French Silk

Chapter 5

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His tongue flicked over and around her stiff nipples. The caress elicited sounds from her that had pagan origins. "You're killing me, baby," she gasped.

"Oh, God, don't stop. Don't stop." She caught his earlobe between her strong, white teeth and bit it hard. He grunted in pain, but her untamed responsiveness increased his excitement. His fingers made deep impressions in her firm ass as he clamped her to his hips and thrust himself deep inside her. His mouth captured one taut nipple and sucked it hard.

She screamed and clutched handfuls of his hair, bucking against him wildly, lost in the throes of her climax. Seconds later, he came in long, ecstatic bursts, panting and straining and grimacing.

Yasmine's skin was slick with sweat. It gleamed, reflecting the glow of the bedside lamp like polished bronze, except that none had ever been sculpted as exquisitely as she.

She rose above Congressman Alister Petrie's limp, spent body and with adoration gazed down into his flushed face. "Not bad, sugar," she whispered as she brushed an affectionate kiss across his lips. "You found my G-spot."

Keeping his eyes closed, he chuckled. "Get off me, you insatiable bitch, and pour me a drink."

Yasmine gracefully left the bed and moved to the dresser where earlier she'd arranged a bottle of his favorite brand of scotch, a bucket of ice, and two glasses. Articles of clothing were strewn on furniture and across the carpeting. She was attired only in a pair of large gold earrings that brushed her smooth shoulders whenever she moved her head.

Their love play had begun the moment he'd entered the hotel suite. During a lengthy, tongue-twining kiss, she had guided his hand beneath her skirt, pressing it between her open thighs. "You know what to do, baby. Make me crazy."

"You mean this?" His fingers separated the moist flesh and slipped inside her. "Lucky for you your customers wear your merchandise," he whispered as he stroked her. "What if everybody decided to go without underwear?"

"Everybody would have a lot more fun."

They eagerly shed their clothes without compromising the carnality of the kiss or his manual stimulation. Naked, they fell onto the bed, a tangle of brown and white limbs.

Now, Yasmine mixed his drink while watching him in the mirror. She always loved him best immediately after making love, when his sandy hair was uncharacteristically mussed and his lips were soft and relaxed. They were almost identical in height, but he had more physical stamina than his lean, compact physique indicated. The sheen of perspiration on his smooth chest reminded her of how vigorously he made love, and she felt another tingle of expectation between her thighs.

He stacked the pillows behind his back and sat up against the headboard. Returning to the bed with his drink, she stirred it with her index finger, then ran it across his lips. "How is it?"

He sucked her fingertip. "I taste you," he said huskily. "And me. Delicious. Perfect."

Smiling with pleasure, Yasmine handed him the highball and lay down curled against his side. He kissed her forehead. "You do everything perfect, Yasmine. You are perfect."

"No shit?" Snuggling closer, she applied her mouth to his nipple and damply agitated it with her tongue.

"No shit," he moaned.

"I'd make you a perfect wife."

His reaction was abrupt and negative. He stiffened, and not with heightened desire. "Don't spoil our time together, Yasmine," he urged softly. "These hours are so hard to come by. So precious to me. Don't spoil them by bringing up a topic that makes us both unhappy."

She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. "It doesn't make me unhappy to think about becoming Mrs. Mister Petrie."

"That's not what I meant. You know what I meant."

"I think about it all the time. It's what I want more than anything in the world," she said fiercely. Tears formed in her eyes and shimmered in the soft light.

"Me too, darling." He set his drink on the nightstand and turned onto his side to face her. "You're so beautiful." His hand glided over her breast. Her nipples were only slightly darker than her skin and very responsive. He bent down and kissed one, raising it with gentle plucking motions of his lips.

"Am I a fool to love you?" she asked.

"I'm the fool."

"Do you ever intend to leave her?"

"Soon, Yasmine, soon. You've got to trust me to choose the right time. This is a difficult situation. It's going to take a lot of finesse to escape it without someone getting hurt, namely you."

They had met a year earlier in Washington, D.C., at a black-tie reception in an African nation's embassy. Yasmine had been invited because she was reputed to have roots in that country. The story had been fabricated by some unknown source, but her agent had liked it and kept it alive for publicity purposes. It certainly had more romance and intrigue than the truth—that her family had lived in Harlem for four generations.

Resplendent in a gold lamé dress, she had been introduced to the handsome young congressman by one of his colleagues. For several minutes Alister had been tongue-tied, but her laughs and gentle teasing soon put him at ease. They ignored everyone else at the reception, eventually left together in a limo provided for her, and concluded the evening in bed in a suburban motel.

It wasn't until the following morning that he confessed to having a wife and children at home in New Orleans. The passion that Yasmine had exhibited in bed hadn't prepared him for the passion of her unleashed fury. She had railed at him, called him scandalously filthy names, and threatened him with voodoo curses that would shrivel his manhood and render it useless.

"You fuck 'em and forget 'em, is that it, Congressman? Well, sugar, you're not dealing with any ordinary dumb chick here. I'm Yasmine. Nobody screws me over and gets away with it."

Once he had calmed her down, he explained the sad state of affairs. "My and my wife's families were friends. Belle and I grew up together."

"Big fuckin' deal."

"Please, Yasmine. Hear me out. You don't understand our society down there."

"I understand enough. I've read the historical novels. I know that the rich white men marry rich white ladies, but take their pleasure in bed with black mistresses."

Groaning her name, he had slumped onto the edge of the bed and plowed all ten fingers through his hair in abject despair. "I swear to you… Oh, Jesus, you'll never believe me." He looked up at her imploringly, "I never loved Belle. But once my folks died, hers took me under their wing. I did what was expected of me, what was expedient. I've been a good husband. And I've tried to love her. God knows I've tried.

"You have every right to be angry with me, Yasmine," he'd said. "I should have told you I was married before we left the party together, before things got out of hand. Better still, after meeting you, I should have turned my back and walked away. Because I knew then that, well … you dazzled me."

He was a tormented man playing tug-of-war with desire and honor. "But the attraction was just too strong. I was thunderstruck. I simply had to be with you." He bowed his head and stared at the carpet between his shoes. "Now that you know about my family, you've got every right to despise me."

He raised his tortured eyes to hers. "But I'll never forget our one night together. It was the most erotically charged and sexually satisfying experience of my life. Forgive me, but I refuse to apologize for it." He swallowed, visibly emotional. "I'm thirty-four years old. But until last night I didn't know what it felt like to fall in love."

Yasmine's heart had melted. Dropping to her knees, she embraced him. They wept and laughed and then made love again. Since that morning they had met whenever their schedules permitted, stealing a few blissful hours in Washington, New York, or New Orleans. Yasmine didn't feel guilty about her affair with a married man. To her, adultery was just a word. What she shared with Alister was right. It was his marriage that was wrong.

Now, she whispered yearningly, "I get so lonesome for you, baby. I want to be with you all the time. I can't wait for the day when we won't have to sneak around."

"I'm running out of patience too, but I'm making headway."

"How?"

"I've been suggesting to Belle—very subtly, you understand—that perhaps she isn't fulfilled. That perhaps we married before she had a chance to discover herself. That sort of thing."

"Is it working?"

"I've noticed a coolness."

Yasmine's heart skipped a beat, and a hopeful smile flickered across her solemn face.

"And we're not … you know, sleeping together much anymore. It's been months." He drew Yasmine against him and whispered fervently into her hair, "Thank God for that. Every time I had to be with her, all I could think about was you. How you feel and smell and taste. How wanting you drives me insane."

Their mouths met, melded; desire was rekindled. Yasmine's lips skimmed his chest and belly, then she took his penis into her mouth, using her agile tongue to bring it to steely hardness. Rising, she teasingly drew the glistening tip across her nipples, transfixing him with her shameless sexuality. His face flushed, he clutched at the sheets. When he finally entered her, they were half-crazed with lust. Both climaxed in a feverish rush.

Alister showered while Yasmine languished in the tousled bed. She liked to linger as long as she could amid the linens that bore the musky scents of their sweat and their sex.

Eventually, she forced herself to get up and began dressing. Before he'd arrived, she had discarded her panties and placed them in her large leather shoulder bag. As she reached into the bag for them now, her hand closed around something familiar.

Her revolver.

Alister emerged from the bathroom. "Whoa!" He dropped the towel he'd been drying himself with and raised both hands in a sign of surrender. "Was my performance unsatisfactory?"

Laughing, Yasmine aimed the gun at the juncture of his thighs. "Bang bang!"

He laughed, too, then gathered his clothing and began dressing. "What the hell are you doing with that?"

"I don't know." He gave her a quizzical glance. "I mean, I thought I'd lost it."

"I wish you had. You shouldn't be toting that thing around."

"Where I grew up, carrying one of these helped ensure survival." She balanced the revolver in her palm. "I thought I'd misplaced it in a piece of luggage on one of my trips between here and New York. I figured it would turn up sooner or later, but I didn't know it was in this bag when I left with it tonight." Shrugging, she tossed the revolver back into her bag. "I'm glad Mr. Cassidy didn't have a search warrant."

"Cassidy? The assistant D.A.?"

Yasmine stepped into her dress. "Oh, I didn't get a chance to tell you earlier. He came to see Claire this afternoon."

"About what?"

"You'll never believe it. Reverend Jackson Wilde."

Alister, straightening his cuffs, checked his reflection in the hotel dresser's mirror. "What about him?"

"He wanted to know what Claire was doing the night Wilde was killed."

Alister turned to face her. "Get real."

Yasmine laughed as she buckled her oversized belt. "That was Claire's reaction, too. That crazy evangelist was a pain in the ass while he was alive, and now he's plaguing us from the grave."

"What's the connection? Other than the obvious."

"Wilde had a 'hit list,' as this Cassidy called it. A list of magazines that he wanted to abolish. French Silk's catalog was one of them. Did you know about that?"

"How would I?"

"Well, you and Wilde were so chummy," she teased.

"I attended a few receptions welcoming him to the city because Belle thought it politically beneficial for me to do so. Personally, I think he was full of shit."

"Amen. I wonder who had the pleasure of shutting him up permanently," she said with a wicked grin. "The police must be scrounging for leads. Anyone on that list would have motivation for killing him, but since French Silk is headquartered here in New Orleans, Cassidy thought that maybe… You get the picture.

"Anyway," she continued, sliding on her bangles, "it wouldn't have looked too good for me to be toting around a gun, would it? Especially if the D.A.'s office discovered that I was in New Orleans with you that night and not in New York as everyone believes. If it came down to it, would you vouch for my Whereabouts?"

"Don't even joke about it, Yasmine." He took her by the shoulders. "I know Cassidy by reputation: he's ambitious and shrewd and always goes for the jugular. It sounds as though he's grasping at straws to connect French Silk to Wilde's murder, and it might look silly to us, but you can be damn certain that he's serious."

"Well, I'm not worried. He's got nothing on Claire. He can't build a case around her catalog's appearance on a stupid list."

"Of course not."

"Then why the frown?"

"Because I don't want him snooping around you."

"He didn't question me."

"That doesn't mean he won't. If he does, I can't be used as your alibi. Listen, Yasmine," he said urgently, "until I resolve my marriage, in my own time and in my own way, it's imperative that no one find out about us."

"I know that," she said sullenly.

"You can't indicate to anyone—anyone—that we're seeing each other."

She was glad he'd brought up the topic because she'd been wanting to address it for a long time. "I want to tell Claire about us, Alister. I hate tricking her and acting out games like having her pick me up at the airport when I've already been in town for twelve hours. Can't I confide in her? She's not going to tell anybody."

He was stubbornly shaking his head before she'd even finished making the request. "No, Yasmine. You can't tell anybody. Promise?"

Angrily she thrust his hands off her shoulders. Her eyes glittered dangerously. "Are you so afraid that word will leak out and reach Belle?"

"Yes, I am. If she ever learned the real reason I want a divorce, she'd try to stop it any way she could. And when she realized that I was determined and that it was inevitable, she'd stall and drag out the proceedings indefinitely."

He sighed and drew Yasmine into his embrace. "Don't you see? Why give Belle ammunition to hurt us even more than we're hurting already? I'm thinking of you. I don't want you dragged into a nasty scandal. No one would understand what it's like between us. The public would think the worst."

She cupped his face between her hands. "I love you, Alister. But I'd kill you if I thought you were lying to me."

He turned his face into her palm and kissed it. "I want to be with you more than anything in the world. I want to be married to you, having babies, all of it."

They kissed until tenderness blossomed into passion. "We can't, Yasmine." He moved her questing hand away from his fly. "I'm already late."

"You ain't that late, sugar," she whispered seductively as she opened his zipper.

The time came, however, when he had to leave. It did no good to pout, cry, threaten, or cajole. When he had to go, he had to go. It was as simple as that. She didn't like it, but she had learned to accept it. She made their goodbyes as painless as possible.

"When will I see you?"

"I've got several meetings with the reelection committee this week," he told her as he checked the room for anything he might have left behind. "November will be here before we realize it. Then there's a family reunion in Baton Rouge over the weekend. It'll be hell, but I have to go."

"Belle and the children will be there?"

"Of course." He tipped up her lowered chin and kissed her again. "How about Sunday night? Here. I'll make up some excuse. They'll be tired after the weekend. I should be able to get away for an hour or so."

"Sunday night," she agreed, trying to look happy about it. It was five days away.

"If I run into a problem, I'll call you." She had a private telephone line in her bedroom in Claire's apartment; it wasn't answered if she wasn't there.

He was almost through the door when he turned back. "Do you need some money, Yasmine?"

Her wistful smile disintegrated. "For services rendered?" she snapped. "How much do you figure one of my blow-jobs is worth?"

"I merely want to help."

"I should never have told you I was in a cash crunch."

In a weak moment several months earlier she had mentioned to him that her expenditures were running slightly higher than her income. Each month she got a little further behind. Some of her creditors were making threats.

"It's more serious than a cash crunch, Yasmine," Alister said reasonably. "You've been in financial straits for months."

When her contract with the cosmetics line expired, the company had decided against renewing Yasmine in favor of a "new look," a youthful, bouncy blond. Yasmine had pretended to be unfazed by their decision, but it had been a blow to her ego. She'd always known that the life span of a cover girl was short, but when that last major contract had expired, the bitter reality of being a has-been had caused her bouts of depression. At least she hadn't depended exclusively on that contract for her livelihood.

Neither had she taken into account just how lucrative it had been. She hadn't reduced her spending to compensate for the loss. In addition, some of her investments hadn't paid off as well as anticipated. Unreal as it seemed, Yasmine was now broke.

"The situation is temporary, Alister," she said with asperity. "My accountant and I are working out a solution. Things are already beginning to turn around. In any event, I won't take money from you. I'd feel like a whore. Don't offer again."

"What about Claire? She'd be glad to help you."

"It's no more her problem than it is yours. It's mine, and I'll work it out."

She sensed that he wanted to argue further and was glad that he didn't. Instead, he came back and playfully swatted her fanny. "Sassy and sexy. No wonder I love you so much." He whisked a kiss across her mouth. "See you Sunday."

* * *

Yasmine and Claire arrived at French Silk at the same time. Yasmine paid her taxi fare, then joined Claire at the door. "What are you doing out at this time of night?"

Claire unlocked the door and turned off the security alarm. "I could ask you the same question, but then I already know the answer, don't I?" After resetting the alarm, they crossed the warehouse toward the elevator.

"Don't be sarcastic," Yasmine said. "Where have you been?"

"Walking. And I wasn't being sarcastic."

"You went out walking alone at this hour? You could have been mugged."

"I know every crumbling brick of the French Quarter. I'm not afraid of it."

"Well, you should be," Yasmine said as they got into the elevator. "When you roam these streets at night alone, you're asking for trouble. The least you could do is carry an insurance policy with you."

"Insurance policy?" Claire looked down to where Yasmine was patting the side of her shoulder bag. "A gun? You bought another one?" They had discussed the revolver when Yasmine reported it missing.

"I didn't have to. The original wasn't lost after all."

"I wish it had been."

They emerged from the elevator on the third floor. Claire quickly checked Mary Catherine's room to make certain she was safely in bed. Claire hadn't been away for more than half an hour, but her mother had been known to disappear in much less time.

"Everything all right?" Yasmine asked when Claire joined her in the kitchen. "I'm surprised you left her alone."

"I had to get some air. I needed to think. I hoped you'd get back, but…" She shrugged.

Yasmine flung down the apple she'd taken from the fruit bowl on the counter. "Okay, that's two pricks in a row. Instead of throwing these little poison darts, why don't you come right out and spear me? Say that you disapprove of my affair."

"I disapprove of your affair."

The two women exchanged a hostile stare. Yasmine was the first to break it. She plopped down onto a barstool with a muttered, "Oh, hell," and began picking at the peel of the apple with her sharp fingernails.

Claire went to the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of orange juice that Harry had squeezed fresh that morning. "I'm sorry, Yasmine. I had no right to say that to you. Who am I to approve or disapprove of your private life?"

"You're my best friend, that's who. That entitles you to an opinion."

"Which I should have kept to myself."

"Our friendship's based on candor."

"Oh? I always thought so too, but you haven't been candid. You've never even told me his name."

"If I could tell you about him, I would."

Claire studied her friend's tense facial muscles and red eyes. She'd been crying. Claire sat down on a stool next to Yasmine, removed the apple from her nervous hands, and clasped them between her own.

"I've been rude only because I'm worried. And I'm worried because you're miserable ninety percent of the time. That's why I disapprove of this affair. You're unhappy, Yasmine. Ideally, being in love is supposed to make people happy."

"The circumstances are hardly ideal. In fact it's the worse scenario you can imagine," she said with a bleak smile.

"He's married."

"Bingo."

Claire had been afraid of that, but knowing it for fact didn't make her feel better. "I couldn't see another reason for the secrecy. I'm sorry."

It was evident to Claire that Yasmine's suffering was genuine and deeply felt. This wasn't a capricious romantic adventure like so many of her previous love interests had been. When they had become friends, Yasmine was living a high-spirited social life. Her dates ranged from professional athletes to business tycoons to movie stars to foreign royalty.

About a year ago, Yasmine's whirlwind romances had stopped, and she began going away for unspecified lengths of time to inexact destinations. She was evasive and secretive. She was either ecstatic or abysmal, and her mood swings were swift and drastic. They still were. Besides this secret lover, she saw no one else, as far as Claire knew. Undeniably, her friend was in love, and the love affair was making her dreadfully unhappy.

"Does he meet you here in New Orleans?" she asked gently.

"Actually he lives here," Yasmine replied.

Claire was surprised. "You met him here?"

"No. Actually we met in … uh, back east. Last year. It was purely by coincidence that we both have lives in New Orleans, too."

"A convenient coincidence." Claire hated herself for what she was thinking—that the man knew a good thing when he saw it and was taking advantage of Yasmine's ties to his hometown.

"It's not that convenient," Yasmine replied grimly. "He's paranoid about his wife finding out about us before he has a chance to divorce her."

"That's the plan?"

Yasmine whipped her head around. "Yes," she answered testily. "That's the plan: You don't think I'd be having a lengthy affair with a married man unless it was really love, do you? As soon as it's possible, he's divorcing her and marrying me."

"Yasmine—"

"He is, Claire. He loves me. I know he does."

"I'm sure he does," Claire murmured, unconvinced. If he loved her so much, why would he cause her this much misery? she wondered. "Does he have children?"

"Two. A boy, ten, and a girl, six. He's nuts about his kids. I've thought of them, Claire. Don't think I haven't. I wonder what a divorce will mean to them. Oh, God."

She propped her elbows on the bar and buried her face in her hands. "When I think of breaking up a family, it makes me sick to my stomach. But he doesn't love his wife. He never has. Sex between them has always been lousy."

Claire's silence must have conveyed her skepticism because Yasmine raised her head and looked at her. "It has," she insisted. "He's told me, but I knew even before that. The first time I went down on him, he was so overwhelmed I thought he was going to cry. And he's told me that his wife would rather die than let him put his mouth 'down there,' even if she could conceive of such a thing. She believes there's no such thing as sex without guilt, so it's straight missionary position all the way."

Yasmine had never been squeamish when talking about sex. Before this affair, she had frequently regaled Claire with the lurid details of her active love life.

Now, she stabbed the cool marble countertop with her index fingernail. "I'm the best damn thing that's ever happened to him, Claire. I'd make him a good wife."

"Then why doesn't he make a clean break? Why torture you both?"

"He can't," she said with a melancholy shake of her head. "The divorce is going to have a profound effect on his career. He's well known. He's in thick with his in-laws and all their friends. Jesus, it'll be a mess. He has to work it out and wait until the time is right. Until then, I have to be patient and look forward to the day we can be together."

Claire was less optimistic and felt it was her duty as a friend to play devil's advocate. "Yasmine, affairs like this seldom turn out sunny."

""Affairs like this'? How the hell would you know what it's like?"

Claire could see Yasmine's temper emerging so she kept her own at bay. "All I'm saying is that it goes against the law of averages. Men who are well positioned in the community rarely leave their wives and families for their mistresses. Yasmine," she asked softly, "is he white?"

"So what if he is?"

Yasmine's chilly reaction indicated that he was. "This is the South. New Orleans. Men here have a tradition of—"

"He's not like that," Yasmine interrupted vehemently. "He's the least racially prejudiced person I've ever met."

Claire forced a smile. "I'm sure he must be or you couldn't love him." She knew when to back down. Yasmine's frame of mind wasn't conducive to an honest discussion. She was wounded, and like any wounded animal she would lash out at anyone who tried to help her. "Forgive me for bringing it up."

"Don't patronize me, Claire."

"I'm not."

"The hell you're not!" Yasmine jumped off her stool. "I doubt if you believe a word I've told you. You probably think he's just screwing me for the hell of it."

Claire pushed back her own stool and stood up. "Good night. I'm going to bed."

"You're running away from an argument."

"Right," she shouted back. "I refuse to argue with you about this because it's a no-win situation. If I say anything negative, you'll leap to his defense. I don't care who or what your lover is. My only concern is your unhappiness. If you want to live like this, that's your business. As long as it doesn't affect your work, it's got nothing to do with me."

"Oh no? What about your jealousy?"

"Jealousy?"

"Don't strike that innocent posture with me, Claire. I can see through it. I'm crazy in love with a guy who's willing to overturn his entire life for me, while your personal life is as sterile as a nun's."

Claire silently counted to ten. When Yasmine was upset with herself, she picked fights in order to redirect her anger. It was a character flaw that Claire, over the course of their friendship, had learned to tolerate. Nevertheless, recognizing it didn't make it any less exasperating. Tomorrow morning Yasmine would be gushing sincere smiles and apologies, calling herself a selfish bitch, and begging Claire's forgiveness, but Claire wasn't up to the exhausting exercise tonight.

"Think what you want to. I'm tired. Good night."

"That Cassidy—does he have a first name?"

"I don't know." Claire switched out the lights on the way down the hall toward her bedroom. Yasmine didn't take the hint. She was on Claire's heels, like a pesky puppy.

"Did you go all cool and haughty on him?"

"I was hospitable."

"Did he realize he was being buffaloed?"

Claire came to a sudden halt and spun around to confront Yasmine. "What are you talking about?"

"You're damned good at equivocating, Claire, but based on my first impressions of Mr. Cassidy, I doubt he takes crap like that from a woman."

"I'm sure he wasn't regarding me as a woman in that sense. He was here in an official capacity."

"He stayed an awfully long time."

"He had a lot of questions to ask."

"Did you have answers?"

Again, Claire gave her friend a hard look. "Only a few. He wanted to connect me to Jackson Wilde's murder, and there is no connection."

"Did you think he was sexy?" Yasmine asked.

"I assume you're referring to the assistant district attorney and not to the evangelist."

"You're equivocating, Claire. Answer the question."

"I didn't give Mr. Cassidy's looks much thought."

"Well, I did. He's sexy in a dark, intense way. Don't you think?"

"I don't remember."

"I'll bet he fucks with his eyes open and his teeth clenched. Makes me hot just to think about it."

Yasmine was trying to provoke her. Refusing to be baited, Claire stepped into her bedroom. "I thought you were in love."

"I am. But I'm not blind. And I'm not dead." Through Claire's closed bedroom door, Yasmine added, "And even though you'd like for Mr. Cassidy and every other man to think your drawers could form icicles, neither are you, Claire Laurent."

As she listened to Yasmine's withdrawing footsteps, Claire glimpsed her reflection in the mirrored door of the armoire. Quite unlike herself, she looked agitated, confused, and afraid.

And Mr. Cassidy was the reason.

* * *