Page 12 of Reckless Desire

It was a rainy Saturday morning, but she didn’t want to sit in the house. Her mind had been on Vincent Alessandro Moretti all morning, and she couldn’t shake him. She needed to get out of the house to clear her head. There was only one place she could go to get some reprieve. Or at least she hoped. Dominique glanced at the phone screen. “CCP. I need to get in a game … or two.” She refocused her attention on the road.

“Uh oh, who did it? Is your sister begging for money again? Or is it your brother this time? You only go there if one of them done did something or if …” Chasity’s voice trailed off. “God, I hope it’s not Xan. His stank ass didn’t come sniffing around again, did he? It’s like he always knows when you—”

“Girl, no. Definitely not Xan this time. And no, it’s not Sasha or Myles that’s done anything. It’s Vincent.”

“Who?”

A wide grin spread across Dominique’s face as an image of Vincent’s dimpled smile came to the forefront of her mind. She could hear the nervousness in his deep voice when he introduced himself and again when he asked her to have lunch with him. Despite feeling so anxious to be around him, they clicked almost instantly and easily discussed her being a dominatrix and his interest in submitting. It hadn’t occurred to her until she drove away that she hadn’t exchanged numbers with him. All she was left with was thinking about the gorgeous, tall, dark-haired man with a great smell.

“Ari!”

Chasity’s voice yanked her from her mental musings of Vincent.

“What?” she gasped, swerving a tad. “Geez, girl, why are you yelling?”

“I asked who, and you’ve been sitting there with that goofy Cheshire cat grin on your face instead of answering me. And I know one thing, your silly ass better be paying attention to the road. Now, who is this Vincent person that was about to have you in a ditch somewhere?”

Before she had a chance to answer, Dominique heard Chasity laughing. She shot a quick glance at her phone before looking back at the highway. She sighed and rolled her eyes in response. “It’s not funny, Chas.”

“The hell it wasn’t. If you could’ve seen how goofy your ass looked a minute ago. I really wanna know now. Who dis man, Harpo?”

Dominique giggled. “The guy from Club Desire last week. I saw him yesterday.”

“Bihhh! What? I know you fucking lying!” Chasity shouted. “I need to get Vonn on. Wait a minute! Hold on.”

Not more than a minute later, Vonn joined the call. Chasity filled her in, and then both of them bombarded Dominique with questions.

Shavonne threw out the first question. “Where did you see him?”

“And how come we just now finding out?” Chasity interjected before she even had a chance to respond.

Dominique exited the highway and pulled up to a stoplight. Glancing down at her phone, she saw her friends looking back at her with inquisitive expressions. With a shrug, she replied in a dismissive tone. “I saw him yesterday after I was leaving one of my clients. His family’s law firm is in the same building. We had a late lunch. And you’re just finding out because there was nothing to tell.”

“Oh, there’s something to tell. You had to see her face. Vonn, she was grinning so hard she looked like that damn cat on Alice in Wonderland.”

“Shut up, Chas. No, I didn’t.”

“I should’ve taken a screenshot and sent it to you. She was ‘bout to run off the damn road.”

“What?” Shavonne shrieked. “Girl, it’s nasty out there. Where are you going anyway? Are you going to see him?”

Ignoring her, Dominique argued with Chasity. “Was not, Chas!”

“Was, too! Well, if you weren’t, then why don’t you tell Vonn why your silly ass is out in this rain ‘bout to go play chess to get him, ahem, Vincent, off your mind?” Chasity quipped.

Shavonne teased, “Oooh, friend, this is serious.”

Dominique circled around the parking lot, searching until she found a space closest to the entrance. She pulled into it, put her car in park, and rehashed the lunch date with Vincent to her friends but omitted the part about his request. “And after all the eye fucking, again, neither one of us thought about exchanging phone numbers. I guess since I know where his family’s firm is, I can go there on Monday. But the problem is, I can’t shake him now … it’s gonna be a long weekend.”

“You think?” Vonn followed up with a couple of headbobs. “Yeah, you’re gonna have that man on your mind until you see him again. May the odds be in your favor.”

“And I don’t think a chess game is gonna help, beau thang. But good luck.” Chasity said, shaking her head.

“Well, at least it’ll pass the time and keep my mind on something else. Okay, let me run in before it starts to pour again. I’ll call y’all when I leave.”

Dominique ended the call and hopped out of her car into the light rain. She stepped from the parking lot onto the sidewalk, weaving through puddles and cracking concrete until she reached the front entrance of the Chicago Chess Palace. The door was a deep red, set in the middle of a rounded archway that framed the old two-story brick building. She grabbed the door handle and yanked it open. Immediately, a soothing sound filled her ears—the clacking of wood pieces against each other and the gentle thudding as they settled into place. It was like a warm embrace that welcomed her back.

An hour later, Dominique was sitting at a polished chessboard beneath an ambient light chandelier. The familiar rhythm of the game only provided a temporary escape from her thoughts. Vincent’s piercing light brown eyes haunted her, intruding on her focus. She could still feel the intensity of their previous encounter, his powerful presence looming over her like an impending storm.

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