Coming For What's Mine

by Edwina Fort

  “Aww Journey, give me a break! You study plants. Boring plants! I’m sure a little rendezvous with the Senator’s boy ain’t gon’ come in the way of all that excitement. Besides, don’t you think it’s time you gave up your V-card? I swear you’re the oldest virgin in the world right now.” She slid that in before she turned and sashayed away. I chuckled at her as I put the flowers in a vase.

  That had been the fifth time he’s sent me flowers. I didn’t tell Michelle the truth as to why I was avoiding Jo. The truth was he scared me to death; he was just too much. Because of Rome I had come up fairly sheltered. None of the guys on the block would dare try to step to me. In my neighborhood, Rome was the boss and everybody knew how overprotective of his family he was.

  And Rob, only being a year older than me was no better. He kept the guys from approaching me at school. I mean sure, there were a few boys that tried to sneak and have a relationship with me, but it only got so far before their fear of one of my brothers finding out would eventually become a turn off. So, as you can see, it was safe to say that Rome and Rob were the reason I was still the proud owner of my V-card.

  Anyway, that being my first time from under their protection, it felt as if Joseph was a raging storm. I had never encountered a man like him. I was used to the guys that I had grown up with. Like I said, Rome is the boss in the hood, but Joseph expanded further than the hood and my understanding. He was well-traveled and just felt more advanced that what I could handle.

  I couldn’t help but feel that if he ever got me, he would devour me and leave me lost and turned out somewhere. It wasn’t that I didn’t think I was good enough for him; being the only girl and the baby, I had come up the princess in my household. Between Rome and my mother, I was quite spoiled. It wasn’t much that I wanted that Rome didn’t make sure I got.

  No, that wasn’t the issue.

  Joseph was just too…too…

  Aggressive!

  I’ll tell you what I mean. I was in the office cafeteria making myself a cup of tea one morning. It was early and I thought I was in the office alone. I heard the front door open, but I just assumed it was Michelle, so I didn’t turn around when I heard the cafeteria door open and then close.

  “Good morning, Beautiful.” The deep voice scared the hell out of me, I whipped around with my hand on my chest to see him standing there looking exactly as Michelle described him, a piece of chocolate sin on legs.

  “You scared me,” I said trying to laugh it off. But the truth is the way he was looking at me was causing my girly parts to come to life.

  “Did you get any of my messages?” I turned back to my tea facing the cabinet. I knew it was a cowardly thing to do, but this man was breaking me down.

  “Mmmhhmm…” I said taking a sip of my hot lemony beverage.

  “So why didn’t you return my call?” I nearly jumped out of my burgundy boots. Somehow he had silently crossed the floor and was standing right behind me. I whipped around again and my breath fled my body before slamming back in. He was standing really close, so close that I could smell his expensive cologne. And he was very tall too. I had on heels and the top of my head barely reached his shoulder.

  “Ummm...” Oh God, I was having a major break down. I had never had a man invade my space before. “Ummm…I…umm!”

  He grinned and I had to bite my lip to keep from moaning out loud! Somebody call the law, because it had to be illegal in several states.

  “Ummm, what? Cat got your tongue?” As if under a spell, the only thing I could do was nod.

  “Lucky cat,” although he spoke in a low tone, his deep voice seeped into my being causing serious havoc in my belly. “I’d give all I own to trade places with him.” He continued.

  Wow!

  So caught under his spell I was, I didn’t notice that he had been stepping closer to me, until I felt both of his hands on the counter on each side of me, and realized that I was now in the circle of his strong arms.

  “Why won’t you return my calls, Journey?” I swear I was drowning in his deep dark gaze. The way he said my name almost made me moan again. I’m pretty sure when my mother named me Journey, she never meant for it to be said in such a way.

  “I-um…” My voice came out a little choppy, so I cleared my throat. His face was so close and was slowly coming closer. My eyes as if they had a will of their own were drawn to his lips that were lined perfectly by his low-cut beard and mustache. He licked them.

  Oh, Dear God!

  “I didn’t call you back, because--” I searched my mind for a legit reason for my coward-ness. When it came to me I smiled. “I have a boyfriend.” Beautifully done, Journey. I was so busy patting myself on the back, I didn’t notice when his gaze changed. He looked down for a minute and chuckled dryly to himself. When his eyes raised back to mine I saw it then, that ruthlessness that I’d heard so much about.

  “I don’t like being lied to.” He muttered. “Just admit that you’re afraid of me.” I opened my mouth to deny it, but then snapped it back shut. Hell, he was right, why lie? I held up my fingers.

  “Just a little bit!” I admitted, using my fingers to show him how little.

  “Why, baby? I’m not going to hurt you.” I chuckled then, shaking my head a bit.

  “You don’t believe me?” When my gaze came back to his, for the second time that day my breath was stolen. His eyes were serious. The smile disappeared off my face.

  “No, I don’t believe you.” I admitted.

  “Hmmm, that’s a shame.” As he spoke he stared at my mouth. “I guess I’ll have to show you.” Slowly his head lowered to mine. I was screaming to myself that you cannot let this man who for all intents and purposes was a stranger kiss you. I told myself that it was my boss’s son and this would be extremely unprofessional. I told myself…

  Nothing… after his lips touched mine I was lost. At first his kiss was so gentle, it didn’t take long for it to draw a response from me. But as soon as I started returning his caress, he artfully swept me away in a lust filled typhoon.

  I moaned as he deepened the kiss. Standing on my toes so that I could receive more of it I wrapped my arms around his strong neck. The few times I had been kissed were nothing like this, a few innocent pecks from the braver boys at school or a smooch stolen between the bleachers had all in a way just been the innocent unsure caresses of youth.

  However, there was nothing innocent about what Jo was doing to my mouth right now. His lips were very sure. His dominating kiss made me want to delve into the erotic. At some point, he wrapped his hands around my waist and lifted me so that I was sitting on the counter, bringing me up higher so that he could have better access to my mouth.

  This position pushed my burgundy skirt up farther around my hips as he spread my legs with his torso. For just a moment I was startled when I felt him ball his hands up in my waist length locs, controlling my head so that my mouth was in the perfect position for his ravishment. I learned something new about myself, that really turned me on.

  All reasonable thought fled my mind. He had taken me to a place where the only thing I could do was feel. At the same time he devoured my mouth, he pressed his hardness against my softness in a way that had me panting.

  I had no idea what was happening to me. I had no idea where we started and where we would have ended up had Michelle not walked in on us. I was so embarrassed that I ran out of there and into the bathroom and didn’t come out until Michelle assured me he was gone.

  That whole day I had been distraught. I could not believe I let him do that to me in the cafeteria of my job! The senator could have walked in. Oh my goodness! The man had turned me into a savage! After work, Michelle talked me into going out for drinks with her and a few friends to help calm my nerves.

  After the fourth shot of tequila, my nerves were good and calm, so calm that when I looked up and saw Joseph walking through the dancing bodies towards us I didn’t even bat an eye. He held my gaze as if I was under hypnosis. Michelle leaned towards me.<
br />
  “I hope you don’t mind that I invited him. Maybe tonight’s the night you’ll unclench that V-card.” She purred.

  I smiled like the cat that had found a bowl of cream. Maybe she was right. I was tired of being the oldest virgin. My brothers weren’t here, so why not have a little fun? I can’t lie and say I haven’t been curious to know what it feels like. And if Jo’s love making was anything like that kiss he had given me earlier, I was in for a treat. What harm could one night be? It was time for me to become a woman.

  Yeah!

  When he came to the table I smiled warmly at him. That night we laughed, we danced…and we drank. He whispered in my ear that he would love to take me back to his place and prepare a late-night dinner for me.

  Alarm bells were going off in my head, telling me that if I went behind closed doors with this man I was good and consumed. For a second, I got cold feet. But then my eyes crossed the table to Michelle, and she gave me the go ahead look. She even mouthed.

  “Don’t be a punk!”

  I bit my lip as I thought about it. As if he could sense the battle I was going through, he picked up my hand and kissed the back of it.

  “We don’t have to do this if you’re afraid.” I turned back to look at this fine chocolate specimen, smiling through my nervousness. I was tired of being afraid.

  “No, I want to.”

  True to his word, he prepared us a tasty meal of spaghetti. As we ate we drank more wine. That’s when I admitted to him that I was a virgin and would love for him to teach me how to make love. Right at that moment, a look came over his face that could be described as nothing less than that of a predator. But thanks to the liquid courage I continued, although my good senses were telling me not to.

  Had I known all the drama that night was going to lead to I would have stopped him. Hell, had it not been for the tequila making me feel braver than I was and Michelle making me feel like a freak for still being a virgin, I would’ve never been there in the first place.

  But I guess fate was determined to see this through, because I was there willing and ready.

  He made love to me, taking my virginity gently and lovingly. When he broke through my barrier and I cried out, he stopped and planted sweet kisses on my face, telling me that was the last of the pain. I don’t think I will ever forget the look in his eyes in that moment. He kissed my lips and began to slowly move again.

  At first, I was a little stiff as he continued to fill me, waiting for the pain I was feeling to get worse. But true to his word, the pain didn’t get worse. In fact, the pain began to subside, although I felt as if I couldn’t take all of him. He was gentle with me until I got accustomed to him. He made the pain fade completely and an intense pleasure that I never imagined I could feel took its place. And with no barrier between my most secret place and his, his loving became aggressive and relentless, like the kiss he had given me earlier. And just like earlier, it turned me savage.

  That’s when I learned that Jo had no mercy. Sounds that I didn’t even know I could make came from between my lips. I used my nails in ways I’d never thought I would. Goodness! I didn’t recognize myself. It wasn’t till morning that I realized my tragic mistake. Not once did he use a condom. No…not once.

  Chapter Two

  Paying What You Owe

  Joseph

  “99.99.” Karen’s words seemed to echo throughout the room, sealing Journey’s fate with a scorched iron.

  She was mine!

  I nearly smiled when the room erupted in chaos again. My gaze went down to the exotic beauty who sat on the couch biting her sexy bottom lip with her eyes closed as her brothers and mother began to yell at her. She ran from me because she knew that as soon as she conceived with my seed I owned her.

  She was mine!

  I exhaled feeling a year’s worth of rage dissolving from my shoulders. There was somebody up there looking out for me, because today he’d delivered both my daughter and her mother into my hands. When my mother came to me crying, admitting to me that Journey came to her for money for an abortion and she had given it to her, I nearly gave into the anger that always seemed to be simmering just underneath the surface of my skin.

  I went to her apartment and damn near tore it apart with my bare hands. The whole time her roommate cried assuring me that she didn’t know where Journey had gone. I waited outside of her apartment for days. When she never showed up, I became a madman, searching the records of every abortion clinic in America, determined to utterly destroy the one that had killed my child.

  When that still came up fruitless, I traveled to Chicago, putting a tail on every member of her family. It was then I realized that my little innocent beauty wasn’t all that damn innocent; she had managed to disappear to a place where I couldn’t find her. I called myself all kinds of fools, because still I wanted her. I still wanted her deceptive sneaky lying ass.

  My family wanted me to give up and stop searching, assuring me that the abortion happened and maybe Journey had just gone somewhere to lick her wounds, because a procedure like that could be emotionally draining on a woman.

  But I refused. I kept searching until one day like a burst of wind, she showed up at her family’s apartment with a little bundle in her arms. When the pictures made it to my office in D.C., I dropped everything and called for my family’s helicopter to meet me on the roof of my office building.

  She was mine! And she was going to pay what she owed…

  The noise caused my baby to start fussing. I rocked her like I had done before, but she was sucking on her fingers loudly and was not calming. She opened her little eyes and began to investigate me. It was like she knew that I was her daddy. She sucked at her fist taking me in just like I did her. I smiled bringing up my finger so that she could wrap her little hand around it.

  Although she looked like a miniature version of her mother, she didn’t have Journey’s toffee colored skin. She had taken after me.

  “No, Little one.” I cooed when she tried to put my finger in her mouth. For the first time in a long time, the inner rage in me quieted. My heart began to swell in a feeling that was foreign to me, a feeling I had never felt before.

  Love

  How was it possible for one’s heart to be instantly wrapped around a being so small?

  “A fed Journey?!” Her older brother yelled at her, causing the familiar rage that I had lived with forever to lift its head again.

  “You went and had a baby by a damn fed?!”

  He was going to be a problem. My first instincts, an instinct that I found myself fighting every day of my life was to rip his damn throat out for daring to try and come between me and mine. But like I had been trained to do at an early age, I quieted that voice and put on my mask.

  “Listen! I need everybody to calm down,” I turned to face Journey who sat there still biting her lip, obviously this was something she did when she was nervous or unsure. I felt myself begin to stiffen. Her mouth was so damn sexy, and when she bit her lip like that it made me think of the other things that I was going to take great pleasure in teaching her to do with those plush lips of hers.

  That’s if of course she was still green behind the ears as she was when I first made love to her. If her innocent abandonment as I loved her body had not been proof of her virginity, then the blood she left on my sheets and my rod surely did the trick. That was one thing she had not lied about.

  I bit down on my teeth trying to control the rage that rolled through me at the thought of some other man touching her, tasting her…teaching her what only I should.

  “Our baby need your attention.” I told her not being able to keep the anger out my voice. “Why don’t we go in the room to have a little chat while you see to her?”

  “Naw bruh, why don’t you stay out here and have that chat. Anything you got to say to my little sister you can say in front of me.” I smiled to hide the fact that I wanted to kill. Slowly I walked towards the big brother. He was right. He and I did need to have a litt
le chat.

  “Listen, Rome.” I spoke low so that his mother and sister could not overhear our conversation.

  “Your IQ has not escaped the notice of the United States Government. We are quite aware of how intelligent you are.” I smiled down at him stepping a little closer, I needed for him to understand that Journey was mine and I will destroy anybody that tried to stand in the way of that.

  “I took the liberty of doing a little independent study on you, bruh. I know more about you than you can imagine. You see I work with a group of fellas that are inclined to believe the very worst about a young black man. So when you fed them your cover, they accepted it, closed case.” I leaned in closer to his ear.

  “Not me, I know what we are capable of. I also know that you’re far too intelligent to keep drugs and guns in the place where you lay your head. The clumsy hands that spilled out all the pills as you hurried to flush them down the toilet. You’d gladly take those three years, six months with good behavior, huh?” I shook my head.

  “The Kansas City Shuffle won’t work with me. You see when I start looking, I’m going to step over all those beautifully colored pills you decorated the floor with. And I don’t know, maybe I’ll start with that fancy computer equipment you keep upstairs. I wonder what kind of goodies I can find there. I bet a lot. What kind of criminal uses selling drugs as a decoy?” For just a moment his mask slipped, but he quickly got it back in place.

  Rome was smart. Very! But I had come for the prize and nobody was going to stand in my way.

  Nobody.

  “Listen to me, bruh,” I continued. “Because this has become your new reality, your little princess is mine. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go talk with my new Mistress.” Anger washed over his face, but wisely he kept his mouth shut.

  “After you.” I told Journey gesturing toward the room Ted had carried my baby from. Her mother clutched her arm as if she was afraid to let her be alone with me. I almost laughed, it was far too late for that.