,” and when Stacey James spun the Cheerwine bottle, and it landed on me?
Fuck yes, it felt like heaven.
But first, dread drenched my armpits. I thought a girl like Stacey—all blonde and blue-eyed and looking like a Barbie doll—she’d never want to kiss a brown boy like me. That she’d make an embarrassing scene about it.