DANIEL'S GIRL: ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN Read online

  “One in the same,” Daniel said. “She worked in the business community while her older brother, Hines Baker, worked in the streets. My first year as a criminal court judge, he came before me.”

  Nikki looked at the papers.

  “You didn’t look at that either?” Val asked, this time surprised that she had missed that one. Nikki looked back up at Daniel.

  “How did you know he was Mel’s brother,” Nikki asked, “if his last name was Baker?”

  “I reviewed every case I ever tried and I reviewed each one in detail, including the witness lists and the relationship the witnesses had to the defendants.”

  “In case the relative is seeking revenge against you?” Nikki asked.

  “That’s right,” Daniel responded. “When I saw Melanie Chandler, sister of the defendant, on his witness list, Hines Baker definitely got my attention. I sentenced him to twenty years in prison.”

  “Wow,” Val said. “On what charge?”

  “Drug trafficking,” Daniel said, and Val looked at Nikki. But Nikki was staring at Daniel.

  “Drug trafficking?” she asked. “The same thing I’ve been accused of.”

  “Right,” Daniel said.

  “What drug?” Nikki asked. “Cocaine?”

  Daniel nodded. “Cocaine,” he said.

  Val smiled, but Nikki sat back in her chair. For the first time since her arrest, she felt that they were finally getting some traction. But she didn’t want to celebrate too soon. “But that was so long ago,” she said. “You haven’t been a judge in years. Why would Melanie suddenly want to get revenge on you?”

  Daniel understood what she was asking. “I checked that too,” he said. “Hines Baker was killed in prison about a month before Melanie introduced herself to me at Todd Bainbridge’s party.”

  “Wow,” Val said again. “So the bitch was bereaved?”

  But Nikki was still in deep thought. And her eyes couldn’t shield her puzzlement.

  “What is it, Nikki?” Daniel asked.

  “If it’s revenge she wanted against you, what was her plan? I don’t get it.”

  “I went far back into Mel’s family background also. There was nothing much there, until I came across the fact that her father had a daughter from a previous marriage.”

  “So you investigated her half-sister too?” Val asked, amazed that Daniel had done all of this.

  “I did,” Daniel said.

  “When did you have time to do all of this?” Val asked him.

  “I started looking over my cases within a day of Nikki’s arrest. I didn’t find the Melanie connection until a couple days ago. Then I focused exclusively on her case.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Val wanted to know.

  “Because I wanted you and Nikki to keep your focus on her enemies list. If Melanie’s connection didn’t pan out, I didn’t want us to have to reconfigure. I wanted to already be there.”

  “What did you find out about her half-sister?” Nikki asked. She was now sitting on the edge of her seat.

  “I found out that she once accused a man of rape. They had his semen inside of her, they seemed to have had the young man dead to rights. But it was concluded to have been consensual sex because the young lady didn’t cry rape after she left his apartment, nor did she mention any such matter to friends or foe. She could have very well been raped, but it was her word against his. And because his family was of some esteem in town, she wasn’t believed.”

  Val knew that song all too well. “He was rich and she was poor,” he said.

  “Something like that, yes,” Daniel said. “I don’t remember the exact economic disparity between the accused and the accuser, but it’s in those documents.”

  But Nikki and Val, being the eager beaver young people that they were, had already discarded those documents. They preferred to hear it straight from Daniel.

  But Nikki still had her misgivings. She still wasn’t wholly convinced. “The thing is,” she said, “I still don’t see what her half-sister crying rape has to do with what Melanie did to me,” she said.

  “I think you were plan B,” Daniel said. “I think she had every intention of getting me either inside of her apartment, which didn’t happen, or inside of some hotel room, which did, and seduce me. She had plans to put it on me so good that I wouldn’t even use a condom.” Daniel stretched his eyebrows at that. He’d had sex with only one woman in four years, and that woman was Nikki. The idea that he would not only cheat on her, but expose her to disease by not using a condom if he did, was abhorrent to him.

  “But unlike her half-sister,” he continued, “she wasn’t going to wait to cry rape. They weren’t going to use that against her. What I believe is that she was going to flee from that hotel room crying it. She was going to shout it from the rooftops if she had to.

  “That makes sense,” Val said, nodding his head. “You used to be a judge. She knew she was going to have an uphill battle if it was her word against yours. But her actions against your words might do it.”

  “That’s the conclusion I’ve reached too,” Daniel said, nodding too.

  But Nikki, it seemed to him, was still skeptical. “What is it, babe?” he asked her.

  “So her plan at seduction didn’t work, I get that part. But if she wanted revenge on you, I still don’t see how planning drugs on me would harm you.”

  But Val saw it. “Because she knew,” he said.

  Nikki looked at Val. “Because she knew what?”

  Val looked at Daniel, which caused Nikki to look at Daniel too.

  “Because she knew,” he said, “that the way to hurt me, is to hurt you.”

  Nikki’s throat constricted. No better compliment could have ever been paid to her. And then she smiled. She was onboard too now.

  “So what’s the plan?” she asked him.

  “I’ve turned everything over to Camp Gates and his investigators. They’ve already found one connection that could be very helpful.”

  “What?” Nikki asked him, her eyes riveted on his.

  “Hines Baker, during his trial, would never reveal his supplier. He was working for somebody, but he would never snitch. But apparently the prosecution didn’t try very hard to find him, either, because my investigators found him in all of a day.”

  “Damn,” Val said.

  “Who is he?” Nikki asked.

  “Edgar Lassiter. A hood from way back. Mel had mentioned an Edgar once, as I recalled, and my Camp Gates has confirmed it too. Edgar, it seems, is Mel’s boyfriend.”

  Nikki smiled. “And he’s a drug dealer?”

  “He deals mainly in crack cocaine, but he handles the powdered too. Gates and his men are leaning on him as we speak.”

  “Praise the Lord,” Nikki said. “Finally we’re getting somewhere!”

  Daniel smiled as his desk intercom buzzed. “Yes?” he asked as he answered.

  “Your one-thirty has arrived, sir,” the female’s voice said.

  “Okay,” Daniel said and released the buzz.

  Nikki and Val stood up. “Your one-thirty is early,” she said.

  “They usually are,” he replied.

  Then she walked around the desk, smiling grandly, and Daniel stood as she came. He swept her into his arms and, once again, kissed her passionately.

  When they stopped and Nikki began walking toward the door, Val could see Daniel’s eyes following her. Her ass specifically. He smiled. “See you around, Daniel,” he said, feeling hopeful himself.

  “Take care,” Daniel said. “And Nikki,” he added and Nikki turned around. “Come over to the house tonight,” he said.

  She looked at him, a smile still on her face. “And what’s wrong with you coming over to my house?” she asked.

  “One issue,” he said. “You seem to have a particular houseguest who has particularly good hearing.”

  Val laughed. Nikki shook her head, and then laughed too. “I’ll be there,” she said, as she left.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
/>
  She was on her knees in his bed, straddling his naked body. Her cunt was up to his face and he was holding her ass, both cheeks, as he ate her. She was leaned against the headboard, holding on, as he licked and sucked and slinked his tongue along her folds as he had a slow-motion romance with every contour of her pussy. It moistened almost immediately, and he licked the moistness with long, lapping licks that made her groan. Daniel had been doing her for years. But tonight, in the privacy of his massive bedroom, it felt as fresh and new to her as their very first time.

  His voice was guttural. “Come to daddy, baby,” he said, as he slid her body down the length of his until her face was in his face. And then he started kissing her with a passion that rocked her, as the taste of her and the taste of him mixed together in an odd combination of sweet and sour that made her wrap her arms around him and kiss him even harder than he was kissing her.

  Daniel’s control nearly broke when Nikki elevated her passion. He held her tightly in his arms as they kissed for minutes on end. Then Nikki moved down his body, kissing him as she went, and he braced himself for what he knew that expert mouth of hers was going to do to him. And she did it. She licked him with slow, sensual licks, causing him to pre-cum because it felt so intense, and then she took his rod and swallowed it whole.

  “Ahh,” he said as moved back up, and then back down the entire length of him. And then she was licking again, his balls, his sensitive underside, until he had the kind of erection that was bordering on painful.

  He pulled her back up on top of him, her stomach against his stomach, and positioned her ass just right as he shoved his dick inside of her. He wanted to rub against that cunt he had been eating, and as soon as he felt her tightness he wanted to cum. It felt that potent.

  But he didn’t cum. He fucked her. He stroked his dick inside of her until her entire bottom felt on fire. And Nikki didn’t want that fire quenched. She fed on it. She could feel his massive rod poking her, probing her, and then sliding further in, deeper each time, until it felt as if he expanded even more and she was filled with Daniel.

  And he stroked and stroked. He moved her body to where he was also sucking her breasts as he stroked. All of their troubles seemed far away, as they fucked. Minutes ticked by like hours, as they fucked. The bed was shaking, their bodies were rocking, and they felt that edge of cum that was their special place. They were almost there and anticipation of getting their heightened their passion. An hour came and went, as they fucked.

  Until the hour came when Daniel couldn’t live on that edge any longer. And he came first, before Nikki, as he broke through with a release that made her flush with what felt like hot cream. He drenched her. So much so that it began to slide out of her, like a milky drip, as he continued to fuck her.

  And then it was Nikki’s time. Her body couldn’t take the beating a second longer, and she began to twitch with unbearable arousal too. And she came. She held onto him, her eyes squeezed shut, his mouth still brutalizing her breasts, as she shook with a passionate climax. And he kept putting it on her, banging her harder and harder, even as she could hardly bear it, until she was trembling with euphoria and screaming his name.

  Their passion finally subsided, to where their release was but a trickle, and their pulsations were but a twinge. And Nikki, seeing just how drained Daniel really was, got up, went to the bathroom and cleaned herself up until time for her to shower, and then returned with a warm cloth for him. Daniel was so exhausted that he could only lay there, and rub her hair, as she wiped his red-blushed penis with the cloth.

  He looked at her pretty face as she wiped him. The time had come, had probably long come, for him to make her his wife. But she had to be exonerated first. He did not want her to think he was asking her to be his wife because he pitied her. He wanted her to know that he wanted her, Nikita Graham, to be his wife because he loved her. Deeply. He loved her with a love that scared him still. Even Melanie knew that.

  After Nikki went back into the bathroom to place the cloth in the dirty clothes hamper, she returned to bed with Daniel. He covered the both with the bed linen as he pulled her protectively into his muscular arms.

  Then he smiled. “That was special,” he said.

  “Yes, it was,” she agreed.

  “Just like you.”

  Nikki moved closer against him when he said that.

  Then he grinned. “Could you imagine if we would have been at your place?”

  Nikki grinned too. “Val would have probably opened the door to make sure you weren’t trying to kill me up in here.” Daniel laughed. “And he wouldn’t have let me live it down, trust me on that. He would have made jokes about it every time I saw him.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s a wonderful young man, Nikki. I’m pleased he’s your friend.”

  “I am too. I play around with him, but I am too.”

  Nikki, in fact, was so pleased about how everything was going that she laid her head back on Daniel’s shoulder. Ready to fall asleep. But it would be moments later, seconds, when the doorbell began ringing.

  Daniel seriously considered not answering the door at all. He was super-relaxed. He was with the woman he loved. All he wanted to do was stay curled up beside her and sleep. He always slept better when Nikki was in his bed. But the doorbell would not stop ringing.

  “It might be important,” Nikki said, encouraging him to at least see who it could be. So he got out of bed, put on his bathrobe and slippers, and headed downstairs.

  Nikki lay there. She was still feeling the sensations. Her body still felt every lick he put on her, every suck, every stroke. It felt as if his rod was still inside of her. And it was a comforting feeling. So comforting, in fact, that she found herself, just that fast, falling asleep.

  By the time Daniel called for her to come downstairs, she realized she had dropped off.

  “Coming!” she yelled back, got out of bed, put back on her jeans and t-shirt, and made her way downstairs.

  Daniel was sitting on the sofa, seated on the edge, with a glass of wine in his hands. Nikki was pleased to see that Campbell Gates, the lead investigator, was also in the living room, seated on the chair flanking the sofa.

  He stood up when Nikki entered the room. “Hey, Camp,” she said as she made her way and sat beside Daniel.

  Campbell was a big, burly man, with balding brown hair and small, green eyes. But he was a very affable man, a man who knew how to make everyone feel at ease around him. “Hey, Nikki, how are you?” he said jovially.

  “I’ll be great if you have some good news.”

  Daniel smiled. “He does,” he said.

  Nikki looked at Daniel. “So what is it?” she asked.

  “Edgar Lassiter is cooperating with authorities,” he said.

  Nikki’s heart was about to soar. “Did he implicate Melanie?” she asked the investigator.

  “Oh, yes,” the investigator responded.

  She soared. “What did he say?” she asked.

  “First of all, he wanted complete immunity from prosecution, and when the State wouldn’t go along with that, it looked doubtful that he would talk. But my men are very persuasive,” Gates added, purposely vague, “and he agreed to turn State’s evidence against Miss Chandler in exchange for a lesser sentence for his participation in the crime. He admitted that he not only provided Chandler with the drugs, but he took her to your house, Nikki, and watched as she planted the drugs. Of course nobody really believes that. He more than likely planted the drugs while Chandler watched, but that’s Chandler’s problem now. The point is, Melanie Chandler has been arrested and, as your attorney is on his way over here now to inform you, all charges against you have been dropped.”

  Nikki jumped on Daniel and he slung her on top of his lap, holding her tightly. She was so happy she could hardly contain her glee. But Daniel was relieved. He was so relieved, in fact, that, to Nikki’s astonishment, he was actually crying. And not just tearing up, either. Daniel was sobbing.

  And it was Nikki, bar
ely able to function herself, who pulled him into her little arms.

  EPILOGUE

  Nikki stood behind her desk in the busy newsroom at the Gazette, and placed the last of her personal items into the small cardboard box that sat on her desk. By the time she had the box in her arms and was heading for the exit, the newsroom was bustling with activity as if nothing monumental was going on. But it was monumental for Nikki. She thought she had found a kindred spirit when Luke came onboard. She thought her journalistic style had finally found a safe place in his hands.

  But as she walked and saw Luke staring from behind the plate glass window of his office, she knew that there were no safe place in any hand of his. Melanie had told it all, according to Nikki’s attorney Lewis Hirsh. She had admitted that, yes, she wanted her revenge on Daniel Crane, but Luke Finley was right there with her every step of the way. She didn’t implicate him in any crime, but she did implicate him morally. He was obsessed with Nikki, she had said. And approved everything she did to get Nikki away from Daniel. He even kept silent when he suspected that Melanie was the one behind planting those drugs. Nikki’s freedom was on the line, and he remained silent. Which, for Nikki, was unforgiveable.

  As she walked past his office door, he stepped out.

  “I never took you for a quitter,” he said.

  Nikki looked at him and then she smiled. “And I took you for a friend,” she said. “So I guess we both were wrong.”

  She looked at him longer, as if she could bring herself to tell him what she truly felt, but she didn’t even bother. It wasn’t worth it. He wasn’t worth it.

  She kept walking toward the exit. But as she passed the discard bin, the huge trash can for reporters to place all unwanted documents and other sensitive materials in need of shredding, she stopped. She looked at the cardboard box in her arms, a box filled with her personal effects, such as the nameplate they gave her, some old newspapers, other memorabilia of her time as a Gazette reporter. And she tossed it. Everything in it. She threw it all away. Daniel had said he would give her her own newspaper to run if she wanted it. She wasn’t on anybody’s begging list, he made clear. And that was how she felt. Free. Working for the Gazette now, for Luke, would be like working for the enemy.