Deceptive Nights (6 page)

“
But-”

She put a hand up to stop him from speaking.
“I won’t argue about this Mr. Knight.” Checking her watch she
gasped. “I really must go. If I stay another minute I will be in a
world of trouble.”

“
Your number. Can I have
it?”

She hesitated a bit giving him a very
cautious look, and then went to the desk to write down ten digits
on the hotel stationary. Coming back to the bed she handed it to
him, but when he took it he also took her wrist and pulled her down
in the bed in one swept. Her lips were captured in the fall by his
own in mad passionate kiss that left her completely breathless and
the hardness pressing at her side clearly indicated if needed he
could definitely go for another round. The wicked look in his eyes
clearly told her if she was interested he could take her up on any
offer.

Blushing like a schoolgirl liking the effect
she had on him, she reluctantly pushed away standing up. “Good
night, Mr. Knight.”

“
Don’t you mean good
morning?”

“
All the more reason to get
out of here.” She hurried out the door.

Jacoby cursed under his breath several times
before burying his face in his pillow. Why did he have this sinking
feeling he would never see her again? Why did he feel he should
have done more to make contact with her? Dinner? They could have
had dinner or lunch, hell he should have insisted she stay for
breakfast. It didn’t matter to him that he would have to pay for
her time. He would have stayed in town for another day if it
meant-

What the hell is wrong with you? Jacoby asked
himself suddenly. Did he really think she wanted even anything to
do with him? It had taken too much of his energy to get her to
agree to spending a little time with him. She was too much work and
on top of this, she didn’t want anything more to do with him. The
pile of money on the table clearly told him that.

Furthermore, he knew absolutely nothing about
this woman. Everything she had done could have been just for show.
She just knew his likes and had acted upon his wildest dreams,
which he had told her in advanced.

As much as he tried to convince himself that
he did not want another thing to do with her, Jacoby couldn’t.
Whether it was a show or not, he found himself hooked to her and
wanting more.

Chapter 7

Just as Phoebe knew, her mother was sitting
in the chair by the door curled up in a deep sleep. Phoebe figured
Patricia had tried to stay up as long as possible and if awake when
Phoebe came home, would have rushed upstairs and pretended not to
know what time Phoebe came in because Patricia still had on her
shoes and her bed robe was closed securely about her.

Quietly closing the door, Phoebe snuck past
her mother and went upstairs to her room. As soon as she took off
her coat, she went into the twin’s room to check on them. They were
sound asleep. Her daughter was snuggled up close to her son, who
snored quite loudly for a two year old.

Just as she was going back in her room, her
mother called her name from the bottom of the stairs. “Is that
you?”

“
Yes, Momma,” she said
quietly.

Patricia came up the stairs and gave her a
worried yet relieved hug. “Are you okay? Is everything okay at
work?”

“
Yes, Momma.” She yawned
and stretched in an attempt to get out the hug.

Patricia looked her over and frowned
worriedly. “Are you sure you are okay, Phoebe?”

Phoebe huffed rolling her eyes heavenwards.
“Yes, Momma. I’m fine.” She went in her room with Patricia
following her. “Why do you keep asking me that?”

“
Because you have your
shirt on backwards.”

Phoebe looked down to see her tag sticking
out the front of her shirt and blushed profusely. Covering her eyes
with her hands in embarrassment, she plopped on her bed. “Oh Momma,
I can’t believe what I did. I didn’t want you to know. I’m so
ashamed of myself.”

“
Why? Just because you had
sex? What’s to be ashamed of?” Patricia looked as if Phoebe had won
a million dollars.

“
If you only knew what I
did tonight, Mother, you wouldn’t be so happy.”

“
I only care that you look
like a light bulb. I never seen you glow like this before in my
life.”

An unladylike snort came from Phoebe as she
fell back on the bed and closed her eyes. “You really don’t
understand, do you?”

“
I know that even if you
didn’t come in here with your shirt on backwards, I still could
have known some handsome man ravished you.” Patricia knelt down and
began to take off Phoebe’s shoes. “He was handsome, wasn’t
he?”

“
Too handsome,
Mother.”

“
Did you have
fun?”

“
Yes, too much fun. I
almost didn’t want to leave.”

“
You could have stayed you
know. I would have understood.” Patricia sat beside Phoebe on the
bed. Sitting up, Phoebe leaned her head on her mother’s shoulder
comforting in the feel of having her mother there. She really
needed a friend right now and Patricia was definitely being that
for her.

Yet Phoebe was terrified that if her mother
knew she had taken the money for sex, things would change. She
wanted very much to be honest with her mother, and she wanted very
much to just get that money out her pocket and place it in her
mother’s hands, but she didn’t want to see the shameful look in
Patricia’s eyes when the truth was known. So Phoebe bit down on her
lip hard and waited for Patricia to finish interrogating her about
the night hoping it would be over soon.

“
So give me all the juicy
details,” Patricia said. “Who is he? Where did you meet
him?”

“
Well we didn’t get into
all that he did, but I suspect he does some business thing by the
way he dresses and carries himself.” Another yawn escaped her, this
one on purpose, longer than all the others

“
Alright, you can go to
sleep. You don’t have to tell me twice.” Patricia got up not at all
upset. “I’ll question you tomorrow about everything.” Kissing her
daughter on the forehead, she left out the room.

Phoebe didn’t even bother taking off her
clothes. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she was out like a
light.

****

“
You look like shit,” Simon
said as he poked his head in her office.

“
You do too and I bet you
got some rest last night,” Phoebe snapped.

He crinkled his nose and brought himself all
the way in the office. “That is not my bright and cherry Phoebe.
Did you leave your spirit at home?”

“
I lost that spirit last
night on my exhaustive trip home from Lansing. I really can’t wait
for this weekend.”

“
It’s only
Wednesday.”

“
And I feel like a train
wreck,” she snipped.

“
You look like a train
wreck,” he agreed.

She couldn’t help but laugh knowing the bags
under her eyes must be huge. “Don’t you have work to do?”

“
Oh now you want to act
like the boss, huh?” he teased then pulled out some papers from
behind his back. “Madeline faxed these over then called me and let
me know to expect the computer engineer to come back today to
install some new software. The computers haven’t had one glitch
since he fixed them yesterday, and now he said he just needed to
install a program he wrote to make sure what happened before
doesn’t happen again. Won’t that be great?”

“
Yes. Let me know when he
gets here. I have to sign his bill and personally fax a copy of it
immediately over to billing so he can get paid as soon as possible.
Madeline told me to make sure I took care of his billing because he
was very important to her.”

Simone gave her a crooked salute and then
left out. Putting on her reading glasses, she looked over the
papers he had handed her. More work to do by the end of the day,
she told herself and put it in her end of the day basket. Her desk
was piled high with reports and other information she needed to get
done by the end of the day or the month or the year. Either way it
was a lot of work and it seemed the piles never got smaller. The
last office manager had not turned in a lot of the reports needed
by the head office in Lansing and the task was put on her shoulders
to get everything updated. She was working overtime and not getting
paid for it, yet her job pride from the completion of getting
things done.

Yes, Madeline was working her like a horse,
but Phoebe figured she would be able to at least say got this
office running like a well oiled machine.

Phoebe looked up from all her work about one
that afternoon to take a mental break.

Coming into work had been a bad idea because
since she awoke this morning at eight and came in an hour late for
work, she found that if she didn’t think about work, she was
thinking about him. Cursing to herself, she looked back down at the
black and white print in front of her and forced her concentration
back on work.

Chapter 8

Going up in the elevator with Desmond and
Lawrence, Jacoby’s mind was a thousand miles from them.

“
That’s a first,” Desmond
noted quietly to Lawrence.

“
What?” Lawrence
questioned.

“
If I didn’t know any
better, I would say Jacoby was daydreaming.”

“
You don’t know any
better,” Jacoby snapped, hearing the amusement in Desmond voice and
the chortle from Lawrence.

Lawrence said, “Yes, he was Desmond. He’s
been like that all morning since I had to drag his ass out of
bed.”

“
I would have much rather
stayed in my bed,” Jacoby growled.

“
Serves you right staying
up all night with that pretty little thing I saw leaving at five
this morning,” Desmond said.

Lawrence chortled more with a surprised look
on his face. “I see why you didn’t want to join us last night. Was
this planned, Jake?”

“
That’s none of your damn
business,” Jacoby snapped. “Fuck off.”

Desmond and Lawrence looked at each other and
laughed not at all taking Jacoby’s attitude serious. Desmond said,
“So was she good as she looked?”

Jacoby heisted for a moment, then smiled more
to himself. “Better.”

All three of them burst out in a round of
laughter. It was always good to discuss these things out loud and
they enjoyed listening to each other’s exploits with women, but for
some reason, Jacoby wanted to keep this more to himself, but at the
same time shout from the ceiling about the pleasurable night he had
experienced.

“
So please relish us with
details,” Lawrence encouraged as they stepped off the elevator,
heading to the office of his client he had visited
yesterday.

“
I’m not going to kiss and
tell,” Jacoby insisted. “I think I want to keep this to
myself.”

Desmond frowned. “You’ve never wanted to keep
it to yourself before. You’re usually criticizing the woman from
head to toe negatively.”

“
Well this time was
different,” Jacoby admitted shrugging. “I just wish-” He stopped
himself.

Lawrence stopped walking and turned to Jacoby
studying his friend’s features for a moment. Desmond looked
curiously on as Lawrence and Jacoby’s eyes met as if they were
sending each other telepathic signals.

“
Where the hell did you
meet this chit?” Lawrence finally demanded to know after the pause
of silence between them.

Jacoby bit his lip as if to keep the
information to himself, then he finally admitted, “You remember the
respectable woman on the corner?”

“
You saw her
again?”

“
Yes. It was like fate.” He
frowned not understanding it himself.

Desmond suddenly grasped what was going on.
“That woman accepted money for sex?” His voice was a little bit too
loud and people walking by looked over at the three handsome men
who drew enough attention on their own without Desmond being so
loud over what they were talking about.

“
Tell the whole fucking
world, Dez. Can’t you whisper, ass?” He looked back at Jacoby
narrowing his eyes. Lawrence interest was clearly peaked. “She was
very beautiful now that I think about it. I was tempted to offer
her myself, but I didn’t think you were serious.”

Incredulously, Jacoby admitted, “I was
shocked that she took the offer. I mean when I first approached her
with the offer in mind, I thought for sure she was going to slap me
in the face, but this serene look came over her face and she
accepted as if I was answering her pray.”

“
And once you got her to
the hotel room?”

Jacoby became excited in his speech as he
said, “She was a dream come true, man. I have never met a woman so
uninhibited about herself. She was so incredible in bed-”

“
Alright that’s enough
bragging,” Lawrence snipped. Clearly he was jealous for Jacoby for
not taking advantage of the situation. Both of them knew, Lawrence
had seen the woman first and had drawn Jacoby’s attention to
her.

It wasn’t like Lawrence to take a woman so
personally, but Jacoby had never expressed interest in a woman like
he had this one, so Lawrence knew something was pretty special
about her.

“
Don’t you have an
appointment with this client?” Desmond questioned
Lawrence.

“
Nothing set in stone, but
let’s hurry up and get this over with so we can get back to
Lansing.”