“Caress.”
She closed the cabinet door and looked across the kitchen at him.
“If that’s my baby…I want you to know that I will be there for him. I will be the father that I never had. You won’t have to raise him alone,” he told her, his hands on the top of the island as he looked over at her with a serious expression.
She nodded as her right hand instinctively went to her belly. “I’m happy to hear that because he is yours. And I want you to know that I won’t be one of those crazy, always-causing-drama baby mamas. I will put just as much energy, love, financial and emotional support into our child as you do. I’m not looking to use my baby as a meal ticket or as a way to stay in your pockets. We made him and we both will work together to take care of him.”
Julius licked his lips and nodded in understanding. “That’s good to know.”
Caress removed the rubber band from her wrists and pulled her hair up into a sloppy ponytail. “And I promise I won’t try to interrupt your home once you finally meet the one to make your whoring little butt settle down,” Caress teased.
“I don’t whore,” Julius balked.
Caress snorted in derision.
“I am a single man enjoying the opposite sex.”
“A lot ,” Caress stressed before she headed out of the kitchen. She smiled as Julius followed behind her.
“Women judge single men too harshly,” he said from behind her.
Caress glanced over her shoulder as she moved toward the living room. She stopped and turned at the sight of his eyes dipped down to watch that up and down movement of her buttocks. “No more of that , Julius,” she chided him, before she turned and continued.
His husky laughter reached her.
Caress busied herself folding the chairs around the card table they put up. She felt his heat as he stepped close to her and took a chair from her hands. Her skin burned where his hand lightly brushed hers.
“I got it. You go to bed.”
Caress looked at the remnants of their night still scattered about his usually pristine living room. “But I can help—”
“Caress,” Julius said sternly.
She looked at him.
He looked pointedly downward at his obvious erection straining against the zipper. “ Please go to bed,” he stressed.
Her mouth formed a circle as her cheeks flamed and the nestled, moist bud between her legs throbbed to life. “Oh…okay…good night then,” she said, her voice shaky as she hurried from the room.
Long after she snuggled beneath the covers of her bed, Caress thought of Julius. Their attraction. Their baby.
She wished like hell that things could’ve been different.
Julius allowed Caress’s image and her memory to seduce him as he massaged the length of his hardness beneath the hot spray of his shower. He gave in to his want of her as he worked his hand tightly around his shaft in a fast left and right motion around the thick tip. The water from the shower made the movement slick and easy.
As he felt the pressure rise from his loins, he bit his bottom lip and began to pant, inhaling deeply of the steam surrounded his hard, chiseled frame. He pressed his back against the wall and arched his hips as his heart beat furiously. “Caress,” he moaned, allowing her image to caress his tense thighs as she suckled the tip of his dick with her mouth beneath the spray of water.
“Caress,” he cried out, arching up on his toes as he worked his hips in motion with the jerking movement of his hand. A tortured cry filled the glass interior of the shower and mingled with the steam as he spilled his seed in a series of long spasms that soon left him spent.
It was a sore replacement for the real thing.
Tamara turned on her side in the middle of the bed. She propped her head up on her hand as she looked down at her husband sleeping peacefully. His snores were evidence of that. Awww, he looks like a big old baby , she thought.
“Kendrick,” she said loudly.
He jumped visibly as his eyes shot open. “Huh? What? Who? What?”
Tamara placed her hand on his chest to settle him down. “What does Julius say about Caress when y’all talk?” she asked.
Kendrick leaned back from her and gave her a look like she had three heads and a penis poking out of her forehead. “You woke me up in the middle of the night to talk about Julius and Caress?” he asked, with plenty of attitude. “Woman, are…you… crazy? ”
Tamara shook her head innocently. “No,” she answered him simply.
“Humph.” Kendrick flopped over onto his side, giving her his back—and probably his ass.
Tamara spooned her body against his, pressing her soft and warm breasts against his massive back. “Well…” she asked.
He tensed. “Well what?”
Tamara smiled and slid her leg over the top of his. She eased up a bit to press her face against his neck. “Tonight I kept catching Julius and Caress checking each other out when the other wasn’t looking. You know…a tittie peek here and a butt glance there.”
Kendrick reached up for Tamara’s hand and pulled it down to wrap around his hardness. “First, Julius and I don’t talk about Caress so I can’t help out with whatever schemes or fantasies you’ve cooked up this time. But don’t worry, baby, it’s not for waste.”
“Huh?”
He turned to face her, his beefy hand easing down to raise the hem of her short nightgown. “You woke me up so no excuses, wifey, it’s on like popcorn. You got it up so now you got to get it down.”
Their husky and playful laughter soon was replaced by the sounds of their passions and one squeaky bed.
The next morning Julius was headed out for a location shoot when he overheard Caress releasing several expletives from behind her closed bedroom. The sounds of something crashing to the floor echoed next.
The baby , he thought frantically, dropping his briefcase and turning to burst into the room. “Caress, are you—”
She gasped loudly as she covered her upper body with her arms. “Julius,” she snapped, giving him a look that made Aunt Ester from Sandford and Sons look friendly.
He held up his hands as he turned his back to her. “Sorry. I thought you fell or something,” he told her. “Are you okay?”
“As good as I can be trying to fit all this baby in my old clothes. You can turn around.”
Julius did so. He immediately bit his bottom lip to keep from laughing out loud.
Caress eyed him. “Are you laughing?” she asked in disbelief.
Julius shook his head but his eyes were filled with the laughter he was fighting hard not to let spill through his lips. Caress wore dark denims that would be stylish if the zipper didn’t stop midway, leaving the top of the jeans open and framing her stomach. And her top was a button-up black shirt that she was able to button, but was unable to get entirely over her stomach. It was a sight.
“My nipples hurt. My back is starting to ache. I pee all the damn time. I have a black line up the middle of my damn stomach. My nose is swelling and this is only month five .” She stalked over to him with her eyes blazing. “On top of all those goodies of pregnancy, Mr. All I Did Was Bust A Nut, my clothes don’t fit. So…I’m gonna ask you ’gain, Julius Jones. Are you laughing?”
That pushed Julius over the edge and he did laugh because Caress’s whole reprimand wa
s comical—whether she meant it to be or not. “I’m sorry I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing with you.”
Caress made an astonished face. “Funny, I don’t remember me laughing nor do I plan to laugh.”
Julius bit his mouth again as he crossed his arms over his chest. Caress eyed him before she caught sight of herself in the mirror on her dresser. She did a double take and then cut her eyes over at Julius before she felt her own laughter bubbling to the surface. “I look like Mr. Brown from those Tyler Perry plays.”
They burst out in laughter together.
Caress bent over and two of her buttons popped, flying across the room to hit the opposite wall.
They really roared with laughter then.
“Caress, you need maternity clothes,” Julius said simply, as they settled down.
“No shit, Sherlock,” she drawled.
Julius turned and headed out the door. “I’m going out. See you later.”
“Bye.”
He closed the bedroom door behind. As he bent down to pick up his briefcase a thought came to him. He felt a bit callous in hindsight. Caress had a new job but no new clothes for her newly pregnant body.
And no money to buy any.
He stopped in his tracks and turned and looked at her door for a few thoughtful seconds before he turned and continued down the stairs and out of the house.
Caress walked in the house and started to drop her purse and coat on the foyer table but thought twice about it. She was beat from trudging through the clothes she had packed in her storage unit. Her steps were defeated. She had hoped the few items she had with an elastic waistband would fit. She’d been wrong. Nothing fit.
Of course Julius was right that she needed maternity clothes, but with only her last fifty bucks to her name it looked like all she could get were some big tops to wear over her regular-size bottoms buttoned and zipped only as far as they would go. Like some teenage mother or something.
She walked into her bedroom, but she stopped in the doorway at the sight of the five huge Motherhood Maternity shopping bags sitting in the middle of her bed. Curious, she walked to the bed dropping her coat, keys and purse at the foot. She reached for the note hanging from the bag in the front.
C.
I guessed on the size. Hope it all fits. Good luck with your job.
J.
Caress’s mouth fell open in surprise. She opened bag, after bag, after bag pulling out outfits she could wear to work. “Julius,” she said softly to herself as she dropped down onto the bed.
She didn’t know if it was her hormones or just how deeply touched she was, but Caress couldn’t stop the tears that filled her eyes and then raced down her cheeks.
Julius noticed the folded piece of paper sitting on the center of the island as soon as he entered the house through the kitchen door later that night. Setting his camera case on the floor he picked up the note.
TO: Julius Jones
FROM: Caress Coleman
RE: Repayment of Loans
I Caress Coleman agree to pay Julius Jones $200.00 per month, beginning with my first paycheck, for the following items:
Julius just laughed and shook his head. He didn’t take offense. He was fast learning that Caress was just as independent as Tamara and Kendrick had said. He balled the promissory note into his hand and tossed it into the trash before he grabbed his camera case and headed to his darkroom, still shaking his head.
Chapter Nine
“The renovations to the rest of the house look good, man,” Julius told Jordan after they finished up the photo shoot in his office. “Can I assume this museum was off limits?”
Jordan chuckled as he removed the ebony suede blazer he wore over a matching silk shirt for the headshots. “I love my office just as it is. This is organized confusion, my brother.”
“You sound like Caress.”
Jordan used his index finger to push his wire-framed glasses up on his nose as he looked over at his friend. “And Caress is?” he asked, before he settled down in the leather chair behind his cluttered desk.
Julius didn’t know what to say.
Caress is the woman living at my house, pregnant with a baby she claims is mine from a heated one night stand about five months ago.
Or…
Caress is this girl I can’t seem to get off my mind…no matter how hard I try.
Or…
Caress is the woman I am fast beginning to hope is pregnant with my child.
“A friend of mine,” was all that he said.
Jordan leaned back in his chair and placed his square chin in his hand. “You should have invited her to dinner.”
Julius began packing up his equipment and ignored the look in his friend’s eyes. “There is no mystery for you to snoop out, Slim Willie,” he said, referring to the lead character in Jordan’s best-selling mystery series.
“Umph.”
Julius scooped up an open box of Jordan’s latest book, Death by Midnight , from a chair and put it on the floor. He settled down into the chair and let his head hang back over the edge.
“I might have a son on the way,” Julius finally said.
“Might?” Jordan asked.
Julius turned his head to look over at Jordan who was watching him intently. With one deep breath he began to tell the story of that night—his and Caress’s night.
“That good, huh?” Jordan asked, bemused.
Julius made a face. “I left that morning and went to Africa.”
“Weren’t you there for like two or three months?” Jordan asked, as he reached to turn on the desk lamp. His arm accidentally hit his cup of coffee and he swore as he rushed to clean up the fast-moving spill.
Julius just shook his head. Jordan was and would always be a klutz. He sat up in the chair as he retold the rest of the story. “Anyway, I came back from Africa and…”
Jordan let out a long and drawn-out whistle. “So mama’s baby, daddy’s maybe?”
Julius shrugged. “To be honest, I really think it’s my baby.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
“To be honest, I don’t know,” he admitted. “You know my childhood was jacked up and even though my mind wasn’t focused on having kids I just kinda always pictured me settled down when it happened.”
Jordan leaned over to toss the coffee-soaked napkins into the trash. “So settle down.”
“I don’t want to be with somebody just because she is having my baby. That’s relationship suicide.”
“What if you two were destined to be but your hormones messed up the whole equation?” Jordan asked.
“Naw,” Julius disagreed. “Caress and I are different as night and day. She is nothing like the women I usually date.”
“And?”
“ And …I hardly know her.”
“And yet you’re confident enough to know she’s not like any other woman you’ve dated,” Jordan drawled. “So you’re going by the physical? Umph.”
Julius gave him a hard stare as his friend hit a flyball out of the ballpark.
“Any other woman make you forget your jimmy?”
>
“Jimmy? What are you stuck in the eighties?”
Jordan said nothing else as he waited.
“No,” Julius answered.
“Any other woman ever been pregnant with your child?”
“No.”
“Any other rendered you celibate for months?”
Julius hopped to his feet. “Listen, Caress and me have this physical thing that blows my mind—I will admit that, but baby or no baby, we are not made for each other. Period.”
Jordan leaned forward in his chair. “Let me put it this way. My son is his twenties and I would better imagine having this conversation with him than with a man ten years his senior.”
Julius frowned, not sure if he should be insulted. “Your point is?”
“Don’t be one of those whack ass, fifty-year-old players out there still chasing Miss New Booty.” Jordan pushed his glasses up on his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.
The phone rang and Jordan hit the speakerphone button. “Yes, baby.”
“Five of our six kids are here…and very hungry. There are ten eyes on that one roast. ’Nough said, gentleman?” Mia asked, her voice echoing into the room.
Jordan and Julius laughed as they both rose to their feet. “’Nough said, baby. We’re coming.”
“Good,” she said sweetly before she disconnected the line.
Caress was in the kitchen eating a salad and flipping through a celebrity gossip magazine when the doorbell rang. Julius was out for the evening—and she was proud that she had trained herself not to wonder where and whom with. Her flip-flops dragged against the floor as she made her way to the front door.
“Who is it?” she asked, as she raised up on her toes to look out the window.
“Boo.”
Caress frowned at the sight of the extremely tall and thin man she saw. “Uhm…Julius isn’t home. You want to leave a message?” she called through the door.
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