Pamper Me

Chapter One

“You need to get laid.”

Nicey Johnson choked on the champagne in her mouth as her best friend Erika Daniels took a bite of her cucumber sandwich. Where in the hell did that come from, she thought as she swallowed hard several times to make sure the liquid went down.

“What in the world are you talking about?” she hissed setting her half-empty glass on the table behind them. “I’m perfectly happy being single and you know that.”

“Sure you are…that’s why you started crying the second Amanda came down the aisle,” came the smart reply. “What were they tears of happiness?”

“Everyone cries at weddings,” Nicey responded taking a shrimp puff off the tray as the waiter stopped in front her.

She gave him a small smile before he walked away to serve the other guests.

Taking a bite she savored the delicious treat before she continued.

“Don’t read anymore into it.” She shoved the rest of the treat into her waiting mouth.

“I just call it as I see it,” Erika commented in that know it all voice she hated so much despite the fact that she loved her friend dearly.

“Well….you need to get some glasses.” Nicey muttered looking around the crowded room wondering how much longer she would have to stay.

“You still seem like a woman who needs a good f….”

“Don’t you say it,” she hissed poking her finger into Erika’s arm. “I’m perfectly content with my life the way it is. I’ve owned my own business for the past seven years and have a nice nest egg in the bank. Plus, I don’t have anyone telling me what to do.”

She prayed that Erika believed what she just told her, because she didn’t need any more potential husbands thrown her way. She could do bad enough on her own.

Erika’s hazel eyes glanced at her from the corner of her eye, “I’ll leave it alone for now, but I’m not going to let you drown yourself in work. I’m going to make sure you have a man in the near future.”

Rolling her eyes at the same old speech that Erika always gave her and then Nicey glanced around the room and a smile lit up her heart-shaped face when she spotted an attractive man coming towards them

Finally, maybe I’ll get some peace from Erika and her matchmaking scheme, she thought as the man got closer to them.

“Hey handsome,” she grinned as the man kissed her on the cheek.

“Hey yourself, short stuff,” the man laughed then wrapped his arm around Erika’s growing waist.

“You know I hate when you call me that, Dylan,” Nicey complained glaring at her cousin. “I tell you that every time we see each other.”

“Come on I’ve been calling you that since you were two-years-old,” Dylan laughed.

“Why should I stop now?” The deep baritone sound of his voice made his inquiry seem like a threat instead of a question “Because I turned twenty-seven yesterday,” she pointed out.

God she hated how Dylan always made her feel so young.

He wasn’t that much older than her, but he acted like her big brother.

What was she thinking half the time Dylan came across like he was her father.

“I agree with Nicey,” Erika cut in. “You need to stop calling her short stuff and help me find her a man instead.”

Chocolate eyes two shades darker than her own sparkled with mischief as Dylan removed his arm away from his pregnant wife.

“So you’re looking for a man,” he asked laying his arm around her shoulder.

“How about you let me hook you up? You’ve to know that a lot of my buddies are always asking about you. ”

Pushing Dylan’s arm off of her Nicey shook her head causing her newly cut hair to bounce around her shoulders. “No way. I don’t want to get stuck with another want-to-be rapper for the night.” She still couldn’t shake the image of the last guy he hooked her up with out of her mind.

Denzel’s face with Flavor Fave’s personality and she even had to change her number twice to finally shake him.

Never in her past had it taken so long for a guy to take the hint and leave her alone.

Maybe if he had focused on his rap career the way he did at trying to make her his girlfriend.

A number one hit would have come out of his mouth.

Shrugging, Dylan slid his hands into his black dress pants. “Okay, he did come on a bit strong, but let me try again,” he retorted, “I know I can do better next week. Anyway what can a blind date really hurt?”

Why wasn’t he listening to her? “Didn’t I tell you no?

” Nicey asked as she watched the latest couple she hooked up on the dance floor.

She loved when her clients found true love like this, but it did hurt a little to know that she was still alone.

However, she was going to stay single if she had to go out on a date with anymore of her cousin’s friends.

“How about I agree not to set you up with anymore musicians,” He asked calmly like she would actually agree to this. “I know plenty of guys besides musicians.”

Smiling, Nicey patted her well-meaning cousin in the middle of his wide chest but he wasn’t about to change her mind and then she stole a glance at Erika. “Please keep him out of trouble and please stop putting ideas into his head. One matchmaker in the family is enough for me to handle.”

“Well he’s right,” Erika sighed rubbing her stomach as Nicey moved back. “You do need a man in your life. All you do is work and go home. What kind of life is that for someone as young as you are.”

“You two are going to be the death of me,” she mused stepping away from her family. “I need to say goodbye to the happy couple and then I’m going back to work.”

“Nicey, don’t go. Stay. I promise I won’t bring up finding you a man anymore,” Erika pleaded with her a hopeful look in her chestnut eyes.

Nicey gave her head a small shake. “I can’t.

I snuck away to come here and I really need to get back to the piles of stuff on my desk.

You two stay here and have fun and I’ll call you tomorrow.

” She quickly gave each of them a kiss on the cheek and made her way over to the newly married couple standing in front of their wedding presents.

She calculated that it shouldn’t take her longer that a few minutes to say goodbye and then she was headed by to her sanctuary and the pleasure she constantly got from it.

* * * *

Adjusting the seat in the silver jaguar as far as it would go Spencer Carlton stretched out his long legs.

He had lost count of how long he had been sitting out here in the parking garage, but the solitude felt wonderful.

He had agreed to come to this casting party as his sister’s date totally unaware to the fact she was trying to fix him up. Blind dates weren’t his thing at all.

Meeting a woman the old-fashioned way gave him all the rush he ever wanted.

Cindy didn’t understand most of the women who dated him only did so to get closer to her.

The last six of his ex-girlfriends had been aspiring actress, which by the way, they left out of the conversation when they had approached him.

They thought by dating him they might have a chance of getting a roll on the soap opera “Ravenous.”

Sure his sister Cindy Carlton was the lead actress and had won two of the “Sexy Siren” awards, but that didn’t give her casting rights unless she wasn’t telling him something. Yet, he was pretty sure Cindy wasn’t on the top of the list of Who’s Who’s on the set to have pull like that.

All of those bad experiences had taught him to be much more cautious when a woman advanced on him out of the blue. He would make sure she had a stable job that didn’t involve getting a SAG card in the near future.

But he would make sure that his sister understood that this would be the last time she led him here under false pretense and as replacement date for her boyfriend. She had him burning the candle at both ends.

“I love Cindy; however, if I stayed upstairs and one more woman touched my ass I was going to let her have it.” Spencer muttered resting his head against the head rest. His wasn’t a patient man and sitting in the parking garage for this long was slowly driving him up the wall.

He could have been home forty-five minutes ago, but Cindy begged him to wait for her and then she lied to him.

She promised that it would only take her a few minutes to say goodbye to the rest of the cast. Cindy was always late to everything she did.

It started back when they were kids. Since he was the oldest by six years it had fallen it his lap and been that way ever since.

Spencer would never forget when their parents disowned Cindy years ago when she didn’t help them try to save their childhood home from the foreclosure. But him being the loving son that he was he came through for their parents and paid off the outstanding mortgage payments.

However, what pissed him off was Cindy hadn’t cared about the predicament their parents had been in. His sister never failed to think about herself first and everyone else feel to the side lines.

“Why am I worried about Cindy?” He muttered under his breath. “She’s like a black cat with nine lives no matter what the problem is. She will always land on her spa pampered feet.”

Spencer was so lost in his own thoughts about his sister that it took him a few minutes to realize his slacks pocket was vibrating. He had forgotten he had switched it to vibrate because of Cindy’s get together. Flicking open the phone he held the razor cell phone up to his ear and spoke.

“Yeah.” he practically snapped into the phone.

“Are you still downstairs waiting for me?” Cindy’s bubbly voice inquired over the phone as he heard music still playing in the background.

She better not tell me to go ahead and leave after I have been down here waiting for her, Spencer thought. “You know that I am. Why? “Are you calling me to tell me that you’re on your way down here?”

“Nope. So you can go on home and I can find my own back to my house,” she said in a voice that seemed a little scared to his reaction.

Don’t lose your cool. Spencer counted to ten very slowly and tried to calm down because if he didn’t he was going to blow up at his sister for making his stay this long for nothing. When was he going to learn to leave Cindy and just let her call if he she needed to.

“No.”

“What do you mean by that? Cindy asked stunned by immediate answer.

“It means I could have been back home a while ago instead of in this damn parking garage waiting for you,” Spencer snapped tired of Cindy’s disrespect of him.

He loved his baby sister, but she needed to learn that he wasn’t there for her beck and call twenty-four seven.

“Dexter showed up didn’t he?” That’s the only reason she wouldn’t be leaving the party.

Dead silence met his ear before he heard a soft whispered, “Yes.”

“How did I get the pleasure of missing him come past me while I waited over a half an hour for you?” Hell, he hated the bum. With the way Dexter wore his hair he reminded him of an eighties band member.

Cindy sighed under her breath a couple of times and then the words poured from her mouth like a waterfall. “He came in through the employees’ entrance because he wanted to surprise me, isn’t that so sweet?”

Sweet enough to rot my back teeth, he thought. “Cindy you’re a very pretty woman. Stop allowing him to treat you like an old shoe. He doesn’t love you. Dexter only loves your fame.”

“Dexter does love me,” Cindy insisted above the growing noise in the background. “You just don’t understand our relationship. Maybe if you get a woman of your own you wouldn’t be so involved in my love life.”

Why do I take this shit from her so much?

‘You’re right.” Spencer agreed fed up with being his sister’s fall guy. “I do need to find a woman that only wants me. How about you take care of your personal life and I’ll try to find one of my own.” He snapped the phone closed as Cindy started yelling his name.

Dropping his head against the steering wheel he tossed the phone into the passenger seat beside him and wondered how he had gotten into the situation that he was in.

Shit, he was only thirty-five years old, but he acted like a man ten years old.

He missed going out with his friends, flirting with the good-looking girls at the bars, and staying out until the sun came up.

Sure he had sworn off all of that stuff over a year ago but he was a man and should be doing manly things instead of babysitting his sister who knew good-in-well what she was doing. Dexter Raymond was a gigolo that lived off her, but she didn’t care because they made such a good-looking couple.

Well, when Dexter cheated on her again he wasn’t going to be there to help her pick up the pieces or dry her tears. He promised he was going to get a love life and that is what he was going to do. Now all he had to do was set a deadline to accomplish his goal.

Spencer thought about it over and over but none of the deadlines he came up with seemed good enough to him.

His love life had to be obtained by the most perfect day of the year and only one day came to his mind-Valentine’s Day.

Yes, he would find a woman and romance her until she fell deeply in love with him.

He would show his sister that an attractive woman could want him and only him without her even being a part of the picture.

Of course he couldn’t use his real name because it always led back to the same question.

Are you related to Cindy Carlton? No, he had to use an alias until he was positive the woman wasn’t using him.

Minutes past before the sound of heels clicking on the pavement in the garage broke through Spencer’s deep thoughts back from his plan for the future as he leisurely lifted his head off the steering wheel and then stared out the window.

Not fifteen feet in front of him was the most exquisite woman he had ever laid eyes on and all he could think about was getting to know her better. Cocoa skin looked like it had been double dipped in the richest chocolate in the world. He leaned over the wheel to get a better look at her.

A peach slip dress draped seductively over her body showing off all her feminine attributes and showed the fullness of her breasts as she headed in the opposite direction away from him.

No, he couldn’t let her get away. Hurrying out of the car, Spencer rushed after his mystery woman and after he learned her name the rest would be easy.