Claiming Carter (21 page)

“Well, as much as I hate to admit it, I kind of felt like it was payback for what he did to me. I mean, I didn’t intend for it to happen the way it did, but it felt like a pretty perfect case of karma. I hope you’re not too mad at me. I know it’s kind of messed up of me to do that.”

Kelvin smiled his broad, perfect smile, awakening the wings of butterflies in my stomach.

“I’m not mad at you, Lilliana. I actually see how that makes sense. You caught him getting his dick sucked in the school, and now he catches you getting fucked from behind in the school. I guess you reap what you sow.”

I let out a relieved chuckle. “Yeah, I guess so. Serves him right. He’s been trying to act like I’m just supposed to get over seeing what I saw. You can’t just un-see that kind of thing, you know. But, that’s Tim for you.”

“Tim sounds like a little bit of a douche bag.”

“Tim is a douche bag,” I replied quickly and without hesitation. “Now that it’s over though, I’m kind of glad that he did what he did and got caught. I wasn’t happy with Tim. I thought I was happy, but now I know I wasn’t. And, obviously, neither was he, so I’m glad to have been let out of that sham of a relationship. It’s because of him that I now know I deserve better.”

Kelvin smiled at me once again and nodded his head. “I agree wholeheartedly. You do deserve better than a sham. I hope you don’t feel like what we are doing is a sham.”

“What exactly are we doing, Kelvin?” I inquired, finally having the courage to ask the question out loud. “I’m not trying to rush you into anything or force you into anything, but I think it’s important that we at least define what it is that we have here.” As the words rolled out of my mouth, I expected the tension in the room to suddenly become palpable. Kelvin, however, looked completely at ease. The total opposite of what I was expecting. The total opposite of what most men would do.

Kelvin got up from the chair and came and sat next to me on the floor. As he made himself comfortable, he leaned forward and smiled at me. “Tell me, Lilliana, what do you want this thing of ours to be?”

“Umm, I don’t know. I mean, I do know. I just don’t want you to feel like I’m pressuring you.”

“You’re not pressuring me. I want this to be whatever you want it to be, as long as you understand that I want you. As long as I get to have you in some way.”

I couldn’t help but smile at Kelvin’s sentiment. “That’s sweet. But what if I ask for you to marry me?” I joked.

Kelvin let out a hearty laugh. “I get the feeling you won’t be taking it that far.”

“You’re right,” I giggled, “but I’m being partially serious though. What if I want more than what you are willing to give?”

“Tell me what you want, Lilliana.”

I released a small sigh as I repositioned myself on the floor. The chair behind Kelvin looked incredibly comfortable, but not enough to make me want to put space between Kelvin and me.

“I think you already know that I want to be with you, Kelvin,” I said, blushing. “You’re pretty awesome to be around, and I like how well we get along. Not to mention the fact that you are the first guy I’ve been with that has ever made me have multiple orgasms every time we have sex.” I felt myself blushing as I smiled uncontrollably.

It took Kelvin a second to say anything, and I became more and more nervous the longer he waited. After the longest pause I think I’d ever endured, Kelvin finally smiled.

“So, you want to know a secret?”

“Sure,” I replied, giggling at Kelvin’s playfulness.

“I’ve wanted to be with you from the moment I saw you sitting there in Applebee’s, wearing a sexy black skirt, and sipping a Cosmo. When I saw you a second time at the gas station, I had a feeling right then and there that we would be together. It was almost like it was meant to be—as cliché as that sounds. You were like a rainbow in a sky that had been storming for the past three months, since my brother died. So, you see, you can’t ask me for too much. You can’t pressure me, either. Because I want you, Lilliana.”

I smiled a full smile that seemed to stretch from one side of my face all the way to the other. I couldn’t sense an ounce of deceit in anything Kelvin had said. Either he was the best liar known to man, or he meant every word that he said. I chose to believe that it was the latter.

As the butterflies in my stomach began to take flight, Kelvin spoke again. “So, I’m with you when you say that we should define our relationship. And we’ll define it by saying that we are officially in a relationship. You’re my girl, and I’m your man. That okay with you?”

“Hell yes, it’s okay with me!” I exclaimed as I leaned in to wrap my arms around Kelvin. We kissed for the first time since officially becoming a couple and it seemed better than every other time before. Kelvin slowly ran his hand down the side of my face as our lips fit together perfectly. When our tongues touched, I felt an emotional connection that we hadn’t felt before, and it only served to make us want each other more. Kelvin began to slowly work his other hand up my leg, and I knew exactly where this was leading, and although we’d just finished having sex only about ten minutes ago, I was perfectly willing to do it again. However, as I tried to unzip my new
boyfriend’s
pants, he pulled away.

“What’s wrong?” I asked nervously.

“You already know that I would love nothing more than make you come right here on this floor, but I think I’d feel a little better if I knew your little ex-boyfriend—or anyone else for that matter—couldn’t come around the corner and watch us. So, I think we should get out of here, head back to my place, and finish this in my hot tub.”

“Sounds good to me,” I replied, leaping to my feet and reorganizing the papers that I’d knocked on the floor earlier.

Kelvin and I straightened out our clothes as we headed for the door, and I locked it before we began walking down the hall towards the parking lot exit. As we walked, I again noticed that our hands were basically rubbing as we stepped. We’d just defined our relationship, yet the nerves were still there and I was hesitant to touch him. Just then, as I was struggling within myself to build up the courage, Kelvin reached out and took ahold of my hand.

The excitement shot through me like a lightning bolt through the sky. I could barely hide my giddiness as we walked together as a couple for the first time, and I wished that Tim and Angela were around to see how happy I was. Out of the blue, I’d found an amazing man that other women would’ve killed to be with. Kelvin was every woman’s dream man: tall, muscular, rich, and seemingly powerful. I knew that there were things about Kelvin Carter Jr. that I didn’t know, but he was my boyfriend and I was ready to learn everything. I was prepared for whatever journey he was planning to take me on and I found excitement in the unknown. He had a lot to learn about me as well, and as we pushed through the doors leading to the parking lot, I felt like we both were ready to interconnect our lives and learn about one another.

We walked through the parking lot silently, rejoicing internally at the step forward that we’d just taken. I rubbed Kelvin’s hand with my thumb as we stepped, but felt suddenly distracted when he began squeezing my hand. I looked up at him and immediately became worried by the expression on his face as he stared out in front of us and stopped walking.

“Kelvin, you’re squeezing me,” I said. “What’s the matter with you?”

As I asked the question, I followed Kelvin’s gaze. Fear slithered its way up my spine and my heart sank to the pit of my stomach as I stared at my car, with all of the windows shattered and all four tires flattened.

“Is it you? Are you doing this fucking shit to try to scare her off?” Kelvin blared as he burst through the mahogany doors of the expansive conference room at the top of the Red Chip Casino.

The large table in the middle of the room was occupied by five of the most prominent members of The Family, but Kelvin didn’t seem to care about who was in the room. At the head of the table was his uncle, Michael, who was sporting a black suit with red pinstripes, along with his signature three-inch beard hanging from his chin. To the left of Michael was Thomas Black. The wrinkles in his face greatly intensified as he scrunched his sixty-year-old forehead and stared at Kelvin with obvious confusion and frustration.

“First of all,” Michael said, the wrinkles in his forehead becoming more obvious, “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Secondly, this obviously isn’t a good time, Junior.”

“I don’t give a fuck whether you think it’s a good time or not,” Kelvin boomed. His temper was beginning to get the best of him. “You owe me an explanation.”

Michael’s face was twisted into an aggressive scowl. “You’re really starting to push it with that attitude of yours. And I’m telling you right now, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, but whatever it is, it has nothing to do with me.”

“That’s bullshit!” Kelvin blurted.

“Hey, you need to calm the fuck down,” said the man sitting to the left of Thomas Black. Kelvin looked over at him and recognized his uncle, Clarence Carter, sporting a navy blue suit with a maroon tie. His suit struggled to hold his abnormally muscular body. Kelvin knew that it was always a bad idea to make Uncle Clarence upset, so he took a deep breath and tried to calm himself.

“You’re telling me you don’t know anything about Lilliana’s house being broken into yesterday, or her car being busted to shit today?” Kelvin growled, but a notch down from where he’d started when he first entered.

“I don’t know anything about that, Junior.” Michael responded.

“Who the hell is Lilliana? Is that the girl I saw you with at the Signature Room?” Anthony Carter asked from his seat next to Clarence. The lights from the ceiling shone off of his bald head as he tapped on the side of his glasses with his finger. Next to him was Kelvin’s youngest uncle, Deshaun Carter, sporting a glaring bald head of his own, but a darker complexion.

“Yes,” Kelvin said. “Some weird shit is starting to happen to her, and I know that you don’t want me seeing her right now, so I thought that you might be trying to scare her off by fucking up her stuff. But, if it’s not you, Uncle Mikey, then I need to find out who the hell is doing it.”

“Didn’t I fucking tell you to stop seeing that girl?” Michael barked. “I told you to lay low, Kelvin.”

“I’ve been laying low, but I’m not going to just roll over and die because my father is worried about me. Me and Lilliana are seeing each other and that’s all there is to it.”

“You need to think with your head and not with your dick,” Clarence said. “All it takes is one time for you to get caught slipping, and that’s it. You should know that already. We already lost Fab, we can’t lose you too.”

Kelvin cringed at the sound of his brother’s name as he reached for one of the navy blue chairs on the opposite side of the table. As he sat, he folded his hands in front of him and stared down at the table. He still wasn’t quite used to being a part of The Family, and he knew that when his uncles looked at him, they were all wishing that he was Fab.

“Alright,” Michael stated authoritatively, “since you decided to barge in here and leave us no choice in the matter, let’s take a minute to figure this thing out. However, this is the last time you bring your personal relationship shit in front of The Family. You understand?”

“I got it,” Kelvin replied.

Michael Carter took a seat in his lavish chair and folded his hands in front of him on the table. “Alright, so break this down for me. What exactly is going on?”

“She had a break-in yesterday. Whoever did it didn’t steal anything, they just fucked the place up and broke some stuff. Now, today, as we’re leaving her job, we go outside to find her car windows broken and all of her tires flat.”

“So, they know who she is,” Michael stated. “Whoever it is, they know her and they are fucking with her on purpose. Either she’s pissed somebody off, or someone is just trying to send her a message without hurting her. Or, maybe they’re trying to send
you
a message.”

“The fact that we are together isn’t exactly a well-known thing. And even if someone knew, why would they try to send a message through her? Why not just come and see me?”

“Because, up until now, you have been hard to reach. This shit wasn’t happening when you were with James. Funny how things have started jumping off now that you have let him go,” Michael said.

“This has nothing to do with me,” Kelvin snapped.

“How do you know that?” Anthony Carter chimed in. “You’ve got to open your eyes, Nephew. As soon as you dropped James and started going out on a regular basis again, strange things are happening around you. That means something. How do you know it isn’t them?”

Kelvin sat at the desk and thought to himself. He’d convinced himself that the situation had passed and that he was free to live his life once again. The thought of having to go under The Family’s protection again made him feel especially uneasy.

“I
don’t
know that it’s not them, but that just doesn’t make sense,” Kelvin said lowly.

“It doesn’t have to make sense to you. It just makes sense to them,” Thomas Black groaned in his husky tone. “I’ve seen this many times before. Instead of coming straight at you, they mess with the things around you. The things that you care about. The things that you love. Once you have nothing left, then they come after you.”