Wrapping her arms around her body, Anika hugged herself as she proceeded to Chloe’s car. She needed to get away and Chloe’s SUV was her ticket out of there. Since Devon had driven as well, Chloe could ride back with him. “Lawd, quit,” Anika begged, as a wave of intense craving for Deshawn filled and infused her body with heat that only he could quench.
A strong hand wrapped itself around her upper arm, easily halting her steps. Anika turned in surprise. “Excuse me?”
“I’m not letting you get away from me so easy this time, Anika,” Deshawn told her sternly.
Anika arched one shapely brow. “Release me, Deshawn.”
“Since I first met you, you’ve been either walking or running away from me. It’s getting old, Anika.”
He pulled her to him and recaptured her lips sweetly. “I . . . love . . . you. Forgive me.”
Each word was enunciated with a brief but tender kiss upon her lips, her cheeks, and her brow.
“I’ll never forgive you,” she breathed. “And I’ll never forget.”
The moon silhouetted their figures in the parking area where they stood between two SUVs that shielded them from anyone’s sight. Deshawn turned her body, pressing her against one of the SUVs as his tongue plunged between her lips.
“I can’t get enough of you,” he told her, as his hands moved down to her buttocks.
Anika hated herself as she gave in to him. When his hands lifted her body up easily, she opened her legs wider and wrapped them around his hips with a moan, causing her skirt to brazenly raise up around her waist. “Oh, Deshawn ...” she moaned, as he sucked deeply at her tongue, causing her heart to hammer loudly in her ears.
His hands moved beneath her shirt to massage her breasts with heat.
Anika released a high-pitched sound from the back of her throat.
Deshawn raised her shirt and brassiere up to look down at the chocolate mounds he held in his hands. “They’re beautiful, baby,” he told her, before his thumb teased the hard throbbing nipples with skill.
Anika let her hands push his head toward her exposed breasts, wanting those lips to suckle her nipple as if he drew life from them. And he did. His tongue wildly licked until Anika arched her back from the cool metal of the SUV’s door and released an excited gasp that showed like smoke in the cool night air. Her core throbbed against the moist seat of her panties as she grinded her hips into his.
Deshawn used his hands to hold Anika’s breasts close together so that he could lick and suck passionately on both at the same time. He reveled in Anika’s body jerking in reaction to his skill. The familiar scent of apples intrigued him as he buried his face in her cleavage.
Anika wanted these moments with him. She wanted him. When he moved his hand to play in the soft mound between her legs she opened them wider and purred as he stroked her. When he worked her underwear down her hips, she kicked them from her ankles, uncaring that they were outside and could be walked up on at any moment. When he unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants she helped him, letting the jeans and boxers fall to his ankles with a whoosh.
Eager to bury his hardness deeply within her, Deshawn unrolled a condom and sheathed himself before he lifted Anika and then lowered her down onto his throbbing shaft with a grunt. There was heat, there was softness, there was hardness, there was pleasure, and there were heated movements as they both released eight months of celibacy upon each other with pure electricity. The crisp cool air didn’t penetrate their zone of heat as they sought and gave pleasure to one another in a rush.
“Anika,” Deshawn gasped harshly as he felt his thighs begin to quiver with his oncoming climax.
“Deshawn, baby, I missed you so,” she admitted in pure emotion as he tightened his grip on her buttocks against the SUV and rocked into her sweetness as only he could.
“I missed you too, baby. Don’t leave me,” he begged roughly, as his buttocks clenched with every deep thrust.
Anika cried out in pleasure as she pressed hot kisses to the side of his face.
“You not alone, baby,” he gasped, turning so that his back was against the SUV as Anika worked her hips to bring them both to white-hot spasms of release.
Their bodies spent, they slackened and then sank to the cold grass beneath their feet, unable to find the strength to stand.
∞
Chloe turned and looked at Devon with a surprised look on her face. “A public declaration of love . . . from Deshawn?” she asked. Even he wouldn’t go that far just to get a girl in his bed. “He’s that serious, huh?”
“Told you.”
“I’m still mad at him. And I haven’t had a chance to catch him alone, but I’m going to tell him about himself.”
“You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t, Chloe.”
She leaned up and turned around to look at Devon. “Are you being—”
He leaned forward, grabbed her neck with one hand, and pulled her forward to kiss him before she could start an argument.
∞
Cyrus was absolutely salivating as the crowd began to whisper with the news. Anika and Deshawn? How’d he let that one slip under his nose?
His friend Roscoe turned to him. “Now, don’t get me wrong or nothing, that boy is a good man, but he don’t mean that girl nothing but trouble.”
The other men assembled there agreed.
“Hell, I’m expecting the other one to start actin’ up on that model gal any day,” another one piped in.
“Look how he was messing with Poochie and that girl from Charleston. ’Member them two gals hooked up in the road outside his house one day? Man, I sat for a good hour watching them arguin’ and carryin’ on till he just went in the house and left ’em out dere.”
“Yeah, I ’member that too.”
“Yeah, but as many men as Poochie done run through, she don’t deserve no better. That gal hotter than a tin roof in the summertime.”
“Well, she can’t help it ’cause her mama was fast too growing up.”
“Was?”
The men all laughed.
“Yup, she got it honest.”
Cyrus really liked Anika and he had to admit that he wasn’t pleased at all to know that she was tangling up with that other Jamison twin. He’d make it his business to talk to Anika first chance he got. She deserved better.
“How ’bout the time when he was fifteen and his mama found that Wiggums girl in his bedroom . . . ?”
∞
Poochie pushed Tank off of her, slipping him out of her just as he was climaxing, but she didn’t care. Something was going on with her ex and Chloe’s friend from Jersey. She knew it from that day at the hunting camp. So that’s why Deshawn turned down the chance to hook up with her again. For her!
“Damn, Poochie, what’s up with you?” Tank asked, standing behind her with his pants around his ankles and his penis in his hand. “We gone do this or what?”
Agitated, Poochie waved her hand at him dismissively as she arranged her clothes. “I gotta go find Deshawn.”
“Yo, you started this, begging me to—”
“Shut up.”
“You just mad ’cause of what you saw. Besides, I knew that anyway.”
Poochie whirled on him. “What?”
Tank removed the condom from his limp member, carelessly dropping in into the leaves at his feet before he leaned down to pull his boxers and pants up. “Today Lamont was going to try and holla at her and Deshawn stopped him.”
Poochie was stunned. Deshawn had never shown any jealousy for her.
“You can’t compete, so get over it,” he told her, with no concern for her feelings.
“Mind your business.”
“Hell, I know you only came on to me to get back at Deshawn,” he told her as he climbed into his car. “But guess what. . . he don’t give a damn.”
He laughed as he pulled off and left her standing alone in the woods.
∞
“Where are you, Anika?” he roared, slamming the pay phone into the wall
of the glass cubicle and shattering it into a million tiny pieces. He didn’t flinch from the sharp darts of pain in his hand or the blood pulsing in oozing crimson from his injury, dripping bright red spots on the cement
After watching, waiting, and wanting to kill Anika, he had had no sight of her at home or work. Finally, pretending to be a contributor to The Haven, he’d just been told that Ms. Foxx was out of town indefinitely and then asked if he would like to speak to someone else instead.
Hell no!
Yesterday he had walked straight to her house, used an ax to break the lock on her garage, and taken out his frustrations on the car he saw her brother drop off there instead. He would have broken into the house but he knew it had an alarm from the sign in the front yard.
An elderly woman walking her poodle caught sight of him standing there with crazed, darting eyes and thought him to be one of those homeless people with mental problems. “Oh dear,” she whispered to herself, wishing she could cross the street before nearing him.
She tightened her arthritic grip on her leather leash and pressed herself against the fences of the house as she passed him with wary eyes and quick as possible feet.
He shoved his bleeding hand into his coat pocket and made his way up the block to the boardinghouse. His stomach tightened at the very sight of Ms. Little half-heartedly sweeping the front porch. Diverting his eyes from hers, he climbed the stairs.
Ms. Little eyed him, her face filled with disgust as she sucked a piece of errant grits from between her false teeth. That boy spelled trouble with a capital T. She didn’t like anything about him except his rent every week. Not his clothes, his looks, his shifty eyes, or his lack of manners. And especially not that locked trunk at the foot of that bed.
Only thing she wanted from him was respect and her rent every Friday. Since he was late on that, she damn sure didn’t feel she was getting the other. The nerve of him . . . ain’t paid rent and think he gone lay up in here all day.
“You don’t work no more?” she spat as soon as his foot hit the porch.
He tried to ignore her, continuing on into the house. His hand now throbbed with sharp stabbing pain and he wanted to tend to it before it got infected.
“You don’t hear me talking to you?” she yelled with indignation.
Pausing in the doorway, he looked down at her over his shoulder but said nothing.
The look of pure hatred and venom in his face frightened her and she recoiled from it. This boy is crazy. “You . . . you have my money by Friday, you hear?” she told him with more bravado than she felt.
Chapter 15
Be With You
That Sunday was not a good day for Anika. She felt like an alcoholic with a hangover. Sex with Deshawn was her vice and she was definitely in the throes of remorse because of her weakness the night before.
“And on someone’s car,” she moaned into the pillow that she had pressed to her face.
She let her mind drift back to their heated moments last night. . . .
“Say you love me, Anika,” he had whispered against her neck as they both struggled for control of their hearts and their breath, lying shamelessly on the ground between two SUVs.
She was gasping so hard for air that she couldn’t speak even if she dared to try. She shook her head no, swallowing back the tears that threatened to fall. As the passion subsided and the cold of the night penetrated the heat they caused, she realized what she had done. “I need time, Deshawn,” she told him, lying as she sought space from him. She rose, grabbing her discarded panties as she pulled her skirt back down over her hips, looking around to make sure they were still alone in the grassy parking area.
Deshawn climbed to his feet as well. “Give me a second chance and I’ll prove to you that I love you.”
“That’s why you just had sex with me upside a truck, right?”
Deshawn frowned as he looked at her. “I don’t recall you saying stop.”
Anika flushed with the truth of his words. “Look, Deshawn. I need to think ... I need to—”
“Get away from me, right?” Deshawn pulled up his pants and zipped them. “We’re right back to square one, right?”
“Having good sex doesn’t mean that problems—”
Deshawn smiled cockily. “Good, huh?”
Anika had to bite back a smile of her own.
The sound of voices nearing filtered to them.
“Can I take you home?” he asked, reaching for her hand.
“I’m going to drive Chloe’s SUV actually.”
Thankfully when she had asked for some time to think last night, he agreed. She went back to Cloe’s and took a bath before going straight to bed. She had never wanted to be a woman who let that little hot spot between her legs overrule her brain.
Well, she had failed miserably last night.
Even though she gave in to the passion, she had no intention of becoming involved with Deshawn again. She just wouldn’t do it to herself. Last night had been a major mistake. A setback of her resolve not to fall under his spell again. A serious lapse in her sanity.
“No need crying over spilled milk,” she told herself with false bravado. “Today’s a new day. Last night is in the past and forgotten.”
She tried to repeat those words when she stood naked in the mirror of her bathroom and saw the telltale love marks on her collarbone and breast. Furious with herself, Anika screamed out dramatically. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she said over and over as she stared at her reflection.
She had let a loving word and dimpled smile make her lose her damn mind again.
∞
Deshawn had tossed and turned all night long. His thoughts were filled with those explosive, stolen moments with Anika last night at the fair. Thoughts of the devilment Poochie might be up to also troubled him as well. Last night while he was in bed, reveling in those precious moments with Anika, he had heard a car pull up in his driveway. Curious, he got out of bed and looked out the window to see Poochie’s car.
He immediately pulled on his sweatpants and T-shirt and went downstairs to get rid of her before Anika or Chloe got word that she was at his house. He met her on the porch, closing the door firmly behind himself.
“Oh, so you doin’ tributes now, huh?” she asked as she stepped out of her car. “How long you been messin’ with that trick?”
Deshawn tensed with anger. “She’s not a trick. And get from round here with all that drama, Poochie.”
She came toward the porch with angry strides. “I’m not gone let you or nobody else make me feel like I’m less of a woman than somebody else,” she shouted, sure that his neighbors could hear her if they tried hard enough.
“Don’t get in my face, Poochie, I’m warning you,” he told her with a stern voice.
She stood on the step just below the porch where he stood. She raised her hand to point her finger in his face. “Oh, what you gone do? You hit women now?”
‘This is the same reason why I don’t fool up with your crazy butt now! ” he told her, moving her hand out of his face. “Why you always gotta act so stupid?”
“Oh, I was stupid for giving you some of this,” she spat.
Deshawn laughed. “Who haven’t you given it to?”
When she swung to slap him. Deshawn caught her hand easily in his strong grasp. Poochie snatched her arm away. “You didn’t know how to handle all of this anyway.”
She turned to march back to her car.
“Must have done something right, you at my doorstep at midnight.”
Poochie had flipped him the bird before she climbed back into her car. “I’m gonna make you pay for tryin’ to play me in front of the whole town. You and your little girlfriend.”’
Deshawn was glad to see her taillights.
Still, he didn’t know what the little nut was up to. The last thing he needed while he was busy trying to woo Anika was Poochie’s lunatic behind causing more drama. He wished he’d never accepted her number from Devon that day.
&nbs
p; ∞
Anika decided to go with Chloe and Devon to church. The way all eyes were on her when she followed Chloe down the aisle to a front pew, she felt like the second coming of Mary. Deshawn’s stunt last night was the talk of the town. Everyone who hadn’t already met her wanted to see the girl who had captured Deshawn’s heart. . . for now.
“Welcome to a small town,” Chloe whispered in her ear as they tried hard to ignore the stares and listen to the sermon.
If that wasn’t bad enough, after church Cyrus walked up to her and asked if he could speak to her “private like.”
“What’s wrong, Mr. Cyrus?” she asked, concerned by his serious expression.
“You’re a real nice girl,” he began, looking quite spiffy in his brown wool suit that was a little too large for his small frame.
When he pulled a handkerchief from the inside pocket of his jacket, Anika just smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Cyrus. I think you’re nice too. In fact I ought to take you back to Jersey for my granny Bert.”
“Deshawn’s Nana Lil and my wife were the best of friends so she would chase us in our dreams. Believe dat,” he told her with a toothy grin. “But I didn’t want to talk to you ’bout me. I really like that Jamison boy, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t take kindly to the thought of you two together.”
Anika smiled reassuringly. “I guess you saw the spectacle last night, huh?”
Cyrus wiped his brow yet again. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt. Find you a nice boy, get married, and have some babies. That boy ain’t no more got the notion of marriage in him than I do.”
Anika leaned down and kissed his cheek. “Thank you for caring, but don’t worry, there is nothing going on between Deshawn and me.” Nothing except the best sex I ever had in my life, she thought. “That was just his idea of a joke. Don’t take it serious.”
“A joke? I didn’t find it funny,” Cyrus scoffed.
“Well, that’s all it was to me.”
∞
Anika and Chloe fixed a huge Sunday meal of baked ham, macaroni and cheese, candied yams with pineapples, collard greens, brown rice, cornbread, and peach cobbler. Devon even cooked deer meat and Cyrus brought the men a bottle of Crown Royal.
Heavenly Match Page 17