Never Keeping Secrets (6 page)

Monica's heart was beating fast as she looked down at the calendar reminder he titled: Baby Making. And then she remembered. Last year when Cameron last brought up having children she begged off for a year. A year ago to the date.
Leave it up to this Negro to set a motherfucking reminder.

Not once during the year had they broached the subject of children. Not once. But he had just been lying in wait. Like a predator on her uterus.

Monica visualized gaining eighty pounds, her nose spreading, ankles swelling, and her neck darkening. Morning sickness. Constant peeing. And labor? She fought not to shiver at the thought of that.
Fuck to the no.

She cut her eyes over at him and his eyes were leveled on her. She smiled and rose up on her toes to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Not this week, baby. Aunt Flo came to visit this afternoon,” she lied.

“Damn,” Cameron swore in disappointment.

She pressed another kiss to his mouth before she dropped down to her knees and bit her bottom lip. “Let me get some of that pressure off,” she said softly, unzipping his pants.

He smiled, spread his legs wide and thrust his hips toward her playfully. “Do what you do,” he said.

“And do so well,” she teased, the sound of his zipper being undone echoing in the air.

Monica licked her lips before she pulled his dick free and licked him. Stroking the length of him until it hardened in her hands. The faint scent of him, his sweat, and his soap surrounded her as she took all of him into her mouth. He hissed in pleasure and tightened his fingers in her hair as he flung his head back and slightly pumped his hips.

“Hmmmmmmm,” she moaned, enjoying the stroke of his dick against her tongue.

“Mo,” he moaned.

She sucked him harder, closing her eyes as her cheeks caved with each deep pull. She could taste the slight drizzle of pre-cum coating the tip. His balls lightly rocked against her chin with each back and forth motion of his hips. His buttocks were tight as his thighs quivered from the pleasure she gave.

Usually, Monica would blow him until he was close to a nut and then jack him the rest of the way home, but not this time. This time she listened to him gasp harshly and then cried out as his release filled her mouth. She sucked harder.

It was the very least she could do for him because she had absolutely no plans of getting pregnant. Ever.

K
eesha licked her lips as she lit a cigarette and eyed the frame holding the covers of her two books. It was poster sized and hung in the center of the far wall of her office. She smirked a bit at the urge she felt to set fire to it
. Burn, motherfucker, burn
.

She had poured her heart and soul into that first book. It was fed by her misery. She thought writing it would release her demons and instead she had to draw upon them to write the second book centered on a crazy stripper named Lick Me who was battered and bruised emotionally and physically.

The first book had been a release and she poured her all into it.

The second book had seemed like a torture that drained her of her all.

And now the third? Keesha was still on empty.

She twisted her bottom lip to the left and exhaled the cigarette smoke in a smooth stream upward as she cut her eyes to the screen of her laptop. The blinking cursor on the blank screen mocked her.
You ain't a real writer, bitch.

Knock-knock-knock
.

She rolled her eyes heavenward and ignored whomever was at the door. Outside that solid wood was a party she regretted throwing in the first place. Her agent and editor were on her to turn in her proposal for a third book. No proposal. No new book deal. No hefty advance. No money.

And she had been one of the lucky ones to score a good agent who negotiated a hefty six-figure advance and then sold the movie rights to her book for another good amount. There was no promise of the rights actually being picked up by a great production company to make the film, but the money and the extra press about the deal had been nice. And had led to the push for a new book in the series.

But the words would not come.

No story would develop.

“Shit,” Keesha swore, stubbing her cigarette out in the ashtray.

“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?” she screamed at the top of her voice, picking up the same ashtray, about to fling it at the closed door. Her frustrations made her dizzy. Unsure.

The door opened a crack and the head of her preteen daughter, Kimani, peeped in. “Ma, you busy?” she asked.

Keesha sat the ashtray back down and shook her head, causing her chin-length asymmetrical bob to swish back and forth. “What is it, Ki?” she asked, forcing herself to calm down as she used her hands to sweep up the ashes and cigarette butts now littering the top of her desk.

“Uhmm, Diane just got here and she got pissed to see Pops. They're arguing,” she said, picking up one of Keesha's advance review copies of her second book,
Lick Me 2.

Keesha felt a twitch above her left eye like she was about to stroke the hell out. Standing up she came around the wooden desk and took the book from her daughter's hand. “I knew I shouldn't have invited her,” she mumbled, her flip-flops slapping against the hardwood floors as they made their way down the stairs of the townhouse and to the open patio doors leading to the backyard.

Her mother and her father were nose to nose but only her mother's hands were flailing in the air.

“You fucking sperm donor!” Diane yelled.

“I would've been more than a sperm donor if you didn't lie on another motherfucker about being Keesha's father!” William shot back.

“Great idea to bring the whole family together. You know Diane stay trippin',” Kimani said, running off in her sundress to reclaim her seat by Keesha's little sister, Hiasha. Keesha didn't have time to once again contemplate that both her father and she had children the same age. She had to put a kibosh on the drama unfolding between her parents . . . who hadn't seen each other since a pregnant Diane decided to kick the mailman to the curb in favor of a money-making drug-dealing future drug addict.

Keesha eyed the partygoers. Some openly stared. Others tried to pretend the drama was not unfolding in front of them. She saw a couple pack a plate and head for the gate leading to the front of the house where cars were parked.

“You just going to stand there?”

Keesha stiffened and then looked over her shoulder at Corey carrying a tray of raw hamburgers out to the grill. His dark complexion looked delicious in the navy shirt he wore with white shorts. She shook her head. “This your house too. You could break up Holyfield and Tyson,” she told him, her Newark accent still in place even though they had moved to the suburbs of South Orange, New Jersey.

Corey made a face before he kissed her cheek and moved past her. “And risk Diane flipping out on me? Naw,” he said before heading out the patio doors.

Keesha eyed him head right past the confusion and to the grill.

“You and your silly bitch better give me fifty feet before both y'all corny asses get slam dunked in that pool.”

Keesha felt like she could drown herself as her mother turned her verbal onslaught onto her stepmother.
Why did I invite this bitch?

Her eyes flittered about the faces of her neighbors and friends. Their eyes were filled with confusion, anger, indignation, and disgust. They had never experienced Diane or probably anyone like her.

Keesha thought of the only people in her life who would have expected this and warned her against even inviting her mother to her home. Her party. Her life.

But those friends were out of her life and had been for a long time. Toward the end there had been arguments and petty shit that led to silence about shit she couldn't even remember. Shit she didn't even care about anymore.

Keesha's eyes widened and she took a few steps back as she watched Corey go over to her mother and attempt to get her to sit her silly self down in her bright red strapless jumpsuit. Keesha's eyes shot over to Corey's side of the family. They were some Newark brawlers too. If Diane said something too shady all hell just might break loose.

Keesha knew she should go out there and say something. Do something. But she couldn't. She just couldn't deal.

That familiar itch nipped at her. Not as strong as it did years ago, but still there. Still identifiable. Still needing to be scratched.

Once a junkie, always a junkie.

Keesha pushed away the urge, wanting her sobriety more than she wanted to use drugs to forget the fuckery unfolding before her.

Thankfully Corey said something to make Diane shoot her father and his wife one last glare before she turned and walked over to where Corey's cousin, Shawn, was serving up the liquor. The DJ turned up the soulful eighties music and the party soon resumed. The show was over . . . for now.

Keesha wasn't crazy. Her mother was still the talk of the party and still getting the long side-eyes and judgmental twists of the lips. And as soon as she stepped her ass out there all the talk, looks, and lip-twisting would turn on her.
Fuck this shit all the way from here to there.

Keesha turned, determined to head back up to her office to try and get some words on her computer.

“Oh no you don't.”

She closed her eyes at the feel of Corey's hand, the sound of his chastising voice, and the annoyance of his intrusion. Placing a fake grin on her face, Keesha turned to him just outside the spacious kitchen of their home.

“Come on, baby. It's straight,” he said, placing kisses along her jaw as his hands massaged her upper arms. “Come on out and enjoy the set.”

His words, his touch, and his support caused her shoulders to relax as she stepped forward to press her face into his neck. She took a deep inhale of his spicy cologne before kissing his neck. Her lips tingled a bit from his salty sweat and she almost felt the chemistry they used to share. The undeniable thrill of loving the hell out of someone.

It wasn't as good as the blinding white of love and not as horrible as the darkness that leads to a couple never speaking again. Keesha and Corey were in that gray zone of not wanting to be there but not wanting to let go, either. And to her that gray zone was much worse.

“Just let me write a little bit more and I'll be back done,” she lied easily, already easing away from him.

He pulled her back and held her chin with his hand to force her eyes to meet his. “If you'd fuck me more than you fucked that keyboard we'd be okay,” he said.

Anger and a smart retort about that keyboard fronting the majority of their bills came in a rush, but Keesha swallowed it down and reached for humor instead. “You jealous of a keyboard?” she teased.

Corey eyed her thick and curvy figure in the racerback maxi dress she wore. “These days I'm jealous of the seat of your panties for getting to be so close to the pussy.”

Keesha saw the desire he had for her in his eyes. She was thirty pounds heavier than when they met and although the pounds were packed in all the right places, he never once complained. Never once. Stepping back close to him she pressed her lips to his mouth a dozen different times before she sucked his bottom lip softly.

“Shit, I'm about to say fuck this party,” he moaned into her open mouth, his hands coming down to massage the flesh of her buttocks.

“I'm about to say fuck me,” she whispered, tilting her head back with a sigh filled with the sudden pulse of her clit as she felt his hard dick press against her stomach.

“Yo, cuz, this grill firing up.”

They both looked at Corey's cousin Shawn standing in the doorway of the open patio doors.

“I don't want to burn down the neighborhood,” Corey told her with one last firm swat to her ass. “Later?”

Keesha nodded in agreement, watching as he turned to follow his cousin out the doors and over to the grill. She moved over into the kitchen and washed her hands at the sink, looking out through the slats of the plantation blinds at the backyard.

She closed her eyes and took a deep audible breath.

The feel of warm masculine hands on her hips didn't surprise her at all. She hissed in pleasure and leaned back against his chest as his fingers eased inside the top of her dress to massage her breasts and nipples. “God, that feels good,” Keesha whispered up into the air, pressing her ass up against his hard dick as she worked her hips back and forth.

He sucked at the back of her neck as he rushed to work her dress up around her waist. His fingers trembled as he pulled her black cotton thong to the side. “You think I was gone let that ninja get
my
pussy?” he asked.

She shook her head no as she felt the thick and heavy weight of his dick being rubbed up and down the crevice of her buttocks.

“You want this dick?” he asked thickly.

“Yes,” she said.

His hand to the back of her neck roughly guided her to bend down over the sink. She rose up on her toes and arched her back as the moist tip of his dick probed her pussy from behind. “Hurry up,” she gasped.

Behind her he bent his legs to a squat and worked his hips back and forth to fill her inch by inch with his dick. “Aww shit,” he gasped, reaching on either side of her body to grip the edge of the counter as he fucked her from behind with fast and furious pumps intensified by their betrayal.

Keesha opened her eyes and lifted her head to look out the window at Corey flipping ribs on the grill. And they remained locked on him even as she bit her lip with each forceful thrust. Even as she felt her climax build and cried out as forceful spasms racked her core, she kept her eyes locked on him.

Her lover's finger moved up to massage her nipples as his body stiffened. “Get this nut.”

Keesha reached behind him to grab the side of his clenched ass as she worked her hips, drawing all of his release from him until their thighs were wet. “Damn,” she gasped, her heart pounding and her steps unsteady as she backed him off of her and let her dress fall back down around her ankles.

She heard the zip of his jeans as she left the kitchen. “Go back outside. I'll be out in a little bit,” she said over her shoulder, sparing Corey's cousin Shawn one last look before she dashed up the stairs and into the master bedroom.

She rushed through a douche and a quick ho bath at the sink, not wanting Corey to wonder why she took a shower in the middle of their barbecue. Not wanting Corey to know that she stopped fucking him because she was fucking someone else. Not wanting Corey to know that she betrayed him with a man he considered as close as a blood brother.

After pulling on a fresh pair of underwear, Keesha went back down the stairs and finally joined the party. She ignored Shawn's look of satisfaction as she walked over to Corey and took his drink from his hand to taste.