Page 41 of All Out of Love

He leaned up on his elbows. “What are you doing?” he asked her.

“I’m late for work,” she said as she threw a pair of bikini panties and a matching bra on his bed, and began unzipping her garment bag.

“It’s okay, Toya. Settle down.”

“But it’s not okay. I know Miss Javits. She’ll fire me on the spot for being so late.”

“And if that happens, then I’ll fire her,” Grayson said.

And when he said it, Toya stopped in her tracks. And looked at him. And for the first time since she woke up, she realized she had just gotten out of the bed of the boss. Miss Javits’ boss. The real big boss.

A part of her was relieved that she wasn’t in all likelihood going to be fired for being late, but a bigger part of her had that what in the world have I done panicky feel to it. She swore she’d never sleep her way to the top. That was her solemn vow. But here she was. Getting out of the boss’s bed after doing more than just sleeping with him. This wasn’t good!

But Grayson was oblivious to her plight. All he knew was that he never slept through the night in decades. She showed up and he slept like a baby. He was enjoying her presence.

He tossed the covers off of his naked body and got out of bed. “What were you going to do anyway?” he asked her. “Just leave?”

Were you going to just leave me, was what it seemed like he was saying to Toya. And that wounded look on his face. “After I take a shower,” she said, “I was going to work.”

Grayson stared at her. He’d never met a more devoted creature in his life. But was it real? “You aren’t working today,” he said to her. “It’s lunchtime. You’re going with me to the club for lunch.”

The club? “What club?” she asked him.

“My club. It’s a golf and country club of which the Carringtons have been founding members since its inception in 1933. That club. Now come shower with me so we can get dressed,” he added, as he made his way toward the ensuite bathroom.

Toya didn’t know what to make of him. She knew what kind of club he was talking about. She knew it was going to be that exclusive kind of club that always found a way to include in its charter a section about the exclusion of blacks and Jews. And even after the Jews were allowed in, they continued to find a way to exclude blacks. Not formally. They were too sophisticated for that. But they excluded by never granting any of them membership. That was the kind of club she knew he meant. And that was where he wanted her to go with him for lunch? Who’s this dude, she wondered.

But she knew who he was. He was the dude who got her out of jail, which was a great thing in and of itself. But he didn’t stop there. He put his reputation on the line by promising, for her permanent freedom, to give something he might not be able to deliver. And then he went against everything he believed in and brought her to his private residence. Something even he admitted he never did for anybody else before her.

And when he said he couldn’t figure out why he was doing all he was doing for her, she got it. It somehow made sense to her. Because it wasn’t based on reason. It was based on feelings. He helped her because he felt a need to help her. And she would have done the same for him.

That was why she didn’t try to pursue the why of it any longer and followed him into the shower.

Once in the shower stall, they began bathing. But within minutes he had her butt against the shower wall, his arms beneath her thighs and his body between her legs as he lifted her up. His mouth devoured her, and then her breasts. And then he slowly, seemingly surgically, entered her again.

She let out a sigh so loud that it overtook the heavy sound of water as he entered her. With her legs wrapped around his body, they began kissing passionately as they moved to the rhythm of their dance. So much so that as he kept pushing in and almost out of her in gliding strokes, they were groaning and moaning in sounds garbled by their kisses. Their lips never parted. Until Grayson pushed in so deep, and her vagina squeezed around his penis so tightly, that they both came at the very same time.

It was so electrifying, and so deeply felt, that they both had to stop kissing to come up for air.

When they both had given their all, Grayson’s legs gave way and he slid down to the shower floor carrying her down with him until she was sitting on his lap.

He stared at her, as he could not believe how wonderful it was, and then he hugged her. And he said a tiny, three-letter word that packed such a punch that it made her forget all about her troubles and just be in that moment with him.

“Wow,” he whispered softly, sweetly, in her ear.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“Lois?”

“What?”

“Look!”

House manager Lois Javits looked up the winding staircase where chief-of-staff Dena Allen was looking. And that was when she saw Toya bounding down those stairs in her curve-hugging bodycon malibu-peach dress, her white heels, and a white-and-peach scarf around her neck. She was dressed and marching down those stairs as if she was their boss. At least that as how they felt about it.

But Toya knew she was going to a country club. And she was certain she would stand out because of her race alone. But she wasn’t going to allow herself to stand out in any way negatively. She knew she wasn’t in their league in terms of money or status, but her dress taste was going to be able to match theirs.

But Miss Javits and Dena didn’t see the beauty in the colors of her outfit. They only saw red. They were livid. They lit into her before she made it to the bottom step.