by Rochelle Alers, ReShonda Tate Billingsley, Brenda L. Thomas; Crystal Lacey Winslow
He studied the timepiece on his wrist, then reached into a pocket of his slacks, took out several bills, and left them on the table. “I think I’d better start back before the traffic starts building up.”
Nina stared at her own watch. It wasn’t quite two o’clock. Drew usually did not leave Sag Harbor until midnight. That way he avoided the exodus of thousands returning to New York City.
She waited for him to come around the table to pull back her chair. She walked out of the restaurant, he following. It was the first time since he had come to Sag Harbor to visit with her that he hadn’t curved an arm around her waist or held her hand.
She was puzzled by his abrupt change in mood, and it did not take a genius to know that it had something to do with the appearance of James Sparks.
Was Drew jealous of James? She dismissed the notion as soon as it entered her head. She and Drew were having a summer fling, and that was that.
Keith took the cigar from between his clenched teeth, blowing out a smoke ring, then glanced over at Drew as he puffed on his. “Do you like this one?”
Drew shook his head, snuffing out the burning embers in a cup half filled with beer. “No.”
Keith sat up, scowling. “Hey, man. You just ruined a perfectly good cigar.”
Drew lifted a thick black eyebrow. “I told you I don’t like smoking cigars, yet you keep saying this one is milder than the last one you offered me.”
“These babies were specially ordered. I had to wait two months to get them.”
Swinging his legs over the lounge chair, Drew gave his best friend a Kool-Aid grin. “The money you spend on cigars could finance some kid’s preschool education.”
“The last time you looked at my portfolio, you gave it the seal of approval,” Keith retorted.
“True. In fact you’re doing very well with your investments.”
“How are you doing with your latest squeeze?”
“She’s not a squeeze.”
“Oh, excuse me, my friend.” Keith removed his sunglasses and stared at his childhood friend. “You’re serious about this woman, aren’t you?”
Drew stared out to where Keith’s wife splashed in the in-ground pool with their children. The Jackmans were living the American dream: a house in the suburbs, two cars, two children, a menagerie of birds, fish, dogs, and a cat.
“More serious about her than she is about me.”
“Why would you say that?”
Drew met Keith’s direct stare. “We’ve been seeing each other for the past six weeks, and she’s never even said that she likes me.”
“The fact that she’s still going out with you should be enough. Some women aren’t that demonstrative.”
Drew wanted to tell him that Nina was more than demonstrative in bed. There was never a time when they came together that she did not leave him gasping for his next breath. Their last night together had been so passionate that he’d almost blurted out that he loved her.
“How long did it take for Lisa to tell you that she loved you?”
A sly smile deepened the lines around Keith’s eyes. “Hell, the first time I finally convinced her to go all the way with me. You have to remember that we had dated two years before that. Going out with a minister’s daughter can have its drawbacks. She was indoctrinated with all of that fire-and-brimstone business at an early age. What does your lady do for a living?”
“She’s a librarian.”
Keith’s jaw dropped. “Don’t tell me she has a bun, them funny orthopedic shoes that make swishing sounds on the floor when she walks, and a pair of half glasses perched on the end of her nose?”
Drew shook his head slowly. “Oh, hell no, brotherman. She’s the complete opposite of that.”
Leaning forward, Keith said, “So, she’s hot?”
Drew merely nodded, not wanting to reveal just how hot Nina actually was. She was beautiful, sensual, smart, and good in the kitchenand the bedroom.
“What are you going to do?”
“Continue to see her until she says it’s over.”
“Until she says it’s over?” he repeated. “You’re going to give her up, just like that?” Keith snapped his fingers.
“I can’t stay in a lopsided relationship. I think she’s reluctant to commit or even ask for a commitment because of the rumors she’s heard about me. I think my cousin Richard told her why he calls me D.L.”
“Did she ask if you were shady?” Drew nodded. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her I wasn’t a criminal.”
“I hate to say it, Drew, but your boogie-ass family ought to lighten up on you. They act like not having a college degree is akin to becoming a crackhead.”
“They are who they are,” Drew said in defense of his family. “I suppose I’m more like my father—marching to the beat of my own drum.”
“Now, your dad was cool.”
“That’s because he was a Lancaster, not a Nelson.” Drew pushed to his feet. “I’m going to say good-bye to Lisa and the kids, then I’m going to push off.” He extended his hand.
Keith stood up and grasped the proffered hand before he hugged his friend. “Good luck with everything, especially your lady. By the way, does she have a name?”
“Nina Watkins.”
Keith pushed out his lower lip. “Nina Lancaster. That flows nicely together.”
It flowed nicely, but Drew doubted it would ever become a reality.
Chapter 8
Nina rushed out of the bathroom when she heard the phone ring, a towel wrapped around her damp body.
She picked up the receiver. “Hello.”
“Hey, girlfriend.”
She smiled. “Hi, Michelle. What’s up?”
“I was just calling to check up on you. How are you doing with your Tootsie Pop?”
Sitting down on a chair in front of a vanity, Nina cradled the phone between her chin and shoulder and blotted the moisture on her upper body. “We’re good.”
“Just good, Nina?”
“Okay, Miss Know-It-All, we’re doing very good.”
“Did you get to the chocolate center?” Michelle whispered conspiratorially.
Nina laughed. “Child, baby please! Yes—I—did.”
It was Michelle’s turn to howl. “Do you like him, Nina?” she asked, sobering.
“Of course I like him.”
“How much?”
“A lot.”
“A lot, a lot, or love a lot?”
Nina’s motions stilled. Michelle’s query elicited a gamut of emotions she did not want to feel or acknowledge, because she had lied to herself and denied her feelings for Drew. He made her feel things she did not want to feel, made her wish for something that would never be.
“Nina?”
“I’m here, Michelle.”
There came a pregnant silence. “Are you in love with D.L.?”
“I think so.”
A snort came through the earpiece. “Don’t make me get in my car and drive all the way out there to slap you!” Michelle snapped angrily. “You’re thirty-four years old, yet you sound as unsure as a fourteen-year-old. Do you love the man?”
Nina sat up straighter and pulled back her shoulders. “Yes, I do.”
“Hot damn! That’s more like it. Now, what are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing.”
“Sheee-it,” Michelle groaned. “What am I going to do with you, girlfriend?
“You’re going to let me hang up so I can get dressed for a party.”
“Where are you going?”
“Southampton.”
“Ooo-oo girl! Don’t forget to give P. Diddy and Russell Simmons a shout out for me.”
Nina couldn’t help smiling. “I will, if I run into them.”
“Have fun, Nina.”
“Thanks, Michelle. And don’t forget to take it easy.”
“That’s all I’m doing. Right now I’m lying here looking like a trussed-up Thanksgiving turkey. I’m eating so much that Llo
yd’s threatening to put a padlock on the refrigerator.”
“Good-bye. I’ll call you in a few days.” She hung up and returned to the bathroom to complete her toilette before Drew arrived.
Nina showed Drew her back. “Please zip me up.”
His gaze was fixed on the expanse of her back and shoulders. They were going to the house of a record producer he’d met several months before to celebrate the label’s signing a new rap artist.
Holding the bodice over her breasts, Nina waited for Drew to zip up the strapless black silk chiffon dress. He zipped the dress, then lowered his head, and placed a series of kisses over her shoulders. “I think we should stay here tonight.”
Nina glanced over her shoulder at him. “You don’t want to go out?”
“We’re going, but we’re out of there as soon as some man forgets who he is and steps out of line with you.” He had been to enough parties where people had too much money and no social boundaries to last him a lifetime.
“Don’t tell me you’re the jealous type?”
“No.” And he wasn’t. Not until he’d met her.
Taking his hand, Nina laced her fingers through his. Drew was breathtakingly handsome in white. The cream against his sable-brown skin enhanced the rich, deep color of his face, which was darkened further by the rays of the hot summer sun.
“I think we’ll do okay as long as I don’t have to go Harlem on a hoochie who steps too close to my man,” she teased.
He stared at her under lowered lids. “Am I your man, Nina?”
“Tonight you are.”
He affected a smile that did not meet his eyes. “If I’m your man tonight, then you have to be my woman.”
Pressing her chest to his, she smiled sweetly. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
A rising wind off the ocean molded the delicate fabric of Nina’s dress to her body before lifting and settling around her exposed legs. Each time she took a step, the silk ties around her ankles were visible, and Drew found it hard to concentrate on what his host was saying as he stared at her talking to a young man several feet away.
The crowd was three deep at the bar, and the music loud enough to be heard across the Atlantic Ocean. Drew had to shout to be heard. He went completely still when a man with a shaved head touched Nina’s arm, and she shook her head at him.
“Excuse me,” Drew shouted to Glenn.
Weaving his way through the throng, he came up behind Nina. “I think it’s time we get back to the kids. After all, we did promise the babysitter we’d be back by one.”
The rapper stared up at Drew, his eyes widening in shock before he glanced at Drew’s and Nina’s bare fingers. He released her arm. “She yo wife?”
Drew shrugged a broad shoulder. “Baby mama.”
“Yo, man. You better marry yo baby mama before someone snaps her up, ’cause she’s fine as hell!”
Drew, deciding to play along, looked Nina up and down. “Hey, you right.” He and the rapper gave each other a pound. Curving an arm around Nina’s waist, he smiled so wide she could see most of his teeth. “Let’s go home, baby. We need to talk about hookin’ up—permanently. I mean, with the piece of paper and all.”
Nina waited until the valet had brought Drew’s car around and she was sitting beside him before she said, “Thank you for rescuing me, but there was no need for you to ad lib about me being your baby mama.”
He shifted into gear and drove away from the glass and steel house perched on a dune overlooking the ocean. “It got us out of there without drama. I’ve seen guys pull guns on one another over a woman.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “That wouldn’t have happened.”
“What shouldn’t have happened is his putting his hand on you, Nina. ABC, or whatever the hell his name is, may be the latest rap genius since Tupac, but if he hadn’t let you go, then either he or I would’ve been in the morgue or the hospital.”
“Stop being so dramatic.”
“Get real, Nina. You work at a high school. Haven’t you seen two guys go at one another over a girl?”
“Too many times,” she admitted reluctantly.
“Exactly,” Drew countered. “Your admirer is all of twenty years old, which makes him a boy, not a man. You really don’t want to see this boogie-down Bronx brother beat the crap out of that kid.”
The rest of the drive from Southampton to Sag Harbor was accomplished in complete silence.
Nina did not wait for Drew to come around and help her out of his SUV. She opened the door as soon as he cut off the ignition. She had made it up the porch to the front door when fingers curled around her wrist.
“Don’t, baby. Please don’t shut me out.”
Turning around, she stared up at him. The lights flanking the door illuminated his face, but there wasn’t enough light to see his eyes.
“I don’t want to fight with you, Drew.”
He moved closer, cradling her face between his hands. “Then don’t.” Lowering one hand, he took the keys from her clenched fist and opened the door.
They walked into the living room, kissed, arms around each other. Drew shrugged out of his jacket, leaving it where it lay on the floor. His shirt followed as he alternated between undressing himself and Nina.
Both naked, their open mouths devouring each other, he picked her up and headed toward her bedroom. Her legs wrapped around his waist, and he was lost.
They fell across the bed, and for the first time since they’d shared a bed, there was no foreplay. Nina’s mouth mapped every inch of his body. He rose off the mattress, swallowing back the groans threatening to erupt deep in his throat. Her tongue took him to the moon and back as his blood boiled in his veins.
Nina was relentless in her assault on Drew’s body. She couldn’t tell him verbally what lay in her heart, so she let her body speak for her. She lost count of the number of licks it would take to get to Drew’s center after she had taken him into her mouth.
Up.
Down.
Around.
In.
Out.
Deeper.
Her tongue had become a magic wand, bending him to her will. They had one more weekend together, and she did not want him to ever forget her, just as she knew she would never forget him. Maybe, just maybe, they could repeat what they’d shared this summer the following year.
Drew’s body shuddered, trembled, and shook uncontrollably. Just when he thought he was going to lose his mind, he reached down and pulled her up. Seconds later she lay on her back, and he pushed into her feminine heat. A fire, hotter than any before, swept over them as they struggled to get closer, become one.
His hips moved faster and faster, like a piston hitting its mark. Reaching down, he lifted Nina’s legs over his shoulders. He held her gaze until she closed her eyes and surrendered to the ecstasy sweeping her out to sea. He joined her, their moans mingling in erotic pleasure.
Once his pulse slowed, he lowered himself to the mattress beside her. “I love you,” he whispered against her ear.
Nina went completely still. “No, Drew,” she cried, her voice filled with panic.
He went up on an elbow. A frown creased his forehead. “No, what?”
She closed her eyes against his intense stare. “You don’t have to say it.”
“I love you?”
She placed her fingertips over his mouth. “I don’t want or need any promises or declarations of love. We’re not kids, Drew. There’s nothing wrong with us enjoying what the other is willing to offer without a commitment.”
His eyes glittered dangerously as he pulled her hand down. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“A summer fling, Drew. That’s what you’ve been for me. I’ve enjoyed you and everything we’ve shared this summer. I’m not asking for more.”
Drew scrambled off the bed. “If I’m just a piece of meat to you, then put a fork in me, Nina, because I’m done.”
Turning on his heel, he walked out of the bedroom. She lay in bed, u
nable to go after him. It wasn’t until she heard the slam of the front door and the roar of the engine of his BMW that she was released from her stupor.
She hadn’t planned for it to end this way. He had aborted her rehearsed speech with his declaration of love. Of all of the men she had known, none had ever admitted to loving her before she gave her own admission.
Pulling her knees to her chest, she rested her head on them and closed her eyes. “Good-bye, Drew,” she whispered to the silent room. “I love you.”
Chapter 9
Nina sat on the tall stool in her utility kitchen, holding the cordless phone between her chin and shoulder. “I just got back. I decided to come back early this year. Of course I won’t miss Wayne and Carmen’s cookout. I’ll see you Saturday.”
She hung up. She had called Michelle, Carmen, and now Kim to let them know she was back in the city. It had taken her three days to close up the little house on Sag Harbor, but it would take a lifetime to close her heart to the love she had shared with Drew.
Her plan to reject him before he could reject her had backfired. She had unfairly lumped Drew in with the other men she had known who had dealt her a losing hand.
Sighing heavily, she moved off the stool. Her love life was where it had been at the beginning of the summer—nowhere. But there was one thing she was certain of, and that was she would never be a bridesmaid again. All of her friends were married.
Nina stepped out of the taxi, cradling a shopping bag against her chest. Like Carmen’s wedding day, the weather was perfect for a backyard cookout. The mouthwatering aroma of grilling meats lingered in the warm air.
A small crowd had already gathered. Some sat on folding chairs, while others stood around in groups, holding cups. She spied Michelle and Kim sitting together under the shade of a maple tree.
“The summer looks good on you.”
Nina turned when she heard a familiar male voice behind her. “Hello, Richard.”
Leaning down, he kissed her cheek. “Hi, Nina. You look great.”