Fool's Gold (Contemporary Romance) (8 page)

A
S 
dates went, Victoria had to admit that no one had ever taken her sailing. Just the thought of it was simultaneously exhilarating and frightening. The wind in her hair, the salt in her eyes, she would be queen of the world.

Then there was the drowning.

She could swim. That wasn’t an issue. And the boat had lifejackets, but as she waited on the dock while Trent checked over the sailboat, she couldn’t help but worry about the waves. The lakes in Nebraska didn’t really have waves, not like the ocean. She could see Moriches Bay to her right, glittering blue over a spit of grass-topped sand. Long, broad swells rode across the bay, and from where she sat, it looked impossibly big.

“Alright, come onboard,” Trent called. He stood on the side of the boat, one hand resting on the rope that held the boat to the pier. His shirt stretched over his chest and shoulders, the white weave almost translucent.

Victoria jumped from the dock to the boat, feeling it wobble beneath her as she landed. It wasn’t big. Maybe twenty feet. Plenty of room for the two of them.

Trent pulled the loop of rope off the piling and shoved them out into the water. A moment later the outboard motor rumbled to life and they started chugging out toward the bay.

Victoria peeked under the awning in front of Trent. It covered the front of the boat, protecting the lifejackets and the fishing rods and the basket they’d brought for dinner.

She perched beside Trent on the captain’s bench, their shoulders rubbing. The wind ruffled his hair, and with the sail tied up behind him, he looked like a natural boater. “How far out are we going to go?”

“Just into the bay.” He grinned. “The sunset over the island is magnificent.”

“Are we going to see it set over Manhattan?”

That brought a laugh and a smile and a gaze that was positively smoldering. “Not quite.” A shiver went through Victoria, bringing goosebumps even through the August heat.

They rounded the closest point of land and entered the bay. The waves weren’t bad. Maybe a couple feet, and coming in regular, gentle swells. The boat rode through them, rising and falling and splashing. She turned her face into the breeze, breathing in the fresh scent of the salt spray. It washed over them, dampening both their shirts and revealing Victoria’s purple bikini and Trent’s bronzed chest.

Once they were out in the bay, well away from land, Trent killed the motor. “Now we’ll actually sail.”

He scurried about the boat, checking knots and unfurling the sails. It only took him a few minutes to get everything into place. Victoria didn’t really know what he was doing, but she watched, trying to pay attention. She kept expecting him to explain what was going on, why he was tying that knot or rearrange those ropes, but he only hummed while he worked.

“There we are.” He adjusted the boom, and the wind caught the sail, pulling it back with a hard snap. The boat started sliding through the water again. Trent grinned. “And now we are sailing.”

It felt a lot like motoring, to be honest. But she wasn’t going to tell him that. The boat still rose and fell, rocking her gently, but the sound was altogether different. The slap of the hull hitting the water mixed with the hum of the wind in the lines, a perfect little symphony. A girl could take a really fantastic nap, if she weren’t concerned about getting sunburned.

Speaking of sunburn, Victoria realized that she needed to reapply sunscreen or she really would end up getting cooked. She was rubbing lotion on her legs when she looked up and caught Trent admiring her.

“Carry on,” he said. “I don’t mind.”

Victoria looked from Trent to the bottle of sunscreen. “Could you help me with my back?”

His eyebrows rose, but a grin tickled the corners of his mouth. “Of course.”

Trent worked his hands over her shoulders, massaging her as he rubbed the lotion into her skin. Victoria sat there, breath held, enjoying his touch. He had terribly strong, amazingly soft fingers. Her mind wandered, imagining him sliding them around to her chest, dipping them low over her belly. She shook at the thought of it, her core starting to warm.

“Are you okay?” He pulled his hands away.

“I’m good.” It came out strangled. “Get... Get a little lower.”

Trent chuckled, low and deep, and his hands found her back again, just below her bikini strap. He worked the lotion lower, right to the edge of her swimsuit bottom. She held her breath, waiting to see if--

He did.

His hands brushed over her rump, rubbing the lotion onto the swell of her ass. Victoria sucked in a breath. “That’s enough.”

It was good. It was beyond good. But she wasn’t ready for it. Not yet. If he kept that up, she knew where they’d end up: the towel spread over the front of the boat.

Trent pulled away and commenced rubbing lotion onto his chest and arms. “You mind repaying the favor?” He turned his back toward her.

Victoria rubbed the lotion onto him, but she did it more perfunctorily than he had, using broad swipes and taking care to avoid his waistband.

They sailed for an hour or so, until the sun dipped low on the horizon, then split the basket of food and a bottle of wine. It was a perfectly lovely evening, but she wasn’t ready and he seemed to realize it without her needing to say anything. Still, a chill hung in the air. Trent was friendly enough, but she could see the disappointment behind his eyes as they motored back to the pier.

T
HE 
guy at the mic crooned in a gravelly voice as Victoria waited in the wing. Sweat trickled down her back. A spotlight shined on the center of the stage, and she knew it would only be hotter under the light. Her chest felt tight, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to get in front of a club and sing. Not in New York.

The singer finished with a flourish, then bowed. A scattering of applause greeted him, then the light flicked off. Victoria waited as he left and the club’s owner went on stage to introduce her.

“Alright, folks, next up we have a gal all the way in from Omaha, Nebraska. She’s got a real silky, soulful voice, and I’m sure you’ll love it. Let’s give it up for Victoria Strauss!”

Faint applause echoed from the back of the theater. Probably Trent.

The spotlight followed her as she crossed the stage. A few people in the audience clapped, but no one was impressed, not yet.

“Thank you,” she told Billy, the owner, as he passed her the mic.

“Chin up, chest out.” His eyes stopped squarely on the exposed skin below her neck, then he strode off, leaving her alone in the light.

Maybe fifty people were in the club. It shouldn’t have been an intimidating number. Fifty was fewer people than were usually at Mario’s on a Saturday night, and she’d sung in front of ten times that many a few times at churches, but these people were real jazz fans. People with taste. People that would know if she screwed up.

She searched the crowd, looking for Trent. The lights were so bright in her eyes that she couldn’t find him.

“Sing something for us, honey!” someone yelled from the darkness.

Victoria looked toward the band and nodded. The first notes of “Cry Me a River” came from the piano, hard and fast. Victoria tapped her foot, waiting. As soon as she launched into the song, everything else dwindled.

Her voice rose high and pure. She cruised along, not taking any risks, just trying to hit each note without embarrassing herself. The song ended and the band waited a measure, then went straight into the much slower “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

Victoria held onto the microphone stand, nearly draping herself around it, trying to wring every bit of herself into the song. It was slow, languorous and the closest thing to spiritual she’d felt in years. Her long dress fluttered around her ankles, a midnight blue so dark it was nearly black. By the time she finished, she felt drained, but there was still one more song to go.

“(Sittin on) The Dock of the Bay” probably wasn’t what the audience expected, but it was a song she loved. She made sure to draw out “tiiiiime” like Otis Redding, but with her own sultry flair. She even nailed the whistling parts, because it just wasn’t the same without them.

Her eyes burned with sweat as she finished, her heart was hammering in her chest, and her legs felt like rubber. She waited, praying they’d like her. It wasn’t quite an open mic since she’d needed to prove herself in an audition, but Billy wasn’t paying her, either, not until he knew she wouldn’t bomb.

No one booed.

But only a few people clapped, and it stopped quickly.

“Thank you.” Victoria bowed and tried to leave gracefully, hoping no one could tell that it wasn’t just sweat in her eyes.

Billy passed her as she reached the curtain, but he hardly even looked at her. That couldn’t be good. Not at all. She made her way down the brick hallway toward the green room in a daze. She thought she’d killed it, but no one even responded.

“Oh honey, don’t be so down on yourself.” Rita she called herself, tried to console her. “You did good. No one gets cheered their first night.”

“Thanks.” Victoria passed where Rita was sitting on a stool fixing her hair. No one else was in the green room. They’d either performed already or had somewhere nicer to prep. Billy didn’t waste space on the folks he wasn’t paying.

“I’m serious,” Rita continued. “I was listening. You’ve got a fine set of lungs, girl. Don’t you let Billy tell you nothing else.”

“Thanks, Rita.” Victoria slipped her arms into her jacket and gathered her purse.

“You just going to leave without waiting to hear what he says? I wouldn’t do that if I was you.”

“Yeah. He has my number.” Victoria blinked back tears. She had to get out before Billy came in and she broke down into hysterics.

“Alright, sweetie. You have a good night.”

Shadows clung to the alley walls outside the back of the club. Victoria stood on the fire escape, just trying to breathe. The night air was warm and stale, not helping her. She spent a minute trying to get her bearings. Red and yellow smears of graffiti covered the opposite wall, bubbly, oozing letters. Cats screeched in the darkness to her left, horns honked distantly to her right. Trashcans and dumpsters lined both walls, stretching from one end of the alley to the other.

As she reached the ground, her phone buzzed. “Hey, Trent.”

“Are you okay, Vic? You looked shaken up as you left the stage.” Faint music played from his end. The house band, probably.

“I bombed. I’ll live.”

“Are you still backstage? We don’t have to stay here.”

“I’m heading around to the front. Can you meet me out front?” A shadow moved in front of her, and Victoria’s heart skipped a beat. A cat dashed past, heading toward the fighting. Or mating. It was hard to tell the difference.

“Of course.” The phone went dead.

Trent wasn’t the sort to inquire after her safety, she’d learned that in the last few months. Once he had a goal in front of him, he was after it like a terrier.

She expected to get mugged every time she passed a dumpster, but all she found were heavy black bags and more cats. She was nearly to the mouth of the alley when a particularly big cat strutted past. It gave her a moment of déjà vu--it looked just like Chuckles. The déjà vu gave way to a pang of regret. She hadn’t messaged Beta in a month to ask about the Chuckster. Between the restaurant, the clubs and Trent, she’d hardly had time to think about either of them.

“Vic, you okay?” Trent stood at the mouth of the alley, looking in.

“Huh? Yeah. I’m good.” She hurried out of the shadows and onto the sidewalk. “Sorry. I saw a cat that reminded me of the one I left back home.”

Trent ambled down 9
^th
Avenue, heading south. “I doubt it would cross the bridge from Queens to this side of Manhattan.”

“Back home in Omaha, I meant.”

“Ah.” He strode on silently for a few moments. “Well, the night is still young. Do you want to find another club or get a drink or...”

“No more clubs.” She walked beside him, enjoying the night air. The official start of fall was only a few days away, but you wouldn’t know it by the daytime temperatures. It was still brutally hot in the city. “I think I’ve had enough music for the day.”

“Drink then?”

She considered it. If baseball was America’s pastime, drinking was New York’s. Half the time they got a drink before going to dinner where they split a bottle of wine (or two), and then went out somewhere else and ended up with more drinks.

“Could we just go back to your place?”

Trent didn’t break stride. “Sure.”

A cab approached from the opposite direction, and Trent stepped to the curb with an arm raised and two fingers extended. The cab stopped in the middle of the street.

“Come on.” Trent dashed through a gap in the traffic and jerked the back door of the cab open.

Victoria dove inside, and Trent tumbled in after her. Horns honked around them.

“Where to, folks?” The cabbie asked. He was a florid white guy, a rarity in Victoria’s narrow New York experience. The cabbie behind them yelled, but it wasn’t in English. Their cabbie flipped the other driver the bird, but he didn’t seem in any particular hurry.

Trent sat up and adjusted his blazer. “Fifty-seventh and Lexington.”

The cab picked up speed, and curses behind them disappeared. Victoria leaned against Trent, letting her arm rest on his shoulder. “You still have any of the Château Lécuyer?”

“Probably. If not, I’m sure I have something better.” He slipped his arm around her, and she snuggled closer. It felt good to have a real man in her life. She was looking forward to the rest of the evening.

***

Trent’s apartment didn’t look like a man had decorated it, but then, one hadn’t. A hotshot investment banker didn’t spend his time at Ikea. He probably got a referral for an interior designer from someone at the office and let them do the work of choosing the furniture, ensuring it was delivered without scratches and supervising the laborers as they put everything in place.

The upside was stainless steel and black leather furniture that matched the tasteful Mondrian reproductions on the walls. The downside was that the dishes were hideously modern and the wineglasses were too big.

Well, maybe the wine glasses weren’t a problem. Victoria took another sip and tried not to think about how much the bottle cost. There hadn’t been any Château Lécuyer, so Trent had opened another Bordeaux that she couldn’t pronounce. It had a hint of cherries and a luxurious mouthfeel, and she felt like she could drink the whole bottle without realizing it if Trent kept refilling her glass.

A couple glasses of wine dulled the misery of another failed audition, but despair filled her. Being so far from home was hard. Christine was seldom in town, and Trent was so busy. They’d only managed two other dates since they’d gone sailing.

Her face tingled pleasantly as she set the empty glass on the end table. Trent sat beside her, his blazer gone and the top three buttons of his shirt unbuttoned to reveal a bronze patch of skin. Even from the other end of the couch, Victoria could see the shape of his chest. The hard plane of his pecs. The way the shirt could barely contain his broad shoulders. She wondered why she’d waited so long to come back to his apartment.

Trent smiled, flashing white teeth, then scooted closer. His arm slid around her, and she leaned against him, letting a hand slip to his thigh.

“You’re beautiful, you know,” Trent whispered. His breath rustled her hair.

Victoria tilted her head back, intending to thank him. Halfway there, his lips met hers. All her worry, all her fears melted as their tongues collided. He kissed confidently, precisely teasing and pulling away, nipping at her lip, then coming back again.

Victoria fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, then with his belt, all without breaking the contact at their lips. She was working on the button on his slacks when he pulled away.

“Your turn.” He tugged at the zipper on the back of her dress, and she let him slide it down to the top of her rump. She shrugged, and it fell free, revealing the only thing she had on underneath it, a cherry red thong. Couldn’t have lines showing through the dress, after all.

Trent’s eyes swept over her, drinking in the curve of her hips and the swell of her breasts. Victoria stood up straighter, giving him an eyeful. His smile broadened.

She motioned toward his belt. “What are you doing with your pants still on?”

It took him only a moment to strip, and then it was her turn to admire him. Broad shoulders and a muscled chest that tapered to a narrow waist. The bulge in his boxers told her everything else she needed to know.

“Get a condom,” she whispered.

He strode away purposefully toward the bedroom. She thought about following, but she was wobbly enough just standing there. He came back a moment later, a square package in hand.

She stepped closer, pressing herself against him. One hand went around his back, the other to his waistband. A wriggle and a shimmy later, and they were both naked.

His manhood was thick, long and hard as granite. He unrolled the condom down the length of his shaft, then slipped between her legs, his throbbing cock twitching against her folds. He ran his lips along her neck, kissing her from shoulder to ear. A nip at the ear sent a wave through her, and she knew she was ready. Every nerve in her body was overloaded by his nearness. His cock pressed against her, parting her. Victoria moaned as he entered.

She bucked against him, her hands cupping his ass, trying to pull him closer even though they were already tight together. She wanted to feel him buried within her. Wanted to taste him. Wanted to consume him.

Trent lifted her easily, never leaving her aching channel, and set her on the leather sofa. It was cool and soft, a perfect contrast to Trent’s burning hardness. He caught her wrists, lifted her arms above her head, and pinned her. His weight pressed into her, pushing her against the cushion. He was so big, so hard and so in charge.

Victoria quivered beneath him, helpless as he plunged into her. “Yes!”

Trent hissed out a breath. His grip on her wrists tightened, and he drove in harder, deeper. Every time she tried to adjust, he pushed his thighs out, pinning her like a butterfly. His mouth found hers. His tongue speared inward, and she was pinned on both ends, helpless beneath him.

Trent slid in and out, driving at a rhythm of his choosing, not giving her a chance to adjust or complain. He pushed her right to the edge. Molten heat filled her, threatening to burst, and then he grew even harder. His thrusts took a different tempo. He pulled his mouth away, gasping. With a final thrust, he was finished.

Victoria lay beneath him, still pinned, and waited. She was so close, she could feel it. Two more minutes and she’d be over the finish line and--

He let go of her wrists and pulled out without warning. It was like a dissonant chord, leaving her gasping and wanting, hoping for the last note to end the symphony. He stood before her, oblivious. His manhood already drooped, pulled down by the filled rubber dangling from the tip.

“I take it you enjoyed it?” he asked, a smirk on his face.

Did he not realize she hadn’t come? “Of course.” She smiled, tight and fake. Maybe in an hour he could finish the job.

“I’m going to grab a shower. Do you want to stay here tonight?”

“If that’s alright.” Of course she wanted to stay. Who wanted to take a train to Queens at one in the morning? And damn it, he was going to finish the job, shower or not.

He led her to the bedroom. It was as thoroughly modern as the living room. An oversized bed with a black and white comforter pulled tight over the mattress and a black wooden frame that almost looked metal. He found her a pair of white boxers and an undershirt, then went to the shower.