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Authors: Cheris Hodges

Just Can't Get Enough (4 page)

BOOK: Just Can't Get Enough
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CHAPTER 4
Celina looked around the kitchen as she washed her father's lunch dishes, satisfied that it no longer looked like the trash heap that she'd walked into hours ago. The floors sparkled, the counters shined, and the carpet looked decent. Everything reminded her of how things used to be when she was a child. Quietly, she walked down the hall to check on her father. He was resting peacefully. She'd awaken him a few hours early to make him eat a light dinner of chicken soup and half of a pimento cheese sandwich. Thomas smiled at his daughter as she filled his bowl and cut the bread for him.
“Thank God for you,” he whispered when she set the food in front of him at the table. Celina didn't reply, just smiled at her father.
“Your mother raised you right. I know I should have done more. I'll always regret that.”
“Daddy, please,” Celina said in an exasperated voice. “Nothing can be done to erase or change the past.” Secretly, she wished that he could.
Thomas nodded and ate in silence. Celina hoped she hadn't sounded too harsh, but she couldn't listen to him talk about a childhood that didn't include him. After he'd finished his dinner, Thomas went into his bedroom to watch an old western movie, leaving Celina alone with her thoughts of what could've been. What if her parents had stayed together? Maybe Thomas wouldn't be sick. “You're thinking like a child,” she muttered as she washed the dinner dishes.
Celina looked out of the window over the kitchen sink while drying a bowl and spotted Darius in his backyard preparing the grill. He had changed out of his work clothes and wore a pair of well-worn jeans that hugged his slim hips. The pants dipped down and showed the top of his silk boxers, kind of like Usher Raymond. A white tank top covered his chest. Celina wondered if his body was as hard as it looked from afar. She sucked in her bottom lip as she watched him pour charcoal into the Weber grill, biceps bulging. When he wiped his brow with the back of his hand in a fluid motion, she nearly dropped the soup bowl. Despite her near accident, Celina couldn't take her eyes off Darius. She wanted to capture him on canvas so that she could have something to remember him by when she returned to New York, if she decided to leave.
The thought of staying in Elmore with Darius startled her because she'd never wanted to settle down before. Terrick hadn't induced these types of thoughts in her. She'd spent her adult life purposely sabotaging relationships and here she was ready to settle down in her hometown where the most she would paint would be landscapes of azalea bushes. No, Celina couldn't dare let a few moments of lust change everything she worked so hard for. Besides, Paris was waiting. If anything, she and Darius would have a brief fling, no strings, no emotional entanglements, and no one would get hurt.
Celina sighed and turned away from the window, trying to shake the thoughts of Darius out of her mind, but she couldn't. He invaded her mind like a thief in the night and it didn't take long for her to start staring out of the window again, watching his every move.
What am I doing? I'm not going to be here long enough to start anything with this man,
she thought, then headed down the hall to check on Thomas. He looked so small lying in his bed, nothing like the father she remembered.
“Daddy, are you okay?” she asked.
“Fine,” he grumbled. “I told you, you don't have to babysit me.”
Celina entered the room and walked over to his bed, then sat on the edge beside him.
“I'm not babysitting you. I just want to make sure you're all right.” Celina gently patted her father's hand. “Daddy, I love you.”
Despite everything,
she added silently.
Thomas smiled and squeezed Celina's hand. “I love you, too, but I want you to do something tonight other than fret over me. Have you eaten?”
“I'm going to get something later, but I just wanted to check on you,” she said as she stood up.
Thomas nodded as if he were giving Celina his blessing to leave the house for a few hours. She walked into the living room, trying to kill the few minutes left before she planned to go over to Darius's house. And how in the world was she going to calm her raging hormones as she sat outside with him underneath the stars?
 
 
Darius watched the Hart house as if he were staking the place out. He'd already burned his NY strip steak, hoping to catch a glance of Celina as she headed next door. But the last thing he wanted to do was look anxious, no matter how much he was anticipating being with her. So, he was caught off guard when he felt her warm hands on his back. Her breath tickled his ear when she breathed “hello.”
“Welcome to dinner, Ms. Hart,” he said, stepping aside and leading her to the picnic table. He had covered the wooden picnic table with a red and white checkered cloth. In the center of the table, two candles flickered in the gentle breeze. “I wasn't sure what kind of wine went with grilled eggplant, so I have beer.”
Celina laughed. “Beer and eggplant? Not bad,” she said as she sat down, facing him. “Just for future reference, a nice Chardonnay works well with eggplant.”
“So, are you saying there will be another dinner for us?” he asked calmly, though his heart was racing like a Nascar engine.
“Well, I might need something to do to pass the time,” Celina quipped, then grabbed a beer.
Darius watched her take a dainty sip from the green bottle. How he wanted those lips wrapped around his. “How's your dad?” he asked, never taking his eyes off her lips as they caressed the bottle.
“As well as can be expected. He worries me, you know. One minute, he's like a little weak baby and the next minute it's like he doesn't need me. I know it's his pride, but I want to see him beat this thing.”
Darius sat beside her and stroked her arm, not knowing what to say. If one of his parents had taken ill, he didn't know how he'd handle it. Despite the miles between them, he remained close to his mother and father. His loyalty to them was part of the reason he'd given up his career in DC to keep the family tradition alive.
She turned to him and smiled warmly. “I don't want to lay all of this on you,” she said. “Let's eat.”
Darius stood up and began placing the platters of roasted vegetables on the table. He handed her a white paper plate. “Dig in,” he said. “I have to get my dinner off the grill.”
As he piled the meat on a serving platter, Darius turned and looked at Celina as she gingerly cut into a slice of eggplant. He watched the blissful look on her face as she savored the taste. Darius smiled. His skills had paid off. He walked over to the table and set the meat on the far end of the table. “How is it?”
“Divine. Where did you learn how to cook like this?”
Darius grinned. “The best way to a woman's heart is through her stomach,” he said.
Celina nodded as she took another bite of eggplant. “So, this is part of a plan? To get to my heart?”
“I didn't say that. Are you offering it?” Darius struggled to keep his voice cool like the wind.
Celina dropped her fork. “There is something I want from you,” she said.
At that point, Darius would have said yes to anything she asked. He couldn't speak, though. Her voice had him hypnotized.
“Strip for me,” she said.
“What?”
She didn't say what I think she did . . .
“I want to paint you.”
Darius shrugged his shoulders. “I don't know about that. I mean, I'm not a model or anything.”
“That's why I want to paint you,” she said. “And the background here is so natural, so beautiful.”
Darius wanted to tell her that the only beautiful things he saw there were her face and her eyes, which twinkled like the stars dotting the sky. When she looked at him, it was as if she could see his soul. Darius shook his head and busied himself with fixing his plate. He was hungry, but not for the food he had cooked; he craved the unknown taste of Celina's lips. Were they as succulent as they appeared?
“Just think about it,” Celina said, misreading Darius's silence. “It's not as hard as you think.”
“I will consider it,” he said.
“Thanks. And you have to give me this recipe,” Celina said.
“Nope.”
“Why not? Family secret?”
“You could say that. And the next time you want this grilled eggplant, this will be the only place you can get it,” he joked.
Celina rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
Darius cut into his steak thoughtfully, trying to figure out how he'd ask her about her life back in New York and if there was someone special in her heart. He felt jealousy creeping up his back as he thought about the man sharing her life in Harlem. Was he an artist too? Probably a poet, but definitely not Mr. Wall Street. Then again, opposites do attract. Did they live together? Was he making love to her every night and modeling for her paintings as she'd asked him to do? Why wasn't he in Elmore to help with Thomas?
“Choking on all of that animal flesh over there?” Celina asked jokingly.
Darius chuckled. “Why didn't your man come with you?” he said, as he placed his knife on the table.
“Because I don't have one,” she said before sticking a piece of eggplant in her mouth.
Darius smiled knowingly. “Now, I find that hard to believe. Celina, you're a beautiful woman. I know you have men beating down your door.”
“That doesn't mean I answer,” she mumbled. “Darius, why do you assume that I want a relationship? Maybe I like my freedom too much to be tied down to one thing, one place, or one person.”
This was definitely a switch for him because most of the women he knew wanted that exact thing—a house, a husband, and a settled life. Was Celina really that different? “Wow,” was all he could say.
Celina looked at him and smiled. “Don't get the wrong idea. I don't hate men. But as an artist, I travel a lot and I don't want to argue and fuss with a boyfriend when I tell him that I'm going to Paris for a year. But what about you? You seem to have the more interesting story, anyway. You gave up the city to come back here. Why?”
Darius looked away from her. He had a story that he told about why he'd moved home for a simpler life. But it wasn't the truth. When anyone else asked, Darius would say that watching part of the Pentagon burn in 2001 made him rethink his life. Especially since he had been scheduled to have a meeting there that morning, but his car wouldn't start, and he'd waited for his emergency car service to come and give him a boost as the attacks happened.
He'd been on the phone with a paralegal when she released a bone-chilling scream as the plane hit the west side of the building. Hanging up the phone, he'd rushed into the house and turned on the TV to see if what his paralegal had said was true. Seeing the pictures sobered him. He wanted to do something to help, but he didn't know what. Like most everyone else who'd witnessed those attacks, he'd felt powerless, afraid, and angry all at the same time.
Then the phone calls had come pouring in, first from his mother, then several concerned friends. He'd heard from everyone close to him, except Renita—the woman he'd planned to marry. All sorts of crazy thoughts had run though his mind as he dialed her number, since she did work for the Department of Defense in the Pentagon. What if the plane had hit her office? What if she had been killed and he'd never gotten a chance to tell her just how much he loved her? He got the voice mail when he called her office, adding to his hysterics. Darius had pulled himself together enough to try her cell phone, but all of the networks were down and the call hadn't gone through. Finally, as he prayed for her to be all right, he called her at home.
“Hello?” she said breathlessly.
“Babe, I'm glad to hear your voice. Do you have any idea of what's going on right now?”
“Um, Darius, I'm late for w-work,” she said.
That's when he'd heard the sound of another man asking her to come back to bed.
“Who's there?” he snapped, unable to believe what he was hearing.
She'd hung up the phone, leaving Darius seething with anger. He'd gone from thinking his girlfriend might be dead to wanting to wring her neck. After the passionate night of lovemaking that they'd shared, how could she be in bed with another man?
For the next few months, Darius had tried to go about his regular life, but he was heartbroken and angry. When he saw Renita, all kinds of evil thoughts danced in his mind and he'd been tempted to act on them. So, when his father had started talking about retiring and selling the hardware store, Darius had made the decision to return to Elmore and run the store. He bought the family's house and decided to settle in his childhood home.
Never did he imagine finding out that the girl next door had turned into a goddess.
“I ran away from a broken heart and decided to claim my legacy,” he said, then told her the unedited version of why he left Washington. Celina reached out and stroked his hand.
BOOK: Just Can't Get Enough
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