Lust & Loyalty

by Shelly Ellis

  * * *

  “Don’t you dare fall asleep on me, Terry!” C. J. ordered an hour and a half later as they lay on his California king, sweaty, satiated, and snuggled beneath the Egyptian cotton sheets. “I haven’t seen you in almost a week. I don’t want to lie around watching you snore!”

  Terrence chuckled and opened his weary eye. “It’s three o’clock in the morning, and we just had sex three times in less than two hours. A man’s allowed to be a little bit tired.”

  She shifted so that she was lying on top of his chest and gazing down at him.

  At that moment, she might look like an absolute mess to some but she seemed gorgeous to him. Her makeup was smeared and hair was no longer in a neat bun but was now disheveled, like she had been in a windstorm. And they had been in a bit of a windstorm—or at least, it felt like it from all the enthusiastic sex they’d enjoyed.

  “Talk to me!” she whined playfully, making him laugh again. “Tell me what you’ve been up to. What’d I miss?”

  He sighed gruffly. He just couldn’t say no to this woman.

  “Not much,” he said with a yawn. “I almost got arrested yesterday.”

  She frowned. “You’re joking, right?”

  “Not really.” He tucked his hands behind his head and reclined on the down pillows braced against his leather headboard. “Some asshole detective came to Evan’s house, questioning us about our brother Dante, thinking he could bully a black man into saying something. I guess someone tried to kill Dante again.”

  “Really? A second time?” she asked, raising her brows, her face now alight with keen interest. “Are they closer to having a list of potential suspects for the first attempt or are they still just putting out feelers at this point?”

  He rolled his eye heavenward. “Slow your roll, Lois Lane! Remember, you don’t work at the Chesterton Times anymore.”

  “I took a break from the Chesterton Times,” she clarified, nudging his shoulder. “I didn’t quit! And it’s not like I’m whipping out my notebook, pen, and recorder, Terry. I’m just . . . just curious, that’s all.”

  “Uh-huh,” he replied dryly, knowing how her reporter’s “curiosity” had caused friction in their relationship in the past. “Look, I don’t know if they have any potential suspects, but the detective seemed to think we knew something. . . well, that Evan knew something.”

  She squinted. “Why Evan?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  But that wasn’t completely true. Terrence could sense, just like the detective, that Evan was hiding something about the shooting. He didn’t know what it was, but a gnawing part of him suspected it was bad, very bad. He just hoped it wasn’t something that could land his brother behind bars.

  “That’s odd,” C. J. said, still frowning. “I hope it doesn’t turn into anything.”

  “It won’t. We both had alibis. Evan was with me at the ocularist’s office. We were there all morning and most of the afternoon. We were there when that thing happened to Dante.”

  “Oh! Your appointment!” She broke into a smile. “I can’t believe I forgot to ask about it. How did it go? Did you get your prosthesis?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well?” She pushed herself to her elbows and sat up in bed beside him. “So let me see it then! Show it to me!”

  “Babe, I am tired as hell. Can’t we just—”

  “Please, Terry. Just for a minute?” she asked, clasping her hands together and poking out her bottom lip. She then gave him the full blast of doleful puppy eyes. “Pretty please?”

  Terrence hesitated. He was reluctant to put on the prosthesis, not because he was tired, but because he still wasn’t sure what C. J.’s reaction would be when she saw him looking so much like his old self. Would her insecurities and worries about him and their relationship come back?

  When they first started dating, C. J. reminded him of the man he once had been: a shallow, rich playboy who had literally walked right past her one day, almost hitting her with a door because he was more concerned with the model type he had on his arm. But the car accident and its aftermath had humbled Terrence. It had pummeled his ego and made him into a new man—a man he was finally proud of. He knew he had changed on the inside, but how would C. J. react if he looked like the old, shallow playboy again? Would she think they weren’t compatible anymore? Would she seriously consider dumping him?

  She laughed and placed a light kiss on his shoulder. “Come on! If you put it on, I won’t ask you for anything else tonight. I’ll leave you alone and let you sleep. I promise!”

  After a few seconds, he reluctantly pushed himself up from the mattress and rose to his feet. “All right. Fine,” he said, tossing off the bedsheets. “I’ll let you see it. I’ll be right back.”

  “If it’s better than the view I’m looking at right now,” she joked as she stared at his sculpted backside, “then I bet it looks amazing!”

  He returned to the bedroom a minute later and when C. J. saw him, she gaped.

  “Baby,” she whispered breathlessly, pushing herself off the bed and walking naked across the room toward him. She raised her hand to his face and tenderly rested her palm on his cheek. “It looks so good!”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” he asked, relieved to see her happy.

  “The doctor did a great job!” For some reason, tears were in her eyes. She cupped his face and kissed him. “I’m so happy for you, honey.”

  “You are?”

  “Of course I am!” A lone tear trickled onto her cheek and down her chin, and he quickly wiped it away with his thumb. “Why wouldn’t I be? I know you wanted this. I’m happy for you!” She sniffed and linked her arms around his neck. “We should celebrate!”

  He gave her an impish smile and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her flat against him. “Give me a few hours to regain my strength and we can do that.”

  She giggled and shook her head. “Not that kind of celebrating! I mean the kind of celebrating that involves wearing clothes, maybe eating some dinner over candlelight.”

  “Okay. How about this coming weekend? I can make reservations and take you out to a romantic dinner, and we can come back here later and celebrate my way.”

  “This weekend?” She grimaced and removed her hands from around his neck. “Sorry, baby, but I can’t. Daddy has this thing on Saturday that I—”

  Terrence sucked his teeth with annoyance, stopping her midsentence. He dropped his arm from around her and took a step back. “Damnit, C. J., when the hell are you not down there?”

  “Terry, we talked about this,” she began calmly, annoying him even more. “I told you my father was running for office now. Because of that and his church publicity crisis, I have to be in Raleigh more. You think I don’t want to be here with you? I do! But I promised my family that I would—”

  “But why can’t you tell them no sometimes? I mean . . . Goddamn! You have a life, too!”

  “Why are you yelling?”

  “Because I’m trying to make a point! You need to stand up to your family, dammit!”

  “Well, do you ever stand up to yours? Do you tell your family no? Of course not! You Murdochs always stick together!”

  “Don’t bring up my family! Don’t turn this around on me! You know this shit is different!”

  “No, it isn’t!”

  “Yes, it is! You know what your family—your father is asking you to do. They’re asking you to put on a fake smile and those ugly-ass church lady clothes and pretend to be the perfect preacher’s daughter, to be part of the perfect Christian family! And you know it’s all bullshit! What else are they gonna ask you to do, C. J.? Huh? When are you finally gonna put your foot down and say no?”

  She bit down hard on her bottom lip, looking bewildered and hurt. “Terry, I didn’t . . . I didn’t come here to argue with you. I came here to see you, to be with you. I missed you, baby! Why are you trying to pick a fight with me? Why are you so angry?”

  He lowered his head
and rubbed the tense muscles along the back of his neck.

  The truth was that Terrence wasn’t angry at C. J. as so much as he was angry at their circumstances.

  “Sometimes people grow apart, Terry,” Evan had told him today.

  Terrence didn’t want to admit it, but he could feel the distance growing between him and C. J., and that distance could be measured in more than the miles between Chesterton, Virginia, and her family’s church in Raleigh. It was a lot wider than that. Things were changing. He was healing and getting back into the swing of things, regaining his old life. She was drawing closer to her old family circle, her old church, and more specifically her ex-fiancé Shaun Clancy, who still worked at Aston Ministries, serving as assistant pastor at the flagship church and functioning as one of her father’s right-hand men.

  C. J. hadn’t mentioned Shaun tonight, but she had in the past, and every time she did Terrence’s jaw would tighten. He would unwittingly clench his fists at his sides, like he was preparing for a fight. He just couldn’t help himself.

  C. J.’s father had been the one to coax her into dating and getting engaged to Shaun six years ago, and he had almost succeeded in bullying her into marrying Shaun, too, until she finally woke up, rebelled, and fled the prison her family had constructed for her. Terrence worried if C. J. wasn’t vigilant, if she didn’t keep her guard up this time around, her family could play the same mind games and convince her to hook up with Shaun again.

  That’s not something she would do, Terrence would tell himself whenever that worry entered his mind. Give her more credit than that!

  C. J. wouldn’t fall prey to her family’s manipulations again. She loved Terrence and he loved her. No one could come between them, no matter how much distance they had from each other.

  So why did he still worry so much about the prospect of losing her?

  “Do you want me to leave?” she now asked quietly, gazing up at him. “If we’re just going to fight, I can go home . . . really. I don’t want to—”

  “No!” He took a deep breath, telling himself to get a grip. “No, I don’t want you to go. I’m . . . I’m sorry,” he whispered, taking her hand in his own. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. I don’t want to fight with you, either. It’s just . . . it’s just been a long day. I’m tired.”

  She nodded. “Okay, let’s go to sleep then.”

  A few minutes later, they were nestled beneath the sheets again. C. J. placed a series of butterfly kisses on his neck and his chin before she burrowed into the crook of his arm, resting her head on his shoulder.

  “’Night, Terry,” she said before closing her eyes.

  “Good night,” he replied, extinguishing his night table light and dropping the bedroom into darkness. He told himself that his doubts would disappear and he would feel better when he woke up in the morning, but he knew in his heart that probably wasn’t true.

  Chapter 4

  C. J.

  “Good afternoon,” C. J. said to the receptionist who sat behind the lacquer desk. On a wall behind the desk was a thirty-six-inch flat-screen television that displayed C. J.’s father’s sermon from that morning. The camera briefly panned across the auditorium filled by more than nine thousand parishioners before zeroing in on her father’s face doused with perspiration as he raced across the stage to the pulpit, leaving his audience captivated.

  “Afternoon, Miss Aston,” the young woman answered.

  C. J. walked past the desk and headed down the plush carpeted corridor of Aston Ministries, listening to the mellow sound track of gospel music playing on hidden speakers overhead. Her high-heeled feet felt heavy with trepidation as she walked, and not just because she was headed to her brother Victor’s office, a place she usually tried to avoid. She also was wary because she couldn’t keep from replaying in her head her night and morning with Terrence. Every time she thought about it, it filled her with unease.

  Even after they had taken a shower and made love yet again against the shower stall’s mosaic tiles, even after she had dressed and done her hair, even after he had made them a breakfast of bacon and eggs that they had eaten standing at his kitchen counter, C. J. had still felt like something was off between them. Before heading out the door, she had given him a kiss good-bye, putting all her love and lust for him into her kiss, but she hadn’t gotten the same in return. Something had held him back.

  It was no secret Terrence was frustrated with her because she was gone so much. In the beginning she had found it flattering that Terrence wanted her around all the time, that he seemed to need her to be there at his side. She never thought that in their relationship she would be the one reassuring him; she thought it would be the other way around. After all, Terrence was the more experienced one in their relationship, having had a long list of past girlfriends, whereas C. J. could count all her boyfriends with two sad little fingers. He knew how relationships went much better than she did and could take the highs and lows in stride.

  Terrence also knew that she was reluctant to play the role of prim and proper Courtney Jocelyn Aston again, but she had made a promise to her father that she would do so for the next few months, until he didn’t need her to do it anymore. She had explained her reasons to Terrence, and he had seemed to accept those reasons—grudgingly.

  So why is Terry still acting so weird? she wondered as she drew near Victor’s office door.

  He wasn’t trying to push her away, was he? Rather than say aloud that things weren’t working out anymore or that he was ready to move on to someone else, he was using some reverse psychology and forcing conflict, forcing her to break up with him.

  No, he wouldn’t do that, she thought. That was ridiculous and immature and totally unlike him. Terrence knew he could be honest with her. If he wanted to end it between them, all he had to do was say the words. It would break her heart, but she’d get over it. No, his sullenness and outright anger was due to something else—she could feel it. He just wasn’t telling her what it was.

  C. J. leaned her head through the opened doorway and gently rapped her knuckles on the door frame.

  “Hey, Brian, is Victor in?” she called out, peering into the reception area that featured a large desk, glass bookshelves, and several photos of her brother posing with his wife and son, Victor Jr. An adjacent wall featured photos of Victor with their father and a few celebrities who had appeared on Rev. Pete Aston’s Sunday worship broadcast. A zebra-print rug took up the center of the floor. An oversize gold cross hung on the back wall.

  Victor’s assistant, Brian, looked up from a notepad he was holding, and he quickly set it aside along with his pencil. Seeing her enter the office, his strikingly handsome face broke into a smile.

  “Mr. Aston is just finishing up a meeting, Courtney. It ran a little over, I think,” Brian said.

  She nodded and strolled into the room, glancing at his notepad as she neared his desk. She narrowed her eyes when she saw what he had been doing, sketching a child sitting on a sofa, backlit, holding a toy dump truck.

  “Who’s the little cutie?” she asked, pointing down at the drawing.

  “My little brother, Sydney. He turned three last week.”

  “Well, he’s adorable!”

  “Thanks. He’s a little terror, too. Mom caught him trying to finger paint on our collie.”

  C. J. laughed. “That drawing is really good. Where’d you learn to draw like that?”

  Brian’s olive-toned cheeks flushed crimson, and he bashfully lowered his dark eyes. “I didn’t learn it. I’ve just . . . kind of done it all my life. I like to sketch. I do it mostly when I’m bored.” He gazed around the cavernous office and sighed. “There isn’t much to do here all day but answer phones and fetch coffee. It helps to pass the time, I guess.”

  “Maybe you could make a career out of it. Go to an art school and refine your talent,” she said, sitting on the edge of his desk near a gold paperweight that, like everything else in the building, sported the emblem of Aston Ministries. “It might be
worth trying. I’d hate to see all that,” she said, gesturing down to the drawing again, “go to waste.”

  He shrugged and closed his notepad. “I thought about it. There’s this art college in Charlotte. I thought I might take a few classes, but . . .” His words drifted off.

  “But . . . what?” she asked, raising her brows.

  “Well, Victor . . .” He paused and seemed to catch himself. “I-I mean Mr. Aston said it would be a waste of time. He said the only guys who make money drawing pictures are the ones who do those caricatures at amusement parks, and you couldn’t live on that.”

  C. J. fought the urge to roll her eyes. She wasn’t surprised that her brother had tried to deter Brian from entering art college or pursuing his own dreams. He wouldn’t want his boy toy to get too far away from him.

  Brian was one of many pretty, young things that Victor kept on the side, despite the fact that he had a wife and son and projected the image of a straight, upstanding Christian who was the executive director of Aston Ministries. Her brother was an even worse hypocrite than her father had been before the old man learned better and changed his ways.

  “Look,” she said, leaning toward Brian and dropping her voice down to a whisper, “I know you think my brother has your best interest at heart, but I don’t think he’s the best person to give you advice on something like this.”

  Brian furrowed his brows. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, if you really want to do it, then do it! Don’t let anyone, including my brother, tell you—”

  She paused and looked up when Victor’s office door opened. Her brother stood in the doorway, smiling—a rare sight. Beside him was another young man, just as tall, tan, lithe, and attractive as Brian. Victor patted the young man on the shoulder as he exited his office and C. J. watched as Brian flinched. He then turned away from her and stared at his computer screen, like they hadn’t been talking just seconds ago. He began to type on his keyboard.

  “Thank you for stopping by, Diego,” Victor said, his voice oozing with honey.

  “Anytime, Mr. Aston,” the young man answered with a grin before strolling across the office and passing Brian’s desk. As he passed, C. J. rose to her feet and Brian glared up at Diego.