by Candace Shaw
“No, not at the present moment.”
“All those successful men in Atlanta and one hasn’t wifed you up yet? What are they, blind?”
“I date, and I’ve had boyfriends over the years but … I don’t know,” she shrugged, “just haven’t found the one.”
The band began to play, and Yasmine turned her attention to the stage. Moments later their food arrived, and he was quite surprised when she poured another glass of wine and even asked if he wanted more since his glass was empty. He declined because he’d had a beer earlier while watching a game at the bar.
“So, why haven’t you gotten married yet, Dr. Nosey?” she asked.
He grinned. “Like you, I hadn’t found the one.”
Nodding, she took a sip of her wine. “Zaria seems like a nice lady.”
“Zaria the Diva? No. I have my eyes on someone else.”
She looked taken aback. “Oh … well do you think you should be out with me tonight?”
“As a matter of fact, yes, considering it’s you.”
She sighed. “Cannon, we agreed not to go down this road.”
“So you can actually look me in my face and tell me you don’t feel anything for me?”
With her eyes downcast, she twirled a shrimp around in the grits and then pulled it up with cheese hanging from the fork before placing it back in the bowl.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t tell you that. I’ll always care for you. You were a big part of my life for over two years.”
It wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear, but at least it was a start in the right direction. He nodded and took a bite of his chicken while she finally ate the shrimp that she’d swished around in the grits.
They ate in silence for the next thirty minutes while listening to the band and finishing their dinner. Justin came over to check on them, bringing out his peach cobbler and homemade vanilla ice cream. After they ate dessert, Yasmine said she needed to head home.
“Thank you for having dinner with me.” Cannon leaned on his car facing Yasmine.
“You’re welcome.” She turned to open her door but hesitated. “I had a really nice time. I’m glad I decided to stay.”
“Maybe we can go on another date while you’re in town.”
She laughed and shook her head. “You just don’t quit, do you?”
A slight wind blew and whiffed her perfume mixed with her scent into his nose, bringing his arousal from earlier back to full attention. He stepped toward her.
“Not when I want something.” His tone was serious. Direct.
A sexy grin crossed her lips, and she closed the gap between them. “And what is it that you want?”
“You.”
And then she smiled that same damn beautiful smile that made him fall in love with her, and he knew he couldn’t hold back any longer. He grabbed her hard to him as a gasp flew from her parted lips.
“I’ve missed the hell out of you, Angel face,” he said as he lowered his lips to her trembling ones.
“Show me.” Her words were a whisper on his lips.
He kissed her slowly at first, savoring her pouty mouth as she exhaled and moaned. Yasmine meshed her body as hard as possible against his. She pressed into his chest, and he undid the buttons and belt on her trench coat to get a better feel of her against him. He ran a hand down to her breasts, kneading the right one through the satin of her blouse as breathless moans escaped her throat. He plunged his tongue deeper into her mouth, and she willingly accepted it, dancing it around his as she ran her hands along his face and hair. He backed her against his car while lifting one of her legs around his waist as she steadied herself on the other one.
“I missed you,” he said in a raspy tone against her mouth. He cupped her face gently and nibbled on her bottom lip. “Missed you like no other.” He pushed his hard erection, which was straining against his pants, toward her pelvis so she would know exactly what she was doing to him. She raised her leg even higher on him so his manhood was in between her thighs.
“I missed you too, Cannon,” she said, pulling his mouth into hers once more.
He pressed his erection hard against her again and held her still as he cupped her buttocks pulling her toward him. “You feel that?”
“Oh yes!”
“Miss making love to you,” he said in between kisses. “Miss being engulfed in you. You hear me, baby?” He ran his tongue down the side of her neck.
“Yes … Cannon. I’ve missed you so much.”
Her sweet scent and heated kisses were doing him in. He wanted to unzip his pants and slide into her right there against the side of his car, but he’d already seen one SUV pull into the parking lot and some other people leaving when he and Yasmine had first walked outside. Besides, it had been twelve years and their first time after so long wouldn’t be there. He wanted her in his bed.
Out of breath, she pulled away from him when they heard voices coming toward the parking lot. Yanking her coat shut, she leaned back against her car.
“I guess we forgot this is a busy parking area,” he said as he stepped to pull her against him once more.
“I gotta go.” Grabbing her keys from her purse, she hurriedly pressed the remote.
“Wait. What?” He was in shock.
“We can’t do this, Cannon.” She got into her car. “I can’t do this.” She shut the door and started her car. He tried to open it, but it was locked. She rolled down the window.
“Yasmine, tell me what’s wrong.”
She turned her head to him, her eyes glaring with tears. “You hurt me, and I refuse to let you walk back into my life as if you didn’t.” She backed out of the parking lot as he stared after the car.
What the hell just happened?
Chapter Six
Cannon sat in the VIP section nursing a rum and Coke—mostly rum—and listening to the band play their jazz rendition of Alicia Key’s “If I Ain’t Got You.”
Must they play that? He took another swallow of his drink and slammed it on the table.
After Yasmine sped off with his heart again, he decided to go back into the restaurant considering he had the table for another hour. He wasn’t ready to go home yet to another night of needing to be with Yasmine. Ever since Doug had asked him to be the best man, all he could think about was her. Over the years he’d thought of her, but was always able to shut it off with finding something to keep him busy. Now that she was actually in the same city as him, the urge to be near her was wreaking havoc on his brain.
Her sweet scent had filled his aura, and he could still taste the warmth of her on his lips. His hands longed to roam over her body, which had responded to his touch with the same urgency that had built up in him for so many years. It was going to be damn near impossible to stay away from her. His addiction to Yasmine overwhelmed him, and now that he’d had a sample of her, he was feigning for more.
“What’s up, man?” he heard a male voice say in front of him, pulling him out of his daydream of Yasmine.
Cannon looked up to see his baby sister, Bria, and her husband, Rasheed Vincent. Bria, who was almost five months pregnant but barely showing, leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. He shook hands with Rasheed who then sat in the opposite chair and pulled his wife onto his lap.
“What brings you two out tonight?” Cannon asked, surprised to see them. “I thought you’d be at home rubbing cocoa butter on your wife’s miniature basketball.”
“Bria had a craving for crab cakes and some other stuff.”
“Memphis mud pie, collard greens, and lobster mac ‘n’ cheese,” she answered, looking through the menu. “Oh and some coconut shrimp.”
“Right. All of that.” Rasheed laughed. “Save some for the other customers, baby.”
“What brings you here by yourself, big brother?” Bria asked. “No date tonight?”
“Let’s see, where do I begin?” Cannon downed the rest of his drink and then grabbed the menu to order an appetizer. He wasn’t a heavy drin
ker for he hated not being alert at all times.
“Wait, is this going to be a long story? Because I’ll probably need to go to the ladies’ room soon.”
“Bree, you went before we left the house,” Rasheed said, rubbing his wife’s belly.
She cut her eyes at him and said in a teasing manner, “Is your uterus pressing on your bladder?”
“No, not exactly,” her husband said before turning to Cannon. “Man, hurry up and tell the damn story. What girl got you in here all melancholy and what not?”
He quickly told them about eating dinner with Yasmine, kissing her and her speeding away like he was the black plague.
Bria stood and kissed Rasheed’s forehead. “Gotta go to the ladies’ room. Baby, you know what to order.”
“Everything but the kitchen sink?” Rasheed asked with a wink.
“Ha! Very funny.”
Cannon smiled at the back and forth playful banter between Bria and Rasheed. Cannon was elated when she announced they were getting married. Before her husband, she was in a relationship with a man that lied and cheated on her during most of their relationship. The last straw was right before they were supposed to get married, the guy finally admitted that not only had he cheated but his side chick was pregnant. Bria was devastated, and it took willpower for Cannon and Sean to not throw the guy in the Mississippi River.
At first, Cannon wasn’t too sure he like Rasheed either. He was a famous, retired basketball player with the reputation of being a player extraordinaire on and off the court. Everyone in Memphis knew he changed his women like underwear. However, Rasheed wanted a woman who loved him for him and not his millions, which was why he kept a merry-go-round of women. Bria didn’t care about his money, and after working out her trust issues and falling for his game of seduction, she realized that Rasheed was the only man for her.
“Bria showed me a picture a while back of you and Yasmine,” Rasheed said after the waitress left with his long order. “You two looked really happy together. Especially you. I’ve seen you with other women, but that smile you wore while gazing at Yasmine, I’ve never witnessed before.”
“Yasmine was very special to me. Still is, but she doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.”
“Naw, man, I disagree. If she truly didn’t want anything to do with you, she’d make sure to never see you doing the planning of this wedding.”
“We don’t have a choice.”
“Trust me. Women will find ways to avoid you. Besides, she kissed you and then ran off, which means she definitely still has feelings for you.”
“I just thought by now she would’ve forgiven me.”
“Bree briefly told me what happened years ago. She may have forgiven you, but women don’t forget anything. Trust me. Every blue moon Bria likes to remind me about the time when we were in the car and a stripper called about her and some of her girls dancing for me. I wasn’t even interested, but Bria will never let that go. She says it in a teasing manner, but I know she isn’t teasing.”
“Teasing about what?”
The men were so engrossed in their conversation, that they didn’t see Bria return. She sat back on her husband’s lap with a raised eyebrow.
“Nothing, babe. Just talking about Cannon’s dilemma,” Rasheed said with a wicked grin.
“Humph. Sure you are,” Bria said, thumping Rasheed playfully on the cheek. “Cannon, I think you may want to give her some space. She obviously still cares about you, but women don’t like to unexpectedly run into their ex boyfriend’s without a plan. Plus, you’re planning a wedding together, which is what you were doing when you broke up. I’m sure that has brought back a lot of unwanted memories that she has buried.”
Cannon nodded and sipped on his water. “Okay, so give her some space. I can do that.” Right? He wasn’t sure if he believed himself or not considering he just wanted to jump into his car and drive straight to her house to finish what they’d started in the parking lot.
“I would take it slow. Don’t rush anything if you really want her back.”
“I hear you, sis.”
Cannon sat back and listened to the music for a while before leaving the love birds. He decided to play it cool and give Yasmine some space … but only a little.
*****
Yasmine sat on the deck overlooking the Mississippi River, sipping hot chocolate and trying to figure out how she got herself into this mess. She was back in the place she was a few years ago where the need of wanting Cannon so badly consumed her thoughts and invaded her sleep. She’d daydreamed about him, dreamed about him, and even went so far as to search for him on the Internet. She found journals he’d written and documentaries about the medical clinics he had opened with Doctors Unlimited, the non-profit organization he founded with some other doctors after his yearlong mission trip to Brazil.
She hadn’t realized just how much he’d contributed to the medical field. She knew it was important to him because of his family background, but seeing him on the documentaries helping children with infectious diseases, made her see that she’d made the best decision in letting him go.
A few days before he was scheduled to leave, she’d received a voicemail from Cannon telling her that he loved her and he wouldn’t go to Brazil for a year if she really didn’t want him to. She played the message almost a hundred times over the course of two days before deleting it without returning his phone call. She loved him dearly, but she wasn’t going to be selfish and stand in his way of his dreams.
Sometimes, over the years she’d regretted her decision for she hated being without him. She missed the little things, like sitting in his lap and resting her head on his chest just to hear her favorite song—his heartbeat. Or gliding her finger along the scar on the left side of his chest. He’d gotten it as a child from a bike accident and if it had just been a few inches deeper, it could have pierced his heart. That always haunted her for she couldn’t imagine life without him even if he was only in it for a few years. She swallowed remembering the way she used to be obsessed over it. He always found it funny, but never complained when she would kiss, lick, or run her finger around the scar.
Nevertheless, when she saw the documentaries a few years ago, she knew she had made the right decision in not calling him back, for if she had heard his voice in her ear or seen him in person, she would’ve begged him not to go. Even though she no longer regretted letting him go—well sometimes—it hurt like hell to be without him.
Now here he was back in her life, and she didn’t know what to do with her roller coaster of emotions. Tonight he reminded her just how much she loved and missed him, but she was scared. She had to remember, despite her feelings for him, he still hurt her by pushing aside their wedding plans just as he had done everything else while they were together.
The vibrating of her cell phone startled her out of her thoughts. She was relieved to see that it was Sherika and not Cannon.
“Hey, girl!”
“Hey, Yaz. I got the pictures of the floral arrangements and emailed Zaria back. I love them so much!”
“I’m glad it all worked out.” The warmth of the hot chocolate was wearing off, so Yasmine went back inside and sat in front of the lit fireplace.
“I’ll say! You and Cannon just saved me $700. Please, tell him thank you the next time you see or talk to him.”
“Uh … sure. Sure will.”
“Oh oh. What happened?”
Yasmine laughed nervously. “Nothing. So what else do you need me to do?” Yasmine grabbed her notepad from the coffee table that had her things to do list.
“Girl, even though I’m completely stressing over this wedding, I still care about what is going on with you and Cannon. I know planning this wedding with him has to be hard.”
“We agreed to be cordial and everything was going okay, but then I let my guard down, and he kissed me and it felt so good to be in his arms again with his lips on mine. I didn’t know just how much I missed being with him, smelling him, touching
him.” Tears welled up in her eyes again, but she brushed them away. She hadn’t cried over him in years, and she didn’t feel like starting now.
“Oh my goodness! This is wonderful. Wait? Is he there now? Am I disturbing something?”
“No. I … um … sort of pushed him off of me, got in my car, and left him standing in the parking lot with a puzzled look on his face.”
“Girl, what am I going to do with you? You know Cannon still loves you. Doug said he never got over you, but like you, he went on with his life. I think if there is still something there to pursue, then do it. Doug and I were friends for years after we dated for a few months, but when he moved to New York last year, we just knew we were meant to be. I can’t imagine being without him.”
“Your story is different. Doug never hurt you, and he wants you to go with him to Madrid. Cannon never asked me to go to Brazil with him. He just brushed off our wedding and said we could get married anytime after he returned.”
“Would you have gone if he’d asked?”
“Sherika, I don’t know. What would I have done over there?”
“Teach and be with your man. But that’s coulda woulda shoulda. The question is what are you going to do now that he’s back in your life and apparently still has feelings for you?”
“I don’t know. Let’s change the subject.”
“Okay. You have your pen and paper ready?”
Yasmine laughed and positioned her pen to write. “I’m ready, bridezilla.”
“So, after looking at the pictures Zaria sent, I’ve decided to go with all white flowers tied in fuchsia ribbons for me, you, and the bridesmaids. Also, I’ve decided that I want you and the bridesmaids to wear white dresses as well.”
