“Yes,” she admitted in a hot little whisper as she freed her breasts to extend her arms above her head on the bed.
Graham finger fucked her rear as he stroked inside her tight and wet core with his hungry tongue.
She gasped as if she was devoid of breath and her hands clutched the sheets into fists as she quivered from her head to her toes.
He felt it. He savored it. He knew he pleasured her even while his hardness ached as he denied himself the joy of easing her body down until her pussy snugly fit on his dick. With a deep moan and grunt of pleasure, he drew her plump and pulsing clit into his mouth. It was slick and hot against his tongue.
“Damn,” he swore before taking the bud into his mouth again.
Relentlessly, he sucked her as he watched the satisfaction play out on her face as he pushed her over the edge, into an explosive climax he felt hit his tongue. Her body jerked so roughly with the bursts that he had to lock his arms around her hips to keep her from running from her pleasure . . .
Graham awakened with a start and sat up straight in the hotel bed with his hardness tenting the sheet over his naked body. He looked around the dimly lit room for what had pulled him from one hell of a dream.
Brrrrrrnnnggg.
The phone.
“Damn,” he swore, reaching for it on the bed of his suite in Accra, Ghana.
His heart hammered. “Jaime?” he said, looking at her number.
Coming straight out of a dream about her that was disturbed by a call from her shook him. He couldn’t deny that as he answered the phone. “Hello,” he said, checking the time.
It was a little after two in the morning in Accra. Making it a little after ten at night on the east coast.
“Graham, I’m sorry to call so late,” she began.
He lay back on the bed as his heart betrayed him as it pounded so very wildly at the sound of her voice. “What’s up?” he asked, hearing the thickness of sleep in his voice.
“My next doctor’s appointment is in two weeks and I will be sure to set up everything for the paternity test then,” she said. “It’s time we all know the truth.”
“Agreed,” he said. “I’m out of the country but I should be back by then.”
“Okay. Good,” she said. “How are you?”
Hurt.
“Good,” he lied, looking down at his unrelenting erection. “How are you?”
“Good,” she said.
He doubted that was true. “Jaime—”
“Yes, Graham?”
He brought his knees up and set his arm atop one as he massaged his eyes. “Never mind,” he said, pushing aside words of forgiveness.
They weren’t fully true. Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
“Graham—”
He shook his head. “Don’t,” he requested, denying her the chance to weaken him or find a crack to exploit. “Night.”
A brief silence.
“Goodnight, Graham,” she soon said.
He ended the call and tossed the phone across the bed to land near the foot before he flopped back down onto the bed. His erection remained. The sound of her voice had sustained it. “Shit,” he swore, reaching beneath the sheet to grip the thick base as it slightly curved to the right.
He hissed at the feel of his hand. Memories of eating her—in and out of his dream—were vivid, making him hungry for her. His celibacy did nothing to curb his cravings. Famine made a feast mouthwatering. He stretched his legs as he flung the sheet away to stroke his inches slowly with a tight grip that built that sweet anticipation of an explosive nut.
He needed it. Craved it. Worked for it.
With his precum, he slickened the strokes of his hand as he thrust his hips up to jack his dick. With a close of his eyes, she was there with him. Naked. Wet. Ready.
“Jaime,” he moaned as he pictured her. Watching him. Wanting him.
He imagined her coming up between his open legs to lower her head and take his hot tip into her mouth.
“Jaaaaiiiimeeeeee,” he cried out with a hiss, picking up the speed of his hand and tightening his grip as he felt his climax build and erupt from his dick. His hard inches jolted with each squirt sending his cum landing wherever it may. He grunted and shivered as he fought the sensitivity of his hot dick to lengthen his nut.
“Jaime,” he moaned again. He stroked the last of his nut from his dick as her image faded, with her giving him one last imaginary lick of his cum.
“Shit,” he swore.
Jaime Pine had him all the way fucked up and he knew it.
Chapter 13
One month later
Jaime parked her car in the parking lot of the collection lab. She eyed the glass mirrored building, reluctant to leave the warmth of her vehicle to battle the brutal cold on the East Coast. It had to be done. They all were separately scheduled to submit samples—blood from her and a cheek swab from each of the men.
A strong wind blew that appeared to be frosted. The skies were gray, and her temperature gauge said it was forty-five degrees. Not the worst that the season would bring, by far, but enough to make her hesitate to be in it. She gathered her faux fur around her and slid on fur-lined leather gloves before she finally grabbed her monogrammed tote from the passenger seat and left the car. Her strides in thigh high leather boots were long and rapid. Her head was ducked to avoid the chill from hitting her face.
The glass door was held for her as she quickly entered the building with a visible shiver. “Thank you,” she said.
“No problem.”
She whirled at his voice and didn’t hide her surprise at seeing her ex standing there as the door swung closed by itself behind him. “Graham,” she said, loving the fur-lined full-length leather trench he wore with a bulky turtleneck sweater, denims, and black Timberland boots.
I am in love with this man. Still.
He leaned down to give her a welcoming side hug. “How are you?” he asked in a warm voice that made her forget the crisp chill outdoors.
She inhaled his warm and spicy scented cologne and fought the desire to clutch his body close and weave her fingers through his dreads. “I asked for different appointment times for us all,” she said as she reluctantly took a step back from his allure.
“It’s cool. I had to change my appointment time because I have to fly back to Ghana this afternoon,” he explained, sliding his hands into the pockets of his coat.
His eyes were on her and caused her nerves to be wrecked with far too much ease.
“I better go,” Jaime said, pointing her thumb back toward the registration desk.
Graham gave her a single nod with his lips pressed as if keeping himself from saying more.
She turned and walked to the counter to sign in as the young woman behind the glass slid it open. “Jaime Pine,” she said as she removed her billfold from her tote. “I have a ten o’clock appointment and I preregistered online. It said I needed to bring identification.”
“Yes, I already pulled up all your info. You also prepaid.”
“Yes,” she said handing the woman her driver’s license.
“Let me make a copy of this for your records.”
Jaime nodded, trying not to feel such embarrassment to have to get a paternity test to know who fathered her baby. Her smile was forced when the young woman returned with her ID.
“If you’re ready, they are.”
“I’m ready.”
A door opened and another woman in colorful scrubs waved her over. “Jaime Pine?” she asked with a welcoming smile.
“Yes.”
The process went quickly and for that Jaime was thankful. She exited through the door that she learned led to the other side of the outer office. She slid on her coat and lifted the edges of her bobbed hair over the collar before she closed and then tied it with the leather belt.
“How’d it go?”
Jaime turned in surprise to find Graham sitting there. “It was okay. Not bad,” she said with a shrug as she picked up h
er tote from where she sat it on a waiting room chair. “Necessary.”
“I know you hate needles,” he said.
She eyed him as he rose to his full towering height. “You can find it in you to give a fuck about me after what I did?” she asked.
“I’m just realizing there’s not very much you can do to make me completely not give a fuck,” he admitted, using the leather gloves he held to lightly tap the top of her head.
She felt emotional and looked down to prevent him from seeing tears well.
She failed.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he said. “No tears.”
“It’s the baby and my hormones. I’m so emotional lately,” she explained.
“And your lips are plumper,” he observed.
“I know!” she wailed with a playful wince. “And my neck is darker than the rest of me. Like what the fuck kind of transformation I am going through?”
“Motherhood,” Graham reminded her.
“Right, but he owes me big time when he’s an adult,” she quipped.
“He?” Graham asked.
She tilted her head to the side at the softness of his voice. It revealed so much. “Yes. It’s a boy.”
A boy with Graham’s eyes and dimpled smile.
That thought warmed her.
Graham’s eyes dared to show excitement. “I wish this all was different. I want to be happy. I want to make plans. Hope. Dream,” he said. “And I can’t, Jaime. Not yet anyway.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, meaning every bit of it.
“For being pregnant? Never,” Graham said as he slid on his gloves. “Can you imagine the story we’ll tell our kid about running into each other after years—and giving in to a one-time indulgence we both had reasons to fight—and we create him? It’s kind of amazing.”
Yes, it is.
Energy shimmied over her entire body. “Without all the details of course,” she said, trying to lighten the mood.
Graham chuckled. “Of course,” he agreed as they walked to the door together. He held it open for her again.
“Thanks,” she said as she passed him to exit.
“Where’s your car?” he asked.
Jaime pointed to it. “I’m pretty close,” she said as the sounds of cars whizzing past on the nearby interstate echoed around them.
She unlocked the car with her fob before he opened the door for her to ease onto the smooth leather of the driver’s seat. “The results should be back in a week,” she said as she started the car.
“Jaime.”
She looked up at him as she removed her gloves. “Yes, Graham?” she asked, hoping he would say this time what he denied himself when he was in Accra weeks ago.
“Real shit. Wouldn’t it be something?” he asked.
Her heart swelled with love for him at the hope she saw in his eyes. “Absolutely something,” she agreed softly.
Graham tapped the edge of the door before he closed it and stepped back.
Long after she pulled off and headed to her Manhattan offices to meet Renee and Aria for lunch, she was reminded of the heavy price of unhappiness.
* * *
Jaime pushed her salad around on her plate as she pretended to listen to whatever Aria and Renee were discussing as they ate the takeout in the conference room of her office. But her thoughts were on Graham.
Why was she letting her head deny what her heart knew so very well? I love him.
She could convince herself of many things, but even in the face of the man she had committed to one day marry, she could not deny her love for Graham. I need him.
And at that moment in Grenada where the choice was to keep her pledge of fidelity to Luc or have that moment with Graham, she had risked it all to have it. I want him.
“Ladies, I have news,” Aria said as she patted her afro. “We’re moving!”
Jaime looked to her in surprise. “Newark?” she asked.
Aria nodded excitedly. “Well, we compromised on just where in Newark, but I don’t care. I want to go home!” she said, doing body rolls as she snapped her fingers.
Renee looked from Jaime to Aria. “Jaime, you knew about this before me?” she asked.
It was then Jaime focused on her food and took a bite of her hearty salad.
“Well damn, Aria,” Renee said.
“I mentioned it in passing because I didn’t think I could convince Kingston to move,” she explained. “But I have, so we are. It means living in just as beautiful a house for less money which means less work, which equals more dick.”
Jaime laughed.
“And then there was one,” Renee said. “When did Richmond Hills become the big bad boogeyman?”
“Hmmm. Let’s see. The year was 2010. A woman soon proven to be a hidden enemy sends a mocking message to her three friends about which of their husbands was her lover and they all lived in a subdivision named Richmond Hills,” Jaime said in her best Mary Alice voice-over from the TV show Desperate Housewives.
“Okay. True,” Renee admitted as she dropped her fork onto the plastic container holding her salad. “I’m gonna miss y’all.”
“Renee, we’re not leaving any time soon. We have to sell the Richmond Hills house and find one in Newark that we love,” Aria reminded her, reaching across the Lucite table to squeeze her hand.
“It’s just feeling the loss of so much lately. My whole focus has been my career and my kids,” Renee said, leaning back in the chair as she pushed her food away.
“Don’t forget Fudge,” Aria said with eyes filled with mirth.
Jaime laughed.
Renee shot Aria a stare usually directed at her children when they were small and misbehaving.
“Sorry,” she mouthed.
Renee waved her fingers to dismiss it. “It’s fine. Do you know Jackson had the nerve to come to my house late one night with a bottle of wine and probably a blue pill hidden away somewhere on him?” she said with an incredulous face. “I told him if he didn’t get his ass and his limp dick off my porch that I would show his wife video footage of him sniffing around my door.”
“Uhm, okay. Now I know you’re serious. You are done-done with Jackson,” Aria said.
Renee pointed at her in affirmation of her being right. “I assume he is done-done with me ’cause I haven’t heard from him since.”
“What about your second ex-husband?” Jaime asked out of curiosity.
Renee sucked her teeth. “Fuck his thin-dick-having ass, too. Shit. Hell with ’em both.”
Aria pressed her hands to her face. “Thin! Oh my!” she exclaimed, feigning being mortified.
Jaime laughed.
Renee smiled as she raised her bottle of peach-flavored Perrier. “May their current wives delight in their dicks more than I did,” she toasted. “Being in love has a way of making an imperfect dick just fine.”
Aria and Jaime raised their bottles of mineral water as well.
They all laughed as they finished their lunches.
“Can you imagine the story we’ll tell our kid about running into each other after years—and giving in to a one-time indulgence we both had reasons to fight—and we create him? It’s kind of amazing.”
Jaime dropped her fork and rose from the table. She stood at the window to look out at the city as she recalled the rest of her conversation with Graham.
“Real shit. Wouldn’t it be something?” Graham had said.
“Absolutely something,” she had agreed softly.
“Jaime. What’s on your mind?” Aria asked, interrupting the recollection that made her insides warm.
She focused her eyes on her reflection in the window. “Graham,” she admitted, seeing the truth of her feelings in her eyes. “I saw him at the DNA lab when I went today and . . .”
“And what?” Renee asked sharply.
She looked back over her shoulder just as her friends shared a look.
Jaime rolled her eyes. “What?” she asked, but then she held up a hand. “You know what? It doesn’t ev
en matter what you’re thinking. I don’t care. I love him. I love Graham Walker. I am in love with Graham Walker. I have always loved Graham Walker. I will always love Graham Walker... and I really don’t give a fuck whether y’all understand it or not. It’s my heart. My pussy. My business.”
“You’re going throw a chance to fix this with Luc for him?” Renee asked, shoving her lunch away again. “Luc’s perfect.”
Aria shook her head to show her disagreement with Jaime’s declarations.
“That’s the thing. He is perfect... on paper,” she said, turning to walk back over to the table. “But it all was surface. Good sex. Sure. Fun times. Yes. But when it comes to going deep? Wanting more. Asking for more. Seeing more. That’s Graham. Deep and meaningful,” she stressed.
“That’s all the ploys and bullshit he learned to woo women out of their panties and their money,” Renee retorted.
Jaime laughed with sarcasm. “I never once voiced an objection when you fucked a total stranger all night long,” she said, starting to tick her issues off on each of her fingers. “I didn’t say shit when he skipped his young and happy ass to the States to fuck you some more. Not one word. Hell, I don’t know. Is he still here? I never asked. Guess why? It’s none of my damn business. Huh? Right?”
Aria held out her hand. “Jaime—”
“No, when Kingston had y’all asses deep in debt up to his balls did I say one damn contrary word about him? Did I say leave him? Did I say he doesn’t know what the fuck he is doing because a doctor he may be, but a businessman he is not? Did I once tell you he gonna have your ass round here like Gertie off of Good Times eating dog food as meatloaf? Hell no. I. Did. Not!”
“Seems like you had that on the tip of your tongue for a minute,” Aria said with coldness.
Jaime applauded. Slowly and mockingly. “Did I once let it trip off my tongue though? No. I supported my friend and her choices. Both of you.”
And they both had the decency to look properly chastised.
“We only want what’s best for you,” Renee explained.
Jaime’s hand slashed the air as her friend parroted the same bullshit line her mother used over the years to justify her controlling behavior. “No! You want what you think is best for me and that is not the same,” she stressed.
Her Pleasure Page 18