Shakin' It For Daddy (The Panty Droppers) (3 page)

Chapter Four

Mika sat behind the building, hyperventilating and trying desperately to steady her beating heart. The one day she thought nothing could possibly get any worse, Mika was wrong. Degan proved no matter how bad Mika’s life is—it could always get worse. She knew then why smokers had to light up after something stressful. She wanted a cigarette and she didn’t even smoke. Running a hand over her face, she looked around, ensuring he hadn’t followed her.

Degan Moira?

What the hell, man!

That was the last person she expected to see in Simora. How could she possibly face him? She hadn’t done anything with the hoity-toity, holier than thou attitude she had in high school. She could only associate with certain people, eat certain things, and carried herself a certain way. In her head, she wouldn’t hang with people who had no ambition. Years later, that hadn’t helped her. She hadn’t done anything with the high grades she had insisted on getting back then either. Her life had revolved around this one dream and college wasn’t even in her rear-view mirror. Mika had her life planned—she was going to become a Showgirl in the Simora show—earn enough money to live her life and save enough to start her own bookstore.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Mika paced back and forth. She walked to the edge of the building to peer around. Degan was standing outside as though he was looking for her.

“Go away!” Mika muttered. “Please go away. I’m begging you, leave!”

Degan didn’t budge and Mika wanted to scream. How did he find her? What did he want? The longer she stood there watching him, the more irritated she got. Eventually, Mika gathered herself and took off in the opposite direction away from the Mingy’s. She was pretty sure Farley was going to be upset, but she couldn’t face Degan. She couldn’t let him look at her and see what an utter failure she’d become. Removing her shoes, she glanced both ways, before crossing the street and ducking down the path the high school students had so aptly named
Booker Trail.
There was a story behind it—something about some kid name Thadius T. Booker that hung himself from a tree along the trail. Sad, but Mika wasn’t surprised. If anyone that looked remotely different lived in that town she was pretty sure they’d take any chance they got to get out of it.

It was the long way home, but eventually she emerged from the path onto the street before the small apartment building and entered it. There was an
out of order
sign on the door. She cursed under her breath and turned to the stairs. But getting to the safety of her apartment wasn’t any help. The red light on the voicemail flashed at her, almost taunting and daring her to ignore it.

“Damn it!” she swore and reached for the play button.

Mika, it’s Degan. I’m sorry, I’m not stalking you—it’s just that...well, you’re listed. I would really like an opportunity to speak with you. Give me a call back. I’ll be staying at the Hilton in Braison since there isn’t a hotel in Simora. Please, call. My cell phone is 555-7283.

The machine beeped and Mika fell to the ground beside the machine. Loneliness coursed through her. For the first time in a long while, Mika felt the need for companionship. She yearned for someone to speak to in order to make the decision of whether or not she should call Degan. How could she call him? She was a loser, with no money, a crappy job, thirty and single. He’d made a life for himself. Just before she moved to Simora she remembered reading an article about his technology business. They were calling him New York’s most eligible bachelor.

But still the red light on the machine flashed. It jeered at her like a school yard bully because it knew she was weak.

Without even thinking, she reached for the phone and dialed the number he left.

“Moira,” he answered.

Mika turned her body, pressing into the wall. Pain flowed through her body causing her to press her eyes shut and held onto her slightly throbbing forehead. His sexy, husky voice didn’t help her guilt for calling him. Her mind was playing tricks on her for she kept seeing him stripping for her. The way he walked around her bed, smirked at her before crawling across the bed to her jarred her heart into racing.

“Hello? Anyone there?”

“Degan. It-it’s Mika.”

“Thanks for calling.”

“Don’t thank me,” Mika said, shaking her head. “What do you want from me?”

“To talk to you—I don’t want anything you’re not willing to give.”

“Degan, there you go with this fucking conversational, riddle crap. What do you
really
want?”

Silence poured over the phone. Mika’s heart beat faster until she was lightheaded and on the brink of tears. “You never once spoke to me in high school because you obviously thought you were out of my league. So why do you want to talk now?”

“I was a kid then,” he pleaded. “I didn’t know better. And besides if I had tried talking to you back then would you have even looked at me? Tell me honestly.”

Mika rolled her eyes. Now he was making all this her fault? “Don’t ask me that,” she said.

“Okay. I’ll say this—you have dinner with me. One night, one meal, one talk and if you still want me to, I’ll go away.”

Mika thought about the offer. If he would go away after one meal, then she had nothing to lose and everything to gain. She would gain her sanity and be able to slip into her pathetic obscurity without much fuss. With her plan in place, she took a deep breath. “All right. One dinner, one night then you go away.”

“Deal,” Degan agreed. “Tonight at Fortecelli in Braison. Can you get here by seven?”

“Yes,” Mika said. She was already dreading the dinner because Fortecelli was one of the most expensive, posh restaurants in Braison. “I can get there by seven.”

After hanging up, Mika bopped her head backward against the wall. It was as if she fell from the frying pan and into the damn fire.

* * * *

Making a reservation at Fortecellie’s was easy enough. All he had to do was tell them his name. The rest of the time was spent pacing his room and looking at the clock. At about five, Degan stripped and stepped into the shower. The moment the water touched his skin his mind began playing tricks on him. Mika was with him, her large breasts pressing into his chest with her arms around his neck. She was looking up into his face, licking her beautiful lips and pushing on her tip toes to kiss him. Degan wrapped his fingers around his hard cock and stroked, slowly at first. The more things Mika did to his body, the harder he tugged. Soon he was groaning and exploding over the wall before him.

“Fuck!” he cried out. His body vibrated violently as he slipped to one knee and grabbed the side of the tub. His orgasm had been powerful, almost scary.

He finished his shower, washed off the wall and stepped out with a towel in one hand. Taking time to dry his body, Degan slipped into a pair of black dress pants with a black shirt and grabbed his wallet. He ensured his credit cards were in it before brushing his hair and exiting his room. It would take him a few minutes to drive to the restaurant, but he wanted to leave with plenty of time so she didn’t show up, think he stood her up and leave hating him.

The host led him to their private table. Waiting was the hard part. He kept looking at his watch and then at the door. Finally, he started thinking she wasn’t going to show up when he saw her at the door. Degan licked his lips at the elegant vision before him. The black dress she wore was simple, but it hugged her waist and flowed over her hips just right. It stopped just above her knees exposing legs that looked freshly shaven and clean. Silver stilettos adorned her feet, pushing her higher than his guessed height of five three. Her braids were tied back exposing silver stud earrings. He couldn’t help thinking that if she was his woman, she would be wearing dangling diamonds to glitter with her eyes. She was clutching to a black Clutch purse so hard, he saw her knuckles changing colors.

Standing up, Degan had to force his feet to move. He rushed over to her and rested a hand against the small of her back leading her to the table. Pulling out her chair for her, he allowed her to sit before walking around to sit down across from her.

“You look beautiful,” he finally said.

“I bet you say that to all the woman you bring out to dinner,” she spoke softly.

Degan stopped himself from replying while the waiter poured their wine and took their orders. When he exited, Degan placed his napkin in his lap and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to just show up and turn your life up-side down.”

“Yes you did.” She sipped daintily from her glass. “You’re Degan Moira. Your job has always been to make the lesser beings suffer.”

“Is that what you really thought about me?”

“No. It’s what I think about you—present tense.”

Degan nodded looking at his glass and then back at her. “Don’t you want to know why I searched for you?”

“It has crossed my mind.”

Degan sat back in his seat wondering if he should come out and say it or if he should beat around the bush. Her eyes made him horny as she stared at him from the other side of the table.

“I would like to be honest with you, Mika,” he said, taking a sip from his wine and put the glass away from him. “I don’t want to mislead you in any way. I don’t want to start this out with a lie…with that said, I don’t want to offend you or disgust you—”

“Degan!” she called. “Out with it.”

“I want you,” Degan confessed.

She arched a brow. “You want me to do what?”

“I don’t want you to do anything,” Degan told her. “I want
you.
I want to spend time with you—getting to know you better. I want to touch you, kiss you, taste you; fuck you.”

“Whoa! Stop right there!” she snapped, slamming her napkin onto the table. “You can’t ignore me all through high school, when I was something, when I had promised and then show up in my life, all these years later, telling me you want to be my man. It doesn’t work like that. You can go back and tell Preston that he got me and I fell for it. I don’t have time for this.”

She was picking up her clutch when Degan grabbed her hand. “Preston is in Australia. He has nothing to do with this; in fact he tried talking me out of coming here. Come on, Mika. Gimme a break! This wasn’t exactly easy to do, you know. Please…hear me out.”

For a moment, she stood there, looking down to where his hand held hers. Finally she fell into the chair across from him, but didn’t so much as reach for her drink. She shrugged his hand off hers.

“All right—talk.”

Degan nodded. “Thank you. In high school I was an idiot. I had this reputation I thought I had to protect back then. Don’t ask me from what or why, but I thought it was important. I was supposed to get married a while back and it all fell to pieces because of something I did.”

“What did you do?”

“I called out your name during sex.”

The disbelief was evident on her face. Degan smiled and raked his fingers through his hair. “She was not pleased.”

“I’d say.”

“It’s not funny. I thought I could let you go—stop thinking about you. But as you can see, I couldn’t seem to do that because I’m here and you’re running from me.”

Their meal arrived at that moment but Degan could see fire flashing through her eyes. Thanking the waitress, he picked up his fork and braced for the words she was about to fling at him.

“Could you see to it that we are not disturbed?” Degan asked the waitress.

“Absolutely, sir.” With a smile, the blond exited the private area and closed the door softly behind her.

“So what do you want me to do about your confession?” Mika broke the silence.

“I want you to give me a chance.”

“A chance at what?”

“Are you always this infuriating?” Degan was getting irritating. “I want you, okay? There’s nothing more to it.”

* * * *

Mika took a while to keep her attention on him. She always had a way of reading someone. She could normally tell when they were lying to her and Degan Moira seemed as serious as a heart-attack.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been with someone,” Mika finally spoke to him. She picked up her fork with a piece of chicken. Biting it off, she chewed thoughtfully. “I have to set a few ground rules.”

“Ground rules?”

“Yes—I’m not the type of girl you can take home to Mommy. I don’t like vanilla sex and I don’t do boring. I want a man who knows when to spank my ass and pull my hair without asking. I don’t want to have to tell him that he needs to get on his knees and eat my pussy and I don’t want him telling me I can’t suck his dick because it’s not proper. Can you handle that?”

“You’re trying to scare me away,” Degan chuckled.

“There’s no trying to do anything.” Mika shrugged at him.

“Very well—are those your conditions?”

“Some. What kind of relationship do you want from me? I’m too old for mind-games and bullshit.”

“I want a serious relationship, Mika. I want it all. I wanted us to build on the sexual, almost obsessive, feelings I have for you.”

“Here is my condition—you please me sexually for a week, and then we can talk about where to go next.”