Come Share My Love (13 page)

     “But they weren’t with you in Jamaica.”

     “The Jamaican trip was a gift from my parents just for me.  They said I needed the rest.  And I did, but I spent two weeks with the girls afterwards.”  His eyes had softened even more.  She could tell that he adored his children

     “Poppa Zack,” she nodded while smiling her beautiful Colgate smile that he loved so much.  “It fits.”

     “Thanks.” 

     “So Poppa Zack, do you have any pictures?”  She went back to eating her meal.

     “What proud poppa wouldn’t?” using her word.  He smiled standing, taking his wallet from his pocket and handing it over to her.  Then he unclipped his cell from his waistband and handed it over to Essence.  “I don’t have nearly enough.  I make sure I take them everywhere I go.”

     Shyla began sifting through his wallet.  She gasped. “You never said they were twins, Zackary.”  She elbowed him playfully.  He and Felton shared a surprised look.  “They are so beautiful.  What are their names?”

     “Zaria and Zhaniya, my beautiful princesses.” 

She continued to flip the pages.  “Those are very beautiful names.  How old are they?”  Shyla never
stopped looking through his wallet.  There was at least a dozen or so pictures and she stopped and studied each and every one of them, like she was trying to make a memory.  Zackary had beautiful children.

     “They just turned three January seventeenth.”  Shyla paused.  “But they act like they’re thirty,” he laughed, but the surprised look on Shyla’s face stopped him cold.  “What?”

     “When did you say their birthdays are?”  Had she heard wrong?

     “January seventeenth.  Why?”

     Her eyes doubled in size.  “No way,” she pointed to herself.  “That’s my birthday.”  Shyla was excited.  She had never met anyone with her birthday or even in the same month. 

     “Seriously?”  He looked towards Felton and Essence who were nodding their heads like crazy.

     “Ask, Ess.”

     “She’s telling the truth.”

     “Wow.  Isn’t that something?  All of my girls have the same birth date.”  If Shyla was offended by his remark she didn’t let it show.  She was too busy studying another picture.

     “You know at first I thought they were identical aside from ones hair being a little lighter but they really aren’t.”

     “Sure they are.”  Zackary said.

     “They look enough alike.  Was it difficult to tell them apart?  You didn’t have to label their diapers and booties or anything that crazy did you?”  Shyla laughed.

     “Actually, in the beginning I did.”  He used his fingers to name the things off.  “We labeled their beds, their clothes, shoes, you name it we labeled it.  But after a few months we got use to their ways and temperaments, not to mention as you said, one has lighter hair.  It wasn’t that noticeable back then but now it is.  So if they ever want to switch places on me, they’d never get away with it.”

     “Would you believe, Mr. Trellis that I can tell your girls apart?  Aside from the hair.”

     “From a picture?  That’s impossible.”

Shyla looked at Essence and winked.

     “Trust me it’s not impossible.  Look at this picture with them together.”

     Zackary pulled the chair even closer and rested his arm across the back of Shyla’s chair.  They must have forgotten that Felton and Essence was sitting at the table because they were left out of the conversation and both Shyla and Zackary got really cozy with one another.  Shyla c
ould feel his warm breath on her cheek and it was sending warning signals to the rest of her body but she ignored them.  She was too fascinated with his twins that shared her birth date.

     “What am I looking at, besides my beautiful Princesses?”

     “Awe!  That’s sweet.”  Shyla pinched his cheek.  A playful gesture but it felt like heaven to Zackary.  “Is this Zhaniya?”  She was pointing to the three year old that looked so much like Zackary that it was uncanny.  Full pouty lips, mountain peak eye brows and hazel eyes with a touch of gold.

     “Yes.  That’s my Niya.  How did you guess that?”

     “She looks like a Zhane or Zoe, where as this one looks like a Zaria or Shyla, you could say.”  All eyes were on her like she had just dropped from the covered coach.  “What?  She reminds me of me when I was little.”  She shrugged her shoulders.  “Well pictures of me anyway.  I looked like both my parents.”  Her eyes got a little misty. She missed her parents.  They just up and went away one day, never to be seen again.  Zackary massaged his fingers through her hair.

     “My eyes were slanted like hers and I have the cutest little button nose, like she’s got.  See.”  She touched the tip of her nose.

     Zackary’s next moved shocked them all.  He kissed the tip of her nose.  It was quick but it was so sensual.

     “Hey!”  She pointed.  “Stop that.”  She turned away but the smile that graced her face said it all.  She liked it.

     “Well it is cute.  Besides the girls have the same nose.”

     “I beg to differ.”

     “That’s an understatement if I ever heard one.”  Felton stated.  He was rewarded with a kick from his wife and a hard stare from his cousin telling him to keep his opinion to himself.

     Felton held up his hands, in a gesture that he was backing off.  He knew what Shyla was capable of, but his wife would have been far worst to deal with.

     “Anyway, Shania’s nose has a short bridge to it whereas, Zari’s doesn’t.  And look here,” she pointed.  “Zhaniya has a dimple in the crease of her mouth.  It’s so cute.”  Shyla cooed.  “Looks like a half heart.” 

     “How can you see that?  Who are you, superwoman?”

     She shrugged.  “I just can.  I study people a lot.  They are so, so adorable.  Can I have them? You’ll never have to pay child support and I’ll take really good care of them,” she smiled.

     “Woman, you can’t have my kids.”  He thought about what he said. And it didn’t come out right.  “I’d like to re-phase my answer.  Yes you may have my kids.”  Her eyes brightened.  “My sons, but in the meantime, I don’t have a problem sharing my daughters.

     “Really?”  Zackary was up to something.  “Out of curiosity what do I have to do?  And don’t say have your kids.” She waited at most a minute for his answer when he wasn’t saying anything just sitting and staring she rushed him.  “Spit it out already.”

     He pulled her closer and whispered into her ear.  At least that’s what Felton and Essence believed he was doing.  He had actually used his tongue to tease her ear lobe and then blew it dry.  Her eyes fluttered closed.  Talk about a wild sensation.

     Mercy, she thought.  The only word that came to mind was, FOREPLAY.  When he finally pulled away her eyes were still fluttering.

     “Sound good to you?” 

     She didn’t answer.  She was still in a state.

     “Should I give you more details?”  When he bent back to complete the task, she raised her hand to his mouth and covered it with her palm.

     “No.  I’m good.  Just needing to let some of what you said wear off.  That was,” she let out a deep breath, “kind of intense.”

     “There’s more,” he said into her palm.

     “I’ll take your word for it.”  She continued looking at the pictures.  Or at least that’s what they thought.  She was trying to compose herself. 

     “I’ll definitely have to think about what-” she stopped because she saw something that wasn’t supposed to be in his wallet, and it wasn’t a condom.

C
hapter Nine

     “What in the blazing hell are you doing with this?”  She turned his wallet to face him.  It was a picture of her in the same two piece bathing suit, minus the sarong, while vacationing in Jamaica.  “Where did you get it?”

     He wasn’t ashamed to admit that he’d taken it while he watched her walking along the beach the night before the incident on the dance floor.

     “Oh well, you won’t be keeping it.”

He snatched his wallet away before she could get the picture out.  “Oh no, my little gumdrop, that belongs to daddy.”

     “But it’s a picture of me in a bathing suit.  I knew you were a stalker.”  He chuckled.  “So what,” she said like she was dismissing him.  “Keep it.  It’s not even a very good one.”

     “Maybe so,” he put his wallet back into his pocket.  “But is serves its purpose.  It keeps me from having to take long cold showers every night.”

     “Be quiet you nasty minded freak.  Just when I thought things were looking up, you go and ruin it with your mouth.”

     “I’d like to ruin you with my mouth and my tongue.”

     “Ugh.  Nasty ass.  Get your little friend, Felton.”

Felton chuckled.  “Okay Hot Lips, that’s enough, we’re still trying to enjoy dinner.” 

     They finished dinner and retired to the living room.

     Zackary was coming out of the bathroom just as Shyla sat down on the couch.  He made it a point to sit right next to her, right under her.  She tried to move but he pulled her back under him.

     “Sit back.  Relax.”  He said smoothly.  “I won’t bite…unless you want me to.  But I’ll be very, very gentle.  I won’t break the skin.”

     Shyla turned to him.  “Zackary you are really starting to scare me.”

     “Why, baby?” he massaged her shoulder.  He was pretty good she discovered.

     “You are becoming annoying like those jerks that come on to women with those lames ass lines.  Now stop it.”

     “Okay,” he responded.  He sat back and brought Shyla with him.  This time she didn’t try to move away.

     Essence was sitting next to Felton when she asked, “So, Zack.  Do you want more children?”

     He grabbed Shyla’s hand and kissed it.  “Only if my leading lady right here would do me the honor of having them with me.  As I said earlier, I want her to bare my son’s.”  He kissed her hand again.

   She turned to him and smiled after licking her lips and batting her eyes.  Then she did something that no one expected.  She gave him a passionate kiss on the lips.  She held his face in her hands and worked her magic on his mouth.  Before she pulled away she sucked his bottom lip into her mouth.  His lips were still puckered, while Essence and Felton sat with their mouths hanging to the floor. 

     Shyla wiped the lipstick from his mouth.  “Our babies, the boys, would be just as handsome as their daddy.  They’d have your beautiful eyes and your dimpled smile.  They’d have a heart as big as Texas and they’ll treasure the women in their lives, like the queens that they are. 

     “Our daughter’s, some will look like you, the others will look like me and they’ll be gentle but strong, independent but compliant, and they’ll honor the men in their lives, like the kings that they were meant to be.”  She kissed his still puckered lips, again.

     “I can live with that.”  He sobered, barely.  “How many are we talking about?”

     Zackary knew she was pulling his chain.  The kiss was a nice touch, though.  If he hadn’t known better he’d say she meant every ounce of it.  Even the batting of the eyes, turned him on, but now it was time to make her a little weak in the knees, turn the tables on Miss Shyla, so to speak.  He’d definitely be having the last laugh.

     “How many baby?”

     She gave him a devilish smile.

     He pulled her hand into his.  Clasping it like the day they walked on the Jamaican beach.  Then he raised it to his mouth and kissed it once again.  This time he kissed the knuckles, then turned it over and kissed the palm, then each fingertip, lightly licking each one with the tip of his tongue.

     Shyla got chilled. 

     “Four or five,” he asked.

She looked on as he made love, slowly and seductively to her hand.

     “Four or five?” she echoed, nearly gasping.

     “Yes.”  He kissed her hand again.  He watched as she closed her eyes to savor the moment.

     “All boys.”

     “All boys,” she repeated displaying a genuine smile about her face.  She was literally squirming in her seat. 

     “Uh huh.  We already have two beautiful daughters.”

     She nodded.  “Very beautiful.  Mmm.” 

     Essence and Felton nearly feel out of their seats laughing.  Was this their cousin, under a spell of a man’s kisses?  Hand kisses?

     Felton retrieved his camcorder from the bedroom and began taping.  He wanted to remember this moment.

     Still kissing her hand, Zackary asked, “So baby.”