“Oh, Emma,” he says while he smooths my cornhusk hair away from my face and lets his fingers caress my cheek. “If someone tells me that they don’t believe in angels on earth, I’ll have to introduce them to you. But rest assured, I will never let you go.” And with that, Jarrod thrusts into me and I immediately feel whole. My body is spinning, swirled in a passion that I’ve only read about, never experienced. Jarrod making love to me is beyond words. He’s a master of sensuality turning me inside out while I feel myself climb higher and higher toward release. I’m at my peak, he’s at his peak, and together our orgasms collide entangling us into joint bliss. Kissing my lips, he says, “give me a second.” He climbs off of me disposing of the condom by wrapping it in a “Meet Barton Wallace” flyer that he took off the cash register desk. “What do you think of that, Barton!” We both howl with sinister delight. Jarod puts his boxers back on and rejoins me on the banquet table. My modesty has me wrap myself in the lace tablecloth. I almost look like a bride.
“Jarrod, Jarrod, Jarrod,” I say as he beams, “I can’t believe we did this. What you must think of me?!” I put my palm to my forehead as the reality of the last twenty minutes’ sinks in, but without an ounce of regret.
“That’s the whole point, Emma. I can’t stop thinking about you!”
I cradle my head in both my hands. “We just made love and I don’t even know your last name!”
“You really want to know my last name, huh?” He says with a stealthy tone.
“Wait, let me guess, it’s something horrible, something like, Snodgrass or Shitstain, am I right?” He laughs at my kooky guesses.
“You’re far from being right, however, there are times when I actually wish it were Shitstain. My last name is…” he takes a deep breath, “my last name is Wallace.”
“You’re kidding me? You have the same last name as Barton?”
“And the same father. Barton is my half-brother.”
“No way! He’s such a dick to you! What’s up with that?”
“He may be a dick to me, but he’s not a dick to look at. If it weren’t for him, I would have never got my books published. Let’s face it, who wants to imagine me as the hunky lead?”
My mind is working over-time trying to put the pieces of this puzzle together. “Hold on one cotton pickin’ minute. YOU wrote Together, We, and My Woman?”
Jarrod raises his hand. “Guilty as charged your honor.”
“But you give that douchebag all the credit?”
“Emma, yes, he’s a douchebag, always has been, but look at him. We grew up together and while he was sneaking girls in the house banging them and then never calling them again, I would sit in my room and write imagining what it would be like if I had a girl. I can tell you one thing for certain, I would never treat a woman as badly as Barton. He gets away with it because of his looks. That’s when I came up with the idea of putting his picture on my book jacket. With my picture, I got doors slammed in my face. With his picture, every publishing house in town wanted me, well, him. So, we made a pact. I would act like his assistant and he would agree to be the face of my books. At least I get most of the earnings, I only give him 10% and he spends it like he’s Rockefeller. The douchebag is broke.”
Jarrod’s confession leaves me openmouthed. He senses my stunned reaction.
“Are you mad at me? It’s not like I lied, I just didn’t tell you.”
“So that’s why you recognized my Chanel No. 5 fragrance?”
“And don’t think I didn’t notice the white amaryllis. It’s a flower of splendid beauty. It’s you.” He nudges me with his shoulder and gives me a kiss on my temple.
“No one has ever called me beautiful before.” I blush.
“You are beautiful. It’s your secret ingredient.”
He jars my memory. “Wait, secret ingredient!” I jump up and head to my office and come back with Jarrod’s peach cobbler. “Get ready to hand over your blue ribbons, grandma!”
Jarrod grins from ear to ear. “Give me a fork!”
“Who needs forks?” I put the cobbler on the table and using our hands, we both dive in. Neither of us has to worry about excess calories. We grab a hunk laughing uproariously.
Jarrod nods his head with approval, “Not bad, Mz. Miller, not bad at all!” With his thumb, he lovingly wipes some cobbler off the side of my mouth, “Grammy would be proud.” He smacks his lips. “What’s your secret ingredient?”
“The secret ingredient in my peach cobbler…” I grab a morsel and place it in his mouth, and I swoosh his hair out of his face. “I make it with love.”
Janice Bremec Blum is Editor in Chief at TribeLA Magazine. She is a multi talented make-up artist with an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University. Her extensive background as a makeup artist in the Hollywood entertainment industry has empowered her to write a book on beauty and make, soon to be published. “The best part about L.A.,” says Janice, “it’s so diverse and encompasses many different ethnicities and yet no matter who we are or where we hail from, at some point, we will all find ourselves stuck on the 405!” Janice, a fiction Romance comedy writer lives with her husband Hunter in Los Angeles and they are both art collectors. You can email Janice at [email protected].
