“Who is he?” she asked.
“My brother.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother,” Beverly replied and waited for a response, which I refused to give.
But I did give her what she deserved. “Beverly, I apologize. I over-reacted.”
She smiled. “It’s okay, Mr. Hill. I know you’re under a lot of pressure with the merger. It won’t happen again. I’m getting a lock put on your door today.”
Standing in my doorway, I watched Benito browse the hundreds of architectural design, real estate, and law books on my wall-to-wall customized shelves. I slammed the door. His ass didn’t flinch. He nodded as he looked over the encased model of my newest 411-unit hotel and condominium building, which was under construction across the street from Trevor Williams’s hotel and condos in Atlanta. I glanced around to see if any lightweight items were missing, like my Mont-blanc pens or my platinum golf balls. Nope. They were there.
“Hey, bro. I apologize for imposing on you like this, but we need to talk about Lace,” said Benito. “You should thank me for saving you. She was getting ready to fuck you blind.”
First my dad and now this asshole wanted to tell me how to live my life. Lace, Honey, whatever her real name was, I wanted no parts of that pathological prevaricator.
Oh my God. Looking at her picture on my credenza, I’d been sure that woman was amazingly beautiful both inside and out. Her silky skin, juicy lips, perfect figure, sculpted legs and thighs, and those incredible crystal green eyes had commanded my attention the second she sat next to me on the plane, in first class.
I’d pretended I wasn’t impressed with her when we first met, but I couldn’t lie: she’d had my undivided attention the instance our eyes met. I smiled on the inside, remembering how she’d made me laugh off and on the entire trip. Honey was easy to talk to. I’d felt like we were two old friends getting reacquainted after a long period without contact.
On our first date, she’d looked and felt ravishing on my arm, making me the proudest man alive. Men and women had stared at her, and all I had thought was, She’s spoken for. Yes, this is the woman I’m going to marry one day.
“Man, she whipped that red, snapping pussy on you, too, huh? Consider yourself lucky, G. You only put in two weeks. I’m telling you,” Benito said, puckering his lips like a baby getting ready to cry.
Exhaling, I cut him off and said, “Yeah, I guess, but don’t compare me to you, ever.”
What had impressed me the most about Honey wasn’t her ability to sex me senseless; it was the business objectives for her company. After becoming successful, I wanted what my parents had. I wanted someone special to share my life with. I truly wanted to marry a black woman like Obama’s wife, a woman who would dedicate her life to improving the community in a huge way. A woman who knew her self-worth. A woman who would stand by me and be a wonderful mother to our children.
I had to stop thinking about Honey…but I couldn’t. With all my investments, I could have sex with practically any woman I wanted, including those two women I’d met at Starbucks, but the only woman I desired to make love to was Honey.
“Give me a job,” Benito blurted. “I can handle things here in the office while you travel, or I can manage one of your properties, for a good salary and a free apartment.”
I shook my head. “Outside of football, you don’t have any employable skills. Besides, I don’t trust you,” I said, suppressing my memory of Honey drizzling hot chocolate syrup on my chest, abs, dick, and balls, then smearing it all over me with her pussy.
I’d grown tired of sharing my bed with strange and estranged women. I no longer wanted to pretend I enjoyed the company of highly intellectual women who didn’t realize they had four holes between their thighs that could generate orgasmic pleasure, from clitoral orgasms to vaginal orgasms to ejaculating secretions produced by the Skene’s glands—which they squirted from the urethral canal, the same way I shot cum from my nuts through my dick—to anal orgasms. Those women made me impervious to their empty promises of giving me unforgettable sexual pleasure. My eyes closed for a few seconds as I relived some of those disappointing situations.
“Okay,” Benito said. “Is it the silk scarf tied around your nuts while you’re fucking her doggie style, and just when you start cuming, she tugs your balls, and you screaam like a bitch because that shit feels so fucking good. Or—”
Opening my eyes, I felt my forehead buckle as I stared at that fool. “I’m not giving you a job, nor am I going to sit here and swap X-rated stories with you.”
Yeah, I knew exactly what Benito was talking about, and that shit had felt fucking fantastic. I needed to release the backed-up cum building inside my nuts. If I had sex tonight as planned with those two ladies I’d met, fine, but if I didn’t, that was okay, too. I’d stroke my own dick. But either way, I was busting a big one tonight. Since my breakup with Honey two and a half weeks ago, my encounters had been dreadful: I had to do most of the work, and I’d get dressed immediately after cuming and go home.
In my desperate search for an experienced woman like Honey or Velvet, I had reneged on my promise never to stick my dick inside a black woman I didn’t care about. Before I could make it to my house, my cell phone would ring, and the woman I’d just finished fucking would ask, “Grant, what’s wrong?”
How could I respond, “Take time to learn your own body. Open your mouth and tell me what pleases you. Move your ass. Suck my big, beautiful dick like you enjoy that shit. Hell, learn how to please yourself,” without insulting a woman? So I gave my canned response, “Nothing,” followed my unconscious lie, “I’ll call you later,” which meant nothing to me before or after I’d said it.
Money couldn’t buy experience. Earning a degree didn’t educate women about sex. Either a woman had it—knowledge about her body—or she didn’t. Ooh, Velvet could teach classes on how to suck a dick the right way.
Benito stood in the middle of the floor, bobbing his head. What was fucking wrong with him? Was he retarded or something? I wanted to see how long he would stand there before opening his mouth or, if I was lucky, leaving.
Honey knew all of her spots and all of mine, too. She was perfect, or so I’d thought. What I knew for sure was I needed someone to share my life with and somebody who loved me for me. I still wanted Honey. I picked up my iPhone, hoping I’d missed a voice-mail message or a text. Nothing.
Honey was the last person I thought about at night and the first person I thought about in the morning, but I was afraid of learning the truth about her. Or perhaps I was afraid of learning the truth about myself. What really attracted me to her? Either way I’d rather hold on to the best memories of my life and let her go than take her back and have regrets for doing what I knew I shouldn’t have done. Honey was a former prostitute and madam, but I had to prove to my parents that my brother was lying about her being a murderer.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I said, “Benito, seriously, you’ve got to go. Now. I have a client arriving shortly.”
Trevor had delayed our meeting by a day. He wanted me to go forty-nine to his fifty-one on purchasing land instead of fifty-fifty as originally agreed. And he wanted to add in designing the layout and constructing the improvements for an upscale gentlemen’s club in order to get a jumpstart on professional basketball player Darius Jones-Williams, who was reportedly getting ready to open up several multilevel mega strip clubs, which would put Trevor’s and all the other Atlanta strip joints out of business in less than a year.
Against my dad’s recommendation, today I was partnering with Trevor in his strip club, Stilettos, and our developments already under construction. I could hold off on partnering to develop a new strip club. Maybe we could consult with Honey on finding the hottest female exotic dancers. That would give me a reason to call her.
“Your client can wait, man. I’m your brother. I’m homeless. I’ve got no place to go,” Benito confessed. “I have no money. Dad said I couldn’t stay at the house, ’cause Mo
m is afraid of me. Like I’d ever do anything to hurt her. You can at least let me stay in one of your apartments in Georgetown until I get on my feet. I promise to pay you back every penny with interest.”
I chuckled, then said, “I see you and Honey have something in common. Deceiving people. No can do. Like Dad told you, call your baby mama. I’m sure she’ll be happy to have you spend time with your son. Considering that you’ve screwed everybody who’s tried to help you, this is a perfect time to do right by her and your son.”
“I don’t owe that bitch nothing! She turned her back on me.”
“Yeah, by taking care of your son by herself. I get your point,” I said, shaking my head. “Look, seriously, my client is here from Atlanta to meet with me. I won’t waste his time or mine trying to solve your plethora of problems.”
The sight of Benito’s unshaved face and his stained jeans, and his stench, hit me all at once, making my stomach churn. How could a black man who was abandoned by his birth parents be so ungrateful all of his life?
My mother adopted him while she was a single parent, then struggled to take care of him until she married my father. My parents had given him every luxury they’d afforded me, including a house, after he graduated from high school, which he’d immediately sold. Then he’d pissed off the money trying to impress his college teammates.
Did Benito think he won four college-football championships on his own? He should’ve been grateful, but, no, he was never satisfied, and what disgusted me the most was nothing was ever his damn fault. Nothing anyone did for him was ever enough. He’d earned millions playing professional football, and what did he have to show for it? Not a damn thing.
Looking at Honey’s picture on my credenza, I said, “Get out.”
“Forget that bitch. She’s a ho, man. And she stole my money. Okay. I’ll leave, but you’re the only one who can help me get my money from her ass. Help me, and I promise I’ll never ask you for anything else. I swear.”
Benito was pathetic scum. Whatever Honey took from him, I was sure she deserved and then some. “You’ve got ten minutes to say what’s on your mind,” I said, sitting on the corner of my desk, hoping to hear something redeemable about Honey.
His ass descended toward the seat of my camel-colored leather chair. “Oh, hell no,” I said. “Don’t get comfortable. Keep standing up, look me in my eyes, and tell me what you have to say about Honey. I’ve terminated my relationship and all communication with her, so don’t infringe upon my time by trying to convince me to contact her on your behalf.”
I checked my phone again. Still no messages from Honey.
“Man,” Benito exhaled, scratching his ear like a monkey. “So much shit happened over the three years I lived with her, I don’t know where to start.”
I couldn’t believe she had let this bum leech off of her for three years. I’d thought she was smarter than that. Thank God this ignorant idiot wasn’t my biological brother, or I’d have to petition him for a DNA test. Standing tall, I said, “Then leave and call me when you get your lies together.”
Benito’s lips tightened. “Man, I’m not lying. Okay. Here’s the truth. Lace worked for my boy Valentino James. Valentino is in jail because Lace let him take the rap for killing one of her bitches. She did it. Now I can’t go back to Las Vegas to bail him out and prove he’s innocent, ’cause I don’t have any money. That and that undercover bitch police officer Sapphire Bleu told me, if I ever stepped foot in the state of Nevada, she’d personally arrest me. I ain’t letting another woman stick a gun in my ass the way Honey did after she tied me up. Forget that.” Benito swiped the back of his hand across his sweaty forehead. He frantically shook his head, and his sweat landed on my face as he said, “Whatever you do, man, don’t ever let Honey tie you up.”
Wiping my face, I repositioned my thigh on the corner of my desk. I bit my bottom lip to keep from laughing at that fool. I asked my brother, “What the fuck have you done? This isn’t about Honey. You’re involved in something illegal. What is it?”
Benito’s face was drenched in sweat, as though someone had dowsed him with a bucket of water. His dingy white cotton T-shirt stuck to his chest as he exclaimed, “Wasn’t my fault, man. I didn’t kill Sunny. I didn’t pull—”
“Wait a minute. You mean Sunny Day? That gorgeous young girl who was on the national news a few weeks ago? The twin who was murdered in Vegas the day before her twenty-first birthday? All of this shit you’re telling me is recent?”
“I guess you heard about that, huh? Yeah, that’s the one. Like I was saying, I didn’t pull the trigger. Valentino did. But he made me bury the body. But I didn’t bury her body. I left it in Sunny’s condo back in Vegas. Her twin sister found the body, and they had a funeral and all, but you can’t tell nobody I had anything to do with any of that shit. That’s all over, man. What I need you to help me do is find out what happened to the hundred million dollars I heard Lace stole from Valentino’s mansion so I can get Valentino out of jail and get my share for saving his ass. I know you don’t need my money, but I’ll break you off a li’l something when I get paid.”
Okay, I thought. First he said Lace killed Sunny. Then he said Valentino killed her, but he disposed of the body. Then the money was his. Now it’s not his. It’s Valentino’s, but Lace has got it. A hundred million dollars? Damn, if Benito is telling the truth, Lace, Honey, whosoever she is, she is smarter than I thought. I was greatly intrigued. So that’s how she paid cash for her mansion. With that amount of money, Honey would need some legitimate investments in addition to her business. Perhaps she could partner with us. Hmm. I’ll propose the idea to Trevor.
I looked at Benito. “First off, none of the money is yours,” I said. “Second, you’re fucking crazy if you think you’re going to make me a conspirator to murder and money laundering, and third, take this five hundred dollars, get the hell out of my office, and don’t ever come near me or my parents again.”
Benito stood there dazed and confused, like he didn’t know if he wanted to beat my ass or cry. But I could tell he was happy as hell to have a few dollars.
I went on. “Invest it wisely. I thought my father was overreacting, but he’s right. You’re endangering all of our lives. What if this pimp Valentino James has a hit out on your dumb ass, thinking you set him up and stole his money? You ever contemplate that? I’m going to ask you politely one more time. Leave.”
Benito pleaded with me, gesturing with his hands. “Valentino is my boy. He wouldn’t do that to me. But look, you have to help me. We’re blood, and I don’t have anywhere else to go. Five hundred dollars won’t last long in D.C. You want me to sleep under the freeway again with those homeless people?”
“Here. Take this card. Maybe this woman can help you,” I said, giving the number for the lady I’d met at Starbucks. My blood pressure must’ve shot up fifty degrees as I yelled, “We’re not blood! Get the fuck out!” This time I snatched opened the door and waited for this ignoramus to leave.
“Aw’ight. That’s cool. But you’d better pray Lace doesn’t have my money, or she’s one dead bitch,” Benito said, walking out.
I yelled, “You’re so stupid, you’d probably shoot yourself, and you don’t have any money, you dumb ass!” Then I slammed the door. “The nerve of him.”
Sitting in my chair, I exhaled heavily and stared at the amazingly beautiful woman in the picture. I wondered who in the world she was. Loose curls framed her flawless face and dazzling smile, but there was no sparkle under her long eyelashes, although I could picture how Honey’s eyes did light up for me whenever we were together.
I had to find out for myself who she really was. But I wasn’t going to ask her over the phone. I had to look deep into those captivating green eyes. After questioning Honey, I was taking a trip to Las Vegas to find that police officer, Sapphire Bleu. Surely, she knew everything about Honey, Benito, and Valentino. Picking up my cell, I began dialing Honey’s number, then hung up. I blocked my number, then redialed hers.
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“Mr. Hill, Mr. Williams is here,” Beverly said on my landline at the same time Honey answered, “What’s sweeter than honey and more valuable than money?”
Damn. Her voice was soft and so succulent, I could taste her pussy on the tip of my tongue. My dick got so hard, it throbbed against my zipper.
“Mr. Hill?” Beverly chimed in my right ear.
“Hello,” Honey spoke in my left ear.
Intentionally, I said, “Beverly, send Mr. Williams in.”
Honey said, “Grant?”
I whispered, “You are. I’ll call you back.” Then I ended our call.
CHAPTER 11
Honey
I’d brought my girls from Las Vegas to Atlanta, and it was my responsibility to make sure no man ever exploited or violated them again. Thus far, it’d only been a few weeks, but they were becoming bored being at home most of the day. I was, too. And a few of them had added on a few pounds. I was not going to have a house filled with overweight, unhealthy women. They’d already eaten breakfast, but come lunchtime, I was ordering Subway sandwiches. I was the only one with transportation, and Onyx was the only one allowed to drive my car. Maybe I should hire a personal trainer to work them out in the morning and an intake specialist to train them on how to properly document cases in the afternoon. Then they could practice interviewing one another in the evenings.
Sitting downstairs, in the family room, which I’d converted into my home office, I turned on my laptop. I positioned my hand above the keyboard, daze at the peach trees in the backyard. What would I say to the women who walked through the doors of Sweeter Than Honey? What were my beliefs?
Just as I began typing, the phone interrupted my thoughts. Checking the caller ID, I saw it was a 404 area code, but I didn’t recognize the number. Was it Grant? Oh, my, God. I should be pissed at him. But I wasn’t. My heart started racing. I took a deep breath, exhaled, then answered. “What’s sweeter than honey and more valuable than money?” I was hoping to hear the same response he’d whispered in my ear earlier.
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