At Last Read online

  He counted to five, bit his tongue, and then answered as brightly as he could, “I’ll be there.”

  “I’m so glad,” she gushed, clearly relieved.

  Uncomfortable silence filled the car.

  “Just let me know if you want me to bring anything,” he offered awkwardly.

  “A nice girl would be lovely,” she deadpanned.

  “Ha.” His laugh came out dry. He had to give her credit for trying. “I meant food.”

  “I know, dear, I just want to see you settled—

  “Down,” he finished. This had been a heavily repeated conversation since he had graduated college. She seemed to think he could handle a full-time teaching job, research and writing his manuscript, and dating in any meaningful way. It was out of the question. Even if he wanted it.

  He didn’t.

  “Sorry, honey.” Her voice was softer. “I know you know how I feel ... seven o’clock Sunday, okay?”

  “Okay,” he answered.

  “I love you, Dom.”

  “I love you, too, Mom. Go get that manor sold.”

  She chuckled and hung up the phone.

  With a groan he unfolded himself from his car and headed inside, hauling his leather bag full of worksheets and research.

  After throwing his keys on the table, he dialed his brother Mason, if anyone knew what might be up with their mother, he was the guy. And he didn’t really want to wait until Sunday for confirmation. It would eat his stomach from the inside.

  “Dom,” Mason answered, “what’s up, man?” He could hear the sounds of his younger brother’s workshop in the background.

  “Hey, Mace, how’s it going?”

  “Pretty good, business is good, I just sold a slew of tables to that new boutique hotel down on Michigan.”

  Dom smiled, Mason had created AdamsMade from scratch, an up-and-coming furniture company that had steadily grown from a few chairs in the garage to a ten-member team in an industrial part of town. To say he was proud of his brother would be an understatement.

  “Congrats, man, that’s amazing news.”

  “It will be when the work is done.” He blew out a heavy breath. “I’m going to be pretty fucking tired of these little tables. Anyway, what’s up?”

  Dom circled the same spot in the kitchen a few times. “I was just wondering if you knew what Mom wants to tell us on Sunday.”

  Mason didn’t answer for a moment, as if he were choosing his words carefully. “I think it has something to do with a boyfriend. But I don’t know for sure.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of.” Dom sighed, leaning against the counter.

  “I know how you feel, man. I’m trying to be supportive but ...”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll bring beer,” Mason offered weakly.

  “Make it whiskey and I might survive.”

  Mason laughed. “You got it. I’ve got to get back to work, but I’ll see you Sunday.”

  “See you,” Dom answered and ended the call.

  “Fuck.” He bit out, slamming his phone on the counter. He wasn’t angry, just something, and he didn’t like it.

  It had been a long week already and hadn’t gotten shit done on his research. Now this.

  Thankfully, Dom had reserved this night for hours of desperately needed uninterrupted writing. He would open a beer, pop a pizza in the oven, and work until he dropped.

  He pulled on an old Cubs T-shirt, some workout pants, grabbed said beer, and settled into his office.

  The converted second bedroom was a disaster of papers. Old pictures, edited and re-edited pages of his growing manuscript, notes, newspaper clippings, anything even remotely connected to his manuscript covered every inch of the room. Though it didn’t look it, it was all highly organized, albeit in a system only he would be able to decipher.

  With a satisfied sigh, Dom settled into the leather chair that had been his father’s. It was cracked and faded and his most prized possession.

  After three solid hours of pizza-fueled work, he didn’t even hear his cell until the fifth ring.

  “Seb,” he answered, trying to finish typing the last sentence and balance his phone at the same time.

  “Yo, Dom, man, how are you?”

  “Busy.” He smiled at the sound of his brother’s voice. It always sounded so relaxed, so cool. It was an effective front Seb had cultivated since he had discovered jazz in middle school.

  “Yeah, that’s good. Hey, man, I don’t know if you heard but I’m back in town for a few months. The band is taking a break from tour.”

  “Mom mentioned it today.” Dom hit save and sat back to give his brother his full attention. “We need to catch up.”

  “I was thinking the same thing. It’s been months.”

  “Well, you’ll be at Mom’s Sunday, right?”

  “Yeah, pretty sure she’d kill me if I didn’t show. I think she’s been banging some guy and wants to tell us about it.”

  Dominic squeezed his eyes shut. “Fuck, man, don’t say it like that, please.”

  Seb laughed in his easy way. “Well, I mean, it’s about time, don’t you think?”

  He didn’t answer.

  After a moment of silence, his brother went on, “Anyway, there’s this great show at Mo’s tonight; it’s a kick-ass band and some female vocalists. Jer’s looking for a new drummer, so I told him I would scope this guy out tonight. Want to come along?”

  “It’s a school night, Seb, you know that.”

  “I do, but I also know that these ladies tonight are supposed to be knock-outs. And we both know that’s right up your alley.”

  “Seb.”

  “Come on, man, we haven’t seen each other in months, and there’s nothing like a sexy jazz bird. Vocals that will make your dick hard.”

  Dom sighed. Going out with Seb was a very bad idea. He needed to write.

  However, after Seb had used the words “mother” and “banging” in the same sentence, he knew his concentration had gone to shit. Probably forever. He sighed in defeat. “What time?”

  “Fuck yeah, man.” He could hear Seb smile. “Opener starts at nine, the ladies are on at ten.”

  “I’ll be there at ten.” Dom sighed.

  “Cool, can’t wait to see you, man.”

  Lula

  “I can’t believe you talked me into this.”

  “What?” Amy asked from where she was perched on the edge of her bed, watching Lula spin slowly around her tiny bedroom. “You’ve always wanted to do this, and now you are. I don’t see how this is my fault.”

  Ignoring her point, Lula stopped after her 360 and waited for Amy to approve her appearance. “Well?” They had spent months putting this look together.

  Amy shook her head and stood. “Look at yourself.” She took Lula’s shoulders and angled her toward the mirror. “You are a goddess.”

  Lula snorted. “Right. And it only took four hours of work and a year’s salary worth of product.” She motioned toward the table that held the proof. Looking again, she touched at her dark hair, artfully coiled into victory rolls by Amy, and admired her smoky eyes and bright red lips.

  “I have to admit, though,” Lula said, cocking her head to the side, “it’s better than I thought it would be. I’m starting to wonder why I don’t wear lipstick regularly.”

  “I’ve been wondering that since I met you,” Amy quipped. “You have the perfect lips and coloring for red. I can’t wear anything darker than my natural color or I look like a middle school girl with her first tube.”

  Lula laughed. “Liar, you make everything look amazing.”

  Amy smiled over her shoulder in the mirror. “Maybe. But I could never pull off this dress.” She said the word “dress” as if it were the most delicious word.

  “Oh, this dress.” Lula sighed, sliding her hands down the smooth black satin on her hips. “I love this dress; I am never going to take it off.”

  “Well, I don’t think you should, it was literally made for you.”


  “You have a point.” She spun around again, loving the way the satin perfectly curved over her hips and framed her round bottom with a little ruching. She paid a friend a small fortune to create this satin dream. Worth it. Worth every damn penny.

  “I wish I had your ass.” Amy sighed, slapping it playfully.

  “Hey!”

  “Oh, stop, that dress begs to be touched. I couldn’t help myself.” Amy ran across the room and grabbed the impossibly gorgeous red velvet peep-toe heels from the box on her bed. “Now these,” she ordered, handing them over to her.

  Using her friend for balance, Lula slipped the shoes on and stood a whole five inches taller than before.

  “Oh my God.” Amy’s eyes were huge. “You look like Jessica Rabbit.”

  Lula laughed.

  “No, I take that back, you look like Jessica Rabbit if she were a dark, sexy spy.”

  She turned back to the mirror and felt a little stunned by what she saw. This was possibly the best she had ever looked. Possibly the best she could ever look. She was at her peak. And it had only taken hundreds of dollars, hours of planning, and the talent of two good friends. An effortless beauty she was not.

  She popped a leg out and gasped at how high the slit reached on her thigh. “This isn’t too revealing is it?”

  Amy rolled her eyes and repositioned the low neckline that pulled across her ample breasts. “No, I still wish I could have talked you into an even higher push-up bra.”

  Lula looked at the way her breasts mounded over the top of the dress and laughed. “Any more lift and I would float.”

  Amy giggled and then declared, “Earrings, where are they?

  “Dresser, velvet pouch.”

  Amy retrieved the pouch and pulled the vintage gold and ruby chandelier earrings out with a reverent sigh. “These are perfection.”

  Lula agreed. They were the product of several days’ searching and more than one heated argument with Amy. Once donned, she backed up and peered at herself critically.

  “Is that ... is that a smile, Lula Stanley?”

  She beamed at herself and then her friend. “I think it is. Thank you for this, Amy.”

  “Oh darling, you are so welcome.”

  She took her friend by the hand and took a deep breath. “I can do this. I can do this, right?” Her tone got increasingly less sure. “Do you think I can do this?”

  “You can absolutely do this,” Amy assured her. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

  Lula’s heart felt like a drum—a drum that had been kicked down a flight of stairs. She took a steadying breath. “Thank you.”

  “Stop it with that. You can thank me in the morning when you’re barely awake at school with the sorest feet you’ve ever had.”

  She giggled slightly. “I’ve been meaning to ask how you wear heels all the time, they’re the worst.” She’d had them on for all of thirty seconds and already wanted to give up. “Are my toes supposed to be this color?”

  Her friend rolled her eyes. “You have been practicing, right?”

  She nodded dutifully. “Yes, every night for weeks.”

  “Good, you are going to knock them dead.”

  “Or at least unconscious.”

  “Well, their cocks will be hard, that’s for sure.”

  “Amy!”

  She laughed as they linked arms and headed out the door.

  Chapter 3

  Dominic

  Mo’s was your usual tiny downtown jazz room; somehow eternally smoky, a pervasive smell of whiskey, small tables, dimly lit, it had everything. Including a small stage that took up the far end of the room. The opening band was in the process of loading out to prepare for the closer when Dom arrived.

  “Yo, Dom!” Seb waved to him from a table near the front. Dom smirked. Sitting in the front was a very Seb thing to do. He would have sat in the back.

  His brother looked perfectly cool in his black pants and grey button-up. His sleeves were rolled up to show off his colorful tattoos and his hair was very carefully placed to look as if he didn’t care.

  Dom smiled and made his way over to give him a hug. He missed his brother. Before Seb had signed on with his band, they hadn’t spent very many days outside of the same city. “You look great, man,” he told him honestly. “The road has been good to you.”

  “Lots of ass on the road,” Seb answered with a wink.

  Dom laughed. The one thing the Adams brothers never had a lack of was that. Seb was perhaps the biggest lothario of the three, and traveling with a national jazz act had only exacerbated it.

  “You look good, too, man, you’ve got that ‘trendy intellectual’ thing going on.”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “Which is why it works so well for you.”

  Dom took a seat on the impossibly small chair. “How was the opening band?” He reached across the table for the drink menu. Seb always watched the openers. He couldn’t resist; jazz was his life.

  “Ah, pretty good, man, their bassist was a beast, but the tenor sax ...” Seb shook his head as if it had been physically painful to listen to.

  “No one will ever be as good as you, though, right?”

  Seb smirked. “It’s been said.”

  Dom chuckled.

  They talked lightly for the next half hour as the feature band set up, sipping at whiskey drinks named after famous jazz musicians. Seb drank so fast that Dom was concerned when he didn’t appear at all affected. It made him wonder how much he was drinking on the road and he had a suspicion he wouldn’t like the answer.

  “These dolls are supposed to have killer vocals,” Seb mentioned as the featured band finished their soundcheck. The lights went down and a lone spotlight illuminated the stage.

  Dom nodded, not terribly interested in how talented they were, big tits were really all it would take to make his venture into the night worth the difficult morning he was going to have. Seb had never had a day-to-day job; he didn’t understand what waking up before seven a.m. was like—Dom wasn’t even sure he knew there was a seven a.m. “I thought you were here to check out the drummer.”

  Seb smiled playfully. “Who said I can’t do both?”

  Dom shook his head and the club owner took the stage to proudly announce the start of the set. “These dolls are beautiful, talented, and dangerous,” he warned them. “Keep your hearts safe and your hands to yourself.”

  The crowd, which had become considerably larger since he had arrived, began clapping. Dom briefly wondered if he was the only one in the city of Chicago that had to be up early.

  Without waiting for the applause to fade, the band lit into a hot number to keep the crowd warmed up, and before he knew what was happening, one gorgeous woman after another was trotted out to sing, working the room until it was on its feet. He had to admit it wasn’t the worst night he had ever spent. And there were plenty of big tits so it was a win.

  Seb would occasionally toss him a look, but he was focused, in his element, his happiest. Dom admired that about him, how he seemed to connect to music as if it had grown roots right into his chest.

  The owner returned to the stage one last time. “To end our fantastic set tonight, ladies and gentlemen, we have our most delicious doll, who will sing you off to sleep with ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me.’ And I guarantee, gentlemen”—he grinned—“this will be a dream you will never forget.”

  The lights suddenly went down and Dom could just make out a lithe figure walking to the center of the stage.

  The spotlight came on slowly as a lone trumpet started its sensuous plea.

  “God DAMN,” Dom whispered, ignoring whatever Seb had said at the same time. A vixen stood on the stage, back to the audience, her perfect ass shining in deep black satin, her creamy back a work of art, one hand on her hip as she started to sway to the music.

  The delicate muscles rolled in her back and Dom’s cock hardened even before he saw her face. He had never seen a more perfect backside.
It made his mouth water.

  With a hit, she turned around and he gasped. He actually fucking gasped. She was stunning, deep dark eyes, delicately arched eyebrows, and the most luscious red lips he had ever seen. He wanted those lips to himself, on his mouth, on his cock and the only thought in his brain was making that happen.

  But as delicious as she was to look at, with the top of her breasts pouring out of that dress, it was almost nothing compared to the voice that came out of her. It was husky, dark, and vibrated sensually through him. Right to his groin. He had never heard anything so seductive, so perfectly erotic in his life. “Fuck,” he whispered, garnering an arched look from Seb.

  He watched her sway around the stage with his mouth open. He didn’t blink. He didn’t breathe. All he could do was imagine her stripping off that sinful dress for him while she sang.

  Jesus.

  He wiped a hand down his face and tried to gain some sort of control.

  It worked. Until she stepped off the stage and started singing to each table. She would bend forward so that her breasts kissed and her back arched. It was too much. He was gone. He was the cartoon fox with his tongue on the floor.

  As she made her way toward their table singing the words “still craving your kiss,” he groaned inwardly. Her lips, good god, those lips.

  Sitting on his hands in an attempt to look cool and unbothered, Dom couldn’t breathe as she sidled up to them. She stopped at Seb first and tousled his hair. He winked at her playfully, leaning slightly into her touch.

  Dom was next. His eyes closed and his breath caught as she ran a finger seductively down his jaw. His entire body shuddered with desire and a strangely delicious connection. He felt as if he needed this woman. Right now. Five minutes ago if possible.

  He leveled his most devastating smile at her.

  Expecting one in return, he was disappointed. The vixen’s eyes simply rounded a fraction and then she swayed away from him as if he didn’t exist.

  Leaving Dom blinking like a fool, she made it back to the stage for the final verse, and when the music came to an end, the entire room erupted into cheers. Beaming, she bowed elegantly as the applause rolled over her. He gasped as her smile widened and a dimple appeared on her left cheek. It was delectable, perfect ...