Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man (The Sinatras of Jericho County Book 1) (26 page)

“It’s
going to take time is the answer.
 
Time
will tell.”

Charles
rubbed the back of his hand on the side of her face.
 
“I missed you.”

She
smiled.
 
“I missed you too.”

Charles
leaned over and kissed her.
 
They allowed
the kiss to linger.
 
When he opened his
eyes, he looked into hers.
 
“You, our
relationship, means a lot to me.
 
I’m
committed to making this work.”

Jenay
nodded.
 
“So am I,” she said.
 
“Just because I need my own space, doesn’t
mean I don’t want it to work.
 
I do.”

“So
you haven’t left me?”

She
smiled.
 
“No!
 
I found myself, but I didn’t leave you.”

Charles
smiled.
 
“Good,” he said.
 
“Then I don’t see how we can lose.”
 
And he kissed her again.
 
But this time far more passionately.

When
he was done, she moved to get up.
 
“I’ll
get us something to drink,” she said.

But
he pulled her back down.
 
“Not yet,” he
said, and began kissing her again.

Jenay
missed him too, and began returning his kiss.
 
But there was something more potent with Charles.
 
More heightened.
 
He demonstrated that more urgent need when
they finally stopped kissing, and he hurried to his feet.

“Which
bedroom?” he asked as he grabbed her by the hand, and began all but dragging
her toward the back of the house.

“Any
one,” she responded, feeling a sudden sense of urgency too.
 
He hurried into the very first bedroom they
got to.

He
had her back against the wall, and was kissing her again, as soon as they
walked in.
 
But he was undressing as he
kissed her.
 
By the time she opened her
eyes again, after enjoying his kiss so completely, he was naked.

“Oh,
Charlie!” she moaned, as she looked at him, as he rubbed his penis against her.

“I
want you, Jenay,” he said, as he continued to kiss her and began undressing her
too.
 
“I want you.
 
Every inch of you!”

He
had undressed her too, in record time, and then he lifted her into his
arms.
 
She wrapped her legs around him in
such a sensual way that he could feel her pussy hug his penis.
 
And that feeling, of her rawness on his
rawness, undid him.
 
He began sucking her
breasts, as he carried her to the bed.

When
he got in bed on top of her, he slid his finger between her folds and began
stroking her until she was good and wet.
 
When he pulled his finger out, he licked it, and then went down and
started licking her.
 

Jenay
smiled and sighed and pulsated all over as she experienced what she now knew
was his well-honed experience.
 
He didn’t
just go down on her, he went down on her as a man who wrote the book on going
down on a woman.
 
She was arching and
panting from his oral alone.
 
And she was
still aware just how much more intensity he seemed to possess.
 
It had been several days since they’d been
together sexually.
 
But he was making it
seem like several years.

And
when he laid her on her stomach, and he got on top of her, she thought just the
way his penis was rubbing between her cheeks was intense enough.
 
But he began entering her raw, for the very
first time, and intensity wasn’t the word.
 
When she felt his uncovered dick ease inside of her, she felt as if her
passion had morphed into fire itself.
 
She was on fire. And as he began stroking her, as his dick began sliding
and gliding across her wetness, she became so hot, and so inflamed, that she
thought she was going to pass out.

Charles
held his breath when they first made raw contact.
 
He’d never felt anything so alive and vibrant
than the feel of her skin on his skin.
 
And the further in he pushed, the deeper down he went, it felt as if he
was having an outer body experience himself.
 
Sex he knew.
 
He considered
himself a master at having sex.
 
But love
and sex together were new to him.
 
To
make love to somebody he was growing to care so deeply about made him feel
heady, and exhilarated, and terrified all at the same time.

He
laid down on her, as he fucked her from behind.
 
The feel of her tight ass against his hard abs alone made him drunk with
passion.
 
And then that magnificent feel
of his penis inside her pussy, caught him unprepared.
 
He knew it would feel great.
 
He was expecting their usual
wonderfulness.
 
But he didn’t know it
would feel so tender and sweet too.
 

“Baby,”
he kept saying as he did her.
 
“Baby.”
 

He
made it sound like the most melodic word in the world to Jenay.
 

“
My
baby
.”

He
fucked her for a long time.
 
She came,
but he kept on fucking her.
 
He came, but
his strokes would not cease.
 
Jenay
understood.
 
She understood that it was
more than just sex to Charles.
 
It was
possessiveness.
 
As if he was marking his
territory.
 
As if he had no more points
to prove, but he was proving more anyway.

By
the time he had pounded her relentlessly, and he once again had no more points
to prove, she felt as if she was fully and completely his.
 
They were both so overwhelmed with emotion
that they could hardly speak.
 
He got off
her, and laid beside her.
 
And they
stayed that way, their hands interlocked, their hearts still racing, until they
both had found a way to accept the beauty of their new way of life, and fall
asleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The
next day, Charles was in his office.
 
It
was an unusually quiet morning of work for him.
 
He was able to work peacefully in his office for nearly three straight
hours before any interruptions whatsoever. It had turned out to be a very good
night with Jenay, as if they had turned over a wonderful new leaf, and it was
shaping up to be a very good morning.

And
then his cell phone rang.
 
It rang for
the first time that morning.
 
When he
looked at the Caller ID, and saw that the call was coming from the Jericho
Jail, he almost ignored it.
 
But it had
been four days now.
 
He answered.

“Dad?
 
It’s me.”

“What
do you want, Donald.”

“You’ve
got to get me out of here, Dad.
 
I can’t
take this another day.
 
You’ve got to put
up the bail!”

“I’m
not putting up anything.
 
I told you
that.”

“But
I don’t like it here!
 
I don’t want to t
be here.”

“You
should have thought about that before you beat your pregnant wife.”

“Just
pay the bail.
 
Please?
 
They made it three-hundred-thousand just
because I’m your son.”

“They
made it three-hundred-thousand because you nearly killed that girl, and the
baby.
 
She’s in the hospital still in
Intensive Care.
 
You’d better stop
worrying about making bail, and start praying she doesn’t die.”

“She’s
not going to die.
 
But I will if I have
to stay in this horrific place.”

Charles
shook his head.
 
His son was so immature
it was astounding to him.
 
“I’ve got to
go, Donald.
 
Talk to you later.”

“You
can get me out on bail.
 
You know you
can.”

“Goodbye,
Donald.”

“You
got that thief bitch out on bail, but you can’t get me out?
 
Your own son?
 
What about me!”

Charles
ended the call.
 
He knew he should have
never answered it in the first place.

Moments
later, as if that phone call got the ball rolling, another interruption.
 
“Excuse me, sir,” his secretary said as she
opened his office door, “but Ms. Ridge is here to see you.”

Charles
hesitated.
 
Abby never came to his
office.
 
Not ever.
 
And he didn’t like her starting now.
 
But he needed to set her straight
anyway.
 
“Send her in,” he said.

She
came in, and closed the door behind her.
 
Other than Jenay, she was still the most beautiful woman in Jericho to
him.
 
Like him, she was almost forty now,
and that age was beginning to show, but not even years could take away an ounce
of her beauty.
 
She was also
discreet.
 
Legendarily discreet.
 
She was any man’s asset, including his for
many years.
 
But not anymore.

“Have
a seat,” he said, when she began heading toward his desk.

He
used to stand when she entered a room.
 
The fact that he did not this time spoke mountains to her.
 
But she didn’t quiver about it.
 
She had far more pressing matters to attend
with him.
 
She sat down in front of his
desk.

“It’s
been a while, Charles,” she said.
 
“Over
three months, to be exact.”

Charles
remembered their last night together.
 
A
sex-filled night that got almost too rough.
 
He leaned back.
 
“What do you
want?”

“I
want to know why you haven’t been over.
 
I want to know why you haven’t mentioned to me about this new lady you
supposedly have in your life.
 
She’s the
talk of the town, you know.”

“I
don’t know and I don’t care.”

“Her
arrest was the hot topic for days.”

Charles
didn’t respond to that.

Abby
hated when he treated her this way.
 
“She
stole jewels from your hotel guests, yet you keep her around?”
 

“You
know she didn’t steal shit, so cut the crap, Abby.
 
What do you want?”

“I
want answers.
 
I want to know why you
haven’t at least given me a phone call.
 
I heard about Donnie’s new troubles, and I wanted to reach out to you,
but I knew you would be upset if I did.
 
So I waited.
 
And waited.
 
But you never phoned.
 
I was expecting you to come over, so I could
relieve that stress.”

“No
thanks,” Charles said, and leaned forward.
 
“There won’t be any more visits like that.”

She
stared at him.
 
“No more visits?”

“None.”

She
frowned.
 
“And when did you intend to
tell me this, Charles?”

Charles
exhaled.
 
“I hadn’t gotten around to it,”
he said.
 
“But I was going to tell you.”

“Is
it because you weren’t sure?
 
Is it because
you had to make certain she was worth the sacrifice?
 
Is that more like it?
 
Is that why you’re telling me now?”

“What
difference does it make?” he barked.
 
“I’m telling you now.
 
I’ll put
the house in your name, and I will continue your monthly allowance payments,
but it goes no further than that.”

Abby
looked at him with anger in her heart.
 
But she maintained her cool.
  
“I’m afraid it goes much further than that,” she said.

“No,
it does not,” Charles corrected her.
 
“I’m
not having a lady on the side.
  
It’s
over, Abby.”

“It
won’t be over until I say it’s over,” she said.
 
Then she pulled a sheet of paper out of her dainty purse and handed it
to him, to prove her point.

“What
is this?” he asked her.
 
It looked like
lab results.

“The
results of my pregnancy test,” Abby said.
 
“As you can see, I am in the family way.”

Charles’s
heart rammed against his chest, and he looked at Abby.
 
“What are you saying to me?”

“I’m
pregnant, Charles, and you are most certainly the father.”

Charles
felt as if he was going to melt with rage.
 
“After all this time, after all these years, you mean to tell me you
picked this time, this year, to pull this shit?”

This
angered Abby.
 
“What shit am I
pulling?
 
You were right there with me!”

“Your
ass agreed to take those pills and to take them faithfully every single day!”

“And
I did do that,” she lied.
 
“Nothing’s
one-hundred percent foolproof, Charles, and you know that!
 
I didn’t plan this.
 
I didn’t pull this.
 
This didn’t just happen to you.
 
It has happened to me too!
  
What about me?”

Abby
was so distraught, not by the pregnancy, but by his reaction to the pregnancy,
that she could barely contain herself.
 
She hated revealing her true emotions!
 
But nobody angered her more than Charles.
 
Nobody!
 
She stood up.
 
“You call me when
you’re ready to speak to me civilly,” she said.
 
“Because I will not stand here and be accused of something I did not
do.
 
I’m as devastated as you are.”

She
said this and left his office.
 
But
Charles’s mind was in a different place.
 
Not how he felt about the news, or even how he felt about Abby.
 
But how Jenay was going to feel about
it.
 
They were just hitting their
stride.
 
It had been bumpy enough.
 
And now this.

He
leaned back, and let out a harsh exhale.

“It will
need to go too,” Jenay said to Roy, her maintenance supervisor, as they stood
on the side of the Inn and looked at the rotted wood beneath the deck.
 
The landscapers were all around them,
beautifying the grounds, and it was a bright sunny day in
 
Jericho.
 
The Inn had several decks, and all of them, Jenay had concluded, were in
need of serious work.
 
Today, Roy was
taking notes.
 

“Could
we at least save the railings?” he asked.

“We’ll
have to see what the contractor says tomorrow,” Jenay said, “but I want it
closed to public use right now, at least until I get his assessment.”

“Not
even to walk across to get to the pool?”

“Not
even that,” Jenay said.
 
“Not until I get
that assessment.”

Roy
looked past her.
  
He began to close his
notebook.

“What’s
wrong?” she asked.

“Here
comes, Mr. Sinatra,” he said.
  
“I’m sure
he’s here to see you.
 
Is that a wrap?”

Jenay
turned around and saw Charles coming their way.
 
He had his suit coat off and looked every bit the handsome, muscular man
that excited her.
 
But he didn’t look
happy.
 
“Yes,” she said.
 
“We’ll pick it back up after lunch.”

“Yes,
ma’am,” Roy said, and began to leave.
 
He
threw his hand up at Charles.
 
“Good
morning, sir!” he yelled.

Charles
waved back, and Roy left the area.
 

Jenay
smiled as Charles made his way toward her.
 
She remembered the wonderful night they had together, and in her new
place of all places.
 
It was
tremendous.
 
They were in a good space
when they went their separate ways this morning.
 
But something appeared to have changed his mood
since then.

“I
didn’t expect to see you over here this morning,” she said.

“What
are you doing?” he asked as he approached her.

“Deck
review.
 
They need to be replaced.”

“All
of them?”

“All
of them,” Jenay said.
 
“At least that’s my
preliminary assessment.
 
The contractor
comes tomorrow.
 
We’ll see what he says.”

Charles
nodded halfheartedly as he made it to her side.
 
He placed his hands on either side of her arms and kissed her.
 
The landscapers elbowed each other when they
saw them kissing, but Charles didn’t care.
 
For good measure, he pulled her into his arms.
 
He remembered last night too.
 
He remembered it vividly.

“You’re
okay?” she asked.
 
“Or did you miss me
just that much?”

“I
always love to feel you in my arms.”

Then
they stopped embracing.
 
But Jenay was
not persuaded.
 
“That would be a no,” she
said.
 
“You may love to feel me in your
arms, and you may miss me something terrible, but that’s not why you’re
here.
 
That’s not why you came.”

Charles
exhaled.
 
He glanced around.
 
The workers were within earshot.
 
“Let’s walk,” he said.

Jenay,
with her clipboard in hand, allowed him to place his arm around her waist and
walk her, very close against him, toward the lake at the edge of the
property.
 
She waited for him to talk, but
it wouldn’t be until they were sitting on the bench before a word was spoken.

She
sat back, and sat her board on her lap.
 
He leaned forward, clasped his hands, and kept his eyes on the rippling
lake.
 
Then he looked back at her.
 
That look on his face troubled her.

“Before
I met you,” he said, “I had lady friends.
 
You’re aware of that.”