LOVING AND MENDING
The apartments complex, Rialto Gardens, that the company owned and managed was set in landscaped grounds on the edge of town, the Hudson River not too far away for those who enjoyed, and could manage, a long walk. Busses passed the complex regularly, but the occupiers of neighbouring properties all had their cars, and the bus company had decided that the timetable had to change. Resourceful as ever, the residents in Rialto Gardens had set up a car-sharing scheme so that they would not feel house-bound.
The blocks had more the resemblance of buildings you might see in a prison complex, flat roofed three storey structures arranged in three sided 'squares' that were linked by a long line of brick facades that looked out onto the road, the landscaped grounds and the parking lot.
RMT, Rialto Maintenance Team, dealt with the repairs and upgrades of apartments that became empty; the tenants moving on or they had passed away. No job was too small for the team of six guys that was led by Matteo Lombardi, an ex-Marine who acted tough but had a deep sense of humour that won over some of the most trouble some tenants.
He had no problem in his dealings with Deirdre Collins, a feisty retiree of sixty living in Apartment 420. He'd been surprised to hear from her that morning and now picked on the only guy still in the yard's office, Jack Ridley.
"Get ready, Jack. The lady in four-twenty has a problem with a sticking balcony window." He gazed at the lanky operative who was seen to be lounging in a chair and kept putting his feet on the desk. "I've told you before not to do that. You're not a kid anymore, but you sure behave like one sometimes."
"I'll grab my bag of tools."
"Do that and make sure you have some easing silicone with you."
"I've done this before you know, Matteo. I learned on the job before I came here."
"Gee, so you have." Matteo looked at the young man, six foot tall with neatly cut black hair that was a mop on his head with its closely cropped sides. "Well, what's the delay? We don't keep folks waiting around here. Make the lady happy cos we don't do complaints around here."
Jack laughed as he lifted the bag of tools that he need under his arm. "I'm gone and...and I'll see you when I see you!"
"Do the job right!" Matteo called after him, "and good luck. You're going to need it." Matteo said the last under his breath.
♥
It was not long before Jack knocked on the door of four-twenty. He then rang the bell and waited.
"Yes, who is it?" The voice sounded deep and sultry. "Tell me your name before I open the door!"
"Jack Ridley, ma'am, from RMT...you have a window that needs fixing." His deep voice echoed n the corridor and stairwell and he soon heard the snap of the door latch and bolt being slid back. "Mah...morning ma'am."
He'd not been warned about her, a woman dressed in a soft pink silk robe that she had cinched tight at her still slender waist, slender enough to make her hips look fuller and her breasts large, the baubles on her thin gold necklace resting in her ample cleavage. The sight provoked him to gaze at them and not her face.
"Good morning, Jack!" she smiled brightly, unfazed by his approving glance upon her. "Come in. I was making ready for my day and wanted some fresh air in one of the rooms and couldn't open the darned window."
"Well, that's what I'm here for, ma'am."
She put a slender finger to her lightly rouged lips. The colour was stark against her smooth white skin. "Shush now. Call me Deirdre, better still Dee..."
"Uh, yeah, sure...Dee."
His dick was swelling because of the sight of her and De's easy ways. The woman was flirting with him, and he'd only just stepped in through her door and she sure wound his clock, the sight of her and how she brushed back her hair only making those breasts lift and settle, the silk brushing over her nipples. All of this he imagined as her brown eyes held an intensity of gaze on him and how she licked those lips only made him think of what she could do for him.
He did not go short of company, his current girl a wasting treat whenever they got together, but this woman was something else in the way she behaved.
"I'd better get on," he mumbled in some embarrassment for having gazed at her for what seemed like ages but could only have been a minute or two, if that. He looked down at the floor.
Jeez! She's painted her toenails green, or emerald blue and when he looked up at her, having sensed that she gazed at him, he saw that Dee was smiling at his obvious confusion.
"Come on through, Jack."
"Sure, you've made this place look nice if I may say so."
Why was he being so nervous?
Everything in the apartment looked tasteful, not overdone, and the walls painted in soft hues, unlike some places he went into and where the tenants treated someone else's property with little or no respect. There were places he and the team had spent days repainting before new tenants moved in.
Dee had stopped and caught his gaze on her once again. "Do you like what you see of...of my place?"
There was a teasing look in her eyes and a soft smile on those kissable lips. And....and then, the sun beaming through the windows made her hair look like a shimmering crown. Her necklace and bracelets twinkled.
"Yes, ma'am...uh, yes Dee. Now, which window is it that needs fixing?"
He struggled to keep eye contact and not look at the woman as someone whom he desired. A frown of displeasure now crossed Dee's face.
"I'm Dee, not ma'am...don't make me feel older than I am, will you, Jack?"
"No...no...no, I sure won't," he stammered. "I wasn't saying anything like that. It's just part of my job to be polite to tenants. It's not that you're old, I mean you look great for your age, not that it's a high age or anything, I'm sure. I mean you look hot, Dee...darned attractive. Oh damn, sorry, I shouldn't be saying that either."
He sighed as his voice trailed off, realising that he must be digging an even bigger hole for himself the more he looked at her and they talked. He was here to fix a darn window, not seduce or be seduced by a good-looking dame that he wouldn't say no to. He dropped his tool bag onto the floor, finally noticing that he still gripped the handles.
"I hope you don't talk to the many other women in the blocks around here like you've done to me, Jack. Not many would like to be told how 'hot' they are. Management wouldn't approve, now, would they?"
