Chapter 1
Ayron
As a child, I used to hold my breath for fun. In a tree or in my room, under water or under a cover, I would strategically fill my lungs with as much air as possible, close my eyes, puff out my cheeks, press my lips together so tight that they burned, and begin to count. I made it to thirty once in my room. Back then it was fun. Today, it is a necessity, and age has lessened my skill.
I gulp in the fresh, crisp air, snap on a face mask, and head into the home of Norma Jean, a chronic hoarder of clothing, food, and cats.
“It’s all right,” I explain to Norma, breathing through my mouth as much as possible. “We are going to take this one step at a time.”
“I just can’t, Miss Ayron,” she sobs, letting her head fall against my shoulder.
Norma doesn’t want to let go of anything. I have been working with her for the past two months in an attempt to help her clean her home before the city condemns it. Twice a week, I come to her home and we work together to uncover it, along with whatever feelings that triggered her actions.
“You have to let go of some of the emotion that you are gripping in order to let go of some of these physical things gripping you,” I tell her with genuine empathy. My mother and father passed away when I was young, and for a while, I found it hard to let go of anything that they had ever touched or smelled or seen. I was able to work past those issues with the help of my grandmother—and Norma will, too, because she has me.
I smile under the cover of the mask in hopes that she can feel my understanding. As a therapist and life coach, I work with people at points of crisis in their lives, when failure is not an option and judgment can’t exist.
I hug the small aging woman and set to task with her on the pile of things stacked in the left corner.
“It’s such a shame that you aren’t married, Ayron, or have any kids. You would make a great mother,” she says.
I nod and don’t say anything.
Being alone is better; that way no one can leave you.
* * *
“The Rhonda Raven Show called about your flight reservations for the taping of the show,” my assistant Agnes explains cheerfully when I walk into the office. “I can’t believe you’re going to be a part of their expert panel. I made a one-month countdown calendar for the wall and added reminders on your digital calendar.”
Ms. Agnes may be old enough to be my grandmother, but she keeps my office and my life running in tip-top shape.
“Dr. Tirash also called and asked if you would work for him both Saturday and Sunday at the hospital this weekend,” she says, with attitude. “I told him that you do have a life and were only available Sunday as agreed.”
I laugh because my business is my life. I didn’t make it this far by hanging out every weekend. Many of my first patients and clients were ones that came from my work at the hospital.
“Thank you, Ms. Agnes, but I’ll call him back and work both nights. I actually don’t have anything planned,” I tell her before walking into my grey colored office and taking a seat behind my desk in the high-back leather chair.
I look at the clock and get ready for my next patient.
* * *
The workday flows by in a flash. Patients come in, we talk, and they leave. Although each patient is unique, the day follows the same pattern as every other.
“It is five o’clock. You need to go home,” Agnes says with disapproving eyes. “You are here entirely too much for a woman barely twenty-eight,” she insists. “Go out and have some fun.”
I smile at her.
Agnes has worked with me since I opened my counseling and consulting firm three years ago in the back of the community center. The city had a grant to allow approved small businesses to use government-owned properties to work out of for five years at a severely discounted rate. I chose the community center because I felt like it would allow me access to do the most good. Many of my clients come from this very same burgeoning neighborhood that I love.
“As a matter of fact, Ms. Agnes, I am headed out with Monique tonight,” I tell her with a grin while shuffling around some notes from today’s visits. My very best friend has been trying to get me to go out with her for the last month. In the past, work has gotten in the way.
“Well, is she going to help you get a man, finally?” Miss Agnes says without remorse, plopping a hand on her hip.
One of the reasons that I enjoy working with people of a certain age is that they cut straight through the nonsense and get to the heart of the matter.
“Girl, when I was your age, you couldn’t tell me nothing about the nighttime that I couldn’t tell you a book about,” she says, shaking her hips a little.
“No ma’am, Ms. Agnes. I’m scared of you.” I giggle. “There’s nothing in those streets for me. I like being here. I like what I do.”
“Get someone to do you and then tell me what you like more,” she smarts before turning to leave.
“See you in the morning,” I respond, shaking my head. She is something else.
I don’t know what I would have done without her and the circle of older women who frequented the community center when my grandmother passed away last year. My grandmother, Sheryl, had been the one who helped me become the person that I am today. Had she not cleaned houses and hotels and office buildings day and night, I wouldn’t have been able to finish college without a single loan, or buy a car in cash, or start my own business. What I know about life came from her and sitting on the living room floor listening to her and the quilters talk about the world as it was and could be.
I pick up the picture of my grandmother and smile before putting my things away for the night. I know she would want me to live life, get out there and have fun. Ms. Agnes is right, I haven’t done the “do” in a few, and it’s made for some very frustrating nights.
* * *
“I have never met a man in a nightclub worth my words, not to mention a date,” I explain to Monique, disappointed in her selection of venue for our one night out in ages. There is a cable movie and a marathon of “A Different World” calling my name right now.
“When’s the last time that you even went to a club, Sticky?” she asks.
I had been extremely thin as a kid, but my later years growing up with my Southern-born granny and her grits in the morning and greens with cornbread at night put some meat on my bones real quick. Now, when Monique calls me Sticky, it’s because she thinks I’m being a stick in the mud or stubborn.
“I can’t help who I am, Mo,” I tell her, taking a sip of my drink. “There has to be some kind of connection, some kind of chivalry, and these dudes in here all think this bump and grind music is romantic. Please.”
“How old are you, Ayron, really? I feel like you and Ms. Agnes went to school together instead of me and you,” she says, but I can barely hear her over the sound of my breathing and trumpets in my head announcing the arrival of the sexiest man I’ve ever had the blessing to set my eyes on.
“Damn,” I say in a whisper. His body was like something out of an Armani advertisement. His cheek bones were prominent with a very masculine, square jawline.
“See, I told you there are some quality men in this spot,” she says, bobbing her head to the music. “You have to have faith in your girl. I know what I am doing.”
It is true. Monique always has a man and usually whatever kind she’s seeking. If she were looking for someone to ring her bell, pay her bills, or carry on her arm, she’d find him. I prefer not to be bothered with the hassle of it all. There’s no reason to fall in love with someone if that someone can fall out of love with you.
The man with mesmerizing caramel eyes makes me close mine. His cologne, which smelled of musk, lingers as he walks past with several scantily dressed women conspicuously trailing behind him.
I sigh. Men like that don’t pick girls like me. The girls with manufactured and sculpted-to-perfection body parts and accessories usually win out over my kind. The normal girl. The sensible one.
I look back at the caramel-eyed guy and the hulky friend he had met with at a table.
When he smiles in my direction, I quickly turn away.
“Come dance with me, Mo,” I insist, downing the last of my drink and dropping the empty glass on a table. I’m glad I let her talk me into wearing her body-hugging purple dress and strappy heels.
I can feel his eyes on me as Monique and I move shoulder-to-shoulder across the dance floor.
“He’s watching you,” my friend whispers.
I nod, but I don’t look back, just dance a little slower, push my lips out and roll my hips to the music like I’m in a bed—his bed.
Chapter 2
Devlin
I lick my lips with the hope of tasting the beauty with the thick thighs and perfect bubbly ass dancing in the purple dress. Her golden brown skin radiates under the pulsing lights, illuminating her like a work of art. Her unique copper-colored curled hair moves across her shoulders as she shifts her body like she has a reason to. At thirty, I’ve seen my share of females in the club, and had it not been for my best friend Kevin having a pre-celebration for his birthday, I wouldn’t have even bothered to come in. I like my women sexy and powerful. A woman who can wear six-inch heels and broker six-figure deals makes me want to turn her upside down and lick her until she screams. Those kind of women don’t frequent clubs. Taking on an executive role in the business that my father started has given me the opportunity to test my theory on several occasions.
“I see ya, partner,” Kevin says, slapping his hand against my back with a laugh. For the son of a billionaire, he is substantially down-to-earth. What I like most about him.
My family hadn’t always had the type of money that could last for generations. As a child, my father and mother had done well for us, distributing their African-American targeted beauty products from their barber and beauty salons and local hair care stores. The extraordinary money started rolling in when I was seven, and their products became marketed nationally.
Kevin had followed my line of vision to the woman in purple on the dance floor.
“I thought about you when I saw her,” he says. “The cool, quiet ones got you every time when we were younger.”
“You are definitely right.” I grin. “I gathered a few for you on the way in here,” I say, eyeing the women that trickled in with me when I arrived and walked through the club.
Before I started taming the tigresses, I couldn’t get enough of a quiet girl; the ones with a cool disposition but fire in their eyes. Once alone in the dark, the lioness would jump out as I jumped in. A challenge.
“I tried to get the friend to bring her up to the VIP, but Lady Purple was having none of that,” Kevin comments.
“Good looking out,” I let him know, peering at the long and shapely woman in purple. “I got it from here.”
* * *
The people in the room seem to separate like oil from water as I fulfill my mission to reach Lady Purple.
The woman dancing behind her slides away without hesitation, as though she knows that I need to be near her friend.
With eyes closed, Lady Purple, her trim waist holding up bountiful breasts, sways her thick hips from side to side to the pounding club music.
Lowering my body next to hers, I round my arms across her beckoning shape and follow her movements succinctly.
My body’s instant reaction to her surprises both of us.
With a sharp intake of breath, she turns quickly in my arms to face me.
“Wow,” she says over the music, a bashful smile covering her face, but her body doesn’t stop. A roll of her hip against me ignites a hunger for more.
“Hello,” I respond, leaning forward to whisper in her ear, all the while holding on to her. “You’re beautiful.”
Her widening smile overshadowed by the deepening move of her hips, I am drawn to the cradle of her graceful neck as her arms rest against mine.
Without a thought, I press kisses into the sweet-scented curve right above her collarbone.
The intense swelling that I feel at the taste of her is not normal. I am usually able to control myself. Women are like air, everywhere, but this one seems to have the power to remove it. I swallow hard, feeling as though the air has been thinned by the copper-haired sorceress in the purple dress. People, music, and time all cease to exist as I fall under the spell of her.
Her faint but audible pant and the methodical crush of her body against mine let me know that the feeling of my mouth against her skin is pleasurable.
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