“I’m just saying let’s keep it fair,” she said and dodged out of the reach of Deacon Jones who was making an attempt to get the microphone from her. “A sin’s a sin. I think everybody should take a turn up here.” She gestured toward Deacon Byrne as she slid up the aisle, managing to still be heard over all the chaos. “that is a whole bottle of Dr. Tichenor’s in your pocket ‘cause you need a little nip of that eighty-proof every now. Nobody needs fresh breath that bad.” She winked at him, and even his wife laughed. “My mama told me that one.”
The entire congregation was now on their feet, in heated conversations, some arguing about the truth she let spill. Choir members hastily left their seats and a few of them managed to tip out of the back door to the lower level before she let loose on them, too. The usher board had closed the rear doors so no one could run out that way, but one of them sprinted down the right side aisle to get to the choir entrance to block that too.
Reign slid her gaze to her fuming mother, who was dressed in the pristine white uniform of the pastor’s personal nurse. “And the only reason my mother’s on the nurse’s board,” Reign said, keeping a steely glare on her mother. “Taking care of the pastor, getting his water and handkerchiefs, fixing all that good food and baking those sweet potato pies especially for him, is ‘cause she’s hoping for a little … sin of her own.”
“I knew it,” the First Lady said, waggling a finger at Thelma, wide brim hat tipping almost off her head. She nearly climbed over the pew aiming to get to Reign’s mother.
Reign looked toward the red-faced Pastor who was fit to be tied. “And doesn’t look like he’s turning down nothing but his collar, so maybe I should pass the mic to him.
“Come to think of it, Brother Jimmy, Brother Patrick and Brother Russell need some time up here, too.” She moved up the middle aisle and back toward the pulpit ignoring the three men in question. “Each one of them offered me some money—for the baby’s sake. That’s what they said. But they wanted a little something in return. They seemed really happy that I was pregnant ‘cause that meant I couldn’t get knocked up again.”
She swept a gaze across the congregation as Sister Delores snatched the microphone from her hand. Reign sprinted to snatch another one from in front of the choir stand and continued, “And they’re not the only ones up in here who did that. I’ve got nine offers from church men alone and close to $8,536.50.” She waggled an index finger. “And don’t forget the fifty cents. That’s a lot of dough, especially for a sinner like me.” She shrugged as if she hadn’t set the church on holy fire. “So let’s be fair about this sin thing.”
“That’s enough, young lady,” the pastor said from the pulpit, gesturing for someone to grab her.
“Oh, so I’m a young lady now?” Reign shot back, glowering angrily at him. “When you told my mother that she needed to bring her little whore before the church to apologize. But you didn’t make your nieces get up here when they got pregnant. Or any of the boys right here in this church who made them that way. I count about twelve so far. And that’s not including the ones who had abortions.” She snapped her fingers as realization hit. “But wait a minute, that counts a sin, too, right? But it’s not one that you can see.”
Gasps echoed throughout the congregation.
“So which is it? Whore or young lady?” she taunted, stretching out her hands as if in supplication. “Either way, I’m just saying—a sin is a sin. Let the church say Amen.”
Needless to say, Reign and her mother were immediately escorted from the church’s main sanctuary, out the door, and told never to return.
Thelma was angered at not only losing her church home, but also the pastor, who—unknown to Reign—had become a main source of income for their family.
That day, Thelma said she never wanted to lay eyes on Reign again. She kept that promise until her dying day.
What she couldn’t know was that Reign had already made her peace with whatever consequences would come with her brutal uncovering of church hypocrisy, long before she opened her mouth that Sunday.
* * *
If you like a feisty, passionate heroine, a Bollywood superstar and a scandalous second chance romance, you’ll love USA TODAY bestselling author, Naleighna Kai’s, Loving Me for Me.
Though Devesh’s culture and status along with a secret Reign planned to take to her grave has kept them apart for nearly five years; a chance meeting brings them face-to-face once again. This time, Devesh, a wealthy bachelor and international model, is determined to be with Reign despite his family’s wishes.
He finds ingenious ways for them to manage their rocky relationship terrain since Reign’s heartbreaking life has left her with trust issues that resurface along with a few “reckless exes.” The couple has more at stake, forcing them to confront their deepest fears, overcome unforeseen obstacles, and challenge the media as well as enemies who are closer to home. Devesh soon puts everyone on notice that he believes love is ‘til death do us part—even if he has to send someone to an early grave to protect her.
Will they survive her tragic past, his traditional family, and those who would rather see them dead than in love?
Was it Good For You Too?
“My husband has given me permission to sleep with you.”
Delvin’s left eyebrow shot up. A second later he was closing the front door behind Tailan as he said, “How generous of him to finally be fair about things. Especially since he’s the only one who’s taken advantage of this strange marriage of yours.”
“It’s not about being fair,” she said, her soft brown eyes filled with concern. “He only wants to make sure you’re out of my system. For good.”
Delvin pushed himself off the door and stood mere inches from her. “I’ll never be out of your system,” he said, his tone defiant. His finger stroked across her chin, pressed a gentle kiss to her lips eliciting an all too common response--a shiver of pleasure and anticipation. “I was your first love. I was supposed to be your husband. No matter what came between us, you still belong to me.”
Tailan gasped as she stepped back. “I belong with him.”
Delvin’s lips lifted at the corners. He pressed closer, letting her feel the massive erection growing in his jeans.
Tailan tried to break free but only succeeded in creating the most shivering friction down below. “Delvin, don’t make this so difficult for me,” she said in a breathy whisper. “I understand your reasons for marrying our surrogate. She threatened to terminate our child, and that was way past cruel.” Tailan’s eyes glazed with unshed tears. “But the fact is … we could have had other children. And only now--seven years later--are you realizing what you truly wanted … was me.”
The tip of his tongue swiped across her lips. Tailan nearly pulled it into her mouth.
“I will forever be haunted by that mistake,” he whispered. “I paid for it with an unhappy life, but I want you to realize that your husband will always come second.”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong,” she replied and finally freed herself from his grasp. She lowered onto the leather sofa and said, “I never have to wonder who loved me more; the man who was hurting over the recent death of his wife, but still found a small corner of his heart for me. Or the man who threw me away.”
A vein throbbed at Delvin’s temple. His mind fired up with several scenarios. The need for her was overwhelming. His skin was ready to scream, his erection was on the verge of busting the zipper of his jeans. Delvin witnessed the flash of desire in her eyes and saw a way to get what his body was dying for. He dropped to his knees, slowly inched up the flimsy skirt and pressed his lips to her thigh, while cupping her buttocks within his massive hands. Tailan let out a low, breathy moan, all while trying to put some distance between them. He kept her locked in place as he parted her thighs …
She took a deep breath and pushed him away.
“What kind of game are you playing, Tai?” he said through his teeth.
“There’s a condition,” sh
e said.
“Condition?” Delvin repeated. “A condition for what?”
“For being with you.”
He released her, standing so their gazes met.
Tailan grimaced before she spit out, “Amir wants to watch.”
Delvin’s erection did a complete nose dive. He peered at her, taking in the solemn expression. “What. Did. You. Say?”
“Amir’s one stipulation to my having you as a lover, is that he gets to watch us making love.”
“Oh, so I did hear it right,” he snapped, glaring at her. “What kind of sick, twisted—”
“Not sick. He’s seeking to prove a point.”
Delvin knew that she still loved him, wanted him. And this relationship of hers--a polyamorous marriage--gave him the perfect avenue to make her totally his again. And then, the moment he had her back, he wasn’t going to share his woman with anyone.
“Suppose I don’t want to play his foolish game?”
“Your loss,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone that caused him to bristle. “Because unlike you, I have a marriage that provides everything I need. Including the option to take a lover. You,” she said in a voice that was husky with promise. “You would be my first ... and you’ll be my only.”
“Your only?” he shot back, giving her a sly smile. “Count on it. And when your husband hears you screaming my name, he’ll know it, too.”
* * *
About Was it Good For You Too?
* * *
USA TODAY Bestselling author, Naleighna Kai, brings a love triangle where a man is forced to share the love of his life with another man or walk away from the strongest love he’s ever known.
Tailan and Delvin complicated their lives by bringing another woman into the relationship to bear his children. Once the surrogate was two months along, she turned the tables by issuing a heartbreaking ultimatum. When threatened with losing the family he’d always wanted, Delvin felt he had no choice but to marry the surrogate and send Tailan, his high school sweetheart packing, even though he loved her more than life itself.
Now seven years later on a Midwest book tour, fate has given Delvin, now a wealthy actor and author, four days to right old wrongs. He’ll use everything in his power to win Tailan back. Unfortunately, Tailan is harboring a secret that she’s kept not only from him but from the entire world. Delvin’s determination to recapture the loved they’d been denied will give him two choices—and both of them can dismantle his entire world.
Open Door Marriage
THANKSGIVING -
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS NOVEMBER 22—7:23 P.M.
* * *
“You slept with my aunt?”
The words still didn’t register, even though this had to be Tori’s fifth time saying them. She glared at her fiancé, still desperately trying to come to terms with the information her mother had blasted to everyone at the packed Thanksgiving dinner table.
“Seriously? How is that even humanly possible when you didn’t know the woman four hours ago?” Tori shouted.
“Tori, l-let me explain,” Dallas stammered.
Twelve pairs of eyes were now focused on the not-quite-blissful couple standing at the bottom of the stairs just off from the dining room.
“But not here. Let’s go somewhere and talk. I’m telling you, it’s not what you think.”
“What did you do?” Tori snapped, glaring up at Dallas. “Trip over the sheets, and your penis somehow landed in a woman nearly twice my age?”
The drumstick in Uncle Bill’s hand paused in midair on its journey to his wide mouth. Cousin Tiny’s fleshy hand flew to her overexposed bosom and came to rest somewhere above her heart. Even Tori’s father’s frozen expression of alarm would have been Three Stooges comical if the situation weren’t so tragic.
Aunt Yoli was the first to recover. “Did they just say what I think they said?”
In unison, everyone nodded.
“Girl, shut the front door and run out the back!”
A few bursts of nervous laughter sprang up around the table, but they were not nearly enough to chase away the unease that had flooded the room when Tori stepped into the house. She’d gone to drop off Aunt Rose’s drunk self at home. Tori hadn’t even been in the house good when her mother, Bernice, blurted out that she’d caught Alicia and Dallas together. Alone. In bed. In the nude. Tori had picked up from there and summed it up in one sweep. “You slept with my aunt ...”
“Nothing happened, Tori,” Dallas said, his voice shaky. “I didn’t sleep with her.”
“So, my mama’s lying?” Tori asked.
Dallas shifted uneasily.
“Hell no. I know what I saw,” Bernice snapped. She had moved from the dining room table to the end of the staircase, right next to her daughter, poised as if she was ready to go to battle. “Both of you were in bed butt-ass naked.” She jabbed angrily in her sister-in-law’s direction.
Alicia hadn’t moved from her spot at the top of the staircase. Probably because she knew what was best for her. “She was butt-naked. And he was nut-naked,” Bernice yelled. “Wasn’t an inch of space between them.” She flickered a gaze at Dallas. “Look at him. You can tell he just got dressed.”
Tori closed her eyes and took deep breaths to calm the emotions that warred within her.
“See, I told you Alicia wasn’t worth a damn,” Bernice crowed with savage satisfaction. “And looks like Mr. NBA ain’t much better. You thought he was all that and a side order of fries.”
Dallas Avery was the NBA’s most valuable player, and a man most women would give their right and left ovary to call their own. But Most Eligible Bachelor or not, he had set Tori’s bitch meter into overdrive. Even with his chiseled, handsome face, towering muscular frame and million-dollar bank accounts, he was now worth next to nothing in her eyes. Too bad her aching heart didn’t get that memo.
Tori didn’t know if she was more enraged or hurt that her mother had been all too willing to drive this stake through her own daughter’s heart in order to publicly disgrace Alicia.
“Tori, we need to talk about this,” Dallas repeated before adding, “in private.”
Bernice wore a satisfied smirk as she glared openly up at Alicia, who just kept staring stoically at them from the second floor landing. “The angel of the family has fallen,” Bernice said.
“Hey, Bernice,” Bill taunted with a hearty chuckle. “Bet you won’t say that when Alicia comes downstairs. You know she’s gonna put a hurting on you.”
“You mean put another hurting on her,” Aunt Yoli added, doubling over with laughter.
Tori wanted to scream. Her life was unraveling in front of her and her family was cracking jokes.
Instinctively, Bernice inched away from the staircase and back toward the dining room table. Her hands went up to the small scar on her neck, probably remembering that a year ago on this very same holiday, Alicia had ended a vicious blow-for-blow fight with a knife at Bernice’s throat. Almost gave the woman a “Sicilian Smile”—an ear-to-ear slice across the throat.
Dallas reached for Tori’s hand. “It’s not what it seems.”
She snatched away, parted her lips to give him what was left of her mind, but Cousin Tiny chimed in first. “Alicia had every right to take Bernice to the floor last year for that foul mess she said. I would’ve pulled out my own can of whoop ass behind that one.”
Tiny’s husband, Thomas, nodded his watermelon-sized head.
The rest of the family finally sprang to life, also chiming in all at once to defend Alicia, the one woman everyone could count on in a time of need, to lend an ear when it was called for and to dry a tear when no one else bothered to care. That she would do something as low as sleep with her niece’s soon-to-be husband was unthinkable. So the family sidestepped that issue for as long as they could, finding it more comfortable to speak on the reason no one had expected Alicia home for Thanksgiving— especially since none of them had heard from her for an entire year.
Dallas maneuvered so he
was in front of Tori. “Nothing. Happened.”
“If Bernice had said that bull to me,” Bill responded, still trying to tackle the last of the drumstick, “an ass whipping would’ve been the least of her problems.” He beckoned toward the last slice of sweet potato pie at the other end of the table. “That has my name written all over it.”
“Bernice is lying,” Martha said. “Alicia’s still got looks and all, but that young stud wouldn’t pick her over Tori.” She shot an appreciative glance toward Dallas, then leaned to her right and whispered loudly in Yoli’s direction, “But girl, he is finer than frog’s hair.”
Yoli gave him a lusty once-over. “I’d give him some my damn self. He’s the type of man who can make a woman put a for sale sign on one thigh and an open for business sign on the other. Yes, Lawd.”
Tori tried her best to tune out her family. She didn’t have the stamina to deal with them right now. “How could you do this? You’re my fiancé.”
“You’re Tori’s fiancé?” Alicia finally spoke out. She eased down the stairs, looking first to Tori then to Dallas. Her panic-stricken expression gave Tori pause. Could her aunt really have not known?
Alicia turned back to her niece. “Oh, my, God, Tori. I had no idea. I’m so, so sorry.” She didn’t give Tori time to reply as she brushed past Dallas, slipped into the nearest pair of shoes—her brother’s—and ran out of the front door, oblivious to the fact that she barely had on enough clothing to protect her from the chill in the room, let alone the sub-zero temps of a Chicago winter.
The whole crowd gasped in disbelief as Dallas grabbed his leather coat from the foyer closet. “She can’t go out there with nothing on,” he said as he stepped into his Timberlands. “I’ll be right back.”
Tori was ready to spit fire. “Are you kidding me?” she screamed as he quickly laced up his shoes, then darted toward the door. “You’re going after my aunt? My aunt,” she yelled, following him. “My heart is bleeding all over the carpet and you’re going after her!”
My Time in the Sun Page 16