Safe Place Series

by Shani Greene-Dowdell

  Back arched, I opened my legs wider and pulled him closer to me. I dug my nails into his back and gasped out, “Fuck me, Jeb! Please.”

  Jeb hoisted himself up as his tongue licked a trail from my cheek to my ear. “I’m going to make love to you, and you’re going to love it,” he whispered close to my ear. His cock teased my womanhood as he suckled my earbud.

  My hands glided down his back, moving effortlessly across broad muscles until I reached his ass. I pressed his ass closer to me, but he held firm. He was so close to penetrating me that I could feel him knocking on the door of my entrance.

  “Please,” I whimpered.

  Jeb’s tongue captured my plea, and I crashed down onto the bed and squirmed beneath him. Finally, he slowly eased into my slickness as I expanded to accept him. He moaned as he inched further inside until I was filled with emotions, pleasure, and a very big dick.

  “You feel so good, Tameka. I don’t know how long I can last like this. So hot…so wet,” he mumbled.

  “Oh, Jeb,” I murmured as I wrapped my legs around his waist and he thrust inside of me, filling me to the hilt. I held onto him tight for fear that letting go would cause me to slip away from this eternity forever. “Yes, Jeb…” I screamed.

  He went deeper with each stroke. He grabbed my ass and lifted me firmly up, setting us into a smooth rocking motion that caused my body to tremble. My hips rocked to meet his merciless thrusts. Groans and wails intermixed with caresses and pleas were cast into the night. I bit down on his shoulder as he opened me wider than I’d ever been before.

  The sensation I’d longed for—to have a man make me feel like a beautifully desired soul again—overpowered me. My legs shook uncontrollably, and my groans turned into guttural screams as I released.

  Jeb joined me. Our bodies rode the ripple effect until he collapsed on top of me. His lips lazily found my breasts as he sought out pleasure points to ignite again.

  I was so gone from this moment that I didn’t want to think about reality. If I did, I would know this feeling would fade eventually and be lost forever.

  Why couldn’t moments like this last forever?

  I expected Jeb to roll over and fall asleep. Then, I would sneak out of his house and back to my life. But that didn’t happen. He held me in his arms, planting soft kisses on every part of me his lips could reach. We lay there making out like two hot and bothered teenagers, carefree and filled with passion.

  It felt amazing, but doubt and guilt began to seep into my mind with questions such as: Why did I sleep with Channing’s cousin? What would Kemara think? Was he still associated with that hate group? Those questions shattered the moment as Jeb nuzzled against my neck, his warm breath doing battle to weave me into his web again.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and gently pushed away from him. I eased out of bed and searched the room for my clothes that had been tossed about.

  “Where are you going, baby?” he asked raspingly.

  “Jeb, this should have never happened. I’m sorry, but I was stupid to let things go this far. I’m pretty sure I’ll regret this night—” I tossed the words out too fast to notice the perplexed look on Jeb’s handsome face turning into hurt.

  When I noticed it, I tried to suck the words back in, but it was too late. I had been too caught up in my own feelings to understand his.

  Jeb pushed up onto his elbows and stared at me as if he were trying to figure me out. “Are you saying you regret what just happened? Baby, that was beautiful,” he said.

  I was mute silent. If he’d never been right about anything, he was right about the beautiful moment we’d just shared. I slid my skirt over my hips and picked up my shirt to put it on. Backing off was the only thing that seemed to make sense. I’d left home tonight looking for something to fill in my time, something fulfilling, but jumping in bed with a white supremacist wasn’t the right move.

  “Yeah…no…I don’t know, Jeb. With our backgrounds, you and I are not going to happen,” I stated simply. “I mean, I had a good time, and I think you did too. We can just leave it at that,” I said with a mixture of feelings overtaking me, one of them being the pressure between my legs that had me feeling as if Jeb were still there. Dang, he had stamped his name all over me, and I had to get out of there, quick.

  “Tameka, don’t reduce what just happened to a random good time,” he said, sounding a tad indignant.

  “It was good, right?”

  “No, it wasn’t good. It was wonderful.”

  “Well, that’s all it’ll ever be. A wonderful moment that has to end here.”

  “Sweetheart, it happened. You’ll never be able to remove the memory of the way your body responded to me, the way you looked at me, the way I looked at you,” Jeb stated arrogantly as if he knew the damage he’d already done to me.

  I tossed him a rebellious look, but shame on it all. He was so right.

  “Don’t call me sweetheart,” was all I could think to say. In my mind, I was chanting, Like every other man, this too shall pass. That chant was my saving grace to get out of there unscathed by the “love bug.”

  “I only called you sweetheart because you taste so sweet,” he said, licking his gorgeous lips.

  “Not funny. You’re just like every other man. If I were to put our differences aside, we’d have sex a few times, and you’d move on to the next girl that comes along and gets too drunk to drive herself home. I can’t deal with those kinds of tricks.”

  He heaved a sigh. “Tameka, I saved you from a true trickster tonight. Had I let you go home with Fast Hands, you would have a basis for your argument. That’s not what I’m about.”

  “Everyone knows you’re a man whore,” I said and then watched his hazel brown eyes bore through me.

  “Is that what everyone says about me?” he asked, seemingly interested in hearing of his own reputation.

  I nodded. “Yes. You earned the title, so don’t act surprised.”

  “I’ve changed Tameka. Listen, neither of us saw this coming. It wasn’t a mistake, though. What I felt wasn’t a mistake. It was real.”

  “Maybe you feel that with everyone.”

  “No. This is real,” he said.

  “How do you know that, Jeb? We don’t know each other, and we had sex as if we’ve been together for years. And it was so good but so bad at the same time, and it was what I needed because it’s been a long time for me. I just think we should, you should take me home,” I babbled. It was hard to tell him I didn’t want him when I did.

  “You just answered your own question,” he said, smiling. “We’re good together, Tameka, and I’m not the guy you think I am. I don’t want to hurt you. Trust me when I say your heart is safe with me. That you can believe.”

  How could I trust his word? Rodney talked a good game. Yet he taught me that words don’t count. I shook my head. I couldn’t open myself up to be hurt like that again.

  “Even if all of what you’re saying is true, we’re from two different worlds,” I reminded him. “There are some very strong barriers that stand between us.”

  Like his history with the KKK. What on Earth was I doing there with this man? I kicked my own ass internally as I hoped to wake up in the morning, and this all be a dream. Jesus be the NAACP.

  “Barriers are made to be broken, Tameka,” he said confidently.

  “That simple, huh?”

  “There was a time when I believed in building walls and shutting people out based on our differences, but now I’m the kind of man that tears walls down.”

  “Yeah, but how do I know that’s not just a line of bull?”

  “Look at Kemara and Channing. They’re building a future, and it’s a beautiful thing,” he said.

  Jeb had a point. Yet common sense kept grounding me in the fact that we could never work.

  “I’m not my sister,” I said, convincing myself what I just experienced in that bed could never happen again. Not with a once openly racist man who just so happened to be a whore.

&nb
sp; Kemara wore her heart on her sleeve. She believed in the inner good of people. I was the skeptic that slipped and fell for the bullshit one time with Rodney. I would never fall again.

  “You’re not your sister. I’m not my cousin,” he said.

  “And what’s your point?”

  “The point is if they can be happy, there’s no reason we can’t. You can have whatever you want in this life, Tameka. You just have to be open to receive it.”

  That’s not how this works, I thought as I slid my feet into my shoes.

  “Will you take me back to my car?” I asked again.

  Jeb pulled back the covers and got out of bed. I looked away from his nakedness—a beautiful sight I indeed would remember for a long time.

  “If that’s really what you want, Tameka,” he said.

  “Yes, that’s what I want.”

  “Fine. I’ll change your mind about us. Just wait and see.”

  I couldn’t stop him from giving it a shot, but I knew it wouldn’t work.

  Chapter 6

  Jeb

  I watched her back out of her parking spot and pull away. She drove fast as if she were fleeing a crime scene. My stomach knotted into tight bundles as her vehicle moved further and further away. Wanting someone that didn’t want you back sucked. Sex with her was what fantasies were made of. To pull out of her was a regret itself. I wanted to feel that connection forever, yet she had a different theory on the magic we shared.

  Lost in thought, I sighed then drove around the building to make sure everything was secure. Then, I headed home a little after three in the morning. Even though I was the club’s owner, I didn’t want the cops to get suspicious of me strolling through the empty lot.

  At home, I lay in my bed, and her fragrance covered me. It was an amazing blend that was everywhere I turned. I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I wondered what she was doing. I thought about her until I drifted off to sleep.

  The next morning, I awoke and showered. I called Channing to see if we could meet up on his lunch break. He chose the corner diner a few blocks from where he was working on a house. Channing was sitting in his usual spot when I arrived. He’d ordered himself coffee and me water. He smiled and nodded at me as I approached. “What’s up, cuz? Sounded important.”

  I wasn’t sure Channing would find the importance of getting together to talk about Tameka, but it was a national emergency to me. I waved down the waitress to order myself a coffee then went straight into it. “I really don’t know how to bring this up without just bringing it up,” I started.

  Channing arched an eyebrow and laughed. “What are you talking about, man of mystery? Go ahead and spit it out because something is clearly bothering you. It’s all over your face.”

  “Okay…it’s like this,” I started but paused and leaned back in my seat. “You have to swear you won’t say anything to Kemara.”

  Channing frowned and shook his head firmly. “I can’t keep anything from my wife. It’s like she knows when there’s something I haven’t told her. That’s why we tell each other everything.”

  I respected that about Channing. He had always been an honest man with a lot of integrity. I wouldn’t ask him to keep something from Kemara if I thought it would hurt his relationship. However, in this instance, I really didn’t see how this tiny secret would harm anything. Spilling these beans could piss Tameka off, and perhaps, she would never speak to me again.

  “I respect that, Channing. I do, but I really thought maybe you could honor the bro code this one time. It’s not anything against Kemara. I just don’t know how she would feel about it. More importantly, I don’t know how Tameka would feel knowing I told you.”

  Channing set his coffee cup down and quirked a brow at me. “Tameka? She has something to do with this?” he asked, intrigued.

  I nodded slowly, and the waitress came back to the table and handed me my coffee.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Would you like to order something to eat?” she asked.

  Channing replied, “I’ll take my usual.”

  She jotted some notes down, and I thought about what I wanted to eat. I hadn’t looked at the menu, but Channing had good taste in food.

  “I’ll have what he’s having,” I said.

  The waitress nodded and went back to her post. I looked at Channing’s scrunched up face.

  “Please tell me you didn’t do anything stupid like try to get with Tameka,” Channing scolded.

  “Well, I didn’t exactly just try,” I stated before proceeding to tell him what went down at the club last night. I skimmed over the part where we made passionate love for hours, but Channing got the gist of it. By the time I was finished with my story, he looked baffled.

  “So she got upset after you guys slept together?” he asked, worry lines stretching across his forehead.

  “There wasn’t much sleeping going on, but yeah,” I confirmed.

  Channing’s mouth dropped open in shock. “Wow…you sure know how to fuck things up.”

  “What are you talking about? This was a mutual thing between us. The connection was strong, and she wanted it as much as I did, then she just flipped on me,” I countered.

  “I told you she’s had bad relationships, especially when it comes to her ex-husband. She probably got caught up in the moment then had regrets when she thought about Rodney. Let’s just face it, you have a checkered past with the women.” Channing glared at me with wrinkle lines marring his forehead. The accusatory look on his face caught me off guard.

  “She mentioned something about my past with women. Where is she getting this from?” I questioned, now with my own accusations swirling in my mind. “Have you been talking shit about me to Kemara?”

  Channing humped his shoulders, but he didn’t deny it.

  “Man, don’t be telling Kemara about the old me. That’ll ruin my chances with Tameka, and I really want her. There’s something about her, and I can’t understand it myself. She’s different. I don’t want to hurt her. I only want to protect her.”

  Channing kept looking at me as if he didn’t recognize the man sitting across the table. Eventually, he let out a deep sigh. “Tameka barely accepted me into the family. I need to talk to Kemara about this,” he said.

  “No! Didn’t I tell you that this is between us? Don’t tell Kemara about us sleeping together. That’ll push Tameka further away because I’m telling things that should just be between us.” I sighed, thinking talking to Channing was a bad idea.

  “Well, give her some time. I wouldn’t advise that you bombard her with advances. Knowing Tameka, she won’t bode well with that. Hell, it took her quite some time to just accept me being her future brother in law from a different race. Giving her space might be your best option,” said Channing.

  It was a horrible suggestion. Waiting never got me what I wanted out of life. “And if she doesn’t come around?” I asked. “If she doesn’t come to me to talk, then what?”

  “All I’m saying is don’t push the walking timebomb that is Tameka. I know it’s your nature to come on a little strong. You two will only butt heads. Trust me on this. She’s Kemara’s sister.”

  The food came, and I thanked the waitress and watched her walk away as Channing continued to talk.

  “See what I’m saying. Your eyes are still wandering. You’re not ready to settle down with anyone,” Channing accused.

  “What…aw no. That lady was just being nice, and I was thinking…”

  “Yeah, make sure you’re done looking at waitresses’ asses before you approach Tameka. She’ll see right through the games you’re playing.”

  “Touché.” I was busted, but what Channing didn’t know was I looked at the woman to see if I could feel something in my loins when I looked at her. Since I’d sank inside of Tameka’s body early this morning, I hadn’t seen one woman that made my body react.

  “In other news…” Channing said. “Kemara and I just booked a weeklong vacation to Aruba. We leave in a few
weeks.”

  It was a sight to see my cousin look so smitten. “Wow…that’s big! What’s the occasion?” I asked, taking a bite of the hash browns.

  “Does there have to be an occasion when you’re in love?” he asked.

  “You’re right. I just assumed going on such a trip would require some kind of reasoning behind it. Who has taken over your body and made you spontaneous? Is that even you in there, right now?” I teased.

  “Ha! Married life changed me. Now, I’m ready to put my passport to good use. We decided to take this trip as sort of an anniversary celebration. We thought maybe a change of scenery would help us get pregnant.” He wiggled his eyebrows, and it was then I saw the genius in his masterplan. I would do the same thing if I were in his shoes.

  “That sounds like a plan, and hopefully, it’ll work out for you two,” I said sincerely.

  “I hope so too. We’ve been trying to get pregnant for a year now. We’ve both been working nonstop, so this is going to give us time to relax and enjoy our baby-making time.”

  Channing’s smile spread across his face, and I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. My cousin was about to go on a getaway while I couldn’t get away from my unreturned feelings for Tameka.

  “Lord knows, I could use a vacation as a way to destress,” I replied with a little envy sprinkled in my tone. For the first time in my life, I knew what I wanted but couldn’t have it.

  Chapter 7

  Tameka

  Two days.

  That’s how long it took before I couldn’t take it anymore. The thoughts of that night running wildly in my head left me needing to talk to someone. After watching the kids get on the school bus, I dialed Kemara’s number. It was already time for her to be on her way to work. I should be dressed and out the door too, but I had to call her for some much-needed sisterly advice.

  “Hey Kemara, what time can we meet today? I need to talk to you about something important,” I said when she answered.

  “I have a busy morning, followed by a meeting at lunch, and what I know will be a hectic afternoon after the software setup. The only time I can spare will be after work, and I know you’ll have the kids then. Sorry, sis, that’s really the best I can do.” Kemara sounded as if the day had weighed on her already. “How about you bring the kids over for dinner, and we talk then?” she added.