Anson stopped in the middle of the main street running through the center of Holtsville. Cars blew their horns before speeding to drive around him.
Mona was still a virtual statue.
He put the car in park and left it to stride around the front. He jerked the passenger door open and squatted down beside her. “I’m sorry,” he said, even though the seeds planted were growing, flourishing, and making him feel some kind of way.
She remained stone faced even as she twisted her cocktail ring around her index finger.
“Get out,” he said, rising to his feet.
Mona eyed him. “If you think I’m walking home—”
Anson reached in for her hand. “Get out,” he repeated, tugging gently.
“You better take me home where you got me from,” she said with a sister girl movement of the head.
Anson stooped and scooped her out of the car and set her on her feet.
“Oh, no the hell—”
He pressed her body against the side of the car and captured her lips and the rest of her angry words with his mouth.
She jerked her head back and eyed him as several cars driving past them slowed down to check out the sidewalk PDA. Small southern towns were infamously nosey. “What are you doing?”
“Being spontaneous,” he said, trying to bring levity.
She shook her head. “After just being an asshole for no reason?” she asked.
“Kiss me,” he said, wanting to wipe away the doubts that had been growing in his mind.
She shook her head again. “Not your lips or your ass,” she said.
Anson lightly gripped her face and planted kisses along her jawline, chin, and mouth until he felt the stiffness leave her body. “Kiss me,” he whispered against her mouth.
Mona captured his mouth with her own this time as she brought her hands up to clutch his lapels.
He moaned as she slowly sucked his tongue between her lips and teased the tip with her own.
“Get a room,” someone yelled from the window of a car passing by.
“You in a better mood now?” she asked, after jerking back her head to break the kiss.
He loved that her eyes were glassy with desire and her lips were extra plump from the pressure of his mouth. He could feel the pounding of her heart echoing his own. He knew without a doubt that Mona Ballinger desired him. He knew that.
It wasn’t their sex that worried him.
“If you believe in this notion of ‘the one,’ soul mates, a love that is meant to be, and you don’t see a vision of that for me . . . then why are you with me?” he asked, giving voice to his doubts.
As Mona reached up to stroke his face Anson stepped back from her. “What are we doing? What is this? If you believe so deeply in your gift—and you prove that day in and day out with your words—then why are you with me? Hell, you were touching on every damn body at the reception like a love investigator or some shit. But I thought you decided to be with me because your belief had changed and all that mattered was that you wanted to be with me. But if you still believe all of that, if you still can have these premonitions or whatever the hell they are, then what is this?” he asked, as he motioned back and forth in the space between them.
Mona looked away from him and he could see conflict in her eyes. He just didn’t know the base of her struggle. “Anson,” she said.
No other words came.
“Are you still believing you’re really meant to be with my brother?” he asked.
“No, but—”
“But?” he repeated.
Mona bit her bottom lip. “You, Anson Tyler, are my soul mate. You are the person who was created just to love me like I was created to love you. You are the man I have the greatest love for. You are ‘the one’ for me,” she said with conviction.
Anson looked exasperated instead of pleased.
“I couldn’t see a vision of the woman who is your soul mate because I’m the woman. I’m her. I’m the one. I’m the love of your life. I will be your wife. I will have your babies. And I will love you even beyond the day one of us dies. Me. I’m it for you.”
The surety in her words and in her face literally shook him to the core. It would be hard not to be affected by such impassioned words. But these thoughts, these doubts were new or foreign to him. “And do you believe that in your heart or in your brain?”
She looked confused.
“Do you believe all of that because it’s what you want or because you believe it’s what you’re supposed to want?” he asked, his eyes pinned on her, searching her face, looking for the truth he sought.
Mona covered her face with her hands. “Anson, why are you making this so complicated when it is truly the easiest thing ever?” she asked, her voice rising.
He looked down at the ground as he gathered his thoughts. “And if your trip to your aunts had revealed that Hunter was the man for you . . . what then? Would you feel the same right now in this moment?”
Mona winced and shook her head. “You’re jumbling things. That’s why I shouldn’t have told you,” she said, bending her body to sit sideways on the passenger seat of the car as she hung her head.
“I’m not jumbling a damn thing, Mona, and you know it,” Anson said, his voice low. “See, I’m in this because I want to be.”
“And you think I don’t?” she asked, raising her head to look up at him.
“If your aunts said Hunter was ‘the one,’ then you would have left me alone, right?” he asked.
Mona’s eyes filled with tears. “Why are you doing this? Why are you taking something so good and pissing on it, Anson?” she asked. “Everything in life is not a hustle, it’s not a battle, and it’s not all bad. Some things are just easy. And you have to get over your past. The struggle is over, and not just because you have money and a big house and a fancy car.”
Anson felt a sting of pain from her words. Her judgment.
“Stop living life waiting for the other shoe to drop,” she said.
“You don’t know about my past,” he said, his voice cold and hard and as unrelenting as he felt.
He checked the street for oncoming traffic and walked back around the car to climb in the driver’s seat. It was his turn for his face to be like stone as he waited for her to turn her body forward on the passenger seat and close the door. He accelerated forward, quickly checking the rearview mirror before he made the right turn that would lead them to the section of Holtsville where they lived.
She attempted to talk to him as he drove, but Anson had completely shut down on her and had nothing to say. Not yet. He needed time.
He turned onto her driveway and sat there with the car running.
“You’re not coming in?” she asked.
“I need to think about my past and you need to think about shaping your life based on visions of the future,” he said.
“Anson—”
“When you asked me to give you space while you were in Louisiana I respected that,” he said, avoiding looking at her.
“Okay,” she said, her voice calm. “We’ll get through this.”
He snorted in derision. “Why, because we want to, or because you had a vision?” he snapped.
Mona climbed out from the car and closed the door.
He waited for her to unlock her door and enter her house before he reversed his vehicle onto the road and sped off.
Chapter 13
One week later
“Hey, sis.”
Mona looked up from the monthly billings report to find Reeba walking through the door. She removed her glasses and dropped her ink pen. “Reeba Ballinger in all her wonderful glory is actually inside the office of Modern Day Cupid,” Mona said teasingly as she came from around the desk to hug her sister with one arm.
Reeba pushed her long straight hair behind her ears, revealing diamond hoops as she looked around the space. “I guess I should check everything out since hell froze and I am in here,” she joked.
Mona laughed, sli
ding her hands down the length of the fuchsia pencil skirt she wore with a crisp white shirt and a turquoise statement necklace. “What do you think?” she asked.
“I think Cyrus should be selling these carvings,” Reeba said, picking up the wooden cupid sitting on Mona’s desk.
“And?” Mona urged, honestly wanting her sister’s feedback.
“Honestly?” Reeba asked, looking pretty in a fitted white tee and wide legged peach linen pants that showed she had a little more hips and buttocks than her older sister. “I love this red and white decor against the wood floors. It’s really well laid out, and although I still have my opinions on it, I’m happy and proud of you.”
Mona threw her hands in the air like she was in worship service. “Lord Jesus, hell has frozen over,” she said.
Reeba walked over to the lounge area and sat on the red leather sofa. “So, how are you?” she asked.
Mona looked taken aback at Reeba’s obvious concern. “I’m good. Why? What’s wrong?” she asked, sitting next to her.
Reeba leaned back a little and eyed her sister. “Did you not call me last Saturday crying and whining about you and Anson having a big fight?” she asked.
Mona crossed her legs and smoothed her hands over her knees. “Okay, first of all I wasn’t whining,” she began.
Reeba nodded. “No, you were crying and whining,” she insisted.
Mona puckered her brows. “An-y-way,” she said pointedly, “I was in the moment. I was in my feelings, Braxton Family Values style, and I wasn’t clearly thinking. I needed to vent so I called my little sister,” she explained.
“And now?” Reeba asked.
“I just had to remind myself that Anson and I are in the cards. We are a definite thing. We are soul mates. He just needs time to adjust and that will happen. You and I both know that,” Mona said.
“You may very well be the case study for why it’s not best to know the bigger plan,” Reeba said. “And why did you tell him? Was I not sitting there when the aunts told you to stop with the oversharing?”
“Because he was questioning my intentions after my struggle with the vision about his brother, Hunter,” Mona explained.
“Which you also overshared and kicked this whole I Need to Tell Anson Everything tour off,” Reeba reminded her.
“True,” Mona agreed begrudgingly. “But it is what it is, and what it is is—”
“Girl, huh?” Reeba asked with a pained expression and an eye roll.
“I am in the middle of a real romance novel right now,” Mona said, her eyes bright with happiness.
“Say what now?” Reeba asked.
“Have you ever read a romance novel where there wasn’t a happily-ever-after?” Mona asked. “The readers know going in that the hero will win that heroine and they are just along for the ups and downs of the ride. That’s me. This is our romance novel with all the ups and downs of the ride to our guaranteed happily-ever-after.”
“Why does that make sense to me?” Reeba wailed before she pinched the bridge of her nose.
Mona shrugged and smiled. In the words of Lil Wayne: “I ain’t got no worries.”
Anson removed his construction hat and climbed behind the wheel of the pickup truck he used to visit work sites. He tossed it onto the passenger seat as he pulled away from the construction of a new restaurant in Walterboro. He couldn’t stifle the yawn that rose. He was exhausted.
Between the standard constant churn of work, the new ventures with the Jamison twins, and his lack of sleep at night because his thoughts were filled with Mona—missing her, annoyed with her, wanting her, wanting to avoid her—he had never stared at a ceiling so much in his life.
He knew they had to talk eventually, and although she had abided by his request and had refrained from contacting him, he knew there was no way Mona was going to let the lack of communication go for much longer.
He just wanted her to understand his point of view and not diminish it by deflecting on parts of his life she knew nothing about. As much as she felt her gift and her beliefs on love mattered, he was standing strong in his point of view having importance as well.
Instead of heading back to the office, Anson decided to go home. He planned to take a swim, warm up some leftovers, and veg out on the couch to let his mind and body relax.
His issues with Mona would just have to wait one more day.
Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.
Anson picked up his cell phone from the dash. Looking at the screen, he was surprised to see Carina’s number displayed. “What the hell?” he muttered, his thumb floating over the button to answer the call. What does she want?
“Hello,” he said, turning on the speakerphone.
“Hello, stranger,” she said. “Are you home? I wanted to ask you about something.”
He frowned. “No, I’m not. Just ask me.”
“I’d prefer in person.”
“That’s not feasible,” he said, checking the rearview mirror to switch lanes as he passed a car making a turn into the parking lot of a Dollar General.
“Our last talk didn’t end well and we both said some things—”
“Aren’t you seeing someone?” he inserted, not in the mood for the games most women played. The games he knew Carina played.
Not Mona.
“Oh, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Carina—”
“Listen, I’m having regrets. Okay? There, I said it. Things just are not panning out like I thought and I’m having regrets,” she admitted.
“I’m sorry to hear that and even sorrier to tell you the best thing you did for the both of us was end it, Carina,” he said without any doubts.
“You’re not missing this good-good?” she asked in a soft voice, referring to the nickname he gave their sex.
“No, I’m not,” he said as gently as he could.
“Damn, she’s that good?”
Yes.
And he missed it. He missed her, bad.
“Don’t be crass, Carina,” he said, making the left onto Highway 17A, which led directly into Holtsville.
“No, crass is advising a woman to leave her man so she can scoop him up,” she said with a bit of a bite to her tone. “That’s crass.”
And there’s the truth of her motivation for this call.
“So you know?”
“Damn right I know, and I don’t like it.”
“So your plan was to get back with me just to get back at her?” he asked, with a shake of his head. Nothing but games. Sick, childish, petty-ass games.
And to think he argued with Mona and blamed her for losing Carina. Shit, she did me a favor.
“And what?” Carina asked.
“And I’m not up for being used no matter what you’re offering as bait to catch me,” he said, insulted at her ploy. “Have a good life, Carina.”
Beep.
Anson pulled onto the side of the road out of the way of traffic and blocked her number to cease any further phone calls or text messages from her. “Just crazy,” he muttered, tossing the phone on the dash before checking the side mirror to safely pull back onto the road.
He was glad when he finally pulled the truck to a stop in front of his house. He left the vehicle and jogged up the stairs, kicking off his construction boots and leaving them by the door as he undressed. He left his clothes in a trail behind him as he made a beeline for the pool. Without breaking stride he got to the edge and dived in, enjoying the feel of the cool water against his nudity.
He forced his mind blank as his strong arms sliced the water with each stroke, traversing the pool from one end to the other. The silence beneath the water was calming and the swim therapeutic.
Pressing his feet against the bottom of the pool, he lunged upward to break through the surface and take a deep gulp of air, before falling back with his arms splayed wide. He floated with his eyes closed, just enjoying the gentle sway of the water carrying his body.
“My, my, my.”
Anson shifted his bod
y upward in the water. He looked at Mona standing on the edge of the pool just as naked as he. And she looked good.
His dick stirred to life in the water.
“A week has just made you finer, Mr. Tyler,” she said, before she rose up on her toes and dived into the water beside him.
She rose up from the depths to wrap her arms around his neck and press her breasts against his strong back. “Miss me?” she asked, before kissing his neck.
“Mona,” he said as she floated around his body and pushed him back against the wall.
“I really missed you, Anson,” she admitted as she looked at him.
He rested one hand against her hip.
“But if you want me to go, I will go,” she said. “I guess I misunderstood.”
She made a move to turn from him.
Anson placed his hand on her other hip to stop her. “What am I going to do with you?” he asked, because he truly could not bring himself to let her leave even though he fought so hard all week not to go to her.
“Right now you can just make love to me,” she said softly, using one hand to cup his nape and the other to sink beneath the depths of the water to wrap around his dick.
The wrong head was in control as Anson felt himself harden in her hand. “Mona, I—”
“Shhhh,” she silenced him, pulling his head to meet hers so that she could capture his mouth in a kiss. She blessed him with a few before sucking his bottom lip and then kissing him again.
“You’re starting something—”
“And I’m gonna finish it,” she promised him against his mouth. She rose up slightly in the water and pressed her knees back against the wall as she thrust her buttocks forward, aligning her core with his hardness.
Anson looked down as she flexed and released her core, calling for him. Wanting him. Missing him. Shit.
Gripping the sides of the pool’s edge on either side of her, Anson used his hips to guide his hardness inside her inch by deliciously thick inch. He pursed his lips at the feel of her as her eyes glazed over and she arched her back, sending her brown nipples pointed toward the glass ceiling.
With thrusts that took power to fight against the sway of the water, Anson enjoyed filling her time and time again. He felt himself lost to time and place as they both grunted with their explosive release, fueled by seven days of wanting each other.
Want, Need, Love Page 16