“You choose Graham over Luc?” Renee asked.
Jaime pursed her lips and released a long, drawn-out breath as she reclaimed her seat and leaned back against it. “And if we go by past behaviors should any man choose me over another woman when I cheated on my husband and then my fiancé?”
“That’s real as fuck, Jaime,” Aria admitted.
“Yes, it is,” she agreed. “That night at that party at your house, Aria, when y’all asked if I was serious about Graham and I said marriage wasn’t an option. I lied because I didn’t want my friends to judge me. I was ashamed of his history. I denied how good he made me feel out of the bedroom. At that moment I chose y’all over him. Just dumb. The days of people telling me who, when, and how to love are over.”
Jaime took a steadying breath. “And let me add this,” she said, eyeing them both. “Even if my happily-ever-after is not Graham because we’re both too scared our pasts just won’t let our love for each other be great, then it’s unequivocally not Luc . . . or I wouldn’t have cheated on him. Not if I was deeply in love with him. I wouldn’t have risked it all if I was in love with Luc. There would have been no room for anyone else. And that may not be what being in love looks like for other people but that’s what it looks like for me.”
Her eyes felt strained as she struggled not to cry. “He’s a good man. But he is not my man,” she admitted, accepting the truth hidden there inside her the entire time.
Shit.
Jaime held up her hand when they both rose to come to her as she failed at holding back her tears. “He doesn’t see me,” she whispered with wet cheeks, thinking of his anger when she tried to own up to her issues in that hotel room on the New Jersey Turnpike. “It’s all surface. All neat and perfect and no deeper than a fucking bowl of water.”
“What do you mean he doesn’t see you?” Renee asked. “He’s always doing things for you like when he surprised you with the trip or he took you racecar driving in Vegas.”
Jaime laughed a little. “Because one night, years ago, Graham helped me to remember that as a child I dreamed of racing cars,” she explained, having a soft smile at the memory. “Graham sees me—flaws and all—and can still wish the best for me. Be concerned for me—like waiting around to check on me because he knows I’m scared of needles. Even after knowing I even thought about denying him his child.”
Overwhelmed with emotions and regrets of pain caused, she closed her eyes and silently wept. “He wants me to be better. Not gifts, diamonds, and trips, but whether I am being the best person I can and how I can be better. And cares if I am truly happy at my core and if not, how can I be. And that is absolutely something.”
The women all fell silent as Jaime used napkins to pat the wetness from her face and settle herself as she felt emboldened by her impassioned description of just what Graham Walker’s love looked like.
“And Sanders is not still here. Thank you very much,” Renee said, breaking the quiet.
Jaime looked over at her to find her smiling. She laughed.
“And I am not Gertie!” Aria added.
“I was trying to make a point, y’all,” she said, with an apology in her eyes as they began to clear up their food.
She was thankful they all were able to laugh together.
Renee grabbed one of Jaime’s hands and Aria the other.
“It was just time to be honest with myself and y’all about my feelings,” she said, for her own ears and theirs. “I wouldn’t admit the truth of what I wanted because deep down I knew it was even more disrespect against Luc.”
“But if you’re not honest about what you want then you’re disrespecting yourself,” Renee finished.
Jaime nodded.
“We got you,” Aria promised as she pressed a hand to Jaime’s slightly round belly.
“You don’t make it easy, Jaime, but yes, we got you,” Renee said, splaying her hand on her belly as well.
The baby kicked.
Everyone jumped in surprise.
“Did y’all feel that?” Jaime asked, turning her head left and then right to eye them.
“Yeah, my godson’s got one hell of a kick,” Renee said. “Football?”
“Or a dancer,” Jaime asserted. “Whatever he wants.”
“Your godson?” Aria asked.
“Okay, our godson.” Renee compromised.
“Don’t I have a say?” Jaime asked.
“No,” they answered in unison.
* * *
Late that night, Jaime dropped her stylus on her tablet. She was doing consulting for owners of a new build construction on the layout of their home from scratch. She took a sip of ice water as she sat atop a pillow on the floor in front of the fire. Feeling a little stiffness, she unbent her legs and wiggled her toes in front of the heat as she stretched her arms above her head.
She loved her apartment and needed the solace after a day of hustle and bustle at the office and being in and out of design showrooms to give life to her visions for three separate projects. There was a lot she wanted to get done before the baby was due next year in April. She looked down the hall at the closed door. Inside, she was beginning to get his nursery together.
“I just hope the doctor knows what she’s talking about,” she mused aloud as she swiped through the tablet to open the mock-up plan of the nursery that was charcoal gray and varying shades of blues.
“Gotta make it fly as fuck for Mama’s boy,” she said, even though her prenatal app said the baby couldn’t hear her voice for two more months.
She set the glass on the oversized wooden tray atop the low-slung quilted ottoman before she lay back on the ivory shredded leather rug and lowered the waistband of her rose-gold leggings to splay her hands against her rounded belly. “Twenty-four weeks to go,” she said to him.
Jaime sat up and reached for one of the baby books stacked neatly on the tray.
Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.
She reached for her phone, surprised at the caller. “Hey, Luc,” she said as she rose from the floor with her finger marking her place in the pages of the book.
“I got your check.”
“I thought I owed you that,” she said of the check she wrote to cover the entire trip to Grenada.
“Hell, more than that.”
“Name your price then, Luc,” she said as she sat down on the sofa.
“I’m not talking about money.”
Jaime adjusted her rose-gold athletic bra. “I know,” she said.
“Sending this check was a slap in the face.”
“That wasn’t my intention. I finished a big job and had some extra money and I felt owed you that after everything that happened,” she explained. “The baby is kicking like crazy. Renee said he will probably be a football player,” Jaime said.
“He?”
Jaime felt déjà vu.
“Yes, it’s a boy.”
Silence.
“Luc?” she asked to make sure he was still there.
“I went for the test,” he said.
“I know,” she said, feeling such remorse for the position she put them all in. “The results should be back in a week.”
“And then what?” he asked.
“And then I try to fix the mess I made with the father and co-parent,” she said truthfully.
“Co-parent?” Luc said with scorn. “It’s not what I want.”
Jaime gazed into the fire as she stroked her chin. “Would you fight me for custody?” she asked, feeling alarmed.
Luc was far wealthier and more powerful than she was. Just how angry is he?
“I’m not a monster, Jaime.”
Relief flooded her as she pressed a protective hand to her belly. She was rewarded with another kick.
Mama’s boy.
“If the baby is mine, we should get back together and raise him under one roof,” Luc said. “I can’t be a visitor in my child’s life, Jaime.”
“And if he’s not your child?” she asked.
“The
n we keep going our separate ways.”
“So you’re suggesting we stay together for the child and nothing else?” she asked, with her brows furrowed.
“You want me to raise another man’s child?” Luc balked.
“No, definitely not, but I’m not getting married and pretending to be happy—not even for my child, Luc,” she said, unable to do anything but speak her truth.
She thought of her mother’s dilemma and shook her head as she turned her lips downward.
“Pretending? So now you were unhappy, Jaime?” he asked.
“No.”
I didn’t know I wanted and needed more.
“After everything that’s happened, we both would be now,” she insisted.
“Why?”
“Why?” she mimicked. “Luc, you can’t go a moment without throwing verbal jabs and digs at me. You think I want my child to grow up knowing his father hates me?”
It had been six weeks since he caught her with Graham and his anger with her was still palpable.
“By the time the baby is here—if it’s mine—I would—”
“What? Forgive me?” she interrupted.
“I can forgive. I will never forget.”
Jaime’s eyes went to a photo of her mother—sans her father—that she recently had enlarged and framed to sit on one of the shelves that flanked her fireplace. She thought of her pain at discovering her friend and her husband carrying on right under her nose. And then the venom Eric had shown her behind closed doors with his words and demeaning sex acts as he punished her for cheating on him. “No, you never forget,” she agreed.
“It’s different for a man, Jaime. The thought of another man with your woman is—”
“No different than the pain and disrespect a woman feels when her man is with another woman, Luc,” Jaime said, rising to her feet. “I’m not feeding into this ‘it’s a man thing’ bullshit. Pain doesn’t recognize gender.”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
She agreed and didn’t try to understand. “Where are you?” she asked, picturing him lying on the sofa with his ankles crossed and his arm behind his head.
“At home.”
“On the sofa?” she asked.
“I haven’t slept in that bed since you left.”
“I never violated our bed.”
“But you fucked me on it under his picture of you. Same difference as far as I’m concerned.”
Jaime winced. “I should have been honest with you about it after I saw it hung in the house.”
“I guess it was funny to you, huh?”
“Never,” she said honestly.
In the silence that followed he eventually released a heavy breath before he spoke again. “So you’re saying even if I’m willing to try to fix this for our kid—if he’s mine—”
“You don’t have to keep prefacing everything with ‘if he’s mine,’ Luc,” she said, trying her best to swallow her irritation.
“Just don’t want you thinking I’m raising another man’s seed.”
She rolled her eyes to the ten-foot ceilings. “Trust me, you’ve made it clear as fuck,” she assured him.
A doorbell sounded in his background.
“You have a guest. Maybe its Miss Too Much,” she said.
“Maybe it is,” he agreed. “Let me hit you back.”
Beep-beep-beep.
The call ended. Jaime tapped the corner of the phone lightly against her chin as she thought of Luc with another woman. She hadn’t considered he was already back on the prowl. Serving up the same special treatment he gave her—good dick, good tongue, and good money.
I didn’t cheat for a lack of good sex.
She pictured him with someone else. Eating her with the same skill. Fucking her with the same diligence. Making her cum with ease.
She waited for countless seconds for jealousy or anger.
Nothing.
If Luc was ready to fill the spot she destroyed then he had every right to the same happiness she was claiming for herself.
* * *
Luc dropped his phone on the chair and stood up to walk over to the door in his black basketball shorts and ankle socks to open it. “Miss Too Much,” he said, taking in her hair, now in shades of pink and up in a top knot with the cropped sweatshirt and shorts she wore with fuzzy slippers.
“Ronnie,” she offered. “But I am too much, and I like it.”
“How can I help you?” he asked.
“I wanted to give you a chance to apologize for calling me a cum catcher,” she said.
“No. I said I didn’t want to treat you like a cum catcher,” he corrected her.
“You are the type of man that categorizes women on sight,” she said, easing past him to enter his apartment. “I really thought about this and I think someone—namely me, because I got my own money—should buy you a clue.”
Luc turned to watch her walk around his apartment. “I’m good,” he assured her as he closed the door.
“Not if you think the woman in Fashion Nova is a cum catcher and the one in Gucci is not,” she said, reaching in the front pocket of her sweatshirt to remove a blunt and lighter. “You smoke?”
“Nah,” he said, leaning against the wall as he watched her.
Miss Too Much lit her blunt.
“No smoking in here. I hate the smell of that shit,” he said with a nod to the sliding doors where the winter winds visibly swirled outside.
“Cool,” she said taking one long draw before she bent in front of the fireplace to put out the blunt against the metal grate.
His eyes dipped to her peach-shaped buttocks.
She looked back over her shoulder and caught his eyes on hers. With a soft laugh, she did a little twerk before rising. “So, like I was saying. I wear tight clothes. Long nails. Neon colors. I have fun. I hang out with my friends. I like trips and shopping sprees,” she said, directing a two-inch, pointy, rhinestone-encrusted nail at him.
“Yes, but what else do you like?” he asked from his spot on the wall.
“Being honest with who I am and what I want,” she continued, climbing onto his sofa on her knees as she faced him across the room. “Listening to City Girls . . . or reading Cornel West. Taking Tequila shots or running my online cosmetic business that I’m currently trying to get on the shelves of the big brand stores. Fucking or fighting. Whatever. I’m complex. Most women are. Open your mind, Luc Sinclair, or you gone wind up in your big, beautiful apartment lonely and getting over another ex . . . after another ex . . . after another ex.”
Luc pushed off the wall to come over and stand behind the sofa. He looked down at her. “Ok so let’s be clear. You want me to fuck you, right? Am I wrong about that?” he asked.
Ronnie reached to run her hands down his tattoo-covered chest before gripping the rim of his shorts to jerk down and expose his dick. “No, you’re not wrong. You fly as fuck. I like your style and I especially love you got your own bread and I don’t have to worry about a Negro tryna find a come-up,” she said as she looked up at him as she pursed her lips and blew a cool stream of air against it.
It stirred.
“Or I might want to chill out and watch CNN while we talk politics,” she said, dipping her head to suck one of his balls into her mouth.
His hips thrust forward like he had no control over them.
Luc had always played by the rules in relationships. Always been the good dude. The gentleman. The caregiver and provider. The protector. And he went all-in with Jaime. All the way the fuck in. And he was rewarded with a broken heart and feeling like a fool.
A motherfucking fool.
As Miss Too Much began to suck his dick, he thought of the countless women he turned down over the years being Mr. Good Dude. Fuck that. I am who she made me. A savage. Another woman won’t get the chance to destroy me again.
“What if all I want is to fuck you?” he asked as he buried his fingers in her hair and pumped her head as she sucked him to hardness.
No f
uck that. Don’t ask for shit.
“All I want is to fuck you,” he corrected, as he tilted his head to the side to watch her cheeks hollow as she sucked him with deep moans.
You good, Babe? What you need, Babe? What can I do for you, Babe? Let me fly you and your friends to Grenada, Babe. Here, take my heart and stomp on it with your heels, Babe. Fuck all of that. No woman would ever get that from him again. Fuck all them.
Miss Too Much took all of him into her mouth until she gagged. He held her head in place as he pumped his hips and grimaced as he fucked the back of her throat. “That’s right. Suck my dick,” he said as he bit the side of his tongue.
That Luc Sinclair was gone.
He hissed and then flung his head back with a roar as his cum filled her mouth. She leaned back to jerk the rest of his nut out of him as his cum shot against her face. On her eye. The corner of her mouth. Her hair. Chin. “Catch my fucking cum.”
Fuck it.
Fuck her.
And fuck love.
Chapter 14
Knock-knock-knock.
From her kitchen, Jaime looked over at the front door as she tapped the serving spoon against the side of the seafood stew she’d prepared. She set the utensil on the ceramic spoon rest atop the marble countertop. She was nervous as she smoothed her hands over the black knot-front maxi dress she wore as she made her way around the massive island to cross the living room and reach the foyer.
With a deep inhale and exhale she raised the pewter latch and opened the front door. “Thanks for coming,” she said, looking up at him with a nervous smile.
“No problem,” Graham said as he began to remove his gloves and coat. “They’re calling for snow late tonight.”
“I won’t keep you long,” she promised as she took his coat from him to hang in the hidden hall closet.
“My truck and I can handle it,” he promised her.
I believe him.
“What smells so good?” he asked.
You.
“I made a stew with lobster, shrimp, and lump crab meat with garlic biscuits and fresh-squeezed fruit juice,” she said, leading him into the kitchen.
Her Pleasure Page 19
