Ex-Terminator Life After Marriage (32 page)

I
t was quiet in the room. Sylvia pulled her lips from Kenny. Anika was gone and Denise was getting her coat. The other lovebirds were still nesting.

“You got your ex’s number?” Denise asked Sylvia. “God, girl, he’s fine. I don’t know how you messed that up.”

“I don’t have his number, but you’re welcome to him—that is, if you like sloppy thirds. Ain’t even worth it,” Sylvia said.

“Well, hold it down. I’m calling it a night. Too much love in the room for me. Good night.”

“Good night,” Sylvia said. Kenny nodded. They watched as Denise walked down the hallway and out of sight.

“Why don’t we leave these good folks and head over to your place?” Kenny asked, placing a kiss on Sylvia’s lips.

“Wise decision,” Sylvia said. “I’m feeling awfully…wanting you…”

“Girl, why don’t you just say horny?” Kenny held Sylvia’s shoulders and let his hands glide down her arms. “I feel the same way.”

“We could get lost in Michael’s big ole house.” Sylvia chuckled at her thought. “And at the next meeting we could say…we conceived Kenny III in the West Wing of the Broussard Estate.”

“That’s not a bad idea.” Kenny laughed.

“You can’t be serious, Kenny.”

Kenny stood up and took Sylvia’s hand and pulled her up from the loveseat. “Let’s explore. There are so many rooms in this house, no one would ever find us.”

“I don’t know, Kenny. This isn’t my style, but I do feel a little sneaky.”

“Relax, we’re not going to do anything. Steal a few kisses here and there. I feel romance in the air.”

“Like you know what romance is when you see it.”

“Follow me, girl.”

Sylvia and Kenny tiptoed through the family room. Michael and Mona were sitting out on the enclosed deck snuggled under each other. Rachel and Marvin had found their way to the Jacuzzi. A long spiral staircase led upstairs, and they took them and disappeared from view.

There were three large bedrooms, a weight room and a movie theater complete with a popcorn machine. Sylvia and Kenny gawked at it all.

They avoided the three bedrooms that seemed to beckon them and found themselves in the weight room. Sylvia straddled the Bowflex machine and pretended to pull down the weighted rings. Kenny sat in front of her, taking the rings from her hands, straightening the five-carat diamond ring on her finger and threading his fingers with hers. Their upper bodies touched, and Kenny found Sylvia’s waiting mouth and kissed her hungrily. They untangled their fingers and made a full circle with their arms, wrapped around each other like the rings around Saturn.

Sylvia’s body fell back on the upright board—Kenny’s body following as their kisses became intense. Kenny reached up and unbuttoned her white cotton blouse, her breasts now exposed and pushing beyond the border of her white lacy bra. Beads of sweat began to form on Sylvia’s chest, but he found it intoxicating and began mapping his way with his tongue. Tasting the mounds of her swollen breasts, Kenny successfully navigated his way beyond the covering that held her ripe nipples. He sampled and played until Sylvia let out an uncontested moan of pleasure.

Kenny moved on top of her, still pelting her with kisses. She felt his hardness through the thin material of her skirt and moved her lower body just enough to let him know that she was pleased.

Sylvia tore away the shirt from Kenny’s body, his sweat dripping in torrents. She kissed his mouth, his neck, letting her tongue trail the length of his upper body until she circled the dark portion of his nipples, while she held his hands captive. Kenny groaned with pleasure as Sylvia continued her assault, and with one swift motion he loosened his hands from her grip and eased her breasts from the bra and sucked them.

Sylvia’s free hands ran up and down his back, squeezing his shoulder muscles time and again. And then he took his hands and drew the sides of her free-fall skirt up to her waist, examining her bent legs with his hands. He charged up her leg again and moved past her thighs until he touched the rim of her bikini panties. Kenny hesitated, then looked around the room as if it suddenly dawned on him that they may not be alone or that he was not in the comfort of his own home.

“I want you, Sylvia. I want you bad, but not here.”

“I’m disappointed, Kenny, because you’ve messed with my groove once again. I was so ready to have all of you and repent for it later. You do these crazy things to my body that got me not thinking straight. Whoa, boy, I don’t know if I can wait.”

“Sylvia, why are you pretending?”

“Pretending?”

“Girl, don’t play those theatrics with me. I’m glad you didn’t share with the Ex-Files, especially Rachel, about what happened the night Ashley was arrested. Scared they wouldn’t look at you quite the same?”

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them. Why are you doing all this talking anyway, Kenny? We could have successfully executed our covert operation without any suspicion.”

“Sylvia, you are a freak. As bad as I wanted it, not in Michael’s house.”

“Just testing you. I wouldn’t dare make love to you in someone else’s home.”

“Sylvia, you almost did.”

“We might have to move the wedding up,” she whispered, ignoring Kenny’s last statement.

“What are you talking about, Sylvia?”

“Rachel will be disappointed.”

“Talk to me, Sylvia.”

“I believe I’m pregnant.”

Kenny lifted his body and sat upright on the weight bench. “Do you know for sure? Did you take a pregnancy test?”

“Will it change things between us?”

“Of…course not, baby,” Kenny said hesitantly.

“No, I haven’t taken a pregnancy test, but my body has given me all the signs—a missed period that was as regular as the mailman and my very tender breasts. Are you disappointed?” Sylvia asked again.

Kenny held her face in his hands. “Baby, I love you. And if you’re carrying our baby, I’m happy about that, too. I just want you to be happy, for us to be happy with no misgivings about what we’ve done and where we’re going.”

“No misgivings, baby. I’m more in love with you, Kenny Richmond, than I’ve ever been. I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am. I haven’t had a nightmare since the night you came to my rescue. I feel like I’ve betrayed God, though. All that talk about waiting until I was married, and in a moment of weakness I jumped at the carrot dangling in front of me.”

“It wasn’t a carrot.”

“No, it wasn’t.” They laughed.

“My life is with you and my Lord, Kenny, and I will love and cherish you both until the day I die.”

“And, Sylvia, I will cherish you and our Lord until the day I die.”

“I love you, Kenny. Now that our hearts and minds are clear, who’s going to tell Rachel?”

EX-Terminator: Life After Marriage

• When a marriage breaks up, it can be a very emotional time. This may be the time to get advice from a professional counselor or join a support group. A support group may get together and share information and experiences, solve problems, and share resources. Sylvia needed a support group and started one she dubbed the Ex-Files, gathering a few of her friends who were in the same predicament. Did Ex-Files accomplish its mission?
  
• Who do you think in the Ex-Files gained the most by joining the group?
  
• Who do you think it helped the least?
  
• What reason did Sylvia give for her husband leaving her?
  
• Why do you believe Mona never went home to see her family? Why do you think she picked the time she did to finally visit them?
  
• Rachel Washington seemed to look for love in all the wrong places. How many times was she divorced? Do you think she deserved a second chance with Marvin?
  
• Marvin was a good man—some would say “too good.” On several occasions, Marvin’s ex-wife, Denise, shows up and finds her way into Marvin’s heart. Were Rachel’s actions justified?
  
• What was the real reason Denise came back to Atlanta?
  
• What event brought Claudette and her husband, Tyrone, back together?
  
• Do you feel the group let Ashley down? What could they have done differently? Was Ashley the cause of her own fate?
  
• A chance meeting found Sylvia face-to-face with an old flame—one whom she fell in love with all over again. Would you have given Kenny a second chance? Did Sylvia give him a second chance because she was on the rebound or for a totally different reason?
  
• The old cliché about the “grass is not always greener on the other side” rang true again as Adonis St. James comes to reclaim Sylvia at the eleventh hour after leaving and divorcing her to be with a previous ex-wife. Should she have left Kenny to reclaim her life with her baby’s daddy or do exactly what she did?