Authors: Violet Williams
“Are you okay, Mr. Cunningham?”
Conrad was confounded, but not nearly to the extend Jake was. Why was she asking the bastard if he was okay? He’d been nothing but rude to her!
He could tell a similar question was on Conrad’s mind, but he just staggered backward. “I’m fine.” He coughed a bit and did a bizarre bow thing before he turned toward his car and slid back behind the driver’s wheel without another word.
The three of them watched him reverse out of the alley, his tires squealing as he peeled back onto Main Street.
Raven let out a heavy sigh then turned back to the Escalade. “Senator-”
Jake nodded, still looking at Keisha, trying to read her and put two and two together. As he filed into the backseat beside her and the car rattled to motion, he sent Raven a silent bout of gratitude as she eased in the front passenger seat and pulled out her cell, giving them a degree of privacy.
He slid over closer to Keisha and stroked her hand. She didn’t respond to his touch, just looking straight ahead. She was probably frustrated about his father’s attitude. That had to be it.
She scoffed. “Whatever’s going on between you and your dad has been brewing since long before I was in the picture, Jake.” She pulled her sweater tight, like she got a chill. “I still can’t believe you punched your father. What did it prove? What did it change?”
She glanced over at him. “When I beat the shit out of Monique, it felt nice. For a few seconds.”
“Well I’m sure when the cops showed up it changed the tempo.”
“That isn’t it,” she said, shaking her head. “Monique was trying to show me something. That she had power over me. Me getting into it with her just proved her right. You punching your dad to defend my honor? It just proved that you have a mean right hook.” She turned her attention to the window. “And it proved that he has power over you. It didn’t make anything better. It wasn’t justice. Violence doesn’t change anything.”
Jake knew all Keisha was just trying to help him see that losing his cool just made things worse, but it was the wrong time for him to digest it. He didn’t want to accept it. His stomach made an angry growl. “You hungry?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Hey Joe? Can you stop at a drive thru on the way to Winterhorn? I’m starving.”
“Actually Joe,” Keisha piped, her focus still outside the window. “Before you get Senator Cunningham’s dinner, can you stop by Mauryville Heights?”
“Mauryville Heights?” Jake repeated. “I thought we could spend the evening together.”
“I just want to see my son, Jake. I just…”
The sob that rose in her throat punched Jake in the gut. It was more painful that the thought of her in jail, more painful than watching his father treat her like shit, more painful than anything. She was hurting—and he wasn’t what she needed.
Chapter Five
Keisha
"You've really done it now." Keisha's mother had been at it all morning, laying out the intricacies of her fuck up. "I mean, really—didn’t I raise you better?"
Keisha plunked the baby monitor on the counter and yawned, trudging to the fridge. "Yeah, Ma. Sure."
"Fighting at work, getting arrested," Carla flicked her bic and lit her cigarette, taking a long drag and exhaling before she continued. "Thank god Jake was there to help you take care of it."
Keisha tuned her out as she pulled out a jug of OJ. She moved toward the cabinet for a cup, but just shrugged and popped of the top and threw it back.
Thank god was right. When she'd been booked downtown, she knew that her phone call would have been wasted on her mother. After scolding her for a good ten minutes, she would have told her she was up shit creek. Calling Jake wasn't much easier.
She'd tried to be hard and stoic as her co-worker watched in horror as she was handcuffed and led out the lobby and into the backseat of a cruiser. She'd kept it together as they booked her, taking her fingerprints, her picture. She'd even put on a brave face when the bars slammed shut behind her and the smell of the cell made bile rise in her throat.
But when she plucked Jake's cell and heard his baritone voice on the other end, she lost it. Somehow between the sobs, he discerned what happened. He rode in on his white horse and saved the day. Until he punched his father.
All the while when she was busy trying to ignore sheisty women that tried to provoke her into fights, thinking about Maria’s sad eyes as they led her out—she’d held onto the thought of seeing Jake. It kept her from losing it. But their reunion car ride, reunion sex had withered to nothing when he’d socked Conrad in the jaw.
She knew he thought she was mad that he'd hit his father, but it was so much more than that. She was in the shit because she'd let her emotions get the best of her. It was one of her faults. Growing up in The Heights, she learned that girls who knocked people the fuck out and asked questions later earned respect. But she didn't want a legacy of violence for Caleb. She wanted more for him. And when she saw Jake, the guy who was supposed to be the personification of better things, raising his hand to solve his problems, it’d devastated her.
She gulped down the OJ and recapped it, turning to the stove. "I'm making oatmeal, Ma. You want some?"
Her mother shook her head. "Am I talking to myself, Keisha? It's about so much more than you getting locked up. I had plans last night. Plans that got canceled."
Jesus Christ. "What do you want me to say? I've apologized. Effusively. Do you want me to whip out my trusty time machine? Rewind it back 24 hours?”
“Keisha-“
“Or maybe I should rewind it back 23 years."
There it was. The truth that lurked beneath the surface. The thing that cut Keisha every time her mother looked at her with so much disdain that she felt it in her soul.
Carla sat still as stone, her mouth open, her cigarette hovering in the air. Something flashed across her face. Guilt? Shame?
A spark of hope burned in Keisha's belly. Maybe she would finally hear her mother say the words. That she loved her. That she wasn't a disappointment. That she wasn't a mistake.
But she just shook back to life, taking a final puff before she dropped the butt in her coffee mug. "I don't have to sit here and take this." She stalked to the living room and swiped her jacket and keys, leaving the apartment without another word. She closed the door with a thud, and that was that.
Keisha slammed her fists on the counter, the sting of pain dulling the tears that burned her eyes. How did things get so messed up? How did they get to the point where it was easier for her mother to leave than to talk to her?
She walked robotically to the stove with her pot of water. She reached for the salt and put a dash in before turning on the burner. She stared into the water, making a promise. Even if Caleb made decisions that changed his whole, decisions she didn't agree with, she'd never let him feel this emptiness. She'd make sure he knew that no matter what, he'd have a proud mother that loved him more than life.
She heard a flurry of taps on the door and she dabbed her eyes with a napkin before going to answer it. When she looked in the peephole and saw Jake staring back at her, she paused. A part of her was happy to see him, ecstatic even. Another part was still hurt and angry about everything that happened and how he’d handled the situation. She pressed her hand on the weathered wood door, not knowing what to do.
He must have felt it. "Keisha, please talk to me."
She flipped the lock and pulled the door open. He was in a black button down shirt and jeans, shades perched on the top of his head. Casual looked good on him.
"So I came here to apologize."
“Oh?”
He nodded. “I shouldn’t have hit my dad.” He leaned forward on the door jam. “You were right about the issues between the two of us, but I have to find a better way to figure all that out. You needed me last night—and I just made it-”
Keisha pulled him inside and closed the door, reaching around to lock it before she pushed him back against it, covering his apology with her mouth. Right this moment, she didn't need words. She needed him to show her how sorry he was with his body. She wanted him to make love to her.
She pulled her t-shirt up and over her body, fumbling with his pants. He shed his shirt and she led him to the couch. His hands roamed her bare body, caressing her curves as he pulled her to him, his erect cock pressing against her, promising things she couldn't wait to fulfill.
She was the aggressor, shoving him down into the cushion. The warmth between her thighs yearned for him, needed him as much as the sun, oxygen, life.
She straddled him, staring deep into his sea blue eyes. "I need you. I need us to be okay."
"I love you," he said softly. "I love you Keisha, and I'm so sorry."
She held fast to his words as she lowered herself on him. He sheathed himself in her and every inch sent a new wave of euphoria through her. She clasped to him as she slowly rode him, swirling her hips, floating on the tune of his moans. He needed this, needed her, loved her--she felt it in the way he held her waist as he bathed his whole length inside her, laying claim. As their bodies moved together, everything else faded away.
"I love you," she said thickly, her mouth on his neck. "God, it feels so good. Don't stop, Jake. Don't stop!"
She let out a gasp of surprise as he gripped her and lifted from the couch, his cock never leaving her. She felt him bend his knees, his handsome face contorted in passion as she hopped on his cock, getting a whole new sensation from the position. He was standing, she in his arms, his strong fingers gripping her ass as she rode him. She was so close to bliss that she felt its tingle rippling over her body. When he let out a moan of elation, she gave in and felt the spasms that milked her lover, taking all of him in.
They sunk back onto the couch and it hit her. That was the first time they'd said it out loud. It almost seemed ludicrous, since a part of her loved him since the moment they met, but this was the only time they put that love to words.
When she glanced over at him, his cheeks burned hot. He picked up on the gravity of it. "I-I meant it, what I said. I do love you, Keisha."
She closed her eyes, savoring the three words. "I love you too Jake." She leaned in to kiss him and her eyes popped open as the baby monitor screeched to life. Caleb was awake.
Chapter Six
Jake
Jake tossed Keisha the umpteenth apologetic smile of the morning. He’d had their day planned to a T, cooking Keisha a nice breakfast and had planned a day of spoiling her, wanting her to spend her day distressing at the spa. He’d even snuck out of bed and grabbed a bottle for Caleb before Keisha stirred. The little one must have felt something in the force because no sooner than he’d finished his bottle had the door come alive with a series of taps far too aggressive for Raven. It was his mother, fresh off a flight from London. Here to save the day. And now they were all sitting around the table, trying to ignore the elephant in the room.
Barbara turned up her aristocratic nose as she sipped coffee from her porcelain mug. “Your father is just a wreck about what happened between the two of you, Jake. Just a wreck.”
“Is he now?”
She nodded, her perfectly trimmed gray locks spilling forward before she tucked them behind her ear. “You know how he gets when you two are at odds. It’s not good for business. Or his blood pressure.”
Jake slid from the table. He needed some distance from the Guilt Trip to Rule All Guilt Trips. “I’ve already apologized to Dad.”
Partially true. He’d sent an email—and only after Keisha insisted that the only way she’d get a remotely fair shake with his family was if they didn’t equate her with violence.
He pulled Caleb up from his playpen, the handsome tot grinning up with him with adoration. He did a spin, making faces at him.
“Yes, well,” Barbara sniffed as she watched him with Caleb, bouncing him up and down until he squealed with glee.
When he glanced over at his mother, for the smallest moment, he thought he saw a flicker of happiness. Was she seeing past all her hang ups and worries about keeping up appearances? Did she see how happy Keisha and Caleb made him?
“You know, you were always so good with children,” she said quietly.
Keisha leaned forward, pulling her robe tighter around her. “Caleb’s just crazy about him.” Jake’s heart thumped in his throat when she winked at him. “Almost as crazy as I am.”
He held Caleb to his chest and moved back to the table, hoping the ‘behave’ vibes he was trying to send to his mother were coming through loud and clear.
“You seem like a nice girl, dear,” Barbara said cryptically. Her soft features took on an edge as she leaned forward. “But this-” She made a gesture from Jake to Keisha. “Whatever this is, it’s gonna have bigger consequences than causing undue stress between Jake and his father.”