I slept with Alise lying inside my arms. As to whether this would be a night of hot passionate lovemaking that ended here for her, I would have to wait and see. But I was in it for the long haul. I was hooked on her since the first time I saw her at the club, and it wasn’t a regular attraction but the kind that men start wars for.
I stepped into a new arena falling for a black woman, and I stepped in full-well knowing all of the consequences. I did have internal questions that roamed through my mind involuntarily. Would she be there for me if I had to defend myself against another black person, or would she stick up for her race?
Life had taught me, no matter how much you’re there for people, when the rubber meets the road, everyone shows their true colors. It was important to me to only allow people into my heart who would have my back, no matter what. Not because they would condone me doing wrong, but because they knew who I was as a man.
Alise snuggled closer into my arms and whispered, “Hold me.”
I couldn’t deny her my closeness. After all, my desire to do that very thing had gotten me here, lying in her bed. I gathered her up into my arms and held her tightly for the rest of the night.
Chapter Eight
Alise
A Heart’s Betrayal
When I went into the sanctuary of my shower last night, the gig was up. I fell against the door and clutched my imaginary pearls. That man. Wow. I was fucked. I resisted him until I no longer could. I knew he was there to protect me, and truthfully, I had no reason to push him away. The fake beef I concocted with Bruiser was to protect me from having another reason to sing another sad love song. It was to protect me from protectors like him.
When I spotted Bruiser’s profile on the other side of the shower, watching me, it didn’t creep me out like it should have. Instead, I had the answer to my question. Yes, Bruiser was feeling me. And by feeling me, I mean, his engorged erection was trying its best to pry its way out of his black jeans. It was a sight I could never unsee. In that moment, I could no longer deny that I was feeling him too.
Bruiser turned over in bed and wrapped his arm around me tighter. He was so warm that I didn’t want to move from underneath him ever, but my doorbell was ringing. No, the doorbell part didn’t happen last night.
Last night, I had wrapped my favorite pink towel around me and walked over to stand in front of him. I had to know if he would take me into his arms and grip my ass the way I imagined him doing as I lay in bed many sleepless nights. Nights that I had to pleasure myself to sleep. Bruiser didn’t touch me as I stood in front of him, dripping wet. He had asked for another blanket, instead of what we both knew he wanted. His bulging erection was proof of his true desire. And Lordy… I now understood that the name Bruiser was indeed fitting for a man endowed like him.
The ringing of my doorbell sounded off again. While I was reliving last night, someone was really at my door. But how could I stop my mind from reliving last night? It was… perfect, in a dangerous kind of way.
I moved one leg to untangle it from Bruiser’s. That slight movement sent a pain between my thighs, and the effects of our lovemaking could still be felt rippling through my vagina. Now, I didn’t want to move again. Maybe because I couldn’t.
“Who is that?” Bruiser asked, stirring out of his sleep and looking at me with those piercing dark brown eyes.
“Huh?”
“The doorbell was ringing, right?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know who that is, and I don’t want to find out. Let’s just lay here,” I said and snuggled closer to him.
The bell rang again, and I wished whoever it was would take the clue and leave.
For the love of God, go away!
“Whoever it is, isn’t going away?” Bruiser said as he traced a finger across my bottom lip before he sucked it into his mouth for a searing kiss.
I moaned into his mouth, and we exchanged breaths. Breaths I would never forget. I would always want to take his breath, now that I’d had the chance to breathe him in. From the way he moaned as he inhaled mine let me know that the feeling was mutual.
The ringing bell was continuous now. My visitor was not going to let up until I answered the door.
“Ugh!” I got out of bed, pouting as I bent over to retrieve a housecoat from my top drawer to cover my nakedness.
Bruiser let out a low growl as he watched me bend over. I was certain he had gotten an eyeful of my reddened derriere that he had so insatiably spanked last night when he said, “On second thought, fuck it. Get back in this bed, Alise!”
“Too late.” I giggled and left him in the room, watching me walk away.
I wondered who could be stopping by this early, but there was really only one person who would do this. I opened the door to see Jayne on the other side of it. One look at my friend, and I knew she had been through the wringer. I also knew Ned was the culprit, but if she had let him back into her bed, then she was also the culprit to breaking her own heart again.
“Jayne, is everything okay?” I asked.
She walked in without an invitation. She always did. Her face was unreadable, but her voice cracked as she spoke. “I’m done for real this time.”
“Let’s go into the kitchen. I’ll make coffee,” I said, knowing exactly where this conversation was leading. More Ned drama. When would it end? “So, what happened this time?” I asked.
“I got into a fight with his wife.”
I turned around and looked at her with my mouth hanging open. I couldn’t believe this shit. “For real, Jayne? Seriously? You, with your ‘The next time Ned comes to my door, I’m going to cut his ass from his chest to his little penis and send him back to her in pieces,’ got into a fight with his wife, and for what?” I could feel myself getting tense. I was always there to talk her through her Ned-uations, but it was getting crazier by the minute.
“I haven’t been seeing him. I can promise you that,” she said with a wicked smile that I didn’t understand.
“But a fight, Jayne? What happened?”
“Listen, Ned came over to my house and was beating on my door last night, but I wouldn’t let him in. Then, his wife pulled up behind him. She jumped out of the car and started fighting him for coming to my house,” she began.
“Wow! That’s a mess.”
“Yeah, and instead of him handling the situation with his wife and taking her back home, he ran from her, got into his car, and sped off. Then, she turned her fury on my house. The crazy bitch started throwing rocks at my windows, breaking one out. I went outside to tell her to stop, and she hit me with a rock. That’s when I lit into her. Had it not been for Xander pulling me away from her, I would have probably been in jail for deadly assault.”
“But wait a minute. Hold up a second. Back up. How in the world was Xander there to pull you away from her?” I asked curiously.
Jayne’s right hand flew to her mouth, and she covered it.
“Oh, you can’t take it back now. So, Xander was at your house. That’s the real story.”
“No, well, yeah, he was there, but we weren’t doing anything.” She humped her shoulders, sat down, and took a sip from the coffee mug that I had placed there for her. I fixed it just how she liked it with lots of sugar and cream.
“Xander was at your house, and you were doing nothing, huh?” I asked.
“We were just talking, you know. He was at the club, talking junk about how good he was at Mortal Combat Eleven. I invited him over to play with me, and believe it or not, we were sitting there playing when Ned and his wildebeest showed up.”
“I can’t believe it. You and Xander?”
Jayne smiled wickedly again. “Don’t write too much into it. It’s just gaming. People do it all the time.”
“Uh, huh,” I said and peered over my coffee mug at her accusatorily. My friend wasn’t telling me everything about Xander, and I would wait until she was ready to talk.
“Good morning, ladies.” Bruiser walked into the kitchen, wearing his black Wranglers an
d the white t-shirt that had been underneath his blouse, with no shoes on. His clothes were wrinkled, and that was because as he stripped out of them last night, he threw them into a ball on the floor.
Jayne shockingly stared at him and said, “Bruiser?”
“Good morning, Jayne,” Bruiser replied and walked over to the cabinet, pulled down a mug, and poured himself a glass of coffee. He then turned around, leaned on the counter, and stared at me with his piercing brown gaze.
I hauled my eyes to the kitchen wall, suddenly taking a keen interest in the wallpaper on my kitchen wall. I refused to look at Bruiser or Jayne.
✦
Van
“Jackson, I’m going to get your new products uploaded today. I guarantee you that you’ll be looking good by tomorrow,” I said reassuringly to my longest and most valued client.
“I sure hope so. We’ve been waiting for two weeks on this launch, and I don’t want to have to postpone it again. I’ll give you a call in the morning for an update,” he sounded as if he still believed in me, though his tone was a little rocky, wavering like everything in my life had been doing lately. There was always one area where I had unrivaled success, and that was in business. Now, even that was slipping through the cracks of my reality.
“I’ll be looking forward to your call, Jackson.” I hung up and closed out his account from my computer screen and pulled up Raven’s Facebook page. I stared at her picture for what seemed like minutes, but in actuality, it was hours.
I went to her house last night to talk to her about her single “Love Me Again,” taking over the charts. I had purchased another thousand downloads just to make sure it stayed in the top spot, but even before I made that purchase, it had been holding its rank. People were buying and loving her music. The reviews were all favorable, and I was so glad for Alise.
I wanted to congratulate her in person and ask her out to dinner. I peeked into her living room window, watched her walk into the room, turn on light music, pour a glass of wine, and light a few incenses. I took a couple steps toward the front door and saw a set of bright headlights pulling into her driveway. I stepped back into the shadows and waited to see who it was.
Bruiser ran up to her door and started banging on it. When Alise opened the door, they immediately started arguing. I was happy to see her take a stand against him trying to control her life. I was tired of him being in the way of us getting what we both needed, what we deserved. Each other—as she had said when she crooned in her most beautiful voice, “forevermore.”
When she told him she didn’t need his services anymore, I almost erupted in my pants. “That’s right, my Alise. Fire him so that we will have no more interruptions as we allow our new love to blossom,” I said as I watched her stand up to the big, bad bully that Bruiser thought he was.
Bruiser pushed his way into her house, and I went back to the window to see what he was doing to her. If he was there to attack her, I was ready to be her savior. I had some wire in my pocket that I would happily wrap around his muscular neck.
What I saw next was two people looking passionately into each other’s eyes. That confused me. Alise was arguing with him, but the way she looked at him reminded me of the way my Raven used to look at me before we made love. Anger burned deep down in my soul. My deep-rooted love for Alise shifted at that very moment. I took two steps away from the window and fell against the house. I suddenly felt weak. She had betrayed me.
I walked around to the backyard, pacing back and forth until I figured out what I was going to do next. Alise’s shower came on, and she started singing. I rested my ear against her window and listened as the sound lulled me into a state of calm.
“It’s supposed to be us, my Raven. Us. Give me something I can feel again. I need to feel you just one more time. Do you know how much this means to me? Raven…”
I released my cries into the wind. Alise had taken away what was supposed to be my forever when she looked at Bruiser like that. My Raven would never look at another man the way she just did. Alise selfishly had ruined my hope of reuniting with Raven’s spirit. I floated around aimlessly for the past year, hoping for something, anything, to restore me. Now, I had no hope. I had to do something about that.
The singing stopped abruptly, and so did the shower’s spray. I stood, leaning against the songstress’s house, letting the cool breeze of the night hit my face. What was to become of us from here?
“Oh—” followed by a series of moans shook my very core. I couldn’t see into Alise’s bedroom, but the sounds of lovemaking were succinctly clear. Over the next few hours, she moaned. He growled. It sounded as if they were ravishing each other, and I listened to the sounds of their lovemaking until I couldn’t take it anymore. I stumbled away from there, walking through neighbors’ backyards, headed to my truck that I had moved two blocks over.
Inside my vehicle, I raged over the clear betrayal I had just witnessed. “How dare he think he can take her from me. How dare she think that I would let her go.”
I looked into my rearview mirror and didn’t notice the man staring back. My eyes were dark and uncaring, and I looked like I hadn’t slept in weeks. In truth, I rarely had the pleasure of rest. I probably never would. As long as my soul was floating about the earth with no Raven, I would never sleep. Never sleep until she was back with me, where she belonged.
Chapter Nine
Bruiser
A Heart Exposed
Jesus Christ! Over the next two weeks, every time I had the chance, I was inside of Alise, drilling as deep into her as her body would allow me to go. I couldn’t get enough of her. I would never get enough. Not ever. Not only was being buried deep inside of her like heaven, but the sweet melodies coming out of her vocals bound me up in her spell. Making love to her was all of that and a side of baby back ribs.
I found myself doing things I would have never done before I met her. Because of her, I had agreed to participate in the prank song Jeb was going to sing to Tameka at their wedding reception. Tameka didn’t know about it, and the song was hilarious. It wasn’t in my nature to be in front of an audience dancing and singing, but Alise appealed to a lighter side of me, and, for her, I would do anything. Add that to the fact that Jeb Holloway was a good friend, who had met a woman he loved a lot, and I was willing to put myself out there for a good cause.
Jeb, Channing, and I had come a long way. There was a point in time when I wouldn’t have attended an event like this. One where a pure-blooded white man was marrying a mocha toned woman like Tameka, but I had changed. I would never forget the things the brothers did for my family when we needed them most. They gave us support. They saw my father as a man and not a monster, and that meant the world to me. However, the days of me entertaining toxic bullshit were over. So, whether it was the toxicity of hate based on skin color coming from blacks or whites, I just didn’t want to be a part of it anymore. There was room in every heart for change.
Channing’s father, who was the head of the brotherhood, had gone to jail, and the whole group fell apart anyway. Some of us decided to live our lives differently without looking back. Others sectioned off and tried to keep the brotherhood alive. I started my private security company. Because of my muscle, the brothers had called me “the bodyguard,” and it stuck.
My name rang bells from the time my father went to prison until now. Every boy or man who had ever stuck out his chest and tried me had landed flat on his back. Jeb and Channing were the only ones who ever gave me a run for my money, and that was because they did everything together, even fight.
Jeb inspired me to start and run my own business, and he hired my company to do security for Club Elite. I had built up Bruiser Security Agency to become a well-known and well-respected firm in Alabama. Though I was stationed in Lafayette, I had clients all throughout the state. I had been contracted to accompany the governor on his trips out of state, events hosted by mayors in different cities, and that one time the president visited Beauregard, Alabama, I was there as co
ntracted security right beside Secret Service.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, bringing me back to the current. I was at my apartment, sitting at the kitchen table drinking a glass of juice, and Alise was in my room, taking a shower. That thought made me smile.
I answered the call. “Hey, Jeb. What’s up, man?”
“Nothing much. Are you ready for the bachelor’s party tonight?” Jeb asked, sounding excited about the night ahead.
“Well, I put up with Xander for the past few weeks getting everything together, so I’m ready to get this party on the road. But I won’t be staying long. I have to work.”
“Come on, man. You’re always working. Take some time off and hang out with the fellas. There won’t be any strippers, just us guys hanging out and enjoying beer and conversation,” Jeb said convincingly.
“Who says there won’t be strippers there? I told Xander not to hire any, but you never know what might happen with him,” I said.
Planning Jeb’s bachelor party with Xander had been one headache after the next. Every time we got one detail straightened out, he would call me with another outlandish idea like ‘Hey, Bruise, I have a friend who has the connections to get us naked bartenders with fire coming out of their titties. What do you think?’ It was a constant balancing act to plan a party that wasn’t a freak fest but wasn’t boring either.
Besides planning the party, I hadn’t been working security at the club much lately. Instead, I’d put Dimir in charge and had another guard, Limel, there to back him up. My number one priority had become Alise.
“You’re right. As many times as I have told him I don’t want it, I can just imagine strippers popping out of cake, and the sofas, and the closets, and hell maybe even out of our beers, knowing Xander.”
“Yep, our boy Xander is out there, Jeb.”
A Dangerous Way to Love (Dangerous Bonds Book 3) Page 8
