Sudden Pleasures (19 page)

“Wow, you play rough!” Nina said.

“Ryan’s five older sisters are very unhappy,” Ashley told her. “I suspect this has something to do with them. Oh, look. There’s the cop car.”

They watched as the local patrolman got out of his car and faced the man down. The cop took the guy by the arm and marched him across the street into the shop. “This the guy, Nina?”

“That’s him,” Nina said.

“He’s a licensed PI from the city,” the cop said, looking at Ashley.

“Would you like to tell me why you were looking for me, and why you are photographing my assistant and my shop?” Ashley said.

“I’m on a case,” the man said. “It’s confidential.”

“Well,” Ashley replied, “you tell whichever of my husband’s sisters who hired you that if they attempt to invade my privacy again I will take legal action against all of them. Now, I am going to call Ryan and tell him of this incident. I’m certain that shortly after I do you will receive a call to cease and desist your harassment. Got it?”

“Got it,” the man said.

“Shall I escort him out of town, Ashley?” the cop asked.

“If you would, Bill, I would appreciate it. And tell Bobby I said thanks.”

“You got some pull here, lady,” the private detective said.

“My family helped found the town,” Ashley told him. “Now, that’s something you can tell your employer. You won’t be going back empty-handed.”

The man gave a short laugh as the cop escorted him from Lacy Nothings.

“What was that all about?” Nina said. “Why would his sisters set a private detective on you? What did you do?”

“I married their brother. They were expecting to come into his wealth in a few more months, and I’ve spoiled it for them. They told Ryan they were getting a lawyer. It won’t do them any good, but they’re unhappy.”

“Geez,” Nina exclaimed. “What a bunch of bitches. The mother likes you, and so does the sister called Frankie. What’s the matter with the rest of them?”

“Ryan and Frankie call the older ones the five harpies,” Ashley said with a chuckle. “I’d better call him now. Hold down the fort while I go back to my office.” She already had her cell out, and it was programmed to reach his cell.

“This is Ryan,” his voice said. “Talk fast. I’m on the parkway.”

“Your sisters set a private investigator on me,” Ashley said. “I’ve had the cops escort him out of town. Call them when you get into your office. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Shit!” he said as she hung up.

Ashley laughed out loud. What was that old saying about being able to pick your friends, but not your relations? She was glad Ryan’s mother and youngest sister liked her. She liked them. But the older five, she suspected, would never be her friends. They would always consider that by marrying Ryan she had cost them his money. It had been an incredible ten days with her new husband, but this incident this morning had been irritating and downright annoying.

She managed to put it out of her mind for the rest of the day, but once she was home again it nagged at her to the point where she couldn’t sleep. There was no television in the bedroom she shared with Ryan. Getting up, she went down to her old bedroom and climbed into bed. Taking up the remote, she pressed the button that slid open the panel covering the television screen. She clicked the set on, went to channel sixty-nine, and after a moment or two of silent debate she pressed A and enter. And she was back in her villa in Rome, and the sex slave, Quinn, was kneeling before her, offering her the strap she would shortly use on his bottom. But she didn’t want the handsome slave. She wanted her tribune, Maximillian Alerio Patronius. And she wanted him now!

“W
here is your master?” the lady Cordelia asked Quinn. “You are not supposed to show yourself if he is in the house.”

“He was called to the palace, mistress,” Quinn replied. “I have missed you.”

“Bold creature!” she scolded him, looking down at the big hands holding the leather tawse. “How do you know where he has gone? The tribune cannot bear the sight of you, so why would he inform you of his whereabouts?” She did not take the tawse up.

“One of the other slaves tells me where the master is at all times so I will not offend him even by accident,” Quinn answered her. “If I have displeased you, mistress, then you must punish me.” He looked up at her hopefully.

“No,” she said. “I am not in the mood to punish you now. How long has my husband been gone?”

“Less than half an hour, and it takes that long to get through the midday streets to the palace, mistress,” he said slyly. “He will undoubtedly be kept waiting by Caesar for some time. Perhaps the rest of the day. And then he must make his way home again. You may not see the master until midnight, mistress, or even tomorrow.” Reaching out, he slipped his hand beneath the hem of her tunic and up her leg.

Ashley looked down at him thoughtfully. If what he said was true, then it would be some time until she saw the tribune. Fingers caressed the soft flesh of her inner thigh. They slid through her nether lips, seeking her clit. “You are a bad slave, Quinn,” she told him as he began to tease at the sensitive little nub. “Ummm, yes, that is nice.”

“I but live to serve you, mistress,” Quinn answered her.

She pulled her tunic up over her head and off, tossing it aside. “Lick me, you bad creature,” she ordered him.

He parted the lips of her labia with his two thumbs, holding them wide. Then his tongue began to draw over her flesh, first up one side, and then down, repeating the action on the other side of her nether lips. The tip of his tongue delved about her clit, probing, teasing at it, until it began to swell with her arousal. The sounds coming from her told him he was succeeding in pleasuring her. Leaning as close as he might get to her, her scent filling his nostrils and exciting him, he took her clit into his mouth and sucked hard upon it. She screamed softly, squirming. He sucked harder, two of his long fingers now pushing into her vagina. Two strokes, and she climaxed.

Without asking her permission he pulled her down to the floor with his big hands. Spreading her wide, he mounted the woman beneath him and thrust his engorged penis into the hot swamp of her fevered sex. Her nails raked his long back, and she scolded him for his boldness, all the while exhorting him to fuck her hard and deep. “I live to serve you, mistress,” he repeated, his long, thick rod flashing back and forth with increasing rapidity while she thrashed beneath him in a frenzy of lust. And then she came. Her juices flowed copiously as he spasmed within her.

“Get off of me, you great beast!” she finally said. “Now I will whip you for your presumption, Quinn!” She pushed at him.

“If I were still the warrior I was born,” he told her daringly, “I would fuck you again and again, mistress, until you begged for my mercy.”

“Would you?” she purred at him as he rolled away from her. Then, getting to her feet, she picked up the leather that had earlier rested in his hands. “Get on your hands and knees now, Quinn!” she ordered him. And when he had obeyed her she laid five strokes upon his broad back, now well marked by her sharp nails. “Now leave me,” she told him when she had finished. “You are beginning to bore me, I fear.”

He scrambled to his feet, a puzzled look upon his handsome face, and left her. The lady Cordelia called to her slave women and went to her bath, where she was scraped free of the dirt and sweat upon her body, bathed, rinsed, and then left for a short while in a perfumed bathing pool. When she finally emerged she was thoroughly dried, and then massaged with fragrant creams until she was completely relaxed again.

The sex slave had taken the edge off of her lust, but she wanted her husband, the tribune, between her legs, not Quinn. If Caesar did indeed return him to Gaul she would go with him. And she was going to sell Quinn. General Flavonius’s wife had admired him from the first time she had seen him at a party several of the women held for their amusement while their husbands were away. Indeed, many of the women had coveted Quinn. She would hold an auction and let him go to the highest bidder. She spent the rest of the day napping, eagerly awaiting her husband’s arrival home. And when he finally arrived she melted into his arms.

“I have missed you the day long, Max,” she told him.

“I am to be sent back to Gaul,” he said, his lips brushing hers.

“I will go with you,” the lady Cordelia said.

“It is not Rome,” he replied.

“We will make it our own little Rome,” she responded.

“My villa is not large, and it has not the amenities of this one,” he warned her.

“We will enlarge it and add what we need, Max. I don’t want to be without you any longer. And I am going to sell Quinn. Many of my friends have admired him. I should realize a nice profit from the sale, and I will use it to make our new home perfect.”

“I think you will regret your decision, Cordelia, but I am not unhappy to have you come. It is lonely in northern Gaul, and cold,” he warned her.

“And your whores smell,” she teased him. “Now you will not have to avail yourself of those savage females, Max, for you will have me to fuck whenever you want to, my darling!”

“I am of a mind to fuck you now, wife, for your speech excites me,” he told her, pulling her into his arms, one hand kneading her breast. “Yes, I very much want to fuck you right now!” he said, yanking his garment off.

She felt his cock—thick, hard, long—against her belly, and she was so eager for him. And then Ashley heard the
ping
of the Channel’s warning bell. “Damn!” she swore as she felt her fantasy sliding away, and she awoke in her bed alone. Wednesday. It was Wednesday, and she had two long days and another long night ahead of her before Ryan got home. She rolled over, and slipped back into sleep for a few more hours.

He hadn’t gotten back to her yesterday after she had called him about his sisters, but she expected he would eventually. The five harpies were his problem. Yesterday’s little incident had made it certain in her mind that she wasn’t going to like them at all. She and her brother had never been like that with each other. They had gladly shared everything they had between them. If one had a success, the other cheered that success. Oh, yes, she and Ben had had their disagreements, but neither of them would have ever deliberately tried to hurt the other. She didn’t understand how his sisters could be that way. It wasn’t as if their father hadn’t remembered them when he died. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars each was a damned nice inheritance. And it had been Ryan who had seen that they got that money. Money he had made for their father.

Lacy Nothings was being inundated with new merchandise when Ashley got down to the shop. Jerry, their UPS man, was lugging it all in from his truck and piling it on the counters and floor.

He grinned as he handed her the clipboard to sign. “Looks like Christmas is coming,” he said. “Do you think that teddy I ordered for my girlfriend is in one of those boxes? It sure looked sexy in the catalog, Ms. Kimbrough. And thanks for getting it in her size. Not many shops carry sexy stuff above a twelve.”

“I’ll go through the shipment today and see,” Ashley promised him, signing, and then handing him back his clipboard. “It should be in this shipment or the next. We’ll have it in time for her birthday next month, I promise. And it’s Mrs. Mulcahy now. I got married August twenty-fifth.”

“I thought I heard some gossip around the village about that,” Jerry admitted. He had been the UPS man in Egret Pointe for almost fifteen years now. He knew everyone and just about everything that happened in the town.

“What’s the gossip on Emily Devlin?” Nina asked boldly.

“I just delivered some baby things over there on Friday,” Jerry said. “Essie says she won’t get a nanny cause she likes being a mom. She’s hurrying to finish her latest book,” Jerry informed them. “You can tell she’s real Egret Pointe, like you are, Mrs. Mulcahy. She’s got that good work ethic. Well, gotta go. Truck is pretty full today.”

“That man knows everything that’s to know,” Nina said with a chuckle.

Before Ashley might answer, her cell rang, and, pulling it from the pocket of her slacks, she flipped it open. “This is Ashley,” she said.

“Hey, wife,” she heard Ryan’s voice. “I got your message yesterday. Sorry I couldn’t get back to you. I had to take care of the problem personally, Ash. You aren’t upset, are you? I really apologize for the harpies.”

Ashley moved from the shop floor into her office as he was talking. Now she sat down at her desk. “Yes, I was upset,” she said. “But I got over it. What the hell is the matter with those women, Ryan? A private investigator? What do they think you married, anyway? I don’t know whether to laugh or get mad.”

“Well, first off, they’re sure the marriage isn’t legal. And they’re sure you’re nothing more than a gold digger out for my money, and I’m too dumb to realize it,” he said. “Flattering, huh? But what do I know? I only took a nice little restoration shop and morphed it into a multimillion-dollar business.”

“How did they find me?” Ashley wanted to know.

“Kathleen is married to a cop. Well, actually he isn’t a beat cop anymore. He’s up there in the police hierarchy. He used some contacts of his to track you down, at my sister’s urging. Kevin is actually a decent guy. Not too bright, but decent.”

“That is a serious violation of my privacy and my rights,” Ashley said angrily.

“Look, I spent all day yesterday visiting each of my sisters personally. And I went downtown to One Police Plaza and spoke with Kevin. I had him call Judge Palmer, and we got him to fax a copy of our marriage license to Kevin. I told my brother-in-law that I would be visiting all my sisters with the copy, and he was to talk with the other brothers-in-law, and tell them that if their wives tried any more nonsense, our next step would be legal.”

“And?” Ashley said.

“Kevin took care of the guys, and I took care of my sisters. They aren’t happy about the fact that I’m married, but they’re stuck with it,” Ryan said. “Ash, I apologize. I never thought they would go crazy-crazy. I didn’t realize how out of touch with reality the thought of getting their hands on all that money would make them.” He sounded very embarrassed, and for a moment she felt sorry for him.

“Right now I’m not certain I want to meet them,” she told him candidly.

“I don’t blame you,” he responded.

“But I’ll do the October thing for your mom’s sake. Not a whole weekend, like I was planning, though, Ryan. If your sisters were counting on grabbing your money that much, then they aren’t going to have calmed down in a month. They might never calm down over this, and while that’s their problem, I don’t want to have to put up with it. I’m good to a point,” Ashley told him.

“I understand,” he said.

“We’ll invite them for the day, and make it easy for them by hiring a stretch limo to bring them out and take them home,” Ashley said.

“Let’s do it Saturday, so we have the rest of that long weekend just for us,” he suggested. “Now, don’t let this go to your head, but I missed you last night.” His voice was warmer than it had been previously.

She smiled. “Yeah, me too,” Ashley admitted. “Do you have to stay away until Thursday night?”

“Yeah, I have to, baby. I lost a whole day yesterday running uptown, downtown, and into suburbia dealing with the harpies. And then I had to stop and tell Frankie what went down, and go see Ma, and tell her everything was all right. I didn’t get to my office until late afternoon. That’s why I didn’t call you. I worked until almost one this morning, and then I just crashed where I was. I haven’t even gone back to my apartment yet to change my clothing. I’ll do that later, as I have clients coming in from Europe. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“I’m fine, Ryan. I’m tough, and I don’t collapse too easily,” Ashley told him. “Anything special you’d like for dinner tomorrow night? And incidentally, what time do you think you’ll be home?”

“Steak,” he said with male predictability. “I’ll try to get there by eight.”

“I’ll see you then,” she said.

“Say hello to the girls for me,” he teased her, and then he asked mischievously, “Are you blushing, Ash?”

“Bite me!” she shot back, and she heard his laughter as she flipped her cell shut. She
was
blushing. She didn’t need a mirror to feel the warmth flooding her cheeks. And her nipples were tingling with the thought of his mouth on them.
Damn!
What was the matter with her? She had always enjoyed good sex, but now her mind was consumed with it, despite her evening on the Channel. The fantasy wasn’t enough. She wanted reality. She wanted her sexy husband, a man she hadn’t even known three months ago. Tonight she would try the B fantasy. Maybe being dominated by Rurik would ease her.

“Oh, no!” she heard Nina’s voice exclaim.

Ashley got up and went back out into the shop. “What’s the matter?”