Meena stroked his cheek and tilted her head to the side as she looked down at him with soft eyes. “Please don’t go,” she repeated in a whisper.
Armstrong pressed his eyes shut with a gasp. “Wait. Wait, wait, wait,” he insisted.
Meena sat back on his lap, her face concerned. “What’s wrong? Are you in pain? Should I get up?” she asked, her words rushed as she made a move to rise.
A strong hand to her waist stopped her. “I remember something,” he said, looking up at her again. “Did we ever make love on the back of my truck?”
Meena nodded eagerly. “One night under the stars. It was pretty dope,” she said.
The look in his eyes changed. There was a shift.
Her heart swelled and her belly warmed. “Is your memory back, Mann-Mann?” she asked, ever hopeful.
He shook his head. “But I have been dreaming of that night on the back of my truck since the moment just before I woke up from the coma,” he said, raising his hand to stroke her chin. “And damn near every night since. It’s the only firm memory that I have and it’s about you.”
“I told you that you loved me,” she said, biting her bottom lip as her emotions soared.
He kissed her, shifting his hand to her nape to gently lower her head as he raised his chin. It was passionate and sweet all at once.
“Oh, Mann-Mann,” she whispered into the heated air between their mouths before he reclaimed her lips with his own.
Meena inched forward on his lap and pushed her upper body against his, softly stroking his nape with her fingers as she pressed her core against his hardening length with a wild moan.
“Wait,” he said, tilting his head back to break the heated kiss.
“Huh?” she asked, feeling disoriented and hazy.
“I won’t lie and say I love you right now,” he said.
That hurt and Meena’s face shown that.
“But I want to fall in love with you again as whatever man I am today. You understand?”
Meena nodded, allowing her hope to spread.
“As badly as I want to sex you right now. I’m not.”
She frowned. Deeply.
He chuckled before pressing a quick kiss to her chin.
“Is the new you celibate?” she asked, her tone agitated.
“Hell no,” he stressed. “I just want a chance to get to know you again.”
“You are really killing me right now, Armstrong,” she said, rising from his lap and feeling the moistness of her panties against her core.
“Armstrong?” he asked.
She had turned but looked back over her shoulder at him. “Mann-Mann would’ve got the job done. You’re Armstrong right about now,” she said.
He laughed and reached for her wrist to pull her back close. “It won’t be long before I love you again,” he assured her, jerking her back down onto his lap for all too teasing kiss that left them both shook.
∞
Two weeks later
Armstrong walked inside the small brick Wells Fargo bank on the corner of North Main Street in Summerville. He looked around at customers in line to go to one of the bank tellers behind the counter. A man from inside one of the customer service offices came towards him.
“Good evening, sir,” he said. “Can I help you?”
“Yes. Uhm, I received this letter saying I owned payment on a safe-deposit box here,” Armstrong said, handing him the folded envelope. “I didn’t even know I had an account here.”
When Armstrong began working for Jamison and Jamison Contractors again he had just opened a new account with a different bank.
“I’m Orville Smith. I can help you with that. Come right this way,” the man said, turning to walk his portly frame towards the office by the front door.
Armstrong followed, taking the seat offered before his desk as Orville took his seat behind it. “If I could just see some identification please, Mr. Mann.”
He retrieved his wallet and removed his driver’s license to place on the desk.
“Okay, yes, you have both a savings account with us that was opened several years ago and a safe deposit box,” Orville said.
“But I don’t have an ATM card or received any bank statements,” he said, feeling frustrated by his brain’s persistence to keep him in the land of the lost.
Orville typed on his keyboard before turning to him with a cordial smile. “You declined an ATM card and you signed up for paperless statements that go to your yahoo email account. Considering the balance, I think you were intent on saving money, Mr. Mann.”
“The balance?” he asked.
“Yes. It’s thirty-three thousand dollars.”
The hell?
“Seriously?” he asked, his face incredulous.
Why in the hot hell was I sitting on all that money and my truck is running off duct tape and prayer?
“The annual payment on your safe deposit box is due and I can pay it directly from your account if you like,” Orville said.
“What the hell is in it?” Armstrong asked.
Orville gave him an odd look. “I wouldn’t know but you can open it and find out,” he said.
Armstrong held up his hands and released a heavy breath. “I better explain,” he began. “I was in a hit and run accident close to two months ago and I lost my memory. I’m just trying put the puzzle pieces of my life back together.”
The man looked relieved. “Okay, as odd as that sounds that makes more sense to why you’re so clueless to your finances,” he said, rising to his feet. “Let me take you to see what’s in your box. I guess you don’t have the key?”
Armstrong pulled his set of keys from the side pocket of his Carhatt cargo work pants and held them up. “Not unless it’s on here,” he said, looking down at them.
Orville came around the desk. “Actually, that’s it,” he said, pointing to a small key.
I wondered what that was for.
“Right this way, sir.”
Armstrong nodded and took the letter and envelope the man handed back to him, shoving it into the back pocket of his pants. As he signed in with bank security and was led into the vault, he felt anxious. First a discovery of over thirty grand and now a safe deposit box.
When he was finally alone in the viewing area with the box on the high table before him, Armstrong placed his key in the lock and opened the lid. His heart pounded like crazy as he looked down at a jewelry box and a photo of Meena posed in front of the same yellow house on the corner he’d mistaken for her home.
“I don’t live there it’s my dream home and you’ve been there with me a couple of times. So, yes you are right and you are remembering us.”
He reached for the photo, turning it over. There was a name and phone number written on the back. “Lyndsey Graham,” he read.
He reached for the jewelry box. Inside was nestled a beautiful engagement ring.
“Think, Armstrong, think,” he urged himself aloud, balling his free hand in frustration.
Was I going to propose? To Meena? Then why was I in Greenville?
He tried valiantly to remember. But nothing. “Shit,” he swore.
Armstrong reached for his cell phone but had no service. He secured the ring back in the safety deposit box and held onto to the photo as he left the viewing area.
∞
One month later (August)
“You ready for the new school year?” Armstrong called out to her from the kitchen where he was cooking them a simple dinner of cheeseburgers and garden salad.
Meena came to stand in the doorway naked as the day she was born. Enough is enough. “Are you ready for this?” she asked, her voice soft and sultry, but filled with clear intent.
He looked back over his broad shoulder and dropped the spatula he was holding. “Meena,” he gushed, his wide eyes taking in everything from her mussed hair down to the five-inch red stilettos heels she wore.
She arched a brow and lightly bit down on the tip of her finger before bending it to beckon
him to her. “Now,” she mouthed.
Armstrong pulled off the dishtowel he had slung over his shoulder and balled it up to toss into the empty sink before he turned to her.
“Turn off the stove, baby,” she said.
He did.
With a smile she turned, wiggling her bare bottom at him before she slowly walked into the bedroom.
Before she could reach his bed, Armstrong had rushed up behind her and pulled her body back against his. She gasped at the feel of his hands. One cupping her breast and the other stroking her plump vee before jerking her legs open and then stroking her clit.
“Yes,” she moaned, reaching her arms up high to the ceiling as she rested her head back on one of his shoulders. His heated kisses were pressed to the base of her neck where her pulse pounded and raced.
The moment—their moment—had arrived. Finally. Over the last two weeks, they had fallen into a pattern that was so familiar to her and so welcomed to him. Time. Effort. They put in the work to reclaim as much of their rhythm as they could and in the process stoked a fire that had been simmering away every single day that they both resisted the desire to have one another completely.
The wait was over.
Meena could barely stand to be in his presence and not have him. On her. In her. Hard. Fast. Slow. Steady.
And although she knew he thought he was different everything about his touches and his kisses were well known to her. Hungered for. Needed.
She broke their hold and slowly walked over to the bed to bend over it with her legs spread wide in her heels.
Armstrong stripped with a quickness. His hardness hung from his body like a tree limb and tempted her. Making her wet and ready. And when he strode over to her he squatted down behind her and buried his face against her core, her buttocks spread on his face as he licked her hungrily. Feasting to replace the famine he insisted upon.
She cried out in pleasure and surprise when he turned over and lay back on the bed beneath her to look up at her intimacy before he suckled her swollen clit into his mouth. Her hips arched forward as she gulped and trembled. Slowly he sucked her to a climax that left her body coated in sweat, her heart racing and her hands tugging in her own hair as she cried out without a care to who heard her.
On unsteady legs, she took a step back and then dropped to her knees between his strong muscular thighs and took his hot hardness into her mouth to return the favor.
Armstrong released a wild animal like cry, his hips thrusting upward and sending his dick gliding across her tongue to tickle the back of her throat. But she didn’t gag. She didn’t dare. She adjusted to the feel of him and continued her onslaught until he pressed a hand to her forehead and begged her to relent.
“I don’t want to cum,” he gasped in a harsh whisper. “Please don’t make me cum. Not yet.”
Meena stood and wiped the spittle around her mouth with the back of her hand as he sat up to reach for her body, jerking her close to press his face against her stomach before he quickly turned with ease to flip her onto the bed and cover her soft body with his own. Their faces were just inches apart. Their bated breaths mingled in the air between them.
“Shit,” he swore, looking down at her in pure amazement.
She gave his bottom lip a hot little lick. “I told you that you loved me,” she said softly with a cat-like smile.
He nodded before offering her his tongue.
She sucked the tip as she slowly opened her legs and brought them up to set her knees on either side of her head.
Using nothing but his hips he slid his dick inside her, inch by inch, spreading her as he glided against her walls.
Meena cried out when he filled her so deeply that the root of his dick was inside her and his balls lightly hit against her buttocks.
He stiffened, pressing his face against her neck to lightly bite her. His beard tickled her skin just the way she remembered. “Mann-Mann,” she sighed. “Look at me.”
He did. Eyes dazed. Lips swollen. Beard unkempt.
“You are in there somewhere. Come back to me,” she whispered up to him, even as she used her walls to grip and release his hardness methodically.
“What if I never remember you at all?” he asked, his voice strained as she sexed him without even moving her body.
“Then let me give you something to remember.”
She kissed him deeply as she worked her hips in a slow circle that pulled down on his dick. She swallowed his gasp of pleasure as she moaned from deep within at the feel of his hard heat striking against her slickly wet clit.
And together, as they had many times in the past, they climaxed. Rough cries. Frantic thrusts. Sweat soaked sheets now snatched from the bed. The relentless pursuit of pleasure.
Long after their desire was sated and they were spent, they lay there entwined as they waited for their heartbeats, pulses, and breaths to simmer down to a normal pace.
∞
Knock-knock.
Armstrong lifted his head from the pillow and looked around as he was abruptly awakened from his sleep. He smiled at the soft snores of Meena as she continued sleeping. Careful not to wake her, he eased from the bed and the leg she had draped across his to search for pants to pull on before leaving the room and heading to the front door.
“Who?” he asked.
“Zora. It’s me Zora, Armstrong.”
He frowned and looked at the cable box to check the time. It was well after ten. Opening the door, he looked out at her standing on the top step still dressed in her nursing uniform. “Hey, Zora. What are you doing here?” he asked. “Is everything okay?”
She breezed past him to enter before he could think to stop her.
He looked at the open bedroom door and then back at her, thinking of Meena. “Its really not a good time, Zora,” he said, still standing with the door open.
“I know it’s kinda late but I really needed to see you in person and get something off my chest and I just couldn’t wait anymore,” she said, her eyes on him.
Another glance to the bedroom. “But—”
“I like you,” Zora said, holding up her hands like “so there”.
Uh-oh.
“The entire time you were in the hospital I went above and beyond my job because you intrigued me. I wanted to know more about you and in time I just wanted you to wake and see me and want to know just as much about me,” she said, twisting her hands together as if nervous.
“Zora—”
She held up a hand. “Wait. Just let me finish. I drove damn near three hours to say this. Let me say it.”
He closed his mouth and crossed his arms over his bare chest.
“I need to know if there is any chance for us?” she asked, looking at him. “Is there more here than just friendship or is this all in my head because I truly thought if you had no one to love you and notice you’re gone then I could be that person. I can love you. And when you awakened you were everything I imagined and more, Armstrong.”
“You better open your eyes. Your friend wants more from you.”
Damn. Meena was right.
“I know Meena has just as many hopes for reconciliation as I have for a new beginning so I have to ask you to be clear where I fit in all this,” she said, her face serious.
He looked to the room again and the bed was empty. In the shadows, he made out Meena standing by the door listening. His eyes implored her not to come out and embarrass Zora further.
“Zora, I thank you for the care you gave me in the hospital and most definitely for going out discovering who the hell I am for me,” he said, taking a step closer to her. “I can’t thank you enough for that, but I didn’t know that your intentions towards me were different than mines towards you.”
She nodded slowly and looked away from him briefly. “So Meena wins,” she says, bitterness at the edge of her tone.
“There was never any contest,” he said. “I never wanted anything more than friendship. I’m sorry if I did anything to lead you on.”
<
br /> “Meena—”
It was his turn to hold up his hands. “The way I feel—or don’t feel—has nothing to do with Meena but we do have three years together and a future we were building together,” he said, thinking of the engagement ring and the photo with the number he soon discovered was to a real estate agent who filled him in on his plans to purchase that yellow house.
Zora laughed bitterly. “Well tell me this—since you can’t seem to recognize it for yourself—if you two were so good why did you lay up in the hospital for a month without her being there. No call. No damn show,” she said, her voice hard.
He had recognized it for himself, but his time debating with Zora about his feelings was done. “That still doesn’t change that I have never wanted anything more than friendship from you,” he said, his tone a bit harder because he felt he needed to be stern for her own good. “You’re a good woman, who makes some good ass lima beans, and there is a dude out there waiting to find you. It’s just not me.”
She gave him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes and wasn’t broad enough to bring out her dimples. “Then I think we shouldn’t call each other anymore,” she said, moving past him to walk to the door. “And don’t call me when you figure out the truth.”
“He won’t,” Meena said, stepping out of the room in nothing but one his shirts.
Armstrong hung his head and released a breath.
Saying nothing else Zora left, softly closing the front door behind her.
Long after he and Meena returned to bed he lay awake looking up at the shadow of the tree limbs on the ceilings with her words still speaking to his own doubts.
“If you two were so good then why did you lay up in the hospital for a month without her being there. No call. No damn show.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Two months later
“Trick or treat!”
Meena and Neema, dressed as Foxy Brown and Cleopatra Jones, respectively, dumped large handfuls of candy into the bags of the half dozen or more costumed children on the porch of the Strong ranch.
“Thank you!” they all roared before turning and speeding across the porch and down the steps to their parents waiting in cars.
Welcome Back, My Love Page 9
