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Synopsis
This sizzling tale by national best-selling author Niobia Bryant is the sequel to her Message from a Mistress. Since receiving a text saying their husbands may have cheated on them, Jaime, Aria, and Renee have been trying to move past the heartbreaking situation. But regardless of whether the text was a lie, the three can’t deny that the way they see their husbands—and themselves—has changed.
“Bryant’s loyal audience will love the generous doses of passionate sex, glamour, and revenge.”—Publishers Weekly
Release date: December 7, 2012
Publisher: Kensington Books
Print pages: 288
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Mistress No More
Niobia Bryant
One month later
Jaime Hall relished the feel of the cool cotton sheets against her naked skin. She stretched her long limbs before rolling over onto her side to clutch the pillow close to her body. With a soft moan that was filled with anticipation, she pressed her face into the softness and inhaled deeply of the lasting scent of her lover’s cologne.
Just the thought of him in her bed and deep inside her walls made her wet as her heart raced.
She wouldn’t have ever guessed she would spend her days and her nights lying nude in a bed waiting for a man to come sex her. Never.
All her life she’d played the role of being perfect. The perfect daughter, wife, parishioner, soror, and friend. All roles, as if her life wasn’t shit but an ongoing play. None of it really gave her a chance to be herself or even know herself, for that matter.
Until Pleasure.
Jaime squeezed her thighs tightly, putting pressure on her throbbing clit as she craved that man. He was a stripper by night, her lover by day.
The things that man knew how to do were scandalously sinful and she couldn’t get enough of him. It felt damn good, for once, to want something and to go for it. To get it. To have it. Damn good.
So good that Jaime could care less that a faux friend had sent a text to her and two other friends boasting about her affair with one of their husbands. Jaime’s life did not revolve around figuring out the mystery or deciphering the puzzle of which of the men had betrayed their marriage with Jessa Bell. She’d left her husband and the months of verbal abuse and degrading sex behind. She was sure Aria and Renee gave way more of a fuck than she did about the guilty man. All she wanted that night was her freedom. That message had been just the right damn key to unlock the door to the prison of her marriage.
The old Jaime had spent the day pretending not to care on the outside but filled with fright on the inside that the bullshit in her marriage would be exposed for all to see. The old Jaime cared more about what other people thought, cared, or wanted.
“Not no more,” she said aloud, closing her eyes as she tried not to count down the minutes until her lover would walk through the door and into her bed.
The new Jaime was ready to be fucked and fucked well. To hell with her marriage. Jessa. That stupid message. And Eric.
Brrrnnnggg.
Her heart raced as she rolled over to the other side of the bed and scooped up her cell phone. Disappointment flooded her like drowning waves. Flipping the phone open, she rolled her eyes. “What, Eric?” she sighed, sounding as bored as she truly was with his constant attempts at reconciliation. She reached for her monogrammed Louis Vuitton cigarette case and lighter.
“We need to talk, Jaime.”
“Talk about what?” she asked, lighting a cigarette. She had given up cigarettes, but the day they’d received that message from Jessa, her fears over a flaw in her marriage being exposed had sent her back to her habit.
“I want my life back. I want my wife back. You know that.”
Click.
Her eyes shifted at the sound of the bedroom door closing and a smile spread across her face as Pleasure took his hand from the closed bedroom door and reached for the hem of his T-shirt to pull it over his dreadlock-covered head. Tall. Muscled. Skin deeply bronzed caramel. Black tattoos scattered over his frame emphasized just how built he was to please.
Pleasure.
“I think we need to consider counseling, Jaime. We both have a lot to forgive . . . and forget.”
Jaime barely heard her husband’s pleas as she watched Pleasure unbuckle his belt and ease his denims and boxers over his narrow hips. She bit her bottom lip as each delicious inch of his long and thick curving dick was exposed to her hungry eyes. She was ad“dick”ted.
“Jaime . . . Jaime, you there?” Eric said into his phone.
As Pleasure walked the short distance to the bed with his dick swinging across his muscled thighs, Jaime licked her lips in anticipation. “Yeah, listen, I’ll call you back,” she said, her voice a whisper filled with nervous excitement.
She had to admit she got an extra thrill from having her soon-to-be-ex-husband on the phone begging her to reconcile while her new lover was flinging the covers away from her naked body.
“Jaime, Pastor Richardson still wants us to meet with him tomorrow before church.”
Jaime shivered as Pleasure roughly pulled her by her ankles to the edge of the bed. “I’m not Catholic. You are. He’s your priest. Not mine,” she reminded him, spreading her legs wide as Pleasure dropped to his knees and buried his dreadlock-covered head between her thighs to lick the lips of her pussy.
“Aaah,” Jaime cried out, arching her back and circling her hips as she pushed her free hands deep between the thin locks to grab the back of his head.
“Jaime, are you all right?” Eric asked.
Her eyes popped open as she pressed her lips closed. She remembered that her cell phone accidentally dialing Eric while Pleasure fucked her on the floor of the back room of the strip club was how her husband discovered her affair. Even though she and Eric were done as far as she was concerned, she snapped the phone closed, not wanting to give him a repeat of hearing another man give his wife the pleasure he never did.
Brrrnnnggg.
Jaime ignored the ringing phone, using her hand to push it off the bed to the floor to land with a soft thud. “I missed you,” she whispered, her words floating up to the ceiling as Pleasure kissed a hot and moist trail up her thighs to her flat belly and then to the valley of her breasts. Her body shivered with each kiss. Her pussy ached. Her heart raced. A fine sheen of sweat coated her body.
Brrrnnnggg.
“I love your nipples,” Pleasure moaned against the sides of her breasts before his tongue circled a brown peak twice.
Jaime cried out hoarsely, her hands coming up his strong back to dig her fingers into his broad shoulders. “Suck ’em,” she begged.
Her wish, just like always, was his command.
“You like that?” he asked thickly, cutting his deep-set coal black eyes up at her as he dragged the tip of his tongue around her nipple before sucking it into his mouth.
Brrrnnnggg.
“Yes,” she cried out, arching her back and not giving a damn that her expensive, bone-straight, jet black weave would be well sweated out by the end of the night.
Back and forth he went from one hard nipple to the other until she was dizzy and high off his skills. Before Pleasure her husband had been her one and only lover, and even then she’d waited like a good girl for her wedding night—only to discover that they lacked chemistry. Fire. Passion.
She found more of it with Pleasure’s dick inside of her for one hour than she had for many years of marriage. It wasn’t just that Pleasure had one of those tree trunk kinda dicks while Eric was average. Ever since she first laid eyes on Pleasure at that bachelorette party all those years ago the man made her sizzle just from looking at him.
“What do you want from me, Jaime?” he whispered in the back of his throat, the faint sounds of a wrapper tearing in the background.
Jaime locked eyes with him as she brought her hands up to ball his thin dreads within her fist. “I want you to fuck me,” she admitted, spreading her legs wide as he settled his muscled frame atop hers.
“Right now?” he asked, his breath breezing against her mouth before he licked her quivering bottom lip.
“Please.”
He smiled and it was filled with his confidence. His sexiness. His boldness.
Pleasure growled a little as he used nothing but his strong hips to ease the tip of his dick inside her. Her pussy lips closed around him. Her juices caused her flesh to smack lightly in the air.
“No massage tonight?” he asked before nibbling the side of her mouth.
“No.”
He gave her another delicious inch, her body spreading to accommodate the width of his dick.
“No edible body paint?”
Jaime tugged his dreads bringing his head down closer to hers. She sucked his mouth. “No,” she stressed.
Pleasure offered her his tongue to suck as he slid another inch of dick inside her.
“Just dick?” he asked.
Jaime sucked his tongue deeply with a purr, still amazed that this man could make her feel so free. So wild. So freaky. “Just. Dick.”
“What’s my name?”
“Pleasure.”
“And what do I give?”
“Pleasure,” Jaime sighed in anticipation.
He growled as he pushed the rest of his dick deeply inside of her until the soft and curly hairs of his dick tickled the clean-shaven mound of her pussy.
“Fuck back, Jaime. Shit, give me that pussy, girl.”
Just like he’d taught her, Jaime worked her hips, meeting him stroke for stroke until he took over again and worked her body and her walls until she was exhausted and excited all at once.
Pleasure fucked her like there was nothing else in the world he’d rather do. He stroked her pussy with his dick and spoiled her body with his hands and lips and tongue.
Lord, this man was made for sex, she thought, crying out roughly as he made her come again . . . and again . . . and again.
Hmph. He was worth every red cent.
Although Aria Livewell was sitting next to her husband, Kingston, on the leather love seat, she had never felt so distant from him. Never. That hurt like hell. Their marriage had been the kind that most people dream about. Great chemistry. Explosive sex. Communication. Teamwork. All of it. The whole nine. Not an unreal perfection but a good solid marriage that was destined to last fifty years or more.
And then came the message that day, exposing the betrayal of a husband and a supposed friend.
Aria felt anger burn in her stomach at the thought of Jessa Bell the Jezebel having sex with her husband. Planning to steal him away. Taunting her, Renee, and Jaime with that damn message.
Aria hadn’t seen the bitch since, but first chance she got, Jessa’s ass was grass. Point blank. Period.
The door to the office opened and both Aria and Kingston looked up as their marriage counselor, Dr. Matheson, strolled in. Aria eyed him. Tall, wide, and balding with a beard, the man looked more like a lumberjack or hunter. Still, after three sessions, she felt comfortable around the man and she especially loved that after calling him about a nasty, down and dirty fight last night, he’d volunteered to meet them for an emergency session on a Sunday. Aria was more than ready to get to the bottom of their shit.
“How did things go last week?” he asked, folding his broad frame in the black leather club chair positioned in front of them.
“The sex was awful,” Kingston blurted out, shifting in his seat and holding his hands out there like “There it is.”
Aria’s eyes got round as saucers as she turned on the sofa to look at him. No, this Negro didn’t. “Well, it’s a little hard to be enthusiastic about having sex when all I can see is you in bed with Jessa’s no-good behind,” she snapped.
Kingston jumped to his feet. “I did not cheat on you with Jessa or anybody else and I am sick and tired of explaining myself in my marriage over some other man’s bullshit.”
Aria jumped to her feet and pointed her finger at him. “Mr. Perfect cursing. Oh my Lord, hell is about to freeze over!” she exclaimed emphatically, damn well meaning to be sarcastic.
Kingston eyed her, his handsome face tight with anger.
“Why do you feel Kingston is Mr. Perfect?”
They both turned their heads to look down at Dr. Matheson calmly sitting there but watching them with eyes like a hawk.
Aria sighed as she plopped back down on her end of the sofa. Kingston adjusted his pants before he settled down on his end.
She could hardly believe how badly Jessa’s message had fucked with her marriage. She couldn’t believe any of the shit that went down.
She could see and remember that text clear as day. Word for word.
How in the hot hell she could forget it? Especially when all three husbands had come home that night, all three denying Jessa’s words. All three claiming it wasn’t them.
That bitch was supposed to be their friend—especially her friend—since their college days. Straight bullshit. No chaser.
“Aria?”
She shifted her eyes to Dr. Matheson.
“Why do you feel Kingston is Mr. Perfect?”
Aria bit the IMAN gloss from her lips as she closed her eyes and spoke the truth about how she felt. “He is too good to be true,” she admitted softly, feeling emotional.
She felt Kingston stiffen beside her. “I am sick of this—”
“Let her finish, Kingston.”
Blinking away tears, Aria wrung her hands. “I always feel like I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. I feel like this marriage is what everyone dreams of but no one has—no one I know anyway. And so I was waiting for something to pop off, something to prove that . . . that . . . that . . .”
“That what, Aria?” Dr. Matheson nudged.
“I don’t know. I . . . I . . . don’t . . . I don’t know.” Aria shrugged.
“You’re right, you don’t know,” Kingston muttered under his breath.
Aria side-eyed him. “No, what I don’t know is if my husband fucked my friend. I don’t know if my husband was planning on leaving me to be with my friend. That’s what the hell I don’t know.”
“Because I’m too good to be true,” he drawled.
“Damn right,” she flung back.
“So if I beat on you, cuss at you, cheat on you, lie to you, and disrespect you, then what?” he asked, turning in heat to face her, his expression incredulous. “Why is it so hard to believe that there are good men—good black men. That’s crazy!”
“Because I know men can’t be trusted. As soon as you give them a foot of space they no good ass is off cheating and tricking and doing shit they got no business. I know,” she stressed with emotion. “I. Know.”
Dr. Matheson jotted something on his notepad. “And how do you know that, Aria?”
She froze, hating that her eyes shifted. She hated that the fear she carried with her was just as strong as ever. Secrets had a way of revealing themselves. Secrets that filled her with guilt every day. Secrets that could—would—ruin her marriage.
Wild teen years filled with lots of partying, weed, and even more men—most married. Trying to be grown way too soon. Abortions. Liquors. Scheming. Lying.
And now she couldn’t have children.
That was the secret she’d confided to a friend and she’d been afraid Jessa would tell Kingston about it. But she hadn’t. She couldn’t have because he would have confronted her about it. Having children was the next step in his plan for their happily ever after.
Kingston didn’t know.
“I just know,” was all that she finally answered.
“This myth that there are no good black men is just that: a myth,” Kingston said. “I’ve done nothing to make my wife suspect me. Nothing but do what I’m supposed to do as man—as a husband: love my wife. That’s it. I love my wife. I’m good to my wife. And I’m being punished for that. A brotha can’t win for losing.”
Aria’s eyes were troubled as she shifted them out the window to the late summer scene. All of her doubts plagued her. Was it possible that Kingston was not the guilty husband? Was she punishing her husband for nothing and ruining her marriage?
Was the fact that a little ghetto girl from Newark with brains enough for a full scholarship to Columbia had actually snagged an upper-middle-class man who seemed to step right out of a romance book so hard to believe?
“And do you love Kingston, Aria?”
“With all my heart, Dr. Matheson,” she stated, without hesitation, question, or second thought.
“And Kingston, do you love Aria?”
“I love her. I love the hell out of her. . . .”
Aria felt waves of relief flood over her.
“But if she doesn’t appreciate me and trust me . . . then I don’t know if we’ll make it.”
Aria turned to face him. She knew her husband very well. There was no doubt that the words he spoke were not an idle threat.
Another woman is pregnant with my husband’s child. Another woman is pregnant with my husband’s child. Another woman is pregnant with my husband’s child.
Anotherwomanispregnantwithmyhusbandschild.
Renee Clinton dropped her head into her hands and fought the urge to scream at the top of her lungs. To release all the pain, the frustration, and the disappointment. “Maybe if I get it out it’ll stop eating me up inside,” she muttered, her eyes closed as she leaned back heavily in her office chair.
Another woman is pregnant with my husband’s child. Another woman is pregnant with my husband’s child. Another woman is pregnant with my husband’s child.
Anotherwomanispregnantwithmyhusbandschild.
“I hate my life.”
She folded her feet beneath her in the chair as she looked at the framed pictures of her family. Snapshots of a better time—not the best of times but definitely better than now. She laughed bitterly at the thought that she’d spent a full day worrying about whether Jessa Bell had fucked her husband when she’d been completely blindsided by the news that her husband had cheated and his mistress was pregnant with his child. “Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees,” she muttered sarcastically.
Jessa was the least of her damn worries.
Brrrnnnggg.
She cut her eyes over to the cordless phone ringing on the base. Who could it be?
Her husband with his new responsibilities and obligations to another woman? Or her kids off enjoying their young lives without a real care in the world? Or her friends who were caught up in the drama of their own marriages?
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
“Hi, this is Jackson . . . Renee . . . Aaron . . . and Kieran. The Clintons. We’re not available to take your message. After the beep, do your thing.”
“Hmph. I need to change that shit.” After the gun she’d pulled on him the night of his big “revelation” Jackson didn’t have any choice but to move the hell out. Jackson’s no-good cheating ass was now the proud renter of a two-bedroom town house downtown.
Beep.
“Renee, this is Darren. You really need to show up at the luncheon for the upcoming CancerWalk. All the head figures are looking for you to be there. Call me back so I know what to say.”
That shit went right out of her head. It was Sunday. How many weekends had she been off at work while her husband had been fucking another woman? No. She couldn’t handle it anyway. Her assistant was a handy little thing and she knew he would handle things. “Tomorrow, I will go to work. Tomorrow,” she promised, her words sounding hollow to her own ears.
The job she’d once loved was now a reminder of her failed marriage. Her need for a career had caused such a wedge in her marriage. These days she couldn’t muster the passion and love she’d had for working for a nonprofit benefiting cancer. These days she was too busy nursing a shattered heart.
“Love don’t live here anymore,” Renee sang, completely off-key as she reached for the bottle of Patrón and poured herself a hefty shot.
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
Straight tequila was an acquired taste, especially for a causal drinker, but for the last month she had come to love everything about the liquor. Every single thing. The look of it as it poured into a clear glass. The smell of it filling her nose as she held the glass to her lip and prepared to take a sip. Even the slight burn in her throat as she swallowed. And finally . . . finally . . . the way the liquor made her numb.
Her husband’s outside baby. Her job. Her marriage. Her stress. Her kids. Her secrets. Her husband’s secret. Her bullshit.
The bullshit.
All of it went away when she was deep into her Patrón. All of it.
“Fuck that shit,” she muttered, swiveling in her chair to turn away from the photo of her two children, smiling and happy without a true care in the world.
And how would they feel when they discovered their father had a child on the way with another woman? How do you explain that to children? Especially teenagers.
She . . .
Jaime Hall relished the feel of the cool cotton sheets against her naked skin. She stretched her long limbs before rolling over onto her side to clutch the pillow close to her body. With a soft moan that was filled with anticipation, she pressed her face into the softness and inhaled deeply of the lasting scent of her lover’s cologne.
Just the thought of him in her bed and deep inside her walls made her wet as her heart raced.
She wouldn’t have ever guessed she would spend her days and her nights lying nude in a bed waiting for a man to come sex her. Never.
All her life she’d played the role of being perfect. The perfect daughter, wife, parishioner, soror, and friend. All roles, as if her life wasn’t shit but an ongoing play. None of it really gave her a chance to be herself or even know herself, for that matter.
Until Pleasure.
Jaime squeezed her thighs tightly, putting pressure on her throbbing clit as she craved that man. He was a stripper by night, her lover by day.
The things that man knew how to do were scandalously sinful and she couldn’t get enough of him. It felt damn good, for once, to want something and to go for it. To get it. To have it. Damn good.
So good that Jaime could care less that a faux friend had sent a text to her and two other friends boasting about her affair with one of their husbands. Jaime’s life did not revolve around figuring out the mystery or deciphering the puzzle of which of the men had betrayed their marriage with Jessa Bell. She’d left her husband and the months of verbal abuse and degrading sex behind. She was sure Aria and Renee gave way more of a fuck than she did about the guilty man. All she wanted that night was her freedom. That message had been just the right damn key to unlock the door to the prison of her marriage.
The old Jaime had spent the day pretending not to care on the outside but filled with fright on the inside that the bullshit in her marriage would be exposed for all to see. The old Jaime cared more about what other people thought, cared, or wanted.
“Not no more,” she said aloud, closing her eyes as she tried not to count down the minutes until her lover would walk through the door and into her bed.
The new Jaime was ready to be fucked and fucked well. To hell with her marriage. Jessa. That stupid message. And Eric.
Brrrnnnggg.
Her heart raced as she rolled over to the other side of the bed and scooped up her cell phone. Disappointment flooded her like drowning waves. Flipping the phone open, she rolled her eyes. “What, Eric?” she sighed, sounding as bored as she truly was with his constant attempts at reconciliation. She reached for her monogrammed Louis Vuitton cigarette case and lighter.
“We need to talk, Jaime.”
“Talk about what?” she asked, lighting a cigarette. She had given up cigarettes, but the day they’d received that message from Jessa, her fears over a flaw in her marriage being exposed had sent her back to her habit.
“I want my life back. I want my wife back. You know that.”
Click.
Her eyes shifted at the sound of the bedroom door closing and a smile spread across her face as Pleasure took his hand from the closed bedroom door and reached for the hem of his T-shirt to pull it over his dreadlock-covered head. Tall. Muscled. Skin deeply bronzed caramel. Black tattoos scattered over his frame emphasized just how built he was to please.
Pleasure.
“I think we need to consider counseling, Jaime. We both have a lot to forgive . . . and forget.”
Jaime barely heard her husband’s pleas as she watched Pleasure unbuckle his belt and ease his denims and boxers over his narrow hips. She bit her bottom lip as each delicious inch of his long and thick curving dick was exposed to her hungry eyes. She was ad“dick”ted.
“Jaime . . . Jaime, you there?” Eric said into his phone.
As Pleasure walked the short distance to the bed with his dick swinging across his muscled thighs, Jaime licked her lips in anticipation. “Yeah, listen, I’ll call you back,” she said, her voice a whisper filled with nervous excitement.
She had to admit she got an extra thrill from having her soon-to-be-ex-husband on the phone begging her to reconcile while her new lover was flinging the covers away from her naked body.
“Jaime, Pastor Richardson still wants us to meet with him tomorrow before church.”
Jaime shivered as Pleasure roughly pulled her by her ankles to the edge of the bed. “I’m not Catholic. You are. He’s your priest. Not mine,” she reminded him, spreading her legs wide as Pleasure dropped to his knees and buried his dreadlock-covered head between her thighs to lick the lips of her pussy.
“Aaah,” Jaime cried out, arching her back and circling her hips as she pushed her free hands deep between the thin locks to grab the back of his head.
“Jaime, are you all right?” Eric asked.
Her eyes popped open as she pressed her lips closed. She remembered that her cell phone accidentally dialing Eric while Pleasure fucked her on the floor of the back room of the strip club was how her husband discovered her affair. Even though she and Eric were done as far as she was concerned, she snapped the phone closed, not wanting to give him a repeat of hearing another man give his wife the pleasure he never did.
Brrrnnnggg.
Jaime ignored the ringing phone, using her hand to push it off the bed to the floor to land with a soft thud. “I missed you,” she whispered, her words floating up to the ceiling as Pleasure kissed a hot and moist trail up her thighs to her flat belly and then to the valley of her breasts. Her body shivered with each kiss. Her pussy ached. Her heart raced. A fine sheen of sweat coated her body.
Brrrnnnggg.
“I love your nipples,” Pleasure moaned against the sides of her breasts before his tongue circled a brown peak twice.
Jaime cried out hoarsely, her hands coming up his strong back to dig her fingers into his broad shoulders. “Suck ’em,” she begged.
Her wish, just like always, was his command.
“You like that?” he asked thickly, cutting his deep-set coal black eyes up at her as he dragged the tip of his tongue around her nipple before sucking it into his mouth.
Brrrnnnggg.
“Yes,” she cried out, arching her back and not giving a damn that her expensive, bone-straight, jet black weave would be well sweated out by the end of the night.
Back and forth he went from one hard nipple to the other until she was dizzy and high off his skills. Before Pleasure her husband had been her one and only lover, and even then she’d waited like a good girl for her wedding night—only to discover that they lacked chemistry. Fire. Passion.
She found more of it with Pleasure’s dick inside of her for one hour than she had for many years of marriage. It wasn’t just that Pleasure had one of those tree trunk kinda dicks while Eric was average. Ever since she first laid eyes on Pleasure at that bachelorette party all those years ago the man made her sizzle just from looking at him.
“What do you want from me, Jaime?” he whispered in the back of his throat, the faint sounds of a wrapper tearing in the background.
Jaime locked eyes with him as she brought her hands up to ball his thin dreads within her fist. “I want you to fuck me,” she admitted, spreading her legs wide as he settled his muscled frame atop hers.
“Right now?” he asked, his breath breezing against her mouth before he licked her quivering bottom lip.
“Please.”
He smiled and it was filled with his confidence. His sexiness. His boldness.
Pleasure growled a little as he used nothing but his strong hips to ease the tip of his dick inside her. Her pussy lips closed around him. Her juices caused her flesh to smack lightly in the air.
“No massage tonight?” he asked before nibbling the side of her mouth.
“No.”
He gave her another delicious inch, her body spreading to accommodate the width of his dick.
“No edible body paint?”
Jaime tugged his dreads bringing his head down closer to hers. She sucked his mouth. “No,” she stressed.
Pleasure offered her his tongue to suck as he slid another inch of dick inside her.
“Just dick?” he asked.
Jaime sucked his tongue deeply with a purr, still amazed that this man could make her feel so free. So wild. So freaky. “Just. Dick.”
“What’s my name?”
“Pleasure.”
“And what do I give?”
“Pleasure,” Jaime sighed in anticipation.
He growled as he pushed the rest of his dick deeply inside of her until the soft and curly hairs of his dick tickled the clean-shaven mound of her pussy.
“Fuck back, Jaime. Shit, give me that pussy, girl.”
Just like he’d taught her, Jaime worked her hips, meeting him stroke for stroke until he took over again and worked her body and her walls until she was exhausted and excited all at once.
Pleasure fucked her like there was nothing else in the world he’d rather do. He stroked her pussy with his dick and spoiled her body with his hands and lips and tongue.
Lord, this man was made for sex, she thought, crying out roughly as he made her come again . . . and again . . . and again.
Hmph. He was worth every red cent.
Although Aria Livewell was sitting next to her husband, Kingston, on the leather love seat, she had never felt so distant from him. Never. That hurt like hell. Their marriage had been the kind that most people dream about. Great chemistry. Explosive sex. Communication. Teamwork. All of it. The whole nine. Not an unreal perfection but a good solid marriage that was destined to last fifty years or more.
And then came the message that day, exposing the betrayal of a husband and a supposed friend.
Aria felt anger burn in her stomach at the thought of Jessa Bell the Jezebel having sex with her husband. Planning to steal him away. Taunting her, Renee, and Jaime with that damn message.
Aria hadn’t seen the bitch since, but first chance she got, Jessa’s ass was grass. Point blank. Period.
The door to the office opened and both Aria and Kingston looked up as their marriage counselor, Dr. Matheson, strolled in. Aria eyed him. Tall, wide, and balding with a beard, the man looked more like a lumberjack or hunter. Still, after three sessions, she felt comfortable around the man and she especially loved that after calling him about a nasty, down and dirty fight last night, he’d volunteered to meet them for an emergency session on a Sunday. Aria was more than ready to get to the bottom of their shit.
“How did things go last week?” he asked, folding his broad frame in the black leather club chair positioned in front of them.
“The sex was awful,” Kingston blurted out, shifting in his seat and holding his hands out there like “There it is.”
Aria’s eyes got round as saucers as she turned on the sofa to look at him. No, this Negro didn’t. “Well, it’s a little hard to be enthusiastic about having sex when all I can see is you in bed with Jessa’s no-good behind,” she snapped.
Kingston jumped to his feet. “I did not cheat on you with Jessa or anybody else and I am sick and tired of explaining myself in my marriage over some other man’s bullshit.”
Aria jumped to her feet and pointed her finger at him. “Mr. Perfect cursing. Oh my Lord, hell is about to freeze over!” she exclaimed emphatically, damn well meaning to be sarcastic.
Kingston eyed her, his handsome face tight with anger.
“Why do you feel Kingston is Mr. Perfect?”
They both turned their heads to look down at Dr. Matheson calmly sitting there but watching them with eyes like a hawk.
Aria sighed as she plopped back down on her end of the sofa. Kingston adjusted his pants before he settled down on his end.
She could hardly believe how badly Jessa’s message had fucked with her marriage. She couldn’t believe any of the shit that went down.
She could see and remember that text clear as day. Word for word.
How in the hot hell she could forget it? Especially when all three husbands had come home that night, all three denying Jessa’s words. All three claiming it wasn’t them.
That bitch was supposed to be their friend—especially her friend—since their college days. Straight bullshit. No chaser.
“Aria?”
She shifted her eyes to Dr. Matheson.
“Why do you feel Kingston is Mr. Perfect?”
Aria bit the IMAN gloss from her lips as she closed her eyes and spoke the truth about how she felt. “He is too good to be true,” she admitted softly, feeling emotional.
She felt Kingston stiffen beside her. “I am sick of this—”
“Let her finish, Kingston.”
Blinking away tears, Aria wrung her hands. “I always feel like I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. I feel like this marriage is what everyone dreams of but no one has—no one I know anyway. And so I was waiting for something to pop off, something to prove that . . . that . . . that . . .”
“That what, Aria?” Dr. Matheson nudged.
“I don’t know. I . . . I . . . don’t . . . I don’t know.” Aria shrugged.
“You’re right, you don’t know,” Kingston muttered under his breath.
Aria side-eyed him. “No, what I don’t know is if my husband fucked my friend. I don’t know if my husband was planning on leaving me to be with my friend. That’s what the hell I don’t know.”
“Because I’m too good to be true,” he drawled.
“Damn right,” she flung back.
“So if I beat on you, cuss at you, cheat on you, lie to you, and disrespect you, then what?” he asked, turning in heat to face her, his expression incredulous. “Why is it so hard to believe that there are good men—good black men. That’s crazy!”
“Because I know men can’t be trusted. As soon as you give them a foot of space they no good ass is off cheating and tricking and doing shit they got no business. I know,” she stressed with emotion. “I. Know.”
Dr. Matheson jotted something on his notepad. “And how do you know that, Aria?”
She froze, hating that her eyes shifted. She hated that the fear she carried with her was just as strong as ever. Secrets had a way of revealing themselves. Secrets that filled her with guilt every day. Secrets that could—would—ruin her marriage.
Wild teen years filled with lots of partying, weed, and even more men—most married. Trying to be grown way too soon. Abortions. Liquors. Scheming. Lying.
And now she couldn’t have children.
That was the secret she’d confided to a friend and she’d been afraid Jessa would tell Kingston about it. But she hadn’t. She couldn’t have because he would have confronted her about it. Having children was the next step in his plan for their happily ever after.
Kingston didn’t know.
“I just know,” was all that she finally answered.
“This myth that there are no good black men is just that: a myth,” Kingston said. “I’ve done nothing to make my wife suspect me. Nothing but do what I’m supposed to do as man—as a husband: love my wife. That’s it. I love my wife. I’m good to my wife. And I’m being punished for that. A brotha can’t win for losing.”
Aria’s eyes were troubled as she shifted them out the window to the late summer scene. All of her doubts plagued her. Was it possible that Kingston was not the guilty husband? Was she punishing her husband for nothing and ruining her marriage?
Was the fact that a little ghetto girl from Newark with brains enough for a full scholarship to Columbia had actually snagged an upper-middle-class man who seemed to step right out of a romance book so hard to believe?
“And do you love Kingston, Aria?”
“With all my heart, Dr. Matheson,” she stated, without hesitation, question, or second thought.
“And Kingston, do you love Aria?”
“I love her. I love the hell out of her. . . .”
Aria felt waves of relief flood over her.
“But if she doesn’t appreciate me and trust me . . . then I don’t know if we’ll make it.”
Aria turned to face him. She knew her husband very well. There was no doubt that the words he spoke were not an idle threat.
Another woman is pregnant with my husband’s child. Another woman is pregnant with my husband’s child. Another woman is pregnant with my husband’s child.
Anotherwomanispregnantwithmyhusbandschild.
Renee Clinton dropped her head into her hands and fought the urge to scream at the top of her lungs. To release all the pain, the frustration, and the disappointment. “Maybe if I get it out it’ll stop eating me up inside,” she muttered, her eyes closed as she leaned back heavily in her office chair.
Another woman is pregnant with my husband’s child. Another woman is pregnant with my husband’s child. Another woman is pregnant with my husband’s child.
Anotherwomanispregnantwithmyhusbandschild.
“I hate my life.”
She folded her feet beneath her in the chair as she looked at the framed pictures of her family. Snapshots of a better time—not the best of times but definitely better than now. She laughed bitterly at the thought that she’d spent a full day worrying about whether Jessa Bell had fucked her husband when she’d been completely blindsided by the news that her husband had cheated and his mistress was pregnant with his child. “Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees,” she muttered sarcastically.
Jessa was the least of her damn worries.
Brrrnnnggg.
She cut her eyes over to the cordless phone ringing on the base. Who could it be?
Her husband with his new responsibilities and obligations to another woman? Or her kids off enjoying their young lives without a real care in the world? Or her friends who were caught up in the drama of their own marriages?
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
“Hi, this is Jackson . . . Renee . . . Aaron . . . and Kieran. The Clintons. We’re not available to take your message. After the beep, do your thing.”
“Hmph. I need to change that shit.” After the gun she’d pulled on him the night of his big “revelation” Jackson didn’t have any choice but to move the hell out. Jackson’s no-good cheating ass was now the proud renter of a two-bedroom town house downtown.
Beep.
“Renee, this is Darren. You really need to show up at the luncheon for the upcoming CancerWalk. All the head figures are looking for you to be there. Call me back so I know what to say.”
That shit went right out of her head. It was Sunday. How many weekends had she been off at work while her husband had been fucking another woman? No. She couldn’t handle it anyway. Her assistant was a handy little thing and she knew he would handle things. “Tomorrow, I will go to work. Tomorrow,” she promised, her words sounding hollow to her own ears.
The job she’d once loved was now a reminder of her failed marriage. Her need for a career had caused such a wedge in her marriage. These days she couldn’t muster the passion and love she’d had for working for a nonprofit benefiting cancer. These days she was too busy nursing a shattered heart.
“Love don’t live here anymore,” Renee sang, completely off-key as she reached for the bottle of Patrón and poured herself a hefty shot.
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
Straight tequila was an acquired taste, especially for a causal drinker, but for the last month she had come to love everything about the liquor. Every single thing. The look of it as it poured into a clear glass. The smell of it filling her nose as she held the glass to her lip and prepared to take a sip. Even the slight burn in her throat as she swallowed. And finally . . . finally . . . the way the liquor made her numb.
Her husband’s outside baby. Her job. Her marriage. Her stress. Her kids. Her secrets. Her husband’s secret. Her bullshit.
The bullshit.
All of it went away when she was deep into her Patrón. All of it.
“Fuck that shit,” she muttered, swiveling in her chair to turn away from the photo of her two children, smiling and happy without a true care in the world.
And how would they feel when they discovered their father had a child on the way with another woman? How do you explain that to children? Especially teenagers.
She . . .
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