Live and Learn (23 page)

O
kay, that is way more of Mo than I wanted to see.

I turned my head as the OB/GYN checked Mo to see how far she was dilated. I glanced at Alizé and saw she had her head turned as well.

And I have got to remind Mo that a bikini wax is not at all a bad thing. Jesus, it looks like she is trying to hide Buckwheat’s afro under her gown
.

I felt my cell phone vibrate. When I flipped it open, a text message read:
COME DOWNSTAIRS
.

“Ladies, I’ll be right back.” I left my purse by Alizé and gently squeezed Mo’s foot on my way out the door.

The scent of hospital and sickness was never as strong in the Labor and Delivery unit as elsewhere. Thank God, because my stomach couldn’t take it.

I felt nervous like something was about to happen…like enough was not going down right now. Mo having the baby. Dom playing bounty hunter. Al looking sad, fronting like Cameron getting married didn’t hurt her.

Getting married.

Six months ago I thought I would be getting married now. Everything I thought I wanted had been in the palm of my hand, and I held that hand up and blew those dreams into the wind like dust. I had not seen Sahad—in person anyway. That same day two of his burly security guards brought all my belongings to me in plastic trash bags.

And that was my belongings pre-Sahad.

He kept everything he ever bought me. And I mean
everything
. The seven-piece Louis Vuitton luggage, all of the jewelry except what I had on, the clothes, the shoes—oh, God, the shoes, even the expensive lacy lingerie. All of it. Later I found out my new Benz was gone as well. Maybe he did a male version of the Angela Bassett scene from
Waiting to Exhale
.

No more wifey living the high society life I longed for.

Having a man take back everything he ever gave you—including your underwear—was one helluva wake-up call on being independent.

I was back working as a receptionist for a law firm downtown. Thank God I had kept my apartment for Dom and Mo or I would have been homeless right now. With us splitting the expenses three ways, my life was not about struggling financially to keep up appearances. Plus, my appearances had downgraded a bit. More GAP and Baby Phat over Escada, Cavalli, Armani, and Norma Kamali. Nine West and Etienne Aigner shoes over Manolo Blahnik.

It was hard, but I was trying my best not to put myself in a situation where I needed a man to bail me out. So very damn hard.

But my life was good. Different, but good. Damn good.

The elevator stopped on the first floor. Dom and I nearly walked into each other. “Hey, girl. Good, you made it.”

“Mo ain’t dropped yet?” she asked, shifting her shades up to the top of her head. She held her car keys in her hand.

“Not yet, but she is taking the pain like a soldier.”

“Shit, that real pain just ain’t hit her ass yet.” Dom laughed.

“Where’s Kimani?”

“Spending the night with her friend.”

I reached out and grabbed her hand. Dom did not like mushiness, but I held on to that hand even when I felt her pull away. “Hey, I am so proud of you. For everything. Kimani. Your job. Staying clean. Handling you mother. Helping catch Rah. All of it.”

Dom’s hand went from being slack to clasping mine just as tightly as I squeezed hers. That was her way of saying thank you, and I understood that. Dom was just being Dom.

“Ze’s upstairs.”

“I know.” Dom reached behind me to hit the button for the elevator. “She hates my guts. I’m the worst bitch alive and all that good shit, but I
ain’t
missin’ Mo havin’ this baby.”

Uh-oh
.

“Wait on me in case I have to play referee.”

I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned and was pulled into a warm, strong, and oh so
familiar
embrace. I buried my face in his neck and inhaled deeply of the scent of cocoa butter in his locks. My heart pounded. My pulse raced. My stomach fluttered. “Hey, baby.”

“Whaddup, Miss Danielle.”

Okay, I was in love. For the first time in my life I was truly and completely in love. He was nothing I ever thought I would want but everything I discovered I needed.

W
hen Dom and Cristal went back up to Mo’s room, it was bustling with activity. She was being prepped for the delivery.

“You can have up to three in the room during delivery. Are they all staying?” the nurse asked Mo.

“Yes,” Mo snapped. Her eyes closed as she winced and then bit her bottom lip. She opened one eye and looked at each of them.
“Everybody.”

“Get them some gowns,” the nurse told the nursing assistant as she reached in a drawer for other supplies.

Mo released the bed rail she was gripping tightly to hold out her hand.

Cristal immediately stepped to the side of the bed and entwined her fingers with Mo’s. “I am here for you. You know that.”

Dom stepped up next and moved to the head of the bed. She took Cristal’s free hand in one of hers and lightly grasped Mo’s shoulder with the other. “I got you, Mo.”

There was no denying the apprehension on Alizé’s face.

Dom licked her lips and focused her eyes on Mo.

Cristal gave Alizé a meaningful stare.

Time seemed to tick by slowly in those awkward moments.

Ze stepped up to the other side of the bed and took Mo’s free hand in one of hers. “I’m not going anywhere either.”

Cristal smiled. “Okay y’all, let’s have this baby.”

Niobia Bryant delivers a sexy, unforgettable novel about love, infidelity, and the importance of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer…

Message from a Mistress

Coming in March 2010 from Dafina Books

W
here do I begin? How do I tell the story? Our story. His and mine.

He was my lover and her husband. You would think that wasn’t possible—like saying dry rain or cold heat—but it was true. She had the ring and the certificate…but I had him. From that first heated moment in their kitchen when his strong hands reached beneath my skirt to grab my soft, bare ass, I knew I had him.

I don’t recall the specific moment when our lust turned to love. When our time spent together became about more than just fucking, more than just rushing through electrifying sex that left us both panting, sweaty, and in various stages of undress. We shifted so easily from sharing clandestine and wonderfully sneaky moments—even in their house while she was there—to him sneaking out of their home to be in my arms and in my bed.

I hated to lay alone at night surrounded by nothing but cool cotton sheets and plush down pillows, while she had his hard and warm body to hold close.

I knew the time would come when I would want more from him than just his dick. I wanted his love, his time, his all…for me and only me.

She was my friend—true, but he was my lover, my love, and in this game there could only be one winner as far as I was concerned.

Me.

J
aime Hall enjoyed the feel of the steam surrounding her body as she sat in the glass shower of their bedroom suite. The thick swirling vapors felt like a lover’s gentle touch against her skin and those intimate parts of her body. Her breasts. Her nipples. Her thighs. Her lips—both sets.

She relished it. She needed it.

Sadness weighed her shoulders down and soon she felt tears fill her oval shaped eyes and race down her cheeks. Jaime brought her shaking hands up to hug herself close. “God, I can’t take much more of my life,” she whispered into the steam as her head dropped so low that her chin nearly touched her chest.

She heard a sudden noise in the bathroom. Her head jerked up and she immediately swallowed back the rest of her tears and frantically wiped any traces of them from her face. The last thing she wanted was for him to see or hear her crying.

“Eric,” Jaime called out to her husband of the last seven years.

No answer. Nothing to acknowledge her. Seconds later the bathroom door opened and then closed. Disappointment nudged the door to her heart shut as well. The body’s automatic defense mechanisms were amazing.

Jaime rose from the bench and stepped out of the shower. She grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her frame as she raced out of her bathroom suite and through the master bedroom and out to the hall.

“Eric!” she called out, striding down the staircase and through the circular foyer to the kitchen.

The house was quiet. As she looked out the kitchen windows over the driveway, the sun was just starting to rise. Sure enough, Eric’s new Ford F150 was gone from its parking spot, leaving just her older but still reliable convertible Volvo.

He left to go deep-sea fishing and didn’t even bother to tell her good-bye. She turned and let her body slide down to the polished hardwood floor as tears wracked her body. She wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked to make herself feel a little better.

“Shit!” Renee Jackson swore as the gray acrid smoke rose from the frying pan with fury. She hurried to turn off the lit eye of the Viking stove before shifting the pan to one of the remaining five burners.

“Damn, damn, damn it all to hell.”

Renee could only shake her head at the blackness of the bacon she’d been frying. It was
beyond
crispy.

“Is something on fire, Ma?”

Renee looked over her shoulder as her thirteen-year-old daughter, Leila, walked into the kitchen on dragging feet in her oversized fuzzy pajamas. “Just breakfast,” Renee said.

“
You
were cooking?” Leila asked in disbelief as she leaned her hip against the island in the center of the kitchen.

“I wanted to fix your father breakfast before he left to go fishing.” Renee slid the halfway decent looking slices of bacon onto a clear glass plate.

“You never cook.” Leila moved across the kitchen to the pantry.

“I know
how
to cook,” Renee protested as she ran a hand through her wavy hair. “It’s remembering that I have food on the stove that I have a problem with.”

Leila stepped out of the pantry and approached her mother, her hand digging into a box of cereal. She threw handfuls of the sugary sweet cereal into her mouth and frowned at the bacon-filled plate in her mother’s hand. “Good thing Daddy loves you,” she joked before turning to walk out of the kitchen.

“Yeah, good thing,” Renee said with hesitance as she cracked eggs into a large red Le Creuset ceramic bowl and whisked them with extra ferocity.

She poured the eggs into the stainless steel pan and left them so that they would set before she scrambled them. She moved back to the end of the island where her briefcase was open and instantly became absorbed in the facts and figures of the report she’d brought home to review.

At thirty-three, Renee was the vice president of marketing for the CancerCure Foundation, one of the largest nonprofits serving cancer research and awareness in the country. It was her job and her passion to develop partnerships with major corporations for invaluable donations and increasing the national visibility of the foundation. She took her work seriously—not just for the six-figure income she received—but because it intrigued and challenged her every day. It was easy for her to get deeply absorbed into her work.

Renee picked up the oversized cup of gourmet coffee with one hand and the open report with the other.

“What the hell is burning?”

The words on the report disappeared as Renee closed her eyes and frowned as she thought, “damn,” at the sound of her husband Jackson’s voice from behind her.

She dropped the report and snatched the burning pan from the stove in one continuous motion. “This just isn’t my morning, Jackson,” she told him, looking over her shoulder at her tall, solid husband of the last thirteen years.

His square, handsome face shaped into a frown as he took in the papers and files on the island. There was no mistaking the immediate look of disapproval.

Renee hated the guilt she felt at that one look that spoke volumes about their marriage. “I thought I would cook—”

“
And
work?” he asked, moving past her to fill the thermos he held with coffee.

Renee swallowed her irritation. She looked down at the burnt bacon on the plate and the brown eggs in the pan and scraped them both into the garbage disposal. “I’m trying, Jackson,” she stressed, her eyes angry and hurt.

He just snorted in derision.

Renee felt tension across her shoulders. She jumped a little as he moved close to her to press a cool kiss to her cheek. She closed her eyes, absorbing his scent as she raised a hand to stroke his bearded cheek. He felt familiar and strange all at once. It had been so long since they had shown each other simple affection.

She tilted her head back to look up into those eyes that had intrigued her from the first time she saw him on the campus of Rutgers University. “I love you, Jackson,” Renee whispered, hating the urgency in her voice as her eyes searched his.

For what seemed like forever, his eyes searched hers as well. “We need to talk. We
have
to talk,” he said, his voice husky and barely above a whisper.

A soft press of his lips down upon hers silenced any of her words or questions.

Moments later, he was gone and Renee felt chilled to the bone.

“You didn’t have to get up so early with me, baby.”

Aria Livewell shrugged as she followed her broad-shouldered husband, Jamal, down the stairs of their three-thousand-square-foot home in the family-oriented subdivision of Richmond Hills. A home they planned to fill with children. “It’s no problem. You know me and the girls are hanging out today and I wanted to get some housework done before they picked me up.”

Jamal set his fishing equipment by the wooden double doors. “Think you four will be back on time? You know we’re supposed to meet at the Jacksons’ tonight to fry up all the fish we’ll catch today.”

“Just three, actually. Jessa said she had
something else
to do today.” Aria made a playful face and waved her hand dismissively.

Jamal put his broad hands beneath her short cotton robe and pulled his beautiful, mocha-skinned wife close to him. “If we whup our friends in bid whist tonight, I have one helluva surprise for you.”

Jamal was
so
competitive.

Aria tilted her head up to lightly lick his dimpled chin as she pushed her hand into the back pocket of his vintage jeans to grasp his firm buttocks. “Can I get a hint?” she asked huskily with a teasing smile, the beat of her heart already quickening with anticipation.

“Damn, I love you,” he said roughly, his eyes smoldering as he slid one hand up to her nape.

Aria moaned softly in pleasure at the first heated feel of her husband’s lips. As she gasped slightly, he slid his tongue inside her mouth with well-practiced ease. She shivered. Her clit swelled to life. Her nipples hardened in a rush.

“Do we have time?” she asked in a heated whisper, barely hearing herself over her own furious heart beat as Jamal undid her robe and planted moist and tantalizing kisses along her collarbone.

“We’ll make time,” he breathed across her flesh.

As her robe slipped open and his familiar hands caressed her silky skin, Aria enjoyed their passion and wondered if a time would come when she didn’t cherish and yearn for her husband’s touch. His dick. His kisses. His love.

With his mouth, Jamal made a path to the deep valley of her breasts, bending his knees to take one swollen and taut dark nipple into his mouth. He sucked it deeply and then circled it with the tip of his clever tongue.

“Yes,” Aria whimpered, flinging her head back.

Jamal turned them and pressed Aria’s back to the towering front doors as he quickly undid his belt and zipper. His own hands shook as he placed them on her lush hips and lifted her with ease until her pulsing and moist pussy lips lightly kissed the thick tip of his dick. “Why is your pussy so good?” he whispered against the pounding pulse of her throat.

Aria didn’t answer. She just smiled wickedly as she caused the swollen lips of her vagina to lightly kiss the smooth, round head of his dick…twice.

Jamal dropped Aria down onto his erection, her pussy tightly surrounding and gripping him like a vise. “Damn,” he swore, his buttocks tensing as he froze. He didn’t want to come. Not yet.

Aria pressed the small of her back to the door and began to work her hips in small circles, anxious not just to have his dick pressed against her walls but to feel his delicious strokes.

Jamal’s jaw clenched. “Don’t make me nut, baby.” His voice was strained.

Aria raised her hands to tease her own nipples with her slender fingers as she enjoyed the tight in-and-out motion as Jamal began to work his hips. She felt wild and free, uninhibited and sexy. “Umph. I’m gon’ come, baby. Please make me come,” she whispered with fevered urgency as each of his deep thrusts caused her pussy to smack and echo in the foyer like applause.

Jamal’s chest and loins exploded with heat as he felt a primal need to feel as much of Aria’s pussy as he could. He pushed deeper up inside her, drawing quick and uneven breaths as his heart thundered. His buttocks clenched and then relaxed as he touched every bit of her ridged walls with his solid inches. “Damn, Aria,” he swore, planting adoring kisses along her collarbone as his dick filled her with several warm shots of cum.