I didn’t know what those words meant, but they sounded like a smooth melody to me. Now that my heart was overflowing with love for this man, life was like a beautiful song.
“I’m sorry.” Hayden pulled me closer to him in bed.
I traced the rough stubble on his chin with my index fingertip, looking into his lazy eyes. “Why are you sorry? What did you do?”
“I got carried away in the shower and I didn’t protect you. It was very careless of me, and I’m sorry.”
I allowed his words to tumble around in my head a few times before they finally sunk in. Before Hayden, Tobias was the only lover I’d ever had. He and I had always used condoms although I’d been on birth control pills religiously since the day I left my parents’ house for my first tour as the opening act for Alicia Keys, Trey Songz, and Lalah Hathaway. My mom had preached to me to keep my head on my shoulders, my dress down, and my legs closed, but she was realistic too. So, two months before I hit the road, she took me to the gynecologist for a full exam and a prescription for birth control pills. And I have taken them faithfully every day since. That’s why I wasn’t worried about getting pregnant from the shower sexcapades Hayden and I’d had a little while go. But I was concerned about other health issues that could develop from our recklessness.
“I’m good, babe,” Hayden assured me as if he’d read my mind. “In my line of work… Well, in my former line of work, I had to undergo physical exams quarterly, which included blood tests for communicable diseases and drugs. I was given a clean bill of health right before I left Germany to come here for my private retreat, so you have nothing to worry about. I swear to God. But I promise to never fail to protect you again.”
I nodded my head and snuggled closer to Hayden as sleep began to pull on my eyelids. After using so much energy making love in the shower, I was exhausted and ready for an afternoon nap. But even though I was drained, I couldn’t ignore my curiosity. I wanted to ask Hayden about his former career. What kind of job required frequent physical exams? He was fit and strong enough to be a boxer or a body builder. Then, again, I could see him ripping European runways too. Yeah, he most definitely had that kind of pretty-boy appearance and mad swag like a model. Damn, I really wanted the details on him, but I wouldn’t ask because if I were to dig into his business, he would have every right to dig into mine. And I wasn’t ready to introduce him to Zyeshia just yet.
I was running out of time, though. Hayden had made that crystal clear to me last night before he put me to bed and made slow, lazy, old-fashioned love to me and rocked me to sleep afterwards as I rested on top of him. Before this day was over, he wanted us to come clean with each other about our lives away from the mountains to determine if there was any possibility of a future for us. I didn’t know exactly how Hayden felt about me or what kind of relationship he thought we could have between Munich and Atlanta, but I wanted him in my life. I couldn’t imagine my future without him in it. But I was worried about a few things. Could he handle the stardom of Zyeshia and did he have anything to offer her besides good looks and a big dick?
I was too sleepy and weak to give it much thought as Hayden placed a kiss on my forehead and pulled me even closer to him. I breathed in the scent of his freshly-showered skin, and it caressed my nostrils. I felt at home in his arms right now no matter what the unpredictable future had in store for us beyond our departure from Blue Ridge. So, I sent a silent, quick prayer to heaven, asking God to somehow bind Hayden’s heart to mine forever. And I sealed my request with faith just like Granny had taught me.
A few seconds later, just before sleep totally lulled me into its cloud, I felt Hayden’s warm breath fan across my face when he whispered, “I love you, Natalie Taylor. Damn , I love you.”
When Hayden carefully maneuvered his SUV off the dirt road at the foot of the mountain and onto the highway, I shot him a side eye. “Where are we going?”
“You’re with me, babe, so it shouldn’t matter where we’re going.” He reached over and squeezed my thigh tenderly. “You’re safe, so just relax and ride with me.”
“I know I’m safe with you, but just in case you haven’t noticed, there aren’t many folks around here with skin the same color as mine. Can you guarantee me you can protect me if we run into some mean people who don’t like girls who look like me?”
“If anyone looks at you cross eyed, they’re dead on the spot.”
I wanted to laugh, thinking it was a joke, but when I looked over at Hayden and he took his eyes off the road for a few seconds to meet my gaze, I saw fire in his eyes. I nearly choked on air when I read the lethal message in his shiny orbs. Did I really believe he would kill someone for mean mugging me? No. But I knew in my heart that he wouldn’t allow anyone to touch a single follicle of hair on my head if they would try to harm me.
I swallowed hard and tore my eyes away from Hayden’s scary face. I remained silent for the remainder of the ride, vibing and nodding my head to the beat of some lit music by my boy, Yohumba. It was the only CD on Hayden’s digital playlist by an artist I was actually familiar with. Those other singers and groups were foreign to me, but Yohumba was one of my favorite artists in the industry. In fact, we were personal friends and had recorded a platinum-selling hit together. The dude was insanely talented. No one could mix rap and traditional reggae the way he could. His music always put me in a zone because his beats never failed to bring heat and he spit deep lyrics with messages especially for our people on all seven continents.
So, I reclined my climate-controlled seat and chilled to the fiery mix and flow of fellow music maker, Yohumba. Hayden’s hand was still on my thigh, squeezing it and occasionally, patting it to the rhythm of the music. I was comfortable and content on the ride to the unknown with the man I wanted to give my heart to at the wheel. I took frequent peeps at him, admiring his strong profile. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days and the thin layer of hair on his chin looked sexy as hell to me. I was a sucker for a rugged man, and this one was ruggedness personified. But even though Hayden was rough around the edges and sometimes as stubborn as a bull, he didn’t mind showing me that smooth, caring, gentlemanly side of him that was also romantic.
I snapped out of my thoughts when he turned off on an exit. I turned my head from left to right, taking in my surroundings. The next thing I knew, we were in the left turning lane on a very busy street about to whip into the parking lot of a Wal-Mart Supercenter.
What the hell?!
“Um, bae, why are we at Wal-Mart? You should’ve told me we were coming here.”
I tugged on the bottom of his extra-large Adidas hoodie I had thrown on in a hurry over a pair of denim leggings before I dashed out the door behind him when he’d asked me to go for a ride with him. Had I known we were going to venture this far off the mountain and come in contact with globs of people, I would’ve faked a headache and kept my ass at the cabin.
“Hayden ?”
He eased into a parking space and killed the engine before he finally acknowledged me. “I need mushrooms, babe. I can’t prepare my famous marinara sauce without fresh mushrooms now, can I?”
“I’ll wait in the truck,” I announced, ignoring his question about some freaking mushrooms.
“The hell you are. I’m not going to leave you in here while I go inside to shop. Now, let’s go.”
Hayden opened his door, exited the SUV, and walked around it to open my door. I sat there with my arms folded underneath my breasts, looking straight ahead through the windshield. I saw all kinds of people rushing in and out of America’s one-stop retail paradise.
“Stop pouting like a little, spoiled-ass brat and get out of the truck, Natalie.”
“Didn’t I just say I’m not going in there?”
Without so much as a grunt, Hayden reached over, released my seatbelt, and snatched me up from my seat.
Chapter Sixteen
Hayden
“Hayden, put me down! If you don’t, I’m going to scream.”
“Like hell you will.”
I wasn’t the least bit concerned about Natalie screaming because she wouldn’t dare. The last thing she wanted to do was draw attention to herself. That’s the reason why she was pitching such a fit in the first place. She was terrified of being out in public, risking the chance that she’d be recognized by a fan like the girl with the purple hair who’d noticed her Christmas Eve in the town square. Until Selig dropped the bombshell about her secret celebrity status, I’d blown the incident off as a case of mistaken identity. But now, it all made sense. I distinctly recalled the purple-headed youngster yelling Zyeshia at the top of her lungs. And that’s when Natalie took off running toward my SUV, ignoring her star-struck fan.
“I’m not playing, Hayden. You better put me down right now, you big-ass bully !”
I knew my laughter was pissing her off all the more, but I couldn’t help it. She was so cute whenever she was mad with me, and I loved it because it gave me an excuse to spoil her when it was time to make up. “Okay, I’ll put you down if you promise to go inside and shop for a few items with me. Deal?”
Her pretty brown eyes rolled to the sky as she sucked her teeth. “Yeah, yeah, yeah… I’ll go inside with you and grab some mushrooms and shit. Now, put me down!”
I slowly placed her feet on the ground, and as I’d expected, she immediately reached for the door handle in an attempt to hop back inside the vehicle. But she wasn’t fast enough. Before she could even pull the handle, I pressed a button on my key fob, locking all four doors as well as the hatch.
“Uggghhh! You make me sick!”
I doubled over, laughing again when she folded her arms over her breasts and growled at me. She looked like a little kid with her face wrinkled in a scowl. How could a woman as adorable as an angel and as sexy as sin amuse a grouch like me to the point that I laughed so freely? Selig would think I’d gone bonkers or was on drugs if he could see me now. He wouldn’t understand that Natalie brought out the best in me. Because of her, I was a new man. Before she invaded my world, I’d been merely existing, but today, I was enjoying a wonderful life even though my career was still in limbo.
Deciding it was time to stop my taunting, I backed my sweetheart against the truck door and placed a palm on each side of her body, touching the window. She was trapped with no way out. Damn , she looked so innocent and vulnerable looking up at me expectantly. This side of her personality gave me a testosterone surge.
“Babe, please go into the store with me. I won’t feel comfortable leaving you inside my truck alone because of what you said earlier. You were right. There are assholes around here that are fucked up in the head over the beautiful color of your skin. And if one of them were to see you sitting all by yourself inside this expensive German-made SUV and decided to approach you, do you know what would happen?”
She shook her head lazily from side to side and bit down on her plump bottom lip with her gaze still boring into mine.
“I would be forced to commit murder with my bare hands. Now, let’s go, babe.”
With no further protest or attitude, Natalie raked her fingers through her hair, brushing it away from her face. Then she pulled the hood on my sweatshirt over her curls. I intertwined my fingers through hers and led her away from the SUV with a smile on my face. As we walked toward the entrance of the store, I felt her hand tremble slightly. My heart empathized with her because I knew the feeling well. In Germany and other parts of Europe, I too, was a prisoner of celebrity life, but I isolated to maintain my privacy. Here in a rural town in Georgia, USA, I was free from fans, the paparazzi, and the mental stresses of my career, but Natalie was still trapped.
I wondered if there would ever come a day when she and I would be able walk casually, hand in hand down a street in any given city in the world as a pro baller and his superstar-singer wife without being mobbed by fans and the media.
Wife? Where the fuck did that come from?! Man, I have fallen in too deep.
When I entered the master suite, the scent of honeysuckle kissed my nostrils and danced all around me. It was that damn expensive body wash and lotion Natalie pampered her skin with every day. The shit was like liquid sex oozing from her pores. My mom used Molton Brown shower and bath products too, but it smelled a hell of a lot different on her skin than it did on Natalie’s. My blood was simmering as I made my way over to the bed and took a seat next to her sleeping body. I wanted to wake her up, flip her over on all fours, and take her from the back while I squeezed her soft, round ass with both hands. But I would let her rest tonight because she was tired.
After I prepared and served her a dinner of grilled chicken parmesan over angel hair pasta smothered with Aunt Gerda’s famous marinara sauce with lots of mushrooms, we cleaned the kitchen together. Then we gobbled down a dozen of her mom’s sugar cookies while we watched the end of an action flick in front of the fireplace and took a few silly selfies together and shots of each other with our phone cameras. I noticed that Natalie only ate two cookies to my ten. I admired her discipline to maintain her figure, but I didn’t want her to become enslaved to the upkeep of her appearance for the benefit of her fans. It was one thing to eat healthy and exercise regularly in order to be in shape so you could perform your job like I had done over the course of my career. But I didn’t want Natalie to deny herself special treats so she could remain streamlined and able to squeeze into the provocative outfits I’d seen her wearing on some of her videos.
Now that she was my woman, she was in need of a major wardrobe shake up, and more than likely, I would fire her stylist and find a new one before she hit the stage again. I wasn’t going to stand by and allow her to put her ass, tummy, tits, and thighs on display anymore. Those days were over. Natalie was a talented enough singer to sell millions of CD’s and pack out venues in every corner of the world without showing excessive amounts of her skin—my skin . And as soon as we were married and she started having my babies…
I closed my eyes when I realized the direction my thoughts had taken. I inhaled deeply and rubbed both hands over my head. The tiny spikes of newly-grown hair tickled my palms and fingertips. Why the hell was I hearing wedding bells and babies crying all of a sudden? I had never entertained the idea of getting married or fathering children before. Truth be told, I had sworn off relationships and marriage during my rookie season after a pretty face and a decent piece of ass almost caused me to lose my focus. Since then, I had encountered a myriad of women who had gladly allowed me to fuck them on day one, and by the end of the night, they wanted a commitment from me. That was bullshit .
Lots of my teammates, past and present, as well as other ballers around the league had fallen for the old pussy trap. But not Viper. A woman who could only hold my attention and stimulate me under the sheets wasn’t worth my time beyond the fuck.
Natalie had worked her magic on me before I ever laid a finger on her. It was her courage to vacation alone in the mountains and the spunk she’d demonstrated with her subtle warning that she would shoot me or crack my head open with her bat if I were to cross the line with her. Then she’d cooked for me, allowed me to see her vulnerable side, and gave me a priceless Christmas present. By then, she was under my skin, so when we made love the first time, it sealed the deal. Now, she had me thinking about making her my wife and the mother of my babies. But before we could even explore the possibility of a life together, we needed to exchange certain truths.
So, in the morning during breakfast, I would initiate the conversation that Natalie had been avoiding since Christmas. I had to admit that I’d allowed her to slide around it today during lunch and dinner, but now, time was up. In a few days she would return home to Atlanta, and according to an article I’d read online that Selig had sent, she had a few performances coming up soon. That’s why it was important to confess our truths and express our feelings for each other before Natalie left the mountain. She had every right to know about the other half of my life, and I was ready for her to reveal her secret side to me as well. And once our lives became ope
n books with no more secrets, I would tell Natalie that I was in love with her and wanted her to be mine permanently.
“Do you like that?”
“Hell yeah, I like it,” I rasped in a deep, pre-dawn growl and grabbed two hands full of Natalie’s curls when her juicy lips covered the head of my cock again.
She circled the circumference of the meaty tip with her tongue and released a generous amount of saliva to lubricate me before she lowered her head to take in a few more inches. She moaned and slurped when I raised my hips and pressed my heels deep into the mattress and tapped her tonsils, but she didn’t gag. Instead, she tightened her jaws and increased her suction as her fingertips caressed my balls gently. Her tongue was busy snaking up and down the length of me, causing me to whimper like a helpless little bitch. Up and down, Natalie’s head bobbed rhythmically on my dick while sucking the fucking life out of me. She was the singer in the relationship, but damn if I didn’t feel good enough to strike up a tune.
My nut was coming. I felt it stirring in the pit of my stomach. “Ah shit! Hisssssss! That’s it, babe! That’s it!”
Just as I felt the first flutters of the wave, the damn phone rang. Once, twice, three times… It continued to ring.
Natalie’s head stopped moving, and she relaxed her oral grip on my cock. I tried to coax her back into action by pressing her head down, but she pushed my hand away and sat up in bed. I wanted to fucking scream. I reached up and stroked her velvety face with the back of my hand. She wiped her pouty lips with her palm and smiled at me. Pissed, I reached over to the nightstand and snatched the receiver from its cradle. Selig’s home phone number flashed across the caller ID screen, so I quickly pressed the power button and brought the phone to my ear.
“This better be important, Selig, or you’re a dead man.”
Hot Holiday Love Page 10