by Noire
“So,” I said, looking around. He was fine as hell and could work a mic and a stage, but his dressing area was weak and it was definitely not what I had been expecting from the CEO of no record label, money problems or not. This nigga might as well have been chillin’ in a damn broom closet! He wasn’t lying when he said he was all about “air bling.” He was Ruthless’s CEO and his neck was naked like he didn’t know how to adorn himself with shine! Somebody needed to call Jacob the Jeweler! Free shoulda been chained out and chilling in a phat dressing room with flunkies flocking around him bringing him drinks and boosting his head!
“Where’s the after-party at? I know you hitting the spots tonight, right?”
He nodded. “Oh, yeah. Most definitely. That’s part of my job, baby. We got a car outside just waiting to go. I’m rolling with my boys, but we always got room for a couple of sexy sistahs.”
Now that’s more like it, I thought when he took me and Tai out the side door and I saw his whip. It was a bone-white stretch Escalade, and some of his boys were already inside drinkin’ and wildin’ with the music loud as hell.
He opened the car door and put me and Tai inside, then sat between us with his arms around our shoulders.
“Oh, shit!” some light-skinned dude sitting across from us shrieked when he saw me. “That’s the bitch in them Birthday Cakes!” He shook his head, looking at me like I was bad for real. “Damn that jawn got it. She got it! Free need him a fuckin’ tester, I’m his man.”
“Sorry, baby,” Free said, looking at me. “Sometimes my dawgs get stupid and they just be barking for no reason.”
Then he turned to his boy.
“Nah, man. No testers needed,” he said real easy like. “This ain’t no jump-off, nigga. But yo’ ass is about to get dropped off. Yo, Feety,” he said to a thick-necked guy sitting near the door. “Eject this stupid-mouthed nigga for me, man.”
I laughed my ass off as the guy Feety, who musta been one of Free’s bodyguards, opened the door then picked that yellow nigga up by his shirt and tossed him.
We rode through the city with the windows down and the music crazy loud. Free’s boys started sparking tips, and I reached for a honey berry dutchy when it came my way and tried to smoke that shit down to the end.
“Take your hair down,” Free whispered in my ear. He was rubbing the back of my neck, his fingers massaging my shoulders and then moving up to my scalp. I reached up to undo my platinum clip, and I felt his tongue on my earlobe when my hair fell. He was nuzzling my neck as I smoked the blunt and shook my ass in the seat to the music. He was nibbling and sucking all over my earlobe and that shit was making me hot.
With his lips still teasing me, he took the smoke from my hand and passed it to Tai. Then he touched my chin with two fingers and turned my face toward him and covered my mouth. My pussy was thumping and leaking as he entered my mouth with his tongue. I slid my fingers across his thigh loving how hard his body felt. I tried to squeeze his dick, but he grabbed my hand and stopped me and put it back on his knee.
Then he ran his hand up my bare arm and slid his fingers past my shoulders and back into my hair. I opened my mouth wider to him, and we kissed deep and hard. Just the way he handled my tongue let me know what kinda rhythm he had going in bed. He was strong and a giver. He liked pushing meat and making a chick feel what he was holding.
Tai busted the mood when she reached across him and pulled on his arm.
“Damn, y’all can cut the act now,” she laughed. “The show is over, Free. Saucy don’t perform for strangers unless she’s on a stage, right Sauce?”
Free kissed my lips again, then wiped his thumb across them before sitting back.
“My bad, Saucy,” he said, looking at me with heat in his eyes. “My bad for getting carried away like that. That ain’t proper treatment for a lady like you, and I’ma come correct from now on.”
I grinned but I coulda kicked Tai’s ass. I didn’t need her to tell me how to handle my action with no man. I had been enjoying Free’s sexy-ass tongue. I gave her a shitty look then started grooving to the beat again.
“I know ya’ll got something to drink in this big-ass whip,” I said, grinning at Free’s boys. They broke out some Hypnotic and I made sure I was first to get some. Yeah, I thought as I laughed and balled with this nigga like I did it every night. Free and his boys was real cool. I was about to become the life of the party and if Tai didn’t like it she was gonna have a real short night.
We hit every damn party we could find.
I was really feeling that nigga, Free. I liked the way he moved through the clubs like some kinda strong, sexy black panther. He looked dangerous and confident, like he could handle his with no problem, come what may.
And I was right on his elbow too. Blocking bitches who was trying to run up on him and get in his face like they couldn’t see he was with me. But I liked the way he deflected that shit though. As soon as one jumped in his grill and tried to press her titties on his chest, he would step back and take my hand, urging me forward and say to her, “Hey baby! Damn it’s good to see you out tonight. This my girl, Saucy. Y’all met yet? You probably seen her doin’ the damn thang in that hot Birthday Cake video. Aiight, Shawty, be cool. Be safe out here tonight. Don’t get in no trouble.”
And we’d stroll off together, both of us looking fine as hell and letting everybody know we was together. At least for the night.
We was sitting in a booth at Club Xctasy just drinking and chilling. We had danced for about five songs straight and Free was so cool with his shit that his moves looked smooth and tight. I’d showed him up though, giving the crowd a real good look at what I could do, then I got thirsty and we went back to the booth so I could order another drink.
One of Free’s boys asked Tai to dance and I laughed my ass off when she took her shoes off and ran out there on the floor. It was good to see her moving some muscle and working up a little sweat.
“Yo, where you stay at, Soy Saucy?”
“Hottt Saucy,” I corrected him, but I thought real quick before I answered. Niggas would try to get all up in your crib if you let ’em. Free was a straight baller, and he didn’t strike me as the type who needed to ride on anybody’s dime, but Marshall George was footing the bills in my apartment and he was the only nigga who got to slide up in that spot.
“I’m right in the city,” I said. “Off Central Park. I ain’t there that much, though. You know, I travel a lot on shoots and stuff.”
He nodded and killed his Corona.
“I rest in Jersey,” he said, and right away I pictured one of those phat-ass estates out there where Whitney and Bobby had stayed. I was betting it was real hot.
“Jersey is cool,” I said. I’d met a few older cats in the industry who had cribs in Jersey, and I’d spent a couple of nights with a professional football player who lived out there too. “They got some nice houses out that way.”
“Oh, yeah,” Free said and nodded again. “They do.”
“I ain’t been out that way in a minute,” I said, throwing him a hint. “Maybe one day I’ll come chill with you.”
He laughed. “You got a blank check for that, Soy Saucy. You can cash that shit anytime.”
We jumped over to another club, and then hit a couple of private parties in some phat hotels. I stuck by Free’s side the whole night, and he seemed to like having me there. Every now and then we would get our kiss on a little bit and he would touch my hair and tell me I was fine, but I felt like he was holding back on me. Shit, I woulda gave that nigga the best brain he’d ever had in his life if he had wanted me to, but for some reason Freedom Moore was keeping me at a distance. I mean, usually niggas would be trying to trick up on me before they found out my name, but not this one.
Shit, Free was hard. He was G, he was respected by niggas in the game. He was paid, he was fine, he was sexy as hell and he was a big executive on the music scene. But as much as he seemed to be feeling me, and as hot as he had made me feel up on that stage, did
a nigga try to palm my ass once the entire night? Nope. We had the motive and the opportunity. He’d sucked my tongue and licked my ears, but did he try to feel some titties or rub my pussy through my shorts? Hell no. I had practically invited myself to his crib tonight. He had to know what time it would be then. Butt naked, spread legs, big black dick down my throat. But did he jump on it? Nope. Not really.
I was still trying to figure him out when his driver dropped me and Tai at her apartment.
“You sure you don’t want me to take you downtown?” he asked, holding my hand when I started to get out the whip.
I shook my head real quick, then let him get a small kiss.
“Nah, baby, but thanks. Tai had a lot to drink tonight, and I gotta make sure my girl gets in and gets straight, ya know?”
He seemed to like that. “I can tell you a real good friend,” he said. “Lemme get your digits and I’ll get back with you, okay?”
Now I liked that shit!
I gave him my cell number and he programmed it into his phone, then got outta the limo and started walking with us up to my old building. I forced myself to act chill when I saw Frank standing outside in his big blue suit and shiny gold buttons. He had watched us pull up and get out the car, and stood there staring with his face all twisted as we approached the building. He saw me looking and stood in front of the doorway and crossed his arms over his big-ass stomach like I wasn’t getting in.
“I had a good time tonight, Saucy. I wouldn’t mind chilling with you again,” Free said and grabbed my hand. He had stopped so I had to stop too. Tai kept walking and I wanted to tell her to wait up just in case Frank got stupid on me.
“I’ma buzz ya,” he said, then kissed me lightly on my lips. He let my hand go and nodded toward the building. “Be cool.”
I knew he was probably gonna stand there and watch until I was in the building, so I ran behind Tai trying to catch her before she got through the door, but I was too late. Frank was standing out there looking at me with that same disappointment on his face that was there the morning he caught me fucking Dante in his bed.
“Where do you think you’re going young lady? You don’t live here anymore.”
“Move!” I said, pushing past him and throwing my elbow at his nasty belly as I went through the door. I’d partied all night long and this crazy bastard wasn’t gonna ruin the mood for me. “Just move, you fat fuckin’ child molester! Get the hell outta my way!”
Chapter 11
I FOUND OUT real quick that Free wasn’t like the rest of them niggas on the rap scene. Yeah, he was down with all the action and got mad respect in the music industry, but either he was broke for real, or he wasn’t impressed by most of the flash and shine and the other shit that truly impressed the hell outta me. I knew he was feening for a piece of this ass, though, and I couldn’t wait to turn him out.
Whenever we hung out he would pick me up in a regular old red Honda. It was clean and all, but that shit was so basic you had to roll down the damn windows by hand. It had a dope stereo system in it though, and he liked to pump that shit up.
There had never been shit I liked about a broke nigga, but I did like Free. We talked about all kinds of stuff. Marshall had laid down the rules about bringing dudes up in his apartment, but for Free I broke them real quick. I took him home with me twice, and the first time we sat up just talking. I told Free that Kimichi was a junkie and still living right in Harlem, even though I never went to see her. Free told me some things about his mother too.
“My moms was just out there,” he said, looking down at his hands. “She used to drink all the damn time. I mean all the time. One of them mothers who shows up at your elementary school tore down drunk with a nightgown under her raggedy fur coat and rollers in her hair.”
I nodded. I felt that shit real deep. Kimichi had been the same way, but it was worse with her because I was the only one in class who had a drunk Asian momma up at the school showing her ass.
“Mine too,” I said. “She couldn’t talk for shit and embarrassed the hell outta me. I used to wish she was somebody else’s damn mother.”
“Yeah.” Free laughed a little. “Me too. Them days was just crazy. Crazy.”
“My father got popped when I was a kid,” I revealed. “My uncle took me in and raised me. His daughter got sick and died, so I kinda took her place. He had a little boy too, but I was his heart.” Tears came to my eyes when I thought about Uncle Swag and everything that he had done for me.
“So you grew up with a little brother too?”
“Yeah. Kinda. Kaz was real quiet though.”
“Not my baby brother,” Free said, shaking his head. “That little cat talked all the damn time. I couldn’t even go to sleep at night ’cause he would be all in my ear, talking me to death. I miss that shit, though. I really do.”
“Where is he now? Is he into music too?”
Free’s whole face changed. He looked down at his hands and rubbed them together, then a hardness came over over him as he gazed into my eyes. “He got murdered. In a car. A drunk driver got him. She was holding a bottle up to her mouth when she crashed into a van.”
“Did they catch him?”
“Not him. Her. They didn’t have to chase her down or nothing. The cops knew exactly who killed my little brother. It was my moms.”
Damn. I could tell by the look on his face what kinda pain that musta caused him.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “It musta been real hard to lose your brother and your moms like that. Damn.”
“Nah, I didn’t lose my moms, Saucy. She’s still out there living and breathing. I just walked away from Liz Moore and never looked back. Ain’t nothing in this world that could make me speak to her again neither. Didn’t shit happen to her that night. She crawled outta that twisted-up pile of metal with nothing but a broken ankle and a sore back. She was so blasted that when they got to her she was fightin’ them, screaming and searching all over the car.”
“Searching for what? Your little brother?”
“Nah, baby. For her liquor bottle.”
Damn. Now I knew why he didn’t really drink that much. I hated to see Free feeling that low, so I tried to bring his mood back up. I kissed all over his neck and he rubbed my titties, but that was as far as we got because his phone rang and he told me he had some business to take care of.
“Next time,” he promised me on his way out the door. I was mad as hell! I had wanted it to be this time!
But the sexual tension between us was broiling, and we joked about who was gonna make who nut first when we finally did that thang. But it was more than just the dick I was anticipating. I liked hanging around him. Free paid attention to everything I said and made me feel like a priority. He had a power about him that just screamed, “I’m the shit!” and I guess a lotta other females in New York musta felt the same way, because every time I looked up there were bitches ten-deep trying to jump on his dick and get his juice.
“Damn,” I said one night as we sat eating crabs in a soul food restaurant out in Staten Island. Free had family out there and had some people he wanted to see, and some bitch who was sweating all over herself in a played-out cat suit was trying to worm her way into his sights. “She act like she know you like that or something.”
Free just shrugged and cracked a crab leg open with his tool.
“She’s cool. I used to mess wit’ her girl, so now she wanna see can she get some for herself.”
I looked at him to see if the nigga was feeling himself, but it didn’t look that way. He wasn’t being cocky or nothing like that, just saying it the way he saw it. For about the tenth time I wondered what this nigga mighta heard about me. I knew how shit got around in the music world, and I had been with enough artists that the name Brainiac mighta gotten back to Free.
“Yeah,” I said, testing him out. “Some people do that type of thing. I mean, they’ll hear something about you, good or bad, and judge you based on that. Sometimes what they hear might
not even really be true.”
He shrugged again. “I ain’t with that. I don’t even listen to nothing nobody else gotta say. Cats know not to come running they mouth around me like that anyway, ’cause I ain’t gonna hear it. I judge everybody for myself, Saucy. ’Cause ain’t a nigga out here whose judgment I trust more than my own. Nah’m saying?”
I sure was glad to hear that!
“Me too,” I said simply. “I don’t listen to all the noise going around in the industry either. Half the niggas be lying and the other half just ain’t telling the truth.”
We laughed on that one, and when Free pulled a big chunk of crab meat out the shell, he reached over and put it in my mouth and I sucked a little bit on his finger.
“I’m a grown man, Saucy. I ain’t about playing no kiddie games. When I’m feeling a lady she ain’t gotta worry about nobody else coming up on her block. I got credibility with chicks because I believe in having responsible relationships, dig?”
Oh hell yeah, I dug. I dug the fact that this nigga had never even sampled this ass and already he was mentioning the relationship thing. But in the back of my mind I wondered if his shit was all a front and he was really broke like a lot of people said. He hadn’t bought me one damn gift! Yeah, he’d taken me out to some dope clubs and restaurants and paid for everything, but all I could do with fancy food was shit it out. I didn’t understand how bitches got geeked off of a man buying them a damn meal. Shit, niggas had to buy me diamonds to get my nose open. Pay my rent, lease me a Hummer. Gimme something I could work with.
Normally, I woulda been turned off by some dude talking about responsible any damn thing if it pertained to me and fucking, but I had never been with a nigga like Free before. He had asked me to come to his house in Jersey, and even though he rolled up in that ugly-ass Honda of his, I jumped my ass in like it was a Porsche.
“You got a nigga writing bars again, girl,” Free said as we rolled. He had a dumbbeat thumping through his big-ass speakers, and I grinned as he put his hand on my thigh and spit some real sweet shit while he pushed his little-ass car down the highway.
