Page 10 of Dreaming
Mid-October 2016
In all her life, Nia had never been so panicked about what to wear. She stood in her closet for half an hour, struggling.
Finally, she sent her mom a text and sweet Nellie video called seconds later.
“You’re going out with the bed crawler?”
“Oh, lord, Mom…please.”
Laughing warmly, Nellie nodded knowingly. “After what you told me, I can’t say I blame you. Now! Let’s get you fixed up. Sounds like you know where all this is going so let’s not play coy but don’t go nuts because it doesn’t fit your personality. Take me in your closet…”
At six-thirty, Nia applied a lip stain, a light gloss, and transferred what she needed from her wallet to her little clutch. She took in her appearance and decided it was the best it was going to get.
She’d never have Nicki’s body or ridiculously beautiful face but she knew she was pretty enough, had good hair, and the clothes she bought accentuated her positives.
With her mom’s help, she decided on a maroon mini dress with a black lace overlay that hugged her breasts and flared delicately just under them.
Stopping just past her mid-thigh, she wore stacked heels without stockings. Simple, black lace underthings waited underneath. Delicate perfume spritzed in all the right places was a nod to what might lay ahead.
Her makeup was light, her hair blown out and left loose down her back, her jewelry minimal. A ring, a watch, and diamond studs were more than enough.
At a quarter to seven, she checked to make sure the house was locked and most of the lights were off. She was taking her dress coat from the foyer closet when the doorbell startled her.
“He’s here early? Men are never early anymore.”
Glancing through the peephole, she almost swallowed her tongue. Ordering her entire body to calm the fuck down, she took a deep breath and opened the door to a man she’d never met but had already fucked.
It was incredibly complicated.
His eyes tracked down her body and back to her face. When he extended his hand, she placed hers in it.
Accustomed to being the biggest person in her family since she lost her dad and brother, it was a shock how much smaller her hand looked in his. In her heels, she was six-one. He was several inches taller still and in excellent physical shape.
“Dennis Hancock,” he said with a bright smile.
“Nia Webber.” She didn’t even know if she said the words aloud. Clearing her throat, she asked, “W-would you like to come in?”
“I step past this threshold and I won’t have the strength to leave until you’re naked and spread for me.”
Without giving her poor scrambled brain a moment to process the words, he tugged her gently toward him through the door and onto her little porch.
“Save me from myself, Nia.” He took her coat and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Have everything you need?” She nodded. “Excellent.” She locked her house with a shaking hand and he placed his at her lower back. “You look exquisite.”
“Thank you,” she replied softly.
Because of her job, Nia understood the value of possessions. She knew that he wore a suit worth at least three grand, a watch worth ten times that, and as he led her to his Mercedes, she knew to the penny what he’d spent for the top-of-the-line sedan. Nothing made sense.
This man was her little sister’s bar hookup?
Opening the door, handing her inside, he smiled as he closed her in. The car was immaculate but it wasn’t a rental. A small sticker in the corner of the windshield was a gate pass to an exclusive neighborhood on the outskirts of Chicago.
Watching him walk around the front of the car, the deep black of the suit only a few shades darker than his skin, Nia found herself physically overwhelmed. Not an expression she ever would have thought to apply to herself.
After he slid behind the wheel, buckled his seatbelt, and started the car, Dennis picked up her hand and kissed the back. Then he placed it on his thigh, covered it with his own, and reversed out of her driveway.
He drove toward Chicago proper, soft jazz playing, and asked her questions she answered as her entire body trembled. In the course of her job, Nia sometimes interviewed dangerous people remotely. She never flinched in asking tough questions.
He made her nervous, speechless.