“Hey, DayVon,” Jordan said as he sat beside his biological father. His father was GOAT right now, and Alex understood that as he and Kari sat across from Jordan and DayVon. But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
DayVon motioned for his driver to go, and the limousine pulled away. “You have good security,” DayVon said to Alex as he looked back.
Jordan looked back too. He saw nothing. “How can you tell?” Jordan asked.
“Because, on the island where I come from, I have good security too,” said DayVon, and he, Jordan, and Kari laughed. Alex didn’t crack a smile.
“What do you do for a living,” Jordan asked DayVon, “that you can afford limousines like my Dad can?”
Alex was pleased when Jordan referred to him as his dad, even with his biological father in front of them.
“I’m in the import/export business, young man,” said DayVon. “Sugar cane is my game. I am quite successful at it.”
Jordan smiled. “That’s good to know,” he said, and the threesome laughed again.
“One day you will take over my company for me,” DayVon said to Jordan.
“I can’t,” said Jordan, quickly nixing that idea. “I’m taking over my Dad’s company someday.”
Alex’s heart soared, and so did Kari’s, although she could see the disappointment in DayVon’s eyes.
“Okay, well, we’ll see what tomorrow holds,” was all DayVon would say about it, as he and Alex exchanged a glance. And then the drive became a quiet, silent ride.
Until they arrived at their destination. When Alex and Kari saw that it was a muscle car dealership, they looked at each other. And then they looked at DayVon. I know better than this, Alex thought.
“What’s this?” asked Jordan.
“It’s a car dealership,” said DayVon. “Go pick out any car you want on this lot.”
Jordan was shocked. “Really?”
“Yes, really! Happy birthday, son. You know I wasn’t going to omit to give you a gift for your birthday!”
Jordan smiled from ear to ear and hugged DayVon. He was so excited, and so afraid his parents would nix the idea, that he didn’t even look at them. He, instead, hurried out of the car and onto the car lot.
But Kari and Alex were blown away. “A car?” Kari asked DayVon. “What are you doing?”
“I have so much to make up for,” said DayVon. “I’m only giving him the best gift I could come up with.”
“I understand that, Von,” said Kari, “but you still should have informed Alex and me. We aren’t ready for him to own a car! He’s not ready for that.”
“He’s sixteen!”
“He just turned sixteen!” Kari fired back.
“He’s not getting a car,” said Alex firmly.
DayVon’s jaw tightened when Alex laid down the law. Who did he think he was, DayVon wondered. “So what do you want me to do?” he asked.
“You’ve done it already,” Kari said, and got out of the limo to go get Jordan.
Alex looked at DayVon. “Don’t you ever pull that shit again,” he warned.
“He’s my son,” said DayVon. “I can pull any shit I want.”
“In the eyes of the law,” said Alex, “he’s mine.”
“Not for long,” said DayVon, as he opened the door. “Not for long, my friend!” he added, and got out of the limo.
Alex got out, too, and watched as Kari began escorting a now upset Jordan away from all of those muscle cars and back to where he stood. DayVon arrived over there and comforted his son, even as Kari had to chastise him.
And when they made it back to the limo, Jordan was looking at Alex as if he was the one who blocked his chance. When he moved past Alex, with a heavy-duty attitude, to get back into the limo, Alex grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him back toward him. “Drop the attitude,” he ordered him.
Jordan tried his best to drop it, but he was too upset.
Alex saw it too. “Right is still right,” he said to his son,” and wrong is still wrong. He should have come to your mother and me and discussed this gift with us before he presented it to you. He didn’t do that. He was wrong. You understand what I’m saying, Jordan?”
“Yes, sir,” he said, but it was obvious to Alex that Jordan was too upset and disappointed to understand anything. He released him, and let him get back into the limousine.
Kari shook her head, as if she was still upset with DayVon, too, as she got back into the limo.
Alex noticed, as DayVon got back in, that he had a smug and satisfied look on his face, despite Jordan’s distress. He wasn’t disappointed in the least, as if he knew what their reaction was going to be all along, and, more importantly, who Jordan would blame.
Alex got in, too, and they left the dealership the way they had come: in silence.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The next day, Kari opened her eyes in bed and saw her husband lying beside her, staring at her.
She smiled, drew their satin sheets closer against her naked body, and smiled. “Hey,” she said to him.
“Hey,” he said to her.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
“I slept okay.” Then he smiled. “Just not as well as you did.”
Kari laughed. “I think I was tired.”
“What do you have planned for today?” Alex asked her.
“My usual.”
Alex had no idea what her usual consisted of. He was usually working when he was in town, or was not in town at all. “Which is?” he asked her.
“It’s Saturday, so I have a standing hair appointment that I always try to keep, and then I usually go to lunch.”
“A hair appointment? At a salon?”
Kari grinned. “That’s usually where you get your hair done. Why?”
“I’m sure any stylist in this town will be happy to have the wife of Alex Drakos as their client, and will gladly come to you.”
“I know, but I’ve been going to that salon for years. I like going there. That’s where I find out what’s going on around town, and get all the gossip in the black community. It’s a social gathering as much as a hair appointment.”
Alex understood that. Some men rave about barber shops that way. As for him, he wasn’t the barbershop type. “Then lunch afterwards you said?”
“That’s usually my routine, yes. And then I get some work done of course.”
“Always work,” Alex said. “But you go to lunch alone?”
“Sometimes I go with Faye, or meet up with some other friends. But mostly I go alone, yes.”
Alex hated that he was not more involved in any of her daily routines. He hated the idea of his wife sitting in some café eating alone while he was what? Always too busy. Always working.
“Why are you asking about my routine?” Kari asked him.
“I’ll go with you today,” Alex said.
Kari stared at him. “You’ll go with me where, Alex?”
“To your hair appointment.”
Kari smiled. “I don’t think so,” she said.
“I’m serious!”
“Alex, it can take hours. It will take hours.”
“So?”
“So?”
“So, I want to hang out with you.”
Kari was touched by his desire, but she wasn’t going to torture the man. “Hang out with me after the salon,” she said. “I’ll text you when I’m almost done. You can drop me off and pick me up later. Because trust me, you’ll be glad you did.”
Alex laughed. “Okay, I’ll take your word for it. But come on,” he said, getting out of bed. “Time to get up and at it. Let’s do this!”
Kari laughed again, staring at her fine, naked husband as he walked around their big bed to her side.
“What if I wanted to sleep in?” she asked with a fixed smile on her face.
“You slept in,” Alex said, picking her up out of bed.
“Where are you taking me?” Kari asked playfully, as he headed for the bathroom.
“Shower,” he said.<
br />
“With you?”
Alex looked at her. “With who else?” he asked. For a moment he wondered if she would have preferred to shower with DayVon Clarke.
But it was all in jest for Kari. She was enjoying her wakeup with Alex. “Of course I knew it was going to be with you,” she said, “but what I’m saying is that I prefer to shower alone. I get a headache when I don’t shower alone,” she joked.
“You’ll be fine then,” Alex said.
“And how’s that? I told you I get a headache when I shower with somebody else. It bothers my head.”
“It’s not your head I’m after,” Alex said with a smile, “so no need to worry.”
Kari laughed happily as he carried her into the bathroom.
And as soon as they entered the shower, after the water was warm and ready, Alex proved his point. He lifted her high up into his arms and began eating her, and then he slid her down far enough for his penis to reach her. And then he was easing inside of her, and his thickness inside of her narrowness made her hug him tighter.
And just as it had been every time they came together since DayVon came to town, Alex wasn’t just making love to her. He was possessing her, marking her, making certain that their coupling was even more memorable than the time before.
Kari was in his arms, and her legs wrapped around his body, as his ass squeezed tight and his penis pumped love into her with a definiteness that made Kari’s entire body bounce with every pump. And although the water was pouring out of the shower head forcefully all over their naked bodies, the slapping sounds of Alex pounding Kari, with an intensity that kept both of them on the verge of cumming, overtook all else and made that heavy rush of water sound like faint background noise.
Until Kari came with a cum so thunderous that she cried out in joyful elation. She cried out with a cry so loud that it completely drowned out even the background noise.
Alex, looking at her like a man proud to give his woman exactly what she needed, kept fucking her, harder and harder. He was determined to put it on her until she couldn’t take it anymore.
And then, after watching her; after pumping his love inside of her as if he owned every inch of her, he was cumming too.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“I added a few more layers to it,” the stylist said as she put the finishing touches on Kari’s bouncy hair, “just to give it more heft in the back.”
They were in the salon on Main Street, a salon Kari had frequented for years, and the space was filled with talkative ladies and talkative stylists. All were African-American women, some with high-level jobs, some with low-level, but all with that sense of community they felt whenever they came to Jen’s shop. With very small numbers in all of Apple Valley, Jen’s was the African-American hub. There was even a handful of barbers in the shop, but most of them had women clients, too, the ones with the extremely low cuts, and Faye Church was getting her hair done there, as well, and was seated in the chair beside Kari’s.
That was why, when the front receptionist came in talking about Alex, she was shocked.
“Y’all won’t believe who just pulled up out there,” the receptionist said.
“Who girl?” asked Jennifer Price, the stylist working on Kari’s hair. She also happened to be the owner.
“Alex Drakos just pulled up out front.”
Jennifer laughed. “That’s the tea? Child please. You’re thirsty, honey.”
“Real thirsty,” said Faye.
“His wife is here,” Jen said to her receptionist. “Hello? She called him. He’s out there waiting to pick her up. What’s the big deal?”
“But that’s what I’m talking about,” said the receptionist. “He’s not just out there. He just got out of that slick, black Mercedes he drives, and is heading up in here as we speak!”
That surprised all of them. “He’s coming in?” asked Faye.
“Bam!” the receptionist said. “He’s coming in! That’s what I was trying to say. So hello back to y’all,” she added, and all of them laughed.
But when Alex walked in, you could hear a pin drop. It was as if an alien had walked in. They smiled, and nodded their heads when he nodded toward them, as he headed toward the back where Kari was seated.
Although most of the residents in Apple Valley disapproved of the match between Kari and Alex, there was no such disapproval among the blacks in town. They liked Alex, and it wasn’t because of the fact that he was in an interracial marriage. They knew many people in interracial marriages. But they liked Alex because of his carefulness in hiring many African-Americans in senior management positions at The Drakos when no other big businesses in town were doing so. And also because he was the richest, most powerful man in all of Apple Valley, but yet he chose Kari Grant to be his bride. Had he chosen Faye Church, it would have been more understandable. Faye was a rare beauty and the owner of the only African-American real estate office in town. And although married to that kindly attorney Benny Church, there were constant rumors about her.
But he chose Kari, who, at the time, was the epitome of a hard worker just trying to get by. It showed, to them, that Alex Drakos had taste far beyond the surface. They liked him for that.
“Hello everyone,” Alex said when he made it to Jen’s booth. “Hey, Faye.”
“Hello there,” said Faye.
“Good afternoon,” Jen said. “I’m almost done with your wife.” Then she smiled and looked at him. “What do you think?”
Alex looked at Kari’s hair. It was long and straight, but filled with just enough curls to give it that extra elegance. But mostly he was looking at Kari.
He smiled and nodded. “Lovely,” he said.
Jen smiled too. “Thanks,” she said, and then gave Kari what every Floridian had to have to keep that hair snatched: a good hair spraying.
Then Jen removed the covering from around Kari, and Kari stood up and checked out the hairdo in the mirror. As she admired her cut, and as Jen explained what she did here and what she did there to give it that bounciness, Alex looked around the big space.
There were a small group of black men in the shop, in the much-smaller barber section, and Alex watched them as they stared at Kari with what he could only describe as longing eyes.
And just standing there, in the middle of that black hub, caused him to feel more insecure than he could ever recall feeling in his entire life. Not because he felt Kari wanted any of those men. He knew she wouldn’t do that to him. But he wondered if he was in the way of Kari and Jordan living that black American dream, where the African-American husband and African-American wife pulled together with their African-American child.
DayVon was a successful black man. There was no denying that, as all of Alex’s men were reporting back that the Clarke family’s import/export business was very successful. And he was a great looking black man: another fact. But more importantly than all of that, he was Jordan’s biological father, and once the love of Kari’s life. Why was he trying to stack the deck in his favor by remaining in town when he knew he needed to be in London, and by doing all he could to stay in their good graces? Why didn’t he just step aside and let Kari and Jordan choose for themselves what path they wanted to take, and what man they wanted to take it with?
Because he loved them with a love he’d never experienced before.
Because he needed them with a need he’d never experienced before.
Because he wanted them in his life more than he wanted life itself.
That was why he was willing to do what he had to do to keep his family. By hook or by crook, Alex had already decided, he was keeping his family.
As they were leaving, Jen yelled out, “Don’t forget to pay the lady!” in honor of the old Storage Wars television show, and everybody in the shop, including Alex and Kari, laughed.
And Alex didn’t forget to pay the lady. He stopped at the reception desk, and paid Kari’s bill. And then they said their goodbyes, and left. It was a warm, inviting, friendly place to Alex. An at
mosphere he was not accustomed to.
Once they made it outside, and he was opening the passenger side door of his car for Kari, he remembered to give her a compliment, something he often neglected to do. “Your hair has wonderful movement,” he said.
Kari nodded. “That’s what Jen was going for,” she said.
“She succeeded,” said Alex. “You look gorgeous, Karena.”
Kari smiled. She was no beauty queen, she’d be the first to admit it. But Alex made her feel like Miss Universe, and she loved that feeling.
So instead of dismissing his comment, she applauded it. “Thank you,” she said, and got into his car.
Once he buckled her in, closed her door, and got in behind the wheel, he exhaled. Going into a ladies salon was exhausting! Alex was so out of his comfort zone that he wondered if it was worth doing all this shit.
But then he looked over at Kari, and saw how happy she seemed just being with him, and he knew it was worth it. “Where next?” he asked her.
“Lunch,” Kari said.
“Right,” said Alex, and pressed the Start button. “I made reservations.”
Kari smiled. She usually just grabbed a sandwich from Lucinda’s Diner in town, but she also knew Alex wasn’t going to do that. He was a fine dining man, and that was where he was taking her.
But as Alex was driving toward the outskirts of town for them to enjoy that fine dining experience, he kept glancing at Kari. She was present with him for the most part, but a part of her also seemed very absent. As if she was thinking about DayVon. As if she was thinking what in the world was she going to do about him.
“Where’s Jordan?” Alex asked her.
“With DayVon,” Kari said. “Oz is playing chaperone.”
Alex nodded. “Good. I know they want quality time alone, to talk man to man about personal matters, but not until I’m confident there’s no hidden agenda there.”
“The DayVon I knew wouldn’t have hidden agendas,” Kari said bluntly.
“But we don’t know if he’s that same DayVon,” Alex said. “And until I’m certain, we take precautions when it comes to Jordan.”
Alex Drakos: Branding Her Again Page 15