Manna from heaven!
“Excuse me, Lonnie,” she said without breaking her eye contact with Kwasi. “I’ve seen someone I know. I’m going to go say hi. Talk to you later.”
Without another word or look at her co-worker, Gretchen crossed the wide expanse of the lobby. Each step drew her closer to the craving of her soul. Her eyes ate up Kwasi’s figure with a ravenous appetite.
He oozed a masculine appeal which his clothes accentuated. The tan buttoned shirt with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows revealed the toned muscles of his arms. His black slacks hugged his thighs like a second skin. And his big juicy lips. He licked them and she stumbled.
Swiftly he came to her side. “Gretchen, are you—?”
“You’re here,” she breathed out. “You’re really here.”
Kwasi stared down at her. “Yes, Gretchen. I’m really here. Where I’ve wanted to be for a while now.”
Her heart soared. “Kwasi.”
He took another step closer, hands reaching out toward her. Then he fisted them and stuffed them into his pockets.
“Is there someplace we can talk?”
She nodded. Gertie’s anguished face flashed in her mind. So did Kojo’s anger.
But at this moment, neither of them mattered. What was important now was this. That somehow, they both wanted to be together. They were meant to be together.
“Yes, I’m going to get you a VIP pass so you can go into the back to my office.” Giddy, she rushed over to the reception desk and had the attendant print out a VIP pass. Though her back was turned, she still felt Kwasi’s gaze. Instead of being afraid of the connection, she reveled in it. Although it took less than thirty seconds for the attendant to print out the VIP pass, each second she waited seemed to last twice as long.
Finally, she had it in her hand.
“Kwasi—”
“Gretchen, watch out!” He cried out from across the room.
Something collided with her, knocking her off balance. Without thinking, she grabbed for the edge of the front desk and held on until she gained her equilibrium.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” a raspy voice apologized.
She straightened and brushed her clothes. “No worries—”
The words locked up in her throat. It was the man in the wheelchair from the other day. “It’s you.”
“Yes.” The man didn’t deny her words. “It’s a small world, isn’t it?”
“Why, yes, it is.” Why was her skin starting to crawl again? She’d never met this man before in her life. There was no logical reason for her to have this reaction. And yet she couldn’t help but want to wash her body as his eyes slowly scanned her from head to toe. His expression carried no salacious gleam, which made it all the more difficult to understand her instinctive aversion.
If anything, he looked as if he were assessing a piece of merchandise.
“Gretchen, you okay?” Kwasi’s arms came around her with a naturalness that was both new and familiar. She sank into his strength.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just almost knocked this poor gentleman out of his chair.”
“That’s an injury I wouldn’t mind having. Being knocked over by a beautiful woman.”
They all chucked appropriately but Gretchen still had the urge to take a shower. She’d settle for Kwasi’s arms around her, though. With effort, she dismissed the disturbing encounter from her mind and with a half-smile of dismissal to the man in the wheelchair, she focused on Kwasi.
“Ready?”
A masculine promise lay in his eyes. “Oh, you bet I am.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Kwasi followed the sway of Gretchen’s lovely, curvaceous behind as she took him into the inner sanctum of the museum. Any other day of the week, he would have loved to stop and stroll the various exhibits on display and lose himself in yesterday. Gretchen’s eyes had shone with promise, so he’d have to delay his visit down these hallowed halls for another day.
Amazing she had the same feeling he had. She missed him as he had her. Her greeting, with that joyous wonder on her face, sent his heart racing.
Would this moment be the next one to lead them to forever?
Slow down boy, he admonished himself, let’s get past these next few moments.
They still had to clear the air, once and for all.
He didn’t want the past, with all of its issues, to hinder their tomorrow.
She led him to an office crammed with tribal paraphernalia. When she closed the door and leaned against it, her doll-like eyes fixed on him.
“I’m happy to see you again.”
The tension eased in his chest. “And I you.”
They grinned like fools at each other. “Are we crazy for this?” she asked as she lifted herself off the door.
Kwasi shrugged. “Probably. Else, why do fools fall in love?”
He meant it as a joke but a serious light came into her eyes. “Because they were children when they married.”
The silence stretched like a tightrope as the words struck a chord within him. Then Kwasi spoke. “Come here.”
She lurched slightly toward him as if being pulled by an invisible puppeteer. Lovely as a moonless night, delicate as a flower, and strong like a band of steel. His child bride had morphed into a woman any man would be proud to call his own. What a loss it was to those men who had treated their women as less than precious, but their idiocy was his genius.
She’d worn a sleeveless top with spaghetti straps. Without his having to say a word, she turned around.
His mark, still bright as the day he’d given it to her.
Using the tip of his finger, he touched it ever so lightly but she still flinched.
“You know,” he told her as he traced the edges of the crescent moon shape, “when I tasted your flesh that day, it really was because I thought I’d make you feel better.”
When he’d gathered the courage to knock the bug off her neck, Gretchen had cried, complaining the spot had hurt. It had swollen some, from whatever the insect had done to her. On that day, he had touched the spot and she jumped.
“Kwasi, that hurts.”
“Sorry. What do you want me to do?”
“Kiss it and make it better,” she told him immediately. “That’s what Mama does.”
At first, he hadn’t wanted to. But when she looked back at him with those big eyes rimmed with liquid, how could he say no?
“You tasted like salt and dust that day,” he said aloud.
“You’re a real charmer,” Gretchen drawled.
Kwasi let the hint of a smile twitch his lip. “Well, you did. We’d been playing all day outside. I put my mouth on your neck and tried to suck out whatever that bug had put into you.”
When he licked that spot, he tasted her skin. There was nothing sexual back then about it, but it did give him pause. Many times he saw Baba kiss Mama’s shoulder. It was something husbands did. It seemed to always make Mama feel better since she always turned and smiled at his Baba.
“Does that feel better?” Had he done it right?
Gretchen hunched her shoulders. “Feels okay.”
As he stared at the spot, the strangest thing happened. Gretchen’s dark skin began to lighten like the color was being pulled away.
“I don’t know why this happened when I kissed you here, Gretchen.” He still traced the edges of the mark his mouth left there. “I’ve thought of it through the years but for whatever reason, a piece of me is embedded on you.”
“The only thing I can think that happened, “Gretchen replied in a low voice, “is maybe the insect injected some sort of venom into me that affected my skin.”
Kwasi nodded although she couldn’t see him. “Perhaps that’s it.”
They both knew it was a bunch of baloney, but it appeased them to have a pseudo-scientific explanation.
“Regardless, this caused everyone to believe I had powers. So they hunted Kojo and me.”
“Kwasi, I’m so sorry. If I could go back in tim
e—”
“I would still endure the same pain. Being here with you like this is worth it.”
Kojo’s grim reminder leaped into his head. “She’s not worth it, man.”
You’re wrong, Kojo. She very much is.
As a child, he kissed her there in order to give her comfort. As a man, he had entirely different reasons for wanting to place his mouth there. He wanted to bring her essence inside of his being.
“Kwasi?”
“Yeah?” His voiced sounded ragged to his own ears.
“Kiss it and make it better?”
A lightning bolt shuddered through him. He didn’t have to be asked twice.
He pressed his lips to the spot that had once caused so much pain. Instead of her childish nonchalance at his touch, her head rolled back, exposing the exquisite column of her neck.
“Kwasi,” she moaned.
He continued to press his lips there although he used his fingers to trace little circles along the sensitive edge of her neck. Vibrations trembled along her frame, shuddering his own body. With a fierce growl, he turned her about and captured her lips with his own.
Pleasure. Pure, sweet pleasure. Moist warmth. Soft skin. Silky sighs. Nothing in his life had prepared him for this. The desire? Yes, it was as natural as air. But beneath the passion was the realization he’d rediscovered the other half of his heart.
The wonder of it made him release her mouth. She whimpered and tried to draw him back to her, but he had to tell her.
“Do you know how you used to make me feel?”
She shook her head.
“You used to make me feel clean. The villagers and the elders called me a dirty demon because my skin wasn’t as dark as theirs. For such a long time, Kojo and I only had each other. Until you.”
He framed her face with his hands. “You looked at me and saw me. Not the dirty demon, but me. A boy named Kwasi who had no friend.”
A tear escaped her eye. He padded it away with his thumb. “You with your dark, pure skin. I always felt dirty next to you, but you never treated me like they did.”
Her lips quivered. He pressed his thumb against them to feel their lush softness. “That’s why this mark on you is so important to me. It was the day, by whatever power exists, we blended. It made you mine. And me, yours.”
There. He bared his soul to her. Would she accept this inadequate gift of his heart?
The message from the Java Cupid cup flashed in his head. My love is the purest form there is.
Is that what the mysterious cupid had been trying to tell him? That his sincerity, his unadulterated honesty, made his love pure?
Gretchen gently tugged his hand from her face and linked their fingers together. “It’s just melanin,” she whispered. “I have more and you don’t have as much. It’s the outer surface. A stroke of paint to cover the soul within.”
She kissed his fingers, rocking him to the core. “It’s funny. In the village, I was considered the purest because my skin was so dark.” A rueful, unpleasant smile curled her lips. “When the Ozingas adopted Gertrude and I after our parents passed away, and brought us to the U. S., I was told I was too dark. I was a dirty black skank, tar baby, ugly hoe—”
“Shhh.” He placed a finger on her lips. He ached for her. She did understand.
“Remember when you called me Glenda when we played our little game? How I reacted when you called me that?”
He nodded. It seemed a lifetime ago when they played the game. This dark beauty had so intrigued him with her standoffish personality and cool attitude, he’d been tempted to see what he could do to get her to unwind. The name game was only a means to an end.
Who knew it would lead him to this moment?
Her eyes narrowed as the event replayed in her mind. “Well, she was the leader of a group of girls at my high school. She bullied all the dark-skinned girls. I stood up to her and nearly got the stuffing beaten out of me.”
Dismay filled his voice. “Gretchen.” How could people be so cruel?
“But I wasn’t going to back down anymore. I learned then to be happy with the skin I’m in.”
They both looked down at their clasped hands. “There’s so much more to people than the color of their skin. Why can’t everyone see that as plainly as I do?”
“Because…” He let his voice trail off.
She lifted her eyes. “Because what?”
“You can’t fix stupid.”
Laughter bubbled between them. It ended when Gretchen raised herself up, deliberately pressing her body like a slick of heat against him. “Now ravish me with those big, juicy, sexy lips of yours.”
Delighted, he tightened his arms around her. “Let me kiss it and make it better.”
Gretchen opened the door to her house to meet the furious stare of her sister Gertrude.
“Gertie? What’s wrong? Is everything okay?”
A closed expression toughened her sister’s features. “No, Gretchen. Everything is not okay.”
She closed the door and set her purse and Java Cupid cup down. “Then what is it?”
“You were with him, weren’t you?” Gertie’s accusing eyes bore a hole into her.
Gretchen’s swollen mouth opened and closed like a fish. “I—”
“I told you to stay away from him, didn’t I? Don’t let him come between us, I said. But you didn’t listen to me, did you?”
“There’s no need to be upset, Gertie. We’ve cleared the air about what happened twenty years ago.”
And oh! How they cleared it. The sweet memories of the past hour flushed her body with residual heat. His kisses had robbed her of her senses. Drugging, deep, kisses which intensified with each pass of his grapefruit mouth.
“Gretchen,” he growled. “We’re going to have to stop.” His tongue lapped her shoulder.
“Why?” The last thing she wanted to do was stop. Not when things felt this good.
“Because—mmm!” He moaned as she nipped the lobe of his ear.
“Because what, Kwasi?” She asked in a little girl’s voice.
He kissed her more forcefully, backing her up until they came against the hard, flat surface of the wall of her office. When he let her up for air a while later, his eyes blazed hot and heavy with desire. They raked over her mussed clothes and hair with a kind of lethal satisfaction. His hand dropped to her hip and then curled around her thigh.
“Gretchen—” He sounded like he was in pain. He started to lift her boneless leg, when he suddenly slammed his fist above her head and pushed away.
“Kwasi?”
Breathing labored, he grumbled, “You’re a little too much right now.”
From the way he held himself rigid, she got an inkling he fought to control himself. Though her legs were shaky, she gathered up what strength she could and smoothed her clothes down. Kwasi’s diamond eyes watched her every move.
When she had restored some semblance of order to her normally smart self, she glanced at him. “Didn’t you like me?” The insecurities of a lifetime reared their heads to fill her with doubt.
His eyes widened in incredulity. “Woman, do you know how close you are to being flat on your back next to the warrior mask and the creepy doll?”
“Gretchen?”
She dragged her mind back to the present to see Gertie’s face filled with sorrow.
Enough time later to relive those moments with Kwasi. She had to reassure her sister. “You’re still my twin sister. No one will ever take that from us. They can’t! It’s already too late.”
Gertie stared. “You really think that, don’t you? It’s really that simple for you, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is!” Why were they even having this conversation? She’d rather be up in her room to think about the next time she’d be able to see Kwasi.
“Do you think Kojo is going to accept you now that you and his brother are all lovey-dovey? Do you think now that you and Kwasi are on such good terms, those terms extend to me?”
“Wha
t are you saying?”
Gertie stood in indecision, biting her lip. Then her shoulders straightened and her mouth compressed into a thin line. Whenever Gertrude Ozinga got that look in her eyes, something bad was about to happen.
“I was the one who told the elders Kwasi had magical powers.”
Stone cold shock froze every muscle of Gretchen’s body. If someone had pressed a finger to her at that moment, she would have splintered into a million pieces. As it was, she could hardly get the word past the constriction of her throat. “What?”
“Don’t you remember? The elders summoned you and Baba. I stayed home with Mama. You only told the elders after they asked. Why do you think they knew Mama was sick?”
It made an awful kind of sense. Her father had been disgruntled and shocked when the elders mentioned her mother’s illness. The blood drained out of her. “Gertie, why?”
“I watched you both the day Kwasi put his mark on you. I hid behind the bushes and saw the whole thing. I always have. Well, as much as I could with Kojo around.”
Gretchen’s legs went weak for a second time but it wasn’t from the effect of Kwasi’s kisses. She stumbled over to a chair in the dining room and collapsed into it. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“All these years, you let me think—”
“I thought they’d unseal your marriage…and make me his bride instead.”
The confession exploded with the intensity of a nuclear warhead. Its damage non-corporeal but devastating as the twin sister Gretchen thought she knew turned into a woman who became a stranger. Threads of a lifelong twin bond, which had sustained her during some difficult times, shredded.
Her eyes locked onto this woman who shared her face but she didn’t know at all.
“I’ve been in love with Kwasi for as long as I can remember. Even before I knew what I felt for him was love.”
Gertie’s unsteady hand tugged her braids. “When I thought he was dead, I knew that at least neither of us could have him. Then—”
This woman stopped talking and stared off into space. A pensive look came over her. Gretchen waited for this stranger, who wore the clothes of her twin, to speak. But when Gertie continued to stand there, Gretchen prompted, “Then?”
Java Blend (Java Cupid Series Book 8) Page 8
