And then he went hard.
“Like this?” he asked her, as he pushed in even deeper and pumped her even faster.
“Like that,” she responded as she took his pounding like a woman who wouldn’t want it any other way. And she wouldn’t. Not right now. She wanted to know how he felt inside of her, and he was making certain she found out tonight. And every stroke he took, every glide he made, exceeded her every expectation. He was giving it to her the way she loved to receive it: hard and fast and rough. The bed was shaking, her body was bouncing, and Brent’s ass was squeezing every time he pushed inside of her. She was a voluptuous woman, and he was loving every second of her sex.
Their bodies were glistening with sweat and passion, as they made love. And even though tomorrow would be a hard day, and their coupling would be a secret only they could share, they were enjoying this moment for what it was. They were able to forget about everything else, black it all out, and enjoy their moment together.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Curious citizens and those with their own business before the court were slowly filing into the gallery of the Jericho County courtroom. They saw Charles Sinatra sitting alone near the front on one of the long, pew-styled gallery benches with his legs crossed. A few commented that he was just like his father, although none of them knew his father; others commented on his cold, nasty demeanor although none of them, from their seats further back, could even see his face; and still others commented on how attractive he was, despite his nasty attitude. They hadn’t spoken to him to discern what kind of attitude he had, but they assumed, given who he was, that it was nasty.
Charles sat quietly in that courtroom without a concern in the world for what his fellow residents were back there whispering about him. His father was on his mind. He wore one of his finest suits, had his wavy black hair perfectly trimmed, and was determined to let that bastard know he might have killed his mother, and his childhood right along with her, but he didn’t kill his resolve. He didn’t kill his audacity to be better than the circumstances he was born into. He didn’t kill his grit.
But that didn’t mean this was easy. It wasn’t. It didn’t mean Charles was the personification of cool. He wasn’t. He could not recall the last time he felt this unhinged. He was anxious as hell as he waited for them to bring in a father he had not seen, nor wanted to see, in nearly thirty-six years. So anxious that he was doing something he rarely ever did: he was shaking his crossed leg.
He sat alone on his bench, as no one had the nerve to go anywhere near him. They’d heard about how he shot at EllieMae Fusha just because she wouldn’t leave his precious little rental house, and they’d heard about how he treated countless other people the same way. He didn’t treat “countless other people” the same way, but that was what they heard. They gladly left Charles Sinatra alone.
But that changed. Within half an hour after Charles first arrived, his two oldest sons, in fine, tailored suits of their own, walked into the courtroom. Many of the townspeople assembled smiled at them and waved, because compared to that father the sons weren’t half bad, but the sons made a beeline for their father. They sat down, with Brent on one side of his father, and Tony on the other side, sandwiching him in as if they were his protectors. But nobody could protect Charles from the dread he felt.
“Thanks for coming,” he said to his sons.
“We wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Tony said. “I’m curious about the old man myself. Although, full disclosure, I did go to see him once. To forgive him.”
Charles and Brent looked at Tony. “How did that work out for you?” Brent asked him.
“He refused the offer. He said he didn’t do anything wrong to be forgiven for, and he told me to get the F out of his face. I forgave him anyway, and got the F out of his face. I never went back.”
Brent knew how Tony felt. There were times when he wanted to visit his grandfather too, to hear his side of the story, but he could never bring himself to do. His loyalty was with Charles, and as long as Charles wasn’t running to that prison to make amends, he wasn’t either.
“You guys okay with this?” Charles asked. “You can leave if you don’t think you can handle it.”
“We can handle it,” Brent said. “Don’t worry about us.”
Charles smiled a smile that barely passed his lips, let alone reached his eyes, and he returned to his quiet, contemplative state. And he found himself, not thinking about his father per se, but wondering what his reaction would be once he saw his father again. His father was going to walk through that side door any minute. The man who gave him life, the man who took his mother away from him, the one man he hated more than any human being alive, was going to be within feet of him, and maybe closer if that prosecutor recommended immediate release. What would be his reaction? He already felt as if he had an overload of emotions. Would he be able to contain them?
“I wish Mom could have been here,” Tony said.
Although Charles only nodded his head, as if it was no big deal to him either way, inwardly he couldn’t agree more. He wished Jenay was here too. She grounded him in a way nobody else ever could. She would have given him the context and containment for his emotions to rest upon, so that they wouldn’t be all over the place the way they were right now. He felt lost without her.
“Looks like the place is filling up fast,” Tony said, as he looked behind them at the growing crowd of spectators. “Everybody wants a ringside seat when the Sinatras are involved.”
“Especially if it’s something bad,” Brent echoed.
Tony looked at him. “Speaking of bad,” he said, “What’s your problem?”
Brent looked at him. “What are you talking about?”
“You didn’t come home last night. And looking at you this morning, you look more uptight than Dad. What gives?”
Brent wasn’t thinking about Tony. Makayla was on his mind so much so that he felt uneasy about it. He felt as if he was obsessed with thinking about her. Last night was magical for him, even in the midst of his worries about this hearing. It was still magical. That woman made him feel a kind of way he didn’t believe was possible to feel. And the crazy thing was that it was not just sexual. It was mostly her fantastic sex, he was not fooling himself, but it was more to it than that.
But why was he obsessing on her, he wondered. Nothing was going to come of it. Like every relationship he’d ever had, it was fleeting too. Here today, gone tomorrow. She’d already made that clear. If word came down that her boss was going to relocate to the nation’s capital, she was going to move to D.C. with him, which only added to the fleetingness. And she had just gotten out of a bad relationship and was not thinking about getting into a new one. But she was the one he was obsessing over. The most unavailable of them all. The story of his life.
“Where did you go last night?” Tony asked him, determined to get his answer.
“None of your business,” Brent responded.
“Nice,” Tony said. “Very nice the way you talk to your only sane brother.”
Brent smiled slightly. He respected Tony too much to be cold with him. “I went to see Makayla,” he admitted.
Charles looked at him. “What the hell for?” he asked.
“I heard she was going to recommend immediate release. I went to see if it was true.”
Charles’s eyes became sharper. “Well what is it? What is her recommendation?”
“She said she doesn’t know. She won’t decide until this morning.”
Charles stared at him. “You’re sleeping with her, aren’t you?” he asked.
Brent didn’t respond.
Charles shook his head. “It’s like sleeping with the enemy,” he said.
“Uh-oh,” Tony said, looking over his shoulder, “here comes the children.”
Brent and Charles looked back also and saw Robert and Donald, with Carly and Ashley, entering the courtroom.
Charles was warmed by the fact that all of his adult children showed up on his be
half. He hugged each one of them before they took their seats. Robert and Donald, in fact, tried to outmaneuver each other for a seat next to their father. It was a silly ritual from their childhood, and it remained with them today. But only Tony would give in. He moved over and Robert sat down beside his father. Donald, flustered that he had not been swift enough, hurried to his father’s other side, where Brent was sitting. He was about to muscle his way in and take Brent’s seat the way Robert had commandeered Tony’s. But Brent wasn’t Tony.
“If you enjoy having an ass to sit on,” Brent warned his baby brother, “you’d better sit your ass somewhere else.”
“Move over, Brent! I just wanna sit next to Dad,” Donald said in that whining voice Brent hated.
“I’m sitting next to Dad,” Brent responded. “Keep it moving.”
“Come on, Donnie,” Ashley said, and Donald moved further down and sat beside her.
“Child’s play,” Tony said with a shake of the head.
But if Charles was surprised to see his grown children, he was not surprised at all when he saw Sprig. She even looked and smelled sober, which pleased everyone.
“Hey Aunt Sprig,” Ashley said with a smile and hugged her neck. Ash and Donald would visit her occasionally.
“Hey Ashley,” Sprig said. “Hey Donnie.”
“Sit down, Aunt Sprig,” Tony offered.
“No thanks,” Sprig responded. “I’m going to sit on the other side. On the side of the defense.”
Then she looked at Charles. “I don’t know why you’re sitting behind the prosecution,” she said. “He’s our father. We should support our father.”
“No thanks,” Charles said.
“He’s our father. The least we can do is show him our support in a courtroom. That’s the least we can do.”
Charles looked at his sister. “You want to support him, help yourself.”
“Why can’t you support him?”
Charles didn’t respond to that. He’d already told her how he felt.
“You can learn a thing or two about forgiveness, Charles,” Sprig said.
But Charles still didn’t respond. Nobody was going to tell him how to act or feel. That was up to him and him alone.
Sprig shook her head, and went across the courtroom and sat on a bench behind the defense table.
Luke Sinatra was being represented by a public defender, a young man already sitting at the defense table. Sprig wanted to hire him a world-class lawyer, but she didn’t have the funds. Charles, much as she hated to acknowledge it, took care of her.
“Why doesn’t Aunt Sprig dislike Granddad the way you do?” Robert asked his father.
“You’ll have to ask her that question,” Charles replied.
“I don’t think she knows herself,” said Tony. “She listens to the beat of her own drum. That’s just her.”
But just as Sprig sat down, another Sinatra entered the courtroom. And when she made it down front, and stopped at the bench filled with her family members, something remarkable happened: a smile actually appeared on Charles’s face.
“Jenay,” he said, unable to contain his joy. He stood up and reached his hand toward his wife. Jenay smiled and hugged all of the children as she made her way to Charles. Bonita was in school and she was glad none of them got the bright idea to bring Bonita to such proceedings, but she was thrilled that everybody else showed up for Charles.
And Charles was overwhelmed. She looked so wonderful to him, in her bright green pantsuit, with her electric smile, and he couldn’t wait to get his hands on her again. She left town Monday, now it was Thursday, but he didn’t expect to see her again until Sunday night. But she came back early. That was why Charles loved her so much. That was why he was totally devoted to her.
“Hey,” Jenay said as they met. Charles placed his hands around her waist and she held his chin as they kissed. They both wanted much more than a simple kiss, but they were in the wrong place for more. They would have to wait.
“Have a seat,” Charles said, and Robert, who was thrilled to see Jenay too, had no problem moving down a seat so that Jenay could sit beside her husband. And they all sat back down.
Charles intertwined his hand with hers. “What made you decide to come back so soon?” he asked her.
“You of course,” Jenay said. “When we talked on the phone and you said the hearing was coming up this week, I knew I had to do something. So I did something. I came home.”
Charles rubbed his thumb across her hand. “Your father doing better?” he asked.
“He’s getting there. Mom’s doing what she can. But I had to come. I think they understand.”
“And if they don’t?”
“I think they understand,” Jenay said. “But if they don’t? Oh well. I had to be with you.”
Brent heard Jenay say such sweet words to his father and he realized, sitting there, that that was what he wanted too. A woman he could truly love the way his father loved Jenay, and a woman who could love him the way Jenay loved his father.
He continued to feel this way when Makayla Ross entered the courtroom. He felt an odd sense of thrill when she walked down the aisle, as if it was his woman walking in. She wore a tight dark blue skirt suit and carried a black briefcase, and her long hair was partly pushed back by a tasteful pin, and partly hanging down her back in curls. She looked stunning to Brent. But it was not just her physical appearance. It was not just the fact that he still remembered how it felt to be inside of her. It was her. It was her confidence and her strut. It was the fact that she was her own woman and was not about to take any bull from him or anybody else. She was a woman who had a job to do and not even Brent’s dick, in which most women who had sampled it would call it a game changer, was not changing her game.
She shook hands with the defense attorney, who stood up and shook her hand and exchanged pleasantries with her. She stood there, arms folded, smiling only mildly as she and her colleague talked, and then she walked over to the prosecutor’s table, the table the Sinatras sat behind one row back. She sat down and opened her briefcase.
Jenay leaned toward her husband. “What has she decided?” she asked.
“We don’t know yet.”
“What does Brent say?”
“He doesn’t know either. He slept with her, but I don’t know if it did any good.”
Brent heard that. He leaned toward his father. “I didn’t sleep with her to affect any outcome, Dad,” he informed him. No man, Brent thought, would need a reason to sleep with Makayla Ross.
But Charles knew what he was doing too. His son had unwittingly confirmed his suspicion. “So I was right,” Charles said. “You did sleep with the enemy.”
Brent realized he had stepped right into it, and he couldn’t help but smile, but then he returned his attention to Makayla. She was pulling out notes and reviewing them. Although he was a little disappointed that she did not so much as nod in his direction, he liked her focus. He liked the fact that she, like he, didn’t take her duty lightly. He was going to see her again, he knew that much. He was going to hit that ass as many times as she would let him, before she left the scene.
But then the thought of her leaving the scene became a depressing thought to Brent. And he realized he was falling in that trap again. Searching for hope in a hopeless affair. That was why he was not a sentimental man. That was why he maintained his hard edge. Relationships rarely ever worked out. His father and stepmother, he decided, were the only exception he had ever known. And even their relationship had its’ challenges too. He pulled out his cell phone, and began checking his messages.
Once Makayla had reviewed her notes and was now waiting for the judge to arrive, she turned, looked at Brent and his family, and then stood up again. She felt she should at least let them know her decision.
When Brent looked up and saw her heading his way, his heart began to pound. He kind of resented the fact that she excited him. But she did. He was getting an erection just sitting there.
; Makayla, too, felt some kind of way as she walked sideways pass the Sinatra children until she was standing in front of Brent, his father, and his stepmother. She wanted to glance over at him, given his proximity beside his father, but she decided against it.
“Good morning,” she said with a serious look on her face. This woman was all business, Jenay thought.
“Good morning,” Charles and Jenay responded.
“As you know, Mr. Sinatra, the state has only two recommendations it can make to the judge. We can either recommend a new trial for your father, given the misconduct we have concluded did occur in the D.A.’s office during your father’s trial, or we can recommend an immediate release.”
“What have you decided?” Jenay asked, praying for the right answer.
“I’ve decided,” Makayla said, “to recommend against immediate release, and to request a new trial.”
Charles exhaled. Jenay and the others were pleased. “Thank-you, Ms. Ross,” she said.
Makayla glanced at Brent. She couldn’t help herself. Brent kept his tough exterior, but he gave her the slightest of nods.
But as she was leaving, she heard one of his family members, one of his brothers, make a comment that stunned her. “Good job, Brent,” he said, and she turned in horror. Did his brother just imply that he had slept with her to exact a new trial rather than a release outcome? Had his brother just implied that Brent had used her last night? She looked at Brent.
As soon as Brent heard Tony’s crazy comment, and as soon as he saw that sad, hurt, angry look on Makayla’s face, he knew he had to act. He stood up immediately, made his way toward her. He gave Tony a swift kick on the ankle as he walked by, causing Tony to wince in pain and grab his ankle. But Brent grabbed Makayla by the arm and escorted her out of the courtroom. When they were in the corridor, away from curious ears although some people were milling about, she reminded him that the judge could arrive at any moment.
“Hear me out,” Brent said.
But Makayla was pulling away. “I’ve got to get back in court.”
Big Daddy Sinatra 3: The Best of My Love (The Sinatras of Jericho County) Page 16
