“What happened to your sister?”
“Don’t know. My old man took more of a liking to her than he took to me and I knew he wouldn’t do anything to hurt her, but he’d sold me off a couple of times to pay off his gambling debts.”
Charisse felt pity for her.
“Please don’t feel bad for me. Half the time I kicked them in the nuts so hard they felt bad for trying to rape a little girl. I learned to fight men off early and I can take out the biggest of them when I want to.” Nevada flashed a beautiful smile with a wicked wink. “But this face ain’t brought me nothing but bad luck.”
“Are you trying to say your face is a curse, because I know many women who would die for that face.”
“Yes!” Nevada exclaimed after swallowing another cookie.
“But you were sleeping with people at the facility. I know you were.”
“I didn’t say I was innocent and I did use this face to get my way. There were some good strong-bodied orderlies around there. I can’t resist a great big muscular tall body with broad shoulders. I get off knowing a man can break my skinny ass on a whim.” She giggled sensuously. “But those other weak ass gits were lying through their bad teeth about tasting my pudding.”
“So why’d you mess with me?”
“Because when the orderlies gave good reports when budgets were low, the counselors had to kick people out left and right who were on the system. I was on the system and I needed to act as crazy as possible to stay in there. Getting sent to my room for fucking you over got me enough points to make them keep my ass and list me as a danger to society. I just recently got out because there was this git who’d come in to get off on murder charges, who knew my old man and he said if I didn’t give him a spoonful of my pudding every night, he would go tell it on the mountains and make sure I squared off my dad’s debts with my ass.”
“That’s terrible,” Charisse said appalled.
“Yeah, but now I’m kinda worried ‘bout my sister. My old man died and word on the street, before croaking, he traded my sister for a couple of outstanding debts to a perverted loan shark from Chicago, whose coming here to collect and what’s funny is that this bitch never comes to Detroit, but he wants this debt so damn bad he’s willing to get his ass killed for it.”
“So you’re going to find your sister?”
“Yeah, but she’s one smart bitch too and must know this pervert’s after her, so she’s hiding her ass somewhere in Detroit. I should just wait it out, but I feel kinda guilty that I left her to fend on her own for so long and since I am the older sister, maybe it’s my debt to pay for the old man and not hers.” She frowned, but this didn’t deter one bit from her dark beauty. Looking greedily at Charisse’s drink, she asked, “Are you going to finish that?”
Charisse looked at the plate to see all the cookies were gone and she pushed the cider over to Nevada. “I take it you didn’t eat at the restaurant?”
“We have to buy our food and I need money for the expensive make up for now until I get enough stocked up. The cheap make up doesn’t stay on very long and I’ll be applying it every other hour.”
“Why the make up now that you’re out?”
“Charisse, this is my burden to bear and I need to do this because I don’t want no trouble or no attention to me, especially with this pervert bitch looking for my sister. I want the jump on him before he gets it on me.”
Charisse still couldn’t understand it, but decided to change the subject. “What happened after I left the restaurant?”
“You mean after you cold clocked that sistah in the face?” Nevada threw her head back and laughed while slapping her knee. “It was blood everywhere and I think you broke her nose. She screamed on the phone at someone and then hightailed it out of there shortly after you left. Man did she leave a mess in the bathroom and me being the new girl had to clean it up.” Nevada squirmed uncomfortably. “Got anything else to eat?”
“You can ravage my cupboard until my guardian gets back. They still have me on probation,” Charisse offered.
“Since you’re feeling so generous, mind if I take a quick shower? I live at a shelter and washing up in a sink ain’t always cool.”
“Sure, but it’s gotta be up in the guestroom. I’m kinda hiding away and if you see anyone on the streets, you never saw me after tonight, okay?”
Nevada shrugged indifferently and tipped the cup back to get all the cider out the cup. “I’m not messing up my hook up with a big mouth, Char. Let me get a good shit, shower and shave once a week and you have my alliance forever.”
“I don’t think that’d be a problem. Just knock at the back entrance next time.”
The alarm beeped to indicate someone had used the code to obtain entry into the home.
Charisse braced herself and hoped that it was Parker returning. To her disappointment, it was Rochelle shaking off the rain. “Mr. Mills asked if I could swing by and check on my favorite patient.” She did a triple glance at Nevada.
Charisse made introductions, but didn’t say details about Nevada except she was a good friend. “Can you fix us some soup or something and bring it to the guest room? He didn’t unlock the cabinets yet.”
“Sure,” Rochelle said.
As nonchalant as possible, she asked, “Did Mr. Mills say when he’ll be returning?”
“No. He said he’d call me in the morning to check up on you.”
Shucking her disappointment to the side feeling Nevada’s intense eyes on her, she showed her to the guest room for the promised shower.
It was nice having company around her age that she could talk with, who wasn’t vindictive like her sisters.
As they shut themselves up in the guest room, Nevada questioned, “When’d you get over your touching phobia?”
** *
Before he could think, he slammed his fist into Jaelen’s stomach.
Jaelen bowed over as the air was knocked out of him and didn’t speak for a moment. Hissing between his teeth, “Between you and Onyx, with friends like you, who needs enemies?”
Ethan chuckled. “With a mouth like yours, Jaelen, you have got to expect those every once in a while.”
Slowly straightening up, checking for any broken ribs, Jaelen responded angrily, “Every blue moon. Not every damn month!”
“You knew the dream wasn’t real and you didn’t say shit!” Parker bellowed.
“I found out today and purely by accident, while I was waiting at your house for you. Kim made a mistake and turned the intercom on at your house with her cell phone in the middle of Charisse telling her about the so-called dream. Kim doesn’t even know I know.”
“You son of a bitch! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Parker, you wouldn’t have believed me! You barely believed you had sex with her after she told you.”
Suspicious and ready to punch him again, “How’d you know she told me?!”
“I figured as soon as she did you’d come here angry as all get out. And when it comes to women, you can’t see straight, let alone think straight.”
Parker swung his right at him for that so-true comment just because he hated Jaelen for being so damn right!
Unfortunately, Jaelen ducked this time and blocked the following left hook. He then tackled Parker against the wall. The wood splintered under the force and a light knock at the library door made both of them freeze.
“I’m only going to tell you boys once: don’t wake the baby,” Kimberly said on the other side of the door.
They glared at each other as they both listened until Kimberly’s footsteps could be heard going up the stairs.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, Parker,” Ethan said. “But you’ve been on edge.”
Jaelen moved away from Parker and straightened his clothes. “There’s nothing that’s gotten into him. He’s just gotten into someone he wasn’t supposed to, Ethan.”
“Oh this sounds good, Parker,” Ethan said. “Please bring me in the loop. Is that why y
ou’ve been staying at the office?”
Parker didn’t answer him, too annoyed, but the look on his face gave Ethan his own answers.
“So you had the serious sex with the crazy sister?”
“According to her it was mind blowing,” Jaelen added none to please.
Ethan whooped in happiness. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”
“This isn’t something to celebrate you dumb white ass!” Jaelen sneered angrily. “She’s pregnant.”
“Well, that does happen in those situations,” Ethan said obviously.
“No, shit head, she was already pregnant by a turkey baster.”
Ethan looked confused.
Parker huffed. “It’s a long story. You know Chyna and I were trying to have a baby and Charisse had the touching issue, but she agreed to let us use her body, but my sperm wouldn’t work in the lab.”
Now Ethan looked flabbergasted. “That really works?”
“She’s really pregnant, so I guess it does.”
“So you didn’t have sex with her to get her pregnant, but somehow she got over her touch issue since then and had sex with you without you knowing?”
“I was drunk!”
Ethan took a moment to digest this information while Parker and Jaelen shot visual daggers at each other across the room. “Now you’re mad because everyone knows you had sex with her except you?”
Jaelen answered this one. “He’s mad because he wants to do it again. And he can’t understand why Chyna would agree to this along with the divorce.”
“You know that too?” Parker asked in disbelief. “So Charisse was telling me the truth?”
“I don’t know what that crazy heifer said to you, but she told Kimberly that Chyna drove her over there just to check on you and she encouraged her to take initiative.”
“Wow! I wish my wife had some sisters like that,” Ethan teased. “I’m just kidding. I’m too happy with my Nicole, but in your case Parker, maybe this is a good thing.”
“If you don’t get your white ass out my house, I’m going to fuck you up, Ethan,” Jaelen sneered.
“Jaelen, you’ve been against her since she’s arrived. Why can’t you just accept this situation?” Ethan asked. “Seems like Parker wants it and his own wife’s approved of this. She didn’t approve of her other sister having him, but if she approves of this and Parker really wants her, then let him have her.”
“Cause she could be as evil as her sisters and she’s hiding behind crazy so he doesn’t suspect a thing. Plus, you don’t have to listen to him bitch about the agony that crazy bitch is going to put him through.”
“I would but for some reason, Parker’s a glutton for punishment and listens to you,” Ethan said. “I don’t know why unless he loves to be tortured, but then you two would have that in common wouldn’t you?”
“Fuck you,” Jaelen said knowing Ethan was taking a dig at his joy of letting his wife tie him up that he so loved to brag about.
“I do want her,” Parker finally confessed quietly.
“Quit talking crazy,” Jaelen said now glaring at Ethan with a look of ‘see what you started.’
“No, Jae.” He calmed down and sat across from Ethan. “I’ve wanted her and not just sexually since… well, I don’t know when. She’s just stimulating to talk to all the time and the sex factor just makes it so much better.”
“You’re a married man!” Jaelen pointed out.
“I’ll be divorced in three weeks and you know this. You’re just trying to rub salt on my wounds.”
“Then just don’t have sex with her for three weeks,” Ethan said simply.
“She’s pregnant, dip shit!” Jaelen stressed to Ethan.
“Oh,” Ethan said worriedly. “That’s going to be difficult.”
“What’s so wrong with that? I can resist her for three weeks,” Parker said easily.
Both of them looked at him as if he had cut his head off.
“What?” he asked apprehensively not at all liking the way they were looking at him like that. “What’s wrong with a pregnant woman?”
“Why do you think I’m suffering over here with Jaelen?” Ethan asked. “Nicole won’t let me back home until I calm down, but every time I get around her, she’s irresistible.”
“Charisse isn’t irresistible. I mean I’m very attracted to her, but I can control myself.”
“How many months is she now?”
“She should be two going on three.”
Ethan looked very bothered.
“That’s when it starts,” Jaelen warned.
“What?” Parker asked anxiously.
“The smell and the way they look,” Ethan said excitedly. “Then the smell…it’s like every damn time I even have her close to me I want to get between her legs. I think God made it this way so that we’d want our women constantly when they’re in this condition.”
Since Parker had never experienced being around a pregnant woman he was clueless to what they were trying to get him to understand. “I can resist it. Charisse is different.”
“It won’t matter,” Jaelen cautioned. “I was on Kimberly like white on rice and just to be inside… I wouldn’t know how to describe it, but it’s the best thing since God invented the damn air!”
Parker shifted uncomfortably unable to determine if Jaelen was just trying to pull his leg. But Ethan was looking just as anxious and Parker doubted he’d have that much control over his passion for Charisse now that they told him this.
“Each pregnancy is different,” he remembered Kimberly saying which he now reminded his friends. “Charisse could be different.”
“I doubt it,” Ethan said.
Parker put his face in his hands trying to figure out his own desire and feelings when dealing with Charisse in the weeks. He wanted to wait to express himself physically with her, but if his own friends were telling him he couldn’t and Chyna was trying to serve her own sister up on a silver platter to him, how was he going to fight his own urges to not do anything with her?
Even now just knowing she was home waiting for him causes serious stirring in his loins.
Chapter 33
“Lawd gurl, you should sell showers like that!” Nevada said coming out the bathroom still a bit drenched, but Charisse gasped as she noticed Nevada’s hair was now down and not wrapped up in the tight bun.
She’d washed it and now it hung damp all the way past her butt and she started using her fingers to comb it out.
Charisse grabbed a brush and Nevada flushed. “Thanks, Char. I really appreciate this. You mind if I stay until my hair dries?”
“That could take hours.”
They stopped talking when Rochelle brought up two servings of beef stew. Charisse didn’t let the nurse know that she wasn’t hungry and offered the entire tray to Nevada.
The woman didn’t refuse and proceeded to break crackers in both bowls.
Maybe it was because Nevada wasn’t just trying to spend the night at a homeless shelter after she finished “that glorious shower” and along with the beautiful face, she had the most engaging personality, which coaxed Charisse to spill the beans on her life since arriving at the house.
Charisse even went into detail about Chyna’s condition and the plan to hide her in the house from Cheyenne.
Nevada was so excited about the baby and asked if she could just touch Charisse’s stomach.
“I’m only two months along or so,” Charisse said. “You can’t feel anything.”
“It’s for luck,” Nevada said as if she should know this already.
“I don’t believe in luck.”
“Then it’s for blessings. God gives us children in blessings. It’s never by chance. That’s probably why your evil ass sisters couldn’t have children and you were blessed with the ability.”
Charisse liked the way Nevada thought and allowed her to put her hands on her stomach. Nevada leaned close and whispered something to Charisse’s stomach.
“What did you say?
”
“It’s a secret between me and the baby, but I’m going to pray for beauty.”
“Maybe you could give it some of yours.”
“I’d gladly give it away.”
Charisse chuckled.
“So Cheyenne doesn’t know you’re pregnant, right?” Nevada questioned.
Continuing, Charisse went on and even told Nevada about the bank account information the accountant had found in Parker’s old bank.
“It’s been in the back of my mind and my suspicion is that Pascal opened this account, but not with Chyna’s help all the way because I knew she wasn’t lying when she didn’t have any involvement in it.”
“Why not? She was fucking him,” Nevada said crudely finishing off one of the bowls of soup. “She’s greedy. It fits.”
“Cheyenne’s a long term planner and she’d wait for money. She’d sit around for Jesus to come back if someone told her she’d get a million on that day. I think her original intent was to get the money from Parker so she hooked up with Pascal and then had him hook up with Chyna. He probably got Chyna to sign something she thought was to buy something and opened the account right under Parker and Chyna’s nose.”
“And the pregnancy probably disrupted their plans to get their hands on the money?” Nevada determined, but with a bothered look on her pretty face. “And it’s been sitting in there until Pascal could work his way back to Chyna?”
“Probably or Cheyenne’s whole intent is to get Chyna out of the way and get the money and Parker. She always wanted to have everything and would use anyone to get it.”
“Sounds like my daddy.” Nevada thought for a moment and then asked, “But if she’s as bad as you say why would she have Pascal use Chyna to set the bank account up? If I had a twin and I was greedy like that, I’d use her face and name, but I bet you fifty grand that’s Cheyenne’s signature impersonating her sister and once I got my sister out of the way, I’d go after the money.”
His Substitute Wife... My Sister Book Two Page 8