Never Keeping Secrets (5 page)

Danielle swung her eyes away from his as she locked her knees and fought not to show him her bitter disappointment. “I hope it's nothing too serious with your mother,” she said, barely able to get the words past the tightness she felt in her throat.

The end of a relationship was always easier to swallow for the one who leaves the relationship over the one who gets left. In her heart there had been some assurance because Mohammed was there, easy to find, easy to contact . . . when
she
chose to have him back in her life. He was leaving and snatching away her option to take him back.

“She broke her hip and is having surgery,” Mohammed said, taking a few steps forward toward her.

Danielle nodded and turned away from the sight of him. “She is going to need help around the house as she recovers,” she said softly, her eyes shifting about the small living room as she fought not to let her emotions show.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“When are you leaving?” she asked, nibbling at her bottom lip.

“In the morning.”

Danielle whirled to face him. Her heart clenched. Her eyes widened.
Tomorrow!
“She . . . uh . . . must be happy you're—”

The rest of her words were swallowed by Mohammed's lips. Danielle's eyes widened and she paused for just a hot second before she returned his kisses and brought her hands up to tangle in his dreads. She moaned in sweet pleasure even as her tears of loss welled up in her eyes.

“Don't cry,” he whispered against her lips in between heated kisses.

Danielle shook her head even as she let it tilt back to expose the smooth skin of her neck to his mouth. “I'm not.”

“Not yet,” he said, sucking the spot just under her chin as his hands moved from deeply gripping her hips to massaging her ass.

She shivered as he licked a sultry circle at the base of her throat as he roughly jerked her dress up around her waist. “Shouldn't you ask first?” she whispered hotly, her heart pounding as she freed his dreads to reach down in between them to undo his belt and the button of his pants.

“Do I need to?” Mohammed asked in return, leaning back to look her in the eye as his jeans fell down around his ankles.

Danielle panted as that crazy energy between them pulsed heavily and surrounded them like a cocoon. She licked the sudden dryness from her lips and freed his dick from the flap of his boxers. “Do I?” she countered boldly, tightening her hold on his hard inches.

“Hell no,” Mohammed said darkly. He wrapped one strong arm around her waist and took three large steps to roughly back her body against a wall before tearing her lace panties away with one tight tug. Danielle gasped in anticipation and locked her legs behind his strong back just as he worked the thick tip of his warm and hard dick inside her.

Mohammed's body went still as he fought for control at the tight and moist feel of her surrounding his shaft. “Shit,” he swore, dropping his head to her heaving chest as she winded her fingers into his dreads.

Danielle kissed his temple and deeply inhaled the scent of the coconut oil he used on his scalp. Love for him swelled inside of her. Lust for him intensified at the feel of his hard dick pulsing against her walls. “Fuck me,” she begged in a ragged whisper.

And he did. And well.

Each stroke of his dick felt like a jolt of life. Not even the pressure of his body lightly slamming her body against the wall with each thrust broke through the sex daze.

Fuck it.

In that moment Danielle didn't give a shit about anything else. “Fuck me,” she demanded again, her voice sharp like a commander dictating to his troops.

And he delivered hard, forceful thrust after thrust.

Danielle cried out and tugged his locks with her fists, sharply jerking his head back to suck his neck.

His neck was slightly salty from the sweat of his work. Danielle felt the valley of her breasts and her inner thighs dampen from the sweat of her pleasure. Their hearts raced and pounded. Their sex was wild. Frantic. Frenetic. They both could almost see the white hot chemistry they created.

Danielle tugged harder on his hair and tightened her ankles against his back as she felt the explosion in her core build with a feverish pace. “Don't go, Mohammed,” she whispered, pressing her upper back against the wall to brace herself as she fucked him back with a steady back-and-forth churn of her hips. “Please don't leave me.”

He twisted his head to free his locks from her hands and looked forward to lock his eyes on her as he continued the onslaught. Continued to fuck her. Continued to bury himself inside of her like he wanted to be lost in each rhythmic spasm of her pussy walls against his dick. “I have to,” he said, his voice filled with his regrets. His eyes tortured with the pain he knew he caused her.

As Danielle rode wave after wave of her release as she came, she let her tears flow even as she cried out roughly and got lost in the pleasure while grappling with her pain. It was a true emotional roller coaster and Danielle wasn't quite sure that she wasn't about to cross the line into madness.

Mohammed's dick hardened as he roared with his own nut. He continued to thrust upward inside of her, slickly coating her walls with his release. “Aaaah,” he cried out against her shoulder as his face twisted and his hard buttocks clenched and unclenched with each plunge.

Danielle was breathing so hard the muscles against her ribs ached. As she came down off her dick high she opened her eyes and spotted her torn panties on the floor. And then her eyes shifted to take in all of the damn boxes. Tomorrow Mohammed would be gone and she would be left behind with only a memory of him and this last encounter.

Danielle lightly knocked the back of her head against the wall as she arched her back. Regret filled her and her soul just couldn't take another emotion being added. She pushed her hands against Mohammed's shoulders and shook her head back and forth, fighting to get the hell away before she really laid everything she was feeling out in front of him.

“Danielle?” he said, freeing his dick as he stepped back and allowed her body to slide down the wall until she stood up on her heels.

“Good-bye, Mohammed,” she said, blinking rapidly as she moved past him quickly to reach the door.

“Wait, Danielle,” he called out.

She glanced over her shoulder just in time to see him stumble from his shorts around his ankle. He fell to his knees, his dick flopping back and forth like one of those inflatable Sky Guys outside of a car lot. For a half sec, she considered going back to help him but changed her mind as a quick vision of his sexy ass living it up—without her—in Jamaica in less than twenty-four hours filled her mind.

Ignoring the sticky wetness coating the crack of her ass, Danielle raced out the house and to her car, leaving behind her torn panties and broken heart. Mohammed had just rushed out onto the porch as she reversed down his driveway and sped away up the street.

The familiar smell of their sex filled her nostrils and Danielle rolled her eyes. She hadn't laid eyes on the man in weeks and she gave up her panties like a whore selling pussy for a penny. Pussy topped brains again.

Danielle gasped in horror at the memory of her pleading. Insult just trampled all over injury. She slammed on her brakes in the middle of the street and let her head drop to the steering wheel.

I begged him not to leave me
, she thought, lifting her head and looking at the reflection of her eyes in the rearview mirror.

Insecurity was hard to look at and so she shifted her eyes away.

And the very last thing Danielle Johnson wanted to be was insecure. Needy. Desperate.

She wanted more.

Danielle's eyes shifted back to the rearview mirror as Carolyn's voice echoed in her ear like a tiny well-dressed minion pushing devilment. She could just picture the woman propped on her shoulder in a form-fitting red Versace dress and six-inch heels—red-bottom Christian Louboutins of course.

Danielle didn't know how long she sat in the middle of the street with her thoughts racing. She didn't move her car even as the minimal traffic on the quiet street was forced to drive around her. She had a lot of shit on her mind.

Her needy friends.

Her thankless job.

Her invisible parents.

Her pathetic childhood.

Her shady past.

“I need more,” she admitted to herself.

She reachd down to the floor of the passenger seat to grab her tote. She dug out her cell phone. Mohammed had called a dozen times. He was leaving and there wasn't a damn thing he could do to help her get her life off pause.

With one breath and hopes that she didn't live to regret it, Danielle dialed a number she knew by heart. It rang twice.

“Well, well. Lookey, lookey,” the female voice said smugly into the phone, sounding like a more refined Sheneneh from the 1990s sitcom
Martin
.

Rolling her eyes, Danielle stiffened her spine against the driver's seat.

“Carolyn, we need to talk,” she said, tucking the phone between her ear and shoulder before she accelerated her car and finally sped off toward home.

 

“C
ome on, baby girl, let's make this money, yo.”

Monica smoothed her hands over her form-fitting pencil skirt as she coolly settled back in her leather executive chair and eyed her client with a demeanor that completely spoke of her belief that he was not to be taken seriously. And over fifty percent of the time, she was completely serious about her life and everything in it.

The television sitcom star who wanted to become a hip-hop icon was a caricature. The slang that sounded forced. The diamond jewelry that seemed borrowed. The tattoos that were random as hell. Kelson Hunt a.k.a. K-Hunta was on the back of a speedy bullet headed to obscurity.

It wasn't her job to tell him to use both hands to grab hold of his life. She was hired to manage his money, not his career.

No, Monica did not take him seriously at all.

She didn't bother to hide it. She didn't care to.

In the three years since she established and became the CEO of Winters Investment Services, Monica had steadily climbed the ladder to success. Her boutique agency included a small but very exclusive roster of celebrity clients who respected her and her ability to make the wealthy even wealthier.

And she had only just begun.

Monica rose to her feet and extended her hand. “It was good meeting with you, Mr. Hunt,” she began with a polite smile that was meant to be a subtle nudge that it was time for him to leave.

She didn't miss how his eyes lingered on the way the rich satin of her blouse clung to her breasts. Monica cleared her throat as she removed her red-framed spectacles and held them in her hand.

“Just call me K-Hunta,” he said, rising to his full six-foot-five-inch frame.

Uh, no, sir. I will not.
“Yes, so, I'll be touch with more information on your portfolio. I think it's wise of you to let your money make money,” she said, coming around her large glass desk to guide him by his elbow to the door.

“Usain said you're straight, so we're all good,” K-Hunta said, his chains lightly hitting against each other as he finally walked out the door to his entourage scattered about her waiting room.

Monica never talked business in the company of hangers-on. An attorney or business manager? Fine. The fellas you grew up with from the block? Nada.

“Talk to you soon,” she said to him even as she gave her young secretary, Jamal, a hard stare for openly turning up his nose at the loud and boisterous crew filling the outer office.

He instantly flipped his frown up.

Monica glanced at her Cartier watch as she closed her office door and turned to make her way back to her desk. The blunt edges of her waist-length weave brushed lightly back and forth against her shirt as she moved. She raked her navy-painted nails through the bone-straight hair that was parted down the middle before picking up the phone headset as she plopped down into her seat.

Her finger paused over the phone. “Come in,” she called out, looking down at the keypad as she dialed.

Her face filled with confusion at the sight of K-Hunta's manager, Usain Hands, poking his head into her office. Monica forced a smile. “What's up, Usain?” she said, still holding the phone. “I didn't know you were here.”

He stepped inside, looking suave in a pinstriped suit and paisley tie with plenty of diamonds to prove to the world he was successful as an entertainment manager. “Just wanted to thank you for doing me that favor and seeing Kelson,” he said, his eyes hidden behind dark shades.

Monica wondered if he slept in them because she had yet to see the man without them. Hanging up the line, she nodded. “No problem. Hopefully he'll take the advice I give him so we can set him for life after entertainment, you know,” she said, really anxious to finish her call.

Usain laughed as he twisted his watches and bracelets on his wrist. “You make it seem like he has a shelf life.”

Monica leaned back in her chair and shrugged a bit. “Just being realistic, Usain,” she offered lightly. “But you never know, right?”

He nodded. “Right,” he said, coming forward to extend his hand. “How about joining me at the Hip-Hop Awards next week?”

Monica slid her hand into his even as she let her surprise fill her face. She took in his handsome face and clean-cut style with a bit of edge but there was nothing about Usain that piqued Monica's interest and she had never picked up the vibe that she sparked his. “Business or pleasure, Usain?” she asked, having gained even more boldness in her late twenties than she dared to ever have before.

Success had bred confidence.

He smiled, highlighting his looks. “Business for me . . . pleasure for Kelson,” he admitted. “He asked me to ask you along.”

Monica frowned at visions of an armored SUV filled with more weed smoke than LA fog and more profanity than a hundred street-lit books combined. And she wanted K-Hunta even less than she could fake a desire for his manager. “I politely decline both,” she said, easing down into her seat.

Usain laughed as he nodded in understanding. “You can't blame the brotha for trying,” he said.

“No, not at all,” she agreed, already dismissing him and lifting up the phone handset again to finally make the call he interrupted. “Be safe.”

“You too.”

The sound of the door closing echoed as Monica closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair as she listened to the phone line ringing in her ears. She swiveled and looked out at the expanse of towering buildings across the street from her two-room office suite on the sixth floor of the Seventh Avenue building in the heart of Manhattan.

Not bad at all,
she thought, swiveling again in her chair and leaning forward to replace the handset as the call went to voice mail.

She beamed a little as she looked around at her stylishly decorated office, but it was her degrees framed on the wall above her low-slung bookcases that made her smile widen. Those degrees, her internships during college and grad school, her diligence to fulfill her dreams plus one hell of a lucky hookup from a classmate led to a black girl from a so-called broken home in Newark, New Jersey, owning her own business and making six figures at it.

And she wasn't done yet. She had just begun to scratch at her bucket list.

She leaned forward again in her chair and pressed the intercom button. “Jamal, I think we're done for the day. See you Monday,” Monica said, lightly massaging her chin with her free hand.

Monica nodded. That's what she loved about the young man who recently graduated from New York University. He had plenty of initiative and drive. He was hungry for success and looked for ways to make Monica's life easier. “Yes, thank you.”

She hadn't quite figured out if he was gay or not and she completely didn't give a fuck either way. Her interest in him was completely above his neck and not below his waist.

She rose to her feet as she picked up her briefcase and slid a few files into it before grabbing her purse. By the time she made it out of her office, Jamal was long gone with his desk left tidy and the light of the outer office already dimmed for the night. She locked up and walked down the tiled hall to the elevator shared with the two other office suites on the floor.

“Time for the weekend,” she said softly as she pressed the button to summon the elevator.

As she stepped between the opening doors a soft smile touched her glossy lips. There was a time when an upcoming Friday night meant something more than lounging on the couch with a glass of wine and files to review. High heels, short skirts, and the club with her friends were a long way from that.

The heels were still high but the friends she hadn't spoken to in close to five years and the club were off her to-do list. Surprisingly, she didn't miss either that much. Her priorities had changed.

As the elevator landed she reached in her purse for her iPhone. “Hey, mama,” she said, after checking the caller ID.

“This your daddy, LadyBug.”

Monica pinched the bridge of her nose as she walked across the lobby. “And does your girlfriend Andrea know you're laid up on your ex-wife's phone?” she asked, waving at the security guards at the front desk open before strutting through the glass door the doorman held for her.

“Andrea and I are not together.”

Monica paused and almost collided with a dog walker and his five clients on a leash. Her driver was standing outside her blacked out Yukon Denali waiting to help her slide into the back. Monica ignored him as she turned her back. “Did she get tired of you dipping back to swim in my mama's goodies?” she said, stretching her eyes with vaguely contained sarcasm.

“First off, I was swimming in your mama's goodies long before you came out of them,” he said, his voice amused. “Secondly, whatever is going on between me and your mama is none-ya. Third, and most importantly, I'm your father and you need to find your mind and your respect because you obviously lost both.”

And just like that Monica felt properly chastised and put in her place without her father raising his voice or changing his dismeanor one bit. “I apologize, Daddy,” she said, turning on her five-inch crocodile heels to finally make her way to her SUV. “You know what I went through with Mama all those years after you two got divorced. She can't take it if it all goes wrong again . . . and neither can I.”

Monica slid onto the butter-soft leather of the rear seat, dumping her briefcase and purse beside her as she kicked off her heels. “Matter of fact, Daddy, I can't even handle this now. So, with all due respect to the man who made me and raised me . . . I'll holler at you two lovebirds later.”

She took a deep, encouraging breath and ended the call.

Beep
.

“Headed home, Ms. Winters?”

She nodded at her driver, Sampson, even as she closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the headrest. Soon the soft sounds of Ledisi filled the vehicle and Monica felt her shoulders relax. Sampson knew her well. Somehow in the year since he was hired as her driver he was able to sense her frame of mind and played music to suit it. The only time he didn't mess with the music? If she was mad as hell and not in the mood. Then the twenty-minute ride home was as silent as death.

Monica let herself stay in that relaxed zone until she heard Sampson climb from his driver's seat and close his door. “Home sweet home,” she mouthed, opening her eyes and looking out the window at the upscale high-rise building on New York's Upper East Side.

It was a long way from Newark, New Jersey's central ward.

“A long ass way,” she muttered, before entering the building.

Even though it had been over a year since she first pressed stilettos to the marble floor, her breath was still taken away by the grandness. She wondered if she would ever get used to it. Just accept that this was her life now. This was her reality. And it was a reality that topped every one of her childhood dreams.

“Good evening, Mr. Steele.”

Monica stiffened in surprise before she turned and smiled at Cameron walking into the lobby with the confidence to fool anyone into thinking he owned it.
Correction, we made it,
she thought, her heart pounding like it had been years since she had seen the man she loved, instead of just that morning.

He walked right up to her with his eyes missing not one detail about her before he used one strong arm to sweep her body up against his to dance her in a small circle right there in the middle of the lobby. He kissed her neck and hummed some tune she couldn't recognize as she brought her hands up around his neck and enjoyed the movement of their bodies.

This was their home. Well, the lobby of their home. Theirs alone. Both names on the mortgage. Together.

“People are staring at us,” she whispered up to him as she eyed their neighbors.

Cameron chuckled and began to move them toward the elevator. “Let's not be the dancing Negroes in the lobby then,” he said with a chuckle.

“No, let's not.”

He dipped her with one arm and reached for the button to summon the elevator with the other. “Love,” he said, smiling down at her.

Monica's eyes sparkled but not as bright as the light his words exploded inside her chest. “More love,” she replied, as were their custom.

The elevator arrived. People got off and a few more got on along with Cameron and Monica. They snuggled close together with his head resting atop her head as she leaned forward into his chest. Lost in each other.

And she did love him. For his love as her man. For his intensity as her lover. For his power as the chief financial operating officer of Braun, Weber. For his security. His understanding. His humor. His humility.

As soon as they stepped off the elevator onto their floor, he slapped her ass soundly and then massaged it before scooping her up into his arms to carry her down the tiled hall to the door to their two-story condominium. She reached down and pressed her thumb to the pad to unlock the door.

“Are you ready to make a baby?” he spoke against her neck.

Monica froze as he carried her over the threshold. “Say what now?”

Cameron pressed his lips to her cheek before sitting her down on her feet. He pulled his iPhone from the inner pocket of his tailored blazer and then used his thumb to swipe across the screen several times. He handed it to her.