BAM! BAM!
“Go away,” Renee hollered over her shoulder, sounding more like a drag queen than herself.
“I’m not leaving until we talk, Renee!”
The nap had sobered her up, but she still didn’t want Jackson to see her with carpet dust and sleep creases on the side of her face. Her short and naturally curly hair was either matted down or sticking off her head like she was a descendant of Buckwheat.
Dragging herself into the bathroom, she rinsed her face with cool water and brushed the hell out of her tongue, teeth, and gums.
BAM!
Renee stood and eyed her reflection in the large wooden oval mirror over the pedestal sink. She shook her head. She was far from crazy. Obviously the kids had called Jackson and he was pissed.
“Hmph. Daddy Dearest ain’t so perfect anymore, huh?” she said smugly to her reflection as she fluffed her short curls out with her fingertips.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
“Stop banging on my damn door, Jackson,” she screamed at the top of her lungs, moving over to stand outside her bathroom.
“Great example you’re making for the kids, Renee,” he hollered back through the solid wood of the door.
That insult—and that’s how Renee took his comment—was like flashing a red blanket in front of a raging bull.
“You motherfucker, you,” she roared, racing across the spacious and disheveled bedroom suite to unlock and snatch open one of the double doors.
Her quick reaction must have surprised him because it showed on his square and handsome face.
Renee pushed him square in his large chest. “Are you and the shit you’re putting this family through a great example, Jackson? Huh? Huh? Don’t you fuck with me, Jackson. How dare you judge me! How dare you judge me, Jackson. You ruined this family. No one but you.”
He was a tall and solid man. With pure ease he picked Renee up into his arms and crossed the room with long strides to abruptly dump her onto the middle of the unmade king-sized bed.
Renee rolled over just as Jackson turned to walk back across the room to slam the bedroom door closed.
WHAM!
“You have lost your right to touch me in any way. You’ve lost your right to enter this house as you please. You chose to start a new family,” she told him in quiet anger.
Jackson crossed his arms over his chest, looking at her like a parent chastising a child. “I cannot believe you would handle breaking the news to our children about the baby that way.”
Renee laughed bitterly, feeling her pain deep in her chest. “What the hell you want me to do, throw a fucking party? Huh? Should I smile and shoot fireworks out my ass for you and your whore?”
“Your thoughtless words hurt the kids, Renee,” he said, his voice almost incredulous, as if she should understand his point of view.
“No! What you did hurt the kids.” Renee’s long and strong legs carried her across the room to stand before him. “You got the new baby on the way. You have your new home. You have the new life separate from this family. You.”
“And you put me out, Renee. What was I supposed to do, live on the goddamn lawn?” he yelled back, bending down to put his face in hers.
“You damn right I put your whoring ass out. What else was I supposed to do? Huh? What other choice did I have? What other choice did you give me . . . besides putting a bullet in your ass.”
Jackson made a face as he straightened his frame. “So you have been drinking, Renee?” he asked in disbelief.
Renee paused in surprise, but recovered quickly. “If you don’t know the difference between alcohol and Listerine, then that’s your concern. Worry about not being here for your son.”
Jackson’s jaw tightened. “I’m there for both of my kids. I’m a damn good father and you know it.”
Renee laughed and applauded sarcastically. “Whoopdie damn do. I’m sure you’ll be a good one to your new one, too.”
“Go to hell, Renee.”
She locked her fiery eyes with his. “You already put me there, Jackson.”
The bedroom doors burst open. Aaron and Kieran stepped into the room. Both were tall like their father, with Renee’s bright eyes. They were of the age to fully understand the serious nature of their parents’ breakup.
“Stop arguing,” Kieran said, her eyes filled with tears as her gloss-covered bottom lip trembled. “I’m sick of this.”
At the sight of her daughter in tears and her son’s handsome and thin face filled with questions, Renee lost all her will to fight. She slumped down onto the bed, feeling helpless and hopeless tears rise. She swallowed them back, not wanting to break down in front of her children. She felt like all of her emotions were drowning her. She’d give anything to rewind time and make all the bad shit that had destroyed their family go the hell away. All of it. Even her desire to have a career. That was the beginning of the end.
Looking up, she fought her desire to drink as she eyed her husband and her children. In truth, she wanted her family, but visions of the future chased her all the time.
Her husband in the delivery room holding the hand and caressing the scalp of another woman having his child.
Some faceless woman making demands on her husband.
A child not born of her womb running around her home yelling for daddy. Or her husband going to the woman’s home to visit their child.
Any way it played out it spelled pain, embarrassment, and disappointment for her. Renee just couldn’t swallow that.
Pain radiated from deep in her soul and across her entire body. A pain that she wanted to numb with drinks. Lots of them.
“So it’s true, Daddy? What Mommy told us was true?” Kieran asked, sounding more young and immature than her fifteen years.
Renee said nothing. She wished her drunken tongue hadn’t dropped the news to them the way it had. But it was true that a drunken person speaks with a sober mind. The truth had to be told . . . one way or the other.
“Is that why y’all broke up?” Aaron asked, his voice deep and filled with his flourishing manhood.
Renee craved a drink.
“Your mother and I love you both very—”
Kieran gasped dramatically. Her eyes got big and wide. “Oh. My. God. It’s true?! Onmygod, Daddy. Seriously. SERIOUSLY ?”
She pushed past Aaron to run from the room.
“Damn, Daddy, how could you?” Aaron said, his eyes filled with disappointment before he made a noise with his mouth that was filled with his disgust and then left the room.
Jackson wiped his hands over his close-cropped hair that was lightly sprinkled with silver. “Renee, I am so sorry that I hurt you and the kids and if I could fix this I would. I’ve tried, but she wants to have the baby—”
“No!” Renee held up her hands and shook her head vehemently as tears filled her eyes like a flood. “I will not sit here and converse with you about this shit. I. WILL. NOT. No, Jackson. No.”
She whimpered as his strong arms surrounded her and pulled her close to his chest. Renee inhaled deeply of his familiar scent and for just a second allowed herself the comfort and security of his embrace. She had thought it would be available to her for the rest of their lives.
“Oh God why. Why, Jackson? Why did you do this to me?” she whispered, all strength and all resolve gone from her body as she wept like a child. “Why . . . why . . . did you do this to me?”
He rocked her. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I swear.”
“It hurts . . . it hurts so bad. Oh God. It hurts so bad,” she said, her voice husky with pain. She felt the weight of her world crumbling around her.
Jackson placed kisses on her brow and Renee found the last bit of her strength to free herself of his embrace. “Just go, Jackson. Just, please, please, leave me alone,” she begged, closing her eyes as she lay back on the bed on her side and then pulled her knees to her chest.
Eventually he did leave the room. Renee knew she should go after her children. Soothe them. Tell them it would be okay.<
br />
Renee didn’t feel like lying . . . to herself or to anyone else.
Chapter 3
One week later
Aria drove through the winding streets of Richmond Hills, pausing at the intersection at the top of the small hill and looking down at the cul-de-sac. She could see the houses. Jaime and Eric’s house, Renee and Jackson’s, and that of Jessa Bell.
“Who was she fuck-ing?” Aria asked herself out loud, her eyes going from house to house to house.
Jaime had said that Eric denied being the one but then she left him anyway. Was she just too ashamed to admit that her husband was Jessa’s lover? In the first couple of weeks after that day, Aria had tried calling Jaime, but she either never answered or short-talked her like she was too busy with something to talk for very long.
Renee said that it wasn’t Jackson, but then the rumors being spread over the picket fences and morning cups of coffee was no one had seen Jackson Clinton in a long while. Had Renee discovered in time that he was Jessa’s lover? Aria didn’t have the clit to call Renee and question her. Not after the anger she had for Renee once she found out that her older friend had come so close to cheating. Their relationship had been cool and distant ever since.
After the dust had settled only she and Kingston were still together, but no one knew better than her how tenuous things were between them.
She let her eyes fall on Jessa’s grand house at the end of the cul-de-sac. It sat empty, almost a mocking tribute to the affair their friend had so flippantly announced via text message. Sometimes her anger for her college friend burned so deeply that Aria could easily imagine soaking the entire three thousand square feet with gasoline and lighting the motherfucker with a match, then standing and watching it burn.
Her eyes focused on two tall male figures stepping out the front door of Eric and Jaime’s house. Her eyes squinted as she leaned forward.
“Kingston?”
As far as she knew the men’s friendship had slacked off as well. She couldn’t remember Kingston mentioning them meeting for any golf games or fishing expeditions. She pulled up in front of the house and lowered her window. They both looked over at her.
“Hey, baby. Hi, Eric.”
“How you been, Aria?” Eric asked as Kingston stepped down off the porch and walked over to her vehicle.
“Busy working. Just trying to make it. You?” she called back.
“Just doing the same.”
It was odd not asking him about Jaime. The brief silence felt so awkward.
“All right, man, I’ll talk to you later,” Kingston said, before climbing into the passenger seat.
Eric waved and turned to walk back into the house. “Have you talked to Jaime?” Kingston asked as soon as Aria pulled off for the very short drive to their own home.
She frowned. “I called her last week, but she rushed off the phone talking about a pleasure session or something or ’nother. Why?”
“It’s just that their marriage seemed to be doing fine and Jaime left the same night you all got the message from Jessa.”
Aria glanced over at him before she slowed down and turned left onto their paved driveway. “And?”
“It’s time to get to the bottom of this Jessa Bell mess.”
Aria said nothing as she climbed out of the vehicle and grabbed the canvas shopping bag of groceries she’d just purchased. “You think it’s Eric?” she asked, coming around the front of the SUV.
Kingston took the bag from her hand. He shrugged. “The only thing I know for sure is that it’s not me but I’m catching all kinds of hell because you think there’s a chance it is.”
“So you asked Eric?”
“Damn right. And I called Jackson.”
Aria stopped in her tracks. Kingston unlocked the side entrance and then looked over his shoulder at her. “Eric got offended that I asked and Jackson hasn’t called me back yet.”
Aria pushed her asymmetrical bangs back from her bronzed face, choosing her words carefully. In their last therapy session, Dr. Matheson had taught her to take a five-second pause to breathe and think before she spoke out. “Do you think either would admit it to you?” she said calmly, proud of herself for not screeching: “Motherfucker, puh-leeze.”
He shrugged a broad shoulder before he walked inside the house into their sleek contemporary kitchen. “It’s time one of them fessed up to the affair because our marriage is suffering because of one of them.”
Five, four, three, two, one. “Because it’s not you, right?” Kingston sat the bag atop the granite top of the island, his dark mocha eyes locking on her. “That’s right, it’s not me, but you’re around here playing Inspector Gadget, sneaking and snooping through my things trying to catch me. Basically wasting your time and making my life—our life—a living hell.”
Aria’s eyes searched his face as he spoke. “So life with me is hell?” she asked, her voice low and the five count forgotten.
Kingston nodded. “It’s hell being accused daily of doing something I know damn well I’m not doing.”
“What do you want from me, Kingston?” Aria asked, looking away from him as she rubbed her palms on the back pocket of the cutoff shorts she wore.
At his silence she looked up. She gasped a little in surprise and sharp awareness to find him standing in front of her. “I want to come home from work and find you naked in my office. I want to make love to you damn near every night like we used to. I want to be able to talk to you without it becoming an argument. I want to feel like there is nothing more important than our marriage. And I want to tear those damn shorts off you and fuck the shit out of you.”
Aria shivered. Her heart pounded wildly. Her pulse raced crazily. Her clit throbbed. “Ooh, you’re, uh, talking dirty, huh?” she asked, her voice breathless as her eyes fell to his mouth.
Kingston stepped closer to her, closing the distance between them to less than an inch. “You like it when I talk dirty, don’t you?” he asked low in his throat as he brought his hands up to unbutton the shorts.
“You know I do,” she admitted, just as the shorts slid down her thighs with a slight whoosh.
“You know how long it’s been since I slid this dick into you?” he asked against her mouth, before blessing her with a dozen tiny but tantalizing kisses.
“A week,” Aria answered in a hot whisper, letting her head fall back as her husband pulled her hot pink thong to the side to palm her clean-shaven pussy.
She brought her hands up to clutch at his broad shoulders as he plunged his tongue into her open mouth and his finger deep inside her pussy. He twirled them both.
Aria kissed him back, releasing all the passion and love she had stored up for him. “I need you, Kingston,” she whispered into his mouth as she spread her legs wider.
Kingston leaned back a bit, breaking their kiss, as he looked down into her glazed eyed with intensity. “Do you love me, Aria?”
She nodded without hesitation. “I love you. I love you so much.”
Kingston quickly dropped his pants and boxers, his hard, lengthy dick curved away from his body. Aria gasped hotly when Kingston grabbed her waist and easily lifted her frame to sit her on the edge of the island. “Get in the middle,” he told her, climbing up onto the island.
Aria shifted back, hurried out of her thongs, and flung them away from her carelessly as she spread her legs wide like propellers. She eyed Kingston’s strong body crawling onto the cool granite to settle atop her.
He eased his hands under her bare ass, lifting her up just enough to slide each delicious hard inch deep inside her pussy with one thrust of his hips.
Tears filled Aria’s eyes because of how complete she felt with Kingston atop her, his dick buried deep within her walls. They always fit together like two puzzle pieces.
“Aw, baby, don’t cry. I swear I love you. I don’t need anybody but you. Don’t you know I love you, Aria,” he told her fiercely as he kissed away her tears between each hard stroke that pushed his dick so deeply inside h
er that his dick hairs tickled the lips of her pussy.
He rode Aria long and hard until both of their bodies were covered in sweat and their hearts beat furiously in their chests. The sounds of their sex juices echoed in the air along with their moans and grunts of pleasure.
Aria pulled downward with her hips as she sucked the tip of Kingston’s tongue. “Mmmmm,” she moaned as the base of his dick slid against her swollen and throbbing clit.
“Aw shit, you gon’ make this dick come. Pull that nut. Pull it, baby. Pull it.”
Aria looked up into his eyes, raising her arms above her head to grasp the edge of the granite. “Like this?” she asked, biting the bottom of her lip as she rocked her hips slow and steady, squeezing the thick tip with her tight walls.
Kingston raised up on his arms and looked down at her pussy lips kissing his shiny wet dick. Up and down. Up and down. “Look at you. Fuck me. Fuck me.”
Aria’s nipples tingled as the tiny explosions began. She locked her eyes on Kingston’s face as his body stiffened and she felt each jolt of his dick as he filled her with his cum. As he grunted with each spasm, and she let her eyes drift closed as her pussy walls clutched him tightly with her own release, she wished like hell that her body could use his seed to give them a child.
Renee looked up from the marketing report she was reviewing as her office door opened. Her assistant, Darren, walked in carrying a white cardboard box with the logo of CancerCure, the nonprofit foundation where Renee served as the vice president of marketing.
She used to love developing partnerships with major corporations to garner donations and coming up with innovative ideas to increase national visibility for the foundation work toward cancer research and awareness across the country. Now that her marriage was quickly sliding down a one-way shithole, Renee found herself struggling to give a damn.
“I have your messages and the address labels for the CancerWalk,” he said, setting the box and the pink slips of paper on the end of her oval-shaped glass desk.
“Have the registration forms come in?” she asked, removing her bright red, square-shaped reading glasses to look up at him.
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