“That’s right. Fight, fight, fight,” Shara said in urgent whispers.
Mona closed her eyes and pressed the phone closer to her ear. “I should have told you that I loved you. That I wanted you. That you are the one for me. You are what I want.”
Tap-tap-tap.
Mona glanced over at her sister tapping a pen against the back of a magazine.
“Tell him what you told me,” Shara mouthed, nodding emphatically.
Mona closed her eyes, trying to remember. “I . . . I . . . I don’t know how I could ever think that you weren’t the one for me,” she said.
Shara snapped her fingers like she was at a poetry slam.
Mona turned her back on her. “If the vision didn’t happen it wouldn’t have mattered, because I already felt you were special to me. Everything between us happened so fast and that’s because we’re right for each other,” she said, drawing her sneakered feet up onto the chair and settling her head on her knees.
“I love you and I want you and I will fight for you. You are in my heart and my soul, Anson,” she admitted to him. “And I can’t go another day without loving on you.”
The line remained silent.
She licked her lips. “Hello. Hello. Anson?” she said, pulling the phone away from her face to look at the screen.
It was jet black.
“What happened?” Shara asked.
“My phone went dead and I didn’t even realize it,” Mona said, looking around for a spot to charge it.
“It’s time to board,” Shara said, rising to her feet and gathering things into her tote bag. “You can tell him when you get home.”
Mona nodded and rose to her feet as well. “I wonder how much he heard before it cut off,” she wondered aloud.
“I just hope you can remember it all,” Shara said dryly.
“Me too,” she said, lightly biting her bottom lip as they moved forward in the line to board.
Anson tried Mona’s cell for the tenth time in the past three hours since their call dropped. And again it went straight to voice mail.
He smiled at the thought of her words.
“I love you and I want you and I will fight for you. You are in my heart and my soul, Anson. And I can’t go another day without loving on you.”
He had called her to begin their reconciliation and instead she had slid right in and put her heart on her sleeve for him. His heart hadn’t stopped pounding during the ride back from Baton Rouge.
Dropping the phone onto the bed, he peeled off his shirt.
The door to his bedroom suite opened.
“Dude, where you been?” Hunter asked.
Anson shook his head. “I told you when you called me I got up early and rented a car to drive to Baton Rouge,” he said, sitting down on the edge of his bed as he kicked off his dusty and now well-worn leather loafers.
“All day?” Hunter asked, coming over to pick up the black square wicker basket sitting on the bed.
“Man, Mona’s aunts put me to work around there,” he said, stretching his arms high above his head.
Hunter laughed. “Not a honey-do list,” he said, lifting a bar of soap from the basket to raise to his nose.
Anson just shook his head. “Inside and out,” he muttered.
“Well, I’m glad you hauled ass without me,” Hunter said, picking up ajar of strawberry preserves.
“You weren’t back in time for me to take you anyway,” Anson said, standing up to grab the jar from his hands.
“Long nights, early mornings,” Hunter said with two thumbs up.
“What’s her name?” Anson asked.
“Huh?”
Anson just shook his head and walked to his adjoining bath. “Let me grab a shower and a nap and then we can enjoy our last day here before we head out in the morning. I’m ready to see Mona.”
“About damn time,” Hunter said over his shoulder.
And Anson agreed.
He finished undressing and climbed in the shower, still shaking his head at all the hard labor the aunts flung at him that morning. He had become their handyman. But they were adorable and so he knuckled down and proved to them that he was worthy of their niece. Now I just have to prove it to Mona.
Anson lathered his rag with the homemade soap from the basket of goodies they sent with him on his way—after a lunch of the best gumbo he’d ever tasted. He inhaled of the cleansing scent and washed himself.
When he had arrived there he was still a skeptic, but by the time he left and they handed him the basket already stocked full of homemade goodies and wrapped with a large black bow, he knew they had had the gift prepared before he got there. He was a believer. Not that he was comfortable with it all, but he was accepting.
Knock-knock-knock.
Anson frowned. “Man, I’ll be out in a sec,” he shouted, peeping his head out of the shower as he did.
Knock-knock-knock-knock.
“Hunter, stop playing, man. Damn,” he roared, glaring at the door to the bathroom as he paused with the sudsy washcloth cupped against his privates.
Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock.
“Oh, hell no,” Anson said. Stepping out of the shower and grabbing a towel to wrap around his waist, he snatched the door open. “What the hell do you—?”
Mona stood there beaming at him with a smile almost as wide as her face.
The sight of her made him lose his breath, and he stood there still sudsy and wet from his shower as he devoured her with his eyes from the top of her curly head to her gold-sneaker-covered feet.
“Hello, Anson,” she said, waving her fingers at him.
“You surprised me,” he said, feeling bashful.
“My aunties called my sister’s phone to let me know you were in Louisiana and had just left their house and I hopped out the line and bought a ticket here to New Orleans,” she explained, her face beginning to fill with concern. “I told you I didn’t want to—”
“Go another day without loving on me,” he finished for her, smiling and biting his lip as he looked down at her.
Her eyes opened a bit wider in surprise. “So you did hear me?” she asked.
“I did,” Anson admitted. “So let me finish my shower and then I’ll come and say what I have to say. Cool?”
Her eyes shifted past him to the shower and he thought she was going to offer to join him, but instead she stepped back and nodded. “Cool,” she agreed, turning to leave the room with just one last look at him over her shoulder.
Anson rushed through the rest of his shower feeling as excited as a child sitting by the Christmas tree waiting for the clock to strike midnight so he could get to the presents. He couldn’t believe she was here. He was anxious to get to her. To talk to her. To touch her. To kiss her.
To set things right again.
He dried off and dressed in linen shorts and a white V-neck tee that clung to his athletic build. He almost tripped over himself leaving his bedroom and stopped to find Hunter sitting before a loaded room service cart alone.
Did I dream that?
“I offered her my room to shower and change,” Hunter said, taking a bite of a crispy beignet dusted with sugar.
Anson glanced at the closed door before going over to sit at the table. He selected a shrimp, crab, and lobster omelet.
“You a’ight?” Hunter asked, glancing up at him as he reached for a fresh strawberry.
“Yeah, I’m good,” he said. “I’m damn good as a matter of fact.”
“That girl flew here to see you,” Hunter said, leaning back in his chair. “What more does she have to do?”
“I get it,” Anson said.
“Too bad you didn’t get it two months and ten terrible first dates ago,” he said.
“I love her, man,” Anson said, letting the feeling flourish in his chest.
“I know,” Hunter said with the utmost seriousness. “Now tell her.”
When the bedroom door opened and Mona stepped into the living room, they both rose from their s
eats.
“It’s hotter here than it was in Australia,” she said, smoothing her hair upward.
She’s so beautiful. Her hair was in her beloved messy topknot and she was dressed in a white fitted tank with a mint green pencil skirt that hit her just at her knees with metallic gold wedge heels.
“Good-bye, Hunter,” Anson said, never taking his eyes off her as she came to him and lightly touched his arms before she sat in the chair he held for her.
“I knew it,” Hunter said, grabbing a plate and piling it with sausages, beignets, and more fresh fruit before he headed to the door. “You guys have an hour before I get back. And that’s an hour to do everything.”
Anson and Mona laughed lightly before glancing at each other and looking away.
“It’s been a long two months,” Anson admitted.
“Yeah,” Mona agreed, sitting back in her chair and crossing her legs.
His eyes dipped to take in the innocent move that she made all the more sexy by not even trying.
Mona bit back a smile at the way Anson’s eyes were on her legs. She reached for a piece of cantaloupe and shifted in her seat, crossing and uncrossing her legs again as she bit into the fruit. She smiled again when his eyes went from her legs to her lips as a small trickle of juice ran down her chin.
He reached out to catch the juice with his finger before she could pick up a napkin. She arched a brow when he sucked the juice instead of wiping it away. “Thank you,” she said with more calm than she felt as her heart beat wildly.
He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat to cross his ankle over his knee.
Mona had the distinct impression he was hiding a growing erection.
“I want to start over. I want to be with you. I want to show you that I love you, and I do.... I love the hell out of you, Mona Ballinger,” he said, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward to take both her hands in his.
Mona closed her eyes as a tear fell.
She gasped at the feel of his finger against her skin as he wiped the tear away. “I have always wanted to be in love—you know that. But I need you to know that this is isn’t about that. I love you, Anson. I truly love you and you have to believe me.”
He pulled her over into his lap and wrapped his arms around her. “I had my head too far up my ass to see it before, but I believe you, baby. I believe you, and I love you just as much.”
He tilted his chin up as she leaned down. They kissed.
Mona pulled back from him as she licked her lips. “Do I have to worry about you and my aunts?” she teased, eyes filled with love and happiness as she looked into his.
Anson shrugged with one hand lifted. “They were looking right in those leggings,” he joked.
Mona poked him in the side as he laughed. “Silly self,” she said, cupping the back of his head to taste his mouth again.
They smiled at each other and shared a dozen more kisses filled with love.
“So I think I should tell you a little more about my childhood,” he said, his eyes serious.
“I would like for you to share that with me,” she said, stroking the side of his face.
She looked at him as he turned to stare out the open balcony doors at the landscape of New Orleans in the distance. “Your aunts told me that my mom is dead,” he said.
“Oh, Anson,” she sighed softly, her heart aching for him. “So you believe them?”
He met her stare and nodded. “I do,” he admitted.
She pressed a kiss to his brow.
“I mean I haven’t seen her or wanted to see her in a long time, but it’s different knowing she’s dead, and we didn’t even know it. You know?” he said, looking up at her.
“Are you okay?” she asked, rising to her feet to go around him and massage some of the tension in his broad shoulders.
“I’m good. I mourned for my mother a long time ago,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Are you going to tell Hunter?”
Anson nodded. “When we get home tomorrow I’ll tell him,” he said.
Out of respect for him and however he decided to deal with the news of his mother’s death, Mona squelched the desire she felt rising in her at the feel of the muscles of his shoulders beneath her fingers. It wasn’t easy to release him, but she did, moving to walk out onto the balcony and look down at the historic city. “Let’s meet up with Hunter and go sightseeing,” she said, glancing back at him over her shoulder.
Anson agreed, rising to his feet to pull out his cell phone, and she knew she’d made the right decision. They had forever—and more specifically that night—to complete their reconciliation.
And late that night, long after they had seen as much of the city as they could and Hunter had bid them farewell and retired to his own bedroom, Anson took Mona by the hand and led her to his.
In the bathroom, once her shower was complete, Mona undid her hair and dropped the towel to the floor after she dried off. A red satin robe awaited her and she could only wonder when Anson had had time to purchase it as she slid the smooth material onto her naked skin.
She froze at the sound of the Robin Thicke song from her dream that night. She opened the bathroom door and a déjà vu sensation made her spine tingle as she took in the candles lit around the room and the red satin sheets now covering the bed. Anson smiled at her over his shoulder as he lit one last candle.
She took in the sight of him naked and waiting for her as she crossed the room to reach him. “I swear I dreamt of a scene just like this,” she said, reaching up to stroke the back of his hair with one hand and the length of his dick with the other.
“So did I,” he said, reaching down to cup her buttocks.
“Song and all?” she asked, tilting her head back as she slid off her robe and bent to kiss him from one shoulder to the other.
“Can you believe we’re at the point where the idea of that is not crazy at all to me?” he asked against her neck.
She smiled and nodded as he kissed her pulse.
Their foreplay and lovemaking matched that of their dreams. Bit by bit. Move by move. And somehow the knowledge of it all did not kill the anticipation nor the pleasure, from the removal of her robe to Anson stroking deeply inside from behind as she lay on her side.
“Promise you won’t leave me,” he whispered against her cheek.
“Promise you love me,” she countered, her eyes glazed with desire.
With his hands twisted in her hair as he circled his hips to drag his dick against her wall, Anson let all of his feelings for her show in his eyes. “I will always love you,” he swore, his pace quickening as he felt that sweet anxiousness at the rise of climax.
“I will never leave you,” Mona assured him just as she closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip as her body trembled from her core outward with her release.
Chapter 17
Five months later
Mona sat at her desk drumming her fingernails against the top of it as she leaned back in the red leather chair. She looked without moving a muscle as her sister Shara came through the door carrying a Tupperware bowl. Mona shook her head and held up her fingers in a mock cross. “Reeba is not going to blow my ass up playing taste tester for her bakery,” she said.
Shara came to sit on the edge of Mona’s desk and opened the Tupperware container, pulling out a chocolate chip cookie. “She wants to call it the kitchen sink cookie,” she said. “There’s walnuts, almonds, macadamia nuts, and peanuts.”
Mona eyed the cookie as Shara broke it in half. She knew they were still warm by the melted milk chocolate chips dripping back down in the bowl. “Give me one,” she said, holding up her palm.
Shara laughed and did just that before taking a big bite of her own. “Oh my God, that is so good,” she moaned, doing a little dance with her shoulders.
Mona picked up the Tupperware and rose from her seat to drop it on Shara’s desk, which now sat beside her own in the center of the office. “Reeba opening up that bakery right down the street will not be the
cardiac death of me,” she said, rubbing her fingers together to free them of crumbs.
“Well, she wants to know what kind of cake you want for your birthday,” Shara said, moving back to her desk to close the Tupperware container before she turned on her computer.
“I’ll call her,” Mona said, already refocusing on searching for a mate for a new client—a retired bank president whose husband recently divorced her.
Mona and Shara got lost in their work and both were surprised when Anson poked his head in the office. “Hello, ladies,” he said. “Baby, you ready? I’m double-parked.”
Mona glanced out the window at his new Jaguar, indeed double-parked. As they did when they first started seeing each other, Mona and Anson drove in to work together. They hadn’t spent a night apart since they’d reconciled in New Orleans. Sometimes she wondered why she even kept paying rent on the small cottage she barely used.
“Shara, you want a ride home?” Mona asked, rising to her feet to retrieve both her and her sister’s lightweight wool coats to help keep off the December chill.
“I can catch Reeba,” she said. “You two go on home.”
As Anson went back to the car to wait in case he had to move for oncoming traffic, the two sisters moved about the building closing down for the night. Mona locked the front door and walked with Shara two buildings down to where Louisiana Sweets was set to open on the corner. The all-white decor with colorful graphic prints of desserts painted on the walls was perfect. As were the small tables and chairs suitable for a quick chat as patrons enjoyed their desserts.
Reeba came from the back as the sound of the bell over the door chimed loudly. “Is it that late?” she said, pulling her cell phone from her pocket to check the time.
“Yeah. I’m headed home and Shara’s catching you,” Mona said.
“Home or Anson’s?” Reeba asked.
“Same difference,” Mona said, and that was very true.
She turned as Anson pulled up to the corner. “I gotta go,” she said.
“What kind of cake?” Reeba called behind her.
“Let me ask, Anson,” she said.
Want, Need, Love Page 20