Sugar & Spice (Spicetopia Book 1) Page 15

  “Was that a Star Wars reference?” she asked, one side of her lip tilting into a half-smile. “I mean, that was what we called it behind the scenes—and it was totally a Star Wars reference.”

  “Why, yes, yes, it was,” I fully admitted with a smile stretching my lips into a wide grin.

  “You really are a nerd then?” she questioned with hope shining through her voice.

  “Oh yes!” I nodded adamantly. “I didn’t make any of that up. I don’t need glasses, but I sure do love me some Renaissance art, sci-fi movies, archaeology and astronomy and Monty Python. And Harry Potter.”

  She laughed, her eyes crinkling with amusement. “Is it bad that makes the lying about your identity a hell of a lot easier to swallow?”

  I squeezed her hands in mine. “I don’t really have a British accent either...though I do actually speak French. The British thing was part of my disguise, but I can certainly reprise it on occasion if you want. Maybe as a special treat?”

  She looked down at our entwined hands for a moment, and when she looked back up at me, she had a tear glimmering in the corner of her gray-violet eyes. She pushed her shoulder-length hair behind her ear. “You really do like me like this? Like Jolie Cox? Single mom, actress-wannabe and dominatrix on the side?”

  “Well, we may need to talk more about that side gig, but abso-fucking-lutely,” I whispered back. “Can you handle that I’m not a poor college grad from London with severe myopia?”

  “Well, you’re going to be poor now if your parents disown you, aren’t you?” she joked, a little laugh spilling out of her mouth.

  “Maybe,” I admitted with a shrug. “Tell me...are you falling in love with me?”

  She straightened her shoulders and fixed her gaze on me. “I wanted to deny it. I kept telling myself my feelings weren’t real and didn’t matter; all that mattered was taking care of my kids. I even tried to tell myself I was selfish for wanting something for myself...”

  “But?”

  “But I want to see where it goes with you,” she admitted, “because I can’t seem to stop thinking about you. And even after I found out who you really were...I still wanted you. And not for the money, either! Obviously...if you’re going to stand up to your parents like this...”

  I smiled at her, still oblivious to what was going on in the rest of the room. “I have a surprise for you outside. Will you come with me?”

  “Are we done here?” Her eyes finally broke their focus on me to glance around the room. The Sweetopia employees were cleaning up, folding tables and chairs. The press was putting away its equipment. “Did we miss it?”

  A middle-aged lady who looked uncannily like Jolie bounded up toward the stage with a little boy who was carrying a tablet. “What happened?” Jolie asked her.

  “It’s over. They interviewed Colleen and Buster, and then the press conference finished up. I think they had to go back to the local news,” the woman explained.

  “Oh, Mom, this is Cy Sweet. Cy, this is my mother, Felicia Cox.”

  I extended my hand. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Cox.”

  “Please, call me Felicia. So what did they do with your parents and brothers?” she questioned.

  “No idea. Let’s go find out!” I gestured toward the open aisle and noticed others were starting to filter into the restaurant. We were set up in the back room reserved for parties and receptions. The dinner crowd was still thick, especially for a weeknight. I wondered how many dinners were ruined when my family busted their way through the restaurant and into the private room. It was another thing in a long list of items I felt embarrassed about regarding my family. But at least I had done something to stand up for Jolie and the other Sweetopia employees. It wasn’t enough, not yet, but it was a start. I had more tricks up my sleeve.

  Jolie tugged on my arm to stop me before we exited the room. “Cy, this is my son, Reed,” she said, her hands on the young boy’s shoulders. “Say hi to Mr. Sweet.”

  “Hi, Mr. Sweet,” Reed parroted before holding up the tablet so I could see it. “This is my brother, River.”

  “Hi, River!” I said, waving at the little boy I saw in the hospital bed, recognizing him from the night before. The boy and the crowd surrounding the bed all waved back.

  “Hey, I just saw you on TV!” the little boy exclaimed, his blue eyes gleaming. He had pale skin and dark hair, darker than his mother’s, but I could definitely see he had her nose and lips.

  “We’re going to go outside for a few minutes,” Jolie told River. “But after we finish up here, we’ll come over to the hospital, alright?”

  “Okay, Mommy!”

  My heart ached for that little boy in the hospital bed. I was glad he was surrounded by so many loved ones, but I felt terrible about the horrible disease he lived with, the disease that would someday claim his life unless a cure was found. Jolie reached down and grabbed my hand, sending a jolt of electricity up my arm. It eased the pain I felt for the little boy on the screen, but it could never take it away.

  I led the group out and around the side of the restaurant to where the deck began. It was a long, elevated structure that overlooked the inlet below that flowed into Naples Bay. Its wooden posts were surrounded by reeds and cattails, and we could hear the locusts and frogs starting up their evening concert.

  “I’m just going to run to my car and get something, and I’ll be right back, okay?” I asked. “Can you and your family wait for me on the deck?”

  Jolie nodded. I watched her whisper something to her mom before the older woman and the young boy followed her down the path toward the steps to the deck. I headed over to my ’69 Camaro—boy, it was great to be driving it again—immediately noticing that a small crowd had gathered around it.

  My family. Go figure.

  “What do you guys want?” I shouted across the lot as I approached my car.

  I could tell from their angry glares that I was about to be on the receiving end of a whole lot of bullshit, bullshit I wasn’t in the mood to deal with currently.

  “Do you mind? I need to get something out of my car, and then I’m needed elsewhere.” I shoved the key into the lock and twisted it.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” my dad bellowed, coming around the car to focus his wrath directly at my face.

  “I can’t believe you betrayed your family like that, Cyrus,” my mother added. “I thought we raised you better than that.”

  “I can’t believe you tried to defame a struggling single mom of a terminally ill child on television,” I sneered to my father.

  “She’s an actress, Cy!” Carson shouted. “Get a fucking grip!”

  “You know she’s fired, right?” Clem pointed out.

  I ignored them for a second, reaching into my car to grab a manila file folder full of documents I’d been collecting during all my errands earlier in the day. I shut my car door, locked it, and swiveled around to face my family.

  “Here,” I said, handing a document to my father. “This is a statement from the family attorney about my trust fund. Maybe you didn’t realize that when I turned twenty-one, you no longer had any control over the account, but you’ve officially been taken off the register for it.”

  “What? You can’t—” my father began to protest.

  “Trust fund? What?” Clem spoke up. “Don’t we have trust funds too?” He elbowed his brother, who joined in the complaint.

  “Also, here’s the business card for the woman I spoke to at the district office for the U.S. Department of Labor. She’s going to be in touch with you soon to address some of the concerns I brought up as well as the ones uncovered by the press conference tonight. And I think you’ll have plenty of time to iron things out with her because there’s going to be a massive strike at Sweetopia along with a boycott. So you won’t have anything else to do besides cooperate with their investigation.”

  My mother huffed when I handed the card over to my father. “What else is in there?” she asked, eyeing my folder, which still contained
some documents.

  “Oh, those are my boarding passes. For the flight I’ll be on tomorrow to Greece. Have fun cleaning up this huge mess you’ve caused!”

  The four of them all opened their mouths to speak, but I didn’t stick around to hear what they had to say. I had better things to do.

  It took Cy—I was finally getting used to calling him that—so long to return to the deck that I was beginning to wonder if he was coming at all. I had been burned by so many men that learning to trust him was going to be a challenge for me, especially after the whole Marcus Young undercover boss fiasco. But I wanted to try. My head kept reminding me to be cautious, but my heart, and oh, you know, a couple areas further south were all about giving him another chance.

  “Hey, sorry, my family was stalking me back at my car.” Cy’s eyes swept across the bench we were sitting on facing the water. Reed was focused on a beautiful white egret that was wading into the water with the tall green grasses behind serving as a gorgeous backdrop. He pointed it out, and my mother smiled at Cy before turning her attention to her grandson and the bird.

  Cy reached for my hand and lifted me off the bench. “I’m going to just steal her for a minute, okay?” he asked Reed and my mother politely.

  They both nodded, still entranced by the bird, so I giggled and followed Cy over to the railing that separated the deck from the water. The sun was beginning to sink toward the inlet, casting an orange glow on the marsh. “Wow, it’s really gorgeous out here, isn’t it?”

  “Stunning,” he answered, “but not as stunning as you.”

  “Oh, so I see the cheesy flirts weren’t just reserved for your Marcus persona, huh?” I looked up at him, enjoying the easy grin that spread across his face when I teased him.

  “Nope. I’m as nerdy and cheesy as they come.” He took my hands into his. “And right now, I really want to kiss you...”

  “Just a minute...” I raised my finger. “I just want to make sure, again, that you’re okay with all this. That I’m older. That I’m a mom. That I am now jobless.” I laughed at the last part. “I guess you are too, though? Wanna head for the unemployment office with me tomorrow?”

  “That won’t be necessary.” The easy smile never faltered as his eyes bounced between mine.

  “Oh, yeah? Are you independently wealthy too?” The cool evening breeze coming off the inlet blew my hair into my face, and I wrangled it away and behind my ear.

  “Something like that,” he said. “It’s a trust fund. But it’s all mine.”

  “So...you’re not poor?” I squinted at him as I waited for his answer. It didn’t even matter to me either way, but having money was always better than not. I’d been poor enough of my life to know that.

  “Not at all.” He chuckled as he reached into his back pocket. “As a matter of fact, I’m leaving for Greece tomorrow.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. I thought maybe that was part of the act.” I couldn’t help but feel a bit of disappointment that we’d have to put whatever this was on hold until he got back. Or maybe he was trying to tell me that this was it. He stood up for me and against his parents, but this is where the train stopped. This is where we all got off.

  “No. Not part of the act. I’m supposed to go and study sculpture with this brilliant artist and archaeologist.” He shrugged. “Like I said, the nerd thing is for real.”

  I laughed. “So it is.”

  He turned over the papers he’d pulled out of his pocket. “But I want you to come with me.”

  The boarding pass he held out toward me had my name printed on it.

  What. The. Fuck? Was this guy for real?

  I’d been asking that question all along.

  “I...I can’t do that. I mean, I have—”

  “Well, you don’t have work at Sweetopia,” he reminded me with a smirk.

  “No, but I have clients...and my sons, of course...”

  “Hey, Felicia,” Cy called over my shoulder to my mother. “Hi, sorry for interrupting, but can you come over here for a minute?”

  My mother smiled and made her way over to the railing. Reed remained on the bench, now fascinated by something on the screen of the tablet. “What can I do for you?” she asked as she stopped by my side.

  “Jolie has the chance to go on a two-week trip to Greece,” he explained. “Do you think she should go?”

  “What? Two weeks?! I can’t be gone for two weeks!” I protested, looking toward my mom for back up.

  A smile crept across my mother’s face as the fading sunlight rained down on her aging features. “I think you should definitely go to Greece for two weeks,” she said firmly, like she didn’t even need to think about it.

  “But River is still in the hospital, and—”

  “River gets discharged in two days,” my mother reminded me. “And we will be just fine for two weeks.”

  “But I’ve never been away from my boys for more than one night!” I continued to argue.

  I could tell that my mom and Cy had developed an instant rapport, because all he had to do was beam his smile and dark eyes in her direction, and she was obviously smitten with him.

  “I think that’s all the more reason for you to go to Greece, Jolie. It’s not like you don’t have a passport.” My mom shrugged as she soaked in Cy’s happy wink.

  It was true. I had a passport from when I took the boys to Niagara Falls last summer.

  “But he wants to leave tomorrow,” I said, my last shot at talking some sense into the woman.

  “Sounds great to me. Let’s stop by the hospital to see River, and then you can go pack!”

  “I really like your mom,” Cy announced, squeezing my hand and giving my mother another wink.

  “Great, just what I need is the two of you to gang up on me!” I rolled my eyes as they both just laughed.

  “I’ll be over there with Reed. Let’s not wait too much longer to get to the hospital, or River will be asleep,” she reminded me.

  “Good point.” I watched her take her seat next to my son, then I shifted my gaze back to this handsome man in front of me. Even without glasses and his sexy British accent, he was still pretty fucking hot. I’d do him.

  “So, you’ll come with me?” he asked again. “I know it’s short notice. I know we barely know each other...but I bet you we’ll know each other a hell of a lot better by the time we come back.”

  I scoffed. “Yeah, no kidding. What are the sleeping arrangements?”

  He grinned. “Well, if I get my way, it will be naked in one bed...but I think the condo I rented has two bedrooms.” He trailed a finger down my cheek. “I feel like I’ve just barely scratched the surface of your body in the time we’ve spent together thus far...”

  “Same,” I retorted. “I’ve gotta warn you, I’m a bit of a freak...”

  “Well, you are a Domme,” he conceded.

  “Yet I had no issue with you dominating me.” I shrugged. “You definitely bring out a side of me I’d like to explore a little bit more...maybe I’m a switch after all?”

  “So...yes to Greece, then?” His dark eyes blazed with hope.

  I flung my arms around his neck. “Yes to Greece. Yes to a kiss. Yes to it all!”

  That was all the affirmation he needed. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me in for the sweetest kiss I’ve ever received.

  No pun intended.

  EPILOGUE

  Holy shit, Greece was, in one word: epic. Hot days, cool nights, the breeze coming off the water was like a bevy of goddesses all fanning you with palm fronds. While Cy studied with the sculptor all day, I did something I hadn’t done in forever: relax.

  So far I’d gone to the spa, gone shopping, lain out on the beach—even the topless beach. I felt so free and uninhibited here. It was truly paradise.

  And the sex...

  Well, here was what happened last night:

  Cy had bought me some silk scarves at the market. I thought he might have some ulterior motives, which were proved when he as
ked if he could tie me up.

  “You’re not the one used to being tied up, huh?” he asked with a devilish gleam in his eyes. It looked like he had been thinking about this moment for a long time.

  “Uh, no...” I answered with a head shake. “And what exactly are you planning to do to me after you tie me up? If I indeed grant you permission to do so, of course.”

  He smirked as his eyes trailed up and down my body. He seemed pretty confident that permission would be granted. We had just come in from the beach, and I’d taken a quick shower, throwing my hair into a messy bun and slipping on a gauzy white dress with nothing underneath. I think this was the longest I’d gone without wearing a corset in months. My body was enjoying the ability to breathe freely.

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out,” he quipped as he licked his lips.

  What a fucking tease!

  “I don’t plan to be gentle about it either,” he warned me. He took the scarves off the table in our little kitchen and made his way toward me taking long, purposeful strides. I hadn’t said yes, but I hadn’t said no either. I was still thinking about it.

  He grabbed my wrist and tightened his fingers around it. Just his grip alone shot flames of desire right down into my core, flames that could only be extinguished by his talented tongue or his magical cock.

  “This looks like a yes to me,” he said as I arched my back in need as much as pain.

  “Yes...” I managed. My heart skipped a beat as he pulled my wrist up toward the headboard and quickly tied me to it. Then he rushed around to secure my other wrist. I lay there completely helpless, vulnerable to whatever he wanted to do to me. After all, I said yes. I surrendered the power to him.

  Might have been a big mistake.

  He pulled at my dress. “Ah, now this I fucked up. I should have taken this off first.”

  I gave him a teasing smirk. “See, being a Dom isn’t as easy as it looks, huh?”

  “Well, we’ll just rectify my error like so...” He grabbed ahold of the hem of my skirt with both hands, and then like a lightning bolt striking, he tore it all the way up to my chest.