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Authors: Niobia Bryant

BOOK: Red Hot
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Quint opened the door. Lei was lying across her bed with her thumbs flying across the keyboard of her cell phone.
“I'm going for a run,” he said, pulling his hood up over his head and earphones.
“'Kay.”
She didn't even glance in his direction.
Maybe I shoulda just texted her.
Quint closed the door and made his way out of the apartment, being sure to lock the door behind him. Since it was late, he decided to do only a mile or two instead of five. Mainly, he didn't want to leave Lei home alone for too long. He wasn't worried about his safety at all. Boxing was another of the physical activities he enjoyed to stay fit, and he would straight knock a fool out for trying him.
He filled his ears with Rick Ross as he jumped up and down, flexed his shoulders, and rolled his head to warm up his body. A few knee hugs and lunges and he started off. He headed out of the parking lot at a brisk walk, before upping it to a jog, and then he burst into a full-on run on the sidewalks of Holtsville's small Main Street area. Since darkness had fallen, there wasn't much traffic. However, Quint ran against the flow of traffic because the town served as a major thoroughfare from the much larger cities of Summerville and then Charleston to Walterboro, the next biggest city on the other side of Holtsville.
He made the left turn by Donnie's Diner, a Holtsville landmark, and soon continued on past Holtsville Elementary School. His cell phone vibrated in his pocket and he started to ignore it. “Might be Lei,” he said aloud, stopping to run in place to maintain his heart rate as he pulled the phone from his pocket.
It was a text. He opened it: U BUSY?
Joni.
He curved his lips into a smile as he continued running in place. Joni was fine, sexy . . . and uncomplicated. No phone calls throughout the days. No desire to be wined and dined. No misconceptions of “it” being any more than what it was. Two adults fulfilling each other's desires . . . no strings attached.
Joni never contacted him unless she had some work for him to do for a couple of hours. He stopped running as he thought about taking her up on her offer.
She's hell with that tongue. . . .
He looked back from the direction he had come. He could run and be to Joni's house on Frontland Circle in less than five minutes . . . but there was no way in hell he would have the stamina to run back afterward.
No way in hell.
But. . .
Quint texted her back: Be there in ten minutes.
I'll run home and get my truck, instead.
Bzzz.
Quint opened the text: HURRY.
He headed back the way he came, and soon he was turning through the short brick columns flanking the entrance to the apartment complex. He pulled up short when he spotted Mr. Hanson from Apartment 12 coming out of the apartment of Mrs. Kilton. He wondered what Mrs. Hanson and Sergeant Kilton would think about it. Mrs. Hanson worked at night, and Sergeant Kilton was on a tour.
While the cats are away . . .
Quint wasn't one to judge, and he understood the childish urges of most men. However, having been on the receiving end of unknowingly sharing his wife's goodies, he didn't respect cheating. An adult walked away from a relationship that wasn't fulfilling, emotionally or sexually. They didn't find a side piece to supposedly do the job.
But that was their problem. Not mine.
“Hey, Quint,” Mr. Hanson said, walking past him to head for the stairs. “Damn good night, ain't it?”
Quint said nothing and just nodded as he pulled out his keys as he moved to the door of his apartment.
“Uh . . . Quint.”
He turned to find the tall and thin older man coming back down the few steps he climbed to walk over to him.
“Yeah?” Quint asked.
“I was just dropping off their mail that was put in our box by mistake,” Mr. Hanson said before laughing nervously.
“Huh?” Quint said, playing crazy.
The man looked surprised. “Uhm . . . nothing . . . n-never mind,” he stammered before turning to jog up the stairs.
Quint just shook his head as he entered the apartment. “Leave me out of that shit,” he muttered as he headed for Lei's room.
Man, save them lies for your wife.
He raised his hand to knock on his daughter's door, but he turned his head at the sound of the toilet flushing to look at the bathroom door across the hall. He continued down the hall to his master bedroom, which was decorated in various shades of charcoal with black leatherlike accents. He felt sweaty from the run and decided on a quick shower before he headed to Joni's.
Jerking off the earphones, he tossed his keys, wallet, and cell phone on the bed before rushing out of his running clothes and boxers. Naked, he strode across the slightly disheveled room to his en suite. It was relatively small for his height and athletic build, but he didn't complain. He was a simple man; and for him a bathroom was a place to wash and relieve himself. It didn't take a minimansion-sized room for that.
Quint turned the showerhead on full blast and didn't step behind the black curtain until steam began to coat the mirror over the sink and fill the small space. Beneath the sprayer he enjoyed the feel of the water pelting against the muscles of his shoulders, back, and buttocks before turning to let it flatten the soft hairs on his chest and the thick, curly bush surrounding his long dick. He closed his eyes and leaned forward to let the water coat his bald scalp.
He thought of Joni leaving her front door open for him, and he would enter her house to find her naked and waiting. Sometimes she wasn't one for needing or wanting foreplay. She
stayed
ready.
And that stirred his dick to life as he grabbed a thick washcloth and bar of soap to lather his body, giving a tug to his semihardness as he dragged the sudsy rag across it. Saving his face and head for last, Quint rinsed off the dark contours of his body before turning off the shower and pulling back the curtain to dry off while the steam of the shower beat away any chance of a chill racing across his nude form.
After a quick brush of the teeth, he headed back into his bedroom to throw on another pair of running pants and T-shirt—not even bothering with boxers.
For what?
He sprayed on his most subtle cologne before he gathered the items he had tossed on the bed earlier. He noticed another text from Joni.
Knock, knock.
Looking up from his phone, he called out, “Come in, Lei.”
The door opened and Quint's slashing brows dipped in concern at the flushed look of his daughter's usually bright and sweet caramel face.
“I think I ate too much. I don' feel good
at all,
” she said, leaning in the doorway as she rubbed her stomach and pouted.
Quint crossed the room and pressed his palm against her forehead and cheeks. “You feel warm, kid,” he said.
Seconds later she turned and rushed back into the bathroom, slamming the door shut.
Quint followed behind her and tried to open the door. It was locked. He frowned. “Lei, I can take seeing you throwing up.”
“It's not coming up anymore. Ugh!”
Not coming up?
And then his face filled with understanding. He stepped back from the door. “Either you caught a bug or it was something you ate.”
“Uhm, Daddy, can this talk wait a sec?”
Quint smiled at her dry tone. He strolled into the kitchen and checked the fridge. Deciding on the bottle of cranberry juice, he poured a big glass and carried it to Lei's room to set it on her wooden nightstand.
Rubbing his hand over his eyes, he left the apartment and sat on the bottom of the steps.
Looking back down at his phone, he texted Joni back: Raincheck??
He couldn't go lay up or do a sex drive-by while his kid was sick. This was not going to happen. Joni could wait. Joni
would
wait.
Lei came first in his priorities, and Quint was not willing to compromise on that.
Quint worked at a metal-fabricating plant since his early twenties; but when Lei moved in with him two years ago, he requested a switch from third shift and was denied. He didn't quit, but he immediately started looking for another job. At the time Lei was just ten and there was no way he was happy about leaving her alone at night. Next-door neighbors at his house in Walterboro helped out, but he knew he couldn't impose on them forever. And it never once crossed his mind to send his daughter to live with his mother. Not once.
In the end it all worked out. He eventually found the job at the complex. There was a dip in salary, but it came with a rent-free apartment. He rented out the house, since the once-easy mortgage payment would be a strain. This way he still owned the three-bedroom brick duplex, and the rent covered the mortgage. He now lived rent free and could be home for his daughter. Win-win, win-win—even if the smaller living space was a bit of a loss.
Bzzz . . .
He looked down at his phone. Joni. NO PROBLEM. TILL NEXT TIME.
Seconds later a picture of her pressing her fingertips against her clit populated the screen. Quint couldn't lie. It looked good. Damn good.
“Shit,” he swore, rising to his feet to walk back into the apartment to check on Lei.
She was deep under the bright colorful covers on her full-sized bed, with nothing but the tip of her head peeking out. He came around the bed to stand over her. “Feel bad?”
Lei looked up at him and nodded. “Thanks for my juice,” she said.
“Well, I'm right here if you need. Just call out. Okay?”
She nodded and closed her eyes. “Thanks, Daddy.”
He tipped the sides of his mouth up in a half smile. He had made the right decision. In that moment hearing his daughter say, “Thanks, Daddy” was worth more than a million pleasure-filled “Yes, God” sighs from Joni during the throes of passion.
C
HAPTER
3
One month later
 
“Come on, Specs, you have to talk to Daddy for me,” Kaitlyn urged as she paced the length of her brother's office in the renovated townhome, which housed his accounting business.
Kaeden dropped his pen. “Don't you think it's time you come up with a new nickname for me?” he drawled dryly.
Kaitlyn swung around to eye him incredulously. “That is so unimportant right now. Don't you think?” she snapped.
Shrugging, Kaeden sat back in his leather executive chair. “Kaitlyn, you've had a month to get yourself together. You only have another month before your allowance drops substantially, and just six months after that before you're on your own.”
Kaitlyn came around one of the chairs before his desk to drop down into it. “I'm calling his bluff,” she said, tilting up her chin.
“I wouldn't if I were you . . . and you know
I
know.”
Kaitlyn bit her bottom lip as she looked at the serious expression on her brother's square and handsome face. Of course he knew. He was the accountant/ business manager for her father's horse farm, which her eldest brother, Kade, was now running. Kaeden served in that financial role for all her brothers and their businesses: Kahron's own cattle ranch, which also housed his wife's veterinary practice, and Kaleb's dairy farm, with its new addition of a storefront.
Oh, he was deep in everybody's business. So he knew.
And they had not paid her back rent. She had to be out of her apartment in two weeks and counting.
She pressed her hands to her face and then ran her fingers up through the short ends of her pixie cut. “I'll just move in with one of y'all,” she said flippantly, crossing her legs in the dark blue strapless jumpsuit she wore, along with a pair of cork-wedge heels.
Kaeden shook his head. “No, you will find a cheaper apartment that your allowance can afford and then find a job, Kaitlyn,” he said gently.
Her back stiffened as she let her tote bag drop to the floor. “So you would let your own baby sister roam the streets and eat garbage to survive,” she asked accusingly, locking slanted eyes on him.
Kaeden coughed and shuffled papers. “You are hardly about to sleep on subway grates and rummage through trash,” he said.
Kaitlyn jumped to her feet. “I am stressed over this mess,” she roared. “My hair is falling out.”
She attempted to pull out the ends of her hair, but nary a strand floated down to the papers before him.
Kaeden chuckled.
Kaitlyn fought not to choke him, before she dropped back down into her chair. She had already made the rounds through her entire family. Even the sisters-in-law weren't messing with it.
No one was going against her father's word.
No one was backing down from the so-called mission of getting her to grow up.
How exactly you could re-raise an already-grown woman in her middle twenties was beyond reason to her.
Especially when there isn't a blessed thing wrong with me!
“I handle the books for this guy who owns a small apartment complex right in Holtsville—”
Kaitlyn's eyes bulged. “You want me to move back to Holtsville?”
Kaeden leaned forward to press his elbows onto the top of his desk. “Oh, you're too good for Holtsville?” he asked.
She leaned back and eyed him intently. “You and Jade don't live in Holtsville,” she tossed back, sounding very tit-for-tat.
He shrugged and smiled. “
We
can afford to live wherever
we
want.”
Kaitlyn childishly flipped him the bird.
Kaeden laughed.
Kaitlyn forced a smile, but her eyes were sad. She hadn't seen her parents since the big powwow when she returned from Paris.
“They miss you too, Kaitlyn,” Kaeden said, his tone serious.
She snorted in disbelief as she shifted her eyes past her brother's head to gaze out one of the large wood-framed trio of windows behind his desk.
“You can't punish them forever,” he added.
Kaitlyn felt betrayed by her parents—by her father, most of all. To her it was like all of a sudden he didn't care, and she wasn't his baby girl anymore.
“Yes, I can,” she added softly.
“And if you honestly feel that way, then you haven't learned a damn thing yet, Kat.”
She said nothing. There was nothing for her to say. Nobody else knew how it felt to walk in her Jimmy Choos.
 
 
Quint hated the smell of fresh paint and he left the door to the apartment wide open before moving quickly to open the four windows of the living room. He walked every square inch of the two-bedroom apartment to inspect the paint crew's work before he signed off on the invoice he would send to the owner for payment.
He honestly thought he had all the apartments locked in for at least a year and wouldn't have to deal with the drama of taking applications and dealing with a new tenant. It was always a toss-up on just how good or bad a tenant you got.
Quint was hoping for the best.
When he left the apartment, he locked the front door, but he left the windows open. Everything he put on his to-do list for the day was done. Lei was squared away at the kitchen table doing homework. She was finishing up her assignments, and she was not happy at all, since school just started a few days ago.
He crossed the parking lot and entered the small brick building that housed the office he hardly ever used. It sat at the front of the property, near the entrance. He used his key to unlock the door and plopped down behind the wooden desk, which he had made. He turned to open the small black file cabinet sitting next to it.
Quint fingered through the files until he pulled out the one containing his copies of rental applications. He went through each one and picked the top five to call their references first thing in the morning. Leaning back in the chair, he swiveled as he tilted his head back and looked up to the ceiling.
He felt tension across his broad shoulders—tension that not even a run or a pickup basketball game at the rec in Walterboro could help. Not even a few hours at Joni's. Nothing but the peace he received from woodworking would do it.
Quint was born in New York and lived there until he turned thirteen and started giving his single mother all kinds of stress by hanging out with the wrong crowd. A juvie arrest for joyriding in a stolen Benz led to her shipping him to live with her father in Holtsville. She was scared that Quint would turn out like his father—a convicted criminal with a long rap sheet, an even longer history of drug addiction. And not enough balls to make sure his kid had him or his last name. Quint couldn't point his father out in a lineup.
To Quint, his grandfather had stepped in and taught him everything that his mother had tried to. Everything he knew about being a man—a real man—was because of Denson Wells. His Pops.
The older man also taught him the skill and the joy of woodworking.
Quint took a deep breath as he felt his grandfather's loss to a heart attack several years ago. It was his grandfather's tools that he lovingly used and cleaned and cherished. It was the memories of his grandfather that were evoked every time he made a new piece of furniture.
But as much as he wanted to get lost in his work shed, he promised himself he would cook dinner. No more takeout or fast food for the week. Both he and Lei could stand a healthy meal with plenty of vegetables.
Pushing back in his chair, he rose to his full height and gladly left behind the claustrophobia-causing office, which was almost as small as his bedroom.
Quint turned from locking the door to find a tall and curvy woman, with short jet-black hair and shades that hid most of her face, standing in the parking lot. She was looking up at the apartment building. He paused when she looked to be talking to herself. Sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans, he let his eyes take her in from head to toe.
The shades. Glossy lips. The flashy jewelry. The oversized name-brand bag swinging from the bend in her arm. Skintight jeans. And heels that had to be every bit of five inches or more. Surrounded by the trees towering over the property, the woman looked
completely
out of place.
Everything about her screamed money.
What the hell could she want?
 
 
“This
can't
be life,” Kaitlyn said as she looked through her shades at the small brick apartment complex in front of her.
She eyed the cars parked in front of the buildings. Her cherry red convertible looked completely out of place surrounded by cars no older than 2005. Some were rusted. Some were dented. Some were wrecked. One was as pink as Pepto-Bismol, and almost as small as the actual bottle. Everything was
completely
American.
Kaitlyn looked back up at the building. It, in no way, compared to where she lived now. No way in hell.
It probably has roaches and shit.
“I can't. There is no way in hell this can be my life,” Kaitlyn said, fighting the urge to stomp her foot in frustration. Tears welled up, but she swallowed them back and notched her chin a bit higher.
Why are they doing this to me?
The front door of the first-floor apartment opened and Kaitlyn's eyes shifted to see a short and curvy pre-teen looking out at her. She had a round face and slanted eyes, with her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail with a rubber headband. She wore khakis and a sky blue uniform shirt with sneakers.
“Hi,” Kaitlyn said, raising her hand to wave.
The girl waved back before she closed the door and walked across the parking lot to a man standing outside a small brick building. No doubt, the man was handsome. Fine like “Stare at me, I'm a model.” Bald head. Strong features. Eyes set so deeply that everything below his eyebrows appeared dark. He was tall. Real tall and built. She could see that, even with his jeans and bulky navy hoodie on.
Kaitlyn eyed them as he smiled at the teenage girl and then tugged her ponytail. She frowned. He had to be in his late twenties or early thirties. Way too young to be the father of a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old girl, right?
Is he one of those dudes who only messes with young girls?
They walked over toward her and Kaitlyn turned on her heels. She kept watching them. There was nothing about their demeanor toward each other that was at all sexual. Still . . .
As he came to stand before her, the girl waved again as she walked back inside the apartment.
“How you doing? Can I help you?” he asked, looking down at her.
Kaitlyn tilted her head back, thinking the man had to be as tall as her brother Kade. In her heels she was every bit of six feet, but he still looked down at her.
“Are you related to her?” she asked.
The man frowned. “To who?” he asked.
Kaitlyn pointed a slender finger at the closed front door of the apartment the young girl had disappeared into.
“The teenage girl,” she said.
His frown deepened after his eyes followed where she was pointing.
“Are you from social services or something?” he asked, looking down at her once more.
“I'm always curious when I see a grown man sniffing around young girls—”
Quinton stiffened and his height rose an inch. “‘Sniffin”? That's my
daughter,
” he barked.
Kaitlyn's face shaped with surprise. “Oh . . . started early, huh?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “She's twelve.”
Kaitlyn's face became shocked. “Wow . . . she's . . .
developed.
”
“Listen, why are you here—besides falsely accusing someone you don't know?” he asked, his aggravation with her barely contained.
Kaitlyn arched a thick, shaped eyebrow. “I'm here about renting an apartment.”
He made a face and shook his head slowly. “This doesn't look on your level,” he said, sounding slightly disparaging.
Folding her arms across her chest, she continued to look up at him. “And you are?” she asked.
“Quinton Wells, the building manager,” he answered. “And I already have a stack of candidates for the apartment.”
Kaitlyn leaned back from the rudeness of his tone. She stiffened her back, not at all liking how he was trying to dismiss her. Kaitlyn Strong was never to be dismissed.
“Well, can I see the apartment
since
I made the trip—”

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