Miss Independent, Volumes 1 - 4

by Kiki Leach

  “V.”

  “What?!”

  She spun back around to face Maurice. As his soft yet eager eyes bore down into hers, she rolled the corner of her bottom lip beneath her teeth and timidly lowered her head. Damn, did he still make her nervous, even after all they had been through.

  “You need to calm down,” he said.

  “I am calm, I’m perfectly calm – I am always calm.”

  “I can see that.”

  “You’re one to talk after last night,” she said. “It’s bad enough to hear about you hanging out with her, but to actually see it is something entirely different, alright? And it is so damn obvious from the way she can’t stop touching you and looking up at you like something sent straight down from the heavens that she wants to get inside your pants and see if it really exists for herself, Mo.”

  He wiped his hand down his chest and groaned. “I told you that no matter what she says or does or wants or whatever, it’s not happening and it won’t.”

  “Then what the hell are you doing here with her? What the hell are you doing anywhere with her so early in the damn day? Why not come by to see me instead? Or at least call me to let me know that you got out and how.”

  “I was still pissed this morning about what you did in having me locked up with that asshole.”

  “Alright, fine. I figured that much, but why turn to her?” She paused. “Why are you with her of all people this morning, Mo?”

  He lowered his coffee, then turned and placed it on top of the counter, along with the newspaper and bag of fruit. “Because I needed some help in paying the other half of my bail in order to be released.”

  Stumped by his answer, she jerked back and laughed aloud. “Are you shitting me right now?”

  “No,” he said. “After we had been in there for a few hours and they told us how much the bail would be in order to get released by morning, I knew I had some of the money on me, but not all of it. I couldn’t call my parents and let my mother see my face like this because she’d start asking questions that I wouldn’t be prepared to answer. And I couldn’t contact our family attorney because he would just push me into pressing charges against Nathan, which would in turn lead to a lot more shit going down between us that we don’t need. As much as I wouldn’t mind seeing that son of a bitch suffer permanently for all the damage he’s caused to us… to you, I knew that in the end it wouldn’t do any good, so he was scratched off the list too.”

  “And what about me?” she asked. Her eyes shifted as she feared his response; her breath became shallow. “Was I scratched off the list too? I’m not an option for you anymore?”

  His eyes glazed over in disbelief at what she had said. His ears didn’t want to believe what they had heard. “You’re always the first option for me, V, with everything. And you know that. But I was also very aware that just as much as I was pissed about being there, you were even more pissed about all the damage that we had caused to your house.”

  “My house.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and nodded. “Yeah, my house,” she said again, her tone almost inaudible.

  It was the first time he had ever voluntarily referred to the house they had shared together for so many years as just being hers. It was fitting considering their current living situations, but the shit still burned like hell.

  “Nikki wouldn’t have come to help me knowing what happened,” he went on. “Even on better terms, she’ll still be a better friend to you than she’ll ever be to me. Melanie was the only other person that I knew would come through for me when I asked her.”

  “Come through for you? Yeah.” She rolled her eyes. “How the hell much was your bail?”

  “40 grand,” he said.

  “Forty thousand dollars?!” She cackled in disbelief. “Are you actually standing here and telling me with a straight face that she just went down there and gave you twenty grand with no strings attached or a payment plan?”

  “She said it was chump change.”

  “Bullshit. What woman in her right mind gives twenty grand to a man she barely knows, isn’t screwing, and doesn’t expect at least double that in return unless she’s a complete moron?”

  “Don’t call her that, V.”

  “Why not? Clearly it’s what she is. Look, I don’t give a damn how well her studio might be doing back in LA or how much money she may have stashed away in some ‘secret offshore bank account’ that Oscar doesn’t know about, it makes her sound insane.”

  “She was just looking to help me out--”

  She pointed. “Andddd more bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit -- she was looking to help herself out to your dick and hoping that you’d thank her by serving it to her on a gold platter with a bib to match her eye color.”

  “Why the hell do you have to be so crass, V?”

  “Why the hell do you have to be so BLIND, Mo?!”

  “I’m not blind, I can see just fine.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  She focused her eyes behind him and he grunted if only to keep himself from saying something in return that he knew he would immediately regret.

  In the midst of it all, neither seemed to notice the gathering patrons, some of who stopped just to stare at them in awe. Others were legitimate customers at the pop-up market, but couldn’t bring themselves to continue shopping once they realized who else had been occupying their buying space.

  “Is that Maurice Livingston?” one raven-haired woman whispered to a girlfriend as they carried bags of fruit up to the register. “If that’s him, he is sexy as hell in person. Those broad shoulders – I think he used to play football in high school, right? That’s what I read I think.” Her dark brown eyes flickered back in his direction. “And look at the shape of his ass. You could bounce a quarter off of that thing. The man is God’s gift to women, that’s for damn sure. I remember seeing his underwear ads a few years ago in one of those upscale fitness magazines. Placed cutouts on the bed where my husband usually sleeps. He’s been to the gym every morning ever since at 8am on the dot. The results aren’t even close to being the same, but at least it got rid of the beer gut. So, you think that’s him?”

  Her friend, a strawberry blond with thick red rimmed sunglasses lowered them to the tip of her freckled nose to get a good look at the both of them. Her green eyes scaled his body and she parted her red stained lips into a deep smile. “That’s him alright,” she said. “Tall drink he is.” She was practically drooling from both corners of her mouth and had to stop to wipe her face with a napkin that she snatched up from the counter. “I could guzzle him back like a warm glass of milk straight from the stove. I wouldn’t even need to blow to cool it off, I’d take it down as is.”

  “Mm-hmm, me too. Me too.”

  “And is that…?” She removed her sunglasses completely and squint as the sun shifted high above them. “Is that like Vanessa Rae Brown?”

  The raven-haired woman lowered her head and peered. “It looks like it. She’s got a smaller waist than I’ve seen in her magazine.”

  “Bigger tits though.”

  “Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Wonder if they’re paid for?”

  “Who cares, they look great. I’m thinking of getting my daughter a pair for her graduation. But what I’m more concerned with right now is what the hell they’re arguing about.”

  “At least she hasn’t knocked him on the ground and started dragging him around like she did that, um” -- she popped her fingers – “what’s her face, the one we read about. That Sheila Harris. You’d think after what continues to fill the rags concerning all of them that they would learn to settle their shit better, like in private.”

  “What the hell kind of fun would that be?” the strawberry blond squealed. “I’m only disappointed that we don’t have a few chairs and some popcorn to go along with it.”

  And like everyone else around them, they continued to listen in.

  “You know what,” Vanessa started, after what seemed like an eternity of
silence between her and Maurice, “I don’t really care what you do or who you do it with anymore. Your dick is your own responsibility now, not mine.”

  “Don’t start that shit again by saying you don’t care, V, alright?” he hollered out. “You care. You care a hell of a lot, otherwise you wouldn’t still be so damn angry about it.”

  “You know what, fuck you, Mo!” she shot back, furiously thrusting her finger in his face. Her jerked back. “You think that just because you look like that, that you can get away with half the shit you do and say to any and everyone around you – but you know what? Not this time. Fuck you.” She reached for the strap of her purse and turned on her heel.

  “HEY!” He snapped his hand around the muscle of her arm and yanked her back in place. “We tried that last night, remember, you and me? But it didn’t work out so well which is why we’re both standing here like two idiots and yelling at each other in the middle of the damn street!”

  “WE’RE ON A FREAKIN’ SIDEWALK!” she yelled back. “And let me GO!”

  She wiggled herself from his grip and shoved her hands into his rock solid chest. He stumbled back but quickly caught his footing.

  Tightening his jaw and clinching his teeth, he looked down at her and shook his head. “V--”

  “Fuck off.” She latched onto the strap of her purse again and headed off in the direction of her office building. “You’re such a vile, narcissistic asshole--”

  “V!”

  She whipped her head to the side and shouted out, “FUCK. OFF!”

  Maurice rushed forward, still calling out to her. “VANESSA!”

  From the corner of her eye, she could see his hand reaching up for her again. She spun around quick and tried slapping him away. “NO!”

  “V!”

  “NO!”

  Her arms went wild before he finally managed to wrap his hands around her body and pulled her into his tight, calming embrace.

  A violent spark of electricity shot straight through her system the moment she collapsed against him; her body froze before she tried pulling away again, knowing exactly what that feeling meant, knowing that he had always been the only one to stir up such deep emotions within her even during the most abysmal times.

  “Let me go,” she said, her voice quiet as her mouth skimmed the rough fabric of his shirt.

  “No,” he told her. “You don’t get to run away from me this time.”

  As he squeezed so tight that she could hardly catch her breath, she crawled her fingers around his waist and yanked hard on the back of his shirt. Being so close to him never did her body any good. At least, not in any way opposite of the Biblical sense.

  When he finally pulled back, allowing her some air, he was determined to look at her. But she avoided peeking up into those deep root beer colored eyes because she knew exactly, her body knew exactly what would come next if she had.

  And so did his.

  He wanted to touch her. God, did he want to touch her, to hold her even tighter, to feel her again even more than he did last night. He knew from her reaction, from the anguish she carried in that perfect face that she wanted the same and more.

  He leaned down even closer and bathed in her apprehension. It fueled him like an addict to his favorite drug.

  “Would you have picked up for me if I called?” he asked.

  She peeked up at him before diverting her eyes again. “What?”

  “Would you have picked up for me if I called you this morning?”

  She waited to answer as a reluctant smile crept upon her face. “If I picked up for Nathan, there wasn’t any way in hell that I was going to leave you twisting in the wind.”

  “You would’ve if you wanted to make me suffer just a little bit more for what happened.”

  “Yeah, well, I hope you do suffer,” she said. And then she thought for a split second about how harsh her words sounded, not even recognizing that her blatant insolence made him smile. “Look, I don’t want you to lose your job or anything and I hope like hell that this doesn’t leak out to the press like everything else that happens within this group. But you and Nathan went at it like two wild animals that I had no control over whatsoever. I knew that the shit between you two could get worse, especially once you found out the true reason behind his motivations that night, but--”

  “Motivations of which I’m still not too clear on, V.”

  “And I don’t want to make them any clearer for you, Mo. I want everything that happened last night to end just where it did. And I don’t need to hear about that shit picking up again once he’s out, alright? I say that not just for my sake, but for yours too.”

  He bobbed his head up and down and slid his fingers down her arm. As they trickled to her wrist and around hand, he caressed the back of it with his thumb. She trembled. “And what about his sake?” He slid his fingers between hers and pressed their palms together.

  Without even thinking of why, she lifted the back of her heels from the ground to move closer to his face and stared directly at his mouth. His full pink lips were like two ripe strawberries she was aching to sink her teeth into. “I don’t care about his sake,” she whispered. “When it comes to the two of you, you’ll always be my first concern.”

  “When it comes to you and anyone,” he said.

  His smile turned deeply seductive and her chest expanded against him as she inhaled. He placed his other hand on the side of her throat and felt her pulse beating so fast that his fingers trembled. He slid his thumb beneath her chin and lowered his face to hers, resting his mouth just a few inches from her lips. Her eyes threatened to close the moment she felt his mint flavored breath slowly trickling inside her mouth and swirling around the tip of her tongue, but she vowed to keep them open.

  Even through the pain, he was still the most beautiful and sexiest man she had ever known. And did she love him. My God, did she love him just as much as he loved her; maybe even more.

  As he bent down further, brushing his lips against the corner of her mouth, she slightly recoiled and brought her free hand up to his face, pressing her palm against his swollen cheek. The moment he felt her, it was as if the air had been punched from his lungs. His breathing became hard and sharp as he turned his head and pressed his mouth hard against her palm, enough to make an imprint, and closed his eyes tight – taking in every small bit of that moment for as long as it lasted between them.

  He inhaled her, he tasted her.

  He wanted her, he needed her.

  Just like fire, she burned against his skin.

  Just like oxygen, he needed her to breathe.

  “When I told you that I missed you like hell, V,” he said, his voice raspy, intense, “it was no exaggeration.” He drew his lips back and forth against the lines in her palm and encircled her wrist with his entire hand. “I’m no good without you any more than you are without me.”

  She blinked back more tears before they could escape and tried releasing herself from his grip. “Mo.”

  He brought his lips down to her wrist, and when his teeth dipped into her skin, her pulse exploded between them. Dropping his other hand to her waist and yanking her close enough to feel his growing erection against her pelvis, her purse slipped down from her shoulder and slammed to the ground. Her sketches went flying as did Nathan’s wallet. But the more Maurice kept touching her, kept holding her, kept kissing her, the more she forgot even the sound of her own name.

  But that moment wouldn’t last for long.

  As Melanie exited the building and marched down the sidewalk, she reached down inside her purse for her cell phone and glanced at the time. Since checking in on the progress of the new shop hadn’t taken nearly as long as she was expecting, she figured she had a few more hours to spare and hoped to spend that time getting to know Maurice just a little bit better.

  But when she came upon him and Vanessa and saw how they looked at one another, how they touched one another, how they seemed to crave one another in a way that was almost too mesmerizi
ng to believe it was even real, she recognized that the opportunity might not come that day for her, if at all.

  Glancing at every bliss-faced patron surrounding them, Melanie had quickly come to the conclusion that the man of her dreams, and the woman of his, were in fact a fantasy come to life for one another, as well as everyone else who chose to continue gawking at them and capturing pictures – some in the hopes of sending them to the highest bidding tabloid, the rest with plans to show them to their spouses and significant others as subtle tutorial guides.

  Melanie on the other hand stayed back and did neither.

  Even from the distance, she didn’t only see the innate connection between these two people sweeping throughout the entire market like an unexpected torrential storm, knocking down everything in its path and sucking up those who managed to survive it, she could actually feel it crawling beneath her skin and crippling her bones. Their eyes were set so hard and focused on one another’s faces, it was as if all those people swept up in their love for each other had completely disappeared. Nothing seemed to matter except for the two of them, which explained their current carelessness, seeing as how they were both so determined to keep the relationship as quiet as possible until they felt the time was right when they were actually together.

  All things considered, now was definitely not that time.

  When Maurice finally spotted her approaching, he looked back down at Vanessa and whispered something only the two of them could hear. Vanessa quickly pulled out of his arms and reached to the ground for her purse, sketches and Nathan’s wallet.

  As she stood back and fixed her hair, Maurice attempted to fix her blouse, but she gently shoved his hands away. And suddenly the people around who remained in awe began clapping while others whistled. The raven-haired woman and her strawberry blond friend were all but aflutter and eager for more.