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by Cassie Verano


  If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.

  The doorbell rang once more. Sighing, I turned around and slid the lock from its place.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “You ain’t gon’ let me in?”

  “What would be the purpose of that?”

  “I think we need to talk, Silver.”

  “At one in the morning? Or did you come to make a booty call?”

  He sighed and held his head down, looking down the hallway to the left and then to his right.

  “Come on, Silver. I want to talk to you.”

  Glancing down at him, I slowly took in his physique. He wore a tank top, basketball shorts that stopped just below his knees, and a pair of Nike slides. And he smelled like he’d just stepped out of the shower.

  Damn, he was fine!

  Sighing, I pushed the door closed again and paused for a few seconds. I could hear Kole on the other side.

  “Shit! Silver?”

  I slid the chain out of place and opened the door for him.

  When Kole slipped in, it took everything for me not to attack him right there. I struggled to remember that I was mad at him for the way that he ignored me.

  “You good?” he asked as he went and took up space on my couch.

  Kole was a big man, but somehow he appeared bigger here in my apartment around my delicate furnishings.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” I said, sitting in the armchair across from him.

  Noticing his eyes taking me in, I pulled my robe tighter around me.

  “I haven’t had much time to talk to you over the last three days.”

  “I kind of noticed that already, Kole. So, I hope that you didn’t pop up at my place at one in the morning for full disclosure.”

  He ducked his head and then lifted it, smiling at me sheepishly. “I guess I had that coming. Look, I know shit looks crazy right now, but trust me when I say I’m not trying to play you, Silver.”

  Folding my arms and crossing my legs, I made myself comfortable in my chair. I swore that I wasn’t making this easy for Kole.

  “I had some decisions to make when I returned to work. The first decision that I made was that I needed to protect you at all costs. When you shared that shit with me about your fears of returning to work after the shit hit the fan, it bugged the hell out of me. I had to let that sit with me for a minute. So, I called off those meetings.”

  Impressed for just a moment that he was thinking about me, I forgot I was supposed to be mad.

  “You did? You’ve got the power to do that?”

  “Yeah, I kinda do. I pushed the meetings back by another couple of weeks. I told them I needed time to gather some more data. The second thing I had to do was alienate myself from you at work. So, it looks as if you’re doing your regular work and nothing more, despite your promo.”

  “But I don’t understand. Everyone heard Claire when she mentioned that I would be working with you. They’ve seen me in and out of your office for the last couple of months.”

  “They have, but I’ve been putting the word out that you’re working on marketing ideas and testing out various theories on a few different test markets, which you have. And you’ve been setting up interviews for every artist that’s on tour when they pass through Charlotte to stop here in Summer Cove. None of that’s been a lie. I just conveniently left out the information about the financial reports you’ve been sending to me,” he said.

  “Is that why you’ve had me to log in with your credentials whenever you ask for a report?”

  He nodded. “Exactly. IT can run reports at any time to determine what user ID accessed a particular report on the date and time it was run.”

  “It’s that bad, huh?”

  Nodding once again, he said, “It will be when this is all said and done. But don’t let any of that bother you. People remember what they saw most recent than they do the things that occurred earlier in recent history.”

  “I expected to return to work and that we’d instill professional boundaries, Kole, but I didn’t think you’d ignore me completely. We quit talking altogether, and you wouldn’t even look my way, let alone make eye contact. I mean, I’m not asking you for a relationship or anything, but the cold shoulder?”

  “Silver, what happened between us wasn’t the best idea. I mean, I don’t usually do workplace relationships, or sex arrangements, or whatever you want to call it.”

  “Look, I’m fine, Kole. You owe me nothing.”

  He narrowed his gaze.

  “It’s not even like that, baby girl. It’s just that...every time I look in those eyes of yours, I recall what they look like when I’m all up inside of you. And I wanna be all up inside of you again. But do you want us to get fired because I got you bent over my desk or take you right there on that couch in my office?”

  I smirked. “No, Mr. Smith, we couldn’t have that now, could we?”

  He stood and walked towards me. “Good. I’m glad you understand,” he said, pulling me up to standing.

  I wrapped my arms around his waist, and he rested his arms on my shoulders. Lowering his head, he suckled on my bottom lip.

  “You’re so sexy, girl,” he said when he pulled back.

  “What’re we doing, Kole?”

  “I don’t know. What you wanna be doing?”

  “I want you to be doing me,” I said, grinning at him.

  He brushed his lips against mine. So soft and sweet. He licked along the seam of my mouth before he licked at the corner of my lips. I opened my mouth to him when his tongue returned.

  Keeping our mouths engaged in a deep, passionate kiss, he reached down and placed his arms under my behind and lifted me.

  Kole and I had noisy sex, so there was no way we could do it in there without waking Bear.

  “Bear’s sleeping in my bedroom. Go to the guest room,” I instructed.

  I didn’t need to give Kole directions. He found his way to my guest bedroom that doubled as an office with no problem and inside of my thong with even less instruction.

  Before I knew it, the tears were flowing from my eyes again, and I was softly calling out his name. I had to keep my voice low to avoid waking Bear.

  I didn’t get to party all Friday night, but early Saturday was starting pretty well. I just hoped that he’d lay with me all night before he left. Because no matter how nonchalant I tried to behave, the truth was I wanted more than the good sex.

  CHAPTER 16 – KOLE

  We had sex once more during the night before we drifted off to sleep. When I awoke the next morning, it was to oriental music playing softly in the background. The smell of lavender-scented the immediate air around me, but there were other distinct aromas in the atmosphere. They weren’t as strong as the lavender.

  “Where’s that big beast of yours?” I asked groggily.

  “Fed and chilling in my bedroom.”

  “Next time we’ll have to put him in this guest room. I have a feeling that your bed might be more comfortable than this one,” I said, pushing my hand against the mattress.

  Silver was next to me, propped on one arm, smiling down at me. I pulled her close, wrapping my arms around her.

  We kissed before she pulled back. She sat up on the bed with a mystified expression on her face.

  “What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” she said, shaking her head and averting her gaze.

  Taking her chin in between my fingers, I said, “Real talk. What’s up, baby girl?”

  She exhaled loudly.

  “Kole, what is it that you want from me?”

  I tugged at her, pulling her down on the bed beside me again. I didn’t respond right away. Instead, I just took my time checking her out and enjoying her energy.

  I drug my hand from her hip up her side and back down again before I began toying with her bottom lip.

  “Honestly, Silver, I’ve been asking myself that same question. I’m still trying to figure this out myself.”

  “Yeah,” she br
eathed, rolling over onto her back. “So am I.”

  “What’re you trying to figure out,” I asked, untying her robe, and smoothing my hand across the surface of her flat belly.

  “This situationship we’ve gotten ourselves into.”

  “This what?”

  “Situationship. You know...not quite a relationship but something more than a friendship,” Silver said, closing her eyes.

  Women tended always to want to put labels on shit and then worry about a man’s reaction when they did that. Surprisingly, that wasn’t the case this time.

  There was something about Silver’s aura that made me want to stay around her. And just as I’d said before, I was trying to figure this thing out, too, because it was more than a friendship but not quite a relationship.

  “I like that,” I said.

  She opened one eye and stared at me, then lifted an eyebrow.

  “Situationship. I like that. It’s loose enough not to be too constraining while we try to figure us out, and not too casual that it disregards the intensity we feel when we come together like this,” I said.

  She smiled. Nodding her head, she said, “You get it.”

  “I do.”

  We lay there for a while, both of us staring up at the ceiling, me with my arm underneath my head.

  “Do you do this often?” she asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “Workplace relationships.”

  “Never. I wasn’t lying when I said that.”

  She lifted her head and stared at me as if she expected me to laugh or say I was joking or something. Wasn’t happening.

  “Seriously?”

  “Dead. I don’t do that shit because it gets too messy.”

  “Then, why me?”

  Shrugging, I said, “Working so closely with you, I’ve had the chance to get to know you. You’re cool as shit, Silver, and I was feeling you long before you made your move. It’s your energy and flow. You started this shit, and you were determined you weren’t letting me get away. But I made the mistake of having you in my apartment when I knew what you were feeling. Hell, I knew what I was feeling. Once you did that shit, there was no going back.”

  “Do you regret it?”

  “I never regret anything. I can’t live my life like that. Make decisions and own that shit. That’s my motto,” I said. “What about you?”

  “Workplace relationships? Never. Workplace sex? Several times. Just one night stands that we’re both mature enough to appreciate for the experience that it is and then walk away.”

  “Except, Ryan, right?”

  She rolled her eyes and then squeezed them shut. “My one regret. The real reason you never drink alcohol at those Christmas parties. They should have his picture up there. That’s enough of a deterrent,” she said.

  “Want me to kick his ass?”

  She sat straight up in bed. Before she had a chance to reply, I tugged her arm, pulling her on top of me again. She spread her legs, straddling me as I gripped her ass in my hands.

  “Just kidding. Is that what you want this to be? One night and walk away?”

  “Nooo,” she said, stretching her eyes.

  “Good, cuz I was gonna say your record’s fucked up already. We’ve done two nights and working on two mornings,” I said, sliding a finger into Silver’s panties and gliding it across her slick moisture.

  “Yeah, I know,” she moaned.

  Silver propped her elbows on my chest and rested her chin on top of her fist, slowly working her hips around what I was doing to her.

  “Why aren’t you in a relationship, Kole? You’re intelligent, good-looking, successful, sexy...and a good guy.”

  Shrugging, I replied, “I’ve never been into them like that. I mean, I’ve had a couple. Hood relationships.”

  “Hood relationships?” she asked as I slid my finger out of her and sucked on it.

  She smirked at me, and I could tell it turned her on by the heady look in her eyes.

  “Yeah, we love hard, fuck harder, and hate each other afterward, so that we can do it all over again. I’ve had a couple of those. But it was all good. They were good girls, too, but it wasn’t meant to be.”

  “Then why’d you get involved with them?”

  “I’m a hood ass brother. I clean up well for corporate America. But I am who I am, Silver, and I make no apologies for that shit,” I explained.

  She grew silent and lay her head on my chest. I pulled my hands through her long, auburn hair, listening to the sounds of our breathing in the quietness of the room.

  My mind wandered briefly to my ex before Silver pulled me away from those errant thoughts. I didn’t need to let my mind linger there too long anyway.

  “Why do you like me, Kole?”

  “Thought I already told you that.”

  “You did, but that’s not it. There’s something more.”

  My lips curved up into a crude depiction of a smile.

  “That docile nature of yours. A man loves to feel like he’s being submitted to, and you have no problem doing that. You don’t take it as some affront to your womanhood, and you don’t see it as a weakness.”

  “It takes a strong woman to submit to a man. To tamp down her ability to lead, schooling her controlling and manipulative ways to allow him to take control, and pushing those emotional scars aside so that she can be the woman she was designed to be. All of that takes strength. Most women who don’t recognize that don’t recognize the power of being a strong woman. We’re the natural nurturers in society. Without us recognizing that as a strength, our society becomes weakened, and so do our men. I can be great at what I do in the workforce, be a warrior out there in the world, and still come home and love my man while being explosive in the bedroom. I don’t have to be dominant, aggressive, or stand against a man to do that.”

  A slow smile spread over my lips, but I didn’t say anything. If my sister, Lauryn, heard that she would high-five this woman. Her and my mother, Mary Smith, were two members of a very small secret group. The group that believed the ways the Bible taught that the man is the head of the woman. My mother and sister lived that life on a daily with my father and brother-in-law. And neither woman had issues representing it in private and in public.

  “What’ve you got planned today?” I asked after a while.

  “Well, first, I need us to eat the breakfast that I made. Then...I’ll probably sketch out a few items and then head over to my sister’s shop for an hour to chat with her.”

  “Sketch?”

  “Yeah,” she said, nodding towards the drafting table on the opposite side of the full-sized bed we lay in.

  Papers and fabrics were scattered on the table.

  “Oh yeah, you did mention you design clothing. Are you good at it?”

  Twisting her lips, she angled a glare my way.

  “Well, I’m just asking. Because if so, why the hell you wasting time at the station?”

  Shrugging, she said, “It pays the bills. Everything else is just a dream.”

  “A dream that was placed in you to be realized. We’re not given our talents and dreams for no reason at all. Think about that,” I said, tapping a finger against Silver’s temple.

  She smiled.

  “I will.”

  “Aight...I’ve got my classes this morning and afternoon. Why don’t we hook up and do something afterward?”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Then maybe tomorrow we can go fly some kites or some shit like that,” I said, slipping a finger inside of her once more.

  She laughed.

  “What?” I asked, sliding two more fingers inside of her.

  “Kole, you’re going to have to work on your romantic side,” she said, breathing heavily.

  Lifting an eyebrow, I said, “What? I ain’t romantic?”

  “No...not even close,” she said, laughing.

  “Ah, well, I’m a freak. Is that good enough?” I asked, removing my fingers from inside of her and slipping them in
her mouth.

  “Mmm, yeah,” she moaned, sucking her juices off my fingers.

  I leaned forward, my tongue and hers clashing as we both licked my fingers.

  Silver lifted her hips and slid her panties aside. She grabbed my dick and slid down on it. There were perks to sleeping with no underwear. And this was one of them, I thought, as I slipped into a world of ecstasy.

  “I’M JUST SAYING, BRUH. Just a couple of ideas. I need ‘em,” I said, frowning at my brother, Darnell, who had stopped by the center just before my last class ended.

  “Romantic? Yo’ big ass couldn’t be romantic if you tried. Why?”

  Shrugging, I turned my lips down and grabbed my towel, pulling it down my face to dry the sweat off.

  “Nah, bruh. You don’t get to ask me no shit like that and then shrug your shoulders. You know. Oh, yo’ ass knows why you asked that question. Now what I wanna know is why? What’s her name?”

  “I was just thinking, D. That’s it.”

  “Uh-uh, keep it real,” Darnell said.

  Shaking my head, I grabbed my duffle bag and said, “I am keeping it real.”

  “Dude, if yo’ ass were keeping it real, you’d be telling me her name.”

  We headed out of the center, and I waved goodbye to the front desk staff.

  “There’s no name, D.”

  “Yo ass is lying, Kole. I always know when you’re lying. Your eyes get shifty, and you keep turning your lips down like that. You’ve been doing it since we were kids. Ma used to call your ass on that shit all the time. Now give up the grapes. What’s her name?”

  I chuckled. “Why’d yo ass stop by anyway? To harass me?” I asked, changing the topic.

  “Uh-uh, run that shit on somebody else. What’s her name, Kole?”

  I unlocked my car and tossed my bag on the back seat. Resting an arm on the hood of the car, I stared at my big brother.

  “You gon’ get to the reason why you stopped by?”

  “When you drop that name,” Darnell said.

  I lowered myself into the car.

  “It’s that little Asian chick, ain’t it? The one that you work with?”

  I laughed and placed the key into the ignition.

  “It’s ‘bout damn time you start settling down again,” Darnell said.

 

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