Read the Warning Label First

by B. M. Hardin

  I was looking for something, anything that might raise an eyebrow but from the looks of it, there was nothing to see.

  And then it hit me.

  Maybe this was it.

  Maybe this was him.

  The man that I’d waited my entire life for.

  The man that no one said exists.

  I’d had my share of liars, cheaters, broke men and even a deadbeat father or two, and maybe now, was my time to get the man that I actually deserved.

  I smiled.

  My Boaz had found me after all.

  *********

  Chapter Four

  “I passed your information on to my associate. Don’t be surprised if you hear from someone soon for an interview,” I said to Tristan, just shy of a whisper.

  We were at my place, cuddling on the couch watching television.

  For the past two months and a half, we’d been inseparable.

  When neither of us was working, we were always with each other.

  We were getting to know each other more and more each day and we had a connection that was very different from anything that I’d ever experienced.

  From being around him, not only was I learning him, but I was learning a few things about myself that I hadn’t noticed or paid much attention to before.

  Now, things weren’t as perfect or peachy as they had been in the beginning.

  I’d seen a few things that I wasn’t too fond of pertaining to Tristan, but they weren’t major things.

  They weren’t deal breakers.

  I mean, they truly were really small things.

  For instance, I was a neat freak and here lately I learned that it may have been a little more serious than just being neat, maybe it was boarder line OCD but as for Tristan…he was not.

  His name and neat shouldn’t even be allowed to be in the same sentence.

  There were times where I felt like I was picking up after a five year old.

  He just seemed to do most things, so sloppy and that’s if he’d bothered to do them at all.

  I refused to stay over at his house because I could only imagine what it looked like in the inside.

  I had only been outside of it a few times, while he ran inside for a change of clothes.

  It was cute, not particularly my taste, but cute. I could only imagine how messy it probably was and I didn’t want to see anything that I couldn’t force myself to forget.

  So, I always declined his offer to stay over and would suggest that we stayed at my house instead.

  I’d built my house from the ground up.

  It was just the way that I wanted it.

  It was cozy, stunning; it was perfect.

  I’d built it on a wing and a prayer that I would one day have enough rug-rats to fill it.

  I was laughed at for building the house first.

  I’d been told that I should at least be married or to wait and see what my future husband brought to the table, but I couldn’t wait around for something that I didn’t know when or if it was going to happen.

  So, I built my dream home and it was the nicest house on the block too.

  Tristan often complimented me on its beauty, even though he was steadily making it look a hot mess.

  Cleaning house from top to bottom had been the normal for me since I was a small child, and I was disappointed that he hadn’t been taught to do the same.

  I couldn’t stand a nasty home.

  A nasty house made my ass itch.

  To think of it, Delilah had been borderline nasty and her house was never truly cleaned. I used to hate to even sit on her couch and often stood unless I was going to be there for a long time.

  I just couldn’t deal with it.

  And I surely wasn’t going to deal with it in my own home, so Tristan had better get with the program.

  Another thing that I wasn’t particularly fond of when it came to Tristan was that I hadn’t met any of his family as of yet.

  To be honest, he never even talked about them.

  And anytime I mentioned them, he let it be known that his family had never been there for him and that he’d rather not have a conversation about it.

  The only thing that he’d shared was that his father had passed away a while ago and that his mother moved out of town soon after.

  He only had one sibling, a younger brother who of course went with his mother after his father’s death.

  But that was about it.

  Call me traditional, but a relationship was never truly a relationship until you’ve at least met the parents, hence is why I’d taken Tristan to visit Mama at the hospital.

  She loved him too. I could tell.

  She smiled at him and talked to him. I’d even had to make a quick run, but Tristan stayed and talked to her the whole time.

  I was surprised with how well she communicated with him but she talked and talked to him as if she’d known him for years.

  And though I could tell that Tristan had no idea what she was referring to half of the time, he always listened and responded.

  He was the best!

  Mama shared a few scriptures with him and he treated her with nothing but respect.

  He was just the sweetest man alive and he’d earned my respect on a whole new level after the visit with my mother.

  Meeting my mother was a success!

  Of course I didn’t have a father to take him home too. Usually, I told the men that I dated that my father was dead, but I actually told Tristan the truth.

  Well, partially the truth.

  I simply told him that I hadn’t seen my father in years and that I didn’t know if he was dead or alive.

  And truthfully, I really didn’t.

  I didn’t go into detail about anything else because he really didn’t need to know anything but the obvious.

  My father had abandoned us.

  The end.

  But other than those two small issues, the laziness and the lack of family mingling on his end, being with Tristan was amazing and it was everything that I’d imagined love to be.

  No, I wouldn’t say that I was in love completely with him just yet.

  But one day I was sure that I would.

  I was definitely on my way.

  Nevertheless, to my remarks about the job, Tristan simply nodded.

  I did have some worries about us working in the same building and at the same firm.

  It wasn’t about competition or anything because though he was smart, he could never replace me.

  That firm was nothing without me and my big money clients. I was sure that if I walked out and started my own firm that more than half of my clients would follow me, which meant that their money would follow me too.

  But I did wonder if it would be too much on such a new relationship to be around each other all day, every day.

  I mean not that we were in a real relationship, and then again, maybe we were.

  I was sure that folks didn’t still ask to be boyfriend and girlfriend these days, it just sort of happened.

  And we had been sort of happening for quite some time now.

  But no matter what we were, I didn’t want it to affect my job or our relationship.

  As Tristan dozed off, I eyed his phone that was vibrating on the table.

  I know some say that they aren’t the snooping type of chick…well, sorry, I am!

  I will investigate and whatever else if it meant saving myself a headache or heartache.

  I’ll run a background check and all if I have enough pieces of information and a reason to do so.

  Hey, sometimes it’s the only way to get the truth. You gotta’ do what you gotta’ do these days.

  As soon as Tristan lightly began to snore, I reached for his cell phone.

  I was surprised to see that he didn’t even have a lock on it.

  Even I locked my phone and I only had a handful of people that called me.

  Glancing at him one last time, I entered his text messages with caution.

&nbs
p; And from there I checked his call logs and even had the nerve to press one to check his voicemail.

  But after ten minutes of snooping, I came up with…nothing.

  There wasn’t a thing in his phone that was suspicious or out of place. Not one call that didn’t seem normal and not one text message that even appeared to have been something other than what it was.

  I was convinced.

  This man was clean as a whistle.

  Whew!

  I guess I expected to see something that was going to make him wish that he’d never met me, but thankfully I had been wrong.

  Every time it came to him, I was wrong.

  I eased off of the couch, placing the phone back on the table and headed to the kitchen to cook dinner.

  I had only cooked for him a few times so far, but he absolutely loved my cooking.

  He said that my cooking reminded him of how his mama used to cook on Sundays, so I had some big shoes to continue to fill.

  Today, I decided to make lasagna.

  My siblings often joked that my lasagna was the reason that they had either gotten pregnant or gotten their wives pregnant.

  They’d said that anytime that I made it, and they ate it, it gave them that extra kick to do something a little strange with their spouses that night afterwards and nine months later popped out the proof.

  Baby-making in a pan is what they called it and I hoped that one day soon it would have the same magic effect on me.

  “What’s that smell?”

  “It smells good don’t it?”

  “Yes it does. My mouth is watering,” Tristan said as he approached me rubbing his eyes.

  “Dinner is almost ready,” I smiled as he planted a light kiss on my lips.

  I looked at him as if I was asking him if he was kissing his grandma with my eyes.

  He got the hint and chuckled.

  He then kissed me again but this time it was a kiss that caused my juices to instantly begin to flow, drenching the insides of my thighs.

  I attempted to move away from him but he grabbed me and pulled me close.

  He’d made it very clear that he was only waiting for sex because it was important to me, but that didn’t mean that he hadn’t tried to tempt me every chance that he could.

  I inched away from the stove until my back hit the island in the center of the kitchen.

  In one swift motion, I was off of my feet and felt the coolness of the marble top against the back of my thighs.

  His kisses became more aggressive and my body temperature started to heat up.

  I felt excited yet scared all at the same time.

  My puss-pop screamed yes, take me now, but my heart and mind warned me---not yet.

  I was just going to kiss him.

  That’s it.

  There was nothing wrong with a little kissing.

  I reminded myself of my intentions as Tristan reached for my left breast.

  I’d had my breasts sucked before, but not by Tristan and he was my weakness.

  I was never sure of what I might do when I was around him and from the looks of it, things was about to get out of hand if I didn’t put a stop to them now.

  But I couldn’t move. I could barely breathe.

  I wanted to stop him, I really did, but I just couldn’t.

  As he placed his mouth around my nipple, the warmth of his tongue caused my kitty to purr.

  My vagina had developed a heartbeat of her own and I had never experienced an arousal that was so intense in all of my life.

  I felt Tristan’s hand begin to roam over my thighs and then under my dress.

  I felt him begin to tug on the edges of my panties.

  I managed to say the word stop, but he wasn’t listening, or maybe it was that he couldn’t hear me.

  Hell, I was confused, maybe I hadn’t said the word at all because he continued to tug until his finger finally entered my kitty-cat’s mouth.

  I cooed as she spit her juices at his fingers by the gallons. I could feel him, swiftly moving his fingers, in and out of me, constantly harassing my clitoris.

  The feeling was indescribable, so I didn’t attempt to try to fight with him. I just continued to let him take me to the point of no return.

  My mind was racing and I didn’t know which felt better, the sucking or the fondling so I eagerly tried to enjoy both.

  My mouth had started to moan without my permission and soon my moans turned into screams, yet Tristan remained diligently on task.

  They say hard work pays off and it was time to pay him his dues for the services that he had rendered unto my vagigi and what better way to pay him than to show him the evidence of my satisfaction?

  And that’s exactly what I did.

  Seconds later, I shared with him something that I had only shared with my Bo.

  I released the creams of my contentment and Tristan finally spit out my breast.

  As I tried to catch my breath, he smiled at me, slyly, as if he had just gotten away with murder.

  “Well now that that’s done and over with…let’s eat,” he said as he headed to the bathroom to wash his hands.

  I shook my head and thought about what had just taken place.

  I couldn’t help but to smile and become excited about the fact that that was only the beginning of sexual exchanges between us.

  I hopped off of the counter and headed behind him to the bathroom.

  Until next time…and that time it wouldn’t be his finger that was inside of me.

  And I was for sure of that.

  ***

  “Hi Hunter, what can I do for you?” I asked my peeping boss.

  He was always somewhere watching, like some kind of predator.

  I was actually surprised that he was still there. It was a lot later than he usually stayed.

  “I was just coming by to one, tell you to go home…and that is an order. You’re going to work yourself until you fall over and die. I told you I know the perfect man for you. But you won’t let me hook you up, as you would say.”

  I cracked a smile at him but I didn’t respond.

  “Two, your referral never got back to Richard for an interview. Are they still interested in the job?”

  I was surprised by his remark.

  Tristan was darn near stalking his phone, day and night for that phone call.

  “Are you sure that they called the right number? He has been waiting on that phone call for the past two weeks?”

  “And how would you know that?” Hunter eyed me suspiciously.

  Damn it…I said too much.

  I had to think of something to say that would at least halfway sound convincing.

  He didn’t need to know my personal business.

  “He called a few times. He wanted to know if I had kept my word and passed on his information. Hold on, let me see if I can find the number for him to make sure that Richard has the right one,” I stated, pretending to be looking for a piece of paper as if I had taken down his number a time or two.

  I didn’t even bother to look up at Hunter.

  “Tori, when you find it just email it to me and I will see to it that Richard gets it. And I was serious…go home,” he said and turned his back to me.

  He didn’t have to tell me twice.

  It was time for me to go home anyway because I was sure that Tristan was already there waiting for me.

  I hadn’t worked late in a while, until recently when I discovered that a few things were being missed on my end, probably as a result of always having my head up Tristan’s ass.

  But I was enjoying being in a relationship.

  Yep, it was confirmed, I was in a relationship!

  Ain’t God good?

  Things were still going well and I was extremely happy.

  Things were going just fine between us and I wanted them to stay that way.

  I gathered my things and waited for the night janitor to turn his head toward the window just as he always did to make sure that I made it to my car
safely.

  Safely inside, I decided that I didn’t want to listen to any music on my way home.

  I just wanted to ride in silence and gather my thoughts.

  The first thing that crossed my mind was of course Tristan.

  Who would have thought that I would have ended up with a man who came in to interview with me for a position?

  Even I wasn’t expecting the amount of joy that he had brought my way.

  He was always doing nice things for me.

  It felt good to receive flowers just because, or cards just to say how much I meant to him.

  He washed my car, he washed my hair and other little things that would always make my day.

  My days didn’t seem as long.

  My nights weren’t half as lonely.

  He wasn’t perfect, but his love was mine and it was real. And the love that was growing for him, daily, was real also.

  “I’m home,” I smiled.

  Of course I had given Tristan a key to my place.

  It only made sense since usually he was off first, and was always outside waiting for my arrival.

  He’d given me a key to his as well, but to date I’d never used it.

  He was never there, he was always with me, and so I hadn’t had to.

  Tristan appeared in the hallway, coming from my bedroom.

  He had a towel wrapped around his waist and he headed up the hallway towards me.

  “How was your day?” he asked, kissing my cheek.

  His body was still damp from the shower he must have just finished taking. I could smell the strong scent of Irish Spring seeping out from his pores.

  My mouth started to water, so I cleared my throat.

  “What’s wrong baby?” Tristan asked coming closer.

  The room seemed to grow smaller and smaller as he invaded my personal space.

  The warmth of his breath harassed the hairs on my neck and my briefcase and purse, slipped from my hands and dropped to the floor.

  Screw this whole virginity thing…it’s time!

  I allowed my body to tell him that I was ready, instead of using my words.

  I had never ridden in this rodeo before, so I allowed Tristan to take the lead.

  After light kissing and touching and removing all of my clothes, he took my hand and led me and my bare ass to the bedroom.

  I was as nervous as a stripper in church, who was headed to the altar for some much need prayer.