Sweet Heat

by Zuri Day

  “Wow, check out that pool table! I’ve never seen one like that.”

  Marvin looked over. “You play?”

  Naomi nodded. “A little bit.”

  “Cool. Me and you can play next after I beat this clown.” He nodded toward Doug, cued up his stick, and dropped a solid into the far right pocket.

  Naomi sidled up to him, lowered her voice. “Thanks for inviting me over. This was amazing.”

  “The day isn’t over.” Marvin lined up another shot.

  “Yeah, but I’m heading out.”

  This got his attention. He straightened and asked her, “Why, what’s the matter?”

  “Just a little upset stomach, no big deal.”

  “Let me finish this game right quick and I’ll go with you.”

  “It’s okay. Stay and enjoy your family. We’ll talk later.”

  Marvin looked across the room and saw his sister Anita’s date. “Walter! Come finish this game up for me, finish taking Doug out.”

  After exchanging shoulder bumps with the men in the room and hugging the women, they made the rounds so Marvin could say good-bye to his family. Naomi thanked Cynthia for the invitation and complimented her again on her home. She got up the nerve to ask Jan for a selfie and snuck pics of the rapper and Night, the personal trainer, so she could text them to Kristy and brag. Once outside, she took a deep breath and immediately felt better.

  Marvin noticed. “You sure you’re alright?”

  Naomi nodded. “I’m fine. It was just . . . never mind.”

  “Where are you going, home?”

  Naomi hadn’t thought that far ahead. She looked at Marvin, saw the concern on his face. “Why, you going to come over and take care of me?”

  “Is Nana home? I don’t need any more bedspring tattoos on my face.” His eyes dropped to her lips. His expression softened. “Although I can think of a couple ways to make you feel better.”

  Naomi’s stomach tightened as a squiggle traveled from its core to her heat. She remembered the melody Marvin’s tongue had played on her honey box, began to instantly feel better and got an idea.

  “You really want to help me feel better?”

  “What’d I tell you, girl?”

  “Then neither one of us is going home just yet. Follow me.”

  She backed out of the gated parking and pulled ahead to give Marvin room to maneuver. Byron waved to him from the door and then ran out to the car. While they talked, Naomi pulled out her phone and spoke a command, then tapped the directions so the GPS could think for her. Between her time with the stars just now and memories of Marvin’s magic that first night, Naomi’s mind was a muddled mush. She returned Byron’s wave as he backed away from Marvin’s car and went back to the house.

  Heading down Venice Boulevard, Naomi checked her rearview mirror now and again to make sure Marvin was behind her. At a stop light she started to text him the destination but then decided to let it be a surprise. Long a popular tourist destination, the Venice Beach streets were crowded, with wealth and poverty living side by side. Naomi didn’t miss the irony of a homeless man sleeping in front of a trendy-looking boutique. She imagined the price of one of the items in the window could feed that man for a week, or a month, maybe even get him a room for a night or two. And Marvin had family who lived there? For the first time since meeting him Naomi found herself a bit intimidated, even as she found ironies in his life as puzzling as the beach town’s economic divide. Like how did one brother live on the beach, another be married to an R & B star, and Marvin be stuck living at home, working at a greasy spoon and competing with her for a food truck and a nice chunk of cash?

  By the time Naomi turned off Venice onto Lincoln, heading toward Los Angeles International Airport, LAX, questions about Marvin the man had bypassed those about his family. She realized that considering where both their mouths had been in relation to each other, she knew way too little, and promised herself that by the time the day ended she’d know way more. In the meantime she punched the favorites list on her stereo and turned up the title cut of Jan’s latest album—All This Woman.

  When Kristy sees my picture with her, cousin is going to freak!

  Naomi saw a text message come in. At the next stoplight she tapped the icon.

  Where are we going?

  Naomi sent him a big smile emoji and started singing with Jan. She put the song on repeat and rocked it as Lincoln merged into Sepulveda Boulevard. A short time later she pulled into the entrance to their destination, drove around to the side and parked her car. Marvin pulled his SUV beside her car, turned off his engine and got out.

  “I should have known you’d like that song.”

  “You know it! Can you handle all this woman?” she asked.

  “You already know the answer to that.”

  She sure did, so much so that a sarcastic comment refused to come out of her mouth.

  He looked over at the building. “I wondered where you were going.”

  “Now you know.”

  “Hotel. Motel.”

  They sang together, “Holiday Inn!”

  She laughed as Marvin did a spin and started dancing toward a side entrance. Naomi went over to check them in, but after finding out she hadn’t prepaid the room, Marvin insisted on handling the bill.

  “Considering how I’m about to tear all that up”—he checked out her ass—“it’s the least I can do.”

  “Alright now, don’t write a promissory note that your pen can’t sign!”

  “Baby, I’m full of ink . . . you feel me?”

  “No, but I’m getting ready to.” They entered the elevator. She pushed up on him. “And this time there will be no interruptions.”

  16

  Marvin reached the room, tried to play it cool as he slid the key card into the slot. Inside though, he was doing the running man. He’d wanted to be with Naomi since that very first day when she tried to dis him in line. They stepped inside the room. It was nice and cool, but Marvin still felt a bead of sweat roll down his neck. He adjusted his collar, watching Naomi check out the room. She closed the curtains, then walked by him toward the bathroom.

  “When I come back out, you’d better be ready.”

  The saucily delivered words were a complete turn-on. He eyed her as she sashayed into the bathroom, that big round ass taunting him with each bounce. She quickly turned while closing the door and caught him staring. Her confident laugh told him everything. She knew what she was working with, and knew he loved every inch.

  Yeah, it’s about to be on!

  Marvin undid his belt, unzipped his pants, then sat on the bed and took off his Jordans. In stockinged feet he walked over to where cool air flowed from a vent, unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off. He grabbed his tee and pulled it over his head. Then he heard the shower. He eyed the bathroom door, a smile slowly spreading across his face. He let his jeans drop to the floor. Pulled off his boxers and stepped out of both. Thoughts of Naomi in the shower, all that juicy wet and sudsy, made him harden like steel. His shaft went before him like a curved baton seeking its majorette to go for a twirl. Marvin didn’t plan to do any marching, but he was sure there would be sound.

  He gently opened the door and eased inside. The curtain was pulled, the mirror foggy as wisps of steam wafted toward Marvin’s body.

  He stepped to the curtain. “Nay.”

  A gasp and then the curtain was ripped back, revealing Naomi in all of her naked glory. “Why are you sneaking in here, scaring somebody? I could have slipped and fell.”

  “Stop yapping, woman,” Marvin replied, all calm and authoritative as he adjusted the water temperature, stepped in the shower and backed her up against the tile.

  “Shut me up,” Naomi dared, rubbing her sudsy titties against his chest.

  “Okay.” Marvin eased the bar from Naomi’s hand, soaped the washcloth and looked deep into her eyes as he ran it over her body. Across her breasts and down her stomach, around to her butt and over her thighs.

  �
�Spread your legs.”

  He watched Naomi’s expression as she started to say something smart, saw it change when he eased the cloth between her lower lips, let his finger graze her pearl as he washed her there.

  “Umm.”

  The groan low in his throat, Marvin dropped the towel and played her box with his fingers, placed his middle one deep into her heat.

  “Ah!” Naomi’s eyes fluttered closed as she ground herself against him. He smiled, noting that within sixty seconds his talkative, take-charge baby girl had offered up her body and exchanged words for sounds. He slid a finger to that plump rump he loved, between those thick cheeks to her sensitive spot.

  “Ooh,” she squealed and wrapped her arms around him, swiped his mouth with her tongue and then plunged it inside. His tongue met hers, they twirled and danced. He lathered her body and then rubbed his body against hers to soap his own. He felt her reach for him and stepped out of her grasp. She had him harder than an AK and ready to shoot. But Marvin was nowhere near ready to fire. These two lovers had a long way to go.

  He broke the kiss, suckled her breasts, then stepped back and placed a hand on her leg, just behind her knee.

  “What are you doing?” she managed, soft and breathless.

  “Lift your leg,” he demanded.

  “What?”

  He lifted it for her and placed her foot on the rim of the tub. She stood there, exposed, her eyes widening with understanding as he began to kneel. Eye level to the dish he was about to taste, he steadied a hand on each hip, licked his lips and slowly raised his eyes to hers. This time he caught her watching, felt her shudder, and smiled. Just the thought of what he was about to do had her preening. He wanted to fuck her mind as well as her body. Leave such an impression that from here on out he could simply look at her and make her pussy drip. Carter men were known for being unforgettable. He had to represent!

  And he did. Parting the doors to paradise, he licked and sucked and nibbled until she screamed out his name. Lifted her out of the shower (his back would feel it tomorrow but brother felt like King Kong today), and after reaching the bed stopped only long enough to grab a condom before following her to the sheets and screwing her senseless. Soon their bodies were wet again, skin gleaming with the sweat of their passion. Marvin held on for as long as he could, then released his ecstasy with a couple of grunts and one long shudder before rolling off Naomi and onto his back. All he could say was, “Damn.”

  Catching his breath, Marvin tried to pull Naomi into a snuggle.

  She resisted. “I’m over here sweating like a sow in Spanx. Give me a minute.”

  “Told you I was going to pull out the whip appeal. You thought I was playing?” Marvin wore a satisfied expression as his chest led the way across the room, where he adjusted the wall thermostat. “Put it on you until you were wringing wet!”

  “Please, fool! Half of this is your sweat!”

  “Probably.” They both laughed. Marvin grabbed the two complimentary waters off of the counter and gave one to Naomi. “I still put it on you, didn’t I, girl?”

  “You sure did,” Naomi replied, her voice both breathy and syrupy sweet. “The kitchen isn’t the only place you know how to work a hot link. It wasn’t a jumbo foot-long but . . .”

  “But what?” Marvin rejoined her in bed. He took the sheet and began wiping her off. He’d put everything including his still jacked-up knee into insuring her sexual satisfaction, and while his mask of bravado suggested otherwise, he wasn’t entirely sure he’d accomplished the job.

  He wiped the sweat from under an ample titty, then rested his sheet-clenching hand on her stomach. “What, you didn’t cum?”

  “You didn’t hear me shouting, feel me shaking?”

  He released the sheet, sat back and away from her. “Could have been faking. You know how women do.”

  “Do I seem like the type of woman to fake anything?”

  From the corner of his eye, Marvin saw Naomi cross her arms over those big breasts he loved so much. Since she always had one, the attitude she showed didn’t prove a thing.

  “Baby, I felt that orgasm all the way down to my toes. It’s not the size of the boat, but the motion of the ocean. You didn’t know?”

  “Of course I knew that!”

  But really, he didn’t. He wanted to, but the first girl he slept with—the one who laughed and called his penis a little twinkie—had left him scarred.

  “Just want to make sure you’re feeling better.”

  Naomi scooted over and laid her head on his shoulder. “My stuff is still pulsating. That good dick cured everything wrong with me today and anything that might pop up tomorrow!”

  The room, maybe the world, became quiet with her declaration. Marvin played it cool, slid his gaze toward her face all casual-like to check her out. He looked for the twinkle in her eye, the one that said she was joking as was often the case. But her eyes were soft, almost loving. Getting together had meant to be casual, two adults wanting sex with no strings attached. But what he’d experienced since that night at Nana’s house seemed more than casual. The look in Naomi’s eyes just now looked more serious. Had they bypassed infatuation and jumped into true feelings? Could he afford to do that with a competitor in a contest where there could only be one winner? And was there any way to hide what both were feeling from Abbey’s prying eyes?

  No.

  Thoughts of his former teacher and the contest was like a wave of reality over their sex-made sandcastle. He shifted farther away from Naomi, where his shoulder could no longer support her head.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing, just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  He finished off the bottle of water, adjusted the pillow and turned toward Naomi. “What was up with you earlier? At my brother’s house?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Marvin ran a hand down her thigh and then rested it there. “I kept wondering who was the shy, unsure chick who was walking beside me and wondering where was loud-mouthed Naomi?”

  “I told you. The celebrities made me nervous.”

  He harrumphed. “I’ve seen you around celebrities, the ones working the contest. None of them seemed to affect you like that. I didn’t think my family and their friends would be any different.”

  “That’s just it. They weren’t strangers in a huge room full of contestants and a camera crew. We were in a home, up close and personal, where I could literally reach out and touch the idols I’ve seen on TV. To be in the kitchen with Jan Baker, who wrote the big girl’s anthem? Then have Night, the country’s most popular personal trainer, walk into a room? That was a lot to handle, baby, and considering that I was blindsided, I think I did pretty well.”

  “You did fine. I noticed because I know you. And like I said earlier, for me and my brothers, people are people, period. No matter the job title. It’s the way we were raised.”

  Marvin repositioned a pillow and rested his head against it. “I remember a block party when I was like . . . seven or eight years old. This up-and-coming rapper was the headliner on the young adult stage. I loved that dude! He was the epitome of manhood, swagger, and cool, all wrapped into one. The next day at our usual Sunday dinner, I went on and on about how great he was and how I wanted to be just like him. I’ll never forget how Daddy reacted.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That it was okay to admire, but not to put folk higher. Then he used the tone of voice that usually preceded a whupping and told me that he’d better not ever hear me say I wanted to be anybody other than a Carter ever again.”

  “Did you get a whupping?”

  “No, but I would have preferred a hundred switches to the hurt in his eyes that I’d ever want to be anybody other than his son.”

  Marvin slid a glance toward Naomi. “So what you think is me being conceited or big-headed is just me knowing that nobody can do Marv Carter better than me.”

  A brief pause, then Naomi said, “So you’re blam
ing your big head on your daddy?”

  Marvin perched on his elbow, ready to defend the Carter name, but he looked over to see the teasing gleam in Naomi’s eye that he’d come to love, followed by her carefree, throaty laughter.

  “You were getting ready to jump all over that, huh?”

  “Naw . . .”

  “Yes, you were, and I don’t blame you. He sounds like a good daddy.”

  “Best one out there.” The room had cooled off, so when Marvin pulled Naomi closer she didn’t resist.

  “How did your family meet all of those famous people? And not just meet but marry them?”

  Marvin shrugged. “It just happened.”

  “But how?”

  “Doug met Jan at the post office.”

  Naomi glanced over. “What, she went there to mail a letter?”

  “They worked together.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Real talk.”

  “What?” Long and drawn out, like WTH and STFU at the same time. “I thought she used to be a secretary or something.”

  “She worked the counter at the Normandie Branch.”

  “Your brother still work there?”

  “No. He quit after Jan blew up and asked him to be her manager.”