Make You Mine

by Niobia Bryant

  Julius kept his eyes focused on Caress as the emotions of everything—the birth of the child, the risks to both the baby and Caress during surgery, his love for her—overwhelmed him. He reached over and lightly caressed the side of her face. His heart swelled when she smiled softly at his touch.

  What does this mean now? he wondered. Where do we all go from here?

  “Okay, ladies and gentlemen. Here comes the star of this event…and it is a boy.”

  Caress opened her eyes and turned her head to look up at Julius. He stroked her forehead just as the sound of a healthy and strong wail of a baby filled the air. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, God,” she whispered.

  Julius watched as the baby was quickly wiped off and his mouth suctioned. Squirming, screaming, fat, and healthy. His hair a mass of tight curls. His complexion already a deep brown. Like mine , he thought. His eyes stayed locked on him as the nurse brought him around for Caress and him to see. “Here’s Mommy and Daddy sweetie,” the short and plump woman said.

  “Hey, man,” Caress sighed up at him, a smile on her face and in her eyes.

  Julius couldn’t deny that he could already see the baby had his wide bridged nose and cowlick hairline. No, he still didn’t know for sure, but his heart surged with all the emotions a parent should have: fierce love, complete devotion, and total protectiveness.

  “We’re going to get him examined,” the nurse told them softly, allowing them one final look before she turned and walked away.

  Caress smiled as she closed her eyes again. “He looks like you, Julius. I just hope he’s not as conceited,” she teased.

  Julius smiled, amazed that she could find a moment to joke even as the doctors sewed her back up. She was a remarkable woman and he loved her.

  Tamara jumped up from the chair as soon as Julius walked into the visiting room. She felt relief at the huge grin on his handsome face. “They’re okay?” she asked.

  “Caress is in the recovery room. She did great and the baby is healthy and beautiful,” Julius said with pride.

  Tamara clenched her fists and jumped up and down excitedly before she turned and shook a sleeping Kendrick. “Wake up. Caress had the baby!”

  Kendrick cocked one eye open. “Tamara, baby, bring it down a notch. This is a hospital, you know.”

  She slapped the side of his head playfully. “Shut up,” she told him, walking across the room to hold Julius close. “Congratulations, Daddy.”

  Julius nodded several times as he smiled. “He has my nose,” he said, a bit goofily and out of character for the suave man.

  “Aww.” Tamara sighed as she leaned back to look up at her college friend.

  Kendrick walked up to them and soundly clapped Julius on the back. “Now do you forgive us for moving her into your crib?” he joked.

  Julius eyed them both stoically as they began to giggle and then full out laugh.

  In the recovery room, Caress lay on her side with the baby beside her as she finally got him to successfully latch on to her breast. He was busy sucking away and she just lay there, watching him and loving him. In the moment, she didn’t let the nausea or the tenderness of her abdominal stitches disturb finally having her child in her arms.

  She looked up as Dr. Dillinger walked into the recovery room. “Hey, Doc,” she said, still a little weak.

  “Hi, Mommy,” she greeted Caress cheerfully as she cleansed her hands. “The nurses tell me you’re requesting a paternity test.”

  Caress closed her eyes waiting for a wave of nausea to pass before she spoke, “Yes, his father wants to be sure…he…I…our situation—”

  The Doc held up her hand. “No need to explain. We’ll get it done.”

  Julius stepped into the room and Caress’s eyes immediately shifted to him, but his eyes were on the baby. Their son. He smiled at the doctor before stepping up beside the bed to scoop the bundled baby up into his arms.

  Caress didn’t know why she felt any apprehension at all because Julius handled the baby with ease. As the doctor examined her, Caress felt her eyes getting heavy. Through the break of her full lashes, just before she allowed sleep to claim her, she saw Julius press a kiss to the baby’s cheek.

  When Caress stirred hours later she immediately noticed she was in a private room and out of recovery. The room was dark save for the light over her bed. The baby was pushed close to the side of her bed in one of those clear, plastic bassinets with wheels. With his striped cap and his body bundled snugly in his blanket, only his face was visible. One chubby brown fist was pushed against his mouth.

  Caress reached over and lightly stroked his cheek with the side of her index finger. “You need a name,” she said softly.

  “Yes, he does.”

  Caress looked to the right and noticed for the first time that Julius was kicked back in the recliner chair. She was surprised to see him and her face showed it. “Hi, Julius. Everybody went home?” she asked, wishing the darkness didn’t cloak so much of his expression.

  “Your boss left when I got here. Tamara and Kendrick will be back in the morning,” he said.

  “Did they see the baby?” she asked, her heart still racing from the surprise of seeing him.

  “Yeah, at the nursery.”

  Caress looked over at him, and she knew his eyes were on her. “You’ve been here the whole time?” she asked, shifting her head to instead focus her eyes on her baby.

  “Of course.”

  Warmth spread over her entire body at the sound of his voice. Something about his tone in those two simple words electrified her.

  “You like your flowers?” he asked, finally rising from the chair and out of the darkness. His usually trimmed beard was fuller and rougher. It made him look wild and sexy.

  She followed his line of vision and gasped in surprise at the half a dozen vases of white roses and helium balloons in front of the window. How had she missed them? “They’re beautiful,” she gasped in pleasure.

  “Not half as beautiful as you are, Caress.”

  She turned her head again to look up at him. “My hair is all over my head and my mouth tastes—and probably smells—like rotten eggs,” she quipped, trying to cover the warmth and excitement his words evoked.

  Julius laughed. “Dwayne actually went by your apartment for me and grabbed your bag. Tamara told us where to find it.”

  “Thank…God. I need a tight bra to help with these milk jugs that used to be breasts—and a toothbrush. In that order.” Caress shifted her body up into a sitting position.

  She tried not to notice how good his backside looked in his stiff denims when he turned to grab her bag from the small closet by the sink. She had to shift her eyes up quickly when he turned back to set the bag on the side of the bed by her legs.

  “The baby and I had the mouth swabs done for the paternity test,” he told her, as he unzipped the bag.

  Caress began to undo the shoulder snaps on the generic print hospital gown. She avoided his eyes as she used one arm to drape the gown over her full and heavy breasts.

  “I paid for the results to come back tomorrow,” he continued.

  Caress dug in the bag with her free hand and pulled out one of the bras she had packed.

  “Caress.”

  She looked up at him. “Yes, Julius?”

  He locked those magnetic eyes with her own.

  The semi-darkness of the room, with that crazy
and undeniable buzz of electricity and awareness surrounding them, was powerful.

  “I know this isn’t something we originally wanted, but I’m happy about my son and I want you to know that.” Julius reached down to cover her hand with his own. “Thank you. Thank you for bringing my son— our son—into this world.”

  She smiled a little as emotions made her chest tight. “I’m happy too and I know we will give him a better life than our parents gave us.”

  Julius nodded as he returned her smile. “Definitely.”

  That vibe flourished between them and they both shifted their eyes away nervously.

  Caress cleared her throat and Julius looked over at her again. She used her finger to motion for him to turn before she dropped the gown to her waist and took her time putting on the bra. The nurses claimed it would help ease the aching of her swollen breasts. “I’m done,” she told him.

  “You mentioned naming him. I like Justin for the first name,” he offered as he turned back to face her, his eyes dropping down momentarily to her newly lifted breasts.

  “Kinda want to keep the J thing going, huh?” she teased as she settled back against the pillows.

  Julius, ever the neat freak, grabbed the bag and set in back in the closet.

  Caress looked over at the baby. “Justin Jones,” she tried out as she watched him suckle his fist. “Mr. Justin Jones. Justin Coleman Jones.”

  Julius walked up to the bassinet and looked down at their son. “Coleman, huh?” he asked, shifting his eyes over her.

  Caress licked her lips as sadness softened her eyes. “Every baby should have a legacy…a history. I don’t even know my own to pass on to him. The only thing I have in this world to hint at who I am and who made me is my name. I’d like to pass it on to him somehow.”

  Julius understood. “Justin Coleman Jones it is.”

  Caress instantly forgot the list of names in her pregnancy journal.

  The door opened and a head full of braids peeked inside before a petite woman entered the room. “You’re awake. Good. I’m Nyla and I’m your nurse tonight,” she said, smiling up at Julius from across the bed.

  Julius walked over to the window while the nurse examined Caress. He didn’t move back to her bedside until Nyla left, pushing the baby out of the room to take back to the nursery.

  Caress missed him already. “Everything is different now. All my life I just had me to worry about and now there’s this little person who will rely on me.”

  “On both of us,” Julius stressed.

  Caress cocked her head to the side as she eyed him. “That’s right. Both of us.”

  “I just want to thank you for not tripping or holding it against me that I wanted a blood test,” he admitted, placing his hands on the side rail of the bed.

  Caress picked up the wired remote control beside her on the bed as she diverted her eyes from him. The man was divine looking and distracting. She shook herself. “Uh…I, uh…I won’t say I’m not a little insulted that you would think I would pass another man’s child off on you…but I’m also a realist. I’ve seen enough Maury Povich and heard enough stories to understand any and every man wanting to be 100 percent sure. We really don’t know each other and I’m partly to blame for this situation of ours.”

  “I feel like we know each other now,” Julius said.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “I believe he’s my son, Caress.” Julius’s voice was clear with his belief.

  Caress pressed her head back against the pillows as she looked up at him. “Yeah, me too,” she teased, her eyes twinkling.

  Julius just shook his head and laughed. “I love you, Caress.”

  Time went completely still.

  Julius looked as shocked by the words that seemed to slip from his mouth as Caress was to hear them.

  She opened her eyes a bit as her heart raced. “What?” she asked in a small voice.

  Julius’s face slowly changed to seriousness as he slid his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “I love you,” he said simply as his eyes pierced her.

  Caress closed her eyes. Breathed deeply. Counted to ten. Then she opened her eyes to look up at him again. “Julius, listen. I understand with the baby and everything, that emotions are running on high. And…and we don’t have to live up to some stereotype to be his parents. You don’t have to tell me you love me—”

  Julius bent and swooped his head in quickly, covering her mouth with his and swallowing the rest of her words. As he covered her mouth with a thousand tiny kisses, Caress melted. She brought her hand up to lightly hold the side of his face as she welcomed his affection.

  Moans that were filled with all of the pent-up emotions, regrets, and unfulfilled desires that they shared, filled the air around them.

  “I love you, Caress,” Julius moaned against her mouth a dozen times in between electrifying kisses.

  Caress felt dizzy as she opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Julius—”

  “Do you love me, Caress?” he whispered against her lips.

  Of course , she thought, but the words would not leave her mouth even as her heart pounded with so much love for him that she felt like she would explode.

  A twinkle filled his eyes as he smiled at her with all of his Julius Jones charm. “I know you love me,” he told her with the utmost confidence.

  “Oh, you do?” she asked, as her eyes darted down to take in his mouth.

  Julius tasted her lips again as he nodded. “Uhm hum. Don’t you?”

  Caress’s hand rose to lightly grasp the back of his head. “Huh?”

  Julius suckled her bottom lip into his mouth. “Don’t you?” he demanded again in a soft, teasing tone.

  Caress leaned her head back from him and met his stare boldly. “Yes, I do, Julius Jones. And?”

  A grin as smooth as butter spread across his handsome face but Caress couldn’t deny that even as he continued to bless her with his tender affection one nagging question remained: Now what?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Week One

  Caress removed the last piece of chicken from the pan of grease. She looked over her shoulder as Julius walked out of the bedroom with the baby monitor in his hand, quietly closing the door behind him. “He’s sleeping?” she asked, as she turned the burner under the mashed potatoes down to low.

  “What else? Does he do anything else?” Julius asked as he walked up behind her and placed a kiss on her neck.

  Caress shivered and laughed at the same time. “Soon I’m going to wish he’d sleep more.”

  “Like those nights we want to run around naked chasing one another,” he whispered near her ear before biting her lobe hotly.

  “You are a perv,” Caress teased, turning to wrap her arms around his waist as she leaned back a little to look up at him.

  Julius eyed her mouth as he placed his hands on the counter behind her. “I am horny as hell too,” he admitted, with desire in his eyes.

  Caress made a mocking sad face. “Nothing I can do for you for at least six weeks,” she told him, planting a kiss near the corner of his subtle mouth.

  Julius made a pained expression. “Pray for a brother,” he said, dropping his head to lightly rest on top of hers.

  Caress laughed. “Hell, pray for a sistah. Remember the last time we both did it was that night.”
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br />   “Let’s eat and talk about something else,” he said, moving away from her to grab dishes from the cabinet over the fridge.

  Caress eyed him, still unable to believe that they were trying the relationship thing. She was ready, but she couldn’t help wondering if he was. Did she love him? Definitely. Did he love her? That’s what he said.

  Since she was released from the hospital they had spent each evening together at her apartment. A couple of times he had even stayed the night, seemingly content just lightly holding her in his arms as they slept.

  Everything about their love affair was so jumbled and out of place. She was still getting adjusted to this new step. Her heart was his, she just wished she could believe his emotions weren’t just based on their son. Still she loved him. She had missed him terribly after she moved out of his house. She wanted them to be together.

  Julius lightly touched her back as he moved past her in the small kitchen and she looked over at him. He looked up suddenly and smiled at her. Her heart swelled.

  She wanted this to work.

  Week Two

  Julius leaned back in his leather chair as the sounds of sultry jazz filled his office. He cast his eyes out the window before picking up his shot of brandy to sip. He bopped his head to the bass line as he thought about Caress and Justin. Love like nothing he had ever known filled him and he smiled.

  “What has you looking so goofy?”

  Julius looked over his shoulder as Kendrick walked in. “What’s up, man?” he greeted his friend, reaching out with his fist to offer him a pound.

  “Nothing, man.” Kendrick settled his large frame in one of the chairs in front of Julius’s desk. “You ready?”