“You mean the world to me, Leigh. I love you. You gotta know this by now…”
Leigh closed her eyes and tried to untangle her raw emotions.
“All right. I guess you’re not there. When you get back, please hit me on my cell. We need to talk about this.”
Beep!
Before Leigh could draw a breath, her mother’s booming voice rattled the answering machine’s speakers.
“Leigh, are you there? Pick up!” After a long pause, she continued. “Chile, when you get home, give me a call and tell me why DeShawn is calling my house every ten minutes. What the hell happened between you two?”
Leigh groaned. It was a typical DeShawn Carter move. When he couldn’t get Leigh to budge on something, he went through her mother.
“I mean it, Leigh. You better call and tell me why I have this boy sounding like Keith Sweat on my phone. Whatever this chile done did, you two need to work it out. You know that you two belong together. Y’all need to stop with all this foolishness and go on ahead and get married. You don’t want to be like all these other career women who wait until their forties and then start wondering why all their eggs done dried up. Your father and I have been wanting some grandbabies for a while now. You need to give us something to do before we kill each other up in here. You know, ever since he sold the company and retired, he’s been rocking my last damn…” Beep!
Leigh chuckled at the way the answering machine had cut her mother off. Of course, the answering machine always cut her off because the one thing her mother was not blessed with was the gift of brevity.
“Hey, Leigh this is Cathy. I, um… I know this may sound crazy, but, um, did you happen to come by and use the beach house this past weekend? There was this sort of incident when George and I came up Saturday. You won’t believe this, but there was a naked guy parading around the house—”
“Oh, shit.” Leigh’s eyes widened. Cathy hardly ever used the beach house and had always extended an open invitation to Leigh—which she hardly ever took advantage of, until this past weekend. She needed a place to go and just clear her head. She left the one-night stand guy a note—and hoped that he would just see his way out.
“I’m asking because George found this note and it sort of looks like your handwriting. Anyway, just give me a call. It would really clear up a lot of confusion.” Cathy laughed. “And we probably should drop the breaking-and-entering charge if this guy is in fact a friend of yours.”
“Ohmigod.” Leigh slapped her hand against her forehead. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.” She sighed, trying to figure out how she was going to fix this one.
Beep!
To her complete shock the next message was from her father.
“Leigh, honey. Are you home?” he asked, suspicious that she was just screening her calls. “Well, this is Douglas, your father….”
Leigh shook her head—like she wouldn’t recognize her father’s voice.
“Anyway, sweetheart, I just wanted you to know that I just got off the phone with DeShawn Carter.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” She blinked. “He’s going through my father now?”
“Now, Cupcake, I’m not trying to get up in y’all’s business, but I got to tell you whatever this boy has done, I got a feeling that he’s real sorry.”
“Unbelievable,” she mumbled under her breath, as she stormed toward the adjoining bathroom in the master bedroom. “First Ariel and now my own parents.”
But as much as DeShawn’s tactics disgusted Leigh, they were beginning to work. Maybe she was being too hard. Maybe she was asking for too much from a man in his position. Groupies, gold diggers and just down-and-out hos were always a problem for any woman dating or married to a pro athlete. Ariel was right. She’d been warned countless times by her family and friends that this was just simply the life of being with a celebrity. The only question was whether she could deal with it.
No.
She stepped into the shower and lowered her head so that she felt the full force of the hot-water spray. There was a time when DeShawn, at least, put up an effort to convince her that he wasn’t like other pro athletes. That he could resist temptation. Was it ever true, or had she merely wanted to believe the lie?
While her troubling thoughts circled inside her head, another image began to penetrate the chaos: a tall, milk-chocolate brother who had taken away her troubles with a simple smile. Never mind all the other stuff he did. She closed her eyes while she soaped her body, which only brought more erotic memories to the forefront. He was the only other guy she had slept with in five years—and quite frankly she couldn’t have made a better selection. She couldn’t have dreamed up a more handsome, virile man if she tried.
Leigh didn’t crash the party looking for a one-night stand, but when the chance presented itself, she threw caution to the wind—and even now she wasn’t sorry about it. How could she be?
She remembered how strong and large her mystery lover’s hands were when they roamed up and down her body. Plus, how could she ever forget how muscular his chest and arms were? The man must have been performing bench presses and ab crunches in his sleep. He was as hard as a brick wall—everywhere. And he personified the term “hung like a horse.”
Leigh felt a flush of heat recalling vivid memories of her one-night stand. Where on earth had she found the courage to do the things she did with him? Lord knew she had never been so brazen and uninhibited with DeShawn or the others before DeShawn—that she’d slept with.
That night was different.
She was different.
Her soapy fingers squeezed and pinched her breasts. Relishing the twinge of pain, Leigh’s head dropped back while her jaw sagged. With barely any effort, her thin, delicate hands had transformed into the strong, masculine ones that had haunted her last night. Then, as now, her fingers slowly fell away from her breasts and descended over her flat belly before dipping through the soft curls shielding her sex. Parting her legs, she discovered her clit was swollen and pulsing. It was no surprise that it throbbed in time with her hammering heartbeat. When the pads of her wet fingers slid over the tip, it was lubricated from her body’s dripping honey. But she knew just where to stroke.
“Mmm.” Her head fell back even farther and her mouth formed a complete circle.
“You want to come for me, Baby Girl?” she remembered as she masturbated. Stroke.
“Yes!”
Stroke.
“What? I can’t hear you, Baby Girl.”
“Yes! Yes!”
Stroke. Stroke.
“Give Daddy all this good candy.”
Stroke.
“Oh—oh.” Leigh’s imploded as a silent scream dangled from her open mouth. Seconds later, every limb on her body started quivering. Her hands dropped away from her firm thighs in order for her to brace her weight against the tiled shower stall. It took another minute for her to realize that the water had turned ice-cold.
Shutting off the shower spray, Leigh quickly splashed on some baby oil and grabbed a towel. When she walked into her bedroom, she was stunned by the fact that there was a trail of rose petals. “What in the…?” She finished wrapping the towel around herself, and then followed the trail.
In the short time that she was in the shower, her living room had been transformed with what looked like hundreds of flickering candles. In the center of the room, on bended knee was DeShawn Carter in a three-piece suit.
“Hello, Leigh.” He puffed out his chest and swallowed nervously.
She walked up to him, shaking her head. “DeShawn, what are you doing here?”
“I came to do what I should’ve done a long time ago.” He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a Harry Winston jewelry box.
She gasped as her knees buckled.
DeShawn’s smile grew more confident at her reaction. “Leigh, this past week has been hell for me. I don’t like it when we fight…and I know that we usually fight because I’ve done something stupid. But, sweetheart, you have to kn
ow that you mean the world to me. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are the woman that I want to share the rest of my life with. And I think, deep down, you feel the same way.”
Leigh’s heart started skipping beats as tears pooled in her eyes.
“So, I’m asking you, Leigh Imani Matthews, will you marry me?”
Chapter 7
Two weeks later…
“You’re getting married?” Jeremy deadpanned as he stared across the dinner table at The Palm. It was his brother’s favorite get-together in West Hollywood, mainly because the restaurant served the best steaks. But now that Xavier had cheerily dropped this bomb on them, Jeremy lost his appetite.
“Congratulations,” Eamon said, and then reached over and pounded Xavier hard on the back. “Glad to see you taking the plunge.”
“Plunge,” Quentin scoffed. “How appropriate.”
Xavier gave his cousin and best friend a warning look. “Don’t start.”
“What’d I do?” He tried to give his famous puppy-dog expression, but there was just too much anger stiffening his jaw. “I’m simply pointing out what an appropriate term ‘taking the plunge’ is for this momentous occasion. I don’t see you trying to leap frog down Eamon’s throat—or is that since you both have lost the good sense God gave you, you’re trying to double-team the sane people at the table now?”
Jeremy tossed his hands up. “Please don’t drag me into this.”
“Hell, I’m not quite sure that I know what this is,” Xavier said, as his facial expression twisted.
“That makes two of us,” Eamon added, looking equally confused.
“There. I just proved my point,” Q insisted. “You two are on the same crazy wavelength or something. You’ve always been competitive with each other. Admit it. Eamon married a woman that tried to put us in the poorhouse, and now you want to marry the chick who tried to put us all behind bars. Crazy. And you guys are always trying to tell me that I need a shrink.”
“You do need a shrink,” the King brothers said in unison.
“Then all of y’all can go to hell.”
Xavier tried to squash the conflict. “All right. Calm down and take a deep breath.”
Q ignored him. “Let me ask you, if Eamon jumped off a building, would you do it, too?”
Jeremy sighed. He knew better than to jump into this melee. Quentin and Xavier were best friends, but when they got into it, they could be at it for hours. For a moment, he turned his attention away from the table and thought he caught a glimpse of a face he recognized. Baby Girl?
He leaned over the table to try and get another look.
“Yo, dude,” Quentin stopped arguing long enough to bring it to Jeremy’s attention that he was damn near leaning into his lap.
“Oh. I’m sorry. I thought I saw someone I recognized.”
Q blinked. “Are you seeing people who aren’t there?” He leaned in closer. “Do they talk to you, too?”
“What?” Jeremy’s expression twisted as he stared at his cousin.
As if realizing his mistake, Quentin straightened, and then tried to brush aside the conversation. “N-nothing. Forget it.”
Jeremy ignored his cousin’s comment, and took one more sweeping glance around the restaurant. She wasn’t there. He leaned back in his chair and tried to brush off his disappointment. That had been the second time today that he thought he’d seen his Baby Girl—and about the hundredth time in the last two weeks.
Plus, he didn’t want to mention the times that he’d practiced in the mirror what he would say if in fact their paths did cross again. The first part was something like, “Hey, thanks for the police record.” Never mind that Cathy and George Atwater had since dropped the charges without explanation, but it didn’t change the fact that Los Angeles County now and forever had him photographed and fingerprinted.
The second part of his rehearsed conversation had something to do with asking for her name. One thing that might surprise a lot of women about him was that, despite his long list of naked activities with the opposite sex, he knew the name of every woman he’d ever slept with.
The irony was that the one woman whose name he didn’t know was the one that he most wanted to see again. Don’t let it be said that God didn’t have a sense of humor.
Xavier pushed back from his steak and stared his cousin down. “Look, Q. I know that this may be hard for you, but just because I’m getting married it doesn’t mean that anything is going to change between us. We’re always going to be best buds.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You say that now, but wait until after the wedding vows. People always change after the ‘I do’s.”
“You didn’t change.”
Quentin frowned. “You can hardly call my six-month trip down that crazy rabbit hole a marriage. I was crazy—she was definitely crazy—and the whole thing lasted a hundred and seventy-nine days longer than it should have.”
“Well it’s different when you do it for love instead of money.”
Quentin set down his empty glass, leaned back and gave Xavier a small round of applause. “Wow. That must have set some type of record. What did that take—three minutes before you brought that little tidbit up again? Yes, I married to recoup my inheritance. Good thing too because that temporary lapse of judgment cost me the only woman I’ll probably ever love. But I seem to recall that my first investment with that blood money provided capital for a few ungrateful cousins sitting around this table.”
Jeremy held up a hand. “I’m grateful.”
“Well, apparently not this jackass,” he thundered at Xavier.
“Whoa. Whoa,” Xavier said, getting testy himself. “Let’s take this down a notch before your mouth writes a check your ass can’t cash up in here.” He stared pointedly at Q. “Now, I know that you’re still working out whatever the hell you’re working out, but your issue is with Sterling—not us. And, frankly, I think it’s past time you handled that situation. Call him, write him or send him a damn smoke signal—but do something if we’re going to continue being boys.”
Xavier turned his attention to his baby brother. “I know that this may be coming as a total surprise to you but—”
“Not to me.” Quentin laughed as he signaled their waiter to bring him another whiskey sour. “I saw this coming the first time you cock-blocked me at Cheryl’s job interview.”
“What?” Xavier twisted up his face. “I did no such thing.”
“Oh, now you have amnesia?” Q challenged. “A’ight. Go ahead on. I remember what happened that day. What about you, Jeremy?”
“Sorry, bro, but I’m gonna have to go with cuz on this one. There was an awful lot of cock-blocking going on.” He tossed up his hands. “Not that I blame you. I still have an image of Cheryl in those panted-on jeans emblazoned in my mind, as well.”
“Hey, yo!” Xavier slammed his fist down on the white-linen table. “Cut it out. That’s my future wife you’re talking about. So get those painted-on jeans out of your heads.”
Eamon cracked up. “Damn, bro. You’re going to pop a blood vessel. Maybe you need to calm down and take a deep breath.”
Xavier tried, but the devout bachelors at the table had officially ruined the mood. “Look, I don’t ask much from either one of you, but I do know that I’ve been a faithful friend and brother. So it pisses me off that when I come here to share one of the most important decisions of my life, that I’ve found someone who truly makes me happy, you two selfish bastards can only think about how it affects you.”
Jeremy and Quentin glanced at each other and then dropped their heads.
“Technically,” Jeremy piped up, “I never said that I wasn’t happy for you. Look, man, if you love her and you’re happy, then hell yeah I’m happy for you. Of course, I’m not an asshole. You’re my brother, and I’ll always want what’s best for you.” He looked over at Eamon. “You too, for that matter.”
Eamon and Xavier flashed him identical smiles. “Thanks, bro.”
“Don’t mentio
n it.” Jeremy reached for his beer. “Soooo I say that we officially need to make a toast to celebrate the occasion.”
“Hear, hear,” Eamon and Xavier chimed and then tapped their bottlenecks together. The three Kings then turned their attention to their cousin.
“You know, I fall under that technicality, as well. I’m just…” Q drew in a deep breath. “I have a problem with change. If this knucklehead here…” he said, tilting his head toward Jeremy, “…bails on me, I’m going to have to wrangle up some new cousins from some place.”
Xavier set his bottle down and stood up from the table. “Come here.” He opened up his arms.
“What?”
“C’mon,” he coaxed. “Let’s hug this out.”
Quentin’s bottom lip quivered as he stood up from his chair. “That’s all a brother wanted, a hug.” He opened his arms as well and the cousins came together.
“Aww…” Jeremy tossed his napkin down and then stood up from the table and threw his arms around both of them.
Quentin peeked over Xavier’s shoulder at Eamon.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Eamon said.
“You don’t feel the love?” Q asked.
Jeremy glanced back with a cocky smile. “C’mon, man. We’re all family.”
Exhaling a long sigh as he glanced around the crowded restaurant to see that his crazy family was indeed the center of attention, Eamon reluctantly got out of his chair and wrapped his arms around all of them. After all, the sooner he did, the quicker the little bonding episode would end.
“Ahem,” a throat cleared.
One by one, the men dropped their arms and went about pumping out their chests to reestablish their image of masculinity.
When Jeremy turned to see who had interrupted their family moment, his face exploded into a huge grin. “Well, I’ll be damned. Look who’s here. Roy, my man. How the hell are you?” He now threw his arms around his boyhood friend.
“I’m good. I’m good.” He nodded at Eamon and Xavier. “I see you guys are still thick as thieves.”
“You know it,” Jeremy said, standing back so that he could take another look at Roy. “I just can’t believe it. It’s been years.”
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