Lindsay Evans - Pleasure Under the Sun

Whoever it was knocked on the door again, forcing Seven to gather the top sheet around his bare hips and stumble to open the door. Marcus stood there, grinning.

“About time you got your lazy ass up,” he said.

A trio of young women stood behind him, staring over his shoulder at Seven’s bare chest and stomach. Seven was suddenly glad that he’d taken the time to cover himself, otherwise the girls would have gotten more than they’d bargained for. But, looking at the scantily dressed girls who watched him with a shark’s intensity, maybe they wouldn’t mind seeing him naked, after all.

“Damn,” one of the girls said under her breath.

Seven cleared his throat. “Morning. It’s a little early, isn’t it?”

“It’s never too early.” Marcus laughed as if he’d made some big joke.

Behind him, the girls tittered on cue.

“You remember the girls from last night, right?” Marcus gestured to the women around him by way of introduction. Kenya was the bleached-blonde with deep gold skin. Felice wore her hair in a short natural, a pretty complement to her deep chocolate complexion. And Masiel had a fountain of black hair spilling around her narrow, foxlike face. All three girls were fiercely made up, dressed as though they’d just come from the set of a rap video.

Confused, Seven looked at the foursome gathered on his borrowed doorstep and gave them a questioning look.

“I came to take you to that money guy I told you about,” Marcus said. “The girls and I are on the way to that side of town and thought you might want to tag along.”

Seven raised an eyebrow at “the girls,” who wore tight skirts and body-hugging blouses of the animal-print variety. They didn’t look ready to see anyone’s money guy. Unless he was a pimp.

Marcus read his look accurately enough. “They’re not seeing the banker, you are. Come on. Get dressed. Maybe after you’re done we can go grab the jet and go for a bite and a sail in Cape Cod.”

Seven hesitated. He was flattered by Marcus’s interest, but he had had enough of the man’s hearty company. Marcus was generous, but he seemed to expect to be entertained at all times. His investment in Seven made him think the artist was there for his entertainment. It was time to end this.

“I have to shower. I don’t like leaving the house dirty,” Seven said.

“We’ll wait.”

And they did. As he walked out of the room to go shower, Marcus and the three girls sauntered into the small living area. Marcus fell into a sprawl on the couch while his companions grabbed the video game controllers and knelt in front of the fifty-inch flat screen to start a game.

In the bedroom, Seven quickly discarded the sheet and grabbed some clothes from his suitcase, climbed into the travertine-tiled shower and turned the water on full blast. The hot water washed away the last of his tiredness, flooding over his head and face, dripping through his lashes, over his mouth and down the muscular planes of his chest, belly, the thick stalk of his sex and his corded thighs. He sighed into the water, the heaviness in his body falling away to leave him awake.

Energized, he quickly finished his shower and dressed in jeans, a plain white Armani T-shirt and a favorite pair of loafers. He walked into the living room, fastening the clasp on his watch.

There, the three girls played “Just Dance,” their breasts and hips shaking as Marcus looked on with laughter and appreciation.

“Ready,” Seven said.

“Yummy,” Masiel murmured, turning her attention from the video game. Bouncy black waves tumbled down her back as she twisted around to look at Seven.

“I liked him better without clothes,” Felice said. With her close-cropped hair and sensual mouth, she was pretty in a Meagan Good kind of way, although not as sexy.

“I’ll take you however I can get you.” Kenya gave up any pretense of paying attention to the game and strutted over to Seven, who stepped back before she could touch him.

He wasn’t into playing with another man’s toys. Marcus watched all the action with a faint smile but didn’t say a word.

Seven raised an eyebrow. “You ladies are making me blush.” Though clearly he was in no danger of doing that. He looked at Marcus. “Are we heading out or what?”

“Of course.” Marcus stood up with a set of keys in his hand. “Let’s go.”

In the detached garage that was as big as another house, he chose a black Mercedes C-Class sedan and ushered the girls into the backseat before getting behind the wheel. He looked at Seven briefly. “You want to drive?”

Seven got in the passenger seat. “Yeah, right. I’m just here to relax and go along for the ride. Drive on.”

Marcus chuckled.

They drove out of the garage, under the wide, slowly lifting door, into the bright spotlight of a Miami Monday afternoon. Diamond sunlight bounced off the reflective lenses of Seven’s sunglasses as they wove through the estate’s main drive, flanked by bright ginger plants, yellow hibiscus and a profusion of thick-stalked pink and red flamingo lilies, plants Seven was used to seeing in Jamaica. A neatly manicured dozen or so acres, the landscape was occasionally broken by a hatted gardener stooped over a bed of flowers or stretch of grass. The smell of fresh-cut grass drifted into the car despite the closed windows and arctic AC.

The chill of the car made Seven suddenly wish for a cup of a hot chocolate. Steaming from the stove, not a packet. Freshly shaved from a ball of cocoa, swirled with milk and a dash of nutmeg. Just like his father made for him whenever he was home in Jamaica. Yeah, that was what he wanted.

Seven emerged from his momentary fantasy of hot chocolate to the sound of the girls giggling in the backseat. Marcus navigated the car through the mansion’s wide double gates and out to the long bridge heading off Star Island and to the A1A for downtown.

“The firm is downtown,” he said to Seven. “I’m not sure if Bailey can do anything for you today, but I let her know you’ll be there soon.”

“Her?”

“Yeah. Bailey. She’s my money guy.”

Masiel tapped Marcus’s shoulder from the backseat. “Can we go shopping on Collins Avenue?”

Marcus glanced back at her in the rearview mirror. “What, you got Collins Avenue money, girl?”

A chorus of giggles sounded from behind Seven.

“Honey, we thought you’d treat us.” Felice pouted, cocking a thigh bared in her short skirt. “We’re always treating you,” she said.

Seven didn’t have to imagine what the girls were always treating Marcus to. In the rearview mirror, Masiel gave him a teasing, wet-lipped smile as she trailed a red fingernail along her low neckline. He wasn’t impressed.

“You can drop me off at your money guy’s office and take off,” Seven said. “I got this.”

“See, he got this,” blond-haired Kenya mocked as she offered her cleavage for Marcus’s consideration. “We have needs, Daddy.” Her declaration set off another peal of laughter from the other girls.

In his profession, the rich and bored often clung to artists as a way to relieve their boredom—a lot like Marcus was doing now. Seven had seen enough of this type of leeching to last a lifetime. These girls bartered their bodies and their time for jewels or money or trips outside their small towns, riding that tiger as long as their looks lasted while hoping for one of these men to sweep them off their feet and offer marriage. He glanced at the trio in the backseat. He didn’t see Marcus marrying any of them, but then again, he had underestimated women enough to know he could be wrong.

“Here it is.”

The car pulled up in front of a high-rise glittering with blue glass and steel. “You’re going to the top floor. Braithwaite and Fernandez Wealth Management. Ask for Bailey Hughes.”