by Day, Zuri
“Why do you think she, Jazz, couldn’t deal with it?” D’Andra asked the question wondering if they would be the same demons she’d fight.
“She was jealous and insecure, and had no reason to be. Jazz is gorgeous with a near-perfect body. I did nothing to give her a reason to doubt my love for her or question my trust, other than help other women lose weight. Not only were we together romantically, but had planned to be business partners as well.”
“I can see it from her point of view,” D’Andra said. “Having women all up on your man all the time, flirting, touching, sweating…”
“Hum,” Night said, stroking his chin and looking at D’Andra pointedly. “I could enjoy that, with the right client. That’s why I don’t date the people I’m training…as a rule.”
D’Andra hoped her disappointment didn’t show. “I see.”
“But if you’ll remember what I said when I met you, I don’t always follow rules, even my own.”
D’Andra lowered her eyes and continued eating silently. Both knew the relationship had shifted, and where it went from there was up to D’Andra. Night had just made it clear that he was interested in taking what they had to another level, even as he’d left D’Andra an escape route if she so chose.
D’Andra felt she was being pulled in two directions. On the one hand, she was flattered that someone like Night found her attractive and wanted to be with her. On the other, she also knew how falling in love with someone like Night only for him to dump her would devastate the bit of pride she had left, the bit that Charles hadn’t destroyed.
But Night wasn’t Charles, she thought as she continued to be conflicted. Night was everything she wanted, but was he what she needed right now?
Night watched the various emotions play across D’Andra’s face. He wondered about and simultaneously wanted to throttle the man who’d brought the pain he saw etched in her expression. But he also saw the determination with which she tried to mask these emotions so he wisely didn’t question her.
“I’d better go,” she said abruptly, rising from the table at the same time she spoke. “This was absolutely wonderful, Night, but I have to work later so I’d better try and get a little rest before then.”
Night eyed D’Andra without speaking. She’s used to running away, he thought. And I’m used to catching what I chase.
“Let me,” he said, rising from his chair and taking over D’Andra’s work of clearing the table. “Get your rest. I’ll do the dishes, no problem. I really enjoyed sharing dinner with you. Congratulations again on the weight loss; you look good.”
He knew he should let her go, but he wasn’t ready for the evening to end. “What time do you have to be at work? I mean, do you have time for dessert?”
“You made dessert?”
“Just a simple fruit medley I made earlier today,” he said slowly, “marinated in its own juices,” he continued. He licked his lips, trying to use charm to mask his nervousness. He felt like he was back in junior high asking his neighbor to the school dance.
“Okay, but just a little for me.”
“Make yourself comfortable in the living room. I’ll be right out.”
D’Andra settled herself into the plush suede, navy blue sofa, and looked around. Everything about the room suited Night, from the dark, rich colors to the fabrics, suede and leather. The square Osaka coffee table was sturdy and purposeful, like its owner, and the stainless steel accessories, lamps, bookcase and table ornaments lent a crisp, clean quality to the surroundings. The large picture window was framed by silvery curtains, a touch that lightened the manly room. There was a grouping of pictures on the table just under the plasma TV, but Night entered the room just as she was about to give them a closer inspection.
“A gourmet fruit cocktail for milady,” Night announced in a horrible English accent.
D’Andra giggled as she took the dessert bowl and napkin Night offered. He feigned hurt as he sat down beside her.
“What, you’re not mistaking me for an English dandy?”
“Uh, not at all, not for a nanosecond even. Don’t quit your day job.” She took a bite of the fruit mixture. “Um, this is good.”
“I’m glad you like it.”
“This is just fruit; nothing else?”
“Well, I did add a little sumpin’ sumpin’ to the mix; but there are some things a chef keeps to himself.”
“Oh, really?”
“Oh, yeah. The bananas are my favorite.”
“Bananas? I don’t think I have any.” D’Andra poked her fork through her bowl’s contents.
“Oh, you’ve got to try the bananas. My secret ingredient really works great on them.”
He placed a piece of banana with a syrupy substance onto his spoon and turned to D’Andra.
She opened her mouth for the bite. “Oh my goodness, Night; that’s delicious.” She closed her eyes and chewed, lost in the taste of gooey goodness.
Night watched D’Andra as if she, not the fruit dish, was the dessert. Her lips had intrigued him from the first day they met. And now he imagined joining his with hers, sweetened all the more by his maple syrup secret.
D’Andra’s eyes opened to find Night’s fastened on her lips. She licked them self-consciously.
“You missed some,” he said, taking his finger and wiping a trace of juice from the side of her mouth. “Here.” He placed his finger next to her mouth.
She couldn’t resist. She turned her head slightly and tentatively licked the tip of his finger.
“I don’t think you got it all,” he whispered, as he gently forced his finger into her mouth.
She couldn’t pull her eyes from his as she gently sucked his large index digit. Even as she did so, her dream, where he licked the moisture from her sweat-drenched body, came into her mind. She knew she should, but she couldn’t stop. Neither could he. Weeks of thinly restrained sexual tension demanded attention and would not be denied.
Soon his tongue replaced his finger and he ravished her mouth. A rush of heat showered them both; hot and wanting. Night’s hand found its way under the shirt that D’Andra wore and under the bra that held treasure. D’Andra’s intake of breath was his reward at finding and massaging a pleasingly plump nipple that quickly hardened in his hand. Suddenly his finger was not enough; he wanted to taste her. With one quick movement, he removed her top, and with a singular sense of purpose, unhooked her front-latching bra. The sight that greeted him almost took his breath away.
“You’re beautiful,” he said before taking one nipple into his mouth while kneading the other. He showered her with kisses; from her breast to her temples, down her cheek and her neck, all the while touching, kneading her silky soft skin. He wanted to plunge himself inside her, his months of celibacy now painfully obvious, his lack of sexual release making him reckless with want. He guided D’Andra to a lying position, even as he continued to plunder her mouth with his tongue. D’Andra was a big girl, but he handled her as if she were a ballerina.
D’Andra was hot all over, moaning with every lap of Night’s tongue. He felt so good; used his mouth so well. Her hands couldn’t get enough of the smooth skin over hard muscle. She gripped the butt she’d admired from the first and was not disappointed. It was firm and round and powerful. Already it was leading the way into the familiar dance of love and D’Andra’s hips joined in immediate sync. Night rubbed his hands over D’Andra’s belly roll in a way that made it feel sexy to her, even as his hand tugged at her shorts, looking for a soft thatch to land. D’Andra’s hands followed of their own volition, followed to the hard piece of muscle pulsating against her upper thigh. She tugged at his shorts, and then she remembered.
“Night, stop, I-I-I can’t do this.” She turned her head to deflect his kisses. They landed softly on her ear and the side of her neck. “Please, Night, I’m sorry, please.”
Somewhere in the distance, Night heard a voice. Stop? Sorry? Can’t? He shook his head as he tried to wrap his mind around a negative sounding word on a
n excruciatingly positive experience. He felt as if he were on his way to heaven and D’Andra’s body was the cloud; soft and cushy, warm and inviting. His manhood jumped in anticipation, even as he felt D’Andra’s hands on his shoulders, trying to push him up and off her.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
Night was silent as he sat up, closed his eyes and tried to regulate his breathing.
“Oh my gosh,” D’Andra exclaimed. Her hands were not big enough to hold all she was trying to hide—her naked torso.
“The window, Night! Where’s my…your…where’s that shirt? Where’s my bra?”
Looking at D’Andra try and decide which side of her breast she was going to try and cover with which hand was the levity he needed to bring the blood back from his lower head to his upper one. He laughed as he pulled the shirt out from where it had been scrunched beneath him and handed it to her. A quick search found the bra on the floor. D’Andra hurriedly put both on.
“Don’t worry, doll; those are one-way windows. No one can see your loveliness…besides me.”
D’Andra couldn’t believe that she’d let happen what had almost just happened. She needed to get outside so she could breathe and think. “I’m sorry,” she said again.
“Why do you keep apologizing? The only thing I’m sorry about is that you’re leaving.”
D’Andra explained as she reached for the gym clothes she’d changed out of and her purse. “I, we shouldn’t have done that. I’m focused on getting myself together on several levels and you’re focused on your gym. I appreciate your helping me work out and your friendship. Anything more will only complicate things.”
“All right, then,” he said as he walked a hurrying D’Andra to the door. “I’ll see you Thursday?”
“Yeah, see you then.” She didn’t trust herself to even look back as she spoke, afraid her body would betray her and make her words a lie. She wanted nothing more than to finish what they started, to spend forever in Night’s strong arms.
Night watched D’Andra scurry into her Suburban and head down the street like somebody was chasing her. His eyes narrowed even as a smile appeared, then widened. Yeah, you’d better run. Because somebody was after her; and somebody was determined to catch her and make her his, complications be damned. It was as simple as that.
12
“You were right. There’s a definite attraction going on between Night and me.” D’Andra had purposely waited until her lunch break in the nearly empty cafeteria so her conversation with Elaine wouldn’t be overheard.
Elaine dropped her fork. “I knew it! I knew there was something there.” She leaned forward in her chair, eyes twinkling with excitement. “Well c’mon chick; out with it. Did you screw? Was it good? Was he big, like the cock you saw in your dream?”
D’Andra laughed at her friend’s inquisitiveness. From someone else, she may have been offended, but aside from the soaps, reality TV and an occasional movie, her job at Heavenly Haven provided the spice to Elaine’s steady, predictable life.
“Put a pause to your pen, Nora Roberts; that chapter has yet to be written.”
“Oh, for goodness sakes, D’Andra, what are you waiting for?”
The microwave dinged, giving D’Andra time to gather her thoughts while she retrieved her Subway sandwich. She’d been asking herself the same question all evening. For all her “it’s all about me” talk, D’Andra wanted to be with Night; to hell with the consequences. For the past few hours, none of her reasons for choosing to be alone made sense.
“I’m waiting until I’ve accomplished my immediate goals,” she said, pausing again to take a bite of her chicken sandwich. “I’m working hard to get in shape—”
“But there’s something hard you’re not working,” Elaine interjected.
D’Andra ignored her. “I’m looking for a place to move. And I made another major decision I haven’t told you about.”
“There’s more?”
“I’m going back to school.”
D’Andra briefly filled Elaine in on the research she’d done which led to the decision to return to school and become a certified dietician.
“With my associate’s in nursing and this BSN, the sky’s the limit to what I could do. There’s counseling, teaching, training, lectures, seminars, writing; all ways I can help educate our community, well, women in general and Black women in particular, to the dangers of heart disease and other illnesses brought on largely by diet and stress.”
“Those are excellent goals,” Elaine said sincerely. “You know I’ve always admired your tenacity and your drive. I still do. But I also worry about you. You’re always looking out for other people; I guess I feel the need to look out for you.
“All I’m saying is while you’re on the road to this new you, leave room for someone else to travel with you. You’ve wanted a good man and you deserve to let that happen. But since that fiasco with Charles, you’ve been so leery about opening up, even a little bit…just don’t fail to see the forest for the trees, that’s all I’m saying.”
“And I hear you, girl. It’s just not so easy, you know? That situation with Charles and the company which shall remain nameless, that was some mess for a sistah to go through.”
“But don’t you see that as long as you deny yourself, they’re still putting you through it?”
“But I’m not…okay maybe I am but for a reason.”
“I know, it’s all about you.”
“Exactly. You don’t understand what it’s like; you haven’t had to deal with this kind of drama in a decade or more.”
“Listen sister, married life is not without drama, trust me on that count.”
“Please; what type of drama have you and Max experienced lately?”
Elaine paused, in serious thought for a moment. “Well, there was that stopped-up drain he took forever to fix.”
“Oh my God,” D’Andra said dramatically.
“And those two weeks he spent on the couch last year when I found out he’d looked up his high school sweetheart on Classmates.com.”
“Call the popo, I think you’re gonna need backup,” D’Andra countered sarcastically.
But she appreciated Elaine’s positive attitude, especially knowing of more serious tests to her friend’s marriage than had been brought up at the table. Like the two miscarriages Elaine had before little Seth was born. Or the horrific battle with Alzheimer’s disease that put strain on everyone before Max’s father died last year.
“All right, I give,” Elaine conceded. “You’ve made your point. I am a lucky girl, and I’m thankful for that every day. I just want you to be lucky too.”
“Maybe I will be.”
“I’m crossing my fingers.”
D’Andra’s heart warmed as she watched her loyal, red-headed, freckle-faced friend head back to the nurse’s station. “From your lips to God’s ears,” she whispered.
And to yours, God whispered back.
13
D’Andra pulled up to Night’s house with a new attitude. She’d taken Elaine’s advice to heart, and while she wasn’t ready to go in and seduce the man straight out, she had promised herself to stop hiding behind excuses and fear, to live life a little more dangerously than she had in the past. What had Elaine said as they left work this morning? Nothing ventured nothing gained?
D’Andra reached for her towel, water bottle and purse, and headed up the walk to Night’s front door. She hadn’t seen or spoken to him since their impromptu rendezvous two nights before and her heart beat with a mixture of nervousness and excitement. Would he greet her as if nothing had happened on Tuesday? Would he be sorry their friendship had gone to that level? Would there now be discomfort in their dealings as client and trainer? Would he refuse to open the door?
Night had watched the clock since noon, willing the hands to move faster toward his four o’clock work-out session with D’Andra. He’d thought of little else, and certainly no one else, since their session two days ago. He’d replayed th
eir tryst in his head, time and again, and all he wanted to do was see if the real thing was as sweet as he remembered. He didn’t even give her time to ring the bell before flinging the door open.
“Get in here, doll,” he murmured, reaching for D’Andra’s hand and closing the door quickly behind her. Then, backing her up against the door, he proceeded to kiss her like a thirsty man needing water.
“Oh…my,” she said when they came up for air. So much for her wondering about Night’s reaction to seeing her again. “Uh, good afternoon.”
“Good afternoon, D’Andra. You look beautiful, as usual.”
“Night,” she said, ducking her head under his arm and going around him toward the stairs. “I look the same as I always do.”
“I said ‘as usual’. You want anything before we begin our workout?”
Yeah, you, is what she thought. “No, I’m cool,” is what she said.
They went through their usual warm-up exercises, a combination of stretching, callanetics and pilates. Night was professional even as he was attentive, with prolonged touches and lingering looks filling the space between counts.
Ten minutes into the exercises, D’Andra had worked up a sweat. She took off her warm-up jacket and was immediately conscious of the baby doll style T-shirt she wore underneath. The top was flattering in that it emphasized her breasts and de-emphasized her stomach and hips, stopping at the top of her thighs. D’Andra had put the top on underneath to soak up sweat as much as anything; and now all it was soaking up was Night’s attention. The sexual attraction between them was palpable and as much as D’Andra wanted to keep her mind on working out, she knew both she and Night were thinking of working her over in a way more fit for the bedroom than the weight room. If she was going to continue working with him, she had to clear the air.
