by Lolah Lace
OUT OF BOUNDS
By
Lolah Lace
Kindle Edition
Published by Lolah Lace
Copyright © 2014 by Lolah Lace
Cover Image by Soldem and CURAphotography
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead are entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
EXPLICIT ADULT CONTENT
WARNING
This novel is considered romantic fiction with erotic elements or erotica. This is for mature audiences only. This book contains adult profane language, mild violence and strong sexual content.
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Dedications
This book is dedicated to Denise Townsend, Patrice Harrison, Simone Thaxton-Taylor and Denise Williams Cherry. I don’t exactly have a fan club but I appreciate everything you ladies have done for me. Especially how you helped get my name and my books out there in the atmosphere. Thank you for your honesty, for keeping it real and your support at this crucial and critical stage in my writing career.
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge my fellow writers in this genre who have showed me support and given me insight into this genre and its expectations. Thank you to Chicago IR author LaShawn Vasser and Michelle Kimbrough for your moral support. Thank you to IR authors Sienna Mynx and Ancelli for allowing up and coming authors works to be discussed in their personal Facebook groups. It’s refreshing to see black woman helping each other.
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PROLOGUE
Why me Lord? I can’t believe this. I don’t want to believe this. Denial and disbelief wrapped in a cocoon of stupidity. How the hell can I even look at my new husband? Mason is going to shit bricks. I know he is going to be pissed. I’m scared. I’m so terrified. I’m afraid of the way he’s going to look at me. Will he ever understand this? Will he forgive me? It’s dumb that I’m even thinking this way when I didn’t do anything wrong. But hurting Mason is not something I want to do. It is what it is and it’s a fuckin’ disaster.
Jack is a jerk. I’m so mad at myself. This is not happening…
CHAPTER 1
MASON
It took a mighty long time. It feels like half my life plus infinity. This is the happiest I’ve felt since my mother’s unexpected death. I think about my mother every day. Little things in life cast memories of her my way. Her influence has shaped the man I am. Her death has changed me drastically. It has made me realize how short life is. In the time I have I want to be happy. I am happy with Kari. I am optimistic about the life we will have together. Our future together is what I have in this life to look forward to. Kari’s love drives me to be more than I ever thought possible.
My mother would have supported this union. She liked Kari and she adored Trey. I know she did. My mother didn’t have to be in there lives but she was even when I decided to bow out. My mother was such a loving, giving and special woman. Why she was taken from us is still painful for me.
Kari saved me in my days of utter despair. Kari has me by the balls. She has my heart and now I knew for sure I have hers. I’m married to the woman I love and I believe the coming days, months, years will be full of sheer pleasure. I refused to let anything take me down from my high. I’m going to grow old with Kari and this thought makes me smile inside. I love her so much, more than words can say. I don’t even fear old age because I know I will grew old with the woman I love.
I haven’t gotten a clear understanding of my love for Kari. It seems to say that I love her does a complete injustice to the depth of my feelings. I’m obsessed, enamored, captivated. I am drunk in love. I am the good and the bad things that can manifest from love. I make no apologies for how I feel or the man I am. I would kill for her. Let’s pray it doesn’t can to that.
Kari is all mine. I know I shouldn’t talk about her in terms of ownership but I don’t feel a need to lie to myself. She is mine. That marriage license is the official document I needed to complete the deal. Possession is nine tenths of the law and I am the law.
I should feel sorry for Jack but I don’t. No, not really, not at all. He wanted what I had. He wanted my Kari. He didn’t have to date Kari on the rebound. That motherfucker didn’t have to date her at all. What happened to bro code? He didn’t have to place his grubby little paws on my Disney princess. Jack took a risk and it backfired.
When you really want someone, you would move heaven and earth to be with him or her. You would risk it all. That’s what I did and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I risked my personal freedom.
The wedding day rescue could have gone another way. It could have been a catastrophic fiasco. I refuse to call it a kidnapping. I had to detain her to get my point across. Kari could’ve rebuffed me and sent me straight to jail. But I’m Mason Lorenzo Rizza and I go after what I want. I refuse to be defected. I’m a winner. It’s all I know. It’s who I am.
Being home alone in this new house felt different this time around. I knew my wife would be home soon, my wife. I knew that we were on the verge of spending the rest of our lives together. This put my mind at ease. It gave my heart a breather. It also made my cock hard. There was absolutely nothing that could shake us. We were official. Kari signed the contract and she was on my team. The signing bonus was the best sex I had to give to her. That is as much as she would let me give it.
I love her. I never wavered from that emotion, that thought or that feeling. Her pussy I desire more than I care to admit. Fuck it. I admit it. With Kari I never have to watch porn, look at naked pictures of other women or fantasize about other women. My cock gets hard for Kari without anything but the thought of her. Enough with the thoughts of my cock, my evil twin is in a good place. Maybe now he won’t be so goddamn evil.
I wondered if Kari planned on keeping her job at FedEx. She had been there for a while and she could retire early. The caveman in me wanted her at home. I wanted her to make plaza de Rizza into a home filled with warmth and love. We never discussed anything as important as money, careers, or just the regular day-to-day stuff. I know it’s my fault. I was so consumed with having Kari. I was hell bent on having her all to myself I neglected so many things.
We needed to talk about several things regarding our new life. We need furniture. I wanted Trey to feel like this was his home. I needed to spend time with him. I needed him to get to know me all over again. He had established a relationship with Jack in my absence. Trey needed a college fund. Did he already have one? There was so much to talk about.
I had to also meet Lamar, the asshole that provided the sperm sample that produced Trey. Kari told me so many things about that deadbeat. It will be hard for me to show him even a little bit of respect. Any man that walks out on his kids is a fucking assclown to me. What lowlife bastard disappears for a year? He wasn’t captured by al-Qaeda while on a Special Ops mission in Baghdad. This motherfucker was right over there in fucking Plainview living his life. He was just MIA with no justification. This blackass motherfucker just checked out fatherhood. One thing is for certain; I will never be his buddy like Jack was. Fuck that fucker. I have no respect for absentee fathers.
I vent
ured downstairs and wondered around the basement, the only place that was partially furnished. I didn’t want to remove the things that were in the basement. There wasn’t much. We just needed a trip to Pier I Exports or Ikea, wherever Kari wants to go to furnish this hollow place. Kari had a unique style. Her place was furnished like in the design magazines. It was nothing like the showroom furniture collections that came in the Sunday newspapers. Her style was eclectic, modern and practical.
If Kari returns with Trey I have to figure out the sleeping arrangements. This wasn’t really a man’s job. I will leave it to my wife. I wonder if Trey will sleep with Kari. This is a new house and he may be initially afraid to be alone in a place he doesn’t know.
I left the basement for the kitchen. I was thirsty for a beer or just thirsty in general. As soon as I opened the refrigerator I decided to grab a water bottle instead. I was still a little early plus I didn’t need to be loaded to be around Kari. I was cool with the Fiji water Kari drank. It was better than that bullshit Tess used to buy. I might be a good idea to stop comparing my old wife to my new wife, old habits die hard.
As soon as I twisted the cap off the plastic bottle I heard Kari’s car pull into the driveway. Something inside me got overly excited. It wasn’t butterflies in the stomach but it was something that made me want to readjust my man panties. I was acting like a little girly man.
I had to convince her to get rid of that old piece of shit Camry. She fears a car note. We’re married now. She never has to see the car note. I will make her get a car or take the Range Rover. I’m not going to accept any excuses. My wife will not ride around in that death trap.
I gulped the water down and I waited around in the kitchen for Kari to enter. I had given her a key on the airplane ride home. I could have just unlocked the door but I wanted to hear her enter the house and enter into our new life together. I wanted to smell her scent as it approached me.
Kari unlocked the back door and sluggishly walked in. I automatically knew something was wrong. The newlywed bliss I had seen plastered over her beautiful face had vanished. It had gone up in smoke. Or was I just imagining things? No way, I knew her, it wasn’t my imagination. If I thought hard I had never seen her look so, I don’t know, desolate. There was a dark cloud standing guard around her body, looming like a dark halo. Why? What has happened in this short amount of time? This is bullshit. Why am I mad? I don’t even know what’s going on. Her emotions are tied to mine. Her distress is my distress.
She closed the door shut so slowly that I thought it might never actually happen. The elasticity around my heart started to build up a brick wall as fast as I could imagine it. I was in the Matrix. I didn’t want the red pill or the blue pill. I wanted to kick Morpheus ass and stop bullets. Especially the one I perceived was aimed at me.
“Kari.” I muttered with half parts reluctance and equal parts caution. I waited for her to say something, give an explanation for her somber facial expression. I was man enough to recognize the smell of my own fear. I was afraid and I had no idea why.
“Kari.” Still nothing, no words just a distance, a blockade in her sunken body language. “Kari Lynn are you, what’s wrong, sweetheart what’s wrong?” Her eyes began to wail with tears but still no words, sounds or whimpers, just tears.
Some invisible force was taking a sledgehammer to my chest. “Kari, please. Tell me what’s wrong? Is it Trey? Is Trey okay?” My first thoughts went to her son. She shook her head in a way that confused me more than I had been confused just seconds ago. I wasn’t sure if it was a yes he’s okay or a no he’s not. I was bewildered enough to forge a mild panic. I was getting a sinking and profoundly upsetting feeling in my gut.
“Mason, I went home and Jack was there.” She choked out the words like they were whooping cough.
“Jack was there.” Instead of being at work, I thought I picked an opportune time for her to go back to her house. I underestimated Jack. What the fuck happened at her house? He probably was laying in wait, sneaky bastard. That’s one of my moves.
“Yeah, he was there.” She repeated.
“What did he do? Did he hurt you? Did he hit you? What? Kari, what?” I hadn’t given her a chance to answer my buffet of questions. I realized my mistake and forced myself to be silent.
“Jack was there?” She repeated once again without any form of elaboration.
“Tell me what happened?”
“I—”
“Fuck it.” If she couldn’t tell me I had no problem marching over to the source. My body catapulted me in the direction of my scorn. My feet carried me to the backdoor. My hand went for the kitchen doorknob. Kari stopped me in my vigorous tracks. She wrapped her arms around me with a force that ordered me to pause. She was weeping into my back and holding me close. What the fuck happened? I will kill him!
I rubbed my hands across her arms. I don’t want to see Kari in tears. I hate to see Kari in pain. I let her rest her face in the small of my back. I waited a few seconds before I pried her hands from around my body. I slowly whipped her around and walked her over to a chair. After her brief cry, she was much calmer now.
Kari sat in the chair and I knelt before her waiting for whatever it was that caused this outpouring of emotion. I feared it was not a little thing, but actually what Jack had done or said. What did he do? What did he say to make my wife so distraught? Kari is tough as nails.
“Kari, please talk to me.” I pleaded empathically.
“Jack was there.” I got that much. Now what else? “It was like he was there waiting for me. He was drinking. He had been drinking. He started crying. He was pissed off.”
I’m sure he was pissed. “What happened?”
“I told him we got married.”
That’s exactly what she should have told that motherfucker. “Did he hurt you?” I would kill Jack if he laid a hand on Kari. Murder, death, kill. I am the Demolition Man. There’s a reason I’m called Mafia Mason and I have no problem letting Jack know the real meaning behind the name.
“No, he didn’t hurt me physically. He told me he wouldn’t leave my house.”
“He doesn’t have a choice.”
“Yeah he does.”
“What does that mean? He has to vacate. It’s over. It’s done.”
“Mason, I know that.”
“He should have already been out. You left him at the fucking altar. What more is there to say? It’s over, pedal to the metal. Hit the road Jack. Seriously he is acting like a bitch.”
“I think he’s trying to hang on.”
“No shit, he’s trying to get me to bash his brains in.” I got some bad ideas in my head. Why was I quoting Travis Bickle in my head?
Kari shrugged like she didn’t have a problem with me bashing Jack’s brains in. “Jack said he would leave my house if I took a pregnancy test.”
I moved closer to her. I was practically in her lap. “Wait what, why?”
“Because he’s a bitter asshole.”
“Okay but a pregnancy test?” I was playing catch-up. I was rewinding the words over in my head.
“Mason, I stopped using birth control a few months before the wedding.”
“A few months.” What the fuck? I didn’t expect this and I was stunned. The implications were monumental.
“I didn’t feel like arguing with him. He was drunk. I knew he was on bullshit so I just went out and bought a stupid pregnancy test… I took the test.”
There was a bleak silence that loomed as I allowed my brain to catch up to her words. “What did the test say?”
There was a pregnant pause for lack of a better term. “Mason…I’m pregnant.” She hesitantly groaned.
I sprung to my feet. I heard her. I may have not been loud but it surely was clear. “You’re pregnant.”
“Yes, I’m pregnant.”
“Well is it his?” I should have used more tact and less bass in my voice.
“I don’t know. I don’t fucking know. How could I know?” Her words were rushed and f
rantic.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“The test detects pregnancy like seven to ten days after conception or something. I don’t fucking know. I had sex with him. I had sex with you. I don’t muthafuckin’ know.”
Her tone was getting to me but I knew she was just as confused and shocked by this news as I was. “Okay, it’s okay.” My calm started to settle in.
“It’s not okay!” She screamed.
“Kari please calm down. You need to go to a doctor to confirm this.” I jumped into crisis mode. “First we need to see how pregnant you are. That’s if you are really pregnant.” I whipped my cell phone out my back pocket for no reason other than nervous energy.
“Mason, I feel like I’m pregnant.”
“How fast can the test give you a positive result?”
“I told you seven to ten days. I don’t know. It says that stuff on the box but I don’t remember. I left the box at the house. I was too shocked to remember everything else. I think that’s what it said. I just remember the pregnant part.”
“It’s okay. We will figure this out.” I placed my cell phone on the table. It felt awkward. I felt inept. I felt the sweat as it formed on my palms.
“Mason, I’m sorry.”
“No.” I knelt before her and grabbed her hands in mine as they rested in her lap. “You have no reason to apologize to me.”
“We just got married and now this.”
“We had sex two weeks ago and almost every day since. We don’t know. I don’t know the rules but maybe this baby is mine. Look at me. It’s okay. We will figure this out together.”
“I’m so tired of drama. I thought this would all be over.”
“Kari baby, we are together now. There is nothing that could come between us.”
“Not even another man’s baby.” She delivered the words dryly. She wanted a reaction from me but I was determined to keep my cool, although she sucker punched me with that question.
“No, not even that.” The words flowed so freely from my mouth but the truth was I had no idea where this bump in the road would lead us. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be in this Maury Povich Show situation. If I had been just a little faster, a little smarter in my attempt to win her back, this wouldn’t have happened. This is really my fault. I waited too long to make my move.
