"So," she said, after swallowing. "How'd you like the outfit Jess was wearing when you almost destroyed our party?"
He blinked and seemed to take longer to chew and swallow than was necessary.
"It was okay," he said.
"Just okay?"
"It sounded like somebody was being murdered," he said. "You can't fault me for coming to make sure you were all right."
"I didn't say I was upset about it," she said. "I just asked you how you liked Jess's outfit."
Again, there was a long pause before he answered.
"Why are you asking me this?"
"What's the big deal?" she asked.
"The big deal is that there's something in the tone of your voice that makes me edgy. It's like looking into the dark and not knowing whether, if you step forward, you'll just take a step or walk off a cliff."
"My goodness!" said Lou Anne in mock astonishment. "I had no idea I was so scary."
"Are we having an argument?" he asked.
"Why would we be having an argument?"
"I don't know, but it sure feels like we're having one, and I don't want to argue with you."
"Why not?"
"Because I like coming here, okay? I don't want you to get pissed off at me for some reason I don't understand and tell me to stop coming here."
"I'm not pissed off."
"Good."
"So what did you think of the outfit?"
He looked up at her and put the sandwich down. He looked a little frustrated.
"When one woman asks a man what another woman looks like, there's something going on there. What do you want me to say? That she looked hot? That she was gorgeous? That I hoped the thing would fall off of her?"
"I just wanted to know what you thought," said Lou Anne a little stiffly.
"Well what I think is that you'd look better in it. But I'm not supposed to say things like that, because we hardly know each other."
"You felt like you knew me well enough to slap me on the ass," she said, her voice still tight.
"Okay, I screwed up. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I won't do it again."
"I didn't say you couldn't do it again."
"What do you want from me?" he moaned.
"I'm not sure yet," she answered. "But I'll let you know when I figure it out."
"Am I in trouble here?" He sounded younger than he was.
"Nope."
"Nope? That's it? All that and you just decided everything was okay?" He looked a little pale.
"You answered the question correctly," she said. "Why would you be in trouble?"
"I did?"
"Yes," she said, getting up to take her plate to the sink. "You said it would look better on me."
"Why don't you have him slap her on the ass, like you did to me?" asked Lou Anne.
Kris looked at the screen. There were words there, and he knew he'd typed them, but he couldn't remember what they said.
Lulu had suggested he write something, after whatever had happened in the kitchen. He still didn't understand what that had been about. But she was her normal self, so he moved to the computer and pulled up the file. She stood behind him, which normally wouldn't have bothered him, except that she smelled delicious. And if he looked over his shoulder at her, that amazing cleavage was right there.
It wasn't cleavage in the classical sense. It was really just her bare chest, with the insides of her breasts showing. But when she leaned forward, that dark red satin fell almost far enough to show him what was under it.
Almost.
She'd picked a paragraph from the outline and watched over his shoulder as he began fleshing it out. She was very distracting, but he tried to concentrate. She'd stood behind him before, watching him work, but never for this long. In the past, it had seemed like she just drifted by, once in a while, and glanced over whatever was on the screen. Sometimes she'd make a comment, and sometimes not.
But having her stand there, smelling so good, in that beautiful soft looking whatever it was, with that fabulous butt cupped in those short shorts underneath the gown ... It was just very distracting.
"I have to go to work soon," he said, checking his watch.
"Ohhhh," she pouted.
"I'll work on it there. You can look it over tomorrow."
"Okay," she continued pouting.
He turned around to look at her and stared at her chest.
"You apparently feel like you know me well enough to ogle my breasts, too," she said.
He looked up, blushing and she was almost smiling. Her eyes were smiling anyway.
"You apparently feel like you know me well enough to wear something like that around me," he tried.
"I do!" she said, her voice bright.
He suddenly felt like everything was all right after all. Her questions before ... they had felt dangerous, somehow. That was silly. She'd saved his life, but that didn't mean there was anything between them. Not that he'd mind, but she was a free spirit. That much was clear. And he'd meant it when he said he wanted to keep coming over here to work. He liked being around her. Ambrose had him wondering if he'd missed out, along the way ... not getting serious with anyone ... not having a son.
He pushed those thoughts away, reminding himself not to rock the boat, and stood up. He reached for the flash drive that had the file on it.
"Did you back it up on the hard drive?" she asked, leaning past him.
He couldn't resist. He looked down. There it was. A perfect breast, smooth and round, with a bright red nipple on the tip.
"Kris?" She leaned back and the breast disappeared.
"Uh ... I guess not," he said.
"Well back it up!" she ordered him. "I can read what you've done so far while you're at work."
He plugged the flash drive back in and copied the file to her hard drive. He made a special effort not to look at her. The tingle in his groin suggested that would be a bad idea right now.
She walked him to the door, still smelling wonderful.
"Thanks," he said.
"For what?"
"For letting me hang out here ... for helping me ... for everything."
"You're welcome," she said, smiling widely.
He opened the door and stopped. He felt the icy cold coming through the glass in the storm door and couldn't help looking at the front of the gown. Two little bumps appeared, as if by magic. She hugged herself.
"Did you mean what you said?" he asked.
"About what?"
"That you didn't say I couldn't slap you on the ass again," he said. His eyebrows went up as he realized that might not have made any sense.
"Maybe," she said, pushing him out the door.
Lola Henderson, bitch extraordinaire, was still a very unhappy woman. She hadn't heard from her boyfriend for three whole weeks. It was as if he'd disappeared off the face of the Earth. She'd been to his apartment a dozen times, but her insistent knocks brought no response. Calls to his phone only got her the same information over and over, that the subscriber's phone was off. She'd left half a dozen messages.
She was at his apartment door again, trying to figure out some way to defeat the lock. She'd seen people fiddle with locks on TV and it looked easy, but nothing she did made any difference.
She remembered his car suddenly, and took the elevator to the parking garage. She went to his assigned space. The car still wasn't there. She checked the other spaces to see if he'd parked somewhere else, but it wasn't in the garage at all.
She was trying to believe she hadn't been dumped. At the same time, she was angry that she
had
been dumped. Why else wouldn't he call? She'd been
so
close to getting a key to his place. She'd already planned on what she'd bring first, moving in little by little, and staying the night until she just stopped going back to her own apartment altogether and could give up the lease on it. She'd already planned on how she'd get him to write the book that would make him rich ... make them both rich. It would be about her, of course, and after it hit the best seller list she'd go on camera with him during interviews. Producers would see her. She'd be offered roles in movies. She'd become a star.
But not if her asshole boyfriend wouldn't call her or answer his fucking door!
She went back up to his door and beat on it until heads started poking out of the other doors along the hallway. Some told her to knock it off. One mentioned calling the police.
The police!
Of course!
She'd forgotten all about making a missing person's report. She'd go do that and the police would find him for her.
Then
she'd grab him by the balls and never let go.
The desk sergeant eyed Lola appreciatively. She was a brassy blond, tall and leggy. She had tits that would make a great pillow for falling asleep on after he fucked her blind.
"I want to report a missing person," she said.
"How long has this person been missing?" he asked politely.
"About three weeks," she said.
"About?"
"I don't know exactly," she said. "He hasn't called me in three weeks."
The desk sergeant pulled out a form and clicked his pen, ready to write.
"Name?"
"Lola Henderson," she said.
"Not yours ... his."
"Oh. Kris Farmingham."
"Relationship?"
"Of course we're in a relationship," she said.
The desk sergeant wanted to groan. He'd have to fuck her mute too. He decided she was a natural blonde.
"What relationship is he to you?"
"He's my boyfriend," she said.
The desk sergeant clicked his pen again and put it back in his pocket.
"Your boyfriend hasn't called you in three weeks ... and you think he's missing."
"Well of course he's missing," said Lola, beginning to get upset. "He wouldn't go that long without talking to me."
"Did the two of you have a little spat, maybe?" suggested the desk sergeant, hoping she would answer in the affirmative, so he could offer to give her a shoulder to cry on.
"Of course not," she said. "We're in love!"
"I'm sure you are," said the desk sergeant, beginning to lose interest. "Have you talked to his employer?"
Lola blinked. "Well no. I never thought of that."
"Why don't you go talk to his boss first," said the desk sergeant. "I'm sure he's just been too busy to call you. Maybe he's been working overtime, to get money to buy you flowers and candy."
Chapter Fifteen
Kris was thinking while he ate breakfast at The Early Girl. That he could think at all was interesting, because the place was packed and noisy.
The temperatures outside were still sub-zero, which brought about an interesting phenomenon. Most folks just wanted to stay in bed, where it was warm and cozy, on mornings like this. If they had to get up for some reason, a lot of them opted to just get dressed and then go to a warm, good-smelling place, where the food was prepared for them. It might have seemed odd to Kris that so many people would rather brave the cold, than fix something at home in weather like this, except that wasn't what he was thinking about.
What he was thinking about was what he'd written while he'd been the "midnight DJ" the night before. It was easy to think about, both because it was fresh in his mind and because the woman who seemed to be responsible for all the steamy scenes in the book he was writing was within thirty feet of him. Lou Anne was waiting tables, and ignoring him. She was involved in an intricate dance that carried her all over the diner, balancing plates on her arms, with only one hand free because the other held a coffee pot.
One of the scenes he'd written was directly related to Lou Anne. Sir Roger Quigley, while seated in a chair on the deck of "The Ugly Mermaid," had casually slapped the ass of a passing matron, one of his current bevy of captured women. The women were all put to work, scrubbing the decks or doing other "household chores" on the ship. The matron had turned on him in a rage, driven beyond her fear of the pirates who had captured her, and had attacked him. The scene had degenerated, in his opinion, into a situation where, while he'd subdued her, Sir Quigley had exposed her breasts. Holding her down, he had attacked her nipples with his lips, while she struggled and screamed and the interested crew looked on. Quigley hadn't done anything else but suck at her breasts, until she wore herself out, resisting. Then he had tried to kiss her lips, while she turned her head this way and that, avoiding him. In the end, though, she had fallen prey to his charms and ended up kissing him back. He had then let her up and she had meekly accompanied him to his cabin, where he thoroughly ravished her, to her eventual delight.