Tell Me No Lies

by Nikki- Michelle

  “Damn,” I whispered while my hands gripped her waist.

  Her hands gripped my locks as she started to slowly rise up and down on me. I thought I would lose it. No matter how hard I tried to keep myself from climaxing, I couldn’t any longer. A guttural groan signaled my release just as she leaned down to take my mouth again. It took us a moment to come back down to earth. Sweat moistened our bodies as she lay on top of me, her body still giving slight shivers every so often. Even with a condom on I could feel her muscles contracting and releasing around me. We lay there in the dark, waiting for reality to sink in. Once we came down from the high of good sex, then what? She would leave my house in a walk of shame; then she would go home and try to act normal. I would still have to deal with the death of my father and the end of a friendship, if Aric ever found out that I’d slipped and dipped into what he still viewed as his.

  “I told you not to ever come back here,” I said to her, just as my hand came around to caress her ass.

  “I know. I know.... I can’t believe I just . . .”

  She shook her head, then sat up before she quickly rolled off of me. The flaccidity of my dick let me know the joy ride was over. My dick plopped against the inside of my right thigh. When she moved, I missed the immense heat her body created. I didn’t say anything as I watched her sit on the side of the bed with her head in her hand. The other hand covered her full breasts. I had to wonder if she was feeling the way my father must have felt the first time he cheated with my mother, if he’d felt anything at all.

  “Chy—”

  “No,” she said, cutting me off. “Oh my God,” she panted. “I’m pregnant. . . .”

  Confusion had me frowning. “Um . . . what?”

  “I just found out I’m pregnant. Jamie . . . damn it,” she yelled, then stood abruptly.

  I’d never heard her curse a day that I’d known her. She rushed around the room, looking for her clothes, which lay haphazardly by my bedroom door.

  “I have to go,” she said, her voice shaky.

  I sat up and looked at her. Jealousy, a bit of anger, and a feeling of not wanting to be left alone made me leave my bed. I made quick work of removing the condom and tossing it aside for the moment. She was trying to pull her pants on as I walked up behind her. I grabbed her wrist to stop her.

  “Stop,” I demanded of her.

  “No, Gabe. I have to go. I can’t believe I just did this. I have to go. I have to get home to Jamie and my son.”

  I wrapped an arm around her waist from behind to hold her still. Turning her to face me, I lifted her around my waist. Her jeans dangled from her leg. Caressing the back of her head, I brought her lips back down to mine. At that moment, I didn’t care what she had going on at home. All I wanted was for her to stay. It was my selfishness, my way of dealing with the issues at hand. She tried to fight the kiss at first. It didn’t take long for her to give in. She couldn’t deny what was going on between us, and I wouldn’t allow her to. I took her back to the bed, her thighs still wrapped around my waist as my hands roamed her body like she belonged to me. I refused to stop kissing her, because that would mean the heat of the moment would wear off.

  My hands grabbed both her wrists to restrain them above her head. I stopped the kiss just long enough to hear her breath catch, that beautiful gasp just as I swiftly entered her again. No filter this time. Nothing between us, just skin to skin. The musky scent of our sex still permeated the room. I could still smell me exuding from her pores.

  “Oh my God . . . Gabe . . . mmm-hmm . . .”

  My name had turned into a sultry moan from her lips. I was giving her instant gratification. She took me away from the pain, if only for the time being. She gave me something else to think about. I knew that after this time there would be no way I could stop her exodus. She would no doubt leave my bed to run back home to Jamie. That was fine by me, because at this moment she was mine. So I would take full advantage of making another man’s woman moan . . . making her body my own . . . and making her mine, if only for the time being. I made her scream, made her moan, made her beg me not to stop, until her body shook and released her pleasure. I still wasn’t done, wanted to taste her, so I dropped down on my knees, hooked her legs in the creases of my elbows, and made her ride my face.

  The next day my mother and I sat across from Cecilia and Stephanie. The mood in the room was hostile. We were in my father’s attorney’s office. The room was silent as Cecilia stared at Vlad Rodriguez. She was disgusted—not with him, but with what he had just read from part of my father’s will.

  “I know it’s uncommon in most settings for the will to be read before the deceased is laid to rest, but X was clear in his stance on this. Not only was he my client, but he was also my best friend,” Vlad explained. “So no matter who doesn’t like what is being read, it will be carried out just like he wanted it to be.”

  Vlad stood at all of six feet. He was of mixed heritage and often joked about being a mutt, as he called himself. No one could look at him and tell if he was black or another ethnicity. He liked to keep it that way.

  “Are you kidding me?” Cecilia spat out as she stood. “You mean to tell me that I have to sit idly by as my husband’s mistress and bastard son decide how to lay him to rest?”

  Her graying sister locks were pulled back into a tight French bun. She had on an all-black pantsuit that showed off her petite figure. As usual, her entire appearance was perfect. She had the whole grieving widow thing on lock.

  “You don’t have to sit idly by and do anything,” Vlad told her. “You can work with them. Xavier was a very wealthy man because of the money he inherited. He was smart in investments. Since he inherited his grandfather’s and his father’s estate, he has tripled his net worth. He’s had these provisions set in place since Gabe was born. And, really, all the four of you have to do is sign the document, because he specifically asked to be laid to rest a certain way. This doesn’t have to be hard, Cecilia.”

  Stephanie spoke up. “The hell it doesn’t. I don’t know why they’re even here.”

  Vlad laid the papers in his hand on the long cherry-oak wood table, then sighed loudly. “They’re here because X wanted them to be, whether either of you liked it or not.”

  Neither I nor my mother had said anything yet. I didn’t know my mother’s reason, but I was remaining silent because if I spoke up, my words would cut and they cut deeply. My mother’s hand held mine. Her body was shivering. It could have been because she needed to eat, could have been because she needed to sleep. She didn’t want to come down here, but I did. She didn’t want to be bothered with Cecilia or Stephanie, but I didn’t care. I would have a hand in burying my father no matter how hard they objected.

  “I will fight like hell to ensure they will not be allowed to have a say in anything,” Cecilia countered. “This is bullshit. For years I’ve had to put up with him flaunting these two in front of me. I’ve dealt with him having another baby on me, another family across town, and then he moved them to another state,” she stated as a matter of fact. “For years I’ve had to endure the looks, the head shakes of my friends and family because they couldn’t understand why I allowed my husband to do whatever the hell he pleased. No more! He will not make me look like a damn fool in his death too.”

  “I understand you’re hurt, Cecilia. I do, but you can’t be willing to prolong this man’s burial because your pride is in the way.”

  “I will, Vlad. I will take this to court if I have to—”

  I finally spoke up. “You will not,” I declared. “We will bury my father in four days, and you will shut the hell up and allow us to say good-bye to him respectfully,” I snapped.

  My mother squeezed my hand. Her way of telling me to calm down. Cecilia’s head jerked back, and she looked at me like she wanted to spit on me. To her I was an untouchable, just a constant reminder of the fact that my father never loved her enough to leave my mother alone.

  “How dare you speak to me?” she spat out. />
  She was appalled that I even breathed the same air as her, so much so that she was speaking through clenched teeth. Her catlike eyes matched Stephanie’s in the way they seemed to turn into slits. If she could have murdered me and got away with it, she would have.

  “You heard what I said, Cecilia.”

  She turned her wrath on my mother. “Maybe if you hadn’t been so busy being my husband’s come bucket, you would have been able to teach your illegitimate offspring some manners.”

  I didn’t even see it coming, and neither did Cecilia. By the time she realized what had happened, my mother had jumped up and slapped her hard enough to make everyone in the room gasp. Cecilia’s face was stuck in a state of openmouthed shock. All that could be heard in the aftermath of the slap was Stephanie’s stunned scream. When she jumped up to defend her mother, my mother delivered the same openhanded punishment to the right side of her face as well. I grabbed my mother and pulled her away from the table.

  “I’m so . . . so sick of this mess,” my mother said through the geyser of tears streaming down her face. “You will never call my son anything other than his name from this moment on. Do you understand me, Ce-Ce? Now, either we’re going to finally act like we have some damn sense when it comes to Xavier, or I will proceed to slap the shit out of you every time you step out of line with me from this point on.”

  Cecilia was still stuck with her hand clasped to the place where my mother’s handprint had been etched. Stephanie had been slapped back into her seat, from whence she was still staring at my mother like she was seeing her for the first time.

  “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, we can go ahead and get these papers signed so we can lay my friend to rest,” Vlad stated nonchalantly, then signaled to his secretary to lay the papers out.

  It was safe to say that the rest of the time in Vlad’s office, we barely heard a peep from Cecilia. She signed the papers that would allow me and my mother to have a say in my father’s burial. All she did the rest of the meeting was cry. It wasn’t until Vlad told her how much my father had left me and my mother that she stormed out of the room. My father’s money stretched a long way. He’d told me a while ago that Cecilia knew only of the thirty or so million they had in a joint account and another fifty million in another account. However, she had no idea about the nine-figure amount Vlad read off, which was left to be split between me and my mother, nor did she know about the other various accounts and estate assets that Vlad had discussed with me. My father had left those specifically to me, his only son.

  Vlad explained as he looked at my mother, “It was his way of trying to make up for the way you and Gabriel had to live. He couldn’t be there every day for Gabe, and he knew it was a lot on you . . . so this was his way of apologizing. Trust me when I tell you, he wanted you to have it.”

  Vlad went on to explain that all the houses and other assets had been left to Stephanie and her mother. My dad wanted to be buried in the same cemetery as my mother’s parents, which also happened to be where his parents had been laid to rest, much to the chagrin of Cecilia. She’d always thought he wanted to be buried in a plot they’d picked out together. Even in death my father was breaking hearts, which was evident by the way Cecilia and Stephanie stormed out of Vlad’s office. The only thing was, none of us would get to fuss over, cuss about, or discuss any of our unhappiness with him. We’d just have to deal with it.

  Jamie

  The other night, when Chyanne walked in, I’d watched her through heavy eyelids. She’d thought I was sleeping, but I wasn’t. I’d watched her when she leaned over the bed to see if I was sleeping, and I’d caught a whiff of a spicy, smoky smell that I couldn’t place. I had no idea where she’d been, since her mother had called several times, asking if she’d made it home. I guessed she hadn’t answered the phone for her, like she hadn’t answered my calls either. She’d showered, then headed downstairs to toss her clothes into the washer. I’d heard it when she turned it on. That puzzled me, so I’d gotten up to check her phone. The last text she’d gotten was from Aric. She’d responded by telling him that she would stop by, because he’d told her they needed to talk.

  I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that she might have been with him those hours, when she should have been home. She’d said we could talk once she returned. But she’d returned hours later and—God forbid—with the scent of another man on her. Nothing in me wanted to accept the fact that Chyanne might have been cheating on me, and with the one man I despised more than anything. I had no love for a man who laid hands on a woman. None. Still, I had tried to respect the man who was the father of her son, no matter what I thought of him. However, if I found out that she had been with him again, I’d probably kill him.

  Chyanne had left for work early the next morning. She’d barely been able to make eye contact with me. I’d touched her, sexually, just to gauge her reaction. I wanted to see if she would tell on herself. I was no fool, and I knew the woman I’d shared a bed with for almost two years. No, she didn’t pull away, but she wasn’t all there, either.

  When Chyanne was turned on, in the heat of desire, she was what every man wanted his woman to be. She had a way of making a man feel like he was the only one in the world who could make her feel that way. She didn’t give me that. She sucked my dick until I was about to come, then got on top of me to make sure that I came quickly. That wasn’t Chyanne. Chyanne was submissive, never dominant, unless I asked her to be. I still enjoyed the sex between us, but it wasn’t the same.

  If I had to be honest with myself, it hadn’t been the same since I told her about what had happened to me. I was beginning to regret telling her anything, including about the number of women I’d had sex with. Shit, I didn’t think it was a problem. It wasn’t for me in my relationship with her. It was just back then, I liked to keep pussy at the ready. It didn’t make me any less of a man. I respected Chyanne. Treated her like the queen she was. So I just couldn’t grasp the concept of her cheating on me, if... she was cheating on me.

  “So you really think she’s cheating on you?” Jamaal asked me.

  He’d finally gotten back into town from vacation. To be honest, it was good that he was back, because I needed someone to talk to so I wouldn’t do something stupid. Like show up at Aric’s place to question him about whether Chyanne had been there the night before. Or like wrap my hands around her neck and demand she tell me the truth.

  “I’m not sure. She’s just been acting very strange lately, not herself. Feel me?”

  He nodded. “You talk to her about it?”

  “Not yet. I will when she gets home, though.”

  Jamaal had stopped by since he had been on my side of town to see two of his kids. He took a sip from the bottle of water in his hand. His badge and gun lay against his chubby waist as he spoke.

  “What’s going on between the two of you? I thought y’all were a match made in heaven.”

  I shrugged his comment off. My elbows pressed against the granite island top as I looked across at him. He didn’t know about what had happened to me. Some things a man never revealed to another man, not even the ones he considered friends.

  “Shit’s just been stressed since I found out—well, she claimed—that Aric kissed her. Shit fucks with me,” I told him. “It happened right after I told her about all the women I ran through in college.”

  “Whoa. So you copped to that?”

  I nodded.

  He shook his head. “That shit is so taboo, man. You shouldn’t have told her that shit, Jamie. Any woman would hold that shit against you. Hell, I hold it against you, but that’s because I’m mad I couldn’t pull bitches like that.”

  He laughed a little. I didn’t.

  “I told her because she asked. I wasn’t about to lie to her. I don’t believe in lying to the person you love.” I tossed my empty water bottle in the trash. “That’s why I was so pissed when she came home that night acting different, then lied to me like it was nothing.”

&
nbsp; “To her, it probably was nothing.”

  “Nah,” I said shaking my head. “I know Chyanne, J. If it had been nothing, she wouldn’t have tried to hide that shit from me.”

  He moved around on the stool a bit. “Come on, Jamie. Admit it. If she had come right out and told you that shit, what would you have done? You’ve been itching to put a foot in Aric’s ass for a minute, anyway. I’m mad I even knew dude’s name before I knew what he even looked like. Anytime Chyanne called you because Aric was fucking her over, you’d be pissed. But you would still go running to her rescue.”

  “Because that’s what you do when you care for somebody.”

  “I told you getting with her was a bad idea, because I didn’t think she was over that dude yet. Not that damn quick.” He pulled out a pack of Newports.

  “Can’t smoke in here, man.” I was annoyed because I told him that almost every time he was at my place.

  “My bad,” he said, putting them away. “But, look, why else do you think she’s cheating?”

  “She stayed out last night until about three in the morning. She’s never done any shit like that. I asked her about it this morning, and she claimed she was with her mother,” I explained.

  “And who’s to say she wasn’t?”

  “Her mother. She called me, asking if Chyanne had made it home yet, because she wasn’t answering her calls, either.”

  “Oh, damn,” he responded with furrowed brows.

  “Yeah, and the last text in her phone was from Aric.”

  “So why don’t you just outright ask her?”

  “Planning on it.”

  “And what’s going to happen if she cops to being at his place last night?” he asked.

  I shrugged again, stood up to my full height. “I don’t know.”

  “Are you sure you even want to know?”

  “I may not want to know, but I need to know. She’s carrying my child. We share this house. We share the same bed. I love her. I love her son like he is my own. This is a woman I’d kill for with no question,” I explained to him. “I need to know.”