Lonely Heart (29 page)

Perfection.

That wasn’t new. I knew from the get go no woman would be perfect. God knows I had my own faults.

What was I looking for? Would I know when I found her?

My chest tightened at the memory I fought to ignore. The exotic beauty of the woman who stole my heart the moment our eyes connected.

One night together led to months of searching.

And when our paths crossed again, she broke my heart.

Not only had she lied about her name, she forgot to mention a small detail about her life.

She was engaged.

To make matters worse, she was engaged to my best friend’s brother.

If my heart beat any faster, it would fly out of my chest.

Sweat poured over my brow, down my chest and back.

My arms trembled, my body seized in what had to be the best orgasm a man could ever have.

I collapsed, fighting to catch my breath, and inhaled the sweetest scent. Sultry, seductive, exotic. Just like the woman who lay beneath me.

Unable to hold myself up, I rolled off of her to the other side of my king sized bed. My legs hung off. I look around and realized we used every inch of the mattress. Sheets and covers lay on the floor, victims to the hot and heavy sex we had.

I studied the beautiful complexion of the naked woman next to me. Trying to describe the exact color of her skin would take time. It was hard to place, just as her nationality was. I knew for a fact she wasn’t black nor white. Hispanic? Asian? A fusion of all four?

At this point, I could care less. Whatever she was, it all came down to one thing: Sexy. As. Hell.

“Ready for more?” Her sultry voice drew the blood from my brain, causing it to regroup down below.

“More?” I chuckled. “The question is, are you?”

The woman of my dreams climbed on top of me. I got lost in the deep, dark wells of eyes so brown, they were nearly black. Long, midnight hair, hung down, nearly covering the swells of some of the most beautiful breasts I had the pleasure of tasting.

My attention diverted to her hands as she reached back to pull the long strands behind her neck, the peaks of her breasts stood high and proud as she arched. One hand held her hair in place, while the other traveled slowly down her neck, down the middle of her cleavage, then over to one breast, caressing it. My attention went immediately to her fingers.

“So…you like to watch…” Her voice was smooth as silk.

“Always.”

She laughed then proceeded to give me a show.

When I stopped off at the bar for a celebratory drink on my way home, ending the evening like this was not what I expected. One look down the bar at this alluring woman and I was hooked. She didn’t make striking up a conversation with her easy, but once I got her to loosen up, we connected on a level I least expected.

Books.

Despite my efforts to learn her name, she refused, suggesting I earn it first. Yet, she had no problem coming home with me. One night stands were nothing new, but not knowing her name was driving me insane.

“Now are you going to tell me?”

She tilted her head to the side; bit her lip as if contemplating whether or not my performance earned me that precious gift.

“Why do you need to know my name?”

“Because this time I want to be able to say it…”

Her sexy slanted eyes lowered before she looked me in the eye.

“My name is…Devon.”

*****

Beep…beep…beep…

I slapped the alarm off and tried my best to ignore the hard on…again.

Eight months later and the chance encounter had yet to be forgotten. For two months I searched for her, not knowing anything but her first name, which of course made it damn near impossible to do on social networking sites.

Facebook, Twitter, Google +, LinkedIn…

Inputting her first name and searching the list of pictures yielded no results.

For the life of me, I couldn’t understand what captured me. It had been just sex.

Hot, heavy, mind-blowing….sex.

A one night stand shouldn’t leave me feeling desperate.

And then I found her the moment I stopped looking. To make matters worse, the perfect image I’d built up in my mind after months of desperation proved to be a lie.

Her name wasn’t real. Her profession wasn’t real. Yet deep in my heart I knew the connection we’d made that night had been real.

Not that it mattered. She was spoken for and my future lay elsewhere. The decisions of my past now dictated my future. And my future expected me to arrive in two hours.

I pulled myself out of bed and headed for the shower.

****

“You did
what
?”

“I sold my condo.”

“Why, Tre? I thought you loved that place?” Trina walked over to the side of the living room where our two -year-old son, Justin, played with the plastic Tonka truck I gave him. “Come on, time for lunch.” She removed the toy from his fingers, swooped him up, and headed for the kitchen.

I watched the mother of my child get him settled in the high chair. “I did. It served its use, but it’s time to move on.”

Justin didn’t like the fact his new toy had been taken from him, even if it was lunch time. I picked it up, joined them in the kitchen, and sat it just out of his reach on the table.

“Mine!” He struggled to get out of the high chair restraints.

“No, play time is over. You can have it back after you eat.” She shot me a look of disapproval. “Tre, you can’t do stuff like that. He knows he can’t have toys at the table when it’s time to eat.”

“It’s not like he’s playing with it.”

Justin began whining, kicking the high chair in protest.

“That’s beside the point.” She turned to him, “Stop, you know what mommy says, no toys at lunch time.”

“Mine…,” he whined again, this time looking at me as if his mother hadn’t spoken a word.

“Listen to mommy,” I said, moving the truck out of his line of sight. That only made matters worse.

“Stop it, Justin.” Trina smacked his kicking leg. Justin went from whining to full blown crying.

“Trina, you didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes I did. Tre, you can’t come over here and try and change the way I discipline my son. He has to learn the rules and he can’t learn by sweet talking him all the time. He was fine when I took the toy from him because he knows the rules. You screwed that up by bringing it in here. Now I’m the bad guy!” She spun on her heel and went to the counter to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I wiped the tears from my son’s eyes. “Look, see? It’s not going anywhere. Eat your food like mommy says then you can get it back. Right, Mommy?” I glanced in Trina’s direction.

She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Right, as soon as you eat.”

That seemed to calm him down a bit. I poked him in the tummy while making crazy noises in order to distract him until his sandwich arrived. When it did, he happily accepted his meal.

“You never answered the question. What did you mean by moving on?” Trina settled in a chair, sitting across from me, curiosity on her face.

I watched my son for a moment longer, then faced her. “Moving on to us.”

Her eyebrows shot up as she sat back. “Us?”

I placed my elbows on the table, giving her my full attention. “Yes, us. I want you and Justin to move in with me.” Tina’s head dropped an inch, staring at me as if I had sprouted some abnormality on my forehead. “But I don’t want it to be a live-in situation. I think we should get back together.”

The laugher that exploded from her side of the table was a slap in the face. Her hand went to her mouth, but it was too late to hide the fact she thought my suggestion was absurd.

“Trevon,” she stared, using my full name, something she only did when she was serious. “You and me? It didn’t work before and nothing has changed. The only reason you are here now is because of this little man right here.” She reached over to wipe a spot of fallen jelly from his crisp blue shirt.

“If you told me from the get go you were pregnant instead of hiding him from me for two years, things would be different.”

Exactly how different, I had no idea. But at least I would have known about my son’s existence and been there for him.

Instead, she blindsided me by showing up at my job and dropping the bomb in my lap.

My ex-girlfriend, whom I hadn’t seen, nor spoken to in two years, flashed a picture of a little boy and said he was mine.

The revelation came because Justin was diagnosed with Sickle cell anemia and needed a bone marrow transplant. In the end, neither of us was eligible to be donors because we both carried the trait. One had been found, but there were risks involved. Knowing this, Trina decided I needed the chance to know my son…just in case.

After recovering from the shock of having a child and the severity of his illness, getting to know him took precedence in my life. Thankfully, he pulled through the procedure. That was six months ago and he was nearing his third birthday.

Nothing could get back the two years of his life Trina took from me. If Justin hadn’t gotten ill, she would have kept him a secret. But I owed it to her, and especially my son, to correct the situation and give them what they both deserved. A complete family.

“How? Knowing I was pregnant would have kept you out of another women’s bed?” A thin eyebrow lifted.

That was a definite slap in the face. I rubbed a finger over my brow.

“Hmm, speechless. That’s what I thought.” She stood from the table, retrieved a Sippy cup from the cabinet, then poured Justin a cup of milk.

I’d been unfaithful during the last months of our relationship.

So had she.

“I wasn’t the only who messed up, Trina, so don’t pin it all on me.”

“Oh I beg to differ. My actions were a direct result of yours. The only problem was you got caught. And what was I was supposed to be? The faithful woman sitting around while you did what you wanted?” She stopped, held up a hand, closed her eyes for a moment, then took a deep breath. “But you know what, that’s neither here nor there. What’s in the past is just that. The only thing I need or want from you is help raising our son. So, if selling your condo to buy a house is what you thought would make me want to come back,” she smirked, “you screwed up.”

I sat back in my chair and held my tongue. When Trina got all worked up, there was no way to make a point. But that was fine. I knew from the get go convincing her getting back together would be what was best for the sake of our son would take time.

That I had a lot of.

After all, the only other woman who interested me had broken my heart before knowing it belonged to her. And she was completely off limits.

M.J. Kane stumbled into writing. An avid reader, this stay at home mom never lost the overactive imagination of an only child. As an adult she made up stories, though never shared them, to keep herself entertained. It wasn’t until surviving a traumatic medical incident in 2006 that she found a reason to let the characters inhabiting her imagination free. Upon the suggestion of her husband, she commandeered his laptop and allowed the characters to take life. It was that, or look over her shoulder for men caring a purple strait jacket. And the rest, as they say, is history.

No longer a television addict, if M.J. isn’t reading a book by one of her favorite authors, she’s battling with her creative muse to balance writing and being a wife and mother. She resides in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia with her high school sweetheart, four wonderful children, and four pit bulls.

MJ’s debut novel,
A Heart Not Easily Broken, Book one of the Butterfly Memoirs,
became an instant Amazon Bestseller in Multicultural Romance and African-American Literature and Fiction within hours of publication. It has also spent time on the African-American Women’s Fiction and African-American Romance Bestsellers lists.

In addition to writing, MJ is the director of a writer’s group which meets at
Barnes & Nobl
e
, is the Newsletter Editor for the
Romance Novels in Color
website, and shares writing tips, introduces her readers to new authors, and shares her personal experiences on her blog,
This Writer’s Life
. Other activities she enjoys include: creating custom flo
ral arrangements, assisting her children in their creative pursuits of music and art, and supporting her husband’s music production business, 3D Sounds.

MJ can be found online connecting with readers and other authors sharing her writing, and talking about music, life, and family.

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