His Christmas Gift ; Decadent Holiday Pleasures

by Janice Sims

  “Don’t worry about it,” Alia told him. “You married into a family that owns a network. Say the word, and what you’ve been through will be broadcast all over the world.”

  Adam grinned. “I have no doubt you’d do that for me, my darling wife, but I’m not the only one affected by this. Maritza, Arjun and Calvin also have private lives they’d like to keep private. I can’t do anything rash like embarrass the government. I’d rather negotiate than make threats.”

  Alia calmed down. “Yes, you’re right. Whatever you decide to do, I’m there for you.”

  He squeezed her tightly against his broad chest. “Thanks, I appreciate that.”

  They went back to their cooking. “Oh,” Adam added, smiling, “I ran into J.Z. in the lobby.” He went on to tell her about the exchange, and she laughed until tears started falling. She was about to wipe her eyes with a finger but remembered that she’d been chopping hot peppers and thought better of it. She grabbed a paper towel instead and dabbed at her eyes. “That man is a riot,” she said. “I bet he’s kept Miss Em entertained over the years.” She washed her hands at the sink.

  “You know he has,” Adam said. “She probably never knows what’s going to come out of his mouth next.”

  “There’s something to be said for spontaneity,” Alia said, her eyes raking over him with lascivious intent.

  Adam must have also been thinking about seduction since he’d gotten home from work because he reached over and turned the stove off, picked her up and tossed her onto his shoulder, fireman-style, and began walking in the direction of their bedroom. “What about dinner?” Alia cried, giggling.

  “It’ll keep. I won’t,” was her husband’s response.

  “Shower?” she ventured.

  “You smell fine to me.”

  She laughed harder. “We’ve made love practically every night since the Christmas party. What if I just wanted to cuddle?”

  “We can cuddle when we’re old and white-haired.”

  In the bedroom, all she had to do was hold her arms out at her sides. He undressed her, then himself. And since they had dispensed with the condoms, everything else followed its natural course.

  She was underneath him on the bed in no time, wearing nothing but a pair of diamond stud earrings and a smile. He was hard and hot and determined. He entered her slowly so as to not hurt her. She was wet and ready for him by the time he began pressing against her entrance, though, and she gave a little thrust upward to let him know. After that movement, he delved deeper inside, pulling out and pushing in until he’d worked her up into a pulsating frenzy of sexual tension. She loved this part, when her climax felt so close yet so far away. Sweet torture. It made her body tremble. And judging by the manner in which his eyes were intently gazing into hers, he knew it. He knew it, and it gave him pleasure to make her delight last as long as possible.

  He gathered her close to him with his strong arms. They were so close not even air could get between them.

  “You feel so good,” he breathed.

  She clung to him, her arms and legs wrapped around his body while he pumped into her. Then she grasped his firm buttocks and held on. She felt closer to the edge, at the precipice, about to free-fall. It hit her harder and quicker than she’d anticipated. Her inner thigh muscles felt weak with the release. Her feminine center throbbed with it, a delicious flutter that spread out to the rest of her. Like a prayer of thanks, she uttered, “Oh, God.”

  Her husband smiled down at her. “Amen.”

  Chapter 11

  “We should have let her know we were coming,” Alia whispered as she and Adam climbed out of the taxi in a busy tourist section of Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. It was a beautiful day. The temperature felt like it was in the high seventies, the sun bright, the sky a cloudless baby blue. In order to surprise her, they’d come straight from the airport to the street where Adam’s mother’s gift shop was located.

  The trip had been Alia’s idea. Adam had been back from the Middle East for over three months now, and he hadn’t seen his folks. When she’d pointed that out to him, he’d looked surprised, as if it had never occurred to him that his family might want to see him. She chalked it up to his being an absentminded professor. He and his team, he told her, were getting close to a breakthrough in their research. His mind was consumed with work.

  Also, there had been no word from the government concerning their negotiations with the president. The president was being stubborn. Adam and his team were being stubborn. Alia didn’t know how the situation was going to be resolved, but she was willing to bet the announcement of the new missile-defusing technology was something the president wasn’t going to sit on for much longer. That was quite the coup for him, and she didn’t believe he was going to let an opportunity to shine in the public’s eye like that slip through his fingers.

  After she and Adam got out of the taxi a few stores down from his mother’s shop, they stood on the sidewalk, holding their carry-on bags, sunglasses on, a necessity in the bright sunshine of the Bahamas. Alia marveled at how colorful Nassau was every time she was here. She loved the pastel colors of the buildings, the palm trees, fronds flowing with the sea breezes, the painted horse-drawn carriages and, best of all, the police directing traffic in their sharp British-style uniforms. All sorts of people were on the street coming in and out of shops, restaurants and bakeries that catered to tourists. She inhaled the aroma of freshly baked bread as she and Adam began walking toward his mother’s gift shop. Her stomach growled in response to the enticing odor. Adam looked down at her. “We’d better get you something to eat soon.”

  Alia didn’t say it, but she thought, Yeah, we’re a little hungry. She put her hand on her stomach. She hadn’t taken any pregnancy tests, but she felt certain there was a little person growing in there.

  Adam reached over and pulled her close to his side. “Come on, let’s go see what Ramona’s up to.”

  Ramona’s shop was busy with tourists riffling through the racks of sundresses, straw hats, costume jewelry, sandals, anything a visitor might need in order to enjoy their stay in Nassau. Ramona had island music playing softly in the background. Alia’s gaze swept back and forth, trying to locate her mother-in-law among many other brown-skinned women. She’d noticed that a lot of African American women loved coming to Nassau. It was a very short trip from Miami, and cruise ships were regularly bringing people here.

  Suddenly, someone let out a shrill scream. Alia knew, then, that Ramona had spotted her son. He was the tallest person in the shop. “Ay, yee! God has blessed me today. Here is my baby from America!”

  Ramona Kingsley-Braithwaite, a short, stout, medium-brown-skinned woman, dressed in a purple sundress with matching sandals and cowrie shells shot throughout her braided hair, leaped into her son’s arms. Adam picked her up in a bear hug. He had tears in his eyes, Alia noticed. As for Ramona, she was too busy laughing to cry. After he set her down, she cried, “Let me look at you!” She took a step back to get a better view. Around them, tourists had stopped to observe mother and son and to show their support with loud clapping and whoops. The whoops, Alia suspected, were for their appreciation of the son’s good looks. She noticed the interested stares and winning smiles of the women and the frowns and suspicious glances of the men aimed at their companions. She had to smile at that. And she stood at a respectful distance as Ramona inspected her son from head to toe.

  “They didn’t hurt you, did they?” she asked, her voice combative, as though she’d kill whoever might have laid a hand on her son.

  “No, Momma,” Adam gently told her. “I’m fine.”

  Ramona threw herself in his arms again, and that was when she burst into tears. “I never prayed so hard in my life. Thank God you’re safe and sound.”

  Then Ramona noticed Alia and gestured with a beckoning hand for her to come over. Alia went and hugged her. Ramona squeezed her with such force
Alia feared she might crack a rib. “Hello, daughter. I see you’ve been taking care of my son, and I thank you,” she said, her Bahamian accent sounding especially lyrical to Alia. She peered closely at Alia’s face, then she looked her straight in the eyes and said, “You’re pregnant.”

  Alia was too emotional to say anything. She began to cry, leaving Adam with two tearful women to console.

  * * *

  Adam didn’t know how Ramona had pulled it off, but it seemed every relative he had in the Bahamas was at his parents’ house that night, along with half the neighborhood. It was a good thing his parents had a big backyard because the partyers were a rowdy group that needed the space. Aaron, his kid brother, was lead singer in a band that provided the entertainment. They weren’t bad. Adam didn’t know exactly what kind of music they were playing, but he guessed it was influenced by ska, reggae and calypso, elements many musicians from the islands borrowed from.

  Aaron was nineteen and finished with secondary school, with no idea what he wanted to do with his life. Adam was standing with his sister, Regina, who was in her midtwenties and mere months away from becoming a physician, and her husband, Peter, ten years her senior and a tall, muscular guy with dark skin and a shaved head who looked every inch a construction worker. He owned a construction business and was a native Bahamian, too.

  Regina was tall, attractive and fit, with similar skin color to Adam’s reddish brown, and natural hair that she wore in a short afro. She grinned at Adam. “Please, don’t encourage him,” she said of their kid brother’s musical aspirations.

  “What?” Adam asked nonchalantly, as if he didn’t know what she meant.

  “I can see you’re enjoying the music. You’re almost dancing,” she accused lightly. “Making it in the music business is a lot harder than becoming a doctor or a lawyer. Aaron’s smart. He needs to do something that’s going to make him financially independent. Something that’ll give him the means to have a wife and family.”

  Adam smiled at her. “Seems like I’ve heard that before. Good thing I didn’t listen or I’d never have gone to America and met Alia Joie. I would have gone as far as I could at college and married an island girl, a wonderful person I’m sure, and had a few children by now. Why can’t Aaron follow his heart? He has that luxury now. Momma and Dad already have the success story in you and me. They can afford to give Aaron a little slack.”

  “Still the dreamer,” Regina said, smiling warmly. He knew that was one of the things she loved about him. The two of them might not see eye to eye on certain subjects, but that didn’t stop them from truly loving each other.

  Regina was a pragmatist who liked having an orderly life. She hadn’t even balked at her father fixing her up with Peter. Their father, Adam II, was a master carpenter, as was his father, Adam I, before him. Adam II had met Peter when he’d been hired to construct built-in shelves in several of the houses Peter’s company was building there on New Providence Island. Adam II had invited Peter to dinner at his house and made sure Regina would be there. Regina and Peter were instantly attracted to each other and were married about a year later. It didn’t matter that Regina was in medical school and needed to keep her mind on her studies. She was a multitasker from way back.

  “Yeah, I know,” Regina said now. “In some ways I don’t think you and I had much of a childhood. Let Aaron enjoy himself a little longer. The baby of the family usually gets spoiled, anyway.”

  When she said the word baby, Adam thought of Alia Joie and looked around for her. He didn’t see her in the backyard. Knowing her, she was in the kitchen stealing recipes. She told him she’d learned how to prepare Bahamian dishes by watching what Ramona and his grandmother Violet put in the dishes they prepared.

  “Go dance while you’re still young,” he told Regina and Peter. “I’m going to find Alia Joie before Momma tells her what sex the child she’s carrying is going to be.”

  Regina laughed. “Tell Alia if she wants a doctor’s opinion, I’d be glad to examine her.”

  Adam laughed at that. “Great, now I have the island witch who predicts pregnancies and a legitimate doctor offering free advice. Thanks, but Alia Joie and I will wait until she starts having morning sickness and go buy a pregnancy test at a drugstore. Then if it’s positive, we’ll make an appointment with a doctor who isn’t my little sister.”

  “No offense taken,” Regina said, smiling. “Curiosity is eating me up, though. This would be Momma and Dad’s first grandchild. I’m anxious to be an auntie.”

  “You’ll be the third person in the family, right after Momma and Dad, to find out, I promise,” Adam said, and bent to kiss his sister’s forehead like he used to do.

  She smiled up at him. “Welcome home, Adam.”

  “Yes,” Peter said, offering Adam a manly hand to shake.

  Adam shook his brother-in-law’s hand. “Thank you both. It’s good to be home.”

  He hurried away after that to find Alia Joie. He had some things to discuss with her, like the fact that she hadn’t mentioned she thought she might be pregnant to him. The reaction she’d had when his superstitious mother had pronounced she was pregnant in front of thirty or more tourists had surprised him. They hadn’t had one moment alone since then to talk about it.

  In the kitchen, the noise level was almost as high as in the backyard. His mother, his grandmother and several aunties, both by blood and not, were gossiping, dancing about and singing, while they cooked up delicious-smelling island cuisine.

  If he didn’t know better, he would think he’d interrupted a secret society’s ceremony to induct a member into motherhood. Alia Joie was in the middle of it all, standing beside his grandmother Violet at a huge wooden block cutting board as his grandma Violet instructed her on the proper way to get the conch meat out of a conch shell.

  He felt proud and fearful at once. Alia Joie was game to learn a new skill, but he knew a conch shell could be sharp and he didn’t want her to cut herself. He breathed easier when he saw his grandmother, an old hand at separating the snail’s shell from the snail itself, demonstrate the safe way to get up in there and remove the meat. Violet, a still-handsome woman in her seventies, had thick salt-and-pepper hair that was naturally wavy and that she wore upswept from her slightly wrinkled but beautifully flushed face. The flush, he guessed, was due to the effort to get the snail loose from its shell.

  Grandma Violet calmly split the snail in half and handed a steel mallet to Alia Joie. She must have told her to tenderize the snail meat with it because Alia Joie began pounding the snail meat, and his grandmother encouraged her to put her back into it. He smiled as his determined wife pounded with added vigor.

  He walked up to them as Alia Joie was pounding. “Can I help?” he asked. Alia Joie glanced up at him and smiled. She looked like she was having fun.

  His grandmother waved him off. “No,” she said, her brown eyes twinkling with mischief. “But you can come and give your grandmother a kiss on the cheek.”

  He did as he was told.

  He kissed Alia Joie’s cheek, too. “Stealing recipes?” he whispered when he got close to her ear.

  “Shh...” she cautioned him. She obviously didn’t want to get caught.

  “No men allowed,” Ramona called from across the room.

  “You taught me how to cook,” Adam said in his defense.

  “That’s because when you got out on your own, I didn’t want you to starve to death,” Ramona returned. She was in her element, queen of the kitchen with her cohorts surrounding her. “And since you’re giving out kisses, come over here and give me one.”

  He wound up kissing every female in the kitchen on the cheek. He beat a hasty retreat after that, figuring he’d be better off, and perhaps safer—one of the aunties had surreptitiously pinched him on the butt—with the revelers in the backyard.

  * * *

  That night as Alia and Adam lay in bed, face-
to-face, in his parents’ guest room, Alia whispered, “I love it here. Your mom and your grandma had me laughing like crazy. They are two of the dearest women I know.”

  “They’re bossy and opinionated,” he countered, grinning. “In a sweet way.”

  She laughed softly. “And Aaron! I didn’t know he was so talented. He sounds like one of my favorite singers, Leon Bridges. You know him—I played his CD, Coming Home, for you. You loved the song ‘River’ on it.”

  Adam sang a few lines from the song.

  “That’s it,” she said, smiling with satisfaction. She loved to hear him sing. His soulful baritone made her heart melt and her libido catch fire. “But don’t sing now. You know what your singing does to me, and we’re in your parents’ house.”

  “They’re on the other end,” he said. “They won’t hear us.”

  “I don’t care,” Alia said. “We’re not making love in this house. Call me a prude if you want to.”

  “You’re already pregnant, according to Ramona,” he teased. She could see his flash of white teeth in the darkness so she knew he was having fun at her expense. She wasn’t about to let him goad her into having sex in his parents’ house, though.

  “What if I told you I think she’s right?” Alia asked, hoping her comment would shock him silent.

  “I’m a scientist. I’d say show me evidence,” he said smartly.

  “It’s early yet,” Alia said. “My breasts are a little tender, but other than that, I don’t have any symptoms. I’m eagerly waiting for nausea and mood swings.”

  “I don’t think anyone would be eagerly awaiting feeling nauseous. Although you cried today,” he pointed out. “Wouldn’t that be under the definition of ‘mood swing’?”

  “I guess,” Alia said. “I’m new at this.”

  “If you thought you were pregnant, why didn’t you mention your suspicion to me?”