by Amanda Boone
“Anders?”
“Yup?”
“This is Ahanti.” She paused. “From Sweet Nothings Bake Shop?”
“I know who you are.” Ahanti could almost hear Anders smiling. “I was just thinking about you.”
In the hallway outside her apartment, Lav began singing. Ahanti couldn’t quite place the tune, but the word “Fuck” featured prominently in the lyrics. He was loud, and getting louder by the minute.
“Listen,” she said. “I need your help.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Remember the obnoxious guy from my shop this morning?” Anders grunted his assent, and Ahanti continued. “He’s here, outside my door. He’s pissed because I won’t go out with him.”
“And what’s he doing?” Anders asked.
“Right now?” Ahanti replied, “he’s singing.”
“I’ll be right there,” Anders said. “Where do you live?”
Ahanti gave him her address.
“It’ll be about ten minutes,” Anders said. “Just sit pretty.”
“Okay,” Ahanti said. Out in the hallway there was an ominous thump. “Just please hurry. I’m getting scared.”
“On my way.”
What followed was the longest five minutes of Ahanti’s life. After Lav finished his song, he stood up. She could hear him walking back and forth in front of her door. “September 19th my daughter Adele was born. She’s my oldest girl. Her brother was born the fourth of July.” Lav knocked against Ahanti’s door once. “That’s one set of kids. Then I had three babies with Maria. Juan Carlos on May 10th, Gregory on February the 11th and Little Maria. Her birthday is… well, fuck. I don’t know when her birthday is. I never seen her since she was two years old. Her mother decided she had all kinds of things she needed to do and took them all back to Mexico with her.” He wailed, a long lonely sound that reminded Ahanti of a wolf baying at the moon. “That was six years ago now.”
Ahanti opened the door. “Lav. I’m sorry.”
He stopped his pacing. “It really sucks.” Lav pounded his fist against his chest. “People look at me. They see I ride a motorcycle. They see the tattoos. They think I don’t have a heart. That I don’t feel nothing.” His voice was growing louder with every word. “Even the god damned mother of my children. Do you know what she told me?”
“No,” Anders said, from the top of the stairs. “Why don’t you tell me what she said?”
Lav attempted to whirl toward Anders. This would have worked if he wasn’t so drunk, but he was very, very drunk. Instead of whirling, he spun and fell forward, landing flat on his stomach with his head up against the wall.
“Oh, buddy,” Anders went to Lav’s side. “That looked like it hurt. Are you all right?” He helped Lav sit up. “Dude, you’re bleeding.”
Lav’s eyes went to Anders’. “Is it bad?”
Anders shook his head. “It looks like you scratched your forehead pretty good,” he said. “and maybe a couple of stitches wouldn’t hurt.” He glanced up at Ahanti. “Maybe get you checked out for a concussion.”
“Fuck, man.” Lav struggled to his feet. “I ain’t going to no god damn hospital.”
“Do you want me to drive you?” Anders asked. “Or we can get you an ambulance.”
Lav raised his fingers to his forehead, feeling his wound. It was only a small scratch, but it had produced enough blood to coat at least three fingertips. He stared at his crimson digits a moment and then laughed.
“This? I’m not going to the hospital for this.” He leered at Anders. “You ever been shot, Bee Boy?” He tapped his chest. “I have. 9 mm right in the leg.” Lav started to tug his pants leg up to show the scar, but this was an operation with far too many steps for him to navigate in his current condition. “And I didn’t go to the hospital for that!”
“Wow,” Anders said slowly. “That’s pretty tough.”
Lav nodded. “So don’t tell me I need to go to the god damn hospital.” He staggered away from Ahanti’s door, past Anders, and toward the exit. “I can take care of myself.”
“I see that,” Anders said.
“That’s right,” Lav agreed. “Don’t you forget it.” He then promptly fell down the stairs. It was a loud, crashing descent that had all of Ahanti’s neighbors opening their doors.
“Oh, Jesus,” Ahanti said. She reached out and grabbed Anders by the hand, pulling him into her apartment. “You’d better get in here.”
He came into her apartment, but was confused. “Why?”
“When the cops get here, they’re going to have a lot of questions. And if you’re just standing around out there, they’re going to think you pushed that idiot.”
“And me being in your apartment changes this how?”
Ahanti smiled. “When the police ask if we heard anything, I’ll just tell them we were too busy making love.”
Anders blushed scarlet.
Ahanti reached out and let her fingertip rest against his nose. “And if you do that when I say it, they’re going to absolutely believe me.” She smiled. “Problem solved.”
Anders looked Ahanti up and down slowly. Her pink-striped bathrobe clung to her curves, with a neckline that came open to reveal a generous amount of deep cleavage. “Aren’t I a little…overdressed for that alibi?”
“We could fix that,” Ahanti said.
Anders’ blush got more intense.
“I mean, unless you don’t want to…” Ahanti stepped closer to Anders than she’d ever been before. Her brown eyes searched his, looking as deep as she could into their clear blueness for a clue about how he was feeling. “I do want to thank you for coming to save the day.”
“Do you know what I was doing when you called?” Anders asked. His voice was barely above a whisper.
Ahanti shook her head. “Tell me.”
“This,” Anders said. He pulled Ahanti into his arms, bent his head down and kissed her passionately. It was an embrace that went on and on; Ahanti’s head began to swim with the scent and taste of her cowboy. She only pulled away when the pounding in her lungs demanded air immediately. She gasped for breath and then smiled.
“Wow.” She cocked her head. “Do you know what I was thinking about before Lav showed up?”
Anders shook his head. “No.”
“Getting you out of these clothes.” Her fingers went to the hemline of Anders’ white t-shirt. “If that’s okay with you.”
“Well,” Anders said, with just a bit of a blush, “I wouldn’t want to be over dressed when the cops get here.”
Ahanti smiled, and slid Anders’ t-shirt up over his stomach. She smiled when she saw his cotton candy pink nipples and the tiny blond curls nestled in the center of his chest. “Where are you from, boy?” she asked. “Finland?”
“Close,” he said with a laugh. “Minnesota.”
“One of these days you’re going to have to tell me how you wound up here in West Texas,” Ahanti said. She started to undo his belt buckle. “But I think that’s a conversation that’s going to have to wait.”
Her ebony fingertips had just grasped hold of Anders’ zipper when there was a loud knock on her door. “This is the police! Open the door!”
Ahanti waved Anders toward her bedroom. “Hold on!” she said. “I’m coming!”
Moving briskly, she opened the door, clutching her bathrobe closed around her. “What seems to be the trouble, officer?”
There were two police officers facing her. “Ma’am,” the younger one said. “We’re just checking with everyone in the building; there’s been an incident, and we’re trying to figure out what happened.”
“Is this about the drunk guy who was stomping around in the hall?” Ahanti asked. “I talked to him for a second, but I couldn’t understand him. He was going on about his kids being taken back to Mexico or something.”
“And he was intoxicated?” the other cop asked.
“Very intoxicated,” Ahanti said. “I shut the door on him. Drunks like that scare me. You never know
what they’re going to do.”
The first cop nodded and wrote something on his notepad. “So you saw him in the hallway, spoke with him briefly and shut the door. Is that it?”
Ahanti nodded.
“Is there anyone else in the apartment?”
“Just my boyfriend,” Ahanti said. Right at that moment, as if on cue, Anders emerged from her bedroom, wrapped in a blanket.
“Babe, what’s going on?” he said, sleepily. His eyes widened when he saw the police. “Is something wrong? Has there been an accident?”
Ahanti shook her head, but the younger cop spoke before he had a chance. “We’re investigating an incident in the building.”
“That drunk guy, baby.”
Anders rolled his eyes. “He had a cut on his forehead when I saw him,” he said to the cops. “I offered to call an ambulance for him, but he told me no way.” He shrugged. “So I went back to bed.” Anders reached out and took Ahanti by the hand. “We heard him stomping around out here for a while, but then I thought he left.”
“Well, he tried. It looks like he misjudged the stairs. And wound up going for a ride in the ambulance anyway,” the older cop said. His gaze fell to Ahanti and Anders’ intertwined fingers, and the blanket only loosely wrapped around Anders’ stocky form. “Thanks for your time. You folks have a nice evening.”
“Thank you, officer.” Anders squeezed Ahanti’s fingers. “We appreciate you keeping an eye on us.”
The cops gave them a nod and moved down the hallway, where they knocked on Ahanti’s neighbor’s door. Anders shut the door without letting go of Ahanti’s fingers. “Now, where were we?”
“Wait, wait, wait a minute,” Ahanti said. She took a step back and looked at Anders. “What was all that?”
“What was what?” Anders asked.
“Mr. Smooth had a perfect story for the police. Didn’t get rattled at all.” Ahanti cocked her head. “Is this some sort of white boy magic?”
Anders laughed. “Beekeeper magic, if anything. I hate getting stung.” He tugged on Ahanti’s hand. “Let’s go back to bed.”
“We weren’t even in bed to begin with.”
Anders stepped close and kissed her again. This time, he was bolder, cupping one of her massive breasts in his hand and squeezing gently. It was a gesture that sent waves of desire coursing through Ahanti’s body; she could feel her pussy begin to throb. “So let’s start by fixing that.”
“Yeah?” Ahanti kissed Anders back. “That’s what we’re going to do?”
He let the blanket fall to the floor. Underneath, Anders was naked. Ahanti’s eyes widened at the sight of his long, thick pink cock. It was already swollen with need. She reached out and let her fingertips trace over its length, going slowly from the nest of blond curls at the base to the flared tip.
“Let me get this right,” she sputtered. “All the time you’re talking with the cops, you were bare-ass naked under this blanket?”
“I wanted our story to be believable.” Anders said. He kissed her again and said, “Did you do anything with that honey I gave you yet?”
Ahanti shook her head. “Never got the chance.”
“Go get it,” he said. “I’ll be in the bedroom.”
Ahanti retrieved the small jar of honey. Her mind was racing, and she was consumed by a pair of warring emotions: curiosity and arousal. What did Anders want to do with the honey? She smiled to herself. She wouldn’t mind licking the sweet stuff off his cock.
It was the fastest trip into her bedroom she’d ever made.
Anders was sitting on the edge of her bed, facing her. “Come here, beautiful,” he said, with his arms wide. “Let’s get you out of this robe.”
The pink and white terrycloth garment slid to the ground in an instant. Ahanti struck a pose, standing tall to give Anders the best view of all of her curves. “Do you like what you see?”
“I do,” Anders said. He let his fingertips trace gently over her rolling curves, slowly stroking Ahanti’s chest, then her belly, and then the soft cushion of her thighs. “You’re a very beautiful woman.”
Ahanti was trembling. Waves of need were coursing through her body, and this showed by the way her breasts were shaking gently, almost in time with her steadily speeding heartbeat. “And you’re a very handsome man,” she replied, bending down for another kiss. She pressed the jar of honey into his hand. “What are you planning to do with this sweet stuff.”
Anders smiled. “Exactly what I was thinking about when we were in your shop this morning.” He popped the top off of the jar and dipped his finger in. It emerged coated with the golden sticky stuff. Anders let the first drop fall off of his finger onto the soft top curve of Ahanti’s breast, and then slowly began to trace a sweet spiral around it. It took a few delicious, electrifying, pussy tingling moments for him to complete the journey to Ahanti’s nipple.
“Oh, god,” she moaned. “This feels so good.”
“If you like that, you’re going to love this,” Anders said. He bent his head toward Ahanti’s breast and started licking off the honey he’d just applied.
She groaned and slid her fingers into Ander’s blond hair. “Oh, god.” It took all of her willpower to resist the temptation to crush his head into her bosom. “Don’t you stop.”
“I’m not planning to,” Anders murmured. He slid one hand between her thighs, and began slowly rubbing at her most tender bits. “Are you wet yet, pretty? Can you take me?”
“Keep doing that, and I will be,” Ahanti groaned. Anders finally completed his trip down the honey trail, sending his tongue flickering over her fully erect nipple. “Oh, hell yes.” She put one hand on Anders’ shoulders and maneuvered him a little further back on her soft bed. “Let me get on top of you.”
“With pleasure,” he said, leaning back a little. His cock was standing straight up and down. Ahanti sank onto it slowly, smiling as she felt herself being stretched by his length and breadth.
“Oh,wow,” she said, gazing into his eyes. “Why didn’t we do this sooner?”
“Beats me,” Anders said, before returning his attention to her nipples. He sucked and bit a little bit at them, creating little explosions of pleasure that pushed Ahanti closer to orgasm with every passing second. “You’re amazing.”
His hands were on Ahanti’s waist, and he spent a moment squeezing the flesh there before letting them slide back to her ass. “My God,” he groaned. “You’ve got a magnificent ass.”
“Spank it,” Ahanti hissed in his ear. She was squeezing her pussy muscles around Ander’s cock; it wouldn’t be long, she knew, before she completely blissed out on her cowboy.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “Spank that ass.”
His hand was harder than Ahanti expected, but it fell with exactly the right amount of force, in just the right spot. Ahanti yelped with pleasure, and ground her pussy all the way down on Anders’ cock.
“Oh, Jesus, baby,” Anders said. “If you keep doing that, I’m not going to be able to last long.” Immediately after saying that, he swatted Ahanti’s ass again.
“White boys don’t get cause and effect, do they?” Ahanti laughed, trying to control her movements for just a moment, and failing utterly.
“Nope,” Anders said. He swatted her other cheek, a little sharper and harder. “We don’t get that at all.”
Ahanti pushed Anders flat on his back. “You’re going to make me ride you for real.”
“That’s the plan.”
Words failed them then, to be replaced only by the sounds of sweaty flesh slapping together, punctuated by the occasional spank and increasingly frequent moans.
“I’m gonna go,” Ahanti panted. “Go all over you.”
Anders smiled. “Give it to me, pretty.”
Ahanti closed her eyes, bit her lip, and came harder than she’d come in a long time. If Anders hadn’t of had a tight grip on her hips, she would have fallen right off of the bed. As it was, they wound up on their sides, tangled
together as Anders kept pushing into her throbbing pussy.
“You want this?” he asked. “You want this now?”
“Yeah, I want your honey.” Ahanti thrust her hips backward, almost lifting Anders up off of the bed. “I want your honey now.”
Anders groaned. His whole body went rigid, and then he collapsed, sweaty and breathing hard, against Ahanti’s back. He wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her cocoa colored shoulder. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he murmured.
“Thank you,” she said, turning so she could kiss Anders on the lips. They were a hot sticky mess. Untangling was awkward, and Ahanti laughed. “This all got going when I was thinking about you in my shower,” she said, “and now it looks like we’re headed back there.”
“That could be fun,” Anders said.
“It could be, but it won’t,” Ahanti said, with a glance at the clock. “Three a.m. comes awfully early.”
“My God,” Anders said. “I finally found a girl whose workday starts earlier than mine!”
“So you’re really going to make those cupcakes?” Anders asked. It was very early Wednesday morning. It wasn’t fair to say he’d spent every waking moment with Ahanti over the course of the previous day and a half, but it wouldn’t be fair to say he hadn’t, either. When he wasn’t tending to his bees or working on honey blends, Anders was very much enjoying spending time with Ahanti. There was no question that there was an immediate physical attraction between the two of them, but the pair had more in common than that. Each conversation revealed another bond between them: a mutual love of fine food, a passion for entrepreneurism, a hatred of potted plants…it was uncanny how much they had in common.
“I am,” Ahanti said. “He did order them, and I don’t want to have a situation where he comes in to pick them up and they’re not ready.” She was carefully putting expert swirls of white buttercream frosting on top of each cupcake. To her left sat a dish filled with balloon shaped sprinkles, in yellow, red and blue. “I’ve got these Happy Birthday picks I can put in at the last minute. And if he doesn’t show up?” She looked at her work critically. “These look good enough to eat.”